1977 in the United States

1977 in the United States
Years:	1974 1975 1976 – 1977 – 1978 1979 1980
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Events from the year 1977 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: Gerald Ford (R-Michigan) (until January 20), Jimmy Carter (D-Georgia) (starting January 20)
• Vice President: Nelson Rockefeller (R-New York) (until January 20), Walter Mondale (D-Minnesota) (starting January 20)
• Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger (Minnesota)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Carl Albert (D-Oklahoma) (until January 3), Tip O'Neill (D-Massachusetts) (starting January 4)
• Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) (until January 3), Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) (starting January 3)
• Congress: 94th (until January 3), 95th (starting January 3)

Events

January

January 20: Jimmy Carter becomes President

• January – The world's first personal computer, the Commodore PET, is demonstrated at the winter Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.^[1]
• January 3 – Apple Computer is incorporated.
• January 9 – Super Bowl XI: The Oakland Raiders defeat the Minnesota Vikings 32–14 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
• January 17 – In the first execution after the reintroduction of the death penalty in the U.S., Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in Utah.^[2]
• January 19
  • Snow falls in Miami, Florida (despite its ordinarily tropical climate) for the only time in its history. Snowfall has occurred farther south in the United States only on the high mountains of the state of Hawaii.
  • U.S. President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino (aka "Tokyo Rose").
• January 20 – Jimmy Carter succeeds Gerald Ford as the 39th President of the United States.
• January 21 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam War draft evaders.
• January 23 – Roots begins its phenomenally successful run on ABC.
• January 28 – The Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977 hits Buffalo, New York.

February

• February 4 – Fleetwood Mac's Grammy-winning album Rumours is released.
• February 18 – The space shuttle Enterprise test vehicle goes on its maiden "flight" while sitting on top of a Boeing 747, at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

March

An excursion train pulled by a classic BC Rail steam locomotive visits Oakland, California in 1977

• March 9 – Approximately a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims take over 3 buildings in Washington, D.C., killing 1 person and taking more than 130 hostages. The hostage situation ends 2 days later.
• March 15 – Tenor Luciano Pavarotti and the PBS opera series Live from the Met both make their American television debuts. Pavarotti stars in a complete production of Puccini's La Boheme.

April

• April 4 – Grundy, Virginia experienced a major flood that caused around $15 million in damages to 228 residential and commercial structures.
• April 21 – Residents of Dover, Massachusetts report sightings of the so-called "Dover Demon".

May

• May 26 – George Willig climbs the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
• May 25 – The movie Star Wars was released.
• May 28 – The Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky is engulfed in fire, killing 165 inside.
• May 29 – Indianapolis 500: A.J. Foyt becomes the first driver (to date) to win a record four times.

June

• June 5 – The Portland Trail Blazers defeat the Philadelphia 76ers 109–107 to win the NBA finals 4–2. Bill Walton is named series MVP.
• June 7 – After campaigning by Anita Bryant and her anti-gay "Save Our Children" crusade, Miami-Dade County, Florida voters overwhelmingly vote to repeal the county's gay rights ordinance.
• June 10 – James Earl Ray escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee (he is recaptured on June 13).
• June 16 – Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
• June 20 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules that states are not required to spend Medicaid funds on elective abortions.
• June 25 – American Roy Sullivan is struck by lightning for the 7th time.
• June 26
  • Some 200,000 protesters march through the streets of San Francisco, protesting Anita Bryant's anti-gay remarks and the murder of Robert Hillsborough.
  • Elvis Presley performs his last-ever concert, in Indianapolis, Indiana's Market Square Arena.
• June 30 – Women Marines disbanded; women are integrated into regular Marine Corps.

July

• July 13 – The New York City blackout of 1977 lasts for 25 hours, resulting in looting and other disorder.
• July 19 & 20 – Flooding in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, caused by massive rainfall, kills over 75 people and causes billions in damage.
• July 24 – Led Zeppelin plays their last U.S. concert in Oakland, California at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. A brawl erupts between Led Zeppelin's crew and promoter Bill Graham's staff, resulting in criminal assault charges for several of Led Zeppelin's entourage including drummer John Bonham.
• July 28 – The first oil through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System reaches Valdez, Alaska.

August

• August 3 – United States Senate hearings on MKULTRA are held.
• August 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.
• August 10 – David Berkowitz is captured in Yonkers, New York, after over a year of murders in New York City as the Son of Sam.
• August 12 – The NASA Space Shuttle, named Enterprise, makes its first test free-flight from the back of a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA).
• August 15 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the "WOW!" signal for a notation made by a volunteer on the project.
• August 16 – Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll dies in his home in Graceland at age 42. 75,000 fans lined the streets of Memphis for this funeral.^[3]
• August 20 – Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

September

Voyager 1 launched Sept. 5, 1977

• September 4 – The Golden Dragon Massacre took place in San Francisco, California.
• September 5 – Voyager program: Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.
• September 7 – Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The U.S. agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
• September 18 – Courageous, skippered by Ted Turner, sweeps Australia in the 24th America's Cup.
• September 19
  • Under pressure from the Carter Administration, President Anastasio Somoza Debayle lifts the state of siege in Nicaragua.
  • Closure of steelworks in Youngstown, Ohio, is announced.
• September 21 – A nuclear non-proliferation pact is signed by 15 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union.
• September 30 – A series of partial government shutdowns occur finally ending in December.

October

• October 1
  • Energy Research and Development Administration part of Department of Energy.
  • Pelé plays his final professional football game as a member of the New York Cosmos.
• October 6 – Irish American mobster Danny Greene is murdered with a car bomb by the Cleveland crime family in Lyndhurst, Ohio.
• October 12 – The passage of the Community Reinvestment Act.
• October 14 – Anita Bryant is famously pied by four gay rights activists during a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa. This event resulted in her political fallout from anti-gay activism.
• October 18 – Reggie Jackson hits three home runs to lead the New York Yankees to World Series victory.
• October 20 – Three members of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a charter plane crash outside Gillsburg, Mississippi, 3 days after the release of their fifth studio album Street Survivors.
• October 21 – Rock singer Meat Loaf (real name Marvin Lee Aday) releases the album Bat Out of Hell.^[4]

November

A British Airways Concorde aircraft

• November 6 – The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, fails, killing 39.
• November 7 birth of Chrystal Hope Ames
• November 8 – San Francisco elects City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official of any large city in the U.S.
• November 13 – The comic strip Li'l Abner ends a 43-year run in newspapers.
• November 22 – British Airways inaugurates regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.
• November 27 – The Rankin/Bass animated film The Hobbit premieres on NBC in the United States.

December

• December 1 – The Lockheed's top-secret stealth aircraft project, designated Have Blue, precursor to the U.S. F-117A Nighthawk, makes its first flight.
• December 13 – A DC-3 charter plane carrying the University of Evansville basketball team to Nashville, Tenn., crashes in rain and dense fog about 90 seconds after takeoff from Evansville Dress Regional Airport. Twenty-nine people die in the crash, including 14 members of the team and head coach Bob Watson.
• December 19–21 – The Great Bakersfield Dust Storm hits the Southern San Joaquin Valley, in California; resulting in 3 deaths and $40 million in damages.

Undated

• Polish-American mathematician Antoni Zygmund authors his major work Measure and Integral.
• Feature films released in 1977 include: Star Wars, Annie Hall, Saturday Night Fever, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, A Bridge Too Far, Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Turning Point, New York, New York, Smokey and the Bandit
• John Travolta's role in Saturday Night Fever inspired young Americans to wear Flare jeans, an updated version of Bell-bottoms.
• Atari 2600, released in October, popularized the use of microprocessor based hardware and cartridges containing game code.
• Mormon sex in chains case with the alleged abduction in England of an American Mormon missionary by a former Miss Wyoming.
• The coldest winter for fifty-nine years in the Ohio Valley region^[5] and a record dry year throughout the West,^[6] especially the Pacific Northwest,^[7] creates heating fuel and water shortages plus extended freezing of the Great Lakes^[8] and freezing of the Mississippi River as far as Cairo, Illinois.

Ongoing

• Cold War (1945–1991)
• Détente (c. 1969–1979)
• 1970s energy crisis (1973–1980)

Births

• January 3 – A. J. Burnett, professional baseball player
• January 4 – Ozell Wells, Dominican-American basketball player, coach, and scout
• January 7 – Dustin Diamond, actor
• January 8 – Amber Benson, actress
• January 13 – Orlando Bloom, actor
• January 26 – Vince Carter, professional basketball player
• January 28
  • Daunte Culpepper, professional football player
  • Joey Fatone, singer ('N Sync)
  • Lyle Overbay, professional baseball player
• February 4 – Gavin DeGraw, musician and singer-songwriter
• February 5 – Ahmad Merritt, professional football player
• February 8 – Barry Hall, footballer
• February 11 – Mike Shinoda, musician
• February 13 – Randy Moss, professional football player
• February 18 – Sean Watkins, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter
• February 20 – Stephon Marbury, professional basketball player
• February 21 – Kevin Rose, former internet entrepreneur
• March 8 – James Van Der Beek, actor
• March 10 – Bree Turner, actress
• March 11 – Becky Hammon, professional basketball player
• April 9 – Gerard Way, musician
• April 14
  • Sarah Michelle Gellar, actress
  • Chandra Levy, intern (d. 2001)
• April 16 – Hayes MacArthur, actor, producer, and screenwriter
• April 23
  • John Cena, professional wrestler
  • John Oliver, comedian
• April 26
  • Jason Earles, actor
  • Tom Welling, actor
• May 9 – Maggie Dixon, basketball player and coach (d. 2006)
• May 12 – Rebecca Herbst, actress
• June 2 – Zachary Quinto, actor
• June 5
  • Kristin Gore, author and screenwriter
  • Christian Martucci, singer-songwriter and guitarist (Black President, The Strychnine Babies, and The Chelsea Smiles)
• June 7 – Joe Horgan, baseball player
• June 20 – Stephanie White, basketball player
• July 1 – Liv Tyler, actress
• July 15 – Lana Parrilla, actress
• July 28
  • Dexter Jackson, American football player and sportscaster
  • Chris Samuels, American football player and coach
• November 10 – Brittany Murphy, actress (d. 2009)
• November 15
  • Robaire Smith, American football player
  • Logan Whitehurst, singer-songwriter and drummer (The Velvet Teen) (d. 2006)
• November 16 – Maggie Gyllenhaal, actress
• November 22 – David Clinger, professional road racing cyclist
• December 12 – Orlando Hudson, baseball player
• December 21 – A. J. Bowen, actor and producer
• December 24 – Michael Raymond-James, actor

Deaths

• January 2 – Erroll Garner, jazz pianist (b. 1921)
• January 17 – Gary Gilmore, criminal (b. 1940)
• January 23 – Toots Shor, proprietor (b. 1903)
• January 29 – Freddie Prinze, actor and comedian (b. 1954)
• February 4 – Brett Halliday, mystery writer (b. 1904)
• February 27 – Allison Hayes, actress (b. 1930)
• April 21 – Gummo Marx, vaudeville performer (b. 1893)
• May 9 – James Jones, author (b. 1921)
• May 10 – Joan Crawford, actress (b. 1904)
• July 9 – Alice Paul, suffragist (b. 1885)
• August 14 – Ron Haydock, actor (b. 1940)
• August 16 – Elvis Presley, singer (b. 1935)
• August 19 – Groucho Marx, comedian (b. 1890)
• September 1 – Ethel Waters, actress (b. 1896)
• September 16 – Maria Callas, soprano (b. 1923)
• October 6 – Danny Greene, Irish American mobster (b. 1933)
• October 14 – Bing Crosby, (b. 1903)
• October 27 – Tony Hulman, (b. 1901)
• December 15 – Wilfred Kitching, 7th General of the Salvation Army (b. 1893)
• December 19 – Nellie Tayloe Ross, 14th Governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927 and director of the United States Mint from 1933 to 1953; first female state governor in the U.S. (b. 1876)
• December 25 – Charlie Chaplin, actor (b. 1889)

See also

• 1977 in American television
• List of American films of 1977

References

External links

• Media related to 1977 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons