User:Mandsford/1909: Difference between revisions

^[1]

The following events occurred in September 1978:

• Home Theater Network (HTN), the second pay television film channel in the U.S., premiered as a lower-priced ($3.75 per month) competitor to the existing Home Box Office (HBO). Initially shown on New England Cablevision in Portland, Maine, and on for four hours a day, HTN limited its telecasts to films with a "G" or "PG" rating.^[2] Unable to increase its viewership sufficiently to meet its expenses, HTN would continue until its shutdown on January 31, 1987.^[3]
• College football in the U.S. opened with a new level, Division I-AA, consisting of eight lower level teams from the former Division I (Bucknell, Florida A&M, Lafayette, Lehigh, Nevada, Northeastern, Northwestern State, and Portland State) and the formerly Division I Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC), and 35 of the better teams from Division II's Big Sky Conference, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), Ohio Valley Conference, and the Yankee Conference (now defunct).
• The Speedway bombings, random explosions of homemade bombs, began in the Indianapolis suburb of Speedway, Indiana at 9:50 in the evening with a blast from inside a trash container outside the Hi-Fi Buys store in the Speedway Shopping Center, where windows and a car windshield were shattered, followed 10 minutes later by one in a dumpster behind the Speedway motel and a third at 10:45 in a residential neighborhood.^[4]
• Born: Adam Yahiye Gadahn, American-born terrorist member of al-Qaeda; as Adam Pearlman in rural Oregon (killed in drone strike, 2015)

• Somerset County defeated Sussex County to win the Gillette Cup, the annual knockout tournament championship of first-class cricket in England, played at Lord's in London.^[5]
• Died:
  • Fred G. Meyer, 92, German-born American grocery store entrepreneur and founder of the Fred Meyer store chain^[6]
  • Charles F. Blair Jr., 69, pioneering American aviator, military officer in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force, founder and owner of the Antilles Air Boats commuter airline, was killed in the crash of Antilles Air Boats Flight 941, along with three of his 10 passengers.^[7]

• Died: Karin Molander, 89, Swedish film actress^[8]

• Born: Wes Bentley, American film and TV actor known for American Beauty; in Jonesboro, Arkansas^[9]
• Died: Leonora Cohen, 105, English suffragette and women's rights activist^[10]

• Hosted by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's President Anwar Sadat opened discussions on a treaty at the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David in Maryland.
• Born: Chris Hipkins, 41st Prime Minister of New Zealand from January to November, 2023; in Hutt Valley^[11]

• Born:
  • Homare Sawa, Japanese footballer with 205 caps for the Japan women's national team; in Fuchū, Tokyo^[12]
  • Mathew Horne, English comedian and TV actor known for Gavin & Stacey; in Burton Joyce, Nottinghamshire^[13]
• Died: Adolf "Adi" Dassler, 77, German cobbler, inventor and entrepreneur who founded the athletic shoe and sportswear company Adidas{^[14]

• Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov was fatally poisoned by a Bulgarian intelligence agent who approached him at a street corner in London and used an umbrella to inject a pellet into Markov's leg. Markov died four days later.^[15][16]

• Keith Moon, 32, English musician and drummer for The Who, died of an overdose of the sedative clomethiazole, having ingested 32 pills.^[17] Moon's death took place inside apartment 12 of 9 Curzon Place in London, the same flat where Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas had died in 1974 at the age of 32^[18]

• Iranian Army troops killed 122 rioters in Tehran and wounded 4,000 others after firing on the crowd.
• Died: Ricardo Zamora, 77, Spanish footballer and goalkeeper who managed the Spain national team from 1920 to 1936

• Born: Gina Gogean, Romania artistic gymnast, world champion in the vault (1994, 1996); floor exercise (1995, 1996, 1997), and the balance beam (1997); in Câmpuri^[19]
• Died:
  • Jack L. Warner, 86 (born August 2, 1892), Canadian-born American film mogul who operated Warner Bros. from 1918 to 1973^[20]
  • Hugh MacDiarmid, 86 (born August 11, 1892), Scottish poet^[21]

• An error at the start of the Italian Grand Prix caused an accident involving ten cars and that killed driver Ronnie Peterson and injured Vittorio Brambilla.^[22]

• Born:
  • Ed Reed, American NFL player, 2004 NFL Defensive Player of the Year, holder of the NFL record for career interception yards (1,590), NFL interception leader 2004, 2008 and 2010), enshrined at the Pro Football Hall of Fame; in St. Rose, Louisiana^[23]
  • Else-Marthe Sørlie Lybekk, Norwegian team handball star with 215 caps for the Norway women's national handball team, 2008 gold medalist; in Gjøvik^[24]
  • Dejan Stanković, Serbian footballer with 103 caps for the Yugoslavian, and later the Serbian national team; in Belgrade, SR Serbia, Yugoslavia^[25]
  • Ben Lee, Australian actor and singer known for The Rage in Placid Lake; in SydneyOfficial website
• Died:
  • Valerian Gracias, 77, Indian Roman Catholic Cardinal and Archbishop of Bombay since 1950
  • Georgi Markov, 49, Bulgarian novelist, journalist and dissident
  • Curtis Shake, 91, American jurist who served as the presiding judge in the IG Farben trial as part of the Nuremberg trials of 1947 and 1948.

• The Declaration of Alma Ata was signed in the at the capital city of the Kazakh SSR in the Soviet Union, providing the core document on primary health care practices and paving the way for what is now the Kazakhstan healthcare system.
• Born:
  • Ruben Studdard, American gospel singer; in Frankfurt, West Germany^[26]
  • Ben McKenzie (stage name for Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan), American TV and film actor; in Austin, Texas^[27]
• Died: Ronnie Peterson, 34, Swedish Formula One race car driver, died two days after being fatally injured in a crash during the 1978 Italian Grand Prix.

• Codenamed "Diablo Hawk", the first test of Project Excalibur, a project by the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency to develop a an x-ray laser to disable ballistic missiles, was unsuccessful. The instrumentation on a device invented by George Chapline failed to measure any effects.^[28]
• Died: Annie Ina Laidlaw, 89, Australian nursing matron who led the Royal Australian Naval Nursing Service during the Second World War.^[29]

• Born:
  • Ben Cohen, English rugby union player, with 57 caps for the England national rugby union team and captain of the 2003 world champions; in Northampton, Northamptonshire^[30]
  • Ron DeSantis, U.S. politician, Governor of Florida since 2019 and former U.S. Represenatative; in Jacksonville, Florida^[31]
  • Carmen Kass, Estonian supermodel; in Paide, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union^[32]

• Born: Eiður Guðjohnsen, Icelandic footballer with 88 caps for the Iceland national team; in Reykjavik
• Died: Willy Messerschmitt, 80, German aircraft designer known for designing the [[Messerschmitt Bf 109) Luftwaffe fighter, the second most-produced warplane in history, and the Messerschmitt Me 209

• • A 7.4 magnitude earthquake killed at least 15,000 people in the city of Tabas in Iran. The quake was measured with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent).
  • General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who had overthrown the government a year earlier, formally assumed the post of President of Pakistan.
• Born: Stephanie Murphy, American politician, U.S. Representative for Florida from 2017 to 2023 and the first Vietnamese-born woman to be member of the U.S. Congress; as Dang Thi Ngoc Dung in Ho Chi Minh City^[33]

• The Camp David Accords were signed at the U.S. presidential retreat of Camp David between Menahem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt.

• Born: Billy Eichner, American TV actor, comedian and producer known for Difficult People; in Queens, New York City^[34]

• The Solomon Islands was admitted as the newest member of the United Nations.^[35]
• Born: Mariano Puerta, Argentine tennis player who reached the finals of the 2005 French Open but was banned from the sport for eight years because of doping; in San Francisco, Córdoba^[36]
• Died: Carl Bridgewater, 13, a newspaper carrier in England was shot dead when he inadvertently disturbed a burglary.

• Born:
  • Jason Bay, Canadian baseball player, 2004 National League Rookie of the Year, inductee to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame; in Trail, British Columbia
  • Sarit Hadad (stage name for Sarah Hudadatov), Israeli pop music singer; in Afula^[37]

• Born:
  • Doug Howlett, New Zealand rugby union player with 63 caps for the New Zealand national team; in Auckland
  • Josh Thomson, American mixed martial artist and lightweight world championship for Strikeforce mixed martial arts; in San Jose, California^[38]

• Born: Harry Kewell, Australian footballer with 58 caps for the Australia national team; in Sydney^[39]

• Born: Anthony Mackie, American film actor and LGBT activist; in New Orleans^[40]

• Died: Lyman Bostock, 27, outfielder for the Major League Baseball California Angels, died the day after being shot in the head while visiting friends in Gary, Indiana.^[41] Bostock had traveled to Gary after the Angels had played against the Chicago White Sox at Chicago's Comiskey Park.

• In San Diego, California, 144 people were killed when Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182, a Boeing 727, collided with a small private airplane while attempting to land.

• Died: Manne Siegbahn, 91, Swedish physicist and 1924 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy^[42]

• The last of the Forest Brothers guerrillas in the Estonia was discovered and killed in Estonian SSR.
• Born: Ani Lorak, popular Ukrainian singer; in Kitsman, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union

• Pope John Paul I died after only 33 days as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

• Born: Kurt Nilsen, Norwegian singer; in Bergen

• Finnair Flight 405 was hijacked by Aarno Lamminparras in Oulu in Finland.^[43]
• Born: Candice Michelle (ring name for Candice Michelle Beckman), American professional wrestler and model and 2007 WWE Women's Champion; in Milwaukee
• Died: Edgar Bergen, 75, American ventriloquist, comedian and radio star known for his show (with his dummy, Charlie McCarthy on The Chase and Sanborn Hour on the NBC Radio Network