January 1981

January 1, 1981

• Georgia defeated Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl, 17–10, to finish the 1980 NCAA Division I-A football season with a 12–0–0 record and the mythical national championship.
• Greece joined the "Common Market", now the European Union.
• The Republic of Palau was proclaimed in the Palau Islands of Micronesia. Under an agreement signed with the United States in 1980, the new nation would continue to be administered as a United States trust territory, with the U.S. handling Palau's foreign and military affairs.
• The United States minimum wage increased from $3.10 to $3.35 per hour, where it would remain until 1990, when it went to $3.85.
• Léopold Sédar Senghor, President of Senegal since the nation became independent in 1960, became the first African president to retire voluntarily, resigning in favor of his protégé, Vice-President Abdou Diouf.
• Born:
• * Mladen Petrić, Croatian footballer with 45 caps for the Croatia national team; in Brčko, Yugoslavia
• * Eden Riegel, American TV actress, in Washington, D.C.
• Died: Mauri Rose, 74, American racer and Indianapolis 500 winner in 1941, 1947 and 1948

  January 2, 1981 (Friday)

• The "Yorkshire Ripper", serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, was arrested by police in Sheffield, England after the largest manhunt in British history. Over a period of six years, Sutcliffe was believed to have murdered 13 women.
• The Federal Reserve Board of Governors brought down the U.S. prime ratethe minimum interest rate for an American bank to loan moneyfrom what remains its highest level in history. For 14 days, between December 19 and January 1, the rate had been at % and it was lowered to %; thirty-five years later, the prime rate would be 3.5%. The "prime rate" is that which is reserved for borrowers with the highest credit, with higher interest rates than prime permitted for borrowers considered to be at risk for default.
• Born: Maxi Rodríguez, Argentine footballer with 56 caps for the Argentina national team; in Rosario, Santa Fe

  January 3, 1981 (Saturday)

• Salvadoran labor leader José Rodolfo Viera, and two American representatives from the AFL-CIO, Michael P. Hammer and Mark David Pearlman, were assassinated at the Sheraton Hotel in San Salvador, by two members of the El Salvador National Guard. The gunmen, José Dimas Valle Acevedo and Santiago Gómez González, testified later that they had been ordered to carry out the murders after the victims had been recognized by businessman Hans Christ at the hotel's restaurant, and were sentenced to 30 years in prison in 1986. They were released after less than two years.
• Born: Eli Manning, American NFL quarterback for the New York Giants, MVP in Super Bowl XLII ; in New Orleans
• Died: Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, 97, the last survivor of the 42 grandchildren of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

  January 4, 1981 (Sunday)

• The most expensive non-musical Broadway production to that date, The Monster Revived: Frankenstein, Victor Gialanella's adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, was shown for the first time, and the last. Premiering at the Palace Theatre after the expense of two million dollars, the play was poorly reviewed and closed after one performance.

  January 5, 1981 (Monday)

• For the first time since Iraq had invaded its territory in September, Iran launched a counterattack, concentrating its armies at Sousangerd. After 18 months, Iraqi forces had been driven out of Iran, which then began a drive toward capturing Iraqi territory. The war would continue until 1988.
• Chuck Knox, who guided the Buffalo Bills to their first Division Title since 1966 American Football League season was named the Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year, narrowing edging Atlanta Falcons' Leeman Bennett.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first TV adaptation of the Douglas Adams book, debuted on BBC Two.
• Born: Deadmau5 ; in Niagara Falls, Ontario
• Died:
• * Harold C. Urey, 87, American chemist who discovered the isotope deuterium, 1934 Nobel Prize laureate
• * Sir James Martin, 87, British engineer and inventor of ejection seat
• * Lanza del Vasto, 79, philosopher, poet, and activist

  January 6, 1981 (Tuesday)

• The merger of Libya and Chad was announced in Tripoli by Libya's President Muammar al-Gaddafi, and his guest, President Goukouni Oueddei of Chad, who had taken power in December with the help of 4,000 Libyan troops. At, the proposed nation would have been the largest in Africa and 7th largest in the world. The prospect of Libya's annexation of its southern neighbor prompted the member nations of the Organisation of African Unity to intervene, with the assistance of France, in forcing the peaceful withdrawal of Libyan forces and an end to the merger plan.
• The Brazilian ferry Novo Amapo sank in the Jari River after striking a sandbar. Although 211 survivors were rescued, at least 230 others drowned.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 1,000 points for the first time since September 27, 1976, reaching 1004.69.
• Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were officially certified as the winners of the U.S. presidential election, 1980, with outgoing U.S. Vice President Walter F. Mondale announcing that the Reagan-Bush ticket had received 489 electoral votes, as opposed to only 49 for Jimmy Carter and for Mondale.
• In Aumühle, West Germany, a funeral service was held to mourn the death of Karl Doenitz, the Grand Admiral of the German Navy in World War II and the last President of Germany up to that time. Doenitz had taken over as successor to Adolf Hitler on April 30, 1945, and signed the instruments of surrender on May 7. Doenitz, who spent 10 years in prison after conviction of war crimes, died on December 24, 1980.
• Born: Mike Jones, American rapper; in Houston
• Died: A. J. Cronin, 84, Scottish physician and novelist

  January 7, 1981 (Wednesday)

• After investment analyst Joseph Granville sent an overnight telegram to his customers with two words"Sell everything!"the New York Stock Exchange had its biggest trading day up to that time, with 92,890,000 shares changing hands.
• Earl Campbell of the Houston Oilers was named NFL Offensive Player of the Year by the Associated Press for the 3rd straight year.
• Died: Clair L. Farrand, 85, American inventor with over 1,000 electronics patents, including the radio loudspeaker

  January 8, 1981 (Thursday)

• In what has been described as "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented UFO sighting of all time", retired contractor Renato Nicolai witnessed what he believed to be French military aircraft on a test flight. After police forwarded the report to GEPAN, an investigative unit of France's space agency CNES, found traces of metal throughout the area where the UFO had been observed.
• Billy Sims of the Detroit Lions was named the Associated Press National Football League Offensive Rookie of the Year. Sims, who rushed for 1,303 yards on 313 carries with 13 touchdowns received 53 of the 84 votes. The Buffalo Bills' Joe Cribbs was second and the Miami Dolphins' David Woodley was third.
• Born: Xie Xingfang, Chinese badminton player, and women's singles champion in 2005 and 2006; in Guangzhou
• Died: Matthew Beard, 56, African-American actor who portrayed "Stymie" in The Little Rascals.

  January 9, 1981 (Friday)

• U.S. Representative Raymond F. Lederer, the only one of the six indicted Abscam Scandal defendants to have won re-election to Congress in spite of the scandal, was convicted on charges of bribery and conspiracy. A jury in New York returned the verdict after watching a videotape of Lederer accepting $50,000 in cash in an FBI sting. Despite conviction on a felony, Lederer served for three more months until resigning on April 29, after the House Ethics Committee recommended his expulsion from the U.S. House of Representatives.
• A fire killed 31 elderly residents of the Beachview Rest Home in Keansburg, New Jersey. Another 78 patients and employees escaped the blaze.
• Born: Ebi Smolarek, Polish footballer with 47 caps for the Poland national team; in Łódź
• Died: Cozy Cole, 71, American jazz drummer

  January 10, 1981 (Saturday)

• The FMLN launched a guerrilla war against the government of El Salvador which would last for eleven years. At 6:30 pm, after radio stations in San Salvador were seized and FMLN leader Cayetano Carpio announced "The hour... for the taking of power by the people... has arrived." and attacks were launched at multiple locations. One estimate is that 80,000 people, almost 2% of El Salvador's population of 4.5 million, were killed in the course of attacks and reprisals.
• Born: Jared Kushner, American investor, real-estate developer, son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump and Senior Advisor to the President of the United States; in Livingston, New Jersey
• Died:
• * Richard Boone, 63, American TV actor known for portraying Paladin on Have Gun, Will Travel, died from throat cancer.
• * Fawn M. Brodie, 65, American historian

  January 11, 1981 (Sunday)

• Iran dropped a demand that the United States deposit 24 billion dollars in gold into an Algerian bank as a condition of the release of 52 U.S. Embassy workers being held hostage in Tehran, settling instead for the release of the nearly 8 billion dollars of Iranian assets that had been frozen in American banks.
• Born: Jamelia, British singer; in Smethwick, West Midlands
• Died: Beulah Bondi, 92, American film actress known for portraying Ma Bailey in ''It's a Wonderful Life''

  January 12, 1981 (Monday)

• At 1:30 am, the Macheteros, a separatist group in Puerto Rico, raided the Air National Guard's Muñiz Air Base and set explosives that destroyed nine jet fighters.
• The television series Dynasty began a nine-year run on the ABC network. The prime time soap opera, described by New York Times TV critic Tom Buckley as "An embarrassingly obvious knockoff of Dallas", starred Joan Collins as Alexis Carrington, who briefly brought back the popularity of women's wear with padded shoulders. Dynasty was the #1 rated TV program in the United States during the 1983–84 television season.