FermiLab doubles its energy (512 GeV against a stationary target and 2 TeV with a proton-antiproton collision) with the addition of a superconducting ring

Carroll Alley and colleagues at the University of Maryland perform the practical delayed-choice experiment devised by John Archibald Wheeler; it is the Young slit experiment modified with a sort of Venetian blind instead of a screen, which can be opened or closed after the photons have passed through the slit; in this way Alley demonstrates what Wheeler had theorized: the photons that hit the Venetian blind (and are therefore not observed individually) form an interference pattern, while those that pass through it (and are thus observed by sensors capable of seeing them) do not.

Big Island, Hawaii. Kilauea’s eruption begins. It will continue uninterrupted for 35 years, ending abruptly in September 2018.

Lotus 1-2-3, a spreadsheet program for IBM PCs, is born.

The American satellite IRAS detects protoplanetary dust disks around Vega, Formalhaut, Beta Pictoris and dozens of other stars.

Craxi at Palazzo Chigi

The only copy of the Gospel of Judas, stolen three years earlier, was found in Europe and locked away by its rightful owner, an Egyptian collector, in a safe in Hicksville, New York, where it remained to seriously decompose for 16 years.

Trieste. Vittorio Vidali (aka Carlosa Contreras, aka Enea Sormenti) is buried amid a blaze of red flags. He was a member of the Red Aid, initially a communist solidarity organization, and later Stalin’s armed wing. He actively participated in finding and eliminating Trotskyist supporters around the world, including Trotsky himself in Mexico City in 1940. He confronted Tito, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev head-on when they implemented the de-Stalinization of the party. He was the lover of the passionate Dolores Ibarruri, the actress Dolores del Rio, the Bolshevik Elena Stassova, and the beautiful Tina Modotti, also a Red Aid agent. He failed to assassinate Tito. In the silent struggle against the “Trotskyist infection,” he participated in the assassination of Antonio Mella, founder of the Cuban Communist Party, hated by Stalin, and in 1943 was implicated in the murder in New York of trade unionist Carlo Tresca, editor of “Il Martello.” His lover, Tina Modotti, was also killed on January 1, 1942, in Mexico City. After a New Year’s Eve party, organized by Pablo Neruda and attended by several communist veterans of the Spanish Civil War, Tina was taken home by taxi, where she was found dead a few minutes later. Neruda dedicated a poem to him: “Tina Modotti is dead.” Also present at the party was Vidali, who disappeared from circulation the following day.

US intervention in Grenada after military coup

Civil war in Sudan: 1 million dead.

Richard Marquand is the director of “The Return of the Jedi” (“The Return of the Jedi”, episode 6 of the Star Wars saga); original title: “The Revenge of the Jedi, changed in the very last days by George Lucas; a Lucas Films production

Reagan launches the active anti-missile protection project called “Star Shield”; at the same time, Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles are installed in Europe in front of the Soviet SS20s.

The “Great Moderation” economic phase, characterized by a significant increase in government and consumer debt. The preceding phase, the “Long Boom,” was characterized by a very long economic growth in GDP and jobs. The term “Long Boom” is sometimes used to refer to the period from 1947 to 1973, which ended with the Oil Crisis.

Thomas Cech (Univ. of Colorado), Sidney Altman (Yale) discover that RNA can itself act as a weak catalyst (within the framework of the theory that sees RNA as a precursor of DNA)

Barry Marshall, a doctor from Perth, Western Australia, discovers that many stomach cancers and most ulcers are caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter Pylori.

Soviet Union. Four underground nuclear explosives (at depths of 975 to 1,060 m) were detonated in quick succession in the Astrakhan gas field in the USSR, creating four underground cavities. The blast yield ranged from 8.5 to 13.5 kilotons. This series of explosions was part of a large-scale Soviet program called “Vega” (Проект “Вега”), which lasted from 1980 to 1984 and consisted of 15 peaceful nuclear explosions to create underground natural gas storage facilities. The program was intended to be radiologically safe and environmentally friendly, and according to official reports, it was. However, due to a variety of factors, the condition of the storage facilities began to deteriorate in 1986, and by 1991, thirteen of them were officially recognized as being on the verge of failure. Since then, the cavities have remained a problem for many agencies that have succeeded in permanently closing the wells.

Mexican Finance Minister Silva Hertog informs the U.S. government and the IMF that Mexico is unable to service its $80 billion foreign debt, effectively causing Mexico to default. Other Latin American countries will soon follow suit.

Italy wins the World Cup in Spain

United States. Vladimir Kosma Zworykin dies. He emigrated to the United States from Archangel after the October Revolution, where he became a rival to Baird in the development of television. The TV developed by Zworykin, unlike Baird’s mechanical version, scanned the lines electrically: it was therefore an all-electric TV, meaning no moving parts, with obvious advantages in reliability, durability, and cost. But senior management at Westinghouse, which initially employed Zworykin, was unimpressed by Zworykin’s innovative concept, and only later embraced it. In 1967, Zworykin received the National Medal of Honor from President Richard Nixon.

IBM RS-1 Cartesian assembly robot, programmed using AML language

After its discovery in 1978 in Egypt, and after incredible vicissitudes and thefts, the Egyptian merchant Hanna manages to regain possession of the Codex Tchacos, containing the Gospel of Judas.

In his Westminster speech, Ronald Reagan declared that the USSR was going against history by denying its citizens freedom and dignity. This was the public version of NSDD-32 (National Security Decision Directive 32), which stated that the Cold War was no longer to be considered a permanent situation: the initiative had to be taken because one side would win and the other would lose.

The United States has 23,254 nuclear weapons; the USSR has 40,273; this is the most atomic bombs the Soviets (or any other nation) have ever possessed.

Operation “Peace for Galilee”: Israel invades Lebanon to halt attacks on the Galilee. This soon leads to a direct confrontation with the Syrian army in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon. The 1982 Lebanon War, also called the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, followed a series of attacks and counterattacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) operating in southern Lebanon and the Israeli army, which had caused civilian casualties on both sides of the border. The Israeli military operation, codenamed Operation Peace for Galilee, was launched after gunmen from the Abu Nidal Organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin blamed the PLO, using the incident as a casus belli. It was Israel’s second invasion of Lebanon, following the 1978 South Lebanon conflict.

Gilles Villeneuve dies during practice for the Belgian Grand Prix.

South Atlantic. Mission Black Duck 1. Operations Black Buck 1 to Black Buck 7 were seven very long-range air raids conducted by Royal Air Force (RAF) Vulcan bombers of RAF Waddington Wing, including aircraft from Nos. 44, 50, and 101 Squadrons, against Argentine positions in the Falkland Islands. Five of the missions completed strikes. The objective of the missions was to attack Port Stanley airfield and its associated defenses. The raids, nearly 6,600 nautical miles (2,200 km) and taking 16 hours for the round trip, were the longest-range bombing raids in history at that time. The Operation Black Buck raids were mounted from RAF Ascension Island, near the equator. The Vulcan was designed for medium-range missions over Europe and did not have the range to fly all the way to the Falklands without refueling several times. The RAF’s tanker aircraft were mostly converted Handley Page Victor bombers with a similar range, so they too had to be refueled in flight. A total of 11 tankers were needed for two Vulcans (one primary and one reserve), a daunting logistical effort since all the aircraft had to use the same runway.

Launch of the Soviet Salyut 7. Salyut 7 (Russian: Салют-7, translated “Hello 7”) was the seventh and final space station of the Soviet Union’s Salyut program. It operated from April 1982 to February 1991. It was visited by a total of 12 crewed missions (from May 1982 to March 1986) and 15 unmanned missions, including Soyuz-T, Progress, and TKS. Salyut 7 was a crucial step between “monoblock” space stations and the modular approach, and in particular served as a testbed for the docking and resupply operations that would be crucial for the subsequent Mir.

Aspect Experiment: Alain Aspect and his collaborators in Paris solve a puzzle theorized by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, Nathan Rosen in 1935 (EPR paper)

Shubik formalizes the characteristic form of Von Neumann in Game Theory

A sample of the wallpaper from Napoleon’s rooms on Saint Helena, colored gold and Scheele’s green, was found and analyzed. It was originally made from copper arsenide or copper acetoarsenate. The article, published in Nature, confirmed the presence of arsenic in the wallpaper, which would explain the high levels of arsenic in his hair. Subsequent analyses (2008) found similar levels of arsenic in the hair of his wife Josephine and other family members: arsenic was found everywhere at the time.

Venera 13 lands on Venus and transmits the first color panoramic images and soil analysis for 127 minutes. It is followed four days later by Venera 14, which transmits another 57 minutes of color panoramic images and soil analysis. They are then destroyed by the extreme pressure, temperature, and corrosive atmosphere.

Soviet Union. The Tupolev Tu-160 “Blackjack” takes flight for the first time. It is a supersonic heavy nuclear bomber. The first prototype is piloted by B.I. Veremey. Nine test aircraft and 27 series production aircraft will be built.

In Poland, Jarusersky orders tanks to intervene to suppress a workers’ demonstration.

Poland. Electrician Lech Walesa, head of the Solidarity trade union, is arrested by the government led by Jaruzelsky.

Launch of Venera 13, which lands on Venus and transmits the first color panoramic images and soil analysis for 127 minutes.

The Soviet submarine S-363, a Whiskey-class submarine of the Baltic Fleet, became famous under the designation U 137 when it suffered the extreme embarrassment of having to surface in Swedish territorial waters after accidentally striking an underwater reef 6.2 miles from the main Swedish naval base at Karlskrona. The already damaged Soviet submarine’s misfortune had only just begun: the underwater collision occurred in the midst of a Swedish naval exercise, which was testing new equipment in the area. Swedish naval forces quickly responded to the apparent breach of sovereignty, demanding an explanation from the captain, who initially claimed that simultaneous navigation equipment failures had caused the vessel’s loss (despite the fact that the vessel had navigated with precision through a treacherous series of reefs, straits, and islands to get so close to the Swedish naval base). The Whiskey-class submarine incident became known as “Whisky on the Rocks.”

Wisconsin. Construction of the ELF (Extremely Low Frequencies) project begins. It involves 84 miles of antennas, communicating at 76Hz and 45Hz with deep-sea nuclear submarines. Due to the low frequency required for the depth, the system is very slow, taking 15 minutes to transmit three letters of the alphabet. It consumes 2.6MW and will be completed in 1989. It will be abandoned in 2004 when it becomes obsolete. It is a much smaller version of the SANGUINE project, proposed in 1968. SANGUINE would have occupied 40% of the state of Wisconsin’s subsoil with over 10,000 km of buried copper cable. The system would have consumed 800MW from 100 power plants located in reinforced underground bunkers.

Egyptian President Sadat, architect of the Camp David Accords with Israel, is assassinated by Islamic extremists, a nascent group in Egypt, which later formed the local nucleus of Al Qaeda.

Microsoft secretly begins developing a new operating system, which will replace DOS, based on the desktop, windows, icons, a mouse, and a pointer. It hires Charles Simonyi from the PARC Xerox laboratory. This puts it on a collision course with Apple, which is working on the same concepts.