Should be "The transistor turns 77"
Analog SF, in their March 1965 issue ran a (factual) article entitled "The Twenty Lost Years of Solid State Physics", in respect of Lillienfields patent (No. 1745175) of what is clearly an NPN transistor. The article went as far as to print the actual patent documentation. It just goes to show that the US Patents Office current policy of granting patents on established art is nothing new.