Los Angeles jury clears John Z. DeLorean of drug charges

Year
1984
Month Day
August 16

After close to 30 hours of deliberation, a jury of six men and six women unanimously acquits the former automaker John Z. DeLorean of eight counts of drug trafficking in Los Angeles, California, on August 16, 1984.

A Detroit native and the son of an autoworker, DeLorean began working for the Packard Motor Company as an engineer in 1952. He rose quickly at Packard and later at General Motors (GM), where he moved in 1956. At GM, he managed both the Pontiac and Chevrolet divisions before becoming a vice president in 1972. DeLorean’s flashy style and self-promotional ability distinguished him in the staid culture of the auto industry, while his ambition and appetite for innovation seemed never to be satisfied: He claimed to hold more than 200 patents and was credited with such developments as the lane-change turn signal, overhead cam-engine and racing stripes.

In 1975, DeLorean left GM to found the DeLorean Motor Company and follow his dream of building a high-performance and futuristic but still economical sports car. With funds from the British government, DeLorean opened his car plant near Belfast in Northern Ireland in 1978 to manufacture his eponymous dream car: Officially the DMC-12 but often called simply the DeLorean, it had an angular stainless-steel body, a rear-mounted engine and distinctive “gull-wing” doors that opened upward. After skyrocketing production costs caused the DMC-12’s price tag to top $25,000 (at a time when the average car cost just $10,000) sales were insufficient to keep the company afloat. Following an investigation into suspected financial irregularities, the British government announced the closing of the DeLorean Motor Company on October 19, 1982. That same day, John DeLorean was arrested and charged with conspiring to obtain and distribute $24 million worth of cocaine.

The prosecution’s seemingly airtight case centered on a videotaped conversation about the drug deal between DeLorean and undercover FBI agents. If convicted, DeLorean faced up to 60 years in prison. DeLorean’s defense team argued that he had been entrapped, or lured into a situation that made it look like he had committed a crime. On August 6, 1984, the jury issued its surprising acquittal verdict. Over the next 15 years, DeLorean saw his dream car shoot to Hollywood stardom (in the “Back to the Future” film trilogy) even as he battled nearly 40 legal cases relating to his failed auto company. He declared bankruptcy in 1999 and died in 2005, at the age of 80.

Source

Miss America resigns over nude photos

Year
1984
Month Day
July 23

On July 23, 1984, 21-year-old Vanessa Williams gives up her Miss America title, the first resignation in the pageant’s history, after Penthouse magazine announces plans to publish nude photos of the beauty queen in its September issue. Williams originally made history on September 17, 1983, when she became the first Black woman to win the Miss America crown. Miss New Jersey, Suzette Charles, the first runner-up and also African American, assumed Williams’ tiara for the two months that remained of her reign.

Vanessa Lynn Williams was born March 18, 1963, in Millwood, New York, to music teacher parents. She attended Syracuse University and studied musical theater. In 1982, while working a summer job as a receptionist at a modeling agency in Mt. Kisco, New York, photographer Thomas Chiapel took the nude pictures of Williams, telling her they’d be shot in silhouette and that she wouldn’t be recognizable. After Williams became Miss America, the photographer sold the pictures to Penthouse without her knowledge. Williams later dropped lawsuits against the magazine and photographer after it was learned that she had signed a model release form at the time the photos were taken.

The Miss America pageant, which prides itself on projecting a wholesome, positive image of women, began in 1921 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, as a stunt developed by local businessmen to extend the summer tourist season. In 1945, the Miss America Organization handed out its first scholarship. Today, it provides over $45 million each year in cash and tuition assistance to contestants on the national, state and local levels. In 1954, the competition was broadcast live for the first time. Beginning in the 1980s, contestants were required to have a social platform, such as drunk-driving prevention of HIV/AIDS awareness, and Miss America winners now travel an estimated 20,000 miles a month for speaking engagements and public appearances. In 2006, following a decline in TV ratings, the pageant moved from Atlantic City for the first time in its history and took place in Las Vegas, where a new Miss America was crowned in January instead of September.

Vanessa Williams rebounded from the Miss America scandal and went on to a successful entertainment career as an actress and recording artist, performing on Broadway as well as in movies and television and releasing a number of albums.

Source

Geraldine Ferraro named vice presidential candidate

Year
1984
Month Day
July 12

Walter Mondale, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, announces that he has chosen Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate. Ferraro, a daughter of Italian immigrants, had previously gained recognition as a vocal advocate of women’s rights in Congress. Ferraro became the first female vice presidential candidate to represent a major political party. 

Four days after Ferraro was named vice presidential candidate, Governor Mario Cuomo of New York opened the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco with an impassioned retort to Republican President Ronald Reagan’s contention that the United States was a “shining city on a hill.” Citing widespread poverty and racial strife, Cuomo derided President Reagan as oblivious to the needs and problems of many of America’s citizens. His enthusiastic keynote address inaugurated a convention that saw Ferraro become the first woman nominated by a major party for the vice presidency. However, Mondale, the former U.S. vice president under Jimmy Carter, proved a lackluster choice for the Democratic presidential nominee. 

On November 6, President Reagan and Vice President George Bush defeated the Mondale-Ferraro ticket in the greatest Republican landslide in U.S. history. The Republicans carried every state but Minnesota—Mondale’s home state.

Ferraro left Congress in 1985. In 1992 and 1998, she made unsuccessful bids for a U.S. Senate seat. During President Bill Clinton’s administration, she was a permanent member on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. She died in 2011, at age 75. 

READ MORE: Women’s History Milestones: A Timeline 

Source

Maryland gets a miracle in Miami

Year
1984
Month Day
November 10

On November 10, 1984, at the Orange Bowl, the University of Maryland’s backup quarterback Frank Reich throws six touchdown passes against the University of Miami in the second half, completing an improbable comeback. The Terrapins, who had been losing 31-0 at the half, ended up winning the game 42-40. “In the first half, everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong,” one of Reich’s teammates said. “In the second half, everything that could possibly go right, went right.”

In the first two quarters of the game, Miami out-gained the Terps 328 yards to 57 and ran up their 31-point lead–but they didn’t do it graciously. “The comeback never would’ve happened if it had not been for the attitude of the Miami Hurricanes,” one Maryland player remembered. “No question about it. Those guys were the biggest cheap-shot, trash-talking, classless outfit of football players I’ve ever seen in my life.” He added: “You can almost take getting beat if a team is kicking your butts and they’re doing it cleanly. And there was no question that they were kicking our butts in the first half. But that team made us mad, and it gave us a little extra incentive.” And the Terps dug in their heels.

For the second half, Maryland’s coach replaced first-string quarterback Stan Gelbaugh with Reich, who had a steady, consistent arm. The new QB completed 12 of 15 passes and gained 260 yards. In the third quarter, he threw two touchdown passes and ran a third in himself to cut Miami’s lead to 34-21. In the fourth, he drove 55 yards in nine plays, and his teammate Tommy Neal scored a 14-yard touchdown to make the score 34-28. Then, with about nine and a half minutes left to play, Reich threw a long pass that glanced off Miami safety Darrell Fullington’s hands and landed in Maryland player Greg Hill’s, who ran it in for another touchdown. The score was 35-34, and the Terps had the lead.

Then Miami fumbled the kickoff and Maryland’s Rick Badanjek grabbed the ball and scored again. Now the Terrapins were winning 42-34. For a minute, it looked like Reich’s luck had run out–Miami got the ball after a bad punt snap and scored a quick touchdown, making the score 42-40–but Terp Keeta Covington prevented the two-point conversion and preserved Maryland’s miraculous victory.

To many fans and journalists, the 1984 Orange Bowl was college football’s greatest and most exciting comeback. And Reich went on to become the second-string quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, where he was responsible for one of the greatest comebacks in pro football history: In 1993, he threw four second-half touchdown passes for the Bills, who came from a 35-3 deficit to beat Houston 41-38.

Source

Hulk Hogan beats Iron Sheik to win first WWF title


Year
1984
Month Day
January 23

On January 23, 1984, Hulk Hogan becomes the first wrestler to escape the “camel clutch”—the signature move of reigning World Wrestling Federation (WWF) champion Iron Sheik—as he defeats Sheik to win his first WWF title, at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Only one month earlier, the Iron Sheik—born Hossein Khosrow Vaziri in Tehran, Iran—had defeated the celebrated Bob Backlund in a controversial match, ending Backlund’s WWF-championship reign of almost six years. A rematch was scheduled, but Backlund was injured, and Hulk Hogan–born Terry Gene Bollea in Augusta, Georgia–was given his spot. Six-foot-eight and around 300 pounds, with long blond hair and bronzed skin, Hogan entered the ring to his theme song, Survivor’s hit “Eye of the Tiger,” electrifying the Garden crowd. After the Sheik took an early advantage, Hogan turned the match around. He landed a kick to the Sheik’s face and followed up with a leg drop–jumping in the air and landing his leg on his fallen opponent. The bout was over in five minutes and 40 seconds, and Hogan was the new WWF champion.

The victory began what became known as “Hulkamania,” as Hogan’s phenomenal popularity led to a golden age for professional wrestling. A Southern, working-class hero in the eyes of his fans, Hogan advised young “Hulkamaniacs” to say their prayers and take their vitamins, and to believe in themselves. His championship reign lasted four straight years, and his enduring popularity brought unprecedented mainstream attention to the sport. He lost the WWF title in 1988 to Andre the Giant but regained it the following year with a win over Randy “Macho Man” Savage; he would hold it four times between 1989 and 1993.

The WWF and owner Vince McMahon launched the first wrestling pay-per-view event, WrestleMania, in 1985, and Hogan headlined eight of the first nine WrestleMania fights. After taking a year off to concentrate on television and movie roles, Hogan signed with a rival league, Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling (WCW), helping to foster what was known as a “New World Order.” He won the WCW championship title six times between 1994 and 1999, before returning to McMahon’s league–now known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Plagued by knee injuries, he left wrestling in 2003, but returned two years later amid hoopla over his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame. Since 2005, Hogan has made a limited number of appearances in the WWE arena.

Source

Bill Johnson becomes first American to win Olympic gold in downhill skiing


Year
1984
Month Day
February 16

On February 16, 1984, Bill Johnson becomes the first American man to win an Olympic gold medal in downhill skiing, a sport long dominated by European athletes. Johnson quickly became a national hero, though his fame was short-lived, and he never again competed in the Olympics.

William Dean Johnson was born March 30, 1960, and grew up in a working-class family in Oregon. He was frequently in trouble as a child and was once was arrested for stealing a car. In January 1984, the little-known Johnson, then 23, became the first American man to win a World Cup downhill race, at Wengen, Switzerland, and he boldly predicted he would take home a gold medal the following month at the Olympic Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

To the amazement of the skiing world, the prediction came true on February 16, 1984, when he finished the men’s downhill with a time 1:45:59 and beat Switzerland’s Peter Muller, a favorite to win the race, by .27 seconds. Johnson won two more World Cup races that season. However, his newfound fame seemed to go to his head and his brash, cocky personality alienated many in the ski community. Additionally, Johnson lived a lavish, hard-partying lifestyle and stopped winning races. In 1988, he was left off the U.S. ski team for the Olympic Games in Calgary.

At age 40, Johnson attempted to stage a comeback and qualify for the U.S. ski team for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. However, in March 2001, he suffered a devastating crash at the U.S. Alpine Championships at Big Mountain Resort near Whitefish, Montana. The crash put him in a coma for several weeks and left him with brain damage. 15 years after the accident, Johnson died on January 21, 2016.

Source

Baltimore Colts move to Indianapolis

Year
1984
Month Day
March 28

On March 28, 1984, Bob Irsay (1923-1997), owner of the once-mighty Baltimore Colts, moves the team to Indianapolis. Without any sort of public announcement, Irsay hired movers to pack up the team’s offices in Owings Mills, Maryland, in the middle of the night, while the city of Baltimore slept.

Robert Irsay gained control of the Colts in 1972 when he essentially traded his ownership in the Los Angeles Rams with Caroll Rosenbloom, then the owner of the Colts franchise. The Colts, led by quarterback Johnny Unitas, halfback Lenny Moore and defensive linemen Gino Marchetti and Art Donovan, had been the best team in the NFL in the late 1950s and had come to embody the working class spirit of Baltimore. The players lived among the fans, worked alongside the fans in the off-season and performed with evident pride in their adopted city. It wasn’t until Irsay purchased the team that the franchise began its downward spiral. After winning Super Bowl V in 1971, the Colts had a few winning years, but by the late 1970s, the franchise was so bad that when future Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway was drafted number one overall by the Colts out of Stanford in 1983, he refused to report to the team, saying he would play baseball for the New York Yankees instead. The Colts were forced to trade Elway to the Denver Broncos.

To make matters worse for the Colts, Irsay was by most accounts a difficult boss–he was infamous for his temper and was known to angrily lash out at players and employees. In 1984, Irsay asked the city of Baltimore to pay for improvements to Memorial Stadium, where the Colts played. But, here again, his irascibility may have gotten in the way. Although the two sides told different stories of what went on in the negotiations, it did not go well by any account, and on March 28, the Maryland state legislature passed a law allowing they city of Baltimore to seize the Colts from Irsay. Rather than give up his team, Irsay quickly took a deal offered by the city of Indianapolis and moved the Colts before anyone knew what had happened. Baltimore fans were stunned, and the Colts marching band, long a fixture at games, defiantly continued to perform in the city.

Football did not return to the Charm City until 1996, when Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell (1925-2012), in a dispute with the city of Cleveland over the stadium the Browns played in, agreed to move the Browns to Baltimore in return for a brand-new stadium built with taxpayer money. Although the Browns had enjoyed many years of success and rabid fan support while in Cleveland, Modell claimed that financial hardship forced his hand. The Browns were renamed the Baltimore Ravens after the poem “The Raven,” penned by Baltimore native Edgar Allen Poe. Under the leadership of General Manager Ozzie Newsome, a Browns Hall of Famer, the franchise has seen consistent success in Baltimore, including victory in Super Bowl XXXV in 2001, with many players that had actually been drafted as Browns. 

Source

President Reagan visits China

Year
1984
Month Day
April 26

On April 26, 1984, President Ronald Reagan arrives in China for a diplomatic meeting with Chinese President Li Xiannian. The trip marked the third time a U.S. president had traveled to China since President Richard Nixon’s historic trip in 1972 (Gerald Ford visited in 1975).

First lady Nancy Reagan accompanied her husband to China, along with approximately 600 journalists, a slew of Secret Service agents and, according to BBC reports, officials who guard the codes for launching nuclear missiles. The Reagans toured historical and cultural sites in Beijing and attended a dinner in their honor hosted by Xiannian.

Reagan’s trip highlighted his administration’s desire to improve diplomacy with China in light of the growing economic relationship between the two nations. Other topics of discussion between the two leaders over the course of the six-day trip included the development of commercial nuclear power in China and China’s displeasure with continuing U.S. support for nationalists in Taiwan.

After communists took over power in China in 1949, successive American presidents had refused to recognize the new Chinese government and supported pro-democratic nationalists who had been exiled on the island of Taiwan, off the coast of China. U.S. support for Taiwan included sales of arms, which infuriated the communist government in Beijing. President Nixon made tentative diplomatic overtures to China in 1969 and, in October 1970, told a Time reporter if there’s anything I want to do before I die it’s go to China. In 1971, he led the U.S. government in officially recognizing the communist Chinese government and became the first American president to visit China the next year. It was not until 1984 that another president, Reagan, would travel to China in an attempt to resolve remaining diplomatic differences.

During his visit, President Reagan impressed reporters and dignitaries with his occasional attempts to speak Chinese. However, the trip failed to break through the deadlock between China and the U.S. over the issue of Taiwanese independence.

READ MORE: China: A Timeline

Source

Reagan jokes about bombing Russia

Year
1984
Month Day
August 11

On August 11, 1984, President Ronald Reagan makes a joking but controversial off-the-cuff remark about bombing Russia while testing a microphone before a scheduled radio address. While warming up for the speech, Reagan said “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

Although the press throng and his aides in attendance laughed at the obvious joke, the comment unnerved Democratic opposition leaders and those already fearful of the hard-line posturing Reagan had displayed toward the USSR since assuming office in 1981. Others simply dismissed his remark, which came at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and Russia, as a moment of poor taste.

Reagan’s tough, anti-communist rhetoric and his policy to increase American defense spending contrasted with the Soviet policies of former Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter, who had tried to cultivate improved relations with Soviet Russia on friendly terms, offering cultural and technology exchanges. In retrospect, many analysts view Reagan’s get-tough policies as responsible for scaring the Russians into spending more on their military just to keep pace with American military expenditures—a fact that likely led to the collapse of the Russian economy and, by extension, the country’s communist political system.

Although Reagan, a former actor, was known for his clever way with words, the “bombing Russia” joke was considered by many to be an embarrassing political gaffe—not the first of his career. In 1969, while serving as governor of California, Reagan responded to student protestors at the University of California at Berkeley by saying “if there has to be a bloodbath then let’s get it over with.” Some of his more witty comments include a comparison between politics and prostitution and the 1980 campaign quip “a recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.” Even after an attempted assassination in March 1981, Reagan never lost his sense of humor. The first thing he said to his wife Nancy when she arrived at the hospital was “honey, I forgot to duck.” (This quote was originally attributed to boxer Jack Dempsey after losing a championship match to Gene Tunney in 1926.)

Although it is not known what Soviet leaders thought of Reagan’s joke, the comment did color some Americans’ opinion of Reagan, whose approval rating suffered a slight drop in the aftermath of the incident, temporarily boosting the electoral hopes of Democratic presidential hopeful Walter Mondale. Reagan recovered and beat Mondale; he began his second term in 1985.

READ MORE: The Cold War

Source

Marvin Gaye is shot and killed by his own father

Year
1984
Month Day
April 01

At the peak of his career, Marvin Gaye was the Prince of Motown—the soulful voice behind hits as wide-ranging as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).” Like his label-mate Stevie Wonder, Gaye both epitomized and outgrew the crowd-pleasing sound that made Motown famous. 

Over the course of his roughly 25-year recording career, he moved successfully from upbeat pop to “message” music to satin-sheet soul, combining elements of Smokey Robinson, Bob Dylan and Barry White into one complicated and sometimes contradictory package. But as the critic Michael Eric Dyson put it, the man who “chased away the demons of millions…with his heavenly sound and divine art” was chased by demons of his own throughout his life. That life came to a tragic end on this day 1984, when Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his own father one day short of his 45th birthday.

If the physical cause of Marvin Gaye’s death was straightforward—”Gunshot wound to chest perforating heart, lung and liver,” according to the Los Angeles County Coroner—the events that led to it were much more tangled. On the one hand, there was the longstanding conflict with his father dating back to childhood. Marvin Gay, Sr., (the “e” was added by his son for his stage name) was a preacher in the Hebrew Pentecostal Church and a proponent of a strict moral code he enforced brutally with his four children. He was also, by all accounts, a hard-drinking cross-dresser who personally embodied a rather complicated model of morality. By some reports, Marvin Sr. harbored significant envy over his son’s tremendous success, and Marvin Jr. clearly harbored unresolved feelings toward his abusive father.

Those feelings spilled out for the final time in the Los Angeles home of Marvin Gay, Sr., and his wife Alberta. Their son, the international recording star, had moved into his parents’ home in late 1983 at a low point in his struggle with depression, debt and cocaine abuse. Only one year removed from his first Grammy win and from a triumphant return to the pop charts with “Sexual Healing,” Marvin Gaye was in horrible physical, psychological and financial shape.

After an argument between father and son escalated into a physical fight on the morning of April 1, 1984, Alberta Gay was trying to calm her son in his bedroom when Marvin Sr. took a revolver given to him by Marvin Jr. and shot him three times in his chest. Marvin Gaye’s brother, Frankie, who lived next door, and who held the legendary singer during his final minutes, later wrote in his memoir that Marvin Gaye’s final, disturbing statement was, “I got what I wanted….I couldn’t do it myself, so I made him do it.”

Source