Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi departs Iran for exile as revolutionary fervor led by Ayatollah Khomeini's followers sweeps the country.

Vietnamese-backed forces installed the People's Republic of Kampuchea, formally ending Khmer Rouge rule days after capturing Phnom Penh.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini landed in Tehran after 15 years in exile, greeted by millions, days before the Shah's government collapsed.

Vietnamese-backed forces continued consolidating control over Cambodia weeks after ousting the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh.

Time magazine named Deng Xiaoping its Man of the Year, recognizing the paramount leader's pivot toward market reforms opening China.

R&B singer and actress Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born in Brooklyn, New York, later becoming a defining voice of 1990s R&B.

Cadets and technicians at Tehran's Doshan Tappeh air base mutinied in support of Ayatollah Khomeini, a turning point that shattered the Shah's military.

Voyager 1 images reveal an active volcanic plume erupting from Jupiter's moon Io, the first volcanic eruption ever observed on another world.

Tens of thousands of Iranian women marched in Tehran protesting Ayatollah Khomeini's decree requiring women to wear the hijab, one of the first major public challenges to the new Islamic Republic.

Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin signed the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty at the White House, ending three decades of war between the two nations.

A stuck valve and human error trigger a partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island, America's worst commercial nuclear accident.

A cooling malfunction at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania triggered a partial reactor meltdown, the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history.

Israel and Egypt exchanged instruments of ratification for their historic peace treaty, formally ending three decades of war between the two nations.

Chinese authorities arrested democracy activist Wei Jingsheng in Beijing, silencing a key voice of the Democracy Wall movement and signaling the limits of Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

Chinese authorities sentenced dissident Wei Jingsheng to 15 years in prison for his essays on the Democracy Wall movement calling for political reform.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, en route to its historic encounter with Jupiter, continued transmitting striking new imagery of the giant planet's turbulent atmosphere.

Remaining Khmer Rouge forces retreat toward the Thai border as Vietnamese troops consolidate control of Cambodia weeks after toppling Pol Pot's regime.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, deep into its Jupiter flyby aftermath, continues transmitting revelatory close-up images of the volcanic moon Io back to Earth.

Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party won a decisive general election victory, making her Britain's first female prime minister as she took office the following day.

Southern Rhodesia's biracial election produced a short-lived government under Bishop Abel Muzorewa, a step in the transition from white minority rule.

Egypt and Israel formally exchange ambassadors, cementing peaceful diplomatic relations following their historic 1979 peace treaty.

Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT II treaty in Vienna, capping the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers each superpower could hold.

Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway opened its first section between Kwun Tong and Shek Kip Mei, launching what would become one of the world's busiest and most profitable metro systems.

Pope John Paul II concluded his historic nine-day pilgrimage to communist Poland, drawing millions and quietly emboldening the movement that became Solidarity.

NASA's abandoned Skylab space station tumbled out of orbit and disintegrated over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia, scattering debris across the outback.

NASA's abandoned space station Skylab plunged through the atmosphere and scattered debris across the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.

Ugandan dictator Idi Amin fled Kampala as Tanzanian forces and Ugandan rebels closed in, ending eight brutal years of rule.

Sandinista guerrilla forces marched triumphantly into Managua a day after dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle fled Nicaragua, ending a 43-year family dynasty.

Weeks after NASA's Skylab space station tumbled uncontrolled into the atmosphere and scattered debris over Australia, officials continued assessing the fallout from America's first space station's dramatic demise.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, closing in on Jupiter, transmits striking new images revealing details of the planet's turbulent atmosphere and moons.

The Panama Canal Zone officially ceased to exist as the U.S. began transferring control of the canal to Panama under the Torrijos-Carter Treaties.

Chinese authorities publicly signaled the coming nationwide one-child policy, a demographic experiment that would reshape family life for a generation.

The International Olympic Committee voted to recognize the People's Republic of China as "China," relegating Taiwan to compete as "Chinese Taipei."

Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage in a crisis that lasted 444 days.

A day after militant students seized the US Embassy in Tehran, Ayatollah Khomeini publicly endorsed the takeover, hardening a crisis that would last 444 days.