WHAT ALL HAPPENED APRIL TO AUGUST 1979
Find out what all happened April to August 1979

Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000 member strong Jewish community of Iran. (9. May 1979)

The first black-led government of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 90 years takes power. (1. June 1979)

Iran becomes an Islamic republic by a 99% vote, officially overthrowing the Shah. (1. April 1979)

A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British retired admiral Louis Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Shortly after, 18 British Army soldiers are killed in an ambush near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland. (27. August 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)

U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. (3. July 1979)

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

Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defects to the United States. (21. August 1979)

Sony introduces the Walkman. (1. July 1979)

Several tornadoes strike the city of Woodstock, Ontario, Canada and the surrounding communities. (7. August 1979)

Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. (4. May 1979)

Konstantinos Karamanlis signs the full treaty of the accession of Greece with the European Economic Community. (28. May 1979)

ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime. (20. June 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)

American Airlines Flight 191: In Chicago, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport killing all 271 on board and two people on the ground. (25. May 1979)

Bryan Allen wins the second Kremer prize for a man powered flight across the English Channel in the Gossamer Albatross. (12. June 1979)

Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is deposed. (11. April 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)

The Federated States of Micronesia become self-governing. (10. May 1979)

SALT II is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union. (18. June 1979)