WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO NOVEMBER 1978
Find out what all happened January to November 1978

Karol Wojtyla is elected Pope John Paul II after the October 1978 Papal conclave, the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523. (16. October 1978)

Proceedings of the United States Senate are broadcast on radio for the first time. (8. February 1978)

Karl Wallenda of The Flying Wallendas dies after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (22. March 1978)

PSA Flight 182, a Boeing 727-214, collides in mid-air with a Cessna 172 and crashes in San Diego, resulting in the deaths of 144 people. (25. September 1978)

Mir Akbar Khyber is assassinated, provoking a communist coup d'état in Afghanistan. (17. April 1978)

The Troubles: The Provisional IRA detonates an incendiary bomb at the La Mon restaurant, near Belfast, killing 12 and seriously injuring 30. (17. February 1978)

The rainbow flag representing gay pride is flown for the first time in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. (25. June 1978)

The Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party is founded. (1. October 1978)

1978 Tbilisi Demonstrations: Thousands of Georgians demonstrate against Soviet attempts to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language. (14. April 1978)

Puerto Rico police assassinate two nationalists in the Cerro Maravilla murders. (25. July 1978)

Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. (11. February 1978)

Janet Parker is the last person to die of smallpox, in a laboratory-associated outbreak. (11. September 1978)

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is founded in the city of Riha (Urfa) in Turkey. (27. November 1978)

World News Tonight premieres on ABC. (10. July 1978)

The first UNIFIL troops arrived in Lebanon for peacekeeping mission along the Blue Line. (23. March 1978)

David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam" killer in New York City, is sentenced to 365 years in prison for six killings. (12. June 1978)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens its priesthood to "all worthy men", ending a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men. (9. June 1978)

The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler. (8. May 1978)

President of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels. (28. April 1978)

Czech Vladimír Remek becomes the first non-Russian or non-American to go into space, when he is launched aboard Soyuz 28. (2. March 1978)