Explore 1450 historical events from 1980–1989.
Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo was a Nigerian politician and statesman who served as the first Premier of the Western region of Nigeria. He was known as one of the key figure tow…
Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian lawyer and politician (born 1909)
James Jesus Angleton was an American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who served as chief of the counterintelligence department of the CIA from 1954 to 1975. According to …
James Jesus Angleton, CIA counterintelligence leader (born 1917)
Rita Hayworth was an American actress, dancer, and pin-up girl. She achieved fame in the 1940s as one of the top stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and appeared in 61 films over…
Rita Hayworth, American actress and dancer (born 1918)
Vitomil Zupan was a post-World War II modernist Slovene writer and Gonars concentration camp survivor. Because of his detailed descriptions of sex and violence, he was dubbed the S…
Vitomil Zupan, Slovenian poet and playwright (born 1914)
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish economist and sociologist. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences along with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work…
Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist, sociologist, and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1898)
Hassan Abdullah Hamdan, more commonly known by his pseudonym Mahdi Amel, was a Lebanese Marxist philosopher, historian and militant in the second half of the 20th century.
Mahdi Amel, Lebanese journalist, poet, and academic (born 1936)
Alice Bradley Sheldon, better known as James Tiptree Jr., was an American science fiction and fantasy author. It was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree Jr. was a pen …
James Tiptree, Jr
John Howard Northrop was an American biochemist who, with James Batcheller Sumner and Wendell Meredith Stanley, won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The award was given for these…
John Howard Northrop, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1891)
Chaudhary Charan Singh was an Indian politician, peasant leader, author and an independence activist who briefly served as the prime minister of India from July 1979 to January 198…
Charan Singh, Indian politician, 5th Prime Minister of India (born 1902)
John Abraham was an Indian filmmaker, short story writer and screenwriter who worked mainly in Malayalam cinema. His film Amma Ariyan (1986) was the only South Indian feature film …
John Abraham, Indian director and screenwriter (born 1937)
Rashid Karami was a Lebanese statesman. He is considered one of the most important political figures in Lebanon for more than 30 years, including during much of the Lebanese Civil …
Rashid Karami, Lebanese lawyer and politician, 32nd Prime Minister of Lebanon (born 1921)
Anthony de Mello, also known as Tony de Mello, was an Indian Jesuit priest and psychotherapist. A teacher and public speaker, de Mello wrote several books on spirituality and hoste…
Anthony de Mello, Indian-American priest and psychotherapist (born 1931)
Sammy Kaye was an American bandleader and songwriter, whose tag line, "Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye", became one of the most famous of the Big Band Era. The expression springs fr…
Sammy Kaye, American bandleader and songwriter (born 1910)
William Sampson Jr. was a Muscogee Nation painter, actor, and rodeo performer. He is best known for his performance as the apparently mute Chief Bromden in the 1975 film One Flew O…
Will Sampson, American actor and painter (born 1933)
Andrés Segovia Torres, 1st Marquis of Salobreña, was a Spanish virtuoso classical guitarist. Many professional classical guitarists were either students of Segovia or students of S…
Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (born 1893)
The Simpson family are the titular main characters featured in the animated television series The Simpsons. The Simpsons are a nuclear, dysfunctional family consisting of married c…
The fictional Simpson family made their first appearance in the short "Good Night", aired in a segment of the The Tracey
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling, and in 1950 it was reconstituted as a corps. The…
A British Special Air Service unit ambushed a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) unit in Loughgall, Northern Irelan
The USS Stark incident occurred during the Iran–Iraq War in the Persian Gulf on 17 May 1987, when an Iraqi jet aircraft fired two Exocet missiles at the U.S. frigate USS Stark. A t…
An Iraqi jet fired two Exocet missiles at the American frigate USS Stark, killing 37 personnel and injuring 21 others
Religious violence in India includes acts of violence by followers of one religious group against followers and institutions of another religious group, often in the form of ri…
During Hindu–Muslim rioting in Meerut, India, 19 members of the Provincial Armed Constabulary allegedly massacred 42 Mus
Mathias Rust is a German aviator. In 1987, as a teenage amateur pilot, he flew from Helsinki, Finland, to Moscow, without authorization. According to Russian claims, he was tracked…
Mathias Rust, a West German aviator, flew his Cessna 172 from Helsinki, Finland, through Soviet air defences, landing il
Intelligence assessment is a specific phase of the intelligence cycle which oversees the development of behavior forecasts or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an …
American intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard pleaded guilty to charges of spying for Israel
Sikhs are followers of Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the teachings of Guru Nanak. The term …
An assembly of Sikhs, known as a Sarbat Khalsa, officially declare independence for a state of Khalistan
Patrick Allan Morrow, is a Canadian photographer and mountain climber. In 1986 he was the first person to climb the Seven Summits in the Carstensz-Version.
Canadian Patrick Morrow becomes the first person to climb each of the Seven Summits
The Firearm Owners' Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986 is a United States federal law that revised many provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
The Firearm Owners Protection Act is signed into law by U