WHAT HAPPENED IN 1979.
Look what happened the 1979.

Formal diplomatic relations are established between China and the United States. (1. January 1979)

Third Indochina War – Cambodian–Vietnamese War: Phnom Penh falls to the advancing Vietnamese troops, driving out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. (7. January 1979)

The tanker Betelgeuse explodes in Bantry Bay, Ireland. (8. January 1979)

The last Iranian Shah flees Iran with his family for good and relocates to Egypt. (16. January 1979)

Pope John Paul II starts his first official papal visits outside Italy to the Bahamas, Dominican Republic and Mexico. (25. January 1979)

CBS News Sunday Morning debuts with original host and cocreator Charles Kuralt. (28. January 1979)

Pope John Paul II starts his first pastoral visit to Mexico. (28. January 1979)

A Varig 707-323C freighter, flown by the same commander as Flight 820, disappears over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo. (30. January 1979)

Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst is released from prison after her sentence is commuted by President Jimmy Carter. (1. February 1979)

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile. (1. February 1979)

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

The Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. (11. February 1979)

An intense windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 1/2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge. (13. February 1979)

In Kabul, Setami Milli militants kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police. (14. February 1979)

Don Dunstan resigns as Premier of South Australia, ending a decade of sweeping social liberalisation. (15. February 1979)

The Sino-Vietnamese War begins. (17. February 1979)

Snow falls in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the only time in recorded history. (18. February 1979)

Independence of Saint Lucia from the United Kingdom. (22. February 1979)

Soviet probes Venera 11, Venera 12 and the American solar satellite Helios II all are hit by "off the scale" gamma rays leading to the discovery of soft gamma repeaters. (5. March 1979)

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