March 1979

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March 26, 1979: Voyager 1 makes humanity's closest approach to Jupiter
March 28, 1979: Three Mile Island nuclear reactor meltdown happens in U.S. state of Pennsylvania
March 28, 1979: British Prime Minister Callaghan loses "no confidence" motion by one vote, 311 to 310

The following events occurred in March 1979:

March 1, 1979 (Thursday)

Harvey Bailey[5]
  • Died:
    • Harvey Bailey, 91, American bank robber who stole more than one million dollars between 1921 and 1933, then stayed in federal prison until 1964; he later wrote an autobiography titled Robbing Banks Was My Business[6]
    • Mustafa Barzani, 75, Kurdish leader who led armed fighting against both Iran and Iraq for a self-governing Kurdish homeland, died of lung cancer in an American hospital[7]

March 2, 1979 (Friday)

March 3, 1979 (Saturday)

  • Italian downhill skier Leonardo David was fatally injured during an FIS Alpine SKI World Cup race at Lake Placid, New York. David, an 18-year old rookie, had won his first World Cup race less than a month earlier on February 7 at Oslo, and was less than 100 meters from the end of the 3,028 m (9,934 ft) course when he lost control, fell, and "spun several times and slid through the finish line"[9] He got back up, walked over to his team coach and collapsed while bending down to take off his skis. He never regained consciousness and would remain in a coma until his death on February 26, 1985.
  • Died: Harry Cain, controversial U.S. Senator for Washington from 1946 to 1953.

March 4, 1979 (Sunday)

  • Previously unknown to astronomers, rings were discovered around the planet Jupiter by Voyager 1, the U.S. space probe.[10]
  • Pope John Paul II issued his first encyclical, Redemptor hominis (The Redeemer of Man), setting out the goals for his pontificate and proposed solutions for contemporary human problems. In the first paragraph, titled "At the close of the second Millennium", the Pope wrote that "this time...is already very close to the year 2000. At this moment it is difficult to say what mark that year will leave on the face of human history," but added that "it will be the year of a great Jubilee" that "will recall and reawaken in us in a special way our awareness of the key truth of faith which Saint John expressed at the beginning of his Gospel."[11]
  • Yes-or-no elections were held in the Soviet Union for the Communist Party nominees in each electoral district for the official parliament, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Voting was mandatory for all eligible citizens, who were each presented with the name of the Communist candidate for the 750-member Soviet of Nationalities and the 750-member Soviet of the Union.[12]
  • Died: Willi Unsoeld, 52, American mountain climber and member of the first U.S. team to scale Mount Everest, was killed in an avalanche along with a member of a 12-student expedition from Evergreen State College while descending Mount Rainier in the U.S. state of Washington.

March 5, 1979 (Monday)

  • The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times adopted the Pinyin system of spelling Chinese names that had been implemented on January 1 by the government of the People's Republic of China for English-language press releases. Since the start of the century, the Times had used the Wade–Giles system. Among the updates revisions were "Beijing" for "Peking" and "Deng Xiaoping" for "Teng Hsiao-ping", as well as China's Xinhua News Agency itself, formerly "Hsinhua".[13][14]
  • MetrôRio, the first underground subway in Brazil's largest city, Rio de Janeiro, was opened with the inauguration of a 3.2 mi (5.1 km) segment linking the neighborhoods of Gloria and Cidade Nova.[15]
  • Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Jupiter, coming within 172,000 miles (277,000 km) of the largest planet in the Solar System.
  • SGR 0525−66, the first astronomical object to be detected from Earth as a "soft gamma repeater" — a neutron star that emits large bursts of gamma-ray and X-ray radiation at irregular intervals— was observed by two Soviet space probes and, 11 seconds later, by a U.S. probe, Helios 2 as all Earth-launched instruments were hit by a large blast of gamma radiation at approximately at 1551 UTC. The radiation was believed to be a magnetar giant flare, the first identified,[16] a remnant of the supernova of a star in another galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, an estimated 163,000 light-years from Earth.

March 6, 1979 (Tuesday)

  • The People's Republic of China announced that it had started withdrawing troops from Vietnam.[17] after 17 days of war. The cost of the three-week Sino-Vietnamese War to Vietnam was the destruction of bridges, roads, provincial hospitals and the electrical power grid in the Lao Cai, Lang Son and Cao Bang provinces.[18]
  • Voters in the U.S. Virgin Islands overwhelmingly rejected a proposed constitution that would have provided limited self-government for the U.S. territory. Out of a little more than 10,000 voters, less than 44 percent approved the proposal for an elected governor and territorial legislature.
  • Died: Charles Wagenheim, 83, was beaten to death by his caregiver, Stephanie Boone, after a confrontation with her for forging checks.[19]

March 7, 1979 (Wednesday)

  • Operation Rekstok, a series of South African raids in Angola against bases of the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) as part of the South African Border War,[20] in coordination with a simultaneous raid by the South African Defence Force into Zambia against the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), Operation Saffraan.[21]
  • World Team Tennis (WTT), which had operated for five seasons, suspended further operations after one of its two remaining teams folded. During summer of 1978 season, WTT had competed with 10 franchises that each played a 44-game schedule.[22] During the off-season, however, teams dropped out of the league, one by one, and after January, only the Phoenix Racquets and the Golden Gaters of San Francisco were still operating. Citing economic problems, Phoenix announced that it would go out of business. The Golden Gaters, the only team left in the WTT announced later in the day that, since "they had been left with no opposition", they "were forced to conclude that there would not be a season" in 1979.[23][24] WTT would return in 1981 with a shorter schedule.[25]
  • Died:
    • Andres Figueroa Cordero, 54, one of four Puerto Rican terrorists who entered the U.S. Capitol on March 1, 1954, and shot five U.S. Representatives during a session of Congress, died of cancer in his hometown of Aguada, Puerto Rico, a little more than six months after his release from federal prison.
    • Lei Chen, 81, former government minister the Kuomintang Party government in mainland China and later in Taiwan, who later became an opposition leader and was jailed for 13 years for sedition.[26]

March 8, 1979 (Thursday)

March 9, 1979 (Friday)

March 10, 1979 (Saturday)

  • An estimated 15,000 women and girls walked off their jobs and left schools to march in protest against the restriction of rights and privileges under the new Shi'ite Islamic regime, defying calls by the Ayatollah Khomeini that they should wear the chador to comply with Shia beliefs regarding female modesty.[33] Although women continued in professional work, by 1981, restrictions on female wardrobe would be put into place and continue until the death of Khomeini in 1989.[34]
  • Born:

March 11, 1979 (Sunday)

  • The Battle of Lukaya, a turning point in the ongoing Uganda–Tanzania War occurred at Lukaya, when the Ugandan Army was decisively defeated by Tanzanian troops and had its war making ability crippled.[35] The victory gave Tanzanian troops and Ugandan rebels a key bridge across the Katonga River, and removed the chief geographic obstacle standing in the way of the capital, Kampala, 60 miles (97 km) away.
  • The first competition of the new Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) organization, which had been founded by racing team owners dissatisfied with the United States Auto Club, was held as the first of 12 races in its 1979 series. Conducted at Phoenix International Raceway at Avondale, Arizona, the "Arizona Republic/Jimmy Bryan 150 was won by Gordon Johncock.
  • Iran formally withdrew from the CENTO (the Central Treaty Organisation), its alliance with the United Kingdom, Pakistan and Turkey. Pakistan followed the next day[36] and CENTO, reduced to an alliance between two members of NATO, disbanded by the end of the month.
  • Died:
    • Victor Kilian, 88, American film and TV actor, was beaten to death by burglars at his home in Hollywood. Kilian and his fellow actor, Charles Wagenheim (who had been murdered five days earlier) had recently acted in the filming of an episode of the TV show All in the Family.[37] The episode was aired on March 20, 1979, nine after days Kilian's death.
    • Charlie Wiggins, 81, African-American auto racer during the 1920s and 1930s, from injuries sustained more than 40 years earlier in 1936.[38]
    • Rallapalli Ananta Krishna Sharma, 86, Indian scholar and noted composer of Carnatic music

March 12, 1979 (Monday)

March 13, 1979 (Tuesday)

  • Maurice Bishop led a successful coup in the South American island nation of Grenada while Prime Minister Eric Gairy was out of the country at the United Nations. After Gairy had flown to New York, Bishop lead an attack on the police barracks and the broadcast studios of Radio Grenada, and Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Preudhomme persuaded the police to surrender by 4:00 in the afternoon.[41][42] After ruling for more than three years as leader of Grenada's People's Revolutionary Government, Bishop would be deposed by his deputy prime minister, Bernard Coard, then executed by a firing squad, after which the United States would invade the island to remove Coard from office.
  • The new European Currency Unit (ECU) came in to use after France agreed to link the value of its monetary currency, the franc, to the currencies of West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark.[43] It replaced the European Unit of Account (EUA) at parity in 1979, and would later be replaced by the euro on January 1, 1999.
  • Alia Royal Jordanian Flight 600 crashed, killing 45 of the 64 people on board when it flew into a thunderstorm while attempting a landing in Qatar and a downdraft caused the aircraft to drop 750 feet.[44]
  • Michael Prokes, a survivor of the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana, committed suicide during a press conference in Modesto, California.[45][46] Prokes called a press conference in a Modesto motel room. Eight reporters attended. After reading a statement, Prokes excused himself, went into the bathroom, and shot himself in the head with a .38 revolver. His suicide note ended with the words, "If my death doesn't prompt another look at what brought about the end of Jonestown, then life wasn't worth living anyway."
  • Born:
  • Died: Mahmoud Jafarian, 50, Iranian broadcaster and former director of the Pars News Agency for the Shah of Iran, was executed by firing squad after a brief hearing by the Islamic Revolutionary Court, along with the former news director for Iran's national television and radio network, Parviz Nikkhwah.[47]

March 14, 1979 (Wednesday)

  • A CAAC Trident airplane crashed into a factory near Beijing, killing 32 people on the ground and all 11 people on the airplane.[48][49]
  • Thirty people were burned to death and 22 others seriously injured in Greece, in a collision between a Greek bus and a Yugoslavian tanker hauling gasoline.[50] The disaster took place north of Evzonoi in central Macedonian Greece, near the border crossing to Bogorodica in the SR Macedonia of Yugoslavia.
  • At the Geneva Airport in Switzerland, a prisoner exchange took place between the nation of Israel and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), with Israel releasing 76 Palestinians from multiple organizations in exchange for Israeli Army private Abraham Amram, who had been held captive in Lebanon for almost a year. In an arrangement made by the Swiss-based International Committee of the Red Cross, Private Amram (who had been captured on April 5, 1978) was flown from Damascus, Syria, to Geneva on a Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Tu-154, and 60 Palestinian men and six women were flown to Geneva on an El Al Boeing 707. Ten other Palestinians elected to stay in the occupied West Bank.[51]
  • Born: Ellie Greenwood, Scottish distance runner who held the record for fastest 100 km run for a woman; in Dundee.
  • Died: Frank McEncroe, 70, Australian food manufacturer, credited with inventing the Chiko Roll in 1951

March 15, 1979 (Thursday)

Figueiredo
  • General João Figueiredo was inaugurated to a six-year term as the 30th President of Brazil and would serve until 1985 during which the South American nation would make the transition to having civilian government after more than 20 years of military rule.[52]
  • An insurrection of Muslim extremists in Afghanistan began in the city of Herat after the preaching by mullahs to thousands who wanted a revolution similar to that which had happened in Iran.
  • At the Iranian city of Qom, two thousand members of the Iran Scout Organization were addressed by the Ayatollah Khomeini at the Feizieh School, who told them "You dear ones, must keep up your enthusiasm. You must guard your movement."[53]
  • The oil tanker MV Kurdistan broke in two after striking an ice field off the coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia and spilled 6,000 tons of oil.[54] The tanks in its stern section remained intact and the remaining 16,000 tons of oil were offloaded after the wreckage was towed to at Sept-Iles, Quebec.
  • The U.S. x-ray telescope satellite High Energy Astronomy Observatory 1 (HEAO-1), launched on August 12, 1977, fell from orbit and burned up on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. During its operation, it scanned electromagnetic radiation above all areas on Earth three times.
  • Born: Kevin Youkilis, American baseball player; in Cincinnati

March 16, 1979 (Friday)

  • Major hostilities between China and Vietnam in the Sino-Vietnamese War came to an end as Chinese troops withdrew.
  • The Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) disbanded after only two members, the United Kingdom and Pakistan, remained.
  • Habib Elghanian, a Tehran businessman and the most prominent member of Iran's Jewish community, was arrested by the new government and charged with espionage for Israel. On May 8, he was found guilty of multiple crimes after a 20-minute hearing, sentenced to death, and executed by a firing squad the next day. Elghanian was the first of 17 Jewish leaders to be executed on accusations of espionage. Of more than 80,000 Jews living in Iran at the time of the Islamic Revolution, the vast majority would emigrate from the country to the U.S. and Israel, and less than 10,000 would remain forty years later.[55]
  • The film The China Syndrome, about an accident at a nuclear reactor and a subsequent cover-up, was released in U.S. theaters nationwide. Produced by and starring Michael Douglas, along with Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon, the film came out only 12 days before the most significant nuclear power plant accident in U.S. history
  • Died: Jean Monnet, 90, French diplomat and proponent of a European Union as co-founder (in 1952) and first president of the European Coal and Steel Community

March 17, 1979 (Saturday)

March 18, 1979 (Sunday)

March 19, 1979 (Monday)

  • C-SPAN, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, an American cable channel focusing on government and public affairs, went on the air with a live broadcast of a session of the U.S. House of Representatives, starting with a speech by then-Congressman Al Gore of Tennessee.[62]
  • Born: Hidayet "Hedo" Türkoğlu, Turkish professional basketball player with 15 seasons in the NBA and one in the EuroLeague; in Istanbul
  • Died: Al Hodge, American radio and TV actor known for playing the title role in the science fiction TV program Captain Video and in the radio program The Green Hornet[63]

March 20, 1979 (Tuesday)

  • In a sign of the rapid growth in China of privately-owned vehicles, the capital at Beijing activated the first automatic traffic lights in the Communist nation, setting up nine timer-controlled traffic signals at intersections on the busiest road in the city. While the time between signals was relatively long— "2 minutes and 10 seconds during rush hour"— the upgrade was an improvement over the manually-operated signals that had been "controlled by policemen who sometimes waited 10 minutes to change them."[64]
  • Afghanistan's leader Nur Muhammad Taraki met with Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin to request Soviet Army ground troops to protect his government's security.
  • Died:

March 21, 1979 (Wednesday)

  • Anthropologist Mary Leakey announced the earliest known evidence, up to that time, of bipedalism in hominids, the evolutionary ancestral line of homo sapiens, based on the discovery of two pairs of footprints left in hardened volcanic ash. Presenting her findings at a press conference at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington D.C., Dr. Leakey said that the new findings showed that hominids walked, upright, 500,000 years earlier than previously believed and the development in hominids made it possible for the hands to be freed for tool-making and other activities, commenting "All modern technology stems from this single development."[66] The find of the footprints "was the first in the history of science to provide direct evidence of physical activity by humankind's apelike ancestors, changing previously held assumptions about primates."[67]
  • Born: Melissa Gorga, American TV personality on The Real Housewives of New Jersey; as Melissa Ann Marco in Toms River, New Jersey

March 22, 1979 (Thursday)

  • Two gunmen shot and killed the UK Ambassador to the Netherlands, Sir Richard Sykes, as he was preparing to enter a car to be driven from his home in The Hague to the British Embassy. The assassins also killed Karel Straub, an embassy employee who was holding the car door open for Mr. Sykes.[68] The Irish Republican Army would later claim responsibility for the attack and gave as its motive that Sykes "had been engaged in intelligence operations against our organisation", apparently for authoring a report on the 1976 assassination of the British Ambassador to Ireland, Christopher Ewart-Biggs.[69]
  • National Hockey League (NHL) owners voted, 14 to 3, to approve a partial merger with the rival World Hockey Association (WHA), bringing an end to the WHA and absorbing four of its six franchises (the Edmonton Oilers, Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques and the New England Whalers. The other two WHA teams, the Cincinnati Stingers and the Birmingham Bulls, folded at the end of the season.[70] An earlier vote of 12 to 5, taken on March 8, failed because it lacked the 75% majority by a single vote.
  • Israel's parliament, the Knesset, voted 95 to 18 to authorize Prime Minister Menahem Begin to sign the negotiated peace treaty with Egypt.[71]
  • Died: Manuel Colom Argueta, 44, Guatemalan leftist politician and Mayor of Guatemala City, was shot to death, along with two of his bodyguards as he was being driven to his office. Colom, leader of the Front of Revolutionary Unity (Frente Unido de la Revolución, or FUR) and a foe of Guatemala's right-wing military government, had registered his organization as a political party.[72]

March 23, 1979 (Friday)

  • Chad's President Felix Malloum resigned six weeks after a civil war broke out between his supporters and those of Prime Minister Hissene Habre. Malloum was replaced by an eight-member governing counsel chaired by Goukouni Oueddei.[73]
  • In a professional basketball game that took 135 days to complete,[74] the Philadelphia 76ers defeated the visiting New Jersey Nets, 123 to 117, after NBA Commissioner Larry O'Brien had ordered a replay of the last 17 minutes and 50 seconds of a game that had started on November 8, 1978. The Nets had protested a referee's call of three technical fouls (and the free throw attempts that followed) on player Bernard King and head coach Kevin Loughery, in a game that the 76ers had won, 137 to 133, based on scores that should not have been allowed (the rule being that only two technical fouls can be called on a person, the second of which results in ejection from the game). The replayed game resumed with the score 84 to 81 in favor of the 76ers and 5:50 remaining in the third quarter. Because of a player trade between November and March, three players— Eric Money, Ralph Simpson and Harvey Catchings— played for both teams. Money is the only NBA player to score for both sides in the same game, having 23 points for the Nets in November and 4 for the 76ers in March.[75][76]
  • Born: Mark Buehrle, American baseball pitcher; in St. Charles, Missouri
  • Died: Philip Bourneuf, 71, American character actor on stage, film, and TV[77]

March 24, 1979 (Saturday)

March 25, 1979 (Sunday)

March 26, 1979 (Monday)

Sadat, Carter and Begin at the treaty signing

March 27, 1979 (Tuesday)

March 28, 1979 (Wednesday)

  • America's most serious nuclear power plant accident occurred, at Three Mile Island, adjacent to Middletown, Pennsylvania, near the state capital at Harrisburg, with a partial meltdown and destruction of the TMI-2, one of the nuclear reactors at the plant.[84] At about 4:00 in the morning local time, a relief valve in the coolant system on the pressurizer in TMI-2 opened and got stuck, causing reactor coolant to leak out for the next two hours. Control room operators misinterpreted the readings and turned off the automated emergency cooling system, and by the time an emergency was declared at 6:48 a.m., (1148 UTC), two-thirds of the 12 foot (3.7 m) reactor core had been exposed and high radiation levels existed in several areas of the plant.[85] Although later studies concluded that there had been no increase in incidents of cancer among two million people living in the central Pennsylvania area, it would take more than 14 years and over one billion dollars to complete the cleanup of the contamination. By 1990, radioactive waste from the wreckage of the reactor had been transported to Idaho for storage at the National Engineering Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, and the removal of the 2.23 million gallons of tritium-contaminated radioactive water inside TMI-2 had required the use of an electric evaporation system to convert the liquid into steam to be gradually released".[86]
  • British Prime Minister James Callaghan and his coalition Labour Party government lost a vote of no confidence by one vote, as the resolution "that this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government" passed, 311 to 310.[87] Margaret Thatcher, the Leader of the Opposition and of the Conservative Party, made the motion. One Labour MP, Sir Alfred Broughton, was hospitalized with a terminal illness and unable to vote in Callaghan's favor, and an offer by Conservative MP Bernard Weatherill to abstain in light of Broughton's absence was declined by the Labour MP who had asked for an abstention as part of a tradition of "pairing". Broughton died five days later.[88] Parliament was dissolved the next day and Callaghan announced the setting of a general election to be held on May 3.[89]
  • An unidentified Russian man, with a hand grenade strapped to his body, entered the United States Embassy in Moscow at 2:30 in the afternoon after being escorted inside by an embassy official, Robert W. Pringle, whom he had met outside. Once in the waiting room, the man demanded that he be granted a visa so that he could emigrate from the Soviet Union. After five hours of unsuccessful negotiations, the Moscow city police stormed the Embassy with a barrage of tear gas and gunfire, and at 10:46 p.m., the man pulled the pin on the grenade and died in the explosion.[90]
  • Died: Emmett Kelly, 80, American clown in circus, television and film[91]

March 29, 1979 (Thursday)

March 30, 1979 (Friday)

March 31, 1979 (Saturday)

  • Malta declared what is now celebrated annually as "Freedom Day" (Jum il-Helsien) as the 179-year British military presence ended, with the departure of the Royal Navy from the Maltese Islands.[102][103]
  • The first known instance of the birth of a child conceived after the mother's uterus had been removed, and carried to term, took place in England at Musgrove Park Hospital, located in the town of Taunton. The mother, Mrs. Alison Trott of the village of Norton Fitzwarren in Somerset, had undergone a hysterectomy 11 months earlier, two months before Martin Trott's conception.[104]
  • At a meeting in Baghdad, the foreign ministers of 18 Arab nations and the Palestine Liberation Organization voted to sever all diplomatic and economic relations with Egypt in retaliation for its treaty with Israel.[105]
  • By a margin of a single vote, the newly organized government of Italy's Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti failed, 149 to 150, to win a test of confidence, prompting Andreotti and his cabinet to announce their resignation to President Sandro Pertini.[106]
  • Eight people were injured in the U.S. city of Decatur, Illinois after three elephants escaped from a performance of the George Hubler International Circus at a high school gymnasium. A 17-year old student who had struck one of the animals in the rear with a broom was believed to have caused the incident and was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.[107]
  • Died: Ethel Ernestine Harper, 75, African-American teacher and actress best known for her portrayal of the advertising character "Aunt Jemima" and the model for the image of the trademarked symbol on the Quaker Oats line of pancake mixes and syrups.[108]

References

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  2. ^ "Centrists Prepare to Govern in Spain— Suarez Party, Just Shy of Majority, Planning to Try to Rule Alone", The New York Times, March 3, 1979, p. A1
  3. ^ "'Sweeney Todd' an enriching spectacle", by Douglas Watt, Friday section, Daily News (New York), March 2, 1979, p. 4
  4. ^ "Stage: Introducing ‘Sweeney Todd’", The New York Times, March 2, 1979, p. C3
  5. ^ attribution: ElectricTreez
  6. ^ "Obituary: 'Golf Course Bandit' John Harvey Bailey", Miami Herald, March 3, 1979, p. 31
  7. ^ "Kurdish Nationalist Leader Barzani Dies", Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1979, p. I-17
  8. ^ "Film: 'Norma Rae,' Mill-Town Story", by Vincent Canby, March 2, 1979, p. C10
  9. ^ "Skier Rushed to Burlington After World Cup Race Tumble", Burlington (VT) Free Press, March 4, 1979, p. 1
  10. ^ "Thin, Dark Debris Ring Is Found to Circle Jupiter", by John Noble Wilford, The New York Times, March 8, 1979, p. A18
  11. ^ Redemptor hominis text
  12. ^ "Brezhnev Joins Russians in Picking Supreme Soviet", by Craig R. Whitney, March 5, 1979, p. A3
  13. ^ "Times Revises Style Of Chinese Spelling— Under New System Teng Becomes Deng and Nanking Is Nanjing", The New York Times, March 4, 1979, p. A10
  14. ^ "Peking Now Beijing— New Chinese Spellings Adopted by The Times", Los Angeles Times, March 4, 1979, p. I-11
  15. ^ "Rio, Opening Subway, Asks if the Chaos Was Worth It", by Warren Hoge, The New York Times, March 5, 1979, p. A2
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  37. ^ "Victor Kilian, Actor, Found Beaten Fatally in Hollywood Home", The New York Times, March 13, 1979, p. B-8
  38. ^ "Charlie Wiggins: The Negro Speed King", HistoricRacing.com
  39. ^ "Coke's New Drink Battles 'Dew'", "Stephen Hesse On Marketing" column, Atlanta Constitution, March 12, 1979, p. 8-D
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  41. ^ "Rebels in Grenada Said to Stage Coup", The New York Times, March 14, 1979, p. A9
  42. ^ "It's Business as Usual in Grenada One Day After Regime Is Ousted", The New York Times, March 15, 1979, p. A4
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  45. ^ "Ex-Aide to Jim Jones Kills Himself at News Briefing", The New York Times, March 14, 1979, p. A17
  46. ^ "The Death of Michael Prokes"
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