December 1977


The following events occurred in December 1977:

December 1, 1977 (Thursday)

December 2, 1977 (Friday)

  • A jet crash killed 59 of the 159 people aboard a Libyan Arab Airlines flight that was bringing Muslim pilgrims back home from Saudi Arabia. The Tupolev Tu-154 ran out of fuel after having to alter its route to avoid Egyptian airspace, and the crew was attempting to find an alternate airport after its destination at Benghazi was hindered by a heavy fog.
  • "World Series Cricket", created by Australian TV network owner Kerry Packer after he was unable to secure rights to broadcast international network on his Nine Network, played its first match. Denied the right to use the trademark term "Test match" by the Marylebone Cricket Club, or to identify a national team as "Australia", Packer promoted the five-day international series as a "Supertest" and dubbed the team "WSC Australian XI". In that normal cricket venues in Australia were denied by Marylebone to rival competitors, WSC leased four alternate sites and hired John Maley to develop the "drop-in pitch". In the inaugural match, WSC Australian XI faced off against WSC West Indies XI at the Australian rules football stadium at Adelaide, in South Australia, playing before only 2,847 spectators. On the same day, a regular Test series began at Brisbane between Australia and India in front of 9,000 fans.
  • Convicted murderers Erskine "Buck" Burrows and Larry Tacklyn were hanged at Casemates Prison in Bermuda, becoming the last people to be executed under British rule anywhere in the world. Burrows had been convicted of the 1973 assassination of Bermuda Governor Richard Sharples and four other murders, while Tacklyn was convicted of assisting Burrows on two murders. Rioting broke out the day before the execution of the two men, and at the request of Governor Peter Ramsbotham, the British Defence Ministry sent 150 troops to restore order.

December 3, 1977 (Saturday)

  • Seamus Twomey, a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army's ruling army council, was recaptured in Ballsbridge more than four years after his escape by helicopter from Dublin's Mountjoy Prison. Police in Ireland had spotted the fugitive near Dublin and arrested him after a high-speed car chase.
  • Fraye Arbeter Shtime, the oldest Yiddish language newspaper in the United States, published its final edition after 87 years of existence. The folding of the Stimme left only five Yiddish newspapers in the U.S., with the most popular one being the 80-year-old Jewish Daily Vorwarts.
  • Died: Jack Beresford, 78, British rower gold medal winner in Olympic gold medals, and silver medals in 1920 and 1928

December 4, 1977 (Sunday)

  • All 100 passengers and crew on board Malaysian Airline System Flight 653 were killed in a crash after the plane was hijacked. MAS 653 had departed Penang toward Kuala Lumpur at 7:54 p.m. local time. Ten minutes later, the crew reported that a terrorist from the Japanese Red Army had entered the cockpit and demanded to be flown to Singapore. The gunman then killed the pilot, the co-pilot and himself, and the autopilot was apparently disconnected, perhaps by another person attempting to fly the aircraft. The Boeing 737 crashed into a swamp near Tanjung Kupang on Johor.
  • The coronation of Emperor Bokassa I took place in the Bangui, capital of the Central African Empire. According to reporters, the lavish ceremony at Bangui's indoor sports stadium was inspired by the 1804 coronation of Bokassa's idol, French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Bokassa, formerly President Jean-Bédel Bokassa, received "a 6-foot diamond-encrusted scepter of office and was then draped by aides in an ermine-trimmed red velvet cloak" that included a train. Emulating Napoleon, Bokassa placed a "diamond-encrusted imperial crown" upon his own head and then crowned his wife as the Empress Catherine, before sitting down on a specially designed "two-ton gold-plated throne, shaped like a 15-foot high eagle with an 18-foot wingspan", designed by French sculptor Olivier Brice, who also designed the crown, the scepter and a ceremonial sword. The event, held in a nation where the average per capita income was only $155, cost US$30,000,000.

December 5, 1977 (Monday)

December 6, 1977 (Tuesday)

December 7, 1977 (Wednesday)

December 8, 1977 (Thursday)

December 9, 1977 (Friday)

  • In one of the most violent games in the National Basketball Association in the U.S., Rudy Tomjanovich of the Houston Rockets was seriously injured by a single punch by Kermit Washington of the Los Angeles Lakers. Tomjanovich was struck so hard that besides fracturing his skull and having a broken jaw and bone, he leaked blood and spinal fluid while unconscious on the basketball court, and he was placed in the intensive care unit of the Centinela Hospital in Houston. Washington was fined $10,000 and suspended from NBA play by Commissioner Larry O'Brien for at least 60 days. The incident would be the basis of a book by sportswriter John Feinstein, The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever.
  • The U.S. and Mexico made their first exchange of prisoners. At 9:07 in the morning, a chartered Texas International Airways DC-9 departed from San Diego, California with 36 Mexicans. After landing in Mexico City, the DC-9 took aboard 61 Americans who had been in Mexican jails, along with an 18-month-old girl whose mother had given birth while incarcerated, and the aircraft landed in San Diego at 5:15 in the afternoon. Once in the U.S., the 61 Americans were transferred to other prisons. Most of the 235 American prisoners who qualified for a return to the U.S. had been convicted of drug trafficking or possession, but seven had been convicted of murder.
  • Died:
  • *Nazir Ghory, 76, Indian film comedian who, with Manohar Dixit, had been part of the team of Ghory and Dixit, described as "the Indian Laurel and Hardy"
  • *Barbara Mitchell, 48, English TV actress known for Beryl's Lot and For the Love of Ada, died of breast cancer.

December 10, 1977 (Saturday)

December 11, 1977 (Sunday)

December 12, 1977 (Monday)

December 13, 1977 (Tuesday)

December 14, 1977 (Wednesday)

December 15, 1977 (Thursday)

  • Kim Il Sung was unanimously re-elected President of North Korea by the Supreme People's Assembly of the Asian nation. Kim, leader of the nation's Communist Party since 1945, and chaired the provisional government in 1945 and had been the first, and only, president since the 1948 proclamation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
  • Less than six months after becoming an independent nation, the northeast African nation of Djibouti began its transition to a dictatorship, with 17 opponents of President Hassan Gouled Aptidon being arrested for being members of the Mouvement populaire de libération, and charged with killing five people in a grenade attack on a restaurant.

December 16, 1977 (Friday)

  • Saturday Night Fever was released in theaters and would become the biggest most successful dance movie of all time. Made on a budget of $3.5 million, it would earn more than 65 times that much, with box office receipts of $237.1 million. The movie launched the film career of its star, John Travolta, and catapulted the Bee Gees — who performed several songs on the soundtrack — to newfound success.
  • The unincorporated U.S. town of Vulcan, West Virginia, received a pledge from the West Virginia State Highway Commission that a bridge would be replaced, but only after a journalist from the Soviet Union had arrived in the town to meet with a community leader who had written a request for help to the Soviet Embassy.
  • A serious disaster was averted in the collision of two supertankers in the Indian Ocean, roughly from the coast of South Africa and resorts at Port Elizabeth, when the empty tanker MV Venpet struck its fully loaded sister ship, MV Venoil. Although two of the 84-member crew of the Venoil were killed, the Venpet missed hitting the oil storage tanks directly, averting an explosion that would have killed most of the people on both ships.
  • Born: René Redzepi, Danish chef and restaurateur, owner of the Copenhagen's award-winning Noma restaurant; in Copenhagen
  • Died:
  • *Gustaf Aulén, 98, Swedish Lutheran theologian, author of Christus Victor
  • *Yngve Larsson, 93, Swedish urban planner and politician

December 17, 1977 (Saturday)

  • Two days of voting were completed in a referendum in the Philippines on whether president and prime minister Ferdinand E. Marcos should continue in office after the organization in 1978 of a new national legislature, the Interim Batasang Pambansa. Official returns showed Marcos winning more than 89% of the vote.
  • A the age of 80, Miskel Spillman became the oldest person to host the U.S. comedy variety show Saturday Night Live, being two months older than actress Ruth Gordon, who had been 80 when she hosted on January 22. Mrs. Spillman, who won the program's one-time "Anybody Can Host" contest, had been selected after writing "I am 80 years old and I want one more cheap thrill as my doctor just told me I only have 25 years to live." Mrs. Spillman, who lived 14 more years after being the only non-celebrity to host the show, would hold the record until 2010, when 88-year-old comedian Betty White was the host.
  • Born: Oxana Fedorova, Russian model, 2002 Miss Universe winner who was the first ever to be dethroned, later a television host; in Pskov, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union

December 18, 1977 (Sunday)

December 19, 1977 (Monday)

  • The government of Indonesia released more than 10,000 political prisoners, many of whom had been held for 12 years without trial on suspicion of being part of the 30 September Movement that had attempted to overthrow the government in 1965.
  • Dries van Agt was sworn in as the new prime minister of the Netherlands, succeeding Joop den Uyl, who had resigned eight months earlier on March 22. Van Agt had previously served as the minister of justice and the vice premier. The new government was formed from a coalition of the Christian Democrats and the Liberal Party, which combined for 77 of the 150 seats in the Second Chamber, a majority of only two.
  • Died:
  • *Nellie Tayloe Ross, 101, the first woman governor of a U.S. state, Governor of Wyoming 1925 to 1927
  • *Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, 88, Japanese Navy officer and commander of the Imperial Navy 2nd Fleet in the Battle of Leyte Gulf

December 20, 1977 (Tuesday)

December 21, 1977 (Wednesday)

December 22, 1977 (Thursday)

  • In the U.S., a grain elevator exploded in Westwego, Louisiana, killing 36 people. The blast happened at 9:10 in the morning local time when a Norwegian ship, MV Vesteroy, was being loaded with grain from one of the silos at Continental Grain Company. A chain reaction from the first events set off similar explosions in 45 storage units.
  • In the U.S., an artist from Hawaii tried to kill himself by leaping from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building in New York City. After he jumped, a wind blew him back against the building and he landed on a wide ledge on the 85th floor. According to an Associated Press report, "Helms lay stunned on the ledge about half an hour before he could open a window to the NBC television transmitter room on the 85th floor and crawl inside about 7:15 p.m., police said."
  • Died: Karl John, 72, German film actor

December 23, 1977 (Friday)

December 24, 1977 (Saturday)

  • Colombian serial killer Daniel Camargo Barbosa was incarcerated at the "inescapable" prison on Gorgona Island, off of the coast of Colombia, after having killed more than 80 young girls. He would remain on the island for almost seven years before escaping in November 1984, and would be presumed dead until less than a month later, when he would travel to Ecuador and resume killing at least 72 more girls over 14 months before being arrested again. He would be stabbed to death by the nephew of one of his victims on November 15, 1994.
  • Died:
  • *General Juan Velasco Alvarado, 67, President of Peru 1968 to 1975
  • *Nalini Bala Devi, 79, Indian poet and writer
  • *Peruchín, Cuban pianist

December 25, 1977 (Sunday)

  • Menachem Begin became the first prime minister of Israel to visit an Arab republic as he and a delegation that included Defense Minister Moshe Dayan landed at the Abu Sweir air base and then flew to Ismailia as the guest of Egypt's president Anwar Sadat. From the airport, the Israeli delegation was chauffeured "in what must rank as one of the world's briefest motorcades", traveling in six limousines to Sadat's home. On the flight from Tel Aviv, Begin told reporters, "Moses made the same trip.. only faster and in the opposite direction."
  • Born: Uhm Ji-won, South Korean film and TV actress; in Daegu
  • Died: Charlie Chaplin, 88, English comedian, silent film actor, and filmmaker, died at his mansion in Switzerland, Le Manoir de Ban, near Lake Geneva and the village of Vevey.

December 26, 1977 (Monday)

December 27, 1977 (Tuesday)

  • Star Wars made its debut in the United Kingdom, seven months after its world premiere in the United States.
  • A grain elevator explosion in the U.S. in less than a week killed 18 people at the Farmer's Export Company in Galveston, Texas. The disaster happened five days after a similar accident killed 34 people in Westwego, Louisiana

December 28, 1977 (Wednesday)

December 29, 1977 (Thursday)

  • All 24 people aboard a SAN Ecuador airliner were killed when the Vickers 764D Viscount crashed into a hillside while en route from Guayaquil to Cuenca.
  • U.S. president Carter arrived in the Communist nation of Poland, coming to Warsaw as the first stop in a 9-day tour of six nations. He was greeted by the de facto leader, Polish Workers Party chairman Edward Gierek. The translator for the U.S. Department of State offended Carter's hosts when he rendered Carter's remark about a "desire for peace" by using the word for a sexual desire for the Polish people. Another statement by Carter, about his departure on the trip from the U.S., used a word referring to abandonment. Carter's press secretary, Jody Powell, told reporters that the translator had been "relieved of his duties" and added, "There will be a new translator tomorrow," while a State Department official made an official apology to the Polish government.
  • Pakistan's president Zia ul-Haq announced the release of 11,109 political prisoners who had been detained by Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who had been overthrown in July.

December 30, 1977 (Friday)

  • The government of Spain, led by Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez, announced that the kingdom's three predominantly Basque provinces— Álava, Biscay, and Gipuzkoa— would be granted self-government. The Basque Autonomous Community would be formally established in 1979.
  • Serial killer Ted Bundy escapes from the Pitkin County Jail in Aspen, Colorado by sawing a hole in the ceiling of his cell, prompting a nationwide manhunt. Law enforcement agencies intensified their search efforts and ultimately led to his capture in February 1978, but not before he had committed several more heinous crimes.
  • Born:
  • *Laila Ali, U.S. professional boxer, daughter of Muhammad Ali and holder of the WBC and WBA women's super middleweight titles; in Miami Beach, Florida
  • *Kenyon Martin, U.S. basketball player

December 31, 1977 (Saturday)