30 years ago

1979 was by all standards a milestone in the history of the 20th century. In fact I get the impression that all years ending with nine must be exceptional (do you want to bet 2009 will be remembered for decades to come, and not just as the year of the credit crunch?). Okay, let's remember what happened while I was coming into this world :)

- Iran shifts from one tyranny, aristocracy, to the worst tyranny ever, theocracy.

- Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the UK in a landslide victory.

- Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq.

- China 'wakes up'; begins a vast economic restructuring programme and starts enforcing the one-child policy.

- Pol Pot’s bloody regime of the Khmer rouge falls in communist Kampuchea; China invades Vietnam in response to its occupation of Kampuchea.


- The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan
- Bokassa, one of the worst dictators of all time, is overthrown in the Central African Republic. Military rule ends in Nigeria too.


- The Polisario Front of the Western Sahara makes peace with Mauritania.

- The Arab league, Egypt's self-declared property, relocates to Tunis for eleven years
- It snows for the first time (since met records started) on the Sahara desert

- On the academic front, my supervisor, steve Woolgar, publishes with Bruno Latour what has then become the most influential book in the social study of science: Laboratory Life.