WHAT HAPPENED IN 1979.
Look what happened the 1979.

The United States returns sovereignty of the Panama canal to Panama. (1. October 1979)

Pope John Paul II denounces all forms of concentration camps and torture while speaking at the U.N. in New York City. (2. October 1979)

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

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams is published. (12. October 1979)

The lowest recorded non-tornadic atmospheric pressure, 87.0 kPa (870 mbar or 25.69 inHg), occurred in the Western Pacific during Typhoon Tip. (12. October 1979)

The first Gay Rights March on Washington, D.C., the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, demands "an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people", and draws 200,000 people. (14. October 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)

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

The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services. (17. October 1979)

Moshe Dayan resigns from the Israeli government because of strong disagreements with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policy towards the Arabs. (21. October 1979)

Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea is assassinated by Korean Central Intelligence Agency head Kim Jae-kyu. Choi Kyu-ha becomes the acting President; Kim is executed the following May. (26. October 1979)

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

Greensboro massacre: Five members of the Communist Workers Party are shot dead and seven are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis during a "Death to the Klan" rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. (3. November 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)

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 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)

Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all petroleum imports into the United States from Iran. (12. November 1979)

Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis. (14. November 1979)

A package from Unabomber Ted Kaczynski begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C., forcing the plane to make an emergency landing. (15. November 1979)

The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semănătoarea in Bucharest, Romania. (16. November 1979)