1978

News Highlights of 1978

• Leon Spinks takes the world heavyweight boxing championship from Muhammad Ali in Las Vegas

• In response to threats of a farm strike, President Carter proposes increasing federal aid to the nation's farmers.

• After testifying at his obscenity charge trial, Larry Flynt, owner of Hustler magazine, is shotby a would-be assassin and critically wounded.

• In a Pennsylvania plant, the first American-made Volkswagen automobile rolls off the assembly line.

• Despite the Vatican's insistence that it is homicide, abortion is legalized in Italy.

• PrincessCaroline of Monaco marries French businessman Philippe Junot.

• The NuclearRegulatory Commission halts the construction of a nuclear power plant at Seabrook, New Hampshire, because of public opposition.

• The first "test tube baby" is born to a British couple. Fertilization was performed in a glass dish; the fertilized egg was then planted in the mother.

• More than 900 American followers of cult leader Jim Jones commit mass suicide at their compound in South America.

• George Moscone,the mayor of San Francisco,and Harvey Milk, a member of the board of supervisors, are murdered in their offices by another board member, Dan White.

• The opposition Sandinista Party demands the ouster of dictatorial President Anastasio Somoza Debayle as battling continues in Nicaragua.

• The joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize are Israel's Prime Minister Begin and Egypt's President Sadat.

• Former First Lady Betty Ford helps break the stigma of addiction by entering arehabilitation clinic.