December 1978 in History

Events in History

Dec 1 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

Event of Interest

Dec 1 US President Jimmy Carter more than doubles national park system size

Dec 2 Protesters chant "Allah is great" at an Anti-Shah protest in Tehran, Iran
Dec 4 Dianne Feinstein is named as San Francisco's 1st female and Jewish mayor

Event of Interest

Dec 4 Dutch war criminal Pieter Menten freed

Dec 4 Pioneer Venus 1 goes into orbit around Venus
Dec 5 Pioneer Venus 1 begins orbiting Venus
Dec 5 Sam Shepard's "Buried Child" premieres in NYC
Dec 6 Spain adopts constitution
Dec 9 Pioneer Venus 2 drops 5 probes into atmosphere of Venus

Nobel Prize

Dec 10 Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo

Dec 11 6 masked men bound 10 employees at Lufthansa cargo area at NYC Kennedy Airport and made off with $5.8M in cash & jewelry; all of the participants and some associates were later killed on order of the alleged organized crime mastermind, loot never recovered
Dec 14 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
Dec 14 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
Dec 15 Saint Maarten Patriotic Movement (SPM) forms under W. James
Dec 16 Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first post-Depression era city to default on its loans, owing $14,000,000 to local banks.

Event of Interest

Dec 16 Ronald Reagan denounces President Jimmy Carter's recognition of People's Republic of China

Dec 17 OPEC raises oil prices by 18% and agrees on a 14.5% petroleum price increase for 1979, to be implemented quarterly
Dec 17 Referendum approves new constitution of Rwanda
Dec 17 The Workers' Party of Jamaica is founded by Trevor Munroe
Dec 18 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
Dec 18 USSR performs underground nuclear test
Dec 19 France performs nuclear test

Event of Interest

Dec 19 Indira Gandhi ambushed in India

Event of Interest

Dec 20 H. R. Haldeman, Nixon's White House Chief of Staff released from jail

Murder of Interest

Dec 21 Police in Des Plaines, Illinois, arrest John Wayne Gacy for murder

Dec 22 Thailand adopts constitution
Dec 26 India's former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi is released from jail
Dec 27 Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship as King Juan Carlos ratifies Spain's 1st democratic constitution

Event of Interest

Dec 29 Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi asks Shapour Bahktiar to form a civilian government

Dec 29 Spain constitution goes into effect
Dec 30 Ohio State dismisses Woody Hayes as its football coach
Dec 31 CIA director, Admiral Stansfield Turner retires from the Navy
Dec 31 Iran shah names Chapour Bakhtiar premier
Dec 31 Taiwan's final day of diplomatic relations with US

Birthdays in History

Dec 5 Neil Druckmann, Israeli-American writer & co-president Naughty Dog, born in Israel
Dec 7 Chad Dukes, American radio personality, born in Alexandria, Virginia
Dec 10 Donna Williams, co-founder of Neopets
Dec 13 B.J. Penn, American mixed martial artist, born in Kailua, Hawaii
Dec 16 Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japanese director (Drive my Car), born in Kanagawa, Japan

Weddings in History

Michael Crichton

Dec 31 Best-selling author Michael Crichton (36) weds lawyer Kathleen St. Johns

Deaths in History

Dec 4 Samuel Abraham Gouldsmit, Dutch-American physicist (formulated concept of electron spin), dies at 76
Dec 7 Alexander Wetmore, American ornithologist (b. 1886)

Golda Meir (1898-1978)

Dec 8 Israeli teacher, stateswoman and 4th Prime Minister of Israel (1969-74) known as the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics, dies in of lymphatic cancer at 80

Dec 10 Miura Isshu, Zen teacher, Hakuin Rinzai line, dies at 75
Dec 11 Vincent du Vigneaud, American chemist and (1955 Nobel Prize for Chemistry - for work on sulphur compounds), dies at 77
Dec 13 Frits Slomp, Dutch pastor and resistance fighter (aided people in hiding during WWII), dies at 80
Dec 14 Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo, Spanish writer (Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards) and diplomat, dies at 92
Dec 21 Roger Caillois, French writer and scholar (Les Jeux et les Hommes, championed South American writers), dies at 65
Dec 24 Franz Johannes Weinrich [Heinrich Lerse], German writer (Himmlisches), dies at 81
Dec 27 Houari Boumédiènne, President of Algeria (1965-78), dies at 51
Dec 28 Harry Winston, US jeweler for the "rich & famous", dies at 82