1979

**1979** (MCMLXXIX) was a common year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar.

## Events 
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* January 4 &ndash; The State of Ohio agrees to pay $675,000 to families of the dead and injured in the Kent State shootings
* February 1 &ndash; Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile
* March 4 &ndash; The U.S. *Voyager 1* spaceprobe photos show Jupiter's rings
* April 1 &ndash; Iran's government becomes an Islamic Republic by a 98% vote, overthrowing the Shah officially
* May 1 &ndash; Greenland is given limited autonomy from Denmark. The new Parliament of Greenland will meet in Nuuk.
* June 18 &ndash; Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II agreement in Vienna
* July 12 &ndash; Kiribati gains independence from the United Kingdom
* July 16 &ndash; Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigns and Vice President Saddam al-Tikriti replaces him
* August 3 &ndash; Dictator Francisco Macías Nguema of Equatorial Guinea is overthrown in a bloody coup d'état led by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo
* September 1 – The American Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000&nbsp;km
* September 7 – The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for $1 billion to avoid bankruptcy
* September 7 – ESPN starts broadcasting
* September 16 – Three families flee from East Germany by balloon
* September 20 – French paratroopers help David Dacko to overthrow Bokassa
* September 22 – The South Atlantic Flash is observed near Bouvet Island, thought to be a nuclear weapons test
* October 3  The divorce of Michele Catain, an American crew member and real estate agent, and David Thomas Durboraw, an American businessman, is finalized
* October 14 – A major gay rights march in the United States takes place in Washington, DC, involving many tens of thousands of people
* October 16 – 23 people die in Nice, France, when the coastal town is hit by a tsunami
* October 21 – 259 Muslim radicals occupy Kaaba and the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Saudi-Arabian army goes in to expel them
* October 26 – South Korean president Park Chunghee killed by KCIA head Kim Jaekyu
* October 27 – Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gains independence
* October 29 – Pope John Paul II visits Ireland
* November 5 &ndash; The radio news program *Morning Edition* premieres on National Public Radio in the United States
* December 5 &ndash; Jack Lynch resigns as Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland. He is succeeded by Charles Haughey.
* December 15 &ndash; Chris Haney and Scott Abbott develop the board game Trivial Pursuit
* December 26  The divorce of Jack Catain Jr., an American businessman, and Marlene Noble, an American apparel sales associate, is finalized

## Births 
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* January 12 – Marián Hossa, Slovakian hockey player
* January 16 – Aaliyah, American singer (d. 2001)
* January 17 – Micaela Ramazzotti, italian actress
* January 20 – Will Young, English singer and actor
* January 26 – Sara Rue, American actress
* February 9 – Irina Slutskaya, Russian figure skater
* February 11 – Brandy Norwood, American singer
* February 21 – Jennifer Love Hewitt, American actress
* March 8 – Tom Chaplin, English singer (Keane)
* March 9 – Melina Perez, American wrestler
* March 12 – Pete Doherty, English musician
* March 27 – Hiromu Shinozuka, Japanese manga artist
* April 4
** Heath Ledger, Australian actor (d. 2008)
** Roberto Luongo, Canadian hockey player
* April 5 – Timo Hildebrand, German footballer
* April 24 – Marie Picasso, Swedish model and singer
* May 9 – Pierre Bouvier, Canadian musician
* May 15 – Dominic Scott, Irish guitarist
* May 16 – Prince Carl Philip of Sweden
* May 21 – Shinya Kumazaki, Japanese video game developer
* May 26 – Ashley Massaro, American model and wrestler
* May 29 – Arne Friedrich German footballer
* June 2 – Morena Baccarin, Brazilian and American  actress
* July 19 - Michelle Heaton, English singer (Liberty X)
* July 23 – Michelle Williams , American singer and actress
* August 3 – Evangeline Lilly, Canadian actress
* August 16 – Cleo Lemon, American NFL player
* September 13 – Manuel Friedrich, German footballer
* September 17 – Chuck Comeau, Canadian musician
* September 27 – Shep Rose, American
* October 1 - Florin Salam, Romanian singer 
* October 3 – John Hennigan, American wrestler
* October 8 – Kristanna Loken, American actress
* November 14 – Michael Owen, English footballer
* November 27 – Hilary Hahn, American violinist
* December 4 - Adrian Zandberg, Polish politician, historian, and programmer. He created the Razem political party
* December 25 - Ferman Akgül, Turkish songwriter and singer
* December 26 – Chris Daughtry, American singer

## Deaths 
### January
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* January 3 – Conrad Hilton, American hotelier  (b. 1887)
* January 5 – Charles Mingus, American bassist (b. 1922)
* January 16 – Ted Cassidy, American actor  (b. 1932)
* January 18 – Gaston Heuet, French long-distance runner (b. 1892)
* January 26 – Nelson Rockefeller, 41st Vice President of the United States (b. 1908)
* January 27 – Victoria Ocampo, Argentine writer (b. 1890)

### February 
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* February 2 – Sid Vicious, English musician (b. 1957)
* February 7 – Josef Mengele, Nazism war criminal (b. 1911)
* February 8 – Nikolai Tikhonov, Soviet writer (b. 1896)
* February 9 – Dennis Gabor, Hungarian-British engineer (b. 1900)
* February 12 – Jean Renoir, French film director (b. 1894)
* February 17 – William Gargan, American actor (b. 1905)

### March 
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* March 1 – Mustafa Barzani, Kurdish leader (b. 1903)
* March 7 – Klaus Egge, Norwegian nationalist (b. 1906)
* March 15 – Alexandre Parodi, French Politician (b. 1901)
* March 30 – José María Velasco Ibarra, 24th President of Ecuador (b. 1893)

### April 
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* April 4 – Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, 4th President of Pakistan (b. 1928)

### May 
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* May 1 – Morteza Motahhari, Iranian philosopher (b. 1919)
* May 2 – Giulio Natta, Italian chemical engineer (b. 1903)
* May 9 – Gabriel Ramanantsoa, 2nd President of Madagascar (b. 1906)
* May 29 – Mary Pickford, Canadian-American actress (b. 1892)

### June 
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* June 11 – John Wayne, American actor (b. 1907)

### July 
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* July 3 – Louis Durey, French composer (b. 1988)
* July 8 – Shin'ichirō Tomonaga, Japanese physicist (b. 1906)
* July 15 – Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, 49th President of Mexico (b. 1911)

### August 
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* August 3 – Bertil Ohlin, Swedish economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
* August 21 – Giuseppe Meazza, Italian football player (b. 1910)
* August 27 – Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, British statesman and naval officer (b. 1900)

### September 
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* September 10 – Agostinho Neto, 1st President of Angola (b. 1922)
* September 20 – Ismail Nasiruddin of Terengganu, 4th Yang di-Pertuan Agong (b. 1907)
* September 28 – John Herbert Chapman, Canadian physicist (b. 1921)
* September 29 – Francisco Macías Nguema, 1st President of Equatorial Guinea (executed) (b. 1924)

### October 
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* October 1 – Preguinho, Brazilian footballer (b. 1905)
* October 8 – Nur Muhammad Taraki, President of Afghanistan (b. 1917)
* October 26 – Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea (b. 1917)

### November 
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* November 1 – Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States (b. 1896)
* November 25 – Ky Ebright, American Olympic rowing coach (b. 1894)

### December 
* December 27 – Hafizullah Amin, President of Afghanistan (b. 1929)

## Nobel Prizes 
* Nobel Prize in Physics shared by Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg for their work on electroweak interactions
* Nobel Prize in Chemistry shared by Herbert C. Brown and Georg Wittig for their work with organoboranes
* Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine shared by Allan McLeod Cormack and Godfrey N. Hounsfield for their work on X-ray computed tomography
* Nobel Prize in Literature won by Odysseas Elytis, Greek poet
* Nobel Peace Prize won by Mother Teresa
* Nobel Prize in Economics – Theodore Schultz, American economist, and W. Arthur Lewis, Saint Lucian economist