Remember A DayTruck driver surviving lightning strike, Britain plugging into American computers and mystery illness among Australian children: headlines from 40 years ago
- 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 truck driver narrowly escaping death twice, Britain plugging into American computers remotely to handle complex computations and a mysterious illness striking down dozens of Australian schoolchildren made the headlines 40 years ago this week.
June 8, 1980
● The Chase Manhattan Bank and the China International Trust and Investment Corp (Citic) announced a major joint programme to increase American awareness of China’s modernisation plans and to stimulate US investment on the mainland. Citic and Chase would organise an exchange of specialists and technical personnel to study the technological and structural linkages that would form the basis for their cooperation.
● The Rank Organisation, one of the pioneers of the British cinema industry, announced it was pulling out of filmmaking after almost half a century. Rank’s films, whose credits opened with a muscular man striking a huge gong, included low-budget British satire in the Carry On series as well as The Lady Vanishes, about novelist Agatha Christie. Inflation, the high cost of borrowing in Britain and the time it took to recoup money invested in films were the main reasons for the decision.
June 9, 1980
● American truck driver Edwin Robinson, 62, lost his sight and part of his hearing after surviving a serious accident in 1971 when his articulated lorry rolled over. Nine years later in June 1980, another accident befell him, and he was knocked unconscious by a bolt of lightning after being caught in a thunderstorm. When he regained consciousness 20 minutes later, his sight had returned and his hearing was normal.
June 10, 1980
● Unrecognised cases of legionnaires’ disease might be killing more than 70,000 Americans annually, a medical magazine reported. Researchers in Ohio reported in a journal of the American Medical Association that they found a number of deaths attributed to pneumonia were actually cases of legionnaires’ disease.