1981 Trivia

• (1/04) Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, is captured by British police
  
• (1/12) Prime time soap opera Dynasty appears on ABC
  
• (1/14) FCC allows TV stations to air all the commercials they desire
  
• (1/15) Hill Street Blues debuts on NBC
  
• (1/19) United States & Iran sign agreement to free 52 American hostages
  
• (1/20) Ronald Reagan inaugurated as 40th President
  
• ((1/25) 52 American hostages who have been held for 444 days come home
  
• (2/06) Beatles McCartney, Starr, and Harrison make tribute song to John Lennon
  
• (2/10) Fire at Las Vegas Hilton Hotel kills 8 and injures 198
  
• (2/24) Prince Charles announces engagement to Lady Diana Spencer
  
• (3/02) Howard Stern begins broadcasting in Washington DC
  
• (3/09) Dan Rather becomes news anchor on CBS
  
• (3/22) Postage goes up from 15 cents to 18 cents
  
• (3/24) Nightline with Ted Koppel appears on ABC
  
• (3/30) John W. Hinckley Jr. attempts to assassinate President Reagan outside Hilton Hotel
  
• (4/11) President Reagan arrives home from hospital after assassination attempt
  
• (4/20) Soap opera titled Soap ends its TV run
  
• (5/01) Radio Shack releases Model III TRS-DOS 1.3
  
• (5/11) Betty Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes stays at #1 for 9 weeks
  
• (5/11) Popular Raggae musician Bob Marley dies of cancer at age 36
  
• (5/13) Pope John Paul II is shot by a Turkish terrorist at the Vatican
  
• (5/27) John Hinckley attempts suicide by overdosing on Tylenol
  
• (6/03) Pope John Paul is released from the hospital
  
• (6/05) Centers for Disease Control find a disease killing gays, later discovered as AIDS
  
• (6/13) Tom Snyder interviews Charles Manson on "Tomorrow"
  
• Sandra Day O'Connor becomes first female in the United States Supreme Court
  
• (6/22) Mark David Chapman pleads guilty to murdering John Lennon in 1980
  
• (7/08) Senate approves Sandra Day O'Connor for Supreme Court
  
• (7/29) Prince Charles and Diana Spencer get married
  
• (8/01) Music Television (MTV), the first 24 hour music video channel, debuts at 12:01 AM
  
• (8/05) President Reagan fires 11,500 air traffic controllers on strike
  
• (8/12) IBM PC and PC-DOS 1.0 roll off the assembly lines
  
• (8/24) Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life for murdering John Lennon
  
• (8/26) Actors Macauley Culkin is born
  
• (8/28) John Hinckley Jr pleads innocent to attempted assassination of the President
  
• (8/28) Centers for Disease Control announces high incidence of Pneumocystis & Kaposi's sarcoma in gays
  
• (9/07) People's Court makes its TV debut
  
• (9/14) Entertainment Tonight appears on TV
  
• (9/25) Sandra Day O'Connor sworn in as Supreme Court justice
  
• (9/30) Seoul, South Korea will host the 1988 Summer Olympics
  
• (10/06) Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt is assassinated
  
• (10/11) Sadat's funeral takes place in Cairo, Egypt
  
• (10/22) United States national debt hits \\$1 trillion
  
• (11/01) Postage goes from 18 cents to 20 cents
  
• (11/21) Olivia Newton-John's new song "Physical" hits #1 in the U.S.
  
• (11/29) Actress Natalie Wood drowns off the California coast, some believe it to be fowl play
  
• (12/04) Falcon Creats makes its debut on CBS
  
• (12/04) President Reagan allows CIA to engage in domestic counter-intelligence
• (12/09) Porn star John Holmes charged with Laurel Canyon murders
  
• Pac-Man video games seize the nation
  
• Space shuttle Columbia is first launched
  
• 50 Iran hostages take a plane ride to return home to the U.S.
  
• Walter Cronkite retires from CBS and is replaced by Dan Rather
  
• Hill Street Blues (police drama) makes it debut on NBC
  
• 52 Americans held hostage in Iran finally come home after 444 days
  
• Japan agrees to limit auto exports for three years as U.S. lost \\$4 billion in 1980
  
• 450,000 transistors can now be put on a silicon wafter measuring 1/4" square
  
• Sweden captures a Russian submarine and lets it go 10 days later
  
• A tax cut by about 25% by Reagan gets approved
  
• Dynasty becomes new prime time television show
  
• IBM begins to manufacture the first PC computers
  
• DeLorean sports cars (as seen in Back To The Future) begin production in Ireland
  
• MTV (Music Television), the first 24 hour music station, formally kicks off
  
• 2 skybridges at Hyatt Regency in Kansas City collapse and kill over 100
  
• Reagan fires about 12,000 airline workers on strike
  
• The earliest cases of a new disease begin to surface, later to be known as AIDS
  
• Carol Burnett sues and wins \\$1.6M against Enquirer for saying shes an alcoholic, donates to charity
  
• Black teens riot in London over racial tensions, bad economy, and unemployment
  
• Hologram technology continues to improve and is now used in video games
  
• The Columbia space craft orbits earth for the first time. It orbited 36 times in 55 hours
• Wayne Williams is indicted on 28 children and adult murders in Atlanta
  
• Israel destroys a nuclear reactor in Iraq
  
• Laptop computers make their appearance
  
• Solar powered airplane makes its flight over the English Channel
  
• U.S. Agriculture Department concludes ketchup and pickle relish as school lunch vegetables
  
• FCC passes the use of satellite dishes