Varig Flight 967 disappeared thirty minutes after taking off from Tokyo.
Robert Williams became the first recorded person to be killed by a robot in the US.
The Shah of Iran flees the country.
US President Jimmy Carter expressed his support for Martin Luther King's birthday to become a national holiday.
The Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia is overthrown.
After forty years as a fascist nation, Spain transitioned to a democratic government.
John Wayne Gacy was arrested.
United States announces that it will recognize communist China.
Dianne Feinstein became the first female mayor of San Francisco.
San Francisco leaders George Moscone and Harvey Milk are murdered.
Mass suicide at Jonestown.
The Caribbean island nation of Dominica gained its independence from the United Kingdom.
People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South) adopts.
Polish Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła became the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523 as Pope John Paul II.
A $1 coin was approved by the US Congress, featuring women's suffrage activist Susan B. Anthony.
Camp David Accords are signed.
An earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter Scale rocks the city of Tabas in Iran.
Janet Parker became the last person to die of smallpox in Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Georgi Markov is murdered.
The zombie horror movie 'Dawn of the Dead' premiered in Turin, Italy.
Sigmund Jähn becomes 1st German in space.
A fire at the Rex Cinema in Abadan, Iran, kills over 400 people.
Three Americans made the first successful Atlantic Ocean crossing by hot air balloon.
Queen Elizabeth II opened the 11th Commonwealth Games held in Edmonton, Canada.
The rainbow flag was flown for the first time at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade.
United States Naval Observatory astronomer James Christy discovered Pluto's largest moon.
American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed his first victim, Steven Mark Hicks.
The US Commerce Department decided that hurricane names would no longer be only female.
Margaret A Brewer became the first female general in the US Marine Corps.
Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler climb Mount Everest without oxygen supply.
The first-ever 'spam' email was sent out to every ARPANET address on the US west coast.
Naomi Uemura becomes of the first person to reach the North Pole alone.
Mohammed Daoud Khan, the President of Afghanistan, was assassinated in a coup.
Soviet air defense shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 902.
Mir Akbar Khyber's assassination triggers a communist coup in Afghanistan.
Demonstrations broke out in Tbilisi, Georgia, after attempts by the USSR to repress the Georgian language.
Karl Wallenda of The Flying Wallendas died after falling off a tightrope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The first episode of the radio comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is broadcast.
China lifted the country's ban on literature by Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Dickens.
A B747 plane by Air India flying from Bombay, India to Dubai, UAE, crashed with no survivors.
Ted Bundy escaped from jail.
The first spacewalk was made by the Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Grechko during Salyut 6 EO-1 mission.
South Africa grants Bophuthatswana independence.
Egypt breaks all relations with Arab countries.
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat visits Israel.
Runners run the first Chicago Marathon.
The US spacecraft, Voyager, took the first-ever photograph of the moon and Earth together from space.
Hamida Djandoubi, the 'Pimp Killer,' was the last person executed by guillotine in France.
U.S. agrees to transfer Panama Canal to Panama.
The Voyager 1 Space Probe was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
