1984





Events

   * January 1 - Brunei becomes a fully independent state.
   * January 1 - AT&T is broken up into 22 independent units
   * January 7 - Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of
     Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
   * January 9 - Clara Peller is featured in the "Where's the Beef?"
     commercial campaign for Wendy's for the first time.
   * January 10 - The United States and the Vatican establish full
     diplomatic relations.
   * January 22 - The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to use a
     computer mouse and GUI interface, is introduced by Apple Computer
     corporation in a Super Bowl commercial evoking images from George
     Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
   * January 24 - The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale
   * February 3 - Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on the tenth space
     shuttle mission.
   * February 7 - Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make
     the first untethered space walk.
   * February 13 - Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as
     general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
   * March 6 - Twelve month long strike in British coal industry begins See
     UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985)
   * March 14 - Gerry Adams seriously wounded in an assassination attempt
   * March 16 - CIA station chief stationed in Beirut, William Buckley, is
     kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists and later dies in captivity.
   * March 22 - Teachers at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach,
     California at charged with Satanic ritual abuse of the children in the
     school. The charges were later dropped as completely unfounded.
   * April 4 - President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on
     chemical weapons.
   * May 8 - The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer
     Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
   * June 5 - The Indian government begins Operation Blue Star, the planned
     attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
   * June 30 - John Turner becomes Canada's seventeenth prime minister.
   * July 18 - In San Ysidro, California, 41-year-old James Oliver Huberty
     sprays a McDonald's restaurant with gun-fire killing 21 people before
     being shot dead by police.
   * July 21 - In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker
     against a safety bar in apparently the first robot-related death in the
     United States.
   * July 23 - Vanessa Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign
     when she surrenders her crown after nude photos of her appeared in
     "Penthouse" magazine.
   * July 25 - Salyut 7 Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first
     woman to perform a space walk.
   * August 4 - The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina
     Faso.
   * August 16 - Carmaker John DeLorean is acquitted of all eight counts of
     possessing and distributing cocaine.
   * September 5 - STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its
     maiden voyage.
   * September 17 - Brian Mulroney becomes Canada's eighteenth prime
     minister.
   * October 5 - Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard
     the Space Shuttle Challenger (41-6).
   * October 11 - Margaret Thatcher survives an IRA bomb.
   * October 11 - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D.
     Sullivan becomes the first American women to perform a space walk.
   * October 12 - Brighton bombing (attempt to assassinate the British
     Cabinet)
   * October 31 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two
     Sikh security guards (riots soon broke out in New Delhi and nearly
     2,000 innocent Sikhs were killed).
   * November - Ronald Reagan defeats Walter F. Mondale in the U.S.
     presidential election
   * November 28 - William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made
     Honorary Citizens of the United States
   * December 19 - People's Republic of China and United Kingdom signs the
     Sino-British Joint Declaration which concerns with the future of Hong
     Kong.
   * Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles California USA
   * The influential rap group, the Ultramagnetic MCs, form in the Bronx.
   * Ethiopian famine begins.
   * The New International Version of the Bible is published.

Art, Culture & Fashion

   * 1984 in film
        o Amadeus
        o Ghost Busters
        o The Killing Fields
        o Places in the Heart
        o May 23 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
   * 1984 in sports
        o January 14 - Ray Mancini stops 2 time world champion Bobby Chacon
          in the third round of a long awaited boxing fight, to retain the
          WBA's world Lightweight title.
        o January 22 - Super Bowl XVIII Los Angeles Raiders (38) def.
          Washington Redskins (9)
        o January 27 - Carl Lewis beats his own indoor world jumping record
          by 9-1/4 inches with a 28 feet, 10-1/4 inches jump.
        o February 8 - 1984 Winter Olympics open in Sarajevo
        o May 19 - The NHL's Edmonton Oilers win the Stanley Cup defeating
          the New York Islanders 5-2 at Edmonton and ending the Islanders
          dynasty. The first in Oilers club history and of a new dynasty.
        o Summer Olympics are held in Los Angeles, California
   * 1984 in television
        o January 28 - singer Michael Jackson's hair catches fire during the
          filming of a Pepsi commercial
        o Jeopardy! makes it's debut on NBC.
        o The Cosby Show debuts on NBC.

Births

   * April 10 - Mandy Moore, singer, actress
   * April 18 - America Ferrera, actress
   * August 1 - Alessandra Angleton, twin daughter of Robert Angleton and
     Doris Angleton
   * August 1 - Nicole Angleton, twin daughter of Robert Angleton and Doris
     Angleton
   * September 16 - Prince Harry of Wales, English prince
   * September 27 - Avril Lavigne, singer
   * November 9 - Delta Goodrem, actress, singer
   * November 21 - Jena Malone, actress

Deaths

   * January 20 - Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and actor. Most
     prominent as Tarzan.
   * February 9 - Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of
     the Soviet Union
   * February 15 - Ethel Merman, singer, actress
   * February 22 - Jessamyn West, writer
   * March 1 - Jackie Coogan, actor
   * March 5 - William Powell, actor
   * March 21 - Sir Michael Redgrave, actor
   * April 1 - Marvin Gaye, singer
   * April 22 - Ansel Adams, American photographer
   * April 26 - Count Basie, musician, composer
   * May 16 - Andy Kaufman, comedian
   * May 16 - Irwin Shaw, author
   * June 26 - Michel Foucault, philosopher
   * July 8 - Brassa-, photographer
   * July 26 - Ed Gein, serial killer
   * September 25 - Walter Pidgeon, actor
   * October 12 - Sir Anthony Berry, British politician, along with three of
     the other victims of the Brighton bombing
   * October 20 - Paul Dirac, physicist
   * October 21 - Franois Truffaut, French film director

Nobel Prizes

   * Physics - Carlo Rubbia, Simon van der Meer
   * Chemistry - Robert Bruce Merrifield
   * Medicine - Niels K Jerne, Georges JF Kšhler, CŽsar Milstein
   * Literature -Jaroslav Seifert
   * Peace - Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu
   * Economics - Richard Stone

Fictional references to the year

   * George Orwell's dystopian satire Nineteen Eighty-Four about a future
     totalitarian society was set in this year. The date was chosen by
     transposing 1948, the year in which Orwell wrote the book. Nineteen
     Eighty-Four was used as an imaginary year in the future by others as
     well, much like 1999 and 2001 was.