So what were the big NEWS STORIES the year you were born ?

[Easy 10]

Just bung the year into Wiki and have a sniff.

1971

A tsunami 85 m high rises over the Ryukyu Islands in Japan. It throws a 750-ton block of CORAL 2.5 km inland.

Disneyworld opens in Florida.

A law is passed in Peru legalising the rape of dwarves on their birthdays.

 

[fire&skill]

World Cup and Aberfan disaster

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

Brighton and Hove Albion 2 - 2 Machester United

 

[catfish]

1964

Muhammed Ali beats Sonny Liston to become world champion.

Rolling Stones release debut album.

Rioting after Peru v Argentina game in Lima - 319 people killed.

Bob Dylan turns the Beatles onto cannabis for the first time!

 

[Frutos]

January

January 1
US Bell System is broken up.
Brunei becomes a fully independent state.
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 7 – Brunei becomes the 6th member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
January 10
The United States and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations.[1]
Victoria Agreement signed.
January 18 – The Mitsui Miike coal mine explosion at Ōmuta, Fukuoka, Japan kills 83.
January 24 – The Apple Macintosh is introduced.

[edit] February

February 1 – Medicare comes into effect in Australia.
February 3
Dr. John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth.
STS-41-B: 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 – The 1984 Winter Olympics open in Sarajevo, SFRY.
February 13 – Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
February 19 – The 1984 Winter Olympics close in Sarajevo.
February 26 – United States Marines pull out of Beirut, Lebanon.
February 27 – Mauritania recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
February 29 – Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announces his retirement.

[edit] March

March 4 – The Republic of Upper Volta (subsequently known as Burkina Faso) recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
March 5 – Iran accuses Iraq of using chemical weapons; the United Nations condemns their use on March 30.
March 6 – A year-long strike action begins in the British coal industry (see UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985)).
March 14 – Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams and 3 others are seriously injured in a gun attack by the UVF.
March 16 – The CIA station chief in Beirut, William Francis 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 schoolchildren (the charges are later dropped as completely unfounded).
March 23 – General Rahimuddin Khan becomes the first man in Pakistan's history to rule over 2 of its provinces, after becoming interim Governor of Sindh.

[edit] April

April 2 – Indian Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma is launched into space, aboard the Soyuz T-11.
April 4 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
April 9 – The 56th Academy Awards, hosted by Johnny Carson, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
April 12 – Palestinian gunmen take Israeli Bus Number 300 hostage. Israeli special forces storm the bus, freeing the hostages (1 hostage, 2 hijackers killed).
April 13 – India launches Operation Meghdoot, as most of the Siachen Glacier in Kashmir comes under Indian control.
April 15 – British comedian Tommy Cooper suffers a massive heart attack and dies while live on TV.
April 17 – WPC Yvonne Fletcher is shot and killed by a secluded gunman leading to a police siege of the Libyan Embassy in London.
April 19 – Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.
April 25 – The term of Sultan Ahmad Shah as the 7th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia ends.
April 26 – Sultan Iskandar, Sultan of Johor, becomes the 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.

[edit] May

May 2 – The Liverpool International Garden Festival opens in Liverpool.
May 5 – The Herreys win the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 for Sweden, with the song Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley.
May 8
The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
Denis Lortie kills 3 government employees in the National Assembly of Quebec building.
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.
May 23 – Methane gas explosion at Abbeystead water treatment works in Lancashire, England kills 16 people.
May 27 – An overnight flash flood rages through neighborhoods in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Nearly 15 inches of rain falls in some areas over a four-hour period. 14 people are killed.
May 31 – Mecklenburg Correctional Center - 6 inmates - including James and Linwood Briley escape from a death row facility, the first and only occasion this has ever happened in the US.

[edit] June

June 1 – William M. Gibbons is released as receiver and trustee of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad, after all of its debts and creditors are paid off by order of a federal bankruptcy court.
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 Sikhs' holiest shrine, killing an estimated 2,000 people.
June 8 – A deadly F5 tornado nearly destroys the town of Barneveld, Wisconsin, killing 9 people, injuring nearly 200, and causing over $25,000,000 in damage.
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 Şanlıurfa.
Virgin Atlantic Airways makes its inaugural flight.
June 27 – France beats Spain 2–0 to win the Euro 84.
June 28 – Richard Ramírez, aka the "Night Stalker," murders his first confirmed victim.
June 30 – John Napier Turner becomes Canada's 17th Prime Minister.

[edit] July

July 14 – New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon calls a snap election and is heavily defeated by opposition Labour leader David Lange.
July 18
Beverly Lynn Burns becomes the first woman Boeing 747 captain in the world.
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.

Newspaper vending machine featuring news of the 1984 Summer Olympics, which opened on July 28.

July 23 – Vanessa Lynn Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown, after nude photos of her appear in "Penthouse" magazine.
July 25 – Salyut 7: Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
July 28–August 12 – The 1984 Summer Olympics are held in Los Angeles, California.

[edit] August

August 1 – Australian banks are deregulated.
August 4 – The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso.
August 11 – United States President Ronald Reagan, during a voice check for a radio broadcast remarks, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes".
August 16 – John De Lorean is acquitted of all 8 charges of possessing and distributing cocaine.
August 17 – Peru recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

The launch of Shuttle Discovery on STS-41-D, its first mission.

August 21 – Half a million people in Manila demonstrate against the regime of Ferdinand Marcos.
August 28 – Josef Fritzl drugs and incarcerates his daughter Elisabeth in a secret cellar, in Amstetten, Austria; she was released only after 24 years of sexual abuse and mental ordeal.
August 30 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.

[edit] September

September 2 – Seven people are shot and killed and 12 wounded in the Milperra massacre, a shootout between the rival motorcycle gangs Bandidos and Comancheros in Sydney.
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.
The Sandinista Front wins the Nicaraguan general elections.
September 5
STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
Western Australia becomes the last Australian state to abolish capital punishment.
September 14 – P. W. Botha is inaugurated as the first executive State President of South Africa.
September 17 – Brian Mulroney is sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada.
September 18 – Joe Kittinger becomes the first person to cross the Atlantic, solo, in a hot air balloon.
September 20 – Hezbollah car-bombs the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut, killing 22 people.
September 26 – The United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China sign the initial agreement to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.

[edit] October

October 4 – Tim Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer become the first Australians to summit Mount Everest.
October 5 – STS-41-G: Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
October 11 – Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
October 12 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the British Cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.
October 19 – Polish secret police kidnap Jerzy Popiełuszko, a Catholic priest who supports the Solidarity movement. His dead body is found in a reservoir 11 days later on October 30.
October 23 – The world learns from moving BBC News TV reports that a famine is plaguing Ethiopia, where thousands of people have already died of starvation due to a famine and as many as 10,000,000 more lives are at risk. [2]
October 25 – The European Economic Community makes £1.8 million available to help combat the Ethiopian famine. [3]
October 31 – Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her 2 Sikh security guards. Anti-Sikh riots break out. Rajiv Gandhi becomes prime minister of India.

[edit] November

November 6 – United States presidential election, 1984: Ronald Reagan defeats Walter F. Mondale with 59% of the popular vote, the highest since Richard Nixon's 61% victory in 1972. Reagan carries 49 states in the electoral college; Mondale wins only his home state of Minnesota by a mere 3,761 vote margin and the District of Columbia.
November 9 – Cesar Chavez delivers his speech, "What The Future Holds For Farm Workers And Hispanics", at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.
November 14 – Zamboanga City mayor Cesar Climaco, a prominent critic of the government of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, is assassinated in his home city.
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 25
An East Rail train derails between Sheung Shui and Fanling stations, Hong Kong.
Band Aid records the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" to raise money to combat the famine in Ethiopia.
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 29 – The Band Aid single is released. [4]
November 30 – The Tamil Tigers begin the purge of the Sinhalese from North and East Sri Lanka; 127 are killed.

[edit] December
Controlled Impact Demonstration

December – A peace agreement between Kenya and Somalia is signed in the Egyptian capital Cairo. With this agreement, in which Somalia officially renounces its historical territorial claims, relations between the two countries began to improve.
December 1 – Controlled Impact Demonstration: NASA crashes a remote controlled Boeing 720.
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 8,000 people outright and injures over half a million (with more later dying from their injuries the death toll is now 23,000+) in the worst industrial disaster in history.
British Telecom is privatised.
December 4 – Hezbollah militants hijack a Kuwait Airlines plane and kill 4 passengers.
December 14 – Nigeria recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
December 19 – The People's Republic of China and United Kingdom sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration on 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 Goetz, who shoots them. The event starts a national debate about urban crime in the United States.
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.

 

[Tooting Gull]

1968

Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy shot

200,000 Warsaw pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechosovakia

Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech

Led Zeppelin make their first live appearance at Surrey University

The Boeing 747 is unveiled

 

[Ⓩ-Ⓐ-Ⓜ-Ⓞ-Ⓡ-Ⓐ]

1984
Michael Jackson has received hospital treatment for serious burns to his head after his hair caught light during a freak filming accident.
The 25-year-old entertainer was singing his hit "Billie Jean" for a Pepsi Cola commercial in Los Angeles when the special effects went wrong.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

John Lennon was shot and killed - I'll let Brunswick fill us in on who did that and why

Star Wars: Episode V (The Empire Strikes Back) was released

Seven people were crushed to death meeting Pope John Paul II in Brazil

Robert Mugabe is elected Prime Minister of Zimbabwe

British Leyland launches its new Metro, a three-door entry-level hatchback which is designed as the eventual replacement for the Mini. It gives BL a long-awaited modern competitor for the likes of the Ford Fiesta and Vauxhall Chevette.

Loads of fires, earthquakes and plane crashes in 1980.

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

Watson and Crick propose double helix structure for DNA, based on Rosalind Franklin's X-ray crystallography.

Hungary and Puskas try to teach England how football should be played (ongoing project this)

Rationing of sugar, eggs, butter ........ ends

20m estimated to have watched Liz's Coronation - on 2.5m televison sets.

 

[wunt be druv]

Apparently some nasty Russian chaps put some horrible Nuclear missiles on the paradise island of Cuba.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Duran Duran had their first number 1

 

[The_Viper]

February 11 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town, South Africa, after 27 years behind bars.
February 13

German reunification: An agreement is reached for a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.

Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union.

The Ultimate Warrior defeats Hulk Hogan to win the WWF Championship in a Title for Title, winner takes all match at WrestleMania VI in front of nearly 68,000 at the SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario

April 24

STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery.[3]
The Space Shuttle Discovery places the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.
Cold War: West Germany and East Germany agree to merge currency and economies on July 1.

May 17 – The World Health Organization removes homosexuality from its list of diseases.

June 1

Cold War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty to end chemical weapon production and begin destroying their respective stocks.

August 2 – Gulf War: Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.
August 6 – Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to its invasion of Kuwait.

August 30 – Collapse of the Soviet Union: Azerbaijan declares independence from Soviet Union.

October 3 – Cold War: East Germany and West Germany reunify into a single Germany.

Tim Berners-Lee publishes a more formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

December 1 – Establishing the first land connection between the United Kingdom and the mainland of Europe, Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the English Channel seabed.

December 25 – Tim Berners-Lee creates the first webpage on the first web server.

 

[Brovion]

Titanic sunk.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Without even looking it up, I believe it was one of the hottest, driest years on record...drought orders in place, lakes drying up, standpipes in the street, feeding ice lollies to the polar bears at London Zoo etc.

It seems to have become the standard by which all other hot years are measured...can you tell what it is yet?

 

[Lady Whistledown]

John Lennon was shot and killed - I'll let Brunswick fill us in on who did that and why

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

Apperently the americans faked the moon landing

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

Without even looking it up, I believe it was one of the hottest, driest years on record...drought orders in place, lakes drying up, standpipes in the street, feeding ice lollies to the polar bears at London Zoo etc.

It seems to have become the standard by which all other hot years are measured...can you tell what it is yet?

1976 ! i recall fires everywhere

 

[seagully]

I was born...

 

[Drumstick]

Berlin wall came down

Walt Disney World opens to public

Nintendo releases the Game Boy portable video game system in North America.

 

[Trufflehound]

Well, let's see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's clothes.