1983: Encyclopedia II - 1983 - Events

1983 - Events

1983 - January

• January 2 - The musical Annie is performed for the last time after 2,377 shows (Uris Theatre on Broadway, New York City).
• January 8 - Riot in the Sing Sing prison
• January 10 - Mafia hitman Roy DeMeo is found dead in a trunk of his own car
• January 15 - Mafioso Meyer Lansky dies at Mount Sinai hospital
• January 19 - Klaus Barbie, Nazi war criminal, is arrested in Bolivia.
• January 22 - Björn Borg retires from tennis after winning 5 consecutive Wimbledon championships.
• January 24 - 25 members of the Red Brigades are sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Aldo Moro
• January 26 - Lotus 1-2-3 is released.
• January 31 - Seatbelt use for drivers and front seat passengers becomes mandatory in the United Kingdom.

1983 - February

• February 2 - Giovanni Vigliotto goes on trial for multiple counts of bigamy - 105 women
• February 3 - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser is granted a double dissolution of both houses of parliament for a double dissolution election for the March 5. Bob Hawke replaces Bill Hayden as federal ALP leader
• February 6 - Klaus Barbie is charged with war crimes
• February 7 - Iran opens an invasion in the southeast of Iraq.
• February 13 - US President Ronald Reagan proclaims 1983 "The Year of the Bible".
• February 16 - The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim the lives of 76 people in one of Australia's worst ever fires.
• February 19 - Benjamin Ng and Willie Mak kill 13 in an attempted robbery in Seattle, Washington
• February 23 - The Environmental Protection Agency announces its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.
• February 24 - A special commission of the U.S. Congress releases a report critical of the practice of Japanese internment during World War II.
• February 25 - US playwright Tennessee Williams found dead in his hotel room

1983 - March

• March 1
  • Balearic Islands and Madrid become autonomous communities of Spain
  • Swatch introduce their first timepieces
• March 5 - Madame Chiang Kai-shek's birthday

Bob Hawke Elected Australian Prime Minister

• March 8 - IBM releases the IBM PC XT
• March 8 - President Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union an "evil empire."
• March 11 - Hawke Ministry sworn in, Andrew Peacock becomes Federal Opposition leader
• March 16 - Demolition of the radio tower Ismaning, the last radio tower in Germany built of wood.
• March 23 - Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles. The media dub this plan "Star Wars."

1983 - April

• April 7 - During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first space shuttle spacewalk (duration: 4 hours, 10 minutes).
• April 11 National Economic Summit held In Canberra
• April 15 - American Public Radio founded; changes its name to the current Public Radio International in 1994
• April 15 - The first non-American Disney theme park opens in Japan as Tokyo Disneyland
• April 18 - The U.S Embassy is bombed in Beirut, killing 63 people.
• April 22 - Soviet embassy official Valery Ivanov is expelled from Australia for allegedly trying to recruit spies in the Australian government.
• April 23 - Stern magazine in West Germany announces it has Hitler diaries
• April 25 - Maine schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war.

1983 - May

• May 6 - Stern magazine publishes "Hitler Diaries" (later found to be forgeries).
• May 9 - Pope John Paul II retracts the ban of Galileo Galilei
• May 16 - London police begin the use of wheel clamps on illegally-parked vehicles.
• May 16 - NSW Premier Neville Wran steps down in response to allegations rasied by ABC program Four Corners That he Attempted to influence the NSW Majestry
• May 17 - Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
• May 25 - Return of the Jedi opens in the United States.
• May 29 - 67th Indianapolis 500-Mile Race: Tom Sneva wins his first race after three previous runner-up finishes.

1983 - June

• Shipbreaking begins on the beach at Alang in Gujarat.
• 9 June: Conservative Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 1979, won a landslide victory (42% of the popular vote) over Michael Foot, who led a highly-divided and weakened Labour Party which earned only 28% of the vote. The much improved economy (after 2-3 years of restructuring), her victory in the Falkands, as well as shrinking unemployment rates consolidated her election victory.
• June 13 - Pioneer 10 becomes the first manmade object to leave the solar system.
• June 18 - Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space on the Space Shuttle Challenger.

1983 - July

• July 1 - A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea crashed into the Fouta Djall Mountains in Guinea-Bissau, killing all 23 people on board.
• July 1 - High Court Blocks construction of the Franklin Dam In Tasmania
• July 7 - Samantha Smith flies to the Soviet Union.
• July 16 - Sikorsky S-61 disaster: helicopter crash off the Isles of Scilly, causing 20 fatalities
• July 20 - Government of Poland announces end of the martial law and amnesty for political prisoners.
• July 22 - Australian Dick Smith completes his solo circumnavigation in a helicopter
• July 22 - The Ford Orion is launched.
• July 23 - Gimli Glider: Air Canada flight 143 crash-lands in Gimli, Manitoba.
• July 25 - The outbreak of anti-Tamil riots in Sri Lanka which left over 3,000 Tamils massacred and millions of dollars worth of their property was destroyed. This genocide is the beginning of a deadly civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka.
• July 25 - Metallica released their debut album Kill 'Em All.
• July 28 New South Wales premier Neville Wran exonerated by Street Royal Commission over claims raised by ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) program Four Corners which claimed, he attempted to influence the NSW majestry

1983 - August

• August 4 - Thomas Sankara became President in Upper Volta.
• August 18 - Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 22 and causing over US$3.8 billion (2005 dollars)
• August 18 - 5 people are killed and 18 others injured when a road train is deliberatly driven into a motel at Ayers Rock (Uluru) NT (The driver, Douglas Edward Crabbe, was found guilty of this in March 1984)
• August 21 - In the Philippines, opposition politician Benigno Aquino is assassinated just as he returns from exile
• August 24 - Old Philadelphia Arena is destroyed by arson
• August 21 - Benigno Aquino, Jr., Philippines opposition leader, assassinated in Manila

1983 - September

• September 1 - Cold War: Korean Air Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet jet fighter when the commercial aircraft entered Soviet airspace. All 269 on board die.
• September 4 - Six men walk underwater across the Sydney Harbor - 82.9 km in 48 hours
• September 5 - Tom Brokaw becomes lead anchor for NBC Nightly News
• September 6 - The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight 007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace
• September 10 - Jon B. Minnoch, heaviest man in USA, dies weighing 362 kg. When he was admitted to hospital in March 1978, his weight was 635 kg
• September 16 - Donna Griffiths of Pershore, England, stops sneezing after continuous series of sneezes for 978 days, since January 13, 1981
• September 23 - Violence erupts in New Caledonia between native Kanaks and French expatriates. The French government withdraws the promise of independence
• September 23 - Mass outbreak in Maze prison - 38 prisoners hijack a lorry and crash out of the gate - one guard dead and 5 others injured. 19 of the prisoners are later apprehended.
• September 23 - Barbara Turnbull, an 18 year old Canadian girl, was shot in the neck and became paralyzed for life during a store robbery in Mississauga, Canada.
• September 25-26 - Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war.
• September 27 - The GNU project was announced publicly on the net.unix-wizards and net.usoft newsgroups.

1983 - October

• October 2 - Neil Kinnock is elected leader of the British Labour Party.
• October 4 - Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 mph, driving Thrust 2 at the Black Rock Desert, Nevada.
• October 7 - Plan to abolish Greater London Council announced.
• October 12 - Japan's ex Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from Lockheed and sentenced to 4 years in jail.
• October 19 - Maurice Bishop, the President of Grenada, and 40 others are shot in a military coup
• October 22 - In Bonn, West Germany people demonstrate for nuclear disarmament
• October 23 - A suicide truck-bombing destroys the United States Marine Corps barracks at Beirut International Airport, killing 241 US servicemen.
• October 24 - Arthur Hutchinson kills three members of Laitner family and rapes their daughter in the Sheffield suburb of Dore.
• October 25 - United States invades Grenada at the behest of Dame Eugenia Charles, of Dominica a member of the Organization of American States.
• October 27 - Pope John Paul II visits Mehmet Ali Ağca in prison to forgive him. Ali Ağca is the Turkish gunman who attempted to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981
• October 30 - The first democratic elections in Argentina after seven years of military rule are held.

1983 - November

• November 2 - Martin Luther King Day: At the White House Rose Garden, President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honor American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
• November 5 - The worst offshore diving accident ever to take place, happened on board the Byford Dolphin rig in the North Sea of the coast of Norway. Five divers were killed and one severely wounded in an explosive decompression accident.
• November 11 - President Reagan became the first U.S. chief executive to address the Diet, Japan's national legislature.
• November 13 - The first US cruise missiles arrive at Greenham Common airbase in England amid protests from peace campaigners.
• November 15 - The Turkish part of Cyprus declares independence.
• November 16 - A jury in Gretna, Louisiana acquits Ginny Foat of the murder of Argentine businessman Moses Chaiyo.
• November 17 - The Zapatista Army of National Liberation founded.
• November 24 - 15-year-old Lynda Mann is found raped and strangled in the village of Narborough, England (Colin Pitchfork is sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988)
• November 26 - Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly UK£26 million are taken from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport. Only a fraction of the gold was ever recovered, and only two men were convicted of the crime.
• November 30 Microsoft Word is first released.

1983 - December

• December 9 - The Australian Dollar is floated, by Federal treasurer Paul Keating. Under the old flexible peg system, the Reserve Bank bought and sold all Australian dollars and cleared the market at the end of the day. This initiative was taken by the government of Bob Hawke.
• December 13 - The Denver Nuggets and the visiting Detroit Pistons combined for an NBA record 370 points, with Detroit winning in triple overtime, 186-184.
• December 17 - A fire at a discotheque in Madrid, Spain, kills 83 people.
• December 17 - An PIRA car bomb kills six Christmas shoppers and injures 90 outside Harrods in London.
• December 31 - Brunei gains independence from United Kingdom.
• December 31 - Two bombs explode in France. One on the Paris train kills 3 and injures 19. The other at Marseille station kills 2 and injures 34.

1983 - Unknown dates

• Democratic reform in power in Argentina.
• Roxanne Pulitzer divorces Herbert Pulitzer
• Gerard Debreu wins the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
• Leopold Kohr, the people of Belau, Amory and Hunter Lovins / Rocky Mountain Institute and Manfred Max-Neef / CEPAUR win the Right Livelihood Award
• McDonald's introduces the McNugget
• In Australia, the Northern Territory decriminalizes homosexual acts between consenting adults
• The immunosuppressant cyclosporine was approved by FDA, leading to a revolution in the field of transplantation.
• Flashdance and Return of the Jedi are box-office hits.
• Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program launched in U.S.
• Kellogg's introduces Crispix cereal.
• The Dodge Caravan, the first minivan to enter production, is released as a 1984 model.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Events", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki