ポーランドでは、アンナ・ヴァレンティノヴィチが、非公認労働組合「自由沿岸労働組合」(Wolne Związki Zawodowe Wybrzeża 、略称WZZW)への新規組合員勧誘を試みたため、グダニスクのレーニン造船所のクレーンオペレーターの職を解雇された。解雇は、ヴァレンティノヴィチが政府年金の受給資格を得る7か月前のことであり、造船所の電気技師レフ・ワレサが1980年8月14日にストライキを呼びかけた。[ 20 ]
ALADI ( A sociación La tinoamericana d e I ntegración) or Latin American Integration Association) was founded with the signing of a treaty by foreign ministers of 10 South American nations and Mexico, at a gathering in Uruguay to sign the 1980 Treaty of Montevideo. ALADI provided a system of classifying the member nations in three tiers of economic development, with Argentina, Brazil and Mexico as "highly industrialized countries"; Venezuela, Colombia and Chile as "fairly developed countries"; and Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay as "Lesser developed nations". [ 39 ] The new organization replaced the Latin American Free Trade Association (ALALC/LAFTA) founded in 1960, "ending 20 years of efforts to emulate the European Common Market". AP通信は、「代表者たちは『ラテンアメリカ共通市場』という理想に口先だけの賛辞を述べたものの、貿易品目に対する包括的な関税引き下げ交渉の仕組みを廃止した」と報じた。[ 40 ]
George Manuel Bosque, a guard for the Brink'sarmored car company, drove off with $1,850,000 in cash after persuading his co-worker, the truck driver, to let him borrow the vehicle to pick up another individual.[55] The cash had been flown from Honolulu by the First Hawaiian Bank and the Central Pacific Bank and was picked up at the airport before 7:00 in the morning by driver Jean Marie Jean, whom Bosque persuaded to let him use the truck to make a pickup from a messenger at another terminal of the airport. Bosque then drove the truck to the Airport Hilton hotel, where he stole a car from a maid at the hotel, then drove to Daly City, where he abandoned the vehicle at the Serramonte Shopping Center.[56] Bosque would return to San Francisco, where he would be arrested on November 23, 1981, as he was leaving a supermarket.[57] Sentenced to 15 years in prison, he would be paroled after less than five years and die of a drug overdose in 1991.[58]
Died: U.S. Army General William Hood Simpson, 92, Commander of the 9th U.S. Army in World War II
August 16, 1980 (Saturday)
Thirty-seven people were killed in a nightclub fire in London after an angry patron poured gasoline at the rear of the building and set it ablaze.[59] At the time, it was the worst mass murder in British history.[60] John Thompson had been ejected from Rodo's, a dance club at 18 Denmark Place in Soho, after an argument with a bartender. He then went to a service station, purchased a gallon of fuel, and poured it through a mailbox slot.[61]
Fifteen people were killed by the second of two gas explosions at the Golden Underground Shopping Arcade, an underground shopping center in the Japanese city of Shizuoka.[62] The first blast, relatively minor, caused a fire at a sushi shop. Forty minutes later, while a crowd had gathered to watch firemen investigate, a much larger explosion happened at the same spot.[63]