The Canadian Union of Postal Workers walked out on strike at midnight.[3] Mail delivery would be halted for six weeks, finally resuming on August 11.[4]
Eastern Airlines Flight 984 was scheduled to depart Guatemala City for Miami at 3:30 pm, but mechanical problems delayed the takeoff. As baggage was being prepared for loading on the Boeing 727, a time bomb exploded inside one of the suitcases at 4:15, when the jet would have been in flight over the Caribbean.[5]
Four bodies were found in a home at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in the hills above Los Angeles, along with a seriously injured woman. All five had been bludgeoned with a steel pipe. Neighbors had heard screams earlier in the morning, but nobody called the police until 12 hours later.[7] Pornographic movie star John Holmes and nightclub owner Eddie Nash were both indicted for the killings; both were acquitted.[8]
The United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that then-President Jimmy Carter had acted within his authority in ending the Iran hostage crisis when he agreed in the Algiers Accords to release frozen Iranian assets no later than July 19, in return for the release of 52 American hostages from Iran. The decision, made only 8 days after the Court heard arguments, cleared the way for $2.3 billion to be transferred from U.S. banks to Iran. Earlier on the same day, eight of the former hostages sued Iran in federal court, seeking $5,000,000 apiece, despite a waiver of the right to sue as part of the same accords.[9]
The New York Times became the first major newspaper to report on the existence of AIDS, with a report on page 20, headlined "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals". Initially referred to as "GRID" (for "Gay Related Immune Disorder"), the illness would later be named Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.[12][13] The news, picked up by CNN the next day, was based on an article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, entitled "Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis Pneumonia Among Homosexual Men- New York City and California".[14]
Chen Wen-chen, 31, an assistant mathematics professor in the United States at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, was killed by security police during a vacation in his homeland in Taiwan.[16]
Kenji Urada, an employee at the automated Kawasaki Heavy Industries factory, became what was reported as the first person to be killed by a robot.[17] However, an American worker, Robert Williams of the Ford Motor Company plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, had been killed by a robot two years earlier, on January 25, 1979.[18]
After initial doubts about whether his Likud party had been defeated by the Labor Party of Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Menachem Begin was able to declare victory in the closest election in the history of Israel. Under the Israeli system of government, representation in Parliament was based upon the proportion of the overall balloting. With 718,941 votes, Likud had 37.1% for 48 seats, while the 708,356 for Labour was 36.6% for 47 seats, giving Begin the right to assemble the coalition in the 120-seat Knesset.[20][21]
Rajan Mahadevan recited pi to 31,811 digits before an audience in Mangalore. The event took 3 hours and 49 minutes, including a total of 26 minutes of breaks, and was sponsored by the local Lions Club International, Lion Seva Mandir.[22] The record would stand until 1987, when Hideaki Tomoyoni repeated the first 40,000 digits.[23]
On trial in Los Angeles under accusation of being the Hillside Strangler, Kenneth Bianchi took the witness stand in his own defense. After initially denying his involvement in the slayings of ten young women, Bianchi unexpectedly began a detailed confession and calmly described each of the murders in detail.[24][25]
"I'm pleased to announce that upon completion of all the necessary checks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I will send to the Senate the nomination of Judge Sandra Day O'Connor of the Arizona Court of Appeals for confirmation as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court." With those words, U.S. President Ronald Reagan named O'Connor as the 102nd person, and first woman, to ever serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.[28]
Died:Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Norman), 72, American pacifist who attracted attention to her causes by walking across the United States; in an auto accident near Knox, Indiana
Lt. Adriano Bomba of Mozambique flew a Soviet-built MiG-17 jet fighter into South Africa and then signaled to intercepting forces that he wished to surrender. Bomba, a black African defector, was given asylum by the white minority government that ruled the nation during the apartheid era, in return for military intelligence.[29]
During an arson attack on a bus depot in Belfast in Northern Ireland, 16-year-old Catholic John Dempsey became the first of two teenagers in two days to be killed by British Army snipers. The next day, Danny Barrett, 15, was killed by a British soldier. [30]
The Israel Defense Forces began a regular bombardment of Palestine Liberation Organization strongholds in Lebanon. The siege escalated after the Palestinian guerillas began shelling Israeli settlements. Until a July 24 ceasefire, 450 Palestinians and Lebanese, and 6 Israelis, died.[33]
Ken Rex McElroy was murdered in Skidmore, Missouri by several unknown gunmen as a group of 60 people, frustrated with McElroy's continued violations of the law, gathered. The example of vigilante justice would later be recounted in books and a made-for-TV movie.[34][35]
Three days of torrential rains began in China's Sichuan Province, with up to 18.8 inches (480 mm) raising the level of the Yangtze River and its tributaries as much as 16.5 feet (5.0 m). Initial reports from the Xinhua news agency reported 3,000 deaths and 100,000 injuries.[39] The official numbers would be revised two weeks later, but the toll was still high, with 753 dead, 558 missing, 28,140 injured and 1.5 million people left homeless.[40]
Troopers Merle J. Cook and Robert L. Pruitt and Corporal Cleo L. Tomlinson, Jr., of the Florida Highway Patrol died on duty in an aircraft accident while searching for two burglary suspects.[42][43][44]
Max Hugel, a millionaire who had been appointed by CIA DirectorWilliam Casey to serve as Deputy Director for Clandestine Operations despite having "no visible qualifications",[45] resigned hours after The Washington Post broke a story headlined, "Spymaster Is Accused of Improper Stock Practices".[46][47]
Aspartame, the artificial sweetener marketed as NutraSweet, was approved for sale in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration. Initially, the product was cleared only for use at home, but would later be approved as a food additive.[48]
Died:Harry Chapin, 38, folk singer and hunger activist, was killed in a car wreck near Jericho, New York on the Long Island Expressway. Chapin had shifted lanes into the path of a Rickel Home Centers truck, which was unable to avoid a collision with his car, and died of a ruptured aneurysm caused by the impact. A jury later found Chapin to be 40% at fault in the accident, with the driver primarily liable, and awarded $7,200,000 to his widow.[51][52]
The collapse of a hotel walkway killed 114 people at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. At 7:05 pm, a fourth floor walk at the hotel broke from its moorings and dropped onto a second floor walk directly below, and then both structures fell into the hotel lobby. All three areas were crowded with people who had gathered for a dance. In addition to the 114 who died, 185 more were injured. Ultimately, the disaster was traced to a flaw in design and construction. While the original plan had been for the two walkways to hang separately, nuts and bolts intended to bear the weight of the fourth floor were holding the weight of both. The failure of a single nut under the stress led to the chain reaction.[56][57]
Jack Henry Abbott, a convicted murderer turned author of the bestseller In the Belly of the Beast, had been paroled in June with the influence of author Norman Mailer. Abbott and two friends walked into a Manhattan cafe called Binibon, where he got into an argument with Richard Adan over use of a restroom. Abbott stabbed Adan to death and then fled the scene. Ironically, Abbott's return to crime took place as the praise of his book was being printed in that Sunday's New York Times Book Review.[58] Abbott would be captured two months later, convicted of the murder, and spend the rest of his life in prison until hanging himself in 2002.[59]
The existence of the "Farewell Dossier", 4,000 pages of Soviet documents that had been supplied to France by former KGB Colonel Vladimir Vetrov (whose code name was "Farewell") was revealed to U.S. President Ronald Reagan by French President François Mitterrand at the summit of Western leaders in Ottawa. The material showed that the Soviets had, after years of infiltration, been stealing American technological research and development. While other advisers to the National Security Council were looking for ways to stop the leaks, Gus Weiss proposed the idea of creating defective technology and allowing it to be stolen. The first trial was for computer programs which, months after being applied to operate the Siberian gas pipeline, began to fail. (A critic notes that the USSR did not have computer-managed gas pipelines in the 1980s and that claim is highly improbable.) The existence of the Farewell Dossier would remain a secret until 1997.[60]
David Allen Kirwan, a 24-year-old tourist at Yellowstone National Park, jumped into the alkaline (pH 9) and scalding (202 °F (94 °C)) Celestine Pool to save his dog. The dog died within moments and its body dissolved in the hot spring. Kirwan, burned over his entire body, was airlifted to Salt Lake City and died the next day.[61][62][63]
Martina Navratilova became an American citizen at a ceremony in Los Angeles. Until then, the women's tennis star, who had defected from Czechoslovakia, had lived in fear that she would be kidnapped and returned for trial.[64]
Died: Lou Peters, Cadillac dealer from Lodi, California, whose cooperation with the FBI led to the conviction of organized crime leader Joe Bonanno earlier in the year. The Bureau named the Louis E. Peters Memorial Service Award in his honor.[65]
Tohui the Panda was born in Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, the first giant panda ever to be born and survive in captivity outside of China. Tohui was the second child of Ying Ying, who accidentally crushed her first one.[66]
FTC Commissioner Michael Pertschuk announced the most comprehensive regulations ever applied to the American funeral industry, ending deceptive practices after a nearly ten-year study. Among the changes were a requirement for funeral homes to itemize their prices, and a prohibition against a common practice of requiring the bereaved to buy a casket even for a cremation.[68]
A coal mine fire, burning since May 27, 1962,[70] broke to the surface in the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania.[71] Condemning and buying all the property in the town was less expensive than trying to extinguish the fire, so the 1,000 residents of Centralia were relocated over the next several years. The virtual ghost town had 20 residents by 2003.[72]
An artificial heart was implanted into a human being for the second time in history (the first was in 1969), as Dr. Denton Cooley placed the Akutsu-III into Willibrord Meuffels, a 26-year-old Netherlands man undergoing bypass surgery at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston. Meuffels remained on the TAH for 55 hours until receiving a donor heart, dying from complications ten days later.[73][74]
In one of the largest alleged UFO sightings, thousands of people in China claimed to have observed a bright object surrounded by "Saturn-like rings" in Tibet, flying for seven minutes. China's official Xinhua News Agency reported the story eleven days later.[75][76]
Kosmos 1275, a Soviet satellite that had been launched on June 4, was struck by debris while in orbit 600 miles (970 km) over Alaska, breaking into more than 140 pieces of space junk.[78]
Anti-apartheid protestors in Hamilton, New Zealand forced the cancellation of the second game of the 16 game tour by the South African national rugby union team (the Springboks) and the host team, Waikato.[80] Before the scheduled match could begin, 300 protestors occupied the field at Rugby Park, despite the presence of 4,700 police. The game was cancelled at 3:10 pm after word was received that a pilot had stolen a Cessna plane and was flying toward the stadium, which was crowded with 27,000 fans. Nevertheless, the controversial tour continued with a game four days later at Wellington.[81]
After six years, the FBI brought "Operation Donnie Brasco" to an end. Undercover agent Joseph D. Pistone had infiltrated the Bonanno crime family starting in 1975, using the alias Donnie Brasco and gathering evidence for the Bureau. When the family's boss, Dominic Napolitano, asked Pistone to carry out a hit against Bruno Indelicato, his FBI handlers decided that Pistone/Brasco would be discovered. Only after Pistone's assignment ended did FBI agents inform Napolitano that his trusted aide had been an informant. Napolitano would be killed by the Bonanno mob on August 17 for making the mistake.[84]
Swelled by a downpour that had happened hours earlier and far upriver, the Tanque Verde Falls in Arizona was the site of a flash flood that killed eight people without warning.[85]
Born:Maicon (Maicon Douglas Sisenando), Brazilian soccer football player, in Novo Hamburgo
Adam Walsh, age 6, was kidnapped from a Sears store in Hollywood, Florida, and murdered. His father, hotel executive John Walsh, became an activist for missing children and for crime prevention, and would later become host for the television program America's Most Wanted.[86][87][88] Serial killer Ottis Toole, who confessed to the crime in 1983 and then recanted, died in 1996. Investigators concluded in 2008 that Toole had been the perpetrator and closed the case.[89]
Rod Brock, owner of Seattle Computer Products and of the 86-DOS disk operating system designed by one of its former employees (Tim Paterson), sold all rights to the program to Microsoft for $50,000. Renamed MS-DOS, the system earned Microsoft billions of dollars.[90]
In a nationally televised speech, President Reagan explained, in simple terms, his proposal for the largest tax cut in U.S. history, and asked for the public to "contact your Senators and Congressmen. Tell them of your support for this bipartisan proposal."[91] Americans followed suit, and two days later, the bill passed the House 238–195, and the Senate 89–11.[92][93][94]
Betty Danielowski of Minnesota and her 9-year old nephew slipped from a rock and fell into Upper McDonald Creek in Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana, and her husband Donald Danielowski jumped in to save them both, and the couple both drowned in the swift current. The child was saved by his father. [95] The Danielowski's deaths were the second and third in less than a week in the same creek. [96] Five days earlier, on July 22, a 7-year old child, Kevin Dolack of Glenview, Illinois, died after falling into the creek upstream. [97][98]
The perigee of the Moon, its shortest distance from the Earth, coincided with the week that the Earth, Moon and Sun were aligned. During the total solar eclipse that happened on Friday, July 31, the Moon occluded more of the view of the Sun than usually occurs during an eclipse.
Born:Li Xiaopeng, Chinese gymnast, 4-time Olympic gold medalist, world championships in vault (1999, 2002, 2003) and parallel bars (1998, 2002, 2006), in Changsha[99]
Died:
Paul Brunton (pen name of Raphael Hurst), 81, British mystic
An earthquake of magnitude 7.3 struck the Kerman province of Iran, around Shahdad. Initial death estimates were as high as 5,000 people,[103] but the United Nations later concluded that 1,500 had died in the sparsely populated province.[104]
Died:
Father Stanley Rother, 46, American missionary who had been a Roman Catholic priest in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, for 13 years, was murdered by Guatemalan soldiers.
Rolf Wütherich, 54, mechanic who had been passenger with James Dean in Dean's fatal car accident on September 30, 1955. Like Dean, Wütherich was killed while driving a Porsche at high speed, losing control in the German village of Kupferzell.[105]
Trevor Revell, 35-year-old magician and escape artist, was killed while performing at a Royal Wedding celebration in Portsmouth. England. Revell, buckled into a straitjacket, was hoisted 30 feet (9.1 m) into the air on a rope which was then set on fire. Revell escaped from the straitjacket, but the rope burned through before Revell could be lowered, and he fell headfirst onto concrete. Revell died at Queen Alexandra Hospital.[110]
Born:Fernando Alonso, Spanish race car driver, Formula One world champion in 2005 and 2006; in Oviedo
Died:Robert Moses, 92, American urban planner who oversaw the growth of New York City and Long Island
Dawda Jawara, the President of the Gambia, was deposed in a coup while a guest at the royal wedding in Britain. Kukoi Sanyang declared himself leader of the West African nation, but was driven out when the surrounding nation of Senegal intervened with 3,000 troops and restored Jawara to power. Later in the year, the two nations agreed to form the Senegambia Confederation, a merger that lasted ten years.[111][112]
An airplane crash killed three law enforcement officers in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, while they were searching for marijuana fields from the sky. Ronnie Fox and detective David J. Sheehan of the McAlester, Oklahoma police, and the pilot, Oklahoma narcotics agent Bill Morgan, died after the aircraft went down in the Jack Fork foothills of the Ouachita Mountains.[113] Investigators considered, but ruled out, the possibility that the plane had been shot down.[114][115][116][117]
A total solar eclipse was visible over much of northern Asia, from Turkey to the Soviet Union and much of Mongolia, China and Japan. Because the Moon had made its closest approach to Earth only four days earlier, the diameter of the Moon as it occluded the view of the Sun was greater than would normally have been seen.
The end of the 1981 Major League Baseball strike was announced in New York by federal mediator Kenneth Moffett, after major league owners and players came to an agreement. The All-Star game, set for August 9 in Cleveland, would mark the return of baseball, and regularly scheduled games would resume on August 10.[120]
General Omar Torrijos, 52, military leader of Panama, and head of state from 1972 to 1978. Torrijos and six other people had taken off from Penonomé in a storm, bound for Coclesito, and the plane crashed into the Cerro Julio mountain.[122]
References
^"Storm Kills 120 In Philippines". Pittsburgh Press. July 1, 1981. p. A-12.
^"10 hillside slayings admitted by suspect". Milwaukee Sentinel. July 7, 1981. p. 3.
^Schwarz, Ted (2004). The Hillside Strangler: The Three Faces of America's Most Savage Rapist and Murderer and the Shocking Revelations from the Sensational Los Angeles Trial!. Quill Driver Books. p. 253.
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