The Brown Tree » Patrick Joseph (Sonny) WEST (1923-1983)

Day of death August 31, 1983

• The temperature on August 31, 1983 was between 10.9 °C and 28.1 °C and averaged 19.7 °C. There was 11.5 hours of sunshine (84%). The average windspeed was 1 Bft (weak wind) and was prevailing from the east-southeast. Source: KNMI
• Koningin Beatrix (Huis van Oranje-Nassau) was from April 30, 1980 till April 30, 2013 sovereign of the Netherlands (also known as Koninkrijk der Nederlanden)
• In The Netherlands , there was from Thursday, November 4, 1982 to Monday, July 14, 1986 the cabinet Lubbers I, with Drs. R.F.M. Lubbers (CDA) as prime minister.
• In the year 1983: Source: Wikipedia
  • The Netherlands had about 14.3 million citizens.
  • February 8 » The Melbourne dust storm hits Australia's second largest city. The result of the worst drought on record and a day of severe weather conditions, a 320 metres (1,050ft) deep dust cloud envelops the city, turning day to night.
  • April 4 » Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Challenger makes its maiden voyage into space.
  • June 5 » More than 100 people are killed when the Russian river cruise ship Aleksandr Suvorov collides with a girder of the Ulyanovsk Railway Bridge. The collision caused a freight train to derail, further damaging the vessel yet the ship remained afloat and was eventually restored and returned to service.
  • October 21 » The metre is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
  • November 8 » TAAG Angola Airlines Flight 462 crashes after takeoff from Lubango Airport killing all 130 people on board. UNITA claims to have shot down the aircraft, though this is disputed.
  • December 4 » US Navy aircraft from USS John F. Kennedy and USS Independence attack Syrian Missile sites in Lebanon in response to an F-14 being fired on by an SA-7. One A-6 Intruder and A-7 Corsair are shot down. 1 American pilot was killed, one was rescued and one is captured.

Source: Wikipedia

• 1979 » Sally Rand, American actress and dancer (b. 1904)
• 1984 » Audrey Wagner, American baseball player, obstetrician, and gynecologist (b. 1927)
• 1985 » Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Australian virologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
• 1986 » Elizabeth Coatsworth, American author and poet (b. 1893)
• 1986 » Henry Moore, English sculptor and illustrator (b. 1898)
• 1986 » Urho Kekkonen, Finnish journalist, lawyer, and politician, 8th President of Finland (b. 1900)