What happened in 1983

57 events　World 5, Japan 2, North America 13, Europe 10, USSR / Russia 3, Asia 8, Middle East 7, Latin America 5, Africa 2, Oceania 2

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Highlights of 1983

World5

  • Jun 13The first worldwide mobile telephone, the Motorola DynaTAC, enters the market.
  • Jul 21The lowest temperature on Earth is recorded in Vostok Station, Antarctica with −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F).
  • Sep 1Cold War: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 is shot down by Soviet Union Air Force Su-15 Flagon pilot Major Gennadi Osipovich near Moneron Island when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 on board are killed, including U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald.
  • Sep 27The GNU Project is announced publicly on the net.unix-wizards and net.usoft newsgroups.
  • Dec 4Solar eclipse of December 4, 1983.

Japan2

  • May 26The 7.8 Sea of Japan earthquake shakes northern Honshu with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami is generated that leaves about 100 people dead.
  • JulFamily Computer releasedA home video game console released by Nintendo on July 15 for 14,800 yen. Sold in the United States as the NES, it revived the North American game market that had collapsed in 1983.

North America13

  • Jan 25IRAS is launched from Vandenberg AFB, to conduct the world's first all-sky infrared survey from space.
  • Jan 30The Washington Redskins defeat the Miami Dolphins to win Super Bowl XVII at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
  • Feb 18Wah Mee massacre: 13 people are killed in an attempted robbery in the Chinatown area of Seattle, United States.
  • Mar 23Strategic Defense Initiative: U.S. President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.
  • Apr 4The Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on its maiden voyage: STS-6.
  • Apr 18The Disney Channel launches in the United States.
  • May 16Michael Jackson performs the Moonwalk for the first time while performing "Billie Jean" on the Motown 25 television special.
  • Jun 18Sally Ride becomes the first female American astronaut in space when she launches on board Challenger's STS-7 mission together with four male crewmates.
  • Aug 18Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 22 and causing over US$3.8 billion (2005 dollars) in damage.
  • Aug 29Two U.S. Marines are killed by mortar blast in Beirut, marking the first U.S. combat fatalities of the Multinational Force in Lebanon.
  • Sep 26The mass burial of around 700,000 unsold Atari video game cartridges, consoles, and computers occurs in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
  • Oct 25Word processor software Multi-Tool Word, soon to become Microsoft Word, is released in the United States. It is primarily the work of programmers Richard Brodie and Charles Simonyi. Free demonstration copies on disk are distributed with the November issue of PC World magazine.
  • Nov 71983 U.S. Senate bombing: A bomb explodes in the United States Senate with the intent to kill Republican senators; no one is injured. The perpetrators are members of the May 19th Communist Organization.

Europe10

  • Jan 261983 Code of Canon Law: Pope John Paul II revises Roman Catholic canon law, the first such revision since 1917. Among the changes is a reduction in the number of offenses qualifying for automatic excommunication, from 37 to only seven.
  • Mar 1The Balearic Islands and Madrid become Autonomous communities of Spain.
  • Apr 29Erich Honecker cancels planned goodwill visit to Bonn due to escalating nuclear tensions.
  • May 6Stern magazine publishes the "Hitler Diaries" (which are later found to be forgeries).
  • Jun 22Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old Vatican girl, mysteriously disappears in Rome while returning home from a music lesson. The disappearance of the girl led to many speculations involving international terrorism, Italian organized crime, and even a plot inside the Vatican to cover a sexual scandal inside the Holy See. Because of all these theories, the Orlandi case would later become Italy's most famous mystery.
  • Jul 15The Orly Airport attack in Paris leaves eight dead and 55 injured.
  • Nov 7Able Archer 83: Many Soviet officials misinterpret this NATO exercise as a nuclear first strike, causing the last nuclear scare of the Cold War.
  • Dec 7Two Spanish passenger planes collide on the foggy runway at a Madrid airport, killing 93 people.
  • Dec 17Harrods bombings: a Provisional IRA car bomb kills 6 people and injures 90 outside Harrods department store in London.
  • Leopold Kohr, the people of Belau, Amory and Hunter Lovins/Rocky Mountain Institute and Manfred Max Neef/CEPAUR win the Right Livelihood Award.

USSR / Russia3

  • Sep 6The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.
  • Sep 261983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident: Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war by correctly identifying a warning of attack by U.S. missiles as a false alarm.
  • Sep 26The Soyuz T-10-1 mission ends in a pad abort at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, when a pad fire occurs at the base of the Soyuz U rocket during the launch countdown. The escape tower system, attached to the top of the capsule containing the crew and Soyuz spacecraft, fires immediately, pulling the crew safe from the vehicle a few seconds before the rocket explodes, destroying the launch complex.

Asia8

  • Feb 18Nellie massacre: Over 2,000 people, mostly Bangladeshi Muslims, are massacred in Assam, India, during the Assam agitation.
  • Jul 1A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet, en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea, crashes into the Fouta Djall Mountains of Guinea, killing all 23 people on board.
  • Jul 2313 Sri Lanka Army soldiers are killed during a deadly ambush by the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, thus beginning the Sri Lankan Civil War, which would continue until 2009.
  • Jul 24The Black July anti-Tamil riots begin in Sri Lanka, killing between 400 and 3,000 Sri Lankan Tamils and Hill-country Tamils.
  • Aug 21Benigno Aquino Jr., Philippines opposition leader, is assassinated in Manila just as he returns from exile.
  • Oct 9The Rangoon bombing kills South Korea's Foreign Minister, Lee Bum Suk, and 21 others. The perpetrators are believed to be North Koreans.
  • Nov 19An attempted hijacking of Aeroflot Flight 6833 in Soviet Georgia results in several dead and wounded.
  • Dec 5ICIMOD is established and inaugurated with its headquarters in Kathmandu, Nepal, and legitimised through an Act of Parliament in Nepal this same year.

Middle East7

  • Apr 18The 1983 United States embassy bombing in Beirut kills 63 people.
  • May 17Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
  • Jun 18Iranian teenager Mona Mahmudnizhad and nine other women are hanged because they are members of the Baháʼí Faith.
  • Sep 23Gulf Air Flight 771 crashes in the United Arab Emirates after a bomb explodes in the baggage compartment, killing 117.
  • Oct 23Beirut barracks bombing: Simultaneous suicide truck-bombings destroy both the French Army and United States Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. servicemen, 58 French paratroopers and 6 Lebanese civilians.
  • Nov 3Commencement of the battle of Tripoli between Arafat loyalists and PLO dissidents.
  • Dec 13Turgut Özal, of ANAP forms the new government of Turkey (45th government); beginning a new civilian regime.

Latin America5

  • Jun 30A total loss of coolant occurs at the Embalse Nuclear Power Station, Argentina. It is classified as an "Accident With Local Consequences" – level 4 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
  • Oct 19Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of Grenada, and 40 others are assassinated in a military coup.
  • Oct 25Invasion of Grenada by United States troops at the behest of Eugenia Charles of Dominica, a member of the Organization of American States.
  • Nov 17The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is founded in Mexico.
  • Nov 27Colombian Avianca Flight 011 crashes near Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain, killing 181 of the 192 on board.

Africa2

  • May 20Church Street bombing: A car bombing in Pretoria, South Africa, kills 19 people. The bomb has been planted by members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, a military wing of the African National Congress.
  • Jun 5The Second Sudanese Civil War begins in Sudan.

Oceania2

  • Feb 16The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim the lives of 75 people, in one of Australia's worst bushfire disasters.
  • Sep 26The Australian yacht Australia II wins the America's Cup, the first successful challenge to the New York Yacht Club's 132-year defence of the sailing trophy.