Britain and the World 1979

BRITAIN AND THE WORLD SINCE 1953

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	1979
Jan1	United States and China established diplomatic relations, 30 years after the foundation of the People's Republic.
Jan2	The trial of Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols) for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen begins
Jan4	Ohio officials approve an out-of-court settlement awarding $675,000 to the victims and families in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University, in which four students were killed and nine wounded by National Guard troops.
Jan7	Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge government.
Jan8	The French tanker Betelgeuse exploded at the Gulf Oil terminal at Bantry in Ireland, killing 50 people
Jan16	Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi of Iran flees Iran for Egypt
Jan19	Former US Attorney General John N. Mitchell was released on parole after serving 19 months at a federal prison in Alabama
Feb1	Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 15 years of exile
	Trevor Francis becomes the first English soccer player to be transferred for one million pounds. He joins Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest
Feb7	Josef Mengele dies
Feb26	The Old Bailey trial of Tom Keating is halted on the grounds of his ill-health. Accused of forging the works of Old Masters the trial merely highlights the skills and technical ability of Keating - he had painted over 2000 pictures in the style of 150 artists! He claimed he did them to express his opinion of the art establishment
Mar1	32.5% of Scots vote in favour of devolution (40% needed)-Welsh vote overwhelmingly against
Mar5	Voyager 1 passes Jupiter
Mar13	A coup in Grenada led by Maurice Bishop is successful and establishes a socialist government
Mar21	Australian Prime minister Bob Hawke breaks down sobbing on TV after admitting that he had committed adultery on many occassions
Mar26	In a ceremony at the White House, President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel signed a peace treaty ending 30 years of war between the two countries.
Mar28	America's worst commercial nuclear disaster occurred inside the Unit Two reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, PA, as a series of human and mechanical failures caused the cooling system to malfunction ,resulting in damage to the reactor's core and the leakage of radioactivity into the atmosphere. The meltdown that occurred has meant that the plant has never reopened
Mar30	Conservative Northern Ireland spokesman Airey Neave is killed by INLA bomb in British House of Commons car park
Mar31	The Royal Navy withdraw from Malta
Apr4	Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the deposed prime minister of Pakistan, was hanged after he was convicted of conspiring to murder a political opponent.
Apr11	Ugandan dictator Idi Amin overthrown; Tanzania takes Kampala
May4	Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain's first female Prime Minister defeating the incumbent Labour goverment in a landslide victory
May22	In Canada, the 11-year premiership of Pierre Trudeau ended when the Liberal Party were defeated in a General Election by the Progressive Conservative Party led by Joe Clark.
May25	The worst air disaster in U.S. history occurred when a DC-10 crashed at Chicago's O'Hare airport, killing over 270 people.
Jun3	The world's worst oil spillage occurred as a result of a marine blow-out beneath the drilling rig Ixtoc 1 in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jun11	John Wayne (Marion Michael Morrison), U.S. film star, died of cancer Despite being the biggest box office draw in cinema history, he won only one Oscar for best actor ("True Grit.")
Jul24	Gerald Brook was released to Britain by the Soviet Union in exchange for spies Peter and Helen Kroger.
Aug9	The first nudist beach in the UK is established in Brighton
Aug27	Lord Mountbatten killed in bomb blast off the coast of Sligo in Eire. The Provisional I.R.A. claim responsibility
Sep10	British Leyland announces that it is to axe the world famous MGB line
Sep12	The UK Government state that the Postal Service and the Telephone Network are to be separated
Sep16	Three families flee from the DDR by balloon
Sep18	ILEA voted to abolish corporal punishment in its schools
Oct3	The first bar code scanner in the UK is inaugurated at Key Market (Spalding, Lincs)
Oct21	259 Muslim extremists occupy Kaaba and the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The occupation eventually ends when the Mosque is stormed by the Saudi-Arabian army
Nov13	The Times returns to circulation
Nov20	Anthony Blunt, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, is stripped of his knighthood after being exposed as a traitor in the Burgess, Maclean and Philby spy scandal.
Dec2	The cleric Ayatollah Khomeini takes power in Iran
Dec15	Two 30-year-old Canadians, Chris Haney and Scott Abbott, came up with the idea for a game called Trivial Pursuit. It was manufactured in 1982 and sold 45 million copies worldwide in its first five years.
Dec27	Soviet troops invade Afghanistan, President Hafizullah Amin overthrown

Last Updated 21/03/07 11:48

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