1980

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s - 1980s - 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s

Years: 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 - 1980 - 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985

See also:

Table of contents

1 Events
2 Year in topic
3 Births
4 Deaths
5 Nobel Prizes

Events

January 1 - Changes to the Swedish Act of Succession creates Victoria of Sweden, Crown Princess over her younger brother
January 5 - Hewlett-Packard announces release of its first personal computer
January 7 - President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out Chrysler Corporation.
January 11 - Nigel Short, 14 years old, is the youngest chess player to be awarded the degree of International Master.
January 22 - Andrei Sakharov is arrested in Moscow
January 26 - Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations
February 2 - Abscam: Reports surface that FBI personnel were targeting members of the United States Congress in a sting operation.
February 4 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini names Abolhassan Banisadr as president of Iran
February 23 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran's parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.
March 3 - Pierre Trudeau returns to office as Prime Minister of Canada.
March 14 - In Poland, a plane crashes during an emergency landing near Warsaw killing a 14-man American boxing team and 73 others.
March 18 - In Russia, a Vostok rocket explodes on its launch pad during a fueling operation killing 50.
March 21 - President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow
March 24 - Archbishop Oscar Romero is killed by gunmen while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.
April 7 - The United States severs diplomatic relations with Iran and imposes economic sanctions following the taking of American hostages on November 4, 1979.
April 25 - A commando mission in Iran to rescue American embassy hostages is aborted after mechanical problems ground the rescue helicopters. Eight United States troops were killed in a mid-air collision during the failed operation.
April 30 - Accession of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands
May 9 - In Florida, a Liberian freighter named the Summit Venture hits the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay sending 35 people (most of whom were in a bus) to a watery death as a 1,400-foot section of the bridge collapsed.
May 18 - Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington killing 57 and causing US$ 3 billion in damage.
May 24 - The International Court of Justice calls for the release U.S. embassy hostages in Tehran.
July 17 - Saddam Hussein is selected president, replacing Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.
July 30 - Vanuatu gains independence.
August 25 - Microsoft announces their version of UNIX, Xenix
September 5 - The St. Gothard Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel at 10.14 miles (16.32 km) stretching from Goschenen to Airolo.
September 22 - The command council of Iraq ordered its army to "deliver its fatal blow on Iranian military targets," initiating the Iran-Iraq War.
October 30 - El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's Football War before the International Court of Justice.
November 4 - U.S. presidential election, 1980: Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter by a wide margin.
November 12 - Voyager program: The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest aproach to Saturn when it flies within 77,000 miles of the planet's cloud-tops and sends the first high resolution images of the world back to scientists on Earth.
November 21 - A fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada kills 87 people.
November 23 - A series of earthquakes in southern Italy kills approximately 4,800 people.
Summer Olympic Games in Moscow USSR
War begins between Iran and Iraq
Invasion of Afghanistan by USSR
NEC created the first successful digital signal processor, the NEC µPD7710
Comedian Richard Pryor gets badly burned trying to freebase cocaine
SCART plug was made mandatory to all televisions sold in France.

Year in topic

1980 in film
1980 in literature
- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
1980 in music
- December 8 - Former Beatle John Lennon is shot and killed in New York City
1980 in sports
1980 in television
- February 14 - Walter Cronkite announces his retirement from CBS Evening News.
- December 30 - After 25 years, the longest-running prime-time TV series The Wonderful World of Disney is cancelled by NBC.
- CNN is launched as the first 24 hour a day news network.

Births

February 11 - Matthew Lawrence, actor.
February 11 - Natasha Bobo, actress.
February 12 - Christina Ricci, actress
February 12 - Juan Carlos Ferrero, Spanish tennis player
February 27 - Chelsea Clinton, daughter of President Bill Clinton
June 17 - Venus Williams, tennis player
July 6 - Pau Gasol, Catalan NBA star
September 12 - Yao Ming, Chinese NBA star
September 21 - Kareena Kapoor, Bollywood actress
September 30 - Martina Hingis, Swiss tennis player
October 13 - Ashanti, US pop music artist
December 30 - Eliza Dushku, actress

Deaths

January 3 - Joy Adamson, conservationist and author of Born Free (killed by a servant in northern Kenya).
January 8 - John Mauchly, co-inventor of the ENIAC computer
January 10 - George Meany, labor leader
January 18 - Sir Cecil Beaton, fashion designer
January 29 - Jimmy Durante, actor, singer, comedian, vaudevillian
January 30 - Professor Longhair, King of New Orleans music
February 7 - Secondo Campini, Italian jet pioneer
February 13 - David Janssen, actor
February 19 - Bon Scott, musician ("AC/DC")
March 5 - Jay Silverheels, actor
March 16 - Tamara de Lempicka, Art Deco painter
March 29 - Mantovani, musician
March 31 - Jesse Owens, American athlete
April 4 - Red Sovine, country music entertainer
April 29 - Alfred Hitchcock, film director
May 4 - Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia (born 1892)
May 18 - Ian Curtis, band member of Joy Division
May 28 - Rolf Nevanlinna, mathematician (born 1895)
June 7 - Henry Miller, writer
June 13 - Walter Rodney, historian, political figure
June 23 - Clyfford Still, painter
July 7 - Dore Schary, stage/motion picture personality
July 24 - Peter Sellers, actor
July 17 - Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran
August 7 - Jacqueline Cochran, American aviatrix
August 14 - Dorothy Stratten, murdered Playboy playmate
October 25- Victor Galindez, boxing light heavyweight world champion, in car race accident.
December 2 - Romain Gary, writer
December 8 - John Lennon, musician
December 16 - Hellmuth Walter, engineer and inventor
December 31 - Marshall McLuhan (author)
Clement Martyn Doke South African linguist

Nobel Prizes

Physics - James Watson Cronin, Val Logsdon Fitch
Chemistry - Paul Berg, Walter Gilbert, Frederick Sanger
Medicine - Baruj Benacerraf, Jean Dausset, George D Snell
Literature - Czeslaw Milosz
Peace- Adolfo Perez Esquivel
Economics - Lawrence Klein