1984

1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January

• January 1 - Brunei becomes a fully independent state.
• January 1 - Bell System divestiture breaks AT&T into 24 independent units.
• January 3 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan meets with Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman and the Reverend Jesse Jackson at the White House, following Lieutenant Goodman's release from Syrian captivity.
• 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 - The Peace and Friendship Treaty is signed between Argentina and Chile in Vatican City.
• January 24 - The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale.
• January 27 - Pop star Michael Jackson's scalp is seriously burned by pyrotechnics during filming of a Pepsi television commercial.

February

• February 1 - Medicare comes into effect in Australia.
• February 2 - The Melbourne newspaper The Age publishes phone tapes incriminating an unknown judge.
• February 3 - STS-41-B: Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on the 10th space shuttle mission.
• February 7 - Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.
• February 8 - The 1984 Winter Olympics open in Sarajevo.
• February 9 - Disclosure of remarks by Jesse Jackson, considered anti-Semitic by some, hurt his presidential campaign.
• February 11 - STS-41-B: Space Shuttle Challenger makes the first shuttle landing at the Kennedy Space Center
• February 13 - Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• 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 using chemical weapons; the U.N. condemns their use on March 30.
• March 5 - Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi orders an attack on the Harimandir Sahib, the Sikh holy spot.
• March 6 - A year-long strike action begins in the British coal industry (See UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985).
• March 14 - Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams and 3 others are seriously injured in a gun attack by the UVF.
• March 16 - The CIA station chief in Beirut, William Francis Buckley, is kidnapped by 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 schoolchildren (the charges are later dropped as completely unfounded).
• March 23 - General Rahimuddin Khan becomes the first man in Pakistan's history to rule over 2 of its provinces, after becoming interim Governor of Sindh.
• March 27 - Starlight Express opens at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London.

April

• April 2 - Indian Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma is launched into space, aboard the Soyuz T-11.
• April 4 - U.S. 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). Two other hijackers are captured and then killed in secret service interrogations, causing a major scandal and secret service upheaval.
• 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 and killed by a secluded gunman during a siege outside the Libyan Embassy in London.
• April 19 - Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.
• April 25 - The term of Sultan Ahmad Shah as the 7th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia ends.
• April 26 - Sultan Iskandar, Sultan of Johor, becomes the 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.

May

• May 2 - The Liverpool International Garden Festival opens in Liverpool.
• May 5 - The Herreys win the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 for Sweden, with the song Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley.
• May 8 - The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
• May 8 - Denis Lortie kills 3 government employees in the National Assembly of Quebec building.
• May 8 - The longest game in Major League Baseball history begins at 7:30 PM between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago White Sox. The game will be played over the course of 2 days, lasting 25 innings, with a total time of 8 hours and 6 minutes.
• May 11 - Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure burns down, killing 8.
• May 11 - A transit of Earth from Mars takes place.
• May 12 - The Louisiana World's Fair opens.
• May 14 - The one dollar coin is introduced in Australia.

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 300 people.
• June 8 - A deadly F5 tornado nearly destroys the town of Barneveld, Wisconsin, killing 9 people, injuring nearly 200, and causing over $25,000,000 in damage.
• 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 Şanlıurfa.
• June 22 - Virgin Atlantic Airways makes its inaugural flight.
• June 27 - France beats Spain 2-0 to win the Euro 84.
• June 30 - John Napier Turner becomes Canada's 17th Prime Minister.

July

• July 4 - Richard Petty wins his 200th career NASCAR victory at the Firecracker 400 in Daytona, Florida.
• July 9 - Lightning sets fire to York Minster.
• July 12 - In San Francisco, the Democratic National Convention nominates Walter F. Mondale for U.S. President, and Geraldine Ferraro for Vice President.
• July 14 - New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon calls a snap election and is heavily defeated by opposition Labour leader David Lange.
• July 18 - The first Culver's opens in Sauk City, Wisconsin.
• 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 and killed.
• 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 Lynn Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown, after nude photos of her appear in "Penthouse" magazine.
• July 25 - Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
• July 28-August 12 - The 1984 Summer Olympics are held in Los Angeles, California.

August

• August 1 - Australian banks are dere