The following events occurred in January 1978:
January 1, 1978 (Sunday) Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashed off the coast of Bombay, killing all 213 people on board. The 747 had taken off from Mumbai on a scheduled flight to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and disintegrated in mid-air minutes after takeoff. The government of Vietnam accused Democratic Kampuchea (formerly Cambodia) of sending troops deep into Vietnamese territory and killing or wounding thousands of civilians. The statement on Radio Vietnam declared that the Kampuchean troops had fired shells into large areas of dense population. Born: Philip Mulryne, Northern Irish footballer with 27 caps as a midfielder for the Northern Ireland national team, as well as being a Dominican friar and Roman Catholic priest; in Belfast
January 2, 1978 (Monday) In American college football, with the major bowl games being held on the day after New Year's Day because of an NCAA ban on playing football on Sunday, the #1-ranked Texas Longhorns were defeated by the #5-ranked Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, 38 to 10, in the Cotton Bowl. In the evening, the #2-ranked Oklahoma Sooners, poised to claim the top ranking in the Associated Press and United Press International polls and the national championship, lost to the #6 Arkansas Razorbacks, 31 to 6, in the Orange Bowl. While #3 Alabama defeated #9 Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl, 35 to 6, #4 Michigan lost to the #13 Washington Huskies, 27 to 20 in the Rose Bowl. The three upsets left open the question of whether the AP and UPI polls would choose Alabama, Notre Dame or Arkansas as the number one team in the United States.
U.S. President Jimmy Carter addressed the Parliament of India and announced that the United States would send nuclear fuel to India for a reactor and would aid the nation in economic development. Born: Karina Smirnoff, Ukrainian-born American dancer; in Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union Died: Cyril King, 56, Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands since 1975, died of stomach cancer.
January 3, 1978 (Tuesday) Former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was expelled by the Congress Party that she had led, after the executive board, the Congress Working Committee, resolved to get rid of her because of the defeat of the party in the March 1977 elections. The Nehru family, Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, Indira, had controlled the party for almost 30 years. A fire in a Chinese temple in Manila killed 11 people in the Philippines. The dead were finishing the celebration of the feast of Tsu Su Kong, an ancient Chinese god, on the third floor of the temple when the fire broke out, apparently caused by candles setting fire to decorations. U.S. President Jimmy Carter, on a tour of India, visited the village of Daulatpur Nasirabad in Haryana state, where his mother Lillian Carter had previously worked while in the Peace Corps. In honor of President Carter's visit, the village government renamed the village "Carterpuri". By 1998, many residents wanted to restore the village to its former name. Voters in the Associated Press poll of sportswriters and in the United Press International poll of coaches both selected Notre Dame as their choice for the number one team in college football for the 1977 season as recognized by the NCAA, with Alabama a close second in voting. In the AP Poll, the Fighting Irish edged the Crimson Tide by a margin of 1,180 points to 1,132 while in the UPI Poll, Notre Dame finished ahead, 365 points to 354.
January 4, 1978 (Wednesday) Voters in Chile overwhelmingly endorsed the policies of President Augusto Pinochet in a special referendum after the United Nations had cited numerous human rights violations since General Pinochet led the overthrow of President Salvador Allende in 1973. Pinochet told a national audience that there would be no more elections in Chile for at least 10 years, and said that the message sent to the UN was "We don't want you to say that you want to examine us. Never again." The People's Republic of China announced that the Communist Party had approved making it easier for its citizens to travel outside the nation. Born: Karine Ruby, French snowboarder and 1998 Olympic gold medalist in the giant slalom, as well as six world championship gold medals; in Bonneville, Haute-Savoie département (killed in a mountain climbing accident, 2009)
January 5, 1978 (Thursday) All 74 people aboard the Indian freighter Chandragupta disappeared in the Pacific Ocean after sending a radio message that the ship was taking on water and that the 68 crew and six family members were abandoning the ship in life rafts. The Chandragupta had departed from Portland, Oregon on December 28 with a cargo of wheat and reported its position as northwest of Honolulu. On January 10, an air search spotted one of the life rafts but the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mellon found that the raft was capsized and empty, with no survivors or bodies found. Bülent Ecevit, of CHP, formed the new government as Prime Minister of Turkey. The 35-member cabinet included 22 members of Ecevit's Republican People's Party and 10 members of the Justice Party of former Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel. Brazil's President Ernesto Geisel announced to the National Renovating Alliance that he had chosen General João Figueiredo to succeed him as the South American nation's next president.
The Crown of St. Stephen (also known as the Holy Crown of Hungary) arrived back in Hungary from the United States, where it had been held since World War II. A U.S. Air Force jet landed in Budapest with a "huge metallic crate containing the crown jewels" as a Hungarian military band played the Communist nation's anthem. Born: January Jones, American TV actress known for Mad Men; in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
January 6, 1978 (Friday) U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance formally turned over the Crown of St. Stephen to the Hungarian government in a 30-minute ceremony. Vance presented a letter from U.S. President Carter, who wrote, "It is with a genuine sense of pride that I am able to return to the people of Hungary this priceless treasure, which the United States has been privileged to shelter since the terrible devastation of the Second World War." Died: John D. MacArthur, 80, American insurance entrepreneur, philanthropist and billionaire. MacArthur's will provided funding for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the MacArthur Fellows Program which annually awards what is nicknamed the "Genius Grant" to individuals who have shown "extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction" and are citizens or residents of the United States.Official website Burt Munro, 78, New Zealand motorcycle racer
January 7, 1978 (Saturday) Emilio Marcos Palma became the first known person to be born on the continent of Antarctica. Emilio's mother, Silvia Morella de Palma, was flown to Argentina's Esperanza Base Graham Land, where the South American nation had made a claim to the Argentine Antarctic territory and where Emilio's father, Argentine Army Captain Jorge Emilio Palma, was stationed. Iran and Red and Black Colonization, an article from the Ettela'at newspaper published by the Minister of information Dariush Homayoon attacks Ayatollah Khomeini by describing him as a foreign agent.
January 8, 1978 (Sunday) Rick Turner, 36, a prominent white South African anti-apartheid activist and a professor of political science at the University of Natal, was struck and killed by a bullet shot through the window of his home in Bellair, a suburb of Durban. Died: Rose Halprin, 81, American Zionist leader and President of the Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America
January 9, 1978 (Monday)
At 11:00 in the morning local time, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, with 15,000 residents on 16 remote islands totaling , became a territory within the United States. The Marianas were the first territory added to the U.S. since 1917, when the U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark. Dr. Carlos S. Camacho took office on the same day at the capital, Saipan, as the first Governor of the new Commonwealth. Protests breakout in the Iranian city of Qom against the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The protest began as a response to the publication of Iran and Red and Black Colonization, an article from the newspaper Ettela'at that attacked Ayatollah Khomeini 2 days earlier. The protest in Qom symbolized the growing opposition to the Shah's authoritarian rule and set the stage for the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which ultimately led to the overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Born: Gennaro Gattuso, Italian footballer with 73 caps as a midfielder for the national team, later the manager for AC Milan; in Corigliano Calabro Chad Johnson, American pro football NFL wide receiver who legally changed his name to "Chad Ochocinco", 2006 NFL receiving yards leader; in Miami AJ McLean, American singer and a founding member of the Backstreet Boys pop music group; in West Palm Beach, Florida Died: Robert D. Murphy, 83, American diplomat
January 10, 1978 (Tuesday) Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, 53, editor and publisher of the Managua newspaper La Prensa, as well as a critic of Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, was assassinated. Chamorro was driving to work in Managua when another vehicle blocked his car. Gunmen stepped out of the second car and shot Chamorro in the face, and he died an hour later. The next day, a crowd of 50,000 people walked with Chamorro's glass-topped coffin to his home, in a Managua suburb in "the largest public demonstration in more than a decade." The Soviet space mission Soyuz 27 was launched from Baikonur with two cosmonauts toward the Salyut 6 orbiting space station. Traveling on Soyuz 27 were the mission commander, Soviet Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Dzhanibekov, and veteran cosmonaut and flight engineer Oleg Makarov, who had flown on Soyuz 12. Soyuz 27 docked with the space station and joined Soyuz 26 cosmonauts Yuri Romanenko and Georgy Grechko, who had been on Salyut 6 since December 10.
January 11, 1978 (Wednesday) The first double linkup, with two separate spacecraft docking to a space station, took place as Soyuz 27, with cosmonauts Dzhanibekov and Makarov, connected to the Salyut 6 station, which had two docking ports. Soyuz 26, with cosmonauts Romanenko and Grechko, had been docked to the other port since December. Born: Emile Heskey, English footballer with 62 caps as a striker for the England national team; in Leicester Died: Samuel S. Leibowitz, 84, American defense attorney known for representing both Al Capone and the Scottsboro Boys, later a New York City judge and an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of New York.
January 12, 1978 (Thursday) In the largest protest against the government of Nicaragua in more than 20 years, rioting began in Managua, as angry protesters set businesses and cars on fire two days after the assassination of Pedro Chamorro, while others blocked firefighters from reaching the blazes, or reset fires that had been extinguished. At the 72nd annual convention of the athletic directors of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the intercollegiate sports body approved a proposal to split the 144 NCAA Division I college football participants into Division I-A for larger universities that offered scholarships for at least 12 varsity sports, and Division I-AA. Universities in the seven big conferences (at the time, the Pacific 10 (Pac 10), the Western Athletic (WAC) the Big 8, the Southwest (SWC), the Big 10, the Southeastern (SEC) and the Atlantic Coast (ACC)) and some major independents, such as Notre Dame, were assigned to Division I-A. Born: Hannah Gadsby, Australian LGBTQ comedian known for the Emmy Award winning Hannah Gadsby: Nanette; in Burnie, Tasmania