October 1981

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October 6, 1981: Egypt's President Anwar Sadat assassinated

The following events occurred in October 1981:

October 1, 1981 (Thursday)

  • The first cellular telephone system was inaugurated. Nordic Mobile Telephone (Nordisk MobilTelephoni, NMT) set up the network in Sweden.[1]
  • Eighty-three people were killed and more than 300 injured when a car bomb exploded outside of the Beirut headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization's intelligence center. The "Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners", which the PLO asserted was a front for Israel, took credit for the attack.[2]
  • Gunther Guillaume, whose unmasking as an East German spy brought down the government of West German chancellor Willy Brandt in 1974, was released from prison and allowed to cross into East Germany.[3]
  • The first five percent of President Reagan's 25% cut of U.S. federal income taxes took effect. The next 10% would take effect July 1, 1982, and the final 10% on July 1, 1983.[4]
  • Led by Dr. Paul L. Schechter, astronomers at the Kitt Peak National Observatory reported the discovery of a "hole" in the universe, 300 million light years in diameter, that had only one-tenth of the stars and galaxies found elsewhere. The void, described by Schechter as "exceedingly hard to understand", is located beyond the constellation Boötes and encompasses one percent of the space in the known universe.[5]

October 2, 1981 (Friday)

  • The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was elected president of Iran with 16,007,972 votes out of 16,846,996 cast. Education minister Ali-Akbar Parvaresh placed second.[6]
  • U.S. president Ronald Reagan announced his plans to resurrect the B-1 bomber program that had been scrapped by President Carter, with 100 of the planes to be built by 1987, and another plan to deploy 100 MX missiles.[7]
  • Died:

October 3, 1981 (Saturday)

October 4, 1981 (Sunday)

  • The body in Lee Harvey Oswald's grave was exhumed at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth, Texas to determine whether the corpse was indeed Oswald's. Michael Eddowes, author of the 1977 book The Oswald File, paid the $250,000 expense for the body removal and its examination at the Baylor University Medical Center. Oswald's dental records were examined and confirmed that his was indeed the body in the grave.[10] The examining team wrote a detailed account of the examination two years later.[11]

October 5, 1981 (Monday)

  • The last model of the Triumph Motor Company's legendary sports cars, a 1982 Triumph TR7, rolled off of the assembly line at Solihull, West Midlands, England.[12]
  • In the Washington Post gossip column "The Ear", Diana McLellan outraged former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn by writing that "word's around Rosalynn's close pals about exactly why the Carters were so sure" that incoming First Lady Nancy Reagan wanted them out prior to the expiration of Carter's term: "They're saying that Blair House, where Nancy was lodging... was bugged. And at least one tattler in the Carter tribe has described listening in to the tape itself... Ear is absolutely appalled. Stay tuned, uh, whoever's listening." Three days later, the Carters announced plans to sue the Post, and, on October 23, the newspaper printed publisher Donald Graham's apology, which was accepted.[13]
  • Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during World War II and vanished after being arrested by the Soviet Union, was made an honorary American citizen in a resolution signed by President Reagan.[14]
  • The first eight-team playoff in Major League Baseball history began as the Kansas City Royals lost to the Oakland A's in the first game of a series to decide the American League West title. Each of baseball's four divisions were decided by matching up the winners of the first and second halves of the strike-torn season. The Cincinnati Reds, with the best overall record in the 1981 season (66-42) did not qualify for the playoffs because they failed to win the NL West in either half of the season.[15] MLB returned to the four-team playoff system for the next 12 seasons, then realigned, with eight teams in the playoffs in 1995, after the 1994 strike season.
  • The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church, was indicted for U.S. federal income tax evasion.[16] He was convicted and served an 18-month prison sentence.
  • Born: Enrico Fabris, Italian speed skater; Olympic gold medalist 2006; in Asiago
  • Died:

October 6, 1981 (Tuesday)

  • Egypt's President Anwar Sadat was assassinated at Nasr City while watching the annual Armed Forces Day parade. As a squadron of jets flew overhead in formation at 12:40 p.m., a military vehicle halted in front of the reviewing stand, and six of the men jumped out, hurling stun grenades and firing machine guns. Sadat was hit by two bullets and died at a hospital two hours later.[17] Seven other people, including two of the gunmen, were killed.[18] The four surviving assassins, ringleader Lt. Khaledi Islambouli, Sgt. Hussein Abbas, reserve Air Force officer Atta Hemeida and shop owner Abdel-Hamid Abdel-Aal, as well as mastermind Mohammed Abdel-Salam Farag, were executed on April 15, 1982.[19]

October 7, 1981 (Wednesday)

October 8, 1981 (Thursday)

  • For the first and only time in history, three former presidents of the United States flew together on the same airplane. Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, the 37th, 38th and 39th holders of the office, were greeted at the White House by the 40th, current president Ronald Reagan, before flying by helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base, where they departed at 7:45 p.m. for the funeral of Egypt's assassinated president, Anwar Sadat.[21]
  • Bobby Unser was again declared the winner of the Indianapolis 500 after 4 12 months. He had crossed the finish line first on May 24, but was disqualified the next day for having passed during a yellow caution flag, with Mario Andretti declared the winner. Unser took his case to the United States Auto Club appeals panel, which voted 2–1 to declare him the official winner. He was fined $40,000 but was not penalized the lap.[22] Andretti continued appealing, finally abandoning the case on March 4, 1982.[23]
  • OSO I, the first of the Orbiting Solar Observatory satellite series, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere more than 18 years after its launch on March 7, 1962, and burned up on re-entry.[24]
  • Cagney & Lacey was first telecast as a made-for-TV movie, and attracted a Nielsen rating of 42.[25]
  • Ted Kaczynski, later exposed as the Unabomber, planted his fifth bomb. The device he left at the University of Utah's Bennion Hall was detected and defused before it could explode.[26]
  • Died: Armando Bo, 66, Argentine film director

October 9, 1981 (Friday)

October 10, 1981 (Saturday)

  • In the largest protest march in Germany since the end of World War II, at least 150,000 people gathered in Bonn, West Germany to demonstrate against the further deployment of American nuclear missiles in Europe.[32]

October 11, 1981 (Sunday)

  • The Super Chicken III, piloted by John Shoecroft and Fred Gorrell, became the first balloon to cross the United States without stopping. The 2,515-mile journey from Costa Mesa, California to Blackbeard Island in Georgia took 55 hours and 25 minutes to complete.[33]
  • Died: Brooks Hays, 83, former U.S. Congressman from Arkansas who was voted out of office in 1958 after taking a stand against segregation in schools

October 12, 1981 (Monday)

  • CBS Cable, the first venture into cable television by the broadcast CBS Television Network, went on the air in several markets with a series of programs dedicated to the classical arts, with telecasts of symphonies, dance, theater, and operas.[34] The venture was unsuccessful, and CBS Cable was shut down at 4:00 a.m. on December 17, 1982.[35]

October 13, 1981 (Tuesday)

October 14, 1981 (Wednesday)

October 15, 1981 (Thursday)

October 16, 1981 (Friday)

  • In Japan's worst mining disaster, methane gas explosions at the Hokkaido Steamship and Colliery operation at Yūbari, Hokkaidō killed 93 coal miners. The blast occurred while the men were 1,900 feet underground.[45]
  • Died: Moshe Dayan, 66, Israeli general, defense minister 1967–74, foreign minister 1977-79

October 17, 1981 (Saturday)

October 18, 1981 (Sunday)

October 19, 1981 (Monday)

  • The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that home videotaping of programs constituted copyright violation, reversing a 1979 decision.[50] The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the appeals court's ruling on January 17, 1984.[51]

October 20, 1981 (Tuesday)

October 21, 1981 (Wednesday)

  • U.S. Patent #4,296,282 was granted to Joseph T. O'Neil, Thomas M. Quinn and Tse Lin Wang for "Incoming Call Identification Arrangement", more commonly known as Caller ID. [53]
  • Born: Nemanja Vidić, Serbian footballer, in Titovo Uzice

October 22, 1981 (Thursday)

October 23, 1981 (Friday)

  • Egyptian surgeon Ayman al-Zawahiri was arrested during a roundup of dissidents following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Zawahiri spent three years in prison, where he was tortured. "The torture broke Zawahiri," noted one author later, "and transformed him as well into an embittered fanatic, determined to inflict deadly harm on Egypt's secular authorities and its Western friends." [55]
  • The Spider, the first lunar module to be tested in outer space for docking with a lunar orbiter, fell out of orbit and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere. During the Apollo 9 mission, on March 7, 1969, the craft had been operated by astronauts Jim McDivitt and Rusty Schweickart, a mission that confirmed that a module could carry out the necessary docking and undocking maneuvers needed for a lunar landing.[56][57]
  • Born: Michael Fishman, American child actor (D.J. Conner on Roseanne), in Los Angeles
  • Died: Reg Butler, 69, English sculptor

October 24, 1981 (Saturday)

  • A weekend of anti-nuclear protests began in cities throughout Europe, as 200,000 marched in Rome and another 150,000 in London to protest the deployment of American Pershing II missiles at bases in five European nations. On Sunday, a crowd of 200,000 turned out in Brussels for the largest demonstration since World War II, and smaller crowds marched in Paris, Berlin and Oslo.[58]
  • Born: Tila Tequila, Vietnamese American model and singer, as Tila Nguyen, in Singapore
  • Died: Edith Head, 84, American costume designer and eight-time Oscar winner

October 25, 1981 (Sunday)

October 26, 1981 (Monday)

  • In the worst accident since refugees from Caribbean nations began sailing to the United States, a leaky sailboat with 67 Haitians broke apart in rough seas, half a mile from the beach in Florida. Thirty-four survivors were able to swim to safety, while the bodies of 33 drowning victims washed ashore at Hillsboro Beach, Florida.[60]
  • The longest-serving president of Finland, Urho Kekkonen, resigned because of ill health after nearly 26 years in office.[61]
  • Born: Guy Sebastian, Australian singer, in Klang, Malaysia

October 27, 1981 (Tuesday)

  • Shortly after 8:00 p.m., Soviet submarine U-137 was caught penetrating Sweden's territory after running aground outside the naval base at Karlskrona.[62] The Swedish government did not allow the vessel to leave until November 6.[63]
  • The first reported instance of a pilot being blinded by a laser pointed from the ground took place 700 feet over Encino, California. A 21-year-old man who said he was "testing a laser for a Halloween party" aimed the beam into the cockpit of a hovering police helicopter, leaving the pilot and co-pilot with total loss of vision for several seconds.[64]

October 28, 1981 (Wednesday)

October 29, 1981 (Thursday)

October 30, 1981 (Friday)

  • Thirty-eight years after he disappeared while flying a dive bomber, the body of U.S. Navy Lt. Lorne Parker Pelzer and his airplane were discovered in a remote canyon near California's Mount Shasta. Pelzer had been alone in Douglas SBD Dauntless on March 13, 1943 when the airplane vanished in a blizzard.[70]
  • Venera 13 was launched by the Soviet Union, followed five days later by Venera 14. The twin satellite explorers traveled to the surface of Venus, with Venera 13 landing first on March 1, 1982, and transmitting the first color pictures of the reddish brown soil on the second planet.[71]
  • Born:
  • Died: Lew Jenkins, 64, former world lightweight boxing champion

October 31, 1981 (Saturday)

References

  1. Richard A. Gershon, Telecommunications and Business Strategy (Taylor & Francis, 2008) p195
  2. "Toll in blast hits 83", Milwaukee Journal, October 2, 1981, p2
  3. "Spy swap apparently under way", Milwaukee Journal, October 2, 1981, p2
  4. Lou Cannon, President Reagan: the role of a lifetime (Simon & Schuster, 2010) p221; "New Deal, Great Society end today as budget cuts start", Anchorage Daily News, October 1, 1981, pA-9
  5. "Vast 'Hole' in Space Appears to Defy Theories", New York Times, October 2, 1981
  6. "Iran formalizes results of election", Eugene (OR) Register-Guard, October 5, 1981, p7A
  7. Robert David Johnson, Congress and the Cold War (Cambridge University Press, 2006) p260
  8. "Hunger strike ends", Milwaukee Journal, October 2, 1981, p1
  9. Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland (PublicAffairs, 2010) p254
  10. "Autopsy shows body is Oswald's", Milwaukee Journal, October 5, 1981, p3
  11. “The Exhumation and Identification of Lee Harvey Oswald”, by Linda E. Norton, et al., Journal of Forensic Sciences, Volume 29, No. 1, Jan. 1984, pp 19-28
  12. Bill Piggott, Collector's Originality Guide: TRIUMPH" (MotorBooks International, 2009) p41
  13. David S Broder, Behind the Front Page (Simon and Schuster, 2000) p315; "Washington Post Apologizes To Carters, Retracts Report", Toledo Blade, October 23, 1981, p2
  14. "Heroic Swede made honorary US citizen", Milwaukee Journal, October 6, 1981, p1
  15. "Royals Embarrassed By A's, Norris", Pittsburgh Press, October 7, 1981, pD-1
  16. "Rev. Moon Indicted On Tax Charges", Pittsburgh Press, October 15, 1981, p1
  17. "SOLDIERS ASSASSINATE SADAT", Pittsburgh Press, October 6, 1981, p1
  18. J. Reid Meloy, et al., Stalking, Threatening, and Attacking Public Figures: A Psychological and Behavioral Analysis (Oxford University Press US, 2008) p153-154
  19. "Sadat assassins are executed", Glasgow Herald, April 16, 1982, p4
  20. "The Sabres 'Ruff' up Carpenter and Caps", Spokane Spokesman-Review, October 8, 1981, p31
  21. "Flight of Three Presidents", TIME Magazine, October 26, 1981; "4 presidents make history", Milwaukee Journal, October 9, 1981
  22. Bobby Unser, Winners are Driven: A Champion's Guide to Success in Business & Life (John Wiley and Sons, 2004) p116; "Unser Wins Appeal, Reclaims Indy 500", Milwaukee Sentinel, October 9, 1981, p2-2
  23. "After 9 months, Unser officially wins Indy", Daily Union (Junction City, KS), March 5, 1982, p10
  24. Linda T. Elkins-Tanton, The Sun, Mercury, and Venus (Infobase Publishing, 2006) p56
  25. Robert J. Thompson, Television's second golden age: from Hill Street blues to ER (Syracuse University Press, 1997) p102
  26. Alston Chase, A Mind for Murder: The Education of the Unabomber and the Origins of Modern Terrorism (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004) p55; John S. Dempsey, Linda S. Forst, An Introduction to Policing (Cengage Learning, 2011) p505; "Bomb disarmed in Utah", Milwaukee Journal, October 9, 1981, p2; "He Told FBI About Kaczynski's Papers", New York Daily News, April 8, 1996
  27. "Rolling Stones Open 2-Day Stand In LA", Oxnard (CA) Press-Courier, October 10, 1981, p3
  28. Brian Morton, Prince: A Thief in the Temple (Canongate U.S., 2007) p74
  29. La Documentation Francaise
  30. approved the new law, 363-117. "French Senate Votes To End Death Penalty", New York Times, October 1, 1981
  31. "Flood in Philippines leaves hundreds dead", Milwaukee Journal, October 12, 1981, p2
  32. "A-Arms Protested By 250,000 In Bonn- Rally Is Largest In West Germany Since World War II", Toledo Blade, October 11, 1981, p1
  33. "Balloon crosses US non-stop", Milwaukee Journal, October 12, 1981 p8
  34. "CBS Cable Starts Cultural TV Service Tonight", New York Times, October 12, 1981
  35. "What Lies Ahead for Cultural Programming", New York Times, December 12, 1982
  36. Michael Brecher and Jonathan Wilkenfeld, A Study of Crisis (University of Michigan Press, 1997) p127
  37. Stephen O. Hughes, Morocco Under King Hassan (Garnet & Ithaca Press, 2006) p276; Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987 (Simon and Schuster, 1987) p149
  38. "Mubarak sworn in as Sadat's successor", The Milwaukee Journal, October 14, 1981, p1
  39. Phillip C. Naylor, North Africa: A History from Antiquity to the Present (University of Texas Press, 2009) p293
  40. "New leader takes over", Milwaukee Journal, October 14, 1981, p2
  41. Ananth V. Krishna, India Since Independence: Making Sense Of Indian Politics (Pearson Education India, 2011) p274
  42. Dov Seidman, How: Why How Do We Do Anything Means Everything-- In Business (And in Life) (John Wiley and Sons, 2007) p1-3
  43. Andrei S. Markovits and Lars Rensmann, Gaming the World: How Sports are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture (Princeton University Press, 2010) p154
  44. "Krazy George started the wave", Regina Leader-Post, July 18, 1984, pB-2
  45. Roy Thomas, Japan: The Blighted Blossom (I.B.Tauris, 1989) p162; "93 Japan Miners Dead", Spokane Daily Chronicle, Oct 17, 1981, p2
  46. "Pope Meets Patriarch Of Ethiopian Church", New York Times, October 18, 1981
  47. Takis S. Pappas, Making Party Democracy in Greece (Palgrave Macmillan, 1999) p64; "Voters Put Socialists In Power In Greece", Toledo Blade October 19, 1981, p1
  48. "Poland replaces Communist leader", Anchorage Daily News October 19, 1981, p1
  49. Oman: A Country Study (Kessinger Publishing, 2004) p126
  50. "Taping Off TV Ruled Illegal", Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1981, p1
  51. Janet Wasko, Hollywood in the Information Age: Beyond the Silver Screen (University of Texas Press, 1995) pp 127-129
  52. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (South End Press, 2002) p464; "Radical fugitive seized as holdup fails", Milwaukee Journal, October 21, 1981, p1
  53. U.S. Patent 4,296,282
  54. "Iran: Parliament rejects Velayati as new PM", "Ottawa Citizen, October 22, 1981, p48
  55. Kai Bird, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 (Simon and Schuster, 2010) p190
  56. "'We Were at War': 45 Years Since Apollo 9", Space Safety magazine, March 4, 2014
  57. Richard W. Orloff and David M. Harland, Apollo: The Definitive Sourcebook (Springer Science & Business, 2006) p229
  58. "300,000 protest arms race", Anchorage Daily News, October 26, 1981, p12
  59. Harvey Rachlin, Scandals, vandals, and Da Vincis: A Gallery of Remarkable Art Tales (Penguin, 2007) p278
  60. "33 Haitians Drown Off Florida Coast", Sarasota Herald-Tribune, October 27, 1981, p1
  61. Hyvärinen, "Finland's Man"; Suomi, "A Ski Trail Being Snowed In"; Mauno Koivisto, "Two Terms I: Memories and Notes 1982–1994" / Kaksi kautta I. Muistikuvia ja merkintöjä 1982–1994, Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä Publishing Ltd., 1994.
  62. "Swedish ships encircle grounded Russian sub", Miami News, October 28, 1981, p1
  63. "The case of the stranded sub", by Milton Leitenberg, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March 1982) pp10-13
  64. "Laser Injures Police Helicopter Crew", Sarasota (FL) Herald-Tribune, October 29, 1981, p9-B
  65. "Dodgers Capture World Series", Montreal Gazette, October 29, 1981, p61
  66. "Metallica.com". Archived from the original on 2014-06-18. Retrieved 2011-06-22.
  67. Miriam Aronin, Black-footed Ferrets: Back from the Brink (Bearport Publishing, 2007) p9
  68. "Iranian premier confirmed", Spokane Spokesman-Review, October 30, 1981, p4
  69. "2 NBC Comedies Have Premieres", New York Times October 29, 1981 TV.com
  70. "Officials identify pilot of long-missing plane", Eugene (OR) Register-Guard, November 8, 1981, p16A; "Mystery solved after 38 years", Regina Leader-Post, November 9, 1981, pC-8
  71. Paolo Ulivi, Robotic Exploration of the Solar System, Part 1: The Golden Age 1957-1982 (Springer, 2007) pp285-286; R. K. Renfield, Venus (Rosen Publishing Group, 2004) p15
  72. Larry R. Helyer, Exploring Jewish literature of the Second Temple Period: A Guide for New Testament Students (InterVarsity Press, 2002) p441
  73. Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Wave Watcher's Companion: From Ocean Waves to Light Waves Via Shock Waves, Stadium Waves, and All the Rest of Life's Undulations (Penguin, 2010)
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