Selected happenings in 1977
January 10 - Ocean Park opens in Hong Kong.
January 18 - Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.
January 19 - 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 24 - Massacre of Atocha during the Spanish transition to democracy.
February 7 - The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 24 (Viktor Gorbatko, Yuri Glazkov) to dock with the Salyut 5 space station.
February 10 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom visits American Samoa.
February 11 - A 20.2-kg (44-lb.-9-oz.) lobster is caught off Nova Scotia (heaviest known crustacean).
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 15 - The television show Three's Company debuts on ABC.
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 1 - Hay-on-Wye declares independence.
April 7 - The Toronto Blue Jays play their first-ever game of baseball against the Chicago White Sox.
April 22 - First use of optical fiber to carry live telephone traffic.
May 3 - HMS Invincible is launched at Barrow-in-Furness by Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
May 17 - The Likud Party, led by Menachem Begin, wins the elections in Israel.
May 23 - Scientists report using bacteria in a lab to make insulin.
May 25 - Star Wars opens in cinemas (later renamed Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) and becomes a blockbuster hit.
June 5 - A coup takes place in Seychelles.
June 5 - The first Apple II computers go on sale.
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 15 - Spain has its first democratic elections, after 41 years under the Franco regime.
June 20 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules that states are not required to spend Medicaid funds on elective abortions.
June 20 - Anglia Television broadcasts the fake documentary "Alternative 3", which enters into the conspiracy theory canon.
June 26 - Some 200,000 protesters march through the streets of San Francisco, protesting Anita Bryant's anti-gay remarks and Robert Hillsborough's murder.
July 5 - General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq overthrows Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the very first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.
July 13 - The New York City Blackout of 1977 lasts for 25 hours, resulting in looting and other disorder.
July 22 - The purged Chinese Communist leader Deng Xiaoping is restored to power as the "Gang of Four" is expelled from the Communist Party of China.
July 28 - The first oil through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System reaches Valdez, Alaska.
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 makes its first test flight off the back of a jetliner.
August 15 - The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by The 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 - Music icon Elvis Presley dies in Memphis, Tennessee.
August 20 - Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
September 3 - The Commodore PET computer is first sold.
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 8 - INTERPOL issues a resolution against the piracy of video tapes and other material, which is still cited in warnings on opening pre-credits of videocassettes and DVDs today.
September 11 - The last "wild" smallpox infection is reported in Somalia.
September 12 - South African Activist Steven Biko was brutely murdered by South African secret police
September 21 - A nuclear non-proliferation pact is signed by 15 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union.
October 26 - The last natural smallpox case is discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination and, by extension, of modern science.
November 19 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel.
November 22 - British Airways inaugurates regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.
December 1 - First flight of Lockheed's top-secret stealth aircraft project designated Have Blue, precursor to the U.S. F-117A Nighthawk.
December 4 - Jean-B�del Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic, crowns himself Emperor.
Selected Deaths
January 14 - Peter Finch, English-born actor (b. 1916)
May 10 - Joan Crawford, American actress (b. 1905)
June 16 - Werner von Braun, German-born rocket scientist (b. 1912)
August 16 - Elvis Presley, American singer and actor (b. 1935)
August 19 - Groucho Marx, American actor and comedian (b. 1890)
This info from Wikipedia, unverified
