1979 Calendar
What Happened In Year 1979?
- January 16, 1979 – The Shah of Iran flees Iran with his family and relocates to Egypt.
- January 28, 1979 – New Year’s Day in Chinese calendar. Start of the year of the Earth Sheep in Chinese astrology.
- April 4, 1979 – The 2nd Congress of the Communist Youth of Greece starts.
- April 10, 1979 – Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak: A tornado lands in Wichita Falls, Texas killing 42 people.
- April 11, 1979 – Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is deposed.
- April 15, 1979 – A disastrous earthquake (of M 7.1) occurs on Montenegro coast.
- May 10, 1979 – The Federated States of Micronesia become self-governing.
- May 21, 1979 – White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.
- July 12, 1979 – The island nation of Kiribati becomes independent from Great Britain.
- July 19, 1979 – The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
- August 17, 1979 – Two Soviet Aeroflot jetliners collide in mid-air over Ukraine, killing 156.
- August 21, 1979 – Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defects to the United States.
- September 20, 1979 – A coup d'état in the Central African Empire overthrows Emperor Bokasa I.
- September 29, 1979 – Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to set foot on Irish soil with his pastoral visit to the Republic of Ireland.
- September 30, 1979 – The Hong Kong MTR commences service with the opening of its Modified Initial System (aka. Kwun Tong Line).
- October 12, 1979 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams is published.
- November 4, 1979 – Iran hostage crisis begins: a group of Iranians, mostly students, invades the US embassy in Tehran and takes 90 hostages (53 of whom are American).
- November 21, 1979 – The United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is attacked by a mob and set on fire, killing four. (see: Foreign relations of Pakistan)
- December 10, 1979 – Kaohsiung Incident: Taiwanese pro-democracy demonstrations are suppressed by the KMT dictatorship, and organizers are arrested.
- December 12, 1979 – The unrecognised state of Zimbabwe Rhodesia returns to British control and resumes using the name Southern Rhodesia.
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