November 29, 1981 (Sunday)
- Shortly after noon, a car bomb exploded outside of a school in the Azbakiyah section of Damascus killed more than 200 people, many of them children. The blast tore away the fronts of nearby buildings. The death toll, initially measured at 64, rose as additional bodies were unearthed from the rubble. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood claimed responsibility for the attack.
- In the Honduras, voting took place for the first time in 17 years for a civilian President, in the first election in a decade. Dr. Roberto Suazo Cordova was the winner, defeating Ricardo Zuniga Agustinis.
- Born: Tom Hurndall, British photographer and murder victim, in London (killed 2004)
- Died: American film actress Natalie Wood, 43, drowned in the ocean near Santa Catalina Island in California after slipping from a dinghy.
- Died: T.H. Marshall, 88, British sociologist; and Dudley Glass, Australian composer, 82, after being hit by a bus in Lambeth, London.
Read more about this topic: November 1981
Famous quotes containing the word november:
“In that November off Tehuantepec,
The slopping of the sea grew still one night
And in the morning summer hued the deck
And made one think of rosy chocolate
And gilt umbrellas.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)