The Year 1979

The Music

Top 100 Hits of 1979

Top Albums of 1979

The Movies

Top Movies of 1979

The News Stories

11-Jan A 1,200+ page report is issued by U.S. Surgeon General Julius Richmond which
contain overwhelming evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease.
Tobacco companies deny the charges and continue killing 300,000
people a year in the U.S. and unknown millions overseas.

21-Jan The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XIII 35-31.

1-Feb Patty Hearst is released from from a federal prison after serving only 22 months of a
seven-year sentence.
 
1-Feb Exiled religious extremist Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran from France
hoping to establish an Islamic state.
 
19-Feb Ensuring a cure for insomniacs everywhere, live coverage of the
U.S. House of Representatives begins.
 
26-Feb The last total solar eclipse of the century is seen throughout the northwestern U.S.
 
5-Mar Voyager I arrives at Jupiter and discovers a faint ring system.
 
26-Mar Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat sign a peace treaty
at the White House ending 31-years of hostilities between the nations.
 
28-Mar The most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history occurs at the Three Mile Island
Nuclear station in Pennsylvania.
 
29-Mar After his Labour party loses a parliamentary vote of confidence,
British Prime Minister James Callaghan  submits his resignation. Elections are to be held May 3.

31-Mar Unhappy that Egypt has agreed to peace with Israel, the 18 members of the Arab League
pass resolutions severing all diplomatic and economic ties with Egypt.
 
4-Apr Former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is executed for his role
in the murder of his political rivals.
4-May Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female prime minister of Britain following elections
which thrust her Conservative Party into power.
 
22-May Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's 11-year reign comes to an end when
his party loses their majority to Joe Clark and the confusingly named Progressive Conservatives.

23-May Former Nazi Party member Karl Carstens is elected president of West Germany.
 
25-May In the worst aviation accident in U.S. history, 272 are killed when an America
Airlines DC-10 crashes shortly after takeoff in Chicago after the left engine falls off.

28-May Greece becomes the 10th member of the European Common Market.

1-Jun Rhodesia ends 80 years of white rule with a new constitution and a new name Zimbabwe.
 
6-Jun Responding to the May 25th accident, the FAA grounds all 138 U.S.-based DC-10s
pending
investigations into the engine mount assembly.

11-Jun Actor John Wayne dies of cancer at age 72.

28-Jun OPEC officials, meeting in Geneva, agree on prices of $18 to $23.50 per barrel.
This represents a 50% increase year-to-date.

11-Jul Skylab makes its return visit to earth scattering itself over the Indian Ocean and
Australia as it broke up upon reentry.

13-Jul The FAA ban on DC-10s (see June 6) is lifted.
 
16-Jul President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of Iraq, suffering from ill health, names
General Saddam Hussein as his successor.

17-Jul President Somoza of Nicaragua and many of his closest advisors flee to Miami
as the Sandanista rebels approach Managua.
 
18-Jul The price of gold reaches $300/ounce in world markets for the first time.

19-Jul A seven-week civil war ends in Nicaragua with the Sandinistas in control of the capital.
 
31-Jul Chairman John Riccardo of Chrysler begs Congress for $1B in cash after announcing
$207M in losses for the previous quarter.

15-Aug U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young resigns after reports surface that

he has held unauthorized meetings with member of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

27-Aug Irish terrorists murder Earl Mountbatten of Burma in an IRA bombing.

1-Sep Pioneer 11 becomes the first probe to take pictures from Saturn.
 
6-Sep President Carter commutes the sentences of four Puerto Rican nationalists who
were convicted of terrorist activities in the 1950s.

4-Nov Muslim students in Tehran seize the U.S. embassy in Iran and hold 52 Americans hostage.
Most will remain hostages for the remainder of the Carter administration.

22-Nov Thirteen of the 62 America hostages in Iran are released.

25-Nov U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim calls for an emergency meetings of the
Security Council to deal with the situation in Iran.

26-Dec The price of gold reaches an impressive $500/ounce for the first time (see July 18).

29-Dec The first reports of Soviet troops entering Afghanistan are made.