1985
1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
Mikhail Sergevich Gorbachev, 54, becomes general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party after Konstantin Chernenko dies of emphysema March 11 at age 73 after just 13 months in office. Moscow and Washington have reached a compromise agreement January 8 to resume negotiations toward limiting and reducing nuclear weapons and preventing an arms race in space. Secretary Gorbachev is the youngest head of state since Stalin took power at age 45 in 1924; an agricultural specialist with no experience in foreign affairs, he meets with President Reagan at Geneva November 21, and the two agree to speed up arms-control talks and renew cultural relations.
Albania's dictator Enver Hoxha dies of heart failure at Tiranë April 11 at age 78 after 41 years in power. He is succeeded as Communist Party chief by Ramiz Alia, 59, who has been president since 1982, but Hoxha's widow continues to exercise considerable power.
Terrorist attacks by Arab, French guerrilla, Islamic, and Palestinian groups kill 107, wound more than 428 in Europe and the Mediterranean. Bombs explode in Madrid, Paris, Athens, Frankfurt, a U.S. air base near Frankfurt, and Rome; grenades are thrown in Rome; a TWA jetliner, hijacked June 14 between Athens and Rome, is diverted to Beirut, where passengers are held hostage for 17 days; hijackers seize the cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean October 7, killing partially paralyzed New York tourist Leon Klinghoffer, 69; an Egyptair jetliner, hijacked November 23 between Athens and Cairo, is forced to land in Malta, two passengers are killed, 58 people are killed when Egyptian commandos storm the plane; gunmen attack Rome and Vienna airports December 27 and 20 people are killed, including four terrorists. Libya aided the attackers, says President Reagan.
Iraqi jets armed with French Exocet missiles bomb Iran's strategic Kharg Island oil terminal August 17 in the ongoing Persian Gulf war (see 1984; 1986).
Senior West German counterintelligence officer Hans Joachim Tiedge, 48, defects to the East at Rome, August 19, prompting a major overhaul of West Germany's counterintelligence operations. A Pentagon commission issues recommendations for tightening security November 21 following revelations of several spy cases. Authorities that day arrest Naval Investigative Service analyst Jonathan (Jay) Pollard, 31, outside the Israeli Embassy on charges of stealing government property and selling classified code information to a foreign government. Pollard's wife, Anne L. Henderson-Pollard, 25, is arrested November 22 and charged with "unauthorized possession" of classified defense documents. Pollard admits to having sold information to Israel and confesses also to having provided Pakistan with military secrets (see 1987). Retired CIA analyst Larry Wu-Tai Chin, 63, is arrested November 23 on charges of having provided China with classified documents, and former National Security Agency communications specialist Ronald W. Pelton, 44, is arrested November 25 on espionage charges, having been identified as a spy by Soviet defector Vitaly Yurchenko who later redefected.
France's government totters in a scandal over the sinking of a French antinuclear ship off New Zealand September 22. New Zealand has refused entry to a U.S. warship February 4 after Washington refused to say whether the ship carried nuclear arms.
Italy's government falls October 16 after a political crisis triggered by the Achille Lauro hijacking.
Vietnamese forces in Cambodia drive the Khmer Rouge from the last of their bases in mid-February (see 1979). Washington has found Pol Pot distasteful but see him as useful in fighting communism and provided covert support through China.
Former Cambodian prime minister Lon Nol dies at Fullerton, Calif., November 17 at age 72; former Filipino general Carlos P. Romulo at Manila December 15 at age 86.
Uruguay returns to civilian rule March 1 after 12 years of military dictatorship that has taken thousands of political prisoners in an attempt to demoralize the people. President Julio Maria Sanguinetti, 49, heads the new government after unemployment has risen to 30 percent, the inflation rate to 66 percent, and foreign debts to $5 billion.
Brazil returns to civilian rule March 15 after 21 years of military dictatorship. Opposition candidate Tancredo Neves has won overwhelmingly in the January election but dies of complications following intestinal surgery before he can take office. His running mate José Sarney, 54, former governor of Maranhão State, becomes president.
Nicaragua's president Daniel Ortega Saavedra offers peace initiatives in February (see 1984), but President Reagan says March 1 that the Nicaragua contras are "the moral equal of our Founding Fathers" (see 1984). Ortega won election last year by promising political pluralism, anti-imperialism, a mixed economy, and nonalignment in foreign policy; he compares Reagan to Hitler, U.S. critics say Reagan is obsessed with Nicaragua, and Congress votes July 18 to prevent Reagan from supplying the contras with anything but "non-lethal" aid (but see 1986).
Peru has her first constitutional transfer of power since 1945 (see 1980). President Belaunde Terry has been unable to control the military in its efforts to resist terrorist attacks by Maoist guerrillas of the Sendero Luminosa (Shining Path), his austerity measures have made him widely unpopular, and although he runs for reelection he goes down to overwhelming defeat in May after a 5-year term. Social Democrat Alan Garcia Pérez, 36, is elected to succeed him and takes office July 28. Much of the country remains under military control as the Shining Path frustrates efforts to suppress it. The Upper Huallaga Valley has become a coca-growing area since the late 1970s, Sendero operatives defend the centuries-old native tradition of chewing coca leaves, and by controlling the valley and imposing a tax on Colombian drug lords' imports of coca paste for use in cocaine they extort as much as $30 million per year that they use in part to bribe businessmen, politicians, even judges, who systematically pay protection money to avoid being kidnapped for ransom (see Fujimori, 1990).
Guyana's president Forbes Burnham dies while undergoing throat surgery at Washington, D.C., August 6 at age 62 after 21 years in power (see 1964). He is succeeded by his prime minister Desmond Hoyte, 56, but the country teeters on the brink of bankruptcy (see 1992).
Uganda's president Milton Obote flees into exile July 27 following a military coup. Gen. Tito Okello is installed as president but will serve only 7 months (see 1986).
Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari is overthrown August 27 in a bloodless coup. Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Babangida proclaims himself president (see 1983). Buhari will be imprisoned for 40 months.
Sudan has a military coup April 6 while President Nimeiri is in Egypt (see 1983). Now 55, he has survived three previous coup attempts in his 16-year rule, but his country is ravaged by civil war, tribal conflicts, and famine. His defense minister Gen. Abdel Rahman Siwar el-Dahab seizes power (see 1989).
Tanzania's president Julius Nyerere resigns in November after 21 years in power. His vice president Ali Hassan Myinyi succeeds him.
Emily's List is founded by IBM heiress and longtime political activist Emily Ellen Malcolm, 38, who sets out to raise money from men as well as women donors (she herself has anonymously been donating $500,000 per year to various causes). Her political action committee's purpose is to support worthy U.S. female Democratic Party candidates.
John Birch Society founder Robert Welch dies at Winchester, Mass., January 6 at age 85 (he retired as president of the right-wing group in 1983); diplomat Henry Cabot Lodge II dies at Beverly, Mass., February 26 at age 82; former diplomat and Cabinet officer Patricia Roberts Harris of cancer at Washington, D.C., March 21 at age 60; former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart after a stroke at Hanover, N.H., December 7 at age 70.
Ethiopian Jews seek refuge in neighboring Sudan, where 2,000 of them perish in January.
South African police open fire March 21 on a crowd of blacks marching to a funeral at Uitenhage, near Port Elizabeth, and kill at least 19 of them in the worst such incident of racial violence since 1960 (see 1984). The police claim that they have acted to protect themselves against a mob of 3,000 to 4,000 blacks who were approaching a white residential area with sticks and throwing stones and gasoline bombs; blacks say the marchers were unarmed and numbered only 300 to 500 and that the police opened fire without warning. President Reagan holds a press conference March 21 and says "rioting" by blacks was at least partially responsible for the police shooting: it would be a mistake to imply "that the violence was coming totally from the law-and-order side," he says, "some of those enforcing the law and using the guns were also black, black policemen," and "there is an element in South Africa that do not want a peaceful settlement of this, who want a violent settlement, who want trouble in the streets." Secretary of State George Shultz testifies before a House Appropriations subcommittee March 21 that the police violence "only underlines how evil and unacceptable that system is," and the leader of the Congressional Black Caucus condemns Reagan's remarks March 22, calling the president "an apologist for apartheid" whose "blatant racism is incomprehensible." Violence continues throughout South Africa, whose government declares a state of emergency July 20, giving police and the army almost absolute power in black townships. Police may make arrests without warrants and hold people indefinitely without trial, but interracial marriages are legalized and some movie theaters are opened to patrons of all races. Riots break out August 6 in black townships around Durban and continue to August 9, with Zulus battling Indians, other blacks, and police: at least 52 people are killed, most of them blacks (see 1986).
President Reagan visits West Germany in May to mark the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald death camp April 13 but offends many by visiting Bitburg Cemetery, thus honoring the graves of 49 Waffen SS officers.
Philadelphia police try to dislodge members of MOVE, an organization of armed blacks. They firebomb a house from the air May 13 and the fire spreads to adjacent houses, killing 11 and leaving 200 homeless.
Chilean women demonstrate at Santiago September 5 against the repressive military regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who has ruled since 1973. Beaten back by troops with water cannon, the women shout that they have "clean hands" as opposed to those of their adversaries. Ten people are killed in 3 days of rioting (see 1988).
God's Love We Deliver (GLWD) begins providing two prepared meals per day to homebound victims of AIDS and their families. Founded by hospice volunteers Ganga Stone and Jane Stone, GLWD will be serving 750 men, women, and children per day by 1994 and will grow by the end of the century to serve 2,400 people per day in the city and in New Jersey's Hudson County.
President Reagan calls upon Congress February 4 to make major budget reductions. His State of the Union message 2 days later emphasizes tax reform and economic growth.
The collapse of world oil prices puts pressure on banks and savings institutions in Texas, Oklahoma, and other energy sector states. Many will fail, affecting money-center banks, real estate owners, and taxpayers.
Home State Savings & Loan in Ohio fails in March, panicky depositors make runs on other S&Ls, Gov. Richard Celeste closes 70 other Ohio thrifts, and federal regulators take over a Beverly Hills, Calif., S&L. S&Ls have been obliged to pay 15 percent interest to keep depositors, their income from mortgages has fallen far short of needs, and worse trouble lies ahead.
Merrill Lynch in New York receives a letter May 25 alleging insider trading in its Caracas office. Typed in broken English, the one-page letter sparks an internal inquiry that leads to a bank in Nassau and thence to Dennis B. Levine, a managing director of acquisitions for Drexel Burnham Lambert in New York (see 1986).
Argentina's president Raul Alfonsín introduces a new economic program (the Austral Plan) that will have limited success in reducing the nation's runaway inflation rate. The rate has been growing since 1945 as a result of growing state intervention in the economy, protectionism, and increased wages; a new currency called the austral replaces the Argentine peso June 14 at an exchange rate of 1 austral to 1,000 old pesos, and the official value of the austral is set at 80¢ U.S. (see 1989).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 June 27 that a labor union cannot penalize workers who quit during a strike (Pattern Makers v. National Labor Relations Board).
Soviet Party Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev calls for sweeping economic changes in June, indirectly criticizing his predecessors.
White House budget director David Stockman resigns during the summer, "knowing [he will write] that my original ideological errors had given rise to a fiscal calamity and a political disorder probably beyond correction." President Reagan had promised to balance the budget, and before the end of his first year Stockman had expressed doubts about "Reagonomics," but the president chose to keep him on the White House staff.
The United States has become a debtor nation for the first time since 1914, the Department of Commerce announces September 16. After years of deficits in the balance of payments, the nation has relied on foreign buying of U.S. Treasury bonds and notes instead of on taxation.
The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act signed into law by President Reagan December 12 mandates congressional spending limits in an effort to eliminate the federal deficit by 1991. Gramm-Rudman will cut budget projections but will be ineffective in cutting actual spending. Its sponsors are congressmen Phil Gramm, 43 (R. Tex.), Warren B. (Bruce) Rudman, 55 (R. N.H.), and Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, 51 (D. S.C.).
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at a record high of 1546.67, up from 1211.57 at the end of 1984. The NASDAQ closes at 325.16, up 31.30 percent.
The Yates Oilfield in Texas produces its 1 billionth barrel of oil January 11. It has been yielding oil since 1926, Marathon Oil Co. remains its largest owner, engineers in the next few years will use new techniques to increase its output, and by the end of 1989 it will be yielding nearly 27.3 million barrels of oil per year plus more than 56 million cubic feet of natural gas, making it America's second largest oil reserve (only Prudhoe Bay in Alaska is larger).
Omaha-based InterNorth Inc. announces May 2 that it is making a friendly $2.26 billion tender offer for Houston Natural Gas, which last year took over Florida Gas. Missouri-born Florida Gas president Kenneth L. Lay, 43, has become chairman and CEO of HNG, whose revenues last year were less than a third of InterNorth's; he will become CEO in February 1986 of the new 37,000-mile pipeline combination, which calls itself briefly HNG InterNorth but will soon adopt the name Enron as it becomes the largest integrated U.S. natural gas and electricity company, transmitting about 11 percent of all natural gas in the United States. State-regulated monopolies have produced, transmitted, and sold natural gas and electricity, often quite inefficiently; Lay will use his Wall Street connections to transform energy supplies into innovative financial instruments that can be traded online like stocks and bonds, introducing supply and demand into the energy industry with contracts that guarantee customers a steady supply at a predictable price. Lay will multiply Enron's revenues tenfold by the end of the century, moving it beyond energy into Internet communications and financial services, converting high-speed data transmissions, insurance risks, newsprint, and television advertising time into contracts called derivatives that can be sold to investors as he exercises his clout in Republican political circles (but see commerce, 1997).
A pricing discount system announced by Saudi Arabian oil minister Ahmad Zaki Yamani, 45, September 13 at the annual energy seminar at Oxford University begins a price war that will glut oil markets and slash world prices by 60 percent in the next 6 months. With more than one fourth of the earth's oil reserves, Saudi Arabia aims to encourage worldwide use of oil while forcing British, Norwegian, Canadian, United States, Mexican, Venezuelan, Nigerian, Egyptian, and Algerian competitors to shut in their higher-cost wells.
U.S. federal tax credits for installing solar heating in homes end December 31 under Reagan budget cuts. They were instituted in the Carter administration.
An Ethiopian train bound for Addis Ababa jumps the rails and plunges into a ravine January 13, killing 392 and injuring 370 in Africa's worst train accident ever, the third worst in world history.
An Air India Boeing 747 blows up en route from Toronto and Montreal to Bombay and crashes off the Irish coast June 23, killing all 329 aboard (Canadian Sikh terrorists will be blamed for planting the bomb that caused the blast); a Delta tries to land in a violent thunderstorm at Dallas-Fort Worth August 2 and crashes, killing 140 of the 161 aboard; a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 crashes into a mountain on a domestic flight August 12, killing 520 in the worst single plane accident ever; a chartered Arrow Air DC-8 carrying members of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division crashes on takeoff at Gander, Newfoundland, December 12, killing 256.
The 80386 microchip introduced by Intel features a 32-bit processor, 275,000 transistors, and a processing speed of five mips; the most powerful computer chip thus far, it will also be the most widely sold (see 1982; 1989; Compaq, 1986). Intel exits the DRAM business, which has been dominated by Japanese companies since the late 1970s.
Microsoft releases its first Excel spreadsheet program, challenging Lotus 1-2-3 (see 1983). The first such product that lets the user select fonts, character attributes, and cell appearance to define the looks of the spreadsheet, it introduces intelligent cell recomputation and has extensive graphing capabilities, but it works only on Apple Macintosh computers; the first Windows version will appear in November 1987 (see Windows, 1986), Lotus will lag in producing a Windows version, and by 1988 Microsoft will be outselling 1-2-3 (see Office, 1993).
Gateway computers are introduced by South Dakota entrepreneur Ted Waitt, 22, and a partner who borrow $10,000 and set up shop in a small converted barn on Waitt's father's cattle ranch, selling computers direct to consumers in competition with the company started 2 years ago by Michael Dell. Waitt will move his headquarters to San Diego in 1998, by which time Gateway will be second only to Dell in direct computer sales, with Waitt still owning 44 percent of the stock in the $6 billion (annual sales) company.
The scanning tunneling microscope developed by IBM researchers at Zürich makes it possible to obtain atomic resolution pictures of surfaces of materials. Work by Gerd Binnig, 38, and Heidrich Rohrer, 52, to image individual atoms will have wide applications in scientific research.
The third form of the carbon atom (Carbon 60) discovered by University of Sussex physical chemist Harold W. (Walter) Kroto, 46, raises speculations that it may be used for improved lubricants, rocket fuel, superconductors, even an anti-H.I.V. drug. Unlike the other two forms of the atom (diamonds and graphite), Carbon 60 is shaped like a soccer ball, scientists call it the buckyball after the geodesic domes designed by R. Buckminster Fuller. Kroto's finding is confirmed by Texas-born Rice University scientists Robert F. (Floyd) Curl Jr., 52, and his Ohio-born colleague Richard E. (Errett) Smalley, 42, but the potential of the buckyball will not be realized in this century.
St. Louis-born physicist Steven Chu, 37, and his colleagues at Stanford University reduce the temperature of atoms to a point that approaches absolute zero (-273.15° C., or -459.67° F.), using an array of intersecting laser beams to create an effect that they call "optical molasses" to slow the speed of target atoms from about 4,000 kilometers per hour to about one kph (see Phillips, 1988).
German surgical educator Erich Mühe, 47, performs the world's first laparoscopic cholecystectomy, removing a patient's gall bladder without a major incision (see cholecystotomy, 1867; Hasson, 1978; Mouret, 1987).
A nationwide survey by University of Pittsburgh breast-cancer researcher Bernard Fisher finds that lumpectomy plus radiation prevents recurrence of early breast tumors with the same effectiveness as mastectomy, but many women will still opt for mastectomies.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires makers of silicone-gel implants to broaden their warnings of possible risks involved in having implant procedures (see 1982; 1988).
Former U.S. surgeon general Luther L. Terry dies of heart failure at Philadelphia March 29 at age 73, having warned against cigarette smoking in his landmark 1964 report; Karen Ann Quinlan dies of pneumonia June 11 at age 31. She has been comatose since 1975 and her respirator was removed in 1976.
China permits marketing of tampons for the first time July 8.
The FDA gives approval May 11 to trials of the drug Isoprinosine for treatment of AIDS, and an FDA official announces September 18 that the agency has approved human tests of the French drug HPA-23, which has been developed at the Pasteur Institute and appears to have had some success in inhibiting the replication of the virus believed to cause AIDS (see 1984). Movie actor Rock Hudson has collapsed at the Paris Ritz July 21 after being treated with HPA-23 and dies of AIDS at Beverly Hills October 2 at age 59, shocking Americans into heightened awareness of the disease that is killing tens of thousands of men (and hundreds of women) each year. Invariably fatal, it will be diagnosed in more than 32,000 Americans by early 1987, and nearly 60 percent will have died (see 1987).
Congress enacts legislation allowing the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to put an emergency ban on any drug it may consider dangerous to the public, supporters of the mood/mind-altering drug Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) patented in 1913 try to stop the DEA from outlawing a drug sold on the street as Ecstasy. The DEA bans MDMA July 1, a hearing is held at which one side argues that MDMA has been shown to cause brain damage in rats, the other side claims that this might not be true of humans and that there is evidence to support the value of MDMA in psychotherapy; a judge recommends that the DEA allow MDMA to be manufactured and sold on a prescription basis subject to further research. The DEA decides nevertheless to place a permanent ban on MDMA, but research on the product will resume with FDA approval in 1993 and illegal sale of homemade methamphetamine will grow exponentially to become a major crime issue.
The FDA publishes a notice in the Federal Register in September lifting a 2-year voluntary moratorium on advertising of prescription drugs directly to consumers. Existing regulations "provide sufficient safeguards to protect consumers," the agency says, indicating that the rules governing ads to physicians apply also to consumer ads (see 1997).
Nobel virologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet dies at Melbourne August 31 at age 85, having helped to discover acquired immunological tolerance to tissue transplants; Nobel virologist John Franklin Enders dies at Waterford, Conn., September 9 at age 88 after a career in which he has developed a method for culturing the polio virus in large quantities, making possible a vaccine against the disease, and done research that led to advances in growing tumor viruses and the development of vaccines against measles, German measles, and mumps. Poliomyelitis continues to plague children (and some adults) in the developing countries but has been virtually eliminated in America, Europe, and Japan; cryosurgery pioneer Irving S. Cooper dies of cancer at his native Atlantic City, N.J., October 30 at age 63.
A 1981 Alabama law mandating 1 minute of silent prayer in schools violates the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court rules June 4 (see 1963). The 6-to-3 decision in Wallace v. Jaffree does not sit well with Chief Justice Warren Burger, Justice Rehnquist, and Justice White, who dissent.
Federal authorities in Oregon arrest Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh October 28 (see 1984). His longtime personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela has left in September along with 14 other top members of his movement, and he has charged September 16 that she led a "gang of fascists" in a plot against him last year, wiretapping him and members of his commune, hatching at least five murder schemes, and leaving the ashram $55 million in debt. Rajneesh has declared an end to the religion of Rajneeshism and ordered his followers to burn some 5,000 copies of the Book of Rajneeshism, which they have done September 30.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 July 1 that public school teachers may not teach in parochial schools (Aguilar v. Felton). New York's Department of Education will park vans outside parochial schools in order to have teachers provide remedial help until the court reverses its decision in 1997.
Federal District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. returns control of Boston's schools to the city's school committee in September but retains standby supervision over student assignments (see 1975; 1987).
The computer game Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? is one of the first approaches to computerized education for children (a player assumes the role of an Interpol detective who uses clues provided by witnesses to track the former secret agent and her henchmen from city to city worldwide). Introduced by the San Rafael, Calif., firm Broderbund Software, it has been designed by Lauren Elliott and Chicago-born former Walt Disney Studios animator Raymond E. Portwood Jr., 51; in the next 15 years the game (and its successor Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego?) will have sales of 6½ million copies.
A federal court at New York clears Time magazine January 24 of libel charges brought by Israeli leader Ariel Sharon. The magazine did not deliberately lie, the court rules.
Gen. William Westmoreland settles a libel suit brought against CBS February 18.
The U.S. first-class postal rate goes to 22¢ February 17 (see 1981; 1988).
The Newhouse family's Advance Publications acquires the 60-year-old New Yorker magazine from the Fleischmann family March 8 for $168 million. The magazine has been losing money for years and will continue to operate at a deficit for more than a decade.
Murdoch Magazines and Hachette Publications bring out a U.S. version of the 44-year-old French fashion magazine Elle, making Vogue look a little dowdy. Elle's circulation will quickly reach 825,000, knocking Harper's Bazaar to third place among U.S. fashion magazines.
Mac-User magazine begins publication at London under the direction of Kingston-upon-Thames-born publisher Felix Dennis, 38, who has been producing collectors' magazines in Hollywood since the late 1970s to help promote films such as Star Wars and E.T. He will sell Mac-User to the New York-based publisher Ziff-Davis for $26 million and cofound a computer mail-order company (seeMaxim magazine, 1995).
South Africa's anti-apartheid Rand Daily Mail announces March 15 that it will cease publication April 30, having lost the equivalent of $7.5 million last year and nearly $23 million in the previous 10 years; published at Johannesburg since September 1902, the paper has been a thorn in the side of President Pieter Botha, who is quoted March 16 as welcoming its demise.
Cartoonist Chester Gould of "Dick Tracy" fame dies of congestive heart failure at Woodstock, Ill., May 11 at age 84; publisher Gardner "Mike" Cowles Jr. of a heart attack following cancer treatment at Southampton, N.Y., July 8 at age 82; ball-point pen inventor Ladislao Biro at Buenos Aires October 24 at age 86; Times of London editor Charles Douglas-Home of cancer at London October 29 at age 48.
The LaserWriter introduced by Apple Computer pioneers desktop publishing. Apple acquired a 15 percent interest in Adobe Systems 2 years ago and became the first licensee of that company's PostScript programming language (see 1982). Based on a laser-print engine developed by Canon, the LaserWriter enables a personal computer to produce several classic typefaces and can be used in combination with the PageMaker program invented by Paul Brainerd and developed by Aldus Corp. to produce professional-looking newsletters, flyers, and reports without specialized lithography equipment and without any special training (see 1994). Linotype-Hell Co. and other manufacturers will license PostScript and produce imagesetters—output devices with higher resolution—that will soon come into common use among commercial commercial printers and publishers.
Corel Corp. is founded at Ottawa by Mitel cofounder Michael Cowpland, now 52, whose CorelDraw graphics program will become the industry standard in desktop publishing. Cowpland will acquire the WordPerfect word-processing business and expand it.
The National Science Foundation creates a network that links university supercomputer centers, connecting regional networks of other academic and research sites in a new Internet (see 1989; Compuserve, 1979).
America Online (AOL) has fresh beginnings in Quantum Computer Services, an outgrowth of the Control Video Corp. set up by William F. Von Meister to sell video-game software to users electronically (seeThe Source, 1979). Now 41, Von Meister has hired Honolulu-born Procter & Gamble marketing executive Stephen M. "Steve" Case, 26, whom he met 2 years ago at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and Case uses the new on-line technology to set up chat rooms where people can "talk" to each other via their home computers (see 1987).
Larry King Live debuts on Cable News Network (CNN) with Brooklyn-born talk-show host King (originally Zeiger), 51, interviewing celebrity guests to give the 5-year-old network a popular new dimension. King began as a disk jockey on a Miami radio station in 1957, went on TV as well as radio 3 years later, added a newspaper column, came to grief in the late 1970s through his involvement with a disgraced financier, but launched the first national call-in show in 1978 and now has the world's first international live call-in show.
General Electric agrees December 11 to acquire RCA and its National Broadcasting Co. for $6.3 billion in a deal engineered by RCA chairman (and former Atlantic Richfield president) Thornton F. Bradshaw, now 68, who since his appointment in 1981 has succeeded in restoring NBC to first place in terms of ratings. Analysts call it the largest acquisition thus far in history outside the oil business.
The Toronto-based Thomson Group acquires the 31-year-old Detroit-based Gale Research Co., whose multi-volume Contemporary Authors and other informational sources have gained wide acceptance among libraries, schools, and businesses.
Nonfiction: Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families by New York-born journalist J. Anthony Lukas, 52; Illiterate America by Jonathan Kozol; Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman; The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by neurologist Oliver Sacks; The Long March: The Untold Story by former New York Times editor Harrison E. Salisbury, now 76; The Periodic Table (memoirs and autobiographical reflections) and Other People's Trades by Primo Levi.
Author Emil Lengyel dies of a heart attack New York February 12 at age 89; former New Yorker magazine "Talk of the Town" essayist and author E. B. White of Alzheimer's disease at North Brooklin, Me., October 1 at age 86; author and consumer advocate Stuart Chase at Redding, Conn., November 16 at age 97; historian Fernand Braudel at Paris November 28 at age 83.
Fiction: Continental Drift by Russell Banks; Money by English novelist Martin Amis, 35, son of Kingsley; The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch; The Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess; Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd; Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid; The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler; Zuckerman Bound by Philip Roth; Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry; Texas by James Michener; What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies; The Story of Bobby O'Malley by Newfoundland novelist Wayne Johnston, 27; The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood; Lake Woebegone Days by Garrison Keillor; The Mammoth Hunters by Jean Auel; The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing; Stars and Bars by William Boyd; In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason; Fortune's Daughter by Alice Hoffman; Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance by Evanston, Ill.-born Boston novelist Richard Powers, 29; Glitz by Elmore Leonard.
Science-fiction novelist Theodore Sturgeon dies at Eugene, Ore., May 8 at age 67; Nobel novelist-playwright Heinrich Böll of arteriosclerosis at his home in the Huertgen Forest near Bonn July 16 at age 67; Taylor Caldwell of pulmonary failure due to lung cancer at Greenwich, Conn., August 30 at age 84; Eleanor Dark at Sydney September 12 at age 85; Italo Calvino following a stroke at Siena September 19 at age 62; Elsa Morante of a heart attack at her native Rome November 25 at age 67.
Poetry: The Humble Administrator's Garden by Calcutta-born poet-travel writer Vikram Seth, 33; Elegies by Scottish poet Douglas Dunn, 43; Rough and Rude (Agrestes) by João Cabral de Melo Neto; The Long Approach by Maxine Kumin; A Fraction of Darkness: Poems by Linda Pastan.
Juvenile: The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg; Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan; George Shrinks by Louisiana author-illustrator William Joyce, 27; If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Brooklyn-born author Laura Joffe Numeroff, 32, illustrations by Felicia Bond; The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman.
Painting: Van Heusen (Ronald Reagan, silkscreen) by Andy Warhol; Ocean Park No. 139 by Richard Diebenkorn; Wall Pond/ROCI Mexico (acrylic and flour sacks on canvas) by Robert Rauschenberg; Glenn by Jean-Michel Basquiat; Interior Perspective (Discordant Harmony) by Canadian-born U.S. painter Dorothea Rockbourne, 47; Georgia by Chuck Close; Grotesques (photographic series) by Cindy Sherman; Capri—Batterie by Joseph Beuys; Views of Hotel Well by David Hockney. Marc Chagall dies at St. Paul de Venne, France, March 28 at age 97; Gene Davis at his native Washington, D.C., April 6 at age 64; Jean Dubuffet of emphysema at Paris May 12 at age 83.
Stuttgart's brightly colored Neue Staatsgalerie is completed to designs by James Frazer Stirling.
A new Seattle Art Museum is completed to designs by architect Robert Venturi.
Photographer Ruth Orkin dies of cancer at New York January 16 at age 63.
Theater: Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon 3/28 at New York's Neil Simon Theater, with Matthew Broderick as Private Eugene Morris Jerome, 524 perfs.; As Is by New York-born playwright William M. (Moses) Hoffman, 46, 5/1 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with Jonathan Hadary, Jonathan Hogan in a play about homosexuals and AIDS, 285 perfs.; Doubles by Lincoln, Neb.-born novelist-playwright David Wiltse, 44, 5/8 at New York's Ritz Theater, with Ron Leibman, Tony Roberts in a play about tennis, 277 perfs.; I'm Not Rappaport by Herb Gardner 11/19 at New York's Booth Theater, with Judd Hirsch, Cleavon Little, 1,071 perfs.; A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard 12/5 at New York's Promenade Theater, 185 perfs.
Ina Claire dies after a heart attack at San Francisco February 21 at age 92; Margaret Hamilton at Salisbury, Conn., May 16 at age 82; Jimmy Ritz of the Ritz Brothers at Los Angeles November 17 at age 81.
Television: EastEnders 2/19 on BBC-1 with Anna Wing as Lou Beal in a twice-weekly series; Howards' Way on BBC-1 (to 1990); Taggart on Scottish TV with Mark McManus as Glasgow detective Chief Inspector Taggart; Mr. Belvedere 3/15 on ABC with English stage actor Christopher Hewett, 63, as butler Lynn Belvedere; Milwaukee Brewers radio voice Bob Uecker, 50, as sports columnist George Owens; Ilene Graff, 36, as his wife, Marsha (to 7/8/1990, 117 episodes); The Berenstain Bears (cartoon series) 9/14 on CBS (daytime) (to 9/5/1987); The Golden Girls 9/14 on NBC with Beatrice Arthur as former substitute teacher Dorothy Ztomak who divorced her husband after catching him cheating on her, Betty White as Minnesota-born widow Rose Nylund, Rue McClanden as the sex-starved widow Blanche who owns the Miami house in which the menopausal women live, Estelle Cella as Dorothy's Italian mother Sophia who has fled her nursing home and moved in (to 9/14/1992, 180 episodes); Spenser: For Hire 9/20 on ABC with Robert Urich as a private detective in a series based on Robert B. Parker novels (to 5/8/1988); Growing Pains 9/24 on ABC with Joanna Kerns, 32, as reporter Maggie Seaver; Alan Thicke, 38, as her work-at-home psychoanalyst husband (to 4/25/1992); MacGyver 9/29 on ABC with Richard Dean Anderson, Dana Elcar (to 12/30/1991).
Actor Richard Greene dies at London June 1 at age 66; comedian Phil Silvers of Sgt. Bilko fame at Los Angeles November 1 at age 73; puppeteer Burr Tillstrom of Kukla, Fran and Ollie fame at Palm Springs, Calif., December 6 at age 68.
Films: Luis Puenzo's The Official Story with Norma Aleandro, Hector Alterio in a film about Argentina's "disappeared"; Claude Lanzman's Holocaust documentary Shoah. Also: Norman Jewison's Agnes of God with Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft; Ron Howard's Cocoon with Don Ameche, Hume Cronyn, Jack Gilford, Gwen Verdon, Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Steve Guttenberg; Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple with Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg (Caryn Johnson), 35, Chicago TV talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey, 31, Adolph Caesar; Elem Klimov's Come and See with Alexei Kravchenko is about German atrocities in Byelorussia during World War II; Mike Newell's Dance with a Stranger with Miranda Richardson; David Drury's Defense of the Realm with Gabriel Byrne, Greta Scacchi, Denholm Elliott; Marion Hansel's Dust with Jane Birkin, Trevor Howard; Nicolas Roeg's Insignificance with Gary Busey, Tony Curtis; Masahiro Shinoda's MacArthur's Children with Masako Natsume, Shima Iwashata; Stephen Frears's My Beautiful Laundrette with Saeed Jaffrey, Gordon Warnecke, Daniel Day-Lewis; Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa with Meryl Streep, Robert Redford; John Huston's Prizzi's Honor with Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, 29, Anjelica Huston, 32; Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo with Allen, Mia Farrow; Akira Kurosawa's Ran with Tatsuya Nakadai in an adaptation of King Lear; Giles Foster's Silas Marner with Ben Kingsley; Christopher Cain's The Stone Boy with Robert Duvall, Glenn Close; Agnes Varda's Vagabond with Sandrine Bonnaire.
Actor Edmond O'Brien dies of Alzheimer's disease complications at Inglewood, Calif., May 9 at age 69; Louise Brooks at Rochester, N.Y., August 8 at age 78; Ruth Gordon at Edgartown, Mass., August 28 at age 88; Simone Signoret of cancer at her Normandy country house September 30 at age 64; Rock Hudson of AIDS at Beverly Hills October 2 at age 59; Yul Brynner of lung cancer at New York October 9 at age 65 (he has been smoking since age 12); Orson Welles collapses at home in Los Angeles and dies of an apparent heart attack October 10 at age 70; Anne Baxter suffers a stroke and dies at New York December 12 at age 62.
Stage musicals: Big River 4/25 at New York's Eugene O'Neill Theater with René Auberjonois, St. Louis-born actor John Goodman, 32, music and lyrics by Roger Miller, 1,005 perfs.; Song and Dance 9/18 at New York's Royale Theater, with Bernadette Peters, Christopher d'Amboise, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Don Black, 474 perfs.; Les Misérables 10/8 at London's Palace Theatre, with Colin Wilkinson as Jean Valjean, Michael Ball, 23, as Marius, music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, lyrics by Alain Boubil and Herbert Kretzmer, songs that include "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables"; Black and Blue 11/25 at the Chatelet Théatre, Paris, with Ruth Brown, Linda Hopkins, and a cast of 41 performing 21 vaudeville songs from the 1920s, '30s, and '40s; The Mystery of Edwin Drood 12/2 at New York's Imperial Theater, with George Rose, Cleo Laine, Howard McGillin, music and lyrics by Rupert Holmes, 39, songs that include "Perfect Strangers," "Don't Quit While You're Ahead," "Moonfall," book based on the unfinished Dickens novel, 608 perfs.
Compact discs and CD players bring superior sound qualities to recorded music (see 1982). Music lovers hail the improvement and shift to the new technology; the speed of the disks will increase in the mid-1990s to as much as 500 revolutions per minute, their capacity will increase to 783 megabytes, and they will be used to store video and text as well as audio data, some of it for computer games, even as other technologies threaten to make the CD-ROM obsolete.
Conductor Eugene Ormandy dies at Philadelphia March 12 at age 85; composer Roger Sessions at Princeton, N.J., March 25 at age 88; composer Paul Creston of cancer at Poway, Calif., outside San Diego August 24 at age 78; concert pianist Emil Gilels of kidney failure at Moscow October 14 at age 68.
The government-owned South African Broadcasting Corp. announces March 26 that it will no longer air the music of black singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder, who has accepted an Academy Award in the name of imprisoned African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela.
The marathon rock concert Live Aid at Philadelphia July 13 raises $70 million for starving Africans. Organized by Irish singer Bob Geldof, the concert features such stars as Joan Baez, Phil Collins, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Sting, Tina Turner, and the Irish rock group U2.
Popular songs: We Are the World (album) by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie; Fables of the Reconstruction (album) by R.E.M.; Make it Big (album) by the British pop duo Wham! (George Michael [originally Yorgos Panayiotou] and Andrew Ridgeley, both 22, includes the single "Careless Whisper;" No Jacket Required (album) by Phil Collins; Sun City (album) by Artists United Against Apartheid; Escenas (album) by Ruben Blades y Seis del Solar; Who's Zoomin' Who? (album) by Aretha Franklin; "We All Stood Together" by Paul McCartney; "Edge of Darkness" by British songwriters Eric Clapton and Michael Kamen; "Don't Come Around Here No More" by the Heartbreakers (Tom Petty shattered his hand last year by punching a studio wall in frustration but will amaze physicians by recovering to play the guitar again); "Showdown!" by Texas-born blues guitarist Albert Collins, now 52 (with fellow guitarists Johnny Copeland, Robert Cray); Sissel (album) by Norwegian vocalist Sissel Kyrkjebo, 16, contains 16 Norwegian-language songs plus an English-language rendition of the George Gershwin classic "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess. By the end of 1997 she will have produced five albums, and their Norwegian sales alone will exceed 2½ million copies (in a country of 4.3 million people).
Modern Jazz Quartet founding drummer Kenny Clarke dies of a heart attack at a Paris suburb January 26 at age 81; jazz saxophonist John Haley "Zoot" Sims dies of cancer at New York March 23 at age 59; composer-music publisher Irving Mills at Palm Springs, Calif., April 25, at age 91; bop percussionist Philly Joe Jones at his native Philadelphia August 30 at age 62; blues artist Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery at Chicago September 6 at age 79; jazz trumpeter Charles M. "Cootie" Williams at New York September 15 at age 77 (approximate); composer-arranger Nelson Riddle of heart and kidney failure at Los Angeles October 6 at age 64; jazz trombonist Dickie Wells at New York November 12 at age 77 (approximate); rock 'n' roll teenage idol Ricky Nelson is killed at age 45 December 31 along with his fiancée and five other people when his private DC-3 crashes in flames en route to Dallas for a New Year's Eve concert at the Park Suite Hotel.
San Francisco beats Miami 38 to 16 at Palo Alto January 20 in Super Bowl XIX.
British football (soccer) fans riot March 4 at Chelsea and March 13 at Luton, Prime Minister Thatcher appoints a ministerial group to address the problem of hooliganism, a White Paper issued May 16 proposes measures to curb violence at sporting events, but a Liverpool fan club charges into Italian supporters of Turin's Juventus Club before the European Cup Finals at Brussels May 29, 38 are killed (most of them in the collapse of a brick wall in the 60,000-seat Heysel Stadium. Juventus defeats Liverpool 1 to 0 and Belgium bans play by British teams on her soil until such time as Britain shall have "put her house in order."
Libby Riddles, 28, leaves Anchorage March 3 and drives her 13-dog team 1,135 miles in 17 days, arriving at Nome March 20 to become the first female winner of Alaska's grueling Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race (see 1973). She finishes 3 hours ahead of the runner-up. Susan Butcher, 30, was in the lead when a moose killed two of her dogs and injured 13 others (see 1986).
British runner Steve Cram, 24, sets a new record for the 1,500 meters July 16 in a track meet at Nice, running the distance in 3 minutes, 29.67 seconds; he sets a new record for the mile July 27 at Oslo, running the distance in 3 minutes 46.31 seconds (see Bannister, 1954).
Boris Becker, 17, (W. Ger) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Martina Navratilova in women's singles; Ivan Lendl, 25, (Czech) wins in U.S. men's singles, Hana Mandlikova, 23, (Czech) in women's singles.
Former Australian Davis Cup team captain Harry Hopman dies of a heart attack at Seminole, Fla., December 27 at age 79.
Cincinnati Reds first baseman Pete Rose passes Ty Cobb's record of 4,191 career hits September 11.
The Kansas City Royals win the World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 3. Home-run champion Roger Maris dies of lymphatic cancer at Houston December 14 at age 51; his 1961 record of 61 homers will stand until 1998.
St. Louis-born former Olympic medal winner Michael Spinks, 29, wins the world heavyweight boxing title September 21 at Las Vegas in a 15-round decision over Larry Holmes, now 35.
Florida Keys undersea treasure hunter Kane Fisher locates the wreck of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha that went down in 1622 carrying a king's ransom of gold, silver, and artifacts. Fisher's Indiana-born father, Mel, 63, is a former California chicken farmer who opened a diving shop at Redondo Beach, Calif., began diving for treasure, moved his family to Florida, and in the 1960s found a doubloon underwater. Salvage is still governed by British admiralty law, which holds that the work is in the public interest; the elder Fisher maintains that he is entitled to the treasure, Congress will pass an Abandoned Shipwreck Act in 1987 conveying title to wrecks within three miles of coastline to the states, and the treasure of the Atocha will eventually give Fisher and his investors roughly $400 million.
Boston-born Los Angeles merchant Robert Y. Greenberg, 45, sees that less than 20 percent of athletic shoes are bought for athletic use, closes his L.A. Gear apparel store, and concentrates on importing Korean-made fashion sneakers to sell under the L.A. Gear name. His sales for the year are $11 million, will more than triple that to $36 million next year as he designs fashion hightops for girls, will hit $224 million by 1988, and by 1989 will be surpassed only by those of Nike and Reebok (see 1972; 1982).
Reebok agrees in September to pay $118 million in cash for the privately-owned walking-shoe manufacturer Rockport (see 1982). Reebok sales for the year reach $370 million.
World chess master Anatoly Karpov loses his title November 9 at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Concert Hall to Baku-born dissident Soviet chess master Garry Kasparov, 22, who will hold the world title until 2000.
Oxford-educated English crime fighter Raymond E. (Edward) Kendall, 51, takes office as secretary-general of Interpol and will abandon the international police organization's reluctance to go after political terrorists (see 1946). He will head Interpol until 2000, and by 1997 more than 175 countries will be members.
Mexican drug traffickers kidnap U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena Salazar, 37, at Guadalajara February 7. A pilot who has flown missions for the DEA is kidnapped in a separate incident, Mexican police searching for the men engage in a gun battle with suspected drug traffickers March 2 on a ranch outside Vista Hermosa southwest of Guadalajara, two decomposed bodies bound hand and foot are found on the ranch March 6, they are positively identified March 7 as those of Camarena and the pilot, U.S. ambassador to Mexico announces that Camarena and the pilot were "brutally beaten before they died," and a DEA agent says the pilot was evidently buried alive. Secretary of State George Schultz meets March 11 with Mexico's foreign secretary in an effort to ease tensions arising from the Camarena murder, Mexican officials confirm March 14 that 13 people have been arrested in connection with the two murders, and those arrested include three top state police officials and at least four other policemen. Drug lord Caro Quintero will be hunted down in Costa Rica, convicted of Camarena's murder, and be sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment, but Mexico will remain the major conduit for drug shipments from Colombia and elsewhere into the United States, and the Mexican government will be complicit in the trade, with officials accepting huge bribes from police officers, who will pay as much as $1 million plus hundreds of thousands of dollars per month for positions on the border where they can take payoffs from smugglers (see 1986).
Cook County, Ill., housewife Cathleen Webb (née Crowell), 24, retracts charges May 12 that she was raped in 1977 by Gary Dotson, who was sent to prison on her evidence in 1979 and has served 8 years. A born-again Christian, she changes her story to say that she had sex that night with her boyfriend (who denies it) and, because she feared pregnancy, blamed Dotson. Her case raises fears that it will lend support to charges that women sometimes invent stories of rape.
Claus von Bulow is acquitted June 10 of the charges that he twice tried to kill his wife, Sunny, who remains in a coma from an insulin overdose (see 1982).
Mafia boss Paul Castellano and his bodyguard Thomas Bibotti are shot dead outside Sparks Steak House in New York's East 46th Street December 16 while Castellano is on trial with nine others for auto-theft conspiracy. Dead at age 71, Castellano has lived in a mansion atop Todd Hill in Staten Island and consorted with legitimate businessmen while letting his blue-collar underlings carry on the rackets organized by his late cousin (and brother-in-law) Carlo Gambino (see 1976). John Gotti, 45, is suspected of having had Castellano rubbed out so that he can seize control of the Gambino organized-crime family, which he does with help from his henchman Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano. Gotti has served time for manslaughter and is facing trials on racketeering and assault charges (see 1992).
Hong Kong's Hongkong & Shanghai Bank building is completed for the prosperous 115-year-old financial institution to designs by English architect Norman Foster, now 50.
The 60-story Korea Life Insurance Co. building is completed at Seoul, the 65-story Kompleks tun Abdul Razak Building at Penang in Malaysia, the 63-story Rialto Tower at Melbourne, the 72-story NationsBank Plaza at Dallas.
Marriott Corp. chairman J. Willard Marriott dies of an apparent heart attack at Wolfeboro, N.H., August 13 at age 84, having transformed a Washington, D.C., root beer stand into a multi-billion dollar hotel and food-service empire employing more than 100,000 people. Marriott is credited with having introduced drive-in restaurants to the Northeast, pioneered in providing airlines with box lunches, and setting aside entire floors in certain of his hotels for non-smokers.
British scientists report in March that a giant "hole" in the earth's ozone layer is opening each spring over Antarctica (see 1958).
Tornadoes roar through southern Ontario, eastern Ohio, southwestern New York, and western Pennsylvania May 31 with 200 mile-per-hour winds, leaving 12 dead in Ontario, 11 in Ohio, 65 in Pennsylvania. Nearly 1,900 are injured in the worst tornadoes to hit Ontario since 1954 and the worst to hit the United States since 1974.
Forest fires in British Columbia destroy 585,185 acres of timberland from April to September, bringing a halt to logging and tourism. The provincial government has hired 6,000 men to battle the fires and estimates that as many as half the blazes were caused by arson, the rest to lightning, industrial accidents, campfires, and cigarettes.
An earthquake in the Mexico City area September 19 registers 7.8 on the Richter scale and kills 9,500 according to official figures (some estimates range as high as 30,000). Seismologist Charles F. Richter dies at Pasadena, Calif., September 30 at age 85.
A Colombian volcano erupts November 13, burying two towns in mud and killing 21,800.
A record 43,000 U.S. farms go bankrupt as land prices fall and interest rates skyrocket. Sales of farm equipment plummet.
A farm bill signed by President Reagan December 23 provides for subsidy payments estimated to cost $52 billion over 3 years; it favors large producers as smaller growers continue to go under.
Self-taught nutrition expert Nathan Pritikin dies of self-inflicted razor wounds at age 69 February 21 at the Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center, where he has been admitted with leukemia (see 1979). He has advised abstinence, or near-abstinence, from salt, sugar, alcohol, and caffeine in addition to avoidance of fats and cholesterol; biochemist and nutrition scientist William Cumming Rose dies at Urbana, Ill., September 25 at age 98; onetime chiropractor Forrest Shaklee dies of a heart attack in Castro Valley, Calif., December 15 at age 91, having made a fortune in the direct marketing of dietary supplements; nutrition evangelist (Benjamin) Gayelord Hauser dies of complications from pneumonia at North Hollywood, Calif., December 26 age 89.
The Food and Drug Administration grants Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status in January to rapeseed products, including seed, oil, and meal, containing low enough levels of crucic acid and glucosinolates (both potential health risks to humans). Japan's most widely used cooking oil, rapeseed oil (it is quickly renamed Canola oil) has the lowest saturated-fat content of any major vegetable oil—6 percent as compared to 9 percent for safflower oil, 11 percent for sun oil, 13 percent for corn oil, 14 percent for olive oil, 15 percent for soybean oil (which now accounts for close to 70 percent of U.S. oilseed production), 18 percent for peanut oil, 27 percent for cottonseed oil, and 51 percent for palm oil. It comes from the seed of a member of the mustard family, grown widely in Canada, Japan, and elsewhere, and can be used in salad oil, margarine, and baked goods as well as for frying. U.S. production of Canola oilseed will climb from 27 million pounds in 1987 to nearly 420 million in 1994, and imports (80 percent from Canada) will increase from 2 million pounds to more than 990 million as demand increases for products low in saturated fat.
Revelations that some mass-produced Austrian wines have been adulterated with the antifreeze diethylene glycol create a scandal. The big wineries have doctored their products to give them more body, family wineries profit from the situation, and laws are stiffened to prevent any repetition.
Cookbook author James Beard dies at New York January 23 at age 81 and is hailed as the father of American gastronomy.
Average Italian per capita wine consumption falls to 82 liters (109 bottles), down from 110 liters (147 bottles) in 1972.
Former Coca-Cola boss Robert W. Woodruff dies at Atlanta March 7 at age 95, having built the company into a worldwide colossus between 1923 and 1984. Coca-Cola announces in April that it is replacing its famous 99-year-old formula with a sweeter Coca-Cola designed for younger tastes. The New Coke tastes virtually the same as Pepsi-Cola, protests from longtime Coke drinkers force the company after 77 days to reintroduce its traditional beverage in U.S. markets under the name Classic, but it will continue to sell the sweeter version in Britain and other foreign countries.
Philip Morris acquires General Foods for $5.7 billion and becomes the largest U.S. consumer products company (see Kraft, 1988).
R. J. Reynolds acquires Nabisco Brands for $4.9 billion and becomes RJR Nabisco (see 1981). It sells off some of its other properties to finance the deal (see 1988).
Aspen, Colo., becomes the first city in the world to ban smoking in restaurants.
The average U.S. woman aged 19 to 50 gets 38 percent more of her calories at cafeterias, 60 percent more at full-service restaurants, and 120 percent more at fast-food outlets than in 1978.
Drug maker A. H. Robins announces April 2 that it has set aside $615 million to settle claims brought by users of its contraceptive device, the Dalkon shield (see 1974). The company has filed for bankruptcy to protect itself from lawsuits brought by hundreds of thousands of women who claimed that the Dalkon Shield caused infertility or infections.
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