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1982 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984

Sport and Music

British and Irish current events

1982 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1982 in British music

Events from the year 1982 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - Margaret Thatcher, Conservative

Events

• 10 January - The lowest ever UK temperature of -27.2°C is recorded at Braemar, in Aberdeenshire. This equals the record set in the same place in 1895, and the record will be equalled again at Altnaharra in 1995.^[1]
• 11 January - Mark Thatcher, son of the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, disappears in the Sahara during Paris-Dakar rally.^[2][3]
• 14 January - Mark Thatcher is found safe and well in the Sahara Desert, six days after going missing.
• 26 January - Statistics show that unemployment in the United Kingdom has reached 3,000,000 for the first time since the 1930s. [1]
• 5 February - Laker Airways collapses, leaving 6,000 passengers stranded, with debts of £270 million.^[4]
• 19 February - The DeLorean Car factory in Belfast is put into receivership.
• 23 February - The Glasgow-registered coal ship St. Bedan is bombed and sunk by an IRA unit driving a hijacked pilot boat in Lough Foyle.
• 25 February - The European Court of Justice rules that schools in Britain cannot allow corporal punishment against the wishes of parents.^[5]
• 3 March - The Queen opens the Barbican Centre.^[6]
• 18 March
  • An obscenity trial brought by Mary Whitehouse against the National Theatre concerning the play The Romans in Britain ends after the Attorney General intervenes.^[7][8]
  • An Argentine scrap metal dealer raises the Argentine flag in South Georgia, Falkland Islands - a British colony.
• 19 March - Argentines land on South Georgia Island, precipitating war.
• 29 March - Royal Assent in London to the Canada Act 1982 sets the stage for the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution (see April 17 below).
• 2 April - Falklands War begins as Argentina invades the Falkland Islands.^[1]
• 4 April - Falklands War: The British Falkland Islands government surrenders, placing the islands in Argentine control.
• 5 April - Falklands War: Royal Navy task force sets sail to the Falklands from Portsmouth.^[9]
• 17 April - By Proclamation of the Queen of Canada on Parliament Hill, Canada repatriates its constitution, granting full political independence from the United Kingdom; included is the country's first entrenched bill of rights.
• 24 April - Eurovision Song Contest is held in Harrogate, Yorkshire.
• 25 April - Falklands War: Royal Marines recapture South Georgia.^[9]
• 1 May - Falklands War: Operation Black Buck- A Royal Air Force Vulcan bomber takes off from Ascension Island and bombs Port Stanley Airport.

The ARA General Belgrano sinks following attack by Royal Navy submarine HMS Conqueror.

• 2 May - Falklands War: The nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano.^[1]
• 4 May - Falklands War: HMS Sheffield badly damaged by an Exocet missile.^[1] It sinks on 10 May.
• 21 May - Falklands War: Royal Marines and paratroopers from the British Task Force land at San Carlos Bay on the Falkland Islands and raise the Union Jack.
• 23 May - Falklands War: HMS Antelope of the Royal Navy explodes.
• 27 May - Tottenham Hotspur win the FA Cup beating QPR 1-0 in a replay. A sixth minute penalty from Glenn Hoddle is the only goal of the game.
• 28 May - Falklands War: British troops reach Darwin in the Falkland Islands.
• 29 May
  • Pope John Paul II visits Canterbury, the first time a pontiff had visited Britain.^[10]
  • Falklands War: In the Battle of Goose Green, British paratroopers defeat a larger force of Argentine troops in the first land battle of the war.
• 31 May - Falklands War: The Battle of Stanley is fought.
• 3 June - Israeli ambassador to the UK, Shlomo Argov, shot outside the Dorchester Hotel.^[11]
• 8 June - U.S. President Ronald Reagan becomes the first American chief executive to address a joint session of Parliament.^[1] In the Falklands War, 48 UK servicemen are killed when two supply ships are bombed by Argentine air strikers off Bluff Cove. [2]
• 14 June - The Falklands War ends as British forces reach the outskirts of Stanley after "yomping" across East Falkland from San Carlos Bay. They arrive to find the Argentine forces flying white flags of surrender. A formal surrender is agreed that day.^[1]
• 16 June - Welsh miners go on strike to support health workers demanding a 12% pay rise.^[12]
• 19 June - The body of "God's Banker", Roberto Calvi, chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.
• 22 June - A British Airways Boeing 747 suffers a temporary four-engine flameout and damage to the exterior of the plane, after flying through the otherwise undetected ash plume from Indonesia's Galunggung.
• 9 July - Michael Fagan breaks into Buckingham Palace and spends 10 minutes talking to the Queen until he is apprehended.^[13]
• 20 July - Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonates two bombs in central London, killing 8 soldiers, wounding 47 people, and leading to the deaths of 7 horses.
• 21 July - HMS Hermes, the Royal Navy flagship during the Falklands War, returns home to Portsmouth to a hero's welcome.
• 22 July - Production of the Ford Cortina ends after 20 years and five incarnations (the final two of which were virtually identical). The Cortina's successor, the Sierra, will be built at Dagenham and in Belgium, though in slightly lower volumes as the smaller Escort is now Ford's strongest-selling car.
• 11 October - The Mary Rose, flagship of Henry VIII of England that sank in 1545, is raised.^[14]
• 12 October - A victory parade is held in London to mark the end of the Falklands war.
• 13 October - The Ford Sierra is launched as replacement for the long-running Cortina, and its ultra-modern aerodynamic styling causes controversy among potential buyers who for years had been drawn to the conventional Cortina.
• 21 October - Sinn Féin win first seats on Northern Ireland Assembly, with Gerry Adams winning the Belfast West seat.^[15]
• 27 October - Three RUC officers killed by an IRA bomb near Lurgan in Northern Ireland.^[16]
• 1 November - The Welsh language station, S4C, launches in Wales.
• 2 November - The fourth terrestrial television channel, Channel 4, begins broadcasting.^[1] The first programme broadcast being the game show Countdown, which is still in production.
• 7 November - The Thames Barrier is first publicly demonstrated.
• 30 November - A letter bomb explodes in 10 Downing Street sent by Animal rights activists with packages sent to the leaders of the other political parties. One member of Downing Street staff was burnt.^[17]
• 10 December
  • Aaron Klug wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes".^[18]
  • John Robert Vane wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Sune Bergström and Bengt I. Samuelsson "for their discoveries concerning prostaglandins and related biologically active substances".^[19]
• 12 December - Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp: 30,000 women hold hands and form a human chain around the 14.5 km (9 mi) perimeter fence.
• 15 December - The British colony of Gibraltar gains a pedestrian link to Spain, as the gates which separated the two states were re-opened by the Spanish government after 13 years.

Undated

• Unemployment exceeds 3 million for the first time since the 1930s.^[20]
• Ben Kingsley wins the Academy Award for Best Actor for his part in Gandhi.
• Inflation has fallen to a 10-year low of 8.6%, although some 1,500,000 jobs have reportedly been lost largely due to Margaret Thatcher's battle to bring inflation down. [3]

Publications

• 7 October - Sue Townsend's novel The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾.
• Douglas Adams' novel Life, the Universe and Everything.
• William Boyd's novel An Ice-Cream War.
• Bruce Chatwin's novel On the Black Hill.
• Caryl Churchill's play Top Girls.
• Richard Dawkins' book The Extended Phenotype.

Births

• 4 January — Richard Logan, footballer
• 16 January – Samuel Preston, singer
• 25 February — Chris Baird, footballer
• 9 March — Paul Ballard, television presenter
• 10 May — Adebayo Akinfenwa, footballer
• 15 May — Douglas Simpson, Scottish field hockey forward
• 19 May — Kevin Amankwaah, footballer
• 7 June — Amy Nuttall, actress and opera singer
• 21 June — Prince William of Wales, prince
• 13 July — Simon Clist, footballer
• 3 September — Fearne Cotton, television presenter
• 22 September — Billie Piper, singer and actress
• 30 September — Michelle Marsh, model
• 8 October — Glenn Kirkham, English field hockey player
• 21 October — David Mansouri, Scottish field hockey defender
• 28 October — Matt Smith, actor
• 12 December — Louise Carroll, Scottish field hockey defender

Deaths

• 15 April - Arthur Lowe, actor (born 1915)
• 25 April - Celia Johnson, actress (born 1908)
• 1 May - William Primrose, violist (born 1903)
• 4 July - Terry Higgins, early British casualty of AIDS
• 12 July - Kenneth More, actor (born 1914)
• 5 September - Douglas Bader, World War II fighter pilot (born 1910)
• 20 October - Jimmy McGrory, footballer (born 1904)
• 16 November - Arthur Askey, comedian (born 1900)
• 2 December - Marty Feldman, comedian and actor (born 1934)
• 16 December - Colin Chapman, automotive engineer (born 1928)

References

See also