1977

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Top Song(s)
• Eagles - Hotel California
• Bee Gees - How Deep is Your Love?
• Boney M - Ma Baker
• Donna Summer - I Feel Love
• Wings - Mull of Kintyre

Top Film(s)
• Star Wars
• Annie Hall
• Suspiria
• Sorcerer
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Best Selling Book(s)
• The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough
• The Shining - Stephen King
• Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
• The Honourable Schoolboy - John Le Carré

Famous Deaths
• January 14 - Anthony Eden, British politician, 62nd prime minister of the United Kingdom
• January 20 – Dimitrios Kiousopoulos, Prime Minister of Greece
• March 3 - Brian Faulkner, last prime minister of Northern Ireland
• March 18 – Marien Ngouabi, 3rd president of Congo
• May 5 – Ludwig Erhard, German politician, 28th Chancellor of Germany (West Germany)
• June 16 – Wernher von Braun, German-born American rocket scientist
• July 25 – David Toro, 35th president of Bolivia
• August 3 - Makarios III, Greek-Cypriot archbishop, 1st president of Cyprus
• October 10 – Jean Duvieusart, Belgian politician, 36th prime minister of Belgium
• December 24 – Juan Velasco Alvarado, 58th president of Peru

Medical/Science/Technology
• Rings of Uranus discovered by Kuiper Airborne Observatory measurements of star occultation.
• The NASA Space Shuttle Enterprise makes its first test free-flight from the back of a jetliner.
• Discovery of the Carina Dwarf galaxy by the UK Schmidt Telescope.
• The first complete genome is sequenced.
• Nothomyrmecia, the "dinosaur ant", is rediscovered, in Poochera, South Australia.
• Frederick Sanger and colleagues introduce Sanger sequencing.
• The Commodore PET is announced at Winter CES.
• Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the "Legionnaires' disease".
• The world's last natural infection of smallpox is reported in Somalia.
• The first multi-channel cochlear implant, developed by Ingeborg Hochmair and Erwin Hochmair, is implanted.

Political
• January 20 – Jimmy Carter is sworn in as the 39th president of the United States.
• January 21 – President Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam War draft evaders.
• March 18 – United States lifts its ban on travel by U.S. citizens to Cambodia, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam.
• March 19 – Results of elections to the Indian Parliament are declared.
• June 20 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules that states are not required to spend Medicaid funds on elective abortions.
• August 3 – United States Senate hearings on MKULTRA are held.
• August 4 – President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.
• September 29 - The modern Food Stamp Program begins when the Food Stamp Act of 1977 is enacted.
• October 1 - Energy Research and Development Administration part of Department of Energy.
• October 12 – The passage of the Community Reinvestment Act.

National
• January 28 – The Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977 hits Buffalo, New York.
• February 18 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle goes on its maiden "flight" while sitting on top of a Boeing 747.
• March 9 – Approximately a dozen armed Hanafi Movement Muslims take over three buildings in Washington, D.C.
• April 4 - Grundy, Virginia, experiences a flood that causing $15 million in damages to 228 residential and commercial structures.
• May 17 – Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre first opens in San Jose, California.
• May 27 – Space Mountain opens at Disneyland and will become one of the park's most popular attractions.
• June 30 – Women Marines disbanded; women are integrated into regular Marine Corps.
• July 19–20 – Flooding in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, kills over 75 people and causes billions of dollars in damage.
• August 16 – Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll, dies in his home in Graceland at age 42.
• September 4 – The Golden Dragon Massacre takes place in San Francisco, California.

Worldwide
• January 24 – The Massacre of Atocha occurs, during the Spanish transition to democracy.
• February 3 – In northern Japan a blizzard piles snow on rooftops, causing many to collapse killing at least 31 people.
• March 4 – An earthquake in the Vrancea Mountains of Romania kills over 1,500 people.
• April 11 – London Transport's Silver Jubilee AEC Routemaster buses are launched.
• June 15 – Spain has its first democratic elections, after 41 years of Francoist Spain.
• July 21–24 – The Libyan–Egyptian War, sparked by a Libyan raid on Sallum, begins.
• August 17 – The Soviet icebreaker Arktika becomes the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.
• September 7 – Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed.
• November 8 - Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos discovers the tomb of Philip II of Macedon at Vergina.
• November 22 - British Airways inaugurates regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.