February 1976

February 1, 1976 (Sunday)

• A group of 12 British mercenary soldiers, recruited by "Colonel Tony Callan" to fight in the Angolan Civil War as part of a group 100 Britons that arrived on January 27, were executed by their fellow Britons on Callan's orders. UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson told the House of Commons on February 9 about the incident after being briefed by MI-5.
• Samachar was formed as the news agency of India by the consolidation of four competing agencies— the Press Trust of India, United News of India, Samachar Bharati and Hindustan Samachar. Operations of the consolidated national news agency began on April 2.
• The government of India, having placed the state of Tamil Nadu under President's rule, arrested hundreds of members of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam , a political party that was opposed to the rule of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Deposed Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi and his aides transferred government records to incoming appointed government, and they were not arrested.
• Five people were killed when a Rossair chartered airplane collided with a private plane as it approached the airport in Parafield, South Australia north of Adelaide.
• The 24 Hours of Daytona auto endurance race in Daytona Beach, Florida, was halted at 10:10, after nine of the 72 entrants began running into engine trouble from gasoline contaminated by water. After almost three hours, after the tainted fuel was drained and the vehicles refueled, the president of the International Motor Sports Association ruled that the race would be restarted, with all competitors credited as having the number of laps they had completed as of 9:00 in the morning. The team of Peter Gregg and Brian Redman, who had been 16 laps ahead at that hour and were among the cars that had been halted by the tainted fuel, went on to win what one writer described as "one of the most controversial automobile races in history."
• Died:
• *Werner Heisenberg, 74, German nuclear physicist and 1932 Nobel Prize laureate;
• *George Whipple, 97, U.S. physician, co-recipient of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his finding that pernicious anemia, though incurable, could be controlled by a diet of liver.

  February 2, 1976 (Monday)

• Daniel Patrick Moynihan abruptly resigned from his job as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. While initially citing his wish to return to his job as a professor at Harvard University, Moynihan soon showed his real reason for resigning and announced that he would be a candidate for the upcoming Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate for New York.
• David Bowie's Isolar – 1976 Tour, commonly called the "Thin White Duke Tour", opened in Canada at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.
• The SZD-42 Jantar 2 glider made its first flight.
• Died: Barbara Euphan Todd, 86, English children's author known for creating "Worzel Gummidge"

  February 3, 1976 (Tuesday)

• Nigeria's head of state, General Murtala Muhammed, announced the reorganization of the western African republic, with the division of five of the existing 12 states to create a total of 19, "to bring government nearer to the people", and said that a new federal capital would be built to house the government located in Lagos. Divided were the Western State ; the North-Western State ; the North-Eastern State ; the East Central State ; and the state of Benue-Plateau. The capital was relocated to the Lagos suburb of Ikeja. Because of events 10 days later, General Murtala did not live to see the construction of the new planned city, Abuja, for the federal capital.
• Four gunmen, seeking independence for the French Territory of the Afars and Issas. Merger discussions had been enjoined by order of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York pending a determination of whether a merged league would constitute a monopoly on the sport of professional basketball.
• The Daily Mail, a London tabloid, made public the "Thorpe affair" that ultimately forced the resignation of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe. The Daily Mail interview with Peter Bessell, a former member or the House of Commons and colleague of Thorpe, brought evidence that Thorpe had had a homosexual affair with Norman Scott and that Thorpe then conspired to have Scott killed.
• Born:
• *Isla Fisher, Australian actress; in Muscat.
• *Tim Heidecker, American comedian and film actor, known for the comedy duo Tim & Eric; in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

  February 4, 1976 (Wednesday)

• In Guatemala, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake killed at least 22,000 people. With an epicenter between the towns of Siquinalá and Escuintla, the quake struck at 3:01 in the morning local time and caused its highest death toll in slum areas of Guatemala City.
• The opening ceremonies for the 1976 Winter Olympics were held in Innsbruck in Austria. Austrians Christl Haas and Josef Feistmantl, both gold medalists in the 1964 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck, jointly lit the Olympic torch.
• Reversing a previous ban against allowing the Concorde supersonic airliner to fly to the United States, U.S. Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman announced that the UK and France could operate Concorde flights to and from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, and Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., on a 16-month trial basis.
• The Lok Sabha, India's lower house of parliament, voted to postpone nationwide elections that had been scheduled to start on March 18, as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's "emergency rule" continued.
• The Communist government of "Democratic Kampuchea" announced a date of March 20 for elections for the new "Cambodian People's Representative Assembly", with all 250 candidates to be selected by the Khmer Rouge government.
• Japan attempted to launch its first x-ray astronomy satellite, CORSA-a, but the rocket carrying the payload failed shortly after its liftoff from the Kagoshima Space Center. On February 21, 1979, the replacement, would be put into orbit.
• South Korea's Construction Minister Kim Jae-gyu was appointed by President Park Chung-hee to be the new director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. The choice by President Park was ultimately fatal; Lieutenant General Kim would shoot and kill President Park on October 26, 1979.
• The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia ruled that individual provinces could not censor movies, overturning the regulation of film by the provincial government. The decision would later be affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada.
• The Rolladen-Schneider LS3 made its maiden flight.
• Died: Kuzgun Acar, 47, Turkish modern sculptor, died from an intracerebral hemorrhage sustained after falling from a ladder while working on a relief mural

  February 5, 1976 (Thursday)

• A United States Army recruit at Fort Dix died in mysterious circumstances, and four fellow soldiers were hospitalized for a new strain of influenza, H1N1, referred to in the press as "swine flu". A spokesman for the Center for Disease Control announced that a new strain of the influenza virus, "swine flu", was the cause. Soon after, public health officials in President Ford's administration urged that every person in the United States be vaccinated.
• U.S. President Ford signed the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act into law to create the Consolidated Rail Corporation to operate freight trains in the northeastern United States, purchasing the railway lines of seven bankrupt companies: Penn Central, Ann Arbor Railroad, Erie Lackawanna Railway, Lehigh Valley Railroad, Reading Company, Central Railroad of New Jersey and Lehigh and Hudson River Railway.
• Nearly 2,000 students became involved in a racially charged riot at Escambia High School in Pensacola, Florida; 30 students were injured in the 4-hour fray, including four who were hit by gunfire. The fighting began after a peaceful protest over whether the formerly all-white school's athletic teams should be called the "Raiders", or revert to their previous name of "Rebels".
• The UK's Hinkley Point B nuclear power station in Bridgwater, Somerset, UK, began operation as the first commercial Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor, generating electricity for the Central Electricity Generating Board. The Windscale AGRs had begun operation in 1962 for the British government.

  February 6, 1976 (Friday)

• Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the husband of Queen Juliana and the inspector general of the Netherlands Armed Forces, was implicated in a bribery scandal in testimony by an official of the Lockheed Corporation, an American manufacturer of military and civilian aircraft. A. C. Kotchian, the corporation's president, testified that Lockheed paid $1.1 million to "a high official of the Netherlands", soon revealed to be Prince Bernhard, as well as two million to government officials in Japan in an effort to obtain contracts for the sale of its warplanes.
• In the same hearing, the Vice Chairman of Lockheed testified that the company paid $1,800,000 in bribes in 1972 to then Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, leading to Tanaka's arrest on July 27.
• Victor Garland resigned from Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser's government, after being accused of electoral offences. He was replaced as Minister for Post and Telecommunications by Eric Robinson.
• Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith declared that "a new terrorist offensive has begun and that, to defeat it, Rhodesians would have to face heavier military commitments." Security force reports indicated that around 1,000 insurgent fighters were active within Rhodesia, with a further 15,000 encamped in various states of readiness in Mozambique.
• Leonard Peltier, American Indian activist and one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted criminals, was arrested in Canada after being located hiding in a cabin in Hinton, Alberta. He was charged with having killed two FBI agents on June 26, 1975, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
• Born: Kim Zmeskal, American gymnast, 1991 all-around women's champion; in Houston
• Died:
• *Vince Guaraldi, 47, American jazz pianist known for composing much of the music on the Peanuts television specials, including the "Linus and Lucy" instrumental, died from a massive heart attack.
• *Black Jack, 19, American quarter horse for the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Caisson Platoon as the "riderless horse" in over 1,000 military funerals, including that of U.S. President John F. Kennedy