1977 Archives | HISTORY

Gary Gilmore, convicted in a double murder, is shot to death by a firing squad in Utah, becoming the first person to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

President Gerald R. Ford pardons Tokyo Rose. Although the nickname originally referred to several Japanese women who broadcast Axis propaganda over the radio to Allied troops during World War II, it eventually became synonymous with a Japanese-American woman named Iva Toguri. On the orders of the Japanese government, Toguri and other women broadcast sentimental American music and phony announcements regarding U.S. troop losses in a vain attempt to destroy the morale of Allied soldiers. After the war, she had been convicted of treason.

On January 21, 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter grants an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.

January 23, 1977 sees the premiere of Roots, a groundbreaking television program. The eight-episode miniseries, which was broadcast over eight consecutive nights, follows a family from its origins in West Africa through generations of slavery and the end of the Civil War. Roots was one of the most-watched television events in American history and a major moment in mainstream American culture's reckoning with the legacy of slavery.

On March 27, 1977, two 747 jumbo jets crash into each other on the runway at an airport in the Canary Islands, killing 583 passengers and crew members.

On April 11, 1977, President Jimmy Carter, along with first lady Rosalynn Carter, hosts local children at the traditional White House “Easter egg roll.”

On April 26, 1977, the legendary discoteque Studio 54 opens its doors for the very first time. It would soon become the global epicenter of the disco craze and the most famous nightclub in the world.

On April 30, 1977, more than 2,000 protesters occupy the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant construction site in New Hampshire; 1,414 of these activists are arrested in what becomes one of the largest mass arrests in American history.

On May 25, 1977, Memorial Day weekend opens with an intergalactic bang as the first of George Lucas’ blockbuster Star Wars movies hits American theaters.

A new sign of political liberalization appears in China, when the communist government lifts its decade-old ban on the writings of William Shakespeare. The action by the Chinese government was additional evidence that the Cultural Revolution was over.

On May 31, 1977, the song “God Save The Queen” earned a total ban on radio airplay from the BBC. Such a ban might signal the kiss of death for a normal pop single, but it proved a powerful endorsement for an anti-establishment rant by the British punk group known as the Sex Pistols.

Leonid Ilych Brezhnev, first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party since 1964, is elected president of the Supreme Soviet, thereby becoming both head of party and head of state.

On July 2, 1977, Hollywood composer Bill Conti scores a #1 pop hit with the single “Gonna Fly Now (Theme From Rocky).”

A flash flood hits Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on July 20, 1977, killing 84 people and causing millions of dollars in damages. This flood came 88 years after the infamous Great Flood of 1889 that killed more than 2,000 people in the town. As they had in the first flood, the dams in the Conemaugh Valley failed, bringing disaster to the town.

On August 3, 1977, “The Spy Who Loved Me,” starring Roger Moore as the suave superspy James Bond, known for his love of fast cars and dangerous women, is released in theaters across America. The film features one of the most memorable Bond cars of all time–a sleek, powerful Lotus Esprit sports car that does double duty as a submarine.

On August 10, 1977, police arrest 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz and charged him with being the “Son of Sam,” the serial killer who terrorized New York City for more than a year, killing six young people and wounding seven others with a .44-caliber revolver. Because Berkowitz generally targeted attractive young women with long brown hair, hundreds of young women had their hair cut short and dyed blonde during the time he terrorized the city. Thousands more simply stayed home at night.

On August 15, 1977, The Ohio State University’s Big Ear Radio Telescope detects a powerful 72-second transmission that appears on just one of the telescope’s 50 channels. A few days later, astronomer Jerry Ehman spots the signal in a data printout, circles the sequence “6EQUJ5” and writes “Wow!” in red ink in the margin.

Music icon Elvis Presley dies in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 42. The death of the “King of Rock and Roll” brought legions of mourning fans to Graceland, his mansion in Memphis. Doctors said he died of a heart attack, likely brought on by his addiction to prescription barbiturates.

In Washington, President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos sign a treaty agreeing to transfer control of the Panama Canal from the United States to Panama at the end of the 20th century. The Panama Canal Treaty also authorized the immediate abolishment of the Canal Zone, a 10-mile-wide, 40-mile-long U.S.-controlled area that bisected the Republic of Panama. Many in Congress opposed giving up control of the Panama Canal—an enduring symbol of U.S. power and technological prowess—but America’s colonial-type administration of the strategic waterway had long irritated Panamanians and other Latin Americans.

On September 10, 1977, at Baumetes Prison in Marseille, France, Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant convicted of murder, becomes the last person executed by guillotine.

On September 16, 1977, William Alton Carter III, then-President Jimmy Carter’s younger brother, appears at a press conference in Louisville, Kentucky, to announce that he is lending his name to a new beverage: BILLY Beer.

Celebrated soprano Maria Callas dies in Paris at the age of 53.

On October 1, 1977, despite a downpour, 75,646 fans pack Giants Stadium in New Jersey for soccer star Pelé's farewell game. In the exhibition, Pelé plays for the only professional teams he ever played for—the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League for the first half and Santos of Brazil for the second half.

Four Palestinians hijack a Lufthansa airliner and demand the release of 11 imprisoned members of Germany’s Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, also known as the Red Army Faction. The Red Army Faction was a group of ultra-left revolutionaries who terrorized Germany for three decades, assassinating more than 30 corporate, military and government leaders in an effort to topple capitalism in their homeland.

On October 14, 1977, while speaking at an event in Iowa to promote her campaign to roll back anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people, Anita Bryant is hit in the face with a pie.

On October 18, 1977, in the sixth game of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees outfielder Reggie Jackson hits three home runs in a row off of three consecutive pitches from three different pitchers. Only the great Babe Ruth had ever hit three homers in a single World Series game (and he did it twice, once in 1926 and once in 1928)—but he didn’t do it on consecutive pitches or even consecutive at-bats. Jackson’s amazing home-run streak helped the Yankees win the game and the series, the team’s first since 1962.

On October 20, 1977, during a flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the tour plane for Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in a heavily wooded area of southwestern Mississippi during a failed emergency landing attempt. The accident killed band-members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines as well as the band’s assistant road manager and the plane’s pilot and co-pilot. Twenty others survived the crash.

On November 5, 1977, 31-year-old future President George W. Bush marries 31-year-old Laura Welch at the First United Methodist Church in her hometown of Midland, Texas.

On November 6, 1977, the Toccoa Falls Dam in Georgia gives way and 39 people die in the resulting flood.

On November 15, 1977, President Jimmy Carter welcomes Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, and his wife, Empress (or “Shahbanou”) Farrah, to Washington. Over the next two days, Carter and Pahlavi discussed improving relations between the two countries. Two years later, the two leaders’ political fates would be further entwined when Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the shah and took Americans hostage in Tehran.

In Moscow, Soviet officials arrest four dissidents and prevent at least 20 others from attending a peaceful protest against communist political oppression on United Nations Human Rights Day. According to some of the protesters, Soviet officials threatened them with violence should the protest be held. The incident was more evidence of an increasingly hard line being taken by the Soviet government against any political protest.

The film Saturday Night Fever premieres in New York City on December 12, 1977. Shining a bright light on the world of disco dance, it would become a pop-culture juggernaut.