A flash flood hits Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on this day in 1977, killing 84 people and causing millions of dollars in damages. This flood came 88 years after the infamous Great Flood of 1889 that killed more than 2,000 people in Johnstown. As they had in the first flood, the dams in the Conemaugh Valley failed, […]
“Gonna Fly Now (Theme From ‘Rocky’)” Is The #1 Song On The U.S. Pop Charts
On this day in 1977, Hollywood composer Bill Conti scores a #1 pop hit with the single “Gonna Fly Now (Theme From Rocky).” Bill Conti was a relative unknown in Hollywood when he began work on Rocky, but so was Sylvester Stallone. Conti had gained some attention internationally with his work on several early 1970s […]
Oil Flows In Alaska
With a flip of a switch in Prudhoe Bay, crude oil from the nation’s largest oil field begins flowing south down the trans-Alaska pipeline to the ice-free port of Valdez, Alaska. The steel pipeline, 48 inches in diameter, winds through 800 miles of Alaskan wilderness, crossing three Arctic mountain ranges and hundreds of rivers and […]
Brezhnev Is Soviet President
Leonid Ilich Brezhnev, first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party since 1964, is elected president of the Supreme Soviet, thereby becoming both head of party and head of state. A member of the Soviet Communist Party since 1931, Brezhnev was Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s protege and deputy in the early 1960s. In 1964, however, he […]
Vance Affirms Carter’s Interest In Human Rights
In the face of recent Soviet crackdowns on human rights activists, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance assures skeptics in the United States that the administration of President Jimmy Carter will hold the Soviet Union accountable for its actions. On June 1, 1977 the Soviets charged Anatoly Shcharansky, a computer expert and leader of the human […]
Raymond Carver Quits Drinking
On this day in 1977, Raymond Carver quits drinking after being hospitalized four times in 1976. Carver, the son of an Oregon sawmill worker and a waitress, had recently established his reputation as a powerful short story writer with his story collection Will You Please Be Quiet Please? (1976). Born in 1938, Carver grew up […]
Soviets Charge Shcharansky With Treason
The Soviet government charges Anatoly Shcharansky, a leader among Jewish dissidents and human rights activists in Russia, with the crime of treason. The action was viewed by many in the West as a direct challenge to President Jimmy Carter’s new foreign policy emphasis on human rights and his criticism of Soviet repression. Shcharansky, a 29-year-old […]
The BBC Bans The Sex Pistols’ “God Save The Queen”
Thirty years after its release, John Lydon—better known as Johnny Rotten—offered this assessment of the song that made the Sex Pistols the most reviled and revered figures in England in the spring of 1977: “There are not many songs written over baked beans at the breakfast table that went on to divide a nation and […]