page_title: February 1980
section_title: February 6, 1980 (Wednesday)
hierarchical_section_title: February 1980 / February 6, 1980 (Wednesday)
caption_attribution_description: English: Aegyptopithecus
context_page_description: The following events happened in February 1980:
context_section_description: Scientists announced the discovery of the earliest-known primate ancestor of human beings, with remains of Aegyptopithecus, described by The New York Times as "the oldest ape-human evolutionary link found so far" and dated to 30 million years ago. Elwyn Simons, who had discovered more than 20 skeletal fossils in the Sahara Desert in Egypt since 1966, said that the species, later classified as  Aegyptopithecus zeuxis had been about the size of a cat.  The fossils had been found inside a geological formation called the Jebel Qatrani Formation, outside of Faiyum.
  Mathieu Kérékou was re-elected, unopposed, as the President of Benin.
  The trial of serial killer John Wayne Gacy began in Chicago before a jury from Rockford, Illinois. Gacy, suspected of the murder of 27 victims between 1972 and 1978, would be executed in the electric chair on May 9, 1994.
caption: artist's rendition of Aegyptopithecus zeuxis attribution: Nobu Tamura
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