WHAT ALL HAPPENED MAY TO DECEMBER 1979
Find out what all happened May to December 1979

Kaohsiung Incident: Taiwanese pro-democracy demonstrations are suppressed by the KMT dictatorship, and organizers are arrested. (10. December 1979)

The Ghost Train Fire at Luna Park Sydney (New South Wales, Australia) kills seven. (9. June 1979)

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

Iran hostage crisis: a mob of Iranians, mostly students, overruns the US embassy in Tehran and takes 90 hostages (53 of whom are American). (4. November 1979)

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

The MTR, the rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong, opens. (1. October 1979)

The Soviet Union invades the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. (27. December 1979)

The United States Department of Education receives final approval from the U.S. Congress to become the 13th US Cabinet agency. (27. September 1979)

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

Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown. (4. June 1979)

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

The unrecognised state of Zimbabwe Rhodesia returns to British control and resumes using the name Southern Rhodesia. (12. December 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)

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

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

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

The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for USD $1.5 billion to avoid bankruptcy. (7. September 1979)

White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. (21. May 1979)

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

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