At A Glance

24 August 1979 at a glance

Day of the week
24 August 1979 was a Friday.
Billboard Hot 100 No. 1
The Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 was “Good Times” by Chic.
Top Film of 1979
The highest-grossing film worldwide released in 1979 was Moonraker.
Bestselling Novel of 1979
“The Matarese Circle” by Robert Ludlum was No. 1 on Publishers Weekly's US fiction list for 1979.
Top-Rated TV Show
“60 Minutes” (CBS) was No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1979–80 season.
Star sign
The star sign for 24 August is Virgo.
Chinese zodiac
In the Chinese zodiac, 24 August 1979 fell in the Year of the Goat.
Birthstone
The birthstone for August is Peridot.
Moon phase
The moon phase on 24 August 1979 was Waxing Crescent.

On this day: 24 August

  • 1967 Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party temporarily disrupts trading at the New York Stock Exchange by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them.
  • 1989 Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on the Colombian government.
  • 1989 Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as the first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe.
  • 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
  • 1991 Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.

Famous people born on August 24

  • Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary (born 1997)
  • Chad Michael Murray, American actor, model, and author (born 1981)
  • Jared Harris, English actor (born 1961)
  • Hideo Kojima, Japanese director, screenwriter and video game designer (born 1963)

Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Events of 1979 in the United States

A selection from Wikipedia's '1979 in the United States'. Not a complete list.

  • February 20 – This Old House premieres on PBS.
  • March 29 – America's most serious nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania.
  • April 1 – Nickelodeon debuts on cable television, playing children's television shows 24 hours a day. Pinwheel, which first premiered on the channel C-3 in 1977, was one of the first shows to be broadcast on the channel.
More events of 1979 →Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Life in the US in 1979

President

Jimmy Carter

Gas (per gallon)

$0.86

Loaf of Bread

$0.43

Average House

$62,900

Weekly Wage

$250

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Famous Faces Born in the 1970s

Well-known people born in the same decade as you, not on your birthday.

Keri Russell23 March 1976ActressView their day →Tupac Shakur16 June 1971Rapper & actorView their day →Zoe Saldaña19 June 1978ActressView their day →Christopher Nolan30 July 1970FilmmakerView their day →Jon Bernthal20 September 1976ActorView their day →Jason Sudeikis18 September 1975Actor & comedianView their day →Milo Ventimiglia8 July 1977ActorView their day →Sarah Paulson17 December 1974ActressView their day →

Sources: Wikidata and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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