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Embargo against the Soviet Union
President Jimmy Carter announces the embargo on sale of grain and high technology to the Soviet Union due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. -
U.S. Olympic Athletes Withdraw from the Olympics
The United States Olympic Committee, responding to the request of President Jimmy Carter on March 21, votes to withdraw its athletes from participation in the Moscow Summer Olympic Games, due to the continued involvement of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. -
Mt. St. Helens Literally Explodes
The Mt. St. Helens volcano, in Washington State, erupts, killing fifty-seven people and economic devastation to the area with losses near $3 billion. The blast was estimated to have the power five hundred times greater than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. -
Reagan Elected President
Ronald Reagan, the former Republican governor of California, beats President Jimmy Carter and independent candidate John B. Anderson, also a Republican, in a landslide victory, ousting the incumbent from office. The victory in the Electoral College, 489 to 49, as well as an 8 million vote margin in the popular vote over Carter, ensured a mandate for the new president. -
John Lennon Assasinated
A month after Reagan’s election, a deranged fan shot and killed John Lennon outside his New York home. While Reagan’s election signaled the end of the sixties and seventies politically, Lennon’s death spelled the end of the period culturally. The former Beatles’ wife, Yoko Ono, has continued to release his material which serves to both satisfy the desire for more John, but also remind fans what was lost. -
E.T.
Steven Spielberg -
First American Woman in Space
Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman to travel into space. -
Windows Program
Invented by microsoft -
Raising Arizona
Joel Coen -
3-D video game
Invented by Houstin D. Richmond -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall, after thirty-eight years of restricting traffic between the East and West German sides of the city, begins to crumble when German citizens are allowed to travel freely between East and West Germany for the first time. One day later, the influx of crowds around and onto the wall begin to dismantle it, thus ending its existence.