1980
1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
The shah of Iran leaves Panama for Cairo March 23 at the invitation of President Sadat, surgeons remove his enlarged spleen and part of his liver March 28, and the cancer-riddled shah dies July 26 at age 60, ending the Pahlevi dynasty that ruled Iran from 1921 until last year.
A U.S. attempt to rescue the 53 hostages held at Teheran since November ends in disaster April 24, and the Ayatollah Khomeini threatens to kill the hostages if another "silly maneuver" is tried. Six U.S. C-130 transport planes from a base in southern Egypt have landed 90 commandos in the desert 300 miles southeast of Teheran; mechanical problems and a sandstorm knock out three of the operation's eight helicopters, the mission is aborted, eight men are killed as a fourth helicopter collides on the ground with a C-130, and the survivors beat a hasty retreat. The hostages remain in custody at year's end as negotiations proceed for their release, but they will not go free until January 20, 1981.
Iraqi planes hit 10 Iranian airfields September 22 after months of border skirmishes, troops cross into Iran September 23 and besiege the huge oil refinery at Abadan, beginning an 8-year war over the Shatt Al-Arab estuary (see 1975). Iraq's new president Saddam Hussein launches the first of his military adventures (see 1979; 1981).
Turkey has strikes, terrorism, inflation, and rising unemployment that bring the country to the verge of anarchy until a military government takes over September 12 in a coup d'état, bans Süleyman Demirel from involvement in politics for 3 years, and establishes some order (see 1971; 1987).
India's former prime minister Indira Gandhi regains power January 6 in an election victory engineered by her son Sanjay, 33, only 33 months after a humiliating defeat. Called ruthless and autocratic for pushing slum clearance projects that left thousands homeless and family planning programs that included forced sterilizations, Sanjay has been convicted on one of more than a dozen criminal charges that he reaped huge profits from a state project to produce small, cheap automobiles, none of which ever came off the assembly line. Sanjay and a flight instructor die June 23 in a plane crash while doing illegal aerial acrobatics.
Vietnam's president Ton Duc Thang dies at Hanoi March 30 at age 91 after nearly 11 years in power; former Pakistani president Agha Mohammed Yahha Khan dies at Rawalpindi August 10 at age 63, having resigned in 1971 and been paralyzed since shortly after his release from house arrest.
South Korean general Chun Doo Hwan makes himself director of the KCIA in April (see 1979), students and other citizens in urban centers demonstrate against another military regime, Chun seizes power in a coup d'état May 17, declares martial law May 18, and orders the shutdown of colleges and universities, the National Assembly closes, and Chun suppresses an uprising at Kwangju in South Cholla Province, a city of 730,000 with a pan'gol (anti-authoritarian) tradition. Chun's paratroopers open fire May 21, and demonstrators occupy government buildings; former KCIA chief Kim Jae Kyu says at his trial that he assassinated President Park Chung Hee last year to prevent a bloodbath Park had planned for his opponents, but the prosecution says he did it merely to preserve his own power, Kim Jae Kyu is sentenced to death, and he is hanged May 24 along with four KCIA aides. Chun sends tanks and personnel carriers into Kwangju before dawn May 27 and his men kill more than 200 unarmed students and workers, wounding or arresting thousands of others (it will later emerge that top officials in the Carter administration gave approval to South Korean contingency plans to use military units against the student and labor protests, having been misled by faulty intelligence that exaggerated the seriousness of the situation). Armed survivors of the massacre withdraw into the mountains outside Kwangju, and a court convicts political dissident Kim Dae-jung on sedition charges in connection with the demonstrations at Kwangju (see 1976); sentenced to death by hanging, he will have his sentence commuted next year to life in prison, gain release in 1982, and be exiled to the United States, where he will live for 26 months (see 1984).
Japan's prime minister Masayoshi Ohira dies of a heart attack at Tokyo June 12 at age 70. Zenko Suzuki, 66, becomes prime minister after elections held June 22.
Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) in the South Pacific gains independence July 30 after 93 years of joint British and French colonial rule.
Poland's premier Piotr Jaroszewicz, 69, resigns under pressure in February after more than 9 years in office. Accused of corruption and abuse of power, he is held responsible for the economic mismanagement that plagues the country.
Juliana of the Netherlands abdicates on her 71st birthday April 30 after a 32-year reign. Her daughter Beatrix, 42, succeeds to the throne, her husband is a onetime member of the Hitler Youth, but the demonstrations that rock Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht are inspired by homeless conditions, not anti-Nazi sentiments.
Yugoslavia's president Josip Broz Tito dies May 4 at age 87 after a 35-year rule in which he has used his political finesse to keep his country's various ethnic groups working in some degree of harmony. Tito's death leaves a power vacuum that raises fears of a breakup of Yugoslavia into her former components (Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina) (see 1987).
Italy's political struggles erupt in violence August 2, when 85 men and women are massacred at the Bologna railway station; some 200 are wounded (see Aldo Moro, 1978). The perpetrators remain unknown, but evidence points to neo-Fascists.
Former Portuguese premier Marcello Caetano dies at Rio de Janeiro October 26 at age 70.
Iceland elects Reykjavík City Theater director Vigdis Finnbogadottir, 50, "President Vigdis." Divorced in 1963, she adopted a baby daughter as a single parent in 1972, and she is the first woman anywhere in world history to be elected head of state. She will be reelected in 1984 and again in 1988.
Polish shipyard workers at Gdansk quit August 14 to protest the August 9 dismissal of forklift operator Anna Walentynowicz, who collected the remains of candles from graves in a local cemetery to make new candles for a memorial to workers shot in the 1970 food riots. The strike at the Lenin Shipyard spreads as some 350,000 workers demand the right to strike and to form self-governing unions independent of Communist Party control. Other demands include wage raises, release of political prisoners, a curb on censorship, and meat rationing. Led by electrician Lech Walesa, 37, the strikers do not stage street demonstrations as in 1970, when they gave authorities an excuse to use force and kill at least 55. Party leader Edward Gierek agrees to the demands September 1, he releases dissidents who have been arrested, and the labor union Solidarity, created September 22 with 10 million members, becomes the first independent labor union in a Soviet bloc country. Gierek is succeeded by Stanislaw Kania, 53, as Moscow masses 55 divisions on Poland's frontiers, fearing the deviation from orthodox Marxist-Leninist philosophy will spread to other Soviet satellites and even to Soviet Russia.
Premier Aleksei Nikolaievitch Kosygin dies at Moscow December 18 at age 76; former German naval commander Karl Doenitz of a heart attack near Hamburg December 24 at age 89.
Former Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau regains office in March following the election defeat February 18 of Prime Minister Joe Clark's Progressive Conservative Party after less than 9 months in office (see 1979). Trudeau will remain in office until 1984.
Puerto Rico's first popularly elected governor Luis Munoz Marin dies at his native San Juan April 30 at age 82.
Surinam Army sergeants overthrow the government of Premier Henck Arron in a coup d'état that begins before dawn February 25 with an attack on army headquarters and the main police station at Paramaribo (see 1975). President Johan Ferrier is deposed in another military coup d'état August 13 after 5 years in office and replaced by Premier Chin A Sen, who announces on television that he is assuming the office of president at the request of the nation's military commander Lt. Col. Desi Bouterse. The new military council's chairman Sgt. Chas Mijnals and another council member are arrested August 17 on charges that they are planning a Cuban-style takeover; Mijnals is succeeded by Lt. Ivan Graanoogst, who becomes in effect the country's leader, albeit subject to the will of Bouterse (see 1981).
Peru elects Fernando Belaunde Terry to a second presidential term May 18 after 12 years of military rule (see 1968). Now 67, Belaunde Terry returned to Peru in December 1970 after 2 years in exile, was exiled again in January 1971, returned in January 1976, and has defeated 14 other candidates. Strikes, economic problems, and terrorist insurgency continue as in so much of the world; Belaunde Terry heads one of the few remaining civilian governments in Latin America (see 1985).
Former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza is assassinated at Asunción, Paraguay, September 17 at age 54. Gunmen firing a bazooka and machine guns hit Somoza's Mercedes-Benz, killing also his driver and a financial adviser.
Uruguayan voters reject a new constitution that would institutionalize the role of the military in a "restricted democracy" (see 1976). President Aparicio Méndez announced 3 years ago that elections would be held in 1981 but indicated that political liberties would be secondary to economic recovery; the November 30 referendum is a setback for Méndez, who will lose his office in September of next year.
Guyana adopts a new socialist constitution that gives her a presidential form of government (see 1966). Legislative power is vested in a unicameral National Assembly, whose 65 members (53 of them popularly elected) elect the president to a 5-year term. The country's 430,000 registered voters give People's National Congress Party of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham 76 percent of the popular vote in the December 15 election (the People's Progressive Party of opposition leader Cheddi Jang receives only 20 percent), Burnham is elected president for a fourth term, and he will serve until his death in 1985, but the leader of the 10-member international observer team returns to Britain December 19 and says Burnham's victory was "fraudulent in every possible respect," with voter lists falsified, opposition parties barred from meetings, and Burnham's political opponents beaten (see Jagan, 1992).
Mauritania's president Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly resigns in January and is succeeded by his prime minister Lieut. Col. Mohammed Khouna Ould Haidalla, who will rule until he is deposed in 1984.
Tunisia's prime minister Hedi Amira Nouira suffers a stroke in March after a decade in office and has to step down at age 68. He has been the designated successor to President-for-Life Habib Bourguiba.
Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) gains independence April 17 (see 1979). A new government headed by Robert Mugabe, now 56, takes power after years of civil war; his Zimbabwean African National Union Party represents the 70 percent of black Rhodesians who speak Shona and takes 57 parliamentary seats as compared to 20 for Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwean African People's Union, whose members are from the Ndbele tribe (20 seats are reserved for the white minority). Mugabe appeals to Zimbabwe's 7 million blacks for fair treatment of the new nation's 230,000 whites, and he makes Nkomo Home Affairs Minister (but see 1982).
Liberia's president William R. Tolbert Jr. is ousted in a military coup April 12, castrated, and executed at age 66 after having his ears cut off (see 1971). A 17-member People's Redemptive Council suspends the constitution April 25 and assumes all executive power with General (formerly Master Sergeant) Samuel K. (Kanyon) Doe, 30 (approximate), as president. An ethnic Krahn, he becomes the first chief executive not descended from the American settlers who have ruled the country since its founding in 1847, and although he has had no more than an 8th-grade education and knows nothing about governance there is widespread rejoicing at his assumption of power (crowds in the streets cry, "We are finally free!"). Doe begins his regime by purging several prominent members of Tolbert's cabinet, killing 27 high officials, some of them in a public execution by firing squad on a city beach at Monrovia (see 1990).
Senegal's first president Léopold Sédar Senghor steps down at age 74 after 20 years in power. He will be succeeded beginning next year by Abdou Diouf.
Uganda holds her first elections in 18 years in December and returns to constitutional government, putting former president Milton Obote back in power (see 1979).
Former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas dies of pneumonia and kidney failure at Walter Reed Hospital January 19 at age 81. He retired from the bench in 1974 after having served for 36 years, longer than any other justice, and written more than 1,200 opinions.
A draft registration measure signed by President Carter June 27 requires that some 4 million U.S. men aged 19 and 20 register for possible military service. Congress has excluded women, despite a request by Carter that they be included.
U.S. voters turn Carter out of office and elect former California governor (and former film actor) Ronald Reagan, who campaigns with slick, upbeat television commercials that talk about "morning in America" and quote John Winthrop's sermon of 1630 about a shining "city on a hill," words quoted in years past by politicians who included John F. Kennedy in 1961. Now 69, the genial Reagan wins 489 electoral votes to Carter's 149, with 51 percent of the popular vote (43.2 million) as opposed to 42.5 percent (34.9 million) for Carter, 6.5 percent (5.6 million) for independent candidate John Anderson, an Illinois Republican congressman. Leading liberal Democrats lose their seats in Congress as the Republicans gain control of the Senate for the first time since the 1950s.
English-born U.S. hostess Pamela Churchill Harriman (née Digby), 60, founds Democrats for the 90s to provide encouragement and financial support for politicians who will oppose Reagan's policies. Wife of former New York governor and diplomat W. Averell Harriman and widow of Hollywood producer Leland Hayward, she divorced her first husband, Randolph Churchill, by whom she had a son, Winston Spencer. Her political action committee PAMPAC will raise millions of dollars in political contributions for Democratic Party candidates (see 1993).
Weather Underground activist Bernardine Dohrn turns herself in to Chicago police December 3; now 38, she has been a fugitive since 1970 and is blamed for several acts of terrorism by her left-wing group, including some bombings. "I regret not at all my efforts to side with the forces of revolution," she tells reporters. "The nature of the system has not changed . . . The system of violence and degradation against women is openly encouraged."
Moscow exiles physicist and human rights leader Andrei Sakharov in January to the remote city of Gorki and increases suppression of dissent (see 1977). Only 21,147 Jews emigrate by way of Vienna, the chief exit route, down from a peak of 51,320 permitted to leave last year.
A sniper murders El Salvador's leading human rights activist Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, 62, March 24 while he says Mass in a hospital chapel. Three U.S. nuns and a lay missionary are killed in December as violence continues in El Salvador between government security forces and leftist guerrillas (see 1981).
Miami has riots beginning May 17 after blacks hear that an all-white six-man Tampa jury has acquitted four white ex-policemen accused of beating Arthur McDuffie to death last year and making it look like an accident. The riots leave 14 people beaten or shot to death in a 40- by 60-block area—a ghetto of 233,000 where it is generally believed that a black cannot get a fair trial and a white man can "get away with anything."
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 July 2 in Fullilove v. Klutznick that Congress has authority to redress past racial discrimination through the use of quotas in government contract awards. The Court upholds the constitutionality of a provision in a $4 billion 1977 emergency public works program requiring that 10 percent of the contracts be awarded to "minority business enterprises."
Mauritania's government issues a decree July 5 abolishing slavery, but the country has tolerated slavery for centuries, the decree is the third in Mauritania's history, and human rights observers dismiss it as a public-relations gesture. The sale of a slave woman at Atar in February has attracted national attention only because she was particularly beautiful, a well-educated man wanted to marry her, her owner decided she could fetch a large sum on the open market, and two rival bidders fought over her in the market place. Slavery continues also in Sudan.
A bomb explosion outside a Paris synagogue October 4 leaves four dead and 10 seriously injured, raising fears that anti-Semitism is reviving in France. Parisians of all faiths walk in a great procession demonstrating support and sympathy, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and his ministers ban neo-Nazi meetings and vow to dissolve "racist organizations" and increase police protection, but the terrorists who planted the bomb remain unknown and at large.
A Republican rally at Jackson, Miss., for presidential candidate Ronald Reagan November 2 hears a racially-charged campaign speech by Rep. Trent Lott, 39, who says that if segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond (R. S.C.) had been elected president in 1948 "we wouldn't be in the mess we are today." Thurmond, now 78, has been renouncing his earlier position, but Republican politicians in much of the South use racist appeals to win local contests, and although Lott will later deny favoring segregation he will continue to hold racist views (see 2002).
A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel rules December 4 that the prosecution's key witness perjured himself in the 1972 trial of the "Wilmington 10" in North Carolina (see 1971). Amnesty International labeled Ben Chavis and the others "political prisoners," the Department of Justice in 1978 called for a reversal of the convictions, 55 members of Congress signed a "friend of the court" brief, but the civil rights workers served up to 4 years before the last was paroled.
Iran grants women the right to vote on the same basis as men (see Iraq, 1948), but Iranian women demonstrate at the president's office July 8 to protest the Islamic dress code (see 1979).
Japanese feminist Fusae Ichikawa, now 86, wins reelection to the Sangiin, upper house of the Diet, with more votes nationwide than any other candidate (see 1973). Universally known and widely respected, she organizes a conference of 48 women's organizations ranging from radical to conservative, and it is generally conceded that no one else could have done it.
The pamphlet "Listen, America!" by Moral Majority leader Rev. Jerry Falwell concludes, "The Equal Rights Amendment strikes at the foundation of our entire social structure."
Rocket engineer Walter R. Dornberger dies at Baden-Württemberg June 27 at age 84, having seen the buzz-bombs whose construction he supervised in World War II evolve into space vehicles.
The U.S. spacecraft Voyager I explores Saturn November 12, making new discoveries about the planet's more than 14 moons and more than 1,500 rings. She is on a 3-year journey of 1.3 billion miles.
Brazilian miners discover the Serra Palada mine in January when a tree falls over in a rainstorm, baring rocks of gold. Prospector José Maria da Silva, 34, arrives in April, borrows money for food, finds 22 pounds of gold within 2 weeks, and on 1 day in September extracts 700 pounds of gold worth $4.75 million. The government bars all but Brazilians from the area.
Gold peaks at $875 per ounce in January amidst predictions of $2,000 per ounce; it falls to $600 by year's end.
Former AFL-CIO president George Meany dies at Washington, D.C., January 10 at age 85, having retired in November.
A federal jury at New York convicts Italian financier Michele Sindona March 27 on 65 counts of fraud, conspiracy, false statements, and perjury in connection with the 1974 failure of Franklin National Bank, the 20th largest U.S. bank; it sentences him June 13 to 25 years in prison.
The Banking Deregulation Act signed by President Carter March 31 establishes a universal system of banking reserves and effects reforms supposedly designed to favor consumers. South Dakota's 40-year-old Chicago-born governor William J. (John) Janklow has received a call in January from Citicorp president Walter B. Wriston at New York expressing interest in the midwestern state's lack of a ceiling on interest rates and suggesting that if the state legislature were to pass a bill inviting Citibank into South Dakota the bank could quickly provide 400 jobs. (New York's legislature has refused to modify the state usury law, Citibank has been lending money at 12 percent while paying close to 20 percent, it has been losing heavily, and its lawyers help draft a law that the South Dakota legislature passes with little debate.) Delaware will follow South Dakota's example next year and attract eastern banks such as Chase Manhattan, Manufacturers Hanover, and Chemical. The federal Deregulation Act phases out ceilings on interest paid to small depositors; it authorizes payment of interest on checking accounts and on similar accounts at thrift institutions. Banks raise their prime rate (the rate on loans granted to favored customers) to 20 percent April 2 as the Federal Reserve tightens money. The rate falls to 12 percent by October but peaks at 21.5 percent in mid-December.
U.S. personal bankruptcies jump to 367,000, up from 209,500 last year. A new federal bankruptcy law that went into effect October 1, 1979, enables individuals to protect much more of their property against seizure by creditors.
Some 36 million Americans receive monthly Social Security checks, 26 million Medicare benefits, 22 million Medicaid benefits, 18 million food stamps, 15 million veterans' benefits, 11 million Aid to Families with Dependent Children funds; millions of students receive federal scholarship aid; 27 million children benefit from school lunch programs, and most of these categories overlap. Ronald Reagan promises to reduce the size of government.
A U.S. recession in the second quarter cuts real output by 9.9 percent; double-digit inflation continues, fueling opposition to President Carter. Ronald Reagan campaigns on what his running mate George H. W. Bush has called "voodoo economics" (based on supply-side ideology) during the primary elections, but Bush drops his opposition at the Republican Convention. The U.S. economy is on the rise again by fall, but prices have risen 12.4 percent by year's end as compared to 13.3 percent last year; some countries have triple-digit inflation.
British unemployment rises above 2 million for the first time since 1935 (when the workforce was one-third smaller) as recession depresses the economies of many countries. Unemployment reaches nearly 2.5 million by year's end, up from 800,000 early in 1975, and industrial production falls 5 percent as the government's monetarist policies try to stem a new burst of inflation, which again climbs above 20 percent, double the rate when Thatcher took office.
West Germany has a currency deficit of $14.2 billion, up from $5.4 billion last year (there was a surplus of nearly $9 billion in 1978) as energy costs climb, interest rates rise, and consumer spending eases. Imports grow more costly as the mark falls 15 percent in relation to the U.S. dollar.
Poland's Western debts soar to $23 billion and industrial production falls 1.3 percent as a result of labor unrest and shortages of fuel, raw materials, and parts. Average monthly wages rise 20 percent to about $207 (at official exchange rates); personal income, adjusted for inflation, rises only 1 percent.
More than 52 percent of women aged 15 to 64 in Western countries are in the workforce, up from 45 percent in 1960. In Japan, 54.9 percent are in the workforce, down from 60.1 percent in 1960 when more women were employed in agriculture.
Only 19 percent of U.S. families headed by women live in poverty, down from 38 percent in 1970, 50 percent in 1960. Few such families remain in poverty for long; most female heads of families receiving public assistance are self-supporting women who have experienced recent divorce or separation. Most will leave the welfare rolls within 2 years.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes April 24 at 759.13 but recovers to close December 31 at 963.99, up from 838.74 at the end of 1979.
Japan's oil imports cost $39.5 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, producing a record trade deficit of $14.4 billion as compared to a $13.4 billion surplus last year.
The Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act signed into law by President Carter April 2 complements his decontrol of domestic U.S. oil prices last year. It actually applies to price increases above the controlled levels prior to June 1, 1979, not to profits. Oil producers complain, but they will receive a projected $1 trillion in extra revenues and will still have an additional $221 billion after all federal, state, and local taxes. Domestic oil averages about $22 per barrel, up from $8.57 in 1977, and the industry drills an estimated 59,475 wells, up from a low of 27,300 in 1971 (the record, set in 1956, is 58,160). But proven domestic U.S. petroleum reserves fall below 27 billion barrels, down from 39 billion in 1970.
OPEC ministers meeting at Algiers in June set a price ceiling of $32 per barrel on crude oil, with some grades to sell for as high as $37. Saudi Arabia pumps 9.5 million barrels per day (up from 8.5 billion before the fall of Iran's shah) and accounts for one third of all OPEC production but cannot persuade other oil exporters to hold the price at $28. Some Western analysts say market demand and supply factors would force prices even higher without OPEC.
U.S. gasoline prices average $1.20 to $1.23 per gallon for most of the year, up from 66.1¢ in 1978 but still less than half the price in most countries.
A water leak at New York's Consolidated Edison nuclear reactor at Indian Point October 3 and subsequent leaks force a temporary shutdown of the facility. Con Ed announces at month's end that it will add about 10 percent to customers' bills to make up for the extra $800,000 per day it has been forced to pay for oil.
Rome's Metropolitan "A" subway line begins operations February 16 between Cinecetta, in the populous suburbs, and Ottaviano, near the Vatican in the city's northwest. By autumn, six-coach trains on the city's first really serviceable subway are running at 3-minute intervals and covering the distance in 25 minutes. Rome's first subway, planned by Mussolini, opened in 1955 but did not serve much of the city until urban expansion made its location more central. Plagued by vandalism and violence, this "B" line remains unpopular.
A New York transit strike ends April 11 after 35,000 workers have stopped the city's 6,400 subway cars and 4,550 buses for 11 days, forcing 5.4 million people to walk, bike, or find other means of transportation. The archaic, crime-ridden, graffiti-defaced subway remains dirty and dangerous (see fare rise, 1981).
Pittsburgh raises transit fares November 2 from 60¢ to 75¢.
The Motor Carrier Act signed by President Carter July 1 curbs federal controls over interstate trucking.
The Staggers Rail Act signed into law by President Carter October 14 gives railroads more flexibility in setting rates and more authority to enter into long-term contracts with freight shippers, lets railroads drop unprofitable routes more easily, and deregulates in other ways (see airline deregulation, 1978).
Soviet engineers push forward a new $10 billion Siberian railway that will give access to areas of coal, oil, and mineral development. Extending nearly 2,000 miles from Lake Baikal to the Amur River, the new road lies north of the Trans-Siberian Railway completed in 1906 and is scheduled to open in 1983.
A Polish train wreck August 19 kills 62 and injures 50 as a freight train misses a stop signal, heads down the wrong track, and collides with a crowded passenger train before dawn. The passengers were returning to Lodz from a holiday on the Baltic.
First class rail service between London and Brussels/Paris ends October 31. British Rail took over the old blue and gold sleeping cars from French Wagons Lits in 1977 but air travel has largely replaced rail travel.
U.S. sales of foreign cars fall 15.2 percent from 1979 levels, domestic car sales fall 20 percent despite the introduction of fuel-efficient models. Japanese automobile production (11 million cars and trucks) rises 10 percent and for the first time overtakes U.S. production (7.8 million cars and trucks), which declines by 30 percent (see 1981). Toyota has been pioneering a "just-in-time" system of making cars, keeping a minimum of parts inventories at its uncluttered plants and keeping productivity high by having parts arrive from outside suppliers only as needed. Imported cars and trucks, 78 percent of them Japanese, capture nearly one-fourth of the U.S. market.
Chrysler Corp. loses nearly $1.8 billion, Ford $1.5 billion, the largest losses ever sustained by any U.S. corporations (Chrysler's 1979 loss of $1.1 billion was the old record). Even General Motors loses $763 million as U.S. automakers pay the costs of retooling for downsized cars to achieve fuel economy and meet Japanese competition. Front-wheel drive Chrysler K cars, Ford Escorts, and Chevrolet Chevettes sell briskly despite high sticker prices (if often with the help of cash rebates).
British Leyland loses $1.21 billion, up from $372.4 million last year, and reduces its workforce from more than 155,000 to 130,000. August sees Japanese imports outsell BL cars in Britain for the first time ever. The state-owned BL Ltd. introduces the subcompact front-wheel drive Austin Mini Metro October 8 and says it will average 46.1 miles per gallon in town, 63.7 mpg at 56 mph, 50 mpg at 75 mph. BL works on the Triumph Acclaim, developed with Honda, to be introduced in the fall of 1981.
Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) is founded by California activist Candy Lightner (née Dodderidge), 34, whose 13-year-old daughter has been killed May 3 by a drunken driver. Federal officials will credit the organization with a substantial drop in alcohol-related traffic fatalities.
The Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit unveiled at the Paris Auto Show in October is the first new four-door Rolls in 15 years. Price: $119,500.
The Philippine passenger ferry M.V. Don Juan collides April 22 with the government oil tanker M.T. Talcloban City while the ferry captain is drinking beer and playing mahjong. The luxury ship has a legal capacity of 810 passengers and is carrying l,349; 113 bodies are recovered, another 200 persons are missing and presumed dead.
Switzerland's Goschenen-Airolo Tunnel opens September 25 beneath the St. Gotthard Pass after 11 years of construction. More than 300 Italian, Swiss, Spanish, Turkish, West German, and Austrian miners have built the $420 million tunnel (19 were killed), and the 10-mile project—longest road tunnel in the world—cuts 4 hours off a truck trip from West Germany or the Netherlands to Italy. Critics say the new tunnel will encourage private cars at the expense of public transport and have negative environmental effects.
Atlanta's $750 million Hartsfield International Airport opens September 21 with 138 passenger gates (versus 94 at Chicago's O'Hare) and with a station for the city's fledgling rapid transit system MARTA, whose tracks are scheduled to reach the airport by 1985.
Major U.S. airlines lose an estimated $200 million (operating profits were $215 million in 1979, $1.4 billion in 1978) as passenger miles flown fall 5 percent and fuel prices climb from 57¢ per gallon to $1. Many companies cut routes (see deregulation, 1978).
An Iran Air Boeing 727 crashes into mountains near Laskgarak January 21, killing all 128 aboard; a LOT Polish Airlines Ilyushin 62 crashes at Warsaw March 14, killing 87 who include 22 boxers and officials of a U.S. amateur boxing team; a chartered Boeing 727 crashes at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands April 25, killing 138 British vacationers and a crew of eight; a Saudi-Arabian Lockheed 1011 Tristar jet turns back after takeoff from Riyadh August 19 when a Pakistani Muslim pilgrim's butane gas stove catches fire, her pilot tries to make an emergency landing, but the plane bursts into flames, killing 301 people.
IBM introduces RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture that boosts computer speeds by using simplified machine instructions for frequently used functions (see SQL, 1970; PC, 1981).
Computer pioneer John W. Mauchly dies while undergoing heart surgery at Ambler, Pa., January 8 at age 72.
Polish-born physicist Klaus von Klitzing, 36, discovers a solution to the so-called Hall effect on the night of February 4 (the Hall resistance in semiconductors is simply the ratio of the electrical current and the voltage at right angles to each other; see 1879). Working at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Grenoble, France, he finds that the resistance is a fundamental quantum of nature that can be used to define the atomic fine structure constant and thereby define the international value of the ohm. Von Klitzing determines precise steps in the behavior of electrons under certain applications in semi-conductor electronics (see Tsui, Störmer, 1982).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 June 16 in Diamond v. Chakrabarty that a man-made life form may be patented. The case involves a genetically-engineered bacterium capable of breaking down multiple components in crude oil.
The cover story "Mutations Affecting Segment Number and Polarity in Drosophila" by German geneticist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, 37, and South Bend, Ind.-born biologist Eric F. Weischaus, 33, appears in Nature magazine October 30 (see Lewis, 1978). The work of Nüsslein-Volhard and Weischaus at the University of Heidelberg has built on work done by Edward B. Lewis in the 1940s; it entailed mutating all the homeotic genes in an adult male fruit fly (Drosophila) by means of a tainted sugar-water compound and then tracking its descendants. Examining the defects in the resulting dead embryos, the two scientists succeeded in identifying the genes that serve as markers for body shape and organ arrangement, advancing knowledge of how genetic coding determines the development of an organism.
Nobel biochemist William H. Stein dies at his native New York February 2 at 68; archaeologist Anthony J. Arkell at Chelmsford, Essex, February 26 at age 81; Nobel chemist Willard F. Libby of a blood clot at Los Angeles September 8 at age 71; Nobel physicist John Van Vleck at Cambridge, Mass., October 22 at age 81, having created the modern theory of magnetism based on quantum mechanics.
A task force appointed by the National Institutes of Health issues a 500-page report blaming the rising rate of cesarean deliveries on advances in medical technology (such as electronic fetal monitoring and epidural anesthesia), legal aggressiveness in bringing malpractice suits, and changing attitudes on the part of mothers and fathers who are having babies at older ages (see 1894). Courts have held that in order to provide the "accepted standard of care" in a problem birth the physician should perform a cesarean section, so obstetricians now operate at the first sign of trouble. Most mental retardation originates during pregnancy, not at delivery, but doctors opt for C-sections to be on the safe side. Being older, many women are having just one baby, and they want it to be perfect. While a woman who delivers vaginally is rarely indisposed for more than a week, recovery from a cesarean involves 6 or more weeks of soreness, and nursing may be more uncomfortable. A cesarean is now usually performed with a low transverse incision, which involves less blood loss, lowered risk of infection, and less risk of subsequent uterine rupture than a vertical incision, and obstetricians try to make the incision close to or beneath the pubic hairline (see 1916; 1988).
A rabies vaccine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration June 9 requires only five shots in the arm instead of 23 in the abdomen (see Pasteur, 1885). Developed by Philadelphia's Wistar Institute and produced in France, the new vaccine is made from viruses grown in human cell cultures rather than in duck eggs.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control at Atlanta reports 299 cases of toxic shock syndrome (TSS), 25 of them fatal. The FDA asks for mandatory labeling of tampon packages to warn women of TSS. Procter & Gamble announces September 22 that it is withdrawing its tampon Rely, suspected of harboring the bacterium staphyloccus areus and acting as a breeding agent, but the company notes that TSS has been reported in some areas where Rely is not sold and that it has also stricken some men.
The 22-year-old Syanon drug rehabilitation program comes under attack from California officials, who describe the tax-exempt foundation as a rich, authoritarian cult that has received millions of dollars in donations from U.S. business firms, owns vast real estate holdings, has amassed assets of between $30 million and $50 million, and has forced men to undergo vasectomies, ordered women to have abortions, and obliged more than 230 married couples to divorce and find other partners. Founder Charles "Chuck" Dederich, now 67, pleads no contest to charges that he and two of Syanon's security force conspired to commit murder by placing a four-and-a-half-foot rattlesnake in the mailbox of lawyer Paul Morantz, who has sued on behalf of former Syanon members and relatives on grounds that they were being held against their will (Morantz was bitten and hospitalized for 6 days). Claiming poor health, Dederich is sentenced to 5 years' probation, fined $5,000, and ordered to cease any active role in running Syanon, whose management will declare it a religion in the mid-1980s but lose its tax-exempt status after being condemned for a corporate policy of "terror and violence."
Sexually Speaking debuts on a New York radio station in September with German-born sex therapist Ruth Westheimer (née Karola Ruth Siegel), 52, whose 15-minute taped call-in show will continue until 1988 and be syndicated nationwide, giving frank advice as Westheimer writes more than 20 books on the subject. Dr. Ruth was sent to a school in Switzerland at age 10, her family was killed by the Nazis, she went to Palestine at age 16, fought for independence with the Haganah, studied psychology at the Sorbonne, taught kindergarten, moved to New York in 1956, obtained a Ph.D. in education from Columbia University, and has studied human sexuality with Helen Singer-Kaplan at New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center.
The Church of England adopts the Alternative Service Book in November, replacing The Book of Common Prayer used since 1549. "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name," says Elizabeth II, instead of "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name."
A new U.S. Department of Education begins operations May 4. The new department has 17,000 full-time employees and a $17 billion annual budget; critics say it will curtail local control of schools.
Only 29,019 U.S. high school students score above 650 on the verbal part of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT; see 1900), down from 53,794 in 1972. Only 73,386 score above 650 on the mathematics part, down from 93,868. Educators suggest that young people are reading less because of TV and changing social values, that students are taking fewer difficult courses, that college admissions standards and course requirements have fallen. A general decline in SAT scores began in 1964.
Psychologist Jean Piaget dies at Geneva September 17 at age 84, having pioneered the systematic study of children's acquisition of understanding.
The Bayh-Dole Act (Patent and Trademark Law Amendment Act) signed into law by President Carter December 12 enables universities and small businesses to license the technology developed by their researchers with grants from the National Institutes of Health. Dependent up to now largely on federal, corporate, and private grants to fund their research, educational institutions will now be able to issue licenses on an exclusive base, "technology transfer" offices will appear on campuses nationwide, and the results will prove beneficial both to corporate licensees and the universities.
More than one third of 11 million U.S. college students receive some federal financial aid, up from 14 percent in 1970, as tuition and other costs rise to average $3,500 per year at state universities, more than $7,500 at private ones (tuition, room, and board at Harvard come to $9,170, at Yale $9,110). Federal aid to college students reaches $4.5 billion, up from $600 million in 1970, and the higher education bill signed by President Carter October 3 lets parents borrow up to $3,000 per year per student at 9 percent interest in addition to the $2,500 per year that a student can borrow on his/her own (see 1978; 1990).
Educator Welthy Honsinger Fisher dies at Southbury, Conn., December 16 at age 101.
The French Post Office earmarks $100 million to develop the telématique—a new system linking telephones with central computers to replace telephone directories and make all sorts of information readily accessible to subscribers (see Britain's Prestel, 1979). The 2-year development effort is part of a crash program that has increased telephone subscribers to 15 million, up from only 6 million in 1974. The post office raises the price of paper phone directories by 500 percent to encourage use of telématique terminals consisting of typewriter keyboards attached to television screens. The terminals are free; asking for information costs money each time.
The Technology Media Laboratory founded at MIT by futurist architecture professor Nicholas Negroponte, 36, and others is a research center whose aim is to find out how computers can help human communication.
The WordPerfect 1.0 word-processing program introduced by the Provo, Utah, company Satellite Software International will grow to capture more than 50 percent of the word-processing market before losing ground to slower, more cumbersome (but adroitly marketed) programs based on use of the mouse rather than key strokes. A renamed version of the P-Edit program launched last year, WordPerfect will be acquired by Novell, which will be acquired by the Canadian company Corel; updated at least eight times it will remain the preferred choice of the legal profession, government offices, and writers for more than 20 years.
Hewlett-Packard introduces the first laser printer, challenging Xerox in the copier market, but its machine is the size of a desk and costs $100,000 (see 1984).
Thomson Newspapers Ltd. agrees January 11 to pay $164.7 million (Canadian) for FP Publications Inc. when Kenneth R. Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet, outbids Conrad Black and other bidders to gain control of the influential 136-year-old Toronto Globe and Mail and seven other Canadian dailies, giving his company a total of 127 newspapers. Lord Thomson shuts down the 95-year-old Ottawa Journal August 27 (it has been losing money since 1976), and another publisher shuts down the money-losing, 90-year-old Winnipeg Tribune the same day. Lord Thomson buys the Tribune's fixed assets for $2.25 million (Canadian) (see 1995; Times of London, 1981).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules July 2 in Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia that the press and the public have a right to attend criminal trials. An act of Congress signed into law by President Carter October 14 forbids unannounced searches of newsrooms except in narrowly defined circumstances.
Nightline debuts on ABC TV March 24 with Lancashire-born anchor Ted Koppel, 40, in an 11:30 show developed by Roone Arledge from reports by Koppel broadcast beginning November 10 of last year about the hostage crisis at Teheran. Like 20/20 (see 1978), the program will continue into the 21st century.
Cable News Network (CNN) goes on the air June 1 with a speech by owner Ted Turner. Chicago-born journalist Bernard Shaw, 40, will anchor the news until 2001 (see Larry King, 1985).
The Bravo network for U.S. cable television subscribers begins operations.
Moscow resumes selective jamming of Western radio broadcasts August 20 in an apparent effort to lessen the impact of reports of Polish industrial unrest. The first Soviet jamming since 1973 violates a provision of the 1975 Helsinki accords.
Nonfiction: In the Absence of Power: Governing America by New York-born Washington Post columnist Haynes (Bonner) Johnson, 49; Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial Review by New York-born Harvard constitutional scholar John Hart Ely, 41; The Zero-Sum Society by Livingston, Mont.-born MIT economist Lester C. (Carl) Thurow, 42; Fortune's Child: A Portrait of the United States as a Spendthrift Heir by San Francisco-born Harper's magazine editor Lewis H. (Henry) Lapham, 45; Cosmos by astronomer Carl Sagan; A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn; Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War by Eric Foner; Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance by Chicago-born Smithsonian Institution historian Michael R. (Richard) Beschloss, 25; China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston; The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin; Peter the Great by Robert K. Massie; Sex in History by Reay Tannahill.
The Académie Française elects novelist Marguerite Yourcenar to membership March 6; now 76, she is the first woman member since the Académie's founding in 1635.
Author-naturalist-painter Joy Adamson is murdered in northern Kenya January 3 at age 69; author Paul Blanshard dies at St. Petersburg, Fla., January 27 at age 87, having gained notoriety for attacking Roman Catholicism; philosopher Roland Barthes dies at Paris March 25 at age 64 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident; critic-author-anthologist Louis Kronenberger dies of Alzheimer's disease at Brookline, Mass., April 30 at age 75; Kirkus Reviews founder Virginia Kirkus (Glick) at Danbury, Conn., September 10 at age 86; author Marshal McLuhan at Toronto December 31 at age 69.
Fiction: The Name of the Rose by University of Bologna semiotics professor Umberto Eco, 48; Man in the Holocene by Max Frisch; Raised from the Floor (Levantado do Chão) by José Saramago; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by BBC script writer Douglas Adams, now 28, is the first in a five-volume mock science-fiction series (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) that will have worldwide sales of more than 14 million copies (see Radio, 1977); The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard; Nuns and Soldiers by Iris Murdoch; Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee; Morgan's Passing by Anne Tyler; Neighbors by Thomas Berger; Loon Lake by E. L. Doctorow; Covenant by James Michener; A Soldier's Embrace (stories) by Nadine Gordimer; The Middle Ground by Margaret Drabble; Pascalis Island by Barry Unsworth; Judgment Day by Penelope Lively; Day of Judgement by Jack Higgins; The Sweet-Shop Owner by London-born novelist Graham (Colin) Swift, 31; The Clan of the Cave Bear by Oregon novelist Jean (Marie) Auel, 44; Falling in Place by Ann Beattie; Firestarter by Stephen King; Aztec by Virginia-born novelist Gary Jennings, 52, who lived for 12 years in Mexico and learned not only how to interpret the ancient pictographic codices but also how to read the ancient Nahuatl language; Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates; Barn Blind by Los Angeles-born novelist Jane Smiley (née Graves), 31; Murder in the White House by Margaret Truman; Metroland by English critic-novelist Julian (Patrick) Barnes, 34, whose thriller Duffy (about a bisexual former police officer turned private detective) is published under the pen name Dan Kavanagh; The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum.
Novelist Camara Laye dies of a kidney infection in exile in Senegal February 4 at age 52; novelist-physicist C. P. Snow, Baron Snow of Leicester, at London July 1 at age 74; Olivia Manning at Ryde, Isle of Wight, July 23 at age 69; Katherine Anne Porter at Silver Spring, Md., September 18 at age 90; Romain Gary of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at Paris December 2 at age 66.
Poetry: Scripts for the Pageant by James Merrill; Caviare at the Funeral by Louis Simpson; The Yellow House on the Corner by Akron, Ohio-born poet Rita (Frances) Dove, 28; Satan Says by San Francisco-born poet Sharon Olds, 37; Video Poems by New York-born poet Billy Collins, 39.
Poet Muriel Rukeyser dies of a heart attack at New York February 12 at age 66; James Wright of cancer at New York March 25 at age 52.
Juvenile: Arthur, for the Very First Time and Through Grandpa's Eyes by Cheyenne, Wyo.-born author Patricia MacLachlan, 42; Unbuilding by David A. Macaulay; Where's Spot? by London graphic designer-author-illustrator Eric Hill, 53, who will produce more than 50 sequels; The Seance by Joan Lowery Nixon.
Author Mary O'Hara (Alsop) dies at her Chevy Chase, Md. home October 15 at age 95.
Painting: To the Unknown Painter by Anselm Kiefer, now 35; Dancers on a Plane (oil and acrylic on canvas) by Jasper Johns; Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio by David Hockney; Joined and Breaking (both oil on two canvases) by Elizabeth Murray. Graham Sutherland dies at his native London February 17 at age 76; Oscar Kokoschka at Montreux, Switzerland, February 22 at age 93; Philip Guston at Woodstock, N.Y., June 7 at age 66 after suffering a heart attack in an elevator; Clyfford Still dies of cancer at Baltimore June 23 at age 75, 5 months after a Metropolitan Museum show of his abstract paintings—the largest one-man exhibition by a living artist in Met history.
The Shock of the New by Australian-born Time magazine art critic Robert (Studley Forrest) Hughes, 42, is based on a television series explaining modern art.
Sculpture: In Memory of May 4, 1970, Kent State: Abraham and Isaac and Steelmakers (both plaster of paris) by George Segal. World-famed Pueblo potter Maria Martinez dies at the San Ildefonso Pueblo, N.M., July 20 at age 94; sculptor Marino Marini at Viareggio August 6 at age 70; sculptor Tony Smith dies of congestive heart failure at New York December 26 at age 68.
English photographer-set designer Sir Cecil Beaton dies at his Wiltshire home in Broadchalke January 18 at age 76.
Theater: Piaf! by Pam Gems 1/15 at Wyndham's Theatre, London, with Jane Lapotaire as France's legendary "little sparrow" Edith Piaf (see 1946) who died 10/11/1963 at age 47 (as Jean Cocteau was dying at age 74); Talley's Folly by Lanford Wilson 2/10 at New York's Brooks Atkinson Theater, with Judd Hirsch, Trish Hawkins, 279 perfs.; Children of a Lesser God by Mark Medoff 3/30 at New York's Longacre Theater, with John Rubinstein as the speech therapist for hearing-impaired students, Phyllis Freilich (totally deaf since birth) as the student he marries, 854 perfs; I Ought to Be in Pictures by Neil Simon 4/30 at New York's Neil Simon Theater, with Ron Leibman, Joyce Van Patten, New York-born ingénue Dinah Manoff, 22, 324 perfs.; The Dresser by English playwright Ronald Harwood (Ronald Horwitz), 45, 4/30 at the Queen's Theatre, London, with Tom Courtenay, Freddie Jones; Home by North Carolina-born actor-playwright Samm-Art (Samuel Arthur) Williams, 33, 5/7 at New York's Cort Theater, with Charles Brown, L. Scott Caldwell, Michelle Shay, 279 perfs.; The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby as adapted from the 1838 Dickens novel by English playwright David Edgar, 32, 6/6 at London's Aldwych Theatre, with Roger Rees, 35, as Nicholas, David Threlfell, and 40 other members of the Royal Shakespeare Company (in two parts, the play runs 8½ hours); The Romans in Britain by Howard Brenton 10/16 at London's National Theatre is intended as a criticism of British actions in Northern Ireland (police charge director Michael Bogdanow with procuring an act of gross indecency [a simulated homosexual rape performed by actors in one scene]); Educating Rita by Willy Russell 8/19 at London's Piccadilly Theatre (after a run at the Warehouse Theatre), with Mark Kingston, Julie Walters; Translations by Brien Friel 9/23 at Londonderry's Guildhall; The Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson 11/3 at New York's New Apollo Theater, with Christopher Reeve, Omaha-born actress Swoosie Kurtz, 36, 511 perfs.; True West by Sam Shepard 12/23 at New York's Public Theater, with Peter Boyle, Tommy Lee Jones, 52 perfs.
Comedian Jimmy Durante dies of pneumonia at Santa Monica January 29 at age 86; playwright-philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre of a pulmonary edema at Paris April 15 at age 74; Yiddish theater veteran Ida Kaminska of a heart ailment at New York May 21 at age 80; former Jimmy Durante partner Eddie Jackson suffers a massive stroke at his Van Nuys, Calif. home and dies at Sherman Oaks July 15 at age 84; playwright Kenneth Tynan dies of emphysema at Santa Monica July 26 at age 53; actor-playwright Elliott Nugent at New York August 9 at age 83; director Harold Clurman of cancer at New York September 9 at age 78; stage designer Boris Aronson at his Nyack, N.Y., home November 16 at age 80; playwright Ben Travers at London December 18 at age 94; playwright Marc Connelly at New York December 21 at age 90; actor Sam Levene of a heart attack in his St. Moritz Hotel apartment at New York December 26 at age 75.
Television: Yes Minister 2/25 on BBC-2 with Paul Eddington as the idealistic Right Hon. James Hacker, MP, who has been appointed minister of administrative affairs, Nigel Hawthorne as Sir Humphrey Appleby (to 12/23/1982, 21 episodes; see 1986); Shōgun 9/15-19 on NBC with Richard Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune; Too Close for Comfort 11/16 on ABC with Ted Knight as cartoonist Henry Rush; Nancy Dussault, 42, as his wife, Muriel; Deborah Van Valkenburgh, 27, as her brainy sister Jackie; Jim Jay Bullock, 25, as their gay neighbor in a sitcom based on the British show Keep It in the Family (to 6/22/1985); Magnum P.I. 12/11 on CBS with Tom Selleck as a Honolulu-based detective, John Hillerman (stuntman Robert Vanderkar has been killed November 19 when his helicopter crashed into the ocean off Hawaii; the pilot survived) (to 5/1/1988; 154 episodes).
Films: Louis Malle's Atlantic City with Burt Lancaster, New York-born actress Susan Sarandon (originally Tomalin), 33; Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 15½-hour-long Berlin Alexanderplatz with Gunter Lamprecht; Irvin Kershner's The Empire Strikes Back with Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Beverly Hills-born actress Carrie Fisher, 23; Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha (The Phantom Samurai) with Tatsuya Nakadai; Robert Redford's Ordinary People with Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Malibu, Calif.-born actor Timothy Hutton, 19; Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull with Robert De Niro as prizefighter Jake La Motta; Richard Rush's The Stunt Man with Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback. Also: Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession with Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell; Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One with Lee Marvin; Michael Apted's Coal Miner's Daughter with Sissy Spacek as country singer Loretta Lynn; Krzysztof Zanussi's Contract with Leslie Caron, Maja Komorowska; Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill with Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson; Francesco Rosi's Eboli with Gian Maria Volonte; David Lynch's The Elephant Man with Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt; Ingmar Bergman's From the Life of the Marionettes with Robert Atzorn, Christine Buchegger, Martin Benath; Micheline Lanctot's The Handyman with Jocelyn Berube; Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Lili Marleen with Hanna Schygulla, Giancarlo Giannini; John Mackenzie's The Long Good Friday with English actor Bob Hoskins, 38; Maurice Pialat's Loulou with Isabelle (Anne) Huppert, 25, Gerard Dépardieu; Robert Sickinger's Love in a Taxi with Diane Sommerfield, James H. Jacobs; Andrzej Wajda's Man of Iron with Wajda, Jerzy Radziwilowicz; Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard with Jason Robards as the late Howard Hughes, Paul Le Mat; Alain Resnais's Mon Oncle d'Amerique with Gerard Depardieu, Nicole Garcia; Colin Higgins's Nine to Five with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton as secretaries with a sexist boss; William Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration with Stacy Keach; Nikita Mikhalkov's Oblomov with Oleg Tabakov; Howard Zieff's Private Benjamin with Goldie Hawn as a U.S. Army volunteer; Daniel Petrie's Resurrection with Eve Le Gallienne, now 81, Ellen Burstyn, Sam Shepard; Stephen Wallace's Stir with Bryan Brown.
Actor David Jannsen dies of an apparent heart attack at Malibu February 13 at age 49; George Tobias of cancer at Los Angeles February 27 at age 78; director Alfred Hitchcock of arthritis and kidney failure at Los Angeles April 29 at age 80; director-producer George Pal of a heart attack at Beverly Hills May 2 at age 72; actress Lillian Roth of cancer at New York May 12 at age 69; actor Hugh Griffith of cancer at London May 14 at age 67; actress-politician Helen Gahagan Douglas of cancer at New York June 28 at age 71; producer-playwright Dore Schary of cancer at New York July 7 at age 74; actor Peter Sellers of a stroke at London's Dorchester Hotel July 24 at age 54; screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart at London August 2 at age 85 (he retired to England after being blacklisted as an alleged communist in the 1950s); director Lewis Milestone dies of cancer at Los Angeles September 22 at age 84; Barbara Loden of cancer at New York July 22 at age 48; motion picture pioneer Sol Lesser at Los Angeles September 21 at age 90; Steve McQueen of a heart attack after undergoing surgery for lung cancer at Juarez, Mexico, November 7 at age 50; Mae West of a stroke at Hollywood November 22 at age 87. Her witticisms survive her: "It's not the men in my life that count; it's the life in my men"; "I was Snow White . . . but I drifted"; George Raft dies of emphysema at Hollywood November 24 at age 85; Rachel Roberts at Los Angeles November 26 in an apparent suicide at age 53; director Raoul Walsh of an apparent heart attack at a Simi Valley hospital outside Los Angeles December 31 at age 93.
Canada's House of Commons votes June 27 to adopt "Oh, Canada" as the official national anthem (see 1880).
Broadway musicals: Barnum 4/20 at the St. James Theater, with Jim Dale as P. T. Barnum, music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Michael Stewart, 854 perfs.; 42nd Street 8/25 at the Winter Garden Theater, with Jerry Orbach, Wanda Richert, Tammy Grimes, music and lyrics from the 1933 Hollywood musical (plus others by Harry Warren and Al Dubin), direction and choreography by Gower Champion (who dies opening night at age 61 of a rare blood cancer), 3,486 perfs.
Comedienne Kay Medford dies at New York April 10 at age 59; Jane Froman at her home in Columbia, Mo., April 22 at age 72; comedienne Dame Cicely Courtneidge at a London nursing home April 26 at age 87.
The Mark Morris Dance Group is founded at New York by Seattle-born dancer-choreographer Morris, 24 (see 1990).
Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter makes her North American concert debut 1/3 playing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta at Avery Fisher Hall.
Conductor André Kostelanetz dies of a heart attack at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, January 14 at age 77.
San Francisco's Louise M. Davis Symphony Hall opens September 16 with 3,000 seats across the street from the 48-year-old War Memorial Opera House.
Popular songs: Christopher Cross (album) by San Antonio songwriter Christopher Cross, 29, who makes a hit with his song "Sailing"; "11 O'Clock Tick-Tock" by the 2-year-old Dublin rock group U2 (drummer Larry Mullen, 18; vocalist Paul "Bono Vox" Hewson, 20; guitarist Dave "The Edge" Evans, 19; bass guitarist Adam Clayton, 19); Gaucho (album) by Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen); Second Edition (album) by Public Image Ltd. (John Lydon, guitarist Keith Levene, bassist Jah Wobble, drummer Martin Atkins); Unknown Pleasures (album) by English rock group Joy Division, whose lead singer Ian Curtis hangs himself in May; Illusions (album) by the Los Angeles-born alto saxophonist-composer Arthur Blythe, 40; Get Happy (album) by Elvis Costello and the Attractions; Remain in Light (album) by The Talking Heads; Fourth World Vol. 1/Possible Musics (album) by Brian Eno and trumpeter Jon Hasell; Doc at the Radar Station (album) by Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) and the Magic Band; Crawfish Fiesta (album) by New Orleans rhythm and blues group Professor Longhair; Seconds of Pleasure (album) by Rockpile (Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner, Nick Lowe, Terry Williams); Dirty Mind (album) by Minnesota funk rock singer Prince (Prince Roger Nelson), 22, includes "Head" (a tribute to oral sex) and "Sister" (a hymn to incest); Living in the USA (album) by Linda Ronstadt includes her version of Elvis Costello's "Alison"; Double Fantasy (album) by John Lennon and Yoko Ono (who sees her husband shot to death).
Venetian-born English composer Annunzio Paolo Mantovani dies in a nursing home at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, March 21 at age 74; singer Dick Haymes of lung cancer at Las Vegas March 28 at age 61; songwriter Bob Nolan of a heart attack at Newport Beach, Calif., June 16 at age 72; composer Bert Kaempfert of a stroke at his home in Majorca June 22 at age 56; jazz clarinetist-songwriter Leon Albany "Barney" Bignard of cancer complications at Culver City, Calif., June 27 at age 74; conductor-pianist Jose Iturbi of a heart attack at Los Angeles June 28 at age 84; jazz pianist Bill Evans of a bleeding ulcer and bronchial pneumonia at New York September 15 at age 51.
Pittsburgh beats Los Angeles 31 to 19 at Pasadena January 20 in Super Bowl XIV.
The U.S. Olympic ice hockey team scores a 4-to-3 victory over a heavily favored Soviet team at Lake Placid February 22. President Carter has banned U.S. participation in the summer Olympics at Moscow to demonstrate disapproval of continued Soviet military activity in Afghanistan, but 81 other countries send athletes to the Moscow games (where officials openly cheat), while 62 follow the U.S. example. Sebastian Coe of Britain wins the 1,500 meter run, Steve Ovett of Britain the 800 meter.
Cuban-born Boston Marathon winner Rosie Ruiz, 26, of New York crosses the finish line April 21 in a near-record 2:31:56, but turns out to have cheated. Montreal runner Jacqueline Gareau is the true winner and officials soon recognize her as such.
Björn Borg defeats John McEnroe to win his fifth consecutive Wimbledon singles title, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, now 28, wins in women's singles; McEnroe defeats Borg to win in U.S. men's singles, Chris Evert-Lloyd wins in U.S. women's singles.
Golfer Jack Nicklaus wins his fourth U.S. Open; now 40, he also wins his fifth PGA championship.
The Philadelphia Phillies win their first World Series, defeating the Kansas City Royals 4 games to 2.
Pennsylvania-born pacer Niatross wins the Triple Crown (Cane Pace, Little Brown Jug, and Messenger Stakes) after winning 19 consecutive races. Undefeated (13 for 13) as a 2-year-old, Niatross eclipses the harness racing records of Hambletonian (see 1876) and Dan Patch (see 1902) with a world record pacing mile of 1.49 1/5 minutes.
The U.S. yacht Freedom retains the America's Cup, defeating Australia 4 races to l.
Fashion designer Anne Fogerty dies of a heart attack at New York January 15 at age 60.
Rollerblade, Inc. is founded near Minneapolis by Canadian hockey player Scott Olsen, 20, who has bought a Chicago company's patent for an in-line roller skate and perfected the design with his brother Brennan, 16, using a blade of polyurethane wheels and a molded ski-type boot.
The new video game "PAC-MAN" makes black-and-white games obsolete at U.S. arcades (see "Asteroids," 1979): its yellow circle has a mouth that gulps pellets, but like its predecessors, it requires only eight bits of computer memory (see "Frogger," 1981).
Las Vegas gambling impresario Stephen A. Wynn opens a new casino at Atlantic City, N.J. (see 1977; Atlantic City, 1978). Now 38, he has obtained financing to build the $140 million Atlantic City Golden Nugget, but New Jersey's strict regulation of casinos will sour Wynn on Atlantic City, and he will sell the Golden Nugget in 1987 for $440 million. The gaming industry will lobby New Jersey legislators and get them to relax the state's casino regulation (see 1998).
Paris authorities install the city's first sanisettes—fully automatic, self-cleaning public pay toilets that are less smelly than the vespasiennes available since the 1830s (see 1843). By the end of the century there will be 12 sanisettes and 24 lavatories generating revenues for the city (and for the company that operates them).
Luvs disposable diapers, introduced by Procter & Gamble, are "super-absorbent" and have elastic gathers. Kimberly-Clark's Huggies have cut into sales of P&G's Pampers since their introduction 2 years ago.
Cotton fiber accounts for only 26 percent of U.S. textile production, down from 35 percent in 1970, but cotton's share will rebound to 34 percent by 1990, 38 percent by 1994 (Source: National Cotton Council of America).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 October 20 against hearing an appeal from an Illinois Supreme Court decision that a woman with a sleep-in boyfriend has violated the state's antifornication statute and thus forfeited her right to custody of her three children in Jarrett v. Jarrett. An estimated 1.1 million Americans live together out of wedlock (see 1977) and an estimated 25 percent or more of these households include children, but close to 95 percent of U.S. women marry at least once in their lives, up from 75 to 80 percent in 1900.
A Cosmopolitan magazine sex survey of 106,000 women finds that 41 percent of married women have had extramarital affairs, up from 8 percent in 1948.
The Official Preppy Handbook edited by New York writer Lisa Birnbach, 23, tells its readers, tongue-in-cheek, "In a true democracy everyone can be upper class and live in Connecticut. It's only fair . . . It is the inalienable right of every man, woman, and child to wear khaki. Looking, acting, and ultimately being Prep is not restricted to an elite minority."
U.S. cigarette sales rise slightly to 614.5 billion with low-tar brands accounting for nearly 49 percent, up from 16.7 percent in 1976, despite growing evidence that the "safer" cigarettes offer only limited health benefits and may even pose new hazards because of flavor-boosting additives. Smoking has dropped 28 percent since 1970 among men 20 and older, 13 percent among adult women, 20 percent among teenage boys. Smoking among teenage girls has increased by 51 percent since 1968.
The New Mexico State Penitentiary outside Santa Fe has a 36-hour riot beginning February 2. Designed to hold 850 men, the facility has more than 1,300, many of whom are obliged to sleep on the floor in a nightmare of blaring radios, harassment, and sexual attacks. Prison authorities have used intimidation and favors to encourage a system of informants—"snitchers"—who are prime targets when inmates seize control, invade the pharmacy, shoot drugs, and vent their rage. The riot ends with 33 inmates dead, some of drug overdoses, some brutally murdered, and more than 100 seriously wounded by fellow prisoners. Property damages total more than $25 million.
Murders of black Atlanta children resume in March (see 1979). By year's end two girls and 10 more boys have been found dead and another boy is missing. Police have no clues; the city's black community is terrorized (see 1982).
The California Supreme Court strikes down the state's 1872 rape law requiring the victim to assert her level of resistance.
"Scarsdale Diet" creator Herman Tarnower, M.D., 69, is shot to death March 10 in his Harrison house by Madeira School headmistress Jean Struven Harris, 56, who claims it was an accident.
Former U.S. congressman Allard K. Lowenstein is mortally wounded March 14 in his New York law office at age 51 by New London, Conn., carpenter Dennis Sweeney, 37. A former associate in the civil rights movement, Sweeney walks out of the inner office, places a semi-automatic pistol on a secretary's desk, and waits for police to arrive. Lowenstein has been struck in the diaphragm and heart, he is rushed to the hospital, but he dies 6 hours later after surgery. Sweeney will be judged criminally insane in February of next year.
A U.S. Coast Guard cutter opens fire October 9 on a fishing boat off Miami after the 50-foot boat, loaded with 12.5 tons of marijuana, failed to comply with a request to board and has ignored warning shots. Marijuana from Jamaica and Latin America continues to pour into the United States as smugglers evade law enforcement officers. The gunners aboard the cutter Point Francis have been the first to aim directly at their prey in peacetime, they disable the boat and tow her into Miami, but the incident does little to discourage the flourishing traffic that has made Miami banks the nation's largest users of $100 bills and other U.S. currency.
Former bank robber Willie Sutton dies at Spring Hill, Fla., November 2 at age 79.
A month-long trial of Genovese crime family boss Frank Tieri, 77, ends at New York November 23 with Tieri's conviction on a variety of charges. Sentenced to a 10-year prison term, he will die in March of next year.
John Lennon of Beatles fame is shot to death December 8 outside the Dakota apartment building in New York by a gunman who turns out to be Texas-born Honolulu security guard Mark David Chapman, 25. Lennon's demise at age 40 increases demands for gun control laws, but President-elect Reagan says more effective laws would not have prevented Lennon's shooting by a deranged fan. U.S. handgun killings average 29 per day, and 55 million "Saturday Night Specials" and other handguns are believed to be in circulation, easily obtainable through 175,000 federally-licensed dealers (often just by showing a driver's license, which need not be checked for authenticity in many states) or through illicit channels.
Architect-city planner Victor Gruen dies at his native Vienna February 14 at age 76.
Crystal Cathedral is completed at Garden Grove, Calif., to designs by Philip Johnson and John Burgee. Seating 2,890, the spectacular $18 million structure rises 128 feet and has a mirrored glass exterior but no air conditioning: open panes permit convection currents to keep the interior comfortable.
U.S. housing starts fall below 1.3 million, down 33 percent from last year, as prices rise and high interest rates put mortgages out of reach for many prospective buyers. Government programs assist 44.1 percent of the housing starts, but more than 15 percent of builders are forced to quit the industry.
New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel opens September 25 with 1,400 rooms. Designed by Gruzen & Partners on the skeleton of the 1919 Commodore Hotel, the 30-story hotel has a mirrored glass façade and an atrium 4 stories high. Queens developer Donald Trump, 34, has bought the Commodore from the bankrupt Penn Central on condition that the city give him a huge tax break.
Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan embraces the cause of anti-environmentalism, declaring he is "a Sagebrush Rebel" (see 1981; Coors, 1976).
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports May 16 that it has found chromosomal damage in 36 Love Canal area residents (see 1979). President Carter declares a health emergency May 21, making 810 families eligible for temporary relocation; he visits Niagara Falls September 30 to sign a bill authorizing $15 billion for the purchase of Love Canal houses, and he signs an order October 1 providing for permanent relocation of all families from the area; 67 families will elect to remain, 733 will be relocated (see 1988).
Mount St. Helens in Washington State erupts May 18, blowing its snow-capped cone after 2 months of premonitory rumbling. The 8,000-foot volcano in the southern part of the state spews forth volcanic ash that kills 57 people, wreaks havoc on farmlands, fouls automobile and truck engines, leaves a 2,000-foot hole two miles long and a mile across, and blocks the Columbia River with 51 million cubic yards of sand, dirt, and rocks, halting barge traffic.
Forest fires in Ontario's timberlands destroy 1.38 million acres between May and early August in the worst such disaster since 1923. Firefighters brought in from Alaska and Idaho train replacements for men who have worked 22 days at a stretch, but the blazes destroy an estimated $30 million (Canadian) worth of timber.
Hurricane David hits Dominica in the Caribbean August 30 with winds well over 100 miles per hour, killing at least 22 and leaving 60,000 homeless. David batters the Dominican Republic August 31 and kills at least 600, leaving 150,000 homeless and causing more than $1 billion in losses.
An earthquake in Algeria October 10 registers 7.7 on the Richter scale and shatters the city of El Asnam (formerly Orleansville), killing 3,500; a quake in southern Italy November 23 registers 7.2 and leaves about 3,000 dead, tens of thousands without food, shelter, or medical care.
Fire breaks out just after dawn in the 7-year-old MGM Grand Hotel at Las Vegas November 21 and rages for 2 hours, trapping 3,500 guests and employees in the 26-story, 2,076-room structure. Helicopters lift more than 1,000 from the roof and carry them to safety as thick black smoke billows 5,000 feet into the desert air, but 84 die and at least 500 are injured, mostly from smoke inhalation. Built to standards of a 1970 county safety code, the hotel has no smoke alarms.
Fire sweeps through the conference rooms of the Stouffer Inn at suburban Harrison, N.Y., December 4. Carbon monoxide, smoke inhalation, and flames kill 26 persons, most of them corporate executives, and injure at least 40.
The Global 2000 Report issued by the Carter administration says that "if present trends continue, the world in 2000 will be more crowded, more polluted, less stable ecologically, and more vulnerable to disruption than the world is now." Not so, says a reply from a panel organized by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and headed by Herman Kahn and New Jersey-born University of Illinois economics professor Julian L. Simon, 48. "Fortunately for this planet," says Simon, "these gloomy assertions about resources and environment are baseless." Simon predicts in his anti-Malthusian Science magazine article "Resources, Population, Environment: An Oversupply of False Bad News" that the price of any natural resource will be lower, not higher, at any mutually agreed-upon date; University of California, Berkeley, ecologist Paul Ehrlich and two colleagues predict that exploding populations and shrinking supplies of nonrenewable resources will inevitably push prices up, and they bet Simon $1,000 that quantities of