February 22 – The US upset the USSR in the Olympics, a hockey game known as the Miracle on Ice. They then proceeded to defeat Finland to secure the first and only gold medal since 1960.
Steven Stayner returned home after being kidnapped for seven years, and brought a 5 year old, Timothy White (abduction victim), who had been kidnapped after Steven, to a police station to save him.
March 18 – Fifty people are killed at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia, when a Vostok-2M rocket explodes on its launch pad during a fueling operation.
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 10 – In Lisbon, Portugal, the governments of Spain and the United Kingdom agree to reopen the border between Gibraltar and Spain (closed since 1969) in 1985.
April 24–25 – Operation Eagle Claw, a commando mission in Iran to rescue American embassy hostages, is aborted after mechanical problems ground the rescue helicopters. Eight United States troops are killed in a mid-air collision during the failed operation.[19]
April 25 – Dan-Air Flight 1008 crashes in Tenerife, killing all 146 occupants; at the time it was the worst air disaster involving a British-registered aircraft in terms of loss of life.[20]
Iranian Embassy siege: Six Iranian-born terrorists take over the Iranian embassy in London, England. SAS retakes the Embassy on May 5; one terrorist survives.
May 1 – "About that Urban Renaissance...", an article by journalist Dan Rottenberg in Chicago, contains the first recorded use of the word "yuppie".[22]
May 4 – Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito dies. The largest state funeral in history is organized, with state delegations from 128 different countries out of 154 UN members at the time.
May 7 – Paul Geidel, convicted of second-degree murder in 1911, is released from prison in Beacon, New York, after 68 years and 245 days (the longest-ever time served by an inmate).
July 9 – Pope John Paul II visits Brazil; seven people are crushed to death in a crowd waiting to see him at afternoon Mass at the stadium in Fortaleza.
September 1 – Terry Fox is forced to end his Marathon of Hope run outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, after finding out that the cancer has spread to his lungs.
September 3 – Zimbabwe breaks diplomatic and consular relations with South Africa, even though it maintains a commercial mission in Johannesburg.
September 5 – The Gotthard Road Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel, at 16.3 kilometres (10.1 mi), stretching from Göschenen to Airolo beneath the Gotthard Pass.
The Elisabeth blast furnace is demolished at Bilston Steelworks, marking the end of iron and steel production in the Black Country region of the U.K.[38]
British Leyland launches its new Metro, a three-door entry-level hatchback which is designed as the eventual replacement for the Mini. It gives BL a long-awaited modern competitor for the likes of the Ford Fiesta and Vauxhall Chevette.
In continuous production since 1962, the last MG MGB roadster rolls off the assembly line at the Abingdon-on-Thames (England) factory, ending production for the MG Cars marque.
November 7 – Legendary actor Steve McQueen dies at the age of 50 of a cardiac arrest after surgery to remove tumours in his neck after previously been diagnosed with lung cancer.
November 10–12 – Voyager program: The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn, when it flies within 77,000 miles (124,000 km) of the planet's cloud-tops and sends the first high-resolution images of the world back to scientists on Earth.
A record number of viewers on this date (for an entertainment program) tune into the U.S. television show Dallas to learn who shot lead character J. R. Ewing. The "Who shot J.R.?" event is an international obsession.
November 23 – The 6.9 MwIrpinia earthquake shakes southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Officially, there were 2,483 people killed and 8,934 injured, though the deaths may have been as high as 4,900.[44]
December 14 – Four people are murdered and four others are injured by two armed robbers at Bob's Big Boy on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, in what is one of the city's most brutal crimes ever.
^Bignell, Victor (1984). Understanding systems failures. Manchester Dover, N.H: Manchester University Press in association with Open University. p. 79. ISBN9780719009730.
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