This list is incomplete; you can help by . (July 2014)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: – ···scholar·JSTOR(July 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
January 20: Jimmy Carter becomes the 39th U.S. President
Walter Mondale becomes the 42nd U.S. Vice President
January
The world's first personal computer, the Commodore PET, is demonstrated at the winter Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.[1]
The Coalition of Free Men is founded in Columbia, Maryland, in order to create a unified voice in addressing issues concerning men and boys. The organisation would later become the National Coalition for Men, America's oldest men's rights organization.[2]
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.
Rock band Toto is founded by David Paich and Jeff Porcaro in Van Nuys, Los Angeles.
January 17 – In the first execution after the reintroduction of the death penalty in the United States, Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in Utah.[3]
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.
January 20 – Jimmy Carter is sworn in as the 39th President of the United States, and Walter F. Mondale is sworn in as Vice 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.
January 1 to 31:
The contiguous US average monthly minimum temperature of 12.52 °F or −10.82 °C[4] is the coldest for any month since nationwide records were first compiled in 1895.[a]
In contrast to the contiguous US, Alaska had to that point[b] its warmest January on record with a mean of 17.4 °F or −8.1 °C being 16.2 °F or 9.0 °C warmer than the 1925 to 1974 average (1.2 °F or −17.1 °C) and 1.8 °F or 1.0 °C warmer than Alaska's previous record warmest January 1937.[5]
February[]
February 4
Fleetwood Mac's Grammy Award-winning album Rumours is released.
Eleven CTA commuters are killed when an elevated train derails from the Loop in central Chicago.
February 12 – Actress Christa Helm is fatally stabbed on a sidewalk in West Hollywood. The perpetrator is never identified.
February 18 – The space shuttleEnterprise 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 HanafiMuslimstake over three buildings in Washington, D.C., killing one person and taking more than 130 hostages. The hostage situation ends two days later.
March 11 – Walt Disney Productions' 22nd feature film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, is released. It is the studio's most critically well-received film in years and the last in the Disney canon in which the late Walt Disney was involved with in any capacity.
March 15 – Tenor Luciano Pavarotti and the PBSopera series Live from the Met both make their American television debuts. Pavarotti stars in a complete production of Puccini's La Boheme.
March 28 – The 49th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Richard Pryor, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda and Warren Beatty, is held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. John G. Avildsen's Rocky receives ten nominations, winning Best Picture and Best Director for Avildsen. Rocky is tied with Sidney Lumet's Network for the most nominations, while the latter film and Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men both won four awards each. The late Peter Finch becomes the first posthumous actor Oscar winner, winning for Best Actor.
April[]
April 4 – Grundy, Virginia experiences a major flood that causes 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 16 – A 20-passenger S-61L helicopter topples sideways at takeoff from the roof of the Pan Am Building in Midtown Manhattan. Four passengers are killed by the turning rotors and a woman at street level is fatally struck by a fallen blade.
May 25 – The movie Star Wars, directed by George Lucas is released as the first film in the Star Wars Saga and the first in the Original Trilogy.
May 26 – George Willig climbs the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
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 4–5 – Humboldt Park riot in Chicago.
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 22 – Walt Disney Productions' 23rd feature film, The Rescuers, is released to box office success and positive critical reception.
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 final concert, in Indianapolis, Indiana's Market Square Arena. Two previous performances were filmed in Omaha, Nebraska (June 19th) and Rapid City, South Dakota (June 21st) for the TV Special "Elvis In Concert." This special was not televised until October 3 of that year on CBS.
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 disorder.
July 19-20 – Flooding in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, caused by massive rainfall, kills over 75 people and causes billions of dollars 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 NASASpace 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, which occurred on August 18, but wasn't televised until August 20.[6]
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 takes 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 yachting race.
September 19 – Nicaraguan drug cartels rise to power in New Jersey. Pablo Escobar as facilitating drug lord.
Under pressure from the Carter Administration, PresidentAnastasio 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 23 – Jazz-rock group Steely Dan releases their sixth studio album Aja; it becomes their highest charting album at No. 3 and goes on to win a Grammy Award.
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 mobsterDanny 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 – Newly acquired and flamboyantly charismatic slugger Reggie Jackson hits three home runs to lead the New York Yankees to their first World Series championship victory since 1962 over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1977 World Series in six games.
October 20 – Three members (lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and a backup singer) of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a charter plane crash outside Gillsburg, Mississippi, three 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.[7]
November 6 – The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, fails, killing 39.
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 its 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 – Pinwheel debuts on Channel C-3 (now Nickelodeon).
December 12 – 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 – Crash of Air Indiana Flight 216: A DC-3 charter plane carrying the University of Evansville basketball team 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 three 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.
The coldest winter for fifty-nine years in the Ohio Valley region[8] and a record dry year throughout the West,[9] especially the Pacific Northwest,[10] creates heating fuel and water shortages plus extended freezing of the Great Lakes[11] and freezing of the Mississippi River as far as Cairo, Illinois.
August 16 – Elvis Presley, American actor, musician and singer-songwriter (b. 1935)
August 17 – Delmer Daves, American screenwriter and director (b. 1904)
August 19 – Groucho Marx, American actor and comedian (b. 1890)
August 22 – Sebastian Cabot, English actor (b. 1918)
August 29 – Jean Hagen, American actress (b. 1923)[28]
September[]
Ethel Waters
September 1 – Ethel Waters, American singer and actress (b. 1896)
September 2 – Stephen Dunne, American actor (b. 1911)
September 8 – Zero Mostel, American actor (b. 1915)
September 16 – Maria Callas, Greek soprano (b. 1923)
September 18 – Maria Callas, Greek soprano (b. 1923)
September 24
Sherm Lollar, American baseball player and coach (b. 1924)
Frederick Merk, American historian (b. 1887)
September 26 – Ernie Lombardi American baseball player and member of the MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1908)
September 29 – Robert McKimson, American animator and director (b. 1910)
October[]
Bing Crosby
October 2 – Joseph William Woodrough, American federal judge (b. 1873)
October 3 – Tay Garnett, American film director (b. 1894)
October 6 – Danny Greene, Irish Americanmobster (b. 1933)
October 8 – Joe Greenstein, Polish-born American strongman (b. 1893)
October 11 – MacKinlay Kantor, American writer, Pulitzer Prize winner (b. 1904)
October 12 – Dorothy Davenport, American actress (b. 1895)
October 14 – Bing Crosby, American pop singer and actor (b. 1903)
October 20 – Three members of American rock group, Lynyrd Skynyrd, killed in plane crash:
Ronnie Van Zant, lead singer (b. 1948)
Cassie Gaines, lead singer (b. 1948)
Steve Gaines, lead singer and guitarist (b. 1949)
October 27 – James M. Cain, American writer (b. 1892)
November[]
November 3 – Florence Vidor, silent film actress (b. 1895)
November 5 – Guy Lombardo, bandleader (b. 1902 in Canada)
November 8 – Bucky Harris, baseball player and manager (b. 1896)
November 9 – Gertrude Astor, film character actress (b. 1887)
November 16 – José Acosta, baseball starting pitcher (b. 1891)
November 21 – Richard Carlson, actor and screen director (b. 1912)
December[]
December 5 – Rahsaan Roland Kirk, American jazz multi-instrumentalist (b. 1935)
December 15 – Wilfred Kitching, 7th General of the Salvation Army (b. 1893)
December 19 – Nellie Tayloe Ross, 13th 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)
^The mean temperature for January 1977 of 23.09 °F or −4.95 °C was the coldest since before 1895, but was broken in January 1979.
^Januaries 1981, 1985 and 2014 have since surpassed this figure, almost certainly largely due to man-made global warming.
References[]
^CalmX, some as; Artist, Was an Experimental; Director, Film; producer; Creator, Video Game Content; inventors, freelance writer for some 18 years She specialized in writing about; inventions; March 2015, in particular Bellis died in. "The Inventors of the First Hobby and Home Computers". ThoughtCo.
^"UPI Almanac for Monday, Jan, 7, 2019". United Press International. January 7, 2019. Archived from the original on September 21, 2019. Retrieved September 21, 2019. actor Dustin Diamond in 1977 (age 42)