1983

Events

January

• January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed.
• January 6 – Pope John Paul II appoints a bishop over the Czechoslovak exile community, which the Rudé právo newspaper calls a "provocation." This begins a year-long disagreement between the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Vatican, leading to the eventual restoration of diplomatic relations between the two states.
• January 14 – The head of Bangladesh's military dictatorship, Hussain Muhammad Ershad, announces his intentions to "turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state."
• January 18 – U.S. Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt makes controversial remarks blaming poor living conditions on Native American reservations on "the failures of socialism." Watt will eventually resign in September after a series of other controversial remarks.
• January 24 – 25 members of the Red Brigades are sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1978 murder of Italian politician Aldo Moro.
• January 25 – IRAS is launched from Vandenberg AFB, to conduct the world's first all-sky infrared survey from space.
• January 26 – 1983 Code of Canon Law: Pope John Paul II revises Roman Catholic canon law, the first such revision since 1917. Among the changes is a reduction in the number of offenses qualifying for automatic excommunication, from 37 to only seven.
• January 27 – The pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world's longest sub-aqueous tunnel in Japan, breaks through.
• January 30
• * Chinese newspaper People's Daily reports that the nation will run out of food and clothes by the year 2000 if the state's population control efforts are not successful.
• * The Washington Redskins defeat the Miami Dolphins to win Super Bowl XVII at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

  February

• February 2 – Giovanni Vigliotto goes on trial on charges of polygamy involving 105 women.
• February 3 – Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Fraser is granted a double dissolution of both houses of parliament, for elections on March 5, 1983. As Fraser is being granted the dissolution, Bill Hayden resigns as leader of the Australian Labor Party, and in the subsequent leadership spill Bob Hawke is elected as Hayden's successor unopposed.
• February 5–6 – The team of A. J. Foyt, Preston Henn, Bob Wollek and Claude Ballot-Léna win the 24 Hours of Daytona automobile race in a Porsche 935.
• February 12 – 100 women protest in Lahore, Pakistan, against military dictator Zia-ul-Haq's proposed Law of Evidence. The women are tear-gassed, baton-charged and thrown into lock-up but are successful in repealing the law.
• February 16 – The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim the lives of 75 people, in one of Australia's worst bushfire disasters.
• February 18
• * The Venezuelan bolívar is devalued and exchange controls are established in an event now referred to as Black Friday by many Venezuelans.
• * Nellie massacre: Over 2,000 people, mostly Bangladeshi Muslims, are massacred in Assam, India, during the Assam agitation.
• * Wah Mee massacre: 13 people are killed in an attempted robbery in the Chinatown area of Seattle, United States.
• February 28 – The final episode of the TV series M*A*S*H, entitled Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, airs on CBS, to a total audience of 121.6 million.

  March

• March 1 – The Balearic Islands and Madrid become Autonomous communities of Spain.
• March 5 – Australian federal election: The Labor Party led by Bob Hawke defeats the Liberal/National Coalition government led by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Hawke is to be sworn in on March 11. As soon as the results become clear, Fraser resigns from the Liberal leadership; he is replaced by outgoing Minister for Industry and Commerce Andrew Peacock.
• March 9 – The 3D printer is invented by Chuck Hull.
• March 15 – Reform rabbis in the U.S. vote to affirm both patrilineal and matrilineal descent for determining Jewish identity. While Jewish tradition defines a Jew as someone with a Jewish mother, this decision by the Central Conference of American Rabbis amends this principle to mean one Jewish "parent."
• March 21 – Yamoussoukro officially becomes the Ivorian political capital after transfer from Abidjan.
• March 25 – Sweden re-establishes diplomatic ties with the Vatican after a 450-year interruption. Sweden broke off relations in 1534 in keeping with the rise of Lutheranism.
• March 29 – Germany's first elected Green Party representatives take their seats in the West German Bundestag, dressed in jeans and sweaters and accompanied by bongo drums.

  April

• April 4 – The Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on its maiden voyage: STS-6.
• April 6 – The FDA approves sale of the first spermidical sponge, "Today."
• April 11 – Spain's Seve Ballesteros won the 47th PGA Masters Tournament.
• April 15 – Tokyo Disneyland opens to the public.
• April 18
• * The 1983 United States embassy bombing in Beirut kills 63 people.
• * The Disney Channel launches in the United States.
• April 21 – John Glenn announces a presidential run.
• April 22 – A reactor shutdown due to failure of fuel rods occurs at Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, Russia.
• April 29 – Erich Honecker cancels planned goodwill visit to Bonn due to escalating nuclear tensions.

  May

• May 6 – Stern magazine publishes the "Hitler Diaries".
• May 11 – Aberdeen F.C. beat Real Madrid 2–1 to win the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1983, becoming only the third Scottish side to win a European trophy.
• May 16 - Michael Jackson performs the Moonwalk for the first time during his performance of Billie Jean on Motown 25, as well he wore single white glove made of rhinestone gems. The step, would become one of the most globally recognizable dance moves.
• May 17 – Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
• May 20
• * Two separate research groups led by Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier independently declare that a novel retrovirus may have been infecting people with HIV/AIDS, and publish their findings in the same issue of the journal Science.
• * Church Street bombing: A car bombing in Pretoria, South Africa, kills 19 people. The bomb has been planted by members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, a military wing of the African National Congress.
• May 25 – Hamburger SV defeat Juventus 1–0 in the final of the European Cup.
• May 26 – The 7.8 Sea of Japan earthquake shakes northern Honshu with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII. A destructive tsunami is generated that leaves about 100 people dead.
• May 27 – Benton fireworks disaster. An explosion at an unlicensed and illegal fireworks operation near Benton, Tennessee, kills eleven and injures one. The blast is heard within a radius of.
• May 28 – The 9th G7 summit begins at Williamsburg, Virginia, United States.

  June

• June 5 – The Second Sudanese Civil War begins in Sudan.
• June 9 – Britain's Conservative government, led by Margaret Thatcher, is re-elected by a landslide majority.
• June 9–25 – The 1983 Cricket World Cup is held in England with India defeating West Indies in the final.
• June 13
• * Pioneer 10 passes the orbit of Neptune, becoming the first human-made object to leave the vicinity of the major planets of the Solar System.
• * The first worldwide mobile telephone, the Motorola DynaTAC, enters the market.
• June 18 –
• *Iranian teenager Mona Mahmudnizhad and nine other women are hanged because they are members of the Baháʼí Faith.
• *Sally Ride becomes the first female American astronaut in space when she launches on board Challenger's STS-7 mission together with four male crewmates.
• June 18–19 – The team of Vern Schuppan, Al Holbert and Hurley Haywood wins the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
• June 22 – Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old Vatican girl, mysteriously disappears in Rome while returning home from a music lesson. The disappearance of the girl led to many speculations involving international terrorism, Italian organized crime, and even a plot inside the Vatican to cover a sexual scandal inside the Holy See. Because of all these theories, the Orlandi case would later become Italy's most famous mystery.
• June 25 – India wins the Cricket World Cup, defeating the West Indies by 43 runs.
• June 30 – A total loss of coolant occurs at the Embalse Nuclear Power Station, Argentina. It is classified as an "Accident With Local Consequences" – level 4 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

  July

• July 1
• * A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet, en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea, crashes into the Fouta Djall Mountains of Guinea, killing all 23 people on board.
• * A technical failure causes the release of iodine-131 from the Philippsburg Nuclear Power Plant, Germany.
• July 7 – Ten-year-old American girl Samantha Smith accepts her invitation from Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov and begins her visit to the USSR with her parents.
• July 11 – Reading Rainbow debuts on PBS.
• July 15
• * Nintendo's Family Computer, also known as the Famicom, goes on sale in Japan.
• * The Orly Airport attack in Paris leaves eight dead and 55 injured.
• July 16 – Sikorsky S-61 disaster: A helicopter crashes off the Isles of Scilly, causing 20 fatalities.
• July 20 – The government of Poland announces the end of martial law and amnesty for political prisoners.
• July 21 – The lowest temperature on Earth is recorded in Vostok Station, Antarctica with −89.2 °C.
• July 22 – Australian Dick Smith completes his solo circumnavigation of the world in a helicopter.
• July 23
• * 13 Sri Lanka Army soldiers are killed during a deadly ambush by the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, thus beginning the Sri Lankan Civil War, which would continue until 2009.
• * Heavy rain and mudslides in western Shimane Prefecture, Japan, kill 117.
• July 24 – The Black July anti-Tamil riots begin in Sri Lanka, killing between 400 and 3,000 Sri Lankan Tamils and Hill-country Tamils.