Dashed left edge = started before November 1979 ·
Dashed right edge = ongoing beyond November 1979
Events in November 1979 7
1896 – 1979Mamie Eisenhower (1896-1979)Died 1 November 1979, aged 82Mamie Eisenhower, widow of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961, died of a stroke at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. She was buried beside her husband in Abilene, Kansas. She died on 1 November 1979.
1901 – 1979Zeppo Marx (1901-1979)Died 30 November 1979, aged 78Zeppo Marx, the youngest of the Marx Brothers comedy team, died of lung cancer in Palm Springs, California. After leaving the act in the 1930s he became a successful engineer and talent agent. He died on 30 November 1979.
1909 – 1979Al Capp (1909-1979)Died 5 November 1979, aged 70American cartoonist Al Capp, creator of the long-running comic strip Li'l Abner, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His satirical strip ran in newspapers for 43 years and introduced characters and expressions that entered American popular culture. He died on 5 November 1979.
1917 – 1979Merle Oberon (1917-1979)Died 23 November 1979, aged 62Merle Oberon, an Academy Award-nominated actress best known for Wuthering Heights, died of a stroke in Malibu, California. Born in Bombay, she concealed her mixed-race heritage for much of her Hollywood career to work in a racially restrictive studio system. She died on 23 November 1979.
1979Iran hostage crisis beginsMilitants storm the US embassy in TehranOn 4 November 1979, Iranian students loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini seized the US embassy in Tehran and took 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage. The crisis lasted 444 days and dominated US-Iran relations for a generation. It followed the Islamic Revolution earlier that year and the admission of the exiled Shah into the United States.
1979Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashes into Mount ErebusA sightseeing flight ends in Antarctica's deadliest disasterAn Air New Zealand DC-10 on a sightseeing flight over Antarctica crashed into Mount Erebus on 28 November 1979, killing all 257 people aboard. A later inquiry found the airline had altered the flight's programmed coordinates without informing the crew. It remains New Zealand's deadliest peacetime disaster.
1979The Wall -- the double album of isolationThe Wall is released on 30 November 1979. A double album concept work about a rock musician ('Pink') who builds a psychological wall around himself to shut out the world, it is Roger Waters's most fully realised concept and Pink Floyd's commercial peak. 'Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)' -- with its children's choir ('We don't need no education') -- reaches Number 1 in 18 countries and is the UK's best-selling single of 1979. The album spends 15 weeks at Number 1 in the US. It eventually sells over 30 million copies. It is simultaneously a masterpiece and the beginning of the end for Pink Floyd.