WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO OCTOBER 1983
Find out what all happened February to October 1983

Cold War: Korean Air Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 on board die, including Congressman Lawrence McDonald. (1. September 1983)

The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published. (19. July 1983)

Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 22 people and causing over US$1 billion in damage (1983 dollars). (18. August 1983)

Aberdeen F.C. defeat Real Madrid 2-1 to win the European Cup Winners' Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden. (11. May 1983)

Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space. (18. June 1983)

First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier. (20. May 1983)

Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement rebels against the Sudanese government. (16. May 1983)

Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a likely worldwide nuclear war by correctly identifying a report of an incoming nuclear missile as a computer error and not an American first strike. (26. September 1983)

100 women protest in Lahore, Pakistan against military dictator Zia-ul-Haq's proposed Law of Evidence. The women were tear-gassed, baton-charged and thrown into lock-up. The women were successful in repealing the law. (12. February 1983)

Japan's former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from Lockheed and is sentenced to 4 years in jail. (12. October 1983)

Demolition of the radio tower Ismaning, the last wooden radio tower in Germany. (16. March 1983)

Gulf Air Flight 771 is bombed, killing all 117 people on board. (23. September 1983)

Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit. (25. April 1983)

A strong 7.7 magnitude earthquake strikes Japan, triggering a tsunami that kills at least 104 people and injures thousands. Many people go missing and thousands of buildings are destroyed. (26. May 1983)

Bertha Wilson is appointed the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada. (4. March 1983)

The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia kill 75. (16. February 1983)

Two correctional officers are killed by inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspires the Supermax model of prisons. (22. October 1983)

Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. is assassinated at the Manila International Airport (now renamed Ninoy Aquino International Airport). (21. August 1983)

The Black July anti-Tamil riots begin in Sri Lanka, killing between 400 and 3,000. Black July is generally regarded as the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War. (24. July 1983)

The metre is defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. (21. October 1983)