Leaks in the dam started at 7:30 am and increased over a two hour period. Crews were sent to repair the dam but by noon the earthen dam was beyond repair and collapsed.
Belfast pubs were bombed as part of ongoing IRA and UVF campaigns.
Last edition:
Showing posts with label 1976. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1976. Show all posts
Friday, June 5, 2026
Monday, June 1, 2026
Tuesday, June 1, 1976. End of the Cod Wars.
The UK and Iceland came to an agreement ending the Cod Wars.
Last edition:
Monday, May 31, 1976. Syria invades Lebanon.
Labels: 1970s, 1976, Cod Wars, East Timor, Growing up in the 1970s, Lebanese Army, Lebanese Front, Lebanon, Palestinian Liberation Organization, Syria, Syrian Army, Syrian invasion of Lebanon, Teenagers
Sunday, May 31, 2026
Monday, May 31, 1976. Syria invades Lebanon.
It was Memorial Day for 1976.
Indeed, it's probably just a trick of the calendar and memory, but this year's Memorial Day seemed freakishly early to me. We probably went fishing.
I was a newly minted teenager as of a few days prior.
Syria invaded Lebanon, occupying part of the country until 2005. In the weird way that history works, the first column which was targeting Sidon was stopped by the PLO, a second by the Lebanese Army, and a third column by Christian militias.
That says something about how crappy the Syrian Army was, and frankly always was. They endured huge casualties.
The goal was to annex Lebanon into Syria. They'd never achieve a full occupation of the country, but they would over time expand the amount of territory they were occupying.
The Indonesian installed "People's Assembly of East Timor" voted unanimously in favor of the "Act of Integration" to make East Timor Indonesia's 27th province.
The UK and Iceland entered into negotiations to end the Cod Wars.
Last edition:
Thursday, May 20, 1976. Kleptocracy.
Labels: 1960s, 1967, 1970s, 1976, baseball, Congo, Disaster, Expo 67, Kleptocracy, Personalities, Quebec (Montreal), The Second Trump Administration, Zaire
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Thursday, May 20, 1976. Kleptocracy.
The President of Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko endorsed kleptocracy, the practice of public officials stealing tax money for personal use, in a speech at a stadium before 70,000 people and millions of listeners, noting that he himself "personally spent on average more than 35 percent of the national budget on himself" during the 1970s and 1980s.
He warned; "If you want to steal, steal in a nice way, but if you steal too much to become rich overnight you will soon be caught."
He was eventually overthrown and died in exile at age 66.
This sort of open corruption used to be pretty much a third world thing, and I guess it still is in some ways. Now, of course, we're seeing corruption of a different type, but rivaling, or exceeding it, in the United States, which pretty much informs the world of what we now are.
The acrylic bubble of the Montreal Biosphere, designed by Buckminster Fuller for Expo 67, was destroyed by a fire during remodeling.
It was rebuilt, but without the transparent panels, and reopened in 1990.
Baseball great Ramón Hernández was born in Venezuela.
Last edition:
Friday, May 7, 1976. Jacelyne Khoueiry at Martyrs' Square.
Thursday, May 7, 2026
Friday, May 7, 1976. Jacelyne Khoueiry at Martyrs' Square.
Maronite Catholic Jacelyne Khoueiry and six other Lebanese Christian women defended a building in Martyrs' Square in Beirut from an attack by 300 Palestine Liberation Organization fighter.
Khouneiry would go on to command a female Christian unit of 1,500 members before laying down her arms in 1986. She'd go on to found charitable and prolife organizations and participated in a 2012 synod on the Middle East and the 2014 Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. She was appointed to the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
Last edition:
Friday, April 30, 1976. The end of the Greek Language Question.
Labels: 1970s, 1976, 2000s, 2006, boxing, Cod Wars, fishing, Greece, Greek, Health, Iceland, Icelandic Coast Guard, languages, Mental Health, Third Cod War
Thursday, April 30, 2026
Friday, April 30, 1976. The end of the Greek Language Question.
The Greek Parliament decided that the official language of Greece would be Demotic Greek, "Demotiki", the modern colloquial form of the Greek language, rather than "Katharevousa" an updated version of Ancient Greek. The latter had been the official form.
The Greek language question (γλωσσικό ζήτημα) had been going on since the 19th Century.
The British fishing trawler Arctic Corsair rammed the Icelandic Coat Guard vessel ICGV Óðinn.
The ship continued to serve until 2006, and appears as a US vessel in Flags of our Fathers. It's presently a museum ship.
Muhammed Ali barely clung on to his heavyweight title in a fight against Jimmy Young in Landover, Maryland.
Both boxers health declined enormously after their boxing careers, due to their boxing careers. Young died at age 56.
Last edition:
Sunday, April 25, 1976. Saving the flag.
Saturday, April 25, 2026
Sunday, April 25, 1976. Saving the flag.
Chicago Cubs baseball player and Marine Corps Reserve veteran Rick Monday noticed two protesters trying to burn an American flag in the outfield during a game at Dodger Stadium and snatched the flag from them.
Portugal's constitution proclaimed socialism to be a national goal.
A mass prison outbreak occurred in Laos.
Last edition:
Monday, April 5, 1976. "April 5, 1976: The Soiling of Old Glory"
Sunday, April 5, 2026
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Wednesday, March 31, 1976. Karen Ann Quinlan.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Ann Quinlan, suffering from irreversible brain damage, could be disconnected from the ventilator that had been keeping her alive since April 15, 1975. She had been found unresponsive after she consumed Valium along with alcohol while on a crash diet and lapsed into a coma. A Catholic, her parents had appealed to Catholic moral theology arguing that extraordinary means not be required to preserve her life.
She'd live for an additional nine years.
She had been trying to lose weight to fit into a bikini.
This is one of those events I can personally recall. It was a major news story at the time.
The UN Security Council found South Africa liable for an act of aggression against Angola, a fairly dubious Security Council conviction given that what South Africa really did is intervene in a civil war that other powers were likewise involved in.
The slam dunk was restored as a legal college basketball feature.
Last edition:
Wednesday, March 24, 1976. Passing of Field Marshal Montgomery.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Wednesday, March 24, 1976. Passing of Field Marshal Montgomery.
Bernard Law Montgomery died at age 88.
Of Scots Irish descent, he was born in Kennington, England to a Church of Ireland cleric and grew up principally in Australia when his father was appointed Bishop of Tasmania. He was commissioned an Army officer in 1908. He became a British Field Marshall during World War Two and is justifiably famous. He was deputy commander of NATO until 1958, when he retired at age 70.
Isabel Peron was deposed.
Last edition:
Tuesday, March 16, 1976. Wilson resigns at the point where Trump should have.
Monday, March 16, 2026
Tuesday, March 16, 1976. Wilson resigns at the point where Trump should have.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced his retirement at age 60 due to what he knew was advancing dementia, although, in those years before this was as understood as well as it currently is, he cited physical and mental exhaustion. He would die in 1995, although his dementia never took fully hold.
The more power to him. Right now, in the United States, we have a demented President in a family with a history of dementia, who is sending people off to war based on his feelings. History will not forgive us for putting up with this.
John Thune, in the Senate, is too old for his job.
John Barrasso, in the Senate, is 73, way too old for his job.
And the people who will die in the current war can take no comfort in that, as Congress is composed, on the Republican side of abject cowards.
Last edition:
Tuesday, February 17, 1976. The ABA starts its descent. Abuna Theophilos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, arrested.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Tuesday, February 17, 1976. The ABA starts its descent. Abuna Theophilos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, arrested.
The American Bar Association (ABA) voted to amend its rules of ethics to allow lawyers to advertise their services. Initially, the ABA approved letting attorneys buy display ads in telephone directories (specifically, the "Yellow Pages" for business phone numbers), with limitations on what could be allowed in the ad.
It's been an absolute disaster.
I used to be a member of the ABA, which does provide some good services, but I ultimately dropped out as it truly had some "woke" sections to it that had little to do with reality.
Abuna Theophilos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, was removed from office by Ethiopia's military rulers and imprisoned. He'd be murdered on August 14, 1979.
During his captivity he escaped on one occasion and thought about seeking refuge in the Greek Embassy. He decided instead to head for a monastery, but was captured en route.
The Clark National Forest and the Mark Twain National Forest, both in Missouri. were merged into one unit.
Last edition:
Blog Mirror: February 9, 1976: "Taxi Driver" Premieres
Labels: 1940s, 1960s, 1961, 1969, 1970s, 1976, 1976 at the Movies, 1980s, 1981, Blog Mirror, Movies, New York, Uncle Mike
Monday, February 9, 2026
Blog Mirror: February 9, 1976: "Taxi Driver" Premieres
February 9, 1976: "Taxi Driver" Premieres
I was not aware that this was a 1976 movie, but then, I've never thought of the topic either.
I've actually never seen Taxi Driver all the way through.* It's just too icky for me. But the point raised here, tracking the depictions of New York City from the early 1960s into the 1970s, from "magical" to decline, is a really interesting observation.
Somewhere I have a series photographs of my mother in New York that must date from the late 1940s. She and some friends went down from Montreal to visit. She told me once how "clean" New York was, that being her observation from that trip.
I've been to New York state, but it's been years and years. My exposure to New York City, however, is limited to the airport, a memory which is equally old.
Footnotes:
*Indeed, of the movies mentioned in this thread, the only one I've seen all the way through is Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Last edition:
Friday, February 6, 1976. Peltier arrested. Prince Bernhard implicated. Smith warns. Black Jack dies.
Friday, February 6, 2026
Friday, February 6, 1976. Peltier arrested. Prince Bernhard implicated. Smith warns. Black Jack dies.
Leonard Peltier was arrested in Canada and charged with the murder of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the husband of Queen Juliana and the inspector general of the Netherlands Armed Forces, was implicated in a bribery scandal in testimony by an official of the Lockheed Corporation. He confirmed accepting the bribe in a posthumously published memoir, acknowledging it was a mistake, but claiming all the money went to the World Wildlife Fund.
Sort of an example of how monarchy behaved, the prince is pretty far from a universally admirable person in general, although his record is mixed. A German, he worked in Germany in the 1930s for IG Faben where he was a member of the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps) before it was a full time military establishment, and to the paramilitary National-sozialistisches Kraftfahrerkorps (NSKK) although he never showed any outward Nazi sympathy or political views in general otherwise. He denied these memberships, although its certain that he belonged. He claimed to sever all of this ties after marrying Princess Julian, the future queen, in 1937. During the war, however, he actively supported the Dutch cause and saw military service and was regarded as a war hero by the Dutch, and not without good reason.
He helped found the World Wildlife Fund after the war, and was its first president.
He had four children by his wife, and two more by mistresses, all daughters.
Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith warned of a new large-scale guerilla offensive against hte country and that it would entail significant military expenditure.
The caisson horse Black Jack died at age 19.
Last edition:
Thursday, February 5, 1976. Swine Flu and Conrail.
Thursday, February 5, 2026
Thursday, February 5, 1976. Swine Flu and Conrail.
Just as with the 1916 Flu Epidemic, the 1976 Swine Flu Outbreak commenced on an Army post, when Private David Lewis died of the disease.
President Ford signed the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act into law creating the Consolidated Rail Corporation to operate freight trains in the northeastern United States. The act united much of the rail systems of the Penn Central, Ann Arbor Railroad, Erie Lackawanna Railway, Lehigh Valley Railroad, Reading Company, Central Railroad of New Jersey and Lehigh and Hudson River Railway into Conrail.
Last edition:
Monday,. February 2, 1976. Moynihan resigns.
Monday, February 2, 2026
Monday,. February 2, 1976. Moynihan resigns.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan resigned as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.in anticipation of running for Congress, although he did not express that goal at the time.
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Would that we could be braced by such great mean again.
Last edition:
Friday, January 30, 1976. Opening Pandora's Box.
Friday, January 30, 2026
Friday, January 30, 1976. Opening Pandora's Box.
In Buckley v. Valeo the United States Supreme Court struck down most limits on political campaign spending as unconstitutional, opening the door to disaster.
George Bush became head of the CIA.
Registration for the draft was called off.
Tuesday, January 27, 1976. Earthquake at Rawlins and the White Hall Flasher.
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