WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO NOVEMBER 1979
Find out what all happened February to November 1979

U.S. President Jimmy Carter gives his so-called malaise speech, where he characterizes the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation" but in which he never uses the word malaise. (15. July 1979)

CompuServe launches the first consumer internet service, which features the first public electronic mail service. (24. September 1979)

Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since either was discovered. (7. February 1979)

The New Jewel Movement, headed by Maurice Bishop, ousts Prime Minister Eric Gairy in a nearly bloodless coup d'etat in Grenada. (13. March 1979)

Moshe Dayan resigns from the Israeli government because of strong disagreements with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policy towards the Arabs. (21. October 1979)

Etan Patz, who is six years old, disappears from the street just two blocks away from his home in New York City, prompting an international search for the child, and causing the U.S. President Ronald Reagan to designate May 25 as National Missing Children's Day (in 1983). (25. May 1979)

Greensboro massacre: Five members of the Communist Workers Party are shot dead and seven are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis during a "Death to the Klan" rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. (3. November 1979)

America's Voyager 1 spacecraft has its closest approach to Jupiter, 172,000 miles. (5. March 1979)

The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua. (19. July 1979)

A car bomb destroys a Renault motor car owned by the famed "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. A note purportedly from ODESSA claims responsibility. (9. July 1979)

South Africa grants independence to the "homeland" of Venda (not recognised outside South Africa). (13. September 1979)

Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigns and is replaced by Saddam Hussein. (16. July 1979)

The last British soldier leaves the Maltese Islands. Malta declares its Freedom Day (Jum il-Helsien). (31. March 1979)

The lowest recorded non-tornadic atmospheric pressure, 87.0 kPa (870 mbar or 25.69 inHg), occurred in the Western Pacific during Typhoon Tip. (12. October 1979)

In China, a Hawker Siddeley Trident crashes into a factory near Beijing, killing at least 200. (14. March 1979)

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gains its independence from the United Kingdom. (27. October 1979)

A package from Unabomber Ted Kaczynski begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C., forcing the plane to make an emergency landing. (15. November 1979)

The British House of Commons passes a vote of no confidence against James Callaghan's government, precipitating a general election. (28. March 1979)

Pope John Paul II starts his first official visit to his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country. (2. June 1979)

America's first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. (11. July 1979)