1982

Events

January

• January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8.
• January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C., United States, then falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 people.
• January 14 – An Ethiopian Air Force Antonov An-26 with an unknown registration crashed near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing all 73 occupants on board.
• January 18 – 1982 Thunderbirds Indian Springs Diamond Crash: Four Northrop T-38 aircraft of the United States Air Force crash at Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, Nevada, killing all 4 pilots.
• January 20 – Musician Ozzy Osbourne is treated for rabies after biting the head off a live bat during a concert in Des Moines, Iowa.
• January 24 – The San Francisco 49ers defeat the Cincinnati Bengals to win Super Bowl XVI at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan.
• January 26 – Mauno Koivisto is elected President of Finland.
• January 27 – The government of Garret FitzGerald in Ireland is defeated 82–81 on its budget; the 22nd Dáil is dissolved.
• January 30 – The first computer virus, the Elk Cloner, written by 15-year old Rich Skrenta, is found. It infects Apple II computers via floppy disk.

  February

• February 1 – Senegal and The Gambia form a loose Senegambia Confederation.
• February 2 – The Hama massacre begins in Syria.
• February 3 – Syrian president Hafez al-Assad orders the army to purge the city of Harran of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• February 5 – London-based Laker Airways collapses, leaving 6,000 stranded passengers and debts of £270 million.
• February 7 – Iraqi club Al-Shorta win the 1982 Arab Club Champions Cup with a 4–2 aggregate win over Al-Nejmeh in the final.
• February 9 – Japan Airlines Flight 350 crashes in Tokyo Bay due to thrust reversal on approach to Tokyo International Airport, killing 24 among the 174 people on board.
• February 15 – The oil platform Ocean Ranger sinks during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing all 84 rig workers aboard.
• February 18 – The Ireland general election gives a boost to Fianna Fáil.
• February 19 - The Boeing 757 is flown for the first time.
• February 24 – In South Africa, 22 National Party MPs, led by Andries Treurnicht, vote for no confidence in P. W. Botha.
• February 25 – The European Court of Human Rights rules that teachers who cane, belt or tawse children against the wishes of their parents are in breach of the Human Rights Convention.

  March

• March 2 – Decentralisation in France: the Law of Decentralisation creates the administrative regions of France.
• March 9 – Charles Haughey becomes Taoiseach of Ireland.
• March 10
• * The United States places an embargo on Libyan oil imports, alleging Libyan state-sponsored terrorism.
• * Syzygy: All 9 planets recognized at this time align on the same side of the Sun.
• March 16 – Claus von Bülow is found guilty of the attempted murder of his wife by a court in Newport, Rhode Island.
• March 18 – A legal case brought by Mary Whitehouse against the National Theatre of Britain concerning alleged obscenity in the play The Romans in Britain ends after the Attorney General intervenes.
• March 19 – Argentine scrap metal workers raise the flag of Argentina on South Georgia and the Falkland Islands, two British overseas territories.
• March 24 – Hussain Muhammad Ershad seizes power in Bangladesh.
• March 29
• * Royal Assent is given to the Canada Act 1982, setting the stage for the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution on April 17.
• * The 54th Academy Awards, hosted by Johnny Carson, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Chariots of Fire wins Best Picture and 3 other Academy Awards.
• * Freshman Michael Jordan hits a jumper with 17 seconds remaining to lift the North Carolina Tar Heels to a 63-62 win over the Georgetown Hoyas in the 1982 NCAA Division I men's basketball championship game at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
• March 30 – Space Shuttle Columbia ends an eight-day mission, STS-3, by landing at White Sands Space Harbor near Alamogordo, New Mexico. It was the only time a Space Shuttle has landed at White Sands. The orbiter was forced to land at White Sands due to flooding at its originally planned landing site, Edwards Air Force Base in California.

  April

• April 1 – The 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands begins when Argentine forces land near Stanley, beginning the Falklands War.
• April 2 – Rex Hunt, the British governor of the Falkland Islands, surrenders the islands to Argentine forces, leading to their occupation.
• April 3 – Invasion of the Falkland Islands: Argentine forces begin the invasion of South Georgia.
• April 17 – Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: By Proclamation of the Queen of Canada on Parliament Hill, Canada patriates its constitution, gaining full political independence from the United Kingdom; included is the country's first entrenched bill of rights.
• April 24 – German singer Nicole wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1982 with the song Ein Bisschen Frieden.
• April 25 – Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in accordance with the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979.
• April 26
• * Falklands War: British troops retake South Georgia Island during Operation Paraquet.
• * From 26 to 27 April, policeman Woo Bum-kon goes on a killing spree in Uiryeong County, South Korea. By the early morning of April 27, after killing at least 56 people with several firearms and grenades, he kills himself via grenade. It becomes the deadliest spree shooting in recorded history up until the 2011 Norway attacks.
• April 30 – The Bijon Setu massacre takes place in broad daylight at a railway crossing in India.

  May

• May 1 – A crowd of over 100,000 attends the first day of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is kicked off with an address by President Ronald Reagan. Over 11 million people attend during its six-month run.
• May 2
• * Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine sinks the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, killing 323 sailors. Operation Algeciras, an attempt to destroy a Royal Navy warship in Gibraltar, fails.
• * The Weather Channel airs on cable television in the United States as the first 24-hour all-weather network.
• May 4 – Falklands War: is hit by an Argentine Exocet missile and burns out of control; 20 sailors are killed. The ship sinks on May 10.
• May 8 – French-Canadian racing driver Gilles Villeneuve is killed during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix.
• May 12 – Spanish priest Juan María Fernández y Krohn tries to stab Pope John Paul II with a bayonet during the latter's pilgrimage to the shrine at Fátima.
• May 16 – The New York Islanders sweep the Vancouver Canucks in four games to win the 1982 Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey.
• May 18 – Falklands War: The British Special Air Service launches Operation Plum Duff, a reconnaissance mission preliminary to Operation Mikado, which is planned to destroy three Argentinean Exocet missiles and five Super Étendard fighter-bombers. Both Operation Plum Duff and Operation Mikado are called off after the Plum Duff insertion is revealed by a helicopter landing in Chile.
• May 21
• * Falklands War: is sunk by Argentine aircraft, killing 22 sailors.
• * The International Maritime Organization is established.
• May 23 – Falklands War: is lost.
• May 24
• * Iranian troops retake Khorramshahr.
• * KGB head Yuri Andropov is appointed to the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• May 25 – British ships and are sunk during the Falklands War; Coventry by two A-4C Skyhawks and Atlantic Conveyor by two Exocets.
• May 26 – Aston Villa F.C. wins the European Cup, beating Bayern Munich 1–0 after a 69th-minute goal by Peter Withe in Rotterdam.
• May 28–29 – Falklands War: Battle of Goose Green: British forces defeat a larger Argentine force.
• May 30
• * Spain becomes the 16th member of NATO and the first nation to enter the alliance since West Germany's admission in 1955.
• * Indianapolis 500: 1973 winner Gordon Johncock wins his second race over 1979 winner Rick Mears by 0.16 seconds. Leading to the closest finish to this date, Mears draws alongside Johncock with a lap remaining, after erasing a seemingly insurmountable advantage of more than 11 seconds in the final 10 laps, in what Indianapolis Motor Speedway historian Donald Davidson and Speedway public address announcer Tom Carnegie later call the greatest moment in the track's history.

  June

• June 6 – The 1982 Lebanon War begins: Israeli forces under Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon in their "Operation Peace for the Galilee," eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut. The United Nations Security Council votes to demand that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon.
• June 8
• * Falklands War: British supply ship RFA Sir Galahad is destroyed during the Bluff Cove Air Attacks
• * VASP Flight 168, a Boeing 727 passenger jet, crashes into a forest hillside in Fortaleza in Brazil, killing 137.
• *The Los Angeles Lakers defeat the Philadelphia 76ers in six games to win the 1982 NBA Finals.
• June 11 – E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is released in the United States; directed by Steven Spielberg, this will become the biggest box-office hit for the next 11 years.
• June 12 – The Nuclear Disarmament Rally, an event against nuclear weapon proliferation, draws 750,000 to New York City's Central Park. Performers included Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Linda Ronstadt. An international convocation at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine features prominent peace activists from around the world and afterward participants march on Fifth Avenue to Central Park for the rally.
• June 13
• * The 1982 FIFA World Cup begins in Spain.
• * Fahd becomes King of Saudi Arabia upon the death of his brother, Khalid.
• June 14 – Argentine surrender in the Falklands War: Argentine forces in the capital, Stanley, surrender to British forces.
• June 18 – Argentine military dictator Leopoldo Galtieri resigns in the wake of his country's defeat in the Falklands War.
• June 20 – Falklands War ends with British forces retaking the South Sandwich Islands.
• June 24 – British Airways Flight 9 suffers a temporary four-engine flameout and damage to the exterior of the plane after flying through the otherwise undetected volcanic ash plume from Indonesia's Mount Galunggung.