1979

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1979 () was a common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. It was designated:

The year of the goat, according to Chinese horoscope.
The International Year of the Child, proclaimed by the UN.

Events

January

1 January: to the west of the Sisargas Islands (opposite Galicia) the Greek oil tanker Andros Patria, which causes a black tide that will reach the Galician coast in the following days.
January 1: The Vietnamese army invades Cambodia.
January 1: the UN proclaims it as the International Year of the Child.
2 January: in San Sebastián (Spain), the terrorist band ETA is a firefighter to the infantry commander José María Hernández Herrera. In Pamplona, the explosive force of the National Police Corps Francisco Berlanga dies, trying to deactivate an explosive device.
3 January: in Madrid, ETA assassinates the military governor of the area, Major General Constantine Ortin Gil.
7 January: Vietnamese forces occupy Nom Pen, the capital of Cambodia, with the help of Cambodians opposed to the Pol Pot regime.
8 January: In Montevideo (Uruguay), Argentina and Chile sign, before the papal envoy Cardinal Antonio Samoré, an agreement requesting the mediation of the Holy See.
8 January: In Buenos Aires, the Montonera leadership gives a statement about the difference with Chile: they offer the Argentine dictatorship the forces of the Montonero Army to assist in the defence of national sovereignty.
January 16: the former monarch Reza Pahlevi, Shah of Iran, accompanied by his wife Farah Diba, left Iran on the way to exile.
25 January: Alberto Fuentes Mohr died in Guatemala City.
January 26: Pope John Paul II arrives in Mexico on his first visit to this country.

February
1 February: the Ayatollah Ruhollah Jomeini returns to Tehran (Iran), to shape the Iranian revolution after the departure of the Shah of Iran.
2 February: In Spain, the Government grants a conditional release to the ultra-decoy Jorge Cesarski.
3 February: In Madrid, Olof Palme gives a conference in a commemorative event of the centenary of the PSOE.
6 February: El Salvador's government troops launch an offensive against the guerrillas.
6 February: The Second Congress of UCD begins in Palma de Mallorca.
6 February: former Pakistani Prime Minister Ali Bhutto sentenced to gallows.
7 February: Colonel Demis S. Nguesso becomes the new President of the Republic of the Congo.
February 7: In Iran, revolutionaries take control of the police, the courts and the administration. Last session of the National Consultation Assembly.
10 February: In Naples an unknown epidemic causes the death of sixty people, mostly young children.
10 February: hundreds of people die in Bolivia after catastrophic floods.
11 February: in Iran, after two days of fighting between revolutionaries, military and the Imperial Guard, with the announcement of the neutrality of the