The homicide rate in the United States peaks locally at 10 per 100,000 people per year (0.010%/year), then drops by half from 2010 onward. England had a rate of 1 per 100,000 people per year (0.001%/year) in 1980, rising to 1.5 in 2004, before declining again. In previous centuries, the rate was extremely high: in Italy, for example, it was 70 per 100,000 people per year (0.070%/year) in 1450.

Forty-four percent of the world’s population over 15 years of age is illiterate. This figure will drop to less than 15% by 2014.

US nuclear missiles are installed in Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom

Following the Iran hostage crisis, US President Carter orders a halt to American oil imports from Iran.

Tehran, Iran. American hostage crisis. Canadian Prime Minister Joseph Clark gives the green light to do everything possible to help the escaped American diplomats, now guests of the Canadian Embassy.

Islamic fundamentalist revolution in Iran and American hostages at the embassy

The Vela Incident (aka South Atlantic Flash). This is an unidentified double flash, clearly recorded by the American Vela Hotel spy satellite. These are satellites in orbit designed to record nuclear explosions. This double flash, between South Africa and Antarctica, in the middle of the ocean, has all the hallmarks of a nuclear explosion. The most widespread theory in intelligence circles, and also supported by then-US President Jimmy Carter, is that it was a joint South African-Israeli nuclear test. Conducted with Israeli technology for South Africa, which had supplied 500 tons of uranium for Israeli power plants. According to some sources, it would be the third joint nuclear test over the ocean by the two nations. The double flash, characteristic of a nuclear explosion, occurred in an area hit by a typhoon, and the Vela satellite was classified as “retired” even though it was actually still recording data.

The American probe Pioneer 11 passes just 21,000 km from the tops of Saturn’s clouds.

Sandinistas (Pastora and Ortega) triumph in Nicaragua, ending the Somoza family dictatorship.

Idi Amin’s overthrow. Ugandan dictator Idi Amin fled the capital Kampala in the face of advancing Tanzanian troops and the Uganda National Liberation Front. Two days later, Kampala fell, and power was handed over to a coalition government composed of former exiles. Amin, head of the Ugandan army and air force since 1966, had seized control of the nation in 1971. A despotic and fervent nationalist, Amin implemented a program of genocide against the Lango and Acholi ethnic groups. In 1972, he expelled all Asians without Ugandan citizenship from the country, forcing the departure of approximately 60,000 Indians and Pakistanis. However, Asians constituted a large portion of Uganda’s workforce, and with their departure, the economy collapsed. In October 1978, Amin unsuccessfully attacked Tanzania, attempting to divert attention from his internal problems. In 1979, Tanzanian and anti-Tanzanian forces invaded the country, overthrowing the regime and ending eight years of dictatorship. Amin fled to Libya and later settled in Saudi Arabia. He was held responsible for the deaths of 300,000 Ugandans.

Stanton J. Peale, studying the resonant orbits (with a 1:2 ratio) of Europa and Io, satellites of Jupiter, predicts impressive tidal effects capable of triggering grandiose volcanic phenomena

Pioneer 11 flies past Saturn and then heads towards the constellation of Sagittarius, whose first stars will be reached only in 4 million years.

A complete Space Shuttle with orbiter, ET, SRBs is assembled in Huntsville, Alabama and tested under vibrational stress and with different weights simulating the various phases with water instead of propellant.

China invades Vietnam with at least 200,000 troops, perhaps twice that number. In response to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, China occupies Vietnam. Tensions between Vietnam and China had escalated in 1975, at the end of the Vietnam War. As part of its expansionist attempt in Indochina, Vietnam established a military presence in Laos, forged ties with the Soviet Union, China’s rival, and invaded Cambodia in 1979. A month later, Chinese forces launched an invasion but were repelled in nine days of fierce fighting.

Tehran, Iran. A group of left-wing students occupy the U.S. Embassy in Tehran; Khomeini calls in the police and forces the students to leave the premises.

The third generation of CPUs is born: Intel 8086 (30,000 transistors) and 8088 at 5MHz with pipelines to fetch the current instruction while executing the previous instruction

The father of Larry Page, future co-creator of Google, buys his son the Exidy Sorcerer, a home computer for hobbyists, created by Paul Terrell, owner of the Byte Shop chain, who first hired Steve Jobs for the Apple I.

Construction begins on the Space Telescope’s 2.4m main mirror

team led by Dutchman Herman te Riele and Australian Richard Brent proved that the first 200 million zeros of the Riemann zeta function fall on the line passing through 1/2. However, there was a bet pending between Zagier and Bombieri (two bottles of excellent Bordeaux) that there would be a counterexample among the first 300 million non-trivial zeros. So when Lenstra goes to te Riele’s team and says, “Don’t you know about the bet? Why did you stop at 200 million?”, the Dutch mathematician decides to continue the calculation for another thousand hours and thus proves that the first 300 million zeros of the Riemann zeta function fall on the line passing through 1/2. Bombieri wins the bet and drinks the first of the two bottles with his friend Zagier. This is probably the most expensive bottle of Bordeaux in history: 1,000 hours of supercomputer time.

Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe suggest that microorganisms, especially viruses, are continually arriving on Earth via debris scattered by comets (continuous panspermia).