Anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko died on September 12 1977, after 22 hours of interrogation and torture, following his arrest at a police roadblock in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Since his death, he is viewed as a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement.
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The 1977 Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II was a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne. It featured large-scale parties and parades throughout the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth throughout the year, peaking in June with “Jubilee Days,” coinciding with the Queen’s official birthday.
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On December 3rd, 1979, 18,500 fans had gathered outside the Coliseum in Cincinnati for a much anticipated concert by The Who. The show was general admission, which meant the best seats were up for grabs. The festive and energetic pre-show gathering outside the venue soon turned to tragedy.
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Frank Wills was the security guard who alerted the police to a possible break-in at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., leading to the now-historical scandal and resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.
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On July 13, 1977, a series of lightning strikes at Buchanan South, a substation on the Hudson River, resulted in a 2 day electricity blackout covering all five boroughs of New York City.
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Love Canal is an aborted canal project branching off of the Niagara River about four miles south of Niagara Falls, NY. It is also the name of a fifteen-acre, neighborhood built directly adjacent to the canal. From 1942 to 1953, the Hooker Chemical Company, with government sanction, began using the partially dug canal as a chemical waste dump. At the end of this period, the canal contained approx 21,000 tons of toxic chemicals, including at least twelve that are known carcinogens. Hooker covered the 16-acre hazardous waste landfill in clay and sold the land to the Niagara Falls School Board, attempting to absolve itself of any future liability by including a warning in the property deed.
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Apollo 17 was the final mission of the United States’ Apollo space program, the enterprise that landed the first humans on the Moon. Launched at 12:33 am Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 7, 1972, with a three-member crew consisting of Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt.
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The Skycycle X-2 was the steam-powered rocket owned by Evel Knievel and flown during his infamous Snake River Canyon jump near Twin Falls, Idaho on September 8, 1974.
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A fixture on early 70’s radio, Jim Croce was an appealing, unpretentious singer-songwriter who only had time to record a few albums before dying tragically in a plane crash in September 1973.
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The Concert for Bangladesh was organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar and performed at 2:30 and 8:00 PM on Sunday, August 1st 1971 to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The shows were organised to raise international awareness and finance relief efforts for refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related Bangladesh atrocities.
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On Friday, January 28, 1977 the western New York and southern Ontario areas were pummelled by a fierce winter storm that continued for 3 days. Daily peak wind gusts ranging from 46 to 69 mph were recorded by the National Weather Service Buffalo Office, with snowfall as high as 100 inches recorded in some areas. The high winds created snow drifts of 30 to 40 ft. There were 23 total storm-related deaths in western New York, with 5 more in northern New York.
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All Things Considered (ATC) is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets. The first broadcast of ATC was fed to about 90 radio stations on May 3, 1971.
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Originally conceived in 1968 as a radio and television communication platform, Toronto’s CN Tower was constructed between 1973 and 1976. For 34 years, it stood as the world’s tallest free-standing structure and largest tower. In 1995, it was declared one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Concorde, the supersonic passenger jet jointly developed and produced by Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation, made its first flight on January 21 1976.
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The Summer Jam at Watkins Glen was a 1973 rock festival which once received the Guinness Book of World Records entry for “Largest audience at a pop festival.” An estimated 600,000 rock fans came to the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway outside of Watkins Glen, New York on July 28, 1973, to see the Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead and The Band perform. (Wikipedia).
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