The world at your birth

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

    * November 2 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: At the White House Rose Garden, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honor American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
    * November 2 - Able Archer 83 began, a NATO exercise that many Soviet officials misinterpreted as a nuclear first strike, causing the last nuclear scare of the Cold War.
    * November 3 - The Reverend Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for the 1984 Democratic Party presidential nomination.
    * November 5 - The Byford Dolphin rig diving bell accident off the coast of Norway. Five divers are killed and one severely wounded in an explosive decompression accident.
    * November 11 - Ronald Reagan becomes the first U.S. President to address the Diet, Japan's national legislature.
    * November 13 - The first United States cruise missiles arrive at Greenham Common Airbase in England amid protests from peace campaigners.
    * November 15 - The Turkish part of Cyprus declares independence.
    * November 16 - A jury in Gretna, Louisiana acquits Ginny Foat of the murder of Argentine businessman Moses Chaiyo.
    * November 17 - The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is founded.
    * November 19 - An attampted hijacking of the Aeroflot Flight 6833 in Soviet Georgia results in several dead and wounded.
    * November 24 - Lynda Mann, 15, is found raped and strangled in the village of Narborough, England (Colin Pitchfork is sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988).
    * November 26 - Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly UK£26 million are taken from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport. Only a fraction of the gold is ever recovered, and only 2 men are convicted of the crime.
    * November 27 - A Colombian Avianca Flight 11 crashes near Barajas Airport of Madrid, Spain killing 181 of the 192 on board.
    * November 29 - Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: The United Nations General Assembly passes United Nations Resolution 37/37, stating that the Soviet Union should withdraw from Afghanistan.
    * December 2 - Michael Jackson's world famous music video for "Thriller" is broadcast for the first time. It will become the most often repeated and famous music video of all time and increase his own popularity and the record sales of the album "Thriller".
    * December 5 - ICIMOD established and inaugurated with its headquarters in Kathmandu, Nepal, and legitimised through an Act of Parliament in Nepal in the same year.
    * December 7 - Two Spanish passenger planes collide on the foggy runway at a Madrid airport killing 90.
    * December 9 - The Australian Dollar is floated, by Federal treasurer Paul Keating. Under the old flexible peg system, the Reserve Bank bought and sold all Australian dollars and cleared the market at the end of the day. This initiative is taken by the government of Bob Hawke.
    * December 10 - Military rule ends and democracy is restored in Argentina.
    * December 11 - Grêmio (Brazil) becomes the new soccer world champion, after beating Hamburger SV (Germany) by 2-1.
    * December 13 - The Denver Nuggets and the visiting Detroit Pistons combine for an NBA record 370 points, with Detroit winning in triple overtime, 186-184.
    * December 17 - A discotheque fire in Madrid, Spain, kills 83 people.
    * December 17 - A Provisional IRA car bomb kills 6 Christmas shoppers and injures 90 outside Harrods in London.
    * December 27 - A propane explosion in Buffalo, New York kills five firefighters and two civilians.
    * December 29 - The Reverend Jesse Jackson travels to Syria to secure the release of U.S. Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman, who has been in Syrian captivity after being shot down over the country on a reconnaissance mission.
    * December 31 - Brunei gains independence from the United Kingdom.
    * December 31 - Two bombs explode in France. One on the Paris train kills 3 and injures 19. The other at Marseille station kills 2 and injures 34.