Economy
May 25 also brought a continued slide on the Dow Jones
industrial average. It dropped to 903.23 as investors worried
about inflation and Mideast tension. (The Dow lost 165
points that year).
The average price of a movie ticket in 1977 was about $2.25.
Tea became more popular after coffee shot up to $5/pound.
Unemployment held at 7 percent.
Other movies
Among the other movies to open that day, just before the
Memorial Day
weekend, were Woody Allen's "Annie Hall," (which won the
Academy Award for
Best Picture of 1977) and "Fun With Dick and Jane,"
co-starring George Segal and Jane Fonda.
Politics
By the movie's opening day, Jimmy Carter was four months into
his one-term
presidency. During 1977, he spoke out against human rights
violations around the world, granted a pardon to almost all
American draft evaders of the Vietnam War era and urged
Americans to respond to the U.S. energy crisis with the
"moral equivalent of war."
Carter's Moscow counterpart, Leonid Brezhnev, had already
been in power for 13
years and would stay Soviet leader for five more. The
Brezhnev years
included efforts to improve relations with the West but under
his rule, the
Soviet Union had invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 and would do
the same in Afghanistan in 1979.
Two future presidents were making upward moves. Bill
Clinton, who
turned 31 that year, was the attorney general of Arkansas.
The next year he
was elected governor. Boris Yeltsin, 46, was a rising star in
the
Soviet Union's Communist Party leadership.
1977 headlines
- Two 747s collided at the airport on Tenerife in
Spain's Canary Islands, killing 582 people. The air disaster
still ranks as the world's worst.
- Nearly half the U.S. population watched "Roots" on
television. The
fictionalized account of an African-American family -- from
slavery to
freedom -- inspired Americans of all colors to search for
their ethnic
origins.
- South African black activist Steve Biko was arrested for
subversion and died
brutally in police custody. The country's future president,
Nelson Mandela,
was about halfway through the 27 years he would spend as a
political prisoner.
- The U.S. government ordered cars to be equipped with
seatbelts by 1984, but a
ban on saccharin proposed by the Food and Drug Administration
was never
enacted.
- Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab
leader to visit Israel.
- The United States and Panama sign treaties to relinquish
American control of Panama Canal by 2000.
- A massive blackout in New York City and vicinity left
millions of people without electricity for up to 25 hours.
Police made more than 3,000 arrests for looting.
- Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt was convicted in
Cincinnati of promoting obscenity and involvement in
organized crime.
- The yacht Courageous, captained by Ted Turner, won the
America's Cup; Turner,
owner of the Atlanta Braves, put on a uniform and managed the
team for one
game during a long losing streak. Turner also was suspended
from baseball
for one year for trying to lure away a player from another
team.
- The launch of CNN was three years away.
- The first episode of "The Love Boat" aired on television.
Deaths in 1977
Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford, Bing Crosby, Groucho Marx,
Elvis Presley.
Births in 1977
Actor Edward Furlong, model Bridget Hall, Olympic gymnast
Kerri Strug, actress Liv Tyler, actress Jenna Von Oy.
January 30, 1997
