January 9 –Van Halen releases their sixth studio album1984 (MCMLXXXIV), which debuts at number 2 on theBillboard 200 albums chart, and will go to sell over 10 million copies in theUnited States.
March 23 – GeneralRahimuddin Khan becomes the first man inPakistan's history to rule over two of its provinces, after becoming interim Governor ofSindh.
April 12 –Palestinian gunmen take Israeli bus number 300 hostage. Israeli special forces storm the bus, freeing the hostages (one hostage, two hijackers killed).
May 13 –Severomorsk Disaster: an explosion at the Soviets' Severomorsk Naval Base destroys two-thirds of all the missiles stockpiled for the Soviets' Northern Fleet. The blast also destroys workshops needed to maintain the missiles as well as hundreds of technicians. Western military experts called it the worst naval disaster the Soviet Navy has suffered since WWII.
May 14 – The one-dollar coin is introduced in Australia.
June 8 – A F5tornado nearly destroys the town ofBarneveld, Wisconsin, killing nine people, injuring nearly 200, and causing over $25,000,000 in damage.
July 14 – New Zealand Prime MinisterRob Muldoon calls a snap election and is defeated by opposition Labour leaderDavid Lange.
Newspaper vending machine featuring news of the1984 Summer Olympics, which opened on July 28
July 18 –San Ysidro McDonald's massacre: 41-year-old James Huberty walks into a McDonald's in theSan Ysidro district ofSan Diego, resulting in 21 deaths, with Huberty being killed by a sniper 77 minutes after the ordeal begins.
November 11 – TheLouisiana World Exposition, also known as The 1984 World's Fair, and also the New Orleans World's Fair, and, to the locals, simply as "The Fair" or "Expo 84", closes.
A peace agreement betweenKenya andSomalia is signed in theEgyptian capitalCairo. With this agreement, in which Somalia officially renounces its historical territorial claims, relations between the two countries begin to improve.
TheLight Rail Transit inManila begins service with the opening of its southern segment, as the first rapid transit service in Southeast Asia.
December 3 –Bhopal disaster: Amethyl isocyanate leak from aUnion Carbide pesticide plant inBhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 8,000 people outright and injures over half a million (with more later dying from their injuries the death toll reaches 23,000+) in the worst industrial disaster in history.
1983–85 famine in Ethiopia intensifies with renewed drought by mid-year, killing a million people by the end of this year.
Crack cocaine, a smokeable form of the drug, is first introduced into Los Angeles and soon spreads across the United States in what becomes known as thecrack epidemic.
^Background notes, Brunei Darussalam. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of Public Communication, Editorial Division. 1985. p. 6.
^"United States-Vatican Diplomatic Relations: The Past and The Future".The Ambassadors REVIEW.Council of American Ambassadors. Spring 2001. Archived fromthe original on October 25, 2012. RetrievedNovember 17, 2011.On January 10, 1984, when President Reagan announced the establishment of formal diplomatic relations with the Holy See, he appointed William A. Wilson, who had been serving as his personal representative to the Pope, as the first US Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Holy See.
