WASHINGTON, Jan. 8, 1976 (UPI) - President Ford has officially proclaimed 1976 as "The Bicentennial Year" with these words:"In the year 1776, the people of our land dedicated themselves in word and deed to the principles of liberty, equality, individual dignity, and representative government. It was a hectic but heroic beginning of a process which led to the creation of a great republic symbolizing then, as it does today, the hope of the future.

DALLAS, Feb. 3, 1976 (UPI) - Patrick Roper and his friends have a Bicentennial dream - a human chain of 4 million people linking the East Coast to the West Coast on July 4."The idea is that there would be a man standing in the surf on the beach at Boston getting his feet wet," Roper said. "He'll be holding hands with a man standing next to him, and that man to another man - and for 15 minutes on the Fourth of July he'll be linked to a man standing in the surf off the coast of Los Angeles.

PLYMOUTH, Mass., June 2, 1976 (UPI) -- A bomb exploded last night in an apparent attempt to blow up Plymouth Rock, Police Chief Ernest Leonardi said today. The rock was undamaged."Investigation revealed that someone had attempted to blow up the Plymouth Rock." Leonardi said. "There was, however, no damage done to the rock and no one was injured."

PLYMOUTH, Mass., June 3, 1976 (UPI) -- Plymouth Rock, which someone tried to blowup two days ago, now has its own night guards. So does the replica of the Mayflower, and the state is considering security measures for other historic sites.A bomb exploded Tuesday night, leaving a hole in the sand on the shore side of the rock, believed to mark the site where the Pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower stepped ashore at Plymouth Harbor in 1620.

WASHINGTON, June 3, 1976 (UPI) - The king and queen of Spain presented to the Smithsonian Institution today a Bicentennial loan of 39 priceless documents and artifacts relating to Christopher Columbus and his discovery of the New World.Entitled "Christopher Columbus and his Time," the exhibit representing the historical roots of America nearly 500 years ago will be open to the public for the rest of the year at the Smithsonian's National Museum of History and technology.

WASHINGTON, June 17, 1976 (UPI) - A three-judge Federal Court has approved former President Richard Nixon's request that a U.S. flag made in a Hanoi POW camp be displayed in Philadelphia's July 4 Bicentennial parade.Air Force Lt. Col. John Dramesi of Philadelphia made the flag during his six years as a POW, smuggled it out of North Vietnam when he was released, and gave it to Nixon as a gift in 1974.

SALT LAKE CITY, June 17, 1976 (UPI) - Troy Austin stood in the middle of Main St. awaiting the gun. Fifty feet away his horse reared and screamed.

NEW ALEXANDRIA, Ohio, June 24, 1976 (UPI) - Organizing Bicentennial activities for a community can be tiring and require a lot of work but James Westling Jr., has had success.Westling, New Alexandria's Bicentennial chairman, drew more than double the town's 450 population for a June 6 flag presentation program.

NEWPORT, R.I., June 25, 1976 (UPI) - Sayula II, a 57-foot Mexican ketch, was the first sailing ship to cross the finish line in the Bermuda to Newport leg of the Tallships Transatlantic Race, it was announced today.Sayula made it into this scenic port late yesterday leading a flock of small racing yachts that finished the journey under sail.

NEW YORK, June 26, 1976 (UPI) - Bicentennial television can be fun, if you spend it in Philadelphia with Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and all those wonderful folks who gave you the Declaration of Independence.

PHILADELPHIA, June 30 1976 (UPI) -- Neither the nation's oldest Liberty Bell nor its newest will peal a note Sunday, the nation's 200th birthday.

NEW YORK, July 4, 1976 (UPI) - Millions of Americans, joined by President Ford and Vice President Rockefeller, lined the streets and shores of New York Sunday to watch the nation's biggest birthday celebration - an armada of naval ships and sailing vesselThe weather was cooperative through most of the day as temperatures topped out in the low 80s. But the sunny skies gave way to scattered thunderstorms in mid-afternoon, forcing Ford and his party below deck on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal.

WASHINGTON, July 4, 1976 (UPI) - A Bicentennial Fourth of July celebration which began on a note of protest swelled to a patriotic finale which drew hundreds of thousands of persons to a thundering fireworks welcome to the third century of American independence.