Top News Stories from 1978

World Events

World Statistics

Population: 4.378 billion

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

Median Household Income(current dollars): $15,064 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

Sports Links

Pro Football Summary

Pro Basketball Summary

Pro Baseball Summary

Super Bowl

Dallas d. Denver

World Series

NY Yankees d. LA Dodgers

NBA Championship

Washington Bullets d. Seattle

Stanley Cup

Montreal d. Boston

Wimbledon

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

Affirmed

NCAA Basketball Championship

Kentucky d. Duke

NCAA Football Champions

Alabama (AP, FW, NFF) (11-1-0) & USC (UPI) (12-1-0)

World Cup

Argentina d. Holland

Entertainment

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)

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

Death

• Hubert Humphrey
• Anastus Mikoyan
• Norman Rockwell