What Happened in 1976 — Events, Births & Deaths

The Gale of January 1976 begins, resulting in coastal flooding around the southern North Sea coasts, affecting countries from Ireland to Yugoslavia and causing at least 82 deaths and US$1.3 billion in damage.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, comes into force.

The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force shoots dead six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The next day, gunmen would shoot dead ten Protestant civilians nearby in retaliation.

The Khmer Rouge announce that the new Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea is ratified.

The Troubles: Gunmen shoot dead ten Protestant civilians after stopping their minibus at Kingsmill in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, UK, allegedly as retaliation for a string of attacks on Irish Catholic civilians in the area by Loyalists, particularly the killing of six Catholics the night before.

The United Nations Security Council votes 11–1 to allow the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in a Security Council debate (without voting rights).

Gerald Ford's would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison.

Lebanese Christian militias kill at least 1,000 in Karantina, Beirut.

Commercial service of Concorde begins with the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.

In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000.

In testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admits that the company had paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.

Aeroflot Flight 3739, a Tupolev Tu-104, crashes during takeoff from Irkutsk Airport, killing 24.

Executive Order 9066, which led to the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps, is rescinded by President Gerald Ford's Proclamation 4417.

The 1976 constitution of Cuba is formally proclaimed.

The former Spanish territory of Western Sahara, under the auspices of the Polisario Front declares independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland, resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London by the British parliament.

Forty-two people die in the Cavalese cable car disaster, the deadliest cable car accident in history.

In Argentina, the armed forces overthrow the constitutional government of President Isabel Perón and start a seven-year dictatorial period self-styled the National Reorganization Process.

The first section of the Washington Metro opens to the public.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: in the first organized response against Israeli policies by a Palestinian collective since 1948, Palestinians create the first Land Day.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found Apple Computer, Inc.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk resigns as leader of Cambodia and is placed under house arrest.

In China, the April Fifth Movement leads to the Tiananmen Incident.

Member of Parliament and suspected spy John Stonehouse resigns from the Labour Party after being arrested for faking his own death.

The Apple I is created.

The United States Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson's 233rd birthday as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.

Forty workers die in the Lapua Cartridge Factory explosion, the deadliest industrial accident in modern Finnish history.

A violent F5 tornado strikes around Brownwood, Texas, injuring 11 people. Two people were thrown at least 1,000 yards (910 m) by the tornado and survived uninjured.

Thirty-seven people are killed when American Airlines Flight 625 crashes at Cyril E. King Airport in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

The 6.5 Mw Friuli earthquake affects Northern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), leaving 900–978 dead and 1,700–2,400 injured.

The rollercoaster The New Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Aeroflot Flight 1802 crashes near Viktorivka, Chernihiv Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, killing 52.

Twenty-nine people are killed in the Yuba City bus disaster in Martinez, California.

The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.

Aeroflot Flight 418 crashes in Bioko, Equatorial Guinea, killing 46.

The Teton Dam in Idaho, United States, collapses. Eleven people are killed as a result of flooding.

Chief Minister of Sabah Faud Stephens, Peter Joinud Mojuntin, and several other politicians are killed in a plane crash near Kota Kinabalu International Airport in Malaysia.

Soweto uprising: A non-violent march by 15,000 students in Soweto, South Africa, turns into days of rioting when police open fire on the crowd.

Missouri Governor Kit Bond issues an executive order rescinding the Extermination Order, formally apologizing on behalf of the state of Missouri for the suffering it had caused to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Air France Flight 139 (Tel Aviv-Athens-Paris) is hijacked en route to Paris by the PFLP and redirected to Entebbe, Uganda.

The Angolan court sentences US and UK mercenaries to death sentences and prison terms in the Luanda Trial.

The Seychelles become independent from the United Kingdom.

The Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of Europe convenes in East Berlin.

Portugal grants autonomy to Madeira.

End of South Vietnam; Communist North Vietnam annexes the former South Vietnam to form the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists.

Four mercenaries (one American and three British) are executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial.

East Timor is annexed and becomes the 27th province of Indonesia.

The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the games because of New Zealand's participation. Contrary to rulings by other international sports organizations, the IOC had declined to exclude New Zealand because of their participation in South African sporting events during apartheid.

Nadia Comăneci becomes the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics.

Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.

The American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.

Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, is assassinated by the Provisional IRA.

Japan completes its last reparation to the Philippines for war crimes committed during imperial Japan's conquest of the country in the Second World War.

Viking program: Viking 1 takes the famous Face on Mars photo.

The Tangshan earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 moment magnitude flattens Tangshan in the People's Republic of China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851.

In New York City, David Berkowitz (a.k.a. the "Son of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.

Trinidad and Tobago officially became a republic.

Niki Lauda has a severe accident that almost claims his life at the German Grand Prix at Nürburgring.

Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars.

Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War.

SAETA Flight 011 crashes into the Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador, killing all 59 people on board; the wreckage is not discovered until 2002.

A magnitude 7.9 earthquake hits off the coast of Mindanao, Philippines, triggering a destructive tsunami, killing between 5,000 and 8,000 people and leaving more than 90,000 homeless.

The Korean axe murder incident in Panmunjom results in the deaths of two US Army officers.

The Soviet Union's robotic probe Luna 24 successfully lands on the Moon.

Viking program: The American Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars.

Cold War: Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot Viktor Belenko lands a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States; his request is granted.

Two Aeroflot flights collide in mid-air over Anapa, Soviet Union, killing 70.

A British Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident and an Inex-Adria DC-9 collide near Zagreb, Yugoslavia, killing 176.

TWA Flight 355 is hijacked by five Croatian nationalists. The hijackers surrender upon landing in Paris.

An Indian Airlines flight is hijacked by six Kashmiri separatists and diverted to Lahore International Airport, where the passengers and crew are released.

A bomb planted by a Croatian terrorist, Zvonko Bušić, is found at New York's Grand Central Terminal; one NYPD officer is killed trying to defuse it.

Armenian champion swimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan saves 20 people from a trolleybus that had fallen into a Yerevan reservoir.

Night of the Pencils: In the city of La Plata, Argentina, a group of high-school students were kidnapped and later tortured, raped and murdered during the Argentinian military dictatorship

The Space Shuttle Enterprise is unveiled by NASA.

Turkish Airlines Flight 452 hits the Taurus Mountains, outskirt of Karatepe, Turkey, killing all 154 passengers and crew.

Two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom II jets fly out to investigate an unidentified flying object.

Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. by Michael Townley, linked to the National Intelligence Directorate of Chile.

Seychelles joins the United Nations.

Red Dye No. 4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs.

Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 is destroyed by two bombs, placed on board by an anti-Castro militant group.

Premier Hua Guofeng arrests the Gang of Four, ending the Cultural Revolution in China.

Dozens are killed by Thai police and right-wing paramilitaries in the Thammasat University massacre; afterwards, the Seni Pramoj government is toppled in a military coup led by Sangad Chaloryu.

George Washington is posthumously promoted to the grade of General of the Armies.

Indian Airlines Flight 171 crashes at Santacruz Airport in Bombay, India, killing 95.

The first electron micrograph of an Ebola virus is taken at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by Dr. F. A. Murphy.

A Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano Boeing 707 crashes after takeoff from El Trompillo Airport in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, killing 91.

The Luling–Destrehan Ferry MV George Prince is struck by the Norwegian freighter SS Frosta while crossing the Mississippi River in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. Seventy-eight passengers and crew die, and only 18 people aboard the ferry survive.

Burundian president Michel Micombero is deposed in a bloodless military coup d'état by deputy Jean-Baptiste Bagaza.

Carrie, an American supernatural horror film directed by Brian De Palma, is premiered in 17 theaters in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area.

Uttawar forced sterilisations: Mass vasectomy of nearly 800 men of Uttawar village, Palwal district, Haryana during India's Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi.

René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois take power to become the first Quebec government of the 20th century clearly in favor of independence.

Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth of 100 m (330 ft) undersea without breathing equipment.

The Çaldıran–Muradiye earthquake in eastern Turkey kills between 4,000 and 5,000 people.

Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba, replacing Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado.

EgyptAir Flight 864, a Boeing 707-366C, crashes on approach to Don Mueang International Airport, killing 71 people.

Cam'ron, American rapper and actor

Melissa Joan Hart, American actress

Andrew Ng, British-born American artificial intelligence researcher

Michelle Feldman, American bowler

Petero Civoniceva, Fijian-Australian rugby league player

Dan Cloutier, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Eric D. Johnson, American musician

Lindsay Davenport, American tennis player

José Cancela, Uruguayan footballer

Carlos Nieto, Argentinian-Italian rugby player

Neil Walker, American swimmer

Soleil Moon Frye, American actress

J. Paul Getty, American businessman, founded the Getty Oil Company (born 1892)