About the day » Sunday January 8, 1978Calender converter

• David Roy McGillis, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada († 2016)
• Martijn Veltkamp, Zaandam

• Bernardus Lammers (71), Wageningen
• Anna Gertrud TAPPEL (82), Groningen,Nederland
• Alta G. [Etta) Green Robbins (87), Rutherford County, North Carolina
• Andrew Robertson Lyell (64), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• Clément Alfred POINSON (82), ( Corbeil-Essonnes, 91100, Essonne, Ile-de-France, France
• Bernard Wentink (76), Doetinchem
• Anne Sytsma
• Andries Scholing (80), Lacombe, Alberta, Canada
• Auke Hogeterp (45)
• Aleida Hardick (88), Hoorn, Noord-Holland, Nederland

• 1976 » Carl Pavano, American baseball player
• 1976 » Kenneth Andam, Ghanaian sprinter and businessman
• 1977 » Amber Benson, American actress, writer, director, and producer
• 1977 » Francesco Coco, Italian footballer
• 1979 » Adrian Mutu, Romanian footballer
• 1979 » Sarah Polley, Canadian actress, director, and screenwriter
• 1979 » Seol Ki-hyeon, South Korean footballer and manager
• 1979 » Stipe Pletikosa, Croatian footballer
• 1980 » Adam Goodes, Australian footballer
• 1980 » Rachel Nichols, American actress and producer

• 1975 » Richard Tucker, American tenor (b. 1913)
• 1976 » Robert Forgan, Scottish-English physician and politician (b. 1891)
• 1976 » Zhou Enlai, Chinese soldier and politician, 1st Premier of the People's Republic of China (b. 1898)
• 1979 » Sara Carter, American singer-songwriter and harp player (b. 1898)
• 1980 » John Mauchly, American physicist and academic (b. 1907)
• 1981 » Matthew Beard, American actor (b. 1925)
• 1982 » Grégoire Aslan, Swiss-English actor and screenwriter (b. 1908)
• 1983 » Gale Page, American actress (b. 1910)
• 1983 » Gerhard Barkhorn, German general and pilot (b. 1919)
• 1983 » Tom McCall, American journalist and politician, 30th Governor of Oregon (b. 1913)

• Koningin Juliana (Huis van Oranje-Nassau) was from September 4, 1948 till April 30, 1980 sovereign of the Netherlands (also known as Koninkrijk der Nederlanden)
• In The Netherlands , there was from Monday, December 19, 1977 to Friday, September 11, 1981 the cabinet Van Agt I, with Mr. A.A.M. van Agt (CDA/KVP) as prime minister.
• The Netherlands had about 13.9 million citizens.
• March 16 » A Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Tupolev Tu-134 crashes near Gabare, Bulgaria, killing 73.
• April 27 » Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes.
• July 1 » The Northern Territory in Australia is granted self-government.
• July 25 » Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF.
• November 15 » A chartered Douglas DC-8 crashes near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 183.
• December 6 » Spain ratifies the Spanish Constitution of 1978 in a referendum.

The temperature on January 8, 1978 was between -3.3 °C and 1.6 °C and averaged -0.2 °C. There was -0.1 mm of rain. There was 3.1 hours of sunshine (39%). The partly clouded was. The average windspeed was 1 Bft (weak wind) and was prevailing from the south.