1984 - Definition

This page is about the year 1984. For other uses of 1984, see 1984 (disambiguation).

1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January

• January 1 - Brunei becomes a fully independent state
• January 1 - AT&T is broken up into 22 independent units
• 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 22 - The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to use a computer mouse and GUI interface, is introduced by Apple Computer corporation in a Super Bowl commercial evoking images from George Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
• 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 3 - Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on the tenth space shuttle mission.
• February 7 - Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.
• 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 - Vatican and Italian government sign new concordant changing Roman Catholic as the offical religion.
• February 29 - Canadian PM 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 Golden Temple, the Sikh holy spot.
• March 6 - Twelve month long strike in British coal industry begins See UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985)
• March 14 - Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and three others are seriously injured in a gun attack
• March 16 - CIA station chief stationed in Beirut, William Buckley, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists 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 - Sarah Tisdall, the young British civil servant who told the Guardian newspaper that cruise missiles were coming to Britain, is sentenced to six months imprisonment.

April-June

• April 4 - President Ronald Wilson Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
• April 17 - WPC Yvonne Fletcher is shot dead by a secluded gunman during a siege outside the Libyan Embassy in London.
• April 25 - End of term for Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Al-Mustain Billah ibni Almarhum Sultan Sir Abu Bakar Riayatuddin Al-Muadzam Shah as the 7th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
• April 26 - Baginda Almutawakkil Alallah Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail, Sultan of Johor becomes the 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
• 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 11 - A transit of Earth from Mars takes place.
• 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 1000 people
• June 8 - A deadly F5 tornado nearly destroys the town of Barneveld, Wisconsin, killing nine people, injuring nearly 200, and causing over $25m in damage.
• June 22 - The official name of the Turkish city Urfa is changed into Sanliurfa
• June 22 - Inaugural flight of Virgin Atlantic
• June 30 - John Turner becomes Canada's seventeenth prime minister.

July-September

• July 9 - Lightning sets fire to York Minster
• July 18 - In San Ysidro, California, 41-year-old James Oliver Huberty sprays a McDonald's restaurant with gun-fire killing 21 people before being shot dead by police.
• July 21 - In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in 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
• August 4 - The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso.
• August 16 - Carmaker John De Lorean is acquitted of all eight counts of possessing and distributing cocaine due to entrapment
• August 21 - Half a million people in Manila demonstrate against the regime of Ferdinand Marcos
• September 5 - STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
• September 17 - Brian Mulroney becomes Canada's eighteenth prime minister.
• September 26 - United Kingdom and People's Republic of China sign initial agreement return Hong Kong to China in 1997

October

• October 5 - Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger (41-6).
• October 11 - Margaret Thatcher survives an IRA bomb.
• October 11 - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
• October 12 - Brighton bombing (attempt to assassinate the British Cabinet)
• October 19 - A Polish Priest Jerzy Popieluszko is kidnapped and found dead two days later
• October 31 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards (riots soon broke out in New Delhi and nearly 2,000 innocent Sikhs were killed).

November-December

• November 2 - Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
• November 6 - Ronald Wilson Reagan defeats Walter F. Mondale in the U.S. presidential election.
• 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 - 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 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 Singalese from North and East Sri Lanka - 127 killed
• 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 signs the Sino-British Joint Declaration which concerns the future of Hong Kong.
• December 31 - Rajiv Gandhi becomes prime minister of India

Unknown dates

• Ethiopian famine begins.

Year in topic

• 1984 in film
  • Wednesday, May 23, 1984 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom starring Harrison Ford
  • Friday, June 1, 1984 - Star Trek III: The Search For Spock starring William Shatner as Admiral James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy both as Spock and directing.
  • Friday, June 8, 1984 - Ghostbusters
  • Wednesday, September 19 - Amadeus
  • Friday, September 21 - Places in the Heart
  • Friday, October 26, 1984 - Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator
  • Friday, November 2, 1984 - The Killing Fields
  • Monday, November 26, 1984 - Filming starts on Back to the Future.
  • Wednesday, December 5 - Beverly Hills Cop starring Eddie Murphy
  • Friday, December 14 - Dune starring Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Usul Muad'Dib Atreides, Patrick Stewart (of Excalibur fame) as Gurney Halleck
• 1984 in literature
  • The New International Version of the Bible is published.
  • The influential cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, by William Gibson, is published in March.
• 1984 in music
  • The influential rap group, the Ultramagnetic MCs, form in the Bronx.
  • Iron Maiden released Powerslave, their 5th studio album and their 3rd with front-man Bruce Dickinson showing the world the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was there to stay.
  • Metallica released Ride the Lightning.
  • Prince released Purple Rain.
• 1984 in rail transport
  • Southern Pacific Railroad and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway attempt to merge but the merger is denied by the Interstate Commerce Commission
• 1984 in sports
  • Saturday, January 14, 1984 - Ray Mancini stops 2 time world champion Bobby Chacon in the third round of a long awaited boxing fight, to retain the WBA's world Lightweight title.
  • Sunday, January 22, 1984 - Super Bowl XVIII Los Angeles Raiders (38) def. Washington Redskins (9)
  • Friday, January 27, 1984 - Carl Lewis beats his own indoor world jumping record by 9-1/4 inches with a 28 feet, 10-1/4 inches jump.
  • Wednesday, February 8, 1984 - 1984 Winter Olympics open in Sarajevo
  • Saturday, May 19, 1984 - The NHL's Edmonton Oilers win the Stanley Cup defeating the New York Islanders 5-2 at Edmonton and ending the Islanders dynasty. The first in Oilers club history and of a new dynasty.
  • Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Baseball - The Detroit Tigers start the season 35-5 on their way to a World Series victory.
• 1984 in television
  • Saturday, January 28, 1984 - singer Michael Jackson's hair catches fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial
  • Wednesday, September 19, 1984 - Highway to Heaven debuts on NBC.
  • Thursday, September 20, 1984 - The Cosby Show debuts on NBC.
  • Thursday, September 20, 1984 - Who's The Boss debuts on ABC.
  • Friday, September 28, 1984 - Miami Vice debuts on NBC.
  • Sunday, September 30, 1984 - Murder, She Wrote debuts on CBS.
  • Friday, December 28, 1984 - The soap opera The Edge of Night airs its final episode on ABC.
  • The current version of Jeopardy! debuts on NBC.

Births

• January 15 - Megan Quann, swimmer
• February 26 - Natalia Lafourcade, Mexican pop singer
• March 5 - Mustafa Altay Sönmez, Turkish poet
• March 20 - Winta, Norwegian pop star
• April 10 - Mandy Moore, singer, actress
• April 18 - America Ferrera, actress
• April 23 - Alexandra Kosteniuk, chess player
• May 29 - Carmelo Anthony, NBA star
• May 31 - Jason Smith, Australian actor
• July 11 - Tanith Belbin, US skater
• September 7 - Vera Zvonareva, tennis player
• September 14 - Adam Lamberg, actor (Lizzie McGuire)
• September 15 - Prince Harry of Wales, English prince
• September 27 - Avril Lavigne, Canadian singer/songwriter
• October 3 - Ashlee Simpson, singer, actress
• October 14 - Santino Quaranta, American soccer player
• November 9 - Delta Goodrem, actress, singer
• November 21 - Jena Malone, actress
• December 30 - LeBron James, NBA star

Deaths

January-June

• January 20 - Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and actor. Most prominent as Tarzan.
• January 21 - Jackie Wilson, soul singer.
• February 9 - Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• February 15 - Ethel Merman, singer, actress
• February 22 - Jessamyn West, writer
• March 1 - Jackie Coogan, actor
• March 5 - Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone (b. 1915)
• March 5 - William Powell, actor
• March 21 - Sir Michael Redgrave, actor
• March 24 - Sam Jaffe, actor
• April 1 - Marvin Gaye, singer
• April 15 - Tommy Cooper, British comedian and magician
• April 20 - Hristo Prodanov, Bulgarian mountaineer
• April 22 - Ansel Adams, American photographer
• April 26 - Count Basie, musician, composer (b. 1904)
• May 16 - Andy Kaufman, comedian
• May 16 - Irwin Shaw, author
• May 28 - Eric Morecambe, British comedian
• June 26 - Michel Foucault, philosopher

July-December

• July 1 - Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of the Feldenkrais Method
• July 8 - Brassaï, photographer
• July 14 - Philippe Wynne, musician (b. 1941)
• July 26 - Ed Gein, serial killer
• August 2 - Quirino Cristiani, Argentine animation director.
• August 5 - Richard Burton, actor
• August 11 - Alfred A. Knopf, American publisher
• August 14 - J. B. Priestley, English novelist and playwright
• August 25 - Waite Hoyt, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1899)
• September 25 - Walter Pidgeon, actor
• October 5 - Leonard Rossiter, British actor
• October 12 - Sir Anthony Berry, British politician, along with three of the other victims of the Brighton hotel bombing
• October 20 - Paul Dirac, physicist
• October 21 - François Truffaut, French film director
• October 31 - Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India and President of Indian National Congress
• December 14 - Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer (b. 1898)
• December 15 - Jan Peerce, American tenor (b. 1904)
• December 20 - Gonzalo Márquez, Major League Baseball player (b. 1946)
• Konsta Jylhä, a Finnish folk violinist

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Carlo Rubbia, Simon van der Meer
• Chemistry - Robert Bruce Merrifield
• Medicine - Niels Kaj Jerne, Georges JF Köhler, César Milstein
• Literature -Jaroslav Seifert
• Peace - Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu

Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

• Richard Stone

Right Livelihood Award

• Imane Khalifeh, SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association) / Ela Bhatt, Winefreda Geonzon / FREE LAVA (Free Legal Assistance Volunteers' Association) and Wangari Maathai / Green Belt Movement