Top News Stories from 1978

World Events

World Statistics

Population: 4.378 billion
population by decade
Nobel Peace Prize: Menachem Begin (Israel) and Anwar el-Sadat (Egypt)
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U.S. Events

U.S. Statistics

Vice President: Walter F. Mondale
Population: 222,584,545
Life expectancy: 73.5 years
Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000): 51.4
Property Crime Rate (per 1,000) 46.4
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Economics

US GDP (1998 dollars): $2,291.40 billion
Federal spending: $458.75 billion
Federal debt $776.6 billion
Consumer Price Index: $65.2
Unemployment: 6.1%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.13 ($0.15 as of 5/29/78)

Sports

Super Bowl
Dallas d. Denver
World Series
NY Yankees d. LA Dodgers
NBA Championship
Washington Bullets d. Seattle
Stanley Cup
Montreal d. Boston
Wimbledon
Women: Martina Navratilova d. C. Evert (2-6 6-4 7-5)
Men: Bjorn Borg d. J. Connors (6-2 6-2 6-3)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Affirmed
NCAA Basketball Championship
Kentucky d. Duke
NCAA Football Champions
Alabama (AP, FW, NFF) (11-1-0) & USC (UPI) (12-1-0)
World Cup
Argentina d. Holland

Entertainment

Entertainment Awards

Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction:

Elbow Room, James Alan McPherson

Music: Déjà Vu for Percussion Quartet and Orchestra, Michael Colgrass
Drama: The Gin Game, Donald L. Coburn
Academy Award, Best Picture: Annie Hall, Charles H. Joffe, producer (United Artists)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Isaac Bashevis Singer (US)
Record of the Year: "Hotel California," Eagles
Album of the Year: Rumours, Fleetwood Mac (Warner Bros.)
Song of the Year: "Love Theme From A Star Is Born" (Evergreen), Barbra Streisand and Paul Williams, songwriters
Miss America: Susan Perkins (OH)
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Events

  • Sony introduces the Walkman, the first portable stereo.

Movies

  • The Deer Hunter, Midnight Express, Heaven Can Wait, Coming Home

Books

Science

Nobel Prizes in Science

Chemistry: Peter Mitchell (UK), for contributions to the understanding of biological energy transfer
Physics: Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson (both US), for work in cosmic microwave radiation; Piotr L. Kapitsa (USSR), for basic inventions and discoveries in low-temperature physics
Physiology or Medicine: Daniel Nathans, Hamilton Smith (both US), and Werner Arber (Switzerland), for discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics
More Nobel Prizes in 1998...

Death

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