January 4 » Topsy, an elephant, is electrocuted by the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island. The Edison film company records the film Electrocuting an Elephant of Topsy's death.
June 19 » Benito Mussolini, at the time a radical Socialist, is arrested by Bern police for advocating a violent general strike.
July 23 » The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.
August 29 » The Slava, the last of the five Borodino-class battleships, is launched.
October 10 » The Women's Social and Political Union is founded in support of the enfranchisement of British women.
October 31 » The Purdue Wreck, a railroad train collision in Indianapolis, kills 17 people, including 14 players of the Purdue University football team.
Day of death July 20, 1977
The temperature on July 20, 1977 was between 13.7 °C and 19.6 °C and averaged 15.9 °C. There was 0.8 mm of rain during 0.5 hours. There was 6.1 hours of sunshine (38%). The partly or heavily clouded was. The average windspeed was 3 Bft (moderate breeze) and was prevailing from the west-southwest. Source: KNMI
In The Netherlands , there was from Friday, May 11, 1973 to Monday, December 19, 1977 the cabinet Den Uyl, with Drs. J.M. den Uyl (PvdA) as prime minister.
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.
March 23 » The first of The Nixon Interviews (12 will be recorded over four weeks) is videotaped with British journalist David Frost interviewing former United States President Richard Nixon about the Watergate scandal and the Nixon tapes.
March 27 » Tenerife airport disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). Sixty-one survived on the Pan Am flight. This is the deadliest aviation accident in history.
July 19 » The world's first Global Positioning System (GPS) signal was transmitted from Navigation Technology Satellite 2 (NTS-2) and received at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at 12:41a.m. Eastern time (ET).
July 20 » The Johnstown flood of 1977 kills 84 people and causes millions of dollars in damages.
August 10 » In Yonkers, New York, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam") is arrested for a series of killings in the New York City area over the period of one year.
August 15 » The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the "Wow! signal" from the notation made by a volunteer on the project.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Dirk van Vreeswijk, "Family tree of Vreeswijk", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom-van-vreeswijk/I5083.php : accessed March 3, 2026), "Bernarda Geertje van Koerten (1903-1977)".
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