June 1978

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The Washington Bullets overcome the Seattle Supersonics, 105-99, in the seventh game of the finals and grab their first NBA title.
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Rolling Stones Records releases the band's latest album, Some Girls, the title tune of which will once again stir up controversy around rock's baddest boys -- the outcry stemming from the song's lyric "Black girls just like to fuck all night."

The Mormon Church opens its priesthood to blacks for the first time.
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Bob Dylan begins his first British tour in several years at London's Wembley Empire Pool before a capacity throng.

The Supreme Court halts construction of Tennessee's Tellico Dam because it would destroy the only known habitat of the snail darter, a tiny, endangered fish.
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The Clash's reggae-inflected single "White Man in Mammersmith Palais" is released in the U.K. on CBS Records.

Ex-Sex Pistol Sid Vicious' version of "My Way" is released on an EP titled The Biggest Blow on Virgin Records in England. The EP's flip side is "The Biggest Blow - a Punk Prayer," by fugitive great train robber Ronnie Biggs, backed by ex-Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook. Vicious' "My Way" will later appear on the Virgin LP Sid Sings (featuring Vicious recorded live at club Max's Kansas City in New York) and the Barclay EP Sid Vicious' Heritage.

The film Grease, directed by Randall Kleiser and starring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, opens in theaters across America. This Hollywoodized look at Fifties adolescents will be a critical bombshell and a box-office smash. The soundtrack will be the second chart-topper for Robert Stigwood's RSO label in 1978 (following Saturday Night Fever), spending 12 weeks at #1. Frankie Valli's title track will also reach #1 and become his top career hit.
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At the Lorely Festival in St. Goarhausen, Germany, the Jefferson Starship fail to appear as scheduled because singer Grace Slick, currently in the midst of along bout with alcoholism, is unable to go onstage. Fans riot, causing over #1 million worth of damage. Two days later, Slick will leave the band. On June 24, Marty Balin will assume lead vocal duties in her place at Britain's Knebworth Festival, following which the band will cancel the rest of its European tour.

The Rolling Stones begin another U.S. tour, in Philadelphia. The tour will end July 20 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, amid rumors that lead singer Mick Jagger will leave the band to embark on an acting career.
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The Punk Rock Movie -- consisting of 8mm film clips of London's early punk days at the Roxy Club, shot by guerrila filmmaker Don Letts -- premieres in London. It features the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Slits, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Ex-Ray Spexs, Generation X, Slaughter and the Dogs, Subway Sect, Shane, Wayne County, Eater, Alternative TV and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. It will have a very brief run in New York City later this year.
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Were the Rolling Stones challenged into creating their finest LP in years, Some Girls? That's the theory of many, who see the LP as a response to the taunts of Britain's punks. Besides inspired bar band thrashing, there's the misunderstood country parody "Far Away Eyes" and the jagged dance hit "Miss You," which makes Number One. The record turns platinum on this date.

The American Nazi Party calls off its scheduled march through Skokie, Illinois, preferring to ask permission to demonstrate in Marquette Park in Chicago. The Nazi rally will take place July 9, as 2,000 spectators cheer and jeer.
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To celebrate the end of Gay and Lesbian Pride Week, thousands march in New York City and San Francisco.
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Ex-Genesis vocalist Peter Gabriel's second eponymously titled solo album is released on Atlantic Records. Produced by ex-King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, it will yield a minor hit single for Gabriel in "D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself)."

Bonnie Tyler's "It's a Heartbreak" is one of the most talked-about songs of the spring: Is that Rod Stewart singing? Tyler's gravelly voice is almost identical to Stewart's, and the resulting notoriety turns the single into a hit and the LP into gold.

Bruce Springsteen's career had been thought to be damaged by the legal difficulties that prevented him from releasing a followup to Born to Run, but Darkness on the Edge of Town dispels those fears, going to #5. It's a dark, haunting album, and almost a lyrical sequel to Born to Run. Springsteen is awarded a platinum album on this date.
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Pseudoclassical rock band Kansas are named Deputy Ambassadors of Goodwill by UNICEF.

The Supreme Court declares fixed racial quotas unconstitutional and helps introduce the term "reverse discrimination" in a case involving a white man who denied entrance to a California medical school.
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Pop-rock singer/songwriter Peter Frampton is injured in a car crash in the Bahamas.
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