Year 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. It was also the 1976th year of the Common Era, the 976th year of the 2nd millennium, the 76th year of the 20th century, and the 7th year of the 1970s. In Europe the summer of this year was particularly long, warm and dry.

Stephanie Lynn "Stevie" Nicks (born May 26, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her work with Fleetwood Mac and an extensive solo career, which collectively have produced over forty Top 50 hits and sold over 140 million albums. She has been noted for her ethereal visual style and symbolic lyrics. Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac on December 31, 1974, along with her then-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham. Fleetwood Mac's second album after the incorporation of Nicks and Buckingham, 1977's Rumours, produced four US Top 10 singles (including Nicks's song "Dreams", which was the band's first and only US number one) and remained at No.1 on the American albums chart for 31 weeks, as well as reaching the top spot in various countries around the world. To date the album has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, making it the eighth best-selling album of all time.

Nicks began her solo career in 1981 with the 8 million selling album Bella Donna, and she has produced six more solo studio albums to date. Her seventh solo studio album entitled In Your Dreams, and her first in ten years, was produced largely by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame and Glen Ballard and was released on May 3, 2011. After the release of her first solo album, Rolling Stone deemed her "The Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll". Having overcome cocaine addiction, and dependency on tranquilizers, Nicks remains a popular solo performer. As a solo artist, she has garnered eight Grammy Award nominations and, with Fleetwood Mac, a further five, of which one was the 1978 award for Album of the Year for Rumours, which they won. As a member of Fleetwood Mac, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Nicks is known for her distintive voice, mystical visual style and symbolic lyrics as well as the famous (sometimes tense) chemistry between herself and former boyfriend and guitarist/vocalist in Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham.

Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmʊt ˈʃmɪt]; born 23 December 1918) is a German Social Democratic politician who served as Chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Prior to becoming chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting Foreign Minister. He is the oldest surviving German Chancellor and the last surviving person to have been solely Chancellor of West Germany (Helmut Kohl was Chancellor of both West Germany and reunified Germany). He is also the oldest living Federal German Minister, after the death of his Interior Minister Werner Maihofer.

Helmut Schmidt was born in Hamburg, as son of two teachers. He studied at Hamburg Lichtwark School, graduating in 1937. He was conscripted into military service and began serving with an anti-aircraft battery at Vegesack near Bremen during World War II. After brief service on the Eastern Front he returned to Germany in 1942 to work as a trainer and advisor at the Reichsluftfahrtministerium. Also in 1942, on 27 June, he married his childhood sweetheart Hannelore "Loki" Glaser (3 March 1919 – 21 October 2010), with whom he fathered two children: Helmut Walter (26 June 1944–February 1945, died of meningitis), and Susanne (b. 1947), who works in London for Bloomberg Television. Toward the end of the war, from December 1944 onwards, he served as an Oberleutnant in the artillery on the Western Front. He was captured by the British in April 1945 on Lüneburg Heath and was a prisoner of war until August. During his service in World War II Schmidt was awarded the Iron Cross.

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmuːt ˈkoːl]; born 3 April 1930) is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany between 1982 and 1990 and of the reunited Germany between 1990 and 1998) and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. His 16-year tenure was the longest of any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck and oversaw the end of the Cold War and the German reunification. Kohl is widely regarded as one of the main architects of the German reunification and, together with French President François Mitterrand, the Maastricht Treaty, which contributed to the creation of the European Union.

Kohl and Mitterrand were the joint recipients of the Karlspreis in 1988. In 1998, Kohl was named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government for his extraordinary work for European integration and cooperation, an honour previously only bestowed on Jean Monnet. In 1996, he won the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation.

Felipe Pigna, born in Mercedes, Buenos Aires, in 1959, is an Argentine historian and writer. He is among the best selling book authors from Argentina.

Pigna teaches at the Escuela Superior de Comercio Carlos Pellegrini, directing the Ver la Historia project that produced 13 documentaries covering the 1776–2001 period of the History of Argentina. He is a columnist, appears on radio programs, and contributes to newspapers and magazines such as Noticias, Veintitrés and Todo es Historia.He is the director of Caras y Caretas magazine.

He has served as a history adviser for TV networks such as HBO, People and Arts, Italy's RAI, and Spain's Antena 3. He was a columnist of Historia Confidencial, an Argentine TV show.

Pigna is a CEO and writes for the historically-focused website El Historiador (The Historian). He is often seen in the media talking about historical subjects. He is the host of Vida y Vuelta, a television program of historical documentaries and interviews.

With Mario Pergolini, Pigna wrote, produced and hosted Algo habrán hecho por la historia argentina, a TV show aired in 2005 (and later released in a set of DVDs) which combines documentary, humor and free reenactments of historical events. The show granted him a Martín Fierro award, and in his acceptance speech he dedicated the prize to some of his historical national heroes, namely Mariano Moreno, Juan José Castelli, Manuel Belgrano and Manuel Dorrego.