The Movie Timeline - be obsessive, be very obsessive
Movie history events from 1979
Biff Tannen successfully lobbies to legalise gambling, in one timeline. (Back to the Future Part II)
Randy starts playing ping-pong. (Balls of Fury)
A sports car is made. (Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey)
Carl starts working as a bell hop at a Madison Hotel. (Philadelphia, Pensylvania) (Billy Madison)
Danny Archer is sent to South Africa from Zimbabwe. (Blood Diamond)
Carrie White is covered in pigs' blood at her prom and subsequently murders everyone. (Chamberlain, New England) (Carrie)
Journalist Philip Train is awarded the Pulitzer Prize (Chances Are)
Dr Kevin Harrison tries to blow up Concorde to stop TV reporter Maggie Whelan exposing his illegal weapons deal. (The Concorde: Airport '79)
14 year-old Alf constructs his first car bomb, blowing off his eyebrows. (Afghanistan) (Domino)
Sylvia Ganush starts living at 325 Brandon Street. (Los Angeles, California) (Drag Me To Hell)
Newborn baby Christine York is patronised by Satanists as the devil's future bride. (End of Days)
Brad Hamilton starts going out with Lisa. (Ridgemont, CA) (Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
Charles Jefferson gets a car from alumni for playing football. (Ridgemont, CA) (Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
Galaxt Quest TV series premieres. (USA) (Galaxy Quest)
Michael Corleone forges financial links with the Vatican; his daughter Mary is murdered leaving the Palermo Opera House. (The Godfather: Part III)
The American Film Institute honors Alfred Hitchcock with its Life Achievement Award. (Hitchcock)
Julie Nicole James, Helen Shivers, Barry William Cox, Ray Bronson, and Max Neurick is born. (Southport, North Carolina) (I Know What You Did Last Summer)
Philadelphia Eagles special teamer Vince Papale retires after 3 seasons. (Philadelphia, Pa.) (Invincible)
Manners and two other men are holed up. (Jack Frost)
Manners and two other men are holed up. (Jack Frost)
Another great white shark attacks citizens. (Amity Island) (Jaws 2)
Roy Munson wins State Amateur Championship. (Ocelot,Iowa) (Kingpin)
A rigged horse-race fails when the would-be winner collapses. (Aqueduct Racetrack, New York) (Lucky Number Slevin)
Tricia Jones is born. (Leonardo, New Jersey) (Mallrats)
Manhattan. (Manhattan)
Father of IRA terrorist Sean Miller is shot dead by the RUC. (Belfast, Ireland) (Patriot Games)
Band uniforms at high school stay the same at least up to the end of 2013. (Conyer, Pennsylvania) (Prisoners)
Royal Mail Steamer Titanic raised from the bottom of the Atlantic by Dirk Pitt and NUMA. (North Atlantic) (Raise the Titanic)
Operation Nightshade, which involves the smuggling of a nuclear weapon into Russia, takes place. (Russia) (Red 2)
Rocky Balboa loses the heavyweight title to Clubber Lang, only to win it back in a hasty rematch; his son Rocky Jr somehow ages twice as fast as he should. (Rocky III)
CCCP 1979 airplane is made. (Russia) (Rocky IV)
Frank Herrera serves tours. (Granada) (Runaway Jury)
Timothy Young is born. (Saw III)
Casey Becker is born. (Woodsboro, CA) (Scream)
Sydney Prescott is born. (Woodsboro, CA) (Scream)
Airplanes pass over baby Nashawn Wade's house. (Inglewood, CA) (Soul Plane)
Adam Finch starts working for Dr. Sander Halvorson. (The Thing)
Jack The Ripper is let loose on San Franciscan women. (Time After Time)
A noise is heard outside of Camp David. (Timecop)
Bobby Boucher becomes a waterboy for the University of Louisiana Cougars. (Louisiana) (The Waterboy)
Welcome Back, Kotter is cancelled. (The Wedding Singer)
Linda falls in love with Robbie Hart, the lead singer of Final Warning. (Richfield, Ohio) (The Wedding Singer)
Monday 1st January: The car Christine is destroyed... for now. (Christine)
Tuesday 2nd January: The trial opens for ex-Sex Pistol Sid Vicious, accused of murdering his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen in October 1978. (Sid and Nancy)
Thursday 4th January: Morrie Kessler is killed. (Goodfellas)
Monday 8th January: Mary Mattock is evaluated. (Kings Park Psychiatric Center, Kings Park, NY) (Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet)
Sunday 14th January: Tommy DeSimone is killed for killing Billy Batts. (Queens, New York) (Goodfellas)
February: Iranian Revolution ends. (Iran) (Argo)
February: Elwood Blues is pulled over. (Joliet, IL) (The Blues Brothers)
Friday 2nd February: Sex Pistols member Sid Vicious dies of a heroin overdose. (New York) (Sid and Nancy)
Saturday 3rd February: Elizabeth Lamb is killed in an accident at the Lillian Steel Plant. (Lillian, Ohio) (Super 8)
Sunday 4th February: Joe Lamb is upset over his mother's death. His friends wonder if he will still work on a movie with them. His father, Deputy Jack Lamb, arrests Louis Dainard, who feels guilty about not showing up to work the previous day and having his shift taken by Elizabeth. (Lillian, Ohio) (Super 8)
Wednesday 7th February: Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who performed medical experiments at the Auschwitz death camps, dies of a stroke while swimming. (Brazil) (Schindler's List)
Sunday 11th February: The Shah is overthrown in the Iranian Revolution. (Persepolis)
Wednesday 14th February: Cleve murders Mr. and Mrs. Phillip H. Danzig with a .30-06. Springfield rifle on the orders of Madlock. (Brooklyn, New York) (Best Seller)
Friday 23rd February: Mary Ann Boyd's passport is issued. (Argo)
Friday 23rd February: Timothy Harris' passport is issued. (Argo)
Sunday 4th March: Brick Tamland swims ashore and is presumed dead. (Hawaii) (Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues)
Wednesday 28th March: Nicolette "Nicky" Parsons is born. (New York City) (The Bourne Supremacy)
Wednesday 28th March: Future CIA operative Nicky Parsons is born. (The Bourne Ultimatum)
Tuesday 10th April: Robert Baker's passport is issued. (Argo)
Wednesday 11th April: President Idi Amin is overthrown. (Uganda) (The Last King of Scotland)
Tuesday 17th April: Elinor Lindstrom, mother of Gus and Lars, dies at 32. (Lars and the Real Girl)
Wednesday 25th April: Nicole Hurley is born. (The Bounty Hunter)
Thursday 26th April: During a performance at the small punk club The Fleetwood, The Germs' lead singer Darby Crash is struck in the head by a beer bottle hurled by a disgruntled patron after ignoring repeated calls from the audience to "Cut yourself!" LAPD riot squad disperses the unruly crowd. Backstage afterward, Crash learns that The Germs' drummer, Don Bolles, has started up a joke band on the side called Vox Pop, in which he plays lead guitar while wearing a leather skirt. (Redondo Beach, California) (What We Do Is Secret)
Saturday 5th May: Mike McEwan's passport is issued. (Argo)
Wednesday 16th May: Robert "Frenchy" McMahon is killed. (Brooklyn, New York) (Goodfellas)
Wednesday 16th May: Joe "Joe Buddha" Manri is killed. (Brooklyn, New York) (Goodfellas)
Tuesday 29th May: Mary Pickford dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. (Santa Monica, California) (Chaplin)
June: Ellie Arroway graduates from high school almost two years early. (Contact)
June: Joe Lamb, Charles Kaznyk, Alice Dainard, Cary, Preston, and Martin film a short film about zombies called The Case and witness a train crashing into a truck. An alien escapes from the train and tries to repair its ship so that it can get home. (Lillian, Ohio) (Super 8)
Monday 11th June: John Wayne dies. (Los Angeles, California) (Donnie Brasco)
Wednesday 13th June: Joe Dirt's parents leave him. (Grand Canyon, Arizona) (Joe Dirt)
July: Nicholas Angel decides he wants more than anything to be Kermit the Frog. (Hot Fuzz)
Wednesday 4th July: A local street gang eludes rival gangs and police after they are wrongfully accused of murder. (New York, New York) (The Warriors)
Thursday 5th July: Passports are issued to Sean Bissett and Rachel Dewart. (Argo)
Tuesday 10th July: David Berkowitz's throat slashed in Attica prison and survives with 56 stitches. (Summer of Sam)
Friday 13th July: Gang conclave in Van Cortlandt park goes bad; Cyrus is killed, the Warriors are implicated; Fox and Cleon die, Ajax is arrested, Luther is killed by Gramercy Riffs. (New York) (The Warriors)
Tuesday 17th July: Donna Sheridan spends the night with Sam Carmichael, potentially conceiving her daughter, Sophie (Kalokairi) (Mamma Mia!)
Wednesday 25th July: Anthony Hagan born. (Lazer Team)
Saturday 4th August: Donna Sheridan spends the night with Bill Anderson, potentially conceiving her daughter, Sophie (Kalokairi) (Mamma Mia!)
Sunday 5th August: Elwood picks up Jake, who just got released from prison. (Joliet, IL) (The Blues Brothers)
Monday 6th August: The Blues Brothers start getting their band back together. (Joliet, IL) (The Blues Brothers)
Tuesday 7th August: The Blues Brothers pretend they're The Good Ol' Boys and perform at Bob's Country Bunker. (Joliet, IL) (The Blues Brothers)
Wednesday 8th August: The Blues Brothers have a gig at the Palace Hotel Ballroom. (Joliet, IL) (The Blues Brothers)
Thursday 9th August: Jake and Elwood Blues successfully pay the tax bill for the St Helen of the Blessed Shroud Orphanage. (Chicago, IL) (The Blues Brothers)
Saturday 11th August: Donna Sheridan spends the night with Harry Bright on the island of Kalokairi, potentially conceiving her daughter, Sophie. (Kalokairi) (Mamma Mia!)
Monday 27th August: Lord Louis Mountbatten killed in IRA bombing. (Mullaghmore, Ireland) (Gandhi)
September: News anchor Mack Tannen retires. Veronica Corningstone becomes the first nightly female news anchor, and her husband Ron Burgundy is fired. The two of them separate. (New York City, New York) (Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues)
Wednesday 19th September: Forrest Gump stops running after 3 years, 2 months, 14 days and 16 hours, and decides to go home. (Monument Valley, Utah) (Forrest Gump)
Tuesday 9th October: Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg reunite at a Red Cross camp (Cambodia/Thailand border) (The Killing Fields)
Wednesday 17th October: Herman Mendoza born. (Lazer Team)
November: After meeting Darby Crash at a nightclub engagement of the joke band Vox Pop, documentarian Penelope Spheeris rents the Cherrywood Studios soundstage to film a performance of The Germs for her chronicle of the L.A. Punk Scene, The Decline of Western Civilization. Crash gets high on heroin before the performance and collapses unconscious before he's finished. The image of the near-lifeless Crash became the seminal image of the film and the era. (Los Angeles, California) (What We Do Is Secret)
Friday 2nd November: Jacques Mesrine is shot dead by the police. (Paris, France) (Mesrine)
Sunday 4th November: The United States Embassy is taken by siege and 52 Americans are held hostage for 444 days. Six U.S. foreign service members escape and take refuge in the Canadian Embassy. The C.I.A. uses a fake film and disquise the foreign service members as a film crew from Canada in order to escape Iran. (Tehran, Iran) (Argo)
Thursday 15th November: FINANCIAL TIMES contains article titled "Building an Empire: Corleone Proposal for New Immobiliare". (The Godfather: Part III)
Wednesday 28th November: Carson Wells sees Anton Chigurh. (No Country For Old Men)
Thursday 29th November: H.I. McDunnough first meets his future wife, the little desert flower Ed -- short for Edwinna -- at the county lock-up in Tempe, Arizona. (Maricopa County Maximum Security Correctional Facility for Men,) (Raising Arizona)
Friday 30th November: A Pink Floyd album called The Wall is released. (The Squid and the Whale)
December: Kal-El is born on Krypton. He is sent to Earth as Krypton is destroyed. (Man of Steel)
Monday 3rd December: Sean Parker is born. (The Social Network)
Thursday 6th December: Joe Morelli is born. (Trenton, New Jersey) (One for the Money)
Monday 17th December: Kramer vs. Kramer is released. It is this film that makes George Madison's mother want to leave his father Charles. (How Do You Know)
Monday 31st December: At Jack Horner's party, cameraman Scotty J makes a failed pass at porn-star Dirk Diggler; Little Bill kills his wife and her lover. (Boogie Nights)