1979 Timeline

1979 Activision is Founded as the First Third Party Video Game Developer
Before the formation of Activision, software for video game consoles were published exclusively by makers of the systems for which the games were designed. For example, Atari was the only...
1979 Atari Releases Asteroids
Asteroids is a video arcade game released in 1979 by Atari Inc. It was one of the most popular and influential games of the Golden Age of Arcade Games. Asteroids uses vector graphics and ...
1979
to 1981
Bill Clinton Governor of Arkansas
Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, making him the youngest governor in the country at age thirty-two. He worked on educational reform and Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillar...
1979 "Bye Bye Brasil" Is Released
Bye Bye Brasil (alternative spelling Bye Bye Brazil) is a Brazilian, French, and Argentine 1979 film, directed by Carlos Diegues. The film enjoyed critical success and was nominated for t...
1979 "C'mon Aussie, C'mon" Is Released
"C'mon Aussie C'mon" is an Australian Cricket anthem. Originally performed by the Mojo Singers in 1978 as an advertising jingle to promote World Series Cricket's unofficial Australian ...
1979 Founding of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre
The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre (MHMC) is a museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, dedicated to Holocaust education and awareness. It was founded in 1979 by a group of Holocaust survi...
1979 Intellivision Video Game Console Released
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2...
1979 Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution (Also known as the Islamic Revolution or 1979 Islamic Revolution , Persian: انقلاب اسلامی, Enghelābe Eslāmi) refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's mona...
1979 Madonna Performs as a Dancer on Tour
While performing as a dancer for the French disco artist Patrick Hernandez on his 1979 world tour, Madonna became romantically involved with the musician Dan Gilroy, with whom she later f...
1979 Mercedes-Benz G-Class is First Produced
The Mercedes-Benz G-Class or G-Wagen, short for Geländewagen (or cross-country vehicle), is a four-wheel drive vehicle / sport utility vehicle (SUV) produced by German automaker Mercedes-...
1979 Mercedes-Benz W126 is First Produced
The Mercedes-Benz W126 is a series of flagship vehicles manufactured by German automotive marque Mercedes-Benz. Premiering in September 1979 as the successor to the earlier W116 line, the...
1979 "Moskau" (Single) by Dshinghis Khan Is Released
Dschinghis Khan was a German pop band, created in 1979 to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest. The name of the band was chosen to fit the song of the same name, written and produced by...
1979 NAACP awards Rosa Parks the Spingarn Medal
In 1979, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People awarded Parks the Spingarn Medal,[41] its highest honor,[42] and she received the Martin Luther King Jr. Award the...
1979 Nissan Gazelle is First Produced
The Nissan Gazelle is a compact three-door hatchback produced by Nissan, based on the Nissan S platform. It was produced for the Japanese and Australian markets only. The Gazelle is a sis...
1979 "Off the Wall" solo album catapults Michael Jackson to superstar status
Off the Wall is the fifth studio album by pop musician Michael Jackson, released August 10, 1979 on Epic Records. The album follows Jackson's critically well received theatrical performan...
1979 'Oh Say Can You Say' is Published
Oh Say Can You Say? is an entertaining collection of twenty-four silly tongue twister verses aimed at children aged 4 to 8, and illustrated in full colour. This book lives up to Dr. Seuss...
1979 Patrick Swayze makes his movie debut in "Skatetown, U.S.A."
Skatetown, U.S.A. is a 1979 American feature film directed by William A. Levey which capitalized on the popularity of roller disco. The film stars many TV stars from the 1970s: Scott B...
1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. When a mysterious and immensely...
1979 The Lord Of The Rings Radio Series Is Released
In 1979 the US National Public Radio broadcast a radio dramatisation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It was produced by The Mind's Eye and has since been made available by se...
1979 Jan Def Leppard release The Def Leppard E.P.
The Def Leppard E.P. is the debut EP by British rock band Def Leppard. The EP was recorded at Fairview Studios in Hull, in November 1978 and produced by Def Leppard. The album cover is a ...
1979 Jan 1 Microsoft moves headquarters to Bellevue, Washington
Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.[27] The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home i...
1979 Jan 8 Betelgeuse Incident
A TERRIFYING rumbling shattering a still winter’s night, was the prelude to Ireland’s worst maritime disaster, a quarter of a century ago.The subsequent explosion aboard the ill-fated sup...
1979 Jan 16 Accept releases their self-titled debut album
Accept is the self-titled debut album released by the German heavy metal band Accept. It was recorded in 1978 and released in early 1979 on the German label Brain Records. Drums on the re...
1979 Jan 19 "Sleep Dirt" by Frank Zappa Is Released
Sleep Dirt is an album by Frank Zappa released in January, 1979 on his own DiscReet Records label. It reached 175 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. Zappa's intended title for the album w...
1979 Jan 21 Super Bowl XIII - Steelers 35, Cowboys 31
Super Bowl XIII was an American football game played on January 21, 1979 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion following the 1978 regu...
1979 Jan 24 "Love On The Run" Is Released
Love on the Run (French: L'amour en fuite) is a 1979 French film directed by François Truffaut. It is Truffaut's fifth and final film about the character Antoine Doinel. A lot of the film...
1979 Jan 27 St. Bonaventure vs. Niagara Basketball Game
On Saturday, January 27, 1979, I experienced one of the most amazing single game comebacks in sports history, probably exceeding Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary pass in the 1984 game between Bost...
1979 Feb 1 Ayatollah Khomeini Returns to Iran After 15 Years of Exile
From the perspective of nearly 2 1/2 decades, the success of the Islamic revolution in Iran and its monumental impact across the Islamic world may appear to have been inevitable. It se...
1979 Feb 5 Boston College defeats Northeastern, 7-2
1979 Feb 5 Boston University defeats Harvard, 4-2
1979 Feb 5 The Bee Gees release Spirits Having Flown
Spirits Having Flown is the Bee Gees' fifteenth original album (thirteenth internationally), released on February 5, 1979. It was the group's first album after their collaboration on the ...
1979 Feb 12 Boston University defeats Boston College, 4-3
They had plunked the old silver trophy against a wall and forgotten it amid the blur of handshakes, cameras, discarded equipment and shower steam. And now it was past midnight, and the vi...
1979 Feb 12 Northeastern defeats Harvard, 5-4
1979 Feb 20 "The Marriage Of Maria Braun" Is Released
The Marriage of Maria Braun (German: Die Ehe der Maria Braun) is a 1979 West German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It was nominated for the 1980 Golden Globe Award for Best Fo...
1979 Feb 25 Scorpions release Lovedrive
Lovedrive is the sixth studio album by the German heavy metal band Scorpions, released in 1979. Lovedrive was a major evolution of the band's sound, which exhibited their "classic style" ...
1979 Mar 2 "Norma Rae" Is Released
Norma Rae is a 1979 film which tells the story of a factory worker from a small town in the Southern United States who becomes involved in the labor union activities at the textile factor...
1979 Mar 3 "Sheik Yerbouti" by Frank Zappa Is Released
Sheik Yerbouti is a double vinyl album by Frank Zappa featuring material recorded in 1977 and 1978. It was first released on March 3 1979 as the first release on Zappa Records and re-issu...
1979 Mar 14 "Hair" Is Released
Hair is a 1979 film adaptation of the 1968 Broadway musical of the same title about a Vietnam war draftee who meets and befriends a tribe of long-haired hippies on his way to the army ind...
1979 Mar 23 Van Halen Releases "Van Halen II"
Van Halen II is the second album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1979. The actual recording of the album took place less than a year after the release of the eponymous "...
1979 Mar 24 Motörhead release Overkill
Overkill is the second album released by Motörhead, in 1979, and their first for Bronze Records. It peaked at number 24 on the UK charts. It had a big impact in the British punk culture o...
1979 Mar 26 1979 NCAA Basketball Championship: Magic Johnson of Michigan State defeats Larry Bird of Indiana State
Last Monday night, in the championship game, Michigan State confirmed a notion that had been gaining credence as the NCAA tournament progressed and State rolled to one easy win after anot...
1979 Mar 26 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty signed
"The treaty demonstrated that Middle East leaders, and not just foreign powers, have the power to transform regional politics." —Kenneth Stein, professor at Emory University and a long-time aid to Jimmy Carter
1979 Mar 26 Michigan State Beats Indiana State in Final Four
The 1979 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 40 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball....
1979 Mar 28
4:00AM
 Three Mile Island Accident at Nuclear Generating Station
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial core meltdown in Unit 2 (a pressurized water reactor manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in ...
1979 Apr 2 Sverdlovsk Anthrax Leak
In all, 96 people were hospitalized for anthrax during the Sverdlovsk outbreak of 1979, including cutaneous cases. Of these 96 hospitalized people, 6 were admitted to hospitals in Sverdlo...
1979 Apr 9 51st Academy Awards
The 51st Academy Awards were presented April 9, 1979 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Johnny Carson. Notably, the two "front-runners"...
1979 Apr 12
to 1979 Apr 15
 Fuzzy Zoeller wins the 43rd Masters Tournament
Fuzzy Zoeller birdied the second playoff hole, No. 11, and became the Masters first sudden-death champion. Ed Sneed, who joined Zoeller and Tom Watson in the playoff, led by five strokes ...
1979 Apr 12 "Mad Max" Is Released
Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller and written by Miller and Byron Kennedy. The film, starring the then-little-known Mel Gibson, was released int...
1979 Apr 25 "Manhattan" Is Released
Manhattan is a 1979 romantic comedy film about Isaac Davis (Woody Allen), a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer dating a 17-year-old high school girl (Mariel Hemingway). Isaac eventu...
1979 Apr 27 Five Prisoners Released from Soviet Union in Exchange for Two Soviet Spies
On 20 May 1978, three Soviet foreign intelligence officers were arrested in New Jersey while collecting an agent's report from a secret cache. One of them, the attaché of the Soviet missi...