January 3, 1981 (Saturday)
- Salvadoran labor leader José Rodolfo Viera, and two American representatives from the AFL-CIO, Michael P. Hammer and Mark David Pearlman, were assassinated at the Sheraton Hotel in San Salvador, by two members of the El Salvador National Guard. The gunmen, José Dimas Valle Acevedo and Santiago Gómez González, testified later that they had been ordered to carry out the murders after the victims had been recognized by businessman Hans Christ at the hotel's restaurant, and were sentenced to 30 years in prison in 1986. They were released after less than two years.
- Born: Eli Manning, American NFL quarterback for the New York Giants, MVP in Super Bowl XLII (2008); in New Orleans
- Died: Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, 97, the last survivor of the 42 grandchildren of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
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