Interesting events from 1978
- May 16, Patricia Hearst (24) entered the Federal correctional Institute at
Pleasanton, Ca., to resume her 7-year sentence for a SF bank robbery with the SLA.
(SFC, 5/16/03, p.E8)
Oct 24, Pres. Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act. The main purpose of the
act was to remove government control from commercial aviation and expose the passenger
airline industry to market forces. Alfred Kahn (1917-2010) was the head of America’s
Civil Aeronautics Board and the driving force behind the deregulation of air travel.
says Geno: Before this date airline travel was enjoyable and reliable. Air travel has not been the same since.
Will Eisner (1917-2005) published “A Contract With God," the 1st serious book-length
comic to describe itself as a graphic novel. (Econ, 10/30/04, p.86)(WSJ, 1/10/06,
p.D10)
Jello Biafra (b.1958), born as Eric Reed Boucher in Boulder, Colo., moved to San
Francisco, took on a new name and co-founded the Dead Kennedys, a punk band that
soon played at the Mabuhay Gardens. (SFC, 6/14/08, p.E3)
Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson made a hit with their duet: "Mammas Don’t Let
Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys." (SFC, 2/14/02, p.A2)
Joseph Phelps in California made a new red wine blend called Meritage from a blend
of traditional Bordeaux grapes. (SFC, 10/2/96, zz1 p.4)(http://tinyurl.com/2q56ok)
Pres. Jimmy Carter signed the Cranston Act, which loosened restriction on home brewing
and changed the federal excise taxes so that home brewers were given lighter levies
than big brewers when they sold their product. (Economist, 9/8/12, p.65)
says Geno:
and kicked off the brewpub industry
Sewer construction along the southern Embarcadero unearthed an old sailing ship.
In 1980 it was identified as the Lydia, a whaling boat built in 1840 in Rochester,
Mass. (SFC, 8/5/05, p.F2)
An accountant (41) sued a waitress (31) at Vesuvio Cafe for failing to show up for
a theater date. Judge Richard P. Figone (d.1998 at 63) ruled against him finding
that "the promise to engage in a social relationship for one evening in exchange
for affection and/or an evening at the theater is unenforceable under the law of
contracts and torts. (SFC, 8/15/98, p.A24)
Geno says: said accountant completely
redefined the meaning of pathetic loser.
Radial keratotomy, popularized by the Russian ophthalmologist S.N. Fyodorov, was
introduced to the US. (WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R21)
AT&T scientists conducted FCC-authorized cell-phone field trials in Chicago
and Newark, NJ. (WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/mobilephone.htm)
A paper by Leonard Adleman, Ron Rivest, and Adi Shamir was published titled
A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems. It is widely
known today by the group's initials RSA. (Wired, 8/95, p.117)
Hewlett-Packard began development of the inkjet printer, which eventually became
a commercial success. (SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
Intel Corp. introduced the 8086 microprocessor. It was a 16-bit microprocessor
with 29,000 transistors. (TAR, 1996, p.22) says Geno: my first assembly language
Kurt Godel (1906 -1978), Austrian mathematician, showed that within any logical
system, no matter how rigidly structured, there are always questions that cannot
be answered with certainty, contradictions that may be discovered, and errors that
may lurk. (V.D.-H.K.p.340)
Robert Miner of Oracle Corp. developed the world’s 1st relational database
program using IBM’s Structured Query Language. (SFC, 5/20/02, p.A13)
Maurice Papon (1910-2007), French civil servant, began serving as the Budget
Minister under PM Raymond Barre. He continued as Budget Minister until 1981, when
evidence of his role in the Holocaust emerged. (SFC, 10/13/97, p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Papon)
In the Philippines Tony Tan Caktiong formed Jollibee after realizing that customers
in his Manila ice cream parlor liked his soy and sugar seasoned burgers better than
his sundaes. (http://jollibeephilippines.com/15/success-story-of-jollibee-in-the-philippines/#more-15)
These items were copied verbatim from :http://www.timelines.ws/20thcent/1978.HTML