1983

See also:

Table of contents

1 Events

1.1 January
1.2 February-April
1.3 May-September
1.4 October
1.5 November
1.6 unknown dates

2 Year in topic
3 Births
4 Deaths

4.7 January-July
4.8 August-December
4.9 unknown dates

5 Nobel Prizes
6 Fictional References to the Year

Events

January 1 - Beat Raaflaub became Basel Boys Choir's new conductor
Saturday, January 1, 1983 - the ARPANET officially changes to use the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.
January 2 - The musical Annie is performed for the last time after 2,377 shows (Uris Theatre on Broadway, New York City).
January 19 - Klaus Barbie, Nazi war criminal, is arrested in Bolivia.
Wednesday, January 19, 1983 - The Apple Lisa personal computer is announced.
January 22 - Bjorn Borg retires from tennis after winning 5 consecutive Wimbledon championships.
January 26 - Lotus 1-2-3 is released.

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 United States Congress releases a report critical of the practice of Japanese internment during World War II.
March 8 - President Ronald Wilson Reagan calls the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire."
March 23 - Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Wilson Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles. The media dub this plan "Star Wars."
April 7 - During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first space shuttle spacewalk (duration: 4 hours, 10 minutes).
April 18 - The U.S Embassy is bombed in Beirut, killing 63 people.
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 17 - Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
June 18 - Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
June 27 - The Internet Domain Name System was invented by Paul Mockapetris.
July 7 - Samantha Smith flies to the Soviet Union (see Monday, April 25, 1983).
July 23 - Gimli Glider: Air Canada flight 143 crash-lands in Gimli, Manitoba.
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 21 - Benigno Aquino, Jr, Philippines opposition leader, assassinated in Manila.
September 1 - Cold War: Korean Air Flight KAL-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 KAL-007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.
September 26 - Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war

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 23 - United States Marine Corps barracks in Beirut destroyed by suicide bomber, killing 241.
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 2 - Martin Luther King Day: At the White House Rose Garden, US President Ronald Wilson 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 17 - The Zapatista Army of National Liberation founded.
November 26 - Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly UKÃÂÃÂ£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).

Democratic reform in power in Argentina.
American Public Radio founded; changes its name to the current Public Radio International in 1994
IBM announces the IBM PC XT