1978 in the United Kingdom
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1978 in the United Kingdom:

British and Irish current events

Sport and Music

1978 British Grand Prix

1978 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1978 in British music

United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978

Events from the year 1978 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - James Callaghan, Labour

Events

• 18 January - The European Court of Human Rights finds the United Kingdom government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture.
• 13 February - Anna Ford becomes the first female newsreader on ITN.¹
• 18 February - 20 suspects arrested in connection with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombing of the La Mon restaurant in County Down which had killed 12 people and injured 30.²
• 8 March - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy first broadcast by BBC Radio 4.³
• 30 March - Conservative Party recruit Saatchi & Saatchi to revamp their image.⁴
• 8 April - Regular broadcasts of proceedings in the Parliament of the United Kingdom start.
• 1 May - May Day becomes a bank holiday for the first time.³
• 8 June - Naomi James becomes the first woman to sail around the world single-handedly.⁵
• 19 June - Cricketer Ian Botham becomes the first man in the history of the game to score a century and take eight wickets in one innings of a Test match.⁶
• 21 June
  • An outbreak of shooting between Provisional IRA members and the British Army leaves one civilian and three IRA men dead.⁷
  • The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita opens at the Prince Edward Theatre in London.³
• 6 July - Taunton train fire: eleven people killed in worst rail accident since Hither Green rail crash in 1967.⁸
• 7 July - The Solomon Islands become independent from the United Kingdom.
• 25 July
  • Louise Brown becomes the world's first human born from in vitro fertilization.⁹
  • Motability, a charity which provides cars to disabled people, founded.¹⁰
• 20 August - Gunmen open fire on an Israeli El Al airline bus in London.
• 25 August - U.S. Army Sergeant Walter Robinson "walks" across the English Channel in 11 hours 30 minutes, using homemade water shoes.
• 11 September - Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov dies after having been stabbed with a poison-tipped umbrella in London.¹¹
• 15 September - German terrorist Astrid Proll arrested in London.¹²
• 19 September - British Police launch a massive murder hunt, following the discovery of the dead body of newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater (13) at a farmhouse near Kingswinford in the West Midlands. Carl is believed to have been shot dead after disturbing a burglary at the property.¹³
• 17 October - A cull of Grey seals in the Orkney and Western Islands reduced after a public outcry.¹⁴
• 3 November - Dominica gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
• 5 November - Rioters sack the British Embassy in Tehran.
• 23 November - Pollyanna's nightclub in Birmingham is forced to lift its ban on black and Chinese revellers, after a one-year investigation by the Commission for Racial Equality concludes that the nightclub's entry policy was racist.
• 30 November - An industrial dispute closes down The Times newspaper.⁵
• 10 December - Peter D. Mitchell wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contribution to the understanding of biological energy transfer through the formulation of the chemiosmotic theory".¹⁵

Undated

• Liverpool Cathedral completed.

Publications

• James Gordon Farrell's novel The Singapore Grip.
• Graham Greene's novel The Human Factor.
• Ian McEwan's novel The Cement Garden.
• Iris Murdoch's novel The Sea, the Sea.

Births

• 1 January — Alex Leigh, model
• 1 January — Phillip Mulryne, footballer
• 17 January — Warren Feeney, footballer
• 20 February — Jakki Degg, model
• 24 February — Janine Machin, radio presenter
• March 22 — Samantha Judge, Scottish field hockey forward
• 31 March — Stephen Clemence, footballer
• 9 April — Rachel Stevens, singer
• April 24 — Beth Storry, English field hockey goalkeeper
• May 14 — Emma Rochlin, Scottish field hockey defender
• 22 May — Jordan, model
• 6 June — Carl Barât, singer and guitarist (The Libertines)
• 9 June — Matthew Bellamy, lead singer of the band Muse
• 22 June — Dan Wheldon, race car driver
• 23 July — Stuart Elliott, footballer
• 19 August — Callum Blue, actor
• 25 September — Jodie Kidd, model
• 25 October — Russell Anderson, footballer
• 26 October — Jimmy Aggrey, footballer
• 18 November — Damien Johnson, footballer

Deaths

• 14 January - Harold Abrahams, athlete (born 1899)
• 18 January - Walter H. Thompson, Scotland Yard detective, bodyguard of Winston Churchill (b. 1890)
• 22 January - Herbert Sutcliffe, cricketer (born 1894)
• 1 March - Paul Scott, novelist, playwright and poet (born 1920)
• 4 April - Sir Morien Morgan, aeronautics engineer (born 1912)
• 9 April - Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, architect (born 1883)
• 21 April - Sandy Denny, singer (born 1947)
• 18 May - Selwyn Lloyd, politician (born 1904)
• 7 June - Ronald George Wreyford Norrish, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1897)
• 30 July - John Mackintosh, politician (born 1929)
• 14 August - Nicolas Bentley, writer and illustrator (born 1907)
• 7 September - Keith Moon, drummer (The Who) (drug overdose) (born 1946)
• 9 September - Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish poet (born 1892)

References

See also