Births:
Britney Spears
(Oops I Did It Again)
Johnny Lang
(Lie To Me)
Elijah Wood
(The Good Son, Forever Young)
Macauley Culkin
(Home Alone 1 & 2)
Jonathan Taylor
Thomas (Home Improvement)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
("3rd Rock from the Sun.")
Anna Kournikova
(Russian tennis star)
Natalie Portman
(Star Wars: The Phantom Menace)
Deaths:
Hit Music Composer
Hoagy Carmichael
Israeli War General
Moshe Dyan
Actor William Holden
Actress Natalie
Wood
Bill Haley - Rock
and Roll Hall of Famer
At a military parade
in Cairo, Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat was assassinated..
IRA hunger striker
Bobby Sands died in the Maze Prison (Belfast) after a 65 day hunger strike
Singer/Musician
Harry Chapin (Cats In The Cradle, Taxi) died at age 38.
Legendary Reggae
Musician Bob Marley died at age 36.
Eight people were
killed, 198 injured, when fire broke out at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino.
More than 110 die
in collapse of aerial walkways in lobby of Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas
City, 188 injured.
Weddings:
Eddie Van Halen married Valerie Bertinelli
Prince Charles and
Lady Diana Spencer married in London
with people watching
around the world via satellite.
Boxer Leon Spinks is mugged, his assailants even took his gold teeth
BMW develop first in car computer, to monitor engine performance
France officially abolished the death penalty and with it the guillotine
Walter Cronkite retired
from the "CBS Evening News"
and was replaced
with Dan Rather
Sir Ranulph Fiennes
and two others (all U.K.) complete the longest and swiftest transit
of Antarctica on
foot, traveling 2,5000 miles in 75 days
The 22nd Olympic Games began in Moscow
Punxsutawney Phil
saw his shadow at 7:27 am, Groundhog Day
The U.N. issues
a blacklist of sportsmen and women who have competed in South Africa
Ronald Reagan is inaugurated the 40th President of the U.S.
Pope John Paul II
is wounded by gunmen at St. Peters Square
Lech Walesa was
chosen as Time Magazine's Man of the Year
Supreme Court ruled
, 4 - 4, that former President Nixon and three top aides may be
required to pay
monetary damages for unconstitutional wiretap of home telephone
of former national
security secretary aide.
President Reagan's first budget proposes the greatest-ever tax and spending cuts
Sandra Day O'Connor
of Arizona became the U.S. Supreme Court's first female judge
Voyager 2 flies
by Saturn and provides data on the planet,
its ring system
and several of the moon, taking more than 1800 photos
At the arcade in
1981, Pac-Man was the new game of interest. Pac-mania seizes the nation.
MTV, the 24 hour
music video channel debuted and the first video was the
Buggles' "Video
Killed The Radio Stars"
IBM started making
personal computers, and introduced a 288K memory chip
At the bookstore,
Stephen King's "Cujo" was found on the shelf of new releases.
"Entertainment Tonight"
was new on television.
Leg warmers were popular.
Nobel Prize Winner (Literature) -Elias Canetti - Bulgaria-Britain
Best Selling Fiction - Noble House, James Clavell<
Best Selling Non-Fiction - The Beverly Hills Diet, Judy Mazel>
Just moments after
Jimmy Carter relinquished the presidency to Ronald Reagan,
52 American hostages
were welcomed home after 444 days in captivity
the American Embassy
in Tehran. (Held since 11-4-1979).
After addressing
a labor convention, President Reagan was shot in the chest by
would-be assassin,
John Hinckley (who was infatuated with actress Jodie Foster).
The president recovered
quickly, and the gunman was later declared insane and was hospitalized.
His press
secretary James Brady, and two law enforcement officers are also wounded.
Ronald to Nancy
quote: "Honey, I forgot to duck"
Coloumbia, the world's
first reusable spacecraft, dubbed the "space shuttle"
completed it's first
orbital flight. Robert Crippen and John Young orbited the moon 36 times.
President Reagan fired 12,000 federal air traffic controllers who were on strike for 3 days.
Riots broke out across Britain in protest at unemployment and poor housing
Peter Sutcliffe is arrested in Sheffield, UK and charged with the 13 'Yorkshire Ripper' murders.
Simon And Garfunkel
reunited for a concert in Central Park .
Mark David Chapman
plead not guilty by reason of insanity for murdering John Lennon.
The largest corporate merger to date is when Dupont acquired Conoco for $7.9 million
The FDA approved the use of the artificial sweetener aspartame (Nutrasweet).
The
first reports of homosexual men dying due to a mysterious
breakdown of the
bodies' immuminzation system.
Later it became
known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,
aka AIDS and researches
realize it can strike anyone.
Susan Powell of Elk
City, IL is named Miss America
Francois Mitterand
became French president (and remained president until 1995)
"Dynasty" premiered in primetime hours and became a hit.
The US Agriculture
Department tried making ketchup a school lunch vegetable
Reagan starts toying
with the Libyains, and deploys ships in the Gulf of Sidra,
which Libya claimed
rights to even though no one else recognized it as theirs.
The first test tube baby is born.
The first DeLorean sports cars roll off the assembly line.
Fruit fly break out in California.
SPORTS
BASEBALL - WORLD
SERIES - The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the
New York Yankees
4 games to 2. / Rollie Fingers of Milwaukee (AL)
and Mike Schmidt
of Philadelphia (NL) are named the MVP's.
Fingers is also
named the Cy Young Award winner.
Major league baseball players in the U.S. strike from June 12 to August 9
BASKETBALL - The Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets 4 games to 2.
Julius Erving of Philadelphia is named the N.B.A. Most Valuable Player
HOCKEY - It was the New York Islanders over the Minnesota North Stars 4 games to 1 in the Stanley Cup
FOOTBALL - Superbowl XV - Oakland beats Philadelphia 27 - 10 at the Superdome in New Orleans
Marcus Allen is named the Heisman Memorial Trophy Winner
Oklahoma beats Florida State in the Rose Bowl (18 -17)
"Pleasant Colony" wins the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
John McEnroe
and Tracy Austin take the U.S. Champions in tennis.
John McEnroe won
his third straight Wimbledon
Tom Watson takes the "Masters" in golf.
In the Indianapolis 500, Bobbie Unser wins but, fights to hold the title amid controversy.
Richard Petty wins the Daytona 500 and Darrel Waltrip the Winston Cup.
Muhammed Ali retired
from boxing with a record of 56 wins, (37 knockouts)
Joe Louis, regarded
by many as the greatest heavyweight fighter of all time, dies of a heart
attack at
age 66. Nicknamed the "Brown Bomber," Louis held the heavyweight crown
from 1937
to 1949, successfully defending his crown a record 25 times. Memorable
fights
included victories over Max Schmeling and Billy Conn, and losses to Ezzard
Charles and Rocky Marciano.
Tennis star
Billie Jean King becomes the most prominent athlete to acknowledge a homosexual
relationship
when she discloses at a news conference that she had an affair with her
former
secretary,
Marilyn Barnett. King, who is married, makes the statement in response
to a
palimony
suit filed by Barnett, who wants half of King's income from 1972 to 1979.
A California
judge later dismisses the suit, ruling Barnett is not legally entitled
to the tennis star's earnings.
Alabama beats rival
Auburn 28-17 in Birmingham, Alabama, helping Paul "Bear"
Bryant pass Amos
Alonzo Stagg as the all-time winningest college football coach with
315
career victories.
Bryant once said, "I'd probably croak in a week if I ever quit coaching."
After a
25-year career
that produces such stars as Babe Parilli, Joe Namath and Kenny Stabler,
he
retires in
late 1982 with a record of 323-85-17 and five national championships
-- and dies 37 days later.
Economic Facts
Federal spending:
$678.25 billion
Federal debt:
$994.8 billion
Median Household Income (current dollars): $19,074
Consumer Price Index:
90.9
Inflation 10.2%
Unemployment:
7.1%
Dow Jones:
High 1024 / Low 824
Cost of a first-class
stamp: $0.15 ($0.18 as of 3/22/81; $0.20 as of 11/1/81)
