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Commodore Amiga 500, 16-bit computer (1987)
Commodore Amiga 500, 16-bit computer (1987)
The Amiga 500, also known as the A500, was the first popular version of the Amiga home computer, "redefining the home computer market and making so-called luxury features such as multitasking and colour a standard long before Microsoft or Apple sold these to the masses". It contains the same Motorola 68000 as the Amiga 1000, as well as the same graphics and sound coprocessors, but is in a smaller case similar to that of the Commodore 128.

Commodore announced the Amiga 500 at the January 1987 winter Consumer Electronics Show – at the same time as the high-end Amiga 2000. It was initially available in the Netherlands in April 1987, then the rest of Europe in May. In North America and the UK it was released in October 1987 with a US$699/£499 list price. It competed directly against models in the Atari ST line.

The Amiga 500 was sold in the same retail outlets as the

Amiga 500 Plus, and the 500 series was discontinued in 1992. (Full article...) (Full article...
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Selected article 2

Portal:1980s/Selected article/2

A Commodore 64, an 8-bit home computer introduced in 1982 by Commodore International.
A Commodore 64, an 8-bit home computer introduced in 1982 by Commodore International.
The
8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. It is listed in the Guinness World Records
as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 10 and 17 million units.

Volume production started in early 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of

Atari 800
, with multi-color sprites and a more advanced sound processor.

The C64 dominated the low-end computer market for most of the 1980s. For a substantial period (1983–1986), the C64 had between 30% and 40% share of the US market and two million units sold per year, outselling the

Atari 8-bit family of computers. Sam Tramiel, a later Atari president and the son of Commodore's founder, said in a 1989 interview, "When I was at Commodore we were building 400,000 C64s a month for a couple of years." In the UK market, the 64 faced competition from the BBC Micro and the ZX Spectrum but the 64 was still one of the two most-popular computers in the UK. (Full article...
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Selected article 3

Portal:1980s/Selected article/3

Rubik's Cube
Rubik's Cube
sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik
.

Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.

In a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colors: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. In currently sold models, white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, and the red, white and blue are arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement. On early cubes, the position of the colours varied from cube to cube. An internal pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to have only one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of sides, dimensions, and stickers, not all of them by Rubik.

Although the Rubik's Cube reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1980s, it is still widely known and used. Many speedcubers continue to practice it and other twisty puzzles and compete for the fastest times in various categories. Since 2003, The World Cube Association, the Rubik's Cube's international governing body, has organised competitions worldwide and kept the official world records. (Full article...)

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Selected article 4

Portal:1980s/Selected article/4

Transparent version of NES console
Transparent version of NES console
The
portmanteau abbreviation Famicom (ファミコン, Famikon) and abbreviated as FC) on July 15, 1983, and was later released in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986, and Australia in 1987. In South Korea, it was known as the Hyundai Comboy (현대 컴보이 Hyeondae Keomboi) and was distributed by SK Hynix which then was known as Hyundai Electronics. It was succeeded by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System
.

The

video game crash of 1983. With the NES, Nintendo introduced a now-standard business model of licensing third-party developers
, authorizing them to produce and distribute titles for Nintendo's platform.

In 2009, the Nintendo Entertainment System was named the single greatest video game console in history by IGN, in a list of 25. (Full article...)

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Selected article 5

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Selected article 6

Portal:1980s/Selected article/6

Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after take-off.
Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after take-off.
The
structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic
forces broke up the orbiter.

The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. The exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown; several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. The shuttle had no escape system, and the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable.

The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident, with the agency violating its own safety rules. NASA managers had known since 1977 that contractor Morton Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings, but they had failed to address this problem properly. They also disregarded warnings (an example of "go fever") from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning, and failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors. (Full article...)

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Selected article 7

Portal:1980s/Selected article/7 A

educational television mandates. Minor television networks, in addition to the non-commercial PBS
, continue to air Saturday morning cartoons while meeting those mandates.

In the United States, the generally accepted times for these and other children's programs to air on Saturday mornings were from 8 a.m. to noon Eastern Time. Until the late 1970s, American networks also had a schedule of children's programming on Sunday mornings, though most programs at this time were repeats of Saturday morning shows that were already out of production. Canadian Saturday morning cartoons were largely defunct by 2002. U.S. broadcast television networks still aired non-E/I animated programs on Saturday mornings until September 27, 2014. Cable television networks have since then revived the practice of debuting their most popular animated programming on Saturday mornings. (Full article...)

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Selected article 8

Portal:1980s/Selected article/8

A300B2-203 Iran Air EP-IBT at Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran
A300B2-203 Iran Air EP-IBT at Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran
guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes under the command of William C. Rogers III. The incident took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path. The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles
fired from Vincennes. All 290 on board died. The cruiser Vincennes had entered Iranian territorial waters after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.

According to the United States government, the crew incorrectly identified the Iranian Airbus A300 as an attacking F-14A Tomcat fighter, a plane made in the United States and operated at that time by only two forces worldwide, the United States Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. While the Iranian F-14s had been supplied by manufacturer Grumman in an air-to-air configuration only in the 1970s, the crew of Vincennes had been briefed when entering the region that the Iranian F-14s carried unguided bombs as well as Maverick missiles and unguided rockets. The Vincennes crew made ten attempts to contact the crew of the flight on military and civilian radio frequencies, but received no response. The International Civil Aviation Organization said that the flight crew should have been monitoring the civilian frequency.

According to the Iranian government, Vincennes negligently shot down the civilian aircraft: the airliner was making IFF squawks in Mode III (not Mode II used by Iranian military planes), a signal that identified it as a civilian craft. The event generated a great deal of criticism of the United States. Some analysts blamed the captain of Vincennes, who had entered Iran's waters, for reckless and aggressive behavior in a tense and dangerous environment.

The United States government did not formally apologize to Iran. In 1996, the United States and Iran reached a settlement at the International Court of Justice. As part of the settlement, the United States did not admit legal liability but agreed to pay on an ex gratia basis US$61.8 million, amounting to $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims. This event ranks eighth among the deadliest disasters in aviation history; the incident retains the highest death toll of any aviation incident in the Persian Gulf. (Full article...)

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Selected article 9

Portal:1980s/Selected article/9

Iran hostage crisis - Iraninan students comes up U.S. embassy in Tehran
Iran hostage crisis - Iraninan students comes up U.S. embassy in Tehran
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. More than sixty American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days (November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981) after a group of Iranian students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The crisis was described by the Western media as an "entanglement" of "vengeance and mutual incomprehension." President Jimmy Carter called the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy" and said, "The United States will not yield to blackmail." In Iran, it was widely seen as a blow against the United States and its influence in Iran, including its perceived attempts to undermine the Iranian Revolution and its longstanding support of the recently overthrown Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had led an autocratic regime.

After his overthrow in 1979, the shah was admitted to the United States for cancer treatment. Iran demanded that he be returned to stand trial for crimes he was accused of committing during his reign. Specifically, Pahlavi was accused of committing crimes against Iranian citizens with the help of his secret police, the SAVAK. Iranians saw the decision to grant him asylum as American complicity in those atrocities. In the United States, the hostage-taking was seen as an egregious violation of the principles of international law, which granted diplomats immunity from arrest and made diplomatic compounds inviolable.

The crisis reached a climax when, after failed efforts to negotiate the hostages' release, the United States military attempted a rescue operation using ships, including the USS Nimitz and USS Coral Sea, that were patrolling the waters near Iran. On April 24, 1980, the attempt, known as Operation Eagle Claw, failed, resulting in the deaths of eight American servicemen and one Iranian civilian, as well as the destruction of two aircraft. Documents dated two weeks before the operation claim that the American national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, discussed an invasion of Iran through Turkish bases and territory, though this plan was never executed. (Full article...)

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Selected article 10

Portal:1980s/Selected article/10

This image was taken in 1986 by Thierry Noir at Bethaniendamm in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
This image was taken in 1986 by Thierry Noir at Bethaniendamm in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
The
emigration and defection
that had marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.

The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "

Anti-Fascist Protective Wall" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that the NATO countries and West Germany in particular were considered equal to "fascists" by GDR propaganda. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War
.

Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented

Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from which they could then travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 in and around Berlin. (Full article...
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Selected article 11

Portal:1980s/Selected article/11

The Valley of the Drums, c 1980. EPA photo.
The Valley of the Drums, c 1980. EPA photo.
The Valley of the Drums is a 23-acre (9.3 hectare) toxic waste site in northern Bullitt County, Kentucky, near Louisville, named after the waste-containing drums strewn across the area. It is known as one of the primary motivations for the passage of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or Superfund Act of 1980. While the widely publicized Love Canal disaster is often credited as the reason the Superfund law was passed, Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs has said that Love Canal looked like a suburban community, while "Valley of the Drums became the visualization of the problem."

The site became a collection point for toxic wastes starting sometime in the 1960s. It caught the attention of state officials when some of the drums caught fire and burned for more than a week in 1966. However, at that time there were no laws to address the storage or containment of toxic wastes, and the site continued to be unregulated for another decade. In 1977, the owner (also inferred to be the primary "dumper") of the site, A.L. Taylor, died. It is unclear who owns the property today, and county tax records show that the property taxes have gone unpaid for several years.

In 1978, a KDNREP investigation of the property revealed that over 100,000 drums of waste were delivered to the site, of which 27,000 drums were buried and the remaining containers were discharged directly into pits and trenches. Over a period of time, the conditions of many of the drums on site deteriorated and the contents spilled onto the ground and were flushed into a nearby creek by storm water runoff. Frequent complaints about strong odors along the creek bed were received from adjacent property owners.

In 1979, large quantities of contaminants were carried into the creek by the spring snow melts, which caused the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to respond immediately. The EPA analyzed the property and creek and found high levels of heavy metal, polychlorinated biphenyls, and some 140 other chemical substances. The same year, the

Environmental Protection Agency initiated an emergency clean-up of the worst of the leaking drums. Workers on the ground quickly realized that the scope of the problem was far beyond their abilities at the time, and after news of the problems there became public the site was used by members of Congress as one of the reasons the proposed Superfund law was needed. (Full article...
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Selected article 12

Portal:1980s/Selected article/12

Live Aid concert after dark at JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA
Live Aid concert after dark at JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA
Ethiopian famine. Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom (attended by 72,000 people) and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States (attended by about 100,000 people). On the same day, concerts inspired by the initiative happened in other countries, such as Australia and Germany
. It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time: an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion, across 150 nations, watched the live broadcast.

The 1985 Live Aid concert was conceived as a follow-on to the successful charity single "

£8 million, rather than the £70,000 Geldof and Ure had initially expected. (Full article...
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Selected article 13

Portal:1980s/Selected article/13

John Lennon's Apartment in New York
John Lennon's Apartment in New York
Record Plant Studio with his wife, Yoko Ono
.

After sustaining four major gunshot wounds, Lennon was pronounced

Roosevelt Hospital. He was 40 years old. At the hospital, it was stated that nobody could have lived for more than a few minutes after sustaining such injuries. Shortly after local news stations reported Lennon's death, crowds gathered at Roosevelt Hospital and in front of the Dakota. Lennon was cremated on December 10, 1980 at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York; the ashes were given to Ono, who chose not to hold a funeral for him. The first media report of Lennon's death to a US national audience was announced by Howard Cosell, on ABC's Monday Night Football
.

Photographer

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Selected article 14

Portal:1980s/Selected article/14

Judas Priest, performing in 2005
Judas Priest, performing in 2005
Heavy metal (or simply metal) is a genre of rock music with roots in blues rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are often associated with masculinity, aggression, and machismo.

The first heavy metal bands such as

New Wave of British Heavy Metal such as Iron Maiden and Saxon followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as "metalheads" or "headbangers
".

During the 1980s,

Poison. Underground scenes produced an array of more aggressive styles: thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands such as Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax, while other extreme subgenres of metal such as death metal and black metal remain subcultural phenomena. Since the mid-1990s popular styles have further expanded the definition of the genre. These include groove metal (with bands such as Pantera) and nu metal (with bands such as Slipknot, Korn and Linkin Park), the latter of which often incorporates elements of grunge and hip hop
.

Heavy metal is traditionally characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound, and vigorous vocals. Metal subgenres variously emphasize, alter, or omit one or more of these attributes.

Keyboard instruments are sometimes used to enhance the fullness of the sound. (Full article...
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Selected article 15

Portal:1980s/Selected article/15

Tipper Gore, wife of then Senator and later Vice President Al Gore; sitting with LeVar Burton.
Tipper Gore, wife of then Senator and later Vice President Al Gore; sitting with LeVar Burton.
The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) was an American committee formed in 1985 with the stated goal of increasing parental control over the access of children to music deemed to be violent, have drug use or be sexual via labeling albums with Parental Advisory stickers. The committee was founded by four women: Tipper Gore, wife of Senator and later Vice President Al Gore; Susan Baker, wife of Treasury Secretary James Baker; Pam Howar, wife of Washington realtor Raymond Howar; and Sally Nevius, wife of former Washington City Council Chairman John Nevius. They were known as the "Washington wives" – a reference to their husbands' connections with government in the Washington, D.C. area. The term was also a play on the title of Ira Levin's book, The Stepford Wives. The Center eventually grew to include 22 participants.

As a method of combating this alleged problem, the PMRC suggested a voluntary move by the

Sears and Fred Meyer. (Full article...
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Selected article 16

Portal:1980s/Selected article/16

This is the current logo of MTV.
This is the current logo of MTV.
VJs. The network's current target audience is teenagers and young adults, with programming consisting mainly of original reality, comedy and drama programming and some off-network syndicated programs and films, along with limited music video
programming in off-peak time periods. In its early years, MTV's main target demographic were young adults, but today, MTV's programming is primarily targeted at teenagers, high school students and college-aged students.

MTV has spawned numerous

sister channels in the U.S. and affiliated channels internationally
, some of which have gone independent. MTV's influence on its audience, including issues related to censorship and social activism, has been a subject of debate for years.

As of July 2015, approximately 92,188,000 American households (79.2% of households with television) received MTV. (Full article...)

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Selected article 17

Portal:1980s/Selected article/17 "Where's the beef?" is a catchphrase in the United States and Canada. The phrase originated as a slogan for the fast food chain Wendy's. Since then it has become an all-purpose phrase questioning the substance of an idea, event or product.

The phrase first came to public attention in a

television commercial for the Wendy's chain of hamburger restaurants in 1984. In reality, the strategy behind the campaign was to distinguish competitors (McDonald's and Burger King) big name sandwiches (Big Mac and Whopper respectively) from Wendy's 'modest' Single by focusing on the large bun used by the competitors and the larger beef patty in Wendy's sandwich. In the ad, titled "Fluffy Bun," actress Clara Peller receives a burger with a massive bun from a fictional competitor, which uses the slogan "Home of the Big Bun". The small patty prompts Peller to angrily exclaim, "Where's the beef
?" An earlier version, featuring a middle-aged bald man saying, "Thanks, but where's the beef?", failed to make much impact. After the Peller version, the catchphrase was repeated in television shows, films, magazines, and other media outlets.

First airing on January 10, 1984, the original commercial featured three elderly ladies at the "Home of the Big Bun" examining an exaggeratedly large hamburger bun. The other two ladies poked at it, exchanging bemused comments ("It certainly is a big bun. It's a very big bun. It's a big fluffy bun. It's a very big fluffy—"). As one of the ladies lift the top half of the bun, a comically minuscule

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Selected article 18

Portal:1980s/Selected article/18

Larry Hagman attending the "Night of 100 Stars" for the 82nd Academy Awards viewing party at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills, CA on March 7, 2010
Larry Hagman attending the "Night of 100 Stars" for the 82nd Academy Awards viewing party at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills, CA on March 7, 2010
"
J.R. Ewing
in the show's third-season finale, which was not resolved until a fourth-season episode that aired eight months later.

In the final scene of the 1979–80 season, J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) hears a noise outside his office, walks out to the corridor to look, and is shot twice by an unseen assailant. The episode, titled "A House Divided", was broadcast on March 21, 1980 and was written by Loraine Despres and directed by Leonard Katzman. Viewers had to wait all summer to learn whether J.R. would survive, and which of his many enemies was responsible.

Ultimately, the person who pulled the trigger was revealed to be Kristin Shepard (Mary Crosby) in the "Who Done It?" episode which aired on November 21, 1980. Kristin was J.R.'s scheming sister-in-law and mistress, who shot him in a fit of anger. J.R. did not press charges, as Kristin claimed she was pregnant with his child as a result of their affair.

Production for the 1980–81 season began in June 1980, but Hagman—who had begun the show in a secondary role but now was the star—refused to film the show without a raise. He returned to work ten days later with a new contract that paid him $100,000 per episode and royalties from J.R. Ewing merchandise. Viewers had to wait an additional two months to find out the answer to the famous question, however, as a strike by the Writers Guild of America began in July that delayed the production of most new network shows by eight weeks. During the delay, CBS showed early Dallas episodes featuring J.R. Ewing, helping the show's many new fans better understand his character. (Full article...)

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Selected article 19

Portal:1980s/Selected article/19

Tom Selleck on the red carpet at the 60th Annual Academy Awards, 4/11/88
Tom Selleck on the red carpet at the 60th Annual Academy Awards, 4/11/88
television series starring Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a private investigator living on Oahu, Hawaii. The series ran from 1980 to 1988 in first-run broadcast on the American CBS
television network.

According to the

Nielsen ratings
, Magnum, P.I. consistently ranked in the top twenty U.S. television programs during the first five years that the series was originally broadcast in the United States.

Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV, a private investigator, played by Tom Selleck, resides in the guest house of a posh, 200-acre (81 ha) beachfront estate, known as Robin's Nest, in Hawaii, at the invitation of its owner, Robin Masters, the celebrated-but-never-seen author of several dozen lurid novels. Ostensibly this is quid pro quo for Magnum's services based upon Magnum's expertise in security; the pilot and several early episodes suggest Magnum also did Masters a favor of some kind, possibly when Masters hired him for a case. The voice of Robin Masters, heard only a few times per season, was provided by Orson Welles
(one last "appearance" was provided by a different actor, Reid Crandell).

With Magnum living a luxurious life on the estate and operating as a P.I. on cases that suit him, the only thorn in the side of this near-perfect lifestyle on the estate is

Ferrari 308 GTS
(e.g., tennis courts, wine cellar, expensive cameras).

The relationship between Magnum and Higgins was initially cool but as the series progressed, an unspoken respect and fondness of sorts grew between the pair, and as such, many episodes dedicated more screen time to this "odd couple" pairing after the relationship proved popular with fans. A recurrent theme throughout the last two seasons (starting in the episode "Paper War") involves Magnum's sneaking suspicion that Higgins is actually Robin Masters since he opens Robin's mail, calls Robin's Ferrari "his car", etc. This suspicion is never proved or disproved. (Full article...)

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Selected article 20

Portal:1980s/Selected article/20

This map shows the incorporated and unincorporated areas in Otero County, New Mexico, highlighting Alamogordo in red
This map shows the incorporated and unincorporated areas in Otero County, New Mexico, highlighting Alamogordo in red
The
Pac-Man
, which was commercially successful but critically maligned.

Since the burial was first reported in the press, there have been doubts as to its veracity and scope, leading to a minority considering it an

North American video game crash of 1983
; it was the end result of a disastrous fiscal year which saw Atari, Inc. sold off by its parent company. Though it was believed that millions of copies of E.T. were disposed of in the landfill, Atari officials later verified the numbers to be around 700,000 cartridges of various titles, including E.T.

In 2014, Fuel Industries, Microsoft, and others worked with the New Mexico government to excavate the site to validate the contents of the landfill as part of a documentary called Atari: Game Over. On April 26, 2014, the excavation revealed discarded games and hardware. Only a small fraction, about 1300 games, were recovered during the excavation period, with a portion given for curation and the rest auctioned to raise money for a museum to commemorate the burial.

Warner Communications in 1976 for $28 million, and had seen its net worth grow to $2 billion by 1982. By this time, the company accounted for 80% of the video gaming market; and was responsible for over half of its parent company's revenues, earning some 65–70% of their operating profits. By the last quarter of 1982, its growth in the following year was expected to be in the region of 50%. However, on December 7, 1982, the company reported that its earnings had only increased by 10–15%, rather than the predicted figure. The next day saw Warner Communications' share prices fall by a third, and the quarter ended with Warner's profits falling by 56%. In addition, Atari's CEO, Ray Kassar, was later investigated for possible insider trading charges as a result of selling some five thousand shares in Warner less than half an hour before reporting Atari's lower-than-expected earnings. Kassar was later cleared of any wrongdoing, although he was forced to resign his position the following July. Atari, Inc. would go on to lose $536 million in 1983, and was sold off by Warner Communications the following year. (Full article...
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Selected article 21

Portal:1980s/Selected article/21

First shot of Indiana Jones on the set of part 4
First shot of Indiana Jones on the set of part 4
The
archaeologist. It began in 1981 with the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. A prequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, followed in 1984 and the sequel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. In 1992, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, featuring adventures the character had as a child as he traveled around the world with his father, began airing on television. A fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was released in 2008 and was the last in the series to be distributed by Paramount Pictures. The series was created by George Lucas; the films star Harrison Ford and were directed by Steven Spielberg. The Walt Disney Company owns the Indiana Jones franchise since its acquisition of Lucasfilm
in 2012.

The franchise has expanded beyond film and television. Marvel Comics began publishing The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones in 1983, and Dark Horse Comics earned the comic book rights to the character in 1991. Novelizations of the films have been published, as well as many novels with original adventures, including a series of German novels by Wolfgang Hohlbein, twelve novels set before the films published by Bantam Books, and a series set during the character's childhood inspired by the television show. Numerous Indiana Jones video games have been released since 1982.

The first film,

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Selected article 22

Portal:1980s/Selected article/22

Bhopal memorial for those killed and disabled by the 1984 toxic gas release.
Bhopal memorial for those killed and disabled by the 1984 toxic gas release.
The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world's worst industrial disaster.

It occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the

shanty towns
located near the plant.

Estimates vary on the death toll. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.

The cause of the disaster remains under debate. The Indian government and local activists argue that slack management and deferred maintenance created a situation where routine pipe maintenance caused a backflow of water into a MIC tank triggering the disaster.

Union Carbide Corporation
(UCC) contends water entered the tank through an act of sabotage.

The owner of the factory, UCIL, was majority owned by UCC, with Indian Government-controlled banks and the Indian public holding a 49.1 percent stake. In 1989, UCC paid $470m ($907m in 2014 dollars) to settle litigation stemming from the disaster. In 1994, UCC sold its stake in UCIL to Eveready Industries India Limited (EIIL), which subsequently merged with McLeod Russel (India) Ltd. Eveready ended clean-up on the site in 1998, when it terminated its 99-year lease and turned over control of the site to the state government of Madhya Pradesh. Dow Chemical Company purchased UCC in 2001, seventeen years after the disaster. (Full article...)

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Selected article 23

Portal:1980s/Selected article/23

Geraldo Rivera at a Hudson Union Society event in September 2010.
Geraldo Rivera at a Hudson Union Society event in September 2010.
Satanic ritual abuse was the subject of a moral panic that originated in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout the country and eventually to many parts of the world, before mostly diminishing in the late 1990s. Allegations of SRA involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. In its most extreme form, SRA involved a supposed worldwide conspiracy involving the wealthy and powerful of the world elite in which children were abducted or bred for sacrifices, pornography and prostitution
.

Nearly every aspect of SRA was controversial, including its definition, the source of the allegations and proof thereof, testimonials of alleged victims, and court cases involving the allegations and criminal investigations. The panic affected lawyers', therapists', and social workers' handling of allegations of

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Selected article 24

Portal:1980s/Selected article/24

A standard "street" dosage of crack cocaine.
A standard "street" dosage of crack cocaine.
The
American crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States
between 1984 and the early 1990s.

In the early 1980s, the majority of

dealers to develop. As early as 1981, reports of crack were appearing in Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, Houston, and in the Caribbean
.

Initially, crack had higher purity than street powder. The word "street" is used as an adjective meaning "not involving an official business location or permanent residence" such as: "sold on the street" or "street people" in reference to people who live part-time along streets. Around 1984, powder cocaine was available on the street at an average of 55 percent purity for $100 per gram (equivalent to $290 in 2023), and crack was sold at average purity levels of 80-plus percent for the same price. In some major cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, and Detroit, one dosage unit of crack could be obtained for as little as $2.50 (equivalent to $7.33 in 2023).

Crack first began to be used on a large scale in Los Angeles in 1984. The distribution and use of the drug exploded that same year. By the end of 1986, it was available in 28 states and the

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Yuppie.
Yuppie.
A yuppie (/ˈjʌpi/; short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional") is defined by one source as being "a young college-educated adult who has a job that pays a lot of money and who lives and works in or near a large city". This acronym first came into use in the early 1980s.

yippies); Greene said he had heard people at the networking group (which met at Studio 54 to soft classical music) joke that Rubin had "gone from being a yippie to being a yuppie". The headline of Greene's story was From Yippie to Yuppie. East Bay Express humorist Alice Kahn claimed to have coined the word in a 1983 column. This claim is disputed. The proliferation of the word was affected by the publication of The Yuppie Handbook in January 1983 (a tongue-in-cheek take on The Official Preppy Handbook), followed by Senator Gary Hart's 1984 candidacy as a "yuppie candidate" for President of the United States. The term was then used to describe a political demographic group of socially liberal but fiscally conservative voters favoring his candidacy.Newsweek magazine declared 1984 "The Year of the Yuppie", characterizing the salary range, occupations, and politics of yuppies as "demographically hazy". The alternative acronym yumpie, for young upwardly mobile professional, was also current in the 1980s but failed to catch on. (Full article...
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Nancy Reagan speaking at a "Just Say No" Rally in Los Angeles
Nancy Reagan speaking at a "Just Say No" Rally in Los Angeles
"
War on Drugs", prevalent during the 1980s and early 1990s, to discourage children from engaging in illegal recreational drug use by offering various ways of saying no. The slogan was created and championed by First Lady Nancy Reagan during her husband's presidency
.

The campaign emerged from a substance abuse prevention program supported by the National Institutes of Health, pioneered in the 1970s by University of Houston Social Psychology Professor Richard I. Evans. Evans's social inoculation model included teaching student skills to resist peer pressure and other social influences. The campaign involved University projects done by students across the nation. Jordan Zimmerman, a student at USF, won the campaign. Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, the 15th largest advertising corporation in the United States. The anti-drug movement was among the resistance skills recommended in response to low peer pressure, and Nancy Reagan's larger campaign proved to be a useful dissemination of this social inoculation strategy.

Nancy Reagan first became involved during a campaign trip in 1980 to Daytop Village, New York. She recalls feeling impressed by a need to educate the youth about drugs and drug abuse. Upon her husband's election to the presidency, she returned to Daytop Village and outlined how she wished to help educate the youth. She stated in 1981 that her best role would be to bring awareness about the dangers of drug abuse: "Understanding what drugs can do to your children, understanding peer pressure and understanding why they turn to drugs is... the first step in solving the problem." (Full article...)

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Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
Golden Temple in Amritsar
which left the Sikh temple heavily damaged.

At about 09:20 on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was on her way to be interviewed by British actor Peter Ustinov, who was filming a documentary for Irish television. She was walking through the garden of the Prime Minister's Residence at No. 1, Safdarjung Road in New Delhi towards the neighbouring 1 Akbar Road office.

As she passed a wicket gate guarded by Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, the two opened fire.

Sten gun into her after she had fallen to the ground. After the shooting, both threw their weapons down and Beant Singh said "I have done what I had to do. You do what you want to do." In the next six minutes Tarsem Singh Jamwal and Ram Saran, soldiers in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, captured and killed Beant Singh in a separate room because Beant Singh allegedly tried to pull a gun on the officers in the room. Satwant Singh was arrested by Gandhi's other bodyguards along with an accomplice trying to escape, and was seriously wounded in the attack initiated by Beant Singh. Satwant Singh was hanged in 1989 with accomplice Kehar Singh. (Full article...
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Selected article 28

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Shortly after leaving the Port of Valdez, the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef.
Shortly after leaving the Port of Valdez, the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef.
The
Prudhoe Bay oil field
, eventually covered 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of coastline, and 11,000 square miles (28,000 km2) of ocean.

According to official reports, the ship was carrying approximately 55 million US gallons (210,000 m3) of oil, of which about 10.1 to 11 million US gallons (240,000 to 260,000 bbl; 38,000 to 42,000 m3) were spilled into the Prince William Sound. A figure of 11 million US gallons (260,000 bbl; 42,000 m3) was a commonly accepted estimate of the spill's volume and has been used by the State of Alaska's Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Some groups, such as Defenders of Wildlife, dispute the official estimates, maintaining that the volume of the spill, which was calculated by subtracting the volume of material removed from the vessel's tanks after the spill from the volume of the original cargo, has been underreported. Alternative calculations, based on the assumption that the official reports underestimated how much seawater had been forced into the damaged tanks, placed the total at 25 to 32 million US gallons (600,000 to 760,000 bbl; 95,000 to 121,000 m3). (Full article...)

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USSR stamp, Propaganda for Perestroika, 1988, 5 kop.
USSR stamp, Propaganda for Perestroika, 1988, 5 kop.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s, widely associated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost
(meaning "openness") policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system.

Perestroika is sometimes argued to be a cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, and the end of the Cold War.

Perestroika allowed more independent actions from various ministries and introduced some

command economy but rather to make socialism work more efficiently to better meet the needs of Soviet consumers. The process of implementing perestroika arguably exacerbated already existing political, social, and economic tensions within the Soviet Union and no doubt helped to further nationalism in the constituent republics. Perestroika and resistance to it are often cited as major catalysts leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union
.

In May 1985, Gorbachev gave a speech in Leningrad in which he admitted the slowing down of the economic development and inadequate living standards. This was the first time in Soviet history that a Soviet leader had done so.

The program was furthered at the

khozraschyot
" (commercialization).

During the initial period (1985–87) of Mikhail Gorbachev's time in power, he talked about modifying

uskoreniye; "acceleration"). Gorbachev and his team of economic advisors then introduced more fundamental reforms, which became known as perestroika (economic restructuring). (Full article...
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State Emblem of the Soviet Union.
State Emblem of the Soviet Union.
In Russian language the word glasnost has several general and specific meanings. Its meaning "publicity" in the sense "the state of being open to public knowledge" has been used in Russian at least since the end of the 18th century. In the Russian Empire of the later 19th century the latter meaning was particularly associated with reforms of the judicial system, ensuring that the press and the public could attend court hearings and that the sentence was also read out in public. It was revived and made popular again in the 1980s by Mikhail Gorbachev as a slogan for increased government transparency.

The demand for glasnost was revived in the mid-1960s on the eve of the

Sergei Kovalyov
.

In 1986 the term was revived by

transparency in government institutions and activities in the Soviet Union. Critics aware of the term's recent history regarded the Soviet authorities' new slogan as a vague and limited alternative to more basic liberties: according to Alexei Simonov of the Glasnost Defence Foundation, "Glasnost is a tortoise crawling towards freedom of speech". (Full article...
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Two HMS Cardiff radar operators in anti-flash hood and gloves
Two HMS Cardiff radar operators in anti-flash hood and gloves
The Falklands War was a ten-week war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over two British overseas territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It began on Friday, 2 April 1982, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands (and, the following day, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) in an attempt to establish the sovereignty it had claimed over them. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders died during the hostilities.

The conflict was a major episode in the

favour British sovereignty. Neither state, however, officially declared war (both sides did declare the Islands areas a war zone and officially recognised that a state of war existed between them) and hostilities were almost exclusively limited to the territories under dispute and the area of the South Atlantic where they lie. (Full article...
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A U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter hovers above the ground
A U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter hovers above the ground
The
coup
which had brought a revolutionary government to power for the preceding four years, the invasion resulted in the appointment of an interim government, followed by democratic elections in 1984.

Grenada gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1974. The leftist

U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut
(early 23 October Beirut time).

The

U.S. Army's Rapid Deployment Force (1st, 2nd Ranger Battalions and 82nd Airborne Division Paratroopers), U.S. Marines, U.S. Army Delta Force, and U.S. Navy SEALs and other combined forces constituted the 7,600 troops from the United States, Jamaica, and members of the Regional Security System (RSS) defeated Grenadian resistance after a low-altitude airborne assault by the 75th Rangers on Point Salines Airport on the southern end of the island, and a Marine helicopter and amphibious landing occurred on the northern end at Pearl's Airfield shortly afterward. The military government of Hudson Austin was deposed and replaced by a government appointed by Governor-General Paul Scoon
until elections were held in 1984.

The invasion was highly criticised by a number of prominent countries including the

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white men
of having raped her.

The charges received widespread national attention because of her age (15), the persons accused (including police officers and a prosecuting attorney), and the shocking state in which Brawley was found after the alleged rape (in a trash bag, with racial slurs written on her body and covered in feces). Brawley's accusations were given widespread media attention in part from the involvement of her advisers, including the Reverend

Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason
.

After hearing evidence, a grand jury concluded in October 1988 that Brawley had not been the victim of a forcible sexual assault and that she herself may have created the appearance of such an attack. The New York prosecutor whom Brawley had accused as one of her alleged assailants successfully sued Brawley and her three advisers for defamation.

Brawley initially received considerable support from the African-American community. Some suggested that Brawley was victimized by biased reporting that adhered to racial stereotypes. The mainstream media's coverage drew heated criticism from the African-American press and many black leaders who could brook no degree of skepticism or disbelief of the teenager and her story. The grand jury's conclusions decreased support for Brawley and her advisers. Brawley's family has maintained that the allegations were true. (Full article...)

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Chernobyl reactor no. 4 placement on a map of Europe.
Chernobyl reactor no. 4 placement on a map of Europe.
The
Ukrainian SSR), which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe
.

The Chernobyl disaster was the worst

over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. During the accident itself, 31 people died
, and long-term effects such as cancers are still being investigated.

The disaster began during a systems test on 26 April 1986 at reactor number four of the Chernobyl plant, which is near the city of

Ukraine. According to official post-Soviet data, about 60% of the fallout landed in Belarus. (Full article...
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Stanislaw Jewgrafowitsch Petrow receiving the Dresden Prize
Stanislaw Jewgrafowitsch Petrow receiving the Dresden Prize
nuclear war
and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. Investigation of the satellite warning system later confirmed that the system had malfunctioned.

The incident occurred at a time of severely strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Only three weeks earlier, the Soviet military had shot down a South Korean passenger jet, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, that had strayed into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 people on board.

Bruce Blair, an expert on Cold War nuclear strategies and former president of the World Security Institute in Washington, D.C., says the American–Soviet relationship at that time "had deteriorated to the point where the Soviet Union as a system—not just the Kremlin, not just Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, not just the KGB—but as a system, was geared to expect an attack and to retaliate very quickly to it. It was on hair-trigger alert. It was very nervous and prone to mistakes and accidents. The false alarm that happened on Petrov's watch could not have come at a more dangerous, intense phase in U.S.–Soviet relations." In an interview aired on American television, Blair said, "The Russians [Soviets] saw a U.S. government preparing for a first strike, headed by a President [Ronald Reagan] capable of ordering a first strike." Regarding the incident involving Petrov, he said, "I think that this is the closest our country has come to accidental nuclear war."

On 26 September 1983,

early warning satellites, code-named Oko. Petrov's responsibilities included observing the satellite early warning network and notifying his superiors of any impending nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was received from the early warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected, the Soviet Union's strategy was an immediate nuclear counter-attack against the United States (launch on warning), specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. (Full article...
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Huxtable House as seen in The Cosby Show. 10 St. Luke's Place, Manhattan.
Huxtable House as seen in The Cosby Show. 10 St. Luke's Place, Manhattan.
The Cosby Show is an American television sitcom starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992. The show focuses on the Huxtable family, an upper middle-class African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York.

According to TV Guide, the show "was TV's biggest hit in the 1980s, and almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC's ratings fortunes". In May 1992, Entertainment Weekly stated that The Cosby Show helped to make possible a larger variety of shows with a predominantly African-American cast, from In Living Color to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

The Cosby Show was based on comedy routines in Cosby's

sexual assault allegations against Cosby
.

The show focuses on the Huxtable family, an

Vanessa and Rudy. Despite its comedic tone, the show sometimes involves serious subjects, such as Theo's experiences dealing with dyslexia, inspired by Cosby's son Ennis, who was also dyslexic. The show also deals with teenage pregnancy when Denise's friend, Veronica, played by Lela Rochon, becomes pregnant. (Full article...
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30-years of Solidarity (Polish trade union) mural in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski.
30-years of Solidarity (Polish trade union) mural in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski.
Solidarity (Polish: Solidarność, pronounced [sɔliˈdarnɔɕt͡ɕ] ⓘ; full name: Independent Self-governing Trade Union "Solidarity" – Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy „Solidarność” [ɲezaˈlɛʐnɨ samɔˈʐɔndnɨ ˈzvjɔ̃zɛk zavɔˈdɔvɨ sɔliˈdarnɔɕt͡ɕ]) is a Polish trade union that was founded on 17 September 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. It was the first trade union in a Warsaw Pact country that was not controlled by a communist party. Its membership reached 9.5 million members before its September 1981 Congress (when it reached 10 million), which constituted one third of the total working-age population of Poland.

In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement, using the methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers' rights and social change. The government attempted to destroy the union by imposing martial law in Poland, which lasted from December 1981 to July 1983 and was followed by several years of political repression, but in the end it was forced to negotiate with Solidarity. In the union's clandestine years, the United States provided significant financial support, estimated to be as much as 50 million US dollars.

The

semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August, a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed. In December 1990, Wałęsa was elected President of Poland. Since then Solidarity has become a more traditional, liberal trade union. Its membership had dropped to 680,000 by 2010 and 400,000 by 2011. (Full article...
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Food Supply (Energy base).
Food Supply (Energy base).
A widespread famine affected the inhabitants of today's Eritrea and Ethiopia from 1983 to 1985. The worst famine to hit the country in a century, in northern Ethiopia it led to more than 400,000 deaths, but more than half this mortality can be attributed to human rights abuses that caused the famine to come earlier, strike harder, and extend further than would otherwise have been the case. Other areas of Ethiopia experienced famine for similar reasons, resulting in tens of thousands of additional deaths. The tragedy as a whole took place within the context of more than two decades of insurgency and civil war.

The famine of 1983–85 is often ascribed to drought. While climatic causes and consequences certainly played a part in the tragedy, it has been suggested that widespread drought occurred only some months after the famine was under way. The famines that struck Ethiopia between 1961 and 1985, and in particular the one of 1983–5, were in large part created by government policies, specifically the set of counter-insurgency strategies employed and so-called "social transformation" in non-insurgent areas. (Full article...)

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Iranian Northrop F-5 during Iran-Iraq war.
Iranian Northrop F-5 during Iran-Iraq war.
The
Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iraqi Republic lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the 20th century's longest conventional war
.

The Iran–Iraq War began when Iraq invaded Iran via air and land on 22 September 1980. It followed a long history of

Ba'athist Iraq and Iraqi Kurdish militias of Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
siding with Iran—all suffering a major blow by the end of the conflict.

Despite

Iranian armed forces to evacuate Iraqi territory to honour pre-war international borders set by the 1975 Algiers Agreement. The last prisoners of war were exchanged in 2003. (Full article...
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Selected article 40

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A Macintosh 128K running Finder 5.2 American transparent background.
A Macintosh 128K running Finder 5.2 American transparent background.
The
Macintosh personal computer. Its beige case consisted of a 9 in (23 cm) CRT monitor and came with a keyboard and mouse. A handle built into the top of the case made it easier for the computer to be lifted and carried. It had an initial selling price of $2,495 (equivalent to $7,317 in 2023). The Macintosh was introduced by the now-famous $370,000 (equivalent to $1,085,112 in 2023) television commercial by Ridley Scott, "1984," that most notably aired on CBS during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. Sales of the Macintosh were strong from its initial release on January 24, 1984, and reached 70,000 units on May 3, 198 Upon the release of its successor, the Macintosh 512K
, it was rebranded as the Macintosh 128K.

The Macintosh was designed to achieve adequate graphics performance, which had previously required hardware costing over US $100,000, a price inaccessible to the middle class. This narrow goal resulted in an efficient design which traded off expandability but met or exceeded the baseline performance of its competitors. (Full article...)

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Chicago's 16th Annual Gay & Lesbian Pride Parade, June 1985.
Chicago's 16th Annual Gay & Lesbian Pride Parade, June 1985.
batteries as well as by line current. The boombox was introduced to the American market during the mid-1970s. The desire for louder and heavier bass led to bigger and heavier boxes; by the 1980s, some boomboxes had reached the size of a suitcase
. Most boomboxes were battery-operated, leading to extremely heavy, bulky boxes.

The boombox quickly became associated with urban society, particularly

hip hop culture and was instrumental in the rise of hip hop music. (Full article...
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Visual of the top view of a VHS cassette.
Visual of the top view of a VHS cassette.
The
consumer-level use of analog recording on videotape cassettes. It was developed by Victor Company of Japan
(JVC) in the 1970s.

From the 1950s

media period. (Full article...
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Kool DJ Herc at Hot 97's VIP Lounge featuring Busta Rhymes in New York City on June 7th, 2006.
Kool DJ Herc at Hot 97's VIP Lounge featuring Busta Rhymes in New York City on June 7th, 2006.
synthesis), and beatboxing
.

While often used to refer to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the

hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, and scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks. (Full article...
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Selected article 44

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President Anwar Sadat of Egypt upon his arrival in the United States for a visit.
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt upon his arrival in the United States for a visit.
The
fatwā approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric later convicted in the US for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.The assassination was undertaken by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad
.

Following the

1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was received with controversy among Arab nations, particularly the Palestinians. Egypt's membership in the Arab League was suspended (and not reinstated until 1989). PLO Leader Yasser Arafat said "Let them sign what they like. False peace will not last." In Egypt, various jihadist groups, such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, used the Camp David Accords to rally support for their cause. Previously sympathetic to Sadat's attempt to integrate them into Egyptian society, Egypt's Islamists now felt betrayed and publicly called for the overthrow of the Egyptian president and the replacement of the nation's system of government with a government based on Islamic theocracy. (Full article...
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IDF soldier checking a car at a road block near Jabalia during the first intifada.
IDF soldier checking a car at a road block near Jabalia during the first intifada.
The
collaborators,(1988–April 1994). At the time Israel reportedly obtained information from some 18,000 Palestinians who had been compromised, although fewer than half had any proven contact with the Israeli authorities. (Full article...
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Selected article 46

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Original Sony Walkman TPS-L2 from 1979.
Original Sony Walkman TPS-L2 from 1979.
Sony Ericsson mobile phones. The original Walkman actually introduced a change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry recorded music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones
. Owners of the Walkman were able to take back their "lost" time, commuting for example, and turn it into a pleasurable experience, or add a soundtrack to their urban surroundings. It was the privatization and personalization offered by the Walkman that lead to its success.

The prototype was built in 1978 by audio-division engineer

Pacific plane trips, and presented the idea to Kihara. The original idea for a portable stereo is credited to Brazilian-German inventor Andreas Pavel. The first Walkman was marketed in 1979 in Japan, using the name Walkman. From 1980, it was known as the Soundabout in many other countries including the US, Freestyle in Sweden and was called the Stowaway in the UK. Advertising, despite all the foreign languages, still attracted thousands of buyers in the US specifically. Sony President and co-founder Akio Morita hated the name "Walkman" and asked that it be changed, but relented after being told by junior executives that a promotion campaign had already begun using the brand name and that it would be too expensive to change. (Full article...
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An American Power Glove controller for the NES, made by Mattel.
An American Power Glove controller for the NES, made by Mattel.
The Power Glove is a controller accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The Power Glove itself was a commercial success for its early virtual reality mechanics and being shown in various forms of media. However, its two games did not sell well, as it was not packaged with a game, and it was criticized for its imprecise and difficult-to-use controls.

The Power Glove was originally released in 1989. Though it was an officially licensed product,

Abrams/Gentile Entertainment (AGE), made by Mattel in the United States and PAX in Japan. Additional development was accomplished through the efforts of Thomas G. Zimmerman and Jaron Lanier, a virtual reality pioneer responsible for codeveloping and commercializing the DataGlove
who had made a failed attempt at a similar design for Nintendo earlier. Mattel brought in Image Design and Marketing's Hal Berger and Gary Yamron to develop the raw technology into a functional product. They designed Power Glove over the course of eight weeks. Zimmerman built the first prototype that demonstrated finger flex measurement and hand position tracking using a pair of ultrasonic transmitters. His original prototype used optical flex sensors to measure finger bending which were replaced with less expensive carbon-based flex sensors by the AGE team. (Full article...)

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Selected article 48

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Comet 1P/Halley as taken March 8, 1986 by W. Liller.
Comet 1P/Halley as taken March 8, 1986 by W. Liller.
Halley's Comet or Comet Halley, officially designated 1P/Halley, is a short-period comet visible from Earth every 75–76 years. Halley is the only known short-period comet that is clearly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and the only naked-eye comet that might appear twice in a human lifetime. Halley last appeared in the inner parts of the Solar System in 1986 and will next appear in mid-2061.

Halley's returns to the inner Solar System have been observed and recorded by

chroniclers, but were not recognized as reappearances of the same object at the time. The comet's periodicity was first determined in 1705 by English astronomer Edmond Halley
, after whom it is now named.

During its 1986 apparition, Halley's Comet became the first comet to be observed in detail by

Fred Whipple's "dirty snowball" model, which correctly predicted that Halley would be composed of a mixture of volatile ices – such as water, carbon dioxide, and ammonia – and dust. The missions also provided data that substantially reformed and reconfigured these ideas; for instance, now it is understood that the surface of Halley is largely composed of dusty, non-volatile materials, and that only a small portion of it is icy. (Full article...
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Selected article 49

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John McCain
John McCain
The
Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators – Alan Cranston (Democrat of California), Dennis DeConcini (Democrat of Arizona), John Glenn (Democrat of Ohio), John McCain (Republican of Arizona), and Donald Riegle (Democrat of Michigan) – were accused of improperly intervening in 1987 on behalf of Charles Keating, Chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of a regulatory investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board
(FHLBB). The FHLBB subsequently backed off taking action against Lincoln.

Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed in 1989, at a cost of over $3 billion to the federal government. Some 23,000 Lincoln bondholders were defrauded and many investors lost their life savings. The substantial political contributions Keating had made to each of the senators, totaling $1.3 million, attracted considerable public and media attention. After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB's investigation of Lincoln Savings, with Cranston receiving a formal reprimand. Senators Glenn and McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment".

All five senators served out their terms. Only Glenn and McCain ran for re-election, and they both retained their seats. McCain would go on to run for President of the United States twice, and was the Republican Party nominee in 2008. (Full article...)

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Moonwalk in Madrid
Moonwalk in Madrid
The moonwalk (also known as "the Glide" by inner-city youth) is a dance move in which the dancer moves backwards while appearing to be making the physical movement of walking forwards. A popping move, it became popular around the world after Michael Jackson performed the dance move during a performance of "Billie Jean" on Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever on March 25, 1983. This special was broadcast May 16, 1983. It subsequently became his signature move.

An illusion is involved in creating the appearance of the dancer gliding backwards. Initially, the front foot is held flat on the ground, while the back foot is in a tiptoe position. The flat front foot remains on the ground but is slid lightly and smoothly backward past the tip-toe back foot. What is now the front foot is lowered flat, while the back foot is raised into the tiptoe position. These steps are repeated over and over creating the illusion that the dancer is being pulled backwards by an unseen force while trying to walk forward. Variations of this move allow the moon walking to also appear to glide forwards, sideways, and even in a circle. (Full article...)

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