Explore 6636 historical events from 1980–1989.
Jakov Gotovac was a Croatian composer and conductor of classical music. His comedic opera, Ero s onoga svijeta, Croatia's best-known opera, was first performed in Zagreb in 1935.
Jakov Gotovac, Croatian composer and conductor (born 1895)
Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century.
Raymond Aron, French sociologist, political scientist, and philosopher (born 1905)
Willie Edward Jones, nicknamed "Puddin' Head", was an American professional baseball third baseman who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Phillies (1947–195…
Willie Jones, American baseball player (born 1925)
Yves Thériault OC was a Canadian author.
Yves Thériault, Canadian author (born 1915)
Joseph P. Lordi was an American law enforcement official who served as the Essex County, New Jersey prosecutor and as the first Chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission…
Joseph P. Lordi, American government official (born 1919)
Sinesio Baudillo García Fernández, commonly known by his pseudonym Diego Abad de Santillán, was a Spanish Argentine anarcho-syndicalist economist. Born in León, his family moved to…
Diego Abad de Santillán, Spanish economist and author (born 1897)
Maurice Rupert Bishop was a Grenadian revolutionary, politician and the leader of the New JEWEL Movement (NJM), a party that sought to prioritise socio-economic development, educat…
Maurice Bishop, Aruban-Grenadian lawyer and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Grenada (born 1944)
Merle Robert Travis was an American country and western singer, songwriter, actor, and guitarist. Born in Rosewood, Kentucky, his songs' lyrics were often about the lives and the e…
Merle Travis, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1917)
Jessica Beth Savitch was an American television journalist who was the weekend anchor of NBC Nightly News and daily newsreader for NBC News during the late 1970s and early 1980s. S…
Jessica Savitch, American journalist (born 1947)
Kang Bûn-iā, Chiang Wen-yeh or Jiang Wenye was a Taiwan-born composer, active mainly in Japan and later in China. He was born in Dadaocheng, Taipei, Taiwan and died in Beijing. Whi…
Jiang Wen-Ye, Taiwanese composer and educator (born 1910)
Otto James Messmer was an American animator known for his work on the Felix the Cat cartoons and comic strip produced by the Pat Sullivan studio.
Otto Messmer, American animator and screenwriter (born 1892)
The Jakarta Post is a daily English-language newspaper in Indonesia. The paper is owned by PT Bina Media Tenggara and based in the nation's capital, Jakarta.
The first issue of The Jakarta Post was published in Indonesia
The Sikorsky S-61L and S-61N are civil variants of the SH-3 Sea King military helicopter. They were developed and produced by the American helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft…
A Sikorsky S-61 helicopter operated by British Airways crashed in thick fog in the Celtic Sea, killing 20 of the 26…
Stern is an illustrated, broadly left-liberal, weekly current affairs magazine published in Hamburg, Germany, by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. Under the editorship (1…
The West German news magazine Stern published excerpts from the purported diaries of Adolf Hitler, later revealed to be
Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of …
A team of researchers led by French virologist Luc Montagnier published their discovery of HIV, but were not then certai
The Benton fireworks disaster was an industrial disaster that occurred on May 27, 1983, on a farm near Benton, Tennessee. A powerful explosion at an unlicensed fireworks factory pr…
An explosion at an illegal fireworks factory near Benton, Tennessee, killed eleven people
An emergency landing is a premature landing made by an aircraft in response to an emergency involving an imminent or ongoing threat to the safety and operation of the aircraft, or …
After an emergency landing due to an in-flight fire, 23 passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 were killed when a flash
Pioneer 10 is a NASA space probe launched in 1972 that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. Pioneer 10 became the first of five artificial objects to achieve the esca…
Pioneer 10 passed the orbit of Neptune, becoming the first man-made object to leave the proximity of the major planets o
Mona Mahmudnizhad was an Iranian Baháʼí who, in 1983, together with nine other Baháʼí women, was sentenced to death and hanged in Shiraz, Iran, on the grounds of being a member of …
Iranian teenager Mona Mahmudnizhad and nine other women were hanged in Shiraz because of their membership in the Baháʼí
Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-099) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the commanding ship of a nineteenth-century s…
Aboard Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman and third one overall in space
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders China and …
A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet crashed into the Fouta Djallon mountains in Guinea, killing all 23 people on board.
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from late 1982 until his death in 1984. He previo…
After writing a letter to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov, American schoolgirl Samantha Smith visited the Soviet Union as…
Sega Corporation is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade…
Sega's first home video game console, the SG-1000 (pictured), was released in Japan.
Madonna Louise Ciccone is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Dubbed the "Queen of Pop", she is known for her continual reinvention and versatility in mus…
American musician Madonna released her self-titled debut album, which set the standard for the genre of dance-pop for…