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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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The opening ceremonies of the 1980 Winter Olympics Games are held in Lake Placid, New York.
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The Senate passed a bill that virtually eliminated the practice of busing to achieve racial integration.
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The Mt. St. Helens volcano, in Washington State, erupts, killing fifty-seven people and economic devastation to the area with losses near $3 billion.
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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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a poll shows that Regan's rating has goned up 11 points in one day.
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the purchase of Columbia Pictures by Coca-Cola is annouced for $750 million.
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Comedian John Belushi is found dead from an overdose of "speedballs" (cocaine and heroin) in a Hollywood hotel room.
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Michael Jackson's album Thriller makes Billboard's Top Ten, where it will remain for 78 weeks!
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A terrorist truck bomb kills two hundred and forty-one United States peacekeeping troops in Lebanon at Beirut International Airport. A second bomb destroyed a French barracks two miles away, killing forty there.
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The opening ceremony of the Los Angeles Olympic Games is held. The games run by Peter Ueberroth, prove a financial and U.S. success, despite a retaliatory boycott by most allies of the Soviet Union due to the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow games.
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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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Ronald Reagan, 73, is sworn in for his second term as president
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The stock market crash known as Black Monday occurred on the New York Stock Exchange, recording a record 22.6% drop in one day. Stock markets around the world would mirror the crash with drops of their own.
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The first patent for a genetically engineered animal is issued to Harvard University researchers Philip Leder and Timothy Stewart
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George Bush is inagurated as the 41st president of the United States.
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The Savings and Loan Bailout was approved by Congress and signed into law by President George Herbert Walker Bush. The total cost of the bill would approach $400 billion over thirty years to close and merge insolvent Savings & Loans.
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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.
