1983

1983 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar.

Years: 1980 1981 1982 - 1983(MCMLXXXIII) - 1984 1985 1986
Decades: 1950s 1960s 1970s - 1980s - 1990s 2000s 2010s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century Template:C20YearInTopic

Events

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January

January 1 - Compulsory wearing of seat belts becomes law in the UK.
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 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.

February

February 3 - Australian P.M Malcolm Fraser is granted a double dissolution of both houses of parliament for a double dissolution election for the March 5, on that day Bob Hawke replaces Bill Hayden as federal ALP leader
February 7 - Iran opens an invasion in the southeast of Iraq.
February 16 - The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim the lives of 71 people in Australia's worst ever fires.
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.

March

March 1
- Balearic Islands and Madrid become autonomous communities of Spain
- Swatch introduce their first timepieces
March 5 - 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 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."

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 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 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.

May

May 6 - Stern magazine publishes "Hitler Diaries" (later found to be forgeries).
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.

June

Shipbreaking begins on the beach at Alang in Gujarat.
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.

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 20 - Government of Poland announces end of the martial law and amnesty for political prisoners.
July 23 - Gimli Glider: Air Canada flight 143 crash-lands in Gimli, Manitoba.
July 28 New South Wales premier Neville Wran exonerated by Street Royal Commision over claims raised by ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) program Four Corners which claimed,he attempted to influence the NSW majestry

August

August 4 - Thomas Sankara become President in Upper Volta.
August 18 - Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 22 and causing over US$1 billion in damage (1983 dollars).
August 24 - Old Philadelphia Arena is destroyed by arson fire
August 21 - Benigno Aquino, Jr., Philippines opposition leader, assassinated in Manila

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 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 23 - Mass outbreak in Maze prison - 38 prisoners hijack a lorry and crash out of the gate - one guard dead, 5 injured. 19 of the prisoners are later apprehended.
September 23 - Barbara Turnbull, a Canadian 18 year old 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.

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 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 rape their daughter in the Sheffield suburb of Dore.
October 25 - United States invades Grenada.
October 27 - Pope John Paul II visits Mehmet Ali Agca in prison to forgive him. Ali Agca is a 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.

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 where killed and one severely wounded in an explosive decompression accident.
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 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 ASIS (Australian Secret Intelligence Service) agents bungle a training exercise on the Melbourne Sheraton
Microsoft Word is first released.

December

December 9 - The Australian Dollar is Floated, By Federal treasuer 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 17 - A fire at a discotheque in Madrid, Spain, kills 83 people.
December 17 - IRA 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 Marseilles. One on the Paris train kills 3 and injures 19. Other at Marseilles station kills 2 and injures 34.

Unknown dates

Democratic reform in power in Argentina.
McDonald's introduces the McNugget
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
Northern Territory, Australia, decriminilizes homosexual acts between consenting adults

Year in topic

1983 in film
- May 25 - Return of the Jedi
- November 23 - Terms of Endearment
- The Big Chill
- The Right Stuff
1983 in literature
1983 in music
- March 1 - Duran Duran's album Rio goes gold
March 25 - Pop singer Michael Jackson performs his Moonwalk dance maneuver for the first time during his performance of "Billie Jean" on the Motown 25 TV special, which would air nationally on NBC on May 16.
1983 in rail transport
1983 in sports
- March 6 - The United States Football League begins its first year of competition
September 26 - Australia wins the America's Cup ending the New York Yacht club's 132 year domination of the race
1983 in television
- February 28 - Over 100 million Americans tune in to watch the final episode of M*A*S*H on CBS making it the most watched television show in history at the time.
- March 7 - The Nashville Network (TNN) (now Spike TV) begins broadcasting.
- November 20 - ABC-TV in the USA broadcasts the controversial movie The Day After about what a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union might be like.
1983 in video gaming and computing
- January 1 - The ARPANET officially changes to use the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.
- January 19 - The Apple Lisa personal computer is announced.
- March 8 - IBM releases the IBM PC XT
- June 27 - The Internet Domain Name System was invented by Paul Mockapetris.
- June 27 - The conception of the MSX Home Computer System.
- November 10 - Microsoft announces the forthcoming release of a new software product, to be named Windows.
- Atari releases the game E.T. for the Atari 2600. It is considered the Worst Video Game of All Time.