Events Date 1979 March | History by KabAstro

The Ordeal of Patty Hearst

Mar 4 "The Ordeal of Patty Hearst", television movie directed by Paul Wendkos, premieres on CBS

Mar 4 200th episode of "All in the Family"

Catholic Encyclical

Mar 4 Pope John Paul II publishes his first encyclical "Redemptor Hominis"

Mar 4 US Voyager I photo reveals Jupiter's rings
Mar 5 Iran resumes petroleum exports
Mar 5 Voyager I's closest approach to Jupiter (172,000 miles)

People's Choice Awards

Mar 7 5th People's Choice Awards: Burt Reynolds & Olivia Newton-John win (Motion Picture) and Alan Alda, Mary Tyler Moore & Carol Burnett win (TV)

Mar 7 Baseball exhibition season opens with semi-pro & amateur umpires

Baseball Hall of Fame

Mar 7 Warren Giles and Hack Wilson selected for the Baseball Hall of Fame

Mar 8 1st extraterrestrial volcano discovered on Jupiter's satellite Io
Mar 8 China withdraws invasion troops from Vietnam
Mar 8 Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) transported 38 miles overland from Palmdale

The Passage

Mar 9 "The Passage", directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Anthony Quinn, is released in the United States

Mar 9 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll

Sports History

Mar 9 MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn orders baseball to give equal access to female reporters

Mar 10 Eubie Blake, a 92-year old ragtime piano player and composer, and Gregory Hines are musical guest on Saturday Night Live
Mar 11 Randy Hold receives 67 min in penalties in a 60 min NHL hockey game
Mar 13 European Monetary System is established, ECU created
Mar 13 Gairy dictatorship in Grenada overthrown by New Jewel Movement

NHL Record

Mar 13 NHL New York Islanders Mike Bossy's 5th career hat trick

Mar 14 Hawker Siddeley Trident plane crashes into a factory near Beijing, China, killing at least 200
Mar 15 Apparat releases Newdos + 2.1 for Radio Shack's TRS-80

NHL Record

Mar 15 Isle's Bryan Trottier's 5th career hat trick

Mar 15 Sarfraz takes 9-86 at MCG as Australia lose 7-5 to lose the Test

Music History

Mar 16 CBS-TV airs "Wings Over the World" with Paul McCartney

Mar 17 Ice Dance Championship at Vienna won by N Linichuk & G Karponosov USSR
Mar 17 Ice Pairs Championship at Vienna won by Tai Babilonia & R Gardner USA
Mar 17 Men's Figure Skating Champ in Vienna won by Vladimir Kovalev (USSR)
Mar 17 The Penmanshiel Tunnel in Berwickshire, Scotland, collapses during engineering works, killing two workers
Mar 17 Wales beats England, 27-3 at the National Stadium, Cardiff for its 2nd consecutive Five Nations Rugby Championship and record 21st outright title; record 4th straight Triple Crown
Mar 17 Worlds Ladies' Figure Skating Champ in Vienna won by Linda Fratianne
Mar 18 "On the 20th Century" closes at St James Theater NYC after 460 performances
Mar 18 Battles between Kurds & Iranians break in Sananday, Iran
Mar 19 US House of Representatives begins live TV broadcasts via C-SPAN
Mar 21 Egyptian Parliament unanimously approve peace treaty with Israel
Mar 22 Israeli parliament approves peace treaty with Egypt
Mar 22 NHL votes to accept 4 WHA teams (Oilers, Jets, Nordiques & Whalers)
Mar 22 Provisional Irish Republican Army assassinates Richard Sykes, the British ambassador to the Netherlands, in The Hague
Mar 22 The Provisional Irish Republican Army explode 24 bombs in various locations across Northern Ireland

Boxing Title Fight

Mar 23 Larry Holmes TKOs Osvaldo Ocasio in 7 for heavyweight boxing title

Mar 23 Wings release "Goodnight Tonight"
Mar 24 "Ballroom" closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 116 performances

Sports History

Mar 24 10 rebounds & 10 assists, as the Spartans cruise to a 101-67 by Penn Mich State's Earvin "Magic" Johnson registers triple-double 29 pts

Cricket History

Mar 24 1st appearance as Australian cricket captain for Kim Hughes

Mar 24 Columbia flown on carrier aircraft lands at Kennedy Space Center
Mar 25 AIAW Women's Basketball Tournament, Old Dominion beat Louisiana Tech 75-65 in Greensboro

Sports History

Mar 25 Czech tennis star Martina Navratilova retains her WTA Tour Championship with a 6–3, 3–6, 6–2 win over American teenager Tracey Austin in NYC

Mar 25 Major riot at Bourda prevents day's play in WSC Supertest

PGA Players Championship

Mar 25 PGA Tournament Players Championship, Sawgrass CC: Lanny Wadkins wins in windy conditions, 5 strokes ahead of runner-up Tom Watson

Mar 25 Space Shuttle Columbia arrives at Kennedy Space Centre to prepare for its first launch, which would eventually happen in 1981
Mar 26 41st NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Michigan State beats Indiana State, 75-64; marks start of rivalry between future Hall of Famers Magic Johnson and Larry Bird; highest-rated game in history of televised college basketball

Treaty of Interest

Mar 26 Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat sign the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C.

President of Egypt and Nobel Laureate Anwar Sadat

Mar 26 Michigan State Spartans snaps Indiana State's 33-game winning streak
Mar 26 MLB San Diego Padres & San Francisco Giants announce plans to play exhibition series in Tokyo but Giant players reject it
Mar 26 OPEC makes full 14.5% oil price increase for 1979 effective on April 1
Mar 27 US Supreme Court rules 8-1 that cops can't randomly stop cars
Mar 28 A partial meltdown at Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the US results in the release of radioactive gas and iodine into the atmosphere but no deaths
Mar 28 British government of Prime Minister Jim Callaghan (Labour Party) falls
Mar 28 Frank Lazarus & Dick Vosburgh's stage musical comedy "A Day in Hollywood/A Night in Ukraine" premieres at the Mayfair Theatre, London, England
Mar 29 Andrew Hilditch given out handled the ball v Pakistan at WACA
Mar 29 Caryl Churchill's "Cloud Nine" premieres in London
Mar 29 Delhi beats Karnataka by 399 runs to win Cricket's Ranji Trophy
Mar 29 Last day of Test cricket for Pakistani cricketer Mushtaq Mohammad

Palace of Westminster

Mar 30 Airey Neave, a British politician, is killed by a car bomb as he exits the Palace of Westminster. The Irish National Liberation Army claims responsibility.

Mar 31 133rd Grand National: Maurice Barnes victorious aboard Rubstic; first Scottish-trained horse to win the event
Mar 31 24th Eurovision Song Contest: Gali Atari and Milk and Honey for Israel wins singing "Hallelujah" in Jerusalem
Mar 31 Montreal Canadiens beat visiting Pittsburgh Penguins, 5-3 to become just the 2nd team in NHL history to win 50 (or more) games for 4 straight years
Mar 31 The last British soldier leaves the Maltese Islands. Malta declares its Freedom Day (Jum il-Helsien).