The Nation 1977

Jimmy Carter becomes the 39th U.S. President of the United States. After the years of the ugly politics of the Nixon Administration and the ineffectual stumbling Gerry Ford America senses a new dawn. A Washington outsider and liberal evangelical Christian he walks the inaugural parade with his wife and his little girl wearing cowboy boots. Much to the pain of Republicans, President Carter begins by pardoning Vietnam War draft dodgers and creating the Department of Energy. Jimmy Carter 1977 Inauguration Video

Anita Bryant - the spokesman for Florida Orange Juice at the time - began a campaign against Homosexuals called "The Save Our Children Crusade." Her success in repealing the non gay discrimination law in Miami, Florida led to 200,000 protesters marching through San Francisco, and much to the pain of the Florida Citrus Growers, a national boycott of Florida orange juice. Bryant is also credited with being the impetus that got Harvey Milk - the first openly gay American politician - elected as a San Francisco County Commissioner. A relatively unknown Jerry Falwell came to her side just as Dr. James Dobson founded Focus on the Family. She is also credited with beginning what was soon to be called the Moral Majority and later the Religious Right. Bryant rode her intolerance high for a few years but by 1979 her life began a downward spiral which never turned around. The Castro on Anita Bryant

Gary Gilmore was the first person to suffer capital punishment in the United States since the Supreme Court had declared it Cruel and Unusual punishment in 1972. He chose to meet his maker by firing squad in Utah with the words "Let's do it." Writer Norman Mailer chronicled the story in a best selling book. The Gary Gilmore Case

Roy "Sparky" Sullivan - a U.S. park ranger - was struck by lighting for the seventh time in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It is a tough call as to whetherhe was the luckiest man in the or the unluckiest. The facts on the human lightening rod Roy Sullivan

" With one stunning stroke he designed a daring approach to peace. He called it "a sacred mission," and history may judge it so. By the trajectory of his 28-minute flight from a base in the Canal Zone to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat changed the course of Middle Eastern events for generations to come. More emphatically than anything that has happened there since the birth of Israel in 1948, his extraordinary pilgrimage transformed the political realities of a region blackened and embittered by impermeable hatreds and chronic war. In one stoke, the old rules of the Arab-Israeli blood feud no longer applied. Many of the endless hurdles to negotiation seemed to dissolve like Saharan mirages. Not in three decades had the dream of a real peace seemed more probable. For his willingness to seize upon a fresh approach, for his display of personal and political courage, for his unshakable resolve to restore a momentum for peace in the Middle East, Anwar Sadat is TIME's Man of the Year. " Time Magazine Man of the Year

The World 1977

Trying to smooth diplomacy with emerging Latin America President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaty with General Omar Torrijos Herrera giving control of the the canal to Panama in the year 2000. It was poorly received by most Americans with the cry "We Built it, We Paid for it, It's Ours!". Carter's good will prevailed with the U.S. Senate passing the treaty by a few votes. The Panama Canal Treaty at history.com

Nobel prizes 1977

Physics - Philip Warren Anderson, Sir Nevill Francis Mott, John Hasbrouck van Vleck
Chemistry - Ilya Prigogine
Physiology or Medicine - Roger Guillemin, Andrew V. Schally, Rosalyn Yalow
Literature - Vicente Aleixandre
Peace - Amnesty International
Economics - Bertil Ohlin, James Meade

The Class of 1977