10-26-18
Flashback Friday - - 1977
News Headlines and History
All date information was pulled from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_in_the_United_States.
January 3 – Apple Computer is incorporated.
The company was founded last year, and this was the year they incorporated and started out on their road to success. In a couple of years the trend would be fully set in the building of the first real computers for individual use. I would own my very first real, or semi real computer the Tandy CoCo Computer, with cassette tape drive and boxed joystick, and a few cartridge games.
January 19 - Snow falls in Miami, Florida (despite its ordinarily tropical climate) for the only time in its history.
This was really big headline news. I think everyone alive in America at the time knew that it had snowed in Miami. Instead of global warming back then or climate change it was all about the coming ice age. Give it a few years and the weather will change mother Nature is a rather fickle sort of gal at times.
January 20 – Jimmy Carter is sworn in as the 39th President of the United States.
I, like now, was not much into politics of the day, pretty much all I knew was that we had a President that was a Peanut Farmer, and he had a brother that liked to drink beer, then got a special beer made for him, Billy Beer.
January 1 to 31: The contiguous US average monthly minimum temperature of 12.52 °F or −10.82 °C[3] is the coldest for any month since nationwide records were first compiled in 1895
And the fear mongering went on and on about the coming Ice Age. So SO much has changed in the last 41 years. We have gone from Ice to Fire, Freezing to Boiling. One day we will figure out it is just weather whether you want it or not weather is going to happen.
March 9 – Approximately a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims take over 3 buildings in Washington, D.C., killing 1 person and taking more than 130 hostages. The hostage situation ends 2 days later
Like the weather, any real changes maybe the first name, but still the last name remains the same. Murder, mayhem and destruction continues. Like the weather it seems it will not change, the cycle of violence seems hell bent to continue as it has for the last 2000 plus years.
May 25 – The movie Star Wars is released.
One of the best Highlights of the year, this was epic. I went, I watched, and I went again. For its time it was a good movie.
July 13 – The New York City blackout of 1977 lasts for 25 hours, resulting in looting and other disorder.
Like the Miami snowfall, the Blackout was Headline news almost everywhere. No longer was the Big Apple the big easy. It was everyman for themselves, it was not a pretty sight or event.
July 28 – The first oil through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System reaches Valdez, Alaska.
March 27, 1975 - Construction began - - - - Think about that. "Some 420 miles of the 800-mile-long pipeline is elevated on 78,000 vertical support members due to permafrost." 800 miles long. 2 years 4 months. 800/28(months)=28.57142857142857 miles a month. Pretty much one mile a day. I wonder if we could do that in today's environment.
August 3 – United States Senate hearings on MKULTRA are held.
Like most Senate Hearings, not much came of it. But there was a hearing on it. Nothing to see here, now let's move on.
August 20 – Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
September 5 – Voyager program: Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.
I found this little bit of news sequence kind of different. Why launch the second first? I could try to find out, but it was likely due to the different mission parameters.
February 4 - Fleetwood Mac's Grammy-winning album Rumours is released.
Very big and huge Album for it's time, at least for me
August 16 – Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll dies in his home in Graceland at age 42.
I am likely one of the few people that liked his movies, some of music I liked also, but as a kid, I thought his movies were pretty good. He was an Icon of American Music, and is still missed by many. He brought about a lot of change to the industry, no longer a single person on a stool with a guitar, or a group of three or four standing around a microphone stand, he brought more than music to his shows. Who can not remember "Viva Las Vegas" Here is a three minute clip of what is supposedly the official trailer.
October 20 – Three members of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a charter plane crash outside Gillsburg, Mississippi, 3 days after the release of their fifth studio album Street Survivors.
Like the death of Elvis this hit a different generation, a loss to all fans of music, as a band they brought their own unique sound to rock and roll, one of the biggest southern rock bands.
October 21 – Rock singer Meat Loaf (real name Marvin Lee Aday) releases the album Bat Out of Hell.
The year may have started out rather soft in music, there were tragedies along the way in music, and then there was Meat Loaf. I honestly do not know of a debut Album that was as fantastic as this album.
Conclusion
1977, for me a very pivotal year, as I was reading and looking at the stories floods of memories, from the violence, the deaths, the explorations, the joy and and the tragedies, it was a year of strong memories, more so than the previous six years. Sorry no cars, post just got to long.
