page_title: February 1980
section_title: February 14, 1980 (Thursday)
hierarchical_section_title: February 1980 / February 14, 1980 (Thursday)
caption_attribution_description: The Solar Maximum Mission
context_page_description: The following events happened in February 1980:
context_section_description: The Solar Max (Solar Maximum Mission) satellite, designed by the U.S. to investigate solar flares and other solar phenomena, was launched at 10:57 in the morning from Cape Canaveral.  It would fail nine months after its launch until its repair by a space shuttle crew in 1984, and would continue experiments until re-entering the Earth atmosphere on December 2, 1989.
  Dr. Algirdas Statkevičius, a Soviet dissident member of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, was arrested in Vilnius and was sentenced on 11 August 1980, to forcible psychiatric treatment after being arrested on 14 February 1980, reportedly for "anti-Soviet activities".  Dr. Statkevičius was transferred to the Chernyakhovsk Special Hospital, near Vilnius, for confinement.
  The CBS television network announced that anchorman Walter Cronkite would retire in 1981, prior to his mandatory retirement on his 65th birthday.  The CBS Network announced that Cronkite, the anchor since the program started in 1963, would be Dan Rather rather than the other candidate for Cronkite's successor, Roger Mudd. Cronkite's last broadcast of the CBS Evening News would be on March 6, 1981.
  Died: Michael Zaffarano, American organized crime boss for the Bonanno crime family, died of a heart attack after being surprised by a raid on his headquarters by the FBI.
caption: Artist's rendition of the Solar Max
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