What a strange year you were, 1978.
- February 1 – Hollywood film director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees to France, after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl.
- Serial killer Ted Bundy is captured in Pensacola, Florida.
- March 1 – Charlie Chaplin‘s remains are stolen from Cosier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.
- The New York Post publishes an article about David Rorvik‘s book The Cloning of Man, about a supposed cloning of a human being.
- March 6 – American porn publisher Larry Flynt is shot and paralyzed in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
- April 7 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter decides to postpone production of the neutron bomb – a weapon which kills people with radiation but leaves buildings relatively intact.
- May 26 – In Atlantic City, New Jersey, Resorts International, the first legal casino in the eastern United States, opens.
- June 12 – Serial killer David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam,” is sentenced to 365 years in prison.
- June 15 – King Hussein of Jordan marries 26-year-old Lisa Halaby, who takes the name Queen Noor.
- Garfield, which eventually becomes the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip, makes its debut.
- Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube baby, is born in Oldham, Greater Manchester, UK.
- August 26 – Pope John Paul I succeeds Pope Paul VI as the 263rd Pope.
- September 5 – Camp David Accords: Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat begin the peace process at Camp David, Maryland.
- September 28 – Pope John Paul I dies after only 33 days of papacy.
- U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs a bill into law which allows homebrewing of beer in the United States.
- October 16 – Pope John Paul II succeeds Pope John Paul I as the 264th pope, resulting in the first Year of Three Popes since 1605. He is the first Polish pope in history, and the first non-Italian pope since Pope Adrian VI (1522–1523). He will later die in 2005.
- November 18 – Jonestown incident: In Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claims 918 lives in all, 909 of them at Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is assassinated by members of Peoples Temple shortly beforehand.
1978 saw music begin to turn a corner. Thank Baby Jesus. Elvis Costello and The Attractions released This Year’s Model and we were off to the races. “This Year’s Girl” still holds up and is a beacon in the disco days of ’78. He summed it up well, ““Those disco synthesizers / Those daily tranquilizers / The body-building prizes / Those bedroom alibis” and then “All this, but no surprises for this year’s girl.” Elvis, you brilliant songwriter, you.
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