Timeline 1983
Return to home
1983 Jan 1, Lt.
Gov. Mario Cuomo (b.1932) succeeded Hugh Carey as governor of New York.
Cuomo served 3 terms as the state’s 56th governor.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Cuomo)
1983 Jan 1, Pope John Paul II
declared this year to be an extraordinary Holy Year to mark the 1,950th
anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in year 33.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A15)
1983 Jan 1, TCP/IP became the
standard for Internet protocol.
(SFC, 8/30/99, p.C10)
1983 Jan 2, The musical play
"Annie," based on the "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip, closed at
Broadway’s Alvin Theater after a run of 2,377 performances.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1983 Jan 2, "Sophisticated Ladies"
closed at the Lunt-Fontanne, NYC, after 767 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4098)
1983 Jan 3, In Hawaii the Pu’u O’o
vent of the Kilauea volcano lit up the skies for the first time and
began a state of almost constant eruption.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.T6)
1983 Jan 4, US Congress amended
the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act with the Orphan Drug Act (P.L.
97-414). Additional orphan drug amendments were passed in 1984, 1985
and 1988.
(www.fda.gov/orphan/progovw.htm)(WSJ, 11/15/05,
p.A1)
1983 Jan 5, President Reagan
announced he was nominating Elizabeth Dole to succeed Drew Lewis as
secretary of transportation. Dole became the first woman to head a
Cabinet department in Reagan's administration, and the first to head
the DOT.
(AP, 1/5/03)
1983 Jan 13, Carlo Rubbia of
Harvard Univ. announced from a workshop in Rome the first evidence for
the discovery of a vector boson.
(JST-TMC,1983, p.106)
1983 Jan 15, Meyer Lansky (born
Majer Suchowlinski, July 4, 1902), American gangster, died. He and
Charles "Lucky" Luciano were instrumental in the development of the
so-called "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States. He was the
intellectual impetus behind the Commission and the so-called "Mogul of
the Mob." In 2004 Enrique Cirules authored "The Secret Life of Meyer
Lansky in Havana." The book was only available in Cuba in Spanish.
(AP,
5/28/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky)
1983 Jan 17, Alabama Gov George C.
Wallace (1919-1998), became governor for a record 4th time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace)(www.historybuff.com/states/al.html)
1983 Jan 19, The New Catholic code
expanded women's rights in the Church.
(HN, 1/19/99)
1983 Jan 23, Cosmos 1402, a
Russian nuclear powered satellite launched in 1982, fell into the
Indian Ocean.
(www.space.com/news/spacehistory/dangerous_reentries_000602.html)
1983 Jan 24, George Cukor
(b.1899), film director, died. His films included My Fair Lady, A Star
is Born, Born Yesterday, Love Among the Ruins and The Philadelphia
Story.
(AP,
7/7/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cukor)
1983 Jan 25, The Infrared
Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) space probe, sponsored by the United
Kingdom, the US, and the Netherlands, was launched. It studied infrared
radiation from across the cosmos and exposed stars as they were born
from clouds of gas and dust.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)
1983 Jan 25, Klaus Barbie, SS
chief of Lyon in Nazi-France, was arrested in Bolivia.
(www.exilordinaire.org/rubriques/?keyRubrique=klaus_barbie2)
1983 Jan 25, China's supreme court
commuted the death sentence of Jiang Qing, Mao's widow, to life.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1983-1/1983-01-25-ABC-22.html)
1983 Jan 26, Paul Bryant (Bear
Bryant), former Univ. of Alabama football coach, died at age 69. In
1975 he authored his autobiography “Bear.”
(http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Bryant_Bear.html)
1983 Jan, This month’s issue of
Hustler magazine featured "Dirty Pool," that depicted a woman being
gang-raped on a pool table.
(SFC, 1/10/97, p.A27)
1983 Jan, Pres. Reagan signed a
reauthorization of the independent council act, despite strong
misgivings by his Justice Department.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, Z1 p.6)
1983 Feb 3, Cardinal Antonio
Samore (b.1905), Vatican representative and archivist, died. In 1978 he
mediated the Beagle conflict, a border dispute between Argentina and
Chile.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Samor%C3%A9)
1983 Feb 4, Singer-musician Karen
Carpenter (32) died in Downey, Ca.
(AP, 2/4/08)
1983 Feb 5, Former Nazi Gestapo
official Klaus Barbie (1913-1991), expelled from Bolivia, was brought
to trial in Lyon, France. He was convicted and sentenced to life in
prison.
(AP, 2/5/03)(www.izieu.com/new_page_7.htm)
1983 Feb 7, Elizabeth H. Dole was
sworn in as the first female secretary of transportation by Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court.
(AP, 2/7/03)
1983 Feb 7, Iran opened an
invasion in the southeast of Iraq.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1983 Feb 8, Baseball ordered
Mickey Mantle (1931-1995) to sever ties with Claridge Casino.
(www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/February_8)
1983 Feb 8, Champion thoroughbred
Shergar was kidnapped in Ireland and never found. Lloyds of London paid
$10.6 million insurance.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/9/newsid_2538000/2538595.stm)
1983 Feb 9, In a dramatic reversal
from 50 years earlier, the Oxford Union Society at Oxford University
rejected, 416 to 187, a motion "that this House would not fight for
Queen and Country."
(AP, 2/9/00)
1983 Feb 13-1983 Feb 14, The
Americus and Altair fishing boats sank in the Bering Sea and 14
fishermen from Anacortes, Wa., died. In 1998 Patrick Dillon authored
"Lost At Sea," an account of the tragedy.
(WSJ, 11/13/98, p.W12)
1983 Feb 15, Norman Thomas
discovered asteroid 3367 Alex, 3413 Andriana, 3525 Paul & 3580.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroids/3301%E2%80%933400)
1983 Feb 16, In India a bomb
wounded 13 people in the latest election violence in the northeastern
state of Assam. The assassination pushed the death toll from 15 days of
violence to at least 217 people.
(http://tinyurl.com/cer6x)
1983 Feb 17, In California Denise
Denofrio was found strangled to death in a car in Fairfield. Alan Hall
was convicted in the case of voluntary manslaughter in July. In 1997 a
suspected friend of Denofrio lured Hall into having sex and then
severed his penis with a knife and escaped.
(SFC,12/10/97, p.A17,20)
1983 Feb 18-1983 Feb 20, In India
Hindu attacks against Moslems in Assam state left over 1500 dead.
(http://tinyurl.com/cer6x)
1983 Feb 19, A shooting at the Wah
Mee gambling parlor in Seattle, Wa., left 13 men dead. Kwan-Fai Mak and
Benjamin Ng were later found guilty on 13 murder counts and sentenced
to life in prison.
(SFC, 7/6/98, p.A7)(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A8)(AP, 2/19/08)
1983 Feb 22, Harold Washington
(1922-1987) won Chicago's Democratic mayoral primary.
(www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/washingtonelected.html)
1983 Feb 23, Adrian Boult
(b.1889), British conductor, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Boult)
1983 Feb 24, A US congressional
commission, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of
Civilians, released a report condemning the internment of
Japanese-Americans during World War II as a "grave injustice."
(AP, 2/24/98)(SFEC, 8/9/98, p.A10)
1983 Feb 24, Tennessee Williams,
US playwright born as Thomas Lanier Williams (1911), died in NYC. He
left a $10 million estate to support his sister and directed that
anything left go to support aspiring writers at the Univ. of the South
of Sewanee. His plays included “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “The Rose
Tattoo” originally titled "The Eclipse of May 29, 1919." In 1995 Lyle
Leverich (d.1999 at 79) published "Tom: The Unknown Tennessee
Williams," a definitive work on the playwright's formative years. In
2007 editor Margaret Bradham Thornton published “Notebooks: Tennessee
Williams.”
(http://tinyurl.com/s8zm5)(SFC, 12/25/99,
p.B4)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M6)
1983 Feb 25, Tennessee Williams
(71), playwright, was found dead in his NYC hotel suite.
(AP, 2/25/08)
1983 Feb 25, A 10-year-old girl,
Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville in DuPage County, Ill., was raped and
murdered. Rolando Cruz was convicted and served 10 years on death row
before a sheriff's officer recanted on his story and exonerated Cruz.
In 1999 7 prosecutors and sheriff's deputies went on trial on charges
of conspiracy to frame an innocent man. Cruz, a small-time criminal,
started out as an informant in the case. Charges against 2 prosecutors
were dismissed and 4 sheriff's officers and a prosecutor were acquitted
in 1999. In 2005 convicted killer Brian Dugan was indicted by a DuPage
County grand jury, a full decade after an expert concluded DNA evidence
linked him to the crime.
(SFC, 3/9/99, p.A6)(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A5)(SFC, 6/5/99,
p.A7)(AP, 2/25/06)
1983 Feb 26, Michael Jackson's
"Thriller" album went to #1 and stayed #1 for 37 weeks.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1983 Feb 26, Short-wave pirate
Radio USA in Wellsville, NY, began transmission.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1983 Feb 28, The last episode of
M*A*S*H was shown. A record 125 million made MASH the most watched TV
show.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A26)(SFEC, 4/19/98, DB
p.38)(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/2000-2/)
1983 Mar 1, A tornado producing F2
damage touched down in St. Louis, Mo. It later strengthened and
produced F3 damage in Illinois causing five million dollars in damage.
(www.crh.noaa.gov/lsx/trivia/mar_trivia.php)
1983 Mar 1, Arthur Koestler
(b.1905), Hungary-born British writer (Dialogue With Death), died in a
double suicide with his wife in London. His novels included "Darkness
at Noon" (1940). In 1998 David Cesarani authored "Arthur Koestler: The
Homeless Mind." In 2009 Michael Scammell authored “Koestler: The
Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic.”
(SSFC, 1/3/10, Books
p.F3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler)
1983 Mar 2, The USSR launched
spacecraft "TKS-M" to "Salyut-7" space station, which was named
"Cosmos-1443".
(www.videocosmos.com/calendar-march0110.shtm)
1983 Mar 3, Peter Ivers (b.1946),
American musician, was found bludgeoned to death in his Los Angeles
apartment. In 2008 Josh Frank authored “In heaven Everything Is Fine:
The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave
Theater.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ivers)(SFC,
8/29/08, p.E1)
1983 Mar 3, Georges Remi (b.1907),
Belgian author and illustrator, died. In 1929 Remi, under the pseudonym
Herge, created the cartoon character Tintin. Remi is known as the
father of the modern European comic book. In 2006 Tom McCarthy authored
“Tintin and the Secret of Literature.” In 2007 Philippe Goddin authored
“Herge: Lignes de vie,” a biography of Herge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herg%C3%A9)(Econ,
6/24/06, p.98)(Econ, 12/20/08, p.84)
1983 Mar 6, Country Music
Television (CMT) began showing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Music_Television)
1983 Mar 6, "On Your Toes" opened
at Virginia Theater in NYC for 505 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4208)
1983 Mar 6, In a case that drew
much notoriety, a woman in New Bedford, Mass., reported being
gang-raped atop a pool table in a tavern; four men were later convicted.
(AP, 3/6/98)
1983 Mar 6, Helmut Kohl's CDU/CSU
won West German parliament elections.
(www.germanculture.com.ua/march/march6.htm)
1983 Mar 7, TNN (The Nashville
Network) began on Cable TV.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_TV)
1983 Mar 7, Igor Markevitch
(b.1912), Ukraine-born conductor, composer, died in Antibes.
(http://www.naxos.com/composerinfo/665.htm)
1983 Mar 7, In France Claude
Vivier (b.1948), a French-Canadian composer, was found stabbed to
death. A 19-year-old man was convicted of the murder. Vivier left
behind 48 completed scores and part of a 49th. His 1976 "Siddartha" was
a 30 minute orchestral piece written on commission from the CBC
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Vivier).
(SFEC, 1/4/98, DB. p.31)
1983 Mar 8, Pres Reagan called the
USSR an "Evil Empire."
(http://www.ronaldreagan.com/sp_6.html)
1983 Mar 8, IBM released PC DOS
version 2.0.
(http://www.e-articles.info/e/a/title/DOS-Versions/)
1983 Mar 8, William T. Walton
(b.1902), English composer (Belhazzar's feast), died.
(www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Walton-William.htm)
1983 Mar 9, Margaret Heckler was
sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services, the same day Anne
M. Burford resigned as head of the embattled Environmental Protection
Agency.
(AP, 3/9/08)
1983 Mar 10, Dorka Lisker (66) was
stabbed to death at her Sherman Oaks, Ca., home. Her son Bruce, age 17
at the time of the murder, was convicted of her murder in 1985 and was
sentenced to life in prison. Lisker confessed to the murder in prison,
but said he only did so in hopes of getting parole. In 2009 he was
freed on bail after a judge overturned his conviction due to false
evidence and sloppy defense work. Prosecutors decided not to retry him.
(SFC, 8/14/09, p.D4)(SFC, 9/23/09, p.D5)
1983 Mar 13, "Woman of the Year"
closed at Palace Theater NYC after 770 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=4104)
1983 Mar 15, Rebecca West (born in
1892 as Cicily Fairfield), British writer, died. Her books included
"The Return of the Soldier" (1918) and "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon,"
which was written following a trip through Yugoslavia. She had a
relationship with H.G. Wells that led to the birth of a son, Anthony.
In 1996 Carl Rollyson wrote her biography: "Rebecca West: A Life." Her
pen name came from a character in Ibsen’s play "Rosmersholm." In 2000
the "Selected Letters of Rebecca West" was edited by Bonnie Kime Scott.
In 2003 Bernard Schweitzer edited and introduced her work "Survivors in
Mexico."
(WSJ, 3/6/00, p.A28)(SSFC, 6/8/03,
p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_West)
1983 Mar 18, Mexico's financial
crisis was causing a surge of illegal aliens over the border into
Texas.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1983 Mar 21, The US signed the
Strasbourg Treaty with European nations for the exchange of prisoners.
(SFC, 11/9/99,
p.A13)(http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/112.htm)
1983 Mar 23, President Reagan
first proposed development of technology to intercept enemy missiles --
a proposal that came to be known as the Strategic Defense Initiative,
as well as "Star Wars." In 2000 Frances FitzGerald authored "Way Out
There in the Blue," a study of Reagan and his SDI program.
(AP, 3/23/97)(WSJ, 3/23/00, p.A20)
1983 Mar 23, Dr. Barney Clark,
recipient of a permanent artificial heart, died at the University of
Utah Medical Center after 112 days with the device.
(AP, 3/23/97)
1983 Mar 26, US performed a
nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/tests/USA-ntests3.html)
1983 Mar 26, Anthony Blunt
(b.1907), art historian and one of Britain's most notorious Cold War
spies, died in London. In a memoir published in 2009 he admitted that
spying for Russia was "the biggest mistake of my life." He had written
his memoirs, with the stipulation they should not published until a
quarter of a century after his death.
(AFP,
7/23/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt)
1983 Mar 27, Neil Simon's
"Brighton Beach Memoirs," premiered in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4212)
1983 Mar 31, A 5.4 earthquake hit
the region of Popoyan, Colombia. It killed about 250 people and left
some 1,500 injured.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T10)(http://tinyurl.com/2pmrpn)
1983 Mar, Compact Disc recordings,
introduced by Phillips and Sony in Europe in 1982, were introduced to
the US.
(www.iconnect.net/home/bsnpubs/cdhist.html)
1983 Mar, Chaim Herzog was elected
as the 6th president of Israel and served for 10 years.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.E2)
1983 Apr 1, Tens of thousands of
anti-nuke demonstrators linked arms in 14-mile human chain spanning
three defense installations in rural England, including the Greenham
Common US Air Base.
(AP, 4/1/03)
1983 Apr 3, Martin Cooper,
Motorola project manager, demonstrated the 1st mobile phone, the
DynaTAC 8000x. It was designed by Rudy Krolopp.
(SFC, 4/12/00, p.D3)(SFC, 4/3/03, p.B1)(NW, 3/17/03,
p.14)
1983 Apr 4, The space shuttle
Challenger roared into orbit on its maiden voyage and the first US
female into space was Sally Ride..
(TMC, 1994, p.1983)(AP, 4/4/97)
1983 Apr 5, France threw out 47
Soviet diplomats accusing them of espionage..
(http://tinyurl.com/2n2m92)
1983 Apr 6, Saying rock 'n' roll
bands attracted "the wrong element," Interior Secretary James Watt
declined to invite the Beach Boys to perform at a Washington Fourth of
July celebration -- a stand he later reversed.
(AP, 4/6/98)
1983 Apr 6, Melida Anaya Montes
("Comandante Ana Maria"), Salvadoran FMLN guerrilla leader, was killed
in Nicaragua, where many Salvadoran guerrillas took refuge under its
leftist government. In 2007 her body was exhumed and buried in her
homeland.
(AP,
6/14/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Mar%C3%ADa)
1983 Apr 7, Specialist Story
Musgrave and Don Peterson took the first US space walk in almost a
decade as they worked in the open cargo bay of Challenger for nearly
four hours.
(HN, 4/7/97)(AP, 4/7/03)
1983 Apr 9, The space shuttle
Challenger ended its first mission with a safe landing at Edwards Air
Force Base in California.
(AP, 4/9/97)
1983 Apr 10, King Hussein of
Jordan, officially renounced pursuing any negotiations to implement the
Reagan Plan, and ceased negotiations with PLO.
(http://tinyurl.com/2q6ska)
1983 Apr 11, In the 3rd Golden
Raspberry Awards: Inchon! won.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Golden_Raspberry_Awards)
1983 Apr 11, In the 55th Academy
Awards "Gandhi," Ben Kingsley and Meryl Streep won.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55th_Academy_Awards)
1983 Apr 12, Chicagoans went to
the polls to elect Harold Washington the city's first black mayor.
(AP, 4/12/97)(HN, 4/12/98)
1983 Apr 15, The costliest theft
in Israel's history saw 106 timepieces worth millions of dollars
disappear from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art. Among them was a
pocket watch made for French queen Marie Antoinette that museum
officials valued at more than $30 million. In 2008 detectives blamed
Naaman Diller, a notorious Israeli thief, who fled to Europe and died
in the United States in 2004. Diller apparently confessed the crime to
his wife on his deathbed. When Israeli police and American law
enforcement officials arrived at Diller's wife's Los Angeles home to
question her, they found some more of the stolen clocks. Others were
later found in hidden locations in Israel and around the world. They
were put up for display again in 2009.
(AP, 11/4/08)(AP, 7/20/09)
1983 Apr 15, Tokyo Disneyland
opened.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Disneyland)
1983 Apr 17, Mark W. Clark
(b.1896), US general (WW II), died.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024212/Mark-Clark)
1983 Apr 17, In Warsaw, police
routed 1,000 Solidarity supporters.
(HN, 4/17/98)
1983 Apr 18, Alice Walker (b.1944)
won a Pulitzer Prize for "The Color Purple."
(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.M1)
1983 Apr 18, At the US Embassy in
Beirut, Lebanon, 63 people, including 17 Americans, were killed by a
suicide bomber. In 1996 sixteen Islamic militants were ordered to stand
trial by a military court in Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah
was suspected of involvement.
(WSJ, 3/26/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 9/19/01, p.A14)(WSJ,
8/3/06, p.A4)(AP, 4/18/08)
1983 Apr 20, Pres. Reagan signed a
$165B bail out for Social Security.
(www.ssa.gov/history/reports/crsleghist3.html)
1983 Apr 21, Walter Slezak
(b.1902), Austrian-born actor (Bedtime For Bonzo), committed suicide in
NY.
(http://www.nndb.com/people/718/000042592/)
1983 Apr 22, Earl Hines (b.1903),
jazz pianist and bandleader, died in Oakland, Ca. He was one of jazz’s
greatest pianist and was universally known as Earl “Fatha” Hines.
(SFC, 2/13/08,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Hines)
1983 Apr 22, In Germany the bogus
“Hitler Diaries” was published by Stern Magazine. Stern magazine
announced the discovery of a 60 volume personal diary written by Adolph
Hitler. It turned out to be a hoax.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A19)(AP, 4/22/07)
1983 Apr 23, Buster Crabbe
(b.1908), 400m US swimmer (Olympics-gold-1932), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Crabbe)
1983 Apr 25, "Nightline" expanded
from a 1/2 hour to a full hour. The new format proved to be
unsuccessful, and after a few months, the old program was restored.
(SS, 4/25/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightline)
1983 Apr 25, Soviet leader Yuri V.
Andropov invited Samantha Smith to visit his country after receiving a
letter in which the Manchester, Maine, schoolgirl expressed fears about
nuclear war.
(AP, 4/25/97)
1983 Apr 25, The Pioneer 10
spacecraft crossed Pluto's orbit, speeding on its endless voyage
through the Milky Way.
(AP, 4/25/97)
1983 Apr 26, The Dow Jones moved
past 1200 for the first time.
(http://library.villanova.edu/blueprints/2000/indexapr00.html)
1983 Apr 27, Nolan Ryan became the
strikeout king (3,509), passing Walter Johnson.
(www.astrosdaily.com/history/sound/f.html)
1983 Apr 27, SF Mayor Diane
Feinstein overwhelmingly defeated a recall attempt.
(SSFC, 4/27/08, DB p.58)
1983 Apr 27, In San Diego, Ca.,
Philip Buell, age 33 months, died from injuries of a fall while under
the care of Ken Marsh. In 1984 Marsh was convicted of murder. He was
freed in 2004, after spending 21 years in prison, before it was proven
that he had been wrongfully convicted. In 2005 state prosecutors ruled
that he should be compensated $756,000 for the time spent in prison.
(SFC, 12/10/05,
p.B2)(http://freekenmarsh.com/declarations.html)
1983 Apr 28, The nuclear powered
aircraft carrier Enterprise ran aground in SF Bay and was stick for
over 5 hours yards from her berth at the Alameda Naval air Station.
(SSFC, 4/27/08, DB p.58)
1983 Apr 28, Argentine government
declared all 15-30,000 "missing persons" dead from "Dirty War."
(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB85/)
1983 Apr 29, Harold Washington was
sworn in as the first black mayor of Chicago.
(AP, 4/29/98)(HN, 4/29/98)
1983 Apr 30, McKinley Morganfield
(68), better known as Muddy Waters, died at his suburban home in
Westmont, Illinois. The US blues singer and guitarist (Mad Love) was
known as the King of the Blues. The Mississippi-born guitarist
revolutionized the genre in Chicago in the 1940s and 50s with his
electric blues.
(www.muddywaters.com/bio.html)
1983 Apr, This month’s issue of
Nature had an article by John Baross and his colleagues on bacterial
biota in the superheated waters of smokers, conical mounds on the ocean
floor that spout water at 650 degrees.
(Nat. Hist. 3/96, p.23)
1983 Apr, The first Black College
Spring Break festival was held in Atlanta.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A17)
1983 May 1, "My One & Only"
opened at St James Theater in NYC for 767 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=4221)
1983 May 1, Charles McCabe (68),
SF Chronicle columnist, was found dead at his home at 22 Alta St.
(SSFC, 4/27/08, DB p.58)
1983 May 2, A 6.4 earthquake
injured 94 people in Coalinga, Ca., and caused an estimated $10 million
in damages.
(http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1983_05_02.php)
1983 May 10, The last episode of
the TV sitcom "Laverne & Shirley", subtitled “Hear Today Hair
Tomorrow,” aired on ABC-TV.
(www.nndb.com/tv/614/000049467/)
1983 May 10, Dominica PM Dame
Eugenia Charles chose to support Taiwan out of political conviction
(www.thedominican.net/articles/newsdesk6.htm).
(Econ, 4/10/04, p.29)
1983 May 14, Fyodor Abramov
(b.1920), Russian playwright, died in Leningrad. His plays included
“Brothers and Sisters.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Abramov)(Econ,
10/21/06, p.96)
1983 May 14, In Warsaw, Poland,
Grzegorz Przemyk (19), student and son of Solidarity Grzegorz activist
Barbara Sadowska, died from internal injurious while in police
custody.
(http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/47-5-143.shtml)
1983 May 15, The Madison Hotel in
Boston, Mass., was destroyed by implosion.
(http://tinyurl.com/2j8cul)
1983 May 18, The US Senate passed
the Simpson-Mazzoli bill for immigration reform. It offered millions of
illegal aliens legal status under an amnesty program.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bs7j6)
1983 May 21, Eric Hoffer (b.1902),
longshoreman-philosopher, died in SF. His writings included "The True
Believer" (1951), a critical view of mass movements, "The Passionate
State of Mind," "The Ordeal of Change," and "The Temper of the Time."
(SFC, 1/22/00,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer)
1983 May 23, Radio Moscow
announcer Vladimir Danchev (35) praised Afghanistan Muslims standing up
to Russia. He was removed from the air. Soviet sources said that
Vladimir Danchev, the Radio Moscow news announcer who twice in six days
described Soviet troops in Afghanistan as an occupying force, had been
dismissed and was under investigation.
(http://tinyurl.com/3dv7cx)
1983 May 24, The US Supreme Court
ruled, in Bob Jones University v. United States, that the government
can deny tax breaks to schools that racially discriminate against
students. This upheld a 1970 ruling.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/461/574/)
1983 May 24, Fred Sinowatz
(1929-2008) became Austrian Chancellor and continued for 3 years.
(AP,
8/12/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Sinowatz)
1983 May 25, "Return of the Jedi"
(Star Wars 3) was released.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0086190/)
1983 May 25, The 1st National
Missing Children's Day was observed under a proclamation by Pres.
Reagan. This marked the May 25, 1979, date when Etan Patz (6)
disappeared while walking to the bus stop on his way to school in
Manhattan.
(www.vdem.state.va.us/newsroom/missingchildrensday2007.cfm)
1983 May 25, France performed a
nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific.
(http://tinyurl.com/33meyn)
1983 May 25, Sydney Box (b.1907),
British academy award producer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Box)
1983 May 26, A 7.8 earthquake
struck off the shore of Hokkaido, Japan, and a major tsunami followed.
Some 100 fatalities were due to the tsunami.
(http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119551140/abstract)
1983 May 28, In Peru 15 peasants
were murdered by soldiers near the village of Totos. A witness pointed
out their graves in 2004.
(AP, 5/29/04)
1983 May 31, Jack Dempsey
(b.1895), former US heavyweight boxing champ (1919-1926), died. Dempsey
wrote a book on boxing, “Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching and
Aggressive Defence” (1950). In 1999 Roger Kahn authored "A Flame of
Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring Twenties."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Dempsey)(WUD,
1994, p.385)
1983 May, In Montgomery, Ala., the
mysterious Jack Smith invited a number of Blacks and Whites to have
supper together at the Piccadilly Cafeteria. 35 people convened and the
Friendly Supper Club thus was born and continued to convene.
(WSJ, 12/17/98, p.A1,10)
1983 May, A 40 million year-old
whale fossil of this age was found along the Savannah River in Georgia
during the building of the Plant Vogtle nuclear power facility.
(SFC, 10/2/98, p.A10)
1983 May, The comet
IRAS-Araki-Alcock came within 3 million miles of Earth.
(NG, 12/97, p.106)
1983 May, Chile’s Gen'l. Pinochet
reacted to protests with strong repression.
(SFC, 12/11/06, p.A4)
1983 Jun 2, Kevin Cooper escaped
from the state prison in Chino, Ca., where he was serving time for
burglary.
(SFEC, 7/23/00, p.B3)
1983 Jun 2, A toilet caught fire
on Air Canada's DC-9 and 23 died at Cincinnati.
(www.ntsb.gov/Speeches/former/hall/jh980602.htm)
1983 Jun 3, Gordon Kahl (b.1920),
a militant tax protester wanted in the slayings of two US marshals in
North Dakota, was killed in a gun battle with law enforcement officials
near Smithville, Ark. Kahl was a former member of the anti-tax Posse
Comitatus movement founded in 1969 by Henry L Beach.
(AP,
6/3/97)(http://law.jrank.org/pages/9290/Posse-Comitatus.html)
1983 Jun 4, In Chino Hills, Ca.,
Douglas and Peggy Ryen and their 10-year old daughter, Jessica, were
killed in the master bedroom of their home. Christopher Hughes (11), a
neighbor, was also killed. Joshua Ryen (8) survived despite serious
wounds. Kevin Cooper, who escaped from Chino prison on June 2, was
arrested 47 days later and was convicted for the murders in 1985 and
faced execution. Cooper claimed he was innocent and called for DNA
testing of the evidence in 2000. In 2003 an execution date of Feb 10,
2004, was set for Cooper. Cooper won a last minute reprieve on Feb 9
pending a re-examination of the case. In 2005 a federal judge upheld
his death penalty.
(SFC, 12/18/03, p.A21)(SFC, 2/11/04,
p.A4)(www.savekevincooper.org/background.html)
1983 Jun 5, In the 37th Tony
Awards: “Torch Song Trilogy” won for best play and “Cats” won for best
musical.
(http://tinyurl.com/2wetwl)
1983 Jun 6, James Casey (b.1988),
co-founder of United Parcel Service (UPS), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Casey)
1983 Jun 6, First Session of Sixth
National People's Congress opened. The Congress elected Li Xiannian as
President and Deng Xiaoping as supreme commander of China.
(http://chineseculture.about.com/library//china/history/blsyear1983.htm)
1983 Jun 7, A. Gilmore & P.
Kilmartin discovered asteroid #3152.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroids_(3001-4000))
1983 Jun 9, M. Thatcher's
Conservative Party won the British parliamentary election.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1983)
1983 Jun 12, Norma Shearer (80),
Canadian-born Hollywood film actress, died.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, Par p.2)
1983 Jun 13, The US space probe
Pioneer 10, launched in 1972, became the first spacecraft to leave the
solar system as it crossed the orbit of Neptune.
(AP, 6/13/97)(HN, 6/13/98)
1983 Jun 15, The US Supreme Court
struck down state & local restrictions on abortion.
(www.rtl.org/html/hot_topics_html/supreme_court_decisions.html)
1983 Jul 15, In France a bomb
explodes in front of the THY counter at Orly airport. 8 people were
killed and more than sixty injured. A 29 years old Syrian-Armenian
named Varadjian Garbidjian confessed to having planted the bomb. He
admitted that the bomb was intended to have exploded once the plane was
airborne.
(http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/12/1273-this-month-in-history-armenian.html)
1983 Jun 16, Pope John Paul II
visited Poland.
(www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/travels/sub_index1983/trav_polonia_en.htm)
1983 Jun 16, Yuri Andropov
(1914-1984, USSR party leader, was elected president.
(www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9272865)
1983 Jun 17, The US Air Force
successfully conducted the first test flight of the Peacekeeper ICBM
from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
(www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/icbm/lgm-118.htm)
1983 Jun 18, Astronaut Sally K.
Ride became America's first woman in space as she and four colleagues
blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)
1983 Jun 18, IRA's Joseph Doherty
was arrested in NYC for illegally entering the US. The British sought
his extradition on charges relating to the death of a member of a
British commando unit.
(http://ftp.fas.org/irp/congress/1990_cr/h900803-terror.htm)
1983 Jun 20, The crew of the space
shuttle Challenger, including America's first woman in space, Sally K.
Ride, launched the Indonesian-owned Palapa B communications satellite
into orbit.
(http://tinyurl.com/2uu2fj)
1983 Jun 22, Emanuela Orlandi
(b.1968), the daughter of a Vatican messenger, disappeared after a
music lesson in Rome. She was 15 at the time. Her self-proclaimed
kidnappers demanded the release of Ali Agca, who wounded the Pope in
1981, for her freedom. They never offered any proof they had the girl
or that she was alive.
(AP,
1/10/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuela_Orlandi)
1983 Jun 24, The US Supreme Court
ruled that Congress cannot veto presidential decisions.
(http://tinyurl.com/3db2gl)
1983 Jun 24, The space shuttle
"Challenger," carrying America's first woman in space, Sally K. Ride,
coasted to a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
(AP,
6/24/03)(http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-7/mission-sts-7.html)
1983 Jun 26, "Evita" closed at
Broadway Theater in NYC after 1568 performances.
(www.glopad.org/pi/de/record/production/1001072)
1983 Jun 27, Maxie Anderson and
Don Ida died in West Germany during a balloon race.
(http://tinyurl.com/2r37bg)
1983 Jun 27, The Russian Soyuz T-9
spacecraft launched from Baikonur carrying 2 cosmonauts to the Salyut 7
space station.
(http://space.kursknet.ru/cosmos/english/machines/st9.sht)
1983 Jun 28, A 100-foot span of
the Mianus River Bridge, part of Interstate 95 in Connecticut,
collapsed without warning in the middle of the night, leaving 3 dead
and three injured.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mianus_River_Bridge)
1983 Jun, James Carney (53) of St.
Louis, Jesuit priest-turned-guerrilla, traveled to Nicaragua, where he
joined leftist guerrillas. He was captured by soldiers in September as
he led a column of 100 rebels across the border into Honduras. He was
never heard from again. Suspected remains found in early 2003 proved
false.
(AP, 1/29/03)(http://tinyurl.com/3ad6ek)
1983 Jul 1, Buckminster Fuller
(87), visionary and inventor, died in LA. He dubbed our planet
"Spaceship Earth." He was the creator of the geodesic dome and the
dymaxion motor car. He founded the World Game Institute to help solve
global problems through deployment of military resources.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.D-3)(SFC, 4/15/96, D-1)(NH, 7/96,
p.10)
1983 Jul 5, Harry James (b.1916),
American band leader and trumpet player, died, He is best remembered
for his hit "You Made Me Love You." In 1999 Peter J. Levinson authored
“Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_James)(SFC,
11/18/08, p.B4)
1983 Jul 7, Samantha Smith (11) of
Manchester, Maine, left for a visit to the Soviet Union at the personal
invitation of Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1983 Jul 13, Chrysler under Lee
Iacocca paid off the last of its guaranteed loans totaling $1.2
billion, 7 years ahead of schedule.
(http://tinyurl.com/aabvq)
1983 Jul 14, In Texas Clarencio
Champion (59), a party store operator in Mercedes, was stabbed during a
robbery and died a week later. In 1998 David Castillo (34) was executed
for the murder though he insisted on his innocence.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A3)
1983 Jul 15, In France a bomb
explodes in front of the THY counter at Orly airport. 8 people were
killed and more than sixty injured. A 29 years old Syrian-Armenian
named Varadjian Garbidjian confessed to having planted the bomb. He
admitted that the bomb was intended to have exploded once the plane was
airborne.
(http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/12/1273-this-month-in-history-armenian.html)
1983 Jul 19, In Honduras Reyes
Mata, a Cuban-trained doctor and guerrilla leader, led a unit of 96
Nicaraguan-trained rebels and Rev. James F. Carney into the Olancho.
They were routed by the Honduran army. American CIA records, disclosed
in 1998, reported that Mata was tortured and executed by the Honduran
army.
(SFC, 11/5/98,
p.C4)(www.fas.org/sgp/congress/hr051198/valladares.html)
1983 Jul 20, The US House censured
Reps. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts and Daniel B. Crane of Illinois for
having sexual relations with pages. Studds, a liberal Democrat who
acknowledged having sex with a 17-year-old male page in 1973 and making
sexual advances to two others, admitted an error in judgment but did
not apologize. The first openly gay member of Congress went on to win
re-election until his retirement in the mid-1990s. Crane admitted
having sex several times with a 17-year-old female page in 1980. He
apologized to the House in a quavering voice "for the shame I have
brought down on this institution." The conservative Republican was
defeated a year later.
(AP,
9/30/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Congressional_page_sex_scandal)
1983 Jul 21, The coldest
temperature ever measured on Earth was -129 Fahrenheit (-89 Celsius) at
Vostok, Antarctica.
(AP, 7/23/03)
1983 Jul 22, Samantha Smith (11)
and her parents returned home to Manchester, Maine, after completing a
whirlwind tour of the Soviet Union.
(AP, 7/22/03)
1983 Jul 22, Washington Public
Power Supply System defaulted $2.25 billion.
(www.efsec.wa.gov/nuclearproj.shtml)
1983 Jul 22, Polish government
ended 19 months of martial law. Some 100 government opponents lost
their lives in the 1½ year crackdown.
(SFC,11/22/97,
p.C2)(www.videofact.com/english/martial_law.htm)
1983 Jul 23, A regional struggle
for independence by Tamil Tigers in the north escalated into a civil
war when they killed 13 Sri Lankan Sinhalese soldiers. The nation's
Sinhalese majority responded by killing thousands of Tamil civilians in
the south. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam were formed and led by
Vellupillai Prabhakaran. They were initially a group of 26 fighters.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)(SFE, 9/16/96, p.A9)(AP,
7/23/97)(SFC, 8/8/98, p.B1)
1983 Jul 24, In Sri Lanka
island-wide anti-Tamil riots broke out in retaliation for the deaths of
soldiers the day before and some 400 people died. This marked the
beginning of the civil war.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)(WSJ, 6/29/95, p.A-1)
1983 Jul 25, The first nonhuman
primate, a baboon, was conceived in a lab dish in San Antonio, Tx.
(http://tinyurl.com/34c8hm)
1983 Jul 29, David Niven (b.1910),
actor, died in Switzerland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Niven)
1983 Jul 30, Lynn Fontanne
(b.1887), British-born stage and screen actress (Emmy 1965), died in
Wisconsin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Fontanne)
1983 Jul, The Tuna Task Force
(TTF) issued a draft plan of management. It contained 14
recommendations, the most important of which include the use of
catch-quotas, minimum limits on fish-size, limited-entry and further
limits on purse-seine operations. It was proposed that the plan should
come into effect at the beginning of the 1983-84 fishing season (on 1
October 1993). Because of difficulties in reaching agreement on all
aspects, this target was not achieved. Australia, New Zealand and
Iceland pioneered Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) for commercial
fisheries.
(http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2684E/y2684e20.htm)(Econ, 9/20/08, p.97)
1983 Jul, In Turkey the Welfare
Party was founded by close aides of Necmettin Erbakan while he remained
banned from politics. In April 1997 a coalition government led by
Erbakan fell apart under pressure by the military and the party was
banned in January 1998 by the Constitutional Court. Leaders of Refah
immediately created a new party : "Fazilet," the Virtue Party.
(AP,
11/4/02)(www.medea.be/index.html?page=2&lang=en&doc=285)
1983 Aug 3, Carolyn Jones
(b.1930), actress, died. She is best remembered for playing the role of
Morticia Addams in the classic TV Series The Addams Family.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Jones)
1983 Aug 4, In Burkina Faso Blaise
Compaore played a key role in a coup that brought Thomas Sankara
(1949-1987) to power.
(Econ, 3/21/09,
p.49)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara)
1983 Aug 7, Some 675,000 employees
struck ATT Corp.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1983-8/1983-08-07-CBS-4.html)
1983 Aug 7, Cynthia Munoz (17) of
Campbell, Ca., was found raped and murdered with stab wounds. In 2007
prosecutors with DNA evidence charged Christopher Melvin Holland (52)
with the murder and sought his arrest. Holland was arrested in San
Jose, Ca., on Oct 18, 2007.
(http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&id=5710333)(SFC,
10/19/07, p.B5)
1983 Aug 8, In Guatemala Gen’l.
Efrain Rios Montt (b.1926) was overthrown and the military government
of Gen. Humberto Mejia Victores took power.
(SFC, 7/5/96,
p.A13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efra%C3%ADn_R%C3%ADos_Montt)
1983 Aug 12, General Manuel A.
Noriega (b.1938) assumed command of Panama’s National Guard.
(www.cidh.oas.org/countryrep/Panama89eng/intro.htm)
1983 Aug 17, Ira Gershwin
(b.1896), lyricist, died in Beverly Hills, Ca. Later a room at the
Library of Congress’ Jefferson Building was dedicated to him and his
brother George.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Gershwin)(SFC,
12/4/96, p.E3)(SFC, 4/14/98, p.E5)
1983 Aug 18, Hurricane Alicia
slammed into the Texas coast, leaving 21 dead and causing more than $1
billion damage.
(AP, 8/18/08)
1983 Aug 18, Samantha Druce earned
a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest person to swim
the English Channel. She completed the crossing in 15 hours 26 minutes
at the age of 12 years 118 days.
(http://tinyurl.com/6kgow4)
1983 Aug 21, The musical play "La
Cage Aux Folles" opened on Broadway.
(WSJ, 8/12/98, p.A13)(AP, 8/21/98)
1983 Aug 21, Philippine opposition
leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., ending a self-imposed exile in the United
States, was shot dead moments after stepping off a plane at Manila
International Airport. Fabian Ver (d.1998 at 78), leader of the
Philippine army, was among 20 men later charged in the murder of
Aquino. Ver fled to Hawaii in 1986 along with Marcos.
(AP, 8/21/97)
1983 Aug 25, The US and USSR
signed a $10 billion grain pact.
(http://tinyurl.com/2twapx)
1983 Aug 25, The French cultural
center in West Berlin was bombed. One person was killed and 23 injured.
The attack was attributed to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez
Sanchez.
(SFC,12/11/97,
p.C2)(http://lists.jammed.com/IWAR/1997/12/0117.html)
1983 Aug 28, Israel’s PM Begin,
reportedly despondent over the death of his wife and the rising
casualty toll of Israeli troops in Lebanon, announced his intention to
resign as fighting continued in Lebanon with no apparent end in sight.
(www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284684,00.html)(AP, 8/28/08)
1983 Aug 29, William Goyen
(b.1915), Texas-born novelist and playwright, died in Los Angeles. His
1st novel was “House of Breath” (1950).
(www.tsha.utexas.edu)(www.inthe80s.com/deaths/died1983.shtml)
1983 Aug 30, Lieutenant Colonel
Guion S. Bluford Jr. became the first black American astronaut to
travel in space, blasting off aboard the Challenger.
(AP, 8/30/97)(HN, 8/30/98)
1983 Sep 1, The KAL flight 007 was
downed by a Soviet jet fighter after the airliner entered Soviet
airspace. 269 people were killed aboard the Korean Air Lines Boeing 747
including sixty-one Americans, among them Georgia Representative Larry
McDonald. The order was given by Soviet Gen’l. Anatoly Kornukov who
held that the plane was part of a hostile US operation. In 2005 the
History Channel featured a TV documentary on the tragedy.
(SFC, 5/29/96, A3)(AP, 9/1/97)(WSJ, 1/23/98,
p.A1)(TV, 12/22/05)
1983 Sep 1, Henry "Scoop" Jackson
(b.1912), Sen-D-Wash., died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_M._Jackson)
1983 Sep 2, Yitzhak Shamir (68),
the Foreign Minister of Israel, was elected to succeed PM Menachem
Begin as leader of the governing Herut Party.
(http://tinyurl.com/36jznt)
1983 Sep 6, The USSR admitted to
shooting down KAL 007 on Sep 1.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_007)
1983 Sep 10, John Vorster, prime
minister of white-ruled South Africa from 1966 to 1978, died in Cape
Town at age 67.
(AP, 9/10/99)
1983 Sep 12, Filiberto Ojeda Rios
(d.2005), a Puerto Rican nationalist leader, was involved in the
robbery of a Connecticut armored truck. It was considered an act of
domestic terrorism because the money was used to fund activities by the
Puerto Rican nationalist Macheteros, or Cane Cutters. Only about
$80,000 of the $7 million was recovered. In 2005 Rios was shot and
killed by FBI agents in Puerto Rico
(www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=24432). In 2008 Avelino Gonzalez
Claudio (65), a Puerto Rican militant suspected in the Connecticut
robbery, was arrested in Puerto Rico, where he lived quietly under an
assumed name.
(http://tinyurl.com/2rju8s)(AP, 9/25/05)(AP, 2/8/08)
1983 Sep 12, The USSR vetoed a UN
resolution deploring its shooting down of South Korea’s KAL flight 007
plane.
(www.globalpolicy.org/security/membship/veto/vetosubj.htm)
1983 Sep 15, New York City Cops
beat to death Michael Stewart for graffiting the subway.
(http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/jwb/Collab/CivRts/StewartRslt.htm)
1983 Sep 15, Israel’s premier
Begin (d.1992) resigned.
(www.cnn.com/almanac/9809/15/)
1983 Sep 17, Vanessa Williams of
New York became the first black contestant to be crowned "Miss
America." The following July, she also became the first Miss America to
resign in the wake of her Penthouse magazine scandal.
(AP, 9/17/98)
1983 Sep 19, Chuck Woolery
(b.1941) began hosting the syndicated TV game show “Love Connection.”
He continued to 1995. The show was produced by Eric Lieber (1937-2008)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Woolery)(SSFC,
7/6/08, p.B6)
1983 Sep 19, St. Kitts and Nevis
became a single nation, but Nevis retained the right to secede. St
Kitts and Nevis declared independence from the UK.
(SFC,10/15/97,
p.C4)(www.worldstatesmen.org/Saint_Kitts_and_Nevis.html)
1983 Sep 21, In a speech to the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Interior Secretary James G. Watt jokingly
described a special advisory panel as consisting of "a black ... a
woman, two Jews and a cripple." Although Watt later apologized, he
ended up resigning.
(AP, 9/21/98)
1983 Sep 21, In the Philippines at
least 7 people were killed in anti Marcos demonstrations in Manila.
(http://tinyurl.com/3xjunn)
1983 Sep 23, The so-called Law of
National Pacification was issued two weeks before the election that
brought President Alfonsín to power. Argentina’s military regime
gave a blanket amnesty to military and political killers and torturers.
(www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/83.84.eng/chap.4.htm)
1983 Sep 25, In the 35th Emmy
Awards the winners included Hill St Blues, Cheers, Ed Flanders and
Shelley Long.
(http://tinyurl.com/2wxcpr)
1983 Sep 25, Leslie Michelle
English (2) was raped and murdered in Griffin, Georgia. Her uncle,
Eddie Albert Crawford was convicted of the murder and sentenced to
death. After 20 years on death row Crawford was executed July 19, 2004.
(SFC, 7/19/04, p.A4)
1983 Sep 25, In Northern Ireland
Jimmy Smythe escaped from the Maze prison near Belfast along with 37
other prisoners. He made his way to San Francisco where he was arrested
and released on bail in 1992. Kevin Barry Artt, Terence Kirby, and Pol
Brennan also escaped and made their way to California. The were
arrested in the 1990s and held in a federal prison in Pleasanton, CA.
(http://larkspirit.com/ipow/hb4/kbabio.html).
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A20)(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A8)
1983 Sep 26, The Soviet Union's
early warning system wrongly signaled the launch of a US Minuteman
intercontinental ballistic missile. Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, in
charge of the system, decided the alarm was false and did not launch a
retaliatory strike. Because of military secrecy and international
policy, Petrov's actions were kept secret until 1998. In 2004 the
San-Francisco-based Association of World Citizens presented Petrov a
World Citizen Award.
(AP,
5/22/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)
1983 Sep 26, Cosmonauts Titov and
Strekalov were saved by their escape system when the rocket that was to
carry their Soyuz T-10-1 mission into space caught fire on the
launchpad.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_disaster)
1983 Sep 30, The first AH-64
Apache attack helicopter was rolled out by McDonnell Douglas Helicopter
Co.
(SFC, 6/18/99, p.D7)
1983 Sep, Forbes Magazine listed
Gordon Getty as the richest man in America with a net worth of $2.2
billion.
(Forbes, 9/83)
1983 Oct 4, Richard Noble set a
land speed record on the Nevada Black Rock Desert of 633.47 mph.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A7)
1983 Oct 5, The TV show “Whiz
Kids” was produced by Philip DeGuere Jr. and ran for one season.
(SFC, 2/1/05,
p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiz_Kids_(TV_series))
1983 Oct 5, Lech Walesa, Polish
Solidarity founder, was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A13)(AP, 10/5/08)
1983 Oct 5, Earl Tupper (b.1907),
a Massachusetts tree surgeon, inventor and founder of Tupperware
[see 1938], died in Costa Rica. In 2008 Bob Kealing authored
“Tupperware: Brownie Wise, Earl Tupper, and the Home Party Pioneers.”
(WSJ, 2/18/04,
p.A9)(www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/tupper.htm)(WSJ, 7/30/08,
p.A13)
1983 Oct 6, Cardinal Terence Cooke
(62), the spiritual head of the Archdiocese of New York, died.
(AP, 10/6/08)
1983 Oct 8, Joan Hackett (b.1942),
American film actress, died. Her films included “Only When I Laugh”
(1981).
(SFC, 6/1/01,
p.C11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Hackett)
1983 Oct 9, The president of South
Korea, Chun Doo Hwan, with his cabinet and other top officials were
scheduled to lay a wreath on a monument in Rangoon, Burma, when a bomb
exploded. Hwan had not yet arrived so escaped injury, but 17 Koreans,
including the deputy prime minister and two other cabinet members, and
two Burmese were killed. North Korea was blamed.
(HN, 10/9/98)
1983 Oct 10, Israel's 20th
government was formed by Yitzhak Shamir.
(www.knesset.gov.il/govt/eng/GovtByNumber_eng.asp?govt=20)
1983 Oct 11, The last hand cranked
telephones in the US went out of service as 440 telephone customers in
Bryant Pond, Maine, were switched over to direct dial.
(www.privateline.com/TelephoneHistory5/History5.htm)
1983 Oct 13, The Space Shuttle
Challenger, carrying seven, the largest crew to date, landed safely at
Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
(HN, 10/13/98)
1983 Oct 14, Cecil Parkinson,
British Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, resigned following a
highly publicized extra-marital affair.
(Econ, 10/22/05, p.62)(http://tinyurl.com/bfvue)
1983 Oct 15, One US marine was
killed and another wounded when Marine positions at Beirut
International Airport came under sniper fire from neighboring Shiite
Moslem quarters.
(http://tinyurl.com/2oux37)
1983 Oct 16, George Liberace
(b.1911), American violinist, died. He was the older brother of
Liberace (1919-1987), the famed pianist.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Liberace)
1983 Oct 16, Kelso, Horse of the
Year for 5 years straight (1960-1964), died and was buried in Maryland.
In 2007 Linda Kennedy authored “Kelso: The Horse of Gold.”
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.P8)
1983 Oct 19, The US Senate
established the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday as the 3rd
Monday in January each year. Dr. King was born on January 15, 1929.
(www.infoplease.com/spot/mlkhistory1.html)
1983 Oct 19, In Grenada an
extremist Marxist faction executed PM Maurice Bishop and 4 Cabinet
ministers. 17 men were later convicted of the killings during the coup
that prompted a US invasion. Their death sentences were later commuted
to life in prison. In 2005 they were allowed to appeal to the
London-based Privy Council. In 2009 Bernard Coard and the six others —
Dave Bartholomew, Callistus Bernard, Leon Cornwall, Liam James, Ewart
Layne and Selwyn Strachan — were released. Ten others convicted in the
killings, including Coard's wife, were previously released. The bodies
of Bishop and 10 men killed with him had not been found.
(SFC, 7/25/98, p.A10)(Econ, 10/18/03, p.38)(AP,
6/29/05)(AP, 6/28/06)(AP, 9/5/09)
1983 Oct 21, US Pres. Ronald
Reagan sent a ten-ship task force to Grenada.
(HN, 10/21/98)
1983 Oct 22, In Marion, Ill., 2
handcuffed inmates at the federal prison killed 2 guards in separate
incidents. This led to permanent lockdown at Marion, the beginning of
the ADX prison, administrative maximum.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A3,4)
1983 Oct 23, A truck filled with
explosives, driven by a Moslem suicide terrorist, crashed into the U.S.
Marine barracks near the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon. The
bomb killed 241 Marines and sailors and injured 80. Almost
simultaneously, a similar incident occurred at French military
headquarters, where 58 died and 15 were injured. Hezbollah leader Imad
Mughniyah was suspected of involvement.
(WSJ, 8/1/96/p.B1)(AP, 10/23/97)(HN, 10/23/98)(WSJ,
9/19/01, p.A14)
1983 Oct 23, Jessica Savitch (36),
news anchor (NBC-TV), died in an automobile accident with Martin
Fischbein in New Hope, Pa.
(www.accuracyproject.org/cbe-Savitch,Jessica.html)
1983 Oct 25, Dominica PM Dame
Eugenia Charles stood next to US Pres. Ronald Reagan at the White House
as he announced the US invasion of Grenada.
(SFC, 1/8/04, p.A19)(SFC, 9/8/05, p.B7)
1983 Oct 25, Some 1,800 US Marines
and Rangers, assisted by 300 soldiers from six Caribbean nations,
invaded Grenada at the order of President Reagan, who said the action
was needed to protect US citizens there. Protection for the American
students at St. George’s Medical School was a pretext for the invasion.
45 Grenadians were killed along with 29 Cubans and 19 Americans. This
day later became celebrated as Grenada’s Thanksgiving Day.
(AP, 10/25/97)(SFC, 7/25/98, p.A10)(SFC,
8/3/98, p.A8)(HN, 10/25/98)(SFC, 3/12/07, p.B4)
1983 Oct 28, US forces led by Vice
Adm. Joseph Metcalf III took control of Grenada 3 days after invading
the island. Deputy PM Bernard Coard, leader of the rebellion, was
captured. The fighting left 19 Americans dead along with 45 Grenadans.
(SFC, 3/12/07, p.B4)
1983 Oct 30, Argentina held
general elections. The democratic government of Raul Alfonsin replaced
the 7-year-old military junta and formed a national human rights
commission. The first act of the government was to annul the amnesty
rushed through by the junta just before it fell.
(www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/83.84.eng/chap.4.htm)(SFC, 8/25/00,
p.D4)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.40)
1983 Oct, The TV show "Bay City
Blues" began and lasted for one season. It was a one-hour drama about
life in a minor league baseball team.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.E5)
1983 Oct, Frank W. Epperson (89),
who invented the Popsicle on an extraordinarily cold night in San
Francisco in 1905, died in SF.
(SSFC, 10/19/08, DB p.58)
1983 Oct, In Texas four bodies
were found shot execution-style in an airplane hangar on the B&B
Ranch north of Dallas. 3 months later chemical salesman Lester Leroy
Bower Jr. was charged with capital murder. More than 20 years later, a
state judge stopped Bower's scheduled July 22, 2008, execution and
agreed to consider his request that evidence be examined to see if DNA
testing could back up his claim of innocence.
(AP, 7/6/08)
1983 Oct, In Australia Edwina
Boyle disappeared from her Melbourne suburb home. Her husband Frederick
William Boyle (35) of Carrum Downs, dismembered her, and hid her body
in a 44-gallon drum. In 2006 his son-in-law opened the drum a found her
remains. A post-mortem showed she died of a bullet wound to the head.
In 2008 Boyle was convicted of murder.
(AFP, 1/31/08)(Reuters, 2/9/08)
1983 Oct, Hong Kong pegged its
currency to the US dollar. Hong Kong adopted a currency board. The
board is a type fixed exchange rate system that requires currency in
circulation to be fully matched by the country’s foreign exchange
reserves. The Hong Kong dollar was pegged at 7.8 to the US dollar.
(SFC, 2/16/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/10/98, p.A10)(Econ,
6/30/07, SR p.10)
1983 Nov 1, IBM released PC DOS
version 2.1.
(http://www.e-articles.info/e/a/title/DOS-Versions/)
1983 Nov 1, Anthony van Hoboken
(b.1887), Dutch musicologist, died in Zurich. He is best known for his
Haydn Catalog (1957).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_van_Hoboken)
1983 Nov 2, President Reagan
signed a bill establishing a federal holiday on the third Monday of
January in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The
legislation declared the national holiday beginning in January 1986.
(AP, 11/2/98)(HNQ, 1/18/99)
1983 Nov 3, Jesse Jackson
announced his candidacy for the office of President of the United
States.
(HN, 11/3/99)
1983 Nov 4, Dennis Nilsen
(b.1945), serial killer, was sentenced in England to life imprisonment.
He had killed at least 15 men over a 5 year period (1978-1983). All his
victims were students or homeless men whom he picked up in bars and
brought to his house either for sex or just for company. In 1993 Brian
Masters authored “Killing for Company.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Nilsen)(WSJ,
6/9/07, p.P8)
1983 Nov 7, A bomb exploded on the
2nd floor of the Capitol, causing heavy damage but no injuries. A
caller said the bomb was an action against US aggression in Grenada and
Lebanon.
(SFC, 7/25/98,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_United_States_Senate_bombing)
1983 Nov 8, In SF Mayor Diane
Feinstein won her final 4-year term as mayor. Voters backed policy
measures asking for an end to bilingual voting.
(SSFC, 11/9/08, DB p.58)
1983 Nov 8, Wilson Goode was
elected as the first black mayor of the city of Philadelphia.
(AP, 11/8/08)
1983 Nov 8, Martha Layne Collins
(b.1936) was elected as the 56th governor of Kentucky, the state’s
first female governor. She served to 1987.
(WSJ, 10/11/08,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Layne_Collins)(AP, 11/8/08)
1983 Nov 9, Alfred Heineken, beer
brewer from Amsterdam, was kidnapped and held for a ransom of more than
$10 million. Heineken was freed Nov 30. Cor van Houton, the kidnapper,
was shot to death in 2003.
(HN, 11/9/98)(AP, 1/24/03)
1983 Nov 11, President Reagan
became the first U.S. chief executive to address the Diet, Japan's
national legislature.
(AP, 11/11/03)
1983 Nov 15, In Athens, Greece, US
Navy Captain George Tsantes and his driver were assassinated by the
November 17 terrorist group(http://arlingtoncemetery.net/gtsantes.htm).
(SFC, 6/9/00, p.A14)
1983 Nov 15, Turkish Cypriots
declared the northern third Cyprus a separate republic, the Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus. It was only recognized by Turkey.
(SFC, 3/13/02,
p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Republic_of_Northern_Cyprus)
1983 Nov 18, Argentina announced
its ability to produce enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1983 Nov 19, Angela Bugay (5) was
abducted in Antioch, Ca., [see Nov 26].
(SFC, 5/29/02, p.A18)
1983 Nov 21, "Doonesbury" opened
at Biltmore Theater in NYC for 104 performances.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0258532/)
1983 Nov 24, An IRA unit disguised
as police officers seized Don Tidey, an American former chief executive
of Ireland's Superquinn grocery stores, outside his Dublin home. They
held him for more than three weeks in woods near the Irish border and
demanded the equivalent of US$7.5 million in ransom. A joint Irish
police-army search stumbled on the kidnappers' hideaway, freeing Tidey,
but the IRA kidnappers killed a police officer and soldier as they
escaped.
(AP,
3/7/06)(http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch83.htm)
1983 Nov 24, PLO exchanged 6
Israeli prisoners for 4,500 Palestinians and Lebanese.
(http://tinyurl.com/2lejkm)
1983 Nov 25, Syria and Saudi
Arabia announced a cease-fire in PLO civil war in Tripoli.
(www.defense-update.com/2005/02/arafats-dissidents-challenge-to-abu.html)
1983 Nov 26, Over £25m worth
of gold bullion bound for the Far East was stolen from the Brinks Mat
warehouse, about one mile (1.6km) outside the airport perimeter, in
Heathrow, England. At least 6 men stole of 6,800 gold bars worth $38.7
million.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/26/newsid_2529000/2529235.stm)
1983 Nov 26, Angela Bugay of
Antioch, Ca., 5-years-old, was found in a shallow grave in Concord, Ca.
She had been kidnapped a week earlier. Larry Graham, who dated Angela’s
mother, was later arrested as a suspect and prosecutors in 1995
received a court order to draw his blood for DNA evidence. In 1996
police matched the DNA of Graham, with samples recovered from the
girl’s body and arrested him on charges of murder. Use of the DNA
evidence was cleared in 1998. Graham was convicted Aug 20, 2002, and
sentenced to death Oct 22. Graham (58) was found dead in his cell on
June 16, 2009, of apparent suicide.
(SFC, 4/26/96, p.A-19)(SFC, 5/20/98, p.A19)(SFC,
3/18/99, p.A19)(SFC, 4/15/02, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A15)(SFC, 10/23/02,
p.A16)(SFC, 6/17/09, p.B6)
1983 Nov 27, In Spain 181 people
were killed when a Colombian Avianca Airlines Boeing 747 crashed near
Madrid's Barajas airport.
(AP, 11/27/07)
1983 Nov 28, The space shuttle
Columbia blasted into orbit, carrying six astronauts who conducted
experiments using the $1 billion Spacelab in the shuttle's cargo bay.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-9)
1983 Nov 28, Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir met with President Reagan at the White House to
discuss ways to strengthen U.S.-Israeli military and economic ties.
(www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/112983b.htm)
1983 Nov 30, Radio Shack announced
the Tandy Model 2000 computer (80186 chip).
(www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/6757/t2kfaq.txt)
1983 Nov 30, Police freed
kidnapped beer magnate Alfred Heineken in Amsterdam.
(www.cedmagic.com/museum/press/ced-timeline-1983.html#11-1983)
1983 Nov, Hafez Assad, president
of Syria, suffered a heart attack and his brother Rifat (b.1937) tried
to take power by moving tanks against other Alawite chieftains. Hafez
Assad recovered and stripped Rifat of power.
(SFC, 6/13/00,
p.A10)(www.meib.org/articles/0006_sd.htm)
1983 Dec 4, US jet fighters struck
Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon in retaliation for
Syrian-backed attacks on the US peacekeeping force. The Syrian anti-air
defense shut down two American airplanes and a pilot was captured. The
positions of the Marines at the Beirut International Airport were
bombarded. Eight Marines were killed.
(http://tinyurl.com/35ek6z)(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A8)
1983 Dec 6, The SF Golden Gate
Bridge closed for the 2nd December in a row as winds at the toll plaza
measured 77.2 mph.
(SSFC, 11/30/08, DB p. 58)
1983 Dec 6, A bomb planted on a
bus in Jerusalem exploded and killed 6 Israelis.
(http://preview.tinyurl.com/3a3tyk)
1983 Dec 7, Edgar Graham (b.1954),
member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, was shot dead by IRA.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Graham)
1983 Dec 7, In Madrid, Spain, an
Aviaco DC-9 collided on a runway with an Iberia Air Lines Boeing 727
that was accelerating for takeoff, killing all 42 people aboard the
DC-9 and 51 aboard the Iberia jet.
(AP, 12/7/03)
1983 Dec 8, US Att. Gen. Edwin
Meese said people go to soup kitchens "...because food is free and
that's easier than paying for it."
(www.williambowles.info/history/reagan_history.html)
1983 Dec 11, Pope John Paul II
visited a Lutheran church in Rome, the first visit by a Roman Catholic
pontiff to a Protestant church in his own diocese.
(www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1983/december/index.htm)
1983 Dec 12, Australia allowed its
dollar to float.
(http://intl.econ.cuhk.edu.hk/exchange_rate_regime/index.php?cid=28)
1983 Dec 12, A truck bomb exploded
at the US Embassy in Kuwait. Shiite Muslims backed by Iran drove
bomb-laden trucks into six targets. The most deadly of these struck the
US Embassy, killing five persons and wounding 62. Other trucks
destroyed the French embassy and several Kuwaiti installations
(www.danielpipes.org/article/173).
(WSJ, 4/28/05, p.A1)
1983 Dec 17, There was an IRA
bombing near Harrods department store in London. Six people were killed
and 90 injured.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1 p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/bu225)
1983 Dec 17, An Economic
cooperation agreement between the Community and the Andean Pact
countries was signed in Cartagena, Colombia.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1983/index_en.htm)
1983 Dec 20, Donald Rumsfeld
visited Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Following his visit the US supplied
Hussein with satellite photos of Iranian deployments and allowed
shipment of a variety of materials from American suppliers.
(NW, 9/23/02,
p.37)(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm)
1983 Dec 20, PLO chairman Yasser
Arafat and 4,000 loyalists evacuated Lebanon.
(http://tinyurl.com/35ek6z)
1983 Dec 22, Egyptian president
Mubarak met with PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
(http://preview.tinyurl.com/2luhxs)
1983 Dec 27, President Reagan took
all responsibility for the lack of security in Beirut that allowed a
terrorist on a suicide mission to kill 241 Marines on Oct 23.
(www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/02/b37879.html)
1983 Dec 27, Pope John Paul II
pardoned Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot him. The Pope visited Mehmet
Ali Agca at Rome’s Rebibbia prison and personally pardoned him for the
1981 assassination attempt.
(SFC, 6/14/00,
p.A14)(http://preview.tinyurl.com/pddl)
1983 Dec 27, A propane gas fire
devastated 16 blocks of Buffalo, NY. The fire killed five firefighters,
two civilians, destroyed about a million in fire equipment, and leveled
several city blocks, as well as the infamous fire alarm box # 29 also
known as the Hoodoo Box.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Fire_Historical_Museum)
1983 Dec 28, Dennis Wilson
(b.1944), a founding member of the Beach Boys, died in a swimming
accident (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Wilson).
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.D8)
1983 Dec 29, US announced its
withdrawal from UNESCO.
(http://preview.tinyurl.com/33usdl)
1983 Dec 30, A 7.2 earthquake
killed 26 people in Afghanistan (14) and Pakistan (12).
(SFC, 3/5/02, p.A10)
1983 Dec 31, In France bombings in
the main railroad terminal in Marseilles and on the Paris-Marseilles
express train killed 5 people and injured 50. The attack was attributed
to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
(SFC,12/11/97,
p.C2)(http://lists.jammed.com/IWAR/1997/12/0117.html)
1983 Dec 31, In Nigeria the
military again ousted the civilian government.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/nigeria2.htm)
1983 Dec, Segundo Marey, a French
furniture dealer, was kidnapped from his home in France as a suspected
Basque terrorist. In 1998 in Spain former Interior Minister Jose
Barrionuevo and Rafael Vera, former director of state security, were
arrested for the kidnapping and misappropriation of government funds
for the crimes along with Julian Sancristobal, former civil governor of
Vizcaya province.
(SFC, 7/30/98, p.A16)
1983 Jasper Johns painted his
autobiographical picture "Racing Thoughts." It was done from the
vantage point of inside a bathtub inspired by a 1938 painting by Frido
Kahlo.
(WSJ, 10/17/96, p.A20)(SFEC, 9/28/97, BR p.5)
1983 The David Mamet play
"Glengarry Glen Ross" was first performed in London. It won a Pulitzer
Prize in 1984 and was made into a film in 1992.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB
p.37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glengarry_Glen_Ross_(film))
1983 Amy Clampitt (1920-1994),
American poet, published ‘The Kingfisher."
(WSJ, 11/7/97, p.A17)
1983 "Sisters In Affliction:
Circumcision and Infibulation of Women in Africa" by Raquiya H. Abdalla
was published.
(NH, 8/96, p.65)
1983 Charles Allen wrote "A
Mountain in Tibet."
(NH, 5/96, p.68)
1983 Kingsley Amis (1922-1995),
British novelist, authored “Everyday Drinking,” a book cobbled together
from his newspaper columns.
(WSJ, 5/17/08, p.W5)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/amis.htm)
1983 Daniel Boorstin, American
historian, published "The Discoverers." [see 1975-1987]
(WSJ, 3/29/96, p.A-9)
1983 Marion Zimmer Bradley (d.1999
at 69) published "The Mists of Avalon," a woman's perspective of the
King Arthur legend.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.C2)
1983 John le Carre authored “The
Little Drummer Girl,” a novel set amidst the conflict between the
Palestinians and Israelis.
(WSJ, 10/28/06, p.P12)
1983 Fred J. Cook (1911-2003)
authored "The Great Energy Scam," an examination of the oil companies.
(SFC, 5/5/03, p.B4)
1983 "The Return of Martin Guerre"
by Natalie Zemon Davis was published. It was a historical account of a
true story from 16th cent. France.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A12)
1983 Umberto Eco authored "The
Name of the Rose," and established a new genre of learned who-dunit
novels.
(WSJ, 6/1/01, p.W12)(SSFC, 10/20/02, p.M1)
1983 Frederick Vanderbilt Field
(d.2000 at 94) published his autobiography: "From Right to Left."
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A21)
1983 Derek Freeman published
"Margaret Mead in Samoa," in which he laid waste Mead's portrayal of
1920s Samoan society.
(WSJ, 3/3/99, p.A17)
1983 Harvard Prof. Howard Gardner
authored “Frames of Mind” in which he proposed the "multiple
intelligence theory," which held that there are multiple types of
intelligence, such as athletic prowess and musical ability, beyond the
traditional math and verbal skills.
(WSJ, 4/1/02, p.A1)(Econ, 4/17/04, p.80)
1983 Jane Goodall published "In
the Shadow of Man."
(SFEC, 12/15/96, zone 1 p.3)
1983 Seymour Hirsch published "The
Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House." It won a National
Book Critics Circle award.
(SFEC,11/9/97, p.A12)
1983 Joyce Johnson authored "Minor
Characters," a memoir of the Beat generation. In 2000 she authored
"Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957-1958," that
covered her relationship with Jack Kerouac.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, BR p.7)
1983 Stanley Karnow published
"Vietnam: A History."
(SFC, 5/11/99, p.A19)
1983 Prof. William Webster Lammers
of USC (d.1997 at 60) published "Public Policy and Aging."
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A19)
1983 David Landes, Harvard
historian, published "Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the
Modern World."
(SFEC, 3/22/98, BR p.8)
1983 Rigoberta Menchu,
Guatemalan-born Mayan Indian and human rights activist, authored her
book "I, Rigoberta Menchu." In 1992 she won the Nobel peace Prize. In
1998 David Stoll, a US anthropologist, authored "Rigoberta Menchu and
the Story of All Poor Guatemalans." He asserted a number of
inaccuracies in Menchu’s original book.
(SFEC, 1/19/97, Par p.5)(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C20)
1968 Jerome Mintz (d.1997 at 67),
US anthropologist, published "The Anarchists of Casa Viejas," an
account and oral history of the 1933 Spanish uprising.
(SFC,12/20/97, p.A21)
1983 James Michener wrote his
novel "Poland."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1983 Amos Oz, novelist, published
"In the Land of Israel," a collection of essays.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, BR, p.4)
1983 Maynard Parker, editor of
Newsweek, authorized the publication of the spurious "Hitler Diaries."
The work was identified as "patent and obvious forgeries" by Charles
Hamilton (1914-1996), "philography" expert.
(WSJ, 8/23/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B6)
1983 Donald E. Russell and Prof.
Donald Savage (d.1999 at 81) wrote "Mammalian Paleofaunas of the
World," it was a compendium of mammals through the ages.
(SFC, 4/14/99, p.C5)
1983 Richard Shevell (d.2000 at
89), aeronautics professor at Stanford, authored the text "Fundamentals
of Flight."
(SFC, 4/27/00, p.A24)
1983 Michael Straight (d.2004), US
State Dept employee (1938) and later editor of the new Republic,
authored "After Long Silence." He had passed reports to the Russians in
1938.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.76)
1983 Colin Thubron authored "Among
the Russians."
(Econ, 9/30/06, p.93)
1983 The book "I Will Go On
Living" by Japanese writer Chio Uno (1898-1996) was published.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A21)
1983 Lynda Van Devanter (d.2002 at
55) authored "Home Before Morning," the 1st major autobiography by a
woman veteran. It inspired the 1988-1991 TV series "China Beach."
(SFC, 11/27/02, p.A26)
1983 "Quintessence" was published.
It described items whose design was so good that they could not be
improved upon.
(SFC, 7/3/96, zz-1,p.3)
1983 Brock Yates authored “The
Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry.
(WSJ, 11/5/05, p.P8)
1983 Edward Albee wrote his play
"The Man Who Had Three Arms."
(SFEC, 7/27/97, DB p.33)
1983 The opera "St. Francis
d’Assise" by Olivier Messiaen premiered in Paris.
(SFC, 9/30/02, p.D1)
1983 "The Gospel at Colonus," a
Pentecostal Gospel rendering of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, was
written by Lee Breur and composed by Bob Telson.
(SFC, 2/27/97, p.B1)(www.leebreuer.com/cv.htm)
1983 The dance show "Tango
Argentino" was created by Hector Orezzoli and Claudio Segovia.
(WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A20)
1983 The film "Gandhi" won as Best
Picture at the Academy Awards.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.E5)
1983 The musical film "Pirates of
Penzance" was directed by Wilford Leach. It featured Linda Ronstadt
(b.1946) as Mabel.
(SFC, 12/26/02, p.E14)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0086112/)
1983 Brian Levant co-wrote the TV
movie "Still the Beaver," starring the original cast of the "Leave It
to Beaver" series.
(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A25)
1983 Trivial Pursuit was big as
was MTV (Music Television). Linda F. Pezzano (d.1999 at 54), marketing
consultant, invented the "viral marketing concept" to publicize the
Canadian board game.
(TMC, 1994, p.1983)(SFC, 10/30/99, p.C2)
1983 A television movie titled
"The Day After" showed Soviet missiles vaporizing Kansas City. It
focused people’s attention on the reality of their local missile silos.
(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-9)
1983 PBS first showed the 13-hour
series "Vietnam: A Television History" in the US. It won every award in
TV. It was rebroadcast in 1989 and 1997. The 6-year work was produced
by Richard Ellison (1924-2004).
(SFC, 10/12/04, p.B8)(SFC, 5/26/97, p.B1)
1983 Jay Ungar composed "Ashokan
Farewell." It was used in the TV special "The Civil War."
(SI-WPC, 12/6/96)
1983 Billy Joel's "52nd Street"
was the first mass-marketed compact disc, CD.
(SFC, 1/14/99, p.D1)
1983 Shane MacGowan formed the
punk group Pogues in London. He left the group in 1992.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.39)
1983 The Townes Van Zandt
(1944-1997) song" Pancho and Lefty," sung by Merle Haggard and Willie
Nelson, topped the country charts. Zandt was born Mar 7, 1944 in Ft.
Worth, Texas, into a prominent oil family.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A26)
1983 Ellen Taaffe Zwilich won a
Pulitzer Prize for her composition "Symphony No. 1."
(SFC, 9/22/00, p.C9)
1983 The SF Jazz Festival began
with 2 nights of concerts and a $27,000 budget.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, DB p.49)
1983 Alfred Brendel became the
first pianist to play all 32 Beethoven sonatas in Carnegie Hall. He
later authored 2 volumes of essays that were published in English as:
"Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts," and "Music Sounded Out."
(WSJ, 5/6/99, p.A24)
1983 Olivier Messiaen composed his
opera "Saint François d’Assise."
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.D1)
1983 In Denver the 52-story One
Norwest Center with its cash register crown was completed. The
architects were Philip Johnson and John Burgee.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.B10)
1983 The IBM corporate
headquarters at Madison and 57th Ave. in Manhattan, designed by Edward
Larrabee Barnes (1915-2004), was completed.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.B7)
1983 The Catholic Church code to
annul marriages was revised under Canon 1095. It permitted annulment if
it could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time of their
marriage one or both spouses suffered from a "grave lack of
discretionary judgement" concerning their marriage obligations.
(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W9)
1983 Vanessa Williams was the
first black Miss America but her reign was short due to the revelation
of a set of "Penthouse" photos.
(SFC, 6/9/96, DB p.41)
1983 Dr. Constance Wofsy
(1943-1996) and Dr. Paul Volberding founded the AIDS program at San
Francisco General Hospital.
(SFC, 6/5/96, C5)
1983 Joe Hunt founded the
Billionaire Boys Club in Los Angeles as an investment and social
fraternity. He hired Jim Pittman (d.1997 at 43) as the club bodyguard.
Hunt and Pittman later plotted and executed the murder of con artist
Ronald George Levin in 1984.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p. A17)(SFC, 3/29/97, p.A20)
1983 Elmer and Joanne Martin
founded the Great Blacks Wax Museum in Baltimore, Md.
(SFC, 5/26/96, T-7)
1983 Mitch Kaplan created the
Miami Book Fair. It grew to become a week-long marathon with estimated
attendance at 400,000 in 1998.
(SFEM, 5/17/98, p.74)
1983 Betsey Cushing Roosevelt
Whitney (d.1998 at 89) and her daughters founded the Greentree
Foundation to support community groups in the New York metropolitan
region.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B4)
1983 Jim and Marie Petcoff founded
the Computer Museum of America at La Mesa in San Diego County. It was
later relocated to Coleman College.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A20)
1983 Paul Matzner, curator of the
California Library of Natural Sounds at the Oakland Museum, organized a
group of people under the name the Nature Sounds Society. The largest
nature sound archive is at the Library of Natural Sounds at Cornell
Univ. It has more than 100,000 recordings and adds 5,000 per year.
(Smith., 4/1995, p.154)
1983 Dianne and Jim Clapp bought
500 acres in Shasta County, Ca., that became the nucleus for a wild
horse sanctuary.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.T5)
1983 The Cookies ‘n Cream flavored
ice cream made its debut.
(SFEC, 12/13/98, Z1 p.10)
1983 Gunnar Michelson received an
award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for his
invention of an advanced electronic precision light valve for machines
that strike movie prints.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.E3)
1983 The Liberty lost the America
Cup to the Australia II. In 1851 the Schooner America outraced the
Aurora off the English coast to win a trophy that became known as the
America’s Cup. For 132 years the New York Yacht Club had defeated all
challengers to retain the prestigious America’s Cup, the record for the
longest winning streak in sports history.
(AP, 8/22/97)(SFEC, 10/1/00, p.T4)(HNQ, 1/1/03)
1983 Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his insight into black holes.
Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Nobel-prize winning physicist C. V.
Raman.
(WSJ, 6/30/05,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subramanyan_Chandrasekhar)
1983 Gerard Debreu (1921-2004) of
UC Berkeley won the Nobel Prize in Economics for offering proof of how
prices affect the supplies of goods bought and sold.
(SFC, 10/8/01, p.A17)(SFC, 1/6/05, p.B1)
1983 William Golding (1911-1993),
English author, received the Nobel Prize for literature.
(WSJ, 10/5/95, p.A-12)
1983 Barbara McClintock
(1902-1992), American geneticist, won the Nobel prize.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_McClintock)
1983 Henry Taube won a Nobel Prize
in chemistry.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.D4)
1983 The Pulitzer Prize for drama
went to Beth Henley for her play "Crimes of the Heart."
(SFEC, 4/13/97, DB p.54)
1983 Alice Walker won a Pulitzer
Prize for her book "The Color Purple."
(SFEC, 4/20/97, BR p.6)
1983 The UN "Man and the
Biosphere" Reserve system included the Big Sur coastal area by Limekiln
State Park (est. 1995).
(SFEC, 3/30/97, p.T3)
1983 The La Paz Treaty was signed
whereby the US and Mexico agreed to reduce pollution within 60 miles of
their common frontier.
(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A8)
1983 The Reagan administration
began to phase in tax cuts.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A12)
1983 The US deficit under Pres.
Regan reached 6% of GDP, the highest since WW II.
(SFC, 10/15/05, p.A7)
1983 The US Executive Office for
Immigration Review, an arm of Justice, was created to oversee the
immigration judges. They had previously worked for the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, which posed a conflict of interest.
(SFC, 1/31/02, p.AA7)
1983 The New York Times editorial
writer Howell Raines described Walter Mondale’s rebuff of challenges to
his pursuit of the Democratic nomination as "a defining moment" for the
party. This marked the first apparent use of the "defining moment" term
in print.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A1)
1983 Federal prosecutor Rudolph
Giuliani won a 43 year sentence against Silvia Baraldini for a series
of armored car robberies that included the 1981 Brinks robbery in
Nyack, NY, where a guard and 2 policemen were killed. Baraldini was
transferred to Italy in 1999.
(SFC, 8/26/99, p.A14)
1983 A federal grand jury indicted
financier Marc Rich on evading over $48 million in income taxes. Rich
fled the US to Switzerland and in 2001 was pardoned by Pres. Clinton.
The 65-count indictment against Rich and Pincus Green also included
charges of oil profiteering and unlawful trading with Iran.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/29/00, p.A1)
1983 The US Post Office featured
the Brooklyn Bridge on a stamp.
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.A19)
1983 The federal government
adopted the CPT codes, which matched payment information with medical
procedures for Medicare.
(WSJ, 8/25/00, p.A1)
1983 The FDA received its first
applications for review of safer needle devices.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A7)
1983 The Centers for Disease
Control warned against recapping needles.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A7)
1983 OSHA issued voluntary
guidelines for protecting health care workers from hepatitis B.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A7)
1983 The EPA put the Iron Mountain
mine in Northern California on the federal Superfund list.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A13)
1983 The Pequot Indians of
Connecticut won federal recognition.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A16)
1983 The American CIA developed a
manual to train security forces in Latin America. It was titled "Human
Resource Exploitation Training Manual."
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A3)
1983 US forces built the
3,090-acre El Aguacate air base in Olancho province, Honduras.
(SFC, 8/9/99, p.A8)
1983 Edwin Wilson was convicted of
running arms to Libya. In 2003 the conviction was thrown out because
prosecutors knew he worked for the CIA and misled the court.
(WSJ, 10/29/03, p.A1)
1983 California’s Warm Springs
Dam, begun in 1975, was completed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. It
extended 9 miles on Dry Creek and 4 miles on Warm Springs Creek. The
dam created Lake Sonoma in Sonoma County and allowed the county to grow.
(SFC, 10/20/96, Z1 p.4)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.T6)(SFC,
1/21/06, p.B1)
1983 Charles Rothenberg (Charley
Charles) was sentenced to 13 years in state prison for setting his
6-year old son on fire at a Southern California motel. He tried to kill
the boy because he feared that his ex-wife would permanently separate
him from his son. He served less than 7 years. In 2007 he was sentenced
to 25 years to life for two subsequent weapons convictions.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A17)(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A1)(SFC,
4/5/07, p.B3)
1983 Willie Earl Green was
conviction in the murder of Denise "Dee Dee" Walker (25), in a South
Los Angeles crack house. Green insisted on his innocence and was
released in 2008 after a judge found that Green had not received a fair
trial. The former chauffeur from Canton, Miss., said he was proud of
his achievements in prison, including earning an associates degree and
teaching math to fellow inmates at San Quentin.
(AP, 3/24/08)
1983 Barbaro Mouton (1925-2007)
led a ballot for the incorporation of East Palo Alto, Ca. The measure,
which failed a year earlier, won by 15 votes. Mouton became the 1st
mayor and served to 1986.
(SFC, 3/19/07, p.B4)
1983 In Mass. Napoleon Crepeau Jr.
was convicted for the kidnapping and rape of a 17-year-old Dartmouth
woman. He was convicted for 16 years in prison. He told psychologists
in prison that he would attack more women if released. He was released
in 1998.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A5)
1983 Dennis Maher was convicted in
Boston of raping 3 women and spent the next 19 years in prison. In 2003
DNA evidence proved his innocence.
(SFC, 4/4/03, p.A3)
1983 An intruder broke into the
Brooklyn home of a police officer as he and his wife were sleeping. The
assailant restrained the husband and raped the wife. Scott Fappiano was
arrested in 1984 but his trial ended in a hung jury. He was convicted
in a 2nd trial in 1985 and sentenced to 20-50 years in jail. Fappiano
(44) was freed in 2006 after his DNA did not match that found at the
crime scene.
(www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=935591&sidelines=1)
1983 Crude-oil futures began
trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)
1983 Gov. Clinton of Arkansas had
an intimate sexual encounter by mutual consent with Mrs. Elizabeth Ward
Gracen, a 1982 Miss America.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A3)
1983 Corrections Corp. of America
(CCA) was founded by former West Point roommates Doctor R. Crants and
Thomas W. Beasley. By 1998 it had 60 facilities with revenues of $462.2
million.
(WSJ, 8/5/98, p.A1)
1983 Bank of America acquired
Charles Schwab securities brokerage firm.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.B4)
1983 The Texas-based Belo Corp.
under CEO James Moroney Jr. (1921-2007) purchased Corinthian
Broadcasting Group from Dun & Bradstreet for $606 million. This was
the largest deal to date in US broadcast history.
(SFC, 2/20/07, p.B4)
1983 Costco opened its 1st store.
In 2004 it had 432 locations.
(WSJ, 3/26/04, p.B1)
1983 Bernie Ebbers and other
founders worked out the details for starting Long distance Discount
Service (LDDS) in Hattiesburg, Miss. The company changed its name to
WorldCom in 1995 and merged with MCI in 1997. Ebbers resigned in 2002
and in 2003 WorldCom agreed to pay $500 million to settle civil fraud
charges.
(SFC, 5/20/03, p.B10)
1983 Raisin prices took a steep
fall that hurt California farmers in the Central Valley. Circumstances
surrounding this was later described by Victor Davis Hanson in his
book: "Fields Without Dreams," where he argues on behalf of the small
family farm.
(SFC, 5/26/96, BR p.7)
1983 Robert C. Maynard (d.1993)
and his wife Nancy Hicks Maynard (d.2008 at 61) purchased the Oakland
Tribune from the Gannett chain for $22 million. It became the first
major metropolitan newspaper owned by an African American. He was the
founder of the Institute for Journalism Excellence in Oakland. In 1997
he was inducted into the California Press Association’s Hall of Fame.
They sold the paper in 1992 to the Alameda Newspaper Group as Robert
was struggling with cancer.
(SFC,12/8/97, p.A24)(SFC, 9/22/08,
p.B3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Tribune)
1983 The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co.
was formed with the purchase of the Ritz-Carlton in Boston. In 2001 the
Atlanta-based company owned 26 city hotels and 12 resorts.
Host-Marriott held a 49% ownership.
(SSFC, 3/25/01, p.B6)
1983 Haim Saban (b.1944) founded
Saban Entertainment with the rights to a handful of Schlocky Japanese
cartoons. The company recycled foreign shows for kids and dubbed them
into English. "Power Rangers Turbo," and "Ninja Turtles: The Next
Generation" were some of its later programming.
(WSJ, 10/1/97,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Saban)
1983 Cessna ceased production of
its single-engine planes due to product liability suits over alleged
defective fuel tanks. In 1994 Pres. Clinton signed the General Aviation
Revitalization Act, which gave aircraft manufacturers broad immunity
from liability suits, and Cessna resumed production.
(WSJ, 4/30/01, p.A1)
1983 Chrysler Corp. announced
plans to make minivans.
(WSJ, 5/15/07, p.A14)
1983 GM increased the focus on
trucks and discontinued the Malibu, introduced in 1963, after 6.5
million units were sold. The Malibu was reintroduced in 1997.
(WSJ, 4/1/09, p.A20)
1983 Southern Pacific Co., under
Benjamin Bioaggini (d.2005), merged with Santa Fe Industries. In 1986
the federal ICC refused to allow the merger. The SP railroad property
was sold to Denver billionaire Phillip Anschutz, who sold it to Union
Pacific in 1996.
(SFC, 6/2/05, p.B6)
1983 Vidal Sassoon (b.1928),
hairdresser, sold his interest in the high-end Vidal Sassoon salons.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidal_Sassoon)(WSJ,
1/20/07, p.W8)
1983 Betty Holberton led a
committee to establish standards for COBOL, the Common Business
Oriented Language for computers.
(WSJ, 11/22/96, p.A12)
1983 Optical fibers began to
replace copper cables for transmitting information.
(WSJ, 8/1/97, p.A9C)
1983 John Sculley was recruited
from Pepsico to reorganize Apple Computer Corp.
(I&I, Penzias, p.183)
1983 Fred Cohen, graduate student,
released (in a controlled experiment) the world's first computer virus.
(Wired, 8/95, p.117)
1983 Mitch Kapor’s Lotus 1-2-3
spreadsheet lured non-techies buy personal computers.
(WSJ, 1/13/06, p.P8)
1983 Amgen Inc. developed the
hormone drug erythropoietin (EPO). In 1989 it was approved for the
treatment of anemia in patients with end-stage kidney disease.
(SFC, 8/26/05, p.A6)
1983 The Multicenter AIDS Cohort
Study was begun by Dr. Mellors in Pittsburgh. It became the largest
ongoing study with med. info and blood samples over the lifetime of
AIDS patients. Dr. Mellors pioneered the viral load test that showed
how increased viral load hastened the HIV disease.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.B1,5)
1983 Dr. Jay Levy at UCSF was
among the first to identify the AIDS virus as the cause of HIV. He
developed an early test for detecting the presence of the virus and he
found that heat inactivates HIV in clotting preparations.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W27)
1983 Nasalcrom, a prescription
drug for allergies made by Fisons PLC, was approved by the FDA to be
marketed by Rhone-Poulenc Rorer. It was first approved in the US for
bronchial asthma in 1968 under the name Intal and in 1996 it was
approved for over the counter sale by McNeil Consumer Products, a
division of Johnson & Johnson.
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A5)
1883 Glenn Seaborg, a Nobel
winning chemist, published the report "A Nation at Risk," which
inspired a decade of educational reform.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.B12)
1983 John Winslow, American
anthropologist, published an article with Alfred Meyer in Science 83:
"The Perpetrator of Piltdown," that suggested Arthur Conan Doyle as the
man behind the Piltdown hoax.
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.16)
1983 Kilauea began erupting in
Hawaii.
(WSJ, 11/28/94, B4)
1983 Concrete and steel from the
press boxes in the old Gator Bowl stadium in Jacksonville, Fla., ended
up as a reef in the Atlantic Ocean.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.B1)
1983 Felix Smith, biologist for
the US Fish and Wildlife Service, discovered the first selenium
deformed birds at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in Merced
County, Ca.
(WSJ, 11/18/98, p.CA3)
1983 Genetic modification (GM) of
agricultural cereals was invented as a more predictable alternative to
mutation breeding.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.30)
1983 The Science Olympiad was
created by Dr. Gerard Putz and Jack Cairns to increase interest in
science as an alternative to traditional science fairs. After
successful tournaments were held in Michigan and Delaware, the program
began to attract interest from school districts all around the country.
(http://infohost.nmt.edu/~science/olympiad/)
1983 US News & World Report
published the results of a straw poll ranking America’s top colleges.
The magazine had asked 662 college presidents to identify the country’s
best places of learning. The ranking developed into an annual survey.
(Econ, 8/26/06, p.25)
1983 In Utah rising floodwaters
impacted the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. In 1991 Terry Tempest
Williams authored "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place."
(SSFC, 12/2/01,
p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_River_Migratory_Bird_Refuge)
1983 The ozone hole over the
Antarctic was measured to be the size of the United States.
(LSA., D. Gilbert, p.29)
1983 The General Conference on
Weights and Measures defined the speed of light in a vacuum at
299,792,458 meters per second.
(NH, 2/05, p.24)
1983 In Virginia a tire fire
burned a pile of 7 million tires for 9 months.
(SFC, 8/10/98, p.A20)
1983 A tanker ship sank and
exploded west of the Golden Gate Bridge.
(SFC,11/22/97, p.D4)
1983 George Balanchine, leader of
the New York City Ballet, died. One of his star dancers, Allegra Kent,
published her autobiography in 1997: "Once a Dancer."
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)
1983 Eugene Von Bruenchenhein
(b.1910), commercial bakery worker, died In Milwaukee, Wis. He was also
a prolific artist but never exhibited any of his work.
(NYT, 10/8/04, p.B35)
1983 Chang Dai-chien, Chinese-born
artist, died at age 84. His work included "Summer on California
Mountain" (1967), "Splashed Ink on Gold" (1968), and "Snow in the
Spring Mountain" (1973).
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.D1,5)
1983 Jack Fante (b.1909), novelist
and screenwriter, died in Los Angeles. His novels included "Ask the
Dust" and "Wait Until Spring, Bandini." His 12 screenplays included the
1956 film "Full of Life." In 2000 Stephen Cooper published "Full of
Life: A Biography of Jack Fante."
(SFC, 3/30/00, p.E1)(TVM, 1975, p.199)
1983 George "Harmonica" Smith,
bluesman, died. He was mentor from 1977 to blues harmonica player
William Clark (1951-1996).
(SFC, 11/6/96, p.B4)
1983 Ross Macdonald (b.1915 as
Kenneth Millar), crime fiction writer, died. He wrote 18 Lew Archer
detective novels over 25 years. In 1999 Tom Nolan authored "Ross
Macdonald, A Biography."
(SFEC, 3/28/99, BR p.1)(WSJ, 4/28/99, p.A16)
1983 Lulie Nall, a Penobscot
Indian, died. She had designed a tepee-emblazoned flag for the 19-month
American Indian occupation of Alcatraz, that began in 1969. In 2008 the
flag was put up for auction and valued at up to $150,000.
(SFC, 1/24/08, p.A1)
1983 In Argentina shortly after
the restoration of democracy Gen’l. Reynaldo Bignone ordered the
burning of all documents regarding the disappeared. As president from
1982 to 1983, it fell to Bignone to protect the military as Argentina
returned to democracy. He granted amnesty to human rights violators and
ordered the destruction of documents related to torture and
disappearances of political opponents before agreeing to transfer power
to the democratically elected Raul Alfonsin. In 2003 Bignone was
charged for holding ultimate responsibility for cases of torture,
illegal break-ins and deprivations of freedoms from 1976 to 1978. His
trial in open court began in 2009.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)(AP, 11/2/09)
1983 In Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus
opened the Grameen Bank, dedicated to provided small loans to rural
villagers. The bank was very successful and was copied as a model for
similar programs in the US and elsewhere.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, Par p.4)
1983 In Belgium Rom Houben (20)
was injured in an auto accident and fell into a coma. Doctors soon
diagnosed him as having fallen into a vegetative state. After 23 years
a PET scan revealed that his brain was functioning and communication
was established via a computer device and a touch screen. A study of
his misdiagnosis was published in 2009.
(SFC, 11/24/09, p.A3)
1983 A severe drought plagued
northeast Brazil.
(SFC, 5/18/98, p.A10)
1983 Britain’s Labor Party issued
an election manifesto that was later dubbed “the longest suicide note
in history.” This was later said to have mark the demise of Socialism
in Britain.
(Econ, 12/13/08, p.63)
1983 Britain introduced the pound
coin.
(WSJ, 7/24/98, p.W11)
1983 Britain introduced its Youth
Training Scheme.
(Econ, 10/3/09, SR
p.16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_Training_Scheme)
1983 English driver Richard Noble
set the land speed record at 633 mph.
(SFC, 6/16/96, p.B1)
1983 In the Burma "Rangoon
Massacre" a terrorist attack plotted by North Korea killed 17 South
Korean officials on a visit.
(WSJ, 9/9/96, p.A18)
1983 A couple of Canadian
vineyards began producing ice wine, a 1794 German invention (eiswein),
using frost-bitten grapes to produce a desert wine.
(Econ, 5/22/04, p.32)(http://wine.about.com)
1983 In Regina, Canada, JoAnn
Wilson (43) was found in the garage of her home, beaten, hacked and
shot in the head. Her former husband, Colin Thatcher, former cabinet
minister in Saskatchewan's government, was sentenced to life in prison
for her murder. In 2006 he was granted full parole.
(Reuters, 12/1/06)
1983 In China Deng Xiaoping
launched his "anti-spiritual pollution" campaign.
(WSJ, 2/20/97, p.A20)
1983 In China Peng Zhen (d.1997)
was appointed chairman of the National People’s Congress and served to
1988.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.B8)
1983 China signed on to the 1967
Outer Space Treaty banning all weapons of mass destruction from orbit.
(SSFC, 7/15/07, p.D1)
1983 Armand Hammer negotiated a
joint venture through Deng Xiaoping to create China’s largest open-pit
coal mine. Occidental Petroleum wrote off the $250 million venture
following Hammer’s death in 1990.
(WSJ, 3/19/02, p.A20)
1983 In China over 600 million
people, i.e. two-thirds of the population, lived on $1 a day or less.
By 2008 this number was less than 180 million.
(Econ, 1/26/08, p.27)
1983 Zhang Daqian (b.1899),
Chinese painter, died. He had imitated the style of the old masters.
(SFC, 2/6/04, p.D2)
1983 Colombia’s Cano Limon Oil
Field, operated by Occidental Petroleum, was discovered.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-1)
1983 An international expedition
of American, Polish and Egyptian anthropologists in the Aswan region
unexpectedly came upon the skeleton of a prehistoric man thought to be
about 80,000 years old, the oldest human skeleton ever found in Egypt.
Early modern humans were present in the Levant between 130,000-80,000
BP.
(http://tinyurl.com/2l2rmz)(www.athenapub.com/8shea1.htm)
1983 In France Dr. Luc Montagnier
and his team, which included Dr. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, published a
paper fingering HIV as the cause of AIDS.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.110)
1983 Christa Wolf, East German
writer, authored her novel “Cassandra.”
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.P6)
1983 Bayer, a German drug maker,
patented the active ingredient of the antibiotic Cipro.
(SSFC, 1/20/08, p.A10)
1983 In Guatemala on the eve of
Pope John Paul’s visit Gen’l. Montt had 6 rebel suspects executed.
(SFC, 7/31/98, p.D3)
1983 In Guatemala the Peace
Brigades Int'l. program began with volunteers standing in support of
Nineth Montenegro, the leader of a group of relatives of the
disappeared.
(SFC, 6/11/99, p.A12)
1983 The Hong Kong film "The
Prodigal Son" starred Sammo Hung.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, Par p.18)
1983 The Hong Kong film "Project
A" (Part I) starred Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.
(SFC,11/28/97, p.C18)(SFEC, 3/1/98, DB p.48)(SFEC,
4/11/99, Par p.18)
1983 The Hong Kong film "Warriors
of the Magic Mountain" starred Sammo Hung.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, Par p.18)
1983 The Hong Kong film "Winners
and Sinners" starred Sammo Hung.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, Par p.18)
1983 In Hong Kong Teddy Wang
Teh-huei, owner of Chinachem, was abducted by armed men and stuffed
into a refrigerator. He was released following an $11 million ransom.
(WSJ, 10/20/99, p.A23)
1983 Vijay Mallya (27) inherited
the UB Group of India when his father, Vittal Mallya, died of a heart
attack. Sales for UB then grew from $100 million to $1.6 billion in
2003. Import duties on foreign liquor of up to 550% protected his
business.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.I3)(WSJ, 6/8/07, p.A1)
1983 The Indian guru Swami
Muktananda (1908-1982) was charged posthumously with seducing young
girls and stashing funds in a Swiss bank account.
(SFC, 6/15/05, p.A13)
1983 In Iran the Fajr Int'l. Film
Festival began. In 2004 the 22nd festival established its own web site
(www.fajrfilmfest.com).
(SFC, 2/10/04, p.D8)
1983 In Iraq Nassir Hindawi wrote
a secret report for the governing Baath Party on using germ weapons as
a military asset.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A12)
1983 In Japan Kenshi Hirokane
created his Mr Shima, a salaryman manga (cartoon) character. By 2008
some 30 million Shima Kosaku books had been sold.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.65)
1983 In Japan Koji Takahashi
founded the Life Space cult. His self-enlightenment seminars were an
instant success. The group believed that the human body never dies.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A14)
1983 Japan’s Nissan began to
produce trucks in the US.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1983 The Green Cross Corp., a
major Japanese pharmaceutical firm, was later accused of having sold
unheated blood products at this time even after learning that they
could infect people with the AIDS virus. In 1996 prosecutors raided
their offices. Drug company executives, Renzo Matsushita (79), Takehiko
Kawano (69) and Tadakazu Suyama (72) pleaded guilty in 1997 and began
prison terms in 2000.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A14)(SFC, 2/25/00, p.D4)
1983 Keiko Arimoto of Japan was
lured to N. Korea while job hunting in Denmark. In 2002 N. Korea
admitted to having kidnapped her and listed her as dead.
(SFC, 9/18/02, p.A10)
1983 In Lebanon fierce battles
raged between the Christian Maronite and Druze militias.
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A8)
1983 Charles Taylor fled Liberia
after being accused of embezzling nearly US$1 million. He was later
detained in the United States on a Liberian arrest warrant.
(AP, 7/14/09)
1983 In Malawi 4 dissident
politicians were murdered. Dr. Attati Mpakati was found murdered in
central Harare, Zimbabwe while on a private visit. Dick Matenje, the
Secretary-General of MCP and two other senior politicians died in a
mysterious car accident, their deaths coming at a time when they were
being seen as possible successors to Banda. In 1995 former dictator
Banda and his “official hostess” Cecilia Kadzamira were cleared of
murder charges after an 8-month trial
(www.sardc.net/SD/sd_factfile_malawi.htm).
(SFC,11/27/97, p.B8)
1983 In Malaysia PM Mahathir
Mohamed initiated Proton, the Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional (National
Car Project). Production of the 1st model, Saga, began in 1985 in
association with Mitsubishi of Japan.
(Econ, 5/8/04, p.61)(WSJ, 7/14/04, p.B2B)(Econ,
12/2/06, p.68)
1983 Malaysia passed an Islamic
banking law and set up Bank Islam. Takaful Malaysia, an Islamic
insurance company, was set up in 1984.
(WSJ, 4/4/07, p.A13)
1983 The Marshall Islands received
$183.7 million for the 1946-1958 US nuclear tests near Bikini.
(AP, 2/28/04)
1983 In Mexico Jesus Leon (17)
co-founded CEDICAM, the Center for Integral Small Farmer Development of
the Mixtec.
(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.A4)
1983 In the Netherlands the Dapper
Foundation of Amsterdam was founded with a private gift donation of
African art. It was brought to Paris in 1986 and housed in an elegant
private museum at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, p.T7)
1983 In Saudi Arabia the King
Khalid Int'l. Airport opened in Riyadh and was touted as the largest in
the world. One of the terminals was mothballed at opening and remained
so in 2008.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.15)
1983 Sulaiman Al Rajhi and his
brother Saleh won permission to open Saudi Arabia’s first Islamic bank.
They had begun changing money for traders and pilgrims in the 1940s. In
2007 Sulaiman Al Rajhi’s fortune was estimated at $12 billion and the
Al-Rajhi Bank was the largest Islamic bank in Saudi Arabia.
(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)
1983 In Senegal rebel fighters
with the Movement of the Democratic Forces (MFDC) began a low level
insurgency against the government.
(SFC, 5/9/08, p.A19)
1983 In South Africa the Organ and
Tissue Act of this year allowed officials to remove needed organs and
tissues without consent if reasonable attempts to locate the potential
donor’s next of kin had failed.
(NH, 10/98, p.51)
1983 Didata, a South African
computer firm, was established.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.59)
1983 The island of St. Kitts
offered citizenship in exchange for a cash payment.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.62)
1983 Sudan’s Pres. Gaafar Numeiri
brought in Sharia law as the basis for criminal law causing much
grievance in the non-Muslim south.
(Econ, 8/8/09, p.44)
1983 Civil War began again in the
Sudan when the People’s Liberation Army renewed the battle for greater
autonomy from the Muslim north. The discovery of oil in the middle of
the country and the imposition of Shariah law by the government
reignited violence.
(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A8)(SFC, 1/31/98, p.A9)(SSFC,
3/25/01, p.C8)
1983 Turkey began battling a
Kurdish insurgency in the southeast.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A7)
1983-84 Shiing-Shen Chern (1911-2004), US Berkeley
mathematician, was awarded the Wolf Prize in mathematics, the
equivalent of the Nobel Prize. He reshaped differential geometry.
(SFC, 12/9/04, p.B7)
1983-1984 Twelve Navajo weavers in Arizona completed
the 26x28 foot "Little Sister" rug. It was a smaller version of a
larger rug woven in 1976, and recorded as the largest Navajo rug in the
world. In 1997 the rug was put up for auction to raise funds for a
community health clinic.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A7)
1983-1984 Dallas was again the top ranking network
show on television with a ranking of 25.7%.
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)
1983-1986 Deng Xiaoping directed a massive
inner-party purge.
(WSJ, 2/20/97, p.A20)
1983-1987 Spain waged a "dirty war" against Basque
rebels. A former interior minister and 11 others went on trial in 1998
for kidnapping linked to the war in which 27 [28] people were killed.
The killings were attributed to the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups
known as GAL.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)(WSJ, 5/26/98, p.A1)(SFC,
6/24/98, p.A12)
1983-1988 Sigmund Koch (1917-1996), psychologist and
philosopher, compiled a film archive at Boston Univ. of 17 videotapes
of interviews with artists from various fields. Included were Saul
Bellow, Toni Morrison, Edward Albee , Arthur Miller and others.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C4)
1983-1988 In Mexico Manuel Bartlett Diaz was the
Interior Minister and oversaw the Federal Security Directorate (DFS).
(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)
1983-1989 In Turkey Gen. Kenan Evren returned the
country to democratic rule and served as president.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.E4)
1983-1991 Heshamuddin Hesam served as the head of
Afghan military intelligence. In 2005 Dutch prosecutors demanded a
sentence of 12 years in prison for war crimes and torture.
(AP, 9/26/05)
1983-1992 DNA Plant Technology Corp. later admitted
to having worked on a secret research project over this period, at the
behest of an unnamed US tobacco company, to increase the nicotine
content of tobacco plants.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A1)
1983-1998 In Sudan the civil war killed some 1.5
million people over this period.
(SFC, 11/3/98, p.A10)
1983-2005 Prince Bandar bin Sultan served as Saudi
Arabia’s ambassador in Washington. In 2006 William Simpson authored
“The Prince: The Secret Story of the World’s Most Intriguing Royal,
Prince Bandar bin Sultan”
(www.saudiembassy.net/Country/Government/BandarBio.asp).
(Econ, 12/2/06, p.86)
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