February 12 – 100 women protest inLahore, Pakistan, against military dictatorZia-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.
TheVenezuelan bolívar is devalued and exchange controls are established in an event now referred to asBlack Friday by many Venezuelans (the Bolívar had been the most stable and internationally accepted currency).[clarification needed]
Two separate research groups led byRobert Gallo andLuc Montagnier independently declare that a novelretrovirus may have been infecting people withHIV/AIDS, and publish their findings in the same issue of the journalScience.[7][8]
Sally Ride becomes the first female American astronaut in space when she launches on board Challenger'sSTS-7 mission together with four male crewmates.
June 22 –Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-oldVatican girl, mysteriously disappears inRome 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 theHoly See. Because of all these theories, the Orlandi case would later becomeItaly's most famous mystery.
July 7 – Ten-year-old American girlSamantha Smith accepts her invitation from Soviet PremierYuri Andropov and begins her visit to the USSR with her parents.
Hurricane Alicia hits theTexas coast, killing 22 and causing over US $3.8 billion (2005 dollars) in damage.
Five people are killed and 18 others injured when a road train is deliberately driven into a motel atAyers Rock in the Northern Territory of Australia (the driver, Douglas Edward Crabbe, is convicted inMarch1984).
TheSoyuz T-10-1 mission ends in a pad abort at theBaikonur Cosmodrome, when a pad fire occurs at the base of theSoyuz U rocket during the launch countdown. The escape tower system, attached to the top of the capsule containing the crew andSoyuz spacecraft, fires immediately, pulling the crew safe from the vehicle a few seconds before the rocket explodes, destroying the launch complex.
Themass burial of around 700,000 unsoldAtari video game cartridges, consoles, and computers occurs inAlamogordo, New Mexico.
October 21 – At the 17th General Conference on Weights and Measures, the metre is defined in terms of thespeed of light as the distance light travels in avacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
General elections are celebrated inVenezuela in which the opposition party,Democratic Action, wins a majority in both chambers of the Venezuelan Congress and the presidency for the 1984–1989 period underJaime Lusinchi. Voter turnout is 87.3% and Lusinchi obtains 58.4% of the votes.
December 5 –ICIMOD is established and inaugurated with its headquarters inKathmandu,Nepal, and legitimised through an Act of Parliament in Nepal this same year.
December 7 – Two Spanish passenger planescollide on the foggy runway at aMadrid airport, killing 93 people.
December 9 – TheAustralian dollar is floated by Federal treasurerPaul Keating. Under the old flexible peg system, the Reserve Bank bought and sold all Australian dollars and cleared the market at the end of the day. This initiative is taken by the government ofBob Hawke.
^Parry, Robert (2001).The map library in the new millennium. Chicago; London: American Library Association Library Association Pub. p. 90.ISBN9780838935187.
^Blackburn, Peter (May 28, 1983). "New capital grows in rural Africa: PETER BLACKBURN reports on Yamoussoukro's dramatic promotion from an obscure village buried in the bush to the capital of the Ivory Coast".South China Morning Post.ProQuest1553829422.
^RC Gallo; PS Sarin; EP Gelmann; M Robert-Guroff; E Richardson; VS Kalyanaraman; D Mann; GD Sidhu; RE Stahl; S Zolla-Pazner; J Leibowitch; M Popovic (1983). "Isolation of human T-cell leukemia virus in acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)".Science.220 (4599):865–867.Bibcode:1983Sci...220..865G.doi:10.1126/science.6601823.PMID6601823.
^Barre-Sinoussi, F.; Chermann, J.; Rey, F.; Nugeyre, M.; Chamaret, S.; Gruest, J.; Dauguet, C.; Axler-Blin, C.; Vézinet-Brun, F.; Rouzioux, C.; Rozenbaum, W.; Montagnier, L. (1983). "Isolation of a T-lymphotropic retrovirus from a patient at risk for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)".Science.220 (4599):868–871.Bibcode:1983Sci...220..868B.doi:10.1126/science.6189183.PMID6189183.S2CID390173.
^Aldrich, Robert (1993).The Crisis in New Caledonia in the 1980s. In: France and the South Pacific since 1940. Palgrave Macmillan, London. p. 242.ISBN978-1-349-10830-5.
^Howard, Geoffrey (1986).Automobile aerodynamics : theory and practice for road and track. London Osceola, Wis., USA: Osprey for Motorbooks International. p. 53.ISBN9780850456653.
^Frederick S. Calhoun (1998).Hunters and Howlers: Threats and Violence Against Federal Judicial Officials in the United States, 1789-1993. U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Marshals Service. p. 15.
