March 1978

1978

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March 16, 1978: Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro kidnapped by Italy's Red Brigades terrorist organization

The following events occurred in March 1978:

March 1, 1978 (Wednesday)

• Charlie Chaplin's remains were stolen from Corsier-sur-Vevey in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.
• Continental Airlines Flight 603, an American DC-10 airliner, crashed while attempting to take off from Los Angeles International Airport, killing two people and injuring 84 others, including 11 firefighters. All but two of the 183 people on board were able to escape the aircraft. The airplane was accelerating on the runway when it blew two tires and then tilted on to one wing, whose fuel tanks were ruptured. The two who died disregarded warnings and went out of the left side emergency exit and into a fire.
• Born:
  • Liya Kebede, Ethiopian-born supermodel and clothing designer, as well as the World Health Organization's Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health; in Addis Ababa
  • Jensen Ackles, American TV actor known for Supernatural; in Dallas
• Died: Paul Scott, British novelist known for his tetralogy The Raj Quartet; in London

March 2, 1978 (Thursday)

• Soyuz 28 was launched from the Soviet Union to link up with the orbiting space station to dock with rendezvous with Salyut 6. The flight was the first to carry a space traveler from a nation other than the U.S. or the Soviet Union. As the first cosmonaut trained through the Interkosmos program, Czechoslovakian Vladimír Remek was launched along with Aleksei Gubarev.
• By a vote of 3 to 2, the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals ruled that a life form could be created (in the court's words) "by what is sometimes referred to as 'genetic engineering'." The form at question was a bacterium created by the General Electric company to consume petroleum, and to be used in cleaning up oil spills.
• Born:
  • Tomáš Kaberle, Czech ice hockey player in the National Hockey League and the Czech Extraliga, as well as for the national team; in Rakovník, Czechoslovakia
  • Sebastian Janikowski, Polish-born American NFL football kicker; in Wałbrzych

March 3, 1978 (Friday)

• Ethiopia admitted that its troops were being assisted by soldiers from Cuba in the war against Somalia's Army in the Ogaden.
• Rhodesia attacked Zambia.
• Rhodesia's white prime minister, Ian Smith, signed an agreement with three moderate black leaders (Abel Muzorewa, Ndabaningi Sithole and Jeremiah Chirau) for a transitional government that would lead the southern African nation to majority black rule as Zimbabwe by the end of the year.
• The New York Post published an article about David Rorvik's book In His Image: The Cloning of Man, about a supposed cloning of a human being. Rorvik claimed that in 1975, scientists had created a human baby from a single cell and that the child, born in December 1976, "was paid for by a millionaire who wanted an exact duplicate of himself." The book came to light when it was advertised in Publisher's Weekly by the J. B. Lipincott company. At the time of the announcement, cloning of animals had been limited to frogs and sea urchins, but an attempt to clone a mammal (in that instance, a rabbit) had been unsuccessful. Dr. Bernard Talbot of the National Institutes of Health told reporters, "All scientific data we have would make it seem very, very unlikely. It is very, very probable that it is a hoax."
• Born: Tanishaa Mukerji, Indian film actress known for Code Name Abdul; in Bombay (Mumbai)

March 3, 1978 (Friday)

• In Venezuela, all 47 people aboard an LAV (Linea Aeropostal Venezolana) airliner were killed when the aircraft plunged into the Caribbean Sea shortly after takeoff from Caracas on a flight to Cumana.
• Surgeons in Columbus, Ohio successfully separated a pair of conjoined twins who had been joined at the abdomen. The two boys shared a liver, a thoracic diaphragm and a pericardium, but each had his own heart, lungs, kidneys and circulatory system.
• Ethiopia admitted that its troops were being assisted by soldiers from Cuba in the war against Somalia's Army in the Ogaden.
• Born: Tanishaa Mukerji, Indian film actress known for Code Name Abdul; in Bombay (Mumbai)

March 4, 1978 (Saturday)

• Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Romanenko and Georgy Grechko broke the old record for longest time in outer space as they marked their 85th day in orbit on the Salyut 6 space station. The previous record, set in 1974 by the crew of Skylab 3 had been 84 days, one hour and 16 minutes, set by U.S. astronauts Gerald P. Carr, Edward G. Gibson and William R. Pogue. Romanenko had been in space since December 10 when Soyuz 28 was launched.
• The Chicago Daily News, an afternoon newspaper that had published in Chicago since 1876, printed its last issue.
• Born: Denis Dallan, Italian rugby union footballer with 42 caps for the Italy national team; in Asolo, province of Treviso
• Died:
  • Wesley Bolin, 68, who had been sworn in as Governor of Arizona on October 20, died of a heart attack.
  • Robert W. Prescott, 64, American businessman who had been a flying ace during World War II and then founded the Flying Tiger Line air cargo carrier.

March 5, 1978 (Sunday)

• Delegates to the 5th National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China adopted the nation's third Constitution, replacing the 1975 Constitution. The People's Congress also re-elected Hua Guofeng as Premier and leader of the Communist Party.
• Voting was held in Guatemala for the President and for the 61-member Congreso de la República. Three candidates ran for President, none of whom received a majority of the popular vote. General Fernando Lucas Garcia had a plurality of 40%, followed by 34% for a former president, Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, who led a coup d'etat in 1963 and served until the 1966 election. The two parties supporting General Lucas Garcia— the Partido Institucional Democrático and the Partido Revolucionario— won 31 of the 61 seats of the Congreso. The Congreso elected Lucas Garcia as President, giving him 35 of the 60 votes, while the other 25 legislators cast blank votes.
• The Battle of Jijiga ended with a victory by Ethiopia, which had recently obtained aid from the Soviet Union, over Somalia in the Ogaden War after almost six months of fighting. The loss at Jijiga effectively ended the war between the two north African nations.

March 6, 1978 (Monday)

• U.S. President Jimmy Carter invoked the Taft–Hartley Act to force an end to the United Mine Workers Association (UMWA) strike that had been going on for three months during winter. In invoking the act (which provided for federal courts forcing workers to return to the job pending negotiations) for the first time since 1971, Carter said "My responsibility is to protect the health and safety of the American public and I intend to do so," adding that "the country cannot afford to wait any longer."
• Troops from the white minority-ruled nation of Rhodesia crossed the Zambesi River to invade Zambia. The Rhodesians killed 38 Zimbabwean nationalist guerrillas and lost one member.
• Larry Flynt, the publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler, was shot by a sniper and left paralyzed from the waist down while outside the courthouse in Lawrenceville, Georgia. The attempted killing was later traced to white supremacist and domestic terrorist Joseph Paul Franklin, who was responsible for at least 21 murders, and would say later that he was angered by photographs in Hustler depicting sexual intercourse between a black man and a white woman.
• The crash of a helicopter in Libya killed all 11 people aboard, including members of a delegation from East Germany who were negotiating a trade agreement with the North African nation. The dead included Werner Lamberz and Paul Markowski, members of East Germany's parliament, the Volkskammer and the Communist Party's Central Committee, with official photographer Hans-Joachim Spremberg and the Libyan Minister of Transport, Taha El Sherif Ben Amer. Lamberz, referred to by one newspaper as "Honecker's Crown Prince" (Honeckers Kronprinzen), was a trusted aide of East Germany's leader Erich Honecker and a possible successor to the Communist Party leader.
• The U.S. state of Wyoming became the first state in more than 104 years, and the ninth overall, to ratify the proposed Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. The text declared that "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened," and was passed in Wyoming initially as a protest against the members of the U.S. Congress voting to increase the amount of their own salaries. The proposed amendment had been introduced in 1789 and ratified by seven of the then 15 U.S. states by 1792, short of the necessary 12 required for a three-fourths majority. After almost 80 years, Ohio became the eighth state to ratify. Following Wyoming's ratification, the number of states following the Wyoming example began increasing in 1983, and the amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on May 7, 1992, more than 200 years after it was introduced.
• Born: Nate Walcott, American film score composer; in Albany, New York
• Died: Micheál Mac Liammóir (born Alfred Lee Willmore), 78, English-born Irish stage actor and playwright, known for writing and acting in the one-man show The Importance of Being Oscar.

March 7, 1978 (Tuesday)

• The Congress of Guatemala elected General Fernando Lucas Garcia as President after no candidate received a majority in the election on March 5. Lucas Garcia took office on July 1.
• Belgian businessman Charles Bracht was kidnapped as he was getting into his car in a parking garage in Antwerp. His body would be found on April 10 in a garbage dump and the autopsy coroner's conclusion would be that Bracht died of injuries sustained while he was trying to resist the kidnappers.
• The pay television cable network Showtime, which had started operations in a limited region of Southern California on July 1, 1976, became available to cable providers and subscribers across the United States, and a rival to the existing Home Box Office (HBO).
• Died: David Lindsay, 71, New Zealand rugby union player for All Blacks national team in its 1928 tour of South Africa

March 8, 1978 (Wednesday)

• An agreement was reached in Italy to form a new government after Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti's cabinet of ministers resigned because the Italian Communist Party (PCI) would no longer agree to abstain from voting against Andreotti's Christian Democrat (DC) ministers. Although the PCI did not succeed in its demand to have Communist Party MPs to be given cabinet positions, the PCI and the DC reached an agreement that the Communists would be able to participate in the forming of government policy.
• The first radio episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, was broadcast, heard on BBC Radio 4.

March 9, 1978 (Thursday)

• The sinking of the Chinese ship Guangzhou killed 134 sailors and officers in the Chinese navy. The tragedy in the Zhanjiang harbor followed an explosion of depth charges in the Guangzhou's arsenal, more than two hours earlier, caused by Lieutnenant Lai Sanyang, an ordnance expert who been dismissed from the Chinese Navy.
• Somalia's President, Major General Mohammed Siad Barre, ordered the withdrawal of all Somali troops occupying the disputed Ogaden Region of Ethiopia, bringing an end to the Ogaden War.
• Born: Sachin Gupta, Indian film director and playwright; in New Delhi
• Died: Sir Reginald Pollard, Australian Lieutenant General who served as Chief of Army for the Australian Army from 1960 to 1963.

March 10, 1978 (Friday)

• The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 was signed into law by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, restricting the export by the U.S. of civil nuclear programs to other nations. The bill had passed the House of Representatives unanimously (411 to 0) on September 28 and by the U.S. Senate, 88 to 3, on February 7.
• D. D. Pugh was inaugurated as the Chief Minister (comparable to the Governor of a U.S. state or Premier of a Canadian Province) of the Indian state of Meghalaya, after being selected at random by the drawing of lots. The unusual method of picking a head of government was made after the February 25 state election for the 60-seat state legislature, where none of the six parties won the necessary 31 seats for a majority. A coalition was formed by the All Party Hill Leaders Conference (APHLC, led by Pugh), the Hill State People's Democratic Party (HSPDP) and the Public Demands Implementation Convention (PDIC).
• Soyuz 28 returned to Earth with cosmonauts Vladimir Remek and Aleksei Gubarev after its 8-day mission to the Salyut 6 space station.

March 11, 1978 (Saturday)

• Palestinian terrorists killed 34 Israelis in the Coastal Road massacre.
• Born:
  • Ha Jung-woo (stage name for Kim Sung-hoon), South Korean film star; in Jamwon-dong near Seoul
  • Didier Drogba, Ivorian footballer with 105 caps for the Ivory Coast national team, and two time winner of the African Footballer of the Year award; in Abidjan
• Died: Claude François, 39, French pop singer and songwriter, was accidentally electrocuted while attempting to change a light bulb.

March 12, 1978 (Sunday)

• Voting was held in El Salvador for the 54 seats of the unicameral Asamblea Legislativa. The National Conciliation Party (Partido de Conciliación Nacional or PCN), led by Carlos Humberto Romero, won 50 of the 54 seats. As with the 1976 election, the other political parties refused to field candidates because of fraudulent voting practices, with the exception of the Salvadoran Popular Party, which won the other four seats.
• Born:
  • Namkoong Min, South Korean TV and film actor; in Seoul
  • Monty Betham (La’auli Montgomery Junior Betham), professional rugby league player and professional boxer, known for playing on the New Zealand Warriors of the National Rugby League and for both the Samoan and New Zealand national teams; in Auckland.
  • Vladimir Arutyunian, Geprgian terrorist who attempted to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in 2005; in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
• Died: Efrain Rivera Castillo, 53, Puerto Rican musician, died of a heart attack while in New York City.

March 13, 1978 (Monday)

• Died: John Cazale, 42, American stage and film actor known for The Deer Hunter and Dog Day Afternoon, died of lung cancer.

March 14, 1978 (Tuesday)

• Israel's defense force invaded Lebanon in Operation Litani, a reprisal for the Coastal Road massacre committed three days earlier.
• Born:
  • Pieter van den Hoogenband, Netherlands Olympic swimmer who held the world record for the 100m freestyle from 2000 to 2008, and won gold medals in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics; in Maastricht
  • Moon Hee-joon, South Korean pop music singer; in Gangnam-gu, Seoul

March 15, 1978 (Wednesday)

• Somalia and Ethiopia signed a truce to end the Ogaden War.

March 16, 1978 (Thursday)

• Former Italian Premier Aldo Moro was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, who killed five of his bodyguards.
• Born: Brooke Burns, American fashion model and game show host; in Dallas

March 17, 1978 (Friday)

• The oil tanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground on the coast of France at Brittany.
• Died: Eddie Aikau, 31, Hawaiian surfer and lifeguard, winner of the 1977 Duke Kahanamoku Invitational Surfing Championship, disappeared at sea after attempting to paddle to the island of Lānaʻi after the capsizing of a canoe.

March 18, 1978 (Saturday)

• Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, was sentenced to death by hanging, for ordering the assassination of a political opponent.
• California Jam II was held at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California, attracting more than 300,000 fans.
• Born: Antonio Margarito, Hispanic U.S. professional boxer, World Boxing Organization welterweight champion 2002 to 2017, WBA welterweight champion 2008 to 2009; in Torrance, California
• Died: Peggy Wood, 86, American stage, film and television actress known for starring in the TV series Mama

March 19, 1978 (Sunday)

• Died: Gaston Julia, 85, French mathematician noted for the Julia set within complex dynamics

March 20, 1978 (Monday)

• Denise McGregor, a 12-year-old girl, was brutally murdered in the Melbourne suburb of Pascoe Vale, Victoria, in one of the most horrifying crimes in Australian history. The case would remain unsolved more than 45 years later.
• What was, at the time, the second most serious safety-related accident at a U.S. nuclear power plant, took place at the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station at Herald, California, near Sacramento. A power supply failure for the plant's non-nuclear instrumentation system led to steam generator dryout, which in turn triggered an automatic reactor shutdown.
• Died: Rafael Alers, 75, Puerto Rican bandleader and composer

March 21, 1978 (Tuesday)

• Born: Rani Mukerji, Indian film actress and winner of eight Filmfare Awards, including two for Best Actress; known for No One Killed Jessica; in Bombay (Mumbai)
• Died: Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh (Carroll O'Daly), 67, President of the Republic of Ireland from 1974 to 1976

March 22, 1978 (Wednesday)

• Karl Wallenda of The Flying Wallendas was killed after falling off a tightrope while walking between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
• Born: Josh Heupel, American college football player and head coach, AP College Football Player of the Year for 2000, winner of the 2000 Walter Camp Award; in Aberdeen, South Dakota
• Died: Isidro Ayora, 98, President of Ecuador from 1926 to 1931

March 23, 1978 (Thursday)

• Born:
  • Perez Hilton (pen name for Mario Lavandeira Jr.), American celebrity columnist; in Miami
  • Nicholle Tom, American film and TV actress; in Hinsdale, Illinois
• Died: André Lallemand, 73, French astronomer known for the "Lallemand camera" and the development of photomultipliers

March 24, 1978 (Friday)

• Born:Tomáš Ujfaluši, Czech Republic footballer with 78 appearances for the national team; in Rýmařov, Czechoslovakia

March 25, 1978 (Saturday)

• All 48 people aboard a Burma Airways flight were killed when the Fokker Friendship 200 turboprop crashed on takeoff from the Rangoon International Airport at Mingaladon.
• UCLA Lady Bruins won the U.S. women's college basketball title, defeating the Maryland Terrapins, 90 to 74, in the tournament held by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) in Los Angeles.
• The NCAA men's ice hockey championship was played in Providence, Rhode Island, with both finalists from the same conference and the same city. The Boston University Terriers defeated the Boston College Eagles, 5 to 3.
• Born: Tomas Brickhill, British-born Zimbabwean filmmaker, known for the 2017 film Cook Off; in London

March 26, 1978 (Sunday)

• The control tower and some other facilities of New Tokyo International Airport, which were scheduled to open on March 31, were illegally occupied and damaged in a terrorist attack by New Left activists, forcing a rescheduling of the airport's opening date to May 20.

March 27, 1978 (Monday)

• Born: Romesh Ranganathan, British comedian; in Crawley, West Sussex

March 28, 1978 (Tuesday)

• San Francisco's City Council enacted the United States's most comprehensive gay rights bill.
• The Supreme Court of the United States handed down a 5–3 decision in Stump v. Sparkman, a controversial case involving involuntary sterilization and judicial immunity.

March 29, 1978 (Wednesday)

• Born: Igor Rakočević, Serbian professional basketball player, three-time winner of the Alphonso Ford EuroLeague Top Scorer Trophy; in Belgrade, SR Serbia, Yugoslavia

March 30, 1978 (Thursday)

• Voters in the West African nation of Ghana participated in a referendum on whether to approve the proposal by the General Ignatius K. Acheampong for "UNIGOV", or "union government", with no political parties at all. The wording of the question was "Do you approve whether or not some form of Union Government would become the basis of Ghana's political system?", and at least 60% of the voters were in favor, and slightly less than 40% against.
• In Sri Lanka, the popular Tamil language film Vaadai Kaatru ("North Wind") was released.

March 31, 1978 (Friday)

• Died: Astrid Allwyn, 72, American stage and film actress