November 1977

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  1
Animal tranquilizer phencylclidine (PCP) is seen as a new major health hazard as its use as a recreational drug increases.
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During a concert at the Empire Pool in London, Elton John announces that he is retiring from live performances. John will be good to his word for fifteen months. On February 3, 1979, he will resume touring with a concert in Sweden.

In a landmark ruling on "battered wife sydrome," Francine Hughes is exonerated for reasons of insanity after setting fire to her abusive former husband as he slept.
 4
The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese's documentary about the Band's Thanksgiving 1976 farewell concert, premieres in New York City. The film features performances by such long-term Band associates as Bob Dylan and Ronnie Hawkins, as well as offstage vignettes of the group and scenes with the Staple Singers and Emmylou Harris filmed on an MGM soundstage in Hollywood.

Former CIA director Richard Helms is fined $2,000 and given a two-year suspended prison sentence for failing to fully disclose past U.S. covert activities in Latin America.
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Ozzy Osbourne departs Black Sabbath, only to ask for his job back after a few weeks. Within months, he will leave the band for good, pursuing a lucrative solo career.
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Proto-punkette Suzi Quatro appears on the TV show Happy Days playing Leather Tuscadero, the leader of a rock band called the Suedes.
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Donna Summer is awarded a gold record for "I Feel Love," a haunting, erotic recording that turns on the electronic ticker-tape sounds of a sequencer. The song is her second Top Ten hit, and though not as successful as her first hit, "Love to Love You Baby," (which was a #2 pop and a #3 R&B in 1976, whereas "I Feel Love" will peak at #6 pop and #9 R&B within ten days). "I Feel Love" will nonetheless prove to be the more influential on future dance music. Its mesmerizing mechanical percussion and synthesizer- sequencer riffs foreshadow later "technopop" and "Euro-disco" hits by Gary Numan, Wazmo Nariz, Human League and countless others.
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Hare Krishna founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, whose followers include George Harrison, dies.
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The Canadian trio Rush receive three gold records, for 2112, All the World's a Stage and their most recent, A Farewell to Kings. The group, which started out as a Led Zeppelin-inspired power trio, opted for a more experimental, progressive direction on those LPs and found itself a sizable audience.
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Natalie Cole caps off a big year as her single "Our Love" enters the soul chart, where in its twenty-four weeks on the chart it will hit Number One for two weeks starting January 21, 1979. Earlier this year, her "I've Got Love on My Mind" was Number One for five weeks starting February 26, and her "Party Lights" hit #9 in August.

K.C. and the Sunshine Band, the most successful of Miami's T.K. stable of disco-soul acts, enter the soul singles chart for the third and last time this year with "Wrap Your Arms around Me," which will peak at #24 in its thirteen weeks on the chart. Their other hits this year included the #3 "I'm Your Boogie Man" and "Keep It Comin' Love," Number One for one week starting September 24.

In a dramatic breakthrough after months of diplomatic efforts, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat becomes the first major Arab leader to visit Israel since its creation in 1948. He arrives to a 21-gun salute and later adddresses the Israeli Knesset. A week later, Sadat invites all Arab states, Israel, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. to a peace conference in Cairo; all decline except Israel and the U.S. By the end of the eyar, a preliminary Middle East peace plan -- including mutual recognition and the creation of a Palestinian state -- is reached.

Houston hosts the first government- sponsored National Women's Conference, where over 20,000 delegates openly discuss such issues as reproductive freedom and sexual preference, and soundly endorse the passage of the ERA.

Star Wars surpasses Jaws as Hollywood's top-grossing move to date.
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Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton sets an NFL record against the Minnesota Vikings, rushing for 275 yards in one game.
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Weddings and bar mitzvahs are never the same again after Debby Boone has a Number One hit with "You Light Up My Life." The song, from the Joe Brooks film of the same name, quickly becomes an easy-listening classic, something which no doubt makes papa Pat Boone quite proud. The record goes platinum on this date.
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French "Euro-disco" unit Le Pamplemousse enter the soul singles chart with "Le Spank," a glossy, mechanized reworking of a classic James Brown riff, which will peak at #13 in its nineteen weeks on the chart.
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Kansas, riding the crest of popularity forged by the 1976 hit "Carry On Wayward Son," enjoy their biggest album to date, Point of Know Return, which goes platinum. Earlier in the year, their Leftoverture turned gold.

With the advent of punk and so-called corporate rock, and a general lack of interest in the blues, John Mayall's career is hardly thriving by 1977. But his 1970 album The Turning Point goes gold on this date.
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