1980

1950–1980	UK [television]	Watch With Mother, a series for young children featuring favourite characters such as Andy Pandy, the Flowerpot Men, Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, and the Woodentops, is shown on British television.
15 January 1974 - 12 July 1984	USA [television]	The situation comedy Happy Days, about family life in the 1950s, premiers on US television and runs for 11 seasons.
11 September 1974 - 21 March 1983	USA [television]	Little House on the Prairie, a popular television drama based on the classic series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, starts on US television. It chronicles the Ingalls family's struggles in the American West in the 1870s.
1976–1981	UK, USA [television]	The Muppet Show, featuring sketches and songs by Jim Henson's puppets – including Kermit and Miss Piggy – is shown on British and US television.
1980	UK [theatre and dance]	A stage version of Charles Dickens's novel Nicholas Nickleby, adapted for stage by David Edgar, is first performed, at the Aldwych Theatre in London, England. The play runs for over eight hours.
c. 1980	USA [weapons]	The USA begins to manufacture cruise missiles with a speed of about 885 kph/550 mph, and an extremely accurate navigational system (Tercom) that uses contour maps stored in its computerized memory; they fly low to the ground to escape detection by radar.
1980	Iraq [women's rights]	Women in Iraq earn the right to vote and hold office.
1980	UK [legislation]	The English Court of Appeal awards child custody to a lesbian mother for the first time.
1980	[maths]	Mathematicians worldwide complete the classification of all finite and simple groups, a task that has taken over 100 mathematicians more than 35 years to complete. The results take up more than 14,000 pages in mathematical journals.
1980	France, UK [musicals]	The musical Les Misérables, with lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boubil, and music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, is first performed, at the Palais des Sports in Paris, France. Its first English performance will be in 1985 in London, England.
1980	USA [music]	The US composer John Cage completes his vocal work Roaratorio, an Irish Circus on Finnegan's Wake.
1980	USA [cinema and film]	The film The Empire Strikes Back, directed by Irvin Kershner, is released in the USA. The second instalment in the original Star Wars trilogy, it stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher.
1980	USA [cinema and film]	The film Raging Bull, directed by Martin Scorsese, is released in the USA. It stars Robert De Niro.
1980	USA [cinema and film]	The film The Blues Brothers, directed by John Landis, is released in the USA. It stars John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, and features music personalities such as Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Ray Charles.
1980	world [earth sciences]	A thin layer of iridium-rich clay, about 65 million years old, is found around the world. US physicist Luis Walter Alvarez suggests that it was caused by the impact of a large asteroid or comet which threw enough dust into the sky to obscure the Sun and cause the extinction of the dinosaurs.
1980	UK [clothing and fashion]	The New Romantic look, inspired by glam rock, starts to appear, sported by bands such as Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran.
1980	Italy [fiction]	The Italian writer and scholar Umberto Eco publishes his novel Il nome della rosa/The Name of the Rose. Though littered with scholarly allusions and Latin quotations, the novel – a detective story set in the Middle Ages – is an unexpected best-seller.
1980	England [fiction]	The English writer William Golding publishes his novel Rites of Passage, which wins the Booker Prize.
1980	Belgium, Scotland [opera]	The opera Where the Wild Things Are by the Scottish composer Oliver Knussen is first performed, in Brussels, Belgium. A revised version will follow in 1984 in London, England.
1980	Germany [opera]	The German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen completes his opera Donnerstag aus Licht/Thursday from Light. This is the first part of a seven-opera cycle.
1980	England [plays]	The play The Romans in Britain by the English writer Howard Brenton is first performed, at the National Theatre in London, England. It causes controversy because of scenes involving nudity and sexual violence. It is threatened with prosecution for obscenity, but the case is later dropped.
1980	UK [popular music]	The first ‘indie’ chart (for albums on independent recording labels) is launched in Britain: the first album to head it is Adam and the Ants' Dirk Wears White Socks.
1980	UK [popular music]	Two-Tone music emerges in Britain, led by bands such as Madness and the Specials.
1980	world [popular music]	Digitally recorded LP records are widely marketed for the first time.
1980	USA [sports]	Canadian ice-hockey player Scott Olsen and his brother create rollerblades, high-speed roller-skates, and found Rollerblade Inc in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to manufacture them.
1980	UK, England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland [statistics and demography]	Estimated population of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: England, 46,787,000; Wales, 2,816,000; Scotland, 5,194,000; Northern Ireland, 1,533,000.
1980	USA [statistics and demography]	The population of the USA is 226.5 million compared to 76 million in 1900.
1980	USA, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt [statistics and demography]	Over 1.5 million abortions are performed in the USA; there are 3 million illegal abortions in Brazil and 280,000 in Colombia; in Egypt, a quarter of all pregnancies are aborted.
1980	USA [statistics and demography]	Over 18% of births in the USA are to unmarried mothers; over 40% of births are to women under 20.
1980	world [statistics and demography]	The population of the world is 4.45 billion.
3 January 1980	UK, Europe [statistics and demography]	A report shows that half of married British women go out to work, the largest proportion anywhere in the European Community.
19 February 1980	UK [legislation]	The Employment Bill is published in Britain, outlawing secondary picketing and requiring unions to hold secret ballots before strikes.
11 March 1980	Zimbabwe Rhodesia [law and government]	Robert Mugabe, leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), forms a coalition government in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, with Joshua Nkomo, leader of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), as minister of home affairs.
31 March 1980	USA [births and deaths]	Jesse Owens, black US track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, dies in Phoenix, Arizona (66).
7 April 1980	USA, Iran [diplomacy]	The USA bans trade with Iran, breaks off relations, and expels Iranian diplomats in the face of the continuing hostage crisis.
9 April 1980	UK, Saudi Arabia, USA [television]	The British programme Death of a Princess, about the execution of a Saudi princess for adultery, causes a rift between Saudi Arabia and Britain. Its broadcast in the USA on 12 May attracts a record audience.
15 April 1980	France [births and deaths]	Jean-Paul Sartre, French existentialist philosopher, novelist, and playwright, dies in Paris, France (74).
18 April 1980	Zimbabwe Rhodesia [decolonization]	Zimbabwe Rhodesia gains its independence from Britain, and is renamed ‘Zimbabwe’. Its first president is the Reverend Canaan Banana.
25 April 1980	USA, Iran [political events]	A US commando mission to rescue US hostages in Iran fails with the loss of eight lives.
29 April 1980	England [births and deaths]	Alfred Hitchcock, English film director best known for his films of suspense, dies in Bel Air, California (80).
4 May 1980	Yugoslavia [births and deaths]	Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavian communist leader from 1943, elected president 1953–80, dies in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia (87).
5 May 1980	UK, Iran [political events]	Britain's Special Air Service (SAS) storms the Iranian embassy in London, England, retaking it from the terrorists who seized the building on 30 April.
18 May 1980	USA [natural disasters]	Mount St Helens volcano in Washington state, USA, erupts explosively in a blast 500 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, causing an outbreak of fires, mudslides, and floods; 57 people die in the largest eruption in US history. Ash from the volcano blankets the surrounding area and effects global temperature readings for months to come.
1 June 1980	USA [television]	US entrepreneur Ted Turner launches the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour network in the world to focus solely on news.
5 July 1980	UK, Sweden [tennis]	The Swedish tennis player Björn Borg wins his fifth consecutive men's singles title at the Wimbledon championships in London, England.
19 July 1980	USSR, USA, West Germany, Japan, Kenya [Olympic Games]	The 22nd Olympic Games open in Moscow, USSR. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the games are boycotted by 65 countries, most notably the USA, West Germany, Japan, and Kenya.
27 July 1980	Peru [law and government]	The inauguration of Fernando Belaúnde Terry as president of Peru ends 12 years of military rule.
30 July 1980	New Hebrides, France, UK [decolonization]	The New Hebrides, in the Pacific, become independent from Britain and France within the Commonwealth as Vanuatu.
5 August 1980	Belgium [law and government]	The Belgian parliament passes a bill dividing the country into three autonomous linguistic regions.
20 August 1980	Asia [mountaineering]	Reinhold Messner of Italy completes the first entirely solo ascent of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain.
4 November 1980	USA [elections]	In the US presidential election, the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan wins a sweeping victory over President Jimmy Carter, with 489 electoral votes against Carter's 49. The Republicans win control of the Senate and gain 33 seats in the House of Representatives.
21 November 1980	USA [television]	Dallas breaks existing television rating records when more than half the population of the USA watches the episode Who Shot JR?.
December 1980	England, USA [births and deaths]	John Lennon, English pop singer and songwriter, former member of the Beatles, is shot dead by Mark David Chapman outside the Dakota, his apartment building in New York City (40).