[natehale1971]

Twilight 2000: Countdown to Armageddon
by Richard A. Spake ©
1982: The Year in Review

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January 1982

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9 January 1982. The Commodore 64 8-bit home computer is introduced by Commodore International at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show.


February 1982

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March 1982

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April 1982

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2 April - 14 June 1982. The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas/Guerra del Atlántico Sur), also called the Falklands Conflict/Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom (UK) over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The Falkland Islands consist of two large and many small islands in the South Atlantic Ocean east of Argentina; their name and sovereignty over them is disputed. The Falklands War started on Friday, 2 April 1982, with the Argentine invasion and occupation of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. Britain launched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Argentine Air Force, and retake the islands by amphibious assault. The conflict ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, and the islands remained under British control. The war lasted 74 days. It resulted in the deaths of 255 British and 649 Argentine soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and the deaths of three civilian Falkland Islanders. It is the most recent external conflict to be fought by the UK without any allied states and the only external Argentine war since the 1880s. The conflict was the result of a protracted historical confrontation regarding the sovereignty of the islands. Neither state officially declared war and the fighting was largely limited to the territories under dispute and the South Atlantic. The initial invasion was characterised by Argentina as the re-occupation of its own territory, and by the UK as an invasion of a British dependent territory. Argentina shows no sign of relinquishing its claim, and the claim was added to the Argentine constitution after its reformation in 1994. The political effects of the war were strong in both countries. A wave of patriotic sentiment swept through both: the Argentine loss prompted even larger protests against the ruling military government, which hastened its downfall; in the United Kingdom, the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was bolstered. It helped Thatcher's government to victory in the 1983 general election, which prior to the war was seen as by no means certain. The war has played an important role in the culture of both countries, and has been the subject of several books, films, and songs. Over time, the cultural and political weight of the conflict has had less effect on the British public than on that of Argentina, where the war is still a topic of discussion. Relations between Argentina and UK were restored in 1989 under the umbrella formula which states that the islands' sovereignty dispute would remain aside.

3 April 1982 (Falklands War). Argentina's Invasion of South Georgia

25 April 1982. The State of Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in accordance with the Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty.

26 April 1982 (Falklands War). The British retake South Georgia during Operation Paraquet.



May 1982

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2 May 1982 (Falklands War). The nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, killing 323 sailors.

2 May 1982. The Weather Channel airs on cable television for the first time.

12 May 1982. A second assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II took place just a day before the anniversary of the first attempt on his life in Fátima, Portugal when a man tried to stab him with a bayonet. He was stopped by security guards, although Stanisław Cardinal Dziwisz later claimed that John Paul II had been injured during the attempt but managed to hide a non-life threatening wound.
The assailant, a traditionalist Spanish priest named Juan María Fernández y Krohn, was ordained as a priest by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of the Society of Saint Pius X and was opposed to the changes caused by the Second Vatican Council, calling the pope an agent of Communist Moscow and of the Marxist Eastern Bloc. Fernández y Krohn subsequently left the Roman Catholic priesthood and served three years of a six-year sentence. The ‘ex-priest’ was treated for mental illness and then expelled from Portugal, going on to become a solicitor in Belgium.


June 1982

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6 June 1982 - 17 May 1983. The 1982 Lebanon War (Hebrew: Milhemet Levanon Harishona, "the first Lebabon war"), (Arabic: Al-ijtiyāḥ, "the invasion"), called Operation Peace for Galilee (Hebrew: מבצע שלום Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil or Mivtsa Sheleg) by Israel, and later known in Israel as the Lebanon War and First Lebanon War, began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon. The Government of Israel launched the military operation after the Abu Nidal Organization's assassination attempt against Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov. After attacking the PLO, as well as Syrian, leftist and Muslim Lebanese forces, Israel occupied southern Lebanon and eventually surrounded the PLO and elements of the Syrian army. Surrounded in West Beirut and subjected to heavy bombardment, the PLO forces and their allies negotiated passage from Lebanon with the aid of Special Envoy Philip Habib and the protection of international peacekeepers.

July 1982

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August 1982

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September 1982

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October 1982

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8 October 1982. Poland bans Solidarity after having suspended it on 13 December 1981.


November 1982

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12 November 1982. In the Soviet Union, former KGB head Yuri Andropov is selected to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Leonid I. Brezhnev.

14 November 1982. The leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, Lech Wałęsa, is released from 11 months of internment near the Soviet border.


December 1982

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