User:Mandsford/1909

The following events occurred in July 1978:

July 1, 1978 (Saturday)

 * Born:
 * Mark Hunter, British rower and 2008 Olympic gold medalist; in Forest Gate, Greater London
 * Aleki Lutui, Tongan rugby union player in the New Zealand league, with 38 caps for the Tonga national team; in Tofoa
 * Died: General Kurt Student, 88, Nazi German Luftwaffe officer and convicted war criminal known for creating the Fallschirmjäger paratrooper force and for the 1941 massacre of civilians on Crete

July 2, 1978 (Sunday)

 * Born:
 * Jüri Ratas, Prime Minister of Estonia from 2016 to 2021; in Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union
 * Ganesh Kishan, Indian film actor, winner of two Filmfare Best Actor awards; in Adakamaranahalli, Nelamangala, Karnataka state

July 3, 1978 (Monday)

 * The Amazon Co-operation Treaty (ACT) was signed.
 * Born: Mizuki Noguchi, Japanese long-distance runner and 2004 Olympics women's marathon gold medalist; in Shizuoka Prefecture

July 4, 1978 (Tuesday)

 * Born: Becki Newton, American actress known for Ugly Betty and The Lincoln Lawyer''; in New Haven, Connecticut

July 5, 1978 (Wednesday)

 * Born: Nandamuri Kalyan Ram, Indian Telugu cinema film actor and producer known for 118; in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

July 6, 1978 (Thursday)

 * Born: Tia Mowry and Tamera Mowry, American actresses known for Sister, Sister; at Coleman Kaserne U.S. Army Base in Gelnhausen, West Germany
 * Died: Pietro Montana, 88, Italian-born American sculptor

July 7, 1978 (Friday)

 * The Solomon Islands become independent from the United Kingdom.
 * Francisco Mendes, Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau since its independence in 1973, was killed in a car accident.

July 8, 1978 (Saturday)

 * Born: Erin Morgenstern, American novelist known for The Night Circus; in Marshfield, Massachusetts

July 9, 1978 (Sunday)

 * Abd ar-Razzaq an-Naif, an former Iraqi military officer was a vocal opponent of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, and who had served as Prime Minister of Iraq for two weeks in 1968, was shot and mortally wounded by members of Saddam's Mukhabarat secret police as he was leaving the Intercontinental Hotel in London. He died the next day.
 * Born:
 * Gulnara Samitova-Galkina, Russian distance runner, gold medalist in the women's 3000m steeplechase competition in the 2008 Olympics, holder of the women's world record from 2003 to 2016; in Naberezhnye Chelny, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
 * Linda Park, South Korean-born American TV actress best known for her portrayal of Hoshi Sato in Star Trek: Enterprise; in Seoul

July 10, 1978 (Monday)

 * Born: Ray Kay (stage name for Reinert K. Olsen), Norwegian photographer and video director, MTV Video Music Award winner; in Haugesund.

July 11, 1978 (Tuesday)

 * The explosion of a tanker-truck at a campsite killed 217 tourists in Spain at Costa Daurada.
 * Born:
 * Kim Kang-woo, South Korean film and TV actor known for The Taste of Money and the show The Missing
 * Mattias Gustafsson, Swedish team handball player with 20 caps for the Sweden national team

July 12, 1978 (Wednesday)

 * Born:
 * Topher Grace (Christopher John Grace), American TV and film actor known for That 70s Show; in New York City
 * Michelle Rodriguez, American film actor known as the female lead in The Fast and the Furious and its sequels; in San Antonio, Texas

July 13, 1978 (Thursday)

 * Born: Gary David, Philippine pro basketball player who led the Philippine Basketball Association in scoring for four consecutive years from 2009 to 2013; in Dinalupihan

July 14, 1978 (Friday)

 * Henri Maïdou took office as the last Prime Minister of the Central African Empire, after being appointed by the Emperor Bokassa. Upon the overthrow of Bokassa and the restoration of the Central African Republic a year later, Maïdou became Vice President in the regime of President David Dacko.
 * Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky was sentenced to three years in prison, followed by 10 years in a labor camp, after insisting that the Soviet Union should abide by its commitments in the 1975 Helsinki Accords to improve human rights. Shcharansky was convicted of "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" and on a lesser degree of treason under Articles 70 and 64-a of the penal code for his activity in the Moscow Helsinki Group.
 * Entertainment and Sports Programming, Inc., was incorporated in the U.S. state of Connecticut, with Bill Rasmussen as Chairman of the Board of Directors and with a stated purpose of creating a cable television network for sports telecasts. The network would be launched on September 7, 1979 as ESPN.
 * Died: Maria Grinberg, 69, Soviet Russian pianist

July 15, 1978 (Saturday)

 * "The Longest Walk", a project of the American Indian Movement in support of tribal sovereignty and protection of the rights of the indigenous peoples of the United States, was completed after 205 days and a journey of more than 3200 mi from San Francisco to Washington D.C.. After starting on February 11 with a ceremony at Alcatraz Island off of the coast of San Francisco, the walk was completed with a rally of several thousand people in front of the Washington Monument. The U.S. Congress followed by withdrawing several proposed bills from consideration, and the approval of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act by both the House and the Senate on July 27, followed by the signing of the bill into law by U.S. President Carter on August 11.
 * Born: Yuri Nikitin, Ukrainian gymnast and 2004 Olympic gold medalist in the trampolining event; in Kherson, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
 * Died: Matthew Walker Sr., 71, African-American surgeon

July 16, 1978 (Sunday)

 * Pope Paul VI, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, became seriously ill at his summer residence at the Palace of Castel Gandolfo, the day after meeting with Italy's President Sandro Pertini. The 80-year-old Pontiff's condition worsened over the next three weeks and he would die on August 6.

July 17, 1978 (Monday)

 * Born: Justine Triet, French film director known for Anatomie d'une chute (Anatomy of a Fall); in Fecamp, Seine-Maritime departement

July 18, 1978 (Tuesday)

 * Born:
 * Shane Horgan, Irish rugby union player with 65 caps for the Republic of Ireland national team; in Bellewstown, County Meath
 * Joo Sang-wook, South Korean TV actor known for Special Affairs Team TEN; in Seoul

July 19, 1978 (Wednesday)

 * North Korean agents kidnapped Kaoru Hasuike and his girlfriend, Yukiko Okudo, from their residence in the town of Kashiwazaki in Japan's e Niigata Prefectrure]], and kept them for the next 24 years. The two, who married and had children, were allowed to visit Japan in 2002 while North Korea held their daughter and son as hostages. Hasuike and Okudo elected to remain in Japan, and the two children would be allowed to leave two years later. Hasuike would later publish a memoir, Abduction and My Decision, recountin his experience.
 * Born: Fahad Yasin Haji Dahir, Somali government official, Director of Somalia's HSNQ intelligence agency 2019 to 2021, National Security Advisor tp the President from 2021 to 2022; in Mandera, Kenya
 * 'Died: Malcolm Galloway, 91, founder of the New Zealand Red Cross

July 20, 1978 (Thursday)

 * Born: Pavel Datsyuk, Russian ice hockey star and captain of the Russian national team who appeared in five consecutive Winter Olympics (2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018), winner of three consecutive Frank J. Selke Trophy awards and four consecutive Lady Byng Memorial Trophy awards in the National Hockey League; in Yekaterinburg (now Sverdlovsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union

July 21, 1978 (Friday)

 * Born: Kyoko Iwasaki, Japanese swimmer and 1992 Olympic gold medalist, at age 14 in the 200m breaststroke; in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture

July 22, 1978 (Saturday)

 * Born:
 * A. J. Cook (Andrea Joy Cook), Canadian TV actress known for portraying Agent JJ Jareau for more than 15 years on the American crime drama Criminal Minds; in Oshawa, Ontario
 * Dennis Rommedahl, Danish footballer with 126 caps for the Denmark national team; in Copenhagen

July 23, 1978 (Sunday)

 * Born: Stefanie Sun (stage name for Sng Ee Tze), popular Singaporean singer, songwriter and actress; in Singapore

July 24, 1978 (Monday)

 * In Acapulco, Mexico, Margaret Gardiner of South Africa was crowned Miss Universe.

July 25, 1978 (Tuesday)

 * Louise Brown became the first human being to be born after conception through in vitro fertilization, and the original "test tube baby", was delivered at Oldham General Hospital in the British city of Oldham in Greater Manchester.

July 26, 1978 (Wednesday)

 * Born:
 * Eve Myles, Welsh TV actress and the female lead in the BBC series ''Torchwood; in Ystradgynlais, Powys
 * Jehad Muntasser, Libyan footballer with 34 caps for the Libya national team; in Tripoli.