Four decades ago,
the original Star Wars movie was released in theaters, Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th president of the United States, the Trans-Alaska pipeline pumped its first barrels of oil, the cold war was was still going on and much more...
Take a brief look 40 years ago.
- The CSU board confirms in Munich the appointment of Edmund Stoiber as successor to Georg Tandler as secretary-general of the party.
- At the conclusion of a state visit by the Ethiopian revolutionary leader Haile Mariam Mengistu, a Soviet-Ethiopian friendship treaty is signed in Moscow.
- The French literary prize "Prix Goncourt" is awarded in Paris to the 33-year-old writer Patrick Modiano.