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| 1978 |
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| Pres. Carter mediated a treaty between Israel and Egypt after persuading Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin to agree on a framework for peace. | 1 |
| Bakke v. University of California. Allan Bakke, a white man, sued the University of California Medical School at Davis, focusing attention on the controversy surrounding affirmative action. He charged that the school rejected him while admitting less-qualified minorities. First implemented in 1968, affirmative action was intended to correct racial and gender imbalances by giving preference to minorities. The Supreme Court accepted Bakke's charge of “reverse discrimination” and ordered his admission to the school. At the same time, the Court also upheld the concept of affirmative action, though it ruled against the use of strict quotas. | 2 |
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| 1979 |
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| The U.S. established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (See 1979, Jan. 1). | 3 |
| In response to the Carter administration's decision to allow the deposed shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Pahlevi, to enter the U.S. for medical treatment (the shah suffered from incurable cancer), Islamic fundamentalist students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran (See Nov. 4). The students, under the direction of religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini, released 19 hostages—primarily women, black marines, and the seriously ill—and kept 52 others. The students kept the hostages for 14 months. Six months into the crisis, the White House launched a rescue attempt, which failed when the rescue helicopters broke down in the desert. The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, at the exact moment Carter turned the presidency over to Ronald Reagan. | 4 |
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| March 30 |
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| The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania came close to having a major nuclear accident when its central core reactor threatened to melt down. The incident undermined the public's faith in nuclear technology by seeming to confirm long-standing fears about the safety of nuclear power. | 5 |
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