From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From top left, clockwise:
U.S. President
Ronald Reagan is
shot and injured by
John Hinckley Jr. ; the first case of
HIV/AIDS begins in United States; the
Salvadoran Army
kill 800–1,000 civilians in
El Mozote village; NASA
launches
Space Shuttle Columbia ;
Pope John Paul II is
shot and injured by
Mehmet Ali Ağca ;
IBM launches its
first microcomputer ; seven prisoners from the Provisional
Irish Republican Army and three from the
Irish National Liberation Army starve themselves to death in a
hunger strike ;
Prince Charles
marries
Lady Diana Spencer .
Calendar year
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
1981 .
1981 (
MCMLXXXI ) was a
common year starting on Thursday of the
Gregorian calendar , the 1981st year of the
Common Era (CE) and
Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 981st year of the
2nd millennium , the 81st year of the
20th century , and the 2nd year of the
1980s decade.
Calendar year
Events
January
February
February 4 –
Gro Harlem Brundtland becomes
Prime Minister of Norway .
[10]
February 8 – In Greece, 20 fans of
Olympiacos F.C. and 1 fan of
AEK Athens die, while 54 are injured, after a stampede at the
Karaiskakis Stadium in
Piraeus , possibly because Gate 7 does not open immediately after the end of the game.
February 9 – Polish Prime Minister
Józef Pińkowski resigns and is replaced by General
Wojciech Jaruzelski .
[11]
February 14 –
Stardust fire : A fire at the Stardust nightclub in
Artane, Dublin ,
Ireland , in the early hours kills 48 people and injures 214.
[12]
February 17 –
22 –
Pope John Paul II visits the
Philippines .
February 23 –
1981 Spanish coup d'état attempt ("23-F"):
Antonio Tejero , with members of the
Guardia Civil , enters the
Spanish Congress of Deputies and stops the session where
Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo is about to be named president of the government. The coup fails after being denounced by King
Juan Carlos .
[13]
February 24 – A powerful
6.7 magnitude earthquake hits
Athens , killing 22 people, injuring 400 people and destroying several buildings and 4,000 houses, mostly in
Corinth and the nearby towns of
Loutraki ,
Kiato and
Xylokastro .
March
April
April 12 : First
Space Shuttle launch:
Columbia , April 12, 1981
May
May –
Daniel K. Ludwig abandons the
Jari project in the
Amazon basin .
May 1 –
Pensions in Chile : The new
Chilean pension system, based on private
pension funds , begins.
May 4 – The
European Law Students' Association (ELSA) was founded in Vienna by law students from Austria, West Germany, Poland and Hungary.
May 6 – A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects
Maya Lin 's design for the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in
Washington, D.C. , from among 1,421 other entries.
May 11 – The Jamaican
reggae singer
Bob Marley dies at age 36 from
cancer .
May 13 –
Pope John Paul II assassination attempt :
Pope John Paul II is shot by
Mehmet Ali Ağca , a
Turkish gunman, as he enters
St. Peter's Square in
Vatican City to address a general audience. The Pope recovers.
[17]
May 15 – A prison officer, 31-year-old
Donna Payant , disappears at Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York. She is later found to have been murdered by convicted serial killer
Lemuel Smith . It is the first time a female prison officer has been killed while on duty in the United States.
[18]
May 21 –
François Mitterrand becomes the first socialist President of the
French Fifth Republic .
May 22 – Serial killer
Peter Sutcliffe is found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on 13 counts of murder and 7 of attempted murder in England.
May 25 – In
Riyadh , the
Gulf Cooperation Council is created among
Bahrain ,
Kuwait ,
Oman ,
Qatar ,
Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates .
May 26 – The Italian government resigns over its links to the fascist Masonic cell
Propaganda Due .
May 30 –
Bangladeshi President
Ziaur Rahman is assassinated in
Chittagong .
May 31 –
Burning of Jaffna library , one of the most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the century.
June
June 5 – The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States report that 5
homosexual men in Los Angeles have a rare form of
pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened
immune systems , the first recognized cases of
AIDS .
June 6 –
Bihar train disaster : Seven coaches of an overcrowded passenger train fall off the tracks into the
Bagmati River in
Bihar , India, killing between 500 and 800.
June 7 – The
Israeli Air Force destroys
Iraq 's
Osirak nuclear reactor, killing ten Iraqi troops and a French technician.
June 10 – Alfredo Rampi, a 6-year-old boy, falls into an artesian well in Vermicino, near Rome. After nearly three days of failed rescue attempts followed with bated breath from all over Italy, Alfredino dies inside the well, at a depth of 60 meters (200 ft).
June 13 – At the
Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, teenager
Marcus Sarjeant fires 6 blank shots close to Queen
Elizabeth II , startling her horse.
[19]
[20]
June 18
June 22 – Iranian president
Abolhassan Banisadr is deposed.
June 27
July
July 1 –
Wonderland murders : The
Wonderland Gang of cocaine dealers is brutally murdered in Los Angeles.
[24]
Eddie Nash is suspected of involvement, but will never be convicted.
[25]
July 3 – The
Toxteth riots in
Liverpool , England, start after a mob saves a youth from being arrested. Shortly afterward, the
Chapeltown riots in
Leeds start amid increased racial tension.
July 7 – United States President
Ronald Reagan nominates the first woman,
Sandra Day O'Connor , to the
Supreme Court of the United States .
[26]
July 9 –
Donkey Kong is released, marking the first
Donkey Kong and
Mario smash hit arcade game developed by
Nintendo in Japan.
July 10
July 16 –
21 – England become the first team this century to win a cricket Test match after the
follow-on when they beat Australia by 18 runs at
Headingley cricket ground, Leeds, England.
July 17
July 19 – The
1981 Springbok Tour commences in New Zealand, amid controversy over the support of
apartheid .
July 21 –
Panda
Tohui is born in
Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, the first panda to ever be born and survive in captivity outside of China.
July 29 – A worldwide television audience of over 750 million people watch the
Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at
St Paul's Cathedral in London, UK.
[29]
July 30 –
1981 Polish hunger demonstrations : As many as 50,000 demonstrators, mostly women and children, take to the streets in
Łódź to protest about food ration shortages in
Communist Poland .
[30]
August
August 1 – The first 24-hour video music channel
MTV (Music Television) is launched in the United States and airs its first video, "
Video Killed the Radio Star " by
The Buggles .
[31]
August 9 –
1981 Major League Baseball strike ends in the United States, and
Major League Baseball resumes with the
All-Star Game in
Cleveland 's
Municipal Stadium .
[32]
August 12 – The original Model 5150
IBM PC (with a 4.77 MHz
Intel 8088 processor) is released in the United States at a base price of $1,565.
[33]
August 19 –
Gulf of Sidra incident :
Libyan president
Muammar Gaddafi sends two
Sukhoi Su-22 fighter jets to intercept two U.S. Navy fighters over the
Gulf of Sidra . The U.S. jets destroy the Libyan fighters.
[34]
August 23 – South African troops attack
SWAPO bases in
Xangongo and
Ongiva ,
Angola , during
Operation Protea .
[35]
August 24 –
Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to murdering
John Lennon in
Manhattan eight months earlier.
August 27 – North Korea fires a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. SR-71 Blackbird spy plane flying in South Korean and international airspace. The missile misses and the airplane is unharmed.
[36]
August 30 –
1981 Iranian Prime Minister's office bombing : Eight people, including the country's president and prime minister, are killed when a briefcase, planted by
People's Mujahedin of Iran , explodes in the building.
[37]
August 31 – A bomb explodes at the United States
Ramstein Air Base in West Germany, injuring 20 people.
September
September –
Little Miss Bossy , the first book in the
Little Miss series (the female counterpart to the
Mr. Men series) is first published.
September 1 –
Gregorio Conrado Álvarez is inaugurated as a military
de facto President of Uruguay .
[38]
September 4 – An
explosion at a mine in
Záluží ,
Czechoslovakia , kills 65 people.
September 7 – British plantation company
Guthrie is taken over by the
Malaysian government after successfully purchasing shares to become the major shareholder. This is famously called the 'Dawn Raid attack'.
[39]
September 10 –
Picasso 's painting
Guernica is moved from New York to
Madrid .
September 15
September 17 –
Ric Flair defeats Dusty Rhodes to win his first World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship in
Kansas City .
September 18 – France's National Assembly votes to abolish
Capital punishment in France .
[40]
September 19 –
Solidarity Day march , in support of organized labor, draws approximately 250,000 people in Washington, D.C.
September 20 – The overcrowded ferry boat
Sobral Santos II capsizes in the
Amazon River ,
Ób ,
idos, Brazil , killing at least 300 people.
[41]
September 21 –
Belize , formerly
British Honduras , gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
September 22 , a
Northrop F-5
crashes during a
military exercise , in
Babaeski ,
Turkey , killing 1 crew and 65 soldiers on ground.
[42]
September 25 –
Sandra Day O'Connor takes her seat as the first female justice of the
U.S. Supreme Court .
September 26
September 27 –
TGV high-speed rail service between Paris and
Lyon , France, begins.
September 27 –
29 –
Iran–Iraq War : Iranian forces break the
Siege of Abadan in
Operation Samen-ol-A'emeh .
[44]
October
November
November 1 :
Antigua and Barbuda .
December
December 1 – An
Inex-Adria Aviopromet
McDonnell Douglas MD-80
strikes a mountain peak and crashes while approaching
Ajaccio Airport in
Corsica , killing all 180 people on board.
December 4 – South Africa grants
Ciskei independence, not recognized outside South Africa.
December 7 –
Rotary International charters the Rotary Club of Grand Baie,
Mauritius .
December 8
December 10 – During the Ministerial Session of the
North Atlantic Council in
Brussels , Spain signs the
Protocol of Accession to
NATO .
December 11
December 13 –
Wojciech Jaruzelski declares
martial law in Poland , to prevent the dismantling of the communist system by
Solidarity .
December 15 –
1981 Iraqi embassy bombing in Beirut : An
Islamic Dawa Party
car bomb destroys the Iraqi Embassy in
Lebanon , killing 61 people in one of the earliest significant postwar
suicide attacks .
December 17 – American Brigadier General
James L. Dozier is kidnapped in
Verona by the Italian
Red Brigades .
December 20 – The
Penlee lifeboat disaster : While attempting to rescue those on board the Union Star off the coast of South-West
Cornwall (England), the lifeboat Solomon Browne is lost with all crew. Sixteen people in all are killed.
[54]
December 28 – The first American
test-tube baby ,
Elizabeth Jordan Carr , is born in
Norfolk, Virginia .
December 31 – A
coup d'état in
Ghana removes
President
Hilla Limann 's
PNP
government and replaces it with the
PNDC led by
Flight Lieutenant
Jerry Rawlings .
Date unknown
January to March – Heavy snow
causes several houses and buildings to collapse in northwestern Japan; 152 are killed.
Cuba suffers a major outbreak of
dengue fever , with 344,203 cases.
[55]
Use of
crack cocaine , a smokeable form of the drug, first reported in the
United States and
Caribbean .
[56]
Luxor AB presents the
ABC 800 computer.
Polybius , an urban legend game, is said to have been released in
Portland, Oregon ; there is no evidence for its existence.
The
State Council of the People's Republic of China lists the cities of Beijing,
Hangzhou ,
Suzhou and
Guilin as those where the protection of historical and cultural heritage, as well as natural scenery, should be treated as a priority project.
Pepsi enters
China .
[57]
Around the end of 1981,
China becomes the first country ever to reach a population of 1 billion.
[58]
Births and deaths
Nobel Prizes
References
^ Federal Trust for Education and Research (2003).
Guide to the EU Institutions . I. B. Tauris. p. 17.
ISBN
978-1-903403-09-9 .
^ Economist Publications (1988).
The World in Figures . G.K. Hall. p. 282.
ISBN
978-0-8161-8954-0 .
^ Vinocur, John; Times, Special To the New York (January 7, 1981).
"WAR VETERANS COME TO BURY, AND TO PRAISE, DOENITZ" . The New York Times .
ISSN
0362-4331 . Retrieved September 16, 2023 .
^
"Thousands at funeral for Hitler's successor - UPI Archives" . UPI . Retrieved September 16, 2023 .
^ Angelika Schlunck (2000).
Amnesty Versus Accountability: Third Party Intervention Dealing with Gross Human Rights Violations in Internal and International Conflicts . Berlin Verlag Arno Spitz GmbH. p. 91.
ISBN
978-3-87061-894-0 .
^ W. J. Twierdochlebow (1985).
Solidarność: A Biblio-historiography of the Gdansk Strike and Birth of Solidarity Movement . Center for the Study of Opposition in Poland. p. 61.
^ ʻAlī Rāhnamā; Farhād Nuʻmānī (1990).
The Secular Miracle: Religion, Politics, and Economic Policy in Iran . Zed Books. p. 311.
ISBN
978-0-86232-938-9 .
^ Scientific Event Alert Network (National Museum of Natural History (U.S.)) (1981).
SEAN Bulletin . Scientific Event Alert Network. p. 14.
^ Mark S. Hoffman (1990).
The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1990 . World Almanac. p. 541.
ISBN
978-0-88687-559-6 .
^ Christine Ingebritsen (2006).
Scandinavia in World Politics . Rowman & Littlefield. p. 59.
ISBN
978-0-7425-0965-8 .
^ Neal Ascherson (1982).
The Book of Lech Wałęsa . Simon and Schuster. p. 14.
ISBN
978-0-671-45684-9 .
^ Neil Fetherstonhaugh; Tony McCullagh (2001).
They Never Came Home: The Stardust Story . Merlin. p. 8.
ISBN
978-1-903582-09-1 .
^
Daily Report. West Europe . The Service. 1990. p. 30.
^ Childs, David (1995). Britain since 1939 : progress and decline . Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan. p. 201.
ISBN
9781349239672 .
^
" 'Yeeeow!' and 'Doggone!' Are Shouted on Beaches as Crowds Watch Liftoff" . archive.nytimes.com .
^
"China loses its allure" . The Economist . January 23, 2014.
^
First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life . Institute on Religion and Public Life. 2003. p. 37.
^ William Moses Kunstler; Sheila Isenberg (1994).
My Life as a Radical Lawyer . Carol Pub. p. 288.
ISBN
978-1-55972-265-0 .
^
"13 June 1981: Queen shot at by youth" . BBC. June 13, 1981. Retrieved August 18, 2010 .
^
Guard: I Saw Shots Being Fired At Queen , Sky News on-line, by Alastair Bruce, 11 June 2016, accessed 9 October 2016.
^ M. Leann Brown (1994).
Developing Countries and Regional Economic Cooperation . Praeger. p. 152.
ISBN
978-0-275-94960-0 .
^
"Complete History of Paintball" . Paintball Award . May 2021. Retrieved May 15, 2021 .
^
"NAMM Exhibitor Manual-Summer 1981" . namm.org. Retrieved June 16, 2018 .
^ Lemons, Stephen (June 9, 2000).
"Return to Wonderland" . Salon .
^ Timnick, Lois (March 21, 1990).
"Trial Begins for 2 in Grisly Laurel Canyon Murders of Mid-1981" .
Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles.
^
Graya: A Magazine for Members of Gray's Inn . Gray's Inn. 1980. p. 51.
^ Shukor Omar (2003).
The Malay Lost World: With Emphasis on Entrepreneurship . Anzagain. p. 36.
ISBN
978-983-037-120-7 .
^ "The Bombing of Beirut".
Journal of Palestine Studies . 11 (1): 218–225. 1981.
doi :
10.1525/jps.1981.11.1.00p0366x .
^
"The Royal Wedding of HRH The Prince of Wales and the Lady Diana Spencer" . BBC One. July 29, 1981.
Archived from the original on August 3, 2019. Retrieved December 25, 2019 .
^
Quarterly Economic Review of Poland, East Germany . Economist Intelligence Unit Limited. 1980. p. 14.
^ Jan-Patrick Stolpmann (May 2011).
MTV: The (r)evolution & Impact Between 1981 - 1994 . GRIN Verlag. p. 3.
ISBN
978-3-640-91967-3 .
^
Texas Business Review . Bureau of Business Research. 1981. p. 268.
^ Tompkins V, Bruccoli M, Baughman J, Layman R, Bondi V, Bargeron E, McConnell T, Tidd, J (1996).
American Decades: 1980-1989 . Gale Research. p. 583.
ISBN
978-0-8103-8881-9 .
^ John Norton Moore; Robert F. Turner (1995).
Readings on International Law from the Naval War College Review, 1978-1994 . Naval War College. p. 489.
^ Jacqueline Audrey Kalley; Elna Schoeman; Lydia Eve Andor (1999).
Southern African Political History: A Chronology of Key Political Events from Independence to Mid-1997 . Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 17.
ISBN
978-0-313-30247-3 .
^
"Missile is Fired by North Koreans at U.S. Spy Plane Near the DMZ" . The New York Times . August 27, 1981.
^
United Press International (September 14, 1981).
"Iranian Says Secretary to Premier Hid Fatal Bomb in Teheran Office" .
The New York Times . Retrieved March 14, 2017 .
^ Arthur S Banks; William Overstreet; Thomas Muller (April 15, 2008).
Political Handbook of the World 2008 . CQ Press. p. 1446.
ISBN
978-0-87289-528-7 .
^ Shakila Yacob; Nicholas White (May 2011). "The 'Unfinished Business' of Malaysia's Decolonisation: The Origins of the Guthrie 'Dawn Raid' ". Modern Asian Studies . 44 (5).
^ Council of Europe (2004). The Death Penalty: Beyond Abolition . Council of Europe Pub. p. 196.
ISBN
9789287153333 .
^
"300 Die as Amazon Boat Sinks" .
The New York Times . September 20, 1981. Retrieved January 5, 2019 .
^
"Accident Northrop F-5A 64 13340" .
Aviation Safety Network . June 21, 2014. Retrieved November 9, 2023 .
^ Michael John Haddrick Taylor (1982).
Boeing . Jane's. p. 205.
ISBN
978-0-7106-0420-0 .
^ William F. Hickman (1982).
Ravaged and Reborn: The Iranian Army, 1982 : a Staff Paper . Brookings Institution. p. 27.
ISBN
978-0-8157-3611-0 .
^
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts: LLBA . Sociological Abstracts, Incorporated. 1985. p. 893.
^
Amnesty International Report . Amnesty International Publications. 1982. p. 320.
ISBN
9780939994021 .
^
Intelligence Digest . Intelligence International Limited. April 1984. p. 20.
^ Nigel West (2010).
Historical Dictionary of Naval Intelligence . Rowman & Littlefield. p. 269.
ISBN
978-0-8108-6760-4 .
^ United States. Visa Office (1984).
Report of the Visa Office . U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs. p. 43.
^ Edward H. Lawson; Mary Lou Bertucci (1996).
Encyclopedia of Human Rights . Taylor & Francis. p. 990.
ISBN
978-1-56032-362-4 .
^
"HISTORY >> Grey Cup >> 1981 | CFL.ca | Official Site of the Canadian Football League" . Archived from
the original on August 19, 2013. Retrieved August 23, 2017 .
^
"European Severe Weather Database" . www.eswd.eu .
^ Tickler, Peter (1987). The modern mercenary : dog of war, or soldier of honour . Wellingborough, Northamptonshire New York, N.Y: P. Stephens Distributed by Sterling Pub. Co. p. 100.
ISBN
9780850598124 .
^
Disasters: A Bibliographic Guide . University of Bradford Disaster Planning and Limitation Unit. 1990. p. 122.
ISBN
978-1-85143-049-9 .
^
"Dengue Bulletin 23 - DHF Epidemics in Cuba, 1981 & 1997: Some Interesting Observations" . Archived from
the original on January 4, 2005. Retrieved May 26, 2005 .
^ "
DEA History Book, 1876–1990" (drug usage & enforcement),
US Department of Justice , 1991, USDoJ.gov webpage:
DoJ-DEA-History-1985-1990 .
^
"Archived copy" (PDF) . Archived from
the original (PDF) on June 11, 2013. Retrieved July 12, 2013 . {{
cite web }}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
link )
^
"Chinese Population Hits 1 Billion" . History Channel Australia . Archived from
the original on April 22, 2019.
External links