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1976 - Film and Television

Academy Award, Best Picture: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Popular films were Rocky, Taxi Driver, Network, All the President's Men

Sylvester Stallone starred in

ROCKY

And the Steadicam is used for the first time during filming.

Clint Eastwood is bad to the bone in

The Outlaw Josey Wales

Robert De Niro was the

Taxi Driver

Charlie's Angels captivated TV audiences nationwide

1976 statistics

The World Population: 4.158 billion

U.S. Statistics
President: Gerald R. Ford
Vice President: Nelson A. Rockefeller
Population: 218,035,164
Life expectancy: 72.9 years
Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000): 52.9
Property Crime Rate (per 1,000): 48.2
US GDP (1998 dollars): $1,819.00 billion
Federal spending: $371.79 billion
Federal debt: $629.0 billion
Median Household Income
(current dollars): $12,686
Consumer Price Index: 56.9
Unemployment: 7.7%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.13

1976 - In the news

The Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, is released by Seymour Cray's Cray Research

March 20 – Patty Hearst is found guilty of armed robbery of a San Francisco bank.

April 5- At 1:27P.M., businessman Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. dies aboard a private jet en route to Houston, Texas from Acapulco, Mexico. He was 70 years old.

Space probe Viking 1 landed on Mars

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Air France and British Airways begin the first regularly scheduled commercial supersonic transport (SST) flights.

Richard Leakey discovers a 1.5 million year old Homo erectus skull in Kenya

August 4th, a mysterious disease strikes an American Legion convention in Philadelphia, eventually claiming 29
lives and is named Legionnaire’s Disease.

August 26 – The first known outbreak of Ebola virus occurs in Yambuku, Zaire.

Jimmy Carter elected US President (Nov. 2).

1976 In Sports

Super Bowl - Pittsburgh d. Dallas (21-17)

World Series - Cincinnati d. NY Yankees (4-0)

NBA Championship - Boston d. Phoenix (4-2) The Boston Celtics defeat the Phoenix Suns 128-126 in triple overtime in Game 5 at the Boston Garden. (In 1997, the game is selected by a panel of experts as the greatest of the NBA's first 50 years.)

Stanley Cup - Montreal d. Philadelphia (4-0)

Wimbledon - Women: Chris Evert d. E. Cawley (6-3 4-6 8-6)

Men: Bjorn Borg d. I. Nastase (6-4 6-2 9-7)

Kentucky Derby Champion - Bold Forbes

NCAA Basketball Championship - Indiana d. Michigan (86-68)

NCAA Football Champions - Pittsburgh (12-0-0)

Indianapolis 500 - Johnny Rutherford wins the (rain-shortened) shortest race in event history to date, at 102 laps or 255 miles (408 km).

The 1976 Summer Olympics

Officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The 1976 Winter Olympics

Officially known as the XII Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated February 4-15 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria At the 1976 Olympics, Dorothy Hamill came in second in the figures and then won the short and long programs, taking the gold medal.

The bobbed hairstyle that she wore during her performance started a fad known as the "Wedge" and she quickly became "America's Sweetheart.”

1976 - What we drove

With gasoline at about $0.60 per gallon, a five dollar bill was good for a night of cruising and a couple of burgers. But we largely missed-out on the "muscle car era" as the new cars for 1976 were de-tuned because of strict EPA regulations.

The 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass "442" was reduced to a decorative option group and this model's reputation for high performance was almost gone.

Datsun (Nissan) was selling little B-210 sedans and hatchbacks in huge numbers and they got almost 40 mpg with a carbureted engine.

MG and the British auto industry was in its final decline into the history books. This is the "Midget" micro-sports car.

Toyota Corollas were starting to become popular. Who would have thought they would grow to be as big as GM?

The Chevy Camaro was a huge success and they had option groups for every taste. This one is an "RS" which stood for Rally Sport

The Ford Bronco was an SUV in those days. Some Jefferson Broncos drove a Bronco.

The Mustang was reduced in size and based on the Pinto. Most were powered by the four cylinder Pinto engine.

Ricardo Montalbán was the spokesman for the Chrysler Cordoba and he just couldn't stop talking about that Corinthian leather.

That Monte Carlo hood seemed a mile long when you were in the driver's seat.

A Corvette was definitely cool but EPA restrictions meant that the horsepower was at its lowest point in the history of America's sports car.

The AMC Gremlin was a popular car, most had six cylinder engines and a three speed manual "on the floor" was a common sight.

Ford's personal luxury car was the Thunderbird and it had grown to huge proportions and was powered by a fuel hungry 460 V8 engine.

If you had a 35mm Canon AE-1 or Nikkormat FT2 camera, you were using the latest technology

The computers were primitive and crude.

Super Pong was introduced in 1976

TVs came with "Rabbit Ears". One knob had channels 2~13 and there were two dials, one that said "UHF" for Ultra High Frequency tuning and another for horizontal hold. Ultimately it often took a hard slap on the side of the set to make the picture right. Cable TV meant that you actually received a whopping ten channels.

Like this Italian Ducati, there were motorcycles from places other than Japan. Even the British manufacturers were selling lots of them here in the USA. Harley Davidson was a part of the AMF company which was known mostly for it's Bowling Alley equipment. .

If you were still riding your bicycle to school, chances are it came from Mulhaupt's on Fifth Street, was a Schwinn, was made in Chicago and had a name like "Varsity" or "Collegiate"

Some things never change

There were some goofy things going on as new technology was advancing in every direction.

OUR MUSIC - 1976

Grammys awarded in 1976
Record of the Year: "Love Will Keep Us Together," Captain and Tennille
Album of the Year: Still Crazy After All These Years, Paul Simon (Columbia)
Song of the Year: "Send in the Clowns," Stephen Sondheim, songwriter
On December the 8th 1976 – Hotel California by The Eagles is released.

1976 in modern fiction

• The 2008 CBS television show Swingtown takes place in the summer of this year.
• The pilot for That '70s Show is also set in this year.
• The movie Dazed and Confused takes place in this year.
• In the movie The Sandlot: Heading Home, the main character is sent back to this year.
• '76, a comic book mini-series published by Image Comics, is set in this year.
• The film Nashville is set in 1976.
• The film Vigilante Force, starring Kris Kristofferson, is set in 1976.