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1980
-U.S. boycotts Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, also announces grain embargo against the Soviet Union with the support of the European Commission. -
1981
-Ronald Reagan becomes President, inaugurated on the same day Iran releases hostages
-Attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley -
1982
-The killing of 7-year-old Adam Walsh (1981), and the disappearance of Johnny Gosch, a 12-year-old newspaper carrier from Des Moines, Iowa (1982), raise awareness of missing children cases in the United States. -
1983
-241 U.S. Marines killed by suicide bomb in Lebanon -
1984
-U.S. presidential election, 1984 (Ronald Reagan is re-elected)
-Awareness of child sexual abuse by pedophiles raised through high-profile media coverage on programs such as 60 Minutes and 20/20. -
1985
Bernhard Goetz is indicted in New York on charges of attempted murder after shooting four young men whom he claimed were intent on mugging him -
1986
-Space Shuttle Challenger accident, killing all seven aboard (inclduing school teacher Christa McAuliffe) and grounding the nation's space program for 2½ years
-Tax Reform Act of 1986 -
1987
- During a visit to Berlin, Germany, President Reagan challenges Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall!" (referring to the Berlin Wall). -Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 22.6% in single session on Black Monday
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1988
-Discovery launched as first post-Challenger space shuttle flight
-- U.S. presidential election, 1988 (Vice president George H. W. Bush is elected -
1989
- George H. W. Bush inaugurated as President. -President Bush and Soviet Premier Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between their nations may be coming to an end. Symbolic elsewhere around the world was the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany