August 12, 1977

1977Plaxico Burress, American football player^[†]

Plaxico Antonio Burress is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for 12 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Michigan State Spartans, and was selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers with the eighth overall pick in the 2000 NFL draft. He also played for the New York Giants and the New York Jets, and caught the game-winning touchdown in Super Bowl XLII as the Giants beat the then-undefeated New England Patriots.

1977Jesper Grønkjær, Danish footballer^[†]

Jesper Grønkjær is a Danish former professional footballer, who most recently worked as a pundit for Scandinavian media network Viaplay.

1977The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.^[†]

The Approach and Landing Tests were a series of sixteen taxi and flight trials of the prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise that took place between February and October 1977 to test the vehicle's flight characteristics. Of the sixteen taxi-tests and flights, eleven saw Enterprise remain mated to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), while the final five had the shuttle jettisoned from the SCA, with the on-board crew flying and landing the spacecraft.

1977The Sri Lanka Riots: Targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamils, begin, less than a month after the United National Party came to power. Over 300 Tamils are killed.^[†]

The 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka followed the 1977 general elections in Sri Lanka where the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalistic Tamil United Liberation Front won a plurality of minority Sri Lankan Tamil votes. In the elections, the party stood for secession. An official government estimate put the death toll at 125, whereas other sources estimate that around 300 Tamils were killed by Sinhalese mobs. Human rights groups, such as the UTHR-J, accused the newly elected UNP-led government of orchestrating the violence.