January 1:	We say goodbye to the '70s and enter the 1980s. The Soviets have just invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. embassy in Iran is under seige, "Kramer vs Kramer" is the best picture, the Department of Education has just been created, people are mourning the deaths of 11 kids trampled to death at a concert by The Who in Ohio, Jimmy Carter is the president of the United States, and the number one song in the land is Escape (Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes. The stage is set, and here we go...
January 4:	President Jimmy Carter begins the Grain Embargo against the Soviet Union in response to their December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. A coup takes place in Mauritania.
January 5:	Please Don't Go by KC and The Sunshine Band begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.
January 14:	Indira Gandhi is elected prime minister of India. In a 104-18 vote, the General Assembly of the United Nations chooses to strongly deplore the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
January 16:	Scientists announce the successful synthesis of human interferon, which many believed would lead to advances in the fight against viruses and some types of cancer.
January 18:	Edward Babiuch is named Premier of Poland.
January 19:	Michael Jackson's Rock With You begins a 4-week reign as the number 1 song.
January 20:	President Carter announces that the United States will boycott the Summer Olympics in Moscow.
January 25:	Iran elects its first president since its 1979 Islamic revolution, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr.
January 28:	6 employees of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran who were not among the hostages captured on November 4, 1979, escaped from Iran with the help of the Canadian embassy. The Canadians kept them in hiding, then helped them escape with forged Canadian passports.
January 29:	Jimmy Durante, golden age comic, passes away at the age of 86. Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are... During a meeting of Islamic nations, 36 Islamic nations condemn the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and call for a boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow.
February 2:	Details of the ABSCAM scandal are released, naming 31 public officials as targets, including one senator and 6 US Representatives.
February 4:	The U.S. Government recommends that Americans cut down on salt, sugar, fat, and cholesterol.
February 14-22:	Flooding kills 36 and causes $500,000,000 damage in California, Arizona, and northwest Mexico. The Solar Maximum Observatory, designed to study solar flares, is successfully launched into space.
February 16:	The Captain and Tennille's Do That To Me One More Time begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.
February 18:	Pierre Elliott Trudeau is elected Prime Minister of Canada. Edward Babiuch is named Premier of Poland.
February 23:	Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love begins a 4-week reign as the number 1 song.
February 25:	A military coup overthrows the government of Surinam.
February 27:	The Dominican Republic's embassy in Bogotá, Colombia is stormed by guerillas demanding $50,000,000 and the release of jailed Colombian terrorists. 60 people are taken hostage.
March 3:	Prem Tinsulanonda becomes Premier of Thailand.
March 4:	Robert Mugabe becomes Prime Minister of Rhodesia, restoring black majority rule to that country.
March 11:	Julius Chan becomes Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.
March 13:	The Ford Motor Company is found not guilty of reckless homicide in the first criminal trial of a US corporation in a product defect case.
March 14:	22 members of the US amateur boxing team were killed when their plane crashed near Warsaw, Poland.
March 15:	The Penobscot tribe in the state of Maine takes a $81,500,000 settlement, ending a lawsuit filed over land taken from the tribe in violation of the Indian Non-Intercourse Act of 1790.
March 17:	President Carter signs the Refugee Act of 1980 which broadens the definition of refugee to include anyone throughout the world, and it increased the maximum number of refugees allowed into the country from 290,000 to 320,000.
March 22:	Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall begins a 4-week reign as the number 1 song.
March 27:	A Noregian platform used as a floating dormitory for North Sea oil workers capsized. 89 people were rescued, but 123 drowned.
March 29:	Jesse Owens, who humiliated Hitler by winning 4 gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, dies at the age of 66.
April 2:	The Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax is signed into law by President Carter, with the expectation of producing 227 billion dollars in tax revenues over the decade.
April 7:	The U.S. severs diplomatic ties with Iran.
April 11:	The Equal Opportunity Commission issues new regulations prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace.
April 12:	A military coup in Liberia kills President William R. Tolbert. Samuel K. Doe becomes the new president. Right-leg amputee Terry Fox begins his run across Canada.
April 15:	Jean-Paul Sartre passes away at the age of 74... as if he wanted us to care.
April 18:	Rhodesia becomes the independent nation of Zimbabwe.
April 19:	Blondie's Call Me begins a 6-week reign as the number 1 song.
April 24:	Ali Nasser Mohammed becomes the President of Yemen.
April 24:	A failed attempt to air-rescue the hostages from the U.S. embassy in Iran ends with a collision between a helicopter and a transport plane that kills 8 people.
April 26:	Stating his opposition to the failed rescue attempt of US hostages in Iran, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance announces his resignation.
April 27:	The remaining hostages in the February 27 takeover of the Dominican republic's embassy in Colombia are freed.
April 28:	Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned in protest of President Carter's decision to try to rescue the hostages from Iran. He is replaced by Edmund Muskie.
April 29:	Alfred Hitchcock experiences the topic of many of his films firsthand. He dies.
May 9:	Summit Venture, a freighter, collides with the Sunshine Skyway bridge in Tampa, Florida. Part of the bridge collapses, and 35 people are killed.
May 11:	A military coup overthrows the government of Uganda.
May 12:	The firstnonstop hot-air balloon journey across North America is completed.
May 17-19:	Race riots break out in Miami, Florida, killing 14 and injuring 300.
May 18:	Mt. St. Helens, a volcano in the state of Washington, erupts after 123 years of dormancy. 34 people are killed. Martial law is enacted in South Korea to supress 2 months of student and worker protests.
May 20:	Quebec votes against independence from Canada, 59% to 41%.
May 21:	Love Canal, a Niagra Falls (New York) neighborhood built on top of a landfill covering 22,000 tons of toxic waste, is declared a federal disaster area. Preparations begin to relocate the 700 families living in the area, where toxic chemicals had been seeping up from the ground and the cancer rate was alarmingly high.
May 31:	Lipps, Inc.'s Funkytown begins a 4-week reign as the number 1 song.
June - August:	An extremely hot and dry summer in the United States kills 1,272 people and ravages crops and livestock.
June 13:	Masayoshi Ohira, Premier of Japan, dies.
June 16:	The U.S. Supreme Court rules that new organisms created by genetic engineering can be patented.
June 23:	In a meeting of the leaders of the seven major industrial decomcracies, the leaders condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, pledged to develop alternate sources of energy, and vowed to cut oil consumption by 1990.
June 26:	French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing announced that France had successfully developed and test-detonated a neutron bomb.
June 27:	President Carter signs legislation enacting draft registration for 19 and 20 year old men, though the draft itself is not re-enacted. The legislation is in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. O Canada is declared the national anthem of Canada.
June 28:	Actor/Pianist/Conductor José Iturbi dies at the age of 84. Paul McCartney's Coming Up (Live at Glasgow) begins a 3-week reign as the number 1 song.
July 13:	Botswanan President Sir Seretse Khama dies at the age of 59.
July 17:	Zenko Suzuki becomes the Premier of Japan. A military coup overthrows the government of Bolivia.
July 19:	Billy Joel's It's Still Rock and Roll to Me begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.
July 24:	Comic actor Peter Sellers dies at the age of 54. Goodbye, pahr-ten-ner.
July 27:	Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the former Shah of Iran, dies at the age of 60.
July 28:	Fernando Belaúnde Terry is inaugurated as President of Peru.
July 30:	Vanuatu becomes an independent nation after 74 years of colonial rule. The first Prime Minister is Walter Lini.
August 2:	Olivia Newton-John's Magic begins a 4-week reign as the number 1 song.
August 11:	Hurricane Allen kills 270 people in St. Lucia, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, and Texas.
August 14:	17,000 Polish workers went on strike. In the weeks that followed, the strike grew to include a half million workers.
August 15:	An announcement is made that the Titanic wreckage has been located.
August 20:	President Carter announces that the United States has developed stealth aircraft.
August 25	Zimbabwe joins the United Nations.
August 30:	Christopher Cross's Sailing begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.
September 6:	Diana Ross's Upside Down begins a 4-week reign as the number 1 song.
September 12:	A military coup occurs in Turkey.
September 16:	Psychologist Jean Piaget eternally departs the conscious realm at the age of 84. America's Cup is successfully defended by the US yacht Freedom.
September 17:	Exiled former Nicaragua president Anastasio Somoza Debayle is assassinated in Paraguay.
September 19:	Terry Fox is awarded the Order of Canada.
September 22:	War begins between Iran and Iraq. Procter & Gamble recalls a line of tampons after studies linked the tampons to 25 deaths from toxic shock syndrome.
October 2:	U.S. Representative Michael Myers is expelled from Congress on bribery charges.
October 4:	Queen's Another One Bites the Dust begins a 3-week reign as the number 1 song.
October 10:	Earthquakes kill 20,000 people in Algeria.
October 23:	Nikolai Tikhonov becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.
October 25:	Barbra Streisand's Woman in Love begins a 3-week reign as the number 1 song.
November 4:	Ronald Reagan is elected President of the United States.
November 7:	Actor Steve McQueen dies at the age of 50.
November 12:	Voyager I visits Saturn.
November 14:	A coup occurs in Guinea-Bissau.
November 15:	Kenny Rogers' Lady begins a 6-week reign as the number 1 song.
November 21:	Fire ravages the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, killing 84 people. The Who Shot J.R.? episode of Dallas attracts a record television audience, including over half of the American viewing public.
November 22:	Actress Mae West dies at the age of 87.
November 23:	An earthquake in Italy kills 3,000 people.
November 24:	Actor George Raft dies at the age of 85.
November 25:	A coup occurs in Upper Volta.
December 1:	The U.S. Surgeon General reports that all cigarettes are harmful to one's health.
December 2:	El Salvadoran troops kill 4 American nuns.
December 3:	The Solar Challenger, a solar-powered aircraft, completes a record 22-minute flight.
December 6:	Televangelist Jim Bakker has an affair with Jessica Hahn.
December 8:	Former Beatle John Lennon is assassinated in New York City.
December 13:	José Napoleón Duarte becomes President of El Salvador.
December 27:	John Lennon's (Just Like) Starting Over begins a 5-week reign as the number 1 song.