1984
1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday (link shows calendar).
Events
January-February
- January 1 - Brunei becomes a fully independent state.
- January 1 - AT&T is broken up into 22 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 22 - The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to use a computer mouse and GUI interface, is introduced by Apple Computer corporation in a Super Bowl commercial evoking images from George Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
- January 24 - The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale
- February 3 - Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on the tenth space shuttle mission.
- February 7 - Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.
- February 13 - Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
March-May
- June 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 - Gerry Adams seriously wounded in an assassination attempt
- March 16 - CIA station chief stationed in Beirut, William Buckley, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists 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.
- April 4 - President Ronald Wilson Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
- 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 8 - The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
- May 11 - A transit of Earth from Mars takes place; no one is there to observe it.
June-August
- June 5 - The Indian government begins Operation Blue Star, the planned attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
- June 30 - John Turner becomes Canada's seventeenth prime minister.
- July 18 - In San Ysidro, California, 41-year-old James Oliver Huberty sprays a McDonald's restaurant with gun-fire killing 21 people before being shot dead by police.
- July 21 - In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in 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.
- August 4 - The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso.
- August 16 - Carmaker John De Lorean is acquitted of all eight counts of possessing and distributing cocaine.
September-October
- September 5 - STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
- September 17 - Brian Mulroney becomes Canada's eighteenth prime minister.
- October 5 - Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger (41-6).
- October 11 - Margaret Thatcher survives an IRA bomb.
- October 11 - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
- October 12 - Brighton bombing (attempt to assassinate the British Cabinet)
- October 31 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards (riots soon broke out in New Delhi and nearly 2,000 innocent Sikhs were killed).
November-December
- November 2 - Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
- November 6 - Ronald Wilson Reagan defeats Walter F. Mondale in the U.S. presidential election.
- 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 28 - Over 250 years after their deaths, William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made Honorary Citizens of the United States.
- 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 19 - The People's Republic of China and United Kingdom signs the Sino-British Joint Declaration which concerns the future of Hong Kong.
- Ethiopian famine begins.
Year in topic
- 1984 in film
- Amadeus
- The Killing Fields
- Places in the Heart
- May 23 - Indiana Jones 2 starring Harrison Ford
- Friday, June 8, 1984 - Ghostbusters
- Friday, October 26, 1984 - Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator
- November 26 - Filming starts on Back to the Future.
- 1984 in literature
- The New International Version of the Bible is published.
- The influential cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, by William Gibson, is published in March.
- 1984 in music
- The influential rap group, the Ultramagnetic MCs, form in the Bronx.
- Iron Maiden released Powerslave, their 5th studio album and their 3rd with front-man Bruce Dickinson showing the world the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was there to stay.
- Metallica released Ride the Lightning.
- Prince released Purple Rain.
- 1984 in sports
- January 14 - Ray Mancini stops 2 time world champion Bobby Chacon in the third round of a long awaited boxing fight, to retain the WBA's world Lightweight title.
- January 22 - Super Bowl XVIII Los Angeles Raiders (38) def. Washington Redskins (9)
- January 27 - Carl Lewis beats his own indoor world jumping record by 9-1/4 inches with a 28 feet, 10-1/4 inches jump.
- February 8 - 1984 Winter Olympics open in Sarajevo
- May 19 - The NHL's Edmonton Oilers win the Stanley Cup defeating the New York Islanders 5-2 at Edmonton and ending the Islanders dynasty. The first in Oilers club history and of a new dynasty.
- Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California, USA
- Baseball - The Detroit Tigers start the season 35-5 on their way to a World Series victory.
- 1984 in television
- January 28 - singer Michael Jackson's hair catches fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial
- Jeopardy! debuts on NBC.
- The Cosby Show debuts on NBC.
- Miami Vice debuts on NBC.
Births
- January 15 - Megan Quann, swimmer
- February 1 - Jim Donelson, radio/tv personality
- February 26 - Natalia Lafourcade, Mexican pop singer
- April 10 - Mandy Moore, singer, actress
- April 18 - America Ferrera, actress
- May 29 - Carmelo Anthony, NBA star
- June 8 - Robyn Wilsbach, art critic
- August 1 - Alessandra Angleton, twin daughter of Robert Angleton and Doris Angleton
- August 1 - Nicole Angleton, twin daughter of Robert Angleton and Doris Angleton
- September 7 - Vera Zvonareva, tennis player
- September 14 - Adam Lamberg, actor (Lizzie McGuire)
- September 16 - Prince Harry of Wales, English prince
- September 27 - Avril Lavigne, Canadian singer/songwriter
- September 30 - Tintor Marko, soccer player
- October 4 - Lena Katina, member of t.A.T.u.
- October 14 - Santino Quaranta, American soccer player
- November 9 - Delta Goodrem, actress, singer
- November 21 - Jena Malone, actress
- December 27 - Adrian J. Hopkins, publisher, Sphere BiWeekly Magazine
- December 30 - LeBron James, NBA star
Deaths
- January 20 - Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and actor. Most prominent as Tarzan.
- February 9 - Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
- February 15 - Ethel Merman, singer, actress
- February 22 - Jessamyn West, writer
- March 1 - Jackie Coogan, actor
- March 5 - William Powell, actor
- March 21 - Sir Michael Redgrave, actor
- April 1 - Marvin Gaye, singer
- April 22 - Ansel Adams, American photographer
- April 26 - Count Basie, musician, composer (b. 1904)
- May 16 - Andy Kaufman, comedian
- May 16 - Irwin Shaw, author
- June 26 - Michel Foucault, philosopher
- July 1 - Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of the Feldenkrais Method
- July 8 - Brassaï, photographer
- July 26 - Ed Gein, serial killer
- August 5 - Richard Burton, actor
- August 14 - J. B. Priestley, English novelist and playwright
- August 25 - Waite Hoyt, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1899)
- September 25 - Walter Pidgeon, actor
- October 12 - Sir Anthony Berry, British politician, along with three of the other victims of the Brighton bombing
- October 20 - Paul Dirac, physicist
- October 21 - François Truffaut, French film director
- Physics - Carlo Rubbia, Simon van der Meer
- Chemistry - Robert Bruce Merrifield
- Medicine - Niels K Jerne, Georges JF Köhler, César Milstein
- Literature -Jaroslav Seifert
- Peace - Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu
- Economics - Richard Stone
Fictional references to the year
- George Orwell's dystopian satire Nineteen Eighty-Four about a future totalitarian society was set in this year. The date was chosen by transposing 1948, the year in which Orwell wrote the book. Nineteen Eighty-Four was used as an imaginary year in the future by others as well, much like 1999 and 2001 were.