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.
  • April 25 » Cold War: American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war.
  • May 26 » The 7.8 M_w  Sea of Japan earthquake shakes northern Honshu with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami is generated that leaves about 100 people dead.
  • September 15 » Israeli premier Menachem Begin resigns.
  • October 4 » Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 miles per hour (1,019.468km/h) at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
  • December 7 » An Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 collides with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners are taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people.
  • December 31 » Benjamin Ward is appointed New York City Police Department's first ever African American police commissioner.

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)