1979

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1990s 2000s

Years: 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 - 1979 - 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984

• January 1 - United States and the People's Republic of China establish diplomatic relations[?]
• January 4 - State of Ohio agrees to pay $675,000 to families of dead and injured in Kent State University shootings.
• January 7 - Vietnam and Vietnam-backed Cambodian insurgents announce the fall of Phnom Penh, Cambodian capital, and the collapse of the Pol Pot regime.
• January 16 - The Shah of Iran flees Iran with his family and relocate to Egypt after a year of turmoil.
• February 1 - Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst is released from prison after her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.
• February 1 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is welcomed back into Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.
• February 11 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seizes power in Iran.
• February 14 - In Kabul, Muslim extremists kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs[?] who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.
• February 17 - The People's Republic of China invades northernVietnam
• February 22 - Independence of Saint Lucia from the United Kingdom.
• March 14 - In China, a Trident aircraft[?] crashes into a factory near Beijing killing at least 200.
• March 25 - The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, was delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
• March 28 - Nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, Pa., releases radiation
• April 1 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini proclaims Iran to be an Islamic Republic.
• April 6 - President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto[?] of Pakistan is executed.
• May 4 - Conservatives win the British election; Margaret Thatcher becomes the new prime minister.
• May 10 - The Federated States of Micronesia becomes self-governing.
• May 25 - American Airlines flight 191: In Chicago, Illinois, a DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport killing 271 on board on two people on the ground.
• June 4 - Joe Clark becomes Canada's sixteenth, and youngest, prime minister.
• July 17 - Nicaraguan president General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami; Sandinistas form a new government on July 19.
• June 18 - Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II agreement in Vienna.
• August 27 - Lord Mountbatten killed by the I.R.A..
• November 4 - Iranian militants seize the U.S. embassy in Teheran and take hostages.
• November 28 - Air New Zealand DC-10, on a sightseeing trip, crashes into Mount Erebus, Antarctica, killing all 257 people on board.
• December 24 - Soviet Union invades Afghanistan
• December 27 - The Soviet Union seizes control of Afghanistan and Babrak Karmal replaces overthrown and executed President Hafizullah Amin.

• The Susan B. Anthony one dollar coin is introduced in the US
• VisiCalc becomes the first spreadsheet program[?].

Art, Culture & Fashion

• 1979 in film
  • Apocalypse Now
  • Caligula
  • Kramer vs. Kramer
  • Mad Max
  • March - Production begins on the Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back.
  • November - Production begins on Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• 1979 in literature
• 1979 in music
• 1979 in sports
• 1979 in television
  • February 11 - 43 million viewers watch "Elvis!" on ABC.
  • Over 300 million households worldwide now own television sets.

Births:

• January 16 - Aaliyah, singer (+ 2001)
• January 24 - Tatyana Ali, actress
• February 9 - Mena Suvari[?], actress
• February 11 - Brandy Norwood, singer.
• February 21 - Jennifer Love Hewitt[?], actress, singer
• March 30 - Norah Jones, musician
• April 4 - Heath Ledger[?], actor
• June 10 - Blasete[?], physicist.

Deaths:

• January 3 - Conrad Hilton, hotelier
• January 5 - Charles Mingus, American jazz musician
• January 26 - Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, Vice President of the United States
• February 2 - Sid Vicious of Sex Pistols
• February 7 - Josef Mengele, Nazi war criminal
• February 12 - Jean Renoir, Film Director
• February 23 - W.A.C. Bennett, British Columbia politician
• February 28 - "The famous Mr. Ed[?]", the talking horse, dies.
• March 28 - Emmett Kelly, clown
• April 4 - Ali Bhutto[?], President and Prime Minister of Pakistan
• April 10 - Nino Rota, composer
• May 29 - Mary Pickford, actress, studio founder
• July 3 - Louis Durey, composer, member of Les Six
• July 16 - Alfred Deller, singer, early modern countertenor
• August 27 - Earl Mountbatten of Burma, 79, British World War II hero, and three others are killed by a blast on a fishing boat off the Irish coast; two I.R.A. members are accused on August 30.
• September 8 - Jean Seberg, actress
• October 10 - Christopher Evans, British psychologist and computer scientist
• December 7 - Prince Chahryar Shafik[?], nephew of the Shah of Iran, murdered in Paris, France.
• December 23 - Peggy Guggenheim, art collector
• December 27 - Hafizullah Amin, president of Afghanistan

Nobel Prizes:

• Physics - Sheldon Lee Glashow[?], Abdus Salam[?], Steven Weinberg
• Chemistry - Herbert C Brown[?], Georg Wittig[?]
• Medicine - Allan M Cormack[?], Godfrey N Hounsfield[?]
• Literature - Odysseus Elytis[?]
• Peace - Mother Teresa
• Economics - Theodore Schultz[?], Arthur Lewis[?]