January
1st	1st The Copyright Act of 1976 takes effect, making sweeping changes to United States copyright law
1st	Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes into the ocean near Bombay, killing 213
4th	A referendum in Chile supports the policies of Augusto Pinochet
6th	The Hungarian Holy Crown (also known as Stephen of Hungary Crown) is returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held since World War II
7th	Emilio Palma is born in Antarctica, making his birth the southernmost in history
10th	Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, a critic of the Nicaraguan government, is assassinated. Riots erupt against Somoza's government
18th	The European Court of Human Rights finds the United Kingdom government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture
19th	Federal Appeals Court Judge William H. Webster is appointed FBI Director
22nd	Ethiopia declares the ambassador of West Germany Persona non grata
24th	Soviet satellite Cosmos 954 burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering debris over Canada's Northwest Territories
24th	Rose Dugdale and Eddie Gallagher become the first convicted prisoners to marry in prison in the history of the Republic of Ireland
28th	Richard Chase, the "Vampire of Sacramento", is arrested
30th	Blizzards in the USA kill 90

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February
1st	A bomb explodes outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two garbagemen, a policeman and several others
1st	Hollywood film director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees to France, after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl
6th	Akyab, Arakan, The King Dragon operation in Arakan begins in the village of Sakkipara
8th	United States Senate proceedings are broadcast on radio for the first time
11th	Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314, a Boeing 737-200, crashes in Cranbrook, British Columbia, killing 44 of the 50 people onboard
11th	The People's Republic of China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens
15th	Rhodesia's prime minister Ian Smith and 3 black leaders agree on the transfer to black majority rule
15th	Serial killer Ted Bundy is captured in Pensacola, Florida
16th	The Hillside Strangler, a serial killer prowling Los Angeles, claims a tenth and final victim
16th	The first computer bulletin board system (CBBS) is created in Chicago
21st	Electrical workers in Mexico City find the remains of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in the middle of the city

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March
1st	Charlie Chaplin's remains are stolen from Cosier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland
2nd	Soyuz 28 (Aleksei Gubarev, Vladimir Remek) is launched on a rendezvous with Salyut 6, with the first cosmonaut from a Soviet satellite (Remek)
3rd	Ethiopia admits that its troops are fighting with the aid of Cuban soldiers against Somalian troops in Ogaden
3rd	Rhodesia attacks Zambia
6th	American porn publisher Larry Flynt is shot and paralyzed in Lawrenceville, Georgia
11th	Palestinian terrorists kill 34 Israelis
14th	Israeli forces invade Lebanon in Operation Litani
16th	Former Italian Premier Aldo Moro is kidnapped by the Red Brigades; 5 bodyguards are killed
17th	The oil tanker Amoco Cadiz runs aground on the coast of Brittany
18th	Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, is sentenced to death by hanging for ordering the assassination of a political opponent
22nd	Karl Wallenda of the Flying Wallendas dies after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico
24th	The tanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two off Brittany, spilling 50,000 metric tons of crude oil

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April
1st	Dick Smith of Dick Smith Foods tows a fake iceberg to Sydney Harbour
3rd	The 50th Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California with Annie Hall winning Best Picture
7th	U.S. President Jimmy Carter decides to postpone production of the neutron bomb - a weapon which kills people with radiation but leaves buildings relatively intact
8th	Regular radio broadcasts of British Parliament proceedings start
9th	Somali military officers stage an unsuccessful coup against the government of Siad Barre; security forces thwart the attempt within hours, and several conspirators are arrested
14th	Thousands of Georgians demonstrate against the attempt by the Soviet authorities to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language
16th	In Cologne, 15,000 former members of the resistance movement demonstrate against Nazism
18th	The U.S. Senate votes 68-32 to turn the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control on December 31, 1999
22nd	Izhar Cohen & the Alphabeta win the Eurovision Song Contest 1978 for Israel with their song "A-Ba-Ni-Bi"
22nd	The One Love Peace Concert is held at National Heroes Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. Bob Marley unites 2 opposing political leaders at this concert, bringing peace to the civil war ridden streets of the city
25th	St. Paul, Minnesota becomes 2nd US city to repeal its gay rights ordinance after Anita Bryant's successful 1977 anti-gay campaign in Dade County, Florida
27th	Afghanistan President Daoud Khan is killed during a military coup; Nur Mohammed Taraki succeeds him
30th	The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan is proclaimed, under pro-communist leader Nur Mohammed Taraki

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May
4th	Battle of Cassinga occurs in southern Angola
4th	Communist activist Henri Curiel is murdered in Paris
8th	Norway opens a natural gas field in the Polar Sea
9th	In Rome, the body of Aldo Moro, the Italian president of the Christian Democrats, is found in a parked car
10th	Ipswich Town won The FA cup
12th	A group of mercenaries lead by Bob Denard oust Ali Soilih in the Comoros; 10 local soldiers are killed. Denard forms a new government
12th	In Zaire, rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, the mining centre of the province of Shaba. The Zairean government asks the U.S., France and Belgium to restore order
15th	Students of the University of Tehran riot in Tabriz; the army stops the riot
17th	Charles Chaplin's coffin is found 10 miles from the cemetery it was stolen from, near Lake Geneva
18th	Soviet dissident Yuri Orlov is sentenced to 7 years hard labor for distributing counterrevolutionary material
18th	Belgian and French paratroopers fly to Zaire to aid the fight against the rebels
20th	Mavis Hutchinson, 53, becomes the first woman to run across the U.S.; her trek took 69 days
22nd	Exiled leaders Ahmed Abdallah and Mohammed Ahmed return to the Comoros
25th	A bomb explodes in the security section of Northwestern University, wounding a security guard (the first Unabomber attack)
26th	In Atlantic City, New Jersey, Resorts International, the first legal casino in the eastern United States, opens
29th	Ali Soilih is found dead in the Comoros, allegedly shot when trying to escape

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June
1st	The football World Cup finals begin in Argentina
8th	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints extends the priesthood and temple blessings to “all worthy males,” ending a general policy of excluding Canaanites from Priesthood ordination and temple ordinances (see Blacks and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
12th	Serial killer David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam," is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison
15th	King Hussein of Jordan marries 26-year-old Lisa Halaby
19th	Cricketer Ian Botham becomes the first man in the history of the game to score a century and take eight wickets in one innings of a Test match
20th	A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hits Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city, killing 45 people, injuring hundreds and damaging some of the city's Byzantine landmarks
21st	A shootout between Provisional IRA members and the British Army leaves 1 civilian and 3 IRA men dead
22nd	Charon, a satellite of Pluto, is discovered
23rd	Josip Broz Tito is named Yugoslav president for life
24th	Yemen Arab Republic President Ahmad al-Ghashmi is killed
24th	Gay & Lesbian Solidarity March held in Sydney, Australia to mark 10th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots; Which would become known as the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras the following year and be held annually; later incorporating a festival
25th	Hosts Argentina win the football World Cup, beating Netherlands 3 - 1 in the final
26th	The bombing by Breton nationalists causes destruction in Versailles
28th	U.S. scientific satellite Seasat is launched
30th	Ethiopia begins a massive offensive in Eritrea

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July
7th	The Solomon Islands become independent from the United Kingdom
11th	More than 200 tourists die in an explosion of a tanker-truck at a campsite in Costa Daurada, Spain
25th	Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists are killed in a police ambush

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August
28th	Actor Robert Shaw dies

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September
5th	Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat begin the peace process at Camp David, Maryland
7th	In London, England, a poison filled pellet, supposedly injected using an umbrella, poisons Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov, probably on orders of Bulgarian intelligence; he dies 4 days later
8th	Iranian Army troops open fire on rioters in Teheran - 122 dead, 4,000 wounded
16th	General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq officially assumes the post of President of Pakistan
17th	The Camp David Accords are signed between Israel and Egypt
19th	Police in the West Midlands of England launch a massive murder hunt, when 13 year old newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater is shot dead after disturbing a burglary
25th	PSA Flight 182, a Boeing 727, collides with a small private airplane and crashes in San Diego, California; 144 are killed
25th	Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello makes its first appearance on Live from the Met, in a complete production of the opera starring Jon Vickers. This is the first complete television broadcast of the opera in the U.S. since the historic 1948 one
27th	The last Forest Brother guerilla movement fighter is discovered and killed in Estonia
28th	Pope John Paul I dies after only 33 days of papacy

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October
1st	Vietnam attacks Cambodia
1st	Tuvalu become independent from the United Kingdom
8th	Australia's Ken Warby sets the current world water speed record of 317.60 mph at Blowering Dam, Australia
10th	A massive short circuit in Seasat's electrical system ends the satellite's scientific mission
14th	Daniel arap Moi becomes president of Kenya
16th	Pope John Paul II (Cardinal Karol Wojtyła) succeeds Pope John Paul I as the 264th pope. He is the first Polish pope in history
27th	Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin win the Nobel Peace Prize for their progress toward achieving a Middle East accord

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November
3rd	Dominica gains its independence from the United Kingdom
5th	Rioters sack the British Embassy in Tehran
7th	Indira Gandhi is re-elected to the Indian parliament
7th	California voters defeat the Briggs Initiative that would have prohibitted gay school teachers
18th	In Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claims 918 lives in all, 909 of them at Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is assassinated by members of Peoples Temple shortly beforehand
19th	The first U.S. Take Back the Night march occurs in San Francisco
27th	In San Francisco, California, Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former Supervisor Dan White
30th	Publication of The Times is suspended due to labour problems until November 13, 1979

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December
3rd	The Southern Crescent passenger train derails at Shipman, Virginia, killing six, injuring 60
4th	Dianne Feinstein succeeds the murdered George Moscone as San Francisco, California's first woman mayor (she serves until January 8, 1988)
6th	The Spanish Constitution officially restores the country's democratic government
11th	Two million demonstrate against the Shah in Iran
16th	Train 87 from Nanjing to Xining collision into train 368 from Xi'an to Xuzhou near Yangzhuang railway station in China, killing 106, injuring 218
19th	Former Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi is arrested and jailed for a week for breach of privilege and contempt of parliament
22nd	The pivotal Third Plenum of the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is held in Beijing, with Deng Xiaoping reversing Mao-era policies to pursue a program for Chinese economic reform
22nd	Serial killer John Wayne Gacy finally confesses to his lawyers that he raped and killed 33 boys/men after months of denial to authorities. The confession surprised the entire city of Chicago, as Gacy was a family man that was adored by people all over town
25th	Vietnam launches a major offensive against the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia
27th	The Spanish Constitution is approved in a referendum, officially ending 40 years of military dictatorship