January 1
France gets first deliveries of Soviet natural gas.

January 10
US and Vatican exchange diplomats for the first time in 116-years.

January 23
Look out Big Blue! Apple Computer, Inc. introduces the world’s first user-friendly, Macintosh personal computer. Its dramatic, Orwellian,1984-inspired Super Bowl TV ad introduces the product as a world smashing alternative to Big Brother’s grip on operating systems. See the "1984" ad. The LA Raiders beat the Redskins in the football game. See Sports, below.


February 7
President Reagan orders US Marines to withdraw from Beirut international peacekeeping force.

February 9
Soviet boss Yuri V. Andropov, (right) 69, dies a year after assuming office; Konstantin U. Chernenko, 72, is the ‘new’ leader.

February 18
Italy and the Vatican agree to end Roman Catholicism as the official state religion of Italy.

March 30
President Reagan ends US role in Beirut by relieving the Navy’s Sixth Fleet from the international peacekeeping force.

April 10
Congress rebukes President Reagan on use of federal funds for mining Nicaraguan harbors.

May 7
Soviet Union withdraws from summer Olympic games in US, and other Eastern bloc nations. The US had earlier boycotted the 1980 Games, held in Moscow, in protest of the USSR invasion of Afghanistan.

May 11
Jose Napoleon Duarte, a political moderate, is elected president of troubled El Salvador.

June 6
Three hundred are slain as Indian Army occupies Sikh Golden Temple (left) in Amritsar.

 

July 16-19
Democratic National Convention nominates Walter F. Mondale and Geraldine A. Ferraro, in San Francisco. Ferraro (right) is the first woman nominated as candidate for the Veep spot.

August 20-25
The Republicans, gathered in Dallas, nominate President Reagan and Vice President Bush.

September 4
Brian Mulroney’s Conservative party wins Canadian election in a landslide.

October 31
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards; 1,000 killed in anti-Sikh riots; Her son Rajiv succeeds her.

November 6
President Reagan is soundly re-elected in landslide with 59% of the popular vote.

December 3
Toxic gas leaks from Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing 2,000 and injuring 150,000.

ALSO IN 1984:
In the Miss America pageant, Vanessa Williams (right) of New York is crowned. Ms. Williams is the first African American to win the contest. She is asked to return the tiara and title when it is disclosed that earlier in life she appeared in several photo sessions wearing neither swimsuit nor evening wear. Resilient, Vanessa Williams reinvents herself as a singer and actress... The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction goes to William Kennedy for Ironweed... Joe W. Kittinger makes the first solo transatlantic balloon flight in the helium-filled Rosie O'Grady's Balloon of Peace, traveling 3,535 miles from Caribou, Maine to Savona, Italy.

In Sports
Super Bowl LA Raiders stomp the Washington Redskins in a lopsided victory (38-9)... World Series Detroit Tigers devour San Diego Padres (4-1)... In the NBA Championship, the Boston Celtics defeat LA Lakers (4-3) in a nail biting seven games... In Stanley Cup action, the Edmonton Oilers beat perennial winners NY Islanders (4-1).

What's on TV
The Cosby Show conquers NBC, Thursday nights, and television. The sitcom is widely considered the most popular show of the 1980s and debunks many racial stereotypes of previous years when 'Cos' plays a successful New York City physician, Dr. Clifford Huxtable... Good news for Cosby fans: the Supreme Court rules that the taping of television shows at home on VCRs does not violate copyright law. Family Ties, Murder She Wrote, Cheers, Highway to Heaven, and Night Court all make their prime time debuts this year.