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Rubik's Cube becomes popular
Release early 1980‘s. People said it was the worlds best selling toy. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide. It was invented by Ernő Rubik. He built it for his to understand 3D objects better. -
Mt. St. Helens Erupts
The eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington in 1980 was the first volcanic eruption since the 1915 Lassen Peak eruption in California. Ashes rose 80,000 ft. into the air and settled in 11 different states. 57 people and thousands of game perished. Billions of dollars spent to restore wasteland resulting from the ashes. -
Pac-Man is Released
Distribution in the United states in October 1980. First released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Before Pac Man most of the video games were sports related. But once Pac Man came out it was a social phenomenon and kind of blew all the other video games out of the water. -
CNN Created
Cable News Network was founded in 1980 as a U.S. cable news station. CNN was created by Ted Turner. CNN was the first channel to have 24-hour news coverage. -
John Lennon's Assassination
Born October 9,1940. Died December 8, 1980. Founder in the Beatles. He was shot by Mark David Chapman at the entrance of the building where he lived, The Dakota, in New York City on 8 December 1980. Lennon had just returned from Record Plant Studio with his wife, Yoko Ono. He was cremated December 10, 1980. His ashes were given to his wife, and she chose not to have a funeral. -
IBM Personal Computer Released
This was the first personal computer produced by IBM. The first computer was model number 5150. It was created by a team of engineers under Don Estridge in Boca Raton, Florida and sold for 1,565. There were other computers before then but many weighed more than 1,000 pounds and were too big to fit in a normal sized room. -
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Released
E.T. is an American film produced by Steven Spielberg. E.T. quickly surpassed Star Wars to become highest grossing film of all time. It held this record for 10 years before being surpassed by another Spielberg film, Jurassic Park. -
Thriller released
Thriller was directed by John Landis, who also cowrote the screenplay with Michael Jackson. It was MTVs first world premiere video. Voted as the most influential pop music video of all time, Thriller proved to have a profound effect on popular culture and was named "a watershed moment for the [music] industry" for its unprecedented merging of film making and music. -
PG-13 Rating Introduced
Many films that began coming out in the early 1980s caused parents to disagree with the rating on some PG movies. They disliked the amount of gore and violence in the movies. These complaints made Steven Spielberg, who happened to direct Temple of Doom, go to the president of MPAA, Jack Valenti, and suggest a new rating. Spielberg suggested an intermediate rating that wasn't quite R but was worse than PG. He suggested PG-13 and this rating was created. -
Challenger Disaster
One of NASA's greatest sucesses in 1983 but in 1986 on the 10th launch, exploded 73 seconds after taking off. Remains of shuttle fell into the Atlantic. Salvages most parts of the 7 perished creworkers. Main reason for accident was cold weather causing defects in equiptment. Changed the way NASA worked forever. -
U.S. Bombs Lybia
Retaliation in result to the sponsership of Lybia in terrorism against US. There had been many smaller violent confrontations with Lybia before the April 14 bombing. (Airport attacks, Gulf of Sidra, West Berlin Dance Hall bombing) -
DNA first used to convict criminals
DNA Profiling was first discovered and released by Dr. Alec Jeffreys. Florida rapist Tommie Lee Andrews became the first person in the U.S. to be convicted as a result of DNA evidence; he was sentenced to 22 years behind bars. The next year, a Virginia killer dubbed the "South Side Strangler" was sentenced to death after DNA linked him to several rapes and murders around Richmond. -
NYSE drops on "Black Monday"
In the days between October 14 and October 19, 1987, major indexes of market valuation in the United States dropped 30 percent or more. On October 19, 1987, a date that subsequently became known as"Black Monday," the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 508 points, losing 22.6% of its total value. The S&P 500 dropped 20.4%, falling from 282.7 to 225.06. This was the greatest loss Wall Street had ever suffered on a single day. -
Ryan Leo Friederich was born
Ryan Leo Friederich was born January 8th,1989 in Oelwein IA. He has two brothers and one sister. In elementary school he went to a small catholic church in Oelwein. And in 2000 he moved to Forest City and finished school there.
