Entertainer Dolly Parton receives the Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year Award.
Golfer Amy Alcott wins the Orange Blossom Classic, her third tournament after turning pro, which sets the record for the fastest career win.
Historian Lucy Dawidowicz publishes The War Against the Jews 1933–1945, a definitive study of the Holocaust.
Designer Carole Little founds the fashion house Carole Little, Inc. Combining casual southern California styling with chic and trendy European sportswear, the company grows from its inception in 1975 to a $500 million business.
Comedienne Gilda Radner launches a host of Emmy-winning characters in the television program Saturday Night Live. Her death from ovarian cancer at age forty-two in 1989 leads to the founding of Gilda’s Club Worldwide, a support organization for people living with cancer, their family, and their friends. Radner says: “While we have the gift of life, it seems to me the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die—whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our glorious uniqueness.”
Children’s writer Virginia Hamilton wins the National Book Award and the Newbery Medal for M. C. Higgins, the Great.
Susan Brownmiller publishes a book, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, that exposes the prevalence of violence against women.
Martina Navratilova defects from Czechoslovakia and pursues her tennis career in the United States; she goes on to win a total of fifty-six Grand Slam events.
Entertainer Joan Rivers wins the Georgie Award for Best Comedienne; she continues a long television career and has interviewed countless celebrities on the red carpet before the Academy Awards show.
Ella Grasso becomes governor of Connecticut; she is the first woman to be elected governor of a state on her own merits and not by following her husband into the office.
Jill Ker Conway is the first female president of Smith College.