MVM 1976

Appointed a Knight in the General Division of the Order of Australia for "extraordinary and pre-eminent achievement and merit in the field of government." The certificate of award reads:

John R Kerr
Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia and Chancellor of the Order of Australia
To
Robert Gordon Menzies
Greeting
WHEREAS with the approval of Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Australia
and Sovereign of the Order of Australia,
I have been pleased to appoint you to be a
Knight in the General Division
of the Order of Australia.

I DO by these Presents appoint you to be a
Knight in the General Division of the said Order and authorise you to hold and enjoy the dignity of such appointment together with Membership in the said Order and all privileges thereunto appertaining.

GIVEN at Government House, Canberra,
under the Seal of the Order of Australia
this twelfth day of June 1976.

By His Excellency's Command
David Smith
Secretary of the Order of Australia

Order of Australia 2

Pastor Sir Douglas Nichols is the first Aborigine to be appointed as Governor, South Australia.

Uranium mining becomes an important controversial issue.

Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, the leader of Communist China, dies. Mao, facing defeat by the Nationalist forces of General Chiang Kai-shek, led his followers on the "Long March" to safety in the mountains of Yenan from where they emerged to defeat the Nationalists and, in 1949, to turn China Communist.

Riots by black people at Soweto, South Africa, leave 100 dead and over 1,000 injured.

Unmanned space craft Viking lands on Mars after an 11-month journey. It sends back the first close-up pictures of the planet's surface but finds no evidence of life.

British Airways commences commercial supersonic travel from London to Bahrain.

NASA photo of stars in space 16