Twentieth Century History : 1975 – 1999

1975 South Vietnam surrenders to North Vietnamese Communists troops. Junko Tabei of Japan becomes first woman to reach Everest summit. Soviet Soyuz 19 docks with Apollo 18. IBM launches the laser printer. Popular Electronics announces Altair, the first “personal computer”.

1976 Viking I lands on Mars. 14-year old Romanian Nadia Comaneci scores 5 perfect 10’s at Montreal Olympics. Konica introduces automatic focus camera. Apple computers founded by Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak. The Eagles become the first group to go platinum, with a million sales of their Greatest Hits LP.

1977 Apple II becomes the first mass-produced home computer. Star Wars debuts. Rings around Uranus discovered.

1978 Karol Wojtyla of Poland becomes Pope John Paul II. Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz is first woman to sail around the world. Taito Corp launches first arcade video game, Space Invaders. In England, Louise Brown is the first test-tube baby. Superman the movie debuts, starring Christopher Reeve.

1979 Nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. Russia invades Afghanistan. Nobel prize awarded to Mother Teresa. Sony launches the Walkman. Frank Rudy designs first air-cushioned running shoe, the Nike Tailwind.

1980 Philips invents the CD. US ice hockey player Scott Olson develops roller blades. Italian Reinhold Messner makes the first solo ascent of Mount Everest. World Health Organization declares end of smallpox. John Lennon is shot by Mark Chapman.

1981 IBM launches their PC. BMW develops the first in-car computer. PacMan hits the arcades. Shuttle Columbia launched. Prince Charles and Lady Di wedded.

1982 Barney Clark receives artificial heart – operation by Dr William de Vries. European doctors offer liposuction. Rings around Neptune discovered. First papal visit to Britain since 1531. PacMan is Time Magazine’s Man of the Year. The New King James Version Bible (NKJV) published.

1983 HIV virus identified. Cabbage Patch Kids debuts, as does Madonna. Sally Ride is first US woman in space. Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to travel beyond the solar system. Grandson of Alexander Graham Bell answers first commercial cell phone call. Computer hackers break into US defense computers. Programmer Jaron Lanier coins the term “virtual reality”.

1984 Apple Computers launch the Macintosh. Canadian writer invents the word “cyberspace”. Dr William Clewall perform the first operation on an unborn fetus. Bruce McCandless becomes the first man to fly in space without a safety line.

1985 British scientist Joe Farman discovers the hole in the ozone. Dr Alec Jeffreys discovers genetic fingerprint, using DNA, at Leicester University. Lasers are first used in surgery. Clive Sinclair introduces the battery-operated car. Commercial whaling banned.

1986 Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeagar makes the first non-stop non-refuelling flight around the world. Nuclear reactor explodes in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Soviet Union launches Mir space station. Fuji introduces disposable camera. Tom Cruise stars in Top Gun.

1987 World population reaches 5 billion. World stock exchanges collapse on Black Monday, 20 Oct. First optic cable is laid across Atlantic Ocean. Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand make first transatlantic hot air balloon crossing. GM invents active suspension, on Lotus F1 car.

1988 US introduces the F-117 stealth fighter. Prozac launched, as is RV486, an abortion-inducing drug. Bombs set by Lybian terrorists explodes on Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” is published.

1989 One of the last unspoiled areas on earth threatened when the tanker Exxon Valdes runs aground in Alaska. CFC gases banned. Russia quits Afghanistan. Tiananmen Square protests by students. Berlin Wall comes down. Tim Berners-Lee develops the World Wide Web.

1990 Gulf War erupts as NATO defends Kuwait from Iraqi invasion. Germany reunites. Breakthrough in the Channel Tunnel. Hubble space telescope launched.

1991 End of the Soviet Union. Iraqi forces expelled from Kuwait. Helen Sharman becomes the first British astronaut, on Soyuz TM-12. 5,000 year old frozen body is discovered in Alps, named “Otzi”, with tattoos on his back, knees and ankles.

1992 World’s first damages award made for illness causes by passive smoking, in Sydney. Fighting breaks out in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Samsung launches 64MB DRAM.

1993 World Wide Web goes graphic with the launch of the Mosaic browser. Plan to map the entire genetic structure of humans, Human Genome Project, launched in San Diego. Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to pay income tax.

1994 An asteroid passes earth at only 160 000km (100,00 miles). Channel Tunnel opens for business. Wiki invented by Ward Cunningham

1995 Microsoft launches Windows95. A national computer data base of DNA records opens in UK. 26-year old trader Nick Leeson single-handedly brings down Britain’s oldest bank, Barings, by running up losses of 620 million Pounds.

1996 Same-sex marriages in the US is prohibited under the Defense of Marriage Act. NASA scientist announce the discovery of proof of living organisms on a Mars meteorite in Antarctica.

1997 First ever space funeral when Timothy Leary‘s ashes is launched into space. US space probe pathfinder lands on Mars. Scientists at Roslin Institute in Scotland clones a sheep, “Dolly”. Lady Di killed in car crash. World’s first university, where Aristotle and Socrates taught, is discovered in Athens.

1998 Microsoft launches Windows98. The law against mixed race marriages is abandoned in South Carolina, US. Frenchman Benoit Lecomte swims across the Atlantic Ocean.

1999 NATO launch air attacks on Serbia. Citizens of Alabama, USA get chance to vote on law against mixed race marriages. Scientists measure fastest wind speed ever recorded on earth, 509 km/h (318 mph) inside a tornado that struck Oklahoma City. World population reaches the 6 billion mark.

The first millennium consisted of 365,250 days. The second millennium of 365,237 days. The third millennium will consist of 365,242 days. The third millennium actually started at about 21h00 on 31 December 2000. Basically, the year 2000 is celebrated one year earlier because the year 0 was not calculated. It is the THIRD millennium, of course, because the Gregorian calendar has already observed two thousand years after Christ. See the History of the Calendar

1900 – 1924 | 1925 – 1949 | 1950 – 1974 | 1975 – 1999

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