January 1982

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The following events occurred in January 1982:

January 2, 1982 (Saturday)

  • The Army of Guatemala, in a campaign by President Fernando Lucas Garcia, killed 35 civilians in the village of Pichec, in the Baja Verapaz Department near Rabinal, for their support of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres). The killing was the third of the mostly Maya residents of Pichec, in less than nine weeks, with 32 men killed on November 1 and 30 more on November 22.[6]
  • Ahmad Fuad Mohieddin was selected to become the new Prime Minister of Egypt at the request of President Hosni Mubarak, who had held the position of both president and premier since the October 6 assassination of Anwar Sadat.[7]
  • In Denmark, the popular television series Matador broadcast its final episode, watched by 3.5 million viewers in a nation of 5.1 million people.[8]
  • The Clemson University Tigers football team finished in first place in both polls recognized by the NCAA for determining the U.S. major university football championship. In the AP poll of 49 sportswriters, Clemson received 977 points (based on 20 points for a first place vote, 19 for second place, etc.) and the Texas Longhorns 862 points. In the UPI poll of 37 coaches, Clemson had 547 points and the Pitt Panthers 472.[9][10]
  • In an NFL playoff game nicknamed the "Epic in Miami" as well as "The Game No One Should Have Lost", and ranked in a 2020 survey as the fourth greatest NFL game in the 20th century, the San Diego Chargers defeated the Miami Dolphins, 41 to 38, in overtime, after blowing a 24 to 0 lead in the first quarter.[11] The highest-scoring playoff game in NFL history (79 total points) featured ten touchdowns and extra points, as well two field goals, with Rolf Benirschke making the winning kick after 73 minutes and 52 seconds of play.
  • Born:
  • Died:
    • Fred Harman, 79, American cartoonist known for drawing the Red Ryder comic strip for its entire run from 1938 to 1965[13]
    • Jill McDonald, 54, New Zealand-born English children's book illustrator for Puffin Books
    • Jim Seiler, 65, U.S. market researcher, statistician, and founder in 1949 of Arbitron, the first service for measuring the popularity of radio programs and later of television programs

January 3, 1982 (Sunday)

  • In Ghana, where Flight Lieutenant Jerry J. Rawlings had overthrown the government on December 31 and installed himself as the leader of a new executive government, the Provisional National Defense Council, the Council directed that former Vice President William de Graft Johnson and all officials of former President Hilla Limann's government were required to go to police stations and turn themselves in for trial by noon on Monday. By midnight, 27 former officials, "including four former ministers and eight former deputy ministers", surrendered to police.[14]
  • South Korea's President, Chun Doo Hwan, fired Prime Minister Nam Duck Woo along with five other cabinet ministers.[15]
  • Italia 1, a new television network in Italy, went on the air, broadcasting on 18 stations throughout Italy, competing for viewers against the established RAI (Radiotelevisione italiana) network.

January 4, 1982 (Monday)

  • The United States Postal Service inaugurated its new "electronic mail service", "E-COM" (Electronic Computer Originated Service)at 25 specially equipped U.S. post office locations. According to the USPS description, "a company's computer will send a message via a communications common carrier— such as long-distance telephone" to one of the 25 offices and "There, the message will be printed on paper, put in a distinctive blue-and-white E-COM envelope and delivered with regular mail."[16] The service would be discontinued less than four years later, on September 2, 1985.[17]
  • U.S. National Security Adviser Richard V. Allen was fired by President Ronald Reagan in the wake of a report by a Japanese newspaper on November 13 that Allen had accepted a $1,000 payment from a Japanese magazine in return for arranging an interview of First Lady Nancy Reagan. Allen was replaced by deputy U.S. secretary of state William P. Clark.[18]
  • The nation of Brazil elevated its territory of Rondônia to statehood as its 23rd unidades federativa, with Porto Velho as its capital.[19]
  • A mudslide in the U.S. state of California killed at least 31 people, most of whom had been in homes buried in the town of Ben Lomond.[20]
  • President Reagan announced in a statement from the White House that the U.S. had submitted a draft of a treaty for the elimination of all medium-range American and Soviet nuclear missiles from Europe. In a statement, Reagan said "Such a treaty would be a major contribution to security, stability and peace. I call on President Brezhnev to join us in this important first step to reduce the nuclear shadow that hangs over the peoples of the world." [21]
  • Ghana's former President, Hilla Limann, who had been overthrown on December 31 in a military coup, was arrested at a roadblock near Koforidua after an unsuccessful attempt to flee the African nation, northeast of the capital, Accra.[22]
  • President Reagan signed NSDD-17, a top secret directive granting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) $19 million to support the Contras, anti-communist right-wing rebels seeking to overthrow the Marxist Sandinistas government of Nicaragua.[23] By 1984, Congress would outlaw the use of any funds to the Contras or to U.S. government agencies for the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government.[24]
  • In Sudan, 21 leading members of the parliament, including the Speaker of the Assembly, Samuel Aru Bol, were arrested in Juba by order of President Gaafar Nimeiry for forming an outlawed party, the Council for Unity of Southern Sudan. They would be freed after Nimeiry's overthrow in 1985.[25]
  • Òscar Ribas Reig took office as the first Prime Minister of the Principality of Andorra, located in the Pyrennes Mountains on the border between France and Spain, and officially ruled by the Spanish Bishop of Urgel and the President of France as co-Princes, and the 28-members of the General Council of the Valleys.[26]
  • Died:
    • Gorilla Jones (William Landon Jones), 75, African-American boxer who held the world middleweight championship from January to June, 1932[27]
    • Margaret Culkin Banning, 90, American novelist and author of 36 novels, four non-fiction books and 90 short stories between 1920 and 1979, including The Vine and the Olive (1964) and Mesabi (1968)[28]

January 5, 1982 (Tuesday)

  • The U.N. General Assembly voted, 86 to 21 with 34 abstentions, to approve a non-binding resolution calling all members of the United Nations to end aid, trade, and diplomatic ties to punish it for annexing the Golan Heights. [29] The U.S. used its power, as a member of the UN Security Council, and vetoed the resolution on January 20.
  • South Korea ended a nationwide curfew that had been in place since 1945, and permitted citizens the freedom to be outside from midnight to 4:00 in the morning, a period previously off limits. The curfew remained in effect, however, for areas bordering North Korea. President Chun Doo Hwan said in a statement that South Koreans were "more mature" and that the curfew was no longer necessary.[30]
  • Died:

January 6, 1982 (Wednesday)

  • Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Washington, Dr. James Hansen, a climatologist for NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies warned that the increase of carbon dioxide and other chemicals (such as methane and nitrous oxide) in Earth's atmosphere would cause a substantial warming of the Earth's climate during the 1980s, sooner than predictions that global warming would not take place until the 21st century.[32]
  • Serial murderer William G. Bonin, a 34-year old truck driver charged with being the "Freeway Killer", was convicted on charges of torturing and murdering 10 young men and boys from May 1979 until his capture on June 12, 1980. He was acquitted of charges of killing two other victims. Initially, he had been linked by investigators to 21 homicides, and indicted for 12. [33]
  • Died: Shang Yue, 79, Chinese Marxist economic historian and fiction author who was purged in 1958 but rehabilitated in 1976[34]

January 7, 1982 (Thursday)


January 8, 1982 (Friday)

January 9, 1982 (Saturday)

January 10, 1982 (Sunday)

  • The late Liu Shao-chi, referred to since 1979 as Liu Shaoqi, who had the nominal President of the People's Republic of China until being stripped of his functions in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, was exonerated by the Party of previous charges and posthumously rehabilitated.
  • Died:

January 11, 1982 (Monday)

January 12, 1982 (Tuesday)

  • Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced that he was reorganizing several Canadian federal ministries, and that the existing Ministry of Industry, Trade and Commerce would be broken up into a Ministry for Economic and Regional Development.[53]
  • Kevin McGrady, a terrorist of the Provisional IRA who had become a born-again Christian, walked into the Musgrave Street police station in Belfast and confessed to 27 crimes committed in 1975, including three murders. After being sentenced to life imprisonment in June, McGrady agreed to become a "supergrass" and his testimony led to the conviction of seven IRA members in 1983.[54]
  • The PBS television series American Playhouse telecast its first play, The Shady Hill Kidnapping, written and narrated by John Cheever.[55] The series would run for 13 seasons, ending on September 29, 1996.
  • Born:
    • Tony Lochhead, New Zealand footballer with 47 caps for the New Zealand national team from 2003 to 2013; in Tauranga[56]
    • Da Peng (stage name for Dong Chengpeng), Chinese comedian, filmmaker and TV show host; in Ji'an City, Jilin province
  • Died:
    • Dorothy Howel, 83, Brisith pianist and concerto composer.[57]
    • Major General Frank Crowther Roberts, 90, British Army officer and recipient of the Victoria Cross for heroism during World War One[58]
    • Major General Harold William Chase, 59, U.S. Marine Corps officer and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1977 to 1980, died following a heart attack.[59]

January 13, 1982 (Wednesday)

January 13, 1982: Air Florida 90 crashes into Washington DC's 14th Street Bridge, killing 74 on the plane and four on the bridge
  • Air Florida Flight 90 crashed shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C., then fell into the Potomac River, killing 74 of the 79 people on board, and four people on the bridge.[60] The Boeing 737 jet departed during a snowstorm from Washington National Airport with a scheduled destination of Tampa, Florida, but the pilots had failed to switch on the ice protection system on the four engines, and then chose not to abort the takeoff after detecting a power problem from ice and snow building on the wings. Flight 90 became airborne at 4:00 in the afternoon, reached an altitude of 352 feet (107 m) before stalling and came down at the bridge 30 seconds after takeoff. Before impact, pilot Larry M. Weaton shouted "Stalling, we're falling!" The last words of First Officer Roger A. Pettit were, "Larry, we're going down, Larry...." and Weaton responded "I know!".[61][62]
  • Half an hour after the Air Florida crash, the Washington Metro subway system sustained its first fatal accident when a train that had departed from the station at Washington National Airport toward New Carrolton, Maryland, derailed near the Smithsonian station, killing three passengers and injuring 15 others.[63]
  • President's rule in India's state of Assam was ended by President N. Sanjiva Reddy after seven months when Kesab Chandra Gogoi formed a new government as Chief Minister of Assam.[64]
  • A jury in Los Angeles convicted former boxing promoter Harold Rossfields Smith, aka Ross Eugene Fields, of embezzlement of $21.3 million from the Wells Fargo banking company in 1981.[65]
  • Sir Ninian Martin Stephen was selected by Queen Elizabeth II to become the next Governor-General of Australia, to take the place of Sir Zelman Cowen at the latter's retirement in July.[66]
  • Died: Marcel Camus, 69, French film director known for Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), winner of the 1959 Palme d'Or and the 1960 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, died following open heart surgery.[67]

January 14, 1982 (Thursday)

January 15, 1982 (Friday)

  • The U.S. Federal Trade Commission dropped its 10-year-old antitrust lawsuit against the three largest makers of cereal in the nation— Kellogg, General Mills and General Foods.[75]
  • Died:
    • Red Smith, 76, American sportswriter and columnist, died four days after he had published a column, which he headlined "Writing Less— and Better?" where he announced that he would be writing only three columns per week rather than four.[76]

January 16, 1982 (Saturday)

  • The United Kingdom and Vatican City established diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level for the first time.[77]
  • In the state of Kerala in India, 24 people were killed in the sinking of an overcrowded boat as it was crossing Sasthamcotta Lake in poor weather, followed by a sinking of a boat that had come to the survivors' rescue."41 years since the Sasthamkotta Lake disaster", www.madhyamam.com (in Malayalam)
  • Random drawings were held by FIFA at the Palacio de Congresos (Madrid) in Madrid for the grouping of the 24 teams that had qualified for the 1982 FIFA World Cup to be held in Spain starting on June 13.[78] Of the 24 teams, divided by lot into six 4-team groups, 14 were UEFA members from Europe, 4 were CONMEBOL members from South America, 2 were CONCACAF teams from Central America, two from Africa, one (New Zealand) from Oceania and one (Kuwait) from the Middle East. National teams appearing for the first time in the World Cup were Honduras, New Zealand, Algeria, Cameroon and Kuwait.
  • Born: Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Danish stage, film and television actress known as co-star of the political drama series Borgen; in Hillerød[79]
  • Died:
    • Marcel Francisci, 62, French businessman and smuggler accused of being the mastermind of the French Connection narcotics trafficking network, was shot to death in Paris as he was preparing to get into his car.[80]
    • Mahmud Yunus, 82, Indonesian Muslim preacher and author of 75 theological books

January 17, 1982 (Sunday)

Found on Earth after falling from the Moon
  • The Allan Hills meteorite, the first to be identified on Earth as having come from the Moon, was discovered in the Transantarctic Mountains in Antarctica by John Schutt and Ian Whillans during the international ANSMET (Antarctic Search for Meteorites) expedition. The meteorite's mass was 31.4 grams (1.11 oz), slightly more than one ounce.[81] Although the lunar meteorite Yamato 791197 had been found on November 20, 1979, it would not be identified as such until 1984.[82] In 1996, examination of the
  • The collapse of a swinging bridge over the Guaíra Falls waterfall killed 32 tourists in Brazil, on the border of Brazil and Paraguay near Guaira, while they were seeking a close view of the waterfall. Those killed fell from a height of 120 feet (37 m) and drowned in the Paraná River. Survivors said that a some people on the bridge had been swinging it when the supportive cables snapped.[83]
High and low temperatures on January 17, 1982

January 18, 1982 (Monday)

January 19, 1982 (Tuesday)

  • An explosion at the Star Elementary School in Spencer, Oklahoma, killed five children and a schoolteacher while they were at lunch in the school cafeteria, and injured 35 others[98]
  • The Coca-Cola Company announced its plans to purchase ownership of the filmmaker Columbia Pictures.
  • Died:
    • Semyon Tsvigun, 64, Soviet Ukrainian intelligence agent, deputy to Soviet KGB Director (and future Soviet Communist Party leader Yuri Andropov), died from an apparent suicide.[99][100]
    • Leopold Trepper, 77, Polish-born Soviet anti-Fascist espionage leader of the Red Orchestra spy network, later imprisoned in the Soviet Union after being accused of cooperation with Germany as a prisoner of war, died in Israel, where he had been allowed to emigrate in 1973.
    • Marya Zaturenska, 80, Russian-born American lyric poet and 1938 Pulitzer Prize winner.

January 20, 1982 (Wednesday)

January 21, 1982 (Thursday)

  • By a margin of 55% to 45%, the 498,000 members of the Britain's national coal workers union voted to accept a 9.3% pay offer, despite the recommendation of union presi.dent-elect Arthur Scargill to reject the proposal.
  • Died:

January 22, 1982 (Friday)

  • In the U.S. state of Washington, the board of directors of the state's Public Power Supply System voted to halt further construction of two nuclear power plants, bringing the number of construction permit revocations to 30 in the U.S. since the beginning of 1979.[104]
  • The first convictions in the U.S., on criminal charges of slavery resulting in death, were issued by a federal jury in North Carolina for Dennis Warren, a migrant labor crew leader, and along with his brother Richard Warren, and his assistant John Lester Harris.[105]
  • Died:

January 23, 1982 (Saturday)

January 24, 1982 (Sunday)

A scene from the game, with the 49ers in white jerseys

January 25, 1982 (Monday)

January 26, 1982 (Tuesday)

  • Mauno Koivisto was elected President of Finland by the 301-member Electoral College, receiving 167 votes. He was sworn in the next to succeed longtime president Urho Kekkonen. Koivistor had obtained 43% of the popular vote in voting on January 17 and January 18.
  • The government of Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin survived a vote of no confidecnce by a margin of 55 to 52 regarding compensation to be paid to Israeli citizens who had settled in the Sinai Peninsula, scheduled to be returned to Egypt after 15 years."Israeli Cabinet Defeats No-Confidence Motion", The New York Times January 27, 1982, p.I-5
  • U.S. President Ronald Reagan delivered his first State of the Union message since taking office and proposed "New Federalism", the transfer of administration and control of funding for social programs from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to the individual state governments.[131]

January 27, 1982 (Wednesday)

January 28, 1982 (Thursday)

  • Italy's Leatherheads anti-terrorism force rescued U.S. Army Brigadier General James L. Dozier, who had been kidnapped by the Red Brigades terrorist group.

January 29, 1982 (Friday)

January 30, 1982 (Saturday)

January 31, 1982 (Sunday)

References

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