| 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. |
| 1982–1984 | UK [television] | The Young Ones, a comedy series about four students in a shared house, is shown on British television. It stars Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Adrian Edmondson, and Christopher Ryan, and guest stars Alexei Sayle. |
| 1982 | UK [television] | The Tube, Britain's most influential television music programme of the 1980s, starts on BBC2, with presenters Paula Yates and Jools Holland. |
| 1982 | China [women's rights] | The Chinese writer Zhang Jie publishes her novella Ark, widely seen as the first genuinely feminist work to come from modern China. |
| 1982 | Kenya, Singapore, Australia, France, Switzerland, UK [women's rights] | Women's pay as a percentage of men's pay: Kenya, 84%; Singapore, 63%; Australia, 83%; France, 80%; Switzerland, 67%; UK, 70%. |
| 1982 | China [statistics and demography] | The population of China rises to over 1 billion. |
| 1982 | Spain, Sweden, China, East Germany, UK, USA [statistics and demography] | Women as a percentage of the workforce: Spain, 29%; Sweden, 46%; China, 36%; East Germany, 50%; UK, 42%; USA, 43%. |
| 1982 | Japan [technology] | Sony launches the first pocket television set, the Sony Flat TV, in Japan, with a screen size of 5 cm/2 in. It costs $239. |
| 1982 | Mexico [business and economics] | Mexico defaults on a loan payment, leading to general concern about the ability of countries in the developing world to meet their international debts, and about the consequences of defaults for lending nations. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) intervenes with debt rescheduling and imposes austerity measures on debtor countries. |
| 1982 | USA [cinema and film] | The film ET: The Extraterrestrial, directed by Steven Spielberg, is released in the USA. It stars child actors Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore. |
| 1982 | USA [civic and commercial buildings] | The Public Services Building in Portland, Oregon, designed by the US architect Michael Graves, is completed. It is quickly seen as a major work of postmodernist design. |
| 1982 | USA [art] | The US artist Jenny Holzer creates Times Square, in which a series of messages are flashed across a Spectacolour board in Times Square, New York City. The messages become known as Holzerisms and include ‘Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise’ and ‘A Little Knowledge Can Go a Long Way’. |
| 1982–1984 | Ethiopia [famines] | Civil war and drought cause a major famine in Ethiopia; at least 800,000 people die and 1.5 million flee the country before foreign grain is received the following year. |
| 1982 | USA [fiction] | The US writer Alice Walker publishes her novel The Color Purple. It wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983. |
| 1982 | Ireland, France [fiction] | The Irish writer Samuel Beckett publishes his novel Ill Seen, Ill Said. |
| 1982 | USA [food and drink] | The Coca-Cola Company launches Diet Coke. |
| 1982 | USA [food and drink] | The US wholefood enthusiast Gregory Sams develops the vegeburger, which contains sesame seeds, cereals, soya, and vegetables. |
| 1982 | USA [health and medicine] | Liposuction becomes available in the USA. |
| 1982 | USA [information technology] | US company Intel introduces the 16-bit 80286 microprocessor; it has 130,000 transistors and runs at speeds up to 12 MHz. |
| 1982 | USA [manufacturing] | US firm Applied Biosystems markets an automated gene sequencer that can sequence 18,000 DNA bases a day, compared with a few hundred a year by hand in the 1970s. |
| 1982 | USA [media and communication] | The US pop singer Madonna is one of the first stars launched by the MTV music channel, highlighting her dancing and the quality of her video production, and she becomes a pop icon of the 1980s. |
| 1982 | USA [medicine] | US researcher Stanley Prusiner discovers prions (proteinaceous infectious particles); they are responsible for several neurological diseases including ‘mad cow disease’ (first identified in 1986). |
| 1982 | USA, Japan [motor vehicles] | Japanese car manufacturers control 22.6% of the market in the USA, compared to 3.7% in 1970. |
| 1982 | UK [music] | The English rock singer Peter Gabriel launches WOMAD (World of Music, Arts, and Dance) in Shepton Mallet, southwest England. Encompassing African, Latin American, and Asian traditions, WOMAD is instrumental in gaining a greater popularity for world music. |
| 1982 | USA [philosophy] | US philosopher Richard Rorty publishes The Consequences of Pragmatism. |
| 1982 | USA [photography] | Kodak launches the digital camera and digital film. |
| 8 January 1982 | Spain [diplomacy] | Spain agrees to end its 12-year blockade of the British Crown colony Gibraltar, but the frontier is not opened until December 15. |
| 16 January 1982 | UK [diplomacy] | Britain and the Vatican resume full diplomatic relations after a break of over 400 years. |
| 19 March 1982 | UK, South Africa [sports] | Fifteen England cricketers led by Graham Gooch are banned from Test cricket for three years for participating in a cricket tour of South Africa, breaking an international ban on sporting links with that country because of its policy of apartheid. |
| 2 April 1982 | Argentina, UK [Falklands War (1982)] | Argentina invades and occupies the British-held Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. Britain breaks diplomatic relations with Argentina. |
| 17 April 1982 | Canada [diplomacy] | Repatriation of the Canadian constitution (its removal from British law to place it entirely under Canadian control) breaks Canada's last link with the British government. |
| 25 April 1982 | UK [political events] | British commandos recapture South Georgia from the small Argentine force occupying the island. |
| 26 April 1982 | UK [television] | The first satellite television service is launched by Satellite Television in London, England, with broadcasts to Malta, Norway, and Finland. |
| 2 May 1982 | UK, Argentina [Falklands War (1982)] | The British submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano off the Falkland Islands, killing 368 officers and crew members. |
| 3 May 1982 | UK [newspapers] | The Times is the first national newspaper in Britain to be entirely phototypeset. |
| 28 May 1982 | UK, Argentina [Falklands War (1982)] | British troops recapture Port Darwin and Goose Green in the Falkland Islands, taking 1,400 Argentine prisoners. |
| 5 June 1982 | Middle East [political events] | Israeli armed forces invade Lebanon. On June 6 Israeli and Syrian forces clash in southern Lebanon, and the United Nations Security Council calls for a halt to the fighting. |
| 7 June 1982 | USA [houses] | Elvis Presley's home Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, opens to the public. |
| 12 June 1982 | USA [political events] | Approximately 550,000 protesters against nuclear arms march though New York City. |
| 14 June 1982 | Argentina, UK [Falklands War (1982)] | Argentine forces surrender at Port Stanley, ending the Falklands War, in which 255 Britons and 652 Argentines have died. |
| 11 July 1982 | Argentina [Falklands War (1982)] | Argentina recognizes a de facto cessation of hostilities with Britain in the South Atlantic, and the following day the British government declares an end to hostilities. |
| 19 August 1982 | Lebanon [diplomacy] | The Israeli cabinet accepts a US plan to evacuate Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas and Syrian troops from Beirut. The first convoys of guerrillas leave for Cyprus on 21 August, and Yassir Arafat leaves for Tunisia on August 30. |
| 4 September 1982 | UK [births and deaths] | Douglas Bader, British pilot who lost both legs in a flying accident, and went on to become an ace pilot in World War II, dies in London, England (72). |
| 14 September 1982 | Lebanon [law and government] | The president-elect of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, is killed in a Beirut bomb explosion. His brother Amin is sworn in as president on September 23. |
| 17 September 1982 | West Germany [political events] | The West German Social Democrat–Free Democrat government collapses following the withdrawal of Free Democrat ministers. On October 1, a new Christian Democrat–Free Democrat government is formed under Christian Democrat Leader Helmut Kohl. |
| 18 September 1982 | Israel, Lebanon [political events] | Over 800 Palestinians are killed after Christian Phalangist militiamen enter the West Beirut refugee camps Sabra and Chatila. On September 25 there are protests in Israel over the massacre, and on September 28 the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin agrees to an independent board of inquiry. |
| 29 September - 1 October 1982 | USA [consumer products] | Seven Americans die when cyanide is placed in bottles of Tylenol. The makers of the drug, Johnson and Johnson, recall 264,000 bottles, and new tamper-proof packaging for pharmaceuticals and other products is developed. |
| 30 September 1982 | USA [television] | Cheers, a popular situation comedy about several characters who hang out in a bar in Boston, is shown on US television. |
| October 1982 | Japan [technology] | Japanese company Sony launches the first compact disc (CD) players in Japan, working with Philips, the Dutch manufacturer of the compact disc. |
| 8 October 1982 | Poland [political events] | Poland's communist-controlled parliament bans the Solidarity union and forbids the setting up of new trade unions. |
| 11 October 1982 | UK [historical study] | The Mary Rose, King Henry VIII's flagship which was sunk by the French on 19 July 1545, is raised from the bottom of Portsmouth harbour. It is found to contain Tudor artefacts such as board games, table settings, and musical instruments. |
| 30 October 1982 | Portugal [law and government] | A new Portuguese constitution comes into force, ending military influence in government. |
| 2 November 1982 | UK [television] | The Channel 4 television station begins broadcasting in Britain.Financed by advertising and under the control of the Independent Broadcasting Authority, its role is to provide innovative independent programmes. |
| 10 November 1982 | USSR [births and deaths] | Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet statesman, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party 1964–82, dies in Moscow, USSR (75). |
| 16 November 1982 | USSR [diplomacy] | Sino-Soviet talks open in Moscow, the first since 1969. |
| 2 December 1982 | USA [surgery] | At the University of Utah Medical Center an artificial heart, designed by Robert Jarvik, is implanted into heart patient Barney Clark who lives for 112 days. |
| 12 December 1982 | UK [weapons] | More than 20,000 women encircle the Greenham Common air base in England in protest against the proposed siting of US cruise missiles there. |
| 19 December 1982 | Poland [law and government] | Poland's Council of State announces the suspension of martial law, effective from 31 December. |
| 25 December 1982 | USA [popular music] | Michael Jackson's Thriller confirms his status as a pop icon. Within ten years, 40 million copies will have been sold, making it the best-selling album of all time. |
