1977 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: Gerald Ford , Jimmy Carter
• Vice President: Nelson Rockefeller , Walter Mondale
• Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Carl Albert , Tip O'Neill
• Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield , Robert Byrd
• Congress: 94th, 95th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January

• January
• * The world's first personal computer, the Commodore PET, is demonstrated at the winter Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.
• * The Coalition of Free Men is founded in Columbia, Maryland, in order to create a unified voice in addressing issues concerning men and boys. The organisation would later become the National Coalition for Men, America's oldest men's rights organization.
• January 3 - Apple Computer is incorporated.
• January 9 - Super Bowl XI: The Oakland Raiders defeat the Minnesota Vikings 32–14 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
• January 17 - In the first execution after the reintroduction of the death penalty in the United States, Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in Utah.
• January 19
• *Snow falls in Miami, Florida for the only time in its history. Snowfall has occurred farther south in the United States only on the high mountains of the state of Hawaii.
• *President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino.
• January 20 - Jimmy Carter is sworn in as the 39th President of the United States.
• January 21 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam War draft evaders.
• January 23 - Roots begins its phenomenally successful run on ABC.
• January 28 - The Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977 hits Buffalo, New York.
• January 1 to 31:
• * The contiguous US average monthly minimum temperature of is the coldest for any month since nationwide records were first compiled in 1895.
• * In contrast to the contiguous US, Alaska had to that point its warmest January on record with a mean of being warmer than the 1925 to 1974 average and warmer than Alaska's previous record warmest January 1937.

  February

• February 4
• * Fleetwood Mac's Grammy-winning album Rumours is released.
• * Eleven CTA commuters are killed when an elevated train derails from the Loop in central Chicago.
• February 12 - Actress Christa Helm is fatally stabbed on a sidewalk in West Hollywood. The perpetrator is never identified.
• February 18 - The space shuttle Enterprise test vehicle goes on its maiden "flight" while sitting on top of a Boeing 747, at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

  March

• March 9 - Approximately a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims take over 3 buildings in Washington, D.C., killing 1 person and taking more than 130 hostages. The hostage situation ends 2 days later.
• March 15 - Tenor Luciano Pavarotti and the PBS opera series Live from the Met both make their American television debuts. Pavarotti stars in a complete production of Puccini's La Boheme.

  April

• April 4 - Grundy, Virginia experienced a major flood that caused around $15 million in damages to 228 residential and commercial structures.
• April 21 - Residents of Dover, Massachusetts report sightings of the so-called "Dover Demon".

  May

• May 16 – A 20-passenger S-61L topples sideways at takeoff from the roof of the Pan Am Building in Midtown Manhattan. Four passengers are killed by the turning rotors and a woman at street level is fatally struck by a fallen blade.
• May 25 - The movie Star Wars is released.
• May 26 - George Willig climbs the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
• May 28 - The Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky is engulfed in fire, killing 165 inside.
• May 29 - Indianapolis 500: A. J. Foyt becomes the first driver to win a record four times.

  June

• June 4-5 - Humboldt Park riot in Chicago.
• June 5 - The Portland Trail Blazers defeat the Philadelphia 76ers 109–107 to win the NBA finals 4–2. Bill Walton is named series MVP.
• June 7 - After campaigning by Anita Bryant and her anti-gay "Save Our Children" crusade, Miami-Dade County, Florida voters overwhelmingly vote to repeal the county's gay rights ordinance.
• June 10 - James Earl Ray escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee.
• June 16 - Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California as Software Development Laboratories by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
• June 20 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules that states are not required to spend Medicaid funds on elective abortions.
• June 25 - American Roy Sullivan is struck by lightning for the 7th time.
• June 26
• * Some 200,000 protesters march through the streets of San Francisco, protesting Anita Bryant's anti-gay remarks and the murder of Robert Hillsborough.
• * Elvis Presley performs his last-ever concert, in Indianapolis, Indiana's Market Square Arena. It wasn’t televised until October 3 of that year on CBS.
• June 30 - Women Marines disbanded; women are integrated into regular Marine Corps.

  July

• July 13 - The New York City blackout of 1977 lasts for 25 hours, resulting in looting and other disorder.
• July 19 & 20 - Flooding in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, caused by massive rainfall, kills over 75 people and causes billions in damage.
• July 24 - Led Zeppelin plays their last U.S. concert in Oakland, California at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. A brawl erupts between Led Zeppelin's crew and promoter Bill Graham's staff, resulting in criminal assault charges for several of Led Zeppelin's entourage including drummer John Bonham.
• July 28 - The first oil through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System reaches Valdez, Alaska.

  August

• August 3 - United States Senate hearings on MKULTRA are held.
• August 4 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.
• August 10 - David Berkowitz is captured in Yonkers, New York, after over a year of murders in New York City as the Son of Sam.
• August 12 - The NASA Space Shuttle, named Enterprise, makes its first test free-flight from the back of a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
• August 15 - The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the "WOW!" signal for a notation made by a volunteer on the project.
• August 16 - Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll dies in his home in Graceland at age 42. 75,000 fans lined the streets of Memphis for this funeral, which occurred on August 18, but wasn’t televised until August 20.
• August 20 - Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

  September

• September 4 - The Golden Dragon Massacre took place in San Francisco, California.
• September 4 - Joe Curley started his 40-year career of trading Municipal bonds at Prudential Securities
• September 5 - Voyager program: Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.
• September 7 - Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The U.S. agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
• September 12 -
• September 18 - Courageous, skippered by Ted Turner, sweeps Australia in the 24th America's Cup.
• September 19
• * Under pressure from the Carter Administration, President Anastasio Somoza Debayle lifts the state of siege in Nicaragua.
• * Closure of steelworks in Youngstown, Ohio, is announced.
• September 21 - A nuclear non-proliferation pact is signed by 15 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union.
• September 30 - A series of partial government shutdowns occur finally ending in December.

  October

• October 1
• *Energy Research and Development Administration part of Department of Energy.
• *Pelé plays his final professional football game as a member of the New York Cosmos.
• October 6 - Irish American mobster Danny Greene is murdered with a car bomb by the Cleveland crime family in Lyndhurst, Ohio.
• October 12 – The passage of the Community Reinvestment Act.
• October 14 - Anita Bryant is famously pied by four gay rights activists during a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa. This event resulted in her political fallout from anti-gay activism.
• October 18 - Newly-acquired and flamboyantly charismatic slugger Reggie Jackson hits three home runs to lead the New York Yankees to their first World Series championship victory since 1962 over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1977 World Series in six games.
• October 20 - Three members, of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a charter plane crash outside Gillsburg, Mississippi, 3 days after the release of their fifth studio album Street Survivors.
• October 21 - Rock singer Meat Loaf releases the album Bat Out of Hell.

  November

• November 6 - The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, fails, killing 39.
• November 8 - San Francisco elects City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official of any large city in the U.S.
• November 13 - The comic strip Li'l Abner ends a 43-year run in newspapers.
• November 22 - British Airways inaugurates regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.
• November 27 - The Rankin/Bass animated film The Hobbit premieres on NBC in the United States.

  December

• December 1 - The Lockheed's top-secret stealth aircraft project, designated Have Blue, precursor to the U.S. F-117A Nighthawk, makes its first flight.
• December 13 - A DC-3 charter plane carrying the University of Evansville basketball team to Nashville, Tenn., crashes in rain and dense fog about 90 seconds after takeoff from Evansville Dress Regional Airport. Twenty-nine people die in the crash, including 14 members of the team and head coach Bob Watson.
• December 19–21 - The Great Bakersfield Dust Storm hits the Southern San Joaquin Valley, in California; resulting in 3 deaths and $40 million in damages.

  Undated

• Polish-American mathematician Antoni Zygmund authors his major work Measure and Integral.
• Feature films released in 1977 include: Star Wars, Annie Hall, Saturday Night Fever, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, A Bridge Too Far, , The Turning Point, New York, New York, Smokey and the Bandit
• John Travolta's role in Saturday Night Fever inspired young Americans to wear Flare jeans, an updated version of Bell-bottoms.
• Atari 2600, released in October, popularized the use of microprocessor based hardware and cartridges containing game code.
• Mormon sex in chains case with the alleged abduction in England of an American Mormon missionary by a former Miss Wyoming.
• The coldest winter for fifty-nine years in the Ohio Valley region and a record dry year throughout the West, especially the Pacific Northwest, creates heating fuel and water shortages plus extended freezing of the Great Lakes and freezing of the Mississippi River as far as Cairo, Illinois.

  Ongoing

• Cold War
• Détente
• 1970s energy crisis

  Births">:Category:1977 births">Births

• January 3 - A. J. Burnett, professional baseball player
• January 4 - Ozell Wells, Dominican-American basketball player, coach, and scout
• January 7
• * Dustin Diamond, actor
• * John Gidding, architect and television host
• January 8 - Amber Benson, actress
• January 13 - Orlando Bloom, actor
• January 22 - Ben Taylor, singer-songwriter, musician, and actor
• January 26 - Vince Carter, professional basketball player
• January 28
• * Daunte Culpepper, professional football player
• * Joey Fatone, singer
• * Lyle Overbay, professional baseball player
• January 29 - Justin Hartley, film and television actor
• February 4 - Gavin DeGraw, musician and singer-songwriter
• February 5 - Ahmad Merritt, professional football player
• February 8 - Barry Hall, footballer
• February 11 - Mike Shinoda, musician
• February 13 - Randy Moss, professional football player
• February 18
• * Ike Barinholtz, actor and comedian
• * Sean Watkins, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter
• February 20 - Stephon Marbury, professional basketball player
• February 21 - Kevin Rose, former internet entrepreneur
• March 5
• * Bryan Berard, ice hockey player
• * Mike MacDougal, baseball player
• * Wally Szczerbiak, basketball player and sportscaster
• March 8 - James Van Der Beek, actor
• March 10 - Bree Turner, actress
• March 11 - Becky Hammon, professional basketball player
• March 24 - Jessica Chastain, actress and producer
• April 6 - Steve Osborne, just plain awesome
• April 9 - Gerard Way, musician
• April 14
• * Sarah Michelle Gellar, actress
• * Chandra Levy, intern
• April 16 - Hayes MacArthur, actor, producer, and screenwriter
• April 23
• * Kal Penn, actor
• * John Cena, professional wrestler
• * John Oliver, comedian
• April 26
• * Jason Earles, actor
• * Tom Welling, actor
• May 9 - Maggie Dixon, basketball player and coach
• May 12 - Rebecca Herbst, actress
• May 13 - Tom Cotton, United States Senator from Arkansas
• June 1
• * Sarah Wayne Callies, actress
• * Danielle Harris, actress and director
• June 2 - Zachary Quinto, actor
• June 3
• * Travis Hafner, baseball player
• * Az-Zahir Hakim, American football player
• June 5
• *Kristin Gore, author and screenwriter
• *Christian Martucci, singer-songwriter and guitarist
• June 7 - Joe Horgan, baseball player
• June 8 - Kanye West, American recording artist
• June 14 - Chris Boobs, Pinlol lover
• June 19 - Peter Warrick, American football player
• June 20 - Stephanie White, basketball player
• July 1
• *Pamela Rogers Turner, teacher and child rapist
• *Liv Tyler, actress
• July 13 - Kari Wahlgren, voice actress
• July 15 Ray Toro musician and guitarian
• July 28
• *Dexter Jackson, American football player and sportscaster
• *Chris Samuels, American football player and coach
• September 5 Angela Alvis, American Patriot
• November 6 In Laws 1st Year Anniversary
• November 10 - Brittany Murphy, actress
• November 15
• *Robaire Smith, American football player
• *Logan Whitehurst, singer-songwriter and drummer
• September 11 - Ludacris, actor
• November 16 - Maggie Gyllenhaal, actress
• November 22 - David Clinger, professional road racing cyclist
• December 12 - Orlando Hudson, baseball player
• December 21
• *A. J. Bowen, actor and producer
• *Mark Dice, author and conspiracy theorist
• December 24 - Michael Raymond-James, actor
• December 31 - Donald Trump Jr., businessman and TV personality, son of Donald Trump

  Deaths

January

• January 2 - Erroll Garner, jazz pianist
• January 5 – Onslow Stevens, American actor
• January 6 – William Gropper, American artist
• January 14 – Peter Finch, English-born actor
• January 17 - Gary Gilmore, criminal
• January 23 - Toots Shor, proprietor
• January 28 – Burt Mustin, American actor
• January 29 - Freddie Prinze, actor and comedian

  February

• February 3 – Pauline Starke, American actress
• February 4 – Brett Halliday, mystery writer
• February 12 – Henry Jordan, American football player and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
• February 20 – Ralph Hungerford, American naval officer, 33rd Governor of American Samoa
• February 21 – John Hubley, American animator
• February 27 – Allison Hayes, American actress

  March

• March 3 – Percy Marmont, American actor
• March 8 – Henry Hull, American actor
• March 10 – E. Power Biggs, English-American organist
• March 11 – Ulysses S. Grant IV, American geologist and paleontologist
• March 14 – Fannie Lou Hamer, American civil rights activist
• March 19 – William L. Laurence, Jewish Lithuanian-American journalist
• March 29 – Charles Nicoletti, American gangster

  April

• April 21 - Gummo Marx, vaudeville performer

  May

• May 9 - James Jones, author
• May 10 - Joan Crawford, actress

  June

• June 16 - Wernher von Braun, German, later American, aerospace engineer and space architect

  July

• July 9 - Alice Paul, suffragist

  August

• August 1 – Francis Gary Powers, American U-2 spy plane pilot
• August 3 – Alfred Lunt, American actor
• August 5 – Waldo L. Schmitt, American biologist
• August 9 – George Kenney, World War II United States Army Air Forces general
• August 14 – Ron Haydock, actor
• August 16 – Elvis Presley, American actor, musician and singer-songwriter
• August 17 – Delmer Daves, American screenwriter and director
• August 19 – Groucho Marx, American actor and comedian
• August 22 – Sebastian Cabot, English actor
• August 29 – Jean Hagen, American actress

  September

• September 1 – Ethel Waters, American singer and actress
• September 2 – Stephen Dunne, American actor
• September 8 – Zero Mostel, American actor
• September 16 – Maria Callas, Greek soprano
• September 24
• * Sherm Lollar, American baseball player and coach
• * Frederick Merk, American historian
• September 26 – Ernie Lombardi American baseball player and member of the MLB Hall of Fame
• September 29 – Robert McKimson, American animator and director

  October

• October 2 – Joseph William Woodrough, American federal judge
• October 3 – Tay Garnett, American film director
• October 6 – Danny Greene, Irish American mobster
• October 8 – Joe Greenstein, Polish-born American strongman
• October 12 – Dorothy Davenport, American actress
• October 14 – Bing Crosby, American pop singer and actor
• October 20 – Three members of American rock group, Lynyrd Skynyrd, killed in plane crash:
• * Ronnie Van Zant, lead singer
• * Cassie Gaines, lead singer
• * Steve Gaines, lead singer and guitarist
• October 27 – James M. Cain, American writer

  November

December

• December 15 - Wilfred Kitching, 7th General of the Salvation Army
• December 19 - Nellie Tayloe Ross, 13th Governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927 and director of the United States Mint from 1933 to 1953; first female state governor in the U.S.
• December 25 - Charlie Chaplin, actor