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The Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor, near Middletown, Pa., partially melted down on March 28, 1979. This was the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history -
Jimmy Carter, a Democrat and former Georgia governor, was elected the 39th U.S. president on November 2, 1976, defeating incumbent Republican Gerald Ford. Running as a Washington outsider post-Watergate, Carter secured a narrow victory -
The original Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope) premiered in theaters on May 25, 1977. Initially released in fewer than 32 theaters, it became an immediate blockbuster, defying low expectations to become a massive cultural phenomenon and launching a franchise that included sequels in 1980 and 1983. -
In March 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. The phreatic blasts escalated for nearly two months until a catastrophic explosive eruption took place on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m -
The 52 American hostages held in Tehran were released on January 20, 1981, ending a 444-day crisis that began on November 4, 1979. The captives were freed moments after Ronald Reagan's inauguration, -
On March 30, 1981, Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States, was shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as Reagan was returning to his limousine after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton hotel. -
The Iran–Contra affair, also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Contragate, Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Reagan administration. -
On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members. The spacecraft disintegrated 46,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean -
On 26 April 1986, reactor no.4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, exploded -
George H.W. Bush was elected the 41st President of the United States on November 8, 1988, defeating Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. As the incumbent Vice President under Ronald Reagan, he won with 53.4% of the popular vote and 426 electoral votes. -
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The Persian Gulf War began with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, prompted by oil disputes, leading to the U.S.-led coalition's defensive Operation Desert Shield -
The 1992 U.S. Olympic Basketball "Dream Team" was the first American Olympic squad to feature active NBA players, dominating the Barcelona Games to win gold with an 8-0 record, winning by an average of 44 points -
The 1992 Los Angeles riots (also called the Rodney King Riots)[5] were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, -
Bill Clinton, a Democrat and former Governor of Arkansas, was elected the 42nd President of the United States on November 3, 1992. He defeated incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush and independent candidate Ross Perot with 370 electoral votes to Bush's 168 -
by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to market their search engine, which evolved from the "BackRub" research project (1996) at Stanford University. -
On December 19, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from the Clinton-Lewinsky scanda -
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes, launching coordinated attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.