LOSE YOURSELF IN 1979
MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
The world came perilously close to Armageddon on 9 November when US military computers erroneously indicated that the USSR had launched a nuclear attack on the US. North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) initially reported 250 incoming missiles, then a further 950, leaving between three and seven minutes for president Jimmy Carter to decide whether or not to retaliate.
The air force was put on alert, US missiles sites received preliminary warnings and the president’s ‘doomsday’ command post aircraft was scrambled. It later transpired that a training tape simulating allout war had been loaded into the system accidentally.
CHARTER TOPPERS
The best-selling single in the UK in 1979 was Art Garfunkel’s Bright Eyes, which spent six of its nine weeks in the top ten at number one. Mike Batt wrote the song for the animated film Watership Down, based on Richard Adams’ bestselling book of the same name. Blondie’s Heart of Glass (from the Parallel Lines LP) was the secondbest seller, chalking up a success for the new wave, but it was Cliff
Richard’s We Don’t Talk Anymore in at number three. The Boomtown Rats came next with I Don’t Like Mondays, with Dr Hook’s When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman in at fifth.
IRON LADY’S RISE TO POWER
The year began with the strikeladen winter of discontent. Within months, Labour was toppled at the general election, with the Conservative party winning a 43-seat majority under Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady resigned on 28 November 1990.