> a few 80's landmarks:
>
> Shuttle blew up
>
> Irangate
>
> Reagan was shot and injured. Jim Brady was shot at the same time and nearly killed, left in a wheelchair, and later sponsored the Brady Bill, which established a 7 day waiting period to buy a gun.
>
> Iranian hostages were released (1980 - -- Jimmy Carter actually did the work, but Reagan got the credit)
>
> The national debt skyrocketed thanks to Reagan's voodoo economics.
>
> George Bush made Dana Carvey's career.
>
> the first woman vice presidential candidate ran (with Mondale in 84)
>
> The first man made entirely of plastic ran for president (Dukakis in 88)
>
> The Honda CRX was rolled out in 1984 (well it's significant to me 'cause I drive one ;)
>
> The Apple Macintosh, which paved the way for the Windows operating system, and thus Bill Gates' fortune, was invented.
>
> The Atari 2600 began a multibillion dollar home videogame industry
>
> The US invaded Grenada in 1983
>
> there's lots more, but it's too late to go on :)

Some more:

-Berlin wall came down in Germany

-Mount St. Helens went up in smoke

-The first origins of the internet (and where would we all be without that?[I, for one, would probably have a life, but no matter])

-Pope John Paul II was shot

-Disco went out of style

-Princess Di first came into the limelight

-Black Tuesday on Wall Street

M"all in all, it was a pretty productive decade"el