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Luisa Tam

Criminals hacking into the British police computer system, a young girl being pulled from a lion’s jaws and Australian journalists refusing to use computers made the headlines 40 years ago this week.
May 11, 1980
● A man took his wife and daughter hostage and threatened to kill the woman after spotting her walking along the street with another man. The drama took place in Washington Heights, New York, where police shot and killed Dorsey Hunt when he tried to escape with his captives in a taxi. The bullet also hit and injured his four-year-old daughter after passing through his body. The woman was unhurt.
● China Motor Bus ignored the advice of a medical specialist to withdraw two “unfit” drivers from service. One of them had a drinking problem, while the other was suffering from a chronic kidney ailment.

May 12, 1980
● Criminals who hacked into Britain’s central police computer wiped criminal records from its memory and sold other confidential information to businessmen, private detectives and the underworld, according to the News of the World newspaper. The report claimed that the criminals cracked the computer codes with the aid of a telephone, a mini computer and a portable television.
● The Turkish government authorised police to shoot on sight a young extremist who threatened to kill Pope John Paul II. Mehmet Ali was captured in June 1979, but escaped and later threatened to kill the Pope during his visit to the country in November that year.
May 13, 1980
● Maxie Anderson, 45, and his 23-year-old son landed their hot-air balloon, the Kitty Hawk, safely on a tree top near the St Lawrence river in eastern Canada, ending the first non-stop balloon flight across North America. Anderson won fame two years before with two other men by making the first transatlantic balloon flight.
Muhammad Ali moots Iran fight and Macau ferry raised from the sea: headlines from 40 years ago
May 14, 1980
● China relaxed overflight restrictions for services between Hong Kong and Bangkok from that week, cutting flight times by 20 minutes and saving considerably on fuel costs. Cathay Pacific and Thai International were the two major airlines operating the route.
● Beijing authorities banned the sale of booklets on fortune-telling and foreign song lyrics that had been available in some parts of the capital, the Peking Daily reported.
● The Chinese government ordered the killing of all dogs in southwestern Sichuan province a month before in a bid to stave off a rabies epidemic. The order came in the form of a circular distributed among cadres and the local population. It called on all families to kill their own dogs and volunteer to help the military cull all stray dogs in the province.
● Journalists in Australia’s main cities stopped work indefinitely in a dispute over extra pay for operating video display units. Reporters on newspapers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and the Australian Associated Press news agency walked off the job after 25 subeditors on The Australian, a national daily, were sacked for refusing to use the new computers. The Australian Journalists Association had banned union members from operating the new machines unless their demand for an extra A$50 (about HK$250) per week pay was met.

May 15, 1980
● Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Parliament that Britain’s 705,000 civil servants would be reduced to 630,000 over a four-year period in a big cut of government staff as part of her plan to limit public spending.
May 16, 1980
● American soldiers under the United Nations Command exchanged automatic weapons fire with an unknown number of North Korean infiltrators in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas.
● The United States denied an Iranian report that 96 Americans had landed in various parts of Iran to wage a campaign of sabotage during that month. The US Defence department said the only American forces in the area were the two dozen naval vessels off Iran’s southern coast.
May 17, 1980
● A six-year-old girl survived an attack by a circus lion which at one stage clamped its jaws around her head, police in Brisbane said. The animal, tethered to a post, leapt on the girl when she was accidentally pushed within reach by other children jostling to get a closer look at the creature. Four circus workers wrestled with the lion and prized open its jaws to free the child, who received at least 50 stitches to her face and head.
Remember A Day looks at significant news and events reported by the Post during this week in history

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History

Criminal records wiped in computer hack and man shot dead in New York hostage drama: headlines from 40 years ago

Maxie Anderson, who piloted the Double Eagle II across the Atlantic, completed the first non-stop flight across North America in May 1980. Photo: AP

Photo datée du 09 Septembre 1986, de Margaret Thatcher, premier ministre d'Angleterre, sortant de sa voiture pendant une visite officielle au parlement européen à Strasbourg. (Photo by JEAN-CLAUDE DELMAS / AFP)

ROM03:POPE-AGCA-AMNESTY:ROME,13JUN00 - FILE PHOTO 27DEC83 - Pope John Paul II meets with his would-be assasin, Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca in his prison cell in December 1983. Italy granted Agca clemency June 13, the presidential palace said. Agca has still to serve part of a sentence in Turkey for killing a journalist in 1978. ph/Photo by Arturo Mari-Vatican REUTERS

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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



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Remember A Day

.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