1980
Capture of “The Yorkshire Ripper”
The “Yorkshire Ripper” was identified as Peter William Coonan, who was a serial killer of 13 women and attempted to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was found guilty on May 22nd, 1980, being sentenced to 20 concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which converted to a whole life order in 2019. All of his murders took place in West Yorkshire and some in Manchester.
Death of John Lennon
On the evening of December 8th, 1980, John Lennon of The Beatles was shot dead in the archway of The Dakota in his New York City apartment. His killer, Mark David Chapman, was an American Beatles fan who travelled from Hawaii but was angered by his lifestyle and public statements. His statement regarding the Beatles being “more popular than Jesus” was what really got to him as well as the lyrics of his later songs “God” and “Imagine”. Chapman said he was also inspired by the fictional character Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. Chapman had also planned the killing for several months, waiting for Lennon at the Dakota since the morning of December 8th. He even met John Lennon who signed his copy of the album Double Fantasy. After coming back from a recording session with his wife, Yoko Ono, Chapman fired five hollow-point bullets from his .38 revolver, four of which hit John in the back. After being rushed to the Roosevelt Hospital in a police car, he was dead upon arrival at age 40. Thousands of music fans later held a 10-minute vigil in Liverpool in his memory.
UFO Sightings
There was an alleged UFO sighting near RAF Woodbridge in December 1980, which was used by the United States Air Force (USAF) at the time. This as well as other sightings were part of the Rendlesham Forest incident, the most well known UFO incident in Britain and even worldwide. The sighting was also compared to the Roswell UFO incident in the United States, sometimes being referred to as “Britain’s Roswell”. Although it was never investigated as a security matter, the UK Ministry of Defense said the event didn’t pose a threat to national security. Although skeptics explained the sightings as a misinterpretation of a series of nocturnal lights, including bright stars, the Orfordness Lighthouse and a fireball.
1981
Launch of the ZX81 Home Computer
Produced by Sinclair Research, the ZX81 is a home computer manufactured in Dundee, Scotland by Timex Corporation. It launched in March 1981 to replace the Sinclair’s ZX80, which was designed to be a low-cost computer for the general public. It was extremely successful, selling more than 1.5 million units. It was first sold in the United States as the ZX-81 under another license by Timex. Although Timex later produced its own version of the ZX81: the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Timex Sinclair 1500. ZX81 copycats were also sold in other counties.
Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana
1982
Falklands War
This began on April 2nd when Argentina occupied the British dependent territories of the Falkland Islands as well as South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands. Hostilities lasted ten weeks, ending on June 14th and the British military response resulted in Argentina’s surrender. Interestingly, the war helped to improve life for both the islanders and Argentinians, the former having their British citizenship restored and economy boosted, while the latter saw the military government’s image crumble and democracy restored the next year.
1983
The Launch of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS)
This telescope was the first of its kind to be sent to space to survey the sky in infrared on January 25th, 1983. Following the ascension, it made a number of discoveries, including: The core of our galaxy, Six new comets and Evidence of Solid material around the Vega and Fomalhaut, giving evidence to support the existence of planetary systems around other starts. It was a joint project between NASA, the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programs and the United Kingdom’s Science and Engineering Research Council.
Thatcher Wins Landslide
The success of the Falklands War led to a boost in popularity that Margaret Thatcher received for the successful outcome. Favourable opinion polls for the Conservative Party left Labour and Liberal/Social Democratic Party Alliance far behind. Consequently, the Tories gained 58 seats in the 1983 General Election and secured another term as Prime Minister for Thatcher. The longest-serving British prime minister during the 20th century and the first woman to hold the office, she was dubbed the “Iron lady” due to her uncompromising politics and leadership style.
Maze Prison Escape
On September 25th, 1983 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland , 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners escaped from HM Prison Maze (aka the Long Kesh), a maximum security prison considered to be one of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe. One prison officer died of a heart attack during the escape while twenty others were left injured, including two shots with smuggled guns. It was all a propaganda coup for the IRA while a British government minister was challenged to resign. The majority of the blame was on the prison staff who then blamed the political interference in how the prison was run. This was considered the largest prison escape since WWII as well as in England’s history. Only 19 escapees were apprehended.
1984 – Miners’ Strike
On March 6, 1984, the miners walked out in protest of coalmine (also known as colliery) closures in the UK by Thatcher’s Conservative government. The National Union of Mineworkers held out for a year until many returned to work after union pay ran out. This severely reduced the power of the union to negotiate with the government and arguably made the economic situation of the miners worse as customers switched to gas or found other providers.
The Birth of Henry Charles Albert David
Born on September 15th, 1984, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex is a member of the British royal family. He is the younger son of Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales and is sixth in the line of succession to the British throne.
Founded by musicians and philanthropists Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, Live Aid was a benefit concert for famine relief in Ethiopia held simultaneously at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia and Wembley Stadium in London. Acts in London included Adam Ant, Sting, Phil Collins, U2, Dire Straits, David Bowie, The Who, and Queen, amongst others. The concert raised over $127 million for famine relief.
1986 – Major Industries Privatized
A major goal of the Thatcher government was to privatize many industries that had been nationalized in the early 20th Century. Amongst the industries that went private within a couple of years of 1986 included British Gas, British Airways, the National Bus Company, Rolls-Royce, Council houses, and many more. The privatization was pushed aggressively by the Tories, who relied on their overwhelming majority to accomplish their political goals. Pushback from the public and a weakened Conservative government led to a slowing of these efforts.
On July 23rd, 1986, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson were wed at the Westminster Abbey in London, England. The couple met at one of the Queen’s “dine and sleep” events at Windsor Castle. Shortly after a year of dating, they were engaged in February and married in July. Unfortunately, they separated in 1992 after having their two children, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, although supposedly they are still close.
1987 – Thatcher Wins Third General Election for Conservatives
In perhaps what might have been a reality check to some of the Tories’ more aggressive policies since the landslide in 1983, the Conservative Party lost 21 seats in Parliament after the 1987 General Election. While still enough to give Margaret Thatcher another go at Prime Minister, nothing was really the same. Pushback against privatization led Conservatives to pursue other issues and sometimes individual agendas and was arguably the beginning of the end for Thatcher’s premiership.
1988
Liberal Democratic Party Forms
The previously-mentioned alliance between the Liberal Party and the Socialist Democratic Party had been around since the 1970s but in ten years had failed to achieve its goal of supplanting Labour as the UK’s other major political party. In response to the 1987 General Election, in 1988, the two merged to become the Social and Liberal Democratic Party, eventually known as simply the Liberal Democratic Party (or Lib Dems).
Piper Alpha Explosion
The Piper Alpha was an oil platform in the North Sea about 120 miles (190 km) to the northeast of Aberdeen, Scotland. Operated by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Limited, it began production in 1976 only as an oil-only platform, then later added gas production. On July 6th, 1988, an explosion with oil and gas fires destroyed Piper Alpha and killed 167 men, including two crewmen of a rescue ship with 30 bodies never found. 61 workers escaped and survived. Known as one of the costliest manmade disasters ever to occur, the total loss resulted in £1.7 billion. At the time, the platform accounted for about ten percent of the North Sea oil and gas production. The accident was the worst offshore oil disaster in terms of industry impact and number of lives lost.
Lockerbie Bombing
On December 21st, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, was on its way from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York City during a Pan Am transatlantic flight. Although the aircraft N739PA, which was operating the transatlantic leg of the route, was destroyed by a bomb and killed 243 passengers and 16 crew members, known as the Lockerbie bombing. Large portions of the plane crashed onto a residential street in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 11 people on the ground. With a total of 270 fatalities, it is considered the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the UK.
Edwina Currie and the Salmonella-in-Eggs Controversy
Serving as Conservative Party Member of Parliament for South Derbyshire from 1983 to 1997, Edwina Currie was also a Junior Health Minister for two years before resigning in 1988 when she claimed the eggs in the UK were infected with salmonella. She said “most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now affected with salmonella,” which outraged numerous farmers and egg producers across the nation. It also caused the UK’s egg sales in the country to decline rapidly by 60 percent. The controversy dubbed her as “Eggwina”.
1989 – Tim Berners-Lee Invents the World Wide Web
Arguably the most significant technological advance of the 20th Century, the world wide web (or the Web as we know it today), was the creation of Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. It was the product of Berners-Lee’s merger of hypertext with the internet to create an information-sharing network amongst researchers. The first public web pages appeared only four years later and has revolutionized our world.
Hillsborough Disaster
On April 15th, 1989, 96 people were killed and 766 injured during a human crush during a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It happened during an FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool in the two standing-only central pens in the Leppings Lane for Liverpool fans. Just before the kick-off, police match commander, David Duckenfield was trying to ease overcrowding outside the entrance turnstiles when he ordered exit gate C to open, leading to an influx of fans to the pens, which ultimately led to the human crush. With so many fatalities and injuries, it’s considered to be one of England’s worst disasters in sporting history.
1990 – Poll Tax and Tacher’s Resignation
Margaret Thatcher’s government introduced the “Community Charge,” more commonly known as the Poll Tax, in 1990 as a flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult in the UK to fund local government. To say that the poll tax proved unpopular would be a massive understatement. The unpopularity brought the first serious challenge to Thatcher’s leadership of the Conservatives, and she opted to resign, effectively ending her tenure as Prime Minister.
Other Major Events
Many other events took place during the 80s, including the following:
• The birth of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge on June 21st, 1982, son of Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales.
• The Football World Cup in Spain. England was eliminated from the competition on July 5th, 1982.
• The Queen celebrated her Pearl Jubilee in February 1982.
• The compact disc (CD) went on sale in the UK on March 1st, 1983.
• The Band Aid charity single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was released on December 3rd, 1984 in reaction to the 1983 – 85 famine in Ethiopia. The song remained number one on the UK Singles Chart for five weeks.
• Richard Stone won the Nobel Prize in Economics on December 10th, 1984.
• The first mobile phone calls in the UK were made on January 1st, 1985.
• The first photographs and films of the RMS Titanic’s wreckage were taken 73 years after it sank on September 4th 1985.
• James W. Black won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alongside Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings “for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment” on December 10th, 1988.
• The General Assembly of the Church of England voted to allow the ordination of women on November 7th, 1989.
• Margaret Thatcher, along with American president George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, announced the end of the Cold War after 40 years on December 3rd, 1989.
Thanks to these sites for taking the hard work out of it. England in the 80s | 80s Major Events | About the 80s and https://anglotopia.net/british-history/brit-history-ten-most-important-events-in-british-history-of-the-1980s/
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