• the 1984 Summit tunnel fire in England may have been the biggest underground fire in transportation history?
• the London Warehouse Theatre was threatened with closure after an Arts Council grant was withdrawn in 1984, but that closure was averted when Croydon Council and the GLC agreed to replace the grant?
  
• the National Bike Registry is a database in the United States that has helped to identify and return stolen bicycles and scooters to their rightful owners since 1984?
• the first televised nine dart finish was achieved at the World Matchplay championship in 1984 by John Lowe?
• the 1984 Murray Head hit "One Night In Bangkok," from the musical Chess, gained newfound popularity in 2005 due to a remix by the dance act Vinylshakerz?
• Squirrel Systems introduced the first touch screen point of sale terminal in 1984?
• Swiss artist Harald Naegeli spent several months in jail in 1984 for the graffiti he had painted in Zürich from 1977 to 1979?
• labor leader Victor Kamber created playing cards with public figures in 1968 and the "Rappin' Ronnie" music video depicting a rapping Ronald Reagan in 1984?
• Les Taylor only captained Watford in the 1984 FA Cup final because regular captain Wilf Rostron was suspended?
• Scottish cyclist Robert Millar finished fourth in the 1984 Tour de France, the best ever finish by a British cyclist?

Facts on topics related to 1984

1983

• Graftgold is an independent computer games developer formed in 1983 when Steve Turner decided to quit his day job as a commercial programmer?
• James Autry received a stay on his execution in October 1983 after the needles for his lethal injection had been inserted into his arms?
• a freak decompression accident on board the oil rig Byford Dolphin in 1983 literally caused a man to explode?
• the Department of Food Science at Purdue University was created during Bernard J. Liska's tenure as Dean of Agriculture in 1983?
• the recent Capitol Hill massacre is regarded as the worst mass-killing in Seattle since the 1983 Wah Mee Massacre?

1982

• Elizabeth Taylor made her London stage debut in 1982 at the Victoria Palace Theatre in a revival of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes?
• folk singer/guitarist Nic Jones suffered multiple broken bones and brain damage after a serious car accident in February 1982?
• Indian trade unionist Dutta Samant led an estimated 200,000 workers on a year-long strike in 1982, causing the exodus of the textile mill industry from Mumbai?
• Tom Hanks was in a 1982 TV movie called Mazes and Monsters about a group of college students and their interest in the eponymous role-playing game?
• Bill Boaks, a retired Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander, won only 5 votes (a record low in a British Parliamentary election) in a 1982 by-election?
• Cold Sunday was a specific meteorological event which took place on January 17, 1982, when unprecedentedly cold air swept down from Canada, sending temperatures in the United States far below existing all-time record lows?
• Eduardo Malapit, mayor of Kauai, Hawaii, from 1974 to 1982, was the first mayor of Filipino descent in the United States?
• Peotone Mill, a windmill built in 1871, was donated to the village of Peotone, Illinois in 1982 after being idle for nearly a century, and was registered on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in the same year?
• the United States has a numerical system of bicycle routes (similar to the system for roads and highways), which hasn't been expanded since its creation in 1982?
• the Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang was built in 1982 to commemorate the "victory" of Korea over Japan in the WWII?

1986

• Chetan Sharma, a former Indian cricketer, was the first Indian ever to get a ten wicket haul overseas, taking 10/188 against England in a Test Series in 1986?
• David Penhaligon (1944–1986) was a promising Liberal Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom but was killed in a car crash at the age of 42?
• the Isles of Scilly and the Netherlands fought the Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War from 1651 to 1986, and that not a single shot was fired during this war?

1985

• Rembrandt's painting Danaë (pictured) was severely damaged when a visitor threw sulfuric acid onto it on June 15, 1985?
• the 1985 comedy film Head Office has established stars such as Danny DeVito starring in roles that are little more than bit parts?
• the 1985 Nairobi Agreement called for a ceasefire between the Ugandan government and rebels, the demilitarization of the capital (Kampala) and the absorption of the rebel leadership into the government?

1981

• Chicago mayor Jane Byrne moved into the notoriously miserable Cabrini-Green housing project in 1981?
• Norwegian football commentator Bjørge Lillelien famously taunted Margaret Thatcher after Norway's victory over England in 1981?
• Sarah Brady became an advocate of gun control and led actions to reduce gun violence after her husband White House Press Secretary James Brady sustained a disabling head wound during the Reagan assassination attempt in 1981?
• Torchwood will be the first spin-off from Doctor Who since an unsuccessful pilot for K-9 and Company in 1981?
• before the bobsleigh track in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy was shortened to its current configuration in 1981, it was used as part of the film For Your Eyes Only?
• in a British by-election in 1981, John Desmond Lewis ran for office under the name Tarquin Fin-tim-lim-bim-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olè-Biscuitbarrel, drawing inspiration from a Monty Python skit about silly elections?
• the Chilean football club Cobreloa reached the finals of South America's principal club competition, the Copa Libertadores, in 1981, only four years after the club's founding?
• the Palau Congressional Library was founded in 1981, and has a staff of two?
• the only international cricket in South Africa between 1971 and 1981 comprised 6 private tours and 1 women's test match, because no test match playing nation was willing to tour the country because of its apartheid policy?
• when the John Bull ran under its own power in 1981 it became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world?

2007

• Colombian National Police Sub-Intendant John Frank Pinchao was kidnapped by the FARC guerrillas for almost 9 years, until finally escaping in 2007?
• Adriana Pirtea lost the 2007 Chicago Marathon to Berhane Adere when Adere slipped down the side of the street and crossed outside of the finish-line tape?
• Robert Adley became on December 10, 2007, the newest Republican member of the Louisiana State Senate, just fifty-six days after he was easily reelected as a Democrat in the October 20 jungle primary?
• a massive mudflow destroyed two-thirds of the Valley of Geysers on June 3, 2007?
• former world chess champion Garry Kasparov helped to organise the Saint Petersburg March of the Discontented (pictured) on 3 March 2007?
• in 2007, the John Edwards's headquarters in the online game Second Life was attacked by the griefing group the Patriotic Nigras?
• on November 3, 2007, Navy beat Notre Dame after losing for 43 consecutive years, ending college football's longest bilateral streak?
• the 2007 main event World Series of Poker bracelet, awarded on July 17, 2007, is made with 136 grams of 18-carat white gold set with 120 diamonds?
• the Dead Plane EP is one of five limited edition singles and EPs released on five different labels by No Age on the same day, March 26, 2007?
• the second line of the Valenciennes tram (pictured) will open in 2007, but will reuse the platform of a railway line that opened in 1838?

2004

• 1985's only super typhoon, Super Typhoon Dot, is the sixth-most intense tropical cyclone in terms of wind speed to affect Bicol Region, Philippines between 1947 and 2004?
• Foreigner vocalist Lou Gramm survived a brain tumor in 1997 and completed a tour with his new band in 2004?
• Evan Taubenfeld was Avril Lavigne's lead guitarist from Spring 2002 to September 2004?
• Hubie Brown resigned as coach from the Memphis Grizzlies on Thanksgiving Day 2004?
• Rumaisa Rahman, born prematurely in Chicago on September 19, 2004, was 8 inches (20 cm) long and weighed 8½ oz. (244 g) at birth?
• Bend It Like Beckham was a crowd favorite at the ninth Pyongyang Film Festival in 2004?
• a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar was used in the 2004 movie The Flight of the Phoenix?
  
• an Ivorian air attack in 2004 which killed 9 and wounded 37 French soldiers on a UN peacekeeping mission in Côte d'Ivoire prompted a retaliation that annihilated the Air Force of Côte d'Ivoire on the same day?
• at 67 years old, Elias Syriani was the oldest person executed in the United States since James Hubbard was executed by Alabama at the age of 74 in 2004?
• in 2004, the world spent US$896,235 million on military expenditures and the U.S. military budget constituted 41 percent of this, placing the nation at the top of the list of countries by military expenditures?

1997

• Foreigner vocalist Lou Gramm survived a brain tumor in 1997 and completed a tour with his new band in 2004?
• Doc Cheatham (1905–1997) has been described as the only jazz musician to create his best work after the age of 70?
• Leonid Kadeniuk, the first astronaut of the independent Ukraine, made his first space flight on NASA's space shuttle Columbia in 1997, and had been training for such a mission since 1976?
• Melissa McIntyre, best known for her role in Degrassi: The Next Generation made her television debut in the 1997 series, Timesweep, in which she played an extraterrestial being?
• PSUC viu was formed by a group of hardline communists in Catalonia, Spain in 1997, as the historical Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC) became dormant?
• Protmušis is a quizbowl competition that has been taking place in Vilnius, Lithuania since 1997?
• the popular music artist Maarja-Liis Ilus has entered the Estonian Eurovision Song Contest pre-selection event Eurolaul a record three times, in 1996, 1997 and 2004?
• the exhumation of Yagan's head in 1997 first required a sophisticated geophysical survey of the gravesite to ensure that the remains of 22 stillborn babies would not be disturbed?

1987

• Mountain Lake, one of only two natural lakes in Virginia, was the filming location for the fictional Kellerman's Resort in New York's Catskill Mountains for the 1987 feature film Dirty Dancing?
• after the Mendiola massacre on January 22, 1987, the Filipino Government banned all public demonstrations on Mendiola Street in Manila?
• on January 27, 1987 83 workers of a shrimp farm in Kokkadichcholai, Sri Lanka were shot, allegedly by Special Task Force officers?
• the Motown recording "Do You Love Me" by The Contours became a Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 hit twice; once in 1962 and again in 1987?
• the Simpsons short Good Night aired April 19, 1987 on The Tracey Ullman Show and was the first ever appearance of the Simpson family on television?
• the first gang injunction to make headlines was obtained by Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn against the West Los Angeles-based street gang the Playboy Gangster Crips in 1987?
• the so-called Loughall Martyrs were a group of eight men from the Provisional IRA's East Tyrone Brigade who were ambushed and killed on May 8, 1987 by the British special forces, the SAS?
  

1984 in film

• the phrase "Up to eleven", inspired by a scene from the 1984 film This is Spinal Tap, was entered into the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in 2002 with the definition "up to maximum volume"?