1979: Information and Much More from Answers.com
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Iran's Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlevi appoints Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar, 64, to head a regency January 4 in an effort to avert a fundamentalist Islamic revolution and flees January 16 to Egypt after nearly 38 years in power (see 1978; Shiites, 680). The Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, 78, flies into Teheran February 1 after 15 years in exile. His supporters clash with government troops and rout the elite Imperial Guard February 11. Bakhtiar resigns, autocratic rule ends after 2,500 years, but turmoil continues throughout the year, with thousands killed in rioting and mass executions. Khomeini accuses the "satanic" United States and her "agents" of fomenting disunity and sends troops to crush a rebellion of Kurdish guerrillas seeking autonomy. The shah moves on to Morocco, the Bahamas, and Cuernavaca, Mexico; terminally ill with cancer, he is permitted entry to the United States October 22 at the insistence of former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger and Chase Manhattan president David Rockefeller, 64, despite warnings from the U.S. ambassador in Teheran. The shah is admitted to New York Hospital for removal of his gall bladder and Iranian terrorists seize the U.S. embassy at Teheran November 4, taking 66 hostages and demanding extradition of the shah. The "student" terrorists release five women and eight black male hostages November 19 to 20. The shah departs for Panama via Texas December 16 (see 1980).
North Yemen and South Yemen have a border war beginning February 24 (see 1978). President Carter sends $390 million worth of arms with military advisers to North Yemen, and he dispatches a naval force to the Arabian Sea; nearly 3,000 Cuban and Soviet troops arrive in South Yemen.
A terrorist bomb explodes in a Jerusalem marketplace January 18, Israeli forces retaliate the next day with their heaviest strike into Lebanon since March 1978, they kill 40 Palestinians, a truce halts shelling across the border January 24, but Palestinian guerrillas attack an Israeli settlement in early May and 400 Israeli troops cross into Lebanon in pursuit May 9 with tanks and armored cars.
The peace treaty signed by Egypt's president Anwar el-Sadat and Israel's prime minister Menachem Begin at Washington March 26 ends a state of war that has existed for nearly 31 years. Both leaders credit President Carter, whose negotiations at Camp David last September have continued with visits to Cairo and Jerusalem. The accord produces dismay in the other Arab states, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) splits in two over the issue, with one side refusing to recognize the settlement. Egypt's neighbors denounce the treaty with demonstrations, strikes, and bombings; some countries break relations with Cairo and impose an economic boycott of Egypt (see 1981).
Former U.S. vice president and New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller suffers a fatal heart attack January 26 at age 70. It is initially reported that a security guard found him dead at his desk in his RCA Building office where he had been editing an art book, but it then comes to light that he was having sex with a young woman aide, Megan Ruth Marshack, at his 13 West 54th Street town house.
Afghan Muslim extremists abduct U.S. ambassador Adolph Dubs, 58, at Kabul February 14, local police storm the hotel where he is being held, and Dubs is killed along with several of his abductors in an exchange of gunfire. Soviet agents try to oust President Taraki's rival, Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin, in mid-September, but Taraki himself is killed in a shootout. Fearing that the Afghans will install a regime friendly to the United States, Soviet Communist Party chairman Leonid Brezhnev summons his foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, KGB chief Yuri Andropov, and defense minister Dmitri Ustinov to a meeting late at night December 12, and Soviet troops invade Afghanistan December 24, allegedly at the invitation of the new president Amin, who is convicted December 27 of "crimes against the state" and executed along with members of his family by a "revolutionary tribunal." He is succeeded by Soviet puppet Babrak Karmal. U.S.-supplied Afghan guerrillas will resist Soviet occupation forces for more than 9 years, forcing them to retreat into fortified cities (see sports [Olympic boycott], agriculture [grain embargo], 1980).
Accidental release of dry anthrax spores in early April at the Soviet Microbiology and Virology Institute in Sverdlovsk (later Yekaterinburg) contaminates an area with a radius of at least three kilometers and by some estimates kills several hundred persons. Tight censorship is imposed, but hundreds, perhaps thousands, of residents and military personnel reportedly die after inhaling the spores and contracting pulmonary anthrax. Soviet authorities say only that illegal sales of anthrax-contaminated meat have caused a public health problem. Critics charge Moscow with violating the 1972 convention that banned development of biological weapons (see Pasechnik, 1989).
Iraq's president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigns July 16 after 11 years in office, having suffered a heart attack 3 years ago. Now 65, he is succeeded by revolutionary leader Saddam Hussein, now 42, who has shared power with President Bakr since 1968, directed the nationalization of Iraq's oil industry 7 years ago, becomes president and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, will be ruthless in suppressing political opposition, and will embark on rash military adventures (see 1980).
Britain's prime minister James Callaghan loses a vote of confidence by one vote in Britain's House of Commons March 28, the first time such a vote has defeated a government since 1924. Striking trade unions workers have paralyzed transportation, allowed garbage to rot in the streets, forced hospitals to close, even left corpses unburied, and the tabloid London Sun has helped rally public opinion against Callaghan; Conservative leader Margaret (Hilda) Thatcher (née Robert), 53, becomes the nation's first woman prime minister when her party regains power May 3, winning the general elections by the largest majority any party has received since 1966. Mrs. Thatcher has promised to cut income taxes, scale down social services, and reduce the role of the state in daily life.
A 50-pound bomb planted by Irish Republican Army terrorists explodes August 27 on the fishing boat of Lord Mountbatten off the coast of County Sligo, killing the 79-year-old cousin of Elizabeth II with his 14-year-old grandson and a 15-year-old passenger. Four others aboard the Shadow V are seriously hurt (one dies the next day), and an IRA ambush 35 miles south of Belfast kills 18 British soldiers. A leading Conservative MP has been killed by the IRA outside the House of Commons March 30 and the violence continues. A bomb of a different sort explodes in Parliament November 15 when art historian Sir Anthony Blunt, 72, is revealed to have been a Soviet spy. Blunt confessed to treason in 1964 and was given immunity from prosecution and permitted to remain curator to the queen. He is stripped of his knighthood.
French statesman Jean Monnet dies at his country home outside Paris March 6 at age 90, having laid the groundwork for the European Community.
U.S.-educated German political leader Petra (Karin) Kelly, 32, quits the Social Democratic Party in protest against its policies toward nuclear defense, health, and women. Stepdaughter of a U.S. Army colonel, Kelly joins with some friends to found the Green Party, whose anti-nuclear, pro- environmental views will attract many followers (see 1983).
Former Hungarian premier Ferenc Nagy dies of a heart attack at Washington, D.C., June 12 at age 75; former Czech president Ludvík Svoboda at Prague September 20 at age 83.
Washington breaks ties with Taiwan as of January 1 and establishes diplomatic relations with Beijing (see 1978). Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping accepts a New Year's invitation to the U.S. Embassy at Beijing and flies to the United States later in the month, becoming the first Chinese leader to visit America (in addition to seeing President Carter at Washington, he tours the NASA Space Center at Houston, tries out a flight simulator, and attends a Texas rodeo), but he cracks down on dissenters upon his return. Beijing advises Moscow April 3 that China will not renew her 1950 treaty of friendship, due to expire in 1980. Moscow replies April 4 that the decision was taken "contrary to the will and interests of the Chinese people." The Taiwan Relations Act signed into law by President Carter April 10 is the only domestic U.S. law governing relations with a foreign nation.
Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh falls to Vietnamese forces January 7 as does the country's only seaport, Kompong Som (see 1978). Moscow congratulates the Cambodian rebels on their "remarkable victory," but Romania breaks with her Warsaw Pact allies to denounce Vietnam for intervening in Cambodia (Kampuchea), calling it a "heavy blow for the prestige of socialism" and a threat to peace. Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge followers are given refuge at the Thai border and will resist the Vietnamese for the next 12 years while continuing to murder Cambodians with any ties to the "bourgeois" past (see 1975; 1985). The Vietnamese install a new government, headed by Heng Samrin. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, in exile, says 14 Vietnamese divisions have invaded his country with Soviet backing and entreats the UN Security Council to get Vietnam out of Cambodia. Some 9,000 noncommunist troops loyal to Prince Sihanouk join with 15,000 noncommunists under Son Sann receive the support of 35,000 Khmer Rouge forces to fight the 170,000 Vietnamese who support Heng Samrin's government. Chinese troops invade Vietnam in March, destroy major towns, and inflict heavy damage, but withdraw in April after suffering heavy casualties.
South Korea's National Assembly ousts opposition leader Kim Young Sam, 51, October 9, all 70 members resign in protest a few days later, and President Park Chung Hee is assassinated October 26 at age 62 by the director of his Central Intelligence Agency Kim Jae Kyu, 53, a lifelong friend who opens fire at a private dinner party to which he has invited the president and his chief security officer (Park's wife was killed in an attempt on her husband's life in August 1974) (see Kim Dae-jung, 1976). Premier Choi Kyu Hah becomes president and begins releasing imprisoned dissidents (see 1980).
Pakistan's former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is hanged at Rawalpindi April 4 at age 51 for plotting the murder of a political opponent in 1974, having been sentenced by the Lahore High Court in mid-March 1978 (see 1977). President Carter, Pope John Paul II, and other world leaders have appealed for clemency to no avail. Demonstrations throughout Pakistan protest the execution.
U.S. Senate leaders block a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty signed at Vienna June 18 by Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev after nearly 5 years of negotiations (diplomat and former secretary of the navy Paul Nitze, now 72, represented U.S. interests). The United States has 2,283 missiles and bombers as of June 18, the Soviet Union 2,504. President Carter has approved construction of a new generation of smaller aircraft carriers January 8 and scrapped plans for another 90,000-ton supercarrier. He has approved development June 7 of a $30 billion MX Missile plan that would deploy large missiles located in any of 8,800 underground shelters connected by miles of track under the desert of Utah, Nevada, or another western state. The MX will survive a "first strike" by Moscow, say its supporters, provide counterforce capability, and for the first time give the United States "first strike" ability to eliminate large numbers of Soviet land-based missiles (see 1981).
Former French military commander Gen. Maurice Challe dies of cancer at Paris January 18 at age 73; Gen. André Zeller (Challe's fellow conspirator in opposing Algerian independence) at Paris September 18 at age 81. The late president Charles de Gaulle pardoned both in 1965.
Rhodesian whites vote January 30 to ratify a new constitution enfranchising all blacks, establishing a black majority in the Senate and Assembly, and renaming the country Zimbabwe Rhodesia (see 1978). Delegates from 30 Commonwealth countries meeting at Lusaka, Zambia, August 5 approve a new proposal to end the 6-year-old civil war in Zimbabwe Rhodesia (see 1980).
Ugandan guerrillas and Tanzanian troops sent by Julius Nyerere occupy Kampala April 10 and force Uganda's president Idi Amin Dada into exile (see 1972; Entebbe, 1976). Amin flees to Libya, having personally ordered the execution of Uganda's Anglican archbishop, her chief justice, the chancellor of Makerere University, the Bank of Uganda's governor, and several of his ministers, and it is rumored that he has kept some of the severed heads in his freezer and displayed them to guests at his dinner table. Probably neurosyphilitic, he has said that Hitler was right to kill 6 million Jews, that Zambia's president Kenneth Kaunda was an "imperialist puppet and bootlicker," and that Henry A. Kissinger was "a murderer and a spy." He has ejected Peace Corps volunteers and the marines guarding the U.S. Embassy at Kampala, offered to become king of Scotland and lead his Celtic subjects to independence, forced white residents of Kampala to carry him on a throne and kneel before him, and brutalized his own people. All other countries have broken diplomatic ties with Kampala. Amin ordered the invasion of Tanzania in October of last year, trying with Libyan support to annex Tanzania's northern province of Kagera while trying to cover up a mutiny in his army. His 8 years of capricious and bloody oppression have left his country $250 million in debt with only $200,000 in foreign exchange remaining in the central bank. Although Uganda is 85 percent Christian, Amin has had as many as 300,000 Christians killed, giving preference to his own Muslim Kakwa and other Sudanic tribes; Nilotic Acholi, Langi, Baganda, and other tribesmen (Uganda has at least 32 distinct tribes) vie for supremacy (see 1980).
South Africa's president John Vorster resigns June 4 after the release of a report accusing him of covering up irregularities in government spending on secret propaganda efforts in the United States (see human rights [Biko], 1977; [Joseph], 1978). Now 63, Vorster was elected president after leaving the prime ministry last September and was succeeded by Pieter W. Botha, but few people still have any illusions that apartheid can bring peace: the country is gripped by an economic recession, most of its homelands are mired in corruption, their only significant export is labor, skilled whites are exiting the country, and inflation has been running out of control. Vorster is succeeded as president by Marais Viljoen see 1982).
Ghana has a coup d'état June 4; rebels install flight lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, 32, as head of state and execute Gen. Frederick Akuffo along with two other former chief executives. An admirer of Libya's Muammar al-Qadaffi, Rawlings turns over the government to an elected president in July (but see 1981).
Mauritania's president Mustapha Ould Salek resigns in June after only 1 year in office and is succeeded by Lieut. Col. Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly, who will be replaced in January of next year.
Equatorial Guinea has a bloodless coup August 3 that ends the brutal 11-year rule of President Masie Nguema Biyogo Negue Ndong, 57, who has allied himself with Moscow but kept foreigners out of the 10,000-square-mile former Spanish colony. As president for life, Masie Nguema has put tens of thousands to death, scared more than half the country's 300,000 people into fleeing abroad, and shattered the nation's economy while spending lavishly on palaces and other symbols of power. His nephew Theodore Nguema Mbasago heads a new ruling junta. A civilian-military tribunal convicts Masie Nguema of genocide, treason, systematic violation of human rights, and embezzlement of public funds; he and six aides are executed by firing squad.
Angola's president Agostinho Neto dies at Moscow September 10 at age 56 following surgery for pancreatic cancer; he is succeeded by his planning minister José Eduardo dos Santos.
The Central African emperor Bokassa I is overthrown in a bloodless coup September 20 (see 1977). Accused of bankrupting his country and joining in a massacre of schoolchildren, Bokassa is rebuffed by France but given asylum by Ivory Coast. Former president David Dacko regains power, revives the Central African Republic, and pledges a restoration of democracy.
Canada's Progressive Conservative Party wins the general election May 22, gaining a plurality of seats in Parliament as economic and other domestic problems beset the nation; Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Liberal government is ousted after 11 years in power (although Trudeau retains his parliamentary seat), and Alberta-born party leader Charles Joseph "Joe" Clark, 40, becomes the youngest prime minister in the nation's history (but see 1980). Former prime minister John Diffenbaker dies of an apparent heart attack at his Ottawa home August 16 at age 83.
St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean gains full independence February 22 after more than 175 years of British colonial rule. St. Lucia gains full independence the same day. St. Vincent and the Grenadines gains full independence October 26 after nearly 196 years of British rule; (Robert) Milton Cato, 64, is the new nation's first prime minister and will serve until 1984.
Grenada has a leftist coup March 13 as the New Jewel Movement headed by Maurice Bishop, 34, takes power while Prime Minister Gairy is in New York, accusing Gairy of fiscal irresponsibility. Bishop is a protégé of Cuba's Fidel Castro (see 1974; 1983).
Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza resigns his presidency July 17 after a 7-week civil war and takes refuge at Miami with 45 aides, ending the 46-year Somoza family dynasty (see 1978). Sandinista rebels enter Managua July 19 with rebel leaders who include Daniel Ortega Saavedra, 33, riding an armored personnel carrier. Ortega dropped out of university at age 17 to join the FSLN (Sandanista National Liberation Front), was imprisoned by the Somoza regime from 1967 to 1974 and then exiled to Cuba, but was spirited back into Nicaragua, where he has led the most moderate of the three guerrilla groups opposed to Somoza; the new five-man junta expropriates the vast business empire of the Somozas and their supporters (see 1980).
El Salvador's military deposes Carlos Humberto Romero in a coup d'état October 15 after months of violence following the killing of 23 leftist demonstrators May 8 (President Romero came to power after disputed elections in February 1977). A new military junta assumes power, begins to redistribute lands to the peasants, and makes other reforms after 47 years of military dictatorship. Violence continues (see 1980).
Former Peruvian economist-diplomat-publisher Pedro Gerado Beltrán dies at his native Lima February 16 on the eve of his 82nd birthday; former Mexican president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz of a heart attack at Mexico City July 15 at age 68; former U.S. governor of Puerto Rico Rexford Guy Tugwell of cancer at Santa Barbara, Calif., July 21 at age 88; Peruvian statesman Vincent R. Haya de la Torre of lung cancer and heart complications at Lima August 2 at age 84; former U.S. first lady Mamie Eisenhower (née Doud) of heart failure at Washington, D.C., November 1 at age 82
The Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) gain independence July 12 after 64 years of British colonial rule.
British aeronautical designer and "dambuster" bomb inventor Sir Barnes Wallis dies at Leatherhead, Surrey, October 30 at age 91.
A new Greek law that takes effect February 2 allows a spouse who has been separated for more than 6 years to obtain a divorce even if her/his partner is unwilling to grant the divorce.
Some 15,000 Iranian women march on Teheran's Palace of Justice March 10 to protest the Ayatollah Khomeini's revocation of the 1975 Family Protection Law, his abolition of coeducational schools, and government pressure to wear the chandor, a heavy veil that obscures the face. The new theocratic government has acted swiftly to roll back the shah's progressive decrees on sexual equality and is not moved; it will continue to require that all women wear the chandor when they appear in public, even non-Muslims visiting from abroad. Iran has been a modern country, but the new regime removes women from government jobs and replaces them with men in accordance with its distorted interpretation of Islamic teaching.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter delivers an address at New York April 26 urging women in state legislatures to join in obtaining male support for the Equal Rights Amendment and asking her audience of women communicators to "put the heat on your senators" to nominate women for federal judgeships (but see 1982; religion [Falwell], 1980).
Soviet authorities release five prominent dissidents and fly them to the United States April 27. Aleksandr I. Ginzburg, Mark Dymshitz, Eduard S. Kuzentsov, Valentyn Moroz, and the Rev. George Gins have spent years at various labor camps and prisons in punishment for their human rights activities. Moscow permits a record 51,320 Jews to emigrate, up from 28,864 last year and 16,737 in 1977, but will crack down on such emigration in 1980.
Former Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chamber director Josef Mengele suffers a stroke while swimming near São Paulo, Brazil, dies February 7 at age 67, and is buried under his assumed name Wolfgang Gerhard; civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph dies at New York May 16 age 90.
Ku Klux Klansmen at Greensboro, N.C., fire on a group of self-styled Communists of the Workers Viewpoint Organization November 3, killing three and wounding 12 in an episode that is really gang warfare although the world press relates it to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The Klansmen will plead self defense and win acquittal.
Miami insurance salesman Arthur McDuffie, 33, borrows a cousin's motorcycle after midnight December 17, three white Dade County police officers stop him after a chase through red lights and stop signs at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour, other officers arrive at the scene and, without provocation, yank off McDuffie's helmet, handcuff him behind his back, and proceed to crack his skull with their night sticks and heavy metal flashlights. McDuffie is killed, several officers are dismissed amidst charges that their attack was in part racially motivated, some are indicted for manslaughter and for making it appear that McDuffie was killed in an accident (see 1980).
"Red Rudi" Dutschke drowns after an apparent epileptic attack at Raarhus, Denmark, December 24 at age 39.
The Florida state legislature votes 2 to 1 to overturn a Miami-Dade County equal-opportunity ordinance favoring homosexuals (see 1977). A referendum has shown widespread opposition to the measure, and members of what will be called the "religious right" has pushed for its repeal, but a Boston gay-rights magazine urges homosexuals to boycott Florida orange juice, Anita Bryant will lose her job as spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission, and her career will be ruined (see 1998).
Former Sears, Roebuck chairman and philanthropist Lessing J. Rosenwald dies of a bronchial infection at Jenkintown, Pa., June 24 at age 88.
The Bhaskara satellite launched by Indian space scientists June 7 is the nation's second (see 1975). Put into orbit by intercosmos rockets, it carries television cameras and will be followed in November 1981 by Bhaskara II.
The European Monetary System goes into operation as members of the Economic Community strive for closer monetary coordination; the first direct elections to the European Parliament are held.
A federal law that takes effect April 29 forbids U.S. employers to discriminate against pregnant employees or any other disabled workers.
A reverse discrimination suit ends June 27 in a rebuff for Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical lab technician Brian F. Weber, 32, who has sued his union and employer over a job-training program that gave preference to blacks (see human rights [Bakke decision], 1978). Steel Workers Local 5702 and the company announced in 1974 that half the openings in a training program for higher-paying craft jobs would be reserved for blacks regardless of seniority. The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-to-2 decision in United Steel Workers v. Weber is regarded as the definitive statement on affirmative-action programs.
Brazil's Economic Development Council recommends a new salary program that will adjust the lowest salaries in the private sector every 6 months to 10 percent more than the rate of inflation, while adjusting higher salaries at a rate much lower than that of price increases. In 15 years of military rule, the share of the national wealth enjoyed by the lowest-paid workers has steadily declined.
South Africa's black neighbors form the Southern African Development Coordinating Conference in an attempt to keep her from dominating the region's economy, but although South Africa's own economy is beleaguered she provides employment for 280,000 immigrant workers, most export trade continues to go through ports such as Durban and Port Elizabeth, and Prime Minister Botha uses military strength to block anti-apartheid efforts by his neighboring countries.
A Sino-America pact signed July 7 grants China most-favored-nation status, allowing her to lower tariff rates available to most other U.S. trading partners. U.S. exports to China will reach $1.7 billion next year, imports from China will reach $600 million, and total trade by 1980 will be nearly $4 billion.
Gold prices top $300 per ounce for the first time in history July 18 and $400 per ounce September 27 as world financial markets react to inflation worries.
Former Ford Motor Company security head Harry H. Bennett dies at Los Gatos, Calif., January 4 at age 86; industrialist Cyrus S. Eaton at Northfield, Ohio, May 9 at age 95; longtime labor union head Jacob S. Potofsky of cancer at New York August 5 at age 84; British labor leader George Woodcock at Epsom October 30 at age 75.
President Carter appoints New York banker Paul A. Volcker, 52, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in August. Volcker announces October 6 that he is imposing a 1 percent increase in the discount interest rate that Federal Reserve banks charge member institutions. The move to halt inflation sends stock prices sharply lower and begins a short recession. Double- and even triple-digit inflation plagues much of the world. U.S. prices increase 13.3 percent for the year, largest jump in 33 years, and the Federal Reserve Board's move in October to tighten the money supply sparks a jump in loan rates that will continue for 6 months. Banks raise their prime loan rate to 14.5 percent October 9, Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 26.48 points that day, and the New York Stock Exchange has a record 81.6 million share day October 10 as small investors panic. The U.S. Gross National Product has risen by more than a third in constant dollars since 1969, and unemployment has averaged less than 6 percent (it topped 9 percent in only one calendar year, versus a peak of 25 percent in the 1930s when the GNP rose by only 4 percent and when stock prices declined by only 31 percent as compared to 42 percent in the 1970s).
New York investor George Soros establishes the Open Society Fund to support anticommunist movements in Eastern Europe (see Quantum Fund, 1969). The fund takes its name from that of the 1945 book by London School of Economics philosopher Sir Karl Popper, now 77, under whom Soros studied in the 1950s. Now 49, Soros renames the Soros Fund the Quantum Fund (see 1973); he has quietly gained a reputation for wizardry in money management and borrows a term from physics with an allusion to work by the late German physicist Werner Heisenberg, who postulated the idea in 1927 that it is impossible to predict accurately the speed or velocity of an atomic particle; Soros will use his wits to predict future movements in currency-exchange rates and make himself a billionaire.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes November 7 at 976.67 but then gives up most of its gains and closes December 31 at 838.74, up from 805.01 at the end of 1978.
Home Depot is founded by Atlanta merchants Arthur M. Blank, 37, and Bernie Marcus to capitalize on the growing market for do-it-yourself home improvement customers. By 1996 there will be more than 450 Home Depot retail stores across the United States and by 2000 more than 1,000, threatening the survival of independent hardware stores in the same way that Wal-Mart has threatened the existence of America's Main Street retailers.
An accident at Unit II of the Three Mile Island nuclear generating station near Harrisburg, Pa., March 28 raises alarms that the year-old reactor may explode and release radioactive cesium. The overheated reactor shuts down automatically but Metropolitan Edison Company operators, misled by ambiguous indicators, think water pressure is building and shut down pumps still operating; the reactor heats up further and tons of water that have poured out through the stuck-open valve overflow into an auxiliary building through a valve that should have been shut. Most of the 144,000 people evacuated from the Middletown area are pregnant women and small children, but the reactor core does not melt down despite exposure and damage; little radiation is released.
Nine new U.S. nuclear reactors begin commercial production; France, Japan, Soviet Russia, and other nations continue to expand nuclear energy capabilities and reduce dependence on petroleum, but the malfunction at Three Mile Island discourages new atomic energy facilities. U.S. utility companies cancel 11 reactor orders and will cancel more next year, installation of other reactors is indefinitely delayed, and no more will be built in this century. Inflation, high interest rates, and declining demand for electricity limit construction of new reactors as much as does public opinion.
Iran's new government announces February 17 that exports of oil will resume March 5 at a price about 30 percent higher than that set by the OPEC nations in December 1978. Iranian oil production averages only 3.4 million barrels per day for the year, down from 5.4 million last year. Since the 900,000 barrels of Iranian crude imported daily by the United States last year supplied 6 percent of U.S. consumption, the drop in Iranian imports creates genuine fuel shortages in many states.
President Carter announces April 5 that he is acting under new legal authority to decontrol domestic oil prices, allowing U.S. producers to compete with the new OPEC base price of $14.54 per barrel. Price controls on 80 percent of marginally productive U.S. oil wells come off June 1. Carter proposes a windfall profits tax to recover unearned profits gained by oil companies and an Energy Security Fund to help low-income families pay higher fuel bills, fund construction of more public transportation facilities, and promote research and development of alternative energy sources.
U.S. motorists line up at filling stations from spring through summer and are often unable to obtain more than a few gallons at a time.
OPEC representatives raise prices 50 percent between January 1 and June 28 to about $20 per barrel, an economic summit meeting of the seven major industrial democracies June 29 at Tokyo agrees to set limits on imports, and U.S. imports for the year fall to 7.9 million barrels, down from a record 8.6 million in 1977, as prices for fuel oil and gasoline rise. At the 55th OPEC meeting in mid-December at Caracas, most OPEC members raise crude oil prices to $24 per barrel; Iran and Libya raise prices to well above $28, and crude oil in the spot market brings as much as $40 (but see 1981).
A federal jury at Oklahoma City decides May 18 that Kerr-McGee must pay $10.5 million to the estate of the late Karen Silkwood (see 1974).
An American Airlines DC-10 jumbo jet crashes on takeoff at Chicago's O'Hare Airport May 25, killing 273 in the worst U.S. aviation disaster thus far (the Federal Aviation Administration grounds all 136 domestic DC-10s indefinitely June 6 pending new safety tests and bars 143 foreign-operated DC-10s from landing at U.S. airports until the cause of the Chicago crash can be found and corrected); two Soviet planes collide in flight August 15 over the Ukraine, killing 150; a Pakistan International Airlines 707 carrying pilgrims from Mecca crashes November 26 at Jidda, Saudi Arabia, killing 156; an Air New Zealand DC-10 carrying sightseers over Antarctica crashes into Mt. Erebus November 28, killing 257.
German aviation pioneer Heinrich Focke of 1936 helicopter fame dies at Bremen February 25 at age 88; pilot Hannah Reitsch at Bonn August 30 at age 67.
Panama takes over operation of the Panama Canal October 1 under terms of last year's treaty establishing a 20-year transition from U.S. control.
Motorcycle accidents claim 4,893 lives in the United States, up from 3,312 in 1976 when Congress struck down a strong federal regulation requiring helmets. Many states have repealed or weakened their helmet laws, in some instances because insurance company lobbyists have exerted pressure (paying death benefits is cheaper for the companies than paying for patients on life-support systems for indefinite periods of time).
Atlanta's metropolitan rapid transit system (MARTA) begins service June 30 with a 6.7-mile high-speed commuter line linking the downtown business district with eastern suburbs. The 54-mile system is still at least 10 years short of completion and will cost about $2.7 billion more than the $1.3 billion projected in 1971.
Hong Kong's first subway line opens with 140 cars. The MTR will grow by 2002 to have 50 stations, with 1,050 cars carrying more than 2.3 million passengers per day on an 87.7-kilometer route.
Renault saves American Motors (AM) from bankruptcy by purchasing a controlling interest and arranging to have AM dealers market Renaults (see Chrysler, 1987).
The Chrysler Loan Guarantee Bill passed by Congress December 27 saves the 54-year-old automaker from bankruptcy. The measure guarantees $1.2 billion in loans to America's 17th largest company.
Seagate Technology is founded in California by former IBM engineer Alan Shugart, now 48, and three associates to develop and produce the "floppy" disk drives they invented in 1971 for larger computers. The disk drives will be basic fixtures in the coming generation of personal computers.
Japanese microchip makers take a 42 percent share of the world market for 16K DRAMS.
Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry is organized to nurture the country's information and telecommunications technology. Nanjing-born industrialist Li Kwoh-ting, 79, became president of the Taiwan Shipbuilding Corp. in 1951, served as economic minister from 1965 to 1969, headed the finance ministry from 1969 to 1975, and insists on training specialists at school and universities. He will be credited with helping to convert Taiwan from a poor agrarian society into a world-class exporter of high-tech products.
The VisiCalc spreadsheet that goes on sale for $100 in September turns the Apple II computer into a business machine, making it possible to recalculate an entire sheet automatically when one number is changed without having to recalculate every cell. The first electronic spreadsheet, it has been designed by MIT graduate (and Harvard Business School student) Daniel S. (Singer) Bricklin, 28, with programming help from his partner Bob Frankston, 30, who joined with him last year to start Software Arts, Inc. Their interactive visible calculator organizes information into software-defined columns and rows, summarizes information from many paper sources into one place, displays the data in clear form, and is soon available for use on Tandy TRS-80, Commodore PET, and Atari 800 computers (see Lotus 1-2-3, 1983).
The genetic-engineering research corporation Biogen, Inc. is founded by Boston area businessmen and scientists who include Phillip A. Sharp and Boston-born Harvard molecular biologist Walter Gilbert, 47. Gilbert will share a Nobel Prize next year for developing a way to determine the sequence of nucleotide links in the chainlike molecules of the nucleic acids DNA and RNA.
An MIT research teamed headed by Hartford, Conn.-born biophysicist Alexander Rich, 54, shakes up the world of structural biology with the announcement that it has discovered a "left-handed" form of DNA. Coiled in the shape of a left-handed screw, it has a zig-zag backbone and is called Z-DNA, but its purpose remains a mystery (see 1995).
Nobel physicist Dennis Gabor dies at London February 8 at age 78; Nobel chemist Giulio Natta at Bergamo May 2 at age 76; Nobel physicist Shinichiro Tomonaga of cancer at Tokyo July 8 at age 73; Nobel chemist Robert B. Woodward of a heart attack at Cambridge, Mass., July 8 at age 62 (he has been working to synthesize the antibiotic erythromycin).
First Lady Rosalynn Carter testifies before a congressional committee February 7 in behalf of the mentally ill. No president's wife has testified on Capitol Hill since Eleanor Roosevelt did so in the 1940s.
Government-funded kidney dialysis treatment costs $851 million for 46,000 U.S. patients, nearly 20 percent of them bedridden more or less permanently and about half unable to work (see 1960). The escalating costs of hemodialysis raise questions about how much the nation can afford without slighting other health needs, but by 2000 more than 90,000 people will have had their lives extended by kidney dialysis, with the federal government spending $3 billion per year to let Medicare, Medicaid, or the Veterans Administration pay for the cost of treatment.
Canada's Hall Commission conducts a review of the nation's health service, reports that her health care ranks among the best in the world (see Medical Care Act, 1968), but warns that extra-billing by physicians and user fees levied by hospitals are creating a two-tier system that threatens accessibility (see 1984).
Sudan has an outbreak of Ebola virus that kills 90 percent of its victims (see Zaire, 1976). Health authorities are powerless to deal with the disease, and panic-stricken health workers shun the victims.
Neurologist H. Merritt Houston dies of cerebrovascular disease at New York January 9 at age 76, having found a new way to control epileptic seizures; Nobel angioplasty pioneer Werner Forssmann dies at Schopfheim, West Germany, June 1 at age 74; penicillin pioneer Sir Ernst B. Chain in Ireland August 12 at age 73; cancer chemotherapy pioneer Kanematsu Sugiura of a stroke at White Plains, N.Y., October 21 at age 89 (he began his research in 1912).
Concerned Women for America (CWA) is incorporated at San Diego in January by Christian fundamentalist author and lecturer Beverly LaHaye, now 40, who met Detroit-born fundamentalist preacher Tim LaHaye, now 52, when both were undergraduates at Bob Jones University and married him in July 1947 (see Nonfiction, 1976). Watching Barbara Walters interview National Organization for Women founder Betty Friedan on television last year, LaHaye took exception to what she considered Friedan's anti-family, anti-God rhetoric and organized a meeting to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), gay rights, and reproductive rights with prayer and activism. CWA will grow to have chapters in 50 states and claim a membership of more than 500,000.
The Moral Majority is founded by Lynchburg, Va., evangelist Jerry Falwell, 46, of the Thomas Road Baptist Church at the persuasion of Heritage Foundation founder Paul M. Weyrich (who has coined the term "Moral Majority") (see politics, 1973). Falwell's weekly Old Time Gospel Hour airs on more than 300 U.S. television stations and 64 foreign stations, he supports Anita Bryant's campaign against gay rights in Miami-Dade County (see human rights, 1977), and the new political action group will register millions of new voters by November 1980 in an effort to block the Equal Rights Amendment, impede reform of the criminal code, disrupt the White House Conference on the Family, and fight abortion liberalization. It will continue until 1989.
The Religious Roundtable founded by Memphis, Tenn.-born Colgate-Palmolive sales manager-turned-evangelist Edward E. (Eugene) McAteer, 53, will be a leading force in making evangelical Christians politically active.
Navajo elderwoman Katherine Smith, 60, fires her rifle September 1 at a government crew building a barbed-wire fence that will come within 14 feet of a ceremonial hogan on her land in Arizona. Arrested, she is tried but acquitted, becoming a symbol of Navajo determination to protect the people's cultural integrity and prevent the intrusion of commercial interests into sacred land that includes Big Mountain.
Pope John Paul II visits Chicago October 5 and holds Mass in Grant Park, attracting an audience estimated to number more than 1 million.
Radio priest Father John E. Coughlin dies at Bloomfield Hills, Mich., October 27 at age 88.
Sunni Muslim militants occupy Mecca's Grand Mosque December 4; 75 are killed in a shootout with Saudi police, and scores of Saudi troops are killed.
Mother Teresa, now 69, receives the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the poor of Calcutta and elsewhere (see 1948).
President Carter appoints Denver-born federal judge Shirley Hufstedler (née Mount), 44, as the nation's first secretary of education. U.S. spending on education reaches $151.5 billion, up from $8.3 billion in 1950, with $126.5 billion coming from government sources. But student proficiency scores will plummet in the next decade as the nation falls behind countries that spend much less.
The John F. Kennedy Library is dedicated at Dorchester, Mass., October 20 in a ceremony attended by President Carter. Built with private donations from 36 million people worldwide, the structure on Columbia Point has been designed by Chinese-born architect I. M. (Ieoh Ming) Pei, now 63, of I. M. Pei and Partners as a memorial to the 35th president and it is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. A museum will be added in 1993.
C-SPAN (Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network) begins March 19 to provide gavel-to-gavel television coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives. Indiana-born journalist Brian Lamb, 37, has created the public service in cooperation with the cable TV industry and has an initial viewership estimated at 3.5 million households, a figure that will grow to about 90 million in the next 25 years as C-SPAN 2 comes on line in 1986 and C-SPAN 3 in 1996, giving viewers direct, round-the-clock access to public forums worldwide and interviews with no commercials and no commentary or analysis except from guests.
CompuServe Information Service goes online September 24 with the first commercial electronic mail (e-mail), making "cyberspace" computer linkups possible beyond existing defense department-academia Internet connections (see Internet, 1971). Founded 10 years ago at Columbus, Ohio, CompuServe began as a computer time-sharing service and will be acquired next year by Kansas City-based H&R Block (see AOL, 1985).
AOL (America Online) has its origins in The Source, a McLean, Va.-based company founded by New York-born promoter William F. Von Meister, 36, who has earlier helped start Digital Broadcasting Corp. and envisions a home information utility for online consumers. When Von Meister announces the online services startup at New York's Plaza Hotel in July, writer Isaac Asimov says, "This is the beginning of the information age," but the venture will be slow to get off the ground, his partner Jack Taub will oust Von Meister next year, and The Source will have only 55,000 subscribers by 1984 (see 1985).
The British Post Office inaugurates a Prestel system giving subscribers access to 160,000 pages, or television screenfuls, of information. Using telephones, computers, and TV sets, subscribers can obtain news and information such as rail and air schedules and stock and commodity quotations, make purchases, buy airline tickets, reserve hotel rooms, and book theater seats by remote control. The government has spent $30 million to develop the system. A Prestel set costs at least $2,000 U.S. and can also receive ordinary TV programming, but the government will wind up giving the sets away and billing the subscriber for the time the set is used.
Milliyet daily newspaper editor Abdi Ipekci is murdered at Istanbul February 1 at age 49 after writing columns attacking right-wing groups and suggesting that heroin smugglers were working with high-ranking security officers. Police arrest Turkish-Kurdistan-born, Bulgarian-trained militant Mehmet Ali Agca, 21, on murder charges June 25, but he escapes from a maximum-security prison in November, the man who informed on him is tortured and killed at Istanbul in December, terrorists have killed some 600 other Turks by year's end, and Agca will be suspected in the death of a Turkish expatriate at Kempten, West Germany, late next year (see politics [attempt on Pope John Paul II], 1981). Emigré Bulgarian writer and BBC broadcast journalist Georgi Markov dies at London September 11 at age 49, having been stabbed in the thigh 3 days earlier with an umbrella while waiting for a bus. A harsh critic of Bulgaria's totalitarian regime, he has had a wide listenership in Bulgaria; a coroner's court will conclude early next year that the umbrella's ferrule contained a KGB-designed pellet filled with the deadly toxin ricin derived from castor beans.
A Beijing court sentences Chinese journalist Wei Jingsheng, 29, to 15 years in prison October 16, ending the brief "Beijing Spring" that has seen political dissent tolerated. Wei edited the underground journal Explorations which published his essays, including "The Fifth Modernization: Democracy." These were also posted on Democracy Wall, where they attracted worldwide attention by calling for the establishment of political democracy as the necessary basis for economic and social reform, but party leader Deng Xiaoping now takes a hard line on dissent.
Morning Edition debuts November 1 on U.S. National Public Radio with Kentucky-born host Bob Edwards, 32, who will continue until the end of April 2004.
Business Week magazine founder Malcolm Muir dies of bronchial pneumonia at New York January 30 at age 93; syndicated newspaper columnist Inez Robb of Parkinson's disease at Tucson, Ariz., April 4 at age 78; publisher S. I. Newhouse of a stroke at New York August 29 at age 84, leaving an empire of 31 newspapers, 11 U.S. magazines, five radio stations, and many cable-TV stations; former Time Inc. president Roy E. Larsen dies at Fairfield, Conn., September 9 at age 80; cartoonist Al Capp of cancer at Cambridge, Mass., November 5 at age 70.
Nonfiction: Endgame: The Inside Story of Salt II by Dayton, Ohio-born Time magazine diplomatic correspondent Strobe Talbott, 33; Munich: The Price of Peace by Telford Taylor, now 71; The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman; Civilization and Capitalism: Fifteenth-Eighteenth Centuries (trilogy) by Fernand Braudel, now 77; Japan as Number One by Harvard sociologist Ezra F. Vogel, 48; The Gnostic Gospels by Palo Alto, Calif.-born Barnard College religious historian Elaine Pagels (née Hiesey), 36, who has studied more than 50 scrolls written in Coptic by an heretical sect of Christians in the 1st or 2nd century, and found by an Egyptian farmer in 1945; Prisoners of Silence: Breaking the Bonds of Adult Illiteracy in the United States by Jonathan Kozol; Adverbs, Vowels, and Other Objects of Wonder by Glasgow-born University of Chicago linguist James D. McCawley, 41; The Medusa and the Snail by Lewis Thomas; The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux, now 38 (his 14th book); The White Album by Joan Didion; The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time by Hunter S. Thompson; I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can by Miami-born author Barbara Gordon, 44, who took muscle-relaxant anti-convulsant drug Valium for a back pain and blames it for her chronic insomnia, convulsions, and hallucinations; Scribble, Scribble: Notes on the Media by Nora Ephron.
Historian William Yandell Elliott dies at Haywood, Va., January 9 at age 82; sociologist Talcott Parsons of a stroke at Munich May 8 at age 76; lexicographer Eric Partridge in southwestern England June 1 at age 85; Soviet author Anatoly V. Kusnetzov of a heart attack at Moscow June 13 at age 49; historian Sir Herbert Butterfield at Cambridge July 20 at age 78; Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse of a stroke at Sternstarnsberg, West Germany, July 29 at age 81; Basic English pioneer I. A. Richards at Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, September 7 at age 86; Immanuel Velikovsky of a heart ailment at Princeton, N.J., November 17 at age 84.
Fiction: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Le livre du rire et l'oublie) by Milan Kundera; November by exiled East German poet-singer-novelist Rolf Schneider, 48; Sophie's Choice by William Styron; The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth; The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer is based on the 1977 execution of Gary Gilmore; Good as Gold by Joseph Heller; A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul; Territorial Rights by Muriel Spark; The Year of the French by Greenwich, Conn.-born novelist Thomas (James Bonner) Flanagan, 63, deals with the Irish-French military effort against the British in 1798; Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick, now 63; Vida by Marge Piercy; The Confederates by Thomas Keneally; Tales of the Unexpected (stories) by Roald Dahl; So Long, See You Tomorrow by former New Yorker writer-editor William Maxwell, now 71; Coeval Games (Dojidai gemu) by Kenzaburo Oe, who will say that he is writing to give his brain-damaged son Hikari a voice (Hikari will become a successful composer despite his disability); Hear the Wind Sing (Kaze no uta o kike) by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, 30, who has been running a Tokyo jazz bar with his wife, Yoko, but will become a full-time writer in 1981; Sally Hemings by Philadelphia-born sculptor-novelist Barbara Chase-Riboud (née West), 44, deals with the 38-year liaison between Thomas Jefferson and his slave-mistress; A Woman of Substance by Leeds, Yorkshire-born U.S. journalist-novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, 46; Black Tickets (stories) by West Virginia-born writer Jayne Anne Phillips, 27; Vanishing Animals and Other Stories by Chicago-born writer Mary Morris, 32; The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum; Smiley's People by John le Carré.
Novelist John Knowles dies of cancer at Boston March 26 at age 52; writer Jean Stafford of cardiac arrest at White Plains, N.Y., March 26 at age 63; novelist Jean Rhys at Exeter, England, May 14 at age 84; Nicholas Monsarrat of cancer at London August 7 at age 69; James T. Farrell of a heart attack at New York August 22 at age 75; Mika Waltari at his native Helsinki August 26 at age 70; Konstantin Simonov in the USSR August 28 at age 63; humorist-author S. J. Perelman at New York September 17 at age 75.
Poetry: Later by Robert Creeley; This Tree Will Be Here for a Thousand Years by Robert Bly; A Gallery of Harlem Portraits by the late Melvin Tolson.
Poet-novelist-critic Allen Tate dies of emphysema at Nashville, Tenn., February 9 at age 79; poet Elizabeth Bishop of a ruptured cerebral aneurism at Boston October 6 at age 68.
Juvenile: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende; The Garden of Abdul Gasazi by Providence, R.I., art teacher Chris Van Allsburg, 30; I Will Not Go to Market Today by Harry Allard, illustrations by James Marshall; George the Drummer Boy by Nathaniel Benchley; The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore by Los Angeles-born mystery writer Joan Lowery Nixon, 52; Goodbye, Chicken Little by Betsy Cromer Byars; A Christmas Card by Paul Theroux.
Author Dorothy Kunhardt dies at Beverly, Mass., December 23 at age 78.
Painting: Paintsplats (on a wall by Philip Johnson); Model and Crusoe Umbrella (mural) by Claes Oldenburg; Elephant by Bratislava-born minimalist Milton Resnick, 62; The Dinner Party (table with embroidered runners and surrounding place settings symbolizing 39 guests representing different aspects of women's history from the primordial goddesses to contemporary writers and artists), a group effort by women organized under the direction of Chicago-born activist Judy Chicago (originally Cohen), 40. Inscribed on the floor are the names of 999 women of achievement. Art dealer-publisher Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler dies at Paris January 11 at age 94; Sonia Delaunay at Paris December 4 at age 94; collector Peggy Guggenheim suffers a stroke and dies near Venice December 23 at age 81.
Sculpture: The People Machine by Vito Acconci; Children Playing with Game by Duane Hanson.
Portrait photographer Philippe Halsman dies at New York June 25 at age 73.
Theater: Wings by Arthur Kopit 1/28 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with Constance Cummings, 113 perfs.; On Golden Pond by Bellows Falls, Vt.-born playwright (Richard) Ernest Thompson, 29, 2/28 at New York's New Apollo Theater, with Tom Aldredge, Frances Sternhagen, 126 perfs; Cloud Nine by London-born playwright Caryl Churchill, 40, 3/29 at London's Royal Court Theatre, with Anthony Sher, Jim Hooper, Carol Hayman; Faith Healer by Brian Friel 4/5 at New York's Longacre Theater, with James Mason, 20 perfs.; Whose Life Is It Anyway? by English playwright Brian Clark, 46, 4/17 at London's Trafalgar Theatre, with Tom Conti, Jean (Lyndsey Tarren) Marsh, 44; Bent by Philadelphia-born playwright Martin Sherman, 37, 5/3 at London's Royal Court Theatre, with Ian McKellen, Tom Bell is about Nazi persecution of homosexuals, 240 perfs.; Knockout by Hoboken, N.J.-born playwright Louis LaRusso II, 43, 5/6 at New York's Helen Hayes Theater, with Danny Aiello, 154 perfs.; Loose Ends by Michael Weller 6/7 at New York's Circle in the Square Theater, with Kevin Kline, Roxanne Hart, 270 perfs.; Travelling North by David Williamson 8/22 at Sydney's Nimrod Theatre; A Life by Hugh Leonard 10/4 at Dublin's Abbey Theatre, with Cyril Cusack, Philip O'Flynn; One Mo' Time by New Orleans-born actor-playwright Vernel Bagneris, 30, 10/22 at New York's Village Gate Downstairs, with Bagners, 1,372 perfs.; Romantic Comedy by Bernard Slade 11/8 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Anthony Perkins, Mia Farrow, Carole Cook, 396 perfs.; Amadeus by Peter Shaffer 11/2 at London's Olivier Theatre, with Paul Scofield as the jealous mediocrity Antonio Salieri, Simon Callow as W. A. Mozart.
Onetime Broadway star Mabel Taliaferro dies at Honolulu January 24 at age 91; actor Philip Bourneuf at Santa Monica, Calif., March 23 at age 71; Broadway producer-director Herman Shumlin of heart failure at New York June 14 at age 80; actress-author Cornelia Otis Skinner of a cerebral hemorrhage at New York July 9 at age 78; fan dancer and strip-tease artist Sally Rand of congestive heart failure at Glendora, Calif., August 31 at age 75; playwright Guy Bolton at Goring-on-Thames outside London September 5 at age 94; playwright Preston Jones at Dallas September 19 at age 43 while undergoing surgery for ulcers; Broadway producer Jed Harris of cancer at New York November 15 at age 79; actress Joyce Grenfell of cancer at London November 30 at age 69.
Television: WKRP in Cincinnati 1/8 on CBS with Dayton, Ohio-born actor Gordon Jump, 46; Dayton, Ohio-born actor Gary Sandy, 33; Lebanon, Ohio-born actor Howard Hesseman, 38; St. Paul, Minn.-born actress Loni Anderson, 33 (to 9/20/1982); The Dukes of Hazzard 1/29 on CBS with Wisconsin-born actor Tom Wopat, 27 (Luke Duke), John Schneider (Bo Duke), Warren, Ohio-born actress Catherine Bach, 24 (Daisy Duke) (to 2/8/1985); Antiques Roadshow on BBC with experts appraising bric-a-brac, furniture, objects d'art, and the like; To the Manor Born on BBC-1 with Penelope King as Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, Peter Bowles as Richard DeVere; The Facts of Life 8/24 on NBC with Charlotte Rae, Molly Ringwald, John Lawlor in a spin-off of the Diff'rent Strokes sitcom (to 9/10/1988; 209 episodes); Benson 9/13 on ABC with Robert Guillaume, now 41, as butler-turned-lieutenant governor Benson Dubois; Omaha-born actress Inga Swenson, 46, as Gretchen Kraus; Dallas-born actor James Noble, 57, as Gov. James Gatling; René Auberjonois as Clayton Endicott III (to 4/19/1986); Not the Nine o'Clock News 10/17 on BBC with Newcastle-on-Tyne-born comedian Rowan (Sebastian) Atkinson, 24 (to 3/12/1982); Knots Landing 12/27 on CBS with Donna Mills, Ted Shackelford as suburbanites in a spinoff of Dallas (to 5/13/1993, 344 episodes).
Television, theater, and film producer Fred Coe dies of a heart attack at Los Angeles April 29 at age 64.
Radio: A Prairie Home Companion in February on National Public Radio with Anoka, Minn.-born Lutheran (Gary Edward) Garrison Keillor, 30 (to February 1987 with subsequent revival).
Films: Ira Wohl's documentary Best Boy with Philly Wohl, Zero Mostel; James Bridges's The China Syndrome with Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon; Robert Benton's Kramer v. Kramer with Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep; Martin Ritt's Norma Rae with Pasadena, Calif.-born actress Sally Field, 32, as North Carolina textile union organizer Crystal Lee Sutton (see commerce, 1974); Volker Schlondorff's The Tin Drum with David Bennent. Also: Jeanne Moreau's L'Adolescente, with Laetitia Chauveau, Simone Signoret; Robert M. Young's Alambrista! (The Illegal) with Domingo Ambriz as a Mexican farm worker in California; Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now with Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Marlon Brando; Bruce Beresford's Breaker Morant with Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson; Peter Yates's Breaking Away with Paul Dooley; Istvan Szabo's Confidence with Ildiko Bansagi, Peter Andorai; Peter Lilienthal's David with Mario Fischel; George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead with David Emge, Tom Savini; Francesco Rosi's Eboli with Gian Maria Volonte as Carlo Levi, Irene Papas; Paul Verhoeven's The Fourth Man with Jeroen Krabbe, Renée Soutendijk; Martin Brest's Going in Style with George Burns, Art Carney, Lee Strasberg; Richard Pearce's Heartland with Conchata Ferrell, Rip Torn; George Miller's Mad Max with Mel Gibson; Woody Allen's Manhattan with Allen, Mill Valley, Calif.-born actress Mariel Hemingway, 17, Diane Keaton, Marshall Brickman; Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun with Hanna Schygulla; Gilian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career with Judy Davis; Ted Kotcheff's North Dallas Forty with Omaha-born actor Nick Nolte, 37, Mac Davis; John Hanson and Rob Nilsson's Northern Lights with Robert Behling; Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre with Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz; Jonathan Kaplan's Over the Edge with Michael Kramer, Pamela Ludwig, New Rochelle, N.Y.-born actor Matt Dillon, 15; Roman Polanski's Tess of the D'Urbervilles with German-born Polish actress Nastassja Kinski (originally Nakszynski), 18, Peter Firth, Leigh Lawson; Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Third Generation with Eddie Constantine, Hanna Schygulla; Shohei Imamura's Vengeance Is Mine with Rentaro Kuni, Chocho Miyako; Philip Kaufman's The Wanderers with Ken Wahl, John Friedrich; John Huston's Wise Blood with Brad Dourif, Ned Beatty, Amy Wright, Daniel Shor.
Director Jean Renoir dies of cancer at his Beverly Hills home February 12 at age 84; actress Louise Allbritton of cancer at Puerto Vallarte, Mexico, February 16 at age 59; William Gargan of a heart attack on a flight from New York to San Diego February 16 at age 73 (he contracted cancer of the larynx in 1960, had surgery, mastered "esophageal speech," and has worked with other laryngectomees to help them learn the "controlled belch" to produce sounds while at the same time working with the American Cancer Society to fight smoking); Dolores Costello dies at Fallbrook, Calif., March 1 at age 73; Ben Lyon of a heart attack on the QE2 in the Pacific March 22 at age 77; clown Emmet Kelly of a heart attack at Sarasota, Fla., March 28 at age 80; producer-director Victor Saville at London May 8 at age 83; George Brent of emphysema at Solano Beach, Calif., May 26 at age 75; Mary Pickford after a stroke at Santa Monica May 29 at age 87 (she has not appeared in a film since 1933, when she was 41, and has been quietly drinking herself to death in a bedroom at her Pickfair mansion); émigré director Jan Kadar dies of respiratory failure at Los Angeles June 1 at age 61; John Wayne of stomach cancer at Los Angeles June 11 at age 72; director Nicholas Ray of cancer at New York June 16 at age 67; animation pioneer David Fleischer of a stroke at Calabasas, Calif., June 25 at age 84; actor Michael Wilding at Chichester, England, July 8 at age 66 of injuries caused by a fall; director George Seaton of cancer at Los Angeles July 28 at age 68; actor Kurt Kasznar of cancer at Los Angeles August 6 at age 65; Jean Seberg disappears from her Paris apartment in late August wearing only a blanket and carrying barbiturates. Her body is found in the back seat of her car September 8 in an exclusive section of the city and her death at age 40 is ruled a suicide (FBI director J. Edgar Hoover tapped her telephone in 1970 and leaked rumors to the press with then-president Nixon's approval that Seberg was carrying the child of Black Panther leader Bobby Seale (the baby died in premature birth); Dame Gracie Fields dies of bronchial pneumonia on the Isle of Capri September 27 at age 81; director Dorothy Arzner at La Quinta, Calif., October 1 at age 82; Merle Oberon of a stroke at Malibu November 22 at age 68; Ann Dvorak of cancer at Honolulu December 10 at age 67; Zeppo (Herbert) Marx, last of the Marx Brothers, of lung cancer at Palm Springs, Calif., December 13 at age 78; actor Jon Hall shoots himself at North Hollywood December 13 at age 66 (he has been bedridden for 9 months following surgery for bladder cancer); producer Darryl F. Zanuck dies of pneumonia at Palm Springs December 22 at age 77; Joan Blondell of leukemia at Santa Monica December 26 at age 70.
Film musicals: Bob Fosse's All That Jazz with Roy Scheider, Minnesota-born actress Jessica Lange, 30, Ben Vereen; Franc Roddam's Quadrophenia with Phil Daniels, Mark Wingett, Sting.
Russian-born Hollywood composer Dimitri Tiomkin fractures his pelvis in a fall and dies at London November 11 at age 85.
Stage musicals: They're Playing Our Song 2/11 at New York's Imperial Theater, with Hollywood, Calif.-born actress Lucie Arnaz, 19, Robert Klein, book by Neil Simon, music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, 1,082 perfs; Sweeney Todd 3/1 at New York's Uris Theater, with Len Cariou as the "demon barber of Fleet Street" (see 1847) play, Angela Lansbury, book by Hugh Wheeler, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, songs that include "Pretty Women," 558 perfs.; A Day in Hollywood & A Night in the Ukraine 3/28 at London's Mayfair Theatre, with Paddie O'Neal, John Bay as Groucho Marx, Franz Lazarus as Chico, music by Lazarus, lyrics by Dick Vosburgh, 588 perfs; Scrambled Feet (revue) 6/11 at New York's Village Gate, with Jeffrey Haddon, 31, John Driver, 32, Evalyn Barron, Roger Neil, skits and songs by Haddon and Driver; Sugar Babies 10/8 at New York's Mark Hellinger Theater, with Ann Miller, Mickey Rooney, songs by Jimmy McHugh, additional lyrics by Arthur Malvin, 1,208 perfs.; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat 11/1 at London's Westminster Theatre, with Paul Jones, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice.
Comedian Jack Haley dies of a heart attack at Los Angeles June 6 at age 79; onetime Broadway musical star Vivian Vance at Belvedere, Calif., August 17 at age 70; lyricist Arnold B. Horwitt of cancer at Santa Monica October 20 at age 59; composer Richard Rodgers of throat cancer at his New York apartment December 30 at age 77.
Opera: the New York City Opera appoints a new director—veteran soprano Beverly Sills, now 50, who has sung with the Opera since 1955. Australian coloratura soprano Joan Sutherland, now 52, is named a Dame of the British Empire.
Soprano Marjorie Lawrence dies of cardiac arrest at Little Rock, Ark., January 13 at age 71 (stricken with polio in 1941, she has been confined to a wheelchair ever since); Metropolitan Opera Guild founder Eleanor Robson Belmont dies at New York October 14 at age 100.
Dancer-choreographer Leonid Massine dies at Cologne, West Germany, March 16 at age 83; Philharmonia Orchestra of London founder Walter Legge at Jean Cap Ferrat March 22 at age 72; Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler of a heart ailment at Brookline, Mass., July 10 at age 84; composer Roy Harris after a series of strokes at Santa Monica October 1 at age 81; pianist-conductor Nadia Boulanger at Paris October 22 at age 92.
Popular songs: "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" by Rod Stewart; "What A Fool Believes" by Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald (recorded by the Doobie Brothers); "Bad Girls" and "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer; "Too Much Heaven" by The Bee Gees; The Long Run (album) by The Eagles; "Slow Train Coming" and "Gotta Serve Somebody" by Bob Dylan; Damn the Torpedoes (album) by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers includes the singles "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Refugee"; 52nd Street (album) by Billy Joel; Armed Forces (album) by rebellious British singer-composer Elvis Costello (Declan McManus), 24; C'est Chic (album) by New York-born songwriter and Black Panthers veteran Nile Rodgers, 26, and Bernard Edwards of the manufactured disco group Chic, whose songs "Le Freak" and "We Are Family" gain wide popularity; "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough" by Michael Jackson; Wave (album) by the Patti Smith Group, whose members give their final performance in September at Florence, Italy, for a crowd of 70,000; Just Tammy (album) by Tammy Wynette.
Jazz innovator Charles Mingus dies of a heart attack at Cuernevaca, Mexico, January 5 at age 56 (he has had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [Lou Gehrig's disease]); folk singer Sara Carter of the Carter Family dies at Lodi, Calif., January 8 at age 80; English punk rock star Sid Vicious (John Simon Ritchie), 21, is released on bail at New York February 1 on charges of having fatally stabbed his former girl friend at the Chelsea Hotel in October of last year, he celebrates with a party in another girl's Greenwich Village apartment, and he dies of a heroin overdose February 2; composer Milton Ager dies of cancer at Los Angeles May 6 at age 85; singer-guitarist Lester Flatt of heart failure at Nashville May 11 at age 64; trombonist Walter "Pee Wee" Hunt at Plymouth, Mass., June 22 at age 72; songwriter Van McCoy of cardiac arrest at Englewood, N.J., July 6 at age 39; composer-bandleader Stan Kenton of a stroke at Los Angeles August 25 at age 67; songwriter-vaudeville veteran Benny Davis at North Miami, Fla., December 20 at age 84.
Eleven concertgoers are crushed to death December 3 in a stampede for seats to a concert by The Who at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum, casting a pall over the $2 billion per year rock concert business.
The Walkman cassette player introduced in Japan by Sony Corp. in January and in America in July is a $199.95 pocket stereo that makes it possible to hear high-fidelity sound in any location without disturbing one's neighbors. Initially called the Soundabout in America, the TPS-1.2 model has a blue-black plastic casing and an orange button (soon removed) that makes the sound audible through a second pair of earphones. It is the brainchild of Sony chairman Akio Morita, now 58, and will soon have an FM radio version. More than 186 million of the Walkman players will be sold in the next 20 years, and competition will drive the price down to $20.
Pittsburgh beats Dallas 35 to 31 at Miami January 21 in Super Bowl XIII.
Los Angeles Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom drowns April 2 in the waters of Golden Beach, Fla., at age 72; Dallas Cowboys co-owner John D. Murchison dies of a heart attack at Dallas June 14 at age 67.
Maine-born runner Joan Benoit, 21, (Bowdoin '79) enters her first Boston Marathon and beats all other women contestants. She took up running 6 years ago to strengthen muscles weakened in a skiing accident.
Shreveport, La.-born sprinter Evelyn Ashford, 22, overtakes her 1976 Olympic teammate Brenda Morehead to break the 11-second barrier in the women's 100-meter dash June 16 at the Amateur Athletic Union outdoor track and field championships at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, California.
Björn Borg wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Martina Navritolova in women's singles; John McEnroe, 20, (U.S.) wins in men's singles at Forest Hills, Tracy Ann Austin, 16, (U.S.) in women's singles.
Spectacular Bid wins the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, Coastal wins the Preakness.
Former heavyweight boxer "Two Ton" Tony Galento dies of a heart attack at Livingston, N.J., July 22 at age 69.
Britain's annual Fastnet yacht race in the English Channnel and Irish Sea ends in disaster August 14 as gale-force winds and mountainous waves strike more than 300-boats, drowning 15 sailors.
ESPN begins broadcasting to cable television subscribers at 7 o'clock in the evening of September 7 from Bristol, Conn. Former New England Whalers spokesman William Rasmussen has started the ESP Network with three satellite dishes and 70 employees, viewers see the first Sportscenter daily sports news program, followed by a slow-pitch softball doubleheader, but the 24-hour all-sports news channel will broaden its offerings, and it will grow in 20 years to reach 76 million homes, with programming in 21 languages overseas. Collecting revenues from cable companies as well as from advertisers, it will have 2,100 employees, as it covers sports ranging from aerobics, baseball, basketball, bowling, boxing, dart throwing, football, golf, and hockey to sailboat racing, soccer, tennis, and volleyball (see communications, 1995).
New York Yankee catcher Thurman Munson is killed August 2 at age 32 when he crashes his private jet near Canton, Ohio; Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter F. O'Malley dies of congestive heart failure and cancer at Rochester, Minn., August 9 at age 75.
The Pittsburgh Pirates win the World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 3.
Golfer Chick Evans dies at Chicago November 6 at age 89, having established the Evans Scholars Foundation that grants scholarships for caddies to attend college.
Reebok running shoes are introduced in the United States by Cambridge, Mass.-born camping equipment distributor Paul B. Fireman, 39, who has attended an international trade fair, noticed some shoes marketed by a 21-year-old Lancashire firm named after a species of African gazelle, joined forces with one James Barclay, and imports 200 pairs of the shoes in three styles, pricing them higher than the priciest Nike (see 1972), Adidas, or Puma shoes but finding good demand (see 1982).
Michelle Triola Marvin, 46, sues March 10 for "palimony." She has taken actor Lee Marvin's last name but never married him and contends that she gave up a promising singing career in 1964 to serve him as cook, companion, and confidante, lived with him until 1970, and is entitled to half the $3.6 million he earned during that period. Marvin, now 55, agrees April 18 to pay her $104,000.
Italian fashion designer Adrienne Vittadini, 36, and her husband, Gianluigi, 41, launch a new knitwear enterprise featuring tunic tops and pull-on skirts and pants that will gain an international following. The firm will continue until 1998.
Couturier Sir Norman Hartnell dies of a heart attack at Windsor, England, June 8 at age 78, having designed wedding gowns and coronation gowns for British queens as well as dresses and uniforms for commoners. "I despise simplicity," he has said. "It is the negation of all that is beautiful."
The video game "Asteroids" picks up on last year's "Space Invaders" with a black-and-white space ace flying shooter game that gains a wide following among U.S. schoolboys (see "PAC-MAN," 1980).
The Magic Cube (Rubik's Cube) goes on sale late in the year at Budapest, where local inventor Erno Rubik, 35, has devised a multi-colored cube with 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible configurations but only one way to have a single color on each side. New York-based Ideal Toys will engage actress Zsa Zsa Gabor to help launch the cube on U.S. television with a Hollywood party in early May of next year, and by 1982 more than 100 million will have been sold.
British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe goes on trial May 8 at London's Old Bailey on charges of hiring an assassin to kill his alleged ex-lover Norman Scott (see 1975). Thorpe wins acquittal after 6 weeks of testimony and deliberation; his career is ruined.
Mafia boss Carmine Galante, 69, has lunch at a Brooklyn, N.Y., café July 12 and is gunned down by hitmen of an underworld rival. Head of a 200-member "family" formerly led by Joseph Bonnano Sr., Galante had hoped to succeed the late Carlo Gambino as the "boss of bosses"; police say he had been marked for execution for more than a year.
New York labor racketeer John "Johnny Dio" Dioguardi dies in a Pennsylvania federal prison January 12 at age 64; alleged gambling czar Joseph Vincent "Newsboy" Moriarty at Jersey City February 24 at age 68; bank robber Alvin Karpis of the old Ma Barker gang of a suspected sleeping-pill overdose at Taormolinos, Spain, August 26 at age 73 (he served 32 years in U.S. federal prisons).
Atlanta youth Edward H. Smith, 14, vanishes July 20; his body, shot in the chest, is found July 28. Alfred J. Evans, 13, vanishes July 25 and his body is also found July 28. Milton Harvey, 14, vanishes September 4; his skeletal remains are found November 8 and his mother presses for a broad investigation of the killings that will continue for almost 2 years as more than 20 local black children, aged 7 to 15, almost all boys, die at the hands of an unknown killer or killers (see 1980).
Use of illegal drugs escalates in America: 34 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds use drugs, up from 1 percent in 1962, 65 percent of high school seniors have tried an illicit drug, 39 percent are using drugs monthly, 11 percent smoke marijuana on a daily basis, and while the death rate for all other age groups has declined it has increased by 8 percent among adolescents. Parents organize efforts that will reduce drug use by two-thirds among adolescents and young adults in the next 13 years while reducing the number of high school seniors who smoke marijuana every day to 2 percent.
A New York State law takes effect September 1 modifying the severe penalties of the law put through by former governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1973 (mandatory life sentences for anyone convicted of selling any amount of heroin, cocaine, morphine, or other "hard" drug). Hundreds of persons are serving longer terms for selling or possessing small amounts of drugs than for rape or robbery, the old law has not helped to control the drug traffic, and state courts are backlogged with cases of people standing trial rather than working out plea bargains.
The United States has 21,456 reported murders, half involving handguns, 13 percent involving rifles or shotguns. Canada has 207 shooting deaths, down from 292 such homicides in 1975. France has 1,645 homicides, just over half involving firearms. West Germany has 69 crimes involving murder or robbery with a firearm, Japan has 171. London police discharge firearms only eight times.
Chicago's 40-story Xerox Center is completed by German-born architect Helmut Jahn, 40, of C. F. Murphy Associates. Jahn has departed from the rectangular steel and glass office "boxes" that have dominated commercial construction since the end of World War II when the ideas of the late Ludwig Mies van der Rohe took over the world.
The Pritzker Architectural Prize is established by Hyatt Hotels chairman Jay Pritzker, now 57 (see 1957). The $100,000 award will be called the Nobel Prize of architecture.
Hilton Hotels founder Conrad N. Hilton dies of pneumonia at Santa Monica, Calif., January 3 at age 91; architect Pier Luigi Nervi of a heart attack at Rome January 9 at age 87; landowner Robert George Grosvenor, 5th duke of Westminster, at Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, February 19 at age 68 (he has owned 300 acres in the heart of London and his family fortune has been estimated at $1 billion).
An earthquake in eastern Iran January 16 kills an estimated 1,000.
Love Canal in upstate New York continues to create a furor (see 1978). ABC TV's documentary The Killing Ground about the toxic waste issue airs in March, the state begins moving 120 families to motels in July, activists Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden visit the area October 4, but Mike Wallace of the CBS show 60 Minutes refuses to air stories on toxic waste sites (see 1980).
A Mexican offshore oil-well blowout June 3 in the Gulf of Mexico contaminates Gulf fisheries and beaches with millions of gallons of oil in the largest spill ever recorded. After 3 months of uncontrolled spillage, the oil has traveled 600 miles from the hole drilled by Pemex explorers, shaking confidence in the ability of so-called blowout "preventers" and backup systems to protect the environment, straining U.S.-Mexican relations as the State Department conducts delicate negotiations over U.S. purchases of Mexican oil and natural gas. Ixtoc 1 continues to run out of control, defying efforts by the most experienced well cappers. An estimated 3.5 million barrels will have spilled into the sea by the time the flow is stopped in late March of next year.
The tankers Atlantic Express and Aegean Captain collide off Trinidad and Tobago July 19, spilling an estimated 1.02 million barrels of crude oil into the sea. The Burmah Agate burns after a collision in Galveston Bay, Texas, November 1, spilling 62,000 barrels.
Executive order 12148 issued July 20 by President Carter establishes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), merging many heretofore separate disaster-related responsibilities into one group. It absorbs the Federal Insurance Administration, National Fire Prevention and Control Administration, National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program, Federal Preparedness Agency of the General Services Administration, the Defense Department's Civil Preparedness Agency, and HUD's Federal Disaster Assistance Administration. By the end of the century FEMA will be a 2,500-person agency with more than 5,000 stand-by disaster reservists and a mission to protect the nation from all types of hazards.
Java's 9,548 foot (2,911-meter) Mount Merapi erupts without warning in July (see 1006). Its ashes and lava kill 149 in a village 6,000 feet up its slopes.
Sardines return to California waters after an absence of some 40 years.
Plant pathologist Elvin C. Stakman dies of a stroke at St. Paul, Minn., January 22 at age 93; King Ranch board chairman Richard M. Kleberg Jr. at Corpus Christi May 8 at age 62.
The number of horses working on British farms falls to 3,575, down from 300,000 in 1950.
The February issue of The Physician and Sportsmedicine reports a survey of Big Ten conference football coaches' ideas of nutrition: most still emphasize protein and carbohydrate "supplements," despite lack of sound scientific support for carbohydrate "loading" except for endurance activities, such as marathon running, where it can be useful if undertaken several days before the event. "There are no magical secrets or mysteries about proper nutrition for athletes," says the publication's editor in chief. "Let us not be beguiled by the Pied Pipers of nutrition . . . Let us stop acting like Simple Simons about something as straightforward as, if you will excuse the expression, meat and potatoes." (Most nutritionists recommend that athletes simply increase their caloric intake—eat more rather than eat differently.)
Eating Your Way through Life by Brooklyn, N.Y.-born MIT research nutritionist Judith J. (Joy) Wurtman (née Hirschborn), 42, notes that a varied, balanced diet ordinarily provides a full complement of vitamins and minerals; that the body cannot tell the difference between "natural" vitamins and synthetic ones; that foods contain many nutrients that have not been incorporated into supplements; and that people who restrict their diets for any reason (e.g., religious, ideological, or extreme weight reduction) risk deficiencies, more often of minerals than of vitamins (see dexfenfluramine, 1982).
The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise by Chicago-born California inventor and businessman Nathan Pritikin, 63, recommends a regimen of low-fat, low-cholesterol food combined with exercise. A college dropout who developed a heart problem (he calls it a "coronary insufficiency") in his early 40s, Pritikin put himself on the same kind of diet and claims to have cured himself completely. He opened a Longevity Center at Santa Barbara, Calif., 3 years ago to conduct a 26-day, supervised program (cost: $3,000 plus $1,200 in medical expenses) and will open another one in Florida.
The Food and Drug Administration cracks down in July on misuse of amphetamines as appetite suppressants. Some 3.3 million prescriptions for amphetamines were written in the United States last year, the pills are also made in home laboratories, and many people have become addicted to Dexadrine, Dexoxyn (Dex, or "dexies"), Benzadrine ("bennies"), Biphatamine, or Methedrine ("speed"); a Philadelphia physician is sentenced in September to 2 years in prison and fined $250,000 for distributing 4 million amphetamine pills to patients at his weight-control clinic.
The Screwpull corkscrew patented by Texas-born inventor Herbert Allen makes it easy to draw a cork without leaving any in the bottle. Allen has made a fortune inventing tools for the oil industry and parts for jet engines, he never tasted wine until 1951, when he traveled to Europe for the first time, and he went on to assemble one of the best wine cellars in Texas, but his wife's frustration in trying to open a bottle has led him to develop a device that fits over the neck of a bottle and has a Teflon-coated screw that is easily driven into and through the cork, enabling the cork to be removed intact without pulling.
Paris police drop Breathalyzer tests for drivers after a public outcry and protests by restaurant owners that the spot checks are hurting business. Wine is sold legally at highway service stations and some 5 million of France's 53.5 million people are heavy drinkers, 2 million alcoholics. Per-capita consumption of pure alcohol is almost 17 quarts per year, the highest in the world, and alcoholism costs the nation some $4.5 billion per year in medical and social service costs.
The New Orleans restaurant K-Paul Louisiana Kitchen opens in Chartres Street with Cajun dishes prepared by chef Paul Prudhomme, 39, formerly of the Commander Palace. Assisted in the front of the house by his wife, K. L. Henrichs, Prudhomme works in the kitchen to prepare jambalaya (with oysters, crabs, and sausages as well as the usual shrimp, rice, green peppers, tomatoes, and spices). Prudhomme will claim that one of his cooks scorched a fish over a too-hot fire, creating "blackened" redfish: others will rush to copy K-Paul's success with the result that Gulf stocks of redfish will be depleted, causing Louisiana regulators to declare a moratorium on catching the species.
The Zagat New York City Restaurant Survey is introduced by local corporate lawyer Timothy Zagat, 40, and his lawyer wife, Nina, who like to eat out and have rated restaurants according to "customer satisfaction" as determined by 150 friends and acquaintances (see Duncan Hines, 1935). The burgundy-covered, pocket-sized Zagat Surveys will grow to cover more than 30 major U.S. and foreign cities with some 75,000 unpaid survey participants, most of them amateur critics who fill out extensive questionnaires, and by 1994 the Zagats will be grossing $7 million, netting about $1.5 million after paying 25 full-time employees and covering other costs.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 January 9 that a 1974 Pennsylvania statute requiring that a physician try to save the life of a fetus is unconstitutional (Colautti v. Franklin). The Court rules 8 to 1 July 2 that a Massachusetts law requiring unmarried, underage girls to get permission from their parents or a court judge before they can have abortions is unconstitutional (Bellotti v. Baird).
Chinese Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping issues orders early in the year for a vigorous strengthening of family-planning policies, with Han couples limited to one child (96 percent of Chinese are Hans). The state calls on all couples to have "only one child if possible, two at the most, with a period of 3 or 4 years between them." The option of having two is dropped within a few months as provincial authorities pass laws requiring that all couples practice family planning and impose severe financial penalties on couples who have two or more children. A Chinese girl who marries is by custom taken into her husband's family and is no longer responsible for her own parents, so for rural families the new state policy raises fears that if their first and only child is a daughter there will be no one to care for them in their old age. Female infanticide has been largely eradicated since 1949, but the new one-child rule revives the practice in some parts of China. Chinese manufacturers produce their first ultrasound machines; within a decade they will be turning out 10,000 per year, another 2,000 will be imported, ultrasound will be used to determine fetal gender, and many females will be aborted (see 1982).
Iran's new theocratic government abolishes family planning. Planning will not be revived for nearly 20 years, but it will then be made free and mandatory.
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