page_title: January 1980
section_title: January 31, 1980 (Thursday)
hierarchical_section_title: January 1980 / January 31, 1980 (Thursday)
caption_attribution_description: Daniel J. Flood, US Representative from Pennsylvania
context_page_description: The following events happened in January 1980:
context_section_description: Spain's Embassy in Guatemala was invaded and set on fire during an attempt by Guatemalan commandos to free 10 people taken hostage by the Committee for Peasant Unity.  Eight of the hostages and 28 of the occupiers were burned to death after a fire swept through the second floor.  Spain severed all diplomatic relations with Guatemala after the incident.
  Kang Shi'en, a Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China and chief of the nation's Economic Commission, made the first statement from the Chinese government that the nation's population had reached one billion people.  Kang's remarks came in an address to a group of delegates from Norway's shipping industry, when he said "Even if we succeed in restricting the population, we will have 1 billion, 200 million people by the year 2000.  We already have 1 billion."  Western analysts noted that Kang's estimate "presumably includes the 17 million people on Taiwan, which the Peking government considers a part of China."  The official number as of the Census of July 1, 1982 was that the mainland population was 1,008,180,738 people, a figure announced in the newspaper People's Daily on October 27, 1982. 
  U.S. Representative Daniel J. Flood of Pennsylvania resigned from Congress after being censured for his conviction for bribery.
  Queen Queen Juliana of the Netherlands announced that she would abdicate the throne on April 30, her 71st birthday in favor of her eldest daughter, Crown Princess Beatrix. Juliana, who had ascended the throne on September 4, 1948, upon the abdication of her mother, Queen Wilhelmina, timed the nationally televised announcement for Beatrix's 42nd birthday.
caption: Flood
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