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Johnny Weissmuller

Johnny Weissmuller

Johnny Weissmuller (June 2, 1904 – January 20, 1984) was an Romanian-born American swimmer and actor. He was one of the world's best swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal. He won fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven world records. After his swimming career, he played Tarzan in twelve motion pictures. Other actors also played Tarzan, but Weissmuller was the best-known. His distinctive, ululating Tarzan yell is still often used in films.

Early life

He was born János Weißmüller in Freidorf, Austro-Hungary (present-day Timişoara, Romania) to German language speaking Austrian parents, Petrus Weißmüller and Erzsebet Kersch, as is shown on his birth and (Roman Catholic) baptismal records. When Johnny was seven months old, the family emigrated to the United States aboard the S.S. Rotterdam. They left Rotterdam on January 14, 1905, and arrived in New York twelve days later, with their names recorded in English as Peter, Elizabeth and Johann Weissmuller. After a brief stay in Chicago, Illinois, visiting relatives, they moved to the coal mining town of Windber, Pennsylvania, where Peter Weissmuller worked as a miner. Another son, Peter Weissmuller, Jr., was born in Windber on September 3, 1905. After several years in Pennsylvania, they moved to Chicago. Johnny's father owned a bar for a time and his mother became head cook at a famed restaurant. His parents were later divorced, as is shown by the divorce document filed in Chicago by Elizabeth Weissmuller, although a lot of sources state incorrectly that Weismuller's father died of tuberculosis contracted from working in coal mines and left her a widow. It has been said that he actually lived to old age and had another, large family of children. From an early age, Johnny and his brother were aggressive swimmers. The beaches of Lake Michigan became their favorite summer recreation place. He then joined the Stanton Park pool, where he won all the junior swim meets. At the age of twelve he earned a spot on the YMCA swim team.

Swimming career

When Weissmuller left school, he worked as a bellhop and elevator operator at the Plaza Hotel in Chicago and trained for the Olympics with a swim coach at the Illinois Athletic Club, where he developed his revolutionary high-riding front crawl. He made his amateur debut on August 6, 1921, winning his first AAU race in the 50-yard freestyle. Though he was foreign-born, Weissmuller gave his birthplace as Windber, Pennsylvania, and his birth date as that of his younger brother, Peter Weissmuller. This was to ensure his eligibility to compete as part of the United States Olympic team, and was a critical issue in being issued an American passport. On July 9, 1922, Weissmuller broke Duke Kahanamoku's world record on the 100-meters freestyle, swimming it in 58.6 seconds. He won the title in that distance at the 1924 Summer Olympics, beating Kahanamoku on February 24, 1924. He also won the 400-meters freestyle and the 4 x 200 meters relay. As a member of the American water polo team, he also won a bronze medal. Four years later, at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, he won two more Olympic titles. In all, he won five Olympic gold medals, one bronze medal, won fifty-two U.S. National Championships and set sixty-seven world records. Johnny Weissmuller never lost a race and retired from his amateur swimming career undefeated.

Motion picture career

In 1929, Weissmuller signed a contract with BVD to be a model and representative. He traveled throughout the country doing swim shows, handing out leaflets promoting that brand of swimwear, giving his autograph and going on talk shows. In that same year, he made his first motion picture appearance as an Adonis wearing only a figleaf in a movie titled Glorifying the American Girl and he appeared as himself in the first of several Crystal Champions, a movie short featuring Weissmuller and other Olympic champions at Silver Springs, Florida. His career really began when he signed a seven year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and played the role of Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). The movie was a huge success and the 6'3" Weissmuller became an overnight international sensation. Even the author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, who created the character of Tarzan in his books, was pleased. Weissmuller starred in six Tarzan movies for MGM with actress Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane. The last three also included Johnny Sheffield as Boy. Then, in 1942, Weissmuller went to RKO and starred in six more Tarzan movies. Sheffield appeared as Boy in the first five features for that studio. Another co-star was blonde actress Brenda Joyce, who played Jane in Weissmuller's last four Tarzan movies. In a total of twelve Tarzan movies, Weissmuller earned an estimated $2,000,000 and established himself as the best-known of all the actors who have ever portrayed Tarzan. Although not the first Tarzan in movies (that honour went to Elmo Lincoln), he was the first to be associated with the now traditional ululating, yodeling Tarzan yell. When he finally left that role, he immediately traded his loincloth costume for jungle fatigues and appeared fully clothed in the role of Jungle Jim (1948) for Columbia. He made thirteen Jungle Jim movies between (1948) and (1954). Within the next year, he appeared in three more jungle movies playing himself. In 1955, he began production of the Jungle Jim television adventure series for Screen Gems, a film subsidiary of Columbia. The show ran for twenty-six episodes, which played over and over on network and syndicated TV for many years. Weissmuller had five wives: band and club singer Bobbe Arnst (married 1931-divorced 1933); actress Lupe Vélez (married 1933-divorced 1939); Beryl Scott (married 1939-divorced 1948); Allene Gates (married 1948-divorced 1962); and Maria Bauman (married 1963-his death 1984). According to a movie site on the Internet, he also married and divorced Camilla Louiee, but that claim has been challenged. Weissmuller reportedly said that Louiee ran off and married another man instead of him. With his third wife, Beryl, he had three children, Johnny Scott Weissmuller (or Johnny Weissmuller, Jr., also an actor) (born September 23, 1940), Wendy Anne Weissmuller (born June 1, 1942) and Heidi Elizabeth Weissmuller (July 31, 1944-November 19, 1962).

Later life

In the late 1950s, Weissmuller moved back to Chicago and started a swimming pool company. He also lent his name to other business ventures, but did not have a great deal of success. He retired in 1965 and moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was Founding Chairman of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. In 1970, he attended the British Commonwealth Games in Jamaica where he was presented to Queen Elizabeth. He also made a cameo appearance with former co-star Maureen O'Sullivan in The Phynx (1970). Weissmuller lived in Florida until the end of 1973, then moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he was a greeter at the MGM Grand Hotel for a time. In 1974, he broke a hip and leg. While hospitalized he learned that, in spite of his strength and lifelong daily regimen of swimming and exercise, he had a serious heart condition. In 1976, he appeared for the last time in a motion picture playing a movie crewman who is fired by a movie mogul, played by Art Carney, in Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood, and he also made his final public appearance in that year when he was inducted into the Body Building Guild Hall of Fame. Weissmuller suffered a series of strokes in 1977. For a time in 1979, he was a patient in the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. Later he and his last wife, Maria, moved to Acapulco, Mexico, which was the location of his last Tarzan movie. Johnny Weissmuller died on January 20, 1984 of a pulmonary edema at his retirement home in Acapulco. He is buried in the Valley of The Light Cemetery there. His former co-star and movie son, Johnny Sheffield, said of him, "I can only say that working with Big John was one of the highlights of my life. He was a Star (with a capital "S") and he gave off a special light and some of that light got into me. Knowing and being with Johnny Weissmuller during my formative years had a lasting influence on my life." Johnny Weissmuller has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6541 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

Filmography


- Glorifying the American Girl (1929) (Paramount) ... Adonis
- Crystal Champions (1929) (Paramount) ... Himself
- Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) (MGM) ... Tarzan
- Tarzan and His Mate (1934) (MGM) ... Tarzan
- Tarzan Escapes (1936) (MGM) ... Tarzan
- Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939) (MGM) ... Tarzan
- Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) (MGM) ... Tarzan
- Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942) (MGM) ... Tarzan
- Tarzan Triumphs (1943) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
- Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
- Stage Door Canteen (1943) (United Artists) ... Himself
- Tarzan and the Amazons (1945) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
- Swamp Fire (1946) (Paramount) ... Johnny Duval
- Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
- Tarzan and the Huntress (1947) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
- Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
- Jungle Jim (1948) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- The Lost Tribe (1949) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Mark of the Gorilla (1950) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Captive Girl (1950) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Pypmy Island (1950) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Fury of the Congo (1951) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Jungle Manhunt (1951) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land (1952) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Voodoo Tiger (1952) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Savage Mutiny (1953) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Valley of Head Hunters (1953) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Killer Ape (1953) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Jungle Man-Eaters (1954) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
- Cannibal Attack (1954) (Columbia) ... Himself
- Jungle Moon Men (1955) (Columbia) ... Himself
- Devil Goddess (1955) (Columbia) ... Himself
- The Phynx (1970) (Warner Bros.) ... Cameo
- Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) (Paramount) ... Crewman

Literature


- Johnny Weismuller Jr., Tarzan My Father, Toronto: ECW Press 2002

Media

External links


- [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0919321/ IMDb entry for Johnny Weissmuller]
- [http://www.mergetel.com/~geostan/index.html Johnny Weissmuller 1904-1984 (Fan site with biography, background information and photos)] Weissmuller, Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny simple:Johnny Weissmuller

June 2

2 June is the 153rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (154th in leap years), with 212 days remaining.

Events


- 455 - The Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks.
- 576 - Benedict I becomes Pope.
- 657 - St. Eugene I becomes Pope.
- 1615 - First Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.
- 1763 - Pontiac's Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.
- 1774 - Intolerable Acts: The Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to let British soldiers into their homes, is reenacted.
- 1780 - The Derby horse race, was first held.
- 1793 - Jean Paul Marat recites the names of 29 people to the French National Convention. Almost all of these are guillotined, followed by 17,000 more over the course of the next year during the Reign of Terror.
- 1800 - First smallpox vaccination in North America, at Trinity, Newfoundland.
- 1835 - P.T. Barnum and his circus begins first tour of the United States.
- 1848 - Slavic congress in Prague begins.
- 1855 - The Portland Rum Riot occurs in Portland, Maine.
- 1865 - American Civil War ends - Forces under Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at Galveston, Texas, becoming the last to do so.
- 1886 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion.
- 1896 - Guglielmo Marconi receives a patent for his newest invention: the radio.
- 1897 - Mark Twain, responding to rumors that he was dead, is quoted by the New York Journal as saying, "The report of my death was an exaggeration."
- 1909 - Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
- 1924 - U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.
- 1925 - Wally Pipp, first baseman of the New York Yankees, asks for a day off due to a headache. He is replaced in the lineup by Lou Gehrig, who also starts the next 2,128 consecutive games.
- 1935 - Baseballer Babe Ruth announces he is going to retire from the sport.
- 1946 - Birth of the Italian Republic: In a referendum Italians decide to turn Italy from a monarchy into a Republic. After this referendum the king of Italy Umberto II di Savoia was exiled.
- 1953 - Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, the first to be televised.
- 1955 - USSR and Yugoslavia sign the Belgrade declaration and thus normalize relations between both countries, discontinued since 1948.
- 1965 - Vietnam War: The first contingent of Australian combat troops arrives in South Vietnam.
- 1966 - Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarumon the Moon, becoming the first US spacecraft to soft land on another world.
- 1967 - Protests in West Berlin against the arrival of the Shah of Iran turn into riots, during which Benno Ohnesorg is killed by a police officer. His death results in the founding of the terrorist group Movement 2 June.
- 1969 - In Ottawa, Canada the National Arts Center opens its doors to the public for the first time.
- 1979 - Pope John Paul II visits his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country.
- 1985 - Serial killer Leonard Lake is arrested near San Francisco, California for shoplifting.
- 1985 - R.J. Reynolds and Nabisco propose a merger
- 1995 - United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone.
- 1997 - Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
- 1998 - Voters in California approved California Proposition 227, abolishing that state's bilingual education program.
- 1998 - The CIH computer virus is discovered in Taiwan.
- 1999 - The Bhutan Broadcasting Service finally brings television transmissions to the Kingdom for the first time.
- 2003 - Thousands of defeated Iraqi troops march on the U.S. occupation headquarters in Baghdad, demanding pay.
- 2004 - The first episode of Ken Jennings's incredible reign as Jeopardy! champion airs. He starts out with $37,201 and would go on to win more than two million dollars.

Births


- 926 - Murakami, Emperor of Japan (d. 967)
- 1535 - Pope Leo XI (d. 1605)
- 1740 - Marquis de Sade, French author (d. 1814)
- 1773 - John Randolph, U.S. Senator from Virginia (d. 1833)
- 1835 - Pope Pius X (d. 1914)
- 1840 - Thomas Hardy, English poet, novelist (d. 1928)
- 1857 - Edward Elgar, English composer (d. 1934)
- 1857 - Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Danish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1919)
- 1863 - Felix Weingartner, Yugoslavian conductor (d. 1942)
- 1865 - George Lohmann, English cricketer (d. 1901)
- 1887 - Howard Johnson, American songwriter (d. 1941)
- 1891 - Thurman Arnold, American attorney and jurist (d. 1969)
- 1899 - Lotte Reiniger, German film director (d. 1981)
- 1904 - Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and actor (d. 1984)
- 1907 - Dorothy West, American writer (d. 1998)
- 1913 - Barbara Pym, English novelist (d. 1980)
- 1917 - Heinz Sielmann, German photographer and filmmaker
- 1920 - Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Polish critic
- 1920 - Tex Schramm, American football team president and general manager (d. 2003)
- 1922 - Charlie Sifford, American golfer
- 1929 - Norton Juster, American author and architect
- 1935 - Carol Shields, American-born novelist (d. 2003)
- 1936 - Sally Kellerman, American actress
- 1940 - King Constantine II of Greece
- 1941 - Stacy Keach, American actor
- 1941 - Charlie Watts, English musician (The Rolling Stones)
- 1942 - Barry Levinson, American producer
- 1943 - Ilayaraja, Music Composer,Tamil Nadu, India
- 1944 - Marvin Hamlisch, American composer and musician
- 1946 - Peter Sutcliffe, English murderer
- 1948 - Jerry Mathers, American actor
- 1949 - Heather Couper, British astronomer
- 1949 - Frank Rich, American theater critic and political columnist
- 1951 - Larry Robinson, Canadian hockey player
- 1953 - Craig Stadler, American golfer
- 1954 - Dennis Haysbert, American actor
- 1955 - Dana Carvey, American actor and comedian
- 1957 - King Lizzard, Las Vegas Entertainer
- 1958 - Lawrence Pfohl, American professional wrestler
- 1959 - Lydia Lunch, American singer
- 1960 - Kyle Petty, American race car driver
- 1960 - Tony Hadley, English Singer
- 1962 - Clyde Drexler, American basketball player
- 1965 - Mark Waugh, Australian cricketer
- 1965 - Steve Waugh, Australian cricketer
- 1971 - Anthony Montgomery, American actor
- 1972 - Wayne Brady, American actor and comedian
- 1974 - Gata Kamsky, American chess player
- 1976 - Earl Boykins, American basketball player
- 1978 - Justin Long, American actor
- 1978 - A.J. Styles, American professional wrestler
- 1982 - Andres Nuiamäe, Estonian soldier (killed in action) (d. 2004)
- 1982 - Jewel Staite, Canadian actress
- 1989 - Freddy Adu, Ghanaian footballer

Deaths


- 829 - Saint Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople (b. 758)
- 1418 - Katherine of Lancaster, queen of Henry III of Castile
- 1567 - Shane O'Neill, Irish chieftain
- 1581 - James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, regent of Scotland
- 1693 - John Wildman, English soldier and politician
- 1701 - Madeleine de Scudéry, French writer (b. 1607)
- 1716 - Ogata Korin, Japanese painter
- 1754 - Ebenezer Erskine, Scottish religious dissenter (b. 1680)
- 1761 - Jonas Alströmer, Swedish industrialist (b. 1685)
- 1785 - Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, French mathematician (b. 1713)
- 1876 - Hristo Botev, Bulgarian revolutionary (b. 1848)
- 1882 - Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian revolutionarist (b. 1807)
- 1901 - George Leslie Mackay, Canadian missionary (b. 1844)
- 1933 - Frank Jarvis, American athlete (b. 1878)
- 1941 - Lou Gehrig, baseball player (b. 1903)
- 1956 - Jean Hersholt, Danish actor and humanitarian (b. 1886)
- 1961 - George S. Kaufman, American playwright (b. 1889)
- 1962 - Vita Sackville-West, English writer, and gardener (b. 1892)
- 1967 - Benno Ohnesorg, German student of Romance languages and literature (b. 1940)
- 1970 - Bruce McLaren, New Zealand car racer, designer, and manufacturer (b. 1937)
- 1970 - Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian poet (b. 1888)
- 1982 - Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Pakistani politician (b. 1904)
- 1987 - Sammy Kaye, American bandleader (b. 1910)
- 1987 - Andres Segovia, Spanish guitarist (b. 1893)
- 1990 - Rex Harrison, English actor (b. 1908)
- 1992 - Phillip Dunne, American film director (b. 1908)
- 1996 - Ray Combs, American game show host and comedian (b. 1956)
- 1996 - Leon Garfield, English children's author (b. 1921)
- 1998 - Sylvester Ritter, American professional wrestler (b. 1953)
- 2001 - Imogene Coca, American actress (b. 1908)
- 2001 - Joey Maxim, American boxer (b. 1922)
- 2003 - Fred Blassie, American professional wrestler (b. 1918)
- 2005 - Samir Kassir, Lebanese journalist and teacher (b. 1950)
- 2005 - George Mikan, American basketball player (b. 1924)

Holidays and observances


- The Greek Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Nicephorus' death - see also March 13
- Italy's Festa della Repubblica (Republic Day), which commemorates the birth of the Repubblica Italiana and the end of the monarchy.

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/2 BBC: On This Day] ---- June 1 - June 3 - May 2 - July 2 -- listing of all days ko:6월 2일 ms:2 Jun ja:6月2日 simple:June 2 th:2 มิถุนายน

1904

1904 (MCMIV) is a leap year starting on a Friday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January-March


- January 7 - The distress signal CQD is established only to be replaced two years later by SOS.
- February 7 - The Great Baltimore Fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
- February 8 - Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur (Lushun) starts Russo-Japanese War
- February 10 – Roger Casement publishes his account of Belgian atrocities in Congo
- February 23 - For $10 million the United States gains control of the Panama Canal Zone.
- March 3 - Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a political recording of a document, using Thomas Edison's cylinder.
- March 4 - Russo-Japanese War: Russian troops in Korea retreat toward Manchuria followed by 100,000 Japanese troops.
- March 8 – The first tunnel beneath the Hudson River completed
- March 21 – Battle of Chumik Shenko – British under general Francis Younghusband defeat ill-equipped Tibetan troops.

April-June


- April 8 - Entente Cordiale signed between the UK and France.
- April 8 - Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times.
- April 8, April 9, and April 10 - Aleister Crowley receives The Book of the Law in Cairo, Egypt.
- April 18 – Hurricane in Goliad, Texas kills 114.
- April 27 - The Australian Labor Party becomes the first such party to gain national government, under Chris Watson.
- April 30 - Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair opens in Saint Louis, Missouri (closes December 1)
- May 4 - First Rolls-Royce manufactured
- May 5 - Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Cy Young of the Boston Americans threw the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
- May 18 - in Paris, 12 nations sign the International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade
- June 15 - A fire aboard the steamboat General Slocum in New York City's East River kills 1000.
- June 16 - Eugen Schauman assassinates Nikolai Bobrikov, Governor-General of Finland.
- June 16 - Leopold Bloom walks through Dublin (First Bloomsday).

July-December


- July 21 - Trans-Siberian railway completed
- July 23 - In St. Louis, Missouri, Charles E. Menches invents the ice cream cone during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
- August 3 - A British expedition under colonel Francis Younghusband takes Lhasa in Tibet
- August 17 – Japanese infantry charge fails to take Port Arthur.
- August 18 - Chris Watson resigns as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by George Reid.
- September 7 - Fire spreads over downtown Baltimore in USA - 1500 buildings destroyed, no known fatalities.
- September 7 - Dalai Lama signs the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty with colonel Francis Younghusband
- October 21 - Russian Baltic Fleet fires on British trawlers it mistakes for Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea, in what would be known as the Dogger Bank incident.
- October 27 - The first underground line of the New York City Subway opens (IRT); the system is now the largest in the United States, and one of the largest in the world.
- November 4 - In Florence, Italy, the Arno River floods.
- November 8 - Theodore Roosevelt defeats Alton B. Parker in the U.S. presidential election
- November 24 - The first successful caterpillar track is made (it would later revolutionize construction vehicles and land warfare).
- December 2 - St. Petersburg Soviet urges run on the banks. Attempt fails and the executive committee is arrested
- December 27 - The stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up premiered in London
- December 31 - The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square, then known as Longacre Square, in New York, New York.

Unknown dates


- Ismael Montes becomes president of Bolivia.
- Herero Wars begin.
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Joseph F. Smith issues a "Second Manifesto" against polygamy.
- 1904-1905 Welsh Revival- Christian revival breaks out in Wales.
- Subject of alcohol and heart attacks first investigated.

Births

January-February


- January 1 - Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Pakistani politician (d. 1982)
- January 3 - Jeane Dixon, American astrologer (d. 1997)
- January 10 - Ray Bolger, American actor, singer, and dancer (d. 1987)
- January 14 - Cecil Beaton, English photographer (d. 1980)
- January 18 - Cary Grant, English actor (d. 1986)
- January 22 - George Balanchine, Russian-born choreographer (d. 1983)
- January 22 - Arkady Gaidar, Russian children's writer (d. 1941)
- January 26 - Ancel Keys, American scientist (d, 2004)
- January 26 - Seán MacBride, Irish statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1988)
- January 29 - Arnold Gehlen, German philosopher (d. 1976)
- January 29 - Luigi Nono, Italian composer (d. 1990)
- February 1 - S. J. Perelman, American humorist and author (d. 1979)
- February 3 - Luigi Dallapiccola, Italian composer (d. 1975)
- February 3 - Pretty Boy Floyd, American gangster (d. 1934)
- February 4 - MacKinlay Kantor, American writer and historian (d. 1977)
- February 11 - Sir Keith Holyoake, Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1983)
- February 16 - George F. Kennan, American diplomat (d. 2005)
- February 20 - Aleksei Kosygin, Premier of the Soviet Union (d. 1980)
- February 29 - Jimmy Dorsey, American bandleader (d. 1957)

March-April


- March 1 - Glenn Miller, American bandleader (d. 1944)
- March 2 - Dr. Seuss, American author (d. 1991)
- March 4 - George Gamow, Ukrainian-born physicist (d. 1968)
- March 6 - Joseph Schmidt, Austrian tenor (d. 1942)
- March 7 - Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi official (d. 1942)
- March 20 - B. F. Skinner, American behavioral psychologist (d. 1990)
- March 26 - Joseph Campbell, American author on mythology (d. 1987)
- March 26 - Xenophon Zolotas, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2004)
- April 3 - Sally Rand, American dancer and actress (d. 1979)
- April 7 - Ralph Bunche, American diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1971)
- April 8 - John Hicks, English economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)
- April 9 - Sharkey Bonano, American jazz musician (d. 1972)
- April 14 - Sir John Gielgud, English actor (d. 2000)
- April 16 - Fifi D'Orsay, Canadian actress (d. 1983)
- April 22 - Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist (d. 1967)
- April 24 - Willem de Kooning, Dutch artist (d. 1997)
- April 26 - Jimmy McGrory, Scottish footballer (d. 1982)
- April 27 - Cecil Day-Lewis, English poet (d. 1972)

May-July


- May 6 - Moshe Feldenkrais, Ukrainian-born engineer (d. 1984)
- May 6 - Harry Martinson, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
- May 11 - Salvador Dalí, Spanish artist (d. 1989)
- May 17 - Jean Gabin, French actor (d. 1976)
- May 21 - Fats Waller, American pianist and comedian (d. 1943)
- May 21 - Robert Montgomery, American actor and director (d. 1981)
- May 27 - Chuhei Nambu, Japanese athlete (d. 1997)
- June 2 - Frantisek Planicka, Czech footballer (d. 1996)
- June 2 - Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and actor (d. 1984)
- June 3 - Jan Peerce, American tenor (d. 1984)
- June 26 - Peter Lorre, Austria-Hugarian-born film actor (d. 1964)
- July 5 - Ernst Mayr, German-born biologist and author (d. 2005)
- July 12 - Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
- July 17 - Tsarevich Alexei of Russia (d. 1918)
- July 28 - Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
- July 31 - Brett Halliday, American writer (d. 1977)

August-December


- August 4 - Witold Gombrowicz, Polish novelist and dramatist (d. 1969)
- August 7 - Ralph Bunche, American diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1971)
- August 16 - Wendell Meredith Stanley, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
- August 17 - Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist (d. 1991)
- August 21 - Count Basie, American musician and bandleader (d. 1984)
- August 22 - Deng Xiaoping, de facto Chinese leader (d. 1997)
- August 23 - Thelma Morgan, Viscountess Furness, American socialite twin (d. 1970)
- August 23 - Gloria Morgan-Vanderbilt, American socialite twin (d. 1965)
- August 28 - Secondo Campini, Italian jet pioneer (d. 1980)
- August 29 - Werner Forssmann, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1979)
- September 9 - Feroze Khan, Pakistani field hockey player (d. 2005)
- September 22 - Joseph Valachi, gangster (d. 1971)
- September 29 - Greer Garson, English actress (d. 1996)
- October 1 - A.K. Gopalan, Indian communist leader (d. 1977)
- October 3 - Charles J. Pedersen, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)
- October 23 - Harvey Penick, American golfer (d. 1995)
- October 25 - Vladimir Peter Tytla, American animator (d. 1968)
- November 2 - Louis Eugène Félix Néel, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
- November 11 - J. H. C. Whitehead, British mathematician (d. 1960)
- November 12 - Jacques Tourneur, French director (d. 1977)
- November 14 - Dick Powell, American actor and singer (d. 1963)
- November 14 - Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1988)
- November 25 - Lillian Copeland, American athlete (d. 1964)
- November 30 - Clyfford Still, American painter (d. 1980)
- December 12 - Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, magazine editor, socialite (d. 1981)
- December 18 - George Stevens, American film director (d. 1975)
- December 25 - Gerhard Herzberg, German-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
- December 26 - Alejo Carpentier, Cuban writer (d. 1980)
- December 30 - Dmitri Borisovich Kabalevsky, Russian composer (d. 1987)

Unknown dates


- Gustave Biéler, Swiss-born hero of World War II (executed) (d. 1944)
- Bernard Castro, Italian inventor (d. 1991)
- J. J. Gibson, Gay psychologist (d. 1979)

Deaths


- January 2 - James Longstreet, American Confederate general (b. 1821)
- January 20 - Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, Russian chemist (b. 1834)
- March 5 - John Lowther du Plat Taylor, British founder of the Army Post Office Corps (b. 1829)
- May 1 - Antonin Dvorak, Czech composer (b. 1841)
- May 19 - Auguste Molinier, French historian (b. 1851)
- June 4 - George Frederick Phillips, Canadian-born military hero (b. 1862)
- July 3 - Theodor Herzl, Austrian founder of Zionism (b. 1860)
- July 5 - Abai Kunanbaiuli, Kazakh poet (b. 1845)
- July 14 - Anton Chekhov, Russian writer (b. 1860)
- July 14 - Paul Kruger, South African resistance leader (b. 1825)
- July 22 - Wilson Barrett, English actor (b. 1846)
- August 6 - Eduard Hanslick, Austrian music critic (b. 1825)
- August 22 - Kate Chopin, American author (b. 1851)
- August 25 - Henri Fantin-Latour, French painter (b. 1836)
- August 29 - Murad V, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1840)
- September 25 - Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1860)
- September 26 - John F. Stairs, Canadian businessman and statesman (b. 1848)
- October 4 - Frédéric Bartholdi, Alsatian sculptor (b. 1834)

Nobel Prizes


- Physics - The Lord Rayleigh
- Chemistry - Sir William Ramsay
- Physiology or Medicine - Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
- Literature - Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray Y Eizaguirre
- Peace - Institut De Droit International Category:1904 ko:1904년 ms:1904 ja:1904年 simple:1904 th:พ.ศ. 2447

1984

:For George Orwell's novel, see Nineteen Eighty-Four. For other uses, see 1984 (disambiguation). 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January


- January 1 - Brunei becomes a fully independent state.
- January 1 - AT&T is broken up into 24 independent units.
- January 5 - Richard Stallman starts developing GNU.
- January 7 - Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
- January 9 - Clara Peller is featured in the "Where's the Beef?" commercial campaign for Wendy's for the first time.
- January 10 - The United States and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations.
- January 23 - Hollywood Hulk Hogan defeats The Iron Sheik to win the WWF Championship, thus beginning Hulkamania.
- January 23 - Pop star Michael Jackson's scalp is seriously burned by pyrotechnics during filming of a Pepsi commercial.
- January 24 - The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale.

February


- February 1 - Medicare comes into effect in Australia.
- February 2 - Melbourne newspaper The Age publishes phone taps incriminating an unknown judge.
- February 3 - Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on the tenth space shuttle mission.
- February 6 - A bomb blast wrecks the Belrose Sydney home of high court judge Richard Gee. High Court Judge, Justice Lionel Murphy is named in Parliament as the judge referred to in the Age tapes as published on February 2.
- February 7 - Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.
- February 9 - Soviet leader Yuri Andropov dies.
- February 13 - Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
- February 18 - Vatican and Italian government sign new concordant changing Roman Catholic as the official religion.
- February 26 - United States Marines pull out of Beirut,Lebanon.
- February 29 - Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announces his retirement.

March


- March 5 - Iran accuses Iraq of the use of chemical weapons - UN condemns the use on March 30.
- March 5 - Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi orders an attack on the Golden Temple, the Sikh holy spot.
- March 6 - Twelve month long strike in British coal industry begins See UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985).
- March 14 - Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and three others are seriously injured in a gun attack by the UVF.
- March 16 - The CIA station chief in Beirut, William Buckley, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists Islamic Jihad and later dies in captivity.
- March 22 - Teachers at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California are charged with Satanic ritual abuse of the children in the school. The charges were later dropped as completely unfounded.
- March 23 - Sarah Tisdall, the young British civil servant who told The Guardian newspaper that cruise missiles were coming to Britain, is sentenced to six months imprisonment.
- March 24 - Wran Government re-elected in NSW for a 4th term.

April


- April 4 - President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
- April 12 - Palestinian gunmen take Israeli bus number 300 hostage. Israeli special forces storm the bus freeing the hostages (1 hostage, 2 hijackers killed). 2 other hijackers were captured and then killed in secret service interrogations, causing a major scandal and secret service upheaval (Kav 300 affair).
- April 13 - India launches Operation Meghdoot, as most of the Siachen Glacier in Kashmir comes under Indian control.
- April 17 - WPC Yvonne Fletcher is shot dead by a secluded gunman during a siege outside the Libyan Embassy in London in the event known as the 1984 Libyan Embassy Siege.
- April 19 - Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.
- April 25 - End of term for Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Al-Mustain Billah ibni Almarhum Sultan Sir Abu Bakar Riayatuddin Al-Muadzam Shah as the 7th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- April 26 - Baginda Almutawakkil Alallah Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail, Sultan of Johor becomes the 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.

May


- May 2 - The Liverpool International Garden Festival opens in Liverpool.
- May 8 - The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
- May 8 - Denis Lortie kills three government employees in the National Assembly of Quebec building.
- May 11 - A transit of Earth from Mars takes place.
- May 14 - The one dollar coin is introduced in Australia.
- May 19 - Game show contestant Michael Larson takes $100,000 in winnings from the game show Press Your Luck. It is later revealed he won the money by focusing exclusively on two squares of the Press Your Luck "Big Board."
- May 22 - Canadian heiress Helen Branch declared legally dead (she disappeared 1977)
- May 27 - Fluminense wins the Brazilian soccer league, against the Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama.

June


- June 5 - The Indian government begins Operation Blue Star, the planned attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
- June 6 - Indian troops storm the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the Sikh's holiest shrine, killing an estimated 1000 people.
- June 8 - A deadly F5 tornado nearly destroys the town of Barneveld, Wisconsin, killing nine people, injuring nearly 200, and causing over $25,000,000 in damage.
- June 8 - The film Ghostbusters is released into theaters -- becoming a summer blockbuster hit with the song "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker Jr. becoming a Top 40 hit.
- June 20 - The biggest exam shake-up in the British education system in over 10 years is announced with O-level and CSE exams to be replaced by a new exam, the GCSE.
- June 22 - The official name of the Turkish city Urfa is changed into Sanliurfa.
- June 22 - Inaugural flight of Virgin Atlantic.
- June 27 - France beat Spain 2-0 to win Euro 84.
- June 30 - John Turner becomes Canada's seventeenth prime minister. Hurray!

July-August


- July 9 - Lightning sets fire to York Minster.
- July 10 - British custom officials open a wooden crate of diplomatic post due to an unpleasant smell and find the body of Alhaji Umaru Dikko, former transportation minister of Nigeria
- July 14 - New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon calls a snap election and is heavily defeated by opposition Labour leader David Lange.
- July 18 - In San Ysidro, California, 41-year-old James Oliver Huberty sprays a McDonald's restaurant with gunfire, killing 21 people before being shot dead.
- July 18 - The National Crime Authority is estabished in Australia.
- July 21 - In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in what is apparently the first robot-related death in the United States.
- July 23 - Vanessa Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown, after nude photos of her appeared in "Penthouse" magazine.
- July 25 - Salyut 7 Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
- July 28 - Opening day of the 1984 Olympics
- August 1 - Australian banks are deregulated.
- August 4 - The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso.
- August 16 - John De Lorean is acquitted of all eight charges of possessing and distributing cocaine.
- August 21 - Half a million people in Manila demonstrate against the regime of Ferdinand Marcos.
- August 21 - The federal budget is first televised in Australia.
- August 30 - STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.

September-October


- September 2 - 7 people are shot dead and 12 are wounded in a bikie shootout between rival gangs Bandidos and Comancheros in the Sydney suburb of Milperra.
- September 4 - The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, led by Brian Mulroney wins 211 seats in the House of Commons, forming the largest majority government in Canadian history
- September 5 - STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
- September 5 - Western Australia becomes the last Australian state to abolish capital punishment.
- September 17 - Brian Mulroney becomes Canada's eighteenth prime minister.
- September 26 - United Kingdom and People's Republic of China sign the initial agreement to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.
- September 4 - The Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends television series was first broadcasted on ITV.
- October 5 - Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger (41-6).
- October 11 - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
- October 12 - The PIRA attempts to assassinate the British Cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.
- October 19 - Polish secret police arrests Jerzy Popiełuszko, a Catholic priest, because of his support of the Solidarity movement. His dead body is found in a reservoir 11 days later on October 30.
- October 31 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards. Riots soon broke out in New Delhi, and some 2,700 innocent Sikhs were killed.

November


- November 2 - Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
- November 6 - Ronald Reagan defeats Walter F. Mondale in the U.S. presidential election with 59% of the popular vote, the highest since Richard Nixon's 61% victory in 1972. Reagan carries 49 states and Mondale manages to win only his home state of Minnesota by a mere 3,761 vote margin and the District of Columbia.
- November 19 - A series of explosions at the PEMEX petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City ignites a major fire and kills about 500 people.
- November 25 - 36 of Britain and Ireland's top pop musicians gathered 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.
- November 26 - Fmr NSW Corrective Services Minister Rex Jackson appears in court on conspiracy charges for the early release of prisoners.
- November 28 - Over 250 years after their deaths, William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made Honorary Citizens of the United States.
- November 30 - The Tamil Tigers begin the purge of the Sinhalese from North and East Sri Lanka, and 127 are killed.

December


- December 1 - The first half of the Manila LRT opens from Baclaran to Central Terminal.
- December 2 - Bob Hawke's government is re-elected in Australia with a reduced majority.
- December 3 - Bhopal Disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 2,000 people outright and injures anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.
- December 3 - British Telecom privatised.
- December 19 - The People's Republic of China and United Kingdom signs the Sino-British Joint Declaration which concerns the future of Hong Kong.
- December 22 - Four African-American youths, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, James Ramseur, and Darrell Cabey, board an express train in The Bronx borough of New York City. They attempt to rob Bernhard Hugo Goetz, who shoots them. The event starts a national debate about urban crime, which was a plague in 1980s America.
- December 22 - In Malta, prime minister Dom Mintoff resigns. Karmenu Mifsud-Bonnici succeeds him.
- December 28 - A Soviet cruise missile plunges into Inarinjärvi lake in Finnish Lapland. Finnish authorities announce the fact in public on January 3, 1985
- December 31 - Rajiv Gandhi becomes prime minister of India.

Unknown dates


- Ethiopian famine begins.
- A peace agreement between Kenya and Somalia was signed in the Egyptian capital Cairo in December 1984. With this agreement, in which Somalia officially renounced its historical territorial claims, relations between the two countries began to improve.

Births

January-April


- January 1 - Keyra Augustina, model
- January 2 - Lauren Bush, model
- January 3 - Maya Ababadjani, actress
- January 3 - Charlotte Marshall, model
- January 4 - Mey Vidal
- January 5 - Tiffany Teen
- January 12 - Chaunte Howard
- January 13 - Eleni Ioannou, Greek martial artist (d. 2004)
- January 15 - Reena Kumari
- January 15 - Megan Quann, swimmer
- January 19 - Zakia Mrisho Mohamed
- January 25 - Ines Cudna, model
- January 26 - Rebecca Ritters, actress
- January 26 - Kelly Stables, actress
- January 26 - Luo Xuejuan, swimmer
- January 29 - Natalie du Toit, South African swimmer
- January 30 - Tan Xue
- January 31 - Ashley Blue
- February 10 - Kim Hyo Jin, Korean actress
- February 12 - Alexandra Dahlström, actress
- February 25 - Xing Huina, Chinese athlete
- February 28 - Karolina Kurkova, model
- March 20 - Christy Carlson Romano, actress
- March 20 - Marcus Vick, American football player
- March 2