SBS50: Biggest Stories

One of the stories that shook the world in 1975 was Cambodia’s genocide. Communist forces lead by Pol Pot attempted to socially engineer a classless, peasant society. The Khmer Rouge took aim at intellectuals, city residents, ethnic Vietnamese, civil servants, and religious leaders.

1976 was marked by a dramatic hostage-rescue mission carried out by Israeli soldiers at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on July the 4th.

1977 was significant in the entertainment world for two events. Star Wars hit theatres for the first time and went onto become the third highest grossing film ever. And then - sad news for rock ‘n roll fans – the premature death of Elvis Presley.

In 1978 Egypt made peace with Israel. The Camp David Accords recognized the rights of the Palestinian people, and a process was to be implemented guaranteeing their full autonomy within five years.

In 1979 Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s first female Prime Minister. She served as Prime Minister until 1990 and during her time in office earned the nickname the "Iron Lady" for her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

1980 was a dark year for the world of popular music. On Tuesday the 9th of December, singer John Lennon was shot dead outside his New York apartment by Mark David Chapman, a mentally ill young man.

1981 was a year connected to assassinations, there was an attempt on the Pope and one on American president, Ronald Reagan. But the shots that rang loudest around the world came from Egypt, when an army officer, Khalid Isambouli, and three other soldiers set upon Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat during a victory parade, killing him and ten others.

1982 was the year that the humble smiley face emoticon first made its appearance online at Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania.

In December 1983, Treasurer Paul Keating announced that the Australian dollar would be floated. Removing a fixed exchange rate meant the value of the dollar could automatically adjust in response to how it was trading on the foreign exchange market.

1984 was the year Britain and China sealed Hong Kong’s fate. Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Zhao Ziyang signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.

One of the biggest stories in 1986 was the explosion of a Soviet nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine. Labelled the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, Chernobyl resulted in the release of radioactive material across much of Europe, affecting over half a million people.

1987 was marked by a massive loss of wealth across the world when stock markets crashed on October the 19th – a day known as Black Monday. The global crash began in Hong Kong and spread to Europe, also hitting the United States. Australia and New Zealand’s markets were affected a day later.

In 1988 much of Australia was in party mode. On January the 26th, 200 years after the arrival of the First Fleet, we celebrated our bicentenary in a sunny spectacle focused on where it all began — Sydney Harbour.

In 1989, after almost 30 years of division, the Berlin Wall came down paving the way for German re-unification. On November the 9th the East German government announced its citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin any time they wished.

In 1990 Nelson Mandela was released from jail paving the way for democracy in South Africa. Arrested in 1962 for his campaign to get equal rights for black South Africans, Nelson Mandela was charged with treason and spent 27 years in a notorious prison on Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town.

One of the stories that shook the world in 1991 was the start of Operation Desert Storm. A coalition led by the United States began military operations against Iraq after the United Nations condemned Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

In 1992 the demolition of the Babri Mosque in India reverberated around the world. Situated in in Ayodhya, a town revered as the birthplace of the Hindu God Lord Ram, the mosque was the focus of a long debate over whether a temple existed beforehand on the site.

In 1993 the world of tennis changed in an instant when Monica Seles was stabbed during a match against Magdalena Maleeva in Germany.

After 27 years in exile, 1994 was marked by Yasser Arafat’s return to the Gaza Strip. The P-L-O leader gave a triumphant address to 200 thousand Palestinians in Gaza city.

One of our biggest stories of the past four decades took place in 1995, when an American space shuttle docked with the Russian space station Mir. Despite previous cold war animosity, Russian astronauts greeted the Americans with bread, salt and a kiss on the cheek.

1996 saw a huge leap in the number of computers which could host the internet, rising from 1 to 12 million. The World Wide Web was starting to take off as a means of information dissemination, commerce, and collaboration across the globe.

Where were you on the 31st of August 1997? It may be tough to remember a specific date, but you will likely recall the shocking death of Diana, Princess of Wales in a car crash in Paris, chased by Paparazzi.

It was the scandal that nearly brought down an American president. In 1998 US President Bill Clinton finally admitted to having a relationship with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, after he previously denied they’d engaged in sexual relations.

It was the disaster that never happened. In 1999 there was a significant concern about the Y-2-K bug, with predictions that computers would fail at beginning of the new millennium.

In the year 2000 Sydney hosted the Olympic games. Previously Australia hosted the world’s biggest sporting spectacle in Melbourne in 1956.