April 1, 1981 (Wednesday)

• The Isuzu
  Isuzu
  , is a Japanese car, commercial vehicle and heavy truck manufacturing company, headquartered in Tokyo. In 2005, Isuzu became the world's largest manufacturer of medium to heavy duty trucks. It has assembly and manufacturing plants in the Japanese city of Fujisawa, as well as in the prefectures...
  
   Motor Company formally began selling its cars in the United States, becoming the sixth Japanese manufacturer to sell in the United States. ;
• The U.S.S.R.
  Soviet Union
  The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
  
   implemented daylight savings time for the first time since 1930, with all clocks being set forward an hour at midnight. Many nations in Western Europe had changed the time on Sunday. (at the time, the U.S. did not spring forward until the last Sunday in April, April 26 in 1981)
• A videotape of psychic Tamara Rand's January 6, 1981, appearance on "The Dick Maurice Show", with a prediction that President Reagan would be shot by an assassin with the initials "J.H.", was broadcast on CNN
  CNN
  Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
  
  , and the next day on NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America. Five days later, Rand and Maurice admitted that the prediction sequence had been taped the day after the shooting.
• Born: Asli Bayram
  Asli Bayram
  Aslı Bayram is a German actress and model of Turkish descent, who is best known for being Miss Germany in 2005.-Biography:...
  
  , Turkish-German actress, in Darmstadt
  Darmstadt
  Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
  
  ; and Hannah Spearritt
  Hannah Spearritt
  Hannah Louise Spearritt is an English actress and singer. She was previously a member of the pop group S Club 7. She is also known for playing the role of Abby Maitland in the British drama Primeval....
  
  , English singer (S Club) and actress, in Great Yarmouth
  Great Yarmouth
  Great Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a coastal town in Norfolk, England. It is at the mouth of the River Yare, east of Norwich.It has been a seaside resort since 1760, and is the gateway from the Norfolk Broads to the sea...
  
  

April 2, 1981 (Thursday)

• Lebanese Civil War
  Lebanese Civil War
  The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...
  
  : Syria
  Syria
  Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
  
  n airplanes bombed Lebanese Christian strongholds in Zahlé
  Zahlé
  Zahlé is the capital and largest city of Beqaa Governorate, Lebanon. With around 50,000 inhabitants, it is the fourth largest city in Lebanon, after Beirut, Tripoli and Jounieh...
  
   and East Beirut, renewing a war that had been on hiatus since 1976.
• The Soviet Union
  Soviet Union
  The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
  
   paid $3,000,000 to Canada to settle all claims for environmental damage that had been caused by the disintegration of the Kosmos 954 satellite on January 24, 1978.
• Born: Bethany Joy Galeotti
  Bethany Joy Galeotti
  Bethany Joy Galeotti is an American actress, musician, director, writer, and producer.Galeotti is best known for her on screen portrayals of Michelle Bauer Santos on Guiding Light and Haley James Scott on One Tree Hill...
  
  , American actress (One Tree Hill), in Hollywood, Florida
  Hollywood, Florida
  -Demographics:As of 2000, there were 59,673 households out of which 24.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.5% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.2% were non-families. 34.4% of all households were made up of...
  
  

April 3, 1981 (Friday)

• After two days, the attempted coup d'etat in Thailand
  Thailand
  Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
  
   was put down as thousands of troops took back control of Bangkok
  Bangkok
  Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
  
   without a fight. Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda
  Prem Tinsulanonda
  General Prem Tinsulanonda is a retired Thai military officer who served as Prime Minister of Thailand from March 3, 1980 to August 4, 1988. He now serves as the Head of the Privy Council of the King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej....
  
   had taken King Bhumibol Adulyadej
  Bhumibol Adulyadej
  Bhumibol Adulyadej is the current King of Thailand. He is known as Rama IX...
  
   and the royal family with him to the city of Korat
  Korat
  Korats are a slate blue-grey shorthair domestic cat with a small to medium build and a low percentage of body fat. Their bodies are semi-cobby, and surprisingly heavy for their size. They are intelligent, playful, active cats and form strong bonds with people. Among Korats' distinguishing...
  
   after General Sant Chipatima had seized control on Wednesday.
• Days before it was to be the showpiece of the California Energy Commission
  California Energy Commission
  The California Energy Commission is California’s primary energy policy and planning agency. Created in 1974 and headquartered in Sacramento, the Commission has responsibility for activities that include forecasting future energy needs, promoting energy efficiency through appliance and building...
  
  's conference on wind energy
  Wind energy
  Wind energy is the kinetic energy of air in motion; see also wind power.Total wind energy flowing through an imaginary area A during the time t is:E = ½ m v2 = ½ v 2...
  
  , the Alcoa
  Alcoa
  Alcoa Inc. is the world's third largest producer of aluminum, behind Rio Tinto Alcan and Rusal. From its operational headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Alcoa conducts operations in 31 countries...
  
   500 kW wind turbine
  Wind turbine
  A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...
  
   at San Gorgonio Pass
  San Gorgonio Pass
  The San Gorgonio Pass el. cuts between the San Bernardino Mountains on the north and the San Jacinto Mountains to the south. Like the Cajon Pass to the northwest, it was also created by the San Andreas Fault...
  
   began turning. After only 2½ hours, the turbine was out of control, a blade came loose and the structure collapsed. The embarrassment was enough that Alcoa went no further in wind energy research.
• Preceding the launch of the IBM Personal Computer by almost four months, the Osborne 1
  Osborne 1
  The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighed 10.7 kg , cost USD$ 1795, and ran the then-popular CP/M 2.2 operating system...
  
   was introduced at the 7th annual West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.
• Died: Juan Trippe
  Juan Trippe
  Juan Terry Trippe was an American airline entrepreneur and pioneer, and the founder of Pan American World Airways, one of the world's most prominent airlines of the twentieth century.-Early years:...
  
  , 81, founder of Pan American World Airways
  Pan American World Airways
  Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991...
  
  ; and Lorena D'Alexander, 16,

April 4, 1981 (Saturday)

• Henry Cisneros
  Henry Cisneros
  Henry Gabriel Cisneros is a politician and businessman. A Democrat, Cisneros served as the 10th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the administration of President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997...
  
   became the first Hispanic American
  Hispanic and Latino Americans
  Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...
  
   to be elected to lead a major United States city. The 33 year old professor won 62% of the votes to become the new Mayor of San Antonio.
• Mario Moretti
  Mario Moretti
  Mario Moretti is an Italian former terrorist. A leading member of the Red Brigades in the late 1970s, he was one of the kidnappers of Aldo Moro, president of Italy's largest party, Democrazia Cristiana, and several times premier, in 1978; he later confessed to have been the one who killed the...
  
  , a co-founder of Red Brigades
  Red Brigades
  The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...
  
   and the mastermind of the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro
  Aldo Moro
  Aldo Moro was an Italian politician and the 39th Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968, and then from 1974 to 1976. He was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers, holding power for a combined total of more than six years....
  
  , was caught by police after nearly three years of pursuit.
• Bucks Fizz
  Bucks Fizz (band)
  Bucks Fizz are an English pop group who achieved success in the 1980s, most notably for winning the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Making Your Mind Up". The group was formed in January 1981 specifically for the contest and comprised four vocalists: Bobby G, Cheryl Baker, Mike Nolan and...
  
   wins the 26th Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom, in Dublin, with Making Your Mind Up.
• Bob Champion
  Bob Champion
  Robert "Bob" Champion MBE was born in Guisborough, in the north of England, on 4 June 1948. He is an English jump jockey who won the 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti. His triumph was made into a film Champions, with John Hurt portraying Champion...
  
   wins the Grand National at Aintree on Aldaniti. His story inspired the film Champions.

April 5, 1981 (Sunday)

• Si Unyil began its run as the most successful children's television program in Indonesia
  Indonesia
  Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
  
  .
• Born: Michael A. Monsoor
  Michael A. Monsoor
  Michael Anthony Monsoor was a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during the Iraq War and posthumously received the Medal of Honor. Monsoor enlisted in the United States Navy in 2001 and graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training in 2004...
  
  , American Medal of Honor
  Medal of Honor
  The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It is bestowed by the President, in the name of Congress, upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her...
  
   recipient, in Long Beach, California
  Long Beach, California
  Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
  
  ; killed in Iraq in 2006

April 6, 1981 (Monday)

• A pair of gunmen attempted to rob a branch of the Augusta Savings and Loan at the Dundalk
  Dundalk, Maryland
  -Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 62,306 people, 24,772 households, and 16,968 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 4,689.5 people per square mile . There were 26,385 housing units at an average density of 1,985.9 per square mile...
  
   (Maryland) Shopping Center and accidentally locked themselves out. When they departed through the exit, they found themselves surrounded by most of the officers of the Precinct 12 station of the Baltimore County, Maryland
  Baltimore County, Maryland
  Baltimore County is a county located in the northern part of the US state of Maryland. In 2010, its population was 805,029. It is part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Towson. The name of the county was derived from the barony of the Proprietor of the Maryland...
  
  , police, which was only 250 yards away and had been changing shifts.
• Born: Robert Earnshaw
  Robert Earnshaw
  Robert Earnshaw is a Welsh footballer who plays for Cardiff City and Wales. He is the only player to have scored a hat-trick in the English Premier League, Championship, League One, League Two , the League Cup, the FA Cup and for his country at International level.Earnshaw was born in Mufulira,...
  
  , Wales national football team striker, 2002- present; in Mufulira
  Mufulira
  Mufulira is a town in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. It grew up in the 1930s around the site of the Mufulira Copper Mine on its north-western edge...
  
  , Zambia
  Zambia
  Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
  
  

April 7, 1981 (Tuesday)

• National Guardsmen in El Salvador
  El Salvador
  El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
  
   drove into the San Salvador
  San Salvador
  The city of San Salvador the capital and largest city of El Salvador, which has been designated a Gamma World City. Its complete name is La Ciudad de Gran San Salvador...
  
   neighborhood of Monte Carmelos, pulled out residents accused of rebellion against the government, and executed them. Reporters who arrived later found thirty bodies in the streets.
• The "Soyuz '81" maneuvers by armies of the Warsaw Pact
  Warsaw Pact
  The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
  
   nations came to an end, allaying fears that they were a prelude to an invasion of Poland
  Poland
  Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
  
   to suppress the Solidarity
  Solidarity
  Solidarity is a Polish trade union federation that emerged on August 31, 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. It was the first non-communist party-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country. Solidarity reached 9.5 million members before its September 1981 congress...
  
   union. Earlier in the day, Pact commander General Kulikov had a closed meeting with Polish leaders Stanislaw Kania
  Stanislaw Kania
  Stanisław Kania was a Polish communist political leader.Kania was born in Wrocanka . He joined the anti-Nazi resistance at the age of 17 in 1944 and then joined the Polish Communist Party in 1945 when German Nazis were driven out and Polish Communists began to take control of the country...
  
   and Jaruselski for a commitment to get the union movement under control.
• The explosion of a grain elevator
  Grain elevator
  A grain elevator is a tower containing a bucket elevator, which scoops up, elevates, and then uses gravity to deposit grain in a silo or other storage facility...
  
   at Corpus Christi, Texas
  Corpus Christi, Texas
  Corpus Christi is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas. The county seat of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio counties. The MSA population in 2008 was 416,376. The population was 305,215 at the 2010 census making it the...
  
  , killed nine people and injured 30.
• Born: Suzann Pettersen
  Suzann Pettersen
  Suzann Pettersen is a Norwegian professional golfer. She plays mainly on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour, and is also a member of the Ladies European Tour. Her career best world ranking is second. She has held that position at several times, most recently beginning 22 August 2011.-Amateur...
  
  , Norwegian golfer, 2007 LPGA Champion, in Oslo
  Oslo
  Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
  
  
• Died: Norman Taurog
  Norman Taurog
  Norman Rae Taurog was an American film director, and screenwriter.Between 1920 and 1968, Taurog directed over 140 films, and directed Elvis Presley in more movies than any other director...
  
  , 82 American film director who won an Academy Award in 1931 for the film Skippy

April 8, 1981 (Wednesday)

• In Moscow
  Moscow
  Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
  
  , KGB investigators arrested Vyacheslav Ivankov
  Vyacheslav Ivankov
  Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov was a notorious member of the Russian Mafia who was believed to have connections with Russian state intelligence organizations and their organized crime partners. He has operated in both the Soviet Union and the United States...
  
  , an organized crime leader who was nicknamed "Yaponchik" and was the boss of the so-called "Russian Mafia".
• Born: Frédérick Bousquet
  Frédérick Bousquet
  Frédérick Bousquet is a freestyle and butterfly swimmer from France. He was the holder of the world record in the 50 m freestyle in a time of 20.94 in long course, set on April 26, 2009 at the final of the French Championships...
  
  , French swimmer and recordholder in 50m freestyle, in Perpignan
  Perpignan
  -Sport:Perpignan is a rugby stronghold: their rugby union side, USA Perpignan, is a regular competitor in the Heineken Cup and seven times champion of the Top 14 , while their rugby league side plays in the engage Super League under the name Catalans Dragons.-Culture:Since 2004, every year in the...
  
  
• Died: General of the Army Omar N. Bradley, 88, last "five-star general" in the United States

April 9, 1981 (Thursday)

• AIDS pandemic
  AIDS pandemic
  The acquired immune deficiency syndrome pandemic is a widespread disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus .Since AIDS was first recognized in 1981, it has led to the deaths of more than 25 million people, making it one of the most destructive diseases in recorded history.Despite recent...
  
  : The first confirmed diagnosis of a sexually transmitted disease causing Kaposi's sarcoma
  Kaposi's sarcoma
  Kaposi's sarcoma is a tumor caused by Human herpesvirus 8 , also known as Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus . It was originally described by Moritz Kaposi , a Hungarian dermatologist practicing at the University of Vienna in 1872. It became more widely known as one of the AIDS defining...
  
   was made by Dr. John Gullett in San Francisco. Dr. Gullett reported his findings to the Centers for Disease Control two weeks later.
• The Japanese ship Nissho Maru was sunk after colliding with the USS George Washington
  USS George Washington (SSBN-598)
  USS George Washington , the lead ship of her class of nuclear ballistic missile submarines, was the third United States Navy ship of the name, in honor of George Washington , first President of the United States, and the first of that name to be purpose-built as a warship.-Construction and...
  
  , an American nuclear submarine.
• Fernando Valenzuela
  Fernando Valenzuela
  Fernando Valenzuela Anguamea is a Mexican former left-handed pitcher, most notably with the Los Angeles Dodgers.In 1981, the 20-year-old Valenzuela took Los Angeles by storm, winning his first 8 decisions and leading the Dodgers to the World Championship...
  
  , the 20 year old rookie for the Los Angeles Dodgers
  Los Angeles Dodgers
  The Los Angeles Dodgers are a professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers are members of Major League Baseball's National League West Division. Established in 1883, the team originated in Brooklyn, New York, where it was known by a number of nicknames before becoming...
  
  , pitched a 2-0 win over the Houston Astros
  Houston Astros
  The Houston Astros are a Major League Baseball team located in Houston, Texas. They are a member of the National League Central division. The Astros are expected to join the American League West division in 2013. Since , they have played their home games at Minute Maid Park, known as Enron Field...
  
  , the first of eight consecutive wins, and one of five shutouts. In his first 8 games, he had an ERA of 0.50, though he lost 7 of the 12 games pitched afterward.
• Born: Eric Harris
  Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
  Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold were American high school seniors who committed the Columbine High School massacre. They killed 13 people—including teacher Dave Sanders—and injured 24 others, three of whom were injured as they escaped the attack...
  
  , American murderer (Columbine High School massacre
  Columbine High School massacre
  The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12...
  
  ), in Wichita; committed suicide in 1999

April 10, 1981 (Friday)

• Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election, April 1981: Incarcerated at the H-Block of Maze Prison and on a hunger strike, Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands
  Bobby Sands
  Robert Gerard "Bobby" Sands was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and member of the United Kingdom Parliament who died on hunger strike while imprisoned in HM Prison Maze....
  
   was elected to a vacant seat in the British House of Commons, with 30,492 votes for his "Anti-H-Block Party", ahead of Harry West
  Harry West
  Henry William West was a politician in Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party from 1974 until 1979.West was born in County Fermanagh and educated at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen...
  
  's 29,046 votes. MP Sands died of starvation on May 5.
• Born: Laura Bell Bundy
  Laura Bell Bundy
  Laura Ashley Bell Bundy is an American actress and singer who has performed in a number of Broadway roles, both starring and supporting, as well as in television and film. Her best known Broadway roles are the original Amber Von Tussle in Hairspray and the original Elle Woods in the musical...
  
  , American stage actress and country singer, in Lexington, Kentucky
  Lexington, Kentucky
  Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
  
  ; and Gretchen Bleiler
  Gretchen Bleiler
  Gretchen Bleiler is an American professional halfpipe snowboarder. She currently resides in Aspen, Colorado and is married to Chris Hotell.-Career:...
  
  , American snowboarder and X-Games gold medalist, in Toledo, Ohio
  Toledo, Ohio
  Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...
  
  

April 11, 1981 (Saturday)

• Brixton riot (1981): In the mostly black London
  London
  London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
  
   neighborhood of Brixton, police had stopped and questioned hundreds of residents as part of "Swamp 81", an anti-crime campaign that started five days earlier. . Resentment built, and at 4:45 pm, the arrest of a young black man on Atlantic Road triggered the worst race riot in England's history. A crowd broke the windows of the police van transporting the arrest subject, then set fire to an empty police car and began looting stores. By 5:30, the violence had spread to Railton Road and Mayall Road, and at 6:30, the first gasoline bombs were hurled at police cars. Order was restored by 10:00 pm. A subsequent government investigation
  Scarman report
  The Scarman report was commissioned by the UK Government following the 1981 Brixton riots. Lord Scarman was appointed by then Home Secretary William Whitelaw on 14 April 1981 to hold the enquiry into the riots...
  
   reported that 279 policemen and at least 45 civilians were injured, noting that "In the centre of Brixton, a few hundred young people- most, but not all of them black — attacked the police on the streets... demonstrating to the millions of their fellow citizens the fragile basis of the Queen's peace. The petrol bomb was now used for the first time on the streets of Britain (the idea, no doubt, copied from the disturbances in Northern Ireland). These young people, by their criminal behaviour — for such, whatever their grievances or frustrations, it was — brought about a temporary collapse of law and order in the centre of an inner suburb of London."
• Actress Valerie Bertinelli
  Valerie Bertinelli
  Valerie Anne Bertinelli is an American actress, best known for her roles as Barbara Cooper Royer on the television series One Day at a Time , Gloria on the television series Touched by an Angel and Melanie Moretti on the sitcom Hot in Cleveland .- Early years :Bertinelli was born in Wilmington,...
  
   married rock musician Eddie Van Halen
  Eddie Van Halen
  Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen is a Dutch-American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...
  
  , and 77 year old actor Cary Grant
  Cary Grant
  Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
  
   married 46 year old actress Barbara Harris
  Barbara Harris (actress)
  Barbara Harris is an American actress who was a Broadway stage star and later became a film actress. She appeared in such films as A Thousand Clowns, Plaza Suite, Nashville, Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Grosse Pointe Blank...
  
  .
• Died: Caroline Gordon
  Caroline Gordon
  Caroline Ferguson Gordon was a notable American novelist and literary critic who, while still in her thirties, was the recipient of two prestigious literary awards, a 1932 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 1934 O...
  
  , 85, American novelist

April 12, 1981 (Sunday)

• The world's first reusable spacecraft, the space shuttle
  Space Shuttle
  The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
  
   Columbia
  Space Shuttle Columbia
  Space Shuttle Columbia was the first spaceworthy Space Shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. First launched on the STS-1 mission, the first of the Space Shuttle program, it completed 27 missions before being destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 near the end of its 28th, STS-107. All seven crew...
  
   was launched from Cape Canaveral
  STS-1
  STS-1 was the first orbital flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. Space Shuttle Columbia launched on 12 April 1981, and returned to Earth on 14 April, having orbited the Earth 37 times during the 54.5-hour mission. It was the first American manned space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project...
  
   at 7:00 a.m. EST . As one historian noted later, "Never before in the history of the space program had NASA asked its astronauts to pilot a rocket or a spacecraft into space on its maiden voyage... NASA engineers counted 748 different ways in which the two astronauts on the maiden voyage of the space shuttle Columbia could die." . John Young, who had gone into space four times before, and Robert Crippen
  Robert Crippen
  Robert Laurel Crippen is an engineer, retired United States Navy Captain and a former NASA astronaut. He flew on four Space Shuttle missions, including three as commander...
  
  , who would fly three more shuttle missions, reached orbit and returned two days later. Delayed several times, the liftoff came 20 years to the day after Yuri Gagarin
  Yuri Gagarin
  Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
  
   had become the first man to be sent into outer space, on the April 12, 1961 liftoff of Vostok 1
  Vostok 1
  Vostok 1 was the first spaceflight in the Vostok program and the first human spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961. The flight took Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union, into space. The flight marked the first time that a human entered outer...
  
  .
• Died: Joe Louis
  Joe Louis
  Joseph Louis Barrow , better known as Joe Louis, was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949. He is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time...
  
  , 66, American heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949; the night before, he had watched Larry Holmes defeat challenger Trevor Berbick in Lasa Vegas

April 13, 1981 (Monday)

• The 1981 Pulitzer Prize
  1981 Pulitzer Prize
  -Journalism awards:*Public Service:**Charlotte Observer, for its series on "Brown Lung: A Case of Deadly Neglect.*Local General or Spot News Reporting:...
  
   winners were announced. John Kennedy O'Toole, won the prize for fiction for A Confederacy of Dunces
  A Confederacy of Dunces
  A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel written by John Kennedy Toole, published by LSU Press in 1980, 11 years after the author's suicide. The book was published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy and Toole's mother Thelma Toole, quickly becoming a cult classic, and later a...
  
  . Despondent over failing to find a publisher, O'Toole had killed himself 12 years earlier, on March 26, 1969. Janet Cooke
  Janet Cooke
  Janet Leslie Cooke is an American former journalist who became infamous when it was discovered that a Pulitzer Prize–winning story that she had written for The Washington Post had been fabricated.-Early career:...
  
   of the Washington Post won the prize for feature writing, for her September 28, 1980 story "Jimmy's World", about an 8-year old heroin addict. Two days later, the Post revealed that Cooke had confessed to fabricating the story; she returned the prize and quit her job.

April 14, 1981 (Tuesday)

• At 10:21 am PST (1821 UTC), the Columbia
  Space Shuttle Columbia
  Space Shuttle Columbia was the first spaceworthy Space Shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. First launched on the STS-1 mission, the first of the Space Shuttle program, it completed 27 missions before being destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 near the end of its 28th, STS-107. All seven crew...
  
   became the first manned spaceship to land in California
  California
  California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
  
  . Sixty minutes earlier at an altitude of 172 miles over the Indian Ocean
  Indian Ocean
  The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
  
  , astronauts Young and Crippen had taken the space shuttle orbiter
  Space Shuttle Orbiter
  The Space Shuttle orbiter was the orbital spacecraft of the Space Shuttle program operated by NASA, the space agency of the United States. The orbiter was a reusable winged "space-plane", a mixture of rockets, spacecraft, and aircraft...
  
   out of orbit. During the first mission
  STS-1
  STS-1 was the first orbital flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. Space Shuttle Columbia launched on 12 April 1981, and returned to Earth on 14 April, having orbited the Earth 37 times during the 54.5-hour mission. It was the first American manned space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project...
  
  , the thermostat, the cargo doors and the zero-G toilet all malfunctioned, and some of the heat-shielding tiles had fallen off (though not from the underside of the orbiter). Columbia would fly 27 more missions. On February 1, 2003, the Columbia would be destroyed and its crew of 7 killed, after a loss of tiles led to it burning up during its return to earth.
• Died: William Henry Vanderbilt
  William Henry Vanderbilt
  William Henry Vanderbilt I was an American businessman and a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family.-Childhood:William Vanderbilt was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1821...
  
  , 79, tycoon and former Governor of Massachusetts;

April 15, 1981 (Wednesday)

• Fifteen coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Redstone Coal Company's Dutch Creek #1 mine. An investigation by the Colorado Bureau of Mines concluded that the cause was a spark, possibly from a damaged cable, that ignited accumulated methane gas.
• FBI agents W. Mark Felt
  W. Mark Felt
  William Mark Felt, Sr. was an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation , who retired in 1973 as the Bureau's Associate Director...
  
   and Edward S. Miller
  Edward S. Miller
  Edward S. Miller was the Deputy Assistant Director of the Inspections Division under Mark Felt with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.In November 1980, Miller, then head of the FBI's Domestic Intelligence Division, and W...
  
   were pardoned by President Reagan, five months after they had been convicted of conspiracy to violate the civil rights of friends and relatives of suspected members of the Weather Underground terrorist group. In his pardon statement, Reagan said, "America was generous to those who refused to serve their country in the Vietnam War. We can be no less generous to two men who acted on high principle to bring an end to the terrorist that was threatening our nation."

April 16, 1981 (Thursday)

• Sigurd Debus, an imprisoned West German terrorist who had started a hunger strike a month before Bobby Sands
  Bobby Sands
  Robert Gerard "Bobby" Sands was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and member of the United Kingdom Parliament who died on hunger strike while imprisoned in HM Prison Maze....
  
   did the same in Northern Ireland
  Northern Ireland
  Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
  
  , died after ten weeks without food. Debus had been one of 25 members of the Red Army Faction
  Red Army Faction
  The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...
  
   to refuse to eat in protest of imprisonment conditions. Most of the other participants called off their strike after his death.
• Canada
  Canada
  Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
  
  's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
  Pierre Trudeau
  Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...
  
   rejected a plan, endorsed by the Premiers of 8 of the nation's 10 provinces, that would have allowed individual provincial legislatures to reject constitutional changes, saying that it would turn Canada into a loose confederation.
• Died: Effa Manley
  Effa Manley
  Effa L. Manley was an American sports executive, and the first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. She co-owned the Newark Eagles baseball franchise in the Negro leagues with her husband Abe from 1935 to 1946 and was sole owner through 1948 after his death...
  
  , 84, Negro League baseball team owner and manager (Newark Eagles); baseball HOF in 2006

April 17, 1981 (Friday)

• Air U.S. Flight 716, from Denver to Gillette, Wyoming
  Gillette, Wyoming
  Gillette is a city in and the county seat of Campbell County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 29,087 in 2010. Gillette is a city centrally located in an area involved with the development of vast quantities of American coal, oil, and coal bed methane gas...
  
  , collided with a Cessna airplane carrying parachutists from the Skies West Skydiving Club of Fort Collins, Colorado
  Fort Collins, Colorado
  Fort Collins is a Home Rule Municipality situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, and is the county seat and most populous city of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Fort Collins is located north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. With a 2010 census...
  
  . All 13 persons on the airliner were killed, and two of the skydivers died. The rest of the group parachuted to safety.

April 18, 1981 (Saturday)

• At 7:30 pm, the Sriaknth Kogutem was born on this day and Rochester Red Wings
  Rochester Red Wings
  The Rochester Red Wings are a minor league baseball team based in Rochester, New York. The team plays in the International League and is the Triple-A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins major-league club. The Red Wings play in Frontier Field, located in downtown Rochester.The Red Wings were an...
  
   and the Pawtucket Red Sox
  Pawtucket Red Sox
  The Pawtucket Red Sox are the minor league baseball Triple-A affiliates of the Boston Red Sox and belong to the International League...
  
   began playing a minor league baseball game
  Longest professional baseball game
  The Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings, two teams from the Triple-A International League, played the longest game in professional baseball history. It lasted for 33 innings over eight hours and 25 minutes...
  
  . After nine innings, the score was tied, and at the end of the 32nd inning, 4:09 the next morning, the game was halted with the score still tied at 2-2. The game would not be finished until June 23.Rochester and Pawtucket did play another game on the same Sunday, but, as one author noted, "they did not attempt to resolve their 32-inning tie then because officials of both clubs were worried that the eligible players were exhausted."
• Died: James H. Schmitz
  James H. Schmitz
  James Henry Schmitz was an American writer born in Hamburg, Germany of American parents.- Life :Aside from two years at business school in Chicago, Schmitz lived in Germany until 1938, leaving before World War II broke out in Europe in 1939.During World War II, Schmitz served as an aerial...
  
  , 69, American science fiction author.

April 19, 1981 (Sunday)

• On Easter Sunday, Christian militia forces in Lebanon
  Lebanon
  Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
  
   shelled the predominantly Muslim city of Sidon
  Sidon
  Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. In Genesis, Sidon is the son of Canaan the grandson of Noah...
  
  , killing 16 residents and injuring 60. On the same day, Muslim rebels in the Philippines
  Philippines
  The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
  
   threw several hand grenades into a church at Davao City
  Davao City
  The City of Davao is the largest city in the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. Its international airport and seaports are among the busiest cargo hubs in the Philippines....
  
  , killing 13 worshipers and injuring 177.
• Born: Hayden Christensen
  Hayden Christensen
  Hayden Christensen is a Canadian actor. He appeared in Canadian television programs when he was young, then diversified into American television in the late 1990s. He moved on to minor acting roles before being praised for his role of Sam in Life as a House, for which he was nominated for a Golden...
  
  , Canadian actor best known for portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in Episodes II and III of Star Wars, in Vancouver
  Vancouver
  Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
  
  ; Troy Polamalu
  Troy Polamalu
  Troy Aumua Polamalu is an American football strong safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League. He was drafted in the first round of the 2003 NFL Draft by the Steelers. He played college football at the University of Southern California.-High school:Troy Polamalu graduated...
  
  , American NFL player, in Garden Grove, CA; and Catalina Sandino Moreno
  Catalina Sandino Moreno
  Catalina Sandino Moreno is a Colombian actress. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Maria Full of Grace .-Life and career:...
  
  , Colombian-born film actress, (Maria Full of Grace), in Bogotá
  Bogotá
  Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
  
  ;

April 20, 1981 (Monday)

• The Inderavelly Massacre took place in the town of that name in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh
  Andhra Pradesh
  Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...
  
  , when police fired into a crowd of Gondi
  Gondi people
  The Gondi, Goindi or Gond people are people in central India, spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra , Chhattisgarh, northern Andhra Pradesh, and Western Orissa. With over four million people, they are the largest tribe in Central India.The Gondi language is related to...
  
   tribesmen. The police reported that 13 armed protesters and one policeman were killed, while an investigating committee estimated the number at 60 or more.
• Bai Hua
  Bai Hua
  Bai Hua , originally named Chen Youhua , is a Chinese playwright and poet.-Biography:He started publishing poems at the age of fifteen under his current name. Subsequently, he joined the People’s Liberation Army in 1947, but was labeled a “rightist” in 1957...
  
  , an award winning author in the People's Republic of China
  People's Republic of China
  China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
  
  , became the first writer to have his career ended by a government campaign against "bourgeouis liberalism" and suspected violations of the Chinese Communist Party's new "Four Cardinal Principles
  Four Cardinal Principles
  The Four Cardinal Principles were stated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 and are the four issues for which debate was not allowed within the People's Republic of China...
  
  ", beginning with an attack on the front page of the military newspaper Liberation Army Daily. China's leader Deng Xiaoping
  Deng Xiaoping
  Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...
  
   had been outraged by a film based on Bai Hua's novel Kulian (Unrequited Love). Government campaigns against other authors soon followed.
• In Omaha
  Omaha
  Omaha may refer to:*Omaha , a Native American tribe that currently resides in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Nebraska-Places:United States* Omaha, Nebraska* Omaha, Arkansas* Omaha, Georgia* Omaha, Illinois* Omaha, Texas...
  
  , the very last game of the Women's Professional Basketball League
  Women's Professional Basketball League
  The Women's Professional Basketball League was a professional women's basketball league in the United States. The league played three seasons from the fall of 1978 to the spring of 1981...
  
   was played, as the Nebraska Wranglers defeated the Dallas Diamonds, 99-90, to win the WPBL championship in the fifth game of the best of five series.
• Three college students, on spring break from the University of New Brunswick
  University of New Brunswick
  The University of New Brunswick is a Canadian university located in the province of New Brunswick. UNB is the oldest English language university in Canada and among the first public universities in North America. The university has two main campuses: the original campus founded in 1785 in...
  
  , were killed after their group camped near the edge of a cliff at the Hay's Falls near Woodstock
  Woodstock, New Brunswick
  Woodstock is a Canadian town in Carleton County, New Brunswick located on the west bank of the Saint John River at the mouth of the Meduxnekeag River, 92 km west of Fredericton and close to the Canada – United States border and Houlton, Maine.- History :Woodstock was settled by Loyalists...
  
  . Over a course of several minutes, the three fell 80 feet to their deaths.

April 21, 1981 (Tuesday)

• Soldiers of the Army of Guatemala
  Guatemala
  Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
  
   entered the village of Acul, near Santa Maria Nebaj
  Santa Maria Nebaj
  Santa Maria Nebaj is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. Santa Maria Nebaj is part of the Ixil Community, along with San Juan Cotzal and San Gaspar Chajul. Native residents speak the Mayan Ixil language.There is a nearby pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Maya...
  
   in the Guatemalan highlands, and executed most of the adult men for suspected collaboration with leftist guerillas. "Within two weeks," an investigator for the government noted in 1997, "the village was empty, and the army burned every house and field of corn in Acul". The village was rebuilt two years later.
• Died: Dorothy Eady
  Dorothy Eady
  Dorothy Louise Eady, also known as Omm Sety or Om Seti , was Keeper of the Abydos Temple of Seti I and draughtswomen for the Department of Egyptian Antiquities whose life and work has been the subject of many articles, television documentaries, biographies and a source for modern scholarship...
  
  , 73, English born Egyptologist who claimed to be "Omm Sety", a reincarnated priestess from the 13th Century BC; and Eddie Sauter
  Eddie Sauter
  Edward Ernest Sauter was a composer and jazz arranger who achieved renown among musicians during the swing era.-Biography:...
  
  , 66, American bandleader and jazz composer

April 22, 1981 (Wednesday)

• The first zero-coupon bonds were issued, as the J.C. Penney Company offered $200,000,000 worth of bonds that paid no periodic interest, dividends or other money until maturity. For $332.47 an investor would receive a "zero" that would pay $1,000 at its maturity date of May 1, 1989 for a 14.25% annual interest rate.
• Four gunmen, wearing Halloween masks, robbed the First National Bank of Arizona in Tucson. Taking $3.3 million, they accomplished the largest American bank robbery up to that time.
• In one of the first of many corporate mergers in the 1980s, food producers Nabisco
  Nabisco
  Nabisco is an American brand of cookies and snacks. Headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey, the company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Kraft Foods. Nabisco's plant in Chicago, a production facility at 7300 S...
  
  , Inc. acquired Standard Brands
  Standard Brands
  Standard Brands was formed in 1929 by J.P. Morgan with the merger of:*Fleischmann Company*Royal Baking Powder Company*E. W. Gillett*Widlar Food Products Company*Chase & Sanborn Coffee Company...
  
  , Inc. in a stock transaction valued at 1.9 billion dollars to create Nabisco Brands, Inc.
• Born: Ken Dorsey
  Ken Dorsey
  Kenneth Simon "Ken" Dorsey is a former football quarterback. He was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the seventh round of the 2003 NFL Draft. He played college football at the University of Miami. A two-time Heisman Trophy finalist at Miami, Dorsey played for the Cleveland Browns from 2006–2008...
  
  , American NFL and CFL quarterback, in Orinda, California
  Orinda, California
  -2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Orinda had a population of 17,643. The population density was 1,389.5 people per square mile . The racial makeup of Orinda was 14,533 White, 149 African American, 22 Native American, 2,016 Asian, 24 Pacific Islander, 122 from other races, and...
  
  

April 23, 1981 (Thursday)

• American CIA Director William J. Casey
  William J. Casey
  William Joseph Casey was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. In this capacity he oversaw the entire United States Intelligence Community and personally directed the Central Intelligence Agency ....
  
   had an audience with Pope John Paul II
  Pope John Paul II
  Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
  
   in Rome
  Rome
  Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
  
   concerning U.S. support for the Solidarity union in Poland
  Poland
  Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
  
  . Eric Frattini and Dick Cluster, The Entity: Five Centuries of Secret Vatican Espionage (Macmillan, 2008) p329. On the same day, Soviet Politburo members Mikhail Suslov
  Mikhail Suslov
  Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as unofficial Chief Ideologue of the Party until his death in 1982. Suslov was responsible for party democracy and the separation of power...
  
   and K.V. Rusakov met in Warsaw
  Warsaw
  Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
  
   with the entire Politburo of Poland's Communist Party on its failure to control Solidarity.
• At the Empire State Building
  Empire State Building
  The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
  
   in New York City
  New York City
  New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
  
  , workers unearthed a copper box containing the time capsule
  Time capsule
  A time capsule is an historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians...
  
   that had been placed in the building's cornerstone on September 9, 1930. Nearly all of the contents from 50 years earlier, including construction plans, paper money, photographs and that day's newspapers, had been "rotted beyond recognition" by water that had seeped in.

April 24, 1981 (Friday)

• U.S. President Ronald Reagan
  Ronald Reagan
  Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
  
   ended the grain embargo that been instituted by President Carter on January 7, 1980, and which had restricted the sale of American grain to the Soviet Union following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In his announcement, Reagan said, "American farmers have been unfairly singled out to bear the burden of this ineffective policy."
• On the same day, President Reagan sent a handwritten letter to Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev
  Leonid Brezhnev
  Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev  – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
  
   to open a dialogue between the United States
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
   and the Soviet Union
  Soviet Union
  The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
  
  . Biographer Lou Cannon
  Lou Cannon
  Louis Cannon is an American journalist, non-fiction author, and biographer. He was state bureau chief for the San Jose Mercury News in the late 1960s, and later senior White House correspondent of the Washington Post during the Reagan administration...
  
   would later describe the missive as "one of the few foreign policy documents composed by Reagan... without the assistance of speechwriters or formal position papers from his various departments" . Reagan, who composed the letter from his hospital bed while recovering from the attempt on his life, opened with a reference to a meeting during Brezhnev's 1973 visit to California, when Reagan had been Governor, asking "Is it possible that we have permitted ideology, political and economic philosophies, and governmental policies to keep us from considering the very real, everyday problems of peoples?"
• In Hama
  Hama
  Hama is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria north of Damascus. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. Hama is the fourth-largest city in Syria—behind Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs—with a population of 696,863...
  
  , Syria
  Syria
  Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
  
  , the Syrian Army randomly arrested more than 150 men and teenaged boys, then shot them. The massacre was in retaliation for the April 21 attack of an army patrol by guerillas of the Muslim Brotherhood, based in Hama
  Hama
  Hama is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria north of Damascus. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. Hama is the fourth-largest city in Syria—behind Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs—with a population of 696,863...
  
  .

April 25, 1981 (Saturday)

• The Soviet Union
  Soviet Union
  The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
  
   launched Kosmos 1267 to carry the unmanned TKS spacecraft
  TKS spacecraft
  TKS spacecraft was a Soviet spacecraft design in the late 1960s intended to supply the military Almaz space station. The spacecraft was designed for manned or autonomous cargo resupply use...
  
  , a vehicle that could provide a space ferry to bring back returning cosmonauts, as well as providing an additional component to an orbiting space station. The TKS module would remain in orbit until it docked automatically to Salyut 6
  Salyut 6
  Salyut 6 , DOS-5, was a Soviet orbital space station, the eighth flown as part of the Salyut programme. Launched on 29 September 1977 by a Proton rocket, the station was the first of the 'second-generation' type of space station. Salyut 6 possessed several revolutionary advances over the earlier...
  
   on June 19, as the first successful expansion of an orbiting craft, an accomplishment described as "an important step toward the later development of Mir
  Mir
  Mir was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, at first by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. Assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996, Mir was the first modular space station and had a greater mass than that of any previous spacecraft, holding the record for the...
  
   and the International Space Station
  International Space Station
  The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...
  
  . Once docked, the engines of the Kosmos were used to make orbital changes for the Salyut station. On July 29, 1982, the engines were used one final time to bring both modules out of orbit, where they burned up over the Pacific Ocean.
• Born: Anja Pärson
  Anja Pärson
  Anja Sofia Tess Pärson is a Swedish-Sámi alpine skier, the winner of seven World Championships gold medals and two Overall Alpine Skiing World Cup titles. She has won a total of 42 World cup races.-Biography:...
  
  , Swedish women's alpine skiing champion, in Umeå
  Umeå
  - Transport :The road infrastructure in Umeå is well-developed, with two European highways passing through the city. About 4 km from the city centre is the Umeå City Airport...
  
  

April 26, 1981 (Sunday)

• The first successful fetal surgery
  Fetal surgery
  Fetal surgery is any of a broad range of surgical techniques that are used to treat birth defects in fetuses who are still in the pregnant uterus.* Open fetal surgery involves completely opening the uterus to operate on the fetus....
  
   was performed by Dr. Michael R. Harrison
  Michael R. Harrison
  Michael R. Harrison, M.D. served as division chief in Pediatric Surgery at the Children’s Hospital at the University of California, San Francisco for over 20 years, where he established the first Fetal Treatment Center in the U.S...
  
   at the University of California at San Francisco hospital. The patient was born at the UCSF Hospital two weeks later, on May 10, 1981, and named Michael.
• French presidential election
  French presidential election, 1981
  The French presidential election of 1981 took place on 10 May 1981, giving the presidency of France to François Mitterrand, the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic....
  
  : With ten candidates on the ballot for the President of France, no office-seeker had a majority. The top two finishers, incumbent President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
  Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
  Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing is a French centre-right politician who was President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981...
  
   and Socialist challenger François Mitterrand
  François Mitterrand
  François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
  
  . won 28.3% and 25.8% of the vote respectively, and qualified for the May 10 election. Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac
  Jacques Chirac
  Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
  
   (17.9%) and Communist Party leader Georges Marchais
  Georges Marchais
  Georges René Louis Marchais was the head of the French Communist Party from 1972 to 1994, and a candidate in the French presidential elections of 1981 - in which he managed to garner only 15.34% of the vote, which was considered at the time a major setback for the party.-Early life:Born into a...
  
   (15.3%) were the next highest vote getters. The other candidates were Huguette Bouchardeau, Michel Crepeau, Michel Debre, Marie-France Garaud, Arlette Laguiller and Brice Lalonde.
• The first nationwide voting in Vietnam
  Vietnam
  Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
  
  , since the 1976 forced unification of the North and South republics, was conducted for the National Assembly
  National Assembly of Vietnam
  The Constitution of Vietnam recognizes the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as "the highest organ of state power." The National Assembly, a 493-member unicameral body elected to a five-year term, meets twice a year...
  
  . Although all of the candidates had been chosen by the Communist Party's "Fatherland Front", there were 614 candidates for the 496 seats.
• Died: Jim Davis
  Jim Davis (actor)
  Jim Davis was an American actor, best known for his role as Jock Ewing in the CBS prime-time soap Dallas, a role which he held up until his death in April 1981.-Biography:...
  
  , 71, American TV actor who had been portraying Jock Ewing on Dallas

April 27, 1981 (Monday)

• Operation Red Dog
  Operation Red Dog
  Operation Red Dog was the code name of plan by Canadian and American mercenaries, largely affiliated with white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan groups, to overthrow the government of Dominica, where they planned to restore former Prime Minister Patrick John to power...
  
  , a plot to overthrow the government of the Commonwealth of Dominica, was foiled when FBI agents arrested ten mercenary
  Mercenary
  A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
  
   soldiers near New Orleans as they were preparing to sail toward the Caribbean island nation with a cache of weapons. . Led by Michael Eugene Perdue, the group of white supremacists had planned to take control of the government of the mostly black nation, after freeing former Prime Minister Patrick John
  Patrick John
  Colonel Patrick Roland John was the Prime Minister of Dominica as well as the Premier of Dominica. During his premiership Dominica gained independence from the United Kingdom and he became the first Prime Minister of Dominica. He was a successful trade union leader and a mayor of Roseau before...
  
   (also black) from a Dominican jail, and being appointed to high government positions.
• "Bigfoot
  Bigfoot (truck)
  Bigfoot, introduced in 1979, is regarded as the original monster truck. Other trucks with the name "Bigfoot" have been introduced in the years since, and it remains the most well-known monster truck moniker in the United States. Bigfoot 4x4, Inc. is owned and operated by its creator, Bob Chandler.-...
  
  ", the first "monster truck
  Monster truck
  A monster truck is a pickup truck, typically styled after pickup trucks' bodies, modified or purposely built with extremely large wheels and suspension...
  
  " was created by Bob Chandler
  Bob Chandler
  Robert Donald Chandler was an American football wide receiver in the National Football League.-Professional career:...
  
  , who had envisioned a vehicle with tires so large that it could crush anything in its path. On this date, Chandler gave the first test run of "Bigfoot" at a field near St. Louis, Missouri, and rolled it over abandoned cars. The first major event in the new sport of monster truck competition would take place on April 9, 1983, at the Pontiac Silverdome
  Pontiac Silverdome
  The Silverdome is a domed stadium located in the city of Pontiac, Michigan, USA, which sits on . It was the largest stadium in the National Football League until FedEx Field in suburban Washington, D.C...
  
  , before a crowd of 68,000.

April 28, 1981 (Tuesday)

• For the first time, Israel
  Israel
  The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
  
   intervened directly in the war between Syria
  Syria
  Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
  
   and Lebanese Christians, as Israeli jets shot down two Syrian helicopters, killing four crewmen.
• Professional tennis champion Billie Jean King
  Billie Jean King
  Billie Jean King is a former professional tennis player from the United States. She won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 16 Grand Slam women's doubles titles, and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. King has been an advocate against sexism in sports and society...
  
   was sued for support by Marilyn Barnett, a woman who stated in her complaint that they were lesbian lovers. After initially denying the accusations, King admitted to the affair four days later.
• The government of Prime Minister of Australia
  Prime Minister of Australia
  The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
  
   Malcolm Fraser
  Malcolm Fraser
  John Malcolm Fraser AC, CH, GCL, PC is a former Australian Liberal Party politician who was the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia. He came to power in the 1975 election following the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government, in which he played a key role...
  
   survived a vote of no confidence that had been moved for by the Labor Party. The vote in the Australian House of Representatives
  Australian House of Representatives
  The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
  
   was 71-47 against the resolution.
• Born: Jessica Alba
  Jessica Alba
  Jessica Marie Alba is an American television and film actress. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack . Alba rose to prominence as the lead actress in the television series Dark Angel...
  
  , American actress (Dark Angel), in Pomona, CA
• Died: Mickey Walker
  Mickey Walker
  Edward Patrick "Mickey" Walker was a multi-faceted boxer from New Jersey. He was also an avid golfer and a renowned artist.-1919–1921:...
  
  , 79, world welterwieght champion 1922-1926, world middleweight champion 1926-31

April 29, 1981 (Wednesday)

• U.S. Representative Raymond F. Lederer
  Raymond F. Lederer
  Raymond Lederer was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Pennsylvania's Third Congressional District from 1977 to 1981....
  
   (D-Pa.) resigned his office, one day after the House Ethics Committee had voted 10-2 to recommend his expulsion from the United States Congress
  Expulsion from the United States Congress
  Expulsion is the most serious form of disciplinary action that can be taken against a Member of Congress. Article I, Section 5 of the United States Constitution provides that "Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with...
  
  . Lederer had won re-election in 1980 while under indictment for taking a bribe following the FBI's Abscam
  Abscam
  Abscam was a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation sting operation run from the FBI's Hauppauge, Long Island, office in the late 1970s and early 1980s...
  
   investigation, and convicted of felony charges on January 9.
• Steve Carlton
  Steve Carlton
  Steven Norman Carlton , nicknamed "Lefty", is a former Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. He pitched from 1965-1988 for six different teams in his career, but it is his time with the Philadelphia Phillies where he received his greatest acclaim as a professional and won four Cy Young Awards...
  
   became the seventh pitcher to have 3,000 strikeouts, and the first left-handed pitcher, in a game between the Phillies and Expos; Tom Seaver
  Tom Seaver
  George Thomas "Tom" Seaver , nicknamed "Tom Terrific" and "The Franchise", is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He pitched from 1967-1986 for four different teams in his career, but is noted primarily for his time with the New York Mets...
  
   of the Reds had become the sixth on April 18 against the Cardinals. The first five were Walter Johnson (1923), Bob Gibson (1974), Gaylord Perry (1978), and Nolan Ryan (1980). Baseball Digest (Oct 2000) p9
• Died: Lowell Thomas
  Lowell Thomas
  Lowell Jackson Thomas was an American writer, broadcaster, and traveler, best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia famous...
  
  , 89, American newsman

April 30, 1981 (Thursday)

• Promoting itself as the "no-frills airline
  Low-cost carrier
  A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline is an airline that generally has lower fares and fewer comforts...
  
  ", People Express began low cost trips to and from its hub at the Newark Liberty International Airport
  Newark Liberty International Airport
  Newark Liberty International Airport , first named Newark Metropolitan Airport and later Newark International Airport, is an international airport within the city limits of both Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey, United States...
  
   in New Jersey
  New Jersey
  New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
  
  . A ticket for the inaugural flight, from Newark
  Newark, New Jersey
  Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
  
   to Buffalo
  Buffalo, New York
  Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
  
   was priced at only 23 dollars.
• The Anheuser-Busch
  Anheuser-Busch
  Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...
  
   brewing company began test marketing of its lower calorie beer, Bud Light, which was then introduced nationwide in the summer of 1982.
• South African general election, 1981
  South African general election, 1981
  During the 1981 South African general election, the National Party achieved another landslide victory, winning 131 of 165 seats in the House of Assembly, which had become the sole legislative chamber following the abolition of the Senate that year...
  
  : In elections for the Volksraad
  House of Assembly of South Africa
  The House of Assembly was the lower house of the Parliament of South Africa from 1910 to 1984, and latterly the white representative house of the Tricameral Parliament from 1984 to 1994, when it was replaced by the current National Assembly...
  
  , lower house of South Africa
  South Africa
  The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
  
  's Parliament, the ruling National Party
  National Party (South Africa)
  The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
  
   captured 131 of the 165 seats. The Progressive Federal Party
  Progressive Federal Party
  The Progressive Federal Party was a South African political party formed in 1977. It advocated power-sharing in South Africa through a federal constitution, in place of apartheid...
  
   (26 seats) and the New Republic Party
  New Republic Party
  The New Republic Party was a South African political party. It was formed as the successor to the disbanded United Party in 1977. After the UP wound up, initially the last UP leader, Sir de Villiers Graaff served as the interim national leader of the new party, with Radclyffe Cadman as...
  
   (8 seats) won the other offices. Only White citizens, roughly 10% of the adult population, were allowed to vote.