1976
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1990s 2000s
Years: 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 - 1976 - 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981
See also:
Events
- January 12 - UN Security Council votes 11-1 to admit the Palestinian Liberation Organization
- January 15 - Would-be Gerald Ford presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore is sentenced to life in prison.
- January 21 - The first commercial Concorde flight took off.
- February 4 - In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000.
- February 4 - 1976 Winter Olympics open in Innsbruck, Austria
- February 11 - Clifford Alexander Jr is confirmed as 1st African-American Secretary of US Army.
- February 20 - The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbands
- February 24 - Cuba's current constitution enacted.
- March 3 - Fleetwood Mac records Rumours, which will be a blockbuster album in 1977
- March 20 - Patty Hearst is found guilty of armed robbery of a San Francisco bank.
- March 24 - Argentina military forces depose president Isabel Peron.
- March 27 - The first 4.6 miles of the Washington, DC subway system opens.
- April 1 - Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
- April 4 - Prince Norodom Sihanouk resigns as leader of Cambodia and is placed under house arrest.
- April 25 - Portugal's new constitution enacted
- May 11 - President Gerald Ford signs Federal Election Campaign Act
- May 24 - Washington, DC Concorde service begins.
- June 6 - Soweto riots in South Africa mark the beginning of the end of apartheid
- July 2 - North Vietnam and South Vietnam united to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam - a Communist country
- July 3 - Supreme Court of the United States rules that death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment
- July 4 - American bicentennial
- July 4 - Israeli airborne commandos attack Uganda's Entebbe Airport and free 103 hostages being held by pro-Palestinian hijackers of an Air France plane; one Israeli and several Ugandan soldiers are killed in raid
- July 10 - Explosion in Seveso, Italy, kills a large number of people
- July 20 - Viking 1 Lander lands on Mars
- July 28 - Earthquake flattens Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 people, and 164,851 people are heavily injured
- August 18 - North Korea: At Panmunjom two US soldiers are killed while trying to chop down part of a tree in the DMZ which had obscured their view
- September 3 - Viking 2 Lander lands on Mars
- Summer Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada
- Military Junta in power in Argentina.
- September 17 - Space Shuttle Enterprise rolled out
- September 21 - Seychelles joins the United Nations
- November 2 - Jimmy Carter defeats Gerald R. Ford in the U.S. presidential election
- November 26 - Little known company Microsoft is officialy registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.
- December 1 - Angola joins the United Nations
- December 15 - Samoa joins the United Nations
- First laser printer introduced by IBM - the IBM 3800
- Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, invented by Seymour Cray
- California's sodomy law repealed.
- The term memetics first proposed by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene.
- Toronto Blue Jays created
- CN Tower built in Toronto
- Copyright Act of 1976 extends copyright duration for an additional 20 years
- Diffie-Hellman cryptography proposed
Art, Culture & Fashion
- 1976 in film
- March 25 - Filming begins on George Lucas' Star Wars science fiction film. In one of the best business decisions in film history, Lucas cuts his directing fee by $500,000 to gain ownership of merchandising and sequel rights
- Rocky
- All the President's Men
- Taxi Driver
- 1976 in literature
- 1976 in music
- December 8 - The Eagles releases one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, Hotel California
- Björk's musical career begins
- The Clash form
- The Damned form
- Graffiti artist Lee Quinones begins painting large, intricate murals in New York City; along with Quinones, hip hop artists (rappers, DJs and breakdancers) begin to expand the boundaries of the art form
- 1976 in sports
- 1976 in television
- January 17 - The Blues Brothers make their debut on NBC's Saturday Night Live
- April 24 - Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels makes on on-air offer to pay the Beatles $3000 to reunite on the show. Lennon and McCartney were apparently watching the show together in New York and considered walking down to the studio to accept the check.
- May 22 - Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels raises his previous offer to The Beatles from $3000 to $3,200.
- December 1 - Infamous Bill Grundy incident, wherin UK punk group the Sex Pistols cause a storm of controversy and outrage by swearing on national television [1]
- The Olympics, broadcast from Montreal, draw an estimated 1 billion viewers worldwide.
- The Sonny and Cher Show premieres
Births
- Elizabeth M.B. Davis
- January 3 - Jason Marsden, actor.
- January 6 - Danny Pintauro, actor
- February 11 - Brice Beckham, actor.
- February 28 - Ja Rule
- March 8 - Freddie Prinze Jr., actor
- March 20 - Chester Bennington, Linkin Park
- March 21 - Justin Pierce, actor.
- March 22 - Reese Witherspoon, actress
- March 25 - Juvenile, singer
- March 31 - Colin Farrell, actor
- July 6 - 50 Cent, rap singer.
- July 9 - Fred Savage, actor.
- July 11 - Lil' Kim, rap singer
- September 7 - Shannon Elizabeth, actress.
- September 7 - Stevie Case (Killcreek), video geme celebrety
- September 11 - Ludacris, rap singer.
- October 4 - Alicia Silverstone, actress.
- November 12 - Tevin Campbell
- December 13 - Tom Delonge, Blink-182
- Blu Cantrell, rap singer
- John Collura, The Ataris
- Mike Davenport, The Ataris
- Judit Polgar, best woman chess player in history.
- Patrick Riley, The Ataris
Deaths
- January 8 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China
- January 8 - Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts
- January 10 - Howlin' Wolf, musician
- January 12 - Agatha Christie, english mystery writer.
- January 23 - Paul Robeson, American actor, singer, writer and political and civil rights activist
- January 30 - Mance Lipscomb, popular singer.
- February 1 - Werner Heisenberg, physicist
- February 6 - Vince Guaraldi, musician
- February 9 - Percy Faith, musician, composer
- February 11 - Lee J Cobb, actor.
- February 11 - Alice Allen, actress.
- February 11 - Charlie Naughton, actor.
- February 12 - Sal Mineo, actor
- February 13 - Lily Pons, opera singer
- February 22 - Florence Ballard, singer with The Supremes
- March 6 - Max 'Slapsie Maxie' Rosenbloom, boxer, actor
- March 14 - Busby Berkeley, choreographer, director
- March 17 - Luchino Visconti, italian theatre and cinema director.
- March 24 - Bernard Montgomery, British Field Marshal
- April 1 - Max Ernst, artist
- April 5 - Howard Hughes, aviation pioneer, film director, eccentric
- May 26 - Martin Heidegger, German philosopher
- June 10 - Adolph Zukor, producer
- June 25 - Johnny Mercer, songwriter
- September 9 - Mao Zedong, Chinese leader
- Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction commits suicide
- August 4 - First outbreak of Legionnaire's disease kills 29 at the American Legion convention in Philadelphia
- September 21 - Orlando Letelier assassinated in Washington, D.C. by agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
- December 4 - Benjamin Britten, composer
- Martin Heidegger, German philosopher
- Bernard Montgomery, British field marshal
- Carl Benjamin Boyer, American mathemetician and historian of mathematics