BRITAIN AND THE WORLD SINCE 1953
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| Jan1 | TCP/IP becomes a a Net standard |
| Jan17 | Start of breakfast TV in Britain with BBC's "Breakfast Time". Frank Bough and Selina Scott were the presenters |
| Jan19 | Klaus Barbie, SS chief of Lyon in Nazi-France, arrested in Bolivia and is extradited to France on February 4th |
| Jan22 | Ann Winter becomes British Rail's first female engine driver |
| Jan24 | 25 Members of the Italian Red Brigade are sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Aldo Moro |
| Jan25 | China overturned the death sentence, imposed on this day in 1981, on Mao Zedong's widow Jiang Qing. |
| Jan31 | Compulsory seat belt law came into force in UK |
| Feb1 | TV-AM breakfast TV began broadcasting, the commercial sectors response to the BBC's Breakfast Time |
| Feb7 | Iran opens an invasion in the southeast of Iraq. |
| Feb9 | A civil servant is arrested in London after human remains were found in a blocked drain. The house 23 Cranley Gardens N10 was the home of Denis Nilsen who admitted to at least 15 murders in the preceding four years. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at his trial |
| Feb9 | Shergar, the 1981 English Derby winner, was stolen from the Ballymany Stud in Eire . He was the subject of ransom demands by IRA renegades and it is thought that he was shot a couple of days later by the kidnappers |
| Feb26 | Pat Jennings became the first footballer to play in 1,000 Football League matches. |
| Feb28 |
TV history is made today when comedy series M*A*S*H finally ends in 1983 after a decade of shows (famously lasting longer then the Korean War in which it was set). It was the most watched show on US television with over 100 million people tuning in to see the last episode. |
| Mar3 | Herge (Georges Remi) the creator of TinTin dies of anemia |
| Mar5 | Bob Hawke (Labor) defeats Australian PM Malcolm Fraser (Cons) in the general election |
| Mar23 | Ronald Reagan announces SDI a defence program that becomes known as " Star Wars" |
| May16 | London police began wheel clamping to illegally-parked vehicles. |
| Apr9 | Corbiere wins The Grand National at Aintree. The horse, ridden by Ben de Haan, was the first to be trained by a woman, Jenny Pitman. |
| Apr18 | 17 die as a suicide bomber kills himself in the US embassy in Beiruit |
| Apr21 | One pound coin comes into circulation in Britain |
| May6 | Alleged diaries supposedly written by dictator Adolf Hitler and published by Stern Magazine - Sunday Times were declared forgeries. |
| May11 | Aberdeen FC celebrate their second cup victory of the season , by defeating Real Madrid 2-1 in Gothenburg to lift the European Cup Winners' Cup. Alex Ferguson's side also captured the Scottish Cup , beating Rangers in the cup final for the second consecutive campaign. |
| May15 | Finnish F1 driver Keke Rosberg wins the Monaco Grand Prix |
| Jun13 | Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave Solar System |
| Jul16 | Twenty killed in Britain's worst helicopter accident |
| Jul21 | Martial Law was lifted in Poland. It had been imposed in December 1981 in a crackdown against Solidarity. |
| July28 | The actor David Niven dies of motor neurone disease |
| Aug21 | Opposition leader Beningo Aquino is shot at Manila Airport |
| Sep1 | Korean Boeing 747 (KAL007) on a flight from New York to Seoul strays over Sakhalin Island Siberia & is shot down by a Soviet jet. The total loss of life is 269 passengers |
| Oct7 | Plans to abolish Greater London Council are announced |
| Oct19 | Bloody Wednesday in Grenada as the President Maurice Bishop and 40 others are shot in a left wing military coup. A US led invasion on 25th October leads to fierce fighting and the eventual overthrow of the coup leaders |
| Oct23 | A suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International airport in Lebanon killed 241 U.S. Marines and sailors |
| Oct24 | A massacre in Sheffield. 28-year-old Robert Laitner was stabbed to death in his bedroom in the Sheffield suburb of Dore. His father solicitor Basil Laitner went upstairs to investigate the noise and was also stabbed to death. Basil’s wife, Avril was downstairs and was stabbed twenty-six times. Returning upstairs the assailant then attacked the youngest of the Laitners’ daughters, Nicola. She was repeatedly raped by the intruder Laitner daughter, Suzanne. Hutchinson was sentenced to life imprisonment |
| Nov13 | The first U.S. cruise missiles arrived at Greenham Common airbase in England amid protests from peace campaigners. |
| Nov15 | The Turkish part of Cyprus declares independence |
| Nov26 | Heathrow Airport - 6,800 gold bars worth $38.7 million are stolen - The Brinks Mat robbery |
| Dec17 | A fire at a discotheque in Madrid, Spain, kills 83 people. |
| An IRA car bomb killed six people - three of them police officers outside Harrods in London. Many more were injured as it was a busy Saturday before Xmas | |
| Dec31 | Brunei gains complete independence from Britain |
| Two bombs explode in Marseilles - one on the Paris train (3 dead,19 injured) and the other at Marseille station (2 dead - 34 injured) |
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Last Updated 21/05/07 11:11