Gregorian Year

1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1984th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 984th year of the 2nd millennium, the 84th year of the 20th century, and the 5th year of the 1980s decade.

Contents

· 1Events

· 2Births

· 3Deaths

· 4Nobel Prizes

· 51984 in fiction

· 6References

Events[edit]

January[edit]

· January 1

· Brunei becomes a fully independent state.

· The Bell System in the United States is broken up.

· January 3 – President of the United States Ronald Reagan meets with Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman and the Reverend Jesse Jackson at the White House, following Lieutenant Goodman's release from Syrian captivity.

· January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

· January 10

· The United States and the Vatican (Holy See) restore full diplomatic relations.^[1]

· The Victoria Agreement is signed–institutionalising the Indian Ocean Commission.

· January 18 – The Mitsui Miike coal mine explosion at Ōmuta, Fukuoka, Japan, kills 83.

· January 22 – The Los Angeles Raiders defeat the Washington Redskins, 38-9, to win Super Bowl XVIII in Tampa, Florida.

· The game's broadcaster, CBS, runs Apple Computer's iconic 1984 advertisement for the Macintosh personal computer. Apple places the Macintosh on sale in the United States two days later.

February[edit]

· February 1 – Medicare comes into effect in Australia.

· February 3

· Dr. John Buster and the research team at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transferfrom one woman to another, resulting in a live birth.

· STS-41-B: Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on the 10th Space Shuttle mission.

· February 7 – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.

· February 8–19 – The 1984 Winter Olympics are held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

· February 13 – Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

· February 23 – TED (conference) founded.

· February 26 – The United States Marine Corps pulls out of Beirut, Lebanon.

· February 29 – Canadian prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, announces his retirement.

March[edit]

· March 5 – Iran accuses Iraq of using chemical weapons; the United Nations condemns their use on March 30.

· March 6 – A year-long strike action begins in the British coal industry (see UK miners' strike (1984–85)).

· March 14 – Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams and three others are seriously injured in a gun attack by the Ulster Volunteer Force.

· March 16

· The United States Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Beirut, William Francis Buckley, is kidnapped by the Islamic Jihad Organization and later dies in captivity.

· Gary Plauche fatally shoots his son Jody's sexual abuser, Jeff Doucet, at Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport in Louisiana.

· March 22 – Teachers at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California are charged with Satanic ritual abuseof the school children; the charges are later dropped as completely unfounded.

· March 23 – General Rahimuddin Khan becomes the first man in Pakistan's history to rule over two of its provinces, after becoming interim Governor of Sindh.

· March 25

· Pope John Paul II consecrates the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Fátima, Portugal.

· The Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) is founded under Fr. Carlos Miguel Buela.

April[edit]

· April 1 – Death of Marvin Gaye: Marvin Gaye is shot to death by his father, a day before his 45th birthday.

· April 2 – Indian Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma is launched into space, aboard the Soyuz T-11.

· April 4 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.

· April 9 – The 56th Academy Awards, hosted by Johnny Carson, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Terms of Endearment wins Best Picture and four other Academy Awards.

· April 12 – Palestinian gunmen take Israeli bus number 300 hostage. Israeli special forces storm the bus, freeing the hostages (one hostage, two hijackers killed).

· April 13 – India launches Operation Meghdoot, bringing most of the disputed Siachen Glacier region of Kashmir under Indian control and triggering the Siachen conflict with Pakistan.

· April 15

· Welsh comedian Tommy Cooper suffers a massive heart attack and dies while live on TV.

· The first World Youth Day gathering is held in Rome, Italy.

· April 16 – More than one million people, led by Tancredo Neves, occupy the streets of São Paulo to demand direct presidential elections during the Brazilian military government of João Figueiredo. It is the largest protest during the Diretas Já civil unrest, as well as the largest public demonstration in the history of Brazil. The elections are granted in 1989.

Diretas Já demonstration held in São Paulo.

· April 17 – WPC Yvonne Fletcher is shot and killed by a secluded gunman, leading to a police siege of the Libyan Embassy in London.

· April 19 – Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.

· April 23 – United States researchers announce their discovery of the AIDS virus.

· April 24 – An X-class solar flare erupts on the Sun.^[2]

· April 25 – The term of Sultan Ahmad Shah as the seventh Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia ends.

· April 26 – Sultan Iskandar of Johor, becomes the eighth Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.

May[edit]

· May 2

· The International Garden Festival opens in Liverpool.

· South Africa, Mozambique and Portugal sign an agreement on electricity supply from the Cahora Bassa dam.

· May 5

· The Herreys' song Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley wins the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden in Luxembourg.

· The Itaipu Dam is inaugurated on the border of Brazil and Paraguay after nine years of construction, making it the largest hydroelectric dam in the world at the time.

· May 8

· The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

· Denis Lortie kills three government employees in the National Assembly of Quebec building.

· The Chicago White Sox defeat the Milwaukee Brewers 7-6 in the longest game in Major League Baseball history: 25 innings totalling eight hours, six minutes.

· May 11 – A transit of Earth from Mars takes place.

· May 12 – The Louisiana World Exposition, also known as the 1984 World's Fair, opens.

· May 13 – Severomorsk Disaster: an explosion at the Soviets’ Severomorsk Naval Base destroys two-thirds of all the missiles stockpiled for the Soviets’ Northern Fleet. The blast also destroys workshops needed to maintain the missiles as well as hundreds of technicians. Western military experts called it the worst naval disaster the Soviet Navy has suffered since WWII.

· May 14 – The one dollar coin is introduced in Australia.

· May 17 – Michael Silka kills nine people near Manley Hot Springs, Alaska.^{[clarification
needed]}

· May 19 – The Edmonton Oilers win The Stanley Cup, beating the defending champion New York Islanders by 4 games to 1.

· May 23 – A methane gas explosion at Abbeystead water treatment works in Lancashire, England, kills 16 people.

· May 27 – An overnight flash flood rages through neighborhoods in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Nearly 15 inches (38 cm) of rain falls in some areas over a four-hour period; 14 people are killed.

· May 31 – Six inmates, including James and Linwood Briley, escape from a death row facility at Mecklenburg Correctional Center, the only occasion this has ever happened in the United States.

June[edit]

· June 1 – William M. Gibbons is released as receiver and trustee of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad, after all of its debts and creditors are paid off by order of a federal bankruptcy court.

· June 3 – Ronald Reagan visits his ancestral home in Ballyporeen, the Republic of Ireland.

· June 4 – Bruce Springsteen releases his 7th album Born in the U.S.A.

· June 5 – The Indian government begins Operation Blue Star, the planned attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

· June 6 – Tetris is officially released in the Soviet Union on the Electronika 60.

· June 8

· A deadly F5 tornado nearly destroys the town of Barneveld, Wisconsin, killing nine people, injuring nearly 200, and causing over $25,000,000 in damage.

· Ghostbusters and Gremlins are released.

· June 12 – In one of the greatest NBA Finals ever, The Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Lakers in 7 games to capture their 15th NBA Championship.

· June 16 – The world-renowned, critically acclaimed Canadian entertainment company, Cirque du Soleil is founded.

· June 18 – Colorado radio host Alan Berg is shot dead outside his home in Denver by members of The Order.

· June 20 – The biggest exam shake-up in the British education system in over 10 years is announced, with O-level and CSE exams to be replaced by a new exam, the GCSE.

· June 22

· The official name of the Turkish city of Urfa is changed into Şanlıurfa.

· Virgin Atlantic Airways makes its inaugural flight.

· June 27 – France beats Spain 2–0 to win Euro 84.

· June 28 – Richard Ramírez (the "Night Stalker") murders his first confirmed victim.

· June 30 – John Turner becomes Canada's 17th prime minister.

· June 30 – Elton John plays the famous Night and Day Concert at Wembley Stadium.

July[edit]

· July 1

· Liechtenstein becomes the last country in Europe to grant women the right to vote.

· Argentinian footballer Diego Maradona is sold by FC Barcelona (Spain) to S.S.C. Napoli (Italy) for a world record fee at this date of $10.48M (£6.9M).^[3]

· July 13 – Terry Wallis, a 19-year-old living in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, falls into a deep coma after a severe automobile accident; he will eventually awaken 19 years later on June 13, 2003.

· July 14 – New Zealand Prime Minister Rob Muldoon calls a snap election and is defeated by opposition Labour leader David Lange.

· July 18

· Beverly Burns becomes the first female Boeing 747 captain in the world.

· In San Ysidro, San Diego, 41-year-old James Oliver Huberty sprays a McDonald's restaurant with gunfire, killing 21 people before being shot and killed himself.

Newspaper vending machine featuring news of the 1984 Summer Olympics, which opened on July 28.

· July 19 – 1984 Llŷn Peninsula earthquake. The largest instrumentally recorded inland earthquake ever to take place in the British Isles is felt in Ireland and each of the four British nations.

· July 23 – Vanessa L. Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown, after nude photos of her appear in Penthouse magazine.

· July 25 – Salyut 7: cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.

· July 27 – Metallica releases their second studio album Ride the Lightning.

· July 28–August 12 – The 1984 Summer Olympics are held in Los Angeles, California.

August[edit]

· August 1 – Australian banks are deregulated.

· August 4

· The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso.

· Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets reaches a record submergence depth of 1,020 meters.

· August 8

· 9th Birthday of Jeff Shimmel.

· August 11

· United States President Ronald Reagan, during a voice check for a radio broadcast remarks, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes".

· Barefoot South African runner Zola Budd, controversially granted British citizenship earlier in the year, and Mary Decker of the U.S. collide in the Olympic 3,000 meters final, neither finishing as medallists.^[4]

· August 16 – John DeLorean is acquitted of all eight charges of possessing and distributing cocaine.

· August 21 – Half a million people in Manila demonstrate against the regime of Ferdinand Marcos.

The launch of shuttle, Discovery, on STS-41-D, its first mission.

· August 30 – STS-41-D: the Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.

September[edit]

· September 2 – Seven people are shot and killed and 12 wounded in the Milperra massacre, a shootout between the rival motorcycle gangs Bandidos and Comancheros in Sydney, Australia.

· September 4

· The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, led by Brian Mulroney, wins 211 seats in the House of Commons of Canada, forming the largest majority government in Canadian history.

· September 5

· STS-41-D: the Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

· Western Australia becomes the last Australian state to abolish capital punishment.

· September 7 – An explosion on board a Maltese patrol boat disposing illegal fireworks at sea off Gozo kills seven soldiers and policemen.

· September 10 – Jeopardy! begins its syndicated version, with present-day host Alex Trebek.

· September 14 – P. W. Botha is inaugurated as the first executive State President of South Africa.

· September 14 – Joe Kittinger becomes the first person to fly a gas balloon alone across the Atlantic Ocean.

· September 16 – Edgar Reitz's film series Heimat begins release in Germany.

· September 17 – Brian Mulroney is sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada.

· September 18 – Joe Kittinger becomes the first person to cross the Atlantic, solo, in a hot air balloon.

· September 20 – Hezbollah car-bombs the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut, killing 24 people.

· September 26 – The United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China sign the initial agreement to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.

October[edit]

· October 4 – Tim Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer become the first Australians to summit Mount Everest.

· October 5 – STS-41-G: Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.

· October 11 – Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.

· October 12 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the British Cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.

· October 19 – Polish secret police kidnap Jerzy Popiełuszko, a Catholic priest who supports the Solidarity movement. His dead body is found in a reservoir 11 days later on October 30.

· October 20 – Monterey Bay Aquarium opened to the public after seven years of development and construction.

· October 23 – The world learns from moving BBC News television reports presented by Michael Buerk of the famine in Ethiopia, where thousands of people have already died of starvation due to a famine, and as many as 10,000,000 more lives are at risk.^[5]

· October 25 – The European Economic Community makes £1.8 million available to help combat the famine in Ethiopia.^[6]

· October 31 – Assassination of Indira Gandhi: Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her two Sikh security guards in New Delhi. Anti-Sikh riotsbreak out, leaving 10,000 to 20,000 Sikhs dead in Delhi and surrounding areas with majority populations of Hindus. Rajiv Gandhi becomes Prime Minister of India.

· October 31 – Galileo forgiven by Vatican for work on the Earth orbit 368 years after being condemned.^[7]

November[edit]

· November 4 – The Sandinista Front wins the Nicaraguan general elections.

· November 6

· United States presidential election, 1984: Republican President Ronald Reagan defeats Democratic former Vice President Walter F. Mondale with 59% of the popular vote, the highest since Richard Nixon's 61% popular vote victory in 1972. Reagan carries 49 states in the electoral college; Mondale wins only his home state of Minnesota by a mere 3,761 vote margin and the District of Columbia.

· Former U.S. Secretary of State and eventual 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry gets elected as the Democratic U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, and was in office until 2013, when he resigned to become the Secretary of State, succeeding Hillary Clinton.

Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Reagan/Bush (49), Blue denotes those won by Mondale/Ferraro (1+D.C.).

· November 9 – Cesar Chavez delivers his speech, "What The Future Holds For Farm Workers And Hispanics", at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

· November 11 – The Louisiana World Exposition, also known as The 1984 World's Fair, and also the New Orleans World's Fair, and, to the locals, simply as "The Fair" or "Expo 84", closes.

· November 14 – Zamboanga City mayor Cesar Climaco, a prominent critic of the government of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, is assassinated in his home city.

· November 19 – A series of explosions at the Pemex Petroleum Storage Facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec, in Mexico City, ignites a major fire and kills about 500 people.

· November 25

· An East Rail train derails between Sheung Shui and Fanling stations, Hong Kong.

· Band Aid (assembled by Bob Geldof) records the charity single Do They Know It's Christmas? in London to raise money to combat the famine in Ethiopia. It is released on December 3.^[8]

· Uruguayan presidential election, 1984: Julio María Sanguinetti is democratically elected President of Uruguay after 12 years of military dictatorship.

· November 28 – Over 250 years after their deaths, William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made Honorary Citizens of the United States.

· November 30 – Kent and Dollar Farm massacres: the Tamil Tigers begin the purge of the Sinhalese people from North and East Sri Lanka; 127 are killed.

December[edit]

Controlled Impact Demonstration

· December – A peace agreement between Kenya and Somalia is signed in the Egyptian capital Cairo. With this agreement, in which Somalia officially renounces its historical territorial claims, relations between the two countries began to improve.

· December 1 – Controlled Impact Demonstration: NASA and the FAA crashes a remote controlled Boeing 720.

· December 2 – Australian federal election, 1984: Bob Hawke's Labor Government is re-elected with a reduced majority, defeating the Liberal/National Coalition led by Andrew Peacock.

· December 3

· Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 8,000 people outright and injures over half a million (with more later dying from their injuries the death toll reaches 23,000+) in the worst industrial disaster in history.

· British Telecom is privatised.

· December 4

· Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Army soldiers kill 107–150 civilians in Mannar.

· Hezbollah militants hijack a Kuwait Airlines plane and kill 4 passengers.

· December 8 – White supremacist and Order leader Robert Jay Mathews is killed in a gun battle and fire during an FBI siege on Whidbey Island.

· December 10 – Cisco Systems is founded.

· December 19 – The People's Republic of China and United Kingdom sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the future of Hong Kong.

· December 22

· Four African-American youths (Barry Allen, Troy Canty, James Ramseur, and Darrell Cabey) board an express train in the Bronx borough of New York City. They attempt to rob Bernhard Goetz, who shoots them. The event starts a national debate about urban crime in the United States.

· In Malta, Prime Minister Dom Mintoff resigns.

· December 28 – A Soviet cruise missile plunges into Inarinjärvi lake in Finnish Lapland. Finnish authorities announce the fact in public on January 3, 1985.

Date unknown[edit]

· 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia intensifies with renewed drought by mid-year, killing a million people by the end of this year.

· Crack cocaine, a smokeable form of the drug, is first introduced into Los Angeles and soon spreads across the United States in what becomes known as the crack epidemic.

· The Chrysler Corporation introduces the first vehicles to be officially labeled as "minivans". They are branded as the Chrysler Town & Country, Dodge Caravan, and Plymouth Voyager.

Births[edit]

January[edit]