1984 in the United Kingdom.html



1984 in the United Kingdom:

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British and Irish current events

1984 English cricket season

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1984 in British music

Events from the year 1984 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - Margaret Thatcher, Conservative

Events

• 15 January - Left-wing rebel Tony Benn wins the Labour Party's nomination for the Chesterfield by-election, eight months after losing his seat as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol South in the General Election.¹
• 25 January - Government bans GCHQ staff from belonging to any trade union.²
• February - Japanese carmaker Nissan signs an agreement with the British government to build a car factory in Britain. This landmark deal means that "foreign" cars will be built in Britain for the first time.
• 7 February–19 February - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, and win one gold medal.
• 14 February - Torvill and Dean win a gold medal for ice skating at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.³
• March - Nissan chooses a greenfield site near Sunderland as the location of its new car factory, and hopes to have the factory ready within two years.
• 12 March - Beginning of the miners' strike which was to pit the National Union of Mineworkers against Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government intent on free market reform of the nationalised industries.⁴
• 14 March - Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams and three others are seriously injured in a gun attack by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).⁵
• 21 March - European Economic Community summit breaks down over disagreement over Britain's budget rebate with Margaret Thatcher threatening to veto any expansion of spending plans.⁶
• 27 March - Starlight Express opened at Apollo Victoria Theatre in London.
• 4 April - peace protesters evicted from the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp.⁷
• 9 April - More than 100 pickets are arrested in violent clashes at the Creswell colliery in Derbyshire and the Babbington colliery in Nottinghamshire. It is estimated that 46 out of 176 British coalmines are currently active as miners fight government plans to close 20 coalmines across Britain.⁸
• 12 April - Arthur Scargill, leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, rules out a national ballot of miners on whether to continue their strike, which has already lasted five weeks.⁹
• 17 April - WPC Yvonne Fletcher is shot and killed by a secluded gunman during a siege outside the Libyan Embassy in London in the event known as the 1984 Libyan Embassy Siege. 11 other people are also shot but survive.¹⁰
• 22 April - In the wake of Yvonne Fletcher's death, Britain severs diplomatic relations with Libya and serves warning on its seven remaining Libyan diplomats to return to their homeland.
• 25 April - Austin Rover launches its new Montego four-door saloon, which replaces the outdated Morris Ital and competes head-to-head with the Ford Sierra and Vauxhall Cavalier. The demise of the Ital coincides with the demise of the 72-year-old Morris marque, as the restructuring of Austin Rover will result in the discontinuation of several less popular marques as well as a less extensive model range.
• 2 May - The Liverpool International Garden Festival opens in Liverpool.
• 8 May - The official opening of the Thames Barrier to prevent London from being flooded.
• 29 May - Fighting at Orgreave colliery between police and striking miners leaves 64 injured.²
• 20 June - The biggest exam shake-up in the education system in over 10 years is announced with O-level and CSE exams to be replaced by a new exam, the GCSE. The first GCSE courses will begin in September 1986 and will be completed in the summer of 1988.¹¹
• 22 June - Inaugural flight of Virgin Atlantic.¹²
• 6 July - David Jenkins consecrated as Bishop of Durham, despite strong objections from conservative Christians.²
• 9 July - A bolt of lightning strikes York Minster and causes extensive fire damage which is expected cost millions of pounds to repair.¹³
• 19 July - A magnitude 5.4 earthquake with an epicentre in the Llŷn Peninsula, North Wales is felt throughout the United Kingdom.¹⁴
• 23 July - Austin Rover announces its second new car launch of the year - the Rover 200, a four-door saloon which replaces the Triumph Acclaim and is the combine's second product from its venture with Japanese carmaker Honda. As a result, the Triumph marque is the second marque to be discontinued by Austin Rover this year.
• 26 July - Trade Union Act prohibits unions from striking without a ballot.²
• 28 July–12 August - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, and win 5 gold, 11 silver and 21 bronze medals.
• 2 August - a Surrey business man wins a case in the European Court of Human Rights over illegal phone tapping by the police.¹⁵
• 11 August - Zola Budd collides with Mary Decker in the 3000 meters at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.¹⁶
• 4 September - The Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends television series is first broadcast on ITV.
• 10 September - Geneticist Alec Jeffreys discovers DNA fingerprinting.¹²
• 26 September - United Kingdom and People's Republic of China sign the initial agreement to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.¹⁷
• 5 October - Police in Essex make the largest cannabis seizure in British criminal history when a multi-million pound stash of the drug is found on a schooner that was moored on the River Crouch near North Fambridge village.¹⁸
• 12 October - The Provisional Irish Republican Army attempts to assassinate the British Cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escapes injury, but Norman Tebbit is trapped among the rubble and his wife is paralysed. Five people, including one Member of Parliament, are killed.¹⁹
• 13 October - Darts player John Lowe achieves the first televised nine dart finish.¹²
• 23 October - BBC News newsreader Michael Buerk gives powerful commentary of the famine in Ethiopia which has already claimed thousands of lives and reportedly has the potential to kill as many as 7million people. Numerous British charities including Oxfam and Save the Children begin collection work to aid the famine victims, who are mostly encamped near the town of Korem.
• 12 November - The English one pound note withdrawn after 150 years in circulation.²⁰
• 15 November - General Synod of the Church of England support the ordination of women as deacons, but not as full priests.²
• 23 November - The Oxford Circus fire traps around 1,000 passengers on the London Underground but no-one is killed.²¹
• 25 November - 36 of Britain and Ireland's top pop musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio to form Band Aid and recorded the song "Do They Know It's Christmas" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.
• 30 November - Tension in the miners' strike increases when two South Wales are charged with the murder of taxi driver David Wilkie, 35, who died when a concrete block was dropped on his car from a road overbridge. The passenger in his car, who escaped with minor injuries, was a miner who had defied the strike and continued going to work.
• 3 December - British Telecom is privatised.
• 10 December
  • Richard Stone wins the Nobel Prize in Economics "for having made fundamental contributions to the development of systems of national accounts and hence greatly improved the basis for empirical economic analysis".²²
  • César Milstein wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Niels Kaj Jerne and Georges J. F. Köhler "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies".²³
• 16 December - Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union visits Britain.²⁴
• 18 December - Ted Hughes appointed as Poet Laureate.¹²
• 19 December - The People's Republic of China and United Kingdom sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration which will see Hong Kong returning to Chinese control in 13 years.²⁵

Undated

• Chatham Dockyard in Medway, England closed after being used a shipbuilding yard for over 400 years since the reign of King Henry VIII.
• The Morris and Triumph car brands are discontinued. The last Morris car, the Ital, is replaced by the more modern Austin Montego. The Triumph Acclaim's successor is the Rover 200.
• Vauxhall had a successful year in the motor industry. It reported that its market share has doubled since 1981, and the year ended on an even bigger high when its MK2 Astra range was elected European Car of the Year.

Publications

• Douglas Adams' novel So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.
• J. G. Ballard's novel Empire of the Sun.
• Iain Banks's novel The Wasp Factory.
• Julian Barnes's novel Flaubert's Parrot.
• Anita Brookner's novel Hotel du Lac.
• Angela Carter's novel Nights at the Circus.
• Mary Wesley's novel The Camomile Lawn.

Births

• 28 March - Nikki Sanderson, actress
• 22 April - Michelle Ryan, actress
• 25 June - Amrita Hunjan, singer
• 12 July - Gareth Gates, singer
• 15 September - Prince Harry of Wales, prince
• 28 September - Helen Oyeyemi, novelist
• 27 October - Kelly Osbourne, singer
• 14 December - Chris Brunt, footballer

Deaths

• 1 January - Alexis Korner, musician (born 1928)
• 12 March - Arnold Ridley, playwright and actor (born 1896)
• 21 March - Sir Michael Redgrave, actor (born 1908)
• 5 April - Arthur Travers Harris, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command during World War 2 (born 1892)
• 15 April
  • Tommy Cooper, comedian and magician (born 1921)
  • Alexander Trocchi, writer (born 1925)
• 4 May - Diana Dors, actress (born 1931)
• 19 May - John Betjeman, poet (born 1906)
• 28 May - Eric Morecambe, comedian (born 1926)
• 7 July - Flora Robson, actress (born 1902)
• 27 July - James Mason, actor (born 1909)
• 5 August - Richard Burton, actor (born 1925)
• 14 August - J. B. Priestley, writer and broadcaster (born 1894)
• 5 October - Leonard Rossiter, actor (born 1926)
• 12 October - Anthony Berry, Member of Parliament (killed in the Brighton hotel bombing) (born 1925)
• 14 October - Martin Ryle, radio astronomer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (born 1918)
• 20 October - Paul Dirac, physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (born 1902)

References

See also