The News of 1976.

January:

• Full diplomatic relations are restored between Bangladesh and Pakistan, five years after the Bangladesh Liberation War
• The Scottish Labour Party is formed
• The first commercial Concorde flight takes off, from Heathrow to Bahrain
• The United States vetoes a UN resolution calling for an independent Palestinian state
• Ten Protestant men are killed in the Kingsmill massacre at South Armagh by members of the Provisional IRA
• 42-year-old married woman, and part-time prostitute, Emily Jackson is stabbed to death in Leeds; police believe she may have been killed by the same man who murdered Wilma McCann in the city three months previously
• Twelve Provisional IRA bombs explode in London’s West End

February:

• The 1976 Winter Olympics begin in Innsbruck, Austria. The Soviet Union top the medal table with 13 gold and 27 overall medals
• Nearly 2,000 students become involved in a racially charged high school riot in Pensacola, Florida
• The Australian Defence Force is formed by unifying the Australian Army, Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force
• Clifford Alexander Jr. is confirmed as the first African American Secretary in the US Army
• General Murtala Mohammed of Nigeria is assassinated in a military coup
• The Polisario Front, Western Sahara’s national liberation movement, declares independence of the territory under the name “Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic”
• Iceland breaks off diplomatic relations with the UK over the Cod War

March:

• The first commercially developed supercomputer, the Cray-1, is released by Cray Research; the first purchaser being the Energy Research and Development Administration in Los Alamos, New Mexico
• The Maguire Seven, a group allegedly linked with the Guildford pub bombings in October 1974 along with the Guildford Four, are found guilty of possessing explosives and subsequently jailed for fourteen years
• The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London via British parliament
• Harold Wilson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• Argentine military forces depose president Isabel Perón, paving the way for the military dictatorship of General Jorge Videla
• A general strike takes place in the People’s Republic of the Congo
• The Body Shop opens its first branch in Brighton
• In response to the Israeli government’s announcement of a plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for state purposes, a general strike and marches are organised in Arab towns; in the ensuing confrontations with the Israeli army and police, six unarmed Arab citizens are killed, about 100 are wounded and hundreds of others arrested

April:

• Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak; their first computer, the Apple 1, is shortly released
• Norodom Sihanouk is forced to resign as Head of State of Kampuchea by the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot and is placed under house arrest
• The Eurovision Song Contest is won by the United Kingdom for Brotherhood of Man’s “Save Your Kisses for Me”
• James Callaghan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• Large crowds lay wreaths at Beijing’s Monument of the Martyrs to commemorate the death of Premier Zhou Enlai; poems against the Gang of Four are also displayed, provoking a police crackdown
• The minimum age for marriage in India is raised to 21 for men and 18 for women, as a measure to curb population growth
• Portugal’s new constitution is enacted
• A concealed bomb explodes at the gates of the Soviet embassy in China, killing four
• Anne Warburton becomes the first female British ambassador to take up her post

May:

• The first Laser Geodynamics Satellite is launched
• Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction is found hanged in an apparent suicide in her Stuttgart-Stammheim prison cell
• Syria intervenes in the Lebanese Civil War in opposition to former allies, the Palestine Liberation Organisation
• Southampton win the first major trophy of their 91-year history when the Second Division club surprise Manchester United with 1-0 win in the FA Cup Final at Wembley
• Liverpool clinch their ninth Football League title with a 3-1 away win over relegated Wolves
• Liverpool win the UEFA Cup for the second time by defeating Belgian side Club Brugge 4-3 on aggregate

June:

• The UK and Iceland end the Cod War
• The Double Six Crash, a plane crash in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, kills everyone on board including Sabahan Chief Minister Tun Fuad Stephens
• Alberto Demicheli, a jurist, is inaugurated as a civilian de facto President of Uruguay after Juan Maria Bordaberry is deposed by the military
• The trial of Donald Neilson, the killer known as the Black Panther, begins
• The Soweto uprising in South Africa begins
• The newly appointed US ambassador to Lebanon, Francis E Meloy Jr., and two others are kidnapped in Beirut and killed
• Czechoslovak defeat West Germany 5-3 on penalties to win Euro 76, after the game ended 2-2 after extra time
• Strikes begin in Poland after communists raise food prices
• The G6 becomes the G7 after the inclusion of Canada
• Seychelles gains independence from the United Kingdom

July:

• North Vietnam dissolves the Provisional Government of South Vietnam and unites the two to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
• In the case of Gregg v Georgia, the US Supreme Court rules that the death penalty is not coherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment
• The US celebrates its bicentennial, in recognition of the 200th anniversary of the 1776 adoption of the Declaration of Independence
• The first class of women is inducted at the United States Naval Academy
• David Steel becomes leader of the UK’s Liberal Party in the aftermath of the scandal which forced out Jeremy Thorpe
• Four mercenaries, three British and one American, are shot by firing squad in Angola
• Barbara Jordan becomes the first African-American to keynote a political convention
• Seven people are shot and killed while two others are wounded in a mass shooting on campus at California State University
• Albert Spaggieri and his gang break into the vault of the Société Generale Bank in Nice
• The 1976 Summer Olympics are held in Montreal; the Soviet Union top the medal table once again with 49 gold and 125 overall medals
• East Timor is declared the 27th province of Indonesia
• The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars
• An IRA landmine kills Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British ambassador to the Irish Republic, and Judith Cooke, a Northern Ireland Office private secretary, in Sandyford, County Dublin
• The UK breaks diplomatic relations with former colony Uganda in response to the hijacking of Air France Flight 139
• Delegates attending an American Legion convention in Philadelphia fall ill with a form of pneumonia; this will eventually be recognised as the first outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease and leads to the death of 29 attendees
• In New York City, the David Berkowitz aka “Son of Sam” kills one and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks that terrorise the city for the next year

August:

• Trinidad and Tobago becomes a republic, with President Ellis Clarke replacing Elizabeth II as its head of state
• Big Ben suffers internal damage and requires frequent repairs; the clock is stopped at times on 26 of the next 275 days
• Former UK Postmaster General John Stonehouse is sentenced to 7 years for fraud, theft and forgery
• Around 10,000 Protestant and Catholic women demonstrate for peace in Northern Ireland
• At Panmunjom, North Korea, two United States soldiers are killed while trying to chop down part of a tree in the Korean Demilitarised Zone which had obscured their view
• Jacques Chirac resigns as Prime Minister of France, he is succeeded by Raymond Barre
• The first known outbreak of Ebola occurs in Yambuku, Zaire
• James Alexander George Smith McCartney is sworn in as the first chief minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands
• 100 police officers and 60 civilians are injured during riots at the Notting Hill Carnival

September:

• Cigarette and tobacco advertising is banned on Australian television and radio
• Aparicio Méndez, a jurist, is inaugurated as a civilian de facto President of Uruguay
• The state of emergency, in force since 1939, is lifted in the Republic of Ireland
• The 1500th anniversary of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire
• Soviet Union Air Force pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko lands a MiG-25 jet fighter on the island of Hokkaidō, Japan, requesting political asylum in the US
• Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, dies at the age of 82 from a heart attack
• Beginning with the Night of the Pencils, a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances followed by torture, rape and murder of students under the Argentine dictatorship takes place
• The 100 Club Punk Festival ignites the careers of several influential punk and post-punk bands, arguably sparking the punk movement’s introduction into mainstream culture
• Seychelles joins the UN
• Chilean diplomat, Orlando Letelier, is assassinated in Washington DC by agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
• Portsmouth, who were FA Cup winners in 1939 and league champions in 1949 and 1950 but are now in the Football League Third Division, are reported to be on the brink of bankruptcy
• A peace march in Derry attracts 25,000 people in a call to end violence in Northern Ireland

October:

• Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 crashes due to a bomb placed by anti-Castro terrorists; all 73 people aboard are killed
• Students gathering at Thammasat University in Bangkok are massacred while protesting the return of ex-dictator Thanom Kittikachorn, triggering the return of the military to the government
• The Cultural Revolution in China concludes upon the capture of the Gang of Four
• Thorbjörn Fälldin replaces Olaf Palme as Prime Minister of Sweden
• The People’s Republic of China announce Hua Guofeng as the successor to Mao Zedong
• The chimpanzee is placed on the list of endangered species
• Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, the 5th President of Ireland, resigns after being publicly insulted by the Minister for Defence
• Clarence Norris, the last known survivor of the “Scottsboro Boys”, a group of African American teenagers accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931, is pardoned
• Transkei gains independence from South Africa

November:

• Jimmy Carter defeats incumbent Gerald Ford to become US President, the first from the Deep South since the Civil War
• Renee MacRae and her son Andrew disappear from Inverness; the disappearance is currently Britain’s longest-running missing persons case
• The first megamouth shark is discovered off Oahu in Hawaii
• Jamie Ornelas Camacho takes office as the first President of the Regional Government of Medeira
• The Warsaw Treaty Organisation joint secretariat is established

December:

• Angola joins the UN
• José López Portillo takes office as President of Mexico
• The Sex Pistols achieve public notoriety as they unleash several expletives live on Bill Grundy’s early evening TV show
• Sir Douglas Nicholls is appointed the 28th Governor of South Australia, the first Australian Aboriginal appointed to vice-regal office
• Bob Marley and his manager Don Taylor are shot in an assassination attempt in Kingston, Jamaica
• The Central African Republic officially becomes a monarchy as the Central African Empire; President Jean-Bedel Bokassa proclaims himself Emperor Bokassa I
• Patrick Hillary is elected unopposed as the 6th President of Ireland
• In the Japanese general election, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party loses its majority but remains the largest party with 249 seats
• The Viet Cong is disbanded and it’s former members become a part of the Vietnam People’s Army
• Samoa joins the UN
• Denis Healey announces to the British Parliament that he has successfully negotiated a £2.3bn loan from the International Monetary Fund

Other:

• The first laser printer is introduced by IBM
• The term memetics is first proposed by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene
• Plans to move the Nigerian capital from Lagos to Abuja are approved
• Earning $225m at the worldwide box office, Rocky is the highest grossing film of the year
• Brotherhood of Man’s Eurovision-winning “Save Your Kisses for Me” is the best-selling single in the UK