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 ----

Events

---

January-February

---

• 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-April

---

• 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-October

---

• 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 of Iraq, 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 12 - Military coup in Turkey lead by Kenan Evren. It stopped political violence among gangs, but was the beginning of stronger state violence which lead to the execution of many young activists.
• 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

---

• 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
  • Ordinary People
  • ''Coal Miner's Daughter
  • The Elephant Man
  • Raging Bull
  • The Blues Brothers
  • Caddyshack
  • The Empire Strikes Back''

• 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.
  • October 24 - Australia's multicultural television network SBS begins transmission in Sydney and Melbourne
  • 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

---

• January 9 - Sergio García, Spanish golfer
• February 11 - Natasha Bobo, actress
• February 11 - Matthew Lawrence, actor
• February 12 - Juan Carlos Ferrero, Spanish tennis player
• February 12 - Christina Ricci, actress
• February 27 - Chelsea Clinton, daughter of President Bill Clinton
• March 18 - Alexei Yagudin, figure skater
• April 21 - Vincent Lecavalier, NHL hockey player
• June 16 - Joey Yung, Hong Kong singer
• June 17 - Venus Williams, tennis player
• June 26 - Jason Schwartzman, actor
• June 26 - Michael Vick, football quarterback
• July 6 - Pau Gasol, Catalan NBA star
• July 7 - Michelle Kwan, figure skater
• August 26 - Macaulay Culkin, actor
• September 7 - Mark Prior, baseball pitcher
• 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
• November 17 - Isaac Hanson, musician
• November 21 - Hank Blalock, baseball player
• December 19 - Jake Gyllenhaal, actor (The Day After Tomorrow)
• December 19 - Marla Sokoloff, actress (Full House, ''The Practice'')
• December 30 - Eliza Dushku, actress

Deaths

---

January-April

---

• 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, lead singer for 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, British film director (b. 1899)

May-December

---

• 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 10 - Yahya Khan, President of Pakistan
• August 14 - Dorothy Stratten, Playboy model (murdered)
• September 25 - John Bonham, drummer of Led Zeppelin
• October 25 - Victor Galindez, boxing light heavyweight world champion, in car race accident.
• November 4 - Elsie MacGill, aeronautical engineer, "Queen of the Hurricanes"
• November 20 - John McEwen, eighteenth Prime Minister of Australia
• December 2 - Romain Gary, writer
• December 4 - Stanislawa Walasiewicz, Polish-American sprinter
• December 8 - John Lennon, musician, founding member of The Beatles
• December 16 - Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (born 1890)
• December 16 - Hellmuth Walter, engineer and inventor
• December 31 - Marshall McLuhan, Canadian author and professor
• 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 Pérez Esquivel
• Economics - Lawrence Klein

- This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.