The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call.
January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning of the true Internet).
January 24 – Twenty-five members of the Red Brigades are sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1978 murder of Italian politician Aldo Moro.
January 25
High-ranking Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia.
IRAS is launched from Vandenberg AFB, to conduct the world's first all-sky infrared survey from space.
February 2 – Giovanni Vigliotto goes on trial on charges of polygamy involving 105 women.
February 3 – Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Fraser is granted a double dissolution of both houses of parliament, for elections on March 5, 1983. As Fraser is being granted the dissolution, Bill Hayden resigns as leader of the Australian Labor Party, and in the subsequent leadership spill Bob Hawke is elected as Hayden's successor unopposed.
February 5–6 – The team of A. J. Foyt, Preston Henn, Bob Wollek and Claude Ballot-Léna win the 24 Hours of Daytona automobile race in a Porsche 935
February 6 – Klaus Barbie is officially charged with war crimes.
February 12 – 100 women protest in Lahore, Pakistan, against military dictator Zia-ul-Haq's proposed Law of Evidence. The women are tear-gassed, baton-charged and thrown into lock-up but are successful in repealing the law.
February 16 – The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim the lives of 75 people, in one of Australia's worst bushfire disasters.
February 18
The Venezuelan bolívar is devalued and exchange controls are established in an event now referred to as Black Friday by many Venezuelans (the Bolívar had been the most stable and internationally accepted currency).
Nellie massacre: Over 2,000 people, mostly Bangladeshi Muslims, are massacred in Assam, India, during the Assam agitation.
Wah Mee massacre: 13 people are killed in an attempted robbery in the Chinatown area of Seattle, United States.