[natehale1971]

Twilight 2000: Countdown to Armageddon
by Richard A. Spake ©
1983: The Year in Review

d

January 1983

January 1983. D

1 January 1983. The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed.

26 January 1983. Lotus 1-2-3 is released for IBM-PC compatible computers.


February 1983

February 1983. D

March 1983

March 1983. D

8 March 1983. IBM releases the IBM PC XT.

23 March 1983. Strategic Defense Initiative: U.S. President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles. The media dub this plan "Star Wars".


April 1983

April 1983. D

18 April 1983. The April 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut kills 63 people. The 1983 U.S. embassy bombing was a suicide bombing against the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon on 18 April 1983 that killed over 60 people, mostly embassy staff members and United States Marines and sailors. It was the deadliest attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission up to that time, and is seen by some as marking the beginning of anti-U.S. attacks by Islamist groups. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the blast with a message "promising not to allow a single American to remain on Lebanese soil ... we mean every inch of Lebanese territory. ..." The attack came in the wake of the intervention of a Multinational Force, made up of Western countries, including the US, in the Lebanese Civil War, to try and restore order and central government authority. It also followed the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Christian militiamen, and four years after the anti-Western Islamic Revolution in Iran.


May 1983

May 1983. D

25 May 1983. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is released.


June 1983

June 1983. D
18 June 1983. STS-7: Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space, on the Space Shuttle Challenger.

July 1983

July 1983. D

6 June 1982 - 17 May 1983. The 1982 Lebanon War (Hebrew: Milhemet Levanon Harishona for "The First Lebanon War", and Arabic: Al-ijtiyāḥ for "The Invasion"), called Operation Peace for Galilee (Hebrew: 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.

15 July 1983. Nintendo's Family Computer, also known as the Famicom, goes on sale in Japan.


August 1983

August 1983. D

30 August 1983. STS-8: Space Shuttle Challenger carries Guion S. Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, into space.


September 1983

September 1983. D

1 September 1983. Korean Air Lines Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter near Moneron Island when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 on board are killed including U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald.

6 September 1983. The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight 007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.

16 September 1983. Ronald Reagan announces that the Global Positioning System (GPS) would be made available for civilian use.

25 September - 26 September 1983. Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war by correctly identifying a missile attack warning as a false alarm.


October 1983

October 1983. D

19 October 1983. Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of Grenada, and 40 others are assassinated in a military coup.

23 October 1983. The Beirut barracks bombing occurred during the Lebanese Civil War, when two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon—killing 299 American and French servicemen. The organization Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing. Suicide bombers detonated each of the truck bombs. In the attack on the American Marines barracks, the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and three Army soldiers, along with sixty Americans injured, representing the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II, the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the first day of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, and the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II. In addition, the elderly Lebanese custodian of the Marines' building was killed in the first blast. The explosives used were equivalent to 5,400 kg (12,000lbs.) of TNT. In the attack on the French barracks, the eight-story 'Drakkar' building, two minutes after the Marine attack, 58 paratroopers from the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment were killed and 15 injured, in the single worst military loss for France since the end of the Algerian War. The blasts led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization following the Israeli 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

25 October – 15 December 1983. The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was a 1983 US-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of just over 100,000 located 100 miles (160 km) north of Venezuela. It was triggered by a military coup which ousted a brief revolutionary government. The successful invasion led to a change of government but was controversial due to charges of American imperialism, Cold War politics, the involvement of Cuba, the unstable state of the Grenadian government, and Grenada's status as a Commonwealth realm with Elizabeth II as the monarch. Grenada gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1974, but Leftist rebels seized power in a coup in 1979. After a 1983 internal power struggle ended with the deposition and murder of revolutionary Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, the invasion began on 25 October 1983. A combined force of about 7,600 troops from the United States, Jamaica, and members of the Regional Security System (RSS) defeated Grenadian resistance and the military government of Hudson Austin was deposed. While the invasion enjoyed broad public support in the United States, and received support from some sectors in Grenada from local groups who viewed the post-coup regime as illegitimate, it was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Nations General Assembly, which condemned it as "a flagrant violation of international law". 25 October is a national holiday in Grenada, called Thanksgiving Day, to commemorate the invasion.


November 1983

November 1983. D


December 1983

December 1983. D