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| 1942 |
1942This article is about the year. For the 1984 Capcom arcade game, see 1942 (video game).
1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar).
Events
January
- January 1 - World War II: The term "United Nations" is first officially used to describe the Allied pact.
- January 2 - World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces. The Japanese Admiral stays in Solvec (owned by Charles Henry de Silva), Philippines.
- January 5 - Amy Johnson disappears in flight over River Thames estuary - assumed drowned
- January 6 - Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to have a flight go around the world.
- January 7 - World War II: Siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins
- January 11 - World War II: Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.
- January 11 - World War II: The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur.
- January 12 - President Franklin Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.
- January 13 - Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car
- January 16 - Airplane crashes near Las Vegas. Dead include Carole Lombard and her mother
- January 19 - World War II: Japanese forces invade Burma.
- January 20 - World War II: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide that the "final solution to the Jewish problem" is relocation, and later extermination.
- January 25 - World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom
- January 26 - World War II: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.
February
- February 9
- World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.
- Daylight-saving time goes into effect in the United States.
- February 11 - Operation Cerberus - Flotilla of Kriegsmarine ships dash from Brest through the English Channel to northern ports; British fail to sink any one of them
- February 15 - World War II: Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces.
- February 19
- World War II: 242 Japanese warplanes attack Darwin, Australia.
- World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs executive order 9066 allowing the United States military to define areas as exclusionary zones. These zones affect the Japanese on the West Coast, and Germans and Italians primarily on the East Coast.
- February 20 - Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace
- February 22 - World War II: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defense of the nation collapses.
- February 23 - Japanese submarine I-17 fires sixteen high-explosive shells toward an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, California, causing little damage.
- February 24 - Propaganda: The Voice of America begins broadcasting.
- February 25 - Princess Elizabeth registers for war service
- February 26 - Coal dust explosion in Honkeika mine in China - 1549 dead
- February 27 - World War II: the USS Langley, the first United States aircraft carrier, is sunk by Japanese warplanes off Java.
March
- March 9 - The Secretary of War reorganized the United States Army into three major commands - Army Ground Forces, Army Air Forces, and Services of Supply, later redesignated Army Service Forces
April-June
Army Service Forces.]]
- April 3 - World War II: Japanese forces begin an all-out assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula. Bataan fell on April 9 and the Bataan Death March began.
- April 5 - Second World War: Japanese Navy attacks Colombo in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Royal Navy Cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire are sunk southwest of the island.
- April 9 - Second World War: Japanese Navy launches air raid on Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Royal Navy Aircraft Carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy Destroyer HMAS Vampire are sunk off the country's East Coast.
- April 27 - World War II: A national plebiscite is held in Canada on the issue of conscription.
- May - first test of an undersea oil pipeline in Operation Pluto
- May 6 - World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
- May 8 - World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end. This is the first time in the naval history where two enemy fleets fought without seeing each other's fleets.
- May 8/May 9 - Second World War: On the night of 8/9 May 1942, gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebelled. Their mutiny was crushed and three of them were executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.
- 1942 - World War II: Second Battle of Kharkov - In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive. During the battle the Soviets will capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.
- May 15 - World War II: In the United States, a bill creating the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.
- May 20 - First colored seamen taken into US Navy
- May 27 - World War II: Operation Anthropoid - assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague
- June 4 - World War II: Reinhard Heydrich dies in Prague due to the assassination by Czechoslovak paratroopers (Operation Anthropoid)
- June 4-June 7 - World War II: The Battle of Midway.
- June 7 - World War II- Japanese forces invade the Aleutian Islands. This is the first invasion of American soil in 128 years.
- June 9 - World War II: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice as reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich.
- June 10 - World War II: the Gestapo massacred 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia in retaliztion for the killing of a Nazi official.
- June 12 - Holocaust: Future essayist Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.
- June 13 - The United States opens its Office of War Information, a center for production of propaganda.
July
- July 1 - July 27 - World War II: the First Battle of El Alamein
- July 9 - Holocaust: Anne Frank's family goes into hiding in an attic above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.
- July 13 - World War II: German U-Boats sink three more merchant ships in Gulf of St. Lawrence.
- July 16 - Holocaust: On order from the Vichy France government headed by Pierre Laval, French police officers round-up 13,000-20,000 Jews and imprison them in the Winter Velodrome.
- July 16 - Georges Bégué and others escape from Mauzac prison camp
- July 18 - World War II: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jets for the first time.
- July 19 - World War II: Battle of the Atlantic - German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to an effective American convoy system.
- July 22 - Holocaust: The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins.
- July 31 - The Oxford Committee of Famine Relief (OXFAM) founded
August-September
- August 7 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - US Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with a landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
- August 8 - World War II: In Washington, DC, six German would-be saboteurs are executed (two others were cooperative and received life imprisonment instead).
- August 8 - Quit India resolution was passed by the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), which led to the start of a historical civil disobidience movement across India
- August 9 - Indian leader, Mohandas Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces.
- August 13-14 night - In London instruments detect a massive burst of cosmic rays
- August 16 - Polish-Jewish teacher Janusz Korczak follows a group of Jewish children into Treblinka death camp
- August 19 - World War II: The Dieppe Raid - Allied forces raid Dieppe, France.
- August 22 - World War II: Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy.
- September 3 -
- Francisco Franco fires foreign minister Serrano Súñer
- An attempt by the Germans to liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Lakhva leads to an uprising.
- September 24 - Andrée Borrel and Lise de Baissac became the first female SOE agents to be parachuted into occupied France.
October
- October 2 - British cruiser Curacao collides with the liner Queen Mary off the coast of Donegal and sinks - 338 drowned
- October 3 - First successful launch of A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. The rocket flew 147 kilometres wide and reached a height of 84.5 kilometres and was therefore the first man-made object reaching space.
- October 9 - Statute of Westminster Adoption Act formalizes Australian autonomy.
- October 11 - World War II: Battle of Cape Esperance - On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.
- October 14 - A German U-boat sinks the ferry SS Caribou, killing 137.
- October 16 - Hurricane and flooding in Bombay - 40,000 dead
- October 23 - November 4 - World War II: the Second Battle of El Alamein
- October 28 - The Alaska Highway is completed.
- October 29 - Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.
November
Jew
- November 3 - World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein ends - German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.
- November 8 - World War II: Operation Torch - United States and United Kingdom forces land in French North Africa.
- November 8 - World War II: French resistance Coup in Algiers, by which 400 French civil resistants neutralized the vichyist XIXth Army Corps and the vichyist generals (Juin, Darlan, etc.), so allowing the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers, and from there in the whole French North Africa.
- November 9 - World War II: U.S serviceman Edward Leonswki hanged at Melbourne's Pentridge Prison for the "Brown-Out" Murders of three women in May
- November 10 - World War II: In violation of a 1940 armistice, Germany invades Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.
- November 12 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - A naval battle near Guadalcanal starts between Japanese and American forces.
- November 13 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal - Aviators from the USS Enterprise sink the Japanese heavy cruiser BB- Hiei.
- November 15 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal ends - Although the United States Navy suffered heavy losses, it was able to retain control of Guadalcanal.
- November 19 - World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
- November 21 - The completion of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (the "highway" was not usable by general vehicles until 1943, however).
- November 22 - World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - The situation for the German attackers of Stalingrad seems desperate during the Soviet counter-attack Operation Uranus and General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th army is surrounded.
- November 23 - German U-boat sinks SS Ben Lomond off the coast of Brazil. One crewman, Chinese second steward Poon Lim, is separated from the others and spends 130 days adrift until he is rescued April 3 1943
- November 27 - World War II: At Toulon, the French navy scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of Nazi hands.
- November 28 - In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove night club kills 491 people.
- November 28 - The large-scale German "pacification" of Zamojszczyzna begins.
December
- December 2 - Manhattan Project: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (a coded message, "The Italian navigator has landed in the new world" was then sent to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt).
- December 4 - Holocaust: In Warsaw, two Christian women, Zofia Kossak and Wanda Filipowicz risk their lives by setting up the Council for the Assistance of the Jews.
Undated
- Catavi massacre - Bolivian soldiers shoot miners
- Serial killer Singing Strangler in Melbourne
- Grand Coulee Dam finished in Columbia River
- DDT first used as a pesticide
Ongoing events
- World War II (1939-1945)
- Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
- 1942 in art
- 1942 in film
- Mrs. Miniver
- Bambi
- Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman
- Quattro passi fra le nuvole by Alessandro Blasetti.
- 1942 in literature
- Mythology
- 1942 in music
- "White Christmas" - Bing Crosby
- 1942 in rail transport
- 1942 in sports
- 1942 in television
- April 13 - The FCC minimum programming time required of TV stations is cut from 15 hours to four hours a week during the war.
Births
Unknown date
- Roger Angleton, American murderer (d. 1998)
- Priscilla Davis, American socialite (d. 2001)
January
- January 1 - Martin Frost, American politician
- January 1 - Gennadi Sarafanov, cosmonaut
- January 2 - Hugh Shelton, American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
- January 3 - John Thaw, English actor (d. 2002)
- January 5 - Maurizio Pollini, Italian pianist
- January 5 - Charlie Rose, American talk show host
- January 7 - Vasily Alexeev, Soviet weightlifter
- January 8 - Stephen Hawking, British physicist
- January 8 - Junichiro Koizumi, Prime Minister of Japan
- January 8 - Yvette Mimieux, American actress
- January 8 - George Passmore, English artist (Gilbert and George)
- January 15 - Charo, American singer and actress
- January 17 - Muhammad Ali, American boxer
- January 17 - Cus D'Amato, boxing manager (d. 1985)
- January 17 - Ulf Hoelscher, German violinist
- January 17 - Nancy Parsons, American actress (d. 2001)
- January 19 - Michael Crawford, singer and actor
- January 25 - Carl Eller, American football player
- January 25 - Eusébio, Portuguese footballer
- January 31 - Derek Jarman, English director and writer (d. 1994)
February
- February 1 - Terry Jones, Welsh actor and writer
- February 2 - Graham Nash, English musician
- February 5 - Roger Staubach, American football player
- February 9 - Carole King, American singer and composer
- February 12 - Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel
- February 13 - Peter Tork, American musician and actor
- February 19 - Paul Krause, American football player
- February 20 - Phil Esposito, Canadian hockey player
- February 21 - Margarethe von Trotta, German actress, film director, and writer
- February 24 - Joseph Lieberman, American politician
- February 27 - Robert H. Grubbs, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- February 28 - Brian Jones, English musician (The Rolling Stones) (d. 1969)
March
- March 2 - John Irving, American author
- March 2 - Lou Reed, American singer and guitarist
- March 4 - Charles C. Krulak, U.S. Marine Corps commander
- March 5 - Felipe González Márquez, Spanish politician
- March 7 - Tammy Faye Bakker, American evangelist
- March 7 - Michael Eisner, American film studio executive
- March 9 - John Cale, Welsh composer and musician
- March 13 - Dave Cutler, American software engineer
- March 16 - James Soong, Taiwan politician
- March 17 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (d. 1994)
- March 23 - Walter Rodney, Guyanese historian and political figure
- March 25 - Aretha Franklin, American singer
- March 25 - Richard O'Brien, English-born actor and writer
- March 26 - Erica Jong, American author
- March 27 - John E. Sulston, British chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- March 27 - Michael York, English actor
April
- April 2 - Hiroyuki Sakai, Japanese chef
- April 3 - Marsha Mason, American actress
- April 3 - Wayne Newton, American singer
- April 5 - Peter Greenaway, Welsh filmmaker
- April 5 - Pascal Couchepin, Swiss Federal Councilor
- April 6 - Barry Levinson, American film producer and director
- April 14 - Valeriy Brumel, Russian athlete (d. 2003)
- April 14 - Valentin Lebedev, cosmonaut
- April 26 - Bobby Rydell, American singer
- April 26 - Michael Kergin, Canadian diplomat
May
- May 2 - Jacques Rogge, Belgian International Olympic Committee president
- May 5 - Tammy Wynette, American musician (d. 1998)
- May 9 - John Ashcroft, United States Attorney General
- May 12 - Ian Dury, British musician (d. 2000)
- May 17 - Taj Mahal, American singer and guitarist
- May 18 - Albert Hammond, English-born musician and composer
- May 18 - Nobby Stiles, English footballer
- May 19 - Gary Kildall, American computer scientist (d. 1994)
- May 22 - Theodore Kaczynski, American bomber
- May 22 - Calvin Simon, American musician (P Funk)
- May 26 - Levon Helm, American musician (The Band)
- May 28 - Stanley B. Prusiner, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
June
- June 3 - Curtis Mayfield, American musician (d. 1999)
- June 10 - Preston Manning, Canadian politician
- June 12 - Bert Sakmann, German physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
- June 17 - Mohamed ElBaradei, Egyptian International Atomic Energy Agency director, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- June 18 - Roger Ebert, American film critic
- June 18 - Paul McCartney, English musician and composer (The Beatles)
- June 18 - Hans Vonk, Dutch conductor
July
- July 4 - Floyd Little, American football player
- July 4 - Prince Michael of Kent
- July 7 - Carmen Duncan, Welsh-born actress
- July 10 - Pyotr Klimuk, cosmonaut
- July 10 - Ronnie James Dio, American singer
- July 13 - Harrison Ford, American actor and producer
- July 13 - Roger McGuinn, American musician
- July 15 - Mil Mascaras, Mexican professional wrestler
- July 17 - Tim Brooke-Taylor, English radio and television personality
- July 23 - Myra Hindley, English murderer
- July 24 - Chris Sarandon, American actor
- July 27 - Dennis Ralston, American tennis player
- July 29 - Tony Sirico, American actor
August
- August 1 - Jerry Garcia, American musician (d. 1995)
- August 2 - Isabel Allende, Chilean writer
- August 4 - David Lange, Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 2005)
- August 7 - Garrison Keillor, American writer and radio host
- August 19 - Fred Thompson, U.S. Senator and actor
- August 20 - Isaac Hayes, American singer and actor
- August 26 - Dennis Turner, British politician
- August 28 - Sterling Morrison, American musician (d. 1995)
September
- September 1 - John Lange, American scientist
- September 19 - Freda Payne, American singer and actress
- September 22 - David Stern, American commissioner of the National Basketball Association
- September 28 - Marshall Bell, American actor
- September 29 - Madeline Kahn, American actress (d. 1999)
- September 29 - Jean-Luc Ponty, French jazz violinist
- September 30 - Frankie Lymon, American singer (d. 1968)
October
- October 11 - Amitabh Bachchan, Indian actor
- October 12 - Melvin Franklin, American musician (d. 1995)
- October 13 - Jerry Jones, American football team owner
- October 19 - Andrew Vachss, American author and attorney
- October 20 - Earl Hindman, American actor (d. 2003)
- October 20 - Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, German biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- October 21 - Elvin Bishop, American musician
- October 22 - Annette Funicello, American actress
- October 23 - Michael Crichton, American author
- October 26 - Bob Hoskins, British actor
November
- November 1 - Ralph Klein, Premier of Alberta
- November 8 - Angel Cordero Jr., Puerto Rican jockey
- November 8 - Fernando Sorrentino, Argentine writer
- November 10 - Robert F. Engle, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- November 10 - Hans-Rudolf Merz, Swiss Federal Councilor
- November 13 - John P. Hammond, American singer
- November 15 - Daniel Barenboim, Argentine-born pianist and conductor
- November 17 - Martin Scorsese, American film director
- November 20 - Joe Biden, U.S. Senator from Delaware
- November 27 - Henry Carr, American athlete
- November 27 - Jimi Hendrix, American musician (d. 1970)
- November 28 - Paul Warfield, American football player
- November 29 - Michael Craze, British actor (d. 1998)
- November 29 - Philippe Huttenlocher, Swiss baritone
December
- December 4 - Gemma Jones, British actress
- December 6 - Peter Handke, Austrian novelist
- December 7 - Peter Tomarken, American game show host
- December 9 - Dick Butkus, American football player
- December 11 - Donna Mills, American actress
- December 17 - Paul Butterfield, American musician (d. 1987)
- December 20 - Bob Hayes, American athlete
- December 21 - Carla Thomas, American singer
- December 29 - Rajesh Khanna, Indian actor
Unknown date
- Moammar Al Qadhafi, leader of Libya
Deaths
- January 6 - Henri de Baillet-Latour, Belgian International Olympic Committee president (b. 1876)
- January 14 - Porfirio Barba-Jacob, Colombian poet and writer (b. 1883)
- January 16 - Carole Lombard, American actress (b. 1908)
- January 26 - Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician (suicide) (b. 1868)
- February 19 - Frank Abbandando, American gangster (executed) (b. 1910)
- February 28 - Karel Doorman, Dutch admiral (sinking ship) (b. 1889)
- March 1 - Cornelius Vanderbilt III, American military officer, inventor, and engineer (b. 1873)
- March 8 - José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban chess player (b. 1888)
- March 10 - William Henry Bragg, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1862)
- March 21 - J.S Woodsworth, Canadian politician (b. 1874)
- April 15 - Robert Musil, Austrian-born novelist (b. 1880)
- April 17 -
1984:For George Orwell's novel, see Nineteen Eighty-Four. For other uses, see 1984 (disambiguation).
1984 (MCMLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.
Events
January
- January 1 - Brunei becomes a fully independent state.
- January 1 - AT&T is broken up into 24 independent units.
- January 5 - Richard Stallman starts developing GNU.
- January 7 - Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
- January 9 - Clara Peller is featured in the "Where's the Beef?" commercial campaign for Wendy's for the first time.
- January 10 - The United States and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations.
- January 23 - Hollywood Hulk Hogan defeats The Iron Sheik to win the WWF Championship, thus beginning Hulkamania.
- January 23 - Pop star Michael Jackson's scalp is seriously burned by pyrotechnics during filming of a Pepsi commercial.
- January 24 - The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale.
February
- February 1 - Medicare comes into effect in Australia.
- February 2 - Melbourne newspaper The Age publishes phone taps incriminating an unknown judge.
- February 3 - Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on the tenth space shuttle mission.
- February 6 - A bomb blast wrecks the Belrose Sydney home of high court judge Richard Gee. High Court Judge, Justice Lionel Murphy is named in Parliament as the judge referred to in the Age tapes as published on February 2.
- February 7 - Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.
- February 9 - Soviet leader Yuri Andropov dies.
- February 13 - Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
- February 18 - Vatican and Italian government sign new concordant changing Roman Catholic as the official religion.
- February 26 - United States Marines pull out of Beirut,Lebanon.
- February 29 - Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announces his retirement.
March
- March 5 - Iran accuses Iraq of the use of chemical weapons - UN condemns the use on March 30.
- March 5 - Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi orders an attack on the Golden Temple, the Sikh holy spot.
- March 6 - Twelve month long strike in British coal industry begins See UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985).
- March 14 - Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and three others are seriously injured in a gun attack by the UVF.
- March 16 - The CIA station chief in Beirut, William Buckley, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists Islamic Jihad and later dies in captivity.
- March 22 - Teachers at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California are charged with Satanic ritual abuse of the children in the school. The charges were later dropped as completely unfounded.
- March 23 - Sarah Tisdall, the young British civil servant who told The Guardian newspaper that cruise missiles were coming to Britain, is sentenced to six months imprisonment.
- March 24 - Wran Government re-elected in NSW for a 4th term.
April
- April 4 - President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
- April 12 - Palestinian gunmen take Israeli bus number 300 hostage. Israeli special forces storm the bus freeing the hostages (1 hostage, 2 hijackers killed). 2 other hijackers were captured and then killed in secret service interrogations, causing a major scandal and secret service upheaval (Kav 300 affair).
- April 13 - India launches Operation Meghdoot, as most of the Siachen Glacier in Kashmir comes under Indian control.
- April 17 - WPC Yvonne Fletcher is shot dead by a secluded gunman during a siege outside the Libyan Embassy in London in the event known as the 1984 Libyan Embassy Siege.
- April 19 - Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.
- April 25 - End of term for Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Al-Mustain Billah ibni Almarhum Sultan Sir Abu Bakar Riayatuddin Al-Muadzam Shah as the 7th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- April 26 - Baginda Almutawakkil Alallah Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail, Sultan of Johor becomes the 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
May
- May 2 - The Liverpool International Garden Festival opens in Liverpool.
- May 8 - The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
- May 8 - Denis Lortie kills three government employees in the National Assembly of Quebec building.
- May 11 - A transit of Earth from Mars takes place.
- May 14 - The one dollar coin is introduced in Australia.
- May 19 - Game show contestant Michael Larson takes $100,000 in winnings from the game show Press Your Luck. It is later revealed he won the money by focusing exclusively on two squares of the Press Your Luck "Big Board."
- May 22 - Canadian heiress Helen Branch declared legally dead (she disappeared 1977)
- May 27 - Fluminense wins the Brazilian soccer league, against the Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama.
June
- June 5 - The Indian government begins Operation Blue Star, the planned attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
- June 6 - Indian troops storm the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the Sikh's holiest shrine, killing an estimated 1000 people.
- June 8 - A deadly F5 tornado nearly destroys the town of Barneveld, Wisconsin, killing nine people, injuring nearly 200, and causing over $25,000,000 in damage.
- June 8 - The film Ghostbusters is released into theaters -- becoming a summer blockbuster hit with the song "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker Jr. becoming a Top 40 hit.
- June 20 - The biggest exam shake-up in the British education system in over 10 years is announced with O-level and CSE exams to be replaced by a new exam, the GCSE.
- June 22 - The official name of the Turkish city Urfa is changed into Sanliurfa.
- June 22 - Inaugural flight of Virgin Atlantic.
- June 27 - France beat Spain 2-0 to win Euro 84.
- June 30 - John Turner becomes Canada's seventeenth prime minister. Hurray!
July-August
- July 9 - Lightning sets fire to York Minster.
- July 10 - British custom officials open a wooden crate of diplomatic post due to an unpleasant smell and find the body of Alhaji Umaru Dikko, former transportation minister of Nigeria
- July 14 - New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon calls a snap election and is heavily defeated by opposition Labour leader David Lange.
- July 18 - In San Ysidro, California, 41-year-old James Oliver Huberty sprays a McDonald's restaurant with gunfire, killing 21 people before being shot dead.
- July 18 - The National Crime Authority is estabished in Australia.
- July 21 - In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in what is apparently the first robot-related death in the United States.
- July 23 - Vanessa Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown, after nude photos of her appeared in "Penthouse" magazine.
- July 25 - Salyut 7 Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
- July 28 - Opening day of the 1984 Olympics
- August 1 - Australian banks are deregulated.
- August 4 - The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso.
- August 16 - John De Lorean is acquitted of all eight charges of possessing and distributing cocaine.
- August 21 - Half a million people in Manila demonstrate against the regime of Ferdinand Marcos.
- August 21 - The federal budget is first televised in Australia.
- August 30 - STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.
September-October
- September 2 - 7 people are shot dead and 12 are wounded in a bikie shootout between rival gangs Bandidos and Comancheros in the Sydney suburb of Milperra.
- September 4 - The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, led by Brian Mulroney wins 211 seats in the House of Commons, forming the largest majority government in Canadian history
- September 5 - STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
- September 5 - Western Australia becomes the last Australian state to abolish capital punishment.
- September 17 - Brian Mulroney becomes Canada's eighteenth prime minister.
- September 26 - United Kingdom and People's Republic of China sign the initial agreement to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.
- September 4 - The Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends television series was first broadcasted on ITV.
- October 5 - Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger (41-6).
- October 11 - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
- October 12 - The PIRA attempts to assassinate the British Cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.
- October 19 - Polish secret police arrests Jerzy Popiełuszko, a Catholic priest, because of his support of the Solidarity movement. His dead body is found in a reservoir 11 days later on October 30.
- October 31 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards. Riots soon broke out in New Delhi, and some 2,700 innocent Sikhs were killed.
November
- November 2 - Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
- November 6 - Ronald Reagan defeats Walter F. Mondale in the U.S. presidential election with 59% of the popular vote, the highest since Richard Nixon's 61% victory in 1972. Reagan carries 49 states and Mondale manages to win only his home state of Minnesota by a mere 3,761 vote margin and the District of Columbia.
- November 19 - A series of explosions at the PEMEX petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City ignites a major fire and kills about 500 people.
- November 25 - 36 of Britain and Ireland's top pop musicians gathered in a Notting Hill studio to form Band Aid and recorded the song "Do They Know It's Christmas" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.
- November 26 - Fmr NSW Corrective Services Minister Rex Jackson appears in court on conspiracy charges for the early release of prisoners.
- November 28 - Over 250 years after their deaths, William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made Honorary Citizens of the United States.
- November 30 - The Tamil Tigers begin the purge of the Sinhalese from North and East Sri Lanka, and 127 are killed.
December
- December 1 - The first half of the Manila LRT opens from Baclaran to Central Terminal.
- December 2 - Bob Hawke's government is re-elected in Australia with a reduced majority.
- December 3 - Bhopal Disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 2,000 people outright and injures anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.
- December 3 - British Telecom privatised.
- December 19 - The People's Republic of China and United Kingdom signs the Sino-British Joint Declaration which concerns the future of Hong Kong.
- December 22 - Four African-American youths, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, James Ramseur, and Darrell Cabey, board an express train in The Bronx borough of New York City. They attempt to rob Bernhard Hugo Goetz, who shoots them. The event starts a national debate about urban crime, which was a plague in 1980s America.
- December 22 - In Malta, prime minister Dom Mintoff resigns. Karmenu Mifsud-Bonnici succeeds him.
- December 28 - A Soviet cruise missile plunges into Inarinjärvi lake in Finnish Lapland. Finnish authorities announce the fact in public on January 3, 1985
- December 31 - Rajiv Gandhi becomes prime minister of India.
Unknown dates
- Ethiopian famine begins.
- A peace agreement between Kenya and Somalia was signed in the Egyptian capital Cairo in December 1984. With this agreement, in which Somalia officially renounced its historical territorial claims, relations between the two countries began to improve.
Births
January-April
- January 1 - Keyra Augustina, model
- January 2 - Lauren Bush, model
- January 3 - Maya Ababadjani, actress
- January 3 - Charlotte Marshall, model
- January 4 - Mey Vidal
- January 5 - Tiffany Teen
- January 12 - Chaunte Howard
- January 13 - Eleni Ioannou, Greek martial artist (d. 2004)
- January 15 - Reena Kumari
- January 15 - Megan Quann, swimmer
- January 19 - Zakia Mrisho Mohamed
- January 25 - Ines Cudna, model
- January 26 - Rebecca Ritters, actress
- January 26 - Kelly Stables, actress
- January 26 - Luo Xuejuan, swimmer
- January 29 - Natalie du Toit, South African swimmer
- January 30 - Tan Xue
- January 31 - Ashley Blue
- February 10 - Kim Hyo Jin, Korean actress
- February 12 - Alexandra Dahlström, actress
- February 25 - Xing Huina, Chinese athlete
- February 28 - Karolina Kurkova, model
- March 20 - Christy Carlson Romano, actress
- March 20 - Marcus Vick, American football player
- March 20 - Nomura Yuka, Japanese actress
- March 28 - Nikki Sanderson, British actress
- April 3 - Allana Slater, Australian gymnast
- April 8 - Kirsten Storms, American actress
- April 10 - Mandy Moore, American singer and actress
- April 11 - Kelli Garner, American actress
- April 13 - Kris Britt, Australian cricketer
- April 17 - Rosanna Davison, Irish model
- April 18 - America Ferrera, American actress
- April 22 - Michelle Ryan, British actress
- April 23 - Alexandra Kosteniuk, Russian chess player
- April 29 - Taylor Cole, American actress and model
- April 29 - Lina Krasnoroutskaya, Russian tennis player and commentator
May-August
- May 1 - Farah Fath, American actress
- May 4 - Markus Rogan, Austrian swimmer
- May 17 - Christine Robinson, Canadian water polo player
- May 25 - Unnur Birna Vilhjálmsdóttir, Miss Iceland, crowned Miss World in 2005
- May 29 - Carmelo Anthony, American basketball player
- May 31 - Jason Smith, Australian actor
- June 11 - Vagner Love, Brazilian footballer
- June 13 - Berangere Schuh, French archer
- July 11 - Tanith Belbin, Canadian figure skater
- August 12 - Sherone Simpson, Jamaican athlete
- August 13 - Luke Thompson, American entrepreneurial failure
- August 20 - Mirai Moriyama, Japanese actor
- August 21 - Alizée Jacotey, French singer
September-December
- September 7 - Vera Zvonareva, Russian tennis player
- September 14 - Adam Lamberg, American actor
- September 15 - Prince Harry of Wales
- September 16 - Katie Melua, Georgian singer
- September 19 - Kevin Zegers actor
- September 23 - Anneliese van der Pol, Dutch actress
- September 27 - Avril Lavigne, Canadian singer and songwriter
- September 28 - Helen Oyeyemi, British novelist
- September 30 - Megan Ewing, American model
- October 3 - Ashlee Simpson, American singer and actress
- October 10 - Chiaki Kuriyama, Japanese actress
- October 14 - Santino Quaranta, American soccer player
- October 17 - Michelle Ang, Australian actress
- October 18 - Holly Dunaway, boxer
- October 26 - Sasha Cohen, American figure skater
- October 27 - Kelly Osbourne, English singer
- November 7 - Amelia Vega, Dominican beauty queen
- November 9 - Delta Goodrem, Australian actress and singer
- November 21 - Jena Malone, American actress
- November 22 - Scarlett Johansson, American actress
- November 28 - Andrew Bogut, Australian basketball player
- December 30 - LeBron James, American basketball player
Deaths
January-April
- January 7 - Alfred Kastler, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
- January 20 - Johnny Weissmuller, Austrian-born swimmer and actor (b. 1904)
- January 21 - Jackie Wilson, American singer (b. 1934)
- January 30 - Luke Kelly, Irish folk singer (b. 1940)
- February 8 - Karel Miljon, Dutch boxer (b. 1903)
- February 9 - Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (b. 1914)
- February 12 - Julio Cortázar, Argentine writer (b. 1914)
- February 15 - Ethel Merman, American singer and actress (b. 1908)
- February 21 - Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
- February 22 - Jessamyn West, American writer (b. 1902)
- March 1 - Jackie Coogan, American actor (b. 1914)
- March 5 - Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone (b. 1915)
- March 5 - William Powell, American actor (b. 1892)
- March 12 - Arnold Ridley, English playright and actor (b. 1896)
- March 16 - John Hoagland, American photographer (b. 1947)
- March 21 - Sir Michael Redgrave, English actor (b. 1908)
- March 24 - Sam Jaffe, American actor (b. 1891)
- April 1 - Marvin Gaye, American singer (b. 1939)
- April 8 - Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1894)
- April 15 - Tommy Cooper, Welsh comedian and magician (b. 1921)
- April 20 - Hristo Prodanov, Bulgarian mountaineer (b. 1943)
- April 22 - Ansel Adams, American photographer (b. 1902)
- April 26 - Count Basie, American musician and composer (b. 1904)
May-August
- May 2 - Jack Barry, American television host and producer (b. 1918)
- May 16 - Andy Kaufman, American comedian (b. 1949)
- May 16 - Irwin Shaw, American author (b. 1913)
- May 19 - John Betjeman, English poet (b. 1906)
- May 28 - Eric Morecambe, British comedian (d. 1926)
- June 26 - Michel Foucault, French philosopher (d. 1926)
- July 1 - Moshé Feldenkrais, Ukrainain founder of the Feldenkrais Method (b. 1904)
- July 8 - Brassaï, Hungarian-born photographer (b. 1899)
- July 14 - Philippe Wynne, American musician (b. 1941)
- July 26 - Ed Gein, American serial killer (b. 1906)
- August 2 - Quirino Cristiani, Argentine animated film director (b. 1896)
- August 5 - Richard Burton, Welsh actor (b. 1925)
- August 11 - Alfred A. Knopf, American publisher (b. 1892)
- August 13 - Tigran Petrosian, Georgian chess player (b. 1929)
- August 14 - J. B. Priestley, English novelist and playwright (b. 1894)
- August 25 - Waite Hoyt, baseball player (b. 1899)
September-December
- September 25 - Walter Pidgeon, Canadian actor (b. 1897)
- October 5 - Leonard Rossiter, British actor (b. 1926)
- October 12 - Sir Anthony Berry, British politician (bombing) (b. 1925)
- October 14 - Martin Ryle, English radio astronomer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (b. 1918)
- October 20 - Carl Ferdinand Cori, Austrian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1896)
- October 20 - Paul Dirac, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
- October 21 - François Truffaut, French film director (b. 1932)
- October 31 - Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (assassinated) (b. 1917)
- November 6 - Gastón Suárez, Bolivian novelist and dramatist (b. 1929)
- November 16 - Leonard Rose, American cellist (leukemia) (b. 1918)
- December 8 - Luther Adler, American actor (b. 1903)
- December 14 - Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1898)
- December 15 - Jan Peerce, American tenor (b. 1904)
- December 20 - Gonzalo Márquez, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player (b. 1946)
- December 28 - Sam Peckinpah, American film director (b. 1926)
Nobel Prizes
- Physics - Carlo Rubbia, Simon van der Meer
- Chemistry - Robert Bruce Merrifield
- Medicine - Niels Kaj Jerne, Georges J.F. Köhler, César Milstein
- Literature - Jaroslav Seifert
- Peace - Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu
- Richard Stone
- Michael Bourdeaux
- Imane Khalifeh, SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association) / Ela Bhatt, Winefreda Geonzon / FREE LAVA (Free Legal Assistance Volunteers' Association) and Wangari Maathai / Green Belt Movement
Fictional references
- The novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, written by George Orwell in the 1940's, presents a dystopian view of how life might be in the year the protagonist believes to be 1984.
- In the movie The Terminator both the title character and Kyle Reese are sent back through time from 2029 to May 12, 1984.
Category:1984
als:1984
ko:1984년
ms:1984
ja:1984年
simple:1984
th:พ.ศ. 2527
Capcom:For the original NASA meaning, see capsule communicator.
Capcom (カプコン in Japanese) is a leading Japanese developer and publisher of computer and video games. It was founded in 1979 as Japan | | |
