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President Jimmy Carter announces the embargo on sale of grain and high technology to the Soviet Union due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
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President Ronald Reagan withstands an assassination attempt, shot in the chest while walking to his limousine in Washington, D.C.
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The Senate passes a bill that virtually eliminated the practice of busing to achieve racial integration.
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President Reagan signs legislation meant to rescue the Social Security System from bankruptcy.
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President Ronald Reagan wins reelection over Democratic challenger Walter F. Mondale, increasing his Electoral College victory since the 1980 election to a margin of 525 to 13.
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The first version of the Windows operating system for computers is released.
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Martin Luther King Day is officially observed for the first time as a federal holiday in the United States.
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The United States and the Soviet Union sign an agreement, the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, to dismantle all 1,752 U.S. and 859 Soviet missiles in the 300-3,400 mile range.
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The United States House of Representatives rejects the request of President Reagan for $36.25 million to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
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Economic reports on the previous year from the Labor Department indicate a growth rate of 3.8%, the largest in four years and an unemployment rate of 5.3%, a low of fourteen years.
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The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party gives up its monopoly of power, continuing the trend, since the beginning of the Berlin Wall coming down, that the Cold War was about to end. The ending of the Cold War was completed.
