Quarter Century
Yep. Today is my (self promotion ahead) birthday. Happy birthday to me! I am 25…Yep…a quarter century. Or, an eighth of 2 centuries if you’re feeling ambitious.

Interesting things that happened in 1983 (pay attention to all of the nuclear testing going on) include (courtesy of www.brainyhistory.com) :

January 4 U.S. Football League holds its 1st player draft
January 15 Thom Syles keeps a life saver intact in his mouth for over 7 hours
January 18 IOC restores Jim Thorpe’s Olympic medals 70 years after they were taken from him for being paid $25 in semipro baseball
January 23 “A-Team” with Mr. T premieres on NBC
January 24 Hulk Hogan pins Iron Sheik for World Wrestling Federation title
January 29 40th Golden Globes: Gandhi, ET and Tootsie win
February 1 U.S.S.R. performs underground nuclear test (and on 2/24, 3/2, 3/30, 4/12, 9/24)
February 7 1st female secretary of transportation, Elizabeth Dole, sworn-in
February 17 Netherlands adopts constitution
February 21 Donald Davis runs 1 mile backwards in 6 minutes 7.1 seconds
February 26 Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album goes to #1 and stays #1 for 37 weeks
March 1 Tornado tears through LA, injuring 33 people
March 21 Only known typo on Time Magazine cover (control=contol), all recalled
March 23 U.S. president Ronald Reagan introduces “Star Wars” missile defense plan (SDI)
March 26 U.S. performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site (and on 4/13, 5/5, 5/26, 8/3, 8/27, 9/21, 12/9
April 1 Anti-nuke demonstrators link arms in 14-mile human chain in England
April 5 France throws out 47 Soviet diplomats
April 5 New York Met Tom Seaver’s sets record 14th NL Opening Day assignment
April 7 Oldest human skeleton, aged 80,000 years, discovered in Egypt
April 14 President Reagan signs $165 billion Social Security rescue
April 17 India entered space age launching SLV-3 rocket
April 17 Nolan Ryan strikes out his 3,500th batter
April 18 12th Boston Women’s Marathon won by Joan Benoit Samuelson in 2:22:43
April 18 87th Boston Marathon won by Greg Meyer of Mass in 2:09:00
April 19 France performs nuclear test (and 5/25, 8/4
April 22 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
April 25 France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island (and on 7/20, 12/7
April 26 Dow Jones Industrial Avg breaks 1,200 for 1st time
May 3 Soviet leader Andropov decreases nuclear weapons in Europe
May 3 U.S. bishops condemn nuclear weapons
May 4 China PR performs nuclear test at Lop Nor PRC (and on 10/6
May 11 Comet C/1983 H1 (IRAS-Araki-Alcock) approaches 0.0312 AUs of Earth
May 13 Reggie Jackson is 1st major leaguer to strike out 2,000 times
May 17 Israel and Lebanon sign a peace treaty
May 18 Senate revises immigration laws, gives millions of illegal aliens legal status under an amnesty program
May 30 AL President Lee MacPhail suspends Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for one week, for his public criticism of umpires
June 8 “Trading Places,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Gremlins,” premieres
June 11 Don Genalo needs just 3 of 5 pins to win Southern California Open bowling tournament, miscalculates his score and intentionally gutters his ball
June 11 “Faithfully” by Journey peaks at #12
June 15 Supreme Court struck down state and local restrictions on abortion
June 18 7th Shuttle Mission-Challenger 2 launched-Sally Ride 1st U.S. woman
June 22 1st time a satellite is retrieved from orbit, by Space Shuttle
June 22 “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life,” released in France
June 22 NHL institutes a 5 minute sudden death overtime period
July 5 Woman gives birth to baby 84 days after brain death in Roanoke, Virginia
July 21 Polish government ends 19 months of martial law
July 25 1st non-human primate, baboon, conceived in a lab dish, San Antonio
July 26 Light flashes seen on Jupiter moon Io
July 28 U.S.S.R. performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk U.S.S.R.
(and on 9/11, 10/26, 11/29, 12/26
August 4 While warming up before 5th inning Yankee Dave Winfield accidentally kills a seagull
August 18 U.S.S.R. performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya U.S.S.R. (9/25,
August 21 110 degrees F (43 degrees C) at Fayetteville, North Carolina (state record)
September 1 Korean Boeing 747 strays into Siberia and is shot down by a Soviet jet
September 6 U.S.S.R. admits to shooting down KAL 007 on 9/2
September 9 Radio Shack announces their color computer 2 (Coco2)
September 12 U.S.S.R. vetoes United Nations resolution deploring its shooting down of Korean plane
September 14 U.S. House of Representatives votes, 416 to 0, in favor of a resolution condemning Russia for shooting down a Korean jetliner September 15 Cops beat to death Michael Stewart for graffiting New York City subway
September 16 Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes a U.S. citizen
October 2 Carl Yastrezemski’s last at bat
October 25 U.S. invades Grenada, a country 1/2,000 its population (U.S. Wins!)
October 31 Ron Grant completes a 217 day, 8,316 mile run around Australia
November 2 President Reagan signs a bill establishing Martin L. King day November 3 Jesse Jackson launches his 1st campaign for presidency
November 9 Amsterdam brewer Freddie Heineken kidnapped
November 10 Federal government shut down
November 11 1st U.S. cruise missiles arrive in Great Britain
November 11 President Reagan became 1st U.S. President to address Japan’s legislature
November 20 100 million watch ABC-TV movie “Day After,” about nuclear war
November 23 U.S.S.R. leave weapon disarmament talks
November 24 PLO exchanges 6 Israeli prisoners for 4,500 Palestinians and Lebanese
November 30 Police free kidnapped beer magnate Alfred Heineken in Amsterdam
November 30 Radio Shack announces Tandy Model 2000 computer (80186 chip)
December 13 9,655 see highest-scoring NBA game: Detroit 186, Denver 184 (3 OT)
December 15 3 Kansas City Royals suspended due to cocaine usage
December 16 Yogi Berra named Yankee manager for 2nd time
December 23 Journal Science publishes 1st report on nuclear winter December 25 1st live telecast of Christmas Parade