1979 Calendar
What Happened In Year 1979?
- January 8, 1979 – The tanker Betelgeuse explodes in Bantry Bay, Ireland.
- January 28, 1979 – New Year’s Day in Chinese calendar. Start of the year of the Earth Sheep in Chinese astrology.
- February 1, 1979 – Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst is released from prison after her sentence is commuted by President Jimmy Carter.
- February 22, 1979 – Independence of Saint Lucia from the United Kingdom.
- March 19, 1979 – The United States House of Representatives begins broadcasting its day-to-day business via the cable television network C-SPAN.
- March 28, 1979 – Operators of Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 nuclear reactor outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania fail to recognize that a relief valve in the primary coolant system has stuck open following an unexpected shutdown. As a result, enough coolant drains out of the system to allow the core to overheat and partially melt down.
- May 25, 1979 – American Airlines Flight 191: In Chicago, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport killing 271 on board and two people on the ground.
- June 4, 1979 – Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown.
- June 20, 1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime.
- July 9, 1979 – A car bomb destroys a Renault motor car owned by famed “Nazi hunters” Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. A note purportedly from ODESSA claims responsibility.
- August 27, 1979 – A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British World War II admiral Louis Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Shortly after, 18 British Army soldiers are killed in an ambush near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland (see Warrenpoint ambush).
- September 13, 1979 – South Africa grants independence to the “homeland” of Venda (not recognised outside South Africa).
- October 14, 1979 – The first Gay Rights March on Washington, D.C., the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, demands “an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people”, and draws 200,000 people.
- October 15, 1979 – Black Monday in Malta. The Building of the Times of Malta, the residence of the opposition leader Eddie Fenech Adami and several Nationalist Party clubs are ransacked and destroyed by supporters of the Malta Labour Party.
- October 17, 1979 – The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services.
- November 3, 1979 – Greensboro massacre: Five members of the Communist Workers Party are shot dead and seven are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis during a “Death to the Klan” rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States.
- November 9, 1979 – Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early warning radars, the alert is cancelled.
- November 19, 1979 – Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.
- December 12, 1979 – The unrecognised state of Zimbabwe Rhodesia returns to British control and resumes using the name Southern Rhodesia.
- December 27, 1979 – The Soviet Union invades the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
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