1984 Fun Facts: Learn All About This Notable Year!

1984 was a leap year in the Gregorian calendar!

There are many events that distinguish 1984 from other years. The advancements in politics, literature and entertainment saw a massive boost!

1984 of the Gregorian calendar started the new year on Sunday. It was the 1984th year of Anno Domini (AD) and Common Era (EA); it was also marked the 984th year of the 2nd millennium. According to the 20th century, it is the 84th year. 

Do you enjoy history and the events that made it memorable? This article will tell you all the fun facts from 1984 and more! To read more such interesting articles, don't forget to check out 1973 fun facts and 1979 fun facts!

Change In Politics

The year 1984 was full of big events and fun facts. One of the big events that happened this year was when Brunei became a completely independent state! On 23rd February TED conference was founded, which has since become very successful in spreading quality knowledge to millions!

This year the United States also pulled out its Marine Corps from Beirut, Lebanon. The fun nostalgic cartoon Thomas and Friends aired for the first time in October 1984. This good year also brought John Turner as the 17th president of Canada.

1984 was a great year for US elections which were held on 6th November in California, Tuesday, and saw Republican President Ronald Reagan win over the former Vice President Walter Mondale, who was a Democratic candidate. It was a landslide victory where the winning party won 525 votes which were 58.8 % of the popular vote.

One tragic event that happened in 1984 was the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi had launched an attack on the holy shrine of the Sikh people called the Golden Temple.

Armed Sikhs had occupied the temple in order to demand a free homeland called Khalistan. Any negotiations made between the Indian government and the Sikhs had failed, and the effect was not very well received.

After this, in 1984 Prime Minister was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguard while leaving her home. This caused big business destruction and changed India.

Another tragic event that occurred in 1984 was the Bhopal gas tragedy. There was a gas leak on the second December night at the company UCIL. It was a pesticide plant located in the city of Bhopal within the state of Madhya Pradesh in India.

This tragedy is considered one of the worst disasters the world has ever faced. During this, more than 500,000 people had inhaled or were exposed to methyl isocyanate gas.

This gas leaked from the plant then crept into the neighboring towns causing a death toll of around 2,259 people. The families affected were compensated by the government. Multiple people were permanently disabled or severely injured.

The maiden flight Discovery space shuttle launched from Kennedy space center this year.

In the year 1984, the Summer Olympics were going to be held in Los Angeles. This sports event is an international sensation, with multiple people competing with different countries for the number one spot.

The Olympics in 1984 was going to be held from 28 July to the 12 August in California, Los Angeles, in the United States of America.

This was the second time this city was going to host the Olympic games, the first being in 1932. The president of the United States at that time, Ronald Reagan has officially opened the games.

These Olympic games were being held under Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was the president of the IOC. However, these games were first boycotted by almost 14 countries from the Eastern block, which included the Soviet Union and Germany.

This was due to the American boycott, which happened in the 1980s Olympics games which happened in Summer.

They protested in Moscow because of the Soviet infiltration of countries like Afghanistan. Yugoslavia and Romania were the only countries that were socialists in Europe who opted to play in the games despite all this.

Iran, Libya, and Albania were also boycotting the games, but they had a different reason for it. Due to the fewer numbers of countries in some of the sports, there was a fewer number of contenders.

Despite all of this, 140 National Olympic Committee Country members were a part of the 1984 games, which was a record number at that time. The United States of America won the most number of gold medals are overall medals as well. This was followed by Romania and West Germany.

The 1984 Olympic games, which happened in the summer, are considered to be the most successful games in terms of finances in the history of Olympics, and therefore this enabled the world to see how Olympic games can be held in a financially successful manner, for example, due to low construction cost and using the sports infrastructure that was already in existence; and coupling this with the private funding which they got from corporations the games in 1984 were able to make a profit which exceeded to 50 million dollars.

In 2009 for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the 1984 games, the Los Angeles Memorial coliseum held a celebration.

This included a speech by a former committee member of the Olympic games by the name of president Peter Ueberroth who said a beautiful speech, and he also enacted the lighting of the Cauldron used in the Olympics.

The next Olympic Games in California will be hosted in the summer of 2028.

Famous Novels Published

Life in 1984 was full of ups and downs, with many tragedies happening all over the world. But at the same time, this year saw great historical achievements. Many amazing books were published which have had a lasting impact on the world.

Everyone knows about the famous novel written by George Orwell called '1984'. Although George Orwell had published this novel in 1949, it was written in an imaginary world set in 1984.

The music critic Dorian Lynskey wrote a book called 'The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of 1984'.

In this book, he has made a compelling argument saying that understanding the novel written by George Orwell was key to understanding the actions and implications that history has on the modern world.

He wrote this book when he was dying of tuberculosis and it was made from the idea of totalitarianism to the Soviet Union in Barcelona. They made an elaborate lie to dishonor the Trotskyists as spies in the Spanish government.

'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' was the top novel that was published in 1984. This novel was based on Milan Kundera.

It told the story of a man and woman in love with each other thrown into a turmoil of issues. To date, it has received 4.1 stars on the Goodreads website.

'The Eye of the Dragon' was a book published by the famous author Stephen King. Stephen King is known for his novel turned movie called 'IT'. The second most popular book called 'The Hunt For Red October' was written by Tom Clancy.

This book was so compelling and well written that the author was said to have been debriefed by the US government! The book was based on a military thriller.

Robert B. Cialdini wrote a book on the psychology of saying yes in a social setting that reached number three on the most popular books! This book was called 'Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion'.

And in the decade of '80s, 1984 is the 5th year. This year was also a culture club. And America had its first black Miss America named Vanessa Williams, marking the pop culture history, later she was found guilty of not abiding by rules, and hence the title was taken away later.

Miss USA was crowned Mai Shanley. It was this year that Medicare came into effect in Australia. Medicare is universal healthcare that is publicly funded.

It is operated by Australia Services. In public and private healthcare, the citizens get either fully or partially funds for their healthcare. In the public clinics and hospitals, all permanent residents and citizens get the benefit of fully covered health services.

Children Welfare

1984 was an interesting year where people enjoyed listening to famous artists like Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Band-Aid. Family ties were one of the most-watched shows of the first film version.

Old classics like 'Brave New World' remained relevant. This year Boston Beer Company was started this year which has since boomed! There were also various laws that were made for the protection of citizens and their welfare.

One such law was made on Child Protection services. There was a law called the child protection act of 1984.

This act was done by the federal criminal code, which dealt with the sexual exploitation of young children. This included increased penalties for the exploitation of children by fining them and such people are fined ranging from 10000 dollars to a million dollars, and if further convicted, they were also fined from $15000 to $200000!

This went a big way to ensure the safety of the children.

In 1984 Medicare was also founded in Australia.

Original former plan in USA Medicaid, which was enacted in 1965, was one of the only ways that the families and America could qualify for coverage to join the family benefits program, which was having children or supplemental security income program.

This medical coverage for the welfare beneficiaries was a case of building incentives for perseverance into the Nations system for the welfare of the citizens.

Hence in 1984, Congress in the United States of America started a journey where they made a series of reforms this open the gates for the medical coverage of children, even those who were not original in the welfare plan.

The health insurance for children was also expanded even more by using a program called SCHIP in 1997.

The United States of America now follows a law that requires to cover finances for most of the families and even children and families with poor income or income under 200% of poverty that is 29000 dollars for a family of three in 2001.

Even after this, according to Urban Institute, many children suffering from poverty which were about 23% of children who actually qualify for this program, still remained in poverty and uninsured in 1999.

Moreover, state laws in the United States of America vary in a very large way, and families sometimes even face major issues for establishing and being eligible for this program. Some of them even drop out of this welfare system many times.

Though mothers are covered up through insurance for about one year, the welfare system of the state is made by the government, the insurance by the government in adults is very less even, more so than that of the children.

Only about one-fourth of those leaving this welfare plan for work get insurance coverage that is funded by their own employer.

Modernization Era

The pop-culture history in 1984 paved the way for the modernization era.

'Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)' by Billy Ocean was one of the top songs.

George Michael, Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, John Taylor, Chris Cross, Victoria Principal, Joan Rivers Lincoln, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Catherine Mary Stewart, and albums like new EP hard Skool, Band-Aid, culture club, Guns N' Roses were influential artists and fashion icons in the pop culture history.

In the pop culture news, some back-to-back shows which left fans wanting more were star trek iii, intimate fall tour, karate kid, Police Academy, When Doves Cry, karate kid, Beverly hills cop.

Los Angeles Raiders won the Super bowl. This year DNA fingerprinting was introduced, which was a big step in crime investigations. 'Like A Virgin' was a top song by Madonna.

'Ghost Busters', 'Indiana Jones' and 'Beverly Hills', as well as 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' were big movies in theaters. The computer in demand called Commodore 64 was priced at $799.00. The board game was played by hundreds of people by the name of Balderdash. The world population in 1984 was 4,726,000,000.

'Where's the beef ?' the famous catchphrase introduced by Wendy in Wendy's commercial, was made in 1984! The most given Christmas this year were cabbage patch kids!

Police Jail was also filled with some well-known criminals, including Carl Sagan, who is a celebrity astronomer, Daniel Ellsberg, who is the whistleblower for the Pentagon papers as well as PGP creator by the name of Phil Zimmermann, were all in jail. Those two were arrested together for breaking into the Nevada nuclear test site. 

This was also the year where the now-famous company Dell was started by founder Michael Dell. He at that time was only targeting small companies and selling in houses rather than going to higher-end companies like Apple, Compaq, IBM.

In June of 1984, Robert Muldoon, who was at that time the prime minister of New Zealand, got really drunk and nationally announced on national television about the conduction of an election. But surprisingly, 93.7% of the voters turned up, and in the end, he lost.

This election is also called as Schnapps elections sometimes. Iron Maiden, the famous band, played a whopping 187 shows during their World Slavery Tour.

One interesting fact is also that since 'Purple Rain' won the Academy Award Category for Best Original Musical in 1984, no one else has won that award. This is due to having no contenders for this category.

According to the bulletin board of atomic scientists in 1984, the US and Soviet relations had reached a really tense point in that there was no dialogue between the two superpowers of the world.

And that was stopped by every channel of communication that had been shut down or constricted, and the communication between these two Nations had been completely cut off.

The arms and military negotiations had been lowered to species of propaganda.

This was the essence the Bulletin informs readers. The United States of America seems to disregard the few agreements of arms control, and hence there were new worries that the famous battle between the countries would start anew.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 1984 fun facts, then why not take a look at 1997 facts or 1998 facts?