1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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U.S. Ambassador Rodger Davies and Antoinette Varnavas, an embassy secretary and a Greek Cypriot national, were killed during an anti-American protest outside the embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, on Aug. 19, 1974. Davies had been serving in Cyprus since May 1973 and it was alleged he and Varnavas were killed by sniper fire from a nearby building by Greek Cypriot gunmen of the nationalist paramilitary organization EOKA-B, which aimed to unite Cyprus with Greece. Afterwards, the U.S. government sent his replacement William R. Crawford, then-ambassador to Yemen, to Cyprus to signal it did not blame Greek Cypriot authorities for the assassination. The Turkish invasion of the island had launched July 20 and ended one day before Davies’ death. It was preceded by a military coup d’état by the Greek Army in Cyprus, the Cypriot National Guard and the Greek military junta of 1967–1974, which ousted President Makarios III and replaced him with pro-Enosis (Greek irridentist) nationalist Nikos Sampson. The coup was viewed as illegal by the United Nations and violated human rights laws.
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