1984
For George Orwell's novel, see Nineteen Eighty-Four. For other uses, see 1984 (disambiguation).1984 (
MCMLXXXIV) was a
leap year starting on Sunday of the
Gregorian calendar.
January
*
January 1 -
Brunei becomes a fully independent state.
*
January 1 -
Bell System divestiture breaks
AT&T into 24 independent units.
*
January 3 - U.S. President
Ronald Reagan meets with Navy Lieutenant
Robert Goodman and the Reverend
Jesse Jackson at the
White House, following Lieutenant Goodman's release from Syrian captivity.
*
January 5 -
Richard Stallman starts developing
GNU.
*
January 7 -
Brunei becomes the sixth member of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
*
January 9 -
Clara Peller is featured in the "Where's the Beef?"
commercial campaign for
Wendy's for the first time.
*
January 10 - The
United States and the
Vatican establish full diplomatic relations.
*
January 23 -
Peace and Friendship Treaty signed between
Argentina and
Chile in
Vatican City.
*
January 23 -
Hulk Hogan defeats
The Iron Sheik for the
World Wrestling Federation Championship in Madison Square Garden. The cultural movement known as
Hulkamania is born.
*
January 23 - Pop star
Michael Jackson's scalp is seriously burned by
pyrotechnics during filming of a
Pepsi commercial.
*
January 24 - The first
Apple Macintosh goes on sale.
February
*
February 1 -
Medicare comes into effect in
Australia.
*
February 2 -
Melbourne newspaper
The Age publishes phone taps incriminating an unknown judge.
*
February 3 -
Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on the 10th
space shuttle mission.
*
February 7 -
Astronauts
Bruce McCandless II and
Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered
space walk.
*
February 8 - Opening day of the
1984 Winter Olympics in
Sarajevo.
*
February 9 - Soviet leader
Yuri Andropov dies.
*
February 13 -
Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late
Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
*
February 18 - The
Vatican and the Italian government sign a new concordat disestablishing the
Roman Catholic Church.
*
February 26 -
United States Marines pull out of
Beirut,
Lebanon.
*
February 29 - Canadian Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau announces his retirement.
March
*
March 5 -
Iran accuses
Iraq of the use of
chemical weapons - UN condemns the use on
March 30.
* March 5 -
Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi orders an attack on the
Harimandir Sahib, the
Sikh holy spot.
*
March 6 - Twelve month long
strike in British coal industry begins
See UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985).
*
March 14 -
Sinn Féin's
Gerry Adams and three others are seriously injured in a gun attack by the
UVF.
*
March 16 - The
CIA station chief in
Beirut,
William Buckley, is kidnapped by
Islamic Jihad and later dies in captivity.
*
March 22 - Teachers at the
McMartin Preschool in
Manhattan Beach, California are charged with
Satanic ritual abuse of the children in the school. The charges were later dropped as completely unfounded.
*
March 23 - General
Rahimuddin Khan becomes the first man in his native
Pakistan's history to rule over two of its provinces, after becoming interim Governor of
Sindh.
April
*
April 2 - Sqn Ldr
Rakesh Sharma is launched aboard
Soyuz T-11, and becomes the first
Indian in space.
*
April 4 -
President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on
chemical weapons.
*
April 12 -
Palestinian gunmen take
Israeli bus number 300 hostage. Israeli special forces storm the bus freeing the hostages (1 hostage, 2 hijackers killed). 2 other hijackers were captured and then killed in secret service interrogations, causing a major scandal and secret service upheaval.
*
April 13 - India launches Operation Meghdoot, as most of the
Siachen Glacier in
Kashmir comes under Indian control.
*
April 17 -
WPC Yvonne Fletcher is shot and killed by a secluded gunman during a
siege outside the
Libyan
Embassy in
London in the event known as the
1984 Libyan Embassy Siege.
*
April 19 -
Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as
Australia's
national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.
*
April 25 - End of term for
Sultan Ahmad Shah as the 7th
Yang di-Pertuan Agong of
Malaysia.
*
April 26 -
Sultan Iskandar,
Sultan of
Johor becomes the 8th
Yang di-Pertuan Agong of
Malaysia.
May
*
May 2 - The
Liverpool International Garden Festival opens in
Liverpool.
*
May 8 - The
Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the
1984 Summer Olympics in
Los Angeles, California.
* May 8 -
Denis Lortie kills three government employees in the
National Assembly of Quebec building.
* May 8 - The longest game in
Major League Baseball history begins at 7:30 PM between the
Milwaukee Brewers and the
Chicago White Sox. The game would be played over the course of two days lasting 25 innings with a total time of eight hours and six minutes.
*
May 11 - A
transit of Earth from Mars takes place.
*
May 12 - The
Louisiana World's Fair opens.
*
May 14 - The one dollar coin is introduced in
Australia.
June
*
June 5 - The Indian government begins
Operation Blue Star, the planned attack on the
Golden Temple in
Amritsar.
*
June 6 -
Indian troops storm the Golden Temple at
Amritsar, the Sikh's holiest shrine, killing an estimated 300 people.
*
June 8 - A deadly F5
tornado nearly destroys the town of
Barneveld, Wisconsin, killing nine people, injuring nearly 200, and causing over $25,000,000 in damage.
* June 8 - The film
Ghostbusters is released into theaters -- becoming a summer
blockbuster hit with the song "Ghostbusters" by
Ray Parker Jr. becoming a Top 40 hit.
*
June 20 - The biggest exam shake-up in the
British education system in over 10 years is announced with
O-level and
CSE exams to be replaced by a new exam, the
GCSE.
*
June 22 - The official name of the
Turkish city
Urfa is changed into
Sanliurfa.
* June 22 - Inaugural flight of
Virgin Atlantic.
*
June 27 -
France beat
Spain 2-0 to win
Euro 84.
*
June 30 -
John Turner becomes
Canada's seventeenth
prime minister.
July
*
July 4 -
Richard Petty wins his 200th career
NASCAR victory at the Firecracker 400, in
Daytona,
Florida.
*
July 9 -
Lightning sets fire to
York Minster.
*
July 14 -
New Zealand Prime Minister
Robert Muldoon calls a snap election and is heavily defeated by opposition Labour leader
David Lange.
*
July 18 - The first
Culver's opens in
Sauk City, Wisconsin.
*
July 18 - In
San Ysidro, California, 41-year-old
James Oliver Huberty sprays a
McDonald's restaurant with
gunfire, killing 21 people before being shot and killed.
*
July 21 - In
Jackson, Michigan, a factory
robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in what is apparently the first robot-related death in the
United States.
*
July 23 -
Vanessa Williams becomes the first
Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown, after
nude photos of her appeared in "
Penthouse" magazine.
*
July 25 -
Salyut 7 Cosmonaut
Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a
space walk.
*
July 28 - Opening day of the
1984 Summer OlympicsAugust
*
August 1 -
Australian banks are deregulated.
*
August 4 - The
African republic
Upper Volta changes its name to
Burkina Faso.
*
August 16 -
John De Lorean is acquitted of all eight charges of possessing and distributing
cocaine.
*
August 21 - Half a million people in
Manila demonstrate against the regime of
Ferdinand Marcos.
*
August 30 -
STS-41-D: The
Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.
September
*
September 2 - Seven people are shot and killed and 12 are wounded in a
bikie shootout between rival
gangs
Bandidos and Comancheros in the
Sydney suburb of
Milperra.
*
September 4 - The
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, led by
Brian Mulroney wins 211 seats in the
House of Commons, forming the largest
majority government in Canadian history
* September 4 - The
Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends television series was first
broadcasted on
ITV.
*
September 5 -
STS-41-D: The
Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
* September 5 -
Western Australia becomes the last
Australian state to abolish
capital punishment.
*
September 16 -
Miami Vice first airs on
NBC.
*
September 17 -
Brian Mulroney becomes
Canada's eighteenth
prime minister.
*
September 26 -
United Kingdom and
People's Republic of China sign the initial agreement to return
Hong Kong to China in
1997.
October
*
October 4 -
Tim Macartney-Snape and
Greg Mortimer became the first
Australians to summit
Mount Everest.
*
October 5 -
Marc Garneau becomes the first
Canadian in space, aboard the
Space Shuttle Challenger (41-6).
*
October 11 - Aboard the
Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut
Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first
American woman to perform a
space walk.
*
October 12 - The
PIRA attempts to assassinate the
British Cabinet in the
Brighton hotel bombing.
*
October 19 -
Polish secret police arrests
Jerzy Popiełuszko, a
Catholic priest, because of his support of the
Solidarity movement. His dead body is found in a
reservoir 11 days later on
October 30.
*
October 31 -
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two
Sikh security guards.
Riots soon broke out in
New Delhi, and some 2,700 innocent Sikhs were killed.
November
*
November 2 -
Capital punishment:
Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the
United States since
1962.
*
November 9 -
A Nightmare on Elm Street opens in cinemas in the United States.
*
November 6 -
Ronald Reagan defeats
Walter F. Mondale in the
U.S. presidential election with 59% of the popular vote, the highest since
Richard Nixon's 61% victory in 1972. Reagan carries 49 states and Mondale manages to win only his home state of
Minnesota by a mere 3,761 vote margin and the
District of Columbia.
*
November 19 - A series of explosions at the
PEMEX petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in
Mexico City ignites a major fire and kills about 500 people.
*
November 20 -
SETI is founded.
*
November 23 -
Doug Flutie of Boston College throws a hail mary pass to
Gerald Phelan, giving Boston College a 47-45 win over the Miami Hurricanes.
*
November 25 - 36 of
Britain and
Ireland's top
pop musicians gathered in a
Notting Hill studio to form
Band Aid and
recorded the song
"Do They Know It's Christmas" in order to raise money for
famine relief in
Ethiopia.
* November 25 â€" A train derails between
Sheung Shui and
Fanling stations,
Hong Kong.
*
November 28 - Over 250 years after their deaths,
William Penn and his wife
Hannah Callowhill Penn are made
Honorary Citizens of the United States.
*
November 30 - The
Tamil Tigers begin the purge of the
Sinhalese from North and East
Sri Lanka, and 127 are killed.
December
*
December 2 -
Bob Hawke's government is re-elected in
Australia with a reduced majority.
*
December 3 -
Bhopal Disaster: A
methyl isocyanate leak from a
Union Carbide pesticide plant in
Bhopal,
Madhya Pradesh,
India, kills more than 2,000 people outright and injures anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.
*
December 3 -
British Telecom privatised.
*
December 19 - The
People's Republic of China and
United Kingdom sign the
Sino-British Joint Declaration which concerns the future of
Hong Kong.
*
December 22 - Four
African-American youths, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, James Ramseur, and Darrell Cabey, board an express train in
The Bronx borough of
New York City. They attempt to rob
Bernhard Hugo Goetz, who shoots them. The event starts a national debate about urban crime, which was a plague in
1980s America.
* December 22 - In
Malta, prime minister
Dom Mintoff resigns.
*
December 28 - A
Soviet cruise missile plunges into Inarinjärvi lake in
Finnish Lapland. Finnish authorities announce the fact in public on
January 3,
1985*
December 31 -
Rajiv Gandhi becomes prime minister of
India.
Unknown dates
*
1984 - 1985 famine in Ethiopia begins.
* A peace agreement between
Kenya and
Somalia was signed in the
Egyptian capital
Cairo in December 1984. With this agreement, in which Somalia officially renounced its historical territorial claims, relations between the two countries began to improve.
*
Chatham Dockyard in
Medway, England closed after being used a ship-building yard for over 400 years since the reign of
King Henry VIII.
January
*
January 1 -
Keyra Augustina, model
*
January 1 -
Michael Witt, Australian rugby league player
*
January 3 -
Maya Ababadjani, actress
*
January 3 -
Charlotte Marshall, model
*
January 12 -
Scott Olsen, American baseball player
*
January 13 -
Eleni Ioannou, Greek martial artist (d.
2004)
*
January 15 -
Megan Quann, swimmer
*
January 19 -
Zakia Mrisho Mohamed*
January 25 -
Ines Cudna, model
*
January 26 -
Rebecca Ritters, actress
*
January 26 -
Luo Xuejuan, swimmer
*
January 29 -
Natalie du Toit, South African swimmer
February
*
February 10 -
Kim Hyo Jin, Korean actress
*
February 12 -
Alexandra Dahlström, actress
*
February 25 -
Xing Huina, Chinese athlete
*
February 28 -
Karolina Kurkova, model
*
February 29 -
Alicia Hollowell, softball pitcher
March
*
March 1 -
Naima Mora, winner of America's Next Top Model cycle 4
*
March 10 -
Olivia Wilde, American actress
*
March 20 -
Christy Carlson Romano, actress
* March 20 -
Marcus Vick, American football player
* March 20 -
Nomura Yuka, Japanese actress
*
March 24 -
Chris Bosh, American Basketball player currently playing with the Toronto Raptors
*
March 25 -
Katharine McPhee,
American Idol 5 runner-up
*
March 28 -
Nikki Sanderson, British actress
April
*
April 1 -
Amanda Righetti, American Actress
*
April 3 -
Allana Slater, Australian gymnast
*
April 4 -
Sean May, American basketball player
*
April 8 -
Kirsten Storms, American actress
*
April 10:
**
Mandy Moore, American singer and actress
**
Cara DeLizia, young actress.
*
April 11 -
Kelli Garner, American actress
*
April 13 -
Kris Britt, Australian cricketer
*
April 17 -
Rosanna Davison, Irish model
*
April 18 -
America Ferrera, American actress
*
April 22 -
Michelle Ryan, British actress
*
April 23 -
Alexandra Kosteniuk, Russian chess player
* April 23 -
Lil Eazy-E, son of rapper
Eazy-E.
*
April 27 -
Patrick Stump, American singer (
Fall Out Boy)
*
April 29 -
Taylor Cole, American actress and model
*
April 29 -
Lina Krasnoroutskaya, Russian tennis player and commentator
May
*
May 1 -
Farah Fath, American actress
*
May 5 -
Wade MacNeil, Canadian guitarist
*
May 11 -
Andres Iniesta, Spanish footballer
*
May 17 -
Christine Robinson, Canadian water polo player
*
May 24 -
Sarah Hagan, American actress
*
May 25 -
Unnur Birna Vilhjálmsdóttir, "Miss Iceland", crowned
Miss World in
2005*
May 29 -
Carmelo Anthony, American basketball player
*
May 31 -
Jason Smith, Australian actor
June
*
June 1 -
Oliver Tielemans, Dutch racecar driver
*
June 11 -
Vagner Love, Brazilian footballer
*
June 13 -
Berangere Schuh, French archer
*
June 16 -
Rick Nash, Canadian Hockey Player, Columbus Blue Jackets
*
June 24 -
J.J. Redick, American basketball player
*
June 25 -
Lauren Bush, American model
*
June 25 -
Amrita Hunjan, British RnB Singer
*
June 26 -
Raymond Felton, American basketball player
July
*
July 11 -
Tanith Belbin, Canadian figure skater
*
July 12 -
Michael McGovern, Northern Irish footballer
*
July 19 -
Adam Morrison, American basketball player
*
July 22 -
Kinzie Kenner, American pornographic actress
*
July 24 -
Tyler Kyte, Canadian actor/singer
August
*
August 12 -
Sherone Simpson, Jamaican athlete
*
August 13 -
Luke Thompson, American entrepreneurial failure
*
August 20 -
Mirai Moriyama, Japanese actor
*
August 21 -
Alizée Jacotey, French singer
September
*
September 1 -
Joe Trohman, American musician
*
September 7 -
Farveez Maharoof, Sri Lankan cricketer
*
September 7 -
Vera Zvonareva, Russian tennis player
*
September 14 -
Adam Lamberg, American actor
*
September 15 -
Prince Harry of Wales*
September 16 -
Katie Melua, Georgian singer
*
September 23 -
Anneliese van der Pol, Dutch actress
*
September 25 -
Rashad McCants, American basketball player
*
September 27 -
Avril Lavigne, Canadian Singer
*
September 28 -
Helen Oyeyemi, British novelist
*
September 30 -
Megan Ewing, American model
October
*
October 3 -
Ashlee Simpson, American singer and actress
*
October 10 -
Chiaki Kuriyama, Japanese actress
*
October 14 -
Santino Quaranta, American soccer player
*
October 16 -
Melissa Lauren, pornographic actress
*
October 18 -
Holly Dunaway, boxer
*
October 26 -
Sasha Cohen, American figure skater
*
October 27 -
Kelly Osbourne, English singer
November
*
November 7 -
Amelia Vega, Miss Universe 2003, from the Dominican Republic
*
November 9 -
Delta Goodrem, Australian actress and singer
*
November 9 -
Se7en, South Korean singer
*
November 21 -
Jena Malone, American actress
*
November 23 -
Scarlett Johansson, American actress
*
November 28 -
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, American actress
*
November 28 -
Andrew Bogut, Australian basketball player
*
November 28 -
Trey Songz, American singer
*
November 28 -
Marc-Andre Fleury, Canadian hockey player
December
*
December 14 -
Chris Brunt, Northern Irish footballer
*
December 17 -
Asuka Fukuda, Japanese ex-singer
*
December 25 -
The Veronicas, Australian singers
*
December 30 -
LeBron James, American basketball player
January-April
*
January 7 -
Alfred Kastler, French physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1902)
*
January 20 -
Johnny Weissmuller, Austrian-born swimmer and actor (b.
1904)
*
January 21 -
Jackie Wilson, American singer (b.
1934)
*
January 22 - Sir Count
Michael Gonzi,
Archbishop of
Malta and past
politician (b.
1885)
*
January 30 -
Luke Kelly, Irish folk singer (b.
1940)
*
February 8 -
Karel Miljon, Dutch boxer (b.
1903)
*
February 9 -
Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (b.
1914)
*
February 10 -
David Von Erich, professional wrestler (b.
1958)
*
February 12 -
Julio Cortázar, Argentine writer (b.
1914)
*
February 15 -
Ethel Merman, American singer and actress (b.
1908)
*
February 21 -
Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1905)
*
February 22 -
Jessamyn West, American writer (b.
1902)
*
March 1 -
Jackie Coogan, American actor (b.
1914)
*
March 5 -
Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone (b.
1915)
*
March 5 -
William Powell, American actor (b.
1892)
*
March 12 -
Arnold Ridley, English playwright and actor (b.
1896)
*
March 16 -
John Hoagland, American photographer (b.
1947)
*
March 18 -
Charlie Lau, American baseball player (b.
1933)
*
March 21 - Sir
Michael Redgrave, English actor (b.
1908)
*
March 24 -
Sam Jaffe, American actor (b.
1891)
*
April 1 -
Marvin Gaye, American singer (b.
1939)
*
April 8 -
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, Russian physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1894)
*
April 11 â€"
Edgar V. Saks, Estonian statesman and historian (b.
1910)
*
April 15 -
Tommy Cooper, Welsh comedian and magician (b.
1921)
*
April 20 -
Hristo Prodanov, Bulgarian mountaineer (b.
1943)
*
April 22 -
Ansel Adams, American photographer (b.
1902)
*
April 26 -
Count Basie, American musician and composer (b.
1904)
May-August
*
May 2 -
Jack Barry, American television host and producer (b.
1918)
*
May 16 -
Andy Kaufman, American comedian (b.
1949)
*May 16 -
Irwin Shaw, American author (b.
1913)
*
May 19 -
John Betjeman, English poet (b.
1906)
*
May 28 -
Eric Morecambe, British comedian (b.
1926)
*
June 16 -
Lew Andreas, American basketball coach (b.
1895)
*
June 26 -
Michel Foucault, French philosopher (d.
1926)
*
July 1 -
Moshé Feldenkrais, Ukrainain founder of the Feldenkrais Method (b.
1904)
*
July 8 -
Brassaï, Hungarian-born photographer (b.
1899)
*
July 14 -
Philippe Wynne, American musician (b.
1941)
*
July 24 -
Armando Morales Barillas, Nicaraguan guitarrist (b.
1936)
*
July 26 -
Ed Gein, American serial killer (b.
1906)
*
August 2 -
Quirino Cristiani, Argentine animated film director (b.
1896)
*
August 5 -
Richard Burton, Welsh actor (b.
1925)
*
August 11 -
Alfred A. Knopf, American publisher (b.
1892)
*
August 13 -
Tigran Petrosian, Georgian chess player (b.
1929)
*
August 14 -
J. B. Priestley, English novelist and playwright (b.
1894)
*
August 25 -
Waite Hoyt, baseball player and Truman Capote, writer. (b.
1899)
September-December
*
September 25 -
Walter Pidgeon, Canadian actor (b.
1897)
*
October 5 -
Leonard Rossiter, British actor (b.
1926)
*
October 12 -
Sir Anthony Berry, British politician (bombing) (b.
1925)
*
October 14 -
Martin Ryle, English radio astronomer, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physics (b.
1918)
*
October 20 -
Carl Ferdinand Cori, Austrian-born biochemist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b.
1896)
* October 20 -
Paul Dirac, English physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1902)
*
October 21 -
François Truffaut, French film director (b.
1932)
*
October 31 -
Indira Gandhi,
Prime Minister of India (assassinated) (b.
1917)
*
November 6 -
Gastón Suárez, Bolivian novelist and dramatist (b.
1929)
*
November 16 -
Leonard Rose, American cellist (leukemia) (b.
1918)
*
November 18 -
Mary Hamman, American writer and editor, modern living editor
LIFE and eidtor in chief
Bride & Home (b.
1907)
*
December 8 -
Luther Adler, American actor (b.
1903)
*
December 11 -
Oskar Seidlin, Silesian-born Jewish-American literary scholar (b.
1911)
*
December 14 -
Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1898)
*
December 15 -
Jan Peerce, American tenor (b.
1904)
*
December 20 -
Gonzalo Márquez, Venezuelan
Major League Baseball player (b.
1946)
*
December 28 -
Sam Peckinpah, American film director (b.
1926)
Unknown dates
*
Manuel Angeles Ortiz,
Spanish painter (b.
1895)
*
Juan Antonio Morales,
Spanish painter (b.
1909)
*
Physics -
Carlo Rubbia,
Simon van der Meer*
Chemistry -
Robert Bruce Merrifield*
Medicine -
Niels Kaj Jerne,
Georges J.F. Köhler,
César Milstein*
Literature -
Jaroslav Seifert*
Peace - Bishop
Desmond Mpilo Tutu*
Richard Stone* The novel,
Nineteen Eighty-Four, written by
George Orwell in 1948, presents a dystopian view of how life might be in the year the protagonist believes to be 1984. An acclaimed
movie adaptation of the novel was filmed in and around
London from April to June 1984, at the exact locations on the precise dates imagined by the author.
* In the movie
The Terminator both the
title character and
Kyle Reese are sent back through time from 2029 to
May 12, 1984.
* In the cartoon
The Transformers, the Autobots and Decepticons awaken after 4 million years.
* The videogame
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories takes place in the year 1984.
