On This Day in 1976

On this day in 1976 William Lawther, who had led the National Union of Mineworkers for fifteen years from 1939 to 1954, passed away at the age of 86.

Across the pond, The Sonny and Cher Show resumed on American TV in spite of the couple’s real-life divorce.

On this day in 1976 a storm known as the Groundhog Day Gale struck the north-east of the United States and south-east Canada. Extensive damage resulted, including coastal flooding and power outages – especially in New Brunswick and Maine.

On this day in 1976, the Daily Mail first exposed the “Thorpe affair”, which ultimately led to the resignation of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe. An interview with Peter Bessell, a former member or the House of Commons and colleague of Thorpe, revealed that Thorpe had had an affair with a man named Norman Scott, and that he had later conspired to have Scott murdered.

On this day in 1976, an earthquake killed 22,778 people in Guatamala and Honduras.

In the People’s Republic of China, Hua Guofeng became leader of the nation.

The United States of America performed a nuclear test in Nevada.

The opening ceremony for the 1976 Winter Olympics was held in Innsbruck in Austria.

Reversing a previous ban against allowing the Concorde supersonic airliner to fly to the United States, U.S. Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman announced that the UK and France could operate Concorde flights to and from New York City and Washington.

On this day in 1976, a US army recruit at the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey died in mysterious circumstances. At the same time four others were hospitalised with a new strain of influenza which would become known as H1N1, or “swine flu”. President Ford’s team of health officials were soon to be calling for the vaccination of all US citizens in an attempt to quell the outbreak.

On this day in 1976, a scandal erupted when it was revealed that the Lockheed Corporation had paid millions of dollars in bribes to secure contracts in Japan for the sale of its warplanes. Among those implicated were Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and senior Japanese government officials.