Events January
January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd government). January 6 – The Holy Crown of Hungary (also known as Stephen of Hungary Crown) is returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held since World War II. January 10 – Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, a critic of the Nicaraguan government, is assassinated; riots erupt against Somoza's government. January 18 – The European Court of Human Rights finds the British government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture. January 22 – Ethiopia declares the ambassador of West Germany persona non grata. January 24 Soviet satellite Kosmos 954 burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Rose Dugdale and Eddie Gallagher become the first convicted prisoners to marry in prison since the establishment of the Republic of Ireland. January 25–27 – The Great Blizzard of 1978 strikes the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes, killing 70.
February
February 1 – Film director Roman Polanski skips bail in the United States and flees to France, after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl. February 2 - the Reunion Tower opens in Dallas Texas. February 5–7 – The Northeastern United States blizzard of 1978 hits the New England region and the New York metropolitan area, killing about 100 people and causing over US$520 million in damage. February 6 – King Dragon operation in Arakan: Burmese General Ne Win targets Muslim minorities in the village of Sakkipara. February 8 – United States Senate proceedings are broadcast on radio for the first time. February 9 – The Budd Company unveils its first SPV-2000 self-propelled railcar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. February 11 Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314, a Boeing 737-200, crashes in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada, killing 44 of the 50 people on board.Aviation Safety Database The People's Republic of China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. February 13 – Sydney Hilton Hotel bombing: A bomb explodes outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing a policeman and two civilians, and injuring several other people. February 15 – Rhodesia, one of only two remaining white-ruled African nations (the other being South Africa), announces that it will accept multiracial democracy within 2 years. February 19 – Egyptian raid on Larnaca International Airport: Egyptian Special Forces attempt to rescue several hostages in Larnaca, Cyprus; 20 Egyptian commandos are injured or killed. February 25 – The first Legislative Assembly election is held in Arunachal Pradesh, India. February 27 – The first global positioning satellite, the Rockwell International-built Navstar 1, is launched by the United States.
March
March 1 – Charlie Chaplin's remains are stolen from Cosier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. March 2 – Soyuz 28 (Aleksei Gubarev, Vladimír Remek) is launched on a rendezvous with Salyut 6, with the first cosmonaut from a country other than the US or USSR (Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek). March 3 Ethiopia admits that its troops are fighting with the aid of Cuban soldiers, against Somalian troops in the Ogaden. Rhodesian Bush War: Rhodesia attacks Zambia. The New York Post publishes an article about David Rorvik's book The Cloning of Man, about a supposed cloning of a human being. March 8 – The first radio episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, is transmitted on BBC Radio 4. March 10 – Soyuz 28 lands. March 11 Coastal Road massacre: Palestinian terrorists kill 34 Israelis. Claude François, French entertainer born 1939, dies by electrocution in his home in Paris. March 14 – Operation Litani: Israeli forces invade Lebanon. March 15 – Somalia and Ethiopia sign a truce to end the Ethio-Somali War. March 16 – Former Italian Premier Aldo Moro is kidnapped by the Red Brigades; 5 bodyguards are killed. March 17 – An oil tanker, Amoco Cadiz, runs aground on the coast of Brittany. March 18 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, is sentenced to death by hanging, for ordering the assassination of a political opponent. California Jam II is held at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California, attracting more than 300,000 fans. March 22 – Karl Wallenda of The Flying Wallendas dies, after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico. March 26 – The control tower and some other facilities of New Tokyo International Airport, which were scheduled to open on March 31, are illegally occupied and damaged in a terrorist attack by New Left activists, forcing a rescheduling of its opening date to May 20. March 28 San Francisco's City Council signs the United States's most comprehensive gay rights bill. Stump v. Sparkman (435 U.S. 349): The Supreme Court of the United States hands down a 5–3 decision, in a controversial case involving involuntary sterilization and judicial immunity.
April
April 1 New Zealand National Airways Corporation (the domestic airline of New Zealand) is merged with New Zealand's international airline, Air New Zealand. Dick Smith of Dick Smith Foods tows a fake iceberg to Sydney Harbour. The Philippine College of Commerce, through a presidential decree, is converted to the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. April 2 – Dallas debuts on CBS, and gives birth to the modern day primetime soap opera. April 3 – The 50th Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, with Annie Hall winning Best Picture. April 7 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter decides to postpone production of the neutron bomb, a weapon that kills people with radiation, but leaves buildings relatively intact. April 9 – Somali military officers stage an unsuccessful coup against the government of Siad Barre; security forces thwart the attempt within hours, and several conspirators are arrested. April 14 – Thousands of Georgians demonstrate against an attempt by Soviet authorities to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language. April 18 – The U.S. Senate votes, 68–32, to turn the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control on December 31, 1999. April 18– 30 – The Khmer Rouge massacres 3,157 civilians in Ba Chúc, Vietnam. April 20 – A Soviet air defense plane shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 902; the plane makes an emergency landing on a frozen lake. April 22 Izhar Cohen & the Alphabeta win the Eurovision Song Contest 1978 for Israel with their song A-Ba-Ni-Bi. The One Love Peace Concert is held at National Heroes Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. April 25 – St. Paul, Minnesota becomes the second U.S. city to repeal its gay rights ordinance, after Anita Bryant's successful 1977 anti-gay campaign in Miami-Dade County, Florida. April 27 Saur Revolution – Afghanistan's president Mohammad Daoud Khan and his family are murdered; Nur Muhammad Taraki succeeds him, beginning the Afghan conflict. Willow Island disaster – In the deadliest construction accident in United States history, 51 construction workers are killed when a cooling tower under construction collapses at the Pleasants Power Station in Willow Island, West Virginia. April 30 – The "Democratic Republic of Afghanistan" is proclaimed, under pro-communist leader Nur Muhammad Taraki.
May
May 4 South African Border War: The Battle of Cassinga occurs in southern Angola. Communist activist Henri Curiel is murdered in Paris. May 8 Norway opens a natural gas field, in the Polar Sea. Reinhold Messner (Italy) and Peter Habeler (Austria) make the first ascent of Mount Everest, without supplemental oxygen. May 9 – In Rome, the corpse of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, is found in a red Renault 4. May 12 – Shaba II: In Zaire, rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, the mining centre of the province of Shaba. The Zairean government asks the U.S., France and Belgium to restore order. May 12–13 – A group of mercenaries, led by Bob Denard, oust Ali Soilih in the Comoros; ten local soldiers are killed. Denard forms a new government. May 17 – Charlie Chaplin's coffin is found some from the cemetery from which it was stolen, near Lake Geneva. May 18 Soviet dissident Yuri Orlov is sentenced to 7 years' hard labor, for distributing 'counterrevolutionary material'. Sarajevo is selected to host the 1984 Winter Olympics, and Los Angeles is selected to host the 1984 Summer Olympics. May 18–19 – Belgian and French paratroopers fly to Zaire, to aid the fight against the rebels. May 19–20 – French Foreign Legion paratroopers land in Kolwezi, Zaire, to rescue Europeans in the middle of a civil war. May 20 – Mavis Hutchinson, 53, becomes the first woman to run across the U.S.; her trek took 69 days. May 22 – Exiled leaders Ahmed Abdallah and Muhammad Ahmad return to the Comoros. May 26 – In Atlantic City, New Jersey, Resorts International, the first legal casino in the eastern United States, opens. May 28 – Indianapolis 500: Al Unser wins his third race, and the first for car owner Jim Hall. May 29 – Ali Soilih is found dead in the Comoros, allegedly shot when trying to escape.
June
June 1 – The 1978 FIFA World Cup starts in Argentina. June 2 – Japan Air Lines 115 had its tail struck on the runway on the airport it landed in. The same aircraft would be involved in a 2nd accident 7 years later June 10 – Affirmed holds off Alydar to win the Belmont Stakes and becomes the last horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown of Horse Racing until 2015. June 15 – King Hussein of Jordan marries 26-year-old Lisa Halaby, who takes the name Queen Noor. June 19 England cricketer Ian Botham becomes the first man in the history of the game to score a century and take eight wickets in one innings of a Test match. Garfield's first comic strip, originally published locally as Jon in 1976, goes into nationwide syndication. June 20 – The 6.2 Thessaloniki earthquake shakes Northern Greece with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Fifty people were killed. June 21 A shootout between Provisional IRA members and the British Army in Northern Ireland leaves one civilian and three IRA men dead. 1978 Iranian Chinook shootdown: Iranian helicopters stray into Soviet airspace and are shot down. June 22 – Charon, a satellite of Pluto, is discovered. June 24 – The Gay & Lesbian Solidarity March is held in Sydney, Australia to mark the 9th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots (which later becomes the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras; later incorporating a festival). June 25 Argentina defeats the Netherlands 3–1 after extra time to win the 1978 FIFA World Cup. The rainbow flag of the LGBT movement flies for the first time (in its original form) at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. June 26 – A bombing by Breton nationalists causes destruction in the Palace of Versailles. June 30 – Ethiopia begins a massive offensive in Eritrea.
July
July 1 – Australia's Northern Territory is granted self-government. July 3 – The Amazon Co-operation Treaty (ACT) is signed. July 7 – The Solomon Islands become independent from the United Kingdom. July 11 – At least 217 tourists die in an explosion of a tanker-truck at a campsite in Costa Daurada, Spain. July 24 – In Acapulco, Mexico, Margaret Gardiner of South Africa is crowned Miss Universe. July 25 – Louise Brown, the world's first test tube baby, is born in Oldham, Greater Manchester, UK.
August
August 12 – The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China is concluded. August 17 – Double Eagle II becomes the first balloon to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Presque Isle, Maine, to Miserey, France. August 22 Sandinistas seize the Nicaraguan National Palace.