February 1976


The following events occurred in February 1976:

February 1, 1976 (Sunday)

  • A group of 12 British mercenary soldiers, recruited by "Colonel Tony Callan" to fight in the Angolan Civil War as part of a group 100 Britons that arrived on January 27, were executed by their fellow Britons on Callan's orders. UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson told the House of Commons on February 9 about the incident after being briefed by MI-5.
  • Samachar was formed as the news agency of India by the consolidation of four competing agencies— the Press Trust of India, United News of India, Samachar Bharati and Hindustan Samachar. Operations of the consolidated national news agency began on April 2.
  • The government of India, having placed the state of Tamil Nadu under President's rule, arrested hundreds of members of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, a political party that was opposed to the rule of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Deposed Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi and his aides transferred government records to incoming appointed government, and they were not arrested.
  • Five people were killed when a Rossair chartered airplane collided with a private plane as it approached the airport in Parafield, South Australia north of Adelaide.
  • The 24 Hours of Daytona auto endurance race in Daytona Beach, Florida, was halted at 10:10, after nine of the 72 entrants began running into engine trouble from gasoline contaminated by water. After almost three hours, after the tainted fuel was drained and the vehicles refueled, the president of the International Motor Sports Association ruled that the race would be restarted, with all competitors credited as having the number of laps they had completed as of 9:00 in the morning. The team of Peter Gregg and Brian Redman, who had been 16 laps ahead at that hour and were among the cars that had been halted by the tainted fuel, went on to win what one writer described as "one of the most controversial automobile races in history."
  • Died:
  • *Werner Heisenberg, 74, German nuclear physicist and 1932 Nobel Prize laureate;
  • *George Whipple, 97, U.S. physician, co-recipient of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his finding that pernicious anemia, though incurable, could be controlled by a diet of liver.

February 2, 1976 (Monday)

February 3, 1976 (Tuesday)

February 4, 1976 (Wednesday)

February 5, 1976 (Thursday)

February 6, 1976 (Friday)

  • 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, an American manufacturer of military and civilian aircraft. A. C. Kotchian, the corporation's president, testified that Lockheed paid $1.1 million to "a high official of the Netherlands", soon revealed to be Prince Bernhard, as well as two million to government officials in Japan in an effort to obtain contracts for the sale of its warplanes.
  • In the same hearing, the Vice Chairman of Lockheed testified that the company paid $1,800,000 in bribes in 1972 to then Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, leading to Tanaka's arrest on July 27.
  • Victor Garland resigned from Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser's government, after being accused of electoral offences. He was replaced as Minister for Post and Telecommunications by Eric Robinson.
  • Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith declared that "a new terrorist offensive has begun and that, to defeat it, Rhodesians would have to face heavier military commitments." Security force reports indicated that around 1,000 insurgent fighters were active within Rhodesia, with a further 15,000 encamped in various states of readiness in Mozambique.
  • Leonard Peltier, American Indian activist and one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted criminals, was arrested in Canada after being located hiding in a cabin in Hinton, Alberta. He was charged with having killed two FBI agents on June 26, 1975, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
  • Born: Kim Zmeskal, American gymnast, 1991 all-around women's champion; in Houston
  • Died:
  • *Vince Guaraldi, 47, American jazz pianist known for composing much of the music on the Peanuts television specials, including the "Linus and Lucy" instrumental, died from a massive heart attack.
  • *Black Jack, 19, American quarter horse for the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Caisson Platoon as the "riderless horse" in over 1,000 military funerals, including that of U.S. President John F. Kennedy

February 7, 1976 (Saturday)

  • Hua Guofeng, the Minister of Public Security and a relatively obscure Deputy Premier in China, was appointed by the Chinese Communist Party as the Acting Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China, to fill the vacancy left by the death of Zhou Enlai on January 6. Western observers had expected that the senior Deputy Premier, Deng Xiaoping, would be appointed to the position. At the same time that he was passed over by Chairman Mao Zedong to become the new Premier, Deng became the subject of a campaign against him in the form of 45 big-character posters, reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution in which Deng had once been disgraced, posted on walls at Beijing University. The accusations against him include that he was an "old capitalist roader who formed cliques around himself." It would later develop that the hate campaign against Deng was the idea of Chairman Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, in conjunction with three other leaders later tried in court as the "Gang of Four".
  • Portugal changed the status of its overseas province of Macau, three islands located in the South China Sea off of the coast of the Guangdong Province of China, as "Chinese territory under Portuguese administration", providing limited autonomy with eventual transfer to the Chinese control. On December 20, 1999, Macau would become a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.
  • In the U.S., a Baltimore & Ohio freight train struck a camper truck at an unprotected railroad crossing in Beckemeyer, Illinois, at about 6:50 in the evening. Eleven children and the driver were killed. Three others survived.
  • Darryl Sittler of the Toronto Maple Leafs set a National Hockey League record that would still be unbroken less than 50 years later, scoring six goals and having four assists in an 11 to 4 win over the Boston Bruins, for a total of 10 points credited to him. In addition to setting the record for points in a game, Sittler also became the last player in the 20th century to score six goals.
  • Unbeknownst to people on Earth, the asteroid 3752 Camillo came within of Earth. Camillo would not be discovered by an astronomer until August 15, 1985.
  • Died: Cornelia Vanderbilt Goodsir, 75, American heiress and socialite who had received fifty million dollars on her 25th birthday as well as ownership of the largest privately owned mansion in the U.S., the Biltmore Estate

February 8, 1976 (Sunday)

  • A referendum on whether to join the Comoros, or remain a French overseas territory, was held on the island of Mayotte. The proposal was rejected by 99.42% of the 18,061 voters.
  • The Angola national football team, the newly-independent African nation's first venture into international soccer football, played its first game. Angola lost, 3 to 2, to the Republic of Congo. In 2006, Angola would become one of the 32 teams to qualify for the World Cup.

February 9, 1976 (Monday)

February 10, 1976 (Tuesday)

February 11, 1976 (Wednesday)

  • Clifford Alexander, Jr., was confirmed as the first African American Secretary of the United States Army.
  • The "Democratic People's Republic of Angola", ruled jointly by FNLA leader Holden Roberto and UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi as "co-presidents", was dissolved after the Angolan Army, consisting of former MPLA guerrillas, captured the Republic's capital at Huambo.
  • The first of the Soviet Union's Delta III-class submarine vessels, K-424, in launched from Severodvinsk. The ballistic missile submarine was designed to carry 16 R-29 Vysota nuclear missiles.
  • Died:
  • *Lee J. Cobb, 64, American stage and film actor known for portraying Willy Loman in the Broadway play Death of a Salesman
  • *Alexander Lippisch, 81, German aerodynamicist who designed the first Messerschmitt and Dornier warplanes, including the first operating rocket-powered fighter plane, the Messerschmitt ME 163 B.
  • *Dorothy Maud Wrinch, 81, American mathematician and biochemical theorist
  • *Joseph Barboza Baron, 43, American mobster, hitman and FBI informant who had taken on the new name of "Joseph Donati" as part of the witness protection program, after being shot to death in San Francisco while walking to his car. Attorney F. Lee Bailey, who said that Baron claimed to have killed 26 people, commented, "With all due respect to my former client, I don't think society has suffered a great loss."

February 12, 1976 (Thursday)

  • The World Journal, the highest circulation Chinese language daily newspaper in the United States, published its first issue, initially for the New York City area.
  • Died:
  • *Sal Mineo, 37, U.S. film actor, was stabbed to death by a mugger after parking his car outside of his apartment in West Hollywood, California. Mineo was the second of the three stars of the classic 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause to die violently, more than 20 years after James Dean was killed in an auto accident, and five years before Natalie Wood's death by drowning. Lionel Ray Williams, a pizza deliveryman with a long criminal record, was later arrested and convicted of Mineo's murder, and sentenced to 51 years in prison.
  • *Frank Stagg, 34, Irish Republican Army member imprisoned for conspiracy to commit criminal damage, died after a 62-day hunger strike that had started on December 13.

February 13, 1976 (Friday)

  • Brigadier General Murtala Rufai Mohammed, the head of state of Nigeria, was assassinated in a military coup d'état. According to witnesses, Murtala, who overthrew the government of President Yakubu Gowon the previous July, was being driven to military headquarters from his residence at the Dodan Barracks at the Ikoyi suburb of Lagos, and was cut off in traffic by his assassins, who fired automatic weapons at his car. Minutes later, a man who identified himself as Lieutenant Colonel S. S. Dimka seized the Radio Lagos station and announced that "The government has been overthrown by the young revolutionaries. Any attempt to foil this change from any quarter will be met with death. It is all over the 19 states." After six hours, the Nigerian Army retook the station and announced that the coup had been crushed.
  • The two top officials of the Lockheed Corporation, chairman of the board and CEO Daniel J. Houghton, and chief operating officer A. Carl Kotchman, announced their resignations.
  • The African Parliamentary Union was established by an agreement signed in Abidjan, capital of the Ivory Coast, as a means of communication between parliaments and legislatures of the various member nations in Africa, as well as to promote democracy and vote upon common goals on the continent. Originally called the Union of African Parliaments, the APU has 40 member nations more than forty years after its founding.
  • Born:
  • *Feist, Canadian singer-songwriter known for the double platinum selling album The Reminder and winner of multiple Juno awards ; in Amherst, Nova Scotia
  • *Jack Wong, Chinese electronics entrepreneur and billionaire who founded the smartphone manufacturer Meizu; in Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China
  • Died: Lily Pons, 74, American soprano with New York's Metropolitan Opera

February 14, 1976 (Saturday)


February 15, 1976 (Sunday)

February 16, 1976 (Monday)

  • Meeting in Barcelona in Spain, representatives of 16 nations that border the Mediterranean Sea finished a two-week conference on stopping pollution in the waters shared by all of them, with 12 signing the Barcelona Convention, officially the Convention for Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution.
  • Malaysian armed robber Botak Chin was arrested at a sawmill after having been the Asian nation's most wanted fugitive. Despite six wounds sustained in a gun battle with Malaysian police, Chin survived. Despite being suspected of multiple murders, he was convicted of illegal possession of firearms, a capital offense in Malaysia, and would be hanged on June 11, 1981.
  • The worst motor vehicle accident in Sweden occurred outside Axamo, Jönköping, when overheated tires caused a bus fire, killing 15 people and injuring 28.
  • The unmanned Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 20 completed its 90-day mission to the Salyut 4 space station, with its biological payload of various organisms returning intact after three months in weightlessness. The ship had been launched on November 17, 1975, and was controlled entirely from the Baikonur ground control.
  • American journalist and editor Liz Smith began publishing a gossip column for New York City's most popular daily newspaper, the Daily News tabloid. The column was soon syndicated to newspapers across North America and Smith would later become, for a while, the highest-paid print journalist in the U.S., with reports in newspapers and on television.
  • Died: Lyudmila Keldysh, 71, Soviet Russian mathematician and specialist in geometric topology and set theory

February 17, 1976 (Tuesday)

February 18, 1976 (Wednesday)

February 19, 1976 (Thursday)

  • Iceland severed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom as a result of the dispute over British fishing within of Iceland, marking the first time in the history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of a formal breach between two members of the alliance.
  • Marisat 1, the first maritime communications satellite, was launched into orbit by the U.S. from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 5:32 in the afternoon. It was placed into its permanent geosynchronous orbit on February 21.
  • U.S. President Gerald Ford signed a proclamation formally rescinding President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 of February 19, 1942, which had authorized the arrest and internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II. In issuing Presidential Proclamation 4417, President Ford apologized on behalf of the U.S. government and said "I call upon the American people to affirm with me... that we have learned from the tragedy of that long ago experience -- forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American and resolve that this kind of error shall never be made again."
  • The Sanremo Music Festival 1976 opened at the Sanremo Casino, presented by Giancarlo Guardabassi.

February 20, 1976 (Friday)

  • The government of Argentina scheduled new presidential elections for December 12. The notice came one day after President Isabel Perón, who was completing the term of her husband, the late Juan Peron, announced that she would not run for another term of office.
  • The Panamanian-registered coaster Marie Elizabeth was destroyed by fire while moored at Barcelona.
  • World heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, in his first bout since October's "Thrilla in Manila", defended his title before a relatively unknown boxer from Belgium, Jean-Pierre Coopman, who weighs less than Ali. Although the fight was judged almost even in the first four rounds, Coopman was knocked out with 14 seconds left in the fifth round.
  • Born: Anastasia Volochkova, Russian ballerina, in Saint Petersburg
  • Died:
  • *René Cassin, 88, French judge, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
  • *Kathryn Kuhlman, 70, American television evangelist and faith healer known for syndicated program I Believe in Miracles; while recovering from heart surgery

February 21, 1976 (Saturday)

  • Former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon arrived in Beijing after being invited for a visit to a meeting with government leaders of the People's Republic of China. On his arrival, the ex-president and his wife, Pat Nixon, were greeted by Acting Prime Minister Hua Guofeng and Foreign Minister Huang Hua, exactly four years after then President Nixon's historic first visit to China.
  • The first ever Winter Paralympics, officially the "Winter Olympic Games for the Disabled", opened at a ski resort in Örnsköldsvik in Sweden. Sixteen nations took part with 196 athletes who had various disabilities, including blindness or amputation of limbs. The events were limited to two categories of skiing, Alpine and Cross-country.
  • Twelve senior detectives working for the London Metropolitan police were arrested in a raid on their London homes after being indicted on charges of accepting bribes from pornography distributors in Westminster's Soho district between 1960 and 1974.

February 22, 1976 (Sunday)

February 23, 1976 (Monday)

February 24, 1976 (Tuesday)

February 25, 1976 (Wednesday)

  • A vote on whether to impeach Argentina's President, Isabel Perón, failed in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, 70 to 120, after the Popular Federalist Party had proposed the resolution in a special session.
  • On the same day, one of many activists opposed to President Peron, Héctor Aldo Fagetti Gallego, was arrested in Buenos Aires, and never seen again after March 10, becoming one of the first of the many of thousands of Desaparecidos who would vanish after an extension of the government's aniquilar la subversion order of October 6, 1975; Peron would be arrested in Spain 40 years later for the murder of Fagetti and another dissident, Jorge Valentin Beron but charges would be dismissed as having been filed too late
  • Comet West, discovered by astronomer Richard M. West on August 10, 1975, made its closest approach to the Sun, and was observable in broad daylight with an apparent magnitude of -3.00, similar to the maximum brightness of Mars in the night sky. On March 7, 1976, the nucleus of Comet West was observed to split into two fragments.
  • The song "Save Your Kisses for Me", performed by Brotherhood of Man, was selected as the UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1976; it went on to win the contest.

February 26, 1976 (Thursday)

  • Leaders of Portugal's armed forces and of that nation's five main political parties signed an agreement in Belém to end military rule and to establish a democratic, multi-party system. General Francisco da Costa Gomes, Portugal's president, signed on behalf of the Army and Mário Soares signed as leader of the Partido Socialista. Costa Gomes confirmed that parliamentary elections would be held on April 25.
  • The Spanish Armed Forces announced their withdrawal from Western Sahara. On November 6, Spain, Morocco and Mauritania had agreed to jointly administer the former Spanish Sahara until February 28, and Spain decided to relinquish control two days ahead of schedule.

February 27, 1976 (Friday)

  • The Polisario Front, Western Sahara's national liberation movement, declared independence of the territory as the "Sahara Arab Democratic Republic", and began a guerrilla war against Morocco and Mauritania. At the same time, an assembly of 65 of the 102 tribal chiefs in the Western Sahara voted to approve plans by Morocco and Mauritania to annex the former Spanish territory and to provide some autonomy for the inhabitants.
  • Creation of what would eventually become the Canadian territory of Nunavut was first proposed, as leaders of the 15,000-member Inuit of Canada made a presentation to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Cabinet. Written by James Arvaluk, president of the Inuit Taprisat, the 61-page proposal called upon immediate recognition of of the Northwest Territories as Nunavut, the property of the Canadian Inuit, and for the granting of special rights in an additional of land in the N.W.T. and of the Arctic Ocean. The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement would be signed on May 25, 1993, and Nunavut would become a separate territory on April 1, 1999.
  • U.S. businessman William F. Niehous, the general manager of the Owens-Illinois Venezuela glass manufacturing factory in the South American nation, was kidnapped from his home near Caracas by masked guerrillas of the Argimiro Gabaldon Revolutionary Command. He would be held captive for more than three years, before being rescued by police in the city of Ciudad Bolivar on June 30, 1979.
  • Born: Manoj Muntashir, Indian Hindi songwriter and translator; as Manoj Shukla in Gauriganj, Uttar Pradesh
  • Died: Sir Edward Asafu-Adjaye, 72, Ghanaian diplomat who served as the African nation's first ambassador to the United Kingdom and to France.

February 28, 1976 (Saturday)

  • The first major "sting operation" resulted in the arrest of 60 criminal suspects who had been invited to a "thank you party" hosted by FBI officials who had been posing as mobsters, bringing a close to a five-month-long investigation into the sale of stolen property. Code named "Operation Sting", the operation had started from an investigation of the theft of typewriters, and had involved 20,000 purchased at a rented warehouse of stolen property. In all, 225 individuals sold property to detectives who had used pseudonyms like "Angelo Lasagna" and "Pasquale Larocca" while tape recording conversations, then invited them to a formal party as a show of gratitude.
  • For the first time since the campaign against China's Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping began, the ruling Chinese Communist Party joined the condemnation with an editorial in its official newspaper, the People's Daily, although indirectly, referring to "that unrepentant capitalist roader in the Party" as one of the targets for party leaders to address in order to "bring into full play the Party organization's role as a fighting bastion in the great struggle to criticize the revisionist program." The move came two days after the "big-character posters" on the walls of Beijing University began mentioning Deng by name. The slogans included "Deng Xiaoping was Evil Minded" and "Deng Xiaoping was Crafty as a Fox".
  • Before a crowd of 100,000 at England's Wembley Stadium, Manchester City won, 2 to 1, over Newcastle United to capture the Football League Cup in the final game of the 92-team knockout competition for English professional soccer football. At the end of regular season play, City had finished in 8th place
  • Madagascar became the first country to recognise the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
  • Died: Boonsanong Punyodyana, Thai politician and Secretary General of the Socialist Party of Thailand, was shot and killed outside a hotel in Bangkok.

February 29, 1976 (Sunday)