Timeline 1980
Return to home
1980 Jan 1, The
Federal Hourly Minimum Wage was set at $3.10 an hour.
(www.dir.ca.gov/Iwc/MinimumWageHistory.htm)
1980 Jan 1, Near San Francisco the
barge Kona smashed ashore between Point Bonita and Bird Rock. The barge
Agattu impaled on a rock near Cronkhite Beach. Helicopters were used to
remove dangerous cylinders of chlorine gas from the Agattu which was
eventually pulled free from the rocks.
(Gateways, Winter 96/97, p.3)
1980 Jan 2, President Carter asked
the Senate to delay the arms treaty ratification in response to Soviet
action in Afghanistan.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1980 Jan 3, Conservationist Joy
Adamson, author of "Born Free," was killed in northern Kenya by a
servant.
(AP, 1/3/98)
1980 Jan 5, The Harold Pinter play
"Betrayal" opened on Broadway. The triptych of relationships hinged
together by adultery was first produced in London in 1978.
(SFC, 11/15/00, p.A24)(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_(play))
1980 Jan 6, Indira Gandhi's
Congress Party won elections in India.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bgwny)
1980 Jan 7, Pres. Carter signed
the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act. Financier James Wolfensohn
persuaded 400 private lenders to restructure their debt so that a $1
billion loan from the US government could prevent Chrysler from sliding
into bankruptcy.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.M4)
1980 Jan 7, Some 60,000 US oil
refinery workers went on nationwide strike for the 1st time in 11
years. No major disruptions were reported in the walkout.
(SFC, 1/7/05, p.F6)
1980 Jan 9, Saudi Arabia beheaded
63 people in towns across the country for their roles in the November
1979 raid on the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
(AP, 1/9/00)(SSFC, 10/21/01, p.C3)
1980 Jan 10, The last broadcast of
"Rockford Files" on NBC. It began on the NBC network on September 13,
1974.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rockford_Files)
1980 Jan 10, George Meany
(b.1894), former plumber and president of the AFL-CIO, died in
Washington, D.C. Meany, president of the AFL-CIO from 1955 to 1979, was
a NYC plumber before becoming a labor leader. He became an apprentice
plumber in 1910 and a journeyman in 1915. In 1922 Meany was elected
business agent of Plumbers Union 463. From 1934 to 1939 he served as
president of the New York State Federation of Labor and in 1940 became
secretary of the American Federation of Labor. He was an architect of
the AFL merger with the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in
1955 became the president of the new AFL-CIO. Meany led a campaign
against corruption in organized labor, which resulted in the expulsion
from the AFL-CIO of the Teamsters and two other major unions in 1957.
(HNQ, 6/9/98)(AP, 1/10/00)
1980 Jan 11, Honda announced that
it would build Japan's first US passenger-car assembly plant in Ohio.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1980 Jan 13, The United States
offered Pakistan a two-year aid plan to counter the Soviet threat in
Afghanistan.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1980 Jan 14, UN voted 104-18 to
deplore the Soviet Afghan acts.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1980 Jan 16, Paul McCartney was
arrested in Tokyo for marijuana possession. He was released and
deported on Jan 25.
(www.taima.org/en/hemplib3.htm#mccartney)
1980 Jan 18, Steve Rubell &
Ian Schrager, owners of the Studio 54 disco in NYC, were sentenced to 3
years in prison for tax evasion and fined $20,000.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Rubell)
1980 Jan 18, Cecil Beaton
(b.1904)), British fashion photographer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Beaton)
1980 Jan 19, William O. Douglas
(b.1898), member US Supreme court (1939-75), died. In 2003 Bruce Allen
Murphy authored ""Wild Bill: The legend and Life of William O. Douglas."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_O._Douglas)(SSFC, 3/16/03, p.M6)
1980 Jan 19, Richard Franko
Goldman (b.1910), American composer, died. He was the son of band
leader Edwin Franko Goldman.
(www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/SCPA/ABA/Goldman/Goldman.html)
1980 Jan 20, President Jimmy
Carter announced the US boycott of Olympics in Moscow.
(www.kipnotes.com/James%20E.%20Carter.htm)
1980 Jan 21, In the Iowa
Republican caucus George H. W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan 32% to 30%.
Reagan went onto win the nomination and the presidency.
(http://correntewire.com/post_iowa_perspective)
1980 Jan 21, Gold peaked in NY at
$875 a troy ounce. By mid-March gold prices fell to below $500 per
ounce.
(SFC, 3/18/05,
p.F2)(www.321gold.com/editorials/wong/wong010104.html)
1980 Jan 22, Russian dissidents
Andrei Sakharov (b.1921) and his wife Jelena Bonner were banished from
Moscow to Gorky.
(www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=a_sakharov)
1980 Jan 23, Pres. Jimmy Carter
made his State of the Union address. His new American policy came to be
known as the “Carter Doctrine.” It was a pledge to defend US interests
in the Persian Gulf, using military force if necessary.
(www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1983/jan-feb/grinter.html)
1980 Jan 24, In an action
obviously designed as another in a series of very strong reactions to
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, US officials announce that America
is ready to sell military equipment (excluding weapons) to communist
China. The surprise statement was part of the US effort to build a
closer relationship with the People's Republic of China for use as
leverage against possible Soviet aggression.
(http://tinyurl.com/8sx9u)
1980 Jan 25, Robert L. Johnson
launched Black Entertainment Television (BET). It began as a
two-hour-a-week service that aired every Friday evening.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Entertainment_Television)
1980 Jan 25, A US-Mexico
Extradition Treaty, signed by Pres. Carter in 1978, went into effect.
It allowed Mexico to refuse extradition of suspects facing the
death penalty in the US.
(http://tinyurl.com/2svjk5)(www.escapingjustice.com/extrafpo.htm)
1980 Jan 25, Paul McCartney
was released from Tokyo jail & deported.
(www.taima.org/en/hemplib3.htm#mccartney)
1980 Jan 25, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr
was elected as Iran's first president since the 1979 Islamic
revolution. Though he won an overwhelming majority of the popular vote,
he did not have the support of the predominantly fundamentalist
parliament.
(http://www.80s.com/Icons/Bios/abolhassan_bani_sadr.html)
1980 Jan 26, Israel and Egypt
established diplomatic relations, in accord with PM Begin’s agreement
with Pres. Sadat on Jan 10 at Aswan.
(http://tinyurl.com/2mk9zf)
1980 Jan 28, Six US diplomats who
had avoided being taken hostage at their embassy in Tehran flew out of
Iran with the help of Canadian diplomats.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1980 Jan 28, SF Mayor Diane
Feinstein signed a Friendship City agreement with Zhao Xingzhi, vice
mayor of Shanghai. It was the 1st of its kind between an American city
and the PRC.
(SFC, 1/28/05, p.F7)
1980 Jan 29, Jimmy Durante
(b.1893), ‘Schnozzel,’ actor and comedian, died in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Durante)
1980 Jan 30, The first-ever
Chinese Olympic team arrived in New York for the Winter Games.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1980 Jan 30, Professor Longhair
(61), legendary New Orleans Blues musician, died. He was born as Henry
Roeland Byrd in 1918.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Longhair)
1980 Jan 31, In Guatemala the
Spanish Embassy was attacked and 37 people were killed. The dead
included the father of Rigoberta Menchu, who later filed charges in
Spain against Rios Montt, 5 Guatemalan generals and 2 civilians for war
crimes. Peasant, labor and student activists had taken over the Spanish
Embassy in Guatemala City to protest the rule of Pres. Lucas Garcia
(1925-2006).
(AP,
5/29/06)(www.onwar.com/aced/nation/sat/spain/fguatemala1980.htm)
1980 Feb 2, Reports surfaced that
the FBI had conducted a sting operation targeting members of Congress
using phoney Arab businessmen in what became known as "Abscam," a
codename protested by Arab-Americans.
(AP, 2/2/00)
1980 Feb 2, A 2-day prison riot
began at the old main penitentiary near Santa Fe, NM. The riot left 33
inmates butchered by other prisoners.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_State_Penitentiary_riot)
1980 Feb 4, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr
was installed as president of Iran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
(AP, 2/4/00)
1980 Feb 4, Syria withdrew its
peacekeeping force in Beirut.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1980 Feb 8, President Jimmy Carter
unveiled a plan to re-introduce draft registration.
(AP, 2/8/00)
1980 Feb 13, The opening
ceremonies were held in Lake Placid, NY, for the 13th Winter Olympics.
(AP, 2/13/98)
1980 Feb 13, David Janssen,
television and film actor, died in Malibu, California, from a heart
attack. He was born as David Harold Meyer on March 27, 1931 in Naponee,
Nebraska. He is best known for his starring role as Dr. Richard Kimble
in the hit television series “The Fugitive” (1963–1967).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Janssen)
1980 Feb 14, The Solar Max
satellite was launched by NASA to monitor the sun and its flares at an
orbit of some 400 miles above Earth.
(NOHY, 3/90, p.126)(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)
1980 Feb 14, Victor Gruen
(b.1903), Austrian-born Jewish architect, died in Vienna. He was later
considered the father of the modern shopping mall. In 2003 Jeffrey
Hardwick authored "Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American
Dream." His 1956 mall in Edina, Minn., the 1st enclosed mall, was
designed as a center of community.
(WSJ, 12/24/03,
p.D7)(www.nndb.com/people/878/000118524/)
1980 Feb 15, Eric Heiden (b.1958)
skated to an Olympic record of 500m in 38.03 sec.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_1980_Winter_Olympics)
1980 Feb 15, Zdenka Vavrova, Czech
astronomer discovered asteroid #3592.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zde%C5%88ka_V%C3%A1vrov%C3%A1)
1980 Feb 16, Eric Heiden skated 5k
in 7:02.29, an Olympic Record.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_1980_Winter_Olympics)
1980 Feb 18, Pierre Elliott
Trudeau's Liberal Party won Canada's elections. Trudeau again served as
the 15th Prime Minister of Canada.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1980)(CFA,
'96, p.81)
1980 Feb 20, Alice Longworth
Roosevelt (b.1884), youngest daughter of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, died.
(www.theodore-roosevelt.com/alice.html)
1980 Feb 22, In a stunning upset,
the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets at Lake Placid, N.Y.,
4-3. The US team went on to win the gold medal.
(AP, 2/22/01)
1980 Feb 22, Afghanistan declared
martial law following a major uprising in Kabul.
(http://tinyurl.com/34hky9)
1980 Feb 23, Eric Heiden (21) won
his 5th speed skating gold at the Lake Placid Olympics. He went on to
become an orthopedic surgeon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_1980_Winter_Olympics)(SSFC,
9/22/02, p.E1)
1980 Feb 23, Oil tanker explosion
off Pilos, Greece, caused a 37-mil-gallon spill.
(http://tinyurl.com/2lgors)
1980 Feb 24, The U.S. hockey team
defeated Finland, 4-2, to clinch the gold medal at the Winter Olympic
Games in Lake Placid, N.Y.
(AP, 2/24/98)
1980 Feb 25, Roland Barthes
(b.1915), French philosopher and writer, died. His books included
“Mythologies” (1957), a collection of his essays.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes)
1980 Feb 25, Robert Hayden,
American poet and educator, died in Ann Arbor, Mich. Hayden had studied
under W.H. Auden at the Univ. of Michigan. In 1976 Pres. Gerald Ford
appointed him the 1st African-American consultant in poetry to the
Library of Congress, a post that later became known as Poet Laureate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hayden)(LSA,
Fall/02, p.7)
1980 Feb 25, A military coup took
place in Suriname. Desi Bouterse seized control of Suriname five years
after the country gained independence from the Netherlands. He stepped
down in 1987 under international pressure but briefly seized power
again in 1990.
(www.surinam.net/historical.html)(AP, 7/5/08)
1980 Feb 26, Republican Ronald
Reagan won the New Hampshire primary over George H.W. Bush and Howard
Baker 49.8 to 22.8 to 12.9%. Democrat Jimmie Carter won over Ted
Kennedy, Jerry Brown and Birch Bayh 47.2 to 37.4 to 9.6%.
(SSFC, 1/25/04,
p.A19)(www.politicallibrary.org/TallState/1980rep.html)
1980 Feb 26, Al Mills (51), his
wife Jeannie (40) and their daughter Daphene (16) were shot to death at
2731 Woolsey St. in Berkeley, Ca. In 2005 police arrested Edward
Michael Mills (43), the son and brother of the victims, based on new
evidence. Mills was soon released for lack of sufficient evidence to
try him.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.B4)(SFC, 12/9/05, p.B3)
1980 Feb 26, Ricky Keel and
Jeffrey Taylor shot and killed Campbell liquor store owner Frank Gummer
during a robbery. Connie Keel (21), Ricky’s abused wife, remained in a
car during the robbery, but all 3 were convicted of 1st degree murder.
In 2009 Connie Keel was allowed parole.
(SFC, 3/28/09, p.B2)(http://tinyurl.com/cqtzqv)
1980 Feb 26, Egypt and Israel
exchanged ambassadors for the 1st time.
(http://tinyurl.com/2rsjax)
1980 Feb 27, Chelsea Clinton,
daughter of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton (1993-2001), was born in Little
Rock.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Clinton)
1980 Feb 27, The M-19
revolutionary group took over the embassy of the Dominican Republic in
Bogota, Colombia. After 61 days they were given $1 million and asylum
to Cuba in a deal negotiation by Pres. Turbay.
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 1/8/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/14/05)
1980 Feb 29, Pres. Carter signed a
law that renamed the Arctic National Wildlife Range to the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge and more than doubled its size. The law
directed the Interior Dept. to assess oil potential in 1.5 million
acres of the coastal plain. A ban was put on drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. In 2002 Pres. Bush pushed to overturn the
ban. Estimates on oil there ranged from 3.2 to at least 5.7 billion
barrels.
(SSFC, 2/24/02, p.A9)(SSFC, 8/28/05,
p.A13)(http://tinyurl.com/2udcgx)
1980 Feb, The first implantable
cardioconverter defibrillator (ICD) was implanted at John Hopkins
Hospital by Dr. Levi Watkins.
(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ
p.26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantable_cardioverter-defibrillator)
1980 Feb, Mohammed Ali (b.1942)
toured Africa as Pres. Carter's envoy.
(www.assatashakur.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3822)
1980 Mar 2, Snow fell in Florida.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_snow_events_in_Florida)
1980 Mar 3, The submarine
Nautilus, the world’s 1st atomic ship, was decommissioned at the Mare
Island Shipyard in Vallejo, Ca.
(SFC, 3/4/05, p.F2)
1980 Mar 4, Robert Mugabe's
ZANU-PF won parliamentary election in Zimbabwe. Black nationalist
guerrillas led by Robert Mugabe laid down their arms and beat their
white-backed opponents at the polls. Rhodesia was renamed Zimbabwe.
Martin Meredith later authored "The Past Is Another Country," the story
of Rhodesia.
(WSJ, 9/8/98, p.A1)(SC, 3/4/02)(WSJ, 3/13/02, p.A16)
1980 Mar 5, The California coast
Channel Islands National Park was established. It included San Miguel,
Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa and Santa Barbara. Complete protection
was completed by 1997.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, Z1
p.1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Islands_National_Park)
1980 Mar 5, Jay Silverheels
(b.1912), son of a Mohawk Indian chief and actor who portrayed Tonto on
"The Lone Ranger", died in Woodland Hills, Ca., from a stroke.
(www.imdb.com)
1980 Mar 5, Winifred Wagner (82),
English-born head of the German Wagner family, died in Uberlingen. In
2006 Brigitte Hamann authored “Winifred Wagner, A Life at the Heart of
Hitler’s Bayreuth.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifred_Wagner)(SFC,
12/13/06, p.F2)
1980 Mar 6, Islamic militants in
Tehran said that they would turn over the American hostages to the
Revolutionary Council.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1980 Mar 10, "Scarsdale Diet"
author Dr. Herman Tarnower was shot to death in Purchase, N.Y. Jean
Harris (56) shot and killed her unfaithful lover, cardiologist Herman
Tarnower, co-author of "The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet" in
Purchase N.Y. She was granted clemency by Gov. Mario Cuomo after she
served 12 years of a 15 year sentence. Harris was released in January
1993.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.A3)(AP, 3/10/00)
1980 Mar 10, Iran's leader,
Ayatollah Khomeini, lent his support to the militants holding the
American hostages in Tehran.
(HN, 3/10/98)
1980 Mar 11, Marilyn McIntyre (18)
was beaten, stabbed and strangled to death at her home in Columbus,
Wis. In 2009 Curtis Forbes, a friend of her husband, was charged with
1st degree murder based on DNA evidence.
(SFC, 3/31/09,
p.A6)(www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/11251061.html)
1980 Mar 11, Julius Chan (b.1939)
succeeded Michael Somare as PM of Papua New Guinea.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Somare)
1980 Mar 12, A Chicago jury found
John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. The next
day, Gacy was sentenced to death; he was executed in 1994.
(AP, 3/12/00)
1980 Mar 13, Ford Motor Chairman
Henry Ford II announced he was stepping down.
(AP, 3/13/00)
1980 Mar 13, A jury in Winamac,
Ind., found Ford Motor Company innocent of reckless homicide in the
fiery deaths of three young women riding in a Ford Pinto.
(AP, 3/13/00)
1980 Mar 14, Pres. Carter signed
Executive order 12201 imposing credit controls to reduce inflation.
Credit usage plunged and GDP fell by an annualized 8%, the steepest
quarterly drop in 50 years.
(Econ, 10/18/08,
p.85)(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=33144)
1980 Mar 14, a Polish airliner
crashed while making an emergency landing near Warsaw, killing all 87
people aboard, including 22 members of a U.S. amateur boxing team.
(AP, 3/14/97)
1980 Mar 18, John Favara struck a
killed Frank Gotti (12), the son of mobster John Gotti, as the boy
darted in front of his car on a minibike in Brooklyn. Favara
disappeared on July 28. In 2009 it was reported that mobster Charles
Carneglia (62) had killed Favara and dissolved his body in acid.
(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A2)
1980 Mar 19, The US appealed to
the International Court of Justice on hostages in Iran.
(http://tinyurl.com/3xp87b)
1980 Mar 21, President Carter
announced to the U.S. Olympic Team that they would not participate in
the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet
intervention in Afghanistan.
(www.cnn.com/resources/video.almanac/1980/index.html)
1980 Mar 23, The deposed Shah of
Iran arrived in Egypt.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1980-3/1980-03-23-CBS-2.html)
1980 Mar 24, ABC's nightly Iran
Hostage crisis program was renamed "Nightline."
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0154053/)
1980 Mar 24, Archbishop Oscar
Arnulfo Romero, one of El Salvador's most respected Roman Catholic
Church leaders, was shot to death by gunmen as he celebrated Mass in
San Salvador. In 1993 a UN-sponsored truth commission determined that
the assassination was ordered by a former army major and Maj. Roberto
D'Abuisson, founder of the Nationalist Republican Alliance party
(ARENA). D’Abuisson (d.1992) was also credited with founding the
national death squads. In 2004 a California federal judge found Alvaro
Rafael Saravia, a retired Salvadoran air force captain living in
Modesto, Ca., liable in the slaying of archbishop Romero and ordered
him to pay $10 million in damages.
(AP, 3/23/97)(SFC, 1/18/96, p.C1)(SFEM,11/16/97,
p.17)(SFC, 9/4/04, p.B7)
1980 Mar 27, Mount St. Helens,
dormant for 123 years, erupted with ash and steam. A crater formed at
the summit and the north flank began to bulge.
(SFEC, 8/16/98,
p.A15)(http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2000/fs036-00/)
1980 Mar 27, The Alexander I.
Kielland, a North Sea floating oil field platform owned by the American
firm Phillips Petroleum, capsized during a storm killing at least 123
workers.
(AP, 3/27/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_27)
1980 Mar 28, Jesse Owens (b.1913),
Olympic-gold medal winner (1936), died. In 1986 William J. Baker
authored “Jess Owens: An American Life.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens)(ON, 8/10,
p.12)
1980 Mar 29, Annunzio Mantovani
(b.1905), Italian orchestra leader (Mantovani), died at his home in
Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantovani)
1980 Mar 30, The Mormon Church
celebrated its 150th anniversary in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1980 Mar 31, Pres. Carter signed
the Depository Institutions Deregulation And Monetary Control Act,
which deregulated interest rates.
(WSJ, 11/19/04,
p.A8)(www.bos.frb.org/about/pubs/deposito.pdf)
1980 Mar 31, In Spain the first
session of the Basque parliament was held in Guernica.
(Econ, 3/7/09,
p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Parliament)
1980 Mar, In Burma riot police
shot to death 200 demonstrators.
(SFEC, 1/19/97, Par p.5)
1980
Apr 1, The pro-Iranian Dawah Party claims
responsibility for an attack on Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq
Aziz (b.1936), at Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/737483.stm)
1980 Apr 1, The southern African
Development Coordination Conference was established by 9 countries with
the Lusaka declaration. On August 17, 1992, it was transformed into the
Southern African Development Community.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_African_Development_Community)
1980 Apr 5, Eleven Puerto Rican
FALN members were arrested for attempting to rob an armored truck at
Northwestern University; three were linked to the raid on the
Carter-Mondale campaign headquarters. Several of those arrested were
granted clemency in 1999.
{Puerto Rico, USA}
(WSJ, 9/14/99, p.A22)
1980 Apr 5, Sister Margaret Ann
Pahl (71) was stabbed about 30 times and strangled to death. Her body
was found in the chapel of Mercy Hospital, Toledo, Ohio. In 2004 Rev.
Gerald Robinson (63) was arrested for the murder. In 2006 Robinson was
convicted of murder.
(SFC, 4/24/04, p.A2)(SFC, 5/12/06, p.A3)
1980 Apr 6, 3-M introduced Post-It
Notes. In 2010 inventors, 3M scientists Arthur Fry and Spencer Silver,
were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
(http://bookworm.typepad.com/blog/favorite_things/index.html)(AFP,
4/25/10)
1980 Apr 7, The US broke
relations with Iran during the hostage crises. Pres. Carter ordered all
Iranian diplomats expelled from the US and prohibited any further
exports to the nation. Pres. Carter signed Executive Order 12205 for
economic sanctions against Iran.
(HN,
4/7/97)(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=33235)
1980 Apr 11, Mother Jones magazine
won the 1980 national Magazine Award for Reporting Excellence for a
Nov. 1979 article by Mark Dowie on the export of hazardous products
banned from the US.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.F2)
1980 Apr 11, The Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission issued regulations specifically prohibiting
sexual harassment of workers by supervisors.
(AP, 4/11/97)
1980 Apr 11, NASA’s Viking 2 Mars
Lander ended communications.
(http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/viking.html)
1980 Apr 12, In Texas Richard
Whitehead (16) was shot and killed after allegedly drinking into the
early hours with co-worker Delma Banks. Banks claimed he was innocent,
but was convicted in the murder and sentenced to death. The US Supreme
Court stopped the execution in 2004 and allowed Banks to appeal his
conviction.
(SFC, 2/25/04,
p.A4)(www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=563&scid=)
1980 Apr 12, In Liberia Master
Sergeant Samuel K. Doe (1951-1990) of the Krahn tribe staged a coup.
Doe, a high school dropout, and a few soldiers killed Pres. William
Tolbert and fatally shot a dozen of his ministers. He was backed by the
US and became one of Liberia’s most brutal dictators.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/16/96,
p.A-9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Doe)
1980 Apr 13, "Grease" closed at
Broadhurst Theater in NYC after 3,388 performances.
(www.awesometickets.net/Theatre/Grease+Tickets/index.php)
1980 Apr 13, The US Olympic
Committee voted to boycott the Summer Olympics in Moscow.
(www.iviesinathens.com/olympic/games.aspx?ID=122)
1980 Apr 14, In the 52nd Academy
Awards held in Los Angeles "Kramer vs. Kramer" won as the best picture
and Dustin Hoffman won the best actor award for his role in the film.
Sally Field won as best actress for her role in “Norma Rae.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52nd_Academy_Awards)
1980 Apr 15, The Mariel boatlift
officially began. When it ended on Oct 31, some 207,000 refugees
entered the US of which 125,00 were Cubans.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.
594)(www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/mariel-boatlift.htm)
1980 Apr 15, Existentialist
philosopher, novelist and dramatist, Jean-Paul Sartre (b.1905) died in
Paris at the age of 74. His work included "Being and Time" (1927) and
"Nausea" (19238). He won the 1964 Nobel Prize for literature and his
work included "Being and Nothingness." Philosophical replies to this
work were written by Claude Levi-Strauss: "The Raw and the Cooked," a
book that popularized structuralism in France, and by Michael Foucault:
"Words and Things," ("The Order of Things" in the American edition).
"If you're lonely while you’re alone, you’re in bad company." In 2000
Bernard-Henri Levy authored "Sartre: The Philosopher of the Twentieth
Century."
(SFEC, 4/19/98, BR p.8)(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.8)(AP,
4/15/99)(Econ, 8/30/03, p.60)
1980 Apr 16, Arthur Ashe
(1943-1993) retired from professional tennis following quadruple bypass
surgery. He contracted the HIV virus from a blood transfusion after a
second bypass operation in 1983.
(http://tinyurl.com/362hrn)
1980 Apr 18, Zimbabwe's (Rhodesia)
formal independence from Britain was proclaimed. Its chiefs were
stripped of power following independence. Canaan Banana, a Methodist
theologian, became president until 1987. He was later accused by dozens
of men of sexual harassment and rape. Robert Mugabe became prime
minister and held the real authority.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.C16)(SFC, 5/9/97, p.E3)(HN,
4/18/98) (SFC, 7/14/98, p.A10)
1980 Apr 20, The first Cubans
sailing to the United States as part of the massive Mariel boatlift
reached Florida.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A14)(AP, 9/26/97)(AP, 4/20/00)
1980 Apr 21, At the Boston
Marathon, Rosie Ruiz was the first woman to cross the finish line; but
she was disqualified as a fraud when officials discovered she had
jumped into the race about a mile from the finish.
(AP, 4/21/00)
1980 Apr 22, Jane Froman (72),
band singer, died. The 1952 film “With a Song in My Heart” starred
Susan Hayward as band singer Jane Froman.
(SSFC, 5/15/05, Par p.2)
1980 Apr 23, Albert Hakim, a
wealthy arms merchant, unexpectedly skipped town the day before a US
rescue mission. The Iranian exile and CIA informant worked for the CIA
near the Turkish boarder handling the logistics of the rescue mission
in Tehran. Hakim had purchased trucks and vans and rented a warehouse
on the edge of Tehran to hide them in until they were needed for the
operation. In July, 1981, Hakim approached the CIA with a plan to gain
favor with the Iranian government by selling it arms.
(www.donhopkins.com/drupal/node/104)
1980 Apr 24, An American assault
team held 44 Iranians hostage for about 3 hours when their bus stumbled
upon the remote desert site. The failed operation was commanded by
Colonel Charles Beckwith, founder of the US Delta Force. The mission
resulted in the deaths of 8 US servicemen. The US hostage rescue failed
when a plane collided with a helicopter in Iran. The 1996 Iranian film:
"Sandstorm" depicting the event was set for release in Feb, 1997.
(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 4/24/97)(HN, 4/24/98)
1980 Apr 25, President Jimmy
Carter announced the hostage rescue disaster in Iran.
(HN, 4/25/98)
1980 Apr 28, President Carter
accepted the resignation of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (1917-2002),
who had opposed the failed rescue mission aimed at freeing American
hostages in Iran. The decision to proceed had been spearheaded by
Zbigniev Brzeninski.
(AP, 4/28/97)(SSFC, 1/13/02, p.A27)(SFC, 3/16/03,
p.AD3)
1980 Apr 29, Alfred Joseph
Hitchcock (b.1899), British director (Psycho, Birds), died in Los
Angeles.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock)
1980 Apr 30, In Pinole, Ca., Rena
Aguilar was stabbed to death. 4 days later as police closed in James R.
Odle shot and killed Officer Floyd Swartz. Odle was convicted and
sentenced to death but his competency was later questioned due to a
removed temporal lobe following a car accident. Swartz was the father
of Amber Swartz, born 4 months after his death. Amber Swartz-Garcia
disappeared in 1988.
(SFC, 2/7/01, p.A19)(SFC, 7/7/09, p.C5)
1980 Apr 30, Terrorists seized the
Iranian Embassy in London. Only after the incident was over did it
become known that Iraq had trained and armed the gunmen in order to try
to embarrass Iran.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Embassy_Siege)
1980 Apr 30, Juliana Z(1909-2004),
Queen of the Netherlands, abdicated. Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, was
crowned queen of Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliana_of_the_Netherlands)
1980 Apr, Commodore president Jack
Tramiel ordered the development of a computer that could sell for under
$300 US. What had been an oversupply of parts became the VIC-20.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20)
1980 Apr, In El Salvador Army
Major Roberto d’Aubuisson (d.1992) founded the rightist Republican
Nationalist Alliance (ARENA).
(www.historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=345)
1980 May 1, American Book Award
went to William Styron for "Sophie's Choice" and T. Wolfe for "Right
Stuff."
(http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id99.htm)
1980 May 2, Pope John Paul II
arrived Kinshasa for the centennial of Catholicism in Zaire and the
beginning of his African tour.
(SFC, 7/18/97,
p.A10)(http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id99.htm)
1980 May 4,
Marshal Josip Broz Tito (b.1892), Communist dictator of Yugoslavia
(1943-1980), died three days before his 88th birthday. He was a Croat
and tried to spread the Serbs out over the six Yugoslav republics so
that they would not dominate the country. His policy was considered a
major cause of the Bosnian war in the '90s.
(AP,
5/4/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito)(WSJ, 8/8/95, p.
A-10)(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1980 May 4, Nine people were
killed at Kinshasa, Zaire (later the Democratic Republic of Congo)
during a stampede to attend mass given by Pope John Paul II.
(http://africanhistory.about.com/od/may/a/td0504.htm)
1980 May 5, Pres. Carter said that
the Mariel Cubans would be welcomed "with open hearts and open arms."
In 1999 1750 Mariels were in detention as "excludable aliens," under
INS custody for crimes committed after being released at least once.
(SFEC, 7/11/99, Par p.14)
1980 May 5, A siege at the Iranian
embassy in London ended as British commandos and police stormed the
building. Nineteen hostages were rescued; two others had already been
killed by their captors; four of the five hostage-takers also were
killed.
(AP, 5/5/00)
1980 May 6, Stanford Linear
Accelerator officials announced a successful collision of matter and
antimatter in their new $78 million accelerator.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)
1980 May 8, The World Health
Organization (WHO) announced that smallpox had been eradicated from the
wild.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dm79sp.html)
1980 May 9, In Florida 35
motorists were killed when a Liberian-flagged freighter rammed the
Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, causing a 1,400-foot section of
the bridge to collapse.
(AP, 5/9/97)
1980 May 12, Maxie Anderson (45)
and his son Kris (23) completed the 1st balloon crossing of the
American continent as they landed their helium-filled balloon on
Canada’s Gaspe Peninsula. Their journey began May 8 in Marin Ct., Ca.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)
1980 May 13, Ray Knight
(b.1952) of the Cincinnati Reds, following an 0-for-15 slump, hit 2
home runs in the 5th inning vs. NY Mets.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Knight)
1980 May 14, President Carter
inaugurated the Department of Health and Human Services.
(AP, 5/14/97)
1980 May 14, Hugh Griffith
(b.1912), Welsh actor, died. His films included Passover Plot, Ben Hur,
and Tom Jones.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Griffith)
1980 May 17, Rioting that claimed
18 lives erupted in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood after an
all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of
fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie.
(AP, 5/17/97)
1980 May 18, At 8:32 a.m. Mount
Saint Helens, in Washington, erupted. It burst 3 times in 24 hours
after rumbling for two months and left 57 people dead or missing. The
mountain lost over 1,300 feet of elevation and gained a two-mile-long
and one mile-wide crater.
(AAM, 3/96, p.84)(AP, 5/18/97)(SFEC, 8/16/98,
p.A15)(HN, 5/18/02)
1980 May 18, China People's
Republic launched its 1st intercontinental rocket.
(www.astronautix.com/articles/chidoors.htm)
1980 May 18, In the South Korean
city of Kwangju (Gwangju), townspeople and students began a nine-day
uprising that was finally put down by troops. The region was the home
of opposition leader Kim Dae-jung.
(AP, 5/18/00)(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.C10)
1980 May 18, Former president
Fernando Belaunde Terry was elected president of Peru. Democracy was
restored and the media was free again.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(SFC, 8/23/01, p.A11)(SFC,
6/5/02, p.A23)(SC, 5/18/02)
1980 May 18, Ian Curtis (b.1956),
English rock vocalist (Joy Division), committed suicide. His death was
later ruled as accidental.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Curtis)
1980 May 20, In Canada a
referendum of 59.5% of Quebec voters rejected separatism.
(http://torontosun.com/Anniversary/25th/2006/07/24/1700461.html)
1980 May 20, A fire in nursing
home in Kingston, Jamaica, killed some 153 old women.
(http://www.jnht.com/disndat/eventide.php)
1980 May 21, The $22 million Star
Wars sequel "Empire Strikes Back" premiered.
(SFC, 5/20/05, p.F2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/)
1980 May 21, Ensign Jean Marie
Butler became the first woman to graduate from a U.S. service academy
as she accepted her degree and commission from the Coast Guard Academy
in New London, Conn.
(AP, 5/21/00)
1980 May 22, Larry Layton, former
member of the People’s Temple, was acquitted of 2 charges of attempted
murder by a jury in Georgetown, Guyana.
(SFC, 5/20/05, p.F2)
1980 May 22, In response to a
request from the Governor of NY, President Carter declared a second
federal emergency at Love Canal, paving the way for federal aid to
relocate the more than 700 families who still lived near the former
toxic waste dump.
(www.health.state.ny.us/environmental/investigations/love_canal/lcreport.htm)
1980 May 22, The computer game
Pac-Man was first released in Japan. Pac-Man, with its characters:
Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde, epitomized the arcade games of the 1980s.
(SFC, 7/5/97,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man)
1980 May 24, Iran rejected a call
by the World Court in The Hague to release the American hostages.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1980 May 25, "Musical Chairs"
closed at Rialto Theater in NYC after 15 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4852)
1980 May 27, South Korean police
ended a people's uprising in Gwangju in which some 2,000 people were
killed. South Koreans simply called it 5.18, by the starting date.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangju_Massacre)
1980 May 29, In NYC "Billy Bishop
Goes to War" opened at the Morosco Theater for 12 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3957)
1980 May 29, J. Turner’s 1836
painting "Juliet & Her Nurse" sold for $6,400,000 in NYC.
(www.abebooks.fr/search/sortby/3/kn/+A+Picture+history+british+painting)
1980 May 29, Larry Bird beat out
Magic Johnson for NBA rookie of year.
(http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/1998/bird/timeline/index.html)
1980 May 29, In Fort Wayne,
Indiana, there was an attempted assassination of Vernon Jordan Jr.,
National Urban League president. in 1996 an acquitted sniper told a
newspaper that he did shoot and wound Vernon Jordan, then president of
the Urban League, outside an Indiana hotel in 1980.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Jordan,_Jr.)(WSJ, 4/9/96,
p.A-1)(WSJ, 11/21/01, p.A12)
1980 May 30, In Bangladesh General
Ziaur Rahman was assassinated by dissident army officers.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A9)(www.muktadhara.net/page81.html)
1980 May 30, Pope John Paul II
arrived in France on the first visit by the head of the Roman Catholic
Church since the early 19th century.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1980 May 31, In China Deng
Xiaoping made a speech in which he stated that: "We must eliminate
feudalism from the life of the party and from the life of society."
(WSJ, 2/20/97, p.A20)
1980 May, In Greece Constantine
Karamanlis (1907-1998) stepped down as prime minister and moved to the
ceremonial position of president.
(SFC, 4/23/98,
p.B4)(www.btinternet.com/~argyros.argyrou/obit2.htm)
1980 Jun 1, Ted Turner's Cable
News Network (CNN), providing round-the-clock TV newscasts, made its
debut as television's first all-news service, vowing to stay on the air
until the world ends. James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader,
identified the station: "This is CNN." In 2001 Reese Schonfeld, the man
who cofounded CNN, authored "Me and Ted Against the World.” "Moneyline"
TV Financial News debut on CNN.
(AP, 6/1/97)(WSJ, 2/23/00,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN)
1980 Jun 1, Barbra Streisand
appeared at an ACLU Benefit in Calif.
(www.bjsmusic.com/bjsfaq/)
1980 Jun 7, Temperance Hill won
the Belmont Stakes (50:1 long shot).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kraynak)
(SFC, 1/15/98, p.E5)(SFC, 6/28/03, p.D1)
1980 Jun 7, Philip Guston
(b.1913), painter and printmaker, died. He was born in Montreal as
Phillip Goldstein and became recognized as a lesser master of the first
generation New York School of abstraction. He quit abstract painting in
1967 and confined himself to drawing. His work included "Back View"
(1977).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Guston)(SFC,
1/15/98, p.E5)(SFC, 6/28/03, p.D1)(Econ, 5/10/08, p.96)
1980 Jun 7, Henry Miller (born
1891), writer, died in California at age 88. His books included “Tropic
of Cancer.”
(www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3118)
1980 Jun 9, Comedian Richard Pryor
suffered almost fatal burns at his San Fernando Valley, Calif., home
when a mixture of "free-base" cocaine exploded.
(AP, 6/9/97)
1980 Jun 10, A package bomb
injured United Airlines Pres. Percy Wood at his home in Lake Forest,
Ill. It was later attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
(SFEC,11/9/97, Z1
p.4)(www.courttv.com/trials/unabomber/bombings.html)
1980 Jun 11, E. Bowell discovered
asteroid #2531 Cambridge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroids/2501%E2%80%932600)
1980 Jun 16, The film "Blues
Brothers" premiered in Chicago. National release was June 20.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0080455/releaseinfo)
1980 Jun 16, US Supreme Court
ruled that new forms of life created in labs could become patents.
(https://eee.uci.edu/clients/bjbecker/NatureandArtifice/week10c.html)
1980 Jun 16, Huey P. Newton (38),
co-founder of the Black Panther Party, received his doctoral degree
from UC Santa Cruz. His doctoral thesis was titled “War Against the
Panthers: A Study of Repression in America.”
(SFC, 6/10/05, p.F2)
1980 Jun 20, Lake Powell,
straddling the Arizona-Utah border behind the Glen Canyon Dam,
completed its fill, which began in 1963
(SFEC, 8/24/97,
p.A1)(www.lakepowell.com/travel/glen-canyon-dam.cfm)
1980 Jun 22, The Soviet Union
announced a partial withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.
(HN, 6/22/98)
1980 Jun 23, Clifford Still
(b.1904), abstract expressionist artist, died.
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A14)(SFC, 3/30/02,
p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyfford_Still)
1980 Jun 23, Sanjay Gandhi
(b.1946), Indian politician, died in an airplane crash shortly after
his mother's return to power. Captain Subhas Saxena, the only passenger
in the plane, was also killed in the crash.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjay_Gandhi)
1980 Jun 25, The Associated Press
chose 11 major newspapers to launch a cooperative experiment to deliver
news electronically to computer-equipped homes.
(SFC, 6/24/05, p.F2)
1980 Jun 27, President Carter
signed legislation reviving draft registration.
(AP, 6/27/97)
1980 Jun 27, Carey McWilliams,
writer and editor of The Nation magazine, died of cancer. His books
included “Southern California: An Island on the Land” (1946) and
“Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in
California” (1939). In 2005 Peter Richardson authored “American
Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams.”
(SSFC, 12/18/05, p.M2)(http://tinyurl.com/aeel2)
1980 Jun 27, Aerolinee Itavia
Flight 870, an Italian domestic jetliner, exploded in flight and
crashed near the island of Ustica. 81 people were killed. In 1999 it
was reported that a fight by warplanes led to the crash and coverup
charges were filed against Italian military officials. Among theories
for the jet's demise was a bomb planted by domestic terrorists, or an
errant US or French missile allegedly fired at a Libyan MiG streaking
over the Mediterranean.
(WSJ, 9/2/99, p.A1)(AP,
8/17/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerolinee_Itavia_Flight_870)
1980 Jun 29, "Sweeney Todd" closed
at Uris Theater NYC after 557 performances.
(www.sondheim.com/shows/sweeney_todd/#OBC_info)
1980 Jul 1, "O Canada" was
proclaimed the national anthem of Canada.
(CFA, '96, p.48)(AP, 7/1/97)
1980 Jul 1, Charles Percy Snow
(b.1905), British writer (Friends & Associates), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Snow)
1980 Jul 2, President Jimmy Carter
reinstated draft registration for males 18 years of age.
(HN, 7/2/98)
1980 Jul 2, Grateful Dead's Bob
Weir (b.1947) & Mickey Hart (b.1943) were arrested in San Diego for
suspicion of inciting a riot following their interference in a drug
related arrest.
(www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/0702.htm)
1980 Jul 3, The 15-year-old
Berkeley Barb, founded by Max Scherr, released its final issue in
Berkeley, Ca. Scherr ran the left-wing paper from 1965-1973.
(SFC, 7/1/05, p.F2)
1980 Jul 5, In Mauritania, a west
African republic, the regime of colonel Ould Haidalla decreed abolition
and the imposition of the Islamic Sharia Law. Slavery was technically
abolished. Prior to the 1980 abolition, slavery had been declared
illegal in 1960 and 1966, but only on paper.
(WSJ, 7/11/96,
p.A10)(www.cwo.com/~lucumi/mauritania.html)
1980 Jul 9, In Brazil at least 3
and as many as 7 died in a stampede to see the Pope at a stadium in
Fortaleza.
(http://tinyurl.com/36kdnt)
1980 Jul 9, Dutch war criminal
Pieter Menten, arrested in 1976, was sentenced to 10 years.
(MC, 7/9/02)(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Menten)
1980 Jul 11, American hostage
Richard I. Queen, freed by Iran after eight months of captivity because
of poor health, left Tehran for Switzerland.
(PGA, 12/9/98)(AP, 7/11/01)
1980 Jul 13, Seretse Khama, 1st
president of Botswana, died. He made Botswana an increasingly
democratic and prosperous country with a significant role in Southern
Africa.
(http://ubh.tripod.com/bw/skhama.htm)
1980 Jul 16, Ronald Reagan won the
Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in Detroit.
(AP, 7/16/97)(SFEM,11/2/97, p.12)
1980 Jul 16, Juan Antonio
Samaranch (b.1920) of Spain was elected president of the Int’l. Olympic
Committee (IOC). His reign lasted 21 years.
(www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/ioc/presidents/samaranch_uk.asp)
1980 Jul 17, Ronald Reagan
formally accepted the Republican nomination for president.
(http://millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speechDetail/32)
1980 Jul 17, In Bolivia a bloody
coup installed a reactionary (and cocaine-tainted) dictatorship led by
general Luis Garcia Meza. Former president (1956-1960) Hernan Siles
Zuazo (1914-1996), who had won the most votes in elections, flew to
exile. He returned in 1982, when the military's experiment had ran its
course and the Bolivian economy was on the verge of collapse. He served
a 2nd term from 1982-1985.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A22)(http://tinyurl.com/3andtr)
1980 Jul 17, Zenko Suzuki
(1911-2004) was appointed prime minister of Japan. He resigned after 2
years.
(SFC, 7/21/04,
p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenko_Suzuki)
1980 Jul 18, A US Federal court
voided the Selective Service Act as it didn’t include women. The issue
was resolved on June 25, 1981, when the Supreme Court ruled in Rostker
v. Goldberg that “that Congress acted well within its constitutional
authority when it authorized the registration of men, and not women.”
(www.american.edu/dgolash/rostker.htm)
1980 Jul 18, India became the
eighth country to demonstrate it could send a satellite to orbit above
Earth with the launch of the satellite Rohini 1 on a Satellite Launch
Vehicle (SLV) rocket in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
(www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/Iran/IranianSat.html)(NG, 5/88, p.598)
1980 Jul 19, The Moscow Summer
Olympics began, minus dozens of nations that were boycotting the games
because of the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.R6)(AP, 7/19/00)
1980 Jul 21, Draft registration
began in the United States for 19- and 20-year-old men.
(AP, 7/21/97)
1980 Jul 22, In Maryland David
Theodore Belfield, a convert to Islam (Daoud Salahuddin), murdered Ali
Akbar Tabatabai, a former Iranian official and critic of the government
of Ayatollah Khomeini. Belfield escaped to Canada and then to Iran. In
2001 Belfield appeared in the movie "Kandahar" made in Afghanistan as
an actor named Hassan Tantai.
(SFC, 1/4/02,
p.D1)(http://iona.ghandchi.com/Tabatabai.htm)
1980 Jul 23, The US Senate
Judiciary Committee was reported to be officially joining those
investigating allegations of misconduct in Billy Carter's relationship
with Libya.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1980-7/1980-07-23-ABC-2.html)
1980 Jul 24, Peter Sellers
(b.1925), British actor, died in London of a heart attack. His films
included the Pink Panther series, “The Mouse that Roared” (1959) and
“Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”
(1964).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sellers)
1980 Jul 26, Kenneth Tynan (53),
dramaturge for Britain’s National Theater, died in California from
emphysema. In 2001 John Lahr edited essays from his last 10 years: "The
Diaries of Kenneth Tynan."
(WSJ, 11/23/01,
p.W8)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0878985/bio)
1980 Jun 26, In Syria there was an
assassination attempt on Pres. Assad. Syrian security forces retaliated
by killing hundreds of Islamist inmates at a prison. The Syrian public
did not find out about this until January 1981.
(http://tinyurl.com/5u5jw7)
1980 Jul 27, On day 267 of the
Iranian hostage crisis, the deposed Shah of Iran (1941-1979) died at a
military hospital outside Cairo, Egypt, at age 60.
(AP, 7/27/00)
1980 Jul 28, Fernando Belaunde
Terry (1912-2002) became president of Peru for a 2nd term and held
office to 1985. His first term ran from 1963-1968.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Bela%C3%BAnde_Terry)
1980 Jul 29, A state funeral was
held in Cairo, Egypt, for the deposed Shah of Iran, who had died two
days earlier at age 60.
(AP, 7/29/00)
1980 Jul 30, The Israeli Knesset
passed a law reaffirming all of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish
state.
(AP, 7/30/00)
1980 Jul 30, The Pacific island of
Vanuatu gained independence from Britain.
(SFC, 7/1/97,
p.A9)(www.worldstatesmen.org/Vanuatu.html)
1980 Jul, Tim Paterson of Seattle
Computer Products completed version 0.10 of QDOS.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Paterson)
1980 Jul, UCLA physician Martin J.
Cline inserted recombinant DNA into two patients with the blood disease
thalassemia, one in Israel and one in Italy. In doing so, he violated
the US recombinant DNA guidelines and human subjects regulations.
(http://tinyurl.com/2svhm5)
1980 Aug 1, In Iceland Vigdis
Finnbogadottir (b.1930) began serving as president and the world’s
first female head of state. She was re-elected 3 times and retired in
1996.
(SFC, 6/30/96,
B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigd%C3%ADs_Finnbogad%C3%B3ttir)
1980 Aug 2, In Bologna, Italy, a
Fascist bomb attack killed 85 people at the train station.
(AP,
8/2/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre)
1980 Aug 3, Closing ceremonies
were held in Moscow for the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, which had been
boycotted by dozens of countries, including the United States.
(AP, 8/3/00)
1980 Aug 4, Susan G. Komen (36)
died of breast cancer. Her sister Nancy G. Brinker went on to found the
Susan B. Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity. In 2010 she authored
her memoir “Promise Me.”
(SSFC, 8/8/10, Par p.8)
1980 Aug 5, Hurricane "Allen"
battered the southern peninsula of Haiti, leaving more than 200 dead in
its wake. Hurricane Allen went on to hit the southeastern US.
(AP, 8/5/00)(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.A17)
1980 Aug 12, SF hotel workers
voted 1823 to 523 to accept a 3-year contract and end a 26-day strike
and lockout at 36 major hotels.
(SFC, 8/12/05, p.F2)
1980 Aug 14, President Carter and
Vice President Walter Mondale were nominated for a second term at the
Democratic national convention in New York.
(AP, 8/14/00)
1980 Aug 14, It was reported that
France’s Moet-Hennessy is buying Schieffelin & Co., its New York
based US distributor. The deal also included the Simi Winery in
Healdsburg, Ca.
(SFC, 8/12/05, p.F3)
1980 Aug 14, Some 17,000 Polish
workers, led by Lech Walesa, began a 17-day strike at the Lenin
Shipyards in Gdansk. This resulted in the creation of the Solidarity
labor movement.
(TMC, 1994, p.1980)(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A12)(AP, 8/14/00)
1980 Aug 15, George Manuel Bosque
(25) reportedly abandoned his armored truck at the SF Airport Hilton
Hotel, stole a car at gunpoint, and vanished with over $1.8 million in
cash. 2 days later he sent an envelope with $20,000 to SF Police
officer Lou Vance to pay off a business deal. Bosque was caught on
November 23, 1981 and pleaded not guilty before a Federal Judge on
November 24, 1981.
(SFC, 8/12/05, p.F3)(http://tinyurl.com/ebwtd)
1980 Aug 17, Lindy Chamberlain
claimed that her baby, Azaria, was dragged away from a family campsite
on Fraser Island, Australia, by a dingo. The body was never found and
Chamberlain was convicted of murder. She was released after 4 years and
the Meryl Streep film "A Cry in the Dark" was based on her story.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A14)(AFP, 10/6/04)
1980 Aug 17, The Viking 1 Mars
Orbiter was powered down after over 1400 orbits.
(http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/viking.html)
1980 Aug 19, Willy Russell's
"Educating Rita," premiered in London.
(www.thisistheatre.com/shows/piccadilly105.html)
1980 Aug 19, San Francisco voters
approved Proposition A, a measure to drop district elections for city
supervisors. 69,632 voted for and 68, 036 voted against in the low
turnout special election.
(SFC, 8/19/05, p.F2)
1980 Aug 19, 301 people aboard a
Saudi Arabian L-1011 died as the jetliner made a fiery emergency
landing at the Riyadh airport.
(AP, 8/19/99)
1980 Aug 19, Otto Frank (b.1889),
the father of Anne Frank, died in Switzerland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Frank)
1980 Aug 20, Reinhold Messner of
Italy became the 1st to solo ascent Mt. Everest.
(www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9052253)
1980 Aug 20, UN Security Council
condemned (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jerusalem
is it's capital.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_478)
1980 Aug 22, A great white shark
captured Aug 19 was hauled back to the ocean after spending 2 ½
days at San Francisco’s Steinhart Aquarium. The 4-month-old female had
not eaten since her arrival. Over 20,000 people paid to see the shark.
(SFC, 8/19/05, p.F5)
1980 Aug 23, Charles O. Finley
sold the Oakland A’s baseball team to Walter A. Haas, president of Levi
Strauss, Walter J. Haas and Roy Eisenhardt for $12.7 million.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A1)(SFC, 8/19/05, p.F5)
1980 Aug 25, The Broadway musical
"42nd Street" opened in NYC for 3486 performances. Producer David
Merrick stunned both cast and audience during the curtain call by
announcing that the show’s director, Gower Champion, had died earlier
that day.
(AP,
8/25/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42nd_Street_(musical))
1980 Aug 25, Gower Champion
(b.1919), director, dancer (Marge & Gower Champion Show), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gower_Champion)
1980 Aug 26, California state
officials place all of Santa Clara Valley under quarantine due to the
Mediterranean fruit fly invasion.
(SFC, 8/26/05, p.F2)
1980 Aug 27, Homestake Mining of
San Francisco announced the discovery of a gold deposit, valued at $630
million, in Napa County, north of Lake Berryessa.
(SFC, 8/26/05, p.F2)
1980 Aug 27, In South Korea Chun
Doo-hwan (b.1931) had the military junta name him president, replacing
Choi.
(AP, 10/24/07)(www.dpg.devry.edu/~akim/sck/kp2.html)
1980 Aug 29, Louis Darquier de
Pellepoix (real name Louis Darquier), born in Cahors, France, on
December 19, 1897, died near Malaga (Spain). He was commissioner to
Jewish questions under the Vichy Régime from 1942-1944. In 2006
Carmen Callil authored “A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland and
Vichy, France.”
(SSFC, 9/24/06,
p.M1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Darquier_de_Pellepoix)
1980 Aug 31, Poland's Solidarity
labor movement was born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ended a
17-day strike. The Communist government signed an agreement with the
Strike Coordination Committee in Gdansk, Poland, to allow legal
organization, but not actual free trade unions.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Enterprise_Strike_Committee)(AP,
8/31/97)
1980 Aug 31-1980 Sep 8, Bill Evans
made live recordings at the Village Vanguard in NYC just weeks before
his death. They were scheduled to be released by Warner Bros. in 11/96.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A20)(SFC, 10/16/00, p.B1)
1980 Aug, The Republican National
Convention, held in Detroit, nominated Ronald Reagan and George Bush to
lead the [party.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A9)
1980 Aug, In China the city of
Shenzhen was designated as China’s first special economic zone.
(SFC, 2/20/96, p.A4)
1980 Aug, Iraq and Syria broke
diplomatic ties after Damascus sided with Iran just before the
Iran-Iraq war.
(SFC, 2/28/00, p.C2)
1980 Sep 2, In the SF Bay Area US
District Judge William Ingram found Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno guilty of
conspiracy to influence witnesses before a federal grand jury
investigating the Santa Clara Valley business affairs of his 2 sons.
(SFC, 9/2/05, p.F2)
1980 Sep 2-1980 Sep 24, In
Buffalo, NY, 4 African American men were shot in the
head.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c37rd)
1980 Sep 3, Prof. W. Jackson Davis
of UC Santa Cruz uncovered a report that indicated government officials
had been aware for almost 20 years that nuclear waste containers,
dumped off the California coast, were damaged and leaking.
(SFC, 9/2/05, p.F2)
1980 Sep 5, In Fresno, Ca., Billy
Ray Hamilton and his girlfriend Connie Barbo killed Bryon Schletewitz
(27), Josephine Rocha (17) and Douglas White (18), employees at Fran’s
Market, on directions from Clarence Ray Allen. Allen, incarcerated at
Folsom Prison for murder, had ordered the murder of Schletewitz for
testifying against him during his 1997 trial for the murder of Mary Sue
Kitts (17). Clarence Ray Allen (76) was executed by lethal injection on
January 17, 2006 at San Quentin State Prison in California.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.B3)(SFC, 1/13/06,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Ray_Allen)
1980 Sep 5, The opera “Satyagraha”
by Philip Glass, commissioned by the city of Rotterdam, was first
performed by the Netherlands Opera.
(WSJ, 4/19/08,
p.W14)(www.philipglass.com/html/recordings/satyagraha.html)
1980 Sep 5, The St. Gotthard
tunnel in the Swiss Alps, the world's longest auto tunnel, opened.
(HFA, '96,
p.38)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Road_Tunnel)
1980 Sep 7, The 32nd Emmy Awards
were held. Winners included Taxi, Lou Grant, Ed Asner and Barbara Bel
Geddes.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0343337/)
1980 Sep 11, In Santa Rosita, El
Salvador, soldiers in search of leftist rebels killed Dolores Soriano
(19) and 16 of her neighbors. Soriano was 6-months pregnant.
(SFC, 2/17/00, p.A12)
1980 Sep 12, Authorities in SF
seized 20 tons of Colombian marijuana at Pier 26 along with 2 vessels,
that included the Potomac, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s historic yacht.
Gunnysacks of the marijuana were labeled “Crippled Children’s Society
of America.” 15 men and a woman were arrested.
(SFC, 9/9/05, p.F2)
1980 Sep 12, Yao Ming was born in
Shanghai, China. He grew to 7’6’’ and in 2002 was drafted to play for
the Houston Rockets basketball team.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.24)
1980 Sep 12, Turkish military took
over in coup after factional fighting. All political parties were
abolished. Gen. Kenan Evren led a bloodless coup in response to years
of street battles between left and right-wing radical groups that left
some 5,000 dead. Bulent Ecevit (1925-2006), PM of Turkey, was sent to
prison following the coup and banned from active politics for a decade.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Turkish_coup_d'%C3%A9tat)(Econ,
11/11/06, p.97)
1980 Sep 15, The TV miniseries
"Shogun" premiered with Richard Chamberlain and Yoko Shimada.
(SFC, 5/28/01, p.C1)(SFC, 9/16/05, p.F2)
1980 Sep 15, The new $28 million
Davies Symphony Hall opened in SF. The performance was taped for
nationwide broadcast on PBS.
(SFEC, 8/10/97, p.AB9)(SFC, 9/16/05, p.F2)
1980 Sep 15, Bill Evans (b.1929),
jazz pianist, died. In 1998 Peter Pettinger published "Bill Evans: How
My Heart Sings."
(SFEC, 11/10/96, DB p.35)(WSJ, 8/28/98, p.W7)(SFC,
10/16/00, p.B1)
1980 Sep 16, Jean Piaget, Swiss
psychologist, theorist and educator, died at 84.
(www.helium.com/tm/566048/piaget-august-september-neuchatel)
1980 Sep 17, Former Nicaraguan
president Anastasio Somoza was assassinated in Paraguay. Enrique
Gorriaran Merlo, Argentine super-guerrilla, claimed responsibility.
Merlo was captured in Mexico in 10/95 and extradited to Argentina where
he had multiple charges against him.
(AP, 9/17/97)(WSJ, 4/25/96, p.A-1)
1980 Sep 17, South Korea
opposition leader Kim Dae-jung was sentenced to death. In 1981 the
sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in Seoul.
(http://tinyurl.com/3a4q4z)
1980 Sep 18, Cosmonaut Arnoldo
Tamayo, a Cuban, became the first black to be sent on a mission in
space.
(HN, 9/18/98)
1980 Sep 18, Katherine A. Porter
(b.1890), US author (Ship of Fools) and Pulitzer Prize winner (1966),
died.
(www.millikin.edu/aci/crow/chronology/porterbio.html)
1980 Sep 20, "Spectacular Bid,"
ridden by Bill Shoemaker, ran as the only entry in the Woodward Stakes
at Belmont Park in New York after three potential challengers dropped
out in horse racing's first walkover since 1949.
(AP, 9/20/05)
1980 Sep 22, John Lennon signed
with Geffen Records. The Lennon LP, "Double Fantasy", was released on
Geffen. Lennon was assassinated on December 8, 1980.
(www.jpgr.co.uk/k99131.html)
1980 Sep 22-1980 Sep 24, In
Buffalo, NY, 4 African American men were shot in the
head.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c37rd)
1980 Sep 22, Iraq under Saddam
Hussein invaded Iran following border skirmishes and a dispute over the
Shatt al-Arab waterway. This marked the beginning of a war that would
last eight years. Iraq invaded Iran striking refineries and an
oil-loading terminal on Kharg Island. The Iraqis used the political
instability in Iran to try to capture long-disputed territory. They
attacked across the Shatt al Arab River, a trunk of the great
Tigris-Euphrates river system.
{Iraq, Iran, Oil}
(http://tinyurl.com/2n5z2f)(AP, 9/22/97)(NG, 5/88,
p.653,663)
1980 Sep 22, Solidarity formally
was founded, when delegates of 36 regional trade unions met in Gdansk,
Poland, and united under the name Solidarnosc.
(www.britannica.com/nobelprize/article-9068595)
1980 Sep 23, In California Carol
A. Thompson and Barbara Lee filed a class-action suit for all women
injured using Rely tampons. The recalled Procter & Gambol product
was linked to toxic shock syndrome.
(SFC, 9/23/05, p.F2)
1980 Sep 24, California Rep. John
Burton of Marin said Air Force Reserve units may have made weekly air
drops of nuclear waste around the Farallon Islands from 1952-1967.
(SFC, 9/23/05, p.F2)
1980 Sep 26, "Divine Madness"
starring Bette Midler, was released in the US.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0080634/releaseinfo)
1980 Sep 26, The California state
Water Resources Control Board released a plan for safeguarding Lake
Tahoe by barring development on 7,100 lots.
(SFC, 9/23/05, p.F3)
1980 Sep 26, The Cuban government
abruptly closed Mariel Harbor, ending the freedom flotilla of Cuban
refugees that began the previous April. By this time the danzon,
"Cuba’s national dance," had all but disappeared.
(AP, 9/26/97)(SFC,12/13/97, p.A14)
1980 Sep 26, A bomb attack at the
Oktoberfest in Munich killed 13 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest)
1980 Sep 28, Carl Sagan's 13 part
"Cosmos" premiered on PBS.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0081846/)
1980 Sep 28, Lanford Wilson's
"Balm in Gilead," premiered in Chicago on the Steppenwolf stage. In
1984 it moved to NYC.
(www.tomwaitslibrary.com/Theatre/Balmingilead/balmingilead.htm)
1980 Sep 30, The California Dept.
of Health Services disclosed that the state’s largest known PCB waste
contamination problem had been uncovered at General Electric’s East
Oakland repair yard on East 14th St. between 54th and Seminary.
(SFC, 9/30/05, p.F2)
1980 Sep 30, In California
Berkeley police incinerated 1,000 pounds of marijuana following a raid
on the backyard of the Earth People’s Park Commune at 933 Addison and
2018 Ninth St.
(SFC, 9/30/05, p.F2)
1980 Sep, Dr. Ruth Westheimer
(b.1928) began taping a radio talk show in NYC. A year later the "Dr.
Ruth" show began taking call-in questions from listeners.
(www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/mosaic/keynote.html)
1980 Sep, Chile’s Gen'l. Pinochet
called for a referendum to approve a constitution extending his rule
for the next 8 years.
(SFC, 12/11/06, p.A4)
1980 Oct 2, US Rep. Michael
"Ozzie" Myers, D-Pa., convicted of accepting a bribe in the FBI's
ABSCAM sting operation, was expelled from the House, becoming the first
congressman ousted by his colleagues since the outbreak of the Civil
War.
(AP, 10/2/05)
1980 Oct 4, Some 520 people were
forced to abandon the cruise ship “Prisendam” in the Gulf of Alaska
after the Dutch luxury liner caught fire—no deaths or serious injury
resulted. The ship capsized and sank a week later.
(AP, 10/4/08)
1980 Oct 6, Linden Forbes Burnham
(19231985) began serving as president of Guyana.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_Burnham)
1980 Oct 8, British Leyland
started selling the Mini Metro.
(www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?lc8storyf.htm)
1980 Oct 8-1980 Oct 9, In Buffalo,
NY, 2 African American taxi drivers were murdered and found with their
hearts cut out.
{New York, USA, Murder}
(http://tinyurl.com/3c37rd)
1980 Oct 10, The Martin Luther
King, Jr. Historic Site, a 23 acre area in Atlanta, Ga., listed as a
National Historic Landmark on May 5, 1977, was made a National Historic
Site by the US Department of the Interior. The area where Dr. King was
entombed is located on Freedom Plaza and surrounded by the Freedom Hall
Complex of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social
Change, Inc.
(www.lib.lsu.edu/hum/mlk/srs218.html)
1980 Oct 10, The UN Convention on
Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) was concluded in Geneva and entered
into force in December 1983. It seeks to prohibit or restrict the use
of certain conventional weapons which are considered excessively
injurious or that have indiscriminate effects. It was updated to cover
land mines in May, 1996. The process continued into 2007 to include
cluster bombs.
(www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/500?OpenDocument)(Econ,
6/23/07, p.67)(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-9)(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.A13)
1980 Oct 10, Some 4,500 died when
a pair of earthquakes struck NW Algeria. In 1983 the “El-Asnam Algeria
Earthquake of October 10, 1980 a Reconnaissance and Engineering Report”
was published.
(http://tinyurl.com/2ud4vh)
1980 Oct 11, In northern
California Cynthia Moreland (18) and fiance Richard Stowers (19) were
shot to death on Mount Wittenburg in the Point Reyes National Seashore.
David Joseph Carpenter was arrested in May 1981. In 1984 he was
convicted of 2 murders in Santa Cruz and sentenced to death. In 1988 he
was convicted of 4 killings in Marin County and again sentenced to
death.
(SFC, 2/24/10, p.A7)
1980 Oct 13, In northern
California Anne Evelyn Alderson (26) of San Rafael was raped and shot
to death on Mount Tamalpais. David Joseph Carpenter was arrested in May
1981. In 1984 he was convicted of 2 murders in Santa Cruz and sentenced
to death. In 1988 he was convicted of 4 killings in Marin County and
again sentenced to death.
(SFC, 2/24/10, p.A7)
1980 Oct 13, The unprovoked
slayings of 6 blacks took place in Buffalo, NY.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1980 Oct 13, In Houston, Texas, a
delicatessen clerk was shot and killed by one bullet during a robbery.
Willie Williams, who admitted to firing the fatal shot, was executed in
1995. His accomplice, Joseph Nichols, was convicted in 1982 at age 20
and in 2007 was also executed for the murder.
(http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510332007)
1980 Oct 14, Pres. Carter signed
the Staggers Act, which deregulated the railroads and allowed them to
set their own prices.
(WSJ, 6/18/96, p.A17)(Econ, 10/30/04,
p.69)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staggers_Rail_Act)
1980 Oct 14, Republican
presidential nominee Ronald Reagan promised that, if elected, he would
name a woman to the US Supreme Court. He later nominated Judge Sandra
Day O’Connor of Arizona.
(AP, 10/14/00)
1980 Oct 14, Paul Berg of Stanford
Univ. won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Walter Gilbert of
Harvard and Frederick Sanger of Cambridge for their roles in genetics
research.
(SFC, 10/8/01, p.A17)(SFC, 10/14/05, p.F2)
1980 Oct 14, Hambrecht & Quist
took Genentech Corp. public at $35 per share which soared to close at
$89 per share.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.D1)(http://tinyurl.com/3y3m9r)
1980 Oct 15, An FTC judge upheld
Heublein’s acquisition of SF-based United Vintners, the 2nd largest
wine company in the US.
(SFC, 10/14/05, p.F2)
1980 Oct 17, Mt. St. Helens
erupted 3 times in 24 hours, in Washington. The eruptions had begun May
18.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1980 Oct 21, Gen'l. Pinochet
issued a new constitution that allowed him to stay in power for another
8 years. It was approved by plebiscite.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A3)(Econ, 10/23/04, p.36)
1980 Oct 23, The California
Supreme Court upheld the state’s death penalty.
(SFC, 10/21/05, p.F6)
1980 Oct 23, The resignation of
Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin was announced.
(AP, 10/23/97)
1980 Oct 24, David H. Barnett,
former CIA agent, was indicted. He pleaded guilty to spying for the
Soviet Union from 1976-1979 while based in Indonesia. He admitted to
exposing the identities of 30 US agents.
(SFC, 11/19/96,
p.A17)(www.agentsnotes.com/spycases.html)
1980 Oct 24, The US Court of
Appeals in SF ruled that the US Navy has the right to discharge
personnel for homosexual conduct.
(SFC, 10/21/05, p.F6)
1980 Oct 24, The merchant
freighter SS Poet departed Philadelphia bound for Port Said, Egypt,
with a crew of 34 and a cargo of grain; it was never heard from again.
(AP, 10/24/97)
1980 Oct 25, In Lebanon Shafik
Wazzan (d.1999 at 74) became a compromise prime minister after the
country had gone 137 days without a government.
(SFC, 7/9/99, p.D6)
1980 Oct 25, The US ratified the
Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Countries following Islamic law did not sign. The treaty required
countries to send abducted children back to the jurisdiction where they
have previously lived.
(SFC, 12/6/03,
p.A14)(www.international-divorce.com/icara.htm)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.22)
1980 Oct 27, Brendan "The Dark"
Hughes (1948-2008), a senior IRA commander, led a hunger strike at
Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison that lasted 53 days.
(www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9819)
1980 Oct 27, Steve Peregrin Took
(b.1949), English musician (T-Rex) born as Stephen Ross Porter, died
when he choked on a cocktail cherry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Peregrin_Took)
1980 Oct 28, President Carter and
Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan faced off in a nationally
broadcast, 90-minute debate in Cleveland.
(AP, 10/28/98)
1980 Oct 28, Canada’s federal
government under Pierre Trudeau introduced a national energy program,
which forced Alberta to sell its oil to Canadians at below market
prices. The policy was dismantled in 1984.
(Econ, 12/3/05, Survey
p.6)(http://tinyurl.com/32q2bt)
1980 Oct 29, It was reported that
some 70 California hospitals had received marijuana cigarettes from the
federal government to launch a 4-year test on the drug’s anti-nausea
effects in cancer patients.
(SFC, 10/28/05, p.F2)
1980 Oct 30, New Jersey Dem. Sen.
Harrison Williams (d.2001 at 81) was indicted in the Abscam sting
operation and later convicted.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A1)
1980 Oct 31, Benjamin H. Swig
(86), SF financier, philanthropist and real estate investor, died in
his penthouse atop the Fairmont Hotel.
(SFC, 10/28/05, p.F2)
1980 Oct 31, Iran's Reza Pahlavi,
eldest son of the late shah, proclaimed himself the rightful successor
to the Peacock Throne.
(AP, 10/31/99)
1980 Oct, In part of the "October
Surprise" it was later learned that the chief of French intelligence,
Court Alexandre de Marenches, set up meetings between Republican
campaign chief William Casey and Iranian officials in Paris.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A11)
1980 Oct, In Turkey Necmettin
Erbakan and 21 National Salvation officials were imprisoned on charges
of acting against secularism. They were released one year later and
acquitted by court.
(AP, 11/4/02)
1980 Nov 1, Conservative Edward
Seaga (b.1930) began serving as PM of Jamaica. He defeated Michael
Manley as Jamaica was nearly bankrupt, and became a close ally of US
Pres. Reagan. Seaga served as PM for the Labor Party until 1989.
(SFC, 3/8/96,
p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Seaga)
1980 Nov 4, Ronald Reagan (69) was
elected the 40th president of the United States. He beat President
Carter (56) by a wide margin. In 1998 Jimmy Carter published "The
Virtues of Aging." Inflation and the crises in Iran caused Jimmy Carter
to lose to Ronald Reagan, America’s oldest Pres.-elect.
(TMC, 1994, p.1980)(HN, 11/4/98)(AP, 11/4/97)
1980 Nov 4, Arkansas Gov. Bill
Clinton lost his re-election bid for the governor’s office to Frank
White (1933-2003).
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A3)(SFC, 5/23/03, p.A26)
1980 Nov 4, SF voters re-elected 8
of 11 Board of Supervisors. Women held a majority of seats for the 1st
time in city history.
(SFC, 11/4/05, p.F2,6)
1980 Nov 5, Lanford Wilson's "5th
of July," first produced in 1978, moved to the New Apollo in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/2lnkyu)
1980 Nov 5, Carl Hill, a British
journalist, declared to SF immigration officers that he is homosexual
in a challenge to federal regulations that banned gays from entering
the US. 2 days later federal immigration judge ruled that admitted
homosexuality is not by itself sufficient grounds for denying a
visitor’s permit to a foreigner.
(SFC, 11/4/05, p.F6)
1980 Nov 7, Steve McQueen, film
actor, died in Juarez, Mexico, at age 50.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.E3)(AP, 11/7/00)
1980 Nov 8, In West Virginia
Bridge Day began when parachutists began jumping from the 876-foot New
River Gorge Bridge over the New River. It became annual and was
scheduled on the 3rd Saturday of October. The New River is second
oldest river in the world. Only the Nile is older. It is also one of
only two rivers in the world which flows south to north.
(SFEC, 10/18/98,
p.A3)(www.officialbridgeday.com/facts.html)
1980 Nov 10, News anchor Dan
Rather refused to pay his Chicago cabbie and CBS paid the $12.55 fare.
(http://mediamatters.org/items/200501130005)
1980 Nov 11, Crab season opened in
SF. Some 9 million pounds were caught in the 1956-1957 season. Recent
annual catches averaged 300,000 pounds.
(SFC, 11/11/05, p.F2)
1980 Nov 12, The US space probe
Voyager 1 came within 77,000 miles of Saturn.
(AP,
11/12/97)(http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/saturn.html)
1980 Nov 13, Lee Taylor (46) of
Bellflower, Ca., was killed when his rocket-powered boat broke up
during a test run on Lake Tahoe.
(SSFC, 2/19/06,
p.B7)(www.lesliefield.com/personalities/lee_taylor_tributes.htm)
1980 Nov 13, A military coup led
by Joao Bernardo Viera deposed President Luis Cabral of the Republic of
Guinea-Bissau.
(www.onwar.com/aced/data/golf/guineabissau1980.htm)
1980 Nov 16, In California a rock
slide near Yosemite Falls killed at least 3 people and injured 6 others.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.F2)
1980 Nov 16, Joe Edley (32), a SF
night watchman, won the North American Scrabble championship at a
tournament in Santa Monica, Ca.
(SFC, 11/11/05, p.F2)
1980 Nov 17, WHHM Television in
Washington, D.C. became the first African American public-broadcasting
television station.
(HN, 11/17/98)
1980 Nov 17, Gerald Gallego and
Charlene Williams were arrested in Omaha, Nebraska on murder charges
for crimes in Nevada and California.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A17)
1980 Nov 17, In California Contra
Costa County opened a new $24.5 million jail in Martinez with single
rooms for 382 inmates.
(SFC, 11/11/05, p.F7)
1980 Nov 19, The film "Heaven's
Gate," directed by Michael Cimino, was released.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0080855/)
1980 Nov 19, The musical “Dunbar”
won the Best Musical of the Year at the Audelco Awards ceremony in NYC.
It was based on poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.F2)
1980 Nov 19, CBS TV banned Calvin
Klein's jean ad featuring Brooke Shields (b.1965).
(http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/anniversary/35th/n_8554/)
1980 Nov 19, T.J. Palmer and her
husband Bill opened the first Applebee’s restaurant in Atlanta,
Georgia. T.J. Applebee’s Rx for Edibles & Elixirs became popular
and they soon opened a second one. In 1983 they sold them to W.R. Grace
which passed the brand in 1988 to franchisees in Kansas City, who took
the chain public.
(WSJ, 6/28/07,
p.A13)(http://applebees-founder.com/history2.htm)
1980 Nov 20, Faced with disastrous
reviews from New York critics, United Artists announced it was
withdrawing its $36 million movie "Heaven's Gate" for re-editing.
(AP, 11/20/05)
1980 Nov 20, The SF Redevelopment
Agency chose the Canadian firm Olympia & York to develop the $300
million Yerba Buena Gardens center on 21 acres prime South of Market
land.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.F2)
1980 Nov 20, In China the Gang of
Four, scapegoats for the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, were put on
trial. They were tried and sentenced in nationally televised court
proceedings. Jiang Hua led the special tribunal that was set up to try
Jiang Qing and her 3 Politburo allies known as the Gang of Four. Qing
was sentenced to death but her sentence was later commuted to life in
prison.
(SFC, 2/20/96, p.A4)(SFC, 12/25/99,
p.B4)(http://tinyurl.com/2tfc9u)
1980 Nov 21, An estimated 83
million TV viewers tuned in to the CBS prime-time soap opera "Dallas"
to find out "who shot J.R." It turned out to be Kristin Shephard,
played by Mary Crosby.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A26)(SFEC, 12/12/99, p.B10)(AP,
11/21/00)
1980 Nov 21, In Las Vegas 87
people died in a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino.
(AP, 11/21/97)
1980 Nov 22, UC Berkeley defeated
Stanford 28-23 in the Big Game.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.F2)
1980 Nov 22, Death claimed former
House Speaker John W. McCormack in Dedham, Massachusetts, at age 88.
(AP, 11/22/00)
1980 Nov 22, Actress Mae West died
in Hollywood at age 87. In 2006 Simon Louvish authored “Mae West: It
Ain’t No Sin.”
(AP, 11/22/97)(WSJ, 11/18/06, p.P10)
1980 Nov 22, Eighteen Communist
Party secretaries in 49 provinces were ousted in Poland. Edward Gierek
(d.2001 at 88), Communist boss, was among the ousted.
(HN, 11/22/98)(WSJ, 7/30/01, p.A1)
1980 Nov 23, Some 2,600 people
were killed by a series of earthquakes that devastated southern Italy.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A12)(AP, 11/23/07)
1980 Nov 24, George Raft (85),
actor, died in Los Angeles. His films included “Scarface” (1932)
and “Some Like It Hot (1959).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Raft)
1980 Nov 25, Sugar Ray Leonard
regained the World Boxing Council welterweight championship when
Roberto Duran abruptly quit in the eighth round at the Louisiana
Superdome.
(AP, 11/25/00)
1980 Nov 28, In northern
California Diane Marie O’Connell (22) of San Jose and Shauna May (23)
of San Francisco, were shot to death on Mount Wittenburg at Point
Reyes. David Joseph Carpenter was arrested in May 1981. In 1984 he was
convicted of 2 murders in Santa Cruz and sentenced to death. In 1988 he
was convicted of 4 killings in Marin County and again sentenced to
death.
(SFC, 2/24/10, p.A7)
1980 Nov 29, Dorothy Day (b.1897),
journalist, anarchist, human rights advocate, and co-founder of the
Catholic Worker Newspaper and movement. "Entertaining Angels: The
Dorothy Day Story" was a film based on her life made by Paulist
Productions. Day converted to Catholicism in 1927 after the birth of
her daughter and from then on rejected the idea of class struggle.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.B1)(SFC, 10/11/96, p.C14)(SFC,
3/17/00, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/3xsoyh)
1980 Dec 1, The US Justice Dept
sued Yonkers, NY, citing racial discrimination.
(http://tinyurl.com/2m6tyl)
1980 Dec 1, IBM delivered its 1st
prototype PC to Microsoft. The company developed the personal computer
using a “skunkworks,” a groups outside the normal company environment.
IBM selected Microsoft to create MS-DOS, the operating system for its
first PC. Steve Ballmer arrived from Proctor & Gamble as an
assistant to Gates. Paul Allen bought the QDOS operating system (Quick
and Dirty Operating System) from a rival company for $50,000. It was
renamed MS-DOS and licensed to IBM. The IBM 5150 PC standardized the
marketplace.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.B1)(Econ,
1/21/06, Survey p.16)
1980 Dec 1, SF Assemblyman Willie
Brown was elected speaker of the California Assembly.
(SFC, 11/25/05, p.F2)
1980 Dec 2, Pres. Carter signed
the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act and protected 104
million acres of wilderness. The size of Denali National Park was
tripled to 6.2 million acres. Motorized access to the land was given
for traditional activities such as hunting, fishing and camping. Peggy
Wayburn’s book: "Alaska the Great Land" was credited with helping
persuade Congress. William Whalen (1940-2006), director of the US
National Park Service (1977-1980), implemented the Alaska Native Lands
Claims Settlement Act, which created 10 national parks in Alaska
including Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.
(WSJ, 5/13/99, p.B1)(SFC, 3/28/02,
p.A24)(http://alaska.fws.gov/asm/anilca/intro.html)(SFC, 9/30/06,
p.B6)(Econ, 12/20/03, p.38)
1980 Dec 2, Three American nuns
and a lay worker were abducted, raped and shot in San Salvador.
Peasants discovered their bodies the next day and buried them. Nuns
Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford, Maura Clark, and lay worker Jean Donovan were
raped and shot by guardsmen. The murders occurred as the US began a
10-year $7 billion aid effort to prevent left-wing guerrillas from
coming to power. Five national guardsmen were later convicted in the
killings, and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B2)(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)(AP, 12/2/00)
1980 Dec 3, Bernadine Dohrn, a
former leader of the radical Weather Underground, surrendered to
authorities in Chicago after more than a decade as a fugitive.
(AP, 12/3/00)
1980 Dec 3, In El Salvador
peasants discovered the bodies of nuns Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford, Maura
Clark, and lay worker Jean Donovan and buried them.
(AP, 12/2/00)
1980 Dec 4, In El Salvador the
bodies of four American nuns slain two days earlier were unearthed.
Colonel Edgardo Casanova was the military commander of the area at the
time. Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder and
sentenced in May 1984 to 30 years in prison. In 1998 the guardsmen
admitted that they were acting on orders from above. In 1993 a UN Truth
Commission report concluded that Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova,
director of the National Guard and brother of Edgardo, and Gen’l. Jose
Guillermo Garcia, the minister of defense, had organized an official
cover-up. Both men were granted residence in the US. 3 of the 5
convicted guardsmen were released in 1998 due to prison overcrowding.
In 1999 families of the victims filed suit against Casanova and Garcia
who were living in Florida. In 2000 a federal jury cleared the 2
retired generals. In 2002 a Florida jury found Casanova and Garcia
responsible for torture and ordered payment of $54.6 million to 3
victims living in Florida.
(AP, 12/4/97)(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B2)(SFC, 4/23/98,
p.A16)(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A10) (SFC, 7/23/98, p.C2)(SFC, 5/13/99,
p.C3)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.A3)(SFC, 7/24/02, p.A12)
1980 Dec 8, John Lennon, musician
and one of the Beatles, was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman
outside his New York City apartment building. Chapman was a
schizophrenic with the delusion that he himself was John. In 1984 Prof.
Jonathan M. Wiener wrote a book on Lennon and later got the FBI to
surrender its secret files on Lennon.
(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A2)(AP, 12/8/97)
1980 Dec 10, US Representative
John W. Jenrette (Democrat, South Carolina) resigned to avoid being
expelled from the House following his conviction on charges relating to
the FBI’s ABSCAM investigation.
(AP, 12/10/00)
1980 Dec 10, Czeslaw Milosz of UC
Berkeley, a Polish-born American, received the Nobel Prize in
literature from King Carl Gustaf in Sweden.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F2)(AP, 10/8/09)
1980 Dec 11, "Magnum P.I.,"
starring Tom Selleck, premiered on CBS television.
(AP, 12/11/05)
1980 Dec 11, President Carter
signed into a law legislation creating a $1.6 billion environmental
"superfund" to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste
dumps. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA or Superfund) was established by the US
Congress to clean up America's worst hazardous waste sites. Fifteen
years later more than $20 billion had been spent with 1300 waste sites
identified but only a small fraction cleaned. The fund was established
in response to toxic chemicals seeping into a housing development at
Love Canal in New York. The aim was to require private parties to clean
up past pollution when they could be found. The Fed would pay where the
responsible parties could not be determined.
(WSJ, 10/25/95, p.A-18)(SFC, 6/8/96,
p.A13)(www.epa.gov/superfund/20years/ch2pg3.htm)
1980 Dec 11, Pres.-elect Ronald
Reagan nominated Caspar Weinberger as Sec. of Defense.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F2)
1980 Dec 11, Massachusetts Sec. of
State Michael Connolly banned the sale of Apple Computer stock arguing
that the $22 price per share was too high.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F6)
1980 Dec 12, The US enacted the
Bayh-Dole Act. It allowed recipients of government grants to retain
title to their inventions. The act made it easier for universities to
commercialize their research and helped create the biotechnology
industry. It also amended US copyright law to include computer programs.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh-Dole_Act)(Econ,
12/11/04, p.59)(SFC, 6/21/05, p.D1)
1980 Dec 12, Hambrecht & Quist
took Apple Corp. public with 4.6 million shares at $22 per share, which
closed at $29 per share.
(www.macworld.com/2006/03/features/30timeline/index.php)(SFC, 1/24/04,
p.A12)
1980 Dec 13, Christian Democrat
Jose Napoleon Duarte was named the president of El Salvador’s new
government.
(AP, 12/13/00)
1980 Dec 14, After four days of
meetings, members of NATO warned the Soviets to stay out of the
internal affairs of Poland, saying that intervention would effectively
destroy the détente between East and West.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1980 Dec 14, Fans around the world
paid tribute to John Lennon, six days after he was shot to death in New
York City.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1980 Dec 15, The US Supreme Court
refused to allow SF school officials to establish a plan to reserve 25%
of all new contracts for minority-owned businesses.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F6)
1980 Dec 15, Charles Burton
(d.2002) and his party arrived at the South Pole on their 3-year
journey to follow the meridian line connecting Greenwich to the North
and South Poles.
(SFC, 7/18/02, p.A26)
1980 Dec 16, Harland Sanders,
founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, died in
Shelbyville, Kentucky, at age 90.
(AP, 12/16/00)
1980 Dec 17, Milton Obote
(1924-2005) began serving a 2nd term as president of Uganda.
(SFC, 8/16/03,
p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Obote)
1980 Dec 18, IRA's Sean McKenna
became critically ill and ended his hunger strike.
(www.pittsburghirish.org/AOHDiv32/Hungerstrike.htm)
1980 Dec 18, Former Soviet Premier
Alexei N. Kosygin (1964-80) died at age 76 of a heart attack.
(AP, 12/18/97)(MC, 12/18/01)
1980 Dec 19, Pres. Jimmy Carter
signed legislation to protect Lake Tahoe.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.F2)
1980 Dec 20, John Riggins (18), a
freshman at UC Davis and Sabrina Gonsalves (18) went missing. Their
bodies were found 2 days later with their throats slit. The case went
cold but was picked up by reporter Joel Davis in 2000. His efforts led
to a cold DNA hit in 2002 that implicated Richard Hirschfield, a
suspected child molester. In 2005 Joel Davis authored “Justice Waits.”
(www.justicewaits.com)(SFCM, 3/26/06, p.7)
1980 Dec 20, The government of the
Soviet Union confirmed that former Premier Alexei N. Kosygin had died
two days earlier at the age of 76.
(AP, 12/20/97)
1980 Dec 21, The California
Supreme Court ruled that a father has no automatic right to give his
child his last name.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.F2)
1980 Dec 21, It was reported that
the deadly red tide had given Northern California one of its worst
seasons of paralytic shellfish poisoning in years.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.F2)
1980 Dec 21, Iran requested $24
billion in US guarantees to free hostages.
(http://rescueattempt.tripod.com/id12.html)
1980 Dec 22, US Congress passed
the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act to ease the burden being
placed on these states. The Act gave each US state the responsibility
of developing a method of disposing of their own waste by 1986.
(WSJ, 2/27/97, p.A1)(www.ieer.org/pubs/highlvlr.html)
1980 Dec 22, Ben Weingart
(b.1887), a multimillionaire philanthropist, died. He and 2 partners
had developed the city of Lakewood, north of Long Beach, Ca. On June 6,
1951, Ben Weingart and his wife Stella established The B.W. Foundation
as a non-profit California corporation. The name was changed to the
Weingart Foundation in April, 1978.
(SFC, 2/24/10,
p.C5)(www.weingartfnd.org/default.asp?PID=6)
1980 Dec 23, California Attorney
Gen. George Deukmajian filed a petition to change the terms of the Buck
Charitable Trust that gives $20 million a year to Marin organizations.
The petition argued that other counties were more in need of the money.
(SFC, 12/23/05, p.F2)
1980 Dec 23, A state funeral was
held in Moscow for former Premier Alexei N. Kosygin, who had died Dec.
18 at age 76.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1980 Dec 24, Americans remembered
the U.S. hostages in Iran by burning candles or shining lights for 417
seconds -- one second for each day of captivity.
(AP, 12/24/97)
1980 Dec 24, California Gov. Jerry
Brown declared a state of emergency in Alameda and Santa Clara counties
because of the Mediterranean fruit fly infestation.
(SFC, 12/23/05, p.F2)
1980 Dec 25, The paintings "La
route" (Bend of the road) by Paul Cezanne, "La tete de jeune fille au
Ruban bleu" (Portrait of a Lady) by Auguste Renoir, and "Le cri" (The
cry) by Paul Gauguin were among nearly 2 dozen stolen from the
Argentine National Fine Arts Museum in Buenos Aires. The art works were
located at a Paris gallery in 2002, where they had been brought by a
Taiwanese man claiming to represent a Chinese investor. The investor
said he bought them from a Brazilian senator who said he inherited them
from his family.
(AP,
11/25/05)(http://cpprot.te.verweg.com/2003-July/000215.html)
1980 Dec 26, Iranian television
footage was broadcast in the United States, showing a dozen of the
American hostages sending messages to their families.
(AP, 12/26/05)
1980 Dec 26, Tony Smith (b.1912),
sculptor, died. His work, "Ten Elements," is in the courtyard of the
San Francisco Legion Of Honor Museum. He began his career as an
architect and ended up as a founding figure of minimalism. His 3
daughters included artist Kiki Smith.
(SFC, 1/8/97, p.B1)(SFC, 11/19/05,
p.E10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_26)
1980 Dec 28, Mexico ended a
bilateral fishing agreement with US in a dispute over tuna.
(http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id106.htm)
1980 Dec 31, A bomb blast wrecked
the Jewish-owned Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 16 people and
wounding more than 80.
(www.emergency-management.net/bombings.htm)
1980 Dec 31, Marshall McLuhan
(b.1911), Canadian professor, cultural philosopher and writer, died at
age 69. He was the author "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man."
In 1996 a CD-ROM titled "Understanding McLuhan" was released.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, BR p.8)(V.D.-H.K.p.357)(AP, 12/31/05)
1980 Dec, Microsoft bought a QDOS
license. The "Microsoft Disk Operating System" or MS-DOS was based on
QDOS, the "Quick and Dirty Operating System" written by Tim Paterson of
Seattle Computer Products, for their prototype Intel 8086 based
computer. QDOS was based on Gary Kildall's CP/M. Paterson had bought a
CP/M manual and used it as the basis to write his operating system in
six weeks. QDOS was different enough from CP/M to be considered legal.
Microsoft bought the rights to QDOS for $50,000, keeping the IBM deal a
secret from Seattle Computer Products.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)(WSJ, 1/22/04,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QDOS)
1980 Dec, In Baiji, Iraq, Sadam
Hussein began construction of an oil refinery under the Jabal Makhul
mountains.
(SFC, 5/5/03, p.A12)
1980 Reuben Kramer (d.1999 at 89),
sculptor, unveiled his bronze statue of Justice Thurgood Marshall
outside the Edward A. Garmatz Federal Courthouse in Baltimore, Md.
(SFC, 9/28/99, p.A26)
1980 Armand Hammer, oil magnate,
acquired the Codex Leicester and renamed it the Codex Hammer. It was an
original manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci that was later sold to Bill
Gates of Microsoft Corp.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.F3)
1980 Arthur Miller wrote his play
"The American Clock." It was a collage of Depression-era America based
on "Hard Times" by Studs Terkel.
(WSJ, 10/22/97, p.A20)
1980 JoAnn Akalitis, playwright
and member of The Mabou Mines, wrote "Dead End Kids."
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB
p.37)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0090913/)
1980 Spiro Agnew, former US
vice-president, authored ”Go Quietly… Or Else.” Jules Witcover had
already written two biographies of Agnew: “White Knight: The Rise of
Spiro Agnew” (1972) and “A Heartbeat Away” (1974). In 2007 Witcover
authored a 3rd titled “Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy
Marriage of Richard Nixon & Spiro Agnew.”
(WSJ, 6/14/07, p.D6)
1980 Molefi K. Asante wrote his
work: "Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change."
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 34)
1980 Dr. Mary S. Calderone
published "The Family Book about Sexuality."
(SFC, 10/25/98, p.A15)
1980 Clancy Carlile (1930-1998)
published his novel "Honkeytonk Man." It was about the life and death
of a country singer and was made into a film by Clint Eastwood.
(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A20)
1980 Marilyn Ferguson (1938-2008)
authored her best selling “The Aquarian Conspiracy,” the first
comprehensive analysis of people breaking from traditional Western
beliefs.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Ferguson)
1980 Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
and his wife authored “Free to Choose” based on a television series of
the same name.
(WSJ, 5/27/98, p.A20)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.80)
1980 Barbara Grizzuti (d.2002 at
67) authored "Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jehovah’s
Witnesses."
(SFC, 4/27/02, p.A21)
1980 Russel Hoban authored his
novel "Riddley Walker," a post-apocalyptic story about survivors of the
ultimate world war.
(WSJ, 1/1/00, p.R8)
1980 Robert Lewis (1909-1997)
wrote "Advice to the Players," a book on his theories of acting.
(SFC,11/25/97, p.A22)
1980 Ronald Steel wrote: "Walter
Lippmann and the American Century."
(WSJ, 2/15/96, p.A-12)
1980 Elizabeth Andoh wrote "At
Home with Japanese Cooking."
(WSJ, 10/31/96, p.A21)
1980 Pat Conroy authored "The
Lords of Discipline," based on the Citadel academy in Charleston, South
Carolina.
(NW, 10/14/02, p.63)
1980 Barry Hannah wrote his novel
"Ray."
(WSJ, 10/25/96, p.A15)
1980 Prof. John Kassay (1919-2005)
authored “The Book of Shaker Furniture.”
(SFC, 2/24/05, p.B7)
1980 Suzanne Massie authored “Land
of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia,” a history of Russia from
987-1917. Massie later served as an unofficial advisor to Pres. Reagan
and carried back channel messages between Reagan and the Kremlin.
(Econ, 2/28/09, p.88)
1980 James Michener wrote his
novel "The Covenant."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1980 Sam Moskowitz published
"Fiction in Old San Francisco," that covered an early strain of science
fiction.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A22)
1980 Stephen Oeterrmann, a German
scholar, published "The Panorama: History of a Mass Medium."
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A20)
1980 Judith Rossner wrote her
novel "Emmeline." It was turned into an opera with music by Tobias
Picker and libretto by J.D. McClatchy. It is the story of a woman who
learns that her young husband is the infant son she put up for adoption
2 decades before.
(WSJ, 3/20/97, p.A14)
1980 Frederick Turner published
"Beyond Geography," a look at US cultural restlessness underlying
Manifest Destiny.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1980 Howard Zinn (b.1922)
published "A People's History of the United States."
(SFEC, 8/22/99, BR
p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn)
1980 "Ovation," a classical music
magazine, was founded by Sam Chase (d.1997 at 80). The magazine was
sold in 1986 and later folded.
(SFC, 9/2/97, p.A18)
1980 Stanley Foster Reed
(1917-2007), self-taught inventor, accordionist and publisher, began
publishing the magazine “Campaigns & Elections.” He sold it in the
mid 1980s. This followed an earlier magazine called “Mergers &
Acquisitions.” During WW II Mr. Reed founded the Reed Research Co. in
Washington, DC, whose engineers took on a variety of problems.
(WSJ, 11/3/07, p.A6)
1980 Gross film revenues for
the year were $2,748 million with1,021 million admissions and average
ticket price of $2.69.
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)(SFEC, 1/26/97 DB, p.28)
1980 PBS aired the documentary
“The Battle of Westlands” co-produced by by Carol MonPere (1934-2006).
It highlighted the struggle of family farms in the Central Valley of
California as large agricultural corporations moved in.
(SFC, 4/4/06, p.B5)
1980 The TV show "Bosom Buddies"
with Peter Scolari and Tom Hanks began and lasted to 1982.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.E5)
1980 Frank Pacelli (d.1997 at 72)
spent 16 years (1980-1996) directing the TV show "The Young and the
Restless."
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A19)
1980 The NBC TV show "United
States" was a comedy on modern marriage that lasted about 6 weeks.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.E1)
1980 Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
dramatized the mysteries of the universe in his 13-part TV series
"Cosmos." He made famous the phrase "billions and billions of stars and
galaxies."
(SFC, 12/21/96, p.A1)
1980 Cable TV began to impact
television in the US with a 20% penetration. By 1995 cable TV was in
62% of American homes.
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)
1980 Fred Silverman appointed
Brandon Tartikoff (d.1997 at 48), age 31, as president of NBC
Entertainment.
(SFC, 8/28/97, p.A1)
1980 The grunge rock group Alice
in Chains produced their debut album "Facelift." One track was titled
"We Die Young." In 2002 Layne Staley (34), lead singer for Alice in
Chains, was found dead in Seattle with obvious signs of drug use.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A28)
1980 Jim Carrol (1949-2009)
released his first album “Catholic Boy.” The single “People who Died”
became a punk classic.
(SFC, 9/16/09, p.D5)
1980 Bill Evans made live jazz
recordings at the Village Vanguard just weeks before his death. They
were scheduled to be released by Warner Bros. in 11/96.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A20)
1980 The Microscopic Septet formed
out of a downtown Manhattan music scene. The jazz ensemble broke up in
1992, but reunited in 2006 for a brief tour to celebrate the 2-volume
CD “History of the Micros.”
(WSJ, 12/26/06, p.D8)
1980 In Rhode Island the Newport
Jazz Festival featured a "Swinging Taps" evening with tap dancer Chuck
Green (d.1997 at 78).
(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A21)
1980 Emylou Harris and Ricky
Skaggs made their album "Rose in the Snow." The album was important in
breaking down the country-bluegrass barrier. It included the song "The
Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn" written by Ralph Stanley.
(WSJ, 12/30/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 10/8/98, p.A16)
1980 Eddie Rabbit (d.1998 at 53)
recorded his hit: "I Love a Rainy Night."
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A21)
1980 The album "Dance Craze: The
Best of British Ska... Live!" was released on the Chrysalis label. The
bands included The Specials, the Selecter, and Madness.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, DB p.39)
1980 U2 released their first
album, "Boy."
(WSJ, 10/30/01, p.A21)
1980 Kateri Tekakwitha (d.1680), a
Mohawk Indian, became the first Native American to be beatified by the
Catholic Church.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A18)
1980 Bill Drayton, an
administrator in the EPA, founded "Ashoka," an organization of social
entrepreneurs. "A social entrepreneur is someone who sees an area where
society is stuck, conceives of how society can get unstuck, who can’t
conceive of stopping until he or she has changed the whole society so
it is unstuck."
(SSFC, 1/21/01, WB p.1)(Econ, 2/25/06, Survey p.12)
1980 The National Japanese
American Historical Society was founded in SF.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.6)
1980 Mothers Against Drunk Driving
was founded in Irving, Texas.
(WSJ, 3/10/97, p.A1)
1980 Helen Caldicott helped to
organize European Physicians into International Physicians for the
prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).
(SFEC, 12/8/96, Z1 p.3)
1980 The Planetary Society was
founded by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman, as a space
advocacy group. The Society is dedicated to the exploration of Mars and
the rest of the Solar System, the search for Near Earth Objects, and
the search for extraterrestrial life.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planetary_Society)
1980 The Crystal Cathedral,
designed by Philip Johnson, was completed in Garden Grove, Orange
County, Ca., at a final cost of $17 million. The church originally
began in 1955 as the Garden Grove Community Church under the Reverend
Robert H. Schuller and his wife, Arvella. In 2009 the church under
financial turmoil planned to sell $65 million of its Orange county
property to pay off debt.
(SSFC, 2/1/09, p.B4)
1980 A California state law,
section 987(a) of the Civil Code, was passed that made it a crime to
alter, deface or destroy a work of fine art in that it was detrimental
to the artist’s reputation.
(SFC, 8/2/00, p.A18)
1980 California lawmakers approved
the construction of a Peripheral Canal to siphon water from the
Sacramento River to the California Aqueduct. Voters rejected the idea
in 1982.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)
1980 In Daly City PG&E workers
first complained to the US EPA about chemicals uncovered during
construction at the Martin Service Center.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.A14)
1980 California voters approved a
constitutional amendment (Shield Law) to protect journalists from being
held in contempt for refusing to disclose unpublished information or a
confidential news source.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A1)
1980 A California 1918 state law,
that granted women and children time-and-a-half for working over 8
hours and double time for work over 12 hours, was extended to include
men.
(SFC, 1/7/98, p.A19)
1980 Robert Graham, a California
millionaire, opened a sperm bank, The Repository for Germinal Choice,
to make sperm available from Nobel laureate types. It closed in 1999
after yielding 215 children. In 2005 David Plotz authored “The Genius
Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank.”
(SSFC, 6/12/05, p.B6)(WSJ, 7/5/05, p.D7)
1980 The five 60-foot radio
astronomy dishes at Stanford Univ., Ca., went idle.
(SSFC, 8/14/05, p.A19)
1980 In California Ellen
Strauss (d.2001 at 75) and Phyllis Faber founded the Marin Agricultural
Land Trust to prevent urban sprawl. It was the 1st private, non-profit
organization of its kind in the US. It bought development rights from
farmers but allowed the farmers to continue working their farms and
passing them on to heirs as long as the land remained agricultural.
(SFC, 12/3/02, p.A21)
1980 Donald Kennedy (b.1931) was
appointed president of Stanford Univ. after serving for a time as head
of the FDA (1977-1979). He resigned in 1992 in the wake of accusations
that the Univ. had padded its accounts and received extra government
money. In 1997 he published "Academic Duty," in which he proposed a
number of hypothetical situations to explore conflicts.
(SFEC,11/2/97, BR
p.6)(www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/history/leader.html#Kennedy)
1980 A 53-acre facility for
recycling was opened in San Leandro, Ca. In 1996 it brought in $ 3 mil.
of new sorting equipment and was the state’s largest recycling facility.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A22)
1980 The Channel Islands National
Park, off the California coast at Ventura, was established. It included
San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa and Santa Barbara and
totaled 250,000 acres. Complete protection was completed by 1997.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, Z1 p.1)(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.T11)
1980 Blufford Hayes Jr. killed
Vinod Patel, a motel manager in Stockton, Ca., during a robbery that
netted $23 and some cigarettes. Hayes was convicted and sentenced to
death. The sentence was upheld by a federal appeals court in 2002.
(SFC, 8/27/02, p.A4)
1980 The American Medical
Association’s (AMA) code of ethics, written Dr. James S. Todd (d.1997
at 65), was adopted.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A24)
1980 Dave Foreman, a former
lobbyist with the Wilderness society, formed the Earth First group, an
environmentalist group that was willing to resort to potentially
violent tactics.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-11)
1980 Robert Redford established
the Sundance Resort and Institute in Provo Canyon, Utah, to support
independent filmmaking and playwriting.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, Par p.2)
1980 The US Archeological
Conservancy was founded by a group of private citizens and
archeologists.
(AM, Vol. 48, N0. 3)
1980 The Kalaupapa National
Historic Park on Molokai Island in Hawaii was established.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, p.T3)
1980 Canola Oil was registered as
the name for a vegetable oil of low saturated fat. It was originally
called low erucic acid rapeseed oil and was developed by the Univ. of
Manitoba plant breeder Baldur Stefansson after WW II. Oleic acid later
replaced erucic acid which was found to cause cancer in lab studies.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.6F)
1980 Peter Matthiessen won the
National Book Award for nonfiction for his 1978 "The Snow Leopard."
(SFC,11/22/97, p.D1)(SFEC,12/797, p.B11)
1980 Earl Randall Parker (d.1998
at 85), a professor of materials science and mineral engineering, won
the Nat’l. Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for a
scientist.
(SFC, 5/19/98, p.A21)
1980 Lawrence R. Klein of the
United States won the Nobel Prize in Economics for the creation of
certain econometric models.
(AP, 10/11/09)
1980 The US Army established its
National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Ca., to test and review new
technology and tactics.
(WSJ, 5/23/97, p.A1,10)
1980 The US Supreme Court ruled
that "live human-made microorganism is patentable matter." This led to
a rush by Genentech, Biogen and others to commercialize biotechnology.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1980 US Sec. of State Alexander
Haig reported in a 1981 memo uncovered by the October Surprise Task
Force that leaders of several friendly countries in the Middle East
told him on a trip in 1981 that Jimmy Carter had given Iraq’s Saddam
Hussein the green light to invade Iran in 1980.
(WSJ, 8/9/96,
p.A11)(www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile5.html)
1980 Pres. candidate Ronald Reagan
named the Jelly Belly jelly bean as his favorite confection.
(SFC, 8/11/99, Z1 p.3)
1980 Harry V. Mohoney, adult
entertainment distributor, was one of 55 people indicted in a federal
sting of the US pornography business. The indictment was dismissed due
to misconduct by federal agents.
(SFC, 8/13/97, p.A10)
1980 A group of banks led by J.P.
Morgan made massive bailout loans of $1 billion to the Hunt brothers
who had allegedly tried to corner the silver market.
(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A16)
1980 Stephen Bernard (d.2009 at
61) and his wife Lynn founded his kettle-cooked Cape Cod Potato Chips
brand. The company was sold to Anheuser-Busch in 1985, but they
reacquired it when the brewer sold its Eagle Snacks division to Lance
Inc. in 1999.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.B7)
1980 Ron Perelman acquired
MacAndrews & Forbes, a Philadelphia candymaker, for $45 million.
Howard Gittis (1934-2007) advised Perelman on the acquisition and in
1985 joined Perelman and his MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings.
(WSJ, 9/22/07,
p.A8)(www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2005/1010/050.html)
1980 CNN, the 24-hour Cable News
Network, made its debut.
(Wired, 2/98, p.64)
1980 The Hearst Corp. acquired
United Technical Publications, Eastern News Distributors and First
Databank, a provider of medical knowledge databases.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1980 Robert Leonard (d.2003)
helped found Ticketmaster to sell advanced box office seats.
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.A20)
1980 Peoples Gas was renamed
Peoples Energy Corp. and operated as the holding company for two local
utilities. It had started as Chicago Gas in 1855.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p.
R-45)(www.utfleets.com/issues/article/?articleid=00000050)
1980 IBM introduced a PC speaker
that could beep at various frequencies.
(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.B1)
1980 IBM went to Digital Research
to license the ubiquitous CP/M for the new IBM-PC, but failed to reach
an agreement with Gary Kildall. IBM soon struck a deal with Microsoft.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QDOS#Reasons_for_QDOS)
1980 Tim Paterson wrote QDOS
(Quick and Dirty Operating System), a 16-bit operating system for an
Intel 8086-based computer kit sold by Seattle Computer Products.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm)
1980 Hewlett-Packard introduced
its first personal computer, the HP-85. Company sales topped $3 billion
and employees numbered 57,000.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1980 Iomega, was founded. It
designed and manufactured computer memory storage devices. The company
became public in 1983.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.B6)
1980 United Telecommunications
under Paul Henson (d. 1997 at 71) began laying the 23,000 mile, first
optical fiber communications network.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A21)
1980 Ted Stepien (1925-2007), a
classified ad whiz, paid $2 million for a controlling 37% share of the
Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team and eventually acquired 80% of the
shares. In 1983 he sold the team to George and Gordon Gund, owners of
Cleveland’s Coliseum, in a deal that included his advertising business.
In the 1981-1982 season the Cavaliers won 15 games and lost 67, one of
the worst records in NBA history.
(WSJ, 9/15/07, p.A6)
1980 Audi introduced its
all-wheel-drive Quattro Coupe.
(WSJ, 9/16/05, p.W12)
1980 American Motors introduced
its four-wheel-drive Eagle.
(WSJ, 9/16/05, p.W12)
1980 The 2,032 passenger SS France
became the SS Norway, flagship of the Norwegian Cruise Lines.
(www.oceanlinermuseum.co.uk/France%20index.htm)
1980 Pernod Ricard SA acquired the
US bourbon Wild Turkey.
(WSJ, 9/7/05, p.B2)
1980 Raymond Damadian and his
company, FONAR, produced the first commercial Magnetic Resonance
Imaging scanner. The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952, which went to
Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell, was for the development of nuclear
magnetic resonance (NMR), the scientific principle behind MRI. In 2003
Paul Christian Lauterbur was credited for the 1970s idea of introducing
gradients in the magnetic field which allows for determining the origin
of the radio waves emitted from the nuclei of the object of study.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Vahan_Damadian)
1980 Klaus von Klitzing used the
large magnet at Grenoble, France and discovered the quantum Hall
effect. At low temperatures, electrons flowing through thin layers of
semiconducting crystals in the presence of strong magnetic fields
exhibit unexpected jumps in their current-carrying behavior.
(I&I, Penzias, p.205)
1980 J.R. Simplot, Idaho potato
tycoon, began serving on the board of startup Micron Technology. He
invested several million dollars into the company, which made memory
chips.
(WSJ, 10/7/04, p.A12)(www.micron.com)
1980 Little Big Horn College in
Crow Agency, Mont., was established.
(SFEC, 7/18/99, Par. p.6)
1980 Sue Savage-Rumbaugh began
research work with bonobo apes at the Georgia State Univ. Language
Research Center. In 1998 she authored "Apes, Language, and the Human
Mind," based on her work with Kanzi, a bonobo ape.
(SFEC, 7/19/98, BR p.8)
1980 Dr. Robert Gallo and
colleagues discovered the retrovirus HTLV-1. In 1982 they discovered
the retrovirus HTLV-2 and suggested that AIDS was caused by a new human
retrovirus.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.18)
1980 Dr. Clyde Wiegand
(1915-1996), a nuclear physicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, retired. In the 1970s he opened a field called keonic
physics, wherein subatomic called k-mesons take the place of electrons
in atoms.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.20)
1980 Louis Alvarez proposed that
the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago at the Tertiary -
Cretaceous boundary was due to a large meteor impact based on a thin
line of sediment of dark clay containing unusually high levels of
iridium at the boundary.
(TMP, KCTS-Video,
1987)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Walter_Alvarez)
1980 Hispanics in Phoenix Arizona,
numbered about 15% of the population. By 2005 the number reached 42%.
(Econ, 11/18/06, p.32)
1980 Lyman Byxbe (b.1886), print
maker, died. He established a reputation in Old Estes, Colorado, with
his copperplate etchings of western scenes.
(SSFC, 4/23/05, p.E7)(http://tinyurl.com/bwvvn)
1980 In Afghanistan Dr. Najibullah
(1947-1996) was brought back from USSR to run the secret police. He
later served as president (1986-1992).
(www.afghan,
5/25/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Najibullah)
1980 In Algeria Berber
anti-government sentiment was mobilized in the "Tamazight Spring"
uprising.
(SFC, 3/16/01, p.A18)
1980 The population of Angola was
about 7 million.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.55)
1980 Arab nations in the Persian
Gulf set a minimum age of 15 for camel jockeys.
(WSJ, 10/3/05, p.A1)
1980 In Bangladesh the
installation of cheap surface wells was begun to keep people from
drinking infected pond and river water [see 1990].
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A8)
1980 In Brazil the Workers’ Party
(PT) was founded by a group of people including Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva and Marina Silva. It later became recognized as one of the
largest and most important left-wing leadership movements of Latin
America.
(Econ, 8/29/09,
p.32)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_Party_%28Brazil%29)(Econ,
4/24/10, p.35)
1980 Inflation in Brazil reached
110%. The rising cost of imported oil, dating back to 1973, increased
short term foreign debt and heralded a decade and a half of instability.
(Econ, 11/14/09, SR p.5)
1980 In Brazil the TAMAR project
to protect sea turtles was begun by Maria and Guy Marcovaldi.
(SFC, 11/2/98,
p.A12)(www.beach-pousada-brazil.com/tamar.htm)
1980 “Yes, Minister,” a satirical
British sitcom written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, was first
transmitted by BBC television and radio. The sequel, “Yes, Prime
Minister,” ran from 1986 to 1988.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister)
1980 Tower 42, the tallest
building in London, England, was first occupied.
(WSJ, 2/27/08, p.B1)
1980 The British government sent
out a pamphlet to the public titled “Protect and Survive.” It contained
advice in the event of nuclear war.
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.48)
1980 The Bank of England licensed
the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. BCCI imploded in 1991
under the weight of fraud.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.64)
1980 The huge British Steel plant
at Corby, central England, closed and the site was redeveloped. In 2009
a British court ruled in favor of a group of young people who said
pollution from the former steelworks contributed to their birth
defects, which included missing fingers and deformed hands and feet.
(AP, 7/29/09)
1980 In 1980, Konstantin Pavlov
(1933-2008), Bulgarian poet and screenwriter, was granted the Grand
Prix at the Karlovy Vary film festival for his screenplay of the film
"Illusion."
(AP, 9/30/08)
1980 Peter Munk, Hungary-born
entrepreneur, along with David Gilmour and several Arab investors
founded Barrick Petroleum Corp., a Canada-based mining operation. In
1983 the company went public as Barrick Resources Corp., which grew to
become Barrick Gold. By 2008 the company was worth $38 billion with
mines on 5 continents.
(www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/71/Barrick-Gold-Corporation.html)(Econ,
4/19/08, p.80)
1980 Jose Pinera revolutionized
Chile's pension system while he was secretary of labor and social
security. Pinochet wrote a new constitution that included statutes that
forced politicians, journalists and musicians to practice
self-censorship or face prosecution.
(WSJ, 6/28/96, p.A9)(SFC, 12/9/96, p.A18)(AP,
12/12/04)
1980 In China Hua Guofeng
(1921-2008) was replaced as premier by Zhao Ziyang, and by Hu Yaobang
as party chairman in 1981, two of Deng's proteges who were dedicated to
economic reform.
(AP, 8/20/08)
1980 A US-funded program, staffed
by professors from business schools across the US, brought Western
business ideas to Chinese managers.
(SFC, 11/3/05, p.B6)
1980 A mummy titled the "Beauty of
Kiruran," was found in the Taklimakan Desert in China. The Uighurs have
been the majority population of this area for centuries and speak a
Turkic language.
(SFC, 5/6/96, p.C-1)
1980 Fidel Castano, a wealthy
landowner in Colombia’s Cordoba province, founded the paramilitaries
after leftist guerrillas kidnapped his father and returned him dead
following a ransom payment.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.A11)
1980 In El Salvador an
agricultural reform was instituted and the Finca El Espina coffee
plantation was confiscated from the Duenas family and given to their
workers, who formed a cooperative. The Duenas received $4 million in
compensation.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.C18)
1980 The Salvadoran Communist
Party, led by Shafik Handal (1930-2006), merged with four other leftist
groups into the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN.
(AP, 1/24/06)
1980 Egypt’s Pres. Sadat allowed
Sharia to become the principal source of Egyptian law.
(SFC, 7/15/06, p.E2)
1980 Gisele Freund (d.2000 at 91)
won France’s national Grand Prize for Photography.
(SFC, 4/1/00, p.A26)
1980 Jean Dausset (1916-2009),
French immunologist, shared the Nobel Prize for medicine with Americans
George D. Snell and Baruj Benacerraf for their work on genetically
determined structures on cell surfaces that regulate immunological
reactions. Dausset's discovery in 1958 of the human leukocyte antigen
(HLA) tissue system allowed doctors to verify compatibility between
donor and receiver for an organ transplant.
(AP, 6/24/09)
1980 French oil giant Total SA
leased an oil patch in southern Sudan the size of Pennsylvania. In 2005
the lease came under dispute as southern Sudan gained limited autonomy
and signed an oil deal with London-based White Nile Ltd.
(WSJ, 6/19/06,
p.A1)(www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article20234)
1980 Marius Giuge (b.1909), French
potter, died. He had begun working in the Vallouris around 1950.
(SFC, 12/10/08, p.G4)
1980 In Haiti journalist Richard
Brisson (d.1982) was sent into exile under the rule of dictator
Jean-Claude Duvalier.
(SFC, 10/20/98, p.C12)
1980 In India the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) coalesced from the Hindu revival group National Volunteer
Corps, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in 1925.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A1)
1980 Israel’s government allowed
settlers to expand their presence in the Arab area of Hebron after a
Palestinian attack killed 6 Jews returning from prayer at Abraham’s
tomb.
(SFC, 12/4/08, p.A27)
1980 Luz International was founded
in Israel. It became the first company to implement solar thermal
technology on a commercial scale. Luz began building solar-thermal
power stations in California’s Mojave desert in the mid 1980s.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.23)
1980 Dr. Fujio Masuoka, a
researcher at Toshiba, filed a patent for a variation on floating-gate
memory. His invention was dubbed flash memory because it allowed entire
sections of memory to be erased quickly.
(Econ, 3/11/06, Survey p.28)
1980 Government forces of Iraq
began battling the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1980 Colonel Muammar Khaddafi of
Libya recruited the nationless, disenfranchised nomads by implying that
he would train the Kel Tamashek and provide weapons to fight for their
independence from the Malian government. The rebels slowly realized
that Khadaffi's only intention was to use them in his own wars. Some of
these dejected fighters formed the band Tinariwen in Khadaffi's rebel
camp.
(www.jacneed.com/10Tinariwen.htm)
1980 In Namibia the Harnas Wild
Animal Foundation was begun by Nick and Mariet van der Merwes.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.T5)
1980 In New Zealand Matiu Rata
(d.1997 at 63) resigned from the Labor Party and formed the Mana
Motuhake Party to represent Maori tribes. He went on to negotiate for
the Maori Fisheries Commission for fishing rights and was a pastor in
the Maori-based Ratana Church.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A24)
1980 The Nazoo Anna School was
founded in Peshawar, Pakistan, for girls from Afghan refugee camps by
Nazaneen Jabarkhel Majeed. It was named after a female Afghan freedom
fighter.
(SFC, 7/16/99, p.A10)
1980 Construction began on
Scotland’s Torness nuclear power plant. It was commissioned in 1988.
(www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featurefirst274.html)
1980 In Spain ETA had its
bloodiest year with 91 victims, nearly half of them civilians.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1980 The giant Kenana sugar
processing plant opened in Sudan. In 2002 El Nazir, Osman & Desai,
and Govind D. authored “Kenana: Green Gold of Sudan.”
(www.shell-me.com/english/oct2002/views1.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/2vpzhc)
1980 Sweden passed a referendum to
wean itself off nuclear power. By 2006 10 nuclear plants remained in
operation.
(Econ, 8/12/06, p.44)
1980 Swedish-German philanthropist
Jakob von Uexkull founded the Right Livelihood Awards to
recognize work he felt was being ignored by the Nobel Prizes.
(AP, 10/13/09)
1980 In Turkey military leaders
established the Higher Education Board.
(Econ, 5/22/04, p.48)
1980 In Turkey the wearing of
headscarves was first banned in universities shortly after a military
coup carried out by officers who viewed Islamists as a serious threat.
But the implementation of the rule varied during the law's early years.
(AP, 7/21/07)
1980 Abdullah Ocalan (b.1948),
leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) crossed the border to Syria
just before the September 12 Turkish military coup.
(WSJ, 3/7/97, p.A10)(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A7)
1980 In Murchison Falls National
Park, Uganda, some 1,400 elephants were left from an estimated count of
14,300 in 1973. No rhinos were known to remain in the park.
(NG, May 1985, p.627)
1980 Pope John Paul II allowed
married Episcopal clergy to join the Catholic Church and serve as
priests.
(AP, 8/22/05)
1980 Nguyen Co Thach (d.1998 at
75) began serving as the foreign minister of Vietnam and continued to
1991.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.C3)
1980 In Wales the Big Pit coal
works at Blaenafon was shut down. In 1983 it reopened as a colliery
museum.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.T5)(http://tinyurl.com/3csn6y)
1980 Robert Mugabe appointed
Joshua Nkomo as home affairs minister in charge of police and internal
security in Zimbabwe.
(SFC, 7/2/99, p.D6)
1980-1981 There was a world-wide recession.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.82)
1980-1982 Dallas was the top ranking network show on
television for two seasons with rankings of 31.2 and 28.4%
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)
1980-1982 Alexander Lebed commanded a Russian
battalion fighting in Afghanistan.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A18)
1980-1982 In Chad Goukouni Weddeye served as
president until he was overthrown by Hissene Habre. He went to Algeria
where he has lived, some of the time helping to plan rebellions against
Habre, who was later overthrown by Idriss Deby Itno. In 2009 Weddeye
planned to return to Chad.
(AFP, 8/21/09)
1980-1984 The Dumbarton vehicle bridge was built
across the southern San Francisco Bay to replace a 1927 drawbridge.
(Ind, 5/23/00,14A)(SMBP, 2004)
1980-1995 Eugenia Charles (1919-2005) served as PM of
Dominica. She was the 1st female prime minister in the Caribbean region.
(SFC, 9/8/05, p.B7)
1980-1986 The 6th Betty Crocker [General Mills
advertising icon] made her appearance.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A6)
1980-1987 Zhao Ziyang (1920-2005) served as premier
of China after which he took over as secretary of the Chinese Communist
Party.
(SFC, 1/17/05, p.B4)
1980-1987 Chun Doo Hwan, military strongman, ruled
over South Korea.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A1)
1980-1987 In Zimbabwe Canaan Banana, a Methodist
minister and theology professor, served as ceremonial president
following independence.
(SFC, 12/17/98, p.A20)
1980-1988 Iran and Iraq engaged in war. [see Sep 22,
1980] The number of casualties was estimated at well over a million.
The US provided covert battle planning assistance to Iraq.
(V.D.-H.K.p.312)(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)(SSFC, 8/18/02,
p.A1)
1980-1989 US bottlers of Coca-Cola switched from cane
sugar to high-fructose corn syrup in the 1980s to cut costs. Mexican
bottlers continued to use cane sugar.
(WSJ, 1/11/06, p.A1)
1980-1989 During the 1980s American zoo elephants
began to be trained to paint using acrylics on canvas. In 1998 Ruby in
Phoenix generated over $100,000 for the zoo.
(WSJ, 7/15/98, p.A12)
1980-1989 During the 1980s the US purchased millions
of Type 56 rifles from China to arm the Afghan Mujahedeen in their war
against the Soviet army. The rifles were copycats of the AK-47s used by
Russian soldiers. The US gave an average of $500 million in military
aid annually to the Mujahedeen. The US also purchased Chinese and
Polish AK-47s to supply the Contra guerillas in Nicaragua.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/23/96, A9)
1980-1989 The number of new cases of malignant
melanoma, a form of skin cancer, roughly doubled in this period.
(NOHY, 3/90, p.138)
1980-1989 Conrad Black and David Radler launched a
small newspaper acquisition spree generated by their 1st small paper,
the Sherbrooke Record in Quebec. In 2003 Black and Radler became
embroiled in suits stemming from their operations in Hollinger Int'l.
(WSJ, 1/30/04, p.A1)
1980-1989 During the 1980s Congo’s Mobutu Sese Seko
imported 5,000 sheep from Venezuela for one his ranches by using a
government owned DC-8 to make 32 round trips between Caracas and Zaire.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/2kg3bl)
1980-1989 During the 1980s Ayman Al-Zawahri fled from
Egypt after he was sentenced to 3 years in prison for belonging to an
outlawed group. He later met Osama bin Laden and became the "emir" of
the Islamic Jihad.
(SFC, 2/22/00, p.A8)
1980-1989 In Honduras death squads reportedly killed
184 people over the decade. During the 1980s the US provided training
and support for Battalion 316, a Honduran military unit, which had a
history of kidnapping, murder and torture of suspected leftists
subversives. Washington gave Honduras $1.4 billion in aid. By 2000
charges were put forth against 29 soldiers and officers, 8 of whom fled
justice.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A3)(SFC,11/26/97, p.C5)(SFC,
1/15/98, p.A12)(SFC, 2/23/00, p.A14)
1980-1989 In Romania a huge building spree by Nicolae
Ceausescu leveled entire neighborhoods in Bucharest and left a large
number of stray dogs roaming the streets. Their number reached
100-200,000 in 1997.
(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A20)
1980-1989 Bauxite prices dropped in the 1980s. For
Suriname it had provided nearly 60% of export earnings.
(WSJ, 4/15/97, p.A9)
1980-1990 The US Dept. of Defense allowed the open
pit burning of highly toxic classified materials at a top secret Air
Force base called Area 51, 125 northwest of Las Vegas. Workers later
complained of strange skin diseases and other health problems and file
suit against the DoD. Government lawyers use the "mosaic theory"
argument in defense and claim that they can't acknowledge seemingly
innocuous facts without creating a mosaic that an enemy could use to
figure out military secrets.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-1)
1980-1990 Herbert Baumeister (1947-1996), an
Indianapolis businessman, killed 16 men, most of them gay, and dumped
them in the woods behind his home and along rural roads in Indiana and
Ohio. Baumeister committed suicide in Canada at age 49.
(www.mayhem.net/Crime/morg9804.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Baumeister)
1980-1991 Publications in Kurdish were banned in
Turkey.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1980-1992 In El Salvador a civil war raged during
which security forces have been blamed for killing 40,000 civilians
with torture commonplace. It was later reported that the US had pumped
$1.5 million a day into the fight "to make El Salvador safe for
democracy."
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-19)(SFEM,11/16/97, p.28)
1980-1992 The Renamo guerrilla movement, led by
Afonso Dhlakama, waged rebellion against the Freelimo government. It
was a peasant terrorist army created in the late 70s by
Rhodesia’s (later Zimbabwe) white minority regime and later
financed by South Africa’s white apartheid government.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A10,12)
1980-1994 Life expectancy in Uganda dropped from 52
to 40 due to AIDS.
(SFC, 4/3/96, p.A-5)
1980-1995 The US prison population tripled from
500,000 to 1.5 million inmates.
(WSJ, 9/29/95, p.A-1)
1980-1996 Scientist over this period established that
12 meteorites in a worldwide collection had come from the moon. They
are called SNCs ("snicks"), an abbreviation for the locations where
they were discovered: Shergotty, India; Nakhla, Egypt; and Chassigny,
France.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A22)(PacDis, Winter ’97, p.30)
1980-2004 Aggregate income going to the
highest-earning 1% of Americans doubled during this period from 8% to
16%.
(Econ, 6/17/06, p.30)
1980-2006 Rising temperatures in Greenland allowed
for an increase in farmland from 620 acres to 2,500 acres over this
period.
(WSJ, 7/18/06, p.A12)
1980-2008 In North Carolina the population of
Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte and its main suburbs, grew
from 400,000 people to 900,000.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.35)
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