1979

1950–1980	UK [television]	Watch With Mother, a series for young children featuring favourite characters such as Andy Pandy, the Flowerpot Men, Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, and the Woodentops, is shown on British television.
1970–1979	USA [statistics and demography]	The number of one-parent families in the USA increases 79%, representing one in five of all families.
1970–1979	USA [statistics and demography]	There are over 4 million immigrants to the USA in the period 1970–79, coming mainly from Asia and the Americas.
15 January 1974 - 12 July 1984	USA [television]	The situation comedy Happy Days, about family life in the 1950s, premiers on US television and runs for 11 seasons.
11 September 1974 - 21 March 1983	USA [television]	Little House on the Prairie, a popular television drama based on the classic series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, starts on US television. It chronicles the Ingalls family's struggles in the American West in the 1870s.
1975–1979	UK [television]	Fawlty Towers, a comedy series starring John Cleese as the rude and disaster-prone Torquay hotelier Basil Fawlty, is shown on British television. It also stars Connie Booth, Prunella Scales, and Andrew Sachs.
1976–1981	UK, USA [television]	The Muppet Show, featuring sketches and songs by Jim Henson's puppets – including Kermit and Miss Piggy – is shown on British and US television.
1979	UK [religion]	The General Synod of the Church of England refuses to allow female priests ordained abroad to celebrate holy communion.
1979	UK [statistics and demography]	The British House of Lords has 51 women out of 1,107 members, and the House of Commons has 19 women out of 635 members.
1979	USA [technology]	Philips/MCA launches the LaserVision video disk system in the USA.
1979	Iran [women's rights]	Woman march in protest in Teheran, Iran, against Ayatollah Khomeini's legislation that impinges on women's rights and obliges them to wear the chador, a heavy veil over the face, in public.
1979	Japan [women's rights]	The women's movement is launched in Japan to campaign for equal women's rights to government housing, bank loans, benefits, and tax reductions.
1979	Pakistan [women's rights]	New laws in Pakistan called the Hadood Ordinances ban women's testimony in serious criminal trials and require four adult males as witnesses to prove rape charges. If the accused is not convicted, under the Qazf Ordinance a woman may receive 80 lashes for false testimony.
1979	Egypt [women's rights]	The Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi publishes The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World, which reveals female genital mutilation and discusses the traditional emphasis on virginity and family honour.
1979	France [anthropology]	French anthropologist François Lévèque discovers a badly crushed Neanderthal skeleton near the village of Saint-Césaire in France. Dated at about 35,000 years old, it is one of the latest Neanderthals known and is of special interest because it is found with tools previously assumed to belong to the Cro-Magnon culture.
1979	UK, USA [cinema and film]	The film Monty Python's Life of Brian, directed by Terry Jones, is released in the UK and the USA. It stars the Monty Python team Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. In the USA, criticism from religious quarters causes the film to be withdrawn. This leads to further unrest, as citizen groups protest that the move constitutes censorship.
1979	USA [cinema and film]	The film Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is released in the USA. Based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it stars Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, and Robert Duvall.
1979	world [computing]	The first spreadsheet program for personal computers, VisiCalc, leads to the expansion in business use of PCs.
1979	Netherlands, Japan [companies and organizations]	The Dutch company Philips and the Japanese company Sony work collaboratively to develop the compact disc (CD); tiny pits on the plastic are read by laser to reproduce sound or other information. CDs are first marketed in 1982.
1979	USA [fiction]	The US writer Philip Roth publishes his novel The Ghost Writer.
1979	USA [information technology]	The Xerox Corporation introduces the Ethernet, an office communications network.
1979	USA [manufacturing]	The Ideal Toy Co. in New York City begins manufacturing the Rubik cube, invented by a Hungarian lecturer in architectural design Professor Erno Rubik.
1979	USA [materials]	The 3M Corporation of St Paul, Minnesota, launches Post-It notes; the special adhesive which allows the notes to stick temporarily and without marking was invented by accident.
1979	USA [memoirs]	The US writer Peter Matthiessen publishes The Snow Leopard, describing his travels through Nepal. It is awarded a National Book Award.
1979	USA [music]	Digital recording starts, with Stephen Stills the first artist to be recorded digitally.
1979	USA [painting]	The US artist Judy Chicago completes the book The Dinner Party, one of the leading expressions of feminist art.
1979	UK [plays]	The play Amadeus, by the English writer Peter Shaffer, is first performed, at the Olivier Theatre in London, England, directed by Peter Hall. It is based on the life of the composer Mozart.
1979	USA [popular music]	As a reaction against the ubiquitous disco music, rap is created by urban black musicians.
January 1979	China [companies and organizations]	Coca-Cola is marketed for the first time in the People's Republic of China.
7 January 1979	Cambodia, Vietnam [political events]	Vietnamese troops and Cambodian rebels capture the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, and oust the Khmer Rouge regime.
16 January 1979	Iran, Egypt [political events]	The shah of Iran and his family flee to Egypt, driven into exile by supporters of the Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini.
31 January 1979	Italy [law and government]	Giulio Andreotti's government resigns in Italy, ending the ‘historic compromise’ between Christian Democrats and communists.
22 February 1979	St Lucia, UK [decolonization]	St Lucia, in the West Indies, gains its independence from Britain.
23 February - 16 March 1979	North Yemen, South Yemen [political events]	North and South Yemen wage war; the former is supported by the USSR, the latter by the West.
1 March 1979	UK [law and government]	Referendums are held in Britain on devolution in Scotland and Wales.Devolution is approved in Scotland by 51.6% of the voters, but this falls short of the required 40% of the electorate. Devolution is rejected in Wales by 79.8% of the voters.
13 March 1979	Europe [business and economics]	The European Monetary System (EMS) becomes operational.
15 March 1979	Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, UK [political events]	The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) defence pact collapses when Turkey withdraws, following the withdrawal of Iran and Pakistan on 12 March.
29 March 1979	USA [energy]	Radioactive material escapes from the nuclear power station at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, when the reactor overheats. Fearing a meltdown and the release of radioactive caesium, 144,000 people are evacuated from the immediate area. The accident halts the growing trend towards reliance on nuclear energy in the USA; 11 orders for new reactors are immediately cancelled, with more cancelled the following year.
1 April 1979	Iran [law and government]	Following a referendum, Iran is declared an Islamic Republic by the Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini.
11 April 1979	Uganda, Tanzania [political events]	The Ugandan capital, Kampala, falls to Tanzanian and rebel forces and the president, Idi Amin, flees the country.
13 April 1979	Uganda [law and government]	Yusufu Lule succeeds Idi Amin as president of Uganda.
4 May 1979	UK [law and government]	The British Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain's first woman prime minister.
3 June 1979	Mexico [energy]	Pemex Oil's offshore oil-well Ixtoc 1 blows up, releasing an estimated 3 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The largest oil spill ever recorded, the slick spreads 965 km/600 mi to Texas, contaminating Gulf fisheries and beaches. The well defies capping efforts and it continues to disgorge oil until 24 March 1980.
4 June 1979	South Africa [law and government]	President B J Vorster of South Africa resigns after the final Erasmus Report shows that he knew about illegal activities at the Information Department under Connie Mulder.
4 June 1979	Ghana [law and government]	Fred Akuffo is deposed as president of Ghana in a military coup led by Flight-Lt Jerry Rawlings.
11 June 1979	USA [births and deaths]	John Wayne, US film actor who usually starred in Westerns and war films, dies in Los Angeles, California (72).
15 June - 18 June 1979	Austria, USA, USSR [diplomacy]	A summit meeting in Vienna, Austria, between the US and Soviet presidents Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev ends with the signing of the SALT II treaty limiting nuclear weapons between the two countries.
July 1979	USA [space exploration]	The US space station Skylab 1 falls back to Earth after travelling 140 million km/87 million mi in orbit since 1973.
1 July 1979	Japan [technology]	Akio Morita, chairman of the Japanese company Sony, launches the Walkman, a small portable, personal tape recorder at a price of $165; he is reputed to have invented the product because his own children were fond of loud music.
11 July 1979	Gilbert Islands, UK [decolonization]	The Gilbert Islands, in the Pacific, gain their independence from Britain with the new name Kiribati.
16 July 1979	Iraq [law and government]	Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq.
19 July 1979	Nicaragua [political events]	Left-wing Sandinista rebels take the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, and set up a new government.
9 August 1979	UK [everyday life]	Brighton, in southern England, is the first British seaside resort to provide an area designated for nudists.
September 1979	USA [golf]	Lee Elder becomes the first black American professional golfer to represent the USA in the Ryder Cup.
6 September 1979	Vietnam, USA [political events]	Thirty thousand refugee ‘boat people’ from Vietnam are allowed to settle in the USA.
20 September 1979	Central African Empire [law and government]	The former president of the Central African Empire (now Central African Republic) David Dacko overthrows his uncle, Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa, and the country reverts to republic status.
27 October 1979	St Vincent and Grenadines, UK [decolonization]	St Vincent and the Grenadines, in the West Indies, gain their independence from Britain.
4 November 1979	Iran, USA [political events]	Iranian students seize the US embassy in Tehran, taking 63 US citizens and 40 others hostage. They demand the return of the Shah from the USA for trial.
December 1979	UK [cinema and film]	Survey results show that there are 230,000 video cassette recorders in the UK, 80% of which are rented. One in five people have not heard of video.
4 December 1979	French Guiana [space exploration]	The European Space Agency's first Ariane rocket is launched from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana; it is designed to deploy satellites into orbit.
10 December 1979	Zimbabwe Rhodesia [political events]	The rebel parliament in Zimbabwe Rhodesia concludes, ending Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence (UDI).
15 December 1979	Canada [toys and games]	The Canadian journalists Chris Haney and Scott Abbott invent the board game Trivial Pursuit; after initial commercial reluctance, a breakthrough comes when they sign a deal in 1982 with Selchow & Richter, the developers of Scrabble. This earns them an estimated $200 million.
15 December 1979	UK [popular music]	The British progressive rock group Pink Floyd releases the concept album The Wall. A film is later made by the British director Alan Parker, starring Bob Geldof.
21 December 1979	UK, Zimbabwe Rhodesia [political events]	The Lancaster House Agreement is signed in London, England, providing for an end to the civil war in Rhodesia and the introduction of majority rule. The new state of Zimbabwe becomes independent in April 1980.
25 December 1979	Afghanistan, USSR [political events]	Soviet troops invade Afghanistan in a bid to halt the civil war and protect Soviet interests.
27 December 1979	Afghanistan [law and government]	President Hafizullah Amin of Afghanistan is killed in a coup d'état and replaced by the communist leader Babrak Karmal.