February 19 – Former
Tower of Power vocalist Rick Stevens is arrested in the United States for murdering three men during a botched drug deal. He ultimately serves 36 years of a life sentence.
Bradford Bishop allegedly murders five of his family members in Bethesda, Maryland. The crime goes undiscovered for 10 days and the suspect is never caught. From 2014 to 2018 he is on the
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
The
Maguire Seven are found guilty in London of possessing explosives for use by the Provisional Irish Republican Army and subsequently jailed for 14 years; their convictions will be overturned in 1991.
March 14 – After eight years on NBC, The Wizard of Oz returns to
CBS, where it will remain until 1999, setting what is likely a record at that time for the most telecasts of a Hollywood film on a commercial television network. (That record is broken by The Ten Commandments in 1996, which began its annual network telecasts on
ABC in 1973, continuing be telecast by that network as of 2020.)
Conrail (Consolidated Rails Corporation) is formed by the U.S. government, to take control of 13 major Northeast Class-1 railroads that have filed for bankruptcy protection. Conrail takes control at midnight, as a government-owned and operated railroad until
1986, when it is sold to the public.
Tiananmen Incident: Large crowds lay wreaths at Beijing's Monument of the Martyrs to commemorate the death of Premier
Zhou Enlai. Poems against the
Gang of Four are also displayed, provoking a police crackdown.
April 29 –
Sino-Soviet split: A concealed bomb explodes at the gates of the Soviet embassy in China, killing four Chinese.[10] The targets were embassy employees, returning from lunch, but on this day they had returned to the embassy earlier.[10]
The Judgment of Paris pits French vs. California wines in a blind taste-test in Paris, France. California wines win the contest, surprising the wine world and opening the wine industry to newcomers in several countries.
May 30 –
Indianapolis 500 automobile race:
Johnny Rutherford wins the (rain-shortened) shortest race in event history to date, at 102 laps or 408 kilometres (254 mi).
June 1 – The United Kingdom and
Iceland end the
Third Cod War, with the UK accepting Iceland's extension of its territorial waters to 200 nautical miles in exchange for defined fishing rights.
June 13 – Savage thunderstorms roll through the state of
Iowa, spawning several tornadoes, including an F-5
tornado that destroys the town of
Jordan.
June 14 – The trial begins at
Oxford Crown Court in England of
Donald Neilson, the multiple killer known as the Black Panther. He will be convicted and serve the remainder of his life in prison.
German left-wing women terrorists Monika Berberich, Gabriella Rollnick, Juliane Plambeck and Inge Viett escape from the Lehrter Straße maximum security prison in
West Berlin.
David Steel becomes leader of the UK's Liberal Party in the aftermath of the scandal which forced out
Jeremy Thorpe.
Seveso disaster: An explosion in Seveso, Italy, causes extensive pollution to a large area in the neighborhood of Milan, with many evacuations and a large number of people affected by the toxic cloud.
Twenty-six Chowchilla schoolchildren and their bus driver are
abducted and buried in a box truck within a quarry in Livermore, California. The captives dig themselves free after 16 hours. The quarry-owner's son and two accomplices are arrested for the crime.
July 29 – In New York City, the "
Son of Sam" pulls a gun from a paper bag, killing one and seriously wounding another, in the first of a series of attacks that terrorize the city for the next year.
Defending F1 World Champion
Niki Lauda suffers serious burns in the
German Grand Prix after a huge accident that nearly cost him his life.
August 2 – A gunman murders
Andrea Wilborn and
Stan Farr and injures
Priscilla Davis and Gus Gavrel, in an incident at Priscilla's mansion in
Fort Worth, Texas.
T. Cullen Davis, Priscilla's husband and one of the richest men in Texas, is tried and found innocent for Andrea's murder, involvement in a plot to kill several people (including Priscilla and a judge), and a wrongful death lawsuit. Cullen goes broke afterwards.
August 5 – The clock of "
Big Ben" at the
Palace of Westminster in London suffers internal damage and requires frequent repairs. The clock is stopped at times on 26 of the next 275 days.
August 6 – Former United Kingdom Postmaster General
John Stonehouse is sentenced to 7 years' jail for fraud, theft and forgery.
September 15 –
Darryl Sittler scores the winning goal in the
1976 Canada Cup for Canada to win over Czechoslovakia in overtime, to win the first Canada Cup in ice hockey.
September 24 –
Patty Hearst is sentenced to seven years in prison for her role in the armed robbery of a
San Francisco bank in
1974 (an executive clemency order from U.S. President
Jimmy Carter will set her free after only 22 months).
September 25 – Irish rock band
U2 is formed after drummer
Larry Mullen, Jr. posts a note seeking members for a band on the notice board of his Dublin school.
Students gathering at
Thammasat University in
Bangkok,
Thailand are
massacred, while protesting the return of ex-dictator
Thanom Kittikachorn by a coalition of right-wing paramilitary and government forces, triggering the return of the military to government.
In
San Francisco, during his second televised debate with
Jimmy Carter, U.S. President
Gerald Ford incorrectly declares that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" (there is at the time).
October 13 – The
United States Commission on Civil Rights releases the report, Puerto Ricans in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future, that documents that
Puerto Ricans in the United States have a poverty rate of 33 percent in 1974 (up from 29 percent in 1970), the highest of all major racial-ethnic groups in the country (not including
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory).
The
Sex Pistols achieve public notoriety, as they unleash several four-letter words live on
Bill Grundy's early evening television show in the United Kingdom.
The
New Jersey Legislature passes legislation legalizing casinos in the shore town of
Atlantic City commencing in
1978. After signing the bill into law,
GovernorBrendan Byrne declares "The
mob is not welcome in New Jersey!" referring to the Mafia's influence at casinos in
Nevada.
The
Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) is established by the University of California (
UC) in response to the
State Legislature's recommendation to expand post-secondary opportunities to all of California's students including those who are first-generation, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and English-language learners.[20]
^National Climatic Data Center; National Centers for Environmental Information.
"Texas Event Report: F5 Tornado (Brown County)". Storm Event Database. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Archived from the original on September 22, 2023. Retrieved September 22, 2023.
^Tony Giardina (August 7, 2012).
"Olympic Track & Field: Decathlete Ashton Eaton Is Next American Star". Bleacher Report.
Archived from the original on July 12, 2015. Retrieved June 6, 2016. Olympic decathlons first rose to prominence in America when Bruce Jenner competed in the 1976 games in Montreal. He became an American hero by setting the decathlon world record and taking gold back from the Soviets.
^University of California EAOP, 2003 in Review. University of California, 2009–10 Budget for Current Operations Budget Detail, as Presented to the Regents for Approval.
February 19 – Former
Tower of Power vocalist Rick Stevens is arrested in the United States for murdering three men during a botched drug deal. He ultimately serves 36 years of a life sentence.
Bradford Bishop allegedly murders five of his family members in Bethesda, Maryland. The crime goes undiscovered for 10 days and the suspect is never caught. From 2014 to 2018 he is on the
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
The
Maguire Seven are found guilty in London of possessing explosives for use by the Provisional Irish Republican Army and subsequently jailed for 14 years; their convictions will be overturned in 1991.
March 14 – After eight years on NBC, The Wizard of Oz returns to
CBS, where it will remain until 1999, setting what is likely a record at that time for the most telecasts of a Hollywood film on a commercial television network. (That record is broken by The Ten Commandments in 1996, which began its annual network telecasts on
ABC in 1973, continuing be telecast by that network as of 2020.)
Conrail (Consolidated Rails Corporation) is formed by the U.S. government, to take control of 13 major Northeast Class-1 railroads that have filed for bankruptcy protection. Conrail takes control at midnight, as a government-owned and operated railroad until
1986, when it is sold to the public.
Tiananmen Incident: Large crowds lay wreaths at Beijing's Monument of the Martyrs to commemorate the death of Premier
Zhou Enlai. Poems against the
Gang of Four are also displayed, provoking a police crackdown.
April 29 –
Sino-Soviet split: A concealed bomb explodes at the gates of the Soviet embassy in China, killing four Chinese.[10] The targets were embassy employees, returning from lunch, but on this day they had returned to the embassy earlier.[10]
The Judgment of Paris pits French vs. California wines in a blind taste-test in Paris, France. California wines win the contest, surprising the wine world and opening the wine industry to newcomers in several countries.
May 30 –
Indianapolis 500 automobile race:
Johnny Rutherford wins the (rain-shortened) shortest race in event history to date, at 102 laps or 408 kilometres (254 mi).
June 1 – The United Kingdom and
Iceland end the
Third Cod War, with the UK accepting Iceland's extension of its territorial waters to 200 nautical miles in exchange for defined fishing rights.
June 13 – Savage thunderstorms roll through the state of
Iowa, spawning several tornadoes, including an F-5
tornado that destroys the town of
Jordan.
June 14 – The trial begins at
Oxford Crown Court in England of
Donald Neilson, the multiple killer known as the Black Panther. He will be convicted and serve the remainder of his life in prison.
German left-wing women terrorists Monika Berberich, Gabriella Rollnick, Juliane Plambeck and Inge Viett escape from the Lehrter Straße maximum security prison in
West Berlin.
David Steel becomes leader of the UK's Liberal Party in the aftermath of the scandal which forced out
Jeremy Thorpe.
Seveso disaster: An explosion in Seveso, Italy, causes extensive pollution to a large area in the neighborhood of Milan, with many evacuations and a large number of people affected by the toxic cloud.
Twenty-six Chowchilla schoolchildren and their bus driver are
abducted and buried in a box truck within a quarry in Livermore, California. The captives dig themselves free after 16 hours. The quarry-owner's son and two accomplices are arrested for the crime.
July 29 – In New York City, the "
Son of Sam" pulls a gun from a paper bag, killing one and seriously wounding another, in the first of a series of attacks that terrorize the city for the next year.
Defending F1 World Champion
Niki Lauda suffers serious burns in the
German Grand Prix after a huge accident that nearly cost him his life.
August 2 – A gunman murders
Andrea Wilborn and
Stan Farr and injures
Priscilla Davis and Gus Gavrel, in an incident at Priscilla's mansion in
Fort Worth, Texas.
T. Cullen Davis, Priscilla's husband and one of the richest men in Texas, is tried and found innocent for Andrea's murder, involvement in a plot to kill several people (including Priscilla and a judge), and a wrongful death lawsuit. Cullen goes broke afterwards.
August 5 – The clock of "
Big Ben" at the
Palace of Westminster in London suffers internal damage and requires frequent repairs. The clock is stopped at times on 26 of the next 275 days.
August 6 – Former United Kingdom Postmaster General
John Stonehouse is sentenced to 7 years' jail for fraud, theft and forgery.
September 15 –
Darryl Sittler scores the winning goal in the
1976 Canada Cup for Canada to win over Czechoslovakia in overtime, to win the first Canada Cup in ice hockey.
September 24 –
Patty Hearst is sentenced to seven years in prison for her role in the armed robbery of a
San Francisco bank in
1974 (an executive clemency order from U.S. President
Jimmy Carter will set her free after only 22 months).
September 25 – Irish rock band
U2 is formed after drummer
Larry Mullen, Jr. posts a note seeking members for a band on the notice board of his Dublin school.
Students gathering at
Thammasat University in
Bangkok,
Thailand are
massacred, while protesting the return of ex-dictator
Thanom Kittikachorn by a coalition of right-wing paramilitary and government forces, triggering the return of the military to government.
In
San Francisco, during his second televised debate with
Jimmy Carter, U.S. President
Gerald Ford incorrectly declares that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" (there is at the time).
October 13 – The
United States Commission on Civil Rights releases the report, Puerto Ricans in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future, that documents that
Puerto Ricans in the United States have a poverty rate of 33 percent in 1974 (up from 29 percent in 1970), the highest of all major racial-ethnic groups in the country (not including
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory).
The
Sex Pistols achieve public notoriety, as they unleash several four-letter words live on
Bill Grundy's early evening television show in the United Kingdom.
The
New Jersey Legislature passes legislation legalizing casinos in the shore town of
Atlantic City commencing in
1978. After signing the bill into law,
GovernorBrendan Byrne declares "The
mob is not welcome in New Jersey!" referring to the Mafia's influence at casinos in
Nevada.
The
Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) is established by the University of California (
UC) in response to the
State Legislature's recommendation to expand post-secondary opportunities to all of California's students including those who are first-generation, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and English-language learners.[20]
^National Climatic Data Center; National Centers for Environmental Information.
"Texas Event Report: F5 Tornado (Brown County)". Storm Event Database. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Archived from the original on September 22, 2023. Retrieved September 22, 2023.
^Tony Giardina (August 7, 2012).
"Olympic Track & Field: Decathlete Ashton Eaton Is Next American Star". Bleacher Report.
Archived from the original on July 12, 2015. Retrieved June 6, 2016. Olympic decathlons first rose to prominence in America when Bruce Jenner competed in the 1976 games in Montreal. He became an American hero by setting the decathlon world record and taking gold back from the Soviets.
^University of California EAOP, 2003 in Review. University of California, 2009–10 Budget for Current Operations Budget Detail, as Presented to the Regents for Approval.