WHAT ALL HAPPENED AUGUST TO DECEMBER 1979
Find out what all happened August to December 1979

Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. (17. October 1979)

Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet Union forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital. (23. December 1979)

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

Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early warning radars, the alert is cancelled. (9. November 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)

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

Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to visit Ireland. (29. September 1979)

An IRA bomb explodes at the Grote Markt in Brussels. (28. August 1979)

The first European Ariane rocket is launched. (24. December 1979)

Air New Zealand Flight 901, a DC-10 sightseeing flight over Antarctica, crashes into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board. (28. November 1979)

The Hong Kong MTR commences service with the opening of its Modified Initial System (aka. Kwun Tong Line). (30. September 1979)

The United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, is attacked by a mob and set on fire, killing four. (21. November 1979)

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

Coup d'état of December Twelfth: South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa without authorization from President Choi Kyu-ha, alleging involvement in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung Hee. (12. December 1979)

Indonesia is hit with an earthquake that measures 8.1 on the Richter scale. (12. September 1979)

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

Pope John Paul II becomes the first pontiff to visit the White House. (6. October 1979)

A 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario, Canada derails in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada just west of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, causing a massive explosion and the largest peacetime evacuation in Canadian history and one of the largest in North American history. (10. November 1979)

Black Monday in Malta. The Building of the Times of Malta, the residence of the opposition leader Eddie Fenech Adami and several Nationalist Party clubs are ransacked and destroyed by supporters of the Malta Labour Party. (15. October 1979)

The Canadian Government of Prime Minister Joe Clark is defeated in the House of Commons, prompting the 1980 Canadian election. (13. December 1979)