Earl Green is the creator, curator, and head writer of theLogBook.com.
NBC premieres the pilot movie Gemini Man, a retooling of the concept of The Invisible Man series the network cancelled earlier in the year. The movie stars Ben Murphy, Katherine Crawford, and Richard Dysart (L.A. Law). A very brief series will premiere as part of NBC’s fall season. 
The 12th episode of The Bionic Woman, starring Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson, airs on ABC. Anne Schedeen (Alf) and Skip Homeier guest star.
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Atari introduces a new arcade game, Breakout, which takes the play mechanics of Pong, turns them on one side, and turns the game into a single-player endurance trial. Assigned to junior Atari employee Steve Jobs, Breakout is actually completed by Jobs’ friend Steve Wozniak, though the circuitry for the game is redesigned when Atari’s engineers can’t get their heads around Wozniak’s incredibly compact, efficient design, which reduces the number of logic circuits to a bare minimum. Jobs and Wozniak later approach Atari with a design for a personal computer, and are turned down; that design later becomes the first Apple Computer.
Asylum Records releases Warren Zevon‘s self-titled second album, his first album since 1969.
The 13th episode of The Bionic Woman, starring Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson, airs on ABC. Herbert Jefferson Jr. (Battlestar Galactica) and Terry Kiser (Weekend At Bernie’s) guest star.
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The 14th episode of The Bionic Woman, starring Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson, airs on ABC. Kristy McNichol (Family) guest stars in the final episode of the first season.
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Coleco, a toy company best known for its air hockey tables, releases its first video game console, the Coleco Telstar. A self-contained unit capable of playing three variants of video tennis, Telstar retails for roughly half the price of Atari’s Pong console, and Coleco sells over a million units of Telstar in various guises and case styles through the end of the decade. In the early 1980s, Coleco begins development of its own programmable, cartridge-based successor to Telstar, which will reach the market in 1982 as Colecovision.
A major breakthrough in an industry that was previously dominated by expensive, bulky consoles that could only play a handful of games each, Fairchild introduces its Video Entertainment System, the first programmable video game system. Though it has several built-in games like its predecessors, the Fairchild system allows owners to add new games by purchasing “Videocarts” – roughly the size of 8-track tapes – containing additional games. Fairchild later renames its VES console Channel F to avoid market confusion with Atari’s VCS (Video Computer System), which doesn’t arrive on the scene until the following year.
The Soviet Union launches the two-ton Salyut 5 space station into Earth orbit. Salyut 5 is the final Soviet space station to utilize the Almaz military station architecture originally specified in the 1960s (at which time Almaz was developed to counter the perceived threat from the never-launched American Manned Orbiting Laboratory). The station carries Earth surveillance equipment and a return capsule for later retrieval of experiments and film. Salyut 5 remains in orbit for a little over a year, visited by only two crews.
The MGM movie Logan’s Run premieres, starring Michael York and Jenny Agutter, and based on the science fiction novel of the same name by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Set in an unspecified future, Logan’s Run depicts a world where citizens of a domed society must be euthanized at the age of 30 (21 in the original novel), supposedly to alleviate overpopulation; those who try to avoid this fate are labeled runners, to be pursued by armed Sandmen. Logan is a Sandman who finds himself running as his 30th birthday approaches. A television version follows in 1977, though without any of the movie’s cast.
The Soviet Union launches cosmonauts Boris Volynov and Vitaly Zholobov aboard Soyuz 21, the first mission to the newly-orbited Salyut 5 military space station. Though a few scientific experiments are conducted, most of the crew’s activities involve military surveillance of Earth. The crew’s stay is intended to last as long as two months, though an emergency aboard the station will cut that stay short.
Argo Records releases the standalone Doctor Who audio drama LP Doctor Who and the Pescatons in the UK, starring Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, and guest starring Bill Mitchell in a story written by veteran TV writer Victor Pemberton. The first release of its kind licensed by the BBC (although plans had been made, and abandoned, for a radio series starring actor Peter Cushing in the 1960s), this release is the first in a very long history of Doctor Who stories told entirely in the audio medium, and will be re-released in other forms in later years.
After grueling location shooting in Tunisia and lengthy studio filming at Elstree Studios in England, principal photography wraps up on George Lucas’ Star Wars. But returning to America, Lucas finds his newly-founded special effects studio, Industrial Light & Magic, in disarray, and months of miniature and second-unit filming must still be done before the planned (and later rescheduled) release date of Christmas 1976.
Viking 1 makes a soft landing on Mars, the first spacecraft to do so intact (the Soviet space program had been attempting to put landers on Mars, some of them including rudimentary rovers, since 1962). It successfully transmits the first picture from the Martian surface back to Earth within seconds, and successfully gathers soil samples for analysis. Viking 1’s orbiter mothership will later shut down in 1980, but the lander itself functions until 1982. Viking 1’s landing takes place on the seventh anniversary of the first manned moon landing.
The Viking 1 orbiter, observing Mars from orbit while relaying data from the Viking 1 lander to Earth, snaps a close-up view of the Martian moon Phobos from within 5,000 miles. Though more distant from Phobos than Mariner 9’s closest pass in 1972, the Viking cameras are vastly superior, revealing greater detail even at greater distances; craters as small as 13 miles across can be seen in the images. JPL scientists and mission planners are already developing ideas for future Mars missions, including unmanned landers with wheeled rovers.
NASA and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration launch NOAA-5, a weather satellite intended to operate in a near-polar low Earth orbit. Within two weeks of its launch, NOAA-5 proves instrumental in tracking Hurricane Belle, a category 1 hurricane, as it approaches and makes landfall in the northeastern United States. NOAA-5 will operate without any major malfunctions through July 1979.
Mushroom Records releases the second Split Enz album, Second Thoughts, much of which is material that already appeared on the band’s debut album.
The Soviet Union launches the robotic lunar lander and sample return mission, Luna 24. Touching down safely in the Mare Crisium region two weeks after its launch, Luna 24 drills a two-meter core sample of lunar soil for return to Earth in a small reentry capsule. Luna 24 is the final Soviet mission to the moon, and is the last vehicle from Earth to land on the moon in the 20th century. NASA and the Soviet space agency exchange samples of lunar soil later in 1976, since Luna 24 landed in a region unexplored by the Apollo manned landing missions.
42 days into their stay aboard the military space station Salyut 5, Soviet cosmonauts Boris Volynov and Vitaly Zholobov report unusual odors in the station’s air. On the 49th day of their stay, the two men bundle into their Soyuz 21 capsule to return home on only 10 hours’ notice, an unprecedented event. Details of the causes of the emergency return remain closely guarded to this day, including the possibility of toxic gas escaping into the station’s atmosphere and causing one or both cosmonauts to suffer rapidly deteriorating health. Neither of them fly in space again after their return.
The first episode of the British-German science fiction series Star Maidens premieres on ITV in the UK. (Not all regional ITV affiliates carry the show at a specific time; this episode guide reflects the dates for the broadcast premieres of each episode on Scottish TV.) The show stars Gareth Thomas and Judy Geeson, and involves male slaves who escape from the female-dominated society of planet Medusa to take shelter on Earth. 
NASA’s Viking 2 lander, launched from Earth almost exactly a year earlier touches down on Martian soil in the Utopia Planitia region. One of Viking 2’s three landing legs comes down on a rock, leaving the entire lander at an eight-degree angle to the ground. Identical to Viking 1, Viking 2 has its own soil sampling arm, though its series of tests for biological reactions within the soil produce inconclusive results (including at least one “positive” test for signs of life, later attributed to inorganic chemical reactions). Viking 2 will also later confirm that water exists, at least briefly, on the surface of Mars in the form of frost.
The 25th episode of Gerry Anderson’s space adventure series Space: 1999 airs on British broadcaster ITV, starring Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, and adding new cast member Catherine Schell. Brian Blessed (Flash Gordon) guest stars in the second season premiere; Fred Freiberger (Star Trek) takes over as showrunner and institutes major changes to the series format, costuming, and music.
The 428th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Gareth Armstrong and Tim Piggott-Smith guest star. This episode is the beginning of Doctor Who’s 14th season on the air.
Forking over approximately $28,000,000 for the privelege of becoming a player in the video game industry, Warner Communication buys Atari, which had previously been privately owned by Nolan Bushnell and other investors. Though Bushnell remains on Atari’s board for a time, he is eventually removed and replaced by former Burlington Textiles vice president Ray Kassar. At this point, Atari’s most recent product is Atari Video Music, a device that connects to home stereo systems and television sets, producing psychedelic patterns synchronized to music; the company is spending the latter half of 1976 not releasing video game products in an attempt to sit out terms of a legal settlement with Magnavox.
The second episode of the British-German science fiction series Star Maidens premieres on ITV in the UK. (Not all regional ITV affiliates carry the show at a specific time; this episode guide reflects the dates for the broadcast premieres of each episode on Scottish TV.) The show stars Gareth Thomas and Judy Geeson, and involves male slaves who escape from the female-dominated society of planet Medusa to take shelter on Earth.
The 23rd episode of Filmation’s live-action Shazam! series airs on CBS, starring John Davey, Michael Gray and Les Tremayne. William Campbell (Star Trek) guest stars in the third season premiere.
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ABC premieres the first episode of Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, part of the Krofft Supershow Saturday morning children’s programming block. This is part one of a two-part story, each episode lasting only around 12 minutes.
NBC premieres the first episode of Monster Squad, a live-action Saturday morning comedy series imagining Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman as a crime-fighting team led by Walter (Fred Grandy, a year before he would set sail on The Love Boat). (Though similar in concept, the series is unrelated to the late theatrical movie of the same name.)
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The 26th episode of Gerry Anderson’s space adventure series Space: 1999 airs on British broadcaster ITV, starring Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, and Catherine Schell.
The 429th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Gareth Armstrong and Tim Piggott-Smith guest star.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
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