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Luisa Tam

Iranian revolutionary guards marrying call girls and Britain’s Prince Charles looking for “a good wife” made the headlines four decades ago this week.
May 27, 1979
● A syndicate which kidnapped and sold young boys as slaves was uncovered in Jakarta. Police were alerted when a woman complained her 15-year-old son had been missing for two weeks. Police arrested two men in connection with the operation.
● An American Airlines jet crashed during take-off at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, killing all 271 people on board. It was the worst disaster in US aviation history at the time. Witnesses said an engine on the left wing fell off, causing the plane to roll to the left, stall and plunge into a nearby field, narrowly missing a caravan park.

May 28, 1979
● Five babies died in Naples over the previous four days amid fears of a new mystery illness sweeping the southern Italian city. Anti-tetanus vaccinations had been suspended in case a reaction to the vaccine had caused the deaths. Doctors said they had not yet established the cause.
● Divorces in Indonesia increased 10 times over the past five months compared with the same period the year before. From January to May that year, 280,000 divorce cases were registered with the Central Islamic Religious Judicature, but a government spokesman did not say what could be causing the trend.
May 29, 1979
● An angler caught 21 gold bars while fishing off a wharf in southern Japan. The haul by Kazuo Uemura, 43, a shipbuilding company worker, was worth about HK$455,000. Uemura turned the bars over to police.
● A motion to restore hanging in Britain was expected to be debated by the newly elected House of Commons the following month. Capital punishment was abolished in Britain in 1965 but with the advent of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, the motion’s backers judged that the time was right to push for its return.

May 30, 1979
● Prince Charles, 30, said that what he really needed was a good wife. He said he was deluged with mail after a controversial speech three months earlier in which he blamed management for many of Britain’s labour problems. “By far the best was a postcard which simply said: ‘What you need is a good wife,’” he said. The prince’s marital prospects were a regular topic of fascination in the British press.
● A Japanese court ordered 28 foreign airlines to pay about ¥107 million (HK$2.4 million) in “special noise nuisance fees”. The Tokyo District Court said the case dated back to September 1975, when the Transport Ministry began collecting special landing and take-off fees from airlines.
● A Taiwanese fisherman, 39, was killed when the tail of a giant mackerel being hauled aboard his boat in the South Atlantic slapped him against a guard rail.
A goose-killing golfer and ‘gatorburgers’: past headlines
May 31, 1979
● A man from Cleveland was accused of shooting his son while playing Russian roulette with his three children. Police said Willie Williams, 45, went home drunk the night before and began firing a gun around the kitchen. When one bullet remained, he told the children he was going to play a game of Russian roulette, and killed his nine-year-old son.
● Britain, fearing thousands of Vietnamese refugees might soon seek admission to Hong Kong, appealed to the Soviet Union to help stem the flow of refugees. It followed Britain’s agreement earlier that week to admit 982 Vietnamese refugees rescued by the British cargo ship Sibonga and taken to the colony.
June 1, 1979
● In Malaysia, about 200 relatives and friends were on hand when the “dead” man they were mourning alighted from the hearse to greet them. The mourners had gathered at the Kuala Lumpur home of truck attendant K. Krishnan, 22, who was thought to have died in a car accident. In fact, it was a friend of his who was killed; Krishnan only suffered minor injuries.
● Romance blossomed when revolutionary guards broke up a call-girl racket in Tehran. Four of the girls, who said they had vowed to give up prostitution, married four of the guards in a joint ceremony. One of the guards said: “Being a crusader is not just standing up against bullets; what we’ve done is also crusading.”
● US president Jimmy Carter’s latest financial disclosures showed he was worth about US$1 million, despite heavy losses from the family peanut warehouse business, which had been managed by his younger brother Billy. The younger Carter, who was treated for alcoholism at a US Navy hospital, had been removed from the management of the warehouse.

June 2, 1979
● A nine-year-old Chicago boy who was badly burnt when his pyjamas caught fire was awarded US$1 million in damages. The family of the boy sued the manufacturers and distributors of the pyjamas, alleging they were dangerously flammable. One of the respondents in the case was a Hong Kong manufacturer, Textile Alliance.
Remember A Day looks at significant news and events reported by the Post during this week in history


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History

Prince Charles needs ‘a good wife’ and Iranian revolutionary guards marry call girls: past headlines

Prince Charles’ marital prospects were a regular topic of fascination in the British press during the late 1970s. Photo: Alamy

Crash site of American Airlines Flight 191. American Airlines Flight 191, a DC-10, experienced a number 1 (left wing) engine/strut failure, and subsequent engine and strut separation, on takeoff from Chicago, O'Hare Airport on May 25, 1979. Photo: handout

This unique photograph, taken inside the chamber of the House of Commons, and showing elected Members of Parliament in debate, was taken by the Central Office of Information during the period of the last government.

US President Jimmy Carter makes announcement that the will run for 2nd term for President on May 12, 1979 in East Room of White House, Washington DC. (Photo by ARNOLD SACHS / CONSOLIDATED NEWS PICTURES / AFP)

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A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history


A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history.


Old Hong Kong

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Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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Remember A Day

Prince Charles needs ‘a good wife’ and Iranian revolutionary guards marry call girls: past headlines

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history

A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history