March 1980

March 1, 1980 (Saturday)

• Steven Stayner, kidnapped by Kenneth Parnell seven years earlier from his home in Merced, California, appeared at a police station in Ukiah after rescuing another kidnapped boy, Timmy White, who had been missing since February 13. Stayner had been abducted on December 4, 1972. Police arrested the kidnapper, Kenneth Eugene Parnell hours later at a Ukiah hotel where he was working as a night clerk.
• For the first time in the history of the United Nations, the United States voted against Israel in a UN Security Council resolution. The Security Council unanimously adopted United Nations Security Council Resolution 465, calling on Israel to dismantle Israeli settlements in the West Bank and other occupied territories, which Israel had acquired during the Six-Day War in 1967. U.S. Ambassador Donald McHenry cast the vote on behalf of the United States, though acknowledging that dismantling would be impractical. A spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry responded, using its term for the West Bank, that "Settling in Judea and Samaria is not only our right but part of our security." The resolution, sponsored by Security Council temporary members Jordan and Morocco, came after Israel had allowed Jewish settlers to move into the occupied territory of Hebron. U.S. President Jimmy Carter reversed the decision two days later, and U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance blamed McHenry's vote on a "failure in communications."
• Died:
• *Wilhelmina Cooper, 40, Netherlands-born American model known for founding the Wilhelmina Models agency, from lung cancer.
• *Emmett Ashford, 66, the first black umpire in Major League Baseball
• *William "Dixie" Dean, 73, English soccer football forward
• *Daniil Khrabrovitsky, 56, Soviet film director

  March 2, 1980 (Sunday)

• Voters in Switzerland overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to separate church and state. The proposed amendment to the Swiss Constitution would have ended government sponsorship of the Protestant Swiss Reformed Church and of the Roman Catholic Church. There were 1,052,294 votes against the measure and 281,760 in favor of it.
• General Prem Tinsulanonda was elected as the new Prime Minister of Thailand by the Asian kingdom's House of Representatives, the Ratsadon. Tinsulanonda succeeded Kriangsak Chamanan, who had resigned on February 29 after disapproval of his economic policies.
• Born: Rebel Wilson, Australian comedian and actress, as Melanie Bownds in Sydney

  March 3, 1980 (Monday)

• The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, adopted by the International Atomic Energy Agency on October 26 in Vienna, was signed by nations in both Vienna and New York City, and would be ratified by sufficient nations to enter into force on February 8, 1987.
• Following the victory of his Liberal Party over the Progressive Conservative Party in Canadian elections, Pierre Trudeau returned to office as Prime Minister of Canada, taking the oath at the Government House in Ottawa. Trudeau, who had previously served as Prime Minister from 1968 to 1979, was sworn in by Marcel Masse, the Clerk of the Privy Council. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Joe Clark sent his resignation to Governor General Edward Schreyer.
• Iran's governing Islamic Revolutionary Council announced that it would allow a five-man United Nations commission to meet with the 50 American diplomats held captive at the besieged U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Iran's leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini had overruled the militant students who had earlier refused to allow the UN panel to meet the hostages.
• José Napoleón Duarte, in exile in Mexico since 1968, returned to El Salvador and replaced Héctor Dada Hirezi on the five-member Revolutionary Government Junta and took office as the Central American nation's Foreign Minister. By December 13, Duarte became the first President of the Junta.
• The Audi Quattro, a four-wheel drive sporting coupe, was launched in West Germany.
• The first ShowBiz Pizza Place restaurant opened in Kansas City, Missouri, launched by Robert L. Brock, who had been a holder of a Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theatre franchise. In 1984, ShowBiz would acquire the Chuck E. Cheese stores and, in 1990, rename its restaurants with the Chuck E. Cheese brand name.
• The controversial television show That's Incredible!, which showcased people performing dangerous stunts, premiered on the ABC network in the U.S. and began a five-season run. It was hosted by John Davidson, Fran Tarkenton, and Cathy Lee Crosby. Criticized as a copy of the popular NBC show Real People, or the 1950s series You Asked for It, the series captured its time slot on the first evening. As syndicated critic Peter J. Boyer noted about the stunts, the series opener was "a filmed feature on some guy who works with bees" who "let a bee sting him for the cameras, as everyone on stage gushed 'That's incredible!'". Boyer added "No one within microphone range offered 'That's Stupid!'"
• American tennis player John McEnroe reached the ATP's #1 player in the world ranking for the first time in his career. Between 1980 and 1985, McEnroe would be the #1 ranked player on multiple occasions for 170 weeks out of 260.

  March 4, 1980 (Tuesday)

• A conspiracy, led by Pakistani Army Major General Tajammul Hussain Malik, to assassinate Pakistan's President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq during the annual March 23 Pakistan Day Parade, was foiled. Malik and his co-conspirators were sentenced to life imprisonment, but would be released after Zia's death in 1988.
• The first civilian killings known as the "Río Negro massacres" took place in a chapel of the Guatemala village of El Oratorio, when members of the Guatemalan Army shot seven people identified as opponents to the construction of the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam. Located on the banks of the Rio Negro River in the Baja Verapaz Department, El Oratorio was one of the communities whose residents, mostly indigenous Maya peoples, the Achi, were forcibly relocated. According to a 2005 petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as many as 5,000 people were killed over a period of two years, most notably on March 13, 1982, when 440 men, women and children were shot in the village of Río Negro.
• The Walt Disney Company entered the video rental business for the first time, as VHS videotapes of 13 of its films were authorized for rental by the Fotomat film developing kiosks nationwide. Among the video rentals were Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, The Love Bug and the more recent Disney release, The Black Hole.
• A little-known candidate, U.S. Representative John B. Anderson of Illinois, won the Massachusetts primary election for the Republican Party nomination, ahead of former U.S. Representative George Bush and former California Governor Ronald Reagan. Teddy Kennedy, the U.S. Senator for Massachusetts, won 66% of the vote in his home state with twice as many votes as U.S. President Carter. Anderson would later run as a third-party candidate for the U.S. presidency.
• The West German TV mystery series, Anderland premiered on the ZDF television network as an entertaining and informative program for children. It would run for 45 episodes until December 14, 1986.
• Born:
• *Jeong Da-bin, South Korean TV actress
• *Omar Bravo, Mexican soccer football forward and national team member, in Los Mochis
• Died: Salim Lawzi, 57, Lebanese journalist and publisher of the weekly magazine Al Hawadeth, was found dead nine days after being kidnapped. He had probably died on February 28 or February 29.

  March 5, 1980 (Wednesday)

• Independent Sector, an American coalition of nonprofit organizations, foundations and corporate charities, was created by a merger of the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations and the National Council of Philanthropy.
• After losing in the New Hampshire Primary, Tennessee U.S. Senator Howard Baker became the first candidate to withdraw from the Republican race for the presidential nomination.
• Beyond Westworld premiered on CBS but ran for only three episodes before being canceled. In its final showing on March 19, it finished 69th out of 69 shows in the Nielsen ratings. It was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards, for art direction and for makeup.
• Born: William Owens, U.S. Navy SEAL, in Peoria, Illinois
• Died:
• *Jay Silverheels, 67, Mohawk American TV actor known for portraying Tonto in The Lone Ranger
• *Marc Edmund Jones, 91, American astrologer

  March 6, 1980 (Thursday)

• Edwin H. Land, who had founded the Polaroid company that was a major manufacturer of cameras and film, and a pioneer in self-developing photographs, resigned as its CEO after the corporation's loss of money from attempting to market the Polavision video camera system. Among the problems with Polavision was that, although films could be seen soon after they had been made, the film could not be reused.
• The Iranian students who had held the U.S. Embassy diplomats hostage since November announced that they were ready to turn their captives over to the control of Iran's government. The students then made new demands the following day.
• Colombian terrorists, who had seized the Dominican Republic's Embassy and taken 15 ambassadors hostage, released one of their captives, Austrian Ambassador Edger Selzer, whose wife was terminally ill in Vienna.
• Died:
• *Barbara Brukalska, 80, Polish architect and exponent of functionalism
• *Park Heung-ju, 40, was shot by a firing squad, becoming the first of the co-conspirators to be executed for the October 26 assassination of President Park Chung Hee. The other five would be hanged on May 24.

  March 7, 1980 (Friday)

• CovertAction Information Bulletin, an American periodical opposed to spy agencies, revealed the identity of 39 agents of the Central Intelligence Agency, publishing the names and biographies of 16 CIA station chiefs and 23 other senior officers, including some in Moscow and Beijing.
• Born:
• *Laura Prepon, American television actress; in Watchung, New Jersey
• *Murat Boz, Turkish singer and TV actor; in Karadeniz Ereğli