In September 1982 she visited China to discuss with Deng Xiaoping the sovereignty of Hong Kong after 1997. China was the first communist state Thatcher had visited and she was the first British prime minister to visit China.
George Emil Banks was responsible for the 1982 Wilkes-Barre Shootings in the United States. On September 25, 1982, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Jenkins Township, Banks shot and killed 13 people, including seven children (five of whom were his own), their mothers, some of their relatives, and one bystander. Banks was convicted of 12 counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death after a trial before Allegheny County jurors and presided over by Luzerne County Common Pleas Judge Patrick J. Toole Jr.