1981: Information and Much More from Answers.com
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1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
President Reagan says in his inaugural address January 20, "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem." Republicans will continue for more than 25 years to insist (often in the face of contrary evidence) that government is the root of social and economic ills and if the country can only get government regulation "off the people's backs" all problems will be solved through the magic of the marketplace. Reagan's admirers will later hail the next 8 years as a golden era in which the president's ideas, optimism, and winning personality have helped lift the country to prosperity while forcing the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Congress in this decade will appropriate so much money for Reagan's military measures that it will triple the national debt, making it impossible to continue funding the social programs of former president Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and even threatening the viability of New Deal social initiatives dating to the 1930s.
Iran releases all U.S. hostages January 20 (they are flown to Algiers following 444 days in captivity) after U.S. negotiators agree to unblock certain Iranian funds and Iran agrees to repay U.S. bank loans.
Admiral Stansfield Turner resigns as CIA director January 20 and is replaced by lawyer and OSS veteran William J. Casey, now 67, who headed President Reagan's election campaign and will head the agency until his death in 1987.
President Reagan and three others are wounded by pistol bullets March 31 as they leave the Washington Hilton Hotel in an assassination attempt with no evident political motive. Ardmore, Okla.-born gunman John (Warnock) Hinckley, 25, has evidently shot the president to impress film starlet Jodie Foster; Reagan tells his wife, Nancy, "I forgot to duck," but he has lost half his blood, come within minutes of dying, and will hereafter be more withdrawn. Reagan's Texas-born press secretary James Brady, 40, suffers permanent brain damage; handguns remain readily obtainable in most of the United States (see crime [Brady Bill], 1993).
Gen. Omar N. Bradley (ret.) dies of cardiac arrest at New York April 8 at age 88. The Bradley Fighting Vehicle goes into production to replace the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier used since the 1960s and will prove its value in combat.
President Reagan appoints Arizona Judge Sandra O'Connor (née Day), 51, to the Supreme Court July 7. Although she has had only 18 months' experience on the state appeals court, she graduated third in her Stanford University Law School class (Justice William Rehnquist was first), championed women's rights in her 6 years as a state legislator, and sided against anti-abortion zealots, favors the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, is opposed by right-to-life activists, is confirmed by the Senate September 21, and becomes the first female justice ever to sit on the high court. In her 24-year tenure her views will move increasingly to the political center and hers will often by the pivotal vote in 5-to-4 decisions.
President Reagan's assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle convinces Reagan over the objections of Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig to adopt a "Zero Option" policy on intermediate-range missiles: proposed November 18, it requires that Moscow dismantle the Soviet Union's SS-4, SS-5, and SS-20 missiles based in Europe and Asia (each has three warheads) in exchange for Washington's agreement not to deploy Pershing II and Tomahawk cruise missiles in Europe. Perle assumes that Moscow will reject the proposal, thereby clearing the way for U.S. deployment of the ICBMs (but see 1982).
Terrorists assassinate Northern Ireland's former parliamentary speaker Sir Norman Stronge and his son January 21—4 days after an attempt at Belfast on northern Irish nationalist Bernadette Devlin McAlisky, now 33, and her husband, who have supported IRA hunger strikers. Devlin has been shot and seriously wounded but makes a defiant appearance in Spain. Ten hunger strikers die in a Belfast prison protest from May to July. Bobby Sands dies May 5 at age 27 after 65 days without food, having recently been elected to Parliament despite the fact that he was serving a 14-year sentence for firearms possession.
Rebellious Spanish Civil Guard troops storm the Parliament building at Madrid in a coup attempt February 23, but Juan Carlos intervenes to abort the coup.
Pope John Paul II is wounded at Rome May 13 in an assassination attempt in St. Paul's Square. His attacker is the Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, now 23, who was arrested 2 years ago after the killing of Turkish newspaper editor Abdi Ipekci but escaped before he could be brought to trial; KGB complicity is widely suspected, but Agca claims to be Jesus Christ and will receive a presidential pardon in June 2000 following an appeal by the pope to Italian authorities.
Italy's cabinet resigns May 26 after revelations linking 953 cabinet officers, legislators, judges, and bankers to a secret Masonic organization. Italy has about 550 Masonic lodges, and although they are not illegal there is a law barring secret organizations, and the grandmaster of Propaganda Two—the lodge in question—has refused to divulge his membership list. Investigating magistrates have charged grandmaster Licio Gelli with "criminal association" and spying for Argentina, claiming that the lodge is a secret sect that combines business and politics with the intent of destroying constitutional order and transforming the parliamentary system into a presidential system. The list of members was released April 21, allegedly having been found in Gelli's country house; most of those named denied being members.
French voters elect socialist François (Maurice) Mitterand, 64, president in June balloting.
Former Norwegian environmental minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, 42, becomes prime minister. A Harvard-trained physician with four children, she is Norway's first female prime minister and will become prime minister again in 1986.
Polish general Wojciech Jaruzelski, 57, becomes prime minister in February, the fourth in a year, as social unrest continues (see 1980). Jaruzelski orders an army-police crackdown in September on lawlessness and anti-Soviet activity, he succeeds Stanislaw Kania as first secretary of the Communist Party October 18, and he imposes martial law December 13 to squelch strikes. Solidarity is outlawed, the martial law will continue for 19 months, and opposition leaders who include Lech Walesa will either go underground or serve time in prison (see 1982; human rights [Popieluszko], 1984).
Six Afghan guerrilla groups continue strong opposition to Soviet occupation forces, which have suffered at least 10,000 casualties since the invasion that began in December 1979.
Lebanese Christian militiamen aided by Israeli forces shoot down two Syrian helicopters, the Syrians move surface-to-air missiles into the Bekaa valley east of Beirut, Israel threatens to knock out the missiles, and President Reagan summons former under secretary of state Philip C. Habib, 61, out of retirement to help negotiate a truce.
Israeli jets under the command of David Ivry, 47, destroy Iraq's French-built Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad June 7 in a preemptive strike (Operation Opera) ordered by Menachem Begin to prevent production of weapons-grade plutonium. Critics worldwide blast Prime Minister Begin for his unilateral action, but Iraq has so much oil that she clearly has no need of nuclear energy and there can be no doubt about the hostile purpose of the reactor's existence. Iraq's Saddam Hussein will continue for the next 20 years and more to pursue efforts to develop a nuclear-weapon capability.
Iran's president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr is removed from office June 22 and flees to France. Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti, chief justice and head of the Islamic Republican Party, is killed along with four key government ministers in a bombing attack at Teheran June 28. Iran's president Ali Rajai, Prime Minister Hojatolislam Javad Bahonar, and Col. Houshang Dagsgerdi die in a bombing attack at Teheran August 30; a grenade kills Ayatollah Assadolah Madani, an aide to the Ayatollah Khomeini, at Teheran September 11 as war continues between Iraq and Iran (see 1980; 1982).
Israel's prime minister Menachem Begin appoints Gen. Ariel Sharon minister of defense in June; Sharon has been a vigorous advocate of Jewish settlement in occupied Arab territories. Israeli and PLO forces clash through June and July with several weeks of heavy fighting, shellfire falls on Israeli settlements, and Israeli jets strike targets in Beirut and southern Lebanon before a cease-fire is negotiated with Habib's help July 24. Israel charges in August that Palestinians are moving artillery and ammunition within Lebanon's UN zone (see 1978), former Israeli defense minister and foreign minister Moshe Dayan dies of a heart attack at Tel Aviv October 16 at age 66, and Israel annexes the Golan Heights December 14, raising strong protests (see 1982).
Egypt's president Anwar el-Sadat cracks down on dissidents; has 1,600 arrested in a single night in September; and falls victim to Islamic extremists who assassinate him at Cairo October 6 while he is watching a parade of troops. Dead at age 62, Sadat is succeeded by Vice President Hosni Mubarak, 53, who was on the reviewing stand with the president. Mubarak has several hundred fundamentalist fanatics arrested and 24 tried for murder (five will be executed); he immediately affirms Egypt's commitment to Sadat's peace treaty with Israel but makes friendly overtures to other Arab states, initiates release of political prisoners, and will hold power into the 21st century.
Army officers in Bangladesh fail in an attempted coup May 30 but kill President Ziaur Rahman, the army chief of staff who took power late in 1976. He is succeeded by his vice president Abdur Sattar, 74, who will hold office for only 10 months (see 1982).
President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines ends 8 years of martial law January 17 and wins election to a second 6-year term June 16 (see 1972), but Marcos has effectively ended democracy in the country and stifled opposition, using anticommunism to mask a policy of suppression (see 1983).
Mao Zedong's widow, Jiang Qing, is sentenced to death January 25 and dragged from the courthouse shouting, "It is right to rebel! Making revolution is no crime!" Her sentence is later suspended.
Ethnic Malay Mahathir bin Mohammad wins confirmation as Malaysian prime minister July 16 after years of internal conflict with ethnic Chinese, who own most of the country's tin mines and rubber plantations; now 55, the former country doctor was unanimously elected president of the United Malays National Organization June 26 and succeeds Hussein bin Data Onn, who retires. Mahathir is the nation's first leader not to have participated in the negotiations that led to Malaysia's independence from Britain in 1957, and he will rule the country for more than 17 years, initially with the help of Anwar Ibrahim, now 34.
Burma's president U Ne Win resigns voluntarily November 9 after 19 years in power and is succeeded by his second-in-command San Yu, now 63, who will hold power until 1988, continuing the repressive policies of his predecessor; Ne Win remains chairman of the ruling Socialist Program Party.
Ghana has a coup d'état December 31. Jerry J. Rawlings seizes power, accusing President Hilla Limann, 47, of taking the country "down the road to economic ruin"; he institutes an austerity program to reduce budget deficits.
The Surinam government announces in mid-April that its army foiled a second coup attempt March 15 about 40 miles west of Paramaribo (see 1980). One man was left dead, the coup leader was seriously wounded, and a dozen co-conspirators were arrested, says the government (see 1982).
Panamanian strongman Brig. Gen. Omar Torrijos (Herrera) is killed with six others in a plane crash near Penonomé August 1 at age 52. Longtime CIA informant Col. Manuel Antonio Noriega, 48, emerges as the most powerful figure in Panama (see 1988).
Uruguay's National Council of civilians and military officers installs Gen. Gregorio Alvarez, 55, as president September 1 as the country's dictatorship continues (see 1973; 1984).
Belize (formerly British Honduras) becomes a fully independent commonwealth September 21 (see 1973). Prime Minister George Price, 62, has led the tiny Central American colony to independence, but Guatemala refuses to recognize the new nation and will not do so until 1991; about 1,500 British troops remain to protect it from the threat of a Guatemalan invasion (see 1984).
Former Venezuelan president Rómulo Betancourt dies while visiting New York September 28 at age 73.
Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean gain full independence from Britain November 1.
El Salvador's bloody civil war continues (see 1980). The U.S.-trained and financed Atlacatl Battalion death squad invades a guerrilla stronghold in Morazán and massacres more than 800 men, women, and children December 11 at El Mozote. There is only one known survivor, Rufina Amaya gives an eye-witness account, but the Reagan administration dismisses her story as propaganda, and El Salvador officials will insist for 11 years that there was no massacre.
The Canadian House of Commons votes 246 to 24 December 2 to approve Prime Minister Trudeau's resolution reforming the nation's constitution to make Canada entirely free of British rule (see 1982). Only the representatives from Quebec dissent.
At Geneva in early February, Argentine human rights champion Emilio Fermin Mignone, 58, testifies to the United Nations Human Rights Commission about the "disappearances" in his country (see 1976). He returns to Buenos Aires and is arrested February 28 along with five other members of the Center for Legal and Social Studies; all six are released a week later after an international outcry (see 1983).
Cairo police break into the home of Egyptian feminist physician-writer Nawal El Saadawi September 5, seize some of her papers, and imprison her along with 1,535 others on charges of "stirring up sectarian strife." Now 50, Nawal El Saadawi is held for more than 80 days and interrogated twice for publishing "articles critical of President [Anwar] Sadat's policies," and although she is released after Sadat's assassination October 6, her books continue to be banned. Some have called her "the Simone de Beauvoir of the Arab world" for attacking her culture's obsession with virginity and its acceptance of clitoridectomy. "Society looks at the woman as a tool of love," she wrote in 1977, "and deprives her of the one organ which will make her be good at it."
Veteran civil rights activist and longtime NAACP president Roy Wilkins dies of kidney failure at New York September 8 at age 80.
On October 22 Spanish anti-terrorist police open a major operation against the Basque separatist organization ETA, arresting Jimina Alonso Matthias and Carmen Santos, two well-known radical feminists, along with a male college professor. Two teen-age daughters of Mrs. Alonso Matthias are also detained. A group of 100 feminists immediately protests the arrests, drawing up a petition stating that the women have a well-known public record "in the struggle for the defense of public rights and the rights of women in particular." Police claim that Mrs. Alonso Matthias has led them to an arms cache that ETA guerrillas placed in the woods near her house in suburban Torrelodones.
Spain legalizes civil divorce for the first time since 1939 under a law enacted June 1, but the Church forbids Catholics to seek divorces under the new law.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation makes its first awards, distributing no-strings-attached grants that will range between $220,000 and $375,000 (depending on recipients' ages) to artists, economists, environmentalists, feminists, scientists, and others with creative ideas about how to solve some of the world's problems.
The U.S. space shuttle Columbia launched April 12 is the first reusable manned spacecraft; the unmanned space vehicle Voyager 2 flies by Saturn August 25, sending home remarkably detailed pictures of the planet's rings and moons.
The People's Republic of China launches three satellites September 19, sending them into space aboard one FB-1 rocket (see 1975; 1984).
Greece joins the European Community as its 10th member.
Japan's gross national product reaches $9,925 per person, up from $2,195 in 1971; her trade surplus with the United States reaches $15.8 billion, up from $3.2 billion; and her private sector employs 54 million people, up from 51 million.
The U.S. economy continues to falter, with inflation at 14 percent and unemployment at 7.4 percent, but President Reagan reveals a program for economic recovery February 18, calling for cuts in 83 federal programs. He announces plans in March to cut taxes and reduce the federal budget by $130.5 billion.
The price of silver stabilizes at $12 per ounce March 28, down from $40 in January.
The U.S. prime-interest rate reaches 21.5 percent, highest since the Civil War, as double-digit inflation and high unemployment plague the economy.
President Reagan signals a tough new policy towards organized labor August 6 by dismissing air traffic controllers who have defied his return-to-work order. Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (Patco) has struck August 3, demanding a 4-day week and a $10,000-a-year raise. Only 2,000 Patco members remain on the job. Patco is decertified as the bargaining body for air traffic controllers in October and files for bankruptcy in November.
President Reagan signs a bill August 13 mandating the deepest tax and budget cuts in U.S. history. Designed to save taxpayers $750 billion over the course of 5 years, it follows "supply-side" economic theories that reject Keynesian ideas popular since the 1930s. Supply-siders led by California economist Arthur Laffer, 40, claim that reducing taxes will encourage business and the rich to invest in taxable activities rather than parking income in nonproductive tax shelters and will thus help the overall economy. While "Reaganomics" will be credited with producing the longest peacetime boom in history, it will also lead to neglect of cities, deterioration of infrastructure, and massive deficits financed by foreign borrowing (see tax increase, 1982).
President Reagan addresses the nation on television September 29 appealing for fiscal austerity and asking for an additional $13 billion in spending cuts for fiscal 1982. He astonishes supply-siders by requesting $3 billion in tax increases. Texas-born White House budget director David A. (Allen) Stockman, 36, has proposed in May that early retirement benefits available at age 62 under Social Security be cut drastically, and reports now circulate that Reagan is considering a 3-month freeze on the annual cost-of-living increase in over-all Social Security benefits. Payroll taxes rise this year to 13.0 percent (6.65 percent each for employee and employer), up from 1 percent each in 1949, and the maximum income subject to payroll deduction is $29,700, up from $3,000 (see 1983).
America's top 10 CEOs receive an average of $3.5 million per year in compensation and there are complaints about the widening gap between the pay of top management and middle management (see 1988).
Lawyer and former presidential adviser Thomas G. Corcoran suffers a pulmonary blood clot following surgery and dies at Washington, D.C., December 6 at age 80, having earned large fees for lobbying in behalf of clients; he has been subjected in recent years to investigation for allegations of improper behavior but a Bar Association panel could find no evidence of wrongdoing.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 875.00, down from 963.98 at the end of 1980.
Former Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Atomic Energy Commission chairman David E. Lilienthal dies of a heart attack at New York January 15 at age 81.
Crude petroleum prices soar above $30 per barrel; OPEC freezes the price at $32 per barrel May 26 and announces plans to cut production by 10 percent.
E. I. du Pont acquires Conoco (formerly Continental Oil Co.) for £6.8 billion September 1 (see 1929).
The British government announces October 19 that it will sharply reduce its involvement in oil and gas, making what Energy Secretary Nigel Lawson calls the "biggest program of privatization ever to come before Parliament." It has earlier been announced that the government would sell a majority stake in the petroleum production operations of the state-owned British National Oil Corp. for what experts say will be about £720 million ($1.29 billion). Officials at British Gas oppose privatization, and the government delays plans to sell about 900 retail outlets, which sell stoves, heaters, and similar equipment.
Saudi Arabia announces October 31 that oil production in that country will be scaled back in November to 8.5 million barrels per day in an effort to support a new unified price structure agreed upon by OPEC members earlier in the month (see 1980).
Exxon Corp. notifies Tripoli in November that it is surrendering its oil exploration and production interests in Libya, which has consistently charged more for its oil than other OPEC countries and has recently been charging so much that the company has made little profit. Amerada Hess, Conoco, Marathon, Mobil, Occidental and some European-based companies recruit experienced people to replace the departing Americans; Libya's hard currency reserves have shrunk, and her government advises all major oil companies December 21 that it will cut the price of its most popular grades of crude by 50¢ to $37 per barrel effective January 1 of next year (see 1982).
OPEC ministers meeting in Abu Dhabi decide December 11 to trim prices of some inferior grades of oil effective January 1 of next year as a glut of petroleum threatens to destabilize the market (see 1980). OPEC members have been selling crude oil at below the benchmark price of $34 per barrel set at a special meeting in October.
Chicago transit fares rise January 1 from 60¢ to 80¢, Dallas fares from 60¢ to 65¢, Miami fares from 60¢ to 75¢, Milwaukee fares from 50¢ to 65¢, Salt Lake City fares from 40¢ to 50¢. Washington, D.C., fares rise January 4 from 55¢ to 60¢. Toledo fares rise February 1 from 35¢ to 50¢. New York fares rise July 3 from 60¢ to 75¢ (see 1984).
The 4,626-foot Humber Bridge that opens at Hull July 17 is the world's longest suspension bridge to date. Built by British engineers, its main span is 1,410 meters in length.
France's high-speed TGV train begins service between Paris and Lyons September 27. Highways have been taking passengers away from France's railroads, French engineers began construction on the 150-mile Paris-Lyons run 5 years ago, the TGV locomotives are powered by overhead electric wires, their turbo engines give them a maximum speed of 198 miles per hour (306 kph), the trains travel at 164 mph, their lightweight cars share axles, Europe's first super-high-speed passenger line will reach Marseilles by 1983, and in the next 20 years the nation's rail network will grow to become the most efficient in Europe, with more than 1,000 miles of track.
Conrail labor unions and management agree to forgo $290 million in wages and benefits per year to make the heavily subsidized system profitable and head off a Reagan administration threat to break up Conrail and sell it.
President Ronald Reagan says the U.S. auto industry is the greatest in the world but suffers from over-regulation. He appoints Kansas-born official Diane K. Steed, 35, to succeed Joan Claybrook as head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which rescinds some safety regulations imposed under the Carter administration and resists proposals for new regulations. Pro-industry Democrats support Steed under the leadership of House Commerce Committee chairman John Dingell (D. Mich.). Sales of U.S.-made autos fall to 6.2 million, lowest level in 20 years (see 1980). Japanese makers placate U.S. makers by voluntarily limiting exports to America to 1.68 million units.
U.S. air service drops 25 percent following the Patco strike as airlines train new air traffic controllers to supplement the 2,000 remaining Patco workers and 2,500 non-union workers and military personnel.
American Airlines begins an AAdvantage Program for "frequent fliers," offering free miles to passengers who have flown a certain number of miles with American. Other airlines quickly follow suit, and the frequent-flier programs will spawn an industry as banks, credit-card companies, hotel chains, car-rental firms introduce programs of their own in partnership with airlines.
Douglas Aircraft founder Donald W. Douglas Sr. dies at Palm Springs, Calif., February 1 at age 88; Northrop Aircraft founder John K. Northrop at Glendale, Calif., February 18 at age 85; Pan American World Airways founder Juan Trippe at New York April 3 at age 81.
IBM introduces its first personal computer August 12 and soon has 75 percent of the market. Priced at $5,000 and able to zip through 330,000 instructions per second, the IBM PC uses Intel's 8080 4.77 megahertz microchip for its processor, IBM having decided against using the Zilog Z-80 developed in 1972. The PC has a memory of 16,000-256,000 bytes and storage capacity of 320,000 bytes on two 160,000-byte floppy drives. A team headed by Lewis Eggebrecht, 37, has developed the computer at Boca Raton, Fla., and it uses a Microsoft disk-operating system (MS-DOS) for which Paul Allen has bought exclusive rights, paying $50,000 (by some accounts $75,000) to Seattle Computer Products, a hardware company whose employee Tim Patterson wrote the program for it when he was 24. Former Intel program writer Gary Kildall balked last year at letting IBM use his own CP/M disk-operating system because it wanted to pay a flat $200,000 license fee and never pay royalties; Gates's mother has introduced him to IBM (she serves on its board), he has agreed to let IBM have MS-DOS for $50,000 on condition that he may license it to other computer makers; Kildall claims that Patterson copied all the best features of his CP/M system and threatens to sue but will not (Microsoft will later pay $925,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by Seattle Computer Products). IBM has been under pressure from the Department of Justice, and its lawyers are fearful that the company may be charged with using its power to monopolize the business, so its MS-DOS license is not exclusive; competitors quickly introduce lower-priced "clones" (see Compaq, 1982). By 1983 30 percent of the world's computers will run on MS-DOS (see Windows, 1986).
Norton Utilities has its beginnings as Seattle-raised computer programmer Peter Norton, 38, goes into business for himself and invents UnErase, a program that recovers deleted files. This plus anti-virus software will make the company hugely profitable, and Norton will sell it to Symantec Corp. in 1990 as he and his wife, Eileen, build a large modern art collection.
The Osborne I introduced by Bangkok-born U.S. scientist and technical writer Adam Osborne, 42, is the first portable computer. Priced at $1,750 (one-third less than other computers), it weighs 28 pounds and comes in a carrying case, but Osborne's company will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1983 as larger competitors overtake it in the marketplace with lighter and better models.
The 44,000-transistor Berkeley RISC (reduced instruction self-computing) microchip makes possible a new generation of fast computers. Faculty members and graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, have designed the chip.
Japanese makers produce at least 70 percent of the world's 64K DRAMS (see 1979).
Infosys Technologies Ltd. is founded at Bangalore by Indian entrepreneur Narayana Murthy, 35, and six software professionals. An avowed communist who stands only five feet four, Murthy has worked as a research assistant for Patni Computers at Bombay, borrowed 10,000 rupees from his wife to start the new venture (she gives him 3 years to make it a success), and it will exceed their rosiest expectations.
India's Wipro Corp. pushes forward with software technology developed under the leadership of Azim H. Premji, now 36, who joined the hydrogenated cooking-fat company 15 years ago after graduating from Stanford University and will build it into an integrated provider of services, technology products, and consumer products.
Nobel chemist Harold C. Urey dies of Parkinson's and cardiac disease at La Jolla, Calif., January 5 at age 87; Nobel molecular geneticist Max Delbrück at Pasadena, Calif., March 9 at age 74; Nobel chemist William F. Giauque at Oakland, Calif., March 28 at age 86; Nobel physicist Hideki Yukawa of pneumonia at Kyoto September 8 at age 74 (Japan's first Nobel laureate, he predicted the existence of the subatomic particles called mesons but has been outspoken in his opposition to atomic energy research); Nobel biochemist Sir Hans Adolf Krebs dies at Oxford November 22 at age 81.
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) begins taking a worldwide toll which will be compared to that of the Black Death in the 14th century. San Francisco and New York physicians report that a few dozen previously healthy homosexual men have died of Kaposi's sarcoma, a form of cancer endemic in Africa but rare in the rest of the world. The men have suffered abnormalities of the immune system, and New York doctors realize that they have seen a number of similar cases in the past few years, all unexplained. More cases appear each month. Drug addicts, mostly black and Hispanic, in New York, Newark, and other northeastern cities begin dying of a previously rare pneumonia and other diseases brought on by a collapse of the body's disease-fighting ability. The New York Times runs its first article on the mysterious disease July 3; written by Lawrence K. Altman, M.D., the 900-word piece runs on an inside page under the headline, "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals." An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine in December ignores the possibility that the disease may be caused by a heretofore unknown infectious agent; many physicians believe it may be related to use of "poppers" (amyl and butyl nitrite), and it will commonly be called Gay Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) until next year, when the Centers for Disease Control will settle on the terms AIDS (see Montagnier, 1983).
The anti-ulcer drug Zantac (ranitidiine) introduced by British-based Glaxo Pharmaceuticals is a histamine receptor antagonist with fewer side effects than the SmithKline cimetidine drug Tagamet approved by the FDA 4 years ago. It will be the world's largest-selling prescription drug by 1986 (see Marshall, Warren, 1983)
Sen. Barry Goldwater (R. Ariz.) speaks out on the Senate floor September 15 against Jerry Falwell's "Moral Majority," anti-abortion groups, and other organizations that the press sometimes calls the "New Right" and the "New Conservatism." "I've spent quite a number of years carrying the flag of the 'Old Conservatism,'" Goldwater says, "and I can say with conviction that the religious issues of these groups have little or nothing to do with conservative or liberal politics. The uncompromising positions of these groups is a divisive element that could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system, if they gain sufficient strength . . . By maintaining the separation of church and state the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars . . . Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage of Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?"
The Arkansas state legislature enacts a measure in March that requires public schools to teach so-called "scientific creationism" as well as the basics of Darwinian evolution (seeGenesis Flood book, 1961); seeking to overturn the measure before it can take effect in September 1982, the American Civil Liberties Union files suit May 27, challenging the Arkansas law on grounds that it was "hasty and ill-conceived" and violated the First Amendment. The 23 plaintiffs brought to court by the ACLU include a dozen clergymen of various faiths, teachers, parents, and six organizations opposed to the law. A bill signed into law July 21 by Louisiana's governor David C. Treen requires public schools in that state to give as much time to teaching the Bible-based theory of creationism as it does to teaching Darwinian evolution (see 1987).
India's female literacy rate is 24.88 percent as compared with 46.74 percent for males; while nearly 84 percent of boys aged 6 to 14 are enrolled in schools, only 54 percent of girls in that age group are in school.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) votes 6 to 1 January 14 to ease major regulations on the nation's 8,900 radio stations. They no longer need to keep detailed logs of their programming and commercials, may air as many commercials per hour as they like, need not devote a minimum percentage of their air time to news or public affairs, and are spared other requirements, but the FCC leaves in place the "Fairness Doctrine" it imposed in 1949 (see 1982; Supreme Court ruling, 1969).
CBS newsman Walter Cronkite, 64, goes off the air March 6 after 19 years as top U.S. television "anchorman." Texas-born journalist Dan Rather, 49, succeeds him and will remain the anchor until 2005. Former newsman Lowell Thomas dies of a heart attack at his Pawling, N.Y., home August 29 at age 89.
British Telecommunications is created in October under legislation separating the government telephone company from the Post Office; British Tel works to complete the world's longest high-speed optical fiber link, connecting Birmingham and London (see 1984; fiber optics, 1977). By the end of the century fiber optics will carry more than 80 percent of the world's long-distance voice and data transmission traffic over 25 million kilometers of optical cable, using infrared light generated by diodes or semiconductor lasers.
This Week with David Brinkley debuts 11/10 on ABC-TV with Brinkley, now 61, discussing the week's news with Washington journalists Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts (née Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs), George Will, and prominent guests in a Sunday morning show that will continue into the 21st century (but without Brinkley after 1998).
The U.S. first-class postal rate goes to 18¢ per ounce March 22 and to 20¢ per ounce November 1 (see 1978; 1985).
Smith Corona introduces its first word processor, a computer-like typewriter with a tiny screen and enough memory for a few lines of text (see 1905); it sells for a fraction of the price of a desktop PC (see word processor, 1974), but the product will fail and the company will file for bankruptcy in the early 1990s.
Publisher Rupert Murdoch buys the 193-year-old Times of London from media lord Kenneth R. Thomson's International Thomson Organization February 13 for £11 million ($27 million) (see Thomson, 1980). The paper's printing equipment is antiquated, its union has refused to let the machines be updated lest their members be sacked, Thomson has been losing more than $30 million per year on the Times, and it announced last year that publication would cease if no buyer could be found by March of this year. Murdoch already owns the Sun and the weekly News of the World (see 1969) but has allegedly used his political connections to keep the acquisition from being challenged by the monopolies commission. Parliament's Articles of Association commit Murdoch not to be involved in the editorial direction of the Times's editorial policy as he has in those of his other British papers (but see 1982).
Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke wins a Pulitzer prize April 13 for a series of sensational articles she has written about the beliefs and lifestyle of "Jimmy," an 8-year-old "third-generation heroin addict, a precocious little boy with sandy hair, velvety brown eyes and needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin brown arms." Mayor Marion Barry and Police Chief Burtell Jefferson have questioned the articles' credibility, the 104-year-old Post has stood by its 26-year-old reporter, but an Associated Press investigation reveals to the Post's executive editor Benjamin Bradlee that Cooke lied repeatedly on her resumé when she joined the paper last year from the Toledo Blade (she had claimed to attended the Sorbonne and been a tennis ace), discrepancies surface, and after several days of denial she admits that "Jimmy" and his family never existed and resigns. The Post apologizes profusely and returns the prize (it goes instead to a freelance writer for the Village Voice), and Cooke's career as a journalist is over (see Glass, Smith, 1998).
Reader's Digest cofounder DeWitt Wallace dies of pneumonia at Mt. Kisco, N.Y., March 30 at age 91; former Louisville Courier-Journal editor Mark S. Ethridge at Moncure, N.C., April 5 at age 84; Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News publisher William Loeb of cancer at Burlington, Mass., September 13 at age 75, having called Dwight Eisenhower "Dopey Dwight" and Gerald R. Ford "Gerald the Jerk" while at the same time supporting the labor movement and attacking government waste and corruption.
Nonfiction: The Reagan Revolution: An Inside Look at the Transformation of the U.S. Government by Robert D. Novak and Rowland Evans Jr. suggests that the new president's economic policies will change the country as profoundly as did the New Deal in the 1930s; American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony by Samuel Huntington; Changing of the Guard: Power and Leadership in America by David S. Broder; Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World by Edward W. Said, who charges that Western pundits have created a monolithic stereotype of Islam; Everything that Linguists Have Always Wanted to Know about Logic (but Were Ashamed to Ask) by James D. McCawley, whose "generative semantics" differs from Noam Chomsky's generative grammar by arguing that the study of grammar must necessarily involve the study of logic and meaning as well as syntax (the rules of sentence formation); Investing in People: the Economics of Population Quality by Theodore W. Schultz, who shared the Nobel Prize in economics 2 years ago; When Harlem Was in Vogue: The Politics of the Arts in the Twenties and Thirties by David Levering Lewis; The Sway of the Grand Saloon: A Social History of the North Atlantic by John Malcolm Brinnin, who has crossed the Atlantic more than 60 times, usually on luxury liners; Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior by Washington Post columnist Judith (Sylvia) Martin (née Perlman), 43.
Writer-editor Roger E. M. Whitaker ("E. M. Frimbo") dies of cancer at New York May 11 at age 82; historian-educator Will Durant of heart failure at Los Angeles November 7 at age 96. His wife, Ariel, has died 2 weeks earlier.
Fiction: Midnight's Children by Bombay-born British novelist Salman Rushdie, 34; The White Hotel by English poet-novelist D. M. (Donald Michael) Thomas, 46; A Start in Life (in America, The Debut) by English novelist and art historian Anita Brookner, 53; The Cupboard by Rose Tremain; Funeral Games by Mary Renault; Gorky Park by Reading, Pa.-born novelist Martin Cruz Smith, 38; Tar Baby by Toni Morrison; Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike; The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving; Trailerpark (stories) by Russell Banks; The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux; Lost Dorsal by Edmonton-born U.S. science-fiction author Gordon R. Dickson, 58; Noble House by James Clavell; The Thirty Years Peace by Berlin-born West German lawyer-writer Peter O. (Otto) Chotjewitz, 47; July's People by Nadine Gordimer; Shiloh and Other Stories by Kentucky-born writer Bobbie Ann Mason, 42; Household Saints by Francine Prose; In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (in Britain, Hunters in the Snow) (stories) by Alabama-born writer Tobias Wolff, 36; What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (stories) by Raymond Carver; Housekeeping by Idaho-born Massachusetts novelist Marilynne Robinson, 37; Cujo by Stephen King; Sharpe's Eagle: Richard Sharpe and the Talavera Campaign, July, 1809 by London-born U.S. novelist Bernard Cornwell, 37; Irish Thoroughbred by Washington, D.C.-born Maryland novelist Nora Roberts, 30, who in the next 20 years will turn out more than 135 mass-market romances that will be translated into 24 other languages and have sales of more than 115 million copies; The Night She Died by Welsh-born English mystery novelist Dorothy Simpson (née Preece), 48, introduces Inspector Luke Thanet; Brown's Requiem by Los Angeles-born crime novelist James Ellroy, 33, who himself has a criminal record, nearly died of double pneumonia 4 years ago, has entered Alcoholics Anonymous, and determined to become a writer.
Novelist A. J. Cronin dies of acute bronchitis at a clinic near Montreux, Switzerland, January 6 at age 84; novelist-playwright Enid Bagnold in her apartment at St. John's Wood, London, March 31 at age 91; Caroline Gordon after surgery at San Cristobal, Mexico, April 1 at age 86; Nelson Algren of a heart attack at Sag Harbor, N.Y., May 9 at age 72; novelist-playwright William Saroyan of cancer at his native Fresno, Calif., May 18 at age 73, having written, "The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness"; Pamela Hansford Johnson dies at London June 18 at age 69; Nathaniel Benchley of a liver infection at Boston December 14 at age 66.
Poetry: The Man in the Black Coat Turns by Robert Bly; Emplumada by San Francisco-born poet Lorna Dee Cervantes, 27, is a collection of bilingual free verse about Chicano subjects; Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit by Gregory Corso; Waiting for My Life by Linda Pastan; Mythic Things by Sheila Fugard.
Nobel poet Eugenio Montale dies of heart failure at Milan September 12 at age 84.
Juvenile: Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg; Winter Count (stories) by Barry Lopez; All Alone by Racine-born author-illustrator Kevin Henkes, 20; The Indian in the Cupboard by English author Lynne Reid Banks.
Painting: Paramount (painting with metal brackets) by Nashville, Tenn.-born artist Robert Ryman, 51; Self-Portrait by Alice Neel, now 81, who portrays herself in her armchair wearing only her eyeglasses; Artist with Painting and Model (collage) by Romare Bearden; Two Models in Bamboo Chairs by Philip Pearlstein; Brush's Shadow, Heart and Mind, and Just in Time by Elizabeth Murray; Après-Midi by Bridget Riley; Twelve Hour Crossing, March Twenty-First (collage of oil and paper on canvas) by Lee Krasner. The Fun Gallery opens on 10th Street in New York's East Village—the first commercial venture in the hybrid of punk rock and visual art.
Sculpture: Tilted Arc (rusting industrial Cor-ten steel) by Richard Serra is installed in New York's Federal Plaza (commissioned 2 years ago by the General Services Administration, which has paid Serra $175,000, the 12-foot-high, 120-foot-long wall obliges pedestrians to walk around it when they enter the Federal Building and meets with almost immediate public scorn; see 1989); Untitled (plywood installation) by Donald Judd. H. C. Westermann dies at Danbury, Conn., November 3 at age 58.
The Mavica electronic still camera introduced in August by Sony Corp. records images on a mini disk that can be placed in a video reader connected to a television monitor or color printer (see Texas Instruments camera, 1972). The first consumer product of its kind, it takes video freeze-frames but is not a true digital camera (see Kodak, 1987).
Otto L. Bettmann, now 78, sells his 46-year-old Bettmann Archive to the Kraus-Thomson Organization. It now contains 5 million cartoons, photographs, prints, posters, woodcuts, and other images, and in 1990 will acquire another 11.5 million photographic images, mostly from United Press International and Reuters (see Corbis, 1995).
Theater: Steaming by English playwright Nell Dunn, 45, 7/1 at London's Theatre Royal, Stratford East; Key Exchange by Hollywood screenwriter-playwright Kevin Wade, 27, 7/14 at New York's off-Broadway Orpheum Theater, with Brooke Adams, Mark Blum, Ben Masters; Quartermaine's Terms by Simon Gray 7/30 at the Queen's Theatre, London, with Edward Fox; A Talent for Murder by Jerome Chodorov and Norman Panama 10/1 at New York's Biltmore Theater, with Claudette Colbert, Jean-Pierre Aumont, 77 perfs.; Caritas by Arnold Wesker 10/7 at London's National Theatre; Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You by Montclair, N.J.-born playwright Christopher Durang, 32, 10/16 at New York's Playwrights Horizons Theater, with Polly Draper, Elizabeth Franz, 947 perfs.; Torch Song Trilogy by Brooklyn-born playwright Harvey (Forbes) Fierstein, 27, 10/16 at New York's off-off-Broadway Richard Allen Center, with Fierstein as the drag queen Arnold, 117 perfs.; Crimes of the Heart by Jackson, Miss.-born playwright Beth Henley, 29, 11/4 at New York's John Golden Theater, with Mia Dillon, Georgia-born actress Holly Hunter, 23, Lizbeth Mackay, and Dallas-born actor Peter MacNicol, 27, 535 perfs.; A Soldier's Play by Philadelphia-born playwright Charles (H.) Fuller (Jr.), 42, 11/5 at the off-Broadway Theater Four, 468 perfs.; Mass Appeal by New York-born playwright Bill C. Davis, 30, 11/12 at New York's Booth Theater, with Dublin-born actor Milo O'Shea, 55, Larchmont-born actor Michael O'Keefe, 26, 212 perfs.; The West Side Waltz by Ernest Thompson 11/10 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy Loudon, 126 perfs.; Grownups by Jules Feiffer 12/10 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with Frances Sternhagen, Harold Gould, Bob Dishy, 13 perfs.
Actress (and psychic) Jean Dixon dies at New York February 12 at age 84; actor Torin Thatcher at Thousand Oaks, Calif., March 4 at age 76; critic Bosley Crowther of heart failure at Mt. Kisco, N.Y., March 7 at age 71; actress Madge Evans of cancer at her Oakland, N.J., home April 26 at age 71; playwright Paul Green at Chapel Hill, N.C., May 4 at age 87; actor Loring Smith at Fairfield, Conn., July 8 at age 91; burlesque veteran Georgia Sothern (Hazel Eunice Finklestein) of cancer at New York October 14 at age 61; playwright Mary Coyle Chase after a brief illness at Denver October 20 at age 74; Glenn Anders at the Actors Fund House in Englewood, N.J., October 26 at age 91; Enid Markey at Bay Shore, N.Y., November 15 at age 85; playwright C. P. Taylor of a heart attack at Newcastle-on-Tyne December 10 at age 53.
Television: Dynasty 1/12 on ABC with John Forsythe as Blake Carrington, English film actress Joan (Henrietta) Collins, 47, as his ex-wife, Alexis, Linda Evans as his fiancée Krystie Grant Jennings in a series created by Esther Shapiro and her husband, Richard, that will have a worldwide audience of more than 100 million viewers (to 5/11/1989); Hill Street Blues 1/15 on NBC with Kenosha, Wis.-born actor Daniel J. Travanti, 40, as Capt. Frank Furillo, Philadelphia-born model-actress Veronica Hamel, 37, as Public Defender Joyce Davenport, and others in dramas conceived by Steve Bochco based on a police precinct house (to 5/12/1987); Hi-De-Hi! 2/26 on BBC-1 with London-born actor Simon Cadell, 30, as Geoffrey Fairbrother, manager of a 1959 holiday camp (to 1/30/1988); Gimme a Break 10/29 on NBC with Birmingham, Ala.-born actress-singer Nell Carter (originally Nell Hardy), 33, New York-born actor Dolph Sweet, 61 (to 5/12/1987); Falcon Crest 12/4 on CBS with Jane Wyman (to 5/18/1990).
Actor Richard Boone dies of throat cancer at his St. Augustine, Fla., home January 10 at age 63; playwright Paddy Chayefsky dies of cancer at New York August 1 at age 58; radio personality Harry Von Zell of cancer at Woodland Hills, Calif., November 21 at age 75.
Films: Volker Schlondorff's Circle of Deceit with Bruno Ganz, Hanna Schygulla; Hector Babenco's Pixote with Fernando Ramos da Silva, Marilia Pera; Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark with Harrison Ford as archaeologist Indiana Jones. Also: Jean-Claude Tramont's All Night Long with Gene Hackman, Barbra Streisand; Steve Gordon's Arthur with John Gielgud, Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli; Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot with Jurgen Prochnow; Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire with Ben Cross as 1924 Olympic runner Harold Abrahams, Ian Charleson as runner Eric Liddell, Lindsay Anderson; Paul Kagan's The Chosen with Maximilian Schell, Rod Steiger, Robby Benson, Barry Miller; Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de Torchon with Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert; Shohei Imamura's Eijanaka with Shigeru Izumiya; John Boorman's Excalibur with Nicol Williamson, Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren; Ronald Neame's First Monday in October with Jill Clayburgh as the first female Supreme Court justice, Walter Matthau; Karel Reisz's The French Lieutenant's Woman with Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons; Peter Weir's Gallipoli with Mark Lee, Mel Gibson; Moshe Mizrahi's I Sent a Letter to My Love with Simone Signoret, Jean Rochefort; George Miller's Mad Max II with Mel Gibson; Warren Beatty's Reds with Beatty as John Reed, Diane Keaton as Louise Bryant, Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman, Jack Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill; Kenji Misumi's Shogun Assassin with Robert Houston, Tomisaburo Wakiyama; Shohei Imamura's What the Hell with Yohei Koono and Shigeru Tsuyuguchi; John Badham's Whose Life Is It Anyway? with Richard Dreyfuss, John Cassavetes.
Beulah Bondi dies at Hollywood, Calif., January 1 at age 92 of complications from broken ribs suffered in a fall; Wanda Hendrix dies of double pneumonia at Burbank February 1 at age 52; director René Clair in his sleep at Neuilly March 15 at age 82; director William Wyler of a heart attack at his Beverly Hills home July 27 at age 79; Melvyn Douglas of cancer at New York August 4 at age 80; Anita Loos of a heart attack at New York August 18 at age 88; actress-singer Zarah Leander of a cerebral hemorrhage at Stockholm August 23 at age 79; Vera-Ellen of cancer at Los Angeles August 30 at age 61; Ann Harding at Sherman Oaks, Calif., September 1 at age 79; Robert Montgomery of cancer at New York September 27 at age 77; Hollywood costume designer Edith Head of bone marrow disease at Los Angeles October 24 at age 83; director Abel Gance of a pulmonary edema at his Paris home November 10 at age 92; William Holden is found dead in his Santa Monica apartment November 16, apparently having fallen in an alcoholic stupor at least a week earlier and died at age 63; Jack Albertson dies of cancer at his Hollywood Hills home November 25 at age 74; Natalie Wood disappears off the family yacht Splendour and drowns November 28 at age 43; director Alan Dwan has suffered a stroke November 12 and dies at Woodland Hills, Calif., December 21 at age 96.
Stage musicals: Sophisticated Ladies 2/1 at New York's Lunt-Fontanne Theater, with Phyllis Hyman, P. J. Benjamin, music by the late Duke Ellington, lyrics by John Guare, 767 perfs.; Marry Me a Little 3/12 at New York's Actor's Playhouse, with Craig Lucas, songs by Stephen Sondheim that include "Can That Boy Foxtrot!" "Happily Ever After," and "There Won't Be Trumpets," 96 perfs.; Woman of the Year 3/29 at New York's Palace Theater, with Lauren Bacall, Harry Guardino, music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb, book by Peter Stone based on a screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin, 770 perfs.; March of the Falsettos 4/19 at New York's Playwrights Horizons Theater, with Michael Rupert, Stephen Bogardus, Alison Fraser, music and lyrics by U.S. composer-playwright William Finn, 29, 170 perfs.; Cats 5/11 at London's New London Theatre, with Elaine Paige as Grizzabella, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics from the late T. S. Eliot's 1939 book Old Possum Book of Pratical Cats, songs that include "Memory" (it will open next year at New York's Winter Garden Theater and run for 17 years [7,485 performances], setting a new record); Dreamgirls 12/21 at New York's Imperial Theater, with Jennifer Holliday, choreography by Michael Bennett, music by Henry Krieger, book and lyrics by Tom Eyen, 40, 1,522 perfs.
Adele Astaire dies of a stroke at Phoenix, Ariz., January 6 at age 83; Joe Smith of Smith and Dale vaudeville fame at the Actors Fund home in Englewood, N.J., February 17 at age 97 (his partner Charley Dale died in 1971); Broadway songwriter E. Y. "Yip" Harburg dies in an auto accident near Hollywood March 5 at age 84; Jessie Matthews of cancer at London August 20 at age 74; onetime Broadway musical star Patsy Kelly at Woodland Hills, Calif., September 24 at age 71; arranger-composer Hershy Kay of heart failure at Danbury, Conn., December 2 at age 62.
Composer Samuel Barber dies of cancer at New York January 23 at age 70; composer Howard Hanson at Rochester, N.Y., February 26 at age 84; Rosa Ponselle at Baltimore May 25 at age 84; composer Robert Russell Bennett at New York August 18 at age 87; Lotte Lenya at New York November 27 at age 83.
Popular songs: "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kentucky-born songwriter Jackie De Shannon (originally Sharon Lee Myers), 36, and Donna Weiss; "The Tide Is High" by Kingston, Jamaica-born songwriter John Holt, 34; "Arthur's Theme (Best that You Can Do)" by Christopher Cross; "Not a Day Goes By" by Stephen Sondheim (for his short-lived musical Merrily We Roll Along); "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" by Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks; "Boy From New York City" by the vocal group Manhattan Transfer; "Radio Free Europe" and "Sitting Still" by the Athens, Ga., rock group R.E.M. founded in 1979 by Decatur, Ga.-born singer (John) Michael Stipe, now 21, with Athens record-store clerk Peter Buck and Kathleen O'Brien; Street Songs (album) by Rick James includes the "punk funk" hit "Super Freak"; "O Superman" by Chicago-born artist-musician Lauri Anderson, 34; Reba McEntire records her songs "I Don't Think Love Ought to Be that Way" and "Today All Over Again"; You Brought Me Back (album) by Tammy Wynette includes the single "Cowboys Don't Shoot Straight (Like They Used To)."
The Illinois Jacquet Big Band organized by Louisiana-born tenor saxophonist Jacquet forms and tries to revive the glory days of dance bands. Now 58, Jacquet was born to a Sioux woman and a French Creole railroad worker (he was baptized Jean-Baptiste and got the nickname "Illinois" from the Indian word Illiniwek, meaning superior men), he gained fame at age 19 for his solo in Lionel Hampton's rhythm and blues standard "Flying Home," and he has played also with Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, and others.
The New York rap ("hip-hop") and rock music group Beastie Boys has its beginnings in a group founded by guitarist John Berry and drummer Kate Schellenbach whose hardcore punk quartet will soon become a trio consisting of local performers MCA (Adam Yauch, now 17); Mike D (Mike Diamond, now 14); and King AdRock (Adam Horovitz, now 14).
Songwriter Ruth Lowe dies at Toronto January 4 at age 66; jazz drummer William R. "Cozy" Cole of cancer at Columbus, Ohio, January 29 at age 71; jazz trumpeter-composer-arranger-bandleader Bobby Sherwood of throat cancer at Auburn, Mass., January 23 at age 66; Bill Haley Jr. of throat cancer at Harlingen, Texas, February 9 at age 55; composer Eddie Sauter of a heart attack at Nyack, N.Y., April 21 at age 66; MCA founder Jules Stein of heart failure at Los Angeles April 29 at age 85; reggae singer Bob Marley of brain cancer at Miami May 11 at age 36; George Jessel of cardio-pulmonary arrest at Los Angeles May 23 at age 83; jazz pianist-arranger-composer Mary Lou Williams of bladder cancer at her Durham, N.C., home May 28 at age 71; folk musician Harry Chapin on the Long Island Expressway July 16 at age 38 when his car is hit by a tractor-trailer; songwriter Frank McHugh dies at Greenwich, Conn., September 11 at age 83; jazz singer Helen Humes of cancer at Santa Monica September 13 at age 68; songwriter Harry Warren at Hollywood September 22 at age 87; pianist-arranger Hazel Scott of cancer at New York October 2 at age 61; vocalist Bob Eberly of lung cancer and heart disease at Glen Burnie, Md., November 7 at age 65; songwriter-actor Hoagy Carmichael of a heart attack at his Rancho Mirage home near Palm Springs, Calif., December 27 at age 82.
Music Television (MTV) goes out to cable TV subscribers beginning August 1 with visual presentations of pop hits in what amounts to a non-stop commercial promoting records, fashions, soft drinks, and other merchandise to the easily manipulable teenage market whose disposable income is higher than that of any other segment of society.
Oakland beats Philadelphia 27 to 10 at New Orleans January 25 in Super Bowl XV.
John McEnroe wins the British and U.S. men's singles titles, Chris Evert-Lloyd the women's singles title at Wimbledon, Tracy Austin the U.S. women's title.
Pitcher Satchel Paige dies of a heart attack at Kansas City, Mo., June 8 at age 75.
Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Pete Rose, 40, gets his 3,361st career hit August 10, eclipsing the National League record of Stan Musial. Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros pitches his fifth career no-hitter September 26 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, setting a record.
The Los Angeles Dodgers win the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 4 games to 2 after a season interrupted by a 7-week players' strike.
Former heavyweight champion Joe Louis dies of cardiac arrest at Las Vegas November 12 at age 66. He has been a greeter at Caesar's Palace.
The new video game "Frogger" challenges arcade players to live out a frog's quest to cross a highway and river without being squashed or sunk (see "PAC-MAN," 1980). The video game "Donkey Kong" launched by the 92-year-old playing-card manufacturer Nintendo Co. of Kyoto introduces Mario the plumber, who must rescue the damsel in distress. It quickly becomes the hottest-selling individual coin-operated machine in the business, and Mario will appear in a variety of such games in the 1980s as "Donkey Kong" gains popularity in America and Europe. Atari stock plunges 56 percent December 8 on news that sales have slumped (see 1978). By 1984 it will have $10 million worth of games piled up in a Taiwan warehouse with no buyers (see 1984; Nintendo's "Legend of Zelda," 1986).
Contract bridge expert John Gerber of Gerber convention fame dies of a heart attack at Houston January 28 at age 74; chess master Edward Lasker at his New York home March 23 at age 95; chess master Max Euwe at Amsterdam November 26 at age 80.
The synthetic sheepskin Polarfleece introduced by Patagonia and Malden Mills in Massachusetts is made of finely-knit polyester microfiber (see commerce, 1995).
Caracas-born New York socialite-turned-designer Carolina Herrera, 42, shows her first couture collection, emphasizing strong fitted shoulders, tight bodices, straight lines, and slightly pushed-up sleeves (Women's Wear Daily calls her "Our Lady of the Sleeve").
Long Island-born designer Michael Kors, 22, establishes his own line of women's sportswear. He will introduce a lower-priced line in 1990 and expand into menswear, create designs for other firms, and introduce his first fragrance in 2000.
The $35-per-ounce cologne Giorgio introduced by the Beverly Hills boutique of that name has about twice the amount of essential oils, including rose, jasmine, chamomile, and patchouli, found in other colognes. Launched by the boutique's owners Fred and Gale Hayman and advertised with scent strips in magazines, it is supposed to conjure up the lifestyles of Hollywood's rich and famous, it will soon have annual sales of more than $100 million, but critics complain that its pungent and cloying aroma lingers for hours, an environmental-health group will distribute "Perfume Pollutes" buttons, and some magazines such as the New Yorker will respond to reader complaints by barring scent strips.
Lady Diana Spencer, 20, is married to Britain's heir apparent Prince Charles, 32, at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, July 29 (see 1992).
British police capture a suspect in the "Yorkshire Ripper" murders that have been committed since 1975 in the Midlands and the north of England. They charge truck driver Peter Sutcliffe, 34, in January with having killed 13 women, some of them prostitutes, mostly by beating them in the head with a hammer and stabbing them with a screw driver. Husband of a school bus driver, he is found guilty May 22 of having committed 13 murders plus seven attempted murders and given a life sentence on each count.
An effort to free convicted cocaine dealer Robert Wyler, 43, from a New York City correctional facility fails January 25 when a helicopter commandeered by an armed man and woman is unable to break through the wire mesh on the roof of the facility. Inmates on the roof have overpowered a guard and locked him in a washroom, the hijackers have dropped a pistol to them, but the inmates soon realize that escape is impossible and they surrender to police.
Drug Enforcement Agency agents arrest Mexican drug trafficker Benjamin Arrelano-Felix, 30, at Downey, Calif., June 18 on charges of having received 100 kilos of cocaine smuggled through the San Ysidro border. Arrelano-Felix and his six brothers will build an organization (the Tijuana Cartel) that will grow to control much of the drug trade (see Camarena murder, 1985).
Dallas hails the completion of a new city hall designed by I. M. Pei.
Two walkways at Kansas City's new Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse July 18, killing 113, injuring 186.
Architect-author (and onetime German economic minister) Albert Speer dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at London September 1 at age 76; architect Wallace K. Harrison at his New York apartment December 9 at age 89.
Wyoming-born politician James G. (Gaius) Watt, 42, takes office as secretary of the interior and testifies before a congressional committee February 5, saying, "We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber." A Christian fundamentalist, Watt says, "I don't know how many future generations we can count on until the Lord returns," and he will be quoted as saying, "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand." The 8-year-old Heritage Foundation has urged its followers to "strangle the environmental movement," calling it "the greatest single threat to the American economy"; Reagan's election as a "Sagebrush Rebel" has empowered the 4-year-old Mountain States Legal Foundation (see 1980), and right-wing extremist Joseph Coors has had an outsize influence in selecting the new administration's Environmental Protection Agency officials. Watt has characterized environmentalists as "a left-wing cult dedicated to bringing down the type of government I believe in," and Reagan himself has reportedly said, "A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?" The Washington Post reports May 24 that Watt has said, "My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns" (see 1983).
An earthquake in southern Iran June 11 registers 6.9 on the Richter scale and leaves about 3,000 dead; another one in the same region July 28 registers 7.3 but kills only about half as many.
Vice President George H. W. Bush says August 12 that the Reagan administration is putting about three dozen more federal regulations under review for possible relaxation or elimination, among them Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules on how much lead may be used in producing gasoline (see 1973). Now 57, former oilman (and ex-CIA director) Bush heads a special task force investigating regulatory relief; he tells a news conference, "We've only just begun" (but see 1982).
Poland's grain crop increases by 11 percent to 20 million tons but is still short of demand. The government presses farmers in January to sell grain to the state to relieve drastic shortages of bread and other grain-related products; farmers will be permitted to purchase seed only if they replenish government granaries, says Warsaw.
President Reagan takes office with a commitment to favor free trade and oppose federal aid to agriculture, but his administration's farm bill has a "no-net-cost" provision that foreshadows increased protectionism for sugar, peanuts, and other farm commodities. The government will no longer take forfeitures of sugar in lieu of loan repayment, but it will support sugar prices at a level above the loan rate.
Congress votes 213 to 190 in mid-October to reject a revived sugar price-support program favored by the House Agriculture Committee that would raise raw sugar prices by 20 percent, but Congress votes increased price-support levels in December, effectively subsidizing Florida's Cuban-born Fanjol family, which controls about one third of the state's canefields, plus a second company, which controls another third (both employ seasonal West Indian labor to harvest cane on marshy land that cannot support heavy machines), a few large Hawaiian producers, and fewer than a thousand smaller Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Texas cane growers plus beet sugar producers in Minnesota, Idaho, and a dozen other states.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture responds to Reagan administration demands for cuts in the school lunch program by announcing in September that ketchup can be counted as a vegetable. The public outcry forces President Reagan to restore funds for school lunches, but the White House will try persistently to trim federal aid to many nutrition programs, despite evidence that poor nutrition contributes to significantly higher infant mortality rates, stunted growth, and learning disabilities (see 1986).
Adulterated rapeseed oil kills or maims 20,000 Spaniards in a scandal that receives little world attention (see 1985).
Nearly 120 nations vote in May to approve a voluntary international code that restricts marketing of infant formula to women, many of them illiterate, who have been encouraged to use infant formula rather than breast feeding. The code has been drawn up under the auspices of the World Health Organization, which is concerned that formula in developing countries is often made from contaminated water or diluted to the point that infants are malnourished. The only dissenting vote is that of the United States, which has rejected the code as antagonistic to free trade and contrary to American antitrust laws and rights of free speech (see Nestlé, 1982).
The National Institute of Health places saccharin on its list of suspected carcinogens but it is not banned as were cyclamates in 1969 (an advisory group will recommend in 1998 that saccharin be given a clean bill of health and it will be removed from the list 2 years later).
Beet sugar accounts for 34 percent of worldwide sugar consumption but 55 percent of U.S. consumption.
Aspartame gains FDA approval for tabletop use October 22. U.S. chemist James M. Schlatter discovered in 1955 while trying to develop an ulcer drug that a mixture of the amino acids aspartic acid and phenylalinine had a sweet taste. Two teaspoons of sugar contain 32 calories; aspartame provides the same sweetening with four calories. Marketed by G. D. Searle in packets under the brand name Equal, the artificial sweetener costs twice as much as the Sweet 'N Low introduced in 1958 but does not have the bitter aftertaste of saccharin. Other countries have permitted the sale of aspartame, which is also made by Ajinimoto in Japan (see NutraSweet, 1983).
Campbell Soup Co. introduces Prego Spaghetti Sauce, which contains visible herbs and spices. Developed by a Campbell chef who tried to duplicate the thick, seasoned sauce he made for his family back in Europe, Prego is advertised as tasting "so homemade you won't believe it came from a jar." It will have annual sales of more than $150 million by 1983 as it gains national distribution, and a No-Salt version will be added in 1985.
Kellogg introduces Nutri-Grain wheat cereal—vitamin-enriched flakes containing no sugar or preservatives—and follows it with other Nutri-Grain cereals.
Nabisco Brands is created by a merger of Nabisco (National Biscuit Co.) and Standard Brands (see RJR Nabisco, 1985).
Thirty-eight cents of every U.S. food dollar is spent in a restaurant, fast-food outlet, or take-home store, up from 26 cents in 1960.
The world's population reaches 4.5 billion, up from 2.5 billion in 1950, with at least 957 million in the People's Republic of China, where female infanticide increases despite its illegality. China's severe population-control policy limits families to one child each (see 1980); without any social security programs it becomes vital that the child be a male who can support his parents in their old age. The legal age for marriage is 25 for women, 26 for men; every Chinese factory, office, village, and collective farm is given an annual quota of permissible live births; the head of that unit, the party secretary, then decides which of the young couples in the unit will receive a certificate permitting conception; when a woman is delivered, there is often a bucket of water under the bed, and if the child is a girl it may be drowned (see 1983).
India has a sex ratio of 935 females to 1,000 males, down from 972 to 1,000 in 1901, despite the fact that female infants are biologically stronger at birth. UNICEF studies indicate that girl babies are breast-fed less frequently and for a shorter duration than boy babies, who also receive better health care.
India has an estimated 664 million people, the USSR 266 million, Indonesia 152, Brazil 122, Japan 117, Bangladesh 88, Nigeria 77, Mexico 72, West Germany 61.4, Italy 57, Britain 56, France 54, Vietnam 52, Egypt 42 (with more than half under the age of 25), Spain 38, Poland 35, Canada 24.
The United States has 228 million people, up from 203.2 in 1970. Blacks number 26.5 million, up from 22.6 in 1970; Hispanics number 14.6 million, many of them illegal immigrants.
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