1976
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| Millennium: | 2nd millennium |
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| Centuries: | 19th century – 20th century – 21st century |
| Decades: | 1940s 1950s 1960s – 1970s – 1980s 1990s 2000s |
| Years: | 1973 1974 1975 – 1976 – 1977 1978 1979 |
| 1976 by topic: |
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| By country |
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| Leaders |
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| Birth and death categories |
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| Establishments and disestablishments categories |
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| Gregorian calendar | 1976 MCMLXXVI |
| Ab urbe condita | 2729 |
| Armenian calendar | 1425 ԹՎ ՌՆԻԵ |
| Assyrian calendar | 6726 |
| Bahá'í calendar | 132–133 |
| Bengali calendar | 1383 |
| Berber calendar | 2926 |
| British Regnal year | 24 Eliz. 2 – 25 Eliz. 2 |
| Buddhist calendar | 2520 |
| Burmese calendar | 1338 |
| Byzantine calendar | 7484–7485 |
| Chinese calendar | 乙卯年十二月初一日 (4612/4672-12-1) — to — 丙辰年十一月十一日(4613/4673-11-11) |
| Coptic calendar | 1692–1693 |
| Ethiopian calendar | 1968–1969 |
| Hebrew calendar | 5736–5737 |
| Hindu calendars | |
| - Vikram Samvat | 2032–2033 |
| - Shaka Samvat | 1898–1899 |
| - Kali Yuga | 5077–5078 |
| Holocene calendar | 11976 |
| Igbo calendar | |
| - Ǹrí Ìgbò | 976–977 |
| Iranian calendar | 1354–1355 |
| Islamic calendar | 1395–1397 |
| Japanese calendar | Shōwa 51 (昭和51年) |
| Juche calendar | 65 |
| Julian calendar | Gregorian minus 13 days |
| Korean calendar | 4309 |
| Minguo calendar | ROC 65 民國65年 |
| Thai solar calendar | 2519 |
| Unix time | 189302400–220924799 |
Year 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. It was also the 1976th year of the Common Era, the 976th year of the 2nd millennium, the 76th year of the 20th century, and the 7th year of the 1970s. In Europe the summer of this year was particularly long, warm and dry.
Events
January
- January – The Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, is released by Seymour Cray's Cray Research.
- January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
- January 11 – The 1976 Flyers-Red Army game results in a 4-1 victory for the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers over HC CSKA Moscow of the Soviet Union.
- January 15 – Would-be Gerald Ford presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore is sentenced to life in prison.
- January 16 – The trial against jailed members of the Red Army Faction begins in Stuttgart, West Germany.
- January 18
- Full diplomatic relations are established between Bangladesh and Pakistan 5 years after the Bangladesh Liberation War.
- The Scottish Labour Party is formed.
- January 19 – Jimmy Carter wins the Iowa Democratic Caucus.
- January 21 – The first commercial Concorde flight takes off.
- January 27 – The United States vetoes a United Nations resolution that calls for an independent Palestinian state.
- The First Battle of Amgala breaks out between Morocco and Algeria in the Spanish Sahara
- January 29 – Twelve Provisional Irish Republican Army bombs explode in the West End of London.
- January 30 – Live from Lincoln Centre debuts on PBS.
February
- February 4
- February 5 – Nearly 2,000 students become involved in a racially charged riot at Escambia High School in Pensacola, Florida; 30 students are injured in the 4-hour fray.
- February 9 – The Australian Defence Force is formed by unification of the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force.
- February 11 – Clifford Alexander Jr. is confirmed as the first African-American Secretary of the United States Army.
- February 13 – General Murtala Mohammed of Nigeria is assassinated in a military coup.
- February 15 – The 1976 Constitution of Cuba is adopted by national referendum.
- February 24 – Cuba's current constitution is enacted.
- February 26 – The Spanish Armed Forces withdraw from Western Sahara.
- February 27 – The Polisario Front, Western Sahara's national liberation movement, declares independence of the territory under the name " Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic".
- February 28 - Madagascar becomes the first country to recognise the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
March
- March 1
- U.K. Home Secretary Merlyn Rees ends Special Category Status for those sentenced for scheduled terrorist crimes relating to the civil violence in Northern Ireland.
- Burundi recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
- March 2 – Vietnam recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
- March 4
- The Maguire Seven are found guilty of possessing explosives and subsequently jailed for 14 years.
- The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland, resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London via the British Parliament.
- March 6 – Algeria recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
- March 9 – A cable-car disaster in Cavalese, Italy leaves 42 dead.
- March 9– March 11 – Two coal mine explosions claim 26 lives at the Blue Diamond Coal Co. Scotia Mine in Letcher County, Kentucky.
- March 11 – Angola and Benin recognize the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
- March 13 – Mozambique recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
- March 14 – After eight years on NBC, The Wizard of Oz returns to CBS, where it will remain for the next twenty-two years, setting what was likely then a record for the most telecasts of a Hollywood film on a commercial television network. That record will finally be broken by The Ten Commandments, which began its annual network telecasts on ABC in 1973 and is still (2012) telecast by that network.
- March 15 – Guinea Bissau recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
- March 16
- Harold Wilson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- North Korea recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
- March 17
- Rubin "Hurricane" Carter is retried in New Jersey.
- Togo recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
- March 20 – Patty Hearst is found guilty of armed robbery of a San Francisco bank.
- March 24
- Argentina military forces depose president Isabel Peron.
- A general strike takes place in the People's Republic of Congo.
- March 26 – The Toronto Blue Jays are created.
- March 27 – The first 4.6 miles of the Washington Metro subway system opens.
- March 29 – The military dictatorship of General Jorge Videla comes to power in Argentina.
- March 31 – The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that coma patient Karen Ann Quinlan can be disconnected from her ventilator. She remains comatose and dies in 1985.
April
- April 1
- Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
- Conrail (Consolidated Rails Corporation) is formed by the U.S. government, to take control of 13 major Northeast Class-1 railroads that had filed for bankruptcy protection. Conrail takes control at midnight, as a government-owned and operated railroad until 1986, when it is sold to the public.
- The Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect is first reported by astronomer Patrick Moore.
- Rwanda recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
- April 2 – Norodom Sihanouk is forced to resign as Head of State of Kampuchea by the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot and is placed under house arrest.
- April 3 – The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 is won by Brotherhood of Man, representing the United Kingdom, with their song Save Your Kisses for Me.
- April 5
- James Callaghan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- Tiananmen Incident: Large crowds lay wreaths at Beijing's Monument of the Martyrs to commemorate the death of Premier Zhou Enlai. Poems against the Gang of Four are also displayed, provoking a police crackdown.
- April 13
- An explosion in an ammunition factory in Lapua, Finland kills 40.
- The United States Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson's 233rd birthday as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.
- April 16 – As a measure to curb population growth, the minimum age for marriage in India is raised to 21 years for men and 18 years for women.
- April 21 – The Great Bookie Robbery in Melbourne: Bandits steal A$1.4 million in bookmakers' settlements from Queen Street, Melbourne.
- April 23 – The punk rock group The Ramones release their first self-titled album.
- April 25 – Portugal's new constitution is enacted.
May
- May 1 – Neville Wran becomes Premier of New South Wales.
- May 4
- The first LAGEOS (Laser Geodynamics Satellite) is launched.
- A train crash in Schiedam, the Netherlands, kills 24 people.
- May 6 – An earthquake hits the Friuli area in Italy, killing more than 900 people and making another 100,000 homeless.
- May 9 – Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction is found hanged in an apparent suicide, in her Stuttgart-Stammheim prison cell.
- May 11
- U.S. President Gerald Ford signs the Federal Election Campaign Act.
- An accident involving a tanker truck carrying anhydrous ammonia takes place in Houston, Texas, resulting in the deaths of 7 people.
- May 21 - Yuba City bus disaster, the worst bus crash in U.S. history with 28 students and one teacher killed.
- May 24 – Washington, D.C. Concorde service begins.
- May 25 – U.S. President Gerald Ford defeats challenger Ronald Reagan in 3 Republican presidential primaries: Kentucky, Tennessee and Oregon.
- May 30 – Indianapolis 500-Mile Race: Johnny Rutherford wins the (rain-shortened) shortest race in event history to date, at 102 laps or 255 miles (408 km).
- May 31 – Syria intervenes in the Lebanese Civil War in opposition to the Palestine Liberation Organization, whom it had previously supported.
June
- June 1 – The UK and Iceland end the Cod War.
- June 2 – A car bomb fatally injures Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles.
- June 4 – The Boston Celtics defeat the Phoenix Suns 128-126 in triple overtime in Game 5 of the NBA Finals at the Boston Garden. In 1997, the game is selected by a panel of experts as the greatest of the NBA's first 50 years.
- June 5 – The Teton Dam collapses in southeast Idaho in the U.S., killing 11 people.
- June 6 - The Double Six Tragedy, a plane crash in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, kills everyone on board, including Sabahan Chief Minister Tun Fuad Stephens.
- June 13 – Savage thunderstorms roll through the state of Iowa spawning several tornadoes, including an F-5 tornado that destroys the town of Jordan, Iowa.
- June 14 – The trial begins at Oxford Crown Court of Donald Neilson, the killer known as the Black Panther.
- June 16 – The Soweto riots in South Africa begin.
- June 17 – The National Basketball Association and the American Basketball Association agree on the ABA-NBA merger.
- June 20
- June 25 – Strikes start in Poland ( Ursus, Radom, Płock) after communists raise food prices; they end on June 30.
- June 26 – The CN Tower is built in Toronto; the tallest free-standing land structure opens to the public.
- June 27
- G-6 renamed “ Group of 7” (G-7).
- Palestinian extremists hijack an Air France plane in Greece with 246 passengers and 12 crew. They take it to Entebbe, Uganda.
- June 29 – Seychelles gains independence from the United Kingdom.
July
- July 2 – North Vietnam and South Vietnam unite to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
- July 3 – Gregg v. Georgia: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment.
- July 3 – The great heat wave in the United Kingdom, which is currently suffering from drought conditions, reaches its peak.
- July 4
- United States Bicentennial: From coast to coast, the United States celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
- Entebbe Raid: Israeli airborne commandos free 103 hostages being held by Palestinian hijackers of an Air France plane at Uganda's Entebbe Airport; 1 Israeli soldier and several Ugandan soldiers are killed in the raid.
- July 6 – The first class of women is inducted at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.
- July 7
- German left-wing terrorists Monika Berberich, Gabriella Rollnick, Juliane Plambeck and Inge Viett escape from the Lehrter Straße maximum security prison in West Berlin.
- David Steel becomes leader of the UK's Liberal Party in the aftermath of the scandal which forced out Jeremy Thorpe.
- July 10
- July 12 – Barbara Jordan is the first black person to keynote a political convention.
- July 15 – Jimmy Carter is nominated for U.S. President at the Democratic National Convention in New York City.
- July 16– July 20 – Albert Spaggiari and his gang break into the vault of the Societe Generale Bank in Nice, France.
- July 17
- The 1976 Summer Olympics begin in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
- East Timor is declared the 27th province of Indonesia.
- July 18 – Nadia Comăneci earns the first of 7 perfect scores of 10 at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
- July 19 – Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
- July 20 – Viking program: The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
- July 21 – A bomb kills Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British ambassador to the Irish Republic.
- July 26 – In Los Angeles, Ronald Reagan announces his choice of liberal U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker as his vice presidential running mate, in an effort to woo moderate Republican delegates away from President Gerald Ford.
- July 27
- The United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Uganda.
- Delegates attending an American Legion convention at The Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, begin falling ill with a form of pneumonia: this will eventually be recognised as the first outbreak of Legionnaires' disease and will end in the deaths of 29 attendees.
- July 28 – The Tangshan earthquake flattens Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 people, and injuring 164,851.
- July 29 – In New York City, the " Son of Sam" pulls a gun from a paper bag, killing 1 and seriously wounding another, in the first of a series of attacks that terrorize the city for the next year.
- July 30 – In Santiago, Chile, Cruzeiro from Brazil beats River Plate from Argentina and are the Copa Libertadores de América champions.
- July 31
- NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1.
- The Big Thompson River in northern Colorado floods, destroying more than 400 cars and houses and killing 143 people.
August
- August 1
- The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago becomes a republic, replacing Elizabeth II with a President as its head of state.
- The Seattle Seahawks play their first football game.
- Racing Champion Niki Lauda suffers serious burns in the German Grand Prix.
- August 2 – A gunman murders Andrea Wilborn and Stan Farr and injures Priscilla Davis and Gus Gavrel, in an incident at Priscilla's mansion in Fort Worth, Texas. T. Cullen Davis, Priscilla's husband and one of the richest men in Texas, is tried and found innocent for Andrea's murder, involvement in a plot to kill several people (including Priscilla and a judge), and a wrongful death lawsuit. Cullen goes broke afterwards.
- August 5 – The Great Clock of Westminster (or Big Ben) suffers internal damage and stops running for over nine months.
- August 6 – Former UK Postmaster General John Stonehouse is sentenced to 7 years' jail for fraud, theft and forgery.
- August 7 – Viking program: Viking 2 enters into orbit around Mars.
- August 8 – As part of the ABA-NBA merger agreement, a dispersal draft was conducted to assign teams for the players on the two ABA franchises which had folded.
- August 11 – Sniper rampage in Wichita, Kansas on a Holiday Inn. Three are killed while seven others are wounded.
- August 14
- Ten thousand Protestant and Catholic women demonstrate for peace in Northern Ireland.
- The Senegalese political party PAI-Rénovation is legally recognized, becoming the third legal party in the country.
- August 16 – The Ramones, made their first "professional" performance at CBGB.
- August 18 – At Panmunjom, North Korea, 2 United States soldiers are killed while trying to chop down part of a tree in the Korean Demilitarized Zone which had obscured their view.
- August 19 – U.S. President Gerald Ford edges out challenger Ronald Reagan to win the Republican Party presidential nomination in Kansas City.
- August 24 – In Uruguay, the army captures Marcelo Gelman and his pregnant wife. Marcelo is later killed and his wife (and unborn child) disappear.
- August 25 – Jacques Chirac resigns as Prime Minister of France; he is succeeded by Raymond Barre.
- Landslide disaster in Sau Mau Ping, Hong Kong.
- August 26
- The first known outbreak of Ebola virus occurs in Yambuku, Zaire.
- Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, husband of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, resigns from various posts over a scandal involving alleged corruption, in connection with business dealings with the Lockheed Corporation.
- August 30 – James Alexander George Smith "Jags" McCartney was sworn in as the first Chief Minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
September
- September 1 – Cigarette and tobacco advertising banned on Australian television and radio.
- September 3 – Viking program: The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars, taking the first close-up colour photos of the planet's surface.
- September 6
- Cold War: Soviet Air Force pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko lands a MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate, on the island of Hokkaidō in Japan, and requests political asylum in the United States.
- Frank Sinatra brings Jerry Lewis's former partner Dean Martin onstage, unannounced, at the 1976 Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon in Las Vegas, Nevada, reuniting the comedy team for the first (and only) time in over 20 years.
- September 9 – Chairman Mao Zedong, of the People's Republic of China, dies.
- September 10
- Zagreb mid-air collision: A British Airways Trident and a Yugoslav DC-9 collide near Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia), killing all 176 aboard.
- Osamu Tezuka begins serialising MW, a manga inspired by the 1974 Kakuei Tanaka government scandal.
- September 16
- Shavarsh Karapetyan saves 20 people from a trolleybus that had fallen into an Erevan reservoir.
- Beginning with the Night of the Pencils, a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances followed by torture, rape, and murder of students under the Argentine dictatorship takes place.
- September 17 – The space shuttle Enterprise is rolled out of a Palmdale, California hangar.
- September 20 – International Organization of Space Communications (Intersputnik) is founded.
- September 20– September 21 – The semi-legendary 100 Club Punk Festival ignites the careers of several influential punk and post-punk bands, arguably sparking the Punk Movement's introduction into mainstream culture.
- September 21
- The Seychelles join the United Nations.
- Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. by agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
- September 24 – Patricia Hearst is sentenced to 7 years in prison for her role in a 1974 bank robbery (an executive clemency order from U.S. President Jimmy Carter will set her free after only 22 months).
- September 25 – The Irish rock band U2 is formed after drummer Larry Mullen Jr. posts a note seeking members for a band on the notice board of his Dublin school.
October
- October 4 – The brand new Intercity 125 High Speed Train is introduced in the United Kingdom.
- October 6
- Cubana Flight 455 crashes due to a bomb placed by anti-Fidel Castro terrorists, after taking off from Bridgetown, Barbados. All 73 people on board are killed.
- Students gathering at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand are massacred, while protesting the return of ex-dictator Thanom Kittikachorn by a coalition of right-wing paramilitary and government forces, triggering the return of the military to government.
- In San Francisco, during his second televised debate with Jimmy Carter, U.S. President Gerald Ford stumbles when he declares that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" (there is at the time).
- The Cultural Revolution in China concludes upon the capture of the Gang of Four.
- October 10 – Taiwan Governor Hsieh Tung-ming is injured by a letter bomb from a pro-independence activist.
- October 12 – The People's Republic of China announces that Hua Guofeng is the successor to Mao Zedong, as Chairman of the Communist Party of China.
- October 13 – The United States Commission on Civil Rights releases the report, Puerto Ricans in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future, that documents that Puerto Ricans in the United States have a poverty rate of 33 percent in 1974 (up from 29 percent in 1970), the highest of all major racial-ethnic groups in the country (not including Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory).
- October 18 – Ford officially launches volume production of Fiesta car at its Valencia plant.
- October 19
- The Copyright Act of 1976 extends copyright duration for an additional 20 years in the United States.
- The Battle of Aishiya is fought in Lebanon.
- The Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is placed on the list of endangered species.
- October 20 – The Mississippi River ferry MV George Prince is struck by a ship while crossing from Destrehan, LA to Luling, LA, killing 78 passengers and crew.
- October 21 – The Cincinnati Reds sweep the New York Yankees in four games to win the 1976 World Series.
- October 22 – Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, the 5th President of Ireland, resigns after being publicly insulted by the Minister for Defense.
- October 25 – Clarence Norris, the last known survivor of the Scottsboro Boys, is pardoned.
November
- November 2 – U.S. presidential election, 1976: Jimmy Carter defeats incumbent Gerald Ford, becoming the first candidate from the Deep South to win since the Civil War.
- November 15 – The first megamouth shark is discovered off Oahu in Hawaii.
- November 19 – Jaime Ornelas Camacho takes office as the first President of the Regional Government of Madeira, Portugal.
- November 24 – At least 3,840 are killed in a Richter scale magnitude 7.3 earthquake of Van and Muradiye in Turkey.
- November 25 – In San Francisco, The Band holds its farewell concert, The Last Waltz.
- November 26
- Microsoft is officially registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.
- Warsaw Treaty Organization joint secretariat established.
December
- December 1
- Angola joins the United Nations.
- José López Portillo takes office as President of Mexico.
- The Sex Pistols achieve public notoriety as they unleash several 4-letter words live on Bill Grundy's early evening TV show.
- Sir Douglas Nicholls appointed 28th Governor of South Australia, the first Australian Aboriginal appointed to vice-regal office.
- December 3
- Bob Marley and his manager Don Taylor are shot in an assassination attempt in Kingston, Jamaica.
- Patrick Hillery is elected unopposed as the 6th President of Ireland.
- December 6 - The Viet Cong is disbanded in which its former members become a part of the Vietnam People's Army.
- December 8
- The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is established by the 5 Latinos in the United States Congress: Herman Badillo of the Bronx, E. de la Garza and Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas, Edward R. Roybal of California, and the nonvoting Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, Baltasar Corrada del Rio.
- Hotel California by The Eagles is released.
- December 10
- The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques.
- The 9th Congress of the Sammarinese Communist Party convenes.
- December 15
- Samoa joins the United Nations.
- Denis Healey announces to the British Parliament that he has successfully negotiated a £2.3bn loan from the International Monetary Fund.
- December 20 – Richard J. Daley, Mayor of Chicago for 21 years, dies.
- December 23 – A new volcano, Murara, erupts in eastern Zaire.
- December 28 – Legendary guitarist Freddie King dies.
Date unknown
- In late March 1976, the first truly complete recording of the opera Porgy and Bess is released in a 3-LP set, by Decca Records in England and by London Records in the U.S. It stars Willard White and Leona Mitchell. The orchestra is the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel.
- Random Breath Testing introduced in Victoria (Australia)
- The first laser printer is introduced by IBM (the IBM 3800).
- California's sodomy law is repealed.
- The term memetics is first proposed by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene.
- Diffie-Hellman cryptography is proposed.
- Plans to move the Nigerian capital from Lagos to Abuja are approved.
- The New Jersey State Legislature passes legislation legalizing casinos in the shore town of Atlantic City commencing in 1978. After signing the bill into law, Governor Brendan Byrne declares "The mob is not welcome in New Jersey!" referring to the Mafia's influence at casinos in Nevada.
- The Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) was established by the University of California ( UC) in response to the State Legislature's recommendation to expand post-secondary opportunities to all of California’s students including those who are first-generation, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and English-language learners.
Deaths
January
- January 5 – John A. Costello, former Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland (b. 1891)
- January 8 – Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (b. 1898)
- January 10 – Howlin' Wolf, African-American musician (b. 1910)
- January 12 – Agatha Christie, English writer (Murder On The Orient Express) (b. 1890)
- January 13 – Margaret Leighton, English actress (b. 1922)
- January 19 – Hidetsugu Yagi, Japanese electrical engineer (b. 1886)
- January 21 – John Gould Moyer, American naval officer, 31st Governor of American Samoa (b. 1893)
- January 23 – Paul Robeson, African-American actor, singer, writer, and activist (b. 1898)
- January 26
- January 29 – James Edmonson, American vaudevillian and comedian (b. 1910)
- January 30 – Mance Lipscomb, American singer (b. 1895)
- January 31 – Ernesto Miranda, American defendant in the court case Miranda v. Arizona (b. 1941)
February
- February 1
- Werner Heisenberg, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
- Hans Richter, German artist (b. 1888)
- George Whipple, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1878)
- February 2 – Zlatyu Boyadzhiev, Bulgarian painter (b. 1903)
- February 4 – Roger Livesey, Welsh actor (b. 1906)
- February 6 – Vince Guaraldi, American musician (Linus and Lucy) (b. 1928)
- February 7 – Eliyahu Kitov, Jewish political activist (b. 1912)
- February 9 – Percy Faith, Canadian-born musician and composer (b. 1908)
- February 11
- February 12 – Sal Mineo, American actor (b. 1939)
- February 13 – Lily Pons, American soprano (b. 1898)
- February 17
- February 18 – Joseph Henabery, American actor (b. 1888)
- February 20
- René Cassin, French judge, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1887)
- Kathryn Kuhlman, American evangelist and faith healer (b. 1907)
- February 22 – Florence Ballard, American singer (The Supremes) (b. 1943)
March
- March 4 – Walter H. Schottky, German physicist (b. 1886)
- March 5
- March 6
- March 7 – Wright Patman, American politician (b. 1893)
- March 8 – Alfons Rebane, Estonian military commander (b. 1908)
- March 10 – Andris Andreiko, Latvian draughts player (b. 1942)
- March 14 – Busby Berkeley, American choreographer and director (b. 1895)
- March 17 – Luchino Visconti, Italian theatre and film director (b. 1906)
- March 19 – Paul Kossoff, British rock guitarist ( Free) (b. 1950)
- March 24
- Bernard Montgomery, British field marshal (b. 1887)
- E. H. Shepard, English artist and book illustrator (b. 1879)
- March 25 – Josef Albers, German-American artist (b. 1888)
- March 28 – Richard Arlen, American actor (b. 1898)
- March 31 – Paul Strand, American photographer (b. 1890)
April
- April 1 – Max Ernst, German artist (b. 1891)
- April 4 – Harry Nyquist, American information theory pioneer (b. 1889)
- April 5 – Howard Hughes, American aviation pioneer, film director, and eccentric (b. 1905)
- April 9
- April 12
- April 14 - Maudie Prickett, American actress (b. 1914)
- April 18 – Henrik Dam, Danish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1895)
- April 25
- April 26 – Sid James, South African actor (b. 1913)
- April 28 – Hilde Hildebrand, German actress (b. 1897)
May
- May 1 – T.R.M. Howard, African-American civil rights leader and surgeon (b. 1908)
- May 9
- May 11 – Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect (b. 1898)
- May 14 – Keith Relf, British rock musician ( The Yardbirds) (b. 1943)
- May 20
- May 26
- Martin Heidegger, German philosopher (b. 1889)
- Juan Maino, Chilean leader of MAPU, " disappeared"
- May 27 – Ruth McDevitt, American actress (b. 1895)
- May 28 – Steffan Danielsen, Faroese painter (b. 1922)
- May 30 – Mitsuo Fuchida, Japanese aviator, naval officer, and Christian evangelist (b. 1902)
- May 31
June
- June 2
- June 6
- June 7 – Bobby Hackett, American jazz musician (b. 1915)
- June 9 – Sybil Thorndike, British actress (b. 1882)
- June 10 – Adolph Zukor, Hungarian-born film producer (b. 1873)
- June 11 – Toots Mondt, American WWF promoter (b. 1886)
- June 14 – Knud, Hereditary Prince of Denmark (b. 1900)
- June 15 – Jimmy Dykes, American baseball player and manager (b. 1896)
- June 17 – Francisco Urondo, Argentine writer (b. 1930)
- June 23 – DeHart Hubbard, American Olympic athlete (b. 1903)
- June 24 – Imogen Cunningham, American photographer (b. 1883)
- June 25 – Johnny Mercer, American songwriter (b. 1909)
- June 28 – Stanley Baker, British actor (b. 1928)
- June 30 – Firpo Marberry, American baseball player (b. 1898)
July
- July 1 – Zhang Wentian, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (b. 1900)
- July 4
- July 6 – Zhu De, China Red Army Commander-in-Chief (b. 1886)
- July 7
- July 11 – León de Greiff, Colombian poet (b. 1895)
- July 12
- July 13
- July 16 – Carmelo Soria, Spanish diplomat (assassinated by the Chilean DINA) (b. 1921)
- July 17 – Arthur Hornblow, Jr., American film producer (b. 1893)
- July 24 – Afro Basaldella, Italian painter (b. 1912)
August
- August 2
- August 3 – Valery Sablin, Soviet mutineer (executed) (b. 1939)
- August 4 – Enrique Angelelli, Argentine bishop (assassinated in the " Dirty War") (b. 1923)
- August 6
- August 10
- August 19 – Alastair Sim, Scottish actor (b. 1900)
- August 22 – Juscelino Kubitschek, President of Brazil (b. 1902)
- August 25 – Eyvind Johnson, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1900)
- August 26
- August 27 – Mukesh, Indian singer (b. 1923)
- August 28 – Anissa Jones, American actress (b. 1958)
September
- September 2 – Stanisław Grochowiak, Polish writer (b. 1934)
- September 9
- Yehezkel Abramsky, Russian-born rabbi, head of the London Beth Din for 17 years (b. 1886)
- Mao Zedong, Chinese communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, author, political theorist, and leader of the Chinese Revolution (b. 1893)
- September 10 – Dalton Trumbo, American screenwriter, one of the Hollywood Ten (b. 1905)
- September 11 – Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (b. 1893)
- September 21 – Orlando Letelier, Chilean former minister of Salvador Allende (assassinated in Washington, D.C.) (b. 1932)
- September 26 – Lavoslav Ružička, Croatian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)
- September 28 – Raymond Collishaw, Canadian World War I fighter ace (b. 1893)
- September 30 – Paul Dehn, British screenwriter (b. 1912)
October
- October 5
- Barbara Nichols, American actress (b. 1929)
- Lars Onsager, Norwegian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
- October 6 – Gilbert Ryle, British philosopher (b. 1900)
- October 11
- October 14 – Edith Evans, British actress (b. 1888)
- October 15 – Carlo Gambino, American gangster (b. 1902)
- October 25 – Raymond Queneau, French poet and novelist (b. 1903)
- October 28 – Máire Drumm, Irish nationalist politician (assassinated) (b. 1919)
November
- November 8 – Gottfried von Cramm, German tennis champion (b. 1909)
- November 9 – Billy Halop, American actor (b. 1920)
- November 10 – Syd Coventry, Australian footballer (b. 1899)
- November 11 – Alexander Calder, American sculptor (b. 1898)
- November 12 – Walter Piston, American composer (b. 1894)
- November 15 – Jean Gabin, French actor (b. 1904)
- November 18 – Man Ray, American artist (b. 1890)
- November 21 – Walter Stuart Diehl, American naval officer and aeronautical engineer (b. 1893)
- November 23 – André Malraux, French writer and statesman (b. 1901)
- November 28 – Rosalind Russell, American actress (b. 1907)
- November 29
December
- December 2 – Danny Murtaugh, American baseball player and manager (b. 1917)
- December 3
- December 4
- Benjamin Britten, English composer (b. 1913)
- Tommy Bolin, American guitarist (b. 1951)
- December 6 – João Goulart, President of Brazil (b. 1918)
- December 8 – Henryk Jasiczek, Polish writer and political activist (b. 1919)
- December 12 – Jack Cassidy, American actor of stage, film, and screen (b. 1927)
- December 15 – Gregoire Kayibanda, former President of Rwanda (b. 1924)
- December 20 – Richard J. Daley, American Mayor of Chicago (b. 1902)
- December 24 – Duarte Nuno, Duke of Braganza, claimant to the throne of Portugal (b. 1907)
- December 25
- December 26 – Phil Hart, U.S. Senator (b. 1912)
- December 28 – Katharine Byron, U.S. Congresswoman (b. 1903)
Date unknown
- Mariano Andreu, Spanish painter (b. 1888)
- Maria Klenova, Russian marine geologist (b. 1898)
- Arvid Noe, Norwegian sailor and truck driver, probably the first European to die of AIDS-related illness (b. 1946)
Nobel Prizes
- Physics – Burton Richter, Samuel Chao Chung Ting
- Chemistry – William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr
- Physiology or Medicine – Baruch S. Blumberg, D Carleton Gajdusek
- Literature – Saul Bellow
- Peace – Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan
- Economics – Milton Friedman
