1979

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For the Smashing Pumpkins song, see 1979 (song).

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1979 (MCMLXXIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1979 Gregorian calendar). It was the last year of the 1970s.

Contents Events of 1979 Jan.  · Feb. · March · April · May  · June · July · Aug. · Sept.  · Oct. · Nov. · Dec. · Undated  · Ongoing Births Deaths Nobel Prizes See also · Notes · External links

[edit] Events of 1979

[edit] January

• January 1 – United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the International Year of the Child. Many musicians donate to the Music for UNICEF Concert fund including ABBA, who wrote the song Chiquitita, to commemorate the event.
• January 1 – The United States and the People's Republic of China establish full diplomatic relations.

January
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• January 4 – The State of Ohio agrees to pay $675,000 to families of the dead and injured in the Kent State shootings.
• January 7 – Vietnam and Vietnam-backed Cambodianinsurgents announce the fall of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the collapse of the Pol Pot regime. Pol Pot and the Khmer RougeThai border. retreat west to an area along the
• January 8 – The French tanker Betelgeuse explodes at the Gulf Oil terminal at Bantry, Ireland; 50 are killed.
• January 9 – The Music for UNICEF Concert is held at the United Nations General Assembly to raise money for UNICEF and promote the Year of the Child. It is broadcast the following day in the United States and around the world. Hosted by The Bee Gees, other performers include Donna Summer, ABBA, Rod Stewart and Earth, Wind & Fire. A soundtrack album is later released.
• January 16 – Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran flees Iran with his family, relocating to Egypt after a year of turmoil.
• January 19 – Former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell is released on parole after 19 months at a federal prison in Alabama.
• January 21 – Super Bowl XIII: The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Dallas Cowboys 35–31 at the Miami Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida.
• January 29 – Brenda Ann Spencer opens fire at a school in San Diego, California, killing 2 faculty members and wounding 8 students. Her response to the action, "I don't like Mondays," inspired the Boomtown Rats to make a song of the same name.

[edit] February

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• February 1 – Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst is released from prison after her sentence is commuted by U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
• February 1 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.
• February 3 – Khomeini creates the Council of the Islamic Revolution.
• February 7 – Supporters of Khomeini take over the Iranian law enforcement, courts and government administration; the final session of the Iranian National Consultative Assembly is held.
• February 7 – Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since either was known to science.
• February 10–February 11 – The Iranian army mutinies and joins the Islamic Revolution.
• February 11 – Khomeini seizes power in Iran, overthrowing Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi.
• February 12 – Prime Minister Hissène Habré starts the Battle of N'Djamena in an attempt to overthrow Chad's President Félix Malloum.
• February 13 – The intense February 13, 1979 Windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 1/2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge.
• February 14 – In Kabul, Muslim extremists kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.
• February 14 – Following her 1972 sex reassignment surgery, musician Wendy Carlos legally changes her name from Walter. She later reveals this information in an interview in the May 1979 issue of Playboy Magazine.
• February 15 – A suspected gas explosion in a Warsaw bank kills 49.
• February 17 – The People's Republic of China invades northern Vietnam, launching the Sino-Vietnamese War.
• February 18 – The Sahara Desert experiences snow for 30 minutes.
• February 22 – Saint Lucia becomes independent of the United Kingdom.
• February 26 – A total solar eclipse arcs over northern Canada, and a partial solar eclipse is visible over almost all of North America and Central America. [2]
• February 27 – The annual Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, Louisiana is canceled due to a strike called by the New Orleans Police Department.

[edit] March

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• March 1 – Scotland votes narrowly for home rule, which is not implemented, and Wales votes against it.
• March 4 – The U.S. Voyager I spaceprobe photos reveal Jupiter's rings.
• March 5 – Voyager I makes its closest approach to Jupiter at 172,000 miles.
• March 7 – The largest Magnetar (Soft gamma repeater) event is recorded.
• March 8 – Philips demonstrates Compact Disc publicly for the first time.
• March 13 – Maurice Bishop leads a successful coup in Grenada.
• March 14 – In China, a Hawker Siddeley Trident crashes into a factory near Beijing, killing at least 200.
• March 17 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel in the U.K. collapses, killing 2 workers.
• March 18 – Ten miners die in a methane gas explosion at Golborne Colliery near Wigan, Lancashire.^[1]
• March 25 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center, to be prepared for its first launch.
• March 26 – In a ceremony at the White House, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel sign a peace treaty.
• March 28 – In Britain, Jim Callaghan's minority Labour government loses a motion of confidence by 1 vote, forcing a general election which is to be held on 3 May.^[2]
• March 29 – America's most serious nuclear power plant accident, at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania.
• March 29 – Sultan Yahya Petra of Kelantan, the 6th Yang di-Pertuan Agong (Head of State) of Malaysia, dies in office. He is replaced by Sultan Ahmad Shah of Pahang.
• March 30 – Airey Neave, World War II veteran and Conservative Northern Ireland spokesman, is killed by an Irish National Liberation Army bomb in the British House of Commons car park.
• March 31 – The last British soldier (belonging to the Royal Navy) leaves the Maltese Islands, after 179 years of presence. Malta declares its Freedom Day (Jum il-Helsien).
• March 31 – Gali Atari and Milk and Honey win the Eurovision Song Contest 1979 for Israel, with the song Hallelujah.

[edit] April

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• April 1 – Iran's government becomes an Islamic Republic by a 98% vote, overthrowing the Shah officially.
• April 1–April 18 – Police lock Andreas Mihavecz in a holding cell in Bregenz, Austria, and forget about, leaving him there without food or drink.
• April 1 – The Pinwheel Network changes its name to Nickelodeon and begins airing on various Warner Cable systems beginning in Buffalo, New York, expanding its audience reach.
• April 2 – Sverdlovsk Anthrax leak: A Soviet biowarfareSverdlovsk accidentally releases airborne anthrax spores, killing 66 plus an unknown amount of livestock. laboratory at
• April 10 – A tornado hits Wichita Falls, Texas, killing 42 people (the most notable of 26 tornadoes that day).
• April 11 – Tanzanian troops take Kampala, the capital of Uganda; Idi Amin flees.
• April 15 – 1979 Montenegro Earthquake: A major earthquake (7.0 on the Richter scale) strikes Montenegro (then part of Yugoslavia) and parts of Albania, causing extensive damage to coastal areas and taking 136 lives; the old town of Budva is devastated.
• April 17 – Schoolchildren in the Central African Republic are arrested (and around 100 killed) for protesting against compulsory school uniforms. An African judicial commission later determines that Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa "almost certainly" took part in the massacre.
• April 20 – President Jimmy Carter is attacked by a swamp rabbit while fishing in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
• April 22 – The Albert Einstein Memorial is unveiled at The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.
• April 23 – Fighting in London between the Anti-Nazi League and the Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group results in the death of protestor Blair Peach.

[edit] May

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May 4: Thatcher

• May 1 – Greenland gets home rule.
• May 4 – Counting in the previous day's British general election shows that the Conservatives have won and Margaret Thatcher becomes the country's first female prime minister.
• May 8 – The Manchester, England Woolworth's in city centre is seriously damaged by fire; 10 shoppers die.
• May 9 – A Unabomber bomb injures Northwestern University graduate student John Harris.
• May 10 – The Federated States of Micronesia becomes self-governing.
• May 21 – Dan White receives a light sentence for killing San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, gay men in the city riot.
• May 21 – The Montréal Canadiens defeat the New York Rangers 4 games to 1 in the best-of-seven series, winning the Stanley Cup.
• May 25 – American Airlines Flight 191: In Chicago, a DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport, killing 271 on board and 2 people on the ground.
• May 25 – John Spenkelink is executed in Florida, in the first use of the electric chair in America after the reintroduction of death penalty in 1976.
• May 27 – Indianapolis 500: Rick Mears wins the race for the first time, and car owner Roger Penske for the second time.

[edit] June

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• June 1 – The Vizianagaram district is formed in Andhra Pradesh, India.
• June 1 – The first black-led government of Rhodesia in 90 years takes power, in succession to Ian Smith and under his power-sharing deal.
• June 1 – The Seattle SuperSonics win the NBA Championship against the Washington Bullets.
• June 2 – Pope John Paul II arrives in his native Poland on his first official, nine-day stay, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country. This visit, known as nine days that changed the world, brought about the solidarity of the Polish peoples against communism, ultimately leading to the rise of the Solidarity movement.
• June 3 – A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 600,000 tons (176,400,000 gallons) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the worst oil spill to date. Some estimate the spill to be 428 million gallons, making it the largest unintentional oil spill until it was surpassed by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010.
• June 3 – General elections are held in Italy.
• June 4 – Joe Clark becomes Canada's 16th and youngest Prime Minister.
• June 4 – Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which GeneralAkuffo is overthrown.
• June 7 – The first direct elections to the European Parliament begin, allowing citizens from across all then-9 European Community member states to elect 410 MEPs. It is also the first international election in history.
• June 12 – Bryan Allen flies the man-powered Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel.
• June 18 – Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II agreement in Vienna.
• June 20 – A Nicaraguan National Guard soldier kills ABC TV news correspondent Bill Stewart and his interpreter Juan Espinosa. Other members of the news crew capture the killing on tape.
• June 23 – Sydney: New South Wales Premier Neville Wran officially opens the Eastern Suburbs Railway. It operates as a shuttle between Central & Bondi Junction until full integration with the Illawarra Line in 1980.
• June 24 – Bologna (Italy): foundation of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, an international opinion tribunal, at the initiative of Senator Lelio Basso.
• June 25 – Belgium: NATO Supreme Allied Commander Alexander Haig escapes an assassination attempt by the Baader-Meinhof terrorist organization.

[edit] July

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• July 1 – Sweden outlaws corporal punishment in the home.
• July 3 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
• July 8 – Los Angeles passes its gay and lesbian civil rights bill.
• July 9 – A car bomb destroys a Renault owned by Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. A note purportedly from ODESSA claims responsibility.
• July 11 – NASA's first orbiting space station Skylab begins its return to Earth, after being in orbit for 6 years and 2 months.
• July 12 – Kiribati declares independence from the United Kingdom.
• July 12 – A Disco Demolition Night publicity stunt goes awry at Comiskey Park, forcing the Chicago White Sox to forfeit their game against the Detroit Tigers.
• July 12 – Carmine Galante, boss of the Bonanno crime family, is assassinated.
• July 12 – A fire at a hotel in Saragossa, Spain leaves 72 dead. Worst hotel fire in Europe in decades.
• July 16 – Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigns and Vice President Saddam Hussein replaces him.
• July 17 – Nicaraguan dictator General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami, Florida.
• July 19 – Maritza Sayalero of Venezuela wins the Miss Universe Pageant; the stage collapses after contestants and news photographers rush to her throne.
• July 19 – The Sandinista National Liberation Front concludes a successful revolutionary campaign against the U.S. backed Somoza dictatorship and assumes power in Nicaragua.
• July 19 – Maria de Lurdes Pintasilgo becomes prime minister of Portugal

[edit] August

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• August 5 – The Polisario Front signs a peace treaty with Mauritania.
• August 9 – The first British nudist beach is established in Brighton.
• August 9 – Raymond Washington, co-founder of the Crips, today one of the largest, most notorious gangs in the United States, is shot and killed 5 months after his arrest for quadruple murder (his killers have not yet been identified).
• August 10 – Michael Jackson releases his first breakthrough album Off the Wall. It sells 7 million copies in the United States alone, making it a 7x platinum album.
• August 11 – The Mauritanian province of Tiris al-Gharbiyya in Western Sahara is annexed by Morocco.
• August 14 – A freak storm during the Fastnet Race results in the death of 15 sailors.
• August 15 – India freed from British Empire
• August 27 – Lord Mountbatten of Burma and 3 others are assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He was a British admiral, statesman and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. On the same day, the Warrenpoint ambush occurs: Provisional Irish Republican ArmyCounty Down, killing 18 British soldiers. members attack a British convoy at Narrow Water,
• August 28 – The death toll of the previous day's IRA bombing reaches 5 when Doreen Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne, 83, dies in a hospital as a result of her injuries.
• August 29 – A national referendum is held in which Somali voters approve a new liberal constitution, promulgated by President Siad Barre to placate the United States.

[edit] September

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• September 1 – The U.S. Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn, when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 km.
• September 7 – The Entertainment Sports Programming Network, known as ESPN, debuts.
• September 9 – The long-running comic strip For Better or For Worse begins its run.
• September 12 – Hurricane Frederic makes landfall at 10:00 p.m. on Alabama's Gulf Coast.
• September 16 – Two families flee from East Germany by balloon.
• September 20 – French paratroopers help David Dacko to overthrow Bokassa in the Central African Republic.
• September 22 – The South Atlantic Flash is observed near Bouvet Island, thought to be a nuclear weapons test.
• September 30 – The Hong Kong MTR begins service with the opening of its Modified Initial System (aka Kwun Tong Line).

[edit] October

October
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• October 1 – Nigeria terminates military rule, and the Nigerian Second Republic is established.
• October 1–October 6 – Pope John Paul II visits the United States.
• October 6 – Federal Reserve System changes from an interest rate target policy to a money supply target policy, causing interest rate fluctuations and economic recession.
• October 9 – Peter Brock wins the Bathurst 1000 by a record 6 laps, with a lap record on the last lap.
• October 14 – A major gay rights march in the United States takes place in Washington, D.C., involving many tens of thousands of people.
• October 15 – Black Monday events, in which members of a political group sack a newspaper office, unfold in Malta.
• October 16 – A tsunami in Nice, France kills 23 people.
• October 17 – The Pittsburgh Pirates defeat the Baltimore Orioles in Game 7 of the World Series. Willie Stargell is named the Series MVP.
• October 19 – 13 Marines die in a fire at Camp Fuji, Japan as a result of Typhoon Tip.^[3]
• October 26 – Park Chung-hee, the President of South Korea, is assassinated by KCIA director Kim Jaegyu.
• October 27 – Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gains independence.
• October 31 – Birth Evangelist Raj Kumar Ganta, the wellknown evangelist and founder of APPLE Association.

[edit] November

November
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• November 1 – Iran hostage crisis: Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urges his people to demonstrate on November 4 and to expand attacks on United States and Israeli interests.
• November 2 – French police shoot gangster Jacques Mesrine in Paris.
• November 2 – Assata Shakur (née Joanne Chesimard), a former member of Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, escapes from a New York prison to Cuba, where she remains under political asylum.
• November 3 – In Greensboro, North Carolina, 5 members of the Communist Workers Party are shot to death and 7 are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis, during a "Death to the Klan" rally.
• November 4 – Iran hostage crisis begins: 3,000 Iranian radicals, mostly students, invade the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages (53 of whom are American). They demand that the United States send the former Shah of Iran back to stand trial.
• November 5 – The radio news program Morning Edition premieres on National Public Radio.
• November 6 – At Montevideo, Uruguay, the International Olympic Committee adopts a resolution, whereby Taiwan Olympic and sports teams will participate with the name Chinese Taipei in future Olympics Games and international sports tournaments and championships.
• November 7 – U.S. Senator Edward Moore Kennedy announces that he will challenge President Jimmy Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.
• November 9 – The Carl Bridgewater murder trial ends with all 4 men found guilty. James Robinson, 45, and 25-year-old Vincent Hickey are sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended 25-year minimum for murder. 18-year-old Michael Hickey is also found guilty of murder and sentenced to indefinite detention. Patrick Molloy, 53, is found guilty on a lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison.^[4]
• November 9 – Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early warning radars, the alert was cancelled.^[5]
• November 12 – Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, U.S. President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all oil imports into the United States from Iran.
• November 12 – Süleyman Demirel, of AP forms the new government of Turkey (43rd government, a minority government)
• November 14 – Iran hostage crisis: U.S. President Jimmy Carter issues Executive Order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States and U.S. banks in response to the hostage crisis.
• November 16 – Bucharest Metro Line One is opened, in Bucharest, Romania (from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea stations, 8.63 km).
• November 17 – Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and African American hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
• November 20 – A group of 200 Juhayman al-Otaibi militants occupy Mecca's Grand Mosque. They are driven out by French commandos (allowed into the city under these special circumstances despite their being non-Muslims) after bloody fighting that leaves 250 people dead and 600 wounded.
• November 21 – After false radio reports from the Ayatollah Khomeini that the Americans had occupied the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is attacked by a mob and set afire, killing 4 (see Foreign relations of Pakistan).
• November 23 – In Dublin, Ireland, Provisional Irish Republican Army member Thomas McMahon is sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of Lord Mountbatten of Burma.
• November 28 – Air New Zealand Flight 901: an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashes into Mount ErebusAntarctica) on a sightseeing trip, killing all 257 people on board. (in

[edit] December

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• December 3 – Eleven fans are killed during a stampede for seats before The Who concert at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• December 3 – The United States dollar exchange rate with the Deutsche Mark falls to 1.7079 DM, the all-time low so far; this record is not broken until November 5, 1987.
• December 4 – The Hastie fire in Kingston upon Hull, England, leads to the deaths of 3 boys and begins the hunt for Bruce George Peter Lee, the UK's most prolific killer.
• December 5 – Jack Lynch resigns as Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland; he is succeeded by Charles Haughey.
• December 6 – The world premiere for Star Trek: The Motion Picture is held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
• December 9 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.
• December 12 – A major earthquake and tsunami kills 259 people in Colombia.
• December 21 – A ceasefire for Rhodesia is signed at London.
• December 23 – The highest aerial tramway in Europe, the Klein Matterhorn, opens.
• December 24 – The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.
• December 24 – The first European Ariane rocket is launched.
• December 26 – In Rhodesia, 96 Patriotic Front guerrillas enter the capital Salisbury to monitor a ceasefire that begins December 28.
• December 27 – The Soviet Union seizes control of Afghanistan, and Babrak Karmal replaces overthrown and executed President Hafizullah Amin.

[edit] Undated

• The One Child Policy is implemented in China in this year.
• VisiCalc becomes the first commercial spreadsheet program.
• The first usenet experiments are conducted by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis of Duke University.
• Sony Walkman first marketed.
• Worldwide per capita oil production reaches an historic peak.
• McDonald's introduces the Happy Meal in June.
• Lego's golden age begins.
• Chrysler receives government loan guarantees upon the request of CEO Lee Iacocca.

[edit] Ongoing

• 1979 energy crisis
• Cold War
• One Child Policy

[edit] Fictional

• The Final Episode of the '70s-based Comedy, That '70s Show takes place in December 31, 1979.
• Paul Erdman's The Crash of '79 takes place in 1979