Timeline January 1984

Events in January 1984 13

• 1902 – 1984 Ray Kroc (1902-1984) Died 14 January 1984, aged 81 Ray Kroc, the businessman who built McDonald's into a global fast-food chain after acquiring the franchise rights in the 1950s, died in San Diego, California.
• 1904 – 1984 Johnny Weissmuller (1904-1984) Died 20 January 1984, aged 79 Johnny Weissmuller, an Olympic swimming champion who went on to play Tarzan in a series of Hollywood films, died in Acapulco, Mexico.
• 1984 Michael Dell founds PCs Limited in his dorm room Michael Dell, an 18-year-old pre-med student at the University of Texas at Austin, founds PC's Limited in his Dobie Center dormitory room in January 1984 with $1,000 in startup capital. His insight: buy IBM PC components, assemble custom computers to order, and sell direct — eliminating the retailer markup. In his first month he generates $180,000 in sales. He drops out after his first year. PC's Limited is renamed Dell Computer Corporation in 1988.
• 1984 Pretenders release Learning to Crawl Middle of the Road The rebuilt band's comeback album.
• 1984 1984: Niki Lauda McLaren Lauda won his third title by half a point — the narrowest margin in F1 history — beating his McLaren teammate Alain Prost. He retired at the end of the following season.
• 1984 AT&T Bell System breakup takes effect Antitrust settlement splits the telephone monopoly A 1982 antitrust settlement took effect, breaking up the Bell System and separating AT&T from seven regional "Baby Bell" companies. The breakup ended AT&T's decades-long monopoly over US telephone service and reshaped the American telecommunications industry.
• 1984 Bobby Charlton Soccer Schools Founded the Bobby Charlton Soccer and Sports Academy, which ran for decades and helped develop young footballers including David Beckham, who was spotted at one of the schools.
• 1984 Brunei gains full independence End of British protectorate status Brunei became fully independent from the United Kingdom, ending nearly a century of British protection over the small, oil-rich sultanate on the island of Borneo. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah remained head of state.
• 1984 Hollywood Walk of Fame Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, recognising her contributions to the entertainment industry.
• 1984 – 1987 Optimus Prime — The Transformers Voiced Optimus Prime, the heroic leader of the Autobots, in the original Transformers animated series. He based the character's voice on that of his brother Larry, a Marine who served in Vietnam. Before auditioning, Larry told him: 'Don't be a tough hero — be strong enough to be gentle.' The voice became one of the most recognisable in pop culture history.
• 1984 Private Dancer Released Private Dancer, her solo comeback album, which sold over 20 million copies worldwide and won three Grammy Awards including Record of the Year for What's Love Got to Do with It.
• 1984 – 1990 Teaching and Early Burgdorf Novels Taught at the University of New Hampshire and then Eastern Washington University. Published Unearned Pleasures and Other Stories (1988) and Floating in My Mother's Palm (1990), set in the fictional German town of Burgdorf, near Dusseldorf.
• 1984 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Published The Unbearable Lightness of Being, set against the backdrop of the Prague Spring, which became his best-known work and a global bestseller. It was adapted into a film in 1988.