On April 9, 1978, the San Antonio Spurs’ George Gervin scores 63 points in his final game of the regular season to edge out the Denver Nuggets’ David Thompson in one of the tightest contests for the NBA scoring crown in basketball history. Gervin went on to become the league’s top scorer again in 1979, […]
Annie Hall Beats Out Star Wars For Best Picture
The rise of the action-adventure blockbuster was on the horizon, but on this night in 1978, the small-scale romantic comedy triumphs over the big-budget space extravaganza. At the 50th annual Academy Awards, held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, Woody Allen’s Annie Hall won the Oscar for Best Picture, beating out George Lucas’ […]
Grave Robbers Steal Charlie Chaplin’s Body
In one of history’s most famous cases of body-snatching, two men steal the corpse of the revered film actor Sir Charles Chaplin from a cemetery in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey, located in the hills above Lake Geneva, near Lausanne, Switzerland, on this day in 1978. A comic actor who was perhaps most famous for […]
The So-Called Dracula Killer
On this day in 1978, Richard Chase, who becomes known as the “Dracula Killer,” murders Evelyn Miroth and Daniel Meredith, as well as Miroth’s 6-year-old son andanotherwoman,in Sacramento, California. Chase sexually assaulted Miroth with a knife before killing her and mutilating her body. He removed some of the organs of the body and filled them […]
Song Of Solomon Wins National Book Critics Circle Award
On this day in 1978, Toni Morrison wins the National Book Critics Circle Award for Song of Solomon. The award brought the writer national attention for the first time, although she had already published two moderately successful books, The Bluest Eye (1969) and Sula (1973). Morrison went on to win the Pulitzer in 1988 and […]
Air India Jet Crashes Just After Takeoff
An Air India Boeing 747 jet crashes into the sea just after takeoff from a Bombay airport on this day in 1978, killing all 213 people on board. The crash was apparently the result of pilot error and equipment malfunction. Air India Flight 855 left Santacruz Airport (now called Chatrapati Airport) in Bombay, India (modern-day […]
Elvis Costello’s Debut Album, My Aim Is True, Is Released
A suburban family man with an office job, Declan Patrick McManus was somewhat removed from the revolution being staged in late-night clubs in 1977 London by punk-rock pioneers like The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. “All these bands were playing in the middle of the night,” he later recounted “so I couldn’t go. […]
Second Great Flood Hits Johnstown
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, […]