1979

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century Decades: 1920s - 1930s - 1940s - 1950s - 1960s - 1970s - 1980s - 1990s - 2000s - 2010s years - 2020s Years: 1974 - 1975 - 1976 - 1977 - 1978 - 1979 - 1980 - 1981 - 1982 - 1983 - 1984

Events

January

January 1 - The United States and the People's Republic of China establish diplomatic relations. January 7 - Cambodian insurgents and Vietnamese troops occupy Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. January 16 - Iranian shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi leaves the country with his wife and children. January 17-24 - According to the census, the population of the Soviet Union is 262,440,000; January 24 - II. Pope John Paul welcomed Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromiko to the Vatican. January 25 – February 1 - On the first trip abroad II. Pope John Paul visits the Dominican Republic, Mexico and the Bahamas. January 25 – February 15 - gas explosion in Zsana, Bács-Kiskun County January 29 - II. Pope John Paul II attends and addresses the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) conference in Puebla.

February

February 1 - Ayatollah Khomeini, the chief Shiite religious leader, returns to Tehran from his emigration to Paris. February 27 - Václav Havel sends a letter to the President of Austria, Rudolf Kirchschläger, requesting his intervention for political prisoners during his visit to Czechoslovakia. February 11 - The repressive regime under the name of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi shah fails in Iran.

March

March 4 - II. Pope John Paul's first encyclical encyclical, beginning with "Redemptor hominis," in which he offers his early man a testimony of faith instead of doubts and doubts. March 25 - The first reusable spacecraft, the Columbia spacecraft, arrives at the Kennedy Space Center. March 26 - Israel withdraws from the Sinai Peninsula under peace with Egypt. March 28 - The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident. (A faulty cooling system causes the worst nuclear accident in the United States.)

April

April 1 - Iranians adopt the new constitution of the Islamic Republic, which has given power to the supreme religious leader. April 2 - An anthrax bacterium is released from a secret military laboratory near one of Sverdlovsk's porcelain factories, killing dozens of people (the Sverdlovsk accident), which is only revealed when the Soviet Union collapses. April 11 - NATO sets up a Special Task Force to study the arms control aspects of battlefield nuclear systems. April 20 - Soviet Secretary-General Leonid Brezhnev fails to attend Lenin's anniversary celebrations due to medical reasons.

May

May 23 - Karl Carstens is elected President of the FRG. May 29 - Czechoslovak authorities arrest 15 members of the Committee for the Protection of Illegally Persecuted Persons (VONS), prosecute six of them and sentence them to 2-5 years in prison, including Václav Havel and Jiří Dienstbier.

June

June 1 - The TNT explosion in Sajóbábony. June 2-10 - First pilgrimage to his homeland, Poland II. Pope John Paul. (Meeting with President Henryk Jabłoński and First Secretary Edward Gierek) June 4 - Flying lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings seizes power in Ghana at the head of a military coup. June 18 - US President Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter sign the SALT-2 agreement in Vienna.

July

July 23 - Arrested by Czechoslovak authorities - later proceedings