* 1911 – Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen, German biochemist, Nobel laureate ( d. 1979 )

* 1979 – Sam Atwell, Australian actor

* 1979 – Christine Smith, American model and actress

* 1979 – Lord Frederick Windsor, British financial analyst

* 1907 – Hardie Gramatky, American author and animator ( d. 1979 )

* 1979 – Claire Danes, American actress

* 1979 – Jordan De Jong, American baseball player

* 1979 – Elena Grosheva, Russian gymnast

* 1979 – Mateja Kežman, Serbian footballer

* 1979 – Jennifer Morrison, American actress and model

* 1979 – Paul Nicholls, English actor

* 1979 – Cristian Ranalli, Italian footballer

* 1979 – Gerardo Torrado, Mexican footballer

* 1979 – A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British World War II admiral Louis Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland.

* 1886 – Rebecca Clarke, English composer and violist ( d. 1979 )

* 1979 – Giovanni Capitello, American actor and producer

* 1979 – Sarah Neufeld, Canadian violinist ( Arcade Fire and Bell Orchestre )

* 1979 – Aaron Paul, American actor

* 1979 – Rusty Smith, American speed skater

* 1979 – Francesco Bellotti, Italian cyclist

* 1979 – Megumi Okina, Japanese actress and singer

* 1929 – Abdi İpekçi, Turkish journalist ( d. 1979 )

* 1979 – Michael Kingma, Australian basketball player

* 1979 – Tony Stewart, American football player

* Guy Alitto, The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-Ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979 ).

* Shi Liang ( 史良 ): 1979 — 1985

* 1979 – Zhao Junzhe, Chinese footballer

* 1979 – Zhang Ziyi, Chinese actress

* 1979 – Lee Wai Tong, Chinese footballer ( b. 1905 )

This huge success of the Krugerrand encouraged other gold-producing countries to mint and issue gold bullion coins of their own, including the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf in 1979, the Australian Nugget in 1981, the Chinese Gold Panda in 1982, the American Gold Eagle in 1986, and the British Britannia coin in 1987.

* 1979 – Tang Wei, Chinese actress

Kexue ( 科学 ，“ Science ” in Chinese ), a simplified Chinese edition launched in 1979, was the first Western magazine published in the People's Republic of China.

It was created by the Chinese government to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China, and authorities claim that the policy has prevented more than 250 million births between 1980 and 2000, and 400 million births from about 1979 to 2011 ; this claim is disputed by two independent scholars, who put the number of prevented births from 1979 to 2009 at 100 million | author = Chen Wei | title = Sex Ratios at Birth in China | year = 2005 | accessdate = 2 March 2009

The Four Cardinal Principles ( Chinese: 四项基本原则, pinyin: sì xiàng jīběn yuánzé ) were stated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 and are the four issues for which debate was not allowed within the People's Republic of China.

Tsinghua alumni include the current CPC General secretary, Chinese president Hu Jintao, who graduated with a degree in hydraulic engineering in 1964, and the current Chinese vice president, Xi Jinping, who graduated with a degree in chemical engineering in 1979.

In February and March 1979, China retaliated against Vietnam's incursion into Cambodia by launching a limited invasion of Vietnam, but the Chinese foray was quickly rebuffed.

Choeung Ek ( ), the site of a former orchard and Chinese graveyard about 17 km south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is the best-known of the sites known as The Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge regime executed about 17, 000 people between 1975 and 1979.

On October 1979, Hua went on a European tour, the first of its kind for a Chinese leader after 1949.

From 1975 to 1979, he served as the deputy chief engineer of a company run by the Pipeline Bureau of the Ministry of Petroleum Industry and as the director of Industrial Economics Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Their first collaboration was the book In Russia ( 1969 ), which, together with Chinese Encounters ( 1979 ), described their travels and meetings in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.

* 1979 Chinese Encounters.

For instance, the Republic of China ( commonly known as Taiwan ) has not been recognized by the Olympics as a separate nation since 1979 and must compete as Chinese Taipei ; its National Banner Song is used instead of its national anthem.

On January 21, 1979, the KMT arrested Deng-fa Yu, one of the most prestigious Tangwai leaders, and his son with the intentional false accusation of doing propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party.

Since the opening policy in 1979, the Chinese department stores also develops swiftly along with the fast growing economy.

By 1979, the IOC had finally decided that the Beijing Olympic Committee would be the " Chinese Olympic Committee " and another name would need to be found for the Olympic Committee on Taiwan.

In November 1979, in Nagoya, Japan, the International Olympic Committee, and later all other international sports federations, adopted a resolution under which the National Olympic Committee of the ROC would be recognized as the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, and its athletes would compete under the name Chinese Taipei.