Top News Stories from 1978
World Events
World Statistics
Population: 4.378 billion
population by decade Nobel Peace Prize: Menachem Begin (Israel) and Anwar el-Sadat (Egypt)
More World Statistics... - Rhodesia's Prime Minister Ian D. Smith and three black leaders agree on transfer to black majority rule (Feb. 15).
- US Senate approves Panama Canal neutrality treaty (March 16); votes treaty to turn canal over to Panama by year 2000 (April 18).
- Former Italian Premier Aldo Moro kidnapped by left wing terrorists, who kill five bodyguards (March 16); he is found slain (May 9).
- Pope Paul VI, dead at 80, mourned (Aug. 6); new Pope, John Paul I, 65, dies unexpectedly after 34 days in office (Sept. 28); succeeded by Karol Cardinal Wojtyla of Poland as John Paul II (Oct. 16).
- "Framework for Peace" in Middle East signed by Egypt's President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin after 13-day conference at Camp David led by President Jimmy Carter (Sept. 17).
- Jim Jones's followers commit mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana (Nov. 18).
U.S. Events
U.S. Statistics
President: James Earl Carter, Jr.
Vice President: Walter F. Mondale
Population: 222,584,545
Life expectancy: 73.5 years
Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000): 51.4
Property Crime Rate (per 1,000) 46.4
More U.S. Statistics... - President Carter chooses Federal Appeals Court Judge William H. Webster as F.B.I. director (Jan. 19).
- US Supreme Court in Bakke case, bars quota systems in college admissions but affirms constitutionality of programs giving advantage to minorities (June 28).
Economics
US GDP (1998 dollars): $2,291.40 billion
Federal spending: $458.75 billion
Federal debt $776.6 billion
Consumer Price Index: $65.2
Unemployment: 6.1%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.13 ($0.15 as of 5/29/78)
Sports
Super Bowl
Dallas d. DenverWorld Series
NY Yankees d. LA DodgersNBA Championship
Washington Bullets d. SeattleStanley Cup
Montreal d. BostonWimbledon
Women: Martina Navratilova d. C. Evert (2-6 6-4 7-5)Men: Bjorn Borg d. J. Connors (6-2 6-2 6-3)
Kentucky Derby Champion
AffirmedNCAA Basketball Championship
Kentucky d. DukeNCAA Football Champions
Alabama (AP, FW, NFF) (11-1-0) & USC (UPI) (12-1-0)World Cup
Argentina d. HollandEntertainment
Entertainment Awards
Pulitzer Prizes Fiction:
Elbow Room, James Alan McPherson
Music: Déjà Vu for Percussion Quartet and Orchestra, Michael Colgrass
Drama: The Gin Game, Donald L. Coburn
Academy Award, Best Picture: Annie Hall, Charles H. Joffe, producer (United Artists)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Isaac Bashevis Singer (US)
Record of the Year: "Hotel California," Eagles
Album of the Year: Rumours, Fleetwood Mac (Warner Bros.)
Song of the Year: "Love Theme From A Star Is Born" (Evergreen), Barbra Streisand and Paul Williams, songwriters
Miss America: Susan Perkins (OH)
More Entertainment Awards... Events
- Sony introduces the Walkman, the first portable stereo.
Movies
- The Deer Hunter, Midnight Express, Heaven Can Wait, Coming Home
Books
- Maya Angelou, And Still I Rise
- John Cheever, The Stories of John Cheever
- Barry Hannah, Airships
- John Irving, The World According to Garp
- Peter Mathiessen, The Snow Leopard
- Richard Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
- Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language
- Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Peter Mitchell (UK), for contributions to the understanding of biological energy transfer
Physics: Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson (both US), for work in cosmic microwave radiation; Piotr L. Kapitsa (USSR), for basic inventions and discoveries in low-temperature physics
Physiology or Medicine: Daniel Nathans, Hamilton Smith (both US), and Werner Arber (Switzerland), for discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics
More Nobel Prizes in 1998... - Three Albuquerque, NM, men, Ben Abruzzo, Larry Newman, and Maxie Anderson, make the first successful transatlantic balloon flight in the helium-filled Double Eagle II. Background: Famous Firsts in Aviation
- Balloon anigoplasty is developed to treat coronary artery disease. Background: Health & Nutrition
- Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, is born at Oldham Hostpital in London. Background: reproduction
- Recombinant DNA techniques are used to produce human insulin. Background: genetic engineering
- A fusion reaction in a reactor at Princeton reaches 60 million degrees Fahrenheit for 1/20 of a second. Background: nuclear energy
