Record cold at Vostok Station
−89.2 °C, the lowest reliably measured temperature on Earth
On 21 July 1983 the Soviet Antarctic station Vostok, founded in 1957, recorded −89.2 °C, the lowest temperature ever reliably measured on Earth. Beneath the station, under almost four kilometres of ice, lies the huge subglacial Lake Vostok.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Did you know
Earth's lowest temperature was measured at a Soviet Antarctic station: −89.2 °C at Vostok on 21 July 1983. The northern Pole of Cold lies in Yakutia, where Oymyakon recorded −67.7 °C in 1933. Share →
In February 2012 Russian scientists drilled through 3,768 metres of ice to reach Lake Vostok beneath Antarctica. Its water is thought to have been sealed off from the surface for millions of years. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 3 years earlier
- 1981 AIDS first described — 2 years earlier
- 2008 Global financial crisis — 25 years later
Europe
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 6 years later
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 6 years later
- 1990 German reunification — 7 years later
- 1991–2001 Yugoslav Wars — 8 years later
- 1992 Maastricht Treaty — 9 years later
Middle East
- 1978 Camp David Accords — 5 years earlier
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 4 years earlier
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 3 years earlier
- 1990–1991 Gulf War — 7 years later
- 1993 Oslo Accords — 10 years later
Africa
- 1967 First human heart transplant — 16 years earlier
- 1974 Lucy is discovered — 9 years earlier
- 1983–1985 The Ethiopian famine — same year
- 1994 End of apartheid in South Africa — 11 years later
- 1998–2003 Second Congo War — 15 years later
Asia
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — 17 years earlier
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 8 years earlier
- 1978 Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening-up — 5 years earlier
- 1984 Bhopal disaster — 1 year later
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — 21 years later
Americas
- 1969 Moon landing — 14 years earlier
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — 13 years earlier
- 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens — 3 years earlier
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — same year
- 2001 September 11 attacks — 18 years later
Oceania
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 24 years earlier
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 9 years later
Alive at the time
- Nelson Mandela (aged 65)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 53)
- Jorge Luis Borges (aged 84)
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) (aged 82)
- Mother Teresa (aged 73)
- Ronald Reagan (aged 72)
- Richard Nixon (aged 70)
- Indira Gandhi (aged 66)
- Edmund Hillary (aged 64)
- Jimmy Carter (aged 59)