The following events occurred in April 1981:
April 1, 1981 (Wednesday) The Soviet Union implemented daylight saving time for the first time since 1930, with all clocks being set forward an hour at midnight. Many nations in Western Europe had changed the time on Sunday. (At the time, the United States did not spring forward until the last Sunday in April, April 26 in 1981.) The Isuzu Motor Company formally began selling its cars in the United States, becoming the sixth Japanese manufacturer to sell in the U.S. A videotape was shown on CNN, reportedly made during a January 6, 1981 broadcast of The Dick Maurice Show, showing psychic Tamara Rand's appearance on the talk show seen on KTNV in Las Vegas, and her amazing prediction of a March 30, 1981 event. On the tape, shown again the next day on NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America, Rand was seen telling Maurice that "the last few days of March or early April" would be "a crisis time" for U.S. President Ronald Reagan; that when she had the vision she felt "a thud" in her chest but that she also perceived "gunshots all over the place". Rand added that "It has to do with somebody young and radical... The only thing I can attach to it is Humbley, and maybe Jack, or something like that.""Psychic 'Saw' President's Narrow Escape", Associated Press report in Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1981, p. I-7 Five days later, after the authenticity of the tape came into dispute, Rand and Maurice admitted that the prediction sequence had been taped the day after the March 30 attempted assassination of Reagan by John W. Hinckley Jr."TV host, psychic admit Reagan hoax", Chicago Tribune, April 6, 1981, p.1-1Museum of Hoaxes
In Puʻunene, Hawaii, Australian stuntman Jim Bailey attempted to become the undercarriage of a single-engine airplane by being taken aloft on its underside. On takeoff, however, his safety harness snapped, leaving him dangling under the front landing gear about above ground before he fell to his death. Born: Asli Bayram, Turkish-German actress, in Darmstadt Hannah Spearritt, English singer (S Club) and actress, in Great Yarmouth
April 2, 1981 (Thursday) Syrian airplanes bombed Lebanese Christian strongholds in Zahlé and East Beirut, renewing the Lebanese Civil War that had been on hiatus since 1976. The Soviet Union paid $3,000,000 to Canada to settle all claims for environmental damage that had been caused by the disintegration of the Kosmos 954 satellite on January 24, 1978. Born: Bethany Joy Galeotti, American actress (One Tree Hill), in Hollywood, Florida
April 3, 1981 (Friday) After two days, an attempted coup d'état in Thailand was put down as thousands of troops took back control of Bangkok without a fight. Prem Tinsulanonda had taken King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the royal family with him to the city of Korat after General Sant Chipatima had seized control on Wednesday. Days before it was to be the showpiece of the California Energy Commission's conference on wind energy, the Alcoa 500 kW wind turbine at San Gorgonio Pass began turning. After only hours, the turbine was out of control, a blade came loose and the structure collapsed. The embarrassment was great enough that Alcoa went no further in wind energy research.
Preceding the launch of the IBM Personal Computer by almost four months, the Osborne 1 was introduced at the 7th annual West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. Died: Juan Trippe, 81, founder of Pan American World Airways
April 4, 1981 (Saturday) Mario Moretti, a co-founder of Red Brigades and the mastermind of the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, was caught by police after nearly three years of pursuit. CERN produced the world's first proton-antiproton collisions. Cancer survivor Bob Champion won the 1981 Grand National at Aintree on the horse Aldaniti. His story would inspire the 1984 film Champions.Grand National results The 127th Boat Race, the annual competition between the rowing eights the Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club, was held. Oxford was coxed by Sue Brown, the first female coxswain in the history of the event, and passed the finishing post eight lengths ahead of Cambridge, their largest margin of victory since 1898. Appearing for the United Kingdom, the rock band Bucks Fizz won the 26th Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, with the song "Making Your Mind Up".Eurovision 1981 summary Henry Cisneros became the first Hispanic American to be elected to lead a major United States city. The 33-year-old professor won 62% of the votes to become the new Mayor of San Antonio.
April 5, 1981 (Sunday) Si Unyil began its run as the most successful children's television program in Indonesia. Born: Michael A. Monsoor, American Medal of Honor recipient, in Long Beach, California (killed in Iraq in 2006)
April 6, 1981 (Monday) A pair of gunmen attempted to rob a branch of the Augusta Savings and Loan at the Dundalk (Maryland) Shopping Center and accidentally locked themselves out. When they departed through the exit, they found themselves surrounded by most of the officers of the Precinct 12 station of the Baltimore County, Maryland, police, which was only away and had been changing shifts. Born: Robert Earnshaw, Wales national football team striker, 2002–present; in Mufulira, Zambia
April 7, 1981 (Tuesday) The "Soyuz '81" maneuvers by armies of the Warsaw Pact nations came to an end, allaying fears that they were a prelude to an invasion of Poland to suppress the Solidarity union. Earlier in the day, Pact commander General Kulikov had a closed meeting with Polish leaders Stanislaw Kania and Jaruselski for a commitment to get the union movement under control. National Guardsmen in El Salvador drove into the San Salvador neighborhood of Monte Carmelos, pulled out residents accused of rebellion against the government, and executed them. Reporters who arrived later found thirty bodies in the streets. The explosion of a grain elevator at Corpus Christi, Texas, killed nine people and injured 30. Born: Suzann Pettersen, Norwegian golfer, 2007 LPGA Champion, in Oslo Died: Norman Taurog, 82, American film director who won an Academy Award in 1931 for the film Skippy
April 8, 1981 (Wednesday) In Moscow, KGB investigators arrested Vyacheslav Ivankov, an organized crime leader who was nicknamed "Yaponchik" and was the boss of the so-called "Russian Mafia". Born: Frédérick Bousquet, French swimmer and recordholder in 50m freestyle, in Perpignan
Died: General of the Army Omar N. Bradley, 88, last "five-star general" in the United States
April 9, 1981 (Thursday) The Japanese ship Nissho Maru was sunk after colliding with the , an American nuclear submarine. In San Francisco, Dr. John Gullett made the first confirmed diagnosis of AIDS, a sexually transmitted disease causing Kaposi's sarcoma. Dr. Gullett reported his findings to the Centers for Disease Control two weeks later.
Fernando Valenzuela, a 20-year-old rookie for the Los Angeles Dodgers, pitched a 2–0 win over the Houston Astros, the first of eight consecutive wins, and one of five shutouts. In his first 8 games, he had an ERA of 0.50, though he lost 7 of the 12 games pitched afterward. Born: Eric Harris, American mass murderer (Columbine High School massacre), in Wichita, Kansas; committed suicide in 1999
April 10, 1981 (Friday) Incarcerated at the H-Block of Maze Prison and on a hunger strike, Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands was elected to the vacant Fermanagh and South Tyrone seat in the British House of Commons, with 30,492 votes for his "Anti-H-Block Party", ahead of Harry West's 29,046 votes. MP Sands would die of starvation on May 5. Born: Gretchen Bleiler, American snowboarder and X Games gold medalist, in Toledo, Ohio Laura Bell Bundy, American stage actress and country singer, in Lexington, Kentucky
April 11, 1981 (Saturday)
Rioting began in Brixton, a mostly black London neighborhood, after police had stopped and questioned hundreds of residents as part of "Swamp 81", an anti-crime campaign that started five days earlier. Resentment built, and at 4:45 pm, the arrest of a young black man on Atlantic Road triggered the worst race riot in England's history. A crowd broke the windows of the police van transporting the arrest subject, then set fire to an empty police car and began looting stores. By 5:30, the violence had spread to Railton Road and Mayall Road, and at 6:30, the first gasoline bombs were hurled at police cars. Order was restored by 10:00 pm."Brixton Riots 1981: How smouldering tension erupted to set Brixton aflame", www.GuardianCentury.co.uk A subsequent government investigation reported that 279 policemen and at least 45 civilians were injured, noting that "In the centre of Brixton, a few hundred young people- most, but not all of them black — attacked the police on the streets... demonstrating to the millions of their fellow citizens the fragile basis of the Queen's peace. The petrol bomb was now used for the first time on the streets of Britain (the idea, no doubt, copied from the disturbances in Northern Ireland). These young people, by their criminal behaviour — for such, whatever their grievances or frustrations, it was — brought about a temporary collapse of law and order in the centre of an inner suburb of London.", quoted in Actress Valerie Bertinelli married rock musician Eddie Van Halen, and 77-year-old actor Cary Grant married 46-year-old actress Barbara Harris. Died: Caroline Gordon, 85, American novelist
April 12, 1981 (Sunday) The world's first reusable spacecraft, the Space Shuttle Columbia, was launched from Kennedy Space Center for the first time at 7:00 a.m. EST, beginning the STS-1 mission. As one historian noted later, "Never before in the history of the space program had NASA asked its astronauts to pilot a rocket or a spacecraft into space on its maiden voyage... NASA engineers counted 748 different ways in which the two astronauts on the maiden voyage of the space shuttle Columbia could die." John Young, who had gone into space four times before, and Robert Crippen, who would fly three more shuttle missions, reached orbit and returned two days later. Delayed several times, the liftoff came 20 years to the day after Yuri Gagarin had become the first man to be sent into outer space, on the April 12, 1961, liftoff of Vostok 1.
Died: Joe Louis, 66, American heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949; the night before, he had watched Larry Holmes defeat challenger Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas
April 13, 1981 (Monday) The 1981 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced. John Kennedy O'Toole won the prize for fiction for A Confederacy of Dunces. Despondent over failing to find a publisher, O'Toole had killed himself 12 years earlier, on March 26, 1969. Janet Cooke of The Washington Post won the prize for feature writing, for her September 28, 1980, story "Jimmy's World", about an 8-year-old heroin addict. Two days later, the Post revealed that Cooke had confessed to fabricating the story; she returned the prize and quit her job.
April 14, 1981 (Tuesday) At 10:21 am PST (1821 UTC), Columbia became the first crewed orbital spacecraft to land in California. Sixty minutes earlier at an altitude of over the Indian Ocean, astronauts Young and Crippen had taken the Space Shuttle orbiter out of orbit. During the first mission, the thermostat, the cargo doors and the zero-G toilet all malfunctioned, and some of the heat-shielding tiles had fallen off (though not from the underside of the orbiter). Columbia would fly 27 more missions. On February 1, 2003, Columbia would be destroyed and its crew of 7 killed, after leading edge wing damage led to the orbiter burning up during its return to earth. Died: William Henry Vanderbilt III, 79, tycoon and former Governor of Massachusetts
April 15, 1981 (Wednesday)