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Timelines for the modern era
1970-1990

News briefs and updates 1970-1990

1980s and to the present: Philippines, In Mindanao, conflict between Christians and Muslims. A Christian group known as Ilaga, (Rats), has a reputation for cannibalising its victims. Mindanao has many Tadtad or "chop-chop" cults. A conspicuous figure, called "Joan of Arc of the Philippines", is Kumander Inday, a violent heroine of Mandanao.

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1991: Mozambiquan rebels kill up to 1000 people in a series of rampages through northern villages.

1989-2000: World Migration: One million people move from Israel to former Soviet Union. (Source: 2003, UN, International Organisation for Migration)

1989: Mass demonstrations for democracy in Tienanmen Square, Beijing, China, ending in massacre.

1989: Vietnamese troops withdraw from Cambodia.

25 December 1989: After coup of 22 December, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceasescu is executed with wife Elena after a trial.

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1989: Pro-Democracy students are massacred in Tienanmen Square, Beijing.

27 February 1989: Yugoslavia imposes emergency measures in strife-torn southern province of Kosovo.

1989: Iran-Iraq War ends.

1989: Muslim separatists launch struggle against Indian rule in Kashmir.

Archaeologists unearth Jesus' gate?: JERUSALEM: Wednesday: Archaeologists digging on the southern slope of Mount Zion believe they have unearthed the gate Jesus used to leave after after the Last Supper, a research team leader announced yesterday. The volunteer team discovered the remains of the more than 2,000-year-old gate while excavating a site along the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. "This is more evidence that we are standing on the cradle of Christianity," the project's co-director, the Rev Bargil Pixner, said during a tour of the site.
"It is an incredible find." Ancient coins and pottery scattered alongside the gate prove the ruins date back to the time of Christ, according to an archaeologist on the project, Mr Doron Chen, of Israel's Hebrew University.

The team uncovered the gate after sifting through a maze of walls and towers dating as far back as 700BC. All that remains of the gate is a broken support column and the stone blocks that served as an archway. Mr Chen said the gate, which the team found buried beneath four metres of dirt and rock, was built in 37BC and destroyed about 100 years later by the re-conquering Romans. The time period and the location of the gate along the southern edge of Mount Zion match biblical accounts of the Last Supper, said Mr Pixner, who is a priest at the Benedictine Abbey of Dormition.
"It can safely be presumed that Jesus used this gate on his way to and from the Last Supper," he said, pointing out the spot about 250 metres further up Mount Zion, where Christians believe Jesus met the apostles. "Everything we've found indicates that this is the place." The biblical account of the Last Supper says that Jesus, while staying in nearby Bethany, told the apostles to go to Jerusalem where a man carrying a water pitcher would lead them to their meeting place.
Mr Pixner said he believes Jesus and the apostles gathered at a guest house close to where archaeologists found the gate. (Associated Press report, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 October 1988)

1988: Soviet Union signs an accord to end its interventions in Afghanistan and to allow Red Army to start troop withdrawals.

1988: Iran and Iraq bomb each other's capital cities.

1988: Ceasefire in Iran-Iraq War.

1988: Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev pulls troops out of Afghanistan. More than one million Afghanis and 50,000 Russians have died during the nine years of Russian occupation.

1988: Burma: Year of the great pro-democracy uprising.

1988: Iran and Iraq hold face-to-face meeting after one-month break in UN-sponsored gulf peace talks.

1988: Iraq: Saddam Hussein's forces gas Iraqi Kurds, killing 5000, according to US propaganda of May 2002. (Time Magazine)

1988: Palestine Liberation Organisation has a parliament-in-exile which adopts new political strategy of renouncing terrorism and recognising the state of Israel.

1988: Jordan repudiates its claim to the West Bank; Abu Jihad (PLO's Number 2 leader) is assassinated by an Israeli hit team; the PLO recognizes Israel, proclaims a Palestinian state, renounces terrorism, and calls for negotiations; as a result of the Israeli election Yitzhak Shamir returns as prime minister.

1988: Carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin indicates its age is from about 1260AD only.

1988: Opium production in Burma increases under the rule of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the Burmese junta regime. The single largest heroin seizure is made in Bangkok. The U.S. suspects that the 2,400-pound shipment of heroin, en route to New York City, originated from the Golden Triangle region, controlled by drug warlord, Khun Sa.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

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1988: USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev pulls his troops out of Afghanistan. Estimated casualties: 1 million Afghanis and 50,000 Russians.

1987: The Palestinian Intifada (uprising) against Israeli control begins in the Occupied Territories .

Palestine timeline: 1987: Palestine timeline: Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), founded by members of Muslim Brotherhood re first intifada (uprising) against Israeli military presence in West Bank and Gaza.

1987: Publication of Richard C. Hoagland's book, The Monuments Of Mars: A City On The Edge Of Forever, claiming that "a face" photographed on the surface of Mars was not, as suggested, a rock formation, but a marker for aliens/space travellers. See also Carl Sagan on this issue in his book, The Demon-Haunted World. The formation in question is 1.5 km across.

1986: Davina Thompson makes medical history by having the first world's heart-lung-and-liver transplant - at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England.

1986: President of Haiti, Jean-Claude Duvalier, goes into exile, ending 29-year family dynasty in this Caribbean republic.

1986-2001: The architect of the World Trade Centre is a second-generation Japanese American, Minoru Yamasaki (died 1986), the building completed in 1973. Yamasaki was born in Seattle in 1912. He first worked for the architects of the Empire State Building.

28 November 1986: Pope John Paul II lights candle in Melbourne's Anglican cathedral.

30 April 1986: Meltdown at Chernobyl in Soviet Union.

12 March 1986: Halley's Comet in the night sky

27 February 1986: Ousted president Ferdinand Marcos starts life in exile in Hawaii after his hurried departure from Philippines.

26 February 1986: President Ferdinand Marcos flees Philippines, Cory Aquino in power.

Beginning 1986: Appearances of Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary claimed at Helidon, in Queensland, Australia. Commentator: Mrs Claire Mansour. Enquiries to: (076) 976 277. (02) 960 33064.

29 January, 1986: Space shuttle Challenger explodes after takeoff.

1985: A short history of medicine
I have a headache...
2000 B.C. - Here, eat this root.
1000 A.D. - That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850 A.D. - That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1940 A.D. - That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1985 A.D. - That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic.
2000 A.D. - That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root.

19 December 1985: Muslim gunmen in Beirut, Lebanon, kidnap ten Christians, upping a campaign of terror.

1985: Hussein-Arafat Accords and UN speech by Israeli Foreign Minister Peres endorse an international conference to negotiate a settlement.

1985: Underwater explorer Robert Ballard finds the Titanic at bottom of Atlantic.

1985: Death of AIDS of US film star, Rock Hudson.

1985: Writer Michele Roberts produces novel, The Wild Girl, which sees Mary Magdalene as Jesus' lover and mother of his child. (Baigent/Leigh, Messianic Legacy, on revising the story of Jesus Christ)

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1985: Dr Hugh Schonfield and his book The Essene Odyssey. (Baigent/Leigh, Messianic Legacy, on revising the story of Jesus Christ) Schonfield also writes Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

1985: Discovery of the global hole-in-the-ozone-layer problem, particularly over Antarctica.

16 November 1985: Italy: Women in Naples, sick of The Mob, ie The Mafia, begin taking things into their own hands.

1985: An idea that Stonehenge is not and was never intended to be any sort of astronomical device, expressed by Professor of Anthropology at Illinois Institute of Technology, Dr Leon Stover, author of an essay on this topic in: Harry Harrison and Leon Stover, (Novel), Stonehenge: Where Atlantis Died: The Mighty Saga of Atlantis and Ancient Britain. Panther/Granada, 1985. See also Leon Stover, Stonehenge and the Origins of Western Culture.

1984: The AIDS-HIV virus is identified, and becomes the leading cause worldwide of death from infectious disease. By 2003 it kills 2.5 million people yearly, two-thirds of them in Africa.

1984: Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi assassinated by Sikhs.

1984: US troops leave Lebanon after a bomb kills 24l Marines.

1984: Indian authorities tighten security to thwart attempts by Sikh separatists to invade Golden Temple in Sikh holy city, Amritsar.

1984: Rajiv Ghandi sworn in as Indian prime minister amid anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Indira Ghandi.

1984: The founding of modern Creationism by H. M. Morris, with Scientific Creationism. In 1984 also is a reputed sighting of Noah's Ark on a slope of Mount Ararat in Turkey, by US astronaut, James Irwin.

6 December 1984: Bhopal: Indian fury over killer gas problem.

1 November 1984: Indira Ghandi assassinated by her Sikh guard

21 September 1985: Killer earthquake in Mexico

1984: 13 September: US State Department officials conclude, after more than a decade of crop substitution programs for Third World growers of marijuana, coca or opium poppies, that the tactic cannot work without eradication of the plants and criminal enforcement. Poor results are reported from eradication programs in Burma, Pakistan, Mexico and Peru.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1983: 1 July: USA: President Nixon creates the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) under the Justice Dept. to consolidate virtually all federal powers of drug enforcement in a single agency.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1983-1984: David Rolfe for London Weekend TV makes TV documentary, Jesus: The Evidence. (Baigent/Leigh, Messianic Legacy, on revising the story of Jesus Christ)

27 September 1983: Australia wins the America's Cup.

2 September 1983: Russian fighter plane shoots down Korean passenger jet.

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"A suicide bomber is the ultimate smart bomb": According to part one of a two-part documentary by a former US CIA agent, screened on ABC TV Australia on 14 November 2005, the modern cult of the suicide bomber began after the invasion of Iran by Iraq, in the time of Ayatollah Khomeini. The Ayatollah dredged up a "traditional" ideal of martyrdom stemming from incidents about 1400 years ago, after the original split of Islam into Shia and Sunni adherents. An Iranian teenager-soldier became the first suicide bomber and hero when he blew up an advancing Iraqi tank. From Iran, the ideal was shortly exported in the early 1980s to Lebanon during a civil war and a time of incursions by Israel, to be used particularly against US interests. One of the worse incidents was on 18 April 1983, when a massive car bomb killed 63 people at the US embassy, one of the first modern attacks against US interests in the region. There were other explosions deployed against US interest in Lebanon in 1983. The cult of the suicide bomber was adopted in Lebanon particularly by Hezbollah (Army of God, Shia of Lebanon), in terms of its religious ideology, defense of Islam.
But another, more secular group or party in Lebanon, SSNP, also adopted the cult of the suicide bomber, where the sacrifice was conducted against the invader, but without belief in an afterlife, and in terms of defence of one's country. And so the ideology of the suicide bomber split into two wings, one religious, one more secular, both equally deadly. "A suicide bomber is the ultimate smart bomb" as the author of this documentary said.

21 February 1983: India: More than 800 people die in the Indian state of Assam in ethnic rioting following state elections.

1982: Israel invades Lebanon and occupies much of the country up to Beirut, which is subjected to prolonged siege. The US brokers a withdrawal of PLO fighters and Arafat's staff to Tunis. After the massacre of unarmed Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, US troops return as part of a peace-keeping force but soon begin to favor some Lebanese groups and attack others. Lebanese resistance groups in the Shiite community attack Israeli, US and Western forces and organizations.

1982: Israeli forces invade Lebanon.

1982: Alistair Kee, a lecturer on religion at University of Glasgow, produces new book, Constantine versus Christ. Where for Constantine, what is important is Sol Invictus, the sun god. (Baigent/Leigh, Messianic Legacy, on revising the story of Jesus Christ)

16 September 1982: World mourns death of Princess Grace of Monaco.
Princess Grace of Monaco, the former actress Grace Kelly, apparently was a member of the Solar Temple Cult (Switzerland-based) by about 1982. Authors of writing on the subject are David-Carr-Brown and David Cohen.
As reported, The Weekend Australian Review, 17-18 January 1998. A TV documentary broadcast in Australia after that date is worth viewing.

17 June 1982, At the Watergate Building in Washington, a night watchman notices a door latch to the HQ of the Democrat National Committee is stuck open with tape. He removes it. On his next round, it has been replaced. He calls police, who picked up bugging-device-installers, Bernard barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martinez and James McCord. Hence, The Watergate Affair which forced President Nixon from office by 9 August 1974, when he resigned.

16 June 1982: Falklands War is over.

3 February 1982: Australia's strange "dingo baby" case, re death of baby Azaria Chamberlain. Azaria's parents to stand trial. Mother Lindy charged with murder of baby.
30 October, 1982: Chamberlains are found guilty by jury in Northern Territory. (Decision later overturned.)

1982: Comedian John Belushi of Animal House fame, dies of a heroin-cocaine - "speedball" overdose.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1982: First year in which "Gay Games" are held in San Francisco, with 1330 participants. Then in San Francisco in 1986, Vancouver in 1990, New York 1994 and Amsterdam in 1998.

1981: First test flight of America's first operational space shuttle, the Columbia, ending successfully and landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

1981: AIDS is identified; and IBM introduces the personal computer.

6-7 October 1981: Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is assassinated in Cairo by "Islamic fundamentalists". Israel formally annexes the Golan Heights.

30 July 1981: Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

14 May 1981: Pope John Paul II shot, hit by two bullets.

Space: 13 April 1981, "world's first real spaceship" is launched.

1 April 1981: US President Ronald Reagan is shot but survives.

The early 1980s: Increasing numbers of reports in England of Crop Circles in rural areas. Between 1918 and 1979, about 100 circles had been reported, in 1989, 303 were documented. Most cases were in Wiltshire and Hampshire.

Northern France, May 1981: The hijack of an Irish Aer Lingus London flight to Le Touquet in Northern France. The hijacker is Laurence James Downey, an Australian ex-Trappist monk who hoped to force Pope John Paul II to reveal The Third Secret of Fatima (arising from visions of the Virgin Mary seen in May 1917 in Portugal). Pope John XXIII is said to have "blanched white" when he read the Third Secret of Fatima.

1980: Outbreak of Iran-Iraq War.

1980: Smallpox is officially declared extinct by World Health Organisation.

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1980. Author Jean M. Auel begins her popular series on "Stone Age people", The Clan of the Cave Bear. The fifth book in the series, The Shelters of Stone, was published in 2002. The series is entitled: Earth's Children.

1980: US, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran back Afghanistan Muslim mujaheddin against the Soviets.

8 December, 1980, Ex-Beatle John Lennon is shot in New York outside his Dakota apartment. (Why discrepant dates arising?)

10 December, 1980: Famed rock musician and ex-Beatle, John Lennon, aged 40, shot dead by Chapman. Lennon said, "I'm shot", and Yoko said, "Someone help me, someone help me".

24 September, 1980: Iraqi tanks invade Iran.

1980: 5 September: Opening of the longest tunnel in the world, the 16km St Gotthard road tunnel, Switzerland.

1980: 29 July: The Shah of Iran is dead, of cancer, aged 60, after a seven-year battle with cancer.

1980, 28 April: Disastrous US attempt to rescue hostages in Iran

1980, 27 February: First election giving black majority full voting powers in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

1980: US, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China back the local Afghanistan mujaheddin (holy warriors) against the Soviets.

1979: Followers in Iran of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seize power, nine days after Khomeini has returned from France after 15 years of exile.

1979: Ayatollah Khomeini adopts Islamic constitution for Iran.

1979-4 July 2003: Dali dream comes true in Spain: Famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali (d. 1989) at the end of the 1970s dreamt up a surrealist organ, a giant organ which would be played by the wind. This would be heard by the people of the Ampurdan region, as played by the fierce tramontane wind from their north. Locals say this wind can drive people mad. Design problems set in due to the wind's irregularity, however. Engineers set to work to try to develop "a wind accumulator". The wind would blow into the organ via a huge funnel, then channelled past a pressure regulator to be blasted out of the organ 500 pipes. Feasibility studies have been carried out by engineers at Ramon Llull University at Barcelona, and two prototypes produced. Three local entrepreneurs have funded the venture. German organist Wolfgang Seifen is now (mid-2003) working on special compositions for the organ, and an inaugural concert was set for 6 September, 2004. The surreal organ will possibly be housed in the ruined 10th-century castle of Quermanco in Vilajuiga, a village near Dali's birthplace of Figueras, which castle Dali had once tried to buy. Dali also wanted to see a domesticated rhinoceros guarding the hilltop housing the organ. (Domesticated? - Ed)

1979: Elaine Pagels produces book The Gnostic Gospels - a study of the Nag Hammadi Scrolls discovered in Egypt in 1945. (The Dead Sea Scrolls are discovered in 1947.) (Baigent/Leigh, Messianic Legacy, on revising the story of Jesus Christ)

1979: Soviets invade Afghanistan and install their puppet (communist) leader, Babrak Kamal. US intelligence operators later try to provoke a jihad (holy war) by Afghanis against the Russians, and arm the Afghanis, who vigourously use guerrilla tactics.

1979: Without actually intending to "reinvent" science fiction, which he ended up doing, author Douglas Adams (died 2001) publishes his hilarious book, Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

1979: Soviets invade Afghanistan and install Babrak Kamal's puppet communist regime.

1979: The Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, loses control of his country and flees, to die of cancer in Egypt, and is succeeded by Ayatollah Khomeini who had earlier been in exile in France.

1979, 29 November: The New Zealand plane Mount Erebus jetliner tragedy in the Antarctic.

1979, 29 August: At sea, the IRA murder of Lord Mountbatten in Ireland.

1979: Re Mir coming down in March 2001 into the Pacific Ocean: In 1979, Skylab was supposed to fall into the Indian Ocean, but some pieces fell east of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

1979: Vietnam invades Cambodia.

1979: Alexandria, Egypt, Research work with psychics and scientists which comprises the book: Stephan A. Schwartz, The Alexandria Project. New York, Delacorte Press/Eleanor Friede, 1983.

September 1978: US president Jimmy Carter arranges a Camp David peace accord between Israel-Egypt - its president being Anwar Sadat. The 1979 treaty ends 30 years of conflict.
1978: Egypt and Israel sign the Camp David Accords. Israel invades Lebanon and seizes a 'security zone" up to the Litani River. It sets up the puppet government of the Southern Lebanese Army.

1978, 25 July, World's first test-tube baby, Louise Joy Brown, born at Oldham General Hospital, Lancashire, UK.

Circa 1978 - Late 1970s: Mary Leakey and her team at Laetoli find footprints as preserved in volcanic ash that indicate the movement of a human-like being capable of bipedalism - four million-years-old. (Shreeve, Neandertal)

1978: Vietnam invades Cambodia and forces out Khmer Rouge.

1978: The US and Mexican governments find a means to eliminate the source of raw opium - by spraying poppy fields with Agent Orange. The eradication plan is termed a success as the amount of "Mexican Mud" in the U.S. drug market declines. In response to the decrease in availability of "Mexican Mud", another source of heroin is found in the Golden Crescent area - Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, creating a dramatic upsurge in the production and trade of illegal heroin.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1978: Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla becomes Pope John Paul II.

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1978: World's first IVF baby, Louise Brown, born in Oldham, in England, 25 July, 1978, delivered by Patrick Steptoe.

October, 1978: Soon after the election of Pope John Paul II, only three people know the Third Secret of Fatima, the pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the original three girls who saw the appearance of the Virgin Mary at Fatima in 1917. The third secret by May 2000 was revealed as a prediction of an assassination attempt on the life of this pope, which took place on 13 May 1981, some 64 years to the day from the first appearance of the Virgin at Fatima. Some critics are angry that the Catholic Church kept the world in suspense for so long about the Third Secret. In 1942, Pope Pius XII released the contents of the first two Fatima secrets, which were about the outbreak of World War II and the rise and fall of international communism. The Virgin Mary appeared at Fatima five more times from 13 May, 1917, on the 13th of each month, culminated on 13 October, 1913, when 80,000 people gathered to witness a great sign that the story told by the children was true. There occurred "the miracle of the sun", and at an appointed time, the crowd saw the sun descend from the sky, spin around and throw off dazzling colours. In 1957, a sealed envelope was taken from Fatima to the Vatican bearing the Third Secret. The third secret was finally revealed by Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. On 13 May, 1982, a Spanish priest tormented by a desire to know the Third secret tried to knife Pope John Paul II as the pope visited Fatima. The other two children seeing the first visions at Fatima were a brother and sister, Francisco and Jacinta Marto (who died in childhood), plus their cousin, now an aged nun, Lucia dos Santos. At Fatima is a Chapel of the Apparitions.

14 February, 1978: Mysterious Sydney Hilton Hotel bombing and long drawn out court cases thereafter. Possible involvement of members of Ananda Marga sect.

22 November, 1978: The Jonestown Massacre or mass suicide in Guyana, South America. 400 line up at a vat of cyanide to drink a cup of death at the command of mad preacher, Jim Jones.

1978, 27 February: Egypt restricts special privileges of Palestinians living in that country and says they will be treated as any other Arab aliens.

1977: Some 42 nations ask UN General Assembly to work on the problem of plane hijackings.

1977: Thor Heyerdahl with his Tigris expedition from the Persian Gulf to Dijibouti on the Horn of Africa proves that the reed boats of ancient Mesopotamia were seaworthy enough to make long-distance voyages.

1977: Menachem Begin becomes prime minister of Israel. His Likud party traditionally advocated a "Greater Israel" including the West Bank and Gaza and perhaps Jordan with unlimited settlement of Jews in Arab-populated areas under Israeli occupation. Anwar Sadat of Egypt goes to Jerusalem to open talks.

1977, 30 June: SEATO is dissolved.

1977: Publication of John Michell, A Little History of Astro-Archaeology. London, Thames and Hudson, 1977.

1976: The Ebola Virus is identified in Sudan and Zaire, Africa, one of the most frightening viral diseases ever identified. It causes death rates of 50-90 per cent. By December 2000, some 1500 cases had been reported with 1000 deaths resulting.

1976: Revolutionary photographs of Mars begin to reveal the planet's possible history.

1976: China: Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong die; fall of "Gang of Four".

1976: Sexologist, Dr Mina Robins explains how men can delay ejaculation using stillness and breath control, thus relaying techniques known to the Chinese from as early as 2500BC. (Source: James/Thorpe). (How, why, would humanity forget such interesting tricks? - Ed)

1976, 10 September: Mao Tse Tung dies in China, aged 83.

16 June 1976: South Africa: A riot that became famous breaks out in Soweto as South African government tries to enforce a decision that school lessons will be taught in Afrikaans, regarded as the language of the oppressor. Police opened fire on milling students and their parents. The first boy shot was Hector Petersen, aged 12. After this atrocity, the white-dominated South African government became a world pariah as trade sanctions were applied and sporting nations shunned South African sport.

1976, Publication of Balsiger and Sellier's book, In Search of Noah's Ark.

27 February 1976: Eskimo leaders in Canada present government with a claim to a quarter of a million square miles of land.

1975-1991: World Migration: A flow of workers on the move from south and east Asia work in Middle East, from 100,000 per year to one million. (Source: 2003, UN, International Organisation for Migration)

1975: Re 1.6 million years ago: As found in 1975 by a Richard Leakey team, "an advanced, large-brained skull of Homo erectus. At the time is current a hominid with a relatively smaller brain, Australopithecus boisei, a fact which seems to blow away any theory re humanity as a single species.

1975: Margaret Thatcher becomes first woman to head a UK political party when she is elected leader of Conservative Party.

1975: Lebanese civil war begins. By the end of the 1980s, 144,000 Lebanese have died, most in subsequent invasions.

1975: Britons Dougal Haston and Doug Scott become the first men to climb the south-west face of Mount Everest.

1975: Chinese troops ambush Indian security patrol along India's northern border, killing four men in first fight flaring in eight years.

1975: Mid-1970s: Saigon falls. The US heroin epidemic subsides. The search for a new source of raw opium yields Mexico's Sierra Madre. "Mexican Mud" would temporarily replace "China White" heroin until 1978.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1975: Death aged 69 of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, then husband of former first-lady of the US, Jacqueline Kennedy.

23 November 1975: American Jim Woodman of the Explorers Society and English balloonist Julian Nott ascend to 380 feet in a "Nazca balloon", named Condor I, to demonstrate that perhaps, the Nazca Peruvians had actually used balloon flight. (Source: James/Thorpe).

11-12 November 1975: The Australian governor-general Sir John Kerr dismisses the prime minister Gough Whitlam. Great outrage is expressed in Australia, but nil violence.

By 3 November, 1974. A Russian and a US Poseidon submarine (SSBN James Madison) collide in waters off Britain and might have caused WWIII. The incident occurred in shallow waters near Holy Loch, Argyll, about 50km from Glasgow on Scotland's west coast. James Madison had been going out of Holy Loch to take up its station when it hit the Russian submarine, which had been waiting for James Madison to exit in order to trail it. The US maintained a base at Holy Loch between 1961 and 1992. James Madison had been carrying 16 Poseidon missiles with 160 nuclear warheads. The US submarine had major damage to its hull and had to go into dry dock at Holy Loch for repairs. The Russian submarine had surfaced but submerged again. Neither submarine it seems had interpreted the collision as an attack, it was taken as an accident. Luckily no fires had broken out. (From item in The Australian newspaper, 26 January 2017., p. 10)

16 October 1975: East Timor: Forensic investigators are now searching for the remains of five Australian-based journalists - "the Balibo five" - killed during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, 16 October 1975. Including reporter Greg Shackleton, soundman Tony Stewart; Malcolm Rennie (UK), cameraman Brian Peters, (UK). Cameraman, Gary Cunningham (NZ). (Reported 18 November 2000)

30 April 1975: NVA troops enter Saigon. South Vietnam in state of unconditional surrender. (Note, SEATO is dissolved on 30 June 30, 1977.) What happened with USA in Vietnam? Senator Edward Kennedy has said, "America lost the war in Vietnam because our troops were trapped in a distant country we did not understand, supporting a government that lacked sufficient legitimacy with its people." (Cited in an article by Ann Davies and Tom Shanker in Sydney Morning Herald, 24 August, 2007)

30 April 1975, Military end of the Vietnam War. The government of South Vietnam surrenders unconditionally to the North, following the withdrawal of US Allies.

21 April 1975: Vietnam: President Thieu resigns.

5 March 1975: Vietnam: Final NVA offensive begins in central highlands of Vietnam.

27 February 1975: West Germany: Opposition leader Peter Lorenz is kidnapped by Baader-Meinhof guerrillas.

1974: Khmer Rouge in Cambodia intensify pressure on Phnom Penh with strikes north and south of the capital.

27 December 1974: The day Darwin "died" in the fury of Cyclone Tracy.

1974: 9 August: Effective date for resignation from US presidency of Richard Nixon following his involvement in the Watergate Scandal.

9-10 August 1974: Post-Watergate affair, Nixon is out in disgrace and President Ford takes over.

1974: Yassar Arafat speaks to UN. In a major shift in PLO policy, he calls for a united Palestine with a democratic secular government "where Christian, Jew, and Muslim live in justice, equality and fraternity" (including all Jews who live there). "I come to you with an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun; do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

1974, Ethiopia: Discovery of fossil remains of "pre-humans" which have formed the basis of "Lucy", a model of an ape-like creature now exhibited at Bangkok's new (by 2000) science museum.

1974: Charles Berlitz publishes The Bermuda Triangle, and in 1978, his book, Without a Trace. See Larry Kusche, The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved. 1986.

1974: Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

1973: Paris, France: Resumption of secret peace talks between US and North Vietnam.

6 October 1973: Israel: Yom Kippur War: Arabs roll over Israel's defences in the Sinai. Israelis with US support cross the Suez into Egypt and are also within 32km of Damascus in Syria before US manages to halt the war.

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1973: Year in which mind-power man Uri Geller (the spoon-bender) appeared on The Johnny Carson TV show and failed to do any of his tricks.

1973: October or Ramadan or Yom Kippur War. Egypt and Syria attempt to regain lost territories. They push Israel back in the Sinai peninsula and initially in the Golan province. A massive airlift of US arms to Israel tips the balance. Arab oil states proclaim a boycott against all countries helping Israel.

17 November 1973: Queen Elizabeth joins Prince Philip for opening of Sydney Opera House, leaves on 22nd Nov.

1973, Death in Britain of J. R. R. Tolkein, author of Lord of the Rings.

1973: Completion of Sydney Opera House designed by Joern Utzon.

28 February 1973: Australia: Bill introduced in Parliament re reducing voting age from 21 to 18.

18 February 1973: In Melbourne, Eucharistic Congress held in Melbourne, to 25th.

29 January 1973, Sunbury rock festival, the last of the major Australian rock festivals of their era.

29 January 1973: Official truce in Vietnam, last US personnel leave.

27 January 1973: Treaty in Paris re end of Vietnam War. Hanoi overcame Saigon within two years. US suffered 45,000 killed and 300,000 wounded. Cost about $20 billion annually, or, $150 billion over normal military outlay; a contorted US economy. (Notes from Tuchman, Folly).

16 January 1973: Journalist Francis James released from detention in China.

1973: Amid controversy, Australian Government buys Blue Poles by painter Jackson Pollock for $1.3 million.

1972: Japanese soldier Shoichi Yoko is discovered on Guam having spent 28 years hiding in the jungle, thinking that World War Two still continues.

19 December 1972, US Apollo 17 spacecraft splashes down in Pacific Ocean so ending US program of landing men on the Moon.

1972: 5 September, Olympic Games at Munich. Arab terrorists of Black September movement attack an Israeli dormitory and kill two members of an Olympic team. Later shoot-out at Munich airport.

1972: Heroin exportation from Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle, controlled by Shan warlord, Khun Sa, becomes a major source for raw opium in the profitable drug trade.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1972: A female flight attendant survives the world's longest fall without a parachute, 10,160 metres. (From Prof Croucher's column in Good Weekend.)

1972: US Apollo 16 spacecraft and three astronauts make a safe landing in the Pacific after their journey to the Moon.

1972: Alexander Marshack suggests that by 38,000BC, people in Northern Europe were precisely observing winter and summer solstices. (Date from Hancock and Faiia).

1972: Britain's Public Record Office has just revealed formerly-unknown mid-1972 Cabinet plans to possibly redraw the boundaries of Northern Ireland and forcibly move Catholics and Protestants away from each other, as the province was near to civil war. The 1972 sectarian troubles meant more than 400 people were killed in 1972, the year of the "Bloody Sunday" shootings. (Reported 2 January 2003)

1972: By 1972, the Vietnam had lasted longer than any US overseas military engagement, but soon Nixon would "bomb them as they'd never been bombed before". (Notes from Tuchman, Folly, pp. 306ff).

22 December, 1972: Australian diplomatic relations established with People's Republic of China and the German Democratic Republic.

December 1972: extremely heavy bombing of North Vietnam. By end of 1972, some intellectuals in US pronounce the end of the Cold War, due to the 1972 summit. Not all were convinced.

December 1972: The Australian "Team" depart Vietnam, one month before conclusion of ceasefire agreement and departure of last US troops.

11 December, 1972: Federal Government announces withdrawal of remaining Australian troops in Vietnam. Last Australian servicemen leave on 19 December.

5 December, 1972: Interim two-man Australian government (Gough Whitlam and Lance Barnard). Barnard announces immediate end of National Service Call-up, and any draft resisters were released on the 6th.

Australia: 2 December, 1972: Federal elections, Labor wins after 23 years in opposition.

31 October, 1972: Vietnam War: Kissinger declares, "Peace is at hand".

12 August, 1972: Last US ground combat troops withdraw from South Vietnam. 53,500 airmen and support personnel remain.

By March 1972: Most US combat forces are gone from Vietnam. Then the Watergate Affair begins, which led to the downfall of President Nixon.

30 March, 1972: Vietnam: NVA forces invade south Vietnam across DMZ, offense repulsed by September.

27 January, 1972: Aboriginal Tent Embassy set up outside Parliament House, Canberra. Removed by July 1972.

24 January 1972: Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi is discovered on Guam having spent 28 years hiding in the jungle thinking that World War Two is still being fought.

1972: India and Pakistan sign Shimla Accord, agreeing to solve disagreements including over Kashmir.

1971: Treaty banning nuclear weapons from ocean floor is signed by 63 nations at ceremonies at Washington, London and Moscow.

1971: Suicide death of Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima on steps of Japan's Defence Agency after failure of his private army to stage a military coup.

1971: The Hague, Netherlands: International Court of Justice rules that South Africa's administration of territory of South-West Africa is illegal.

1971: After a brief Indo-Pakistani war, East Pakistan is declared independent as Bangladesh.

1971: Three Soviet cosmonauts are found dead in their spacecraft, Soyus II, after spending a record 24 days in space.

1971: Sixteen US veterans of the Vietnam War seize Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour to dramatize their anti-war stand.

1971: Outgoing UN secretary-general U Thant pleads with his world organisation to give his successor more power.

1971: First diagnosis of a brain tumour by CAT scan, in London.

5 December, 1971: Formation in Australia of the Moscow-sympathetic, Socialist Party of Australia, with former members of the Communist Party of Australia.

25 November, 1971: Operational role of Australian Task Force in Vietnam ends.
18 August, 1971: Vietnam War: Australian Government announces withdrawal of their Task Force before Christmas.

1971, 25 July, Dr. Christian Barnard, died 2001, transplants two lungs and heart into a man in Cape Town, South Africa. Operation is described as successful.

1 July, 1971: A Vietnam war moratorium rally in Melbourne with Dr Jim Cairns leading. A mere few scuffles is all the backlash. (Cairns dies in 2003)

24 April, 1971: Largest of US anti-war demonstrations, crowd of 500,000 converges on Washington DC, only 42,000 less people than the number of US troops in Vietnam.

April 1971: Relics from the 1629 wreck on the West Australian coast, Batavia recovered from Houtman Abrolhos, WA.

27 January, 1971: Conviction of Charles Manson for the Sharon Tate murders, re Beatles song, Helter Skelter.

1971: After Cambodia, US invades Laos, with US air support.

1971: Sydney: Beginning of Green Ban Movement in Sydney led by union-based activist Jack Mundy. Defiance of wishes of developers to use prime spots prized by Sydneysiders.

1971: Australian population reaches 13 million, at June 30 is approx 12,755,638.

1971: Another war between India and Pakistan over East Kashmir, now Bangladesh.

1970: Divorce Laws go into effect in Italy despite opposition from Catholic Church.

1970: Communist Khmer Rouge forces take over Cambodia.

1970: Former Indonesian president Sukarno, founder of the Indonesian Republic, president for 22 years, dies.

1970: Cyclone and giant wave assail Bangladesh, plus islands in Bay of Bengal. Death toll estimated at 300,000.

1970: In September, militant Palestinians try to overthrow King Hussein with Syrian help. US and Israel mobilize to help Jordan if necessary. More than 3,000 Palestinians are killed. Palestinian guerrilla bases move to Lebanon.

1970-1976: Palestinians form "Black September" to carry out revenge assassinations and hijackings. Israelis form "Wrath of God" to assassinate Palestinian leaders. Much bloodshed follows.

1970: The Scientific American report on lunar soils "can be regarded as the most expensive report in history", at $25 million. (Opinion from John Briam)

1970: October: Legendary singer, Janis Joplin, is found dead at Hollywood's Landmark Hotel, a victim of an "accidental heroin overdose."
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1970: Shoemakers of the world, tremble: Imelda Marcos, wife of the president of the Philippines, visits Britain, and diplomats in 2000 can now reveal that in 1970, she was "as difficult, tactless and inconsiderate as it was possible to be". In Manila, her brother Kokoy Romualdez, had given the British Embassy to understand that Imelda was "completely uncontrollable". (According to world news reports of 2 January 2000)

1970: The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia abolishes money as they associate it with competitive individualism. The invasion by Vietnam later returns money to the areas affected.

31 December, 1970: US repeals Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

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12 November, 1970: Australia's withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, begins with return of 8th Battalion, which is not replaced.

18 September, 1970: Further Vietnam moratorium rallies in capital cities in Australia: 200 marchers arrested in Sydney, 100 in Adelaide.

8 May, 1970: Sydney: More than 70,000 people led by Jim Cairns march through Melbourne in protest against Australian participation in the Vietnam War. Similar moratorium rallies held in other cities.

4 May, 1970: Kent State University, US: Four student protesters killed by national guardsmen. Student protest blazes further.

April 1970: US invades Cambodia as Nixon is becoming paranoid in office. The New York Times calls it "military hallucination". (Notes from Tuchman, Folly).

27 March, 1970: South Vietnamese forces plus US attack communist base camps in Cambodia.

28 February, 1970: Nine Australian are killed and 29 wounded in incidents in Phuoc Tuy Province, Vietnam.

1970: Appears lack-lustre movie starring Mick Jagger, Ned Kelly, on Australia's greatest bushranger.

1970-2001: Death of Indonesian President Sukarno. His daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri in 2001 replaces former president Abdurrahman Wahid (the first democratically-elected president of Indonesia) as Indonesian president.

- Finis -

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Now return to the Lost Worlds Index

Stop Press: For late entries

1 February 2003: US space shuttle Columbia explodes, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

25 November 1971: Australia brings its military involvement in Vietnam to an end.

27 July 1909: Sinking of the Waratah, a luxury liner on her second voyage, coal-fired and with eight watertight compartments, said to be unsinkable. She was the flagship of the Blue Anchor Line and had left Durban for Cape Town but never made it. Repeated searches have been found for the 211 people aboard, plus cargo and the ship itself. Now, the salvager of Titanic, Clive Tussler, has funded a new salvage effort for Waratah. Associated with the salvage effort is earlier work of Dr. Peter Ramsay, a geoscientist from South Africa who mistakenly thought he identified Waratah in 1999, but that was a U-boat-sunk transport of WWII. Waratah was built by Barclay Curle and Co. in Scotland in 1908 for the migration trade to Australia. Her captain, Joshua Ilberry, had complained she was top heavy; she may have suffered from big waves, which pressed down her bow, then rolled her on her starboard side, to sink. In 1929 a soldier, Edward Joe Conquer, said he had seen her roll and disappear while using his telescope during military exercises. (Above on Waratah from Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April 2004)

From 1790s: By the 1790s, sealers are increasingly visiting Bass Strait, and one people incident is this - George Briggs finds an Aboriginal mistress who has a daughter, Dolly, probably the first mixed-race baby born in Tasmania (?), later reared in Launceston. Dolly later had a liaison with ex-convict Thomas Johnson and had 13 children, apart from which they became wealthy and respected, owning more than 20 houses, some shops, a hotel, a tannery and a colliery. (Diana Wyllie, Dolly Dalrymple, PO Box 764, Childers, QLD 4660, 2004, 85pp)

1 February 2003: US space shuttle Columbia explodes, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

25 December 1989: After coup of 22 December, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceasescu is executed with wife Elena after a trial.

21 May 1998: Indonesian military dictator Suharto steps down to end his 32-year rule.

24 March 1999: NATO launches air strikes on Serbia to end attacks against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

17 January 1991: US Operation Desert Shield becomes Operation Desert Storm. Air raids begin on Iraq. Ground attacks by 24 February, and on 27 February Kuwait City is freed. US claims victory on 28 February.

19 August 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev deposed in Soviet army coup, which falters, so that in two days, Boris Yeltsin takes charge. Gorbachev resigns on 25 December.

31 December 1994: Russian forces invade the breakaway republic of Cechnya, to storm the capital Grozny.

19 April 1995: A car or van bomb in Oklahoma City, US, kills 168 people. In 2001, "Christian radical" Timothy McVeigh is executed for planting the bomb.

21 May 1998: Indonesian military dictator Suharto steps down to end his 32-year rule.

24 March 1999: NATO launches air strikes on Serbia to end attacks against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

12 October 2000: US sailors on navy destroyer Cole die in Yemen terrorist explosion.

1 February 2003: US space shuttle Columbia explodes, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

28 March 1979: US: Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown raises public fears of radiation.

22 September 1980: War breaks out between Iran and Iraq.

4 May 1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes first female prime minister of Britain.

29 December 1979: Soviet military forces invade Afghanistan.

28 April 1986: In Russia, the Chernobyl nuclear energy plants goes into meltdown.

31 December 1994: Russian forces invade the breakaway republic of Cechnya, to storm the capital Grozny.

19 April 1995: A car or van bomb in Oklahoma City, US, kills 168 people. In 2001, "Christian radical" Timothy McVeigh is executed for planting the bomb.

7 April 1994: Civil war reignites in Rwanda. Resulting is massacre of up to half-a-million people with UN doing nothing useful to stop the carnage.

16 June 1976: More than 100 people are killed in Soweto, South Africa, when black students protest against learning Afrikaans language in schools.