| |
|
1983 |
| January 8th |
 |
In
the United States, riots broke out in the Sing Sing prison. |
|
| January 10th |
|
In
the United States, Mafia hitman Roy DeMeo was found dead in
the trunk of his own car. |
|
| January 15th |
|
Mafioso
Meyer Lansky died at Mount Sinai hospital. |
|
| January
19th |
|
In
Bolivia, the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of
Lyon', was arrested. |
|
| January 22nd |
|
Swedish
tennis champion Björn Borg retired from tennis. Borg won
5 consecutive Wimbledon championships. |
|
| January 24th |
|
25
members of the Red Brigades were sentenced to life imprisonment
for the murder of Aldo Moro. |
|
| January 31st |
|
In
Britain, the use of seatbelts for drivers and front seat passengers
became law. |
|
| February
6th |
|
The
Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon', was charged
with war crimes. |
|
| February
7th |
|
In
the Iran-Iraq war, Iran forces invaded southeast Iraq. |
|
| February
13th |
|
In
the United States, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed 1983 as
'The Year of the Bible'. |
|
| February
16th |
|
In
Australia, the 'Ash Wednesday' bushfires in the states of Victoria
and South Australia killed 76 people in one of worst ever fires. |
|
| February
24th |
|
In
the United States, a U.S. Congress special commission released
a report that was critical of the Japanese internment during
World War II. |
|
| March 1st |
|
In
Australia, Bob Hawke was elected the new Australian Prime Minister. |
|
| March 8th |
|
In
the United States, President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet
Union an 'evil empire'. |
|
| March 23rd |
|
In
the United States, President Ronald Reagan announced his proposal
to develop the SDI 'Stars Wars' program. Technology that would
intercept and destroy incoming enemy missiles. It was named
'Star Wars' by the media. |
|
| April
7th |
|
During
NASA's Space Shuttle mission STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave
and Don Peterson performed the first space shuttle spacewalk.
The EVA duration was 4 hours, 10 minutes. |
|
| April 18th |
|
In
Lebanon, the United States embassy was bombed in Beirut. The
terrorist blast killed 63 people. |
|
| April 22nd |
|
In
Australia, the Soviet embassy official Valery Ivanov was expelled
from the country accused of trying to recruit spies in the Australian
government. |
|
| April
23rd |
|
In West Germany, Stern magazine announced it had obtained Hitler's
diaries. |
|
| May
6th |
|
In
West Germany, Stern magazine published the 'Hitler Diaries'.
The diaries were later proved to be a forgery. |
|
| May 9th |
|
Pope
John Paul II retracted the ban of Galileo Galilei. |
|
| May 17th |
|
Lebanon,
Israel, and the United States signed an agreement on Israeli
withdrawal from Lebanon. |
|
| June 9th |
|
In
Britain, the Conservative Party won a landslide victory in the
British general election. The defeat over Michael Foot's Labour
Party meant that the Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher remained
the Prime Minister for her second term. The much improved economy
and her victory in the Falkands War were credited for the election
victory. |
|
| June 13th |
|
NASA's
Pioneer 10 became the first man made object to leave the solar
system. |
|
| June 18th |
|
Astronaut
Sally Ride became first American woman in space on the Space
Shuttle Challenger. |
|
| July 20th |
|
In
Poland, the Polish government announced the end martial law
and amnesty for all political prisoners. |
|
| July 25th |
|
In
Sri Lanka, anti-Tamil riots broke out and 3,000 Tamils were
massacred. This act of genocide was the beginning of a deadly
civil war and ethnic cleansing in the country. |
|
| August 21st |
|
In
the Philippines, the opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. was
assassinated in Manila. Aquino had just returned from exile. |
|
| September
1st |
|
Flight
KAL 007 a schedule flight from New York to Seoul was shot down
by a Soviet Su-15 fighter when the commercial aircraft entered
Soviet airspace. All 269 passengers and crew were killed. Cold
War tensions rose to a new high. |
|
| September
6th |
|
The
Soviet Union admitted to shooting down Korean Air Flight 007,
and stated that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft
when it violated Soviet airspace. |
|
| September
23rd |
|
In
Northern Ireland, a mass outbreak by 38 prisoners in Maze prison.
They hijacked a lorry and crashed through the gate. 1 guard
was killed and 5 injured. 19 of the escaped prisoners were later
captured. |
|
September
25th - 26th |
|
Soviet
military officer Stanislav Petrov averted a worldwide nuclear
war. |
|
| October 2nd |
|
In
Britain, Neil Kinnock was elected the new leader of the British
Labour Party. Kinnock replaced Michael Foot. |
|
| October 4th |
|
In
the United States, Richard Noble in Thrust 2, set a new world
land speed record of 633.468 mph, at the Black Rock Desert,
Nevada. |
|
| October 12th |
|
In
Japan, the ex Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei was found
guilty of receiving a US$2 million bribe from the American aircraft
company Lockheed and was sentenced to 4 years in jail. |
|
| October 19th |
|
In
Grenada, President Maurice Bishop and 40 others were shot in
a military coup. |
|
| October 22th |
|
In
West Germany, people demonstrated in the city of Bonn for nuclear
disarmament. |
|
| October 23rd |
|
In
Lebanon, a suicide truck bomb destroyed the United States Marine
Corps barracks at Beirut International Airport. The blast killed
241 of the US 'peace-keepers' force. |
|
| October 25th |
|
US
forces invaded Grenada at the request of Dame Eugenia Charles
of Dominica, a member of the Organisation of American States. |
|
| October 30th |
|
In
Argentina, the first democratic elections were held, after seven
years of military rule. |
|
| November
2nd |
|
In
the United States, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating
a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honour
the American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. |
|
| November
11th |
|
In
Japan, US President Reagan became the first US President to
address the Japanese 'Diet', Japan's national legislature. |
|
| November
13th |
|
In
Britain, the first US cruise missiles arrived at Greenham Common
airbase in England. The arrival of the missiles was greeted
with demonstrations from peace campaigners. |
|
| November
15th |
|
In
Cyprus, the Turkish sector declared independence. |
|
| November
26th |
|
In
Britain, the Brinks Mat robbery took place. Armed robbers stole
6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million from the Brinks
Mat vault at Heathrow Airport in London. |
|
| December
17th |
|
In
Britain, an IRA car bomb was detonated outside Harrods in London.
The blast killed 6 Christmas shoppers and injured 90 other people. |
|
| December
27th |
|
Pope
John Paul II visited Mehmet Ali Agca in prison and forgave him
for his actions. Agca attempted to assassinate the Pope in St.
Peter's Square, Rome in 1981. Agca was a suspected KGB agent. |
|
| December
31st |
|
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. |
|
| |
|
In
Russia, the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's
Central Committee, Yuri Andropov, was elected as the new President
of the Soviet Union. |
|
| |
|
Lech
Walesa, the leader Solidarity (Solidarnosc) trade union, an
electrician from the Gdañsk shipyard strike, was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize. |
|
| |
|
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