1976

News Highlights of 1976

• Military spending in the world skyrockets to $300 billion a year.

• The Winter Olympics are held in Innsbruck, Austria.

• Barbara Walters is the first broadcaster to be offered a $1 million per-year contract to cohost the nightly news.

• Racial violence in black townships outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, is the worst in 15 years.

• Jimmy Carter, a "born-again" Baptist from Georgia, is the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.

• From coast to coast, the United States celebrates its 200th birthday.

• Gymnast Nadia Comaneci of Romania is the darling of the Summer Olympics in Montreal. (Even the theme music played during her performances, released as a single, goes gold).

• In Philadelphia 28 people die of a mysterious virus dubbed "Legionnaire's disease."

• In a close election, Jimmy Carter is elected president over incumbent Gerald Ford.

• Austrian Kurt Waldheim begins serving his second term as secretary general of the United Nations.