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Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar).

[edit] Events of 1981

[edit] January

• January - The subterranean Sarawak chamber is discovered in Borneo.
• January 1 - Greece enters the European Community, which later becomes the European Union.

• January 1 - Palau becomes self-governing.
• January 4 - Sheffield police arrest Peter Sutcliffe, a 34-year-old lorry driver, on suspicion of being the Yorkshire Ripper who has killed 13 women and attacked seven others over the last six years.
• January 5 - Margaret Thatcher carried out a Cabinet reshuffle, sacking Norman St. John-Stevas.
• January 6 - Brazilian double decker boat Novo Amapo capsized Amazon River, Belem de Cajari, Macapa, Brazil, 230 killed.
• January 16 - Protestant gunmen shoot and wound Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and her husband.
• January 17 - Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos lifted Martial Law.
• January 19 - United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity.
• January 20 - Ronald Reagan succeeds Jimmy Carter, becoming the 40th President of the United States. Minutes later, Iran releases the 52 Americans held for 444 days, ending the Iran hostage crisis.
• January 21 - The first De Lorean DMC-12 automobile, a stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors, rolls off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland.
• January 22 - Fowzi Nejad, sole survivor of the terrorists from the Iranian Embassy siege in London, pleads guilty to manslaughter of two hostages and gets jailed for life.
• January 24 - The British Labour Party special conference at Wembley decides that leadership elections should be by electoral college.
• January 25 - Four former Labour cabinet ministers (Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, William Rodgers and David Owen) issue the Limehouse Declaration, leading to the formation of the Social Democratic Party.
• January 25 - Chiang Ching ('Madame Mao') is sentenced to death in the People's Republic of China.
• January 25 - The Oakland Raiders win Super Bowl XV, defeating the Philadelphia Eagles 27-10 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.
• January 27 - Indonesian passenger ship Tamponas 2 catches fire and capsizes in the Java Sea, killing 580.

[edit] February

February 24: A powerful earthquake hits Athens.

• February 4 - Gro Harlem Brundtland becomes the Prime Minister of Norway.
• February 8 - nineteen fans of Olympiacos FC and two fans of AEK Athens died and 54 injured after a stampede at the Karaiskaki Stadium in Pireus, possibly because Gate 7 did not open immediately after the end of the game.
• February 9 - Polish Prime Minister Józef Pinkowski resigns and is replaced by General Wojciech Jaruzelski.
• February 10 - A fire at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino kills 8 and injures 198.
• February 13 - Rupert Murdoch buys The Times and The Sunday Times for £12 million.
• February 14 - Stardust fire: a fire at the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin, Ireland in the early hours killed 48 and injured 214
• February 14 - Australia withdraws recognition of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.
• February 23 - Antonio Tejero, with members of the Guardia Civil, enters the Spanish Congress of Deputies and stops the session where Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo is about to be named president of the government. The coup d'état fails thanks to King Juan Carlos.
• February 24 - A powerful, magnitude 6.7 earthquake hits Athens, killing 16 people, injuring thousands and destroying several buildings, mostly in Corinth and the nearby towns of Loutraki, Kiato and Xylokastro.

[edit] March

• March 1 - Bobby Sands, a Provisional Irish Republican Army member, begins a hunger strike for political status in Long Kesh prison (he dies May 5, the first of 10 men).
• March 6 - After 19 years hosting the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite signs off for the last time.
• March 10 - Sir Geoffrey Howe announces the British budget, which raises taxes in the middle of a recession.
• March 11 - Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet is sworn in as President of Chile for another 8-year term.
• March 17 - In Italy the Propaganda Due Masonic Lodge is discovered.
• March 19 - Three workers are killed and 5 injured during a test of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

• March 26 - The British Social Democratic Party was launched at the Connaught Rooms in London.
• March 29 - The first London Marathon starts with 7,500 runners.
• March 30 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by John Hinckley, Jr.. Two police officers and Press Secretary James Brady are also wounded.
• March 31 - The 53rd Academy Awards, hosted by Johnny Carson, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Robert Redford's directorial debut in Ordinary People wins Best Picture and Best Director.

[edit] April

April 12: First STS launch: Columbia.

• April 1 - Daylight saving time is introduced in the USSR.
• April 2 - Tony Benn announces that he will challenge Denis Healey for the Deputy Leadership of the British Labour Party.
• April 4 - UK pop group Bucks Fizz win the Eurovision Song Contest 1981 with the song, Making Your Mind Up.
• April 10 - IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands wins the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election.
• April 11 - Brixton riot (1981): Rioters in South London throw petrol bombs, attack police and loot shops.
• April 12 - The Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Columbia (John Young, Robert Crippen) launches on the STS-1 mission, returning to Earth on April 14.
• April 15 - The Australian Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock resigns from the cabinet, accusing Prime Minister Fraser of gross disloyalty.
• April 18 - A Minor League baseball game between the Rochester Red Wings and the Pawtucket Red Sox at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, becomes the longest professional baseball game in history: 8 hours and 25 minutes/33 innings (the 33rd inning is not played until June 23).
• April 18 - The rock band Yes splits up (regrouping in 1983).
• April 24 - French presidential election: A first-round runoff results between Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand.

[edit] May

• May - Daniel K. Ludwig abandons the Jari project in the Amazon Basin.
• May 1 - Start of the new Chilean pension system, based on private pension funds.
• May 5 - Bobby Sands Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer and elected member of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom dies aged 27 while on hunger strike in HM Prison Maze
• May 6 - A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries.
• May 7 - The Greater London Council election results in a small Labour majority. On May 8, Ken Livingstone becomes Leader of the Council.
• May 10 - In the second round of the presidential elections in France, François Mitterrand beats Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
• May 10 - In Italy a popular referendum rejects the abrogation of the law allowing abortion.
• May 13 - Pope John Paul II is shot and nearly killed by Mehmet Ali Ağca, a Turkish gunman, as he enters St. Peter's Square in Rome to address a general audience.
• May 15 - Donna Payant is murdered by serial killer Lemuel Smith - the first time a female prison officer has been killed on-duty in the United States.
• May 21 - In France, Socialist François Mitterrand becomes President.
• May 22 - Peter Sutcliffe is found guilty of being the Yorkshire Ripper. He is sentenced to life imprisonment on 13 counts of murder and seven of attempted murder.
• May 25 - In Riyadh, the Gulf Cooperation Council is created between Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
• May 26 - The Italian government resigns over its links to the fascist Masonic cell Propaganda Due.
• May 30 - Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman is assassinated in Chittagong.

[edit] June

• June 5 - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 5 homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems (the first recognized cases of AIDS).
• June 6 - Bihar train disaster: Seven coaches of an overcrowded passenger train fall off the tracks into the River Kosi in Bihar, India; about 800 die.
• June 7 - The Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor.
• June 12 - Major League Baseball goes on strike, forcing the cancellation of 38 percent of the schedule.
• June 13 - At the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, Marcus Sarjeant fires six blank shots at Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
• June 21 - Wayne Williams, a 23-year-old African American, is arrested and charged with the murders of 2 other African Americans. He will later be suspected of 28 others, in the Atlanta child murders.
• June 22 - Iranian president Abolhassan Banisadr is deposed.
• June 26 - Couples For Christ, a Christian charismatic organization, established in the Philippines.
• June 29 - Morris Edwin Robert, armed with a machine gun, holds hostages in the FBI section at the Atlanta, Georgia Federal Building. After 3 hours the hostages are rescued and Robert is shot (dead?).

[edit] July

• July 2 - The Wonderland Gang was brutally murdered in a massacre that involved Eddie Nash.
• July 3 - The Toxteth riots start after a mob save a youth from being arrested.
• July 7 - President Reagan nominates the first woman, Sandra Day O'Connor, to the Supreme Court.
• July 8 - California Governor Jerry Brown, faced with a Mediterranean fruit fly infestation, chooses to delay the aerial spraying of malathion, in favor of continuing ground-based eradication efforts.
• July 8 - Ireland Irish Republican Joe Mcdonnell, dies in Long Kesh internment camp after a 61 day hunger strike.
• July 10 - Mahathir bin Mohamad became the 4th prime minister of Malaysia.
• July 17 - Hyatt Regency walkway collapse: Two skywalks filled with people at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri collapse into a crowded atrium lobby, killing 114.
• July 17 - Israeli aircraft bomb Beirut, destroying multi-story apartment blocks containing the offices of PLO associated groups, killing approximately 300 civilians and resulting in worldwide condemnation and a U.S. embargo on the export of aircraft to Israel.^[1]
• July 17 - In 1981 Gral. Luis Gracia Meza leads a bloody coup d'état in Bolivia against the democratic government of Lidia Gayler.
• July 19 - The 1981 Springbok Tour commences in New Zealand, amid controversy over the support of Apartheid.
• July 21 - Tohui The Panda, is born in Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico, DF. It is the first Panda to ever be born and survive in captivity outside of China.
• July 27 - Six-year-old Adam Walsh is kidnapped from a Sears store in Hollywood, Florida.
• July 29 - Lady Diana Spencer marries Charles, Prince of Wales.

[edit] August

• August 1 - MTV (Music Television) is launched on cable television in the United States.
• August 3 - The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) goes on strike.
• August 5 - Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.
• August 7 - The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.
• August 9 - Major League Baseball resumes from strike with the All-Star Game in Cleveland's Municipal Stadium.
• August 12 - The original Model 5150 IBM PC with a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 processor is released in the United States at a base price of $1,565.
• August 19 - Gulf of Sidra incident (1981): Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi sends 2 Sukhoi Su-22 fighter jets to intercept 2 U.S. fighters over the Gulf of Sidra. The American jets destroy the Libyan fighters.
• August 19 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan appoints the first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor.
• August 24 - Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment after being convicted of murdering John Lennon in Manhattan eight months earlier.
• August 28 - South African troops invade Angola.
• August 31 - A bomb explodes at the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein, West Germany, injuring 20 people.

[edit] September

• September 4 - An explosion at a mine in Záluží, Czechoslovakia, kills 65 people.
• September 10 - Picasso's painting "Guernica" is moved from New York to Madrid.
• September 11 - A small plane crashes into the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino damaging the venue beyond repair.
• September 14 - Margaret Thatcher appoints Cecil Parkinson as Chairman of the Conservative Party.
• September 15 - The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world, at 150 years old, when it operates under its own power outside Washington, DC.
• September 16 - In Britain, the Liberal Party Assembly votes for an electoral pact with the new Social Democratic Party.
• September 18 - France abolishes capital punishment.
• September 19 - The second Wranslide occurs in New South Wales, with the Wran government re-elected for a third term with an increased majority, and reducing the Liberal Party of Australia to just 14 members in the Legislative Assembly.
• September 19 - Simon and Garfunkel perform The Concert in Central Park, a free concert in New York in front of approximately a half a million people.
• September 20 - Brazilian river boat Sobral Santos capsized Amazon River, Óbidos, Brazil, killing at least 300.
• September 21 - Belize becomes independent.
• September 25 - Sandra Day O'Connor takes her seat as the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Rolling Stones begin their tour in support of Tattoo You at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.
• September 26 - First flight of the Boeing 767 airliner.
• September 27 - TGV high speed rail service between Paris and Lyon, France begins.
• September 27 - Denis Healey retained the post of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, beating Tony Benn by 50.426% to 49.574%.

[edit] October

• October 6 - Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is assassinated during a parade by army members who were part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization; they opposed his negotiations with Israel.
• October 10 - The Ministry for Education of Japan issues the jōyō kanji.
• October 10 - A Provisional IRA bomb at Chelsea Barracks in London kills a woman pensioner.
• October 13 - James Tobin wins the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
• October 14 - Vice President Hosni Mubarak is elected President of Egypt 1 week after Anwar Sadat's assassination.
• October 15 - The heavy metal band Metallica forms.
• October 16 - Gas explosions occurred coal mine at Hokutan Yūbari, Hokkaidō, Japan, killing 93.
• October 21 - Andreas Papandreou becomes Prime Minister of Greece.
• October 22 - The founding congress of the Nepal Workers and Peasants Organization faction led by Hareram Sharma and D.P. Singh begins.
• October 22 - Liberal candidate Bill Pitt wins the Croydon North West byelection, the first election win by the Liberal-S.D.P. Alliance.
• October 26 - An IRA bomb in a Wimpy Bar in Oxford Street, London, kills a bomb disposal expert.
• October 27 - A Soviet submarine runs aground outside the Karlskrona, Sweden military base.

[edit] November

November 1: Flag of Antigua & Barbuda.

• November 1 - Antigua and Barbuda gain independence from the United Kingdom.
• November 9 - Edict No 81-234 abolishes slavery in Mauritania.
• November 12 - STS-2: Space Shuttle Columbia, piloted by Joe Engle and Richard Truly, lifts off for its second mission.
• November 12 - The Church of England General Synod voted to admit women to holy orders.
• November 13 - The first Friday the 13th event is held by motorcyclists in Port Dover, Ontario, Canada.
• November 16 - Luke and Laura marry on the U.S. soap opera General Hospital; it is the highest-rated hour in daytime television history.
• November 18 - COMDEX Fall, IBM Introduced the IBM PC. Scientific Solutions announces the first PC add-in cards.
• November 23 - Iran-Contra scandal: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
• November 25–26 - A group of mercenaries led by Mike Hoare take over Mahe airport in the Seychelles in a coup attempt. Most of the mercenaries escape by a commandeered Air India passenger jet; 6 are later arrested.
• November 26 - Former cabinet minister Shirley Williams won the Crosby by-election, becoming the first elected S.D.P. MP.
• November 30 - Cold War: In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe (the meetings end inconclusively on Thursday, December 17).

[edit] December

• December 1 - A Yugoslavian DC-9 crashes into a mountain while approaching Ajaccio Airport in Corsica, killing 178.
• December 4 - South Africa grants "homeland" Ciskei independence (not recognized outside South Africa).
• December 5 - American general James Lee Dozier is kidnapped in Verona by Italian Red Brigades.
• December 8 - The No. 21 Mine explosion in Whitwell, Tennessee kills 13.
• December 8 - Arthur Scargill became President-elect of the National Union of Mineworkers.
• December 9 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania police officer Daniel Faulkner is shot and killed during a routine traffic stop of a vehicle driven by William Cook, Mumia Abu-Jamal's younger brother.
• December 10 - During the Ministerial Session of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels, Spain signes the Protocol of Accession to NATO.

• December 11 - El Mozote massacre: In El Salvador, army units kill 900 civilians.
• December 13 - Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland, to prevent the dismantling of the communist system by Solidarity.
• December 15 - A car bomb destroys the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 61 people. Syrian intelligence is blamed.
• December 20 - The Penlee lifeboat disaster occurs off the coast of South-West Cornwall.
• December 28 - The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia.
• December 31 - Coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaces it with the PNDC led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.

[edit] Undated

• Heavy massive snow and many houses, buildings collapsed by heavy snow on roofs, in northwestern Japan. At least 152 reported deaths. (from January to March)
• Millennium reenactment of the translation of Saint Edward the Martyr's relics from Wareham to Shaftesbury.
• Public funding of election Campaigns introduced in New South Wales, Australia.
• The State Council of the People's Republic of China listed the four cities (Beijing, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Guilin) as where the protection of historical and cultural heritage as well as natural scenery should be treated as a priority project.
• Cuba suffers a major outbreak of Dengue fever, with 344,203 cases. [1]
• Luxor AB Presents the ABC 800 computer.

[edit] Ongoing

• Cold War.

[edit] Births

[edit] January–February

• January 1 - Zsolt Baumgartner, Hungarian race car driver
• January 1 - Rashod Moulton, National Football League player
• January 1 - Mladen Petrić, Croatian football player
• January 1 - Eden Riegel, American actress
• January 2 - Maxi Rodriguez, Argentina and Atletico Madrid footballer
• January 3 - Eli Manning, American football player
• January 6 - Mike Jones, American rapper
• January 6 - Jérémie Renier, Belgian actor
• January 7 - Alex Auld, Canadian ice hockey goaltender
• January 8 - Xie Xingfang, Chinese badminton player
• January 8 - Genevieve Cortese, American actress
• January 8 - Jeff Francis, Canadian pitcher
• January 9 - Euzebiusz Smolarek, Polish footballer
• January 9 - Caroline Lufkin, American singer
• January 11 - Jamelia, British singer
• January 12 - Quentin Griffin, American football player
• January 15 - El Hadji Diouf, Senegalese footballer
• January 15 - Howie Day, American singer and songwriter
• January 17 - Scott Mechlowicz, American actor
• January 17 - Ray J, American rapper and singer
• January 20 - Jason Richardson, American basketball player
• January 20 - Owen Hargreaves, Canadian-born English footballer
• January 21 - Dany Heatley, German-born hockey player
• January 21 - Gillian Chung, Hong Kong singer (Twins)
• January 22 - Chantelle Anderson, American basketball player
• January 22 - Willa Ford, American singer, television hostess, and actress
• January 22 - Beverley Mitchell, American actress
• January 22 - Ben Moody, American guitarist (formerly of Evanescence)
• January 24 - Brandon Henschel, American actor and dancer
• January 25 - Alicia Keys, American singer
• January 25 - Tose Proeski, Macedonian singer (d. 2007)
• January 27 - Greg Owens, Australian footballer (Central Coast Mariners)
• January 27 - Alicia Molik, Australian tennis player
• January 28 - Elijah Wood, American actor and music producer
• January 29 - Jonny Lang, American musician
• January 30 - Dimitar Berbatov, Bulgarian national football team captain and Manchester United player
• January 31 - Justin Timberlake, American musician
• February 3 - Alisa Reyes, American actress
• February 5 - Lee Eon, South Korean actor and model (d. 2008)
• February 10 - The Reverend Tholomew Plague, American drummer (Avenged Sevenfold)
• February 10 - Natasha St-Pier, Canadian singer
• February 11 - Kelly