The News of 1978.

January:

• The Chilean government wins a referendum on the legitimacy of Augusto Pinochet’s rule
• Bülent Ecevit, of CHP, forms the new government of Turkey
• The Holy Crown of Hungary is returned to Hungary from the US, where it was held since World War II
• Critic of the Nicaraguan government, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal, is assassinated resulting in riots against Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle
• Serial killer Ted Bundy murders two women and assaults three more at the the Chi Omega Sorority House at Florida State University
• The European Court of Human Rights finds the British government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture
• Serial killer Richard Chase, aka the Vampire of Sacramento due to the drinking of his victim’s blood, is arrested
• The otter becomes a protected species in the UK
• The firefighters strike ends after three months when crews accept a 10% pay rise and reduced working hours
• 18-year-old prostitute Helen Rytka is murdered in Huddersfield, she is believed to be the eighth victim of the Yorkshire Ripper

February:

• Roman Polanski skips bail and flees to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl
• The People’s Republic of China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, Shakespeare and Dickens
• A bomb explodes outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing a policeman and two civilians
• Ted Bundy is recaptured in Pensacola, Florida
• The Hillside Strangler, a serial killer prowling Los Angeles, claims a tenth and final victim
• Egyptian Special Forces attempt to rescue several hostages in Larnaca, Cyprus; 20 Egyptian commandos are injured or killed
• Electrical workers in Mexico City discover the remains of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in the middle of the city
• The first global positioning satellite (GPS) is launched by the US
• Gordon McQueen, 25-year-old Scotland central defender, becomes Britain’s first £500,000 footballer in a transfer from Leeds United to Manchester United
• Twelve people are killed in the La Mon restaurant bombing in Belfast

March:

• Charlie Chaplin’s remains are stolen from Cosier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland; they are later found 15km away near Lake Geneva
• Kate Bush becomes the first woman to have a self-penned number one single with her debut, “Wuthering Heights”
• The first radio episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is transmitted on BBC Radio 4
• Palestinian terrorists kill 34 Israelis in the Coastal Road massacre
• Israeli forces invade Lebanon
• Somalia and Ethiopia sign a truce to end the Ethio-Somali War
• Former Italian Premier Aldo Moro is kidnapped by the Red Brigades, five bodyguards are killed; his body is later found in a red Renault 4
• Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, is sentenced to death by hanging for ordering the assassination of a political opponent
• San Francisco City Council signs the United States’ most comprehensive gay rights bill
• The body of 21-year-old prostitute Yvonne Pearson, last seen alive on 21 January, is found in Leeds; the Yorkshire Ripper is believed to have been responsible

April:

• Regular radio broadcasts of British Parliament proceedings start
• US President Jimmy Carter postpones the production of the neutron bomb, weapon that kills people with radiation but leaves buildings relatively intact
• Somali military officers stage an unsuccessful coup against the government of Siad Barre
• Thousands of Georgians demonstrate in Tbilisi against the attempt by Soviet authorities to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language
• The One Love Peace Concert is held in Kingston, Jamaica; Bob Marley unites two opposing political leaders at this concert, bringing peace to civil war-ridden streets
• Afghanistan President, Daoud Khan, is killed and his family murdered during a Marxist military coup d’etat, beginning the still ongoing Afghan Civil War
• The first official naturist beach opens at Fairlight Glen near Hastings
• Nottingham Forest win the Football League First Division title for the first time in their history; manager Brian Clough becomes only the third manager in history to guide two different clubs to top division glory

May:

• Rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, Zaire; the US, France and Belgium are asked to restore order
• A group of mercenaries led by Bob Denard, oust Ali Soilih in the Comoros
• Australia’s longest serving prime minister, Sir Robert Menzies, dies
• Soviet dissident Yuri Orlov is sentenced to seven years hard labour for distributing “counterrevolutionary material”
• Mavis Hutchinson, 53, becomes the first woman to run across the US; it takes her 69 days
• In the Unabomber’s first attack, a bomb explodes in the security section of the Northwestern University, wounding a security guard
• Ipswich Town win the FA Cup for the first time by beating Arsenal 1-0 in the Wembley final
• Liverpool retain the European Cup with a 1-0 win over Club Brugge at Wembley
• 40-year-old prostitute Vera Millward is found stabbed to death in the grounds of Manchester Royal Infirmary hospital, she is believed to be the tenth victim of the Yorkshire Ripper

June:

• The 1978 FIFA World Cup is held across Argentina; the hosts defeat the Netherlands 3-1 after extra-time to win the tournament for the first time
• New York serial killer David Berkowitz, aka the “Son of Sam”, is sentenced to 365 years in prison
• Ian Botham becomes the first man in the history of cricket to score a century and take eight wickets in one innings of a test match
• Garfield, which eventually becomes the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip, makes its debut
• A shootout between Provisional IRA members and the British Army in Northern Ireland leaves one civilian and three IRA men dead
• Yemen Arab Republic President Ahmad al-Ghashmi is killed
• The Gay & Lesbian Solidarity March is held in Sydney to mark the 10th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots
• The rainbow flag of the LGBT movement flies for the first time at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade
• A bombing by Breton nationalists causes destruction in the Palace of Versailles
• Actor Bob Crane is found bludgeoned to death in Scottsdale, Arizona; the crime is never solved
• Naomi James becomes the first woman to sail around the world single-handedly

July:

• The Amazon Co-operation Treaty is signed
• The Solomon Islands become independent from the UK
• A tanker-truck explosion at a campsite in Costa Daurada, Spain, kills more than 200 tourists
• Two Puerto Rico pro-independence activists are killed in a police ambush
• Louise Brown, the worlds first test tube baby, is born in Oldham

August:

• The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China is concluded
• Double Eagle II becomes the first balloon to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Presque Isle, Maine, to Miserey, France
• Pope John Paul I succeeds Pope Paul VI to become the 263rd Pope

September:

• A poison-filled pellet, supposedly injected using an umbrella, fatally poisons Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov; he dies four days later
• Keith Moon, drummer of rock band The Who, dies of an accidental overdose in his London flat
• Iranian Army troops open fire on rioters in Tehran, killing 122 and wounding 4000
• The Declaration of Alma Ata is signed and released in the Capital City of Kazakh, USSR. Known as the core document on Primary Health Care Practices and Equity in Healthcare, it paved the way for the modern-day State-sponsored Healthcare System
• General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq officially assumes the post of President of Pakistan
• A 7.4 magnitude earthquake hits Tabas, Iran; at least 15,000 people are killed
• The Camp David Accords are signed between Israel and Egypt; Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin later win the Nobel Peace Prize
• Police in the West Midlands launch a massive murder hunt when 13 year-old newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater is shot dead after disturbing a burglary
• The Solomon Islands joins the UN
• General Rahimuddin Khan assumes the post of Martial Law Governor in Balochistan
• Pope John Paul I dies after 33 days of papacy
• The African National Congress attempts to kill about 500 of its own cadres by poisoning their food because an infiltrated enemy agent cannot be identified

October:

• Tuvalu becomes independent from the UK
• Australia’s Ken Warby sets the current world water speed record of 317.6mph at Blowering Dam, Australia
• PW Botha succeeds John Vorster as Prime Minister of South Africa; Vorster becomes State President
• Daniel arap Moi becomes president of Kenya
• Pope John Paul II succeeds Pope John Paul I to become the 264th pope; he is the first Polish pope in history and first non-Italian pope since Pope Adrian VI in 1523
• Thorbjörn Fälldin steps down as Prime Minister of Sweden, and is succeeded by Ola Ullsten, the Leader of the liberal People’s Party
• The first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is held as a protest March and commemoration of the Stonewall riots
• A ceremony marks the completion of Liverpool Cathedral, for which the foundation stone was laid in 1904
• Four people die and four others are wounded in a shooting spree which began in a residential street in West Bromwich and ends at a petrol station in Nuneaton; 36-year-old Barry Williams is arrested the following day

November:

• Dominica gains independence from the UK
• Indira Gandhi is re-elected to the Indian parliament
• California voters defeat the Briggs Initiative, which was intended to bar LGBT people from working as school teachers
• In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claims 918 lives in total; Congressman Leo J Ryan is assassinated shortly beforehand
• The first US Take Back the Night March occurs in San Francisco
• San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk are shot and killed at City Hall by recently resigned supervisor Dan White
• Publication of The Times is suspended for almost a year due to labour problems
• Pollyanna’s nightclub in Birmingham is forced to lift its ban on black and Chinese revellers after an investigation by the Commission for Racial Equity deems the policy racist
• Viv Anderson, the 22-year-old Nottingham Forest defender, becomes England’s first black international footballer when he appears in a 1-0 friendly win over Czechoslovakia at Wembley

December:

• Dianne Feinstein succeeds George Moscone to become the first female mayor of San Francisco
• The Spanish Constitution officially restores the country’s democratic government; its approval via referendum officially ends 40 years of military dictatorship
• Six men rob a Lufthansa cargo facility in New York City’s John F Kennedy International Airport
• Two million demonstrate against the Shah in Iran
• Former Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi is arrested and jailed for a week for breach of privilege and contempt of parliament
• The pivotal Third Plenum of the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is held in Beijing, with Deng Xiaoping reversing Mao-era policies to pursue a program for Chinese economic reform
• Chicago serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who will be subsequently convicted of the murder of 33 young men and boys between 1972 and 1978, is arrested
• Vietnam launches a major offensive against the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia
• Four men aged between 17 and 50 are charged with the murder of newspaper boy Carl Brigewater
• The BBC is hit by a series of strikes culminating in BBC One and BBC Two being temporarily taken off air and BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4 being merged into one national radio network
• Marxist writer Malcolm Caldwell is shot dead in Cambodia shortly after meeting Pol Pot

Other:

• Artificial insulin is invented
• Abortion is legalised in Italy for the first time
• Space Invaders is released by Taito
• Earning $160m worldwide, Grease is the highest grossing film of 1978
• Boney M had the best-selling single of the year with “Rivers of Babylon”/“Brown Girl in the Ring”