List of Famous people who are 78

Mick Jackson is an English film director and television producer. Between 1973 and 1987, Jackson directed many documentary and drama productions for BBC TV and Channel 4. Relocating to Hollywood, he directed feature films, including The Bodyguard starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. In 2010, Jackson won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special for the dramatised biographical TV film Temple Grandin.

Lyudmila Ivanovna Bragina is a retired Russian middle distance runner. She competed for the Soviet Union in the 1500 m at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics; she won the event in 1972 and finished fifth in 1976. In July 1972 she set a new 1500 m world record of 4:06.9, at the Soviet championships, and then progressively improved it in round 1 (4:06.47), the semi-finals (4:05.07}, and the final, of the 1972 Olympics. The same year she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. She also set three world records in the 3000 m: 8:53.0 in 1972, 8:52.74 in 1974 and 8:27.12 in 1976. At the European Championships, Bragina won four silver medals: in the 3,000 m outdoors, and in the 800 m and 1,500 m indoors.

Victor Matveevich Buchstaber is a Soviet and Russian mathematician known for his work on algebraic topology, homotopy theory, and mathematical physics.

Wilfried Schmid is a German-American mathematician who works in Hodge theory, representation theory, and automorphic forms. He earned his Ph.D. at University of California, Berkeley in 1967 under the direction of Phillip Griffiths, and then taught at Berkeley and Columbia University, becoming a Full Professor at Columbia at age 27. In 1978 he moved to Harvard University, where he is currently the Dwight Parker Robinson Professor of Mathematics.

William Edward Binney is a former intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and whistleblower. He retired on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency.

Virginia Louise Trimble is an American astronomer specializing in the structure and evolution of stars and galaxies, and the history of astronomy. She has published more than 600 works in Astrophysics, and dozens of other works in the history of other sciences. She received the NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing in 1986, "for informing and enlightening the astronomical community by her numerous, comprehensive, scholarly, and literate reviews, which have elucidated many complex astrophysical questions," the Klopsteg Memorial Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers in 2001, and the George Van Biesbroeck Prize in 2010, for "many years of dedicated service to the national and international communities of astronomers, including her expert assessments of progress in all fields of astrophysics and her significant roles in supporting organizations, boards, committees and foundations in the cause of astronomy." She is famous for an annual review of astronomy and astrophysics research that was published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and often gives summary reviews at astrophysical conferences. In 2018, she was elected a Patron of the American Astronomical Society, for her many years of intellectual, organizational, and financial contributions to the society.

Edward R. Pressman is an American film producer and founder of the production company Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation.

Mulatu Astatke is an Ethiopian musician and arranger considered as the father of Ethio-jazz.