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1983 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1983 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Events

January

  • 1 January – The British Nationality Act 1981 comes into effect creating five classes of British nationality.
  • 3 January – Children's ITV is launched as a new branding for the late afternoon programming block on the ITV network.
  • 5 January – Two policemen and a policewoman drown at Blackpool after going into the sea to rescue a man who entered the sea to save his dog (both of whom also drown).<Ref></ref>
  • 6 January – Danish fishermen defy the British government's prohibition on non-UK boats fishing in its coastal waters.
  • 14 January – Shooting of Stephen Waldorf: Armed policemen shoot and severely injure an innocent car passenger in London, believing him to be escaped prisoner David Martin.
  • 17 January – The first British breakfast television programme, Breakfast Time, is launched on BBC One at 6:30AM.
  • 19 January – The two policemen who wounded Stephen Waldorf are charged with attempted murder and released on bail; they are suspended from duty pending further investigation.
  • 23 January – The prohibition on non-British boats fishing in British waters is lifted as the European Economic Community's Common Fisheries Policy comes into effect.
  • 25 January – The Infrared Astronomical Satellite, the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths, is launched. The satellite is a joint project between the American space agency NASA, the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes and the UK's Science and Engineering Research Council.
  • 26 January – Red rain falls in the UK, caused by sand from the Sahara Desert in the droplets.
  • 28 January – Escaped prisoner David Martin (for whom Stephen Waldorf was mistaken) is rearrested.
  • 31 January – Seatbelt use for drivers and front seat passengers becomes mandatory, 11 years after becoming compulsory equipment in new cars.

February

March

April

  • April – Vauxhall launches the Nova supermini with a range of three-door hatchbacks and two-door saloons. It is the first Vauxhall to be built outside the United Kingdom, being assembled at the Zaragoza plant in Spain where it was launched seven months ago as the Opel Corsa, but plans to launch it on the British market had been attacked by trade unions who were angry at the fact that it would not be built in Britain. Its launch is expected to result in the end of Vauxhall Chevette production in Britain.
  • 1 April
  • Thousands of protesters form a 14-mile human chain in reaction to the siting of American nuclear weapons in British military bases.
  • The government expels three Russians named as KGB agents by a Soviet defector.
  • 4 April – The biggest cash haul in British history sees gunmen escape with £7 million from a Security Express van in East London.
  • 11 April – Richard Attenborough's 1982 film Gandhi wins eight Academy Awards.
  • 21 April – The one pound coin introduced in England and Wales.

May

  • 9 May – Margaret Thatcher calls a general election for 9 June. Opinion polls show her on course for victory with the Tories 8–12 points ahead of Labour, and they are widely expected to form a significant overall majority due to the split in left-wing votes caused by the Alliance, who are now aiming to take Labour's place in opposition.
  • 11 May - Aberdeen F.C. beat Real Madrid 2–1 (after extra time) to win the European Cup Winner's Cup. They are currently (as of 2023) the last team to beat Real Madrid in a European Final.
  • 14 May – Dundee United F.C. are crowned Scottish football champions for the first time in their history by winning the Scottish Premier Division, on the final day of the league season at the home of their city rivals Dundee F.C., Dens Park.
  • 16 May – Wheel clamps are first used to combat illegal parking in London.
  • 21 May – Manchester United and Brighton & Hove Albion draw 2–2 in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium. The replay will be held in five days time.
  • 26 May
  • Manchester United defeat Brighton & Hove Albion 4–0 in the FA Cup final replay at Wembley Stadium. Bryan Robson scores two of the goals, with the other two coming from Arnold Muhren and 18-year-old Norman Whiteside.
  • Opinion polls suggest that the Conservatives are looking set to be re-elected with a landslide. A MORI poll puts them on 51%, 22 points ahead of Labour.

June

July

August

  • 1 August – The new A-prefix car registration plates are launched, helping spur on the recovery in car sales following the slump at the start of the decade caused by the recession.
  • 5 August – 22 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members receive sentences totalling over 4,000 years from a Belfast Court.
  • 18 August – Architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner dies aged 81 at his home in Hampstead, London.
  • 19 August – Temperatures reach 30&nbsp;°C in London, as hot weather embraces the United Kingdom.
  • 29 August – ITV launches Blockbusters, a gameshow hosted by Bob Holness and featuring sixth formers as its contestants.

September

  • 8 September – The National Health Service privatises cleaning, catering and laundering services in a move which Social Services Secretary Norman Fowler predicts will save between £90 million and £180 million a year.
  • 11 September – The SDP Conference voted against a merger with the Liberals until at least 1988.
  • 19 September – The West Indian island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis becomes independent of the United Kingdom.
  • 21 September – The England national football team lose 1–0 to Denmark at Wembley Stadium in the penultimate qualifying game for Euro 84, making qualification unlikely.
  • 22 September – Docklands redevelopment in East London begins with the opening of an Enterprise Zone on the Isle of Dogs.
  • 25 September – Maze Prison escape: 38 IRA prisoners armed with six guns hijack a lorry and escape from HM Prison Maze in County Antrim, Northern Ireland; one guard dies of a heart attack and 20 others are injured in the attempt to foil the escape, the largest prison escape since World War II and in British history. 19 escapees are later apprehended.
  • 30 September – In the latest crackdown on football hooliganism, seven men (all members of the notorious Subway Army, a football firm associated with Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.) are convicted of taking part in a fight near the club's stadium.
  • September – Ford launches two new models, the second generation Fiesta supermini and the Orion, the saloon version of the big-selling Escort.

October

November

December

  • 4 December – An SAS undercover operation ends in the shooting and killing of two IRA gunmen, a third is injured.
  • 6 December – First heart and lung transplant carried out in Britain at Harefield Hospital.
  • 8 December – The House of Lords votes to allow television broadcast of its proceedings.
  • 9 December – A woman is killed in the Wrawby Junction rail crash.
  • 10 December – William Golding wins the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today".
  • 15 December – The second of two James Bond films not produced by Eon Productions – Never Say Never Again – is released in UK cinemas. An adaptation of the novel Thunderball (which had previously been adapted by Eon in the 1965 film of the same name), it marks Sean Connery's return as James Bond for his seventh and final overall outing.
  • 17 December – Six people are killed in the Harrods bombing.
  • 25 December (Christmas Day) – A second IRA bomb explodes in Oxford Street, but this time nobody is injured.

Undated

Publications

Births

Deaths

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

See also

References