Week of May 8, 1980
Relayed to President Carter - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat requests in
indefinite postponement of the deadlocked Palestinian autonomy talks with Israel
and the U.S.
A freighter rams the Sunshine Skyway
Bridge at rush hour in a blinding
thunderstorm, tearing away a large section
of the span, sending about 30 people to
their deaths.
One car with 4, stopped just
inches away from the broken road.
Moammar Kadafi outs the diplomats from
several of his embassies, transformed
them into Libyan People’s bureaus and
allowed students to take over one of them.
Cuban MIG jet fighters sink a Bahamian
gunboat, killing four crewman and
terrorized residents of a remote island by
buzzing the city of Duncan Town.
Power test - Five U.S. Navy helicopters
spray flammable foam on the surface of
the Persian Gulf, touching off a fire in the
strategic waterway as Iranian jet fighters
looked on.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter raises its price $2 a barrel.
The Senate adopts a $613.1-billion balanced 1981 budget after it votes to halt
Saturday mail delivery and to collect a 10-cent-a-gallon oil import fee.
Two men used rubber suction cups and spikes to climb part of the way up the
back of the statue of Liberty to dramatize their discontent with the treatment of a
convicted killer in California. The white and red banner said, “Liberty Was
Framed - Free Geronimo Pratt.” The two men remained on the statue for the
night.
Divorce final - Heiress Christina Onasis (29) and her Soviet husband Sergei
Kauzov (39) are divorced by a Swiss court. They were married in August 1978.
