August 6, 1978: Pope Paul VI dies after 15 years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church
August 26, 1978: Cardinal Albino Luciani elected as Pope John Paul I, 33 days before his death
The Montoneros terrorist group made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the chairman of Argentina's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rear Admiral Armando Lambruschini, in the bombing of a nine-story apartment building. Lambruschini was uninjured but three civilians were killed, including the Admiral's 15-year-old daughter.[1]
Warning sign at former Love Canal neighborhood
The Health Commissioner of the U.S. state of New York declared a public health emergency arising from the toxic contamination of the water supply of Niagara Falls, New York, particularly in the Love Canal neighborhood with over 1,000 residences and an elementary school. Dr. Robert P. Whalen initially recommended that "pregnant women should move away at once" from the site and declared it to be "a great and imminent peril to the health of the general public... as a result of exposure to toxic substances."[2] In 1976, two reporters from the Niagara Gazette, David Pollak and David Russell, had first discovered the presence of poisonous substances in a dumpsite that had been used near the Love Canal neighborhood by the Hooker Chemical Company.[3] Another investigative reporter, Michael Brown, followed up in early 1978 and found that residents had suffered a higher rate of illnesses and disabilities than the national average, and that the primary toxic chemical in the dumpsite was dioxin.[4] On August 7, U.S. President Jimmy Carter invoked use of the new Superfund to evacuate the Love Canal neighborhood and then to initiate a cleanup that would until 2004; in all, 950 families were relocated.[5]
Totie Fields (stage name for Sophie Feldman), 48, American comedian, died from a pulmonary embolism the day before she was scheduled to begin a two weeks of shows at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas.[7]
Richard D. Obenshain, 42, Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Virginia, was killed in a small plane crash while returning to Richmond from a day of campaigning. Obenshain, favored to win the November 7 election to replace retiring Senator William L. Scott, died along with an aide and the pilot of the twin-engine Piper Seneca.[8][9]John Warner, whom Obenshain had defeated in the Republican primary would become the new nominee. Warner, husband of Elizabeth Taylor, would win in November and retain the U.S. Senate seat until 2009.[10]
Ezzedine Kalak, the Palestine Liberation Organization's diplomatic representative to France since 1973, was assassinated in Paris along with his aide, Adnan Hammad. Two members of the Abu Nidal Organization, Hatem Husni and Kayad Assad, entered the PLO office and shot Kalak and Hamid to death.[14]
U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed a proclamation designating the first Sunday of September after Labor Day of each year (September 10 in 1978) as 'National Grandparents' Day.[15]Poland had been the first nation to observe a special day for grandparents Day, beginning on January 21, 1965, for Dzień Babci ("Grandma's Day), followed on January 22 for Dzień Dziadka for grandfathers.[16]
A bus accdident drowned 40 people near Eastman, Quebec, with only 7 survivors, in what was, at the time, the deadliest road accident in Canadian history. The bus had taken a group of handicapped residents of the town of Asbestos, Quebec, to watch a play at the Théâtre de la Marjolaine in Eastman and was returning them home when its brakes failed while it was descending a steep hill toward the Lac d'Argent. The vehicle went across a beach, skimmed across the lake and stopped in water 20 metres (66ft) deep, where it floated for 15 minutes before sinking. The driver and six volunteers were able to swim to safety, while the people left inside were unable to leave.[17] The bus was found the next day at the bottom of the lake, and had the bodies of 41 passengers.[18]
The Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, announced the introduction of Western-type political freedoms in the indefinite future, with legislation to be considered by the Iranian parliament in October. Speaking on TV, the Shah told viewers "We shall give the maximum possible political liberties, freedom of speech and of the press, freedom to stage public demonstrations within the limits of law," but added that "Iran's monarchy, Iran's fate is not something to tamper with."[21]
At Islamabad in Pakistan, terrorists backed by Iraq invaded the liaison office of the Palestine Liberation Organization and fired submachine guns, killing four people, in an attempt to assassinate the Yousaf Abu Hantash, the PLO diplomatic representative. Shouting out Hantash's name, the two gunmen were unable to recognize him from among the crowd of Palestinians who were visiting the office at the time.[22]
At 9:41 in the evening local time, Pope Paul VI died at his residence at Castel Gandolfo in Italy.[24] The Pope, who had guided the Roman Catholic church for 15 years, received communion from his bed during the 6:00 Sunday mass and then suffered a massive heart attack. He remained lucid and, an hour before his death, said that he felt dizzy.[25]Jean-Marie Villot, the Vatican Secretary of State, temporarily assumed the duties of administering the Church until a successor could be elected.[26]
Hans Filbinger, the Ministerpräsident of the West German state of Baden-Württemberg, similar to a U.S. state governor, resigned after the newspaper Die Zeit revealed that he had sentenced at least four people to death in Nazi Germany as a military judge.[32]
The Pioneer 13 probe to the planet Venus was launched by the U.S. from Cape Canaveral at 2:33 in the morning local time (0733 UTC).[35] Carrying four separate smaller descent modules, the spacecraft arrived at Venus on December 9.[36]
Born:Louis Saha, French footballer with 20 caps for the France national team; in Paris[39]
Died:Jean Juge, 70, Swiss physicist at the University of Geneva, skier and mountaineer, president of the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation from 1972 to 1976, died of exhaustion after successfully climbing the north face of the 14,690 feet (4,480m)Matterhorn, the highest peak in Switzerland's Alps. Juge refused to follow his two climbers back down to a shelter as difficult weather conditions, and a colleague told reporters, "That's the way he always wanted to die."[40]
In Greece, the pilot and co-pilot of Olympic Airways Flight 411 were able to save all 418 people on board and to prevent the Boeing 747 from crashing into downtown Athens. At 2:00 in the afternoon, the aircraft took off from Ellinikon International Airport with a crew of 18 and 400 passengers bound for New York's JFK Airport. One of the engines failed and a member of the crew mistakenly turned off the water pump switch, preventing the airplane from climbing higher than 35 feet (11m) altitude.[41] Captain Sifis Migadis and Captain Kostas Fikardos were able to keep the other engines from stalling and climbed to 209 feet (64m), narrowly clearing 200 feet (61m)-high Pani Hill at Alimos, dropping to an altitude of 180 feet (55m) as it flew over apartment buildings in the suburbs of Kallithea, Nea Smyrni, and Syggrou.[42] The flight engineer was able to increase engine power sufficiently to increase altitude and to make a gradual turn to avoid impact with 1,539 feet (469m) Mount Aigaleo, after which Migadis and Fikardos flew over the Aegean Sea, dumped most of its heavy load of fuel, and safely landed back at the airport.
Julien Ghyoros, 55, Belgian composer and orchestra conductor
All three of New York City's major newspapers— The New York Times, the Daily News, and the New York Post — ceased publication after failing to come to an agreement with the Printing Pressman's Union for a new contract.[44][45] and would remain inactive for several months, temporarily replaced by The City News, "edited by out-of-work staff members of the Daily News and the Times",[46]The New York Daily Press, and The New York Daily Metro. The New York Post and its publisher, Rupert Murdoch, reached an agreement with the striking labor union and resumed publishing on October 5. The Times and the Daily News would not resume publication until on November 6.[47]
Nine people were killed and 25 injured in the collision of two trains in Sweden near Ostersund.[48]
Meeting in Canterbury in England, the Lambeth Conference, a decennial assembly of over 400 Anglican bishops from all over the world voted overwhelmingly to endorse the ordination of women as priests in the Episcopal and Anglican church organizations in the U.S. and in three other nations, but left the question of women priests to be decided by each nation on iits own.[49]
A group of 43 Roman Catholic cardinals voted to set the papal conclave, to elect a successor to the late Pope Paul VI, to begin within 10 days, on August 25.[50]
The Progress 3 supply capsule, launched without a crew, made the largest delivery of supplies up to that time for an orbiting space station as it docked at the Salyut 6 orbiter.[51]
The Double Eagle II lifts off
Three aviators began the 14th known attempt to fly a balloon across the Atlantic Ocean, lifting off at 8:43 in the evening from the town of Presque Isle in the U.S. state of Maine, with a goal of flying across the Atlantic Ocean and landing near Paris[52][53]
The International Cometary Explorer (ICE), originally referred to as International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) was launched from Cape Canaveral in the U.S. and placed into orbit on a joint NASA and European Space Agency mission to study comets. On September 11, 1985, it would become the first Earth spacecraft to visit a comet, gathering data as it passed within 4,800 miles (7,700km) of 21P/Giacobini–Zinner.[55]
A week before the opening the 1978–79 Football League season in England, the 56th annual FA Charity Shield match was played between Nottingham Forest F.C. (the first-place finisher in the 1977–78 regular season, eliminated in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup competition), and Ipswich Town F.C. (winner of the 1978 FA Cup tournament champion after finishing in 18th place in the 22-team league). Nottingham Forest won, 5 to 0, in front of a crowd of 68,000 fans at Wembley Stadium.[56]
The bombing of a 9-story building in the Lebanon capital of Beirut killed 121 people as terrorists, believed to be from the al-Fatah (PLO) the militant wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization, were targeting the Iraqi-backed Palestine Liberation Front (PLF).[58][59]
Three men, Stuart Glass of Canada, John Dewhirst of Australia and Kerry Hamill of New Zealand, had the misfortune of being blown off course in a storm while sailing from Singapore to Bangkok on their Chinese sailing vessel, Foxy Lady and captured by the gunboats of the Khmer Rouge while seeking shelter on Cambodia's Koh Tang island. Glass was shot and killed when the Khmer Rouge began firing on the sailboat, while Dewhirst and Hamill were transported to the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh where they were tortured and forced to write confessions. Dewhirst was executed shortly afterward and Hamill was executed in October.[60]
In the U.S. city of Cleveland, Ohio, roughly 120,000 voters participated in a rare Sunday election to decide whether to recall Mayor Dennis Kucinich from office. Kucinich retained his office by a margin of only 236 votes.[61][62] The final margin was 60,014 to remove Kucinich and 60,250 to retain him in office.[63]
The crash of a U.S. Marine Corps Douglas C-117 turboprop airplane into the South Pacific Ocean killed James Joseph, the U.S. Undersecretary of the Interior, his deputy Wallace Green, and Ruth Cleive, the Director of the U.S. Office of Territorial Affairs, as well as the pilot. The C-117 had departed Guam and was en route to the Marshall Islands when it plunged into the sea shortly after takeoff.[69][70]
On the TV station WJZ-TV in Baltimore, the show People Are Talking premiered, co-hosted by newscaster Richard Sher and a 24-year-old reporter, Oprah Winfrey in her first role hosting a talk show.[71] After a little more than five years, Winfrey would relocate to the Chicago TV station WLS-TV to replace the host on AM Chicago and soon become one of the most popular television personalities in American history.
Died:
Norman Feather, 73, English nuclear physicist who made the breakthrough (with Egon Bretscher) on Britain's Tube Alloys project to develop the first British nuclear weapon[72]
A U.S. federal grand jury returned indictments against 11 high-ranking members of the Church of Scientology, charging them with conspiracy to infiltrate, burglarize and plant listening devices in the offices of the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Justice and other federlal agencies.[77] Following a trial, nine of the eleven defendants entered into a plea bargain in 1979 and received jail sentences ranging from six months to five years.[78]
Paul Yu Pin, 77, Archbishop of Nanking since 1946 and a Roman Catholic Cardinal since 1969, died shortly after arriving in Rome to participate in the papal conclave to elect a successor to Pope Paul VI.
Karena Lam, Canadian-born Hong Kong actress, winner of three Golden Horse Awards (for Best New Performer, Best Supporting Actress and Best Lead Actress; in Vancouver[80]
Ahmet Kireççi, 63, Turkish heavyweight wrestler and gold medalist in the 1948 Summer Olympics, was killed in a traffic accident in his hometown of Mersin.[85]
An intentionally set fire killed at least 377 people[89] (and perhaps as many as 470)[90] in a movie theater in Iran's city of Abadan. On a Saturday night, hundreds of people were watching the film The Deer (Gavaznha) when a group of four extremists doused the outside of the building with airplane fuel and blocked the exit doors from the outside.[91] At 10:21 in the evening, the fire was first noticed. Another 223 people were injured and 100 were able to escape to the roof of the cinema building.
German pilot Dieter Schmitt became the first person to fly alone, without stopping, across the North Pole, landing at 5:38 p.m. in Munich local time, 33 hours after departing from the U.S. in Anchorage, Alaska.[92]
Five teenaged boys disappeared after last being seen on Clinton Avenue in the U.S. city of Newark, New Jersey.[94] The crime would remain unsolved for 30 years until Philander Hampton confessed that he and another man, Lee Anthony Evans, had lured the five boys to Hampton's Newark residence, locked them into a closet and burned the house down.[95]
Five young women, ranging in age from 19 to 24, disappeared in Singapore after being lured onto a cargo ship on the pretense of being selling their services as prostitutes.[96][97] The only trace of the women's fate was a severed right hand of a victim, found floating in the sea six days after. As of 2023, the crime would remain unsolved.
Born:Alan Lee, Irish-born footballer who played 19 season in the English League and made 10 appearances for the Republic of Ireland national team; in Galway; in [101]
Died:
Charles Eames, 71, American industrial designer and architect and co-designer with his wife, Ray-Bernice Eames of innovative office furniture[102]
Charles H. Loeb, 73, African-American investigative journalist and war correspondent known as "The Dean of Black Newsmen"[103]
Daniel arap Moi was sworn in as the new President of Kenya upon the death of President Jomo Kenyatta, who had led the east African nation since Kenya had become independent in 1964. The oath was administered to Moi by the white and English-born Chief Justice of the Kenyan Supreme Court, Sir James Wicks.[107]
The U.S. Senate narrowly approved the proposed District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment by a vote of 67 to 32, one vote more than necessary two-thirds necessary for submitting an amendment for ratification by at least 38 states. In doing so, the Senate joined the U.S. House of Representatives, which had approved it in March, 289 to 127. Under U.S. constitutional rules for submitting new amendments by a vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress, the action became effective without the approval of the president.[108] The proposed amendment, which would have given the District of Columbia two seats in the Senate and one in the House, but would not have given D.C. statehood, was never ratified by the necessary three-fourths majority of the states.
The U.S. Navy frigate USS Whipple rescued all 410 Vietnamese refugees from a rickety 60 feet (18m) boat in the South China Sea during a storm, and transported them to Hong Kong for transfer to the U.N. High Commission for refugees.[109]
Raffaele de Courten, 89, former Italian admiral and the last Chief of Staff of the Royal Italian Navy
Near Rock, Kansas, seven U.S. Air Force personnel were injured, two of them fatally, when a Titan II rocket leaked propellant inside the missile silo where it was housed.[115] Staff Sergeant Robert Thomas died immediately, while Airman First Class Erby Hepstall died in a hospital from his lung injuries.[116]
Cardinal Albino Luciani, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Venice, was elected as the 263rd Pope by the College of Cardinals, succeeding the late Pope Paul VI and taking the regnal name of Pope John Paul I.[125] At 6:24 in the evening local time, smoke appeared from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, indicating a result after four rounds of balloting, but without certainty of whether a candidate had received the necessary two-thirds of votes to be the new Pontiff. After an hour, Cardinal Pericle Felici n stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica and delivered the Habemus Papam ("We have a Pope") announcement in Latin, announcing Luciani's election.[126] At 7:31, Pope John Paul I stepped onto the balcony to deliver a blessing and to confirm his acceptance of the papacy.[127]
All 14 people on a Burma Airways airplane flight from Papun to Bagan were killed shortly after the de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 300 crashed on takeoff.[129]
Charles Boyer, 78, French-born American film, stage and TV actor, committed suicide<by taking an overdose of the barbiturate Seconal. Boyer took his life two days after the death, from cancer, of his wife Pat Paterson.[132][133]
José Manuel Moreno, 62, Argentine footballer with 34 caps for the Argentina national team[134]
Gordon Matta-Clark, 35, American architect, artist and restaurateur, died of pancreatic cancer[142]
One of the most heinous murder cases in modern India began in New Delhi when two teenagers, Geeta Chopra and her younger brother Sanjay Chopra accepted a car ride from two men during rainy weather. The two Chopra children were spotted attempting to fight their kidnappers, and although police had encountered Kuljeet Singh and Jasbir Singh and detained them temporarily, the two children were never located alive and their bodies were found two days later. The kidnappers would be hanged in 1982 following their conviction of murder.[143]
All seven crew of a Soviet NavyTupolev Tu-16 "Badger" bomber and reconnaissance jet were killed when the aircraft crashed on the Arctic Ocean island of Hopen, a territory of Norway.[144] The Soviets refused to acknowledge the existence or demise of the Badger bomber until Norway returned the bodies of the crew.[145]
In a hijacking dramatized in the book and filmJudgment in Berlin, two East German citizens took control of LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165, which they had booked to return from a vacation in Poland. Flight 165 departed Gdansk, bound for Schönefeld Airport in East Berlin, with 69 people aboard.[153] Hans Detlef Tiede used a toy starter pistol, took a stewardess hostage and forced the flight crew to land at the U.S. Army's Tempelhof Airbase in West Berlin. All 62 passengers were offered the opportunity to remain in West Berlin or to return to the East Berlin. Tiede, his girlfriend Ingrid Ruske and Mrs. Ruske's 12-year-old daughter remained, along with seven other East Germans.[154]
The last 139 residents of the Bikini Atoll departed their homes because of the significant amounts of radiation left over from nuclear testing, and were relocated to Kili Island. The residents had been resettled in 1946, but allowed to return starting in 1968.[160]
Fleming, Louis B. (August 7, 1978). "Pope Paul VI Dies at 80; Led Church for 15 years—Suffers Heart Attack at His Summer Home". Los Angeles Times. p.I-1.
Chronicle of Parliamentary Elections (Geneva: International Centre for Parliamentary Documentation, Inter-Parliamentary Union. Volume 13. 1979, p. 109.
"ISEE-3/ICE". Solar System Exploration. NASA. Archived from the original on June 10, 2015. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
Miller, Carol Poh; Wheeler, Robert A. (1997). Cleveland: A Concise History, 1796–1996 (2nded.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p.176. ISBN9780253211477.
"Nicaragua Accepts Part of Besieged Rebels' Demands— Venezuela Says Managua Will Release Political Prisoners and Plane Is En Route to Pick Them Up". Los Angeles Times. August 24, 1978. p.I-1.
Greenwood, Leonard (August 25, 1978). "Rebels in Nicaragua Free Hostages, Fly to Panama— Guerrillas Take 59 Political Prisoners With Them; Somoza Says He Let Tourists Go to Save Lives". Los Angeles Times. p.I-1.
Lamb, David (August 23, 1978). "Jomo Kenyatta, Symbol of African Independence, Dies— Kenya's Leader Guided Former British Colony Into a Stable Nation". Los Angeles Times. p.I-1.
Kangumu, Bennett (2011). Contesting Caprivi: A History of Colonial Isolation and Regional Nationalism in Namibia. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien Namibia Resource Center and Southern Africa Library. pp.143–153. ISBN978-3-905758-22-1.
"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original on October 4, 2012. Retrieved September 16, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
Najem, Tom; Amore, Roy C.; Abu Khalil, As'ad (2021). Historical Dictionary of Lebanon. Historical Dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East (2nded.). Lanham Boulder New York London: Rowman & Littlefield. p.265. ISBN978-1-5381-2043-9.
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