1983

April 7 - STS-6: Space Shuttle Challenger astronauts Story Musgrave and Donald H. Peterson perform the first space shuttle spacewalk (duration: 4 hours, 10 minutes).
April 11 - The National Economic Summit is held in Canberra, Australia.
April 12 - The British film Gandhi wins 8 Oscars.
April 12 - Harold Washington is elected the first African American mayor of Chicago.
April 15 - American Public Radio is founded (becomes Public Radio International in 1994).
April 15 - The first non-American Disney theme park opens in Japan as Tokyo Disneyland.
April 18 - The U.S Embassy is bombed in Beirut, killing 63 people.
April 21 - Scandal-plagued Jackie Presser is elected president of the Teamsters.
April 22 - Soviet Embassy official Valery Ivanov is expelled from Australia for allegedly trying to recruit spies in the Australian government.
April 23 - Stern magazine in West Germany announces it has the Hitler Diaries.
April 23 - Corinne Hermès wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1983 for Luxembourg with the song, Si la vie est cadeau.
April 25 - Manchester, Maine schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov, after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war.

[modifier]

May

Modèle:Month3

May 6 - Stern magazine publishes the "Hitler Diaries" (later found to be forgeries).
May 9 - Pope John Paul II retracts the ban on Galileo Galilei.
May 11 - Aberdeen FC wins the European Cup Winners Cup - beating Real Madrid 2-1 in the final played in Gothenburg, Sweden.
May 16 - London police begin the use of wheel clamps on illegally-parked vehicles.
May 16 - NSW Premier Neville Wran steps down, in response to allegations raised by ABC program Four Corners that he attempted to influence the NSW Magistracy.
May 17 - Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
May 26 - Powerful earthquake and tsunami hit northern Honshū, Japan, killed 104, injured 163.
May 28 - The 9th G7 summit begins at Williamsburg, Virginia.
May 29 - Indianapolis 500: Tom Sneva wins his first race after three previous runner-up finishes.

[modifier]

June

Modèle:Month3

June 9 - Conservative Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 1979, wins a landslide victory (42% of the popular vote) over Michael Foot, who led a highly-divided and weakened Labour Party which earned only 28% of the vote. The much improved economy (after 2-3 years of restructuring), her victory in the Falkands, as well as shrinking unemployment rates consolidates her election victory.
June 13 - Pioneer 10 becomes the first manmade object to leave the solar system.
June 18 - STS-7: Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space, on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
June 25 - India wins the Prudential world cup 1983.

[modifier]

July

Modèle:Month3

July 1 - A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea, crashes into the Fouta Djall Mountains in Guinea-Bissau, killing all 23 people on board.
July 1 - The High Court of Australia blocks construction of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania.
July 7 - Samantha Smith flies to the Soviet Union (see April 25).
July 15 - The Nintendo Entertainment System goes on sale in Japan
July 16 - Sikorsky S-61 disaster: a helicopter crashes off the Isles of Scilly, causing 20 fatalities.
July 17 - American television series CHiPs ends their original run.
July 20 - The government of Poland announces end of martial law and amnesty for political prisoners.
July 21 - Diana Ross stages a free concert in Central Park in front of 800,000 people, enduring the severe weather but vows to return the next day.
July 22 - Diana Ross and the crowds return for day two of the performer's legendary Central Park show.
July 22 - Australian Dick Smith completes his solo circumnavigation in a helicopter.
July 23 - Gimli Glider: Air Canada Flight 143 crash-lands in Gimli, Manitoba.
July 23 - The Black July, a communal riot occurs in Sri Lanka.
July 23 - Heavy massive rain and mudslide occurred at western Shimane prefecture, Japan, 117 killed.
July 24 - George Brett is expelled from a baseball game in Yankee Stadium, New York, after charging an umpire who called him out for having more pine tar on his bat than technically allowed.
July 25 - Anti-Tamil riots break out in Sri Lanka, leaving over 3,000 Tamils massacred and millions of dollars worth of their property destroyed. This genocide is the beginning of a deadly civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka.
July 28 - New South Wales premier Neville Wran is exonerated by the Street Royal Commission, over claims raised by ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) programme Four Corners, that he attempted to influence the NSW magistracy.

[modifier]

August

Modèle:Month3

August 4 - Thomas Sankara becomes President in Upper Volta.
August 16 - The Bill first airs as Woodentop.
August 18 - Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 22 and causing over US$3.8 billion (2005 dollars) in damage.
August 18 - Five people are killed and 18 others injured when a road train is deliberately driven into a motel at Ayers Rock (Uluru), NT (The driver, Douglas Edward Crabbe, is convicted in March 1984).
August 21 - Benigno Aquino, Jr., Philippines opposition leader, is assassinated in Manila just as he returns from exile.
August 24 - The Old Philadelphia Arena is destroyed by arson.
August 30 - STS-8: Space Shuttle Challenger carries Guion S. Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, into space.

[modifier]

September

Modèle:Month3

September 1 - Cold War: Korean Air Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 on board are killed.
September 4 - Six men walk underwater across the Sydney Harbor - 82.9 km in 48 hours.
September 5 - Tom Brokaw becomes lead anchor for NBC Nightly News.
September 6 - The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight 007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.
September 16 - Donna Griffiths of Pershore in England stops sneezing after a continual series of sneezes for 978 days (since January 13, 1981).
September 17 - Vanessa Lynn Williams becomes the first African-American to be crowned Miss America, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
September 23 - Violence erupts in New Caledonia between native Kanaks and French expatriates. The French government withdraws the promise of independence.
September 25 - Maze Prison escape. 38 Irish republican prisoners, armed with 6 handguns, hijacked a prison meals lorry and smashed their way out of HMP Maze. The largest prison escape since WWII and in British history
September 25-September 26 - Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war.
September 26 - Australia wins America's Cup.
September 27 - The GNU Project is announced publicly on the net.unix-wizards and net.usoft newsgroups.

[modifier]

October

Modèle:Month3

October 2 - Neil Kinnock is elected leader of the British Labour Party.
October 4 - Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 mph, driving Thrust 2 at the Black Rock Desert, Nevada.
October 4 - Hooters opens up in Clearwater, Florida.
October 7 - A plan to abolish the Greater London Council is announced.
October 9 - The Rangoon bombing kills South Korea's Foreign Minister, Lee Bum Suk, and 21 others.
October 12 - Japan's former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from Lockheed, and sentenced to 4 years in jail.
October 19 - Maurice Bishop, the Prime Minister of Grenada, and 40 others are executed in a military coup.
October 21 - At the 17th General Conference on Weights and Measures, the metre is defined in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
October 22 - In Bonn, West Germany, people demonstrate for nuclear disarmament.
October 23 - Simultaneous suicide truck-bombings destroy both the French and the United States Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing 241 US servicemen, 58 French paratroopers and 6 Lebanese civilians. The game show "GO!" premieres on NBC.
October 24 - Arthur Hutchinson kills 3 members of the Laitner family and rapes their daughter in the Sheffield suburb of Dore.
October 25 - United States troops invade Grenada at the behest of Eugenia Charles of Dominica, a member of the Organization of American States.
October 25 - Microsoft Word is first released.
October 27 - Pope John Paul II visits his would-be assassin Mehmet Ali Ağca in prison to forgive him.
October 30 - The first democratic elections in Argentina after 7 years of military rule are held.

[modifier]

November

Modèle:Month3

November 2 - Martin Luther King Day: At the White House Rose Garden, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honor American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
November 3 - The Reverend Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for the 1984 Democratic Party presidential nomination.
November 5 - The Byford Dolphin rig diving bell accident off the coast of Norway. Five divers are killed and one severely wounded in an explosive decompression accident.
November 11 - Ronald Reagan becomes the first U.S. President to address the Diet, Japan's national legislature.
November 13 - The first United States cruise missiles arrive at Greenham Common Airbase in England amid protests from peace campaigners.
November 15 - The Turkish part of Cyprus declares independence.
November 16 - A jury in Gretna, Louisiana acquits Ginny Foat of the murder of Argentine businessman Moses Chaiyo.
November 17 - The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is founded.

November 24 - Lynda Mann, 15, is found raped and strangled in the village of Narborough, England (Colin Pitchfork is sentenced to life imprisonment in 198Image:Cool.gif.
November 26 - Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly UK£26 million are taken from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport. Only a fraction of the gold is ever recovered, and only 2 men are convicted of the crime.
November 27 - A Colombian Boeing 747 crashes near Madrid, Spain killing 181 of the 192 on board.

[modifier]

December

Modèle:Month3

December 7 - Two Spanish passenger planes collide on the foggy runway at a Madrid airport killing 90.
December 9 - The Australian Dollar is floated, by Federal treasurer Paul Keating. Under the old flexible peg system, the Reserve Bank bought and sold all Australian dollars and cleared the market at the end of the day. This initiative is taken by the government of Bob Hawke.
December 10 - Military rule ends and democracy is restored in Argentina.
December 11 - Grêmio (Brazil) becomes the new soccer world champion, after beating Hamburger SV (Germany) by 2-1.
December 13 - The Denver Nuggets and the visiting Detroit Pistons combine for an NBA record 370 points, with Detroit winning in triple overtime, 186-184.
December 17 - A discotheque fire in Madrid, Spain, kills 83 people.
December 17 - A Provisional IRA car bomb kills 6 Christmas shoppers and injures 90 outside Harrods in London.
December 27 - A propane explosion in Buffalo, New York kills five firefighters and two civilians.
December 29 - The Reverend Jesse Jackson travels to Syria to secure the release of U.S. Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman, who has been in Syrian captivity after being shot down over the country on a reconnaissance mission.
December 31 - Brunei gains independence from the United Kingdom.
December 31 - Two bombs explode in France. One on the Paris train kills 3 and injures 19. The other at Marseille station kills 2 and injures 34.