1976

1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday.

Events

January

• January - The Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, is released by Seymour Cray's Cray Research.
• January 15 - Would-be Gerald Ford presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore is sentenced to life in prison.
• January 16 - The trial against jailed members of the Red Army Faction begins in Stuttgart, West Germany.
• January 18 - The Scottish Labour Party is formed.
• January 19 - Jimmy Carter wins the Iowa Democratic Caucus.
• January 21 - The first commercial Concorde flight takes off.
• January 27 - The trial of Symbionese Liberation Army member Patty Hearst begins.
• January 29 - Twelve Provisional Irish Republican Army bombs explode in London's West End.
• January 30 - Live from Lincoln Center debuts on PBS.

February

• February 4 - The 1976 Winter Olympics open in Innsbruck, Austria.
• February 4 - In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000.
• February 11 - Clifford Alexander Jr. is confirmed as the first African-American Secretary of the U.S. Army.
• February 15 - The 1976 Constitution of Cuba is adopted by national referendum.
• February 24 - Cuba's current constitution is enacted.
• February 27 - Western Sahara declares independence.
• February 28 - Spain gives up territories in Sahara but retains its enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta.

March

• March 1 - Merlyn Rees ends Special Category Status for those sentenced for scheduled terrorist crimes relating to the civil violence in Northern Ireland.
• March 4 - The Maguire Seven are found guilty of possessing explosives and subsequently jailed for 14 years.
• March 4 - The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland, resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London via the British parliament.
• March 9 - A cable-car disaster in Cavalese, Italy leaves 42 dead.
• March 9-March 11 - Two coal mine explosions claim 26 lives at the Blue Diamond Coal Co. Scotia Mine, Letcher County, KY.
• March 16 - Harold Wilson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• March 17 - Rubin "Hurricane" Carter is retried in New Jersey.
• 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 26 - The Toronto Blue Jays are created.
• March 26 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom sends the first royal e-mail.
• March 27 - The first 4.6 miles of the Washington Metro subway system opens.
• March 29 - The military dictatorship of General Jorge Videla comes to power in Argentina.
• March 31 - The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that coma patient Karen Ann Quinlan can be disconnected from her ventilator. She remains comatose and dies in 1985.

April

• April 1 - Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
• April 1 - Conrail (Consolidated Rails Corporation) is formed by the U.S. government, to take control of 13 major Northeast Class-1 railroads that had filed for bankruptcy protection. Conrail takes control at midnight, as a government-owned and operated railroad till 1986, when it is sold to the public.
• April 3 - The 21st Eurovision Song Contest 1976 is won by Brotherhood of Man, representing the United Kingdom, with their song Save Your Kisses For Me.
• April 4 - Prince Norodom Sihanouk resigns as leader of Cambodia and is placed under house arrest.
• April 5 - James Callaghan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• April 5 - Tiananmen Incident: Large crowds lay wreaths at Beijing's Monument of the Martyrs to commemorate the death of Premier Zhou Enlai. Poems against the Gang of Four are also displayed, provoking a police crackdown.
• April 13 - An explosion in an ammunition factory in Lapua, Finland kills 40.
• April 16 - As a measure to curb population growth, the minimum age for marriage in India is raised to 21 years for men and 18 years for women.
• April 21 - The Great Bookie Robbery in Melbourne: Bandits steal A$1.4 million in bookmakers' settlements from Queen Street, Melbourne.
• April 23 - The Punk rock group The Ramones release their first self-titled album.
• April 25 - Portugal's new constitution is enacted.

May

• May 4 - The first LAGEOS (Laser Geodynamics Satellite) is launched.
• May 6 - An earthquake hits Friuli area in Italy killing more than 900 people with another 100,000 homeless.
• May 9 - Ulrike Meinhof of Red Army Faction is found hanging in an apparent suicide, in her Stuttgart-Stannheim prison cell.
• May 11 - U.S. President Gerald Ford signs the Federal Election Campaign Act.
• May 24 - Washington, D.C. Concorde service begins.
• May 25 - U.S. President Gerald Ford defeats challenger Ronald Reagan in three Republican presidential primaries: Kentucky, Tennessee and Oregon.
• May 30 - Indianapolis 500-Mile Race: Johnny Rutherford wins the (rain-shortened) shortest race in event history to date, at 102 laps or 255 miles (408 km).

June

• June 1 - The UK and Iceland end the Cod War.
• June 2 - A car bomb fatally injures Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles.
• June 5 - The Teton Dam collapses in southeast Idaho in the U.S., killing 11 people.
• June 14 - The trial begins at Oxford Crown Court of Donald Neilson, the killer known as the Black Panther.
• June 16 - The Soweto riots in South Africa begin.
• June 20 - Hundreds of Western tourists are moved from Beirut and taken to safety in Syria by the U.S. military, following the murder of the U.S. ambassador.
• June 20 - General elections are held in Italy.
• June 20 - Czechoslovakia beats West Germany 5-3 on penalties to win Euro 76, when the game had ended 2-2 after extra time.
• June 25 - Strikes start in Poland (Ursus, Radom, Płock) after communists raise food prices; strikes end on June 30.
• June 26 - The CN Tower is built in Toronto; the tallest free-standing land structure opens to the public.
• June 27 - Palestinian extremists hijack an Air France plane in Greece with 246 passengers and 12 crew. They take it to Entebbe, Uganda.

July

• July 2 - North Vietnam and South Vietnam unite to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam - a Communist country.
• July 3 - Gregg v. Georgia: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment.
• July 3 - The great heat wave in the United Kingdom, which is currently suffering from drought conditions, reaches its peak.
• July 4 - United States Bicentennial: From coast to coast, Americans celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
• July 4 - The Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP) leads 50,000 marchers in Philadelphia to demand a "Bicentennial Without Colonies" and independence for Puerto Rico.
• July 4 - Entebbe Raid: Israeli airborne commandos free 103 hostages being held by Palestinian hijackers of an Air France plane at Uganda's Entebbe Airport; 1 Israeli and several Ugandan soldiers are killed in the raid.
• July 6 - The first class of women is inducted at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.
• July 7 - German left-wing terrorists Monika Berberich, Gabriella Rollnick, Juliane Plambeck and Inge Viett escape from the Lehrter Straße maximum security prison in West Berlin.
• July 10 - Three British and 1 American mercenaries are shot by firing squad in Angola.
• July 10 - An explosion in Seveso, Italy, kills a large number of people.
• July 15 - Jimmy Carter is nominated for U.S. President at the Democratic National Convention in New York City.
• July 16-July 20 - Albert Spaggiari and his gang break into the vault of the Societe Generale Bank in Nice, France.
• July 17 - The 1976 Summer Olympics begin in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
• July 17 - East Timor is declared the 27th province of Indonesia.
• July 19 - Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
• July 20 - Viking program: The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
• July 21 - A bomb kills Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British ambassador to the Irish Republic.
• July 26 - In Los Angeles, Ronald Reagan announces his choice of liberal U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker as his vice presidential running mate, in an effort to woo moderate Republican delegates away from President Gerald Ford.
• July 27 - The United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Uganda.
• July 28 - The Tangshan earthquake flattens Tangshan,China, killing 242,769 people, and injuring 164,851.
• July 29 - In New York City, the "Son of Sam" pulls a gun from a paper bag, killing 1 and seriously wounding another, in the first of a series of attacks that terrorize the city for the next year.
• July 30 - In Santiago, Chile, Cruzeiro from Brazil beats River Plate from Argentina and are the Copa Libertadores de América champions.
• July 31 - NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1.

August

• August 1 - The Ca