• the Stiefelgeiss, a breed of goat, became nearly extinct in the 1980s but is making a comeback?
• the shooting of the government critic Archbishop Óscar Romero on March 24, 1980 was one of the causes of the El Salvador Civil War, in which 75,000 people died?
• the St. James Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand, was nearly demolished in the 1980s and is said to be haunted by numerous ghosts?
• the Glasgow Inner Ring Road was only half complete when it was abandoned in 1980, leaving several incomplete junctions, one of which ends abruptly in mid-air?
• as a result of the Okęcie Airport Incident in 1980, four top players of the Polish national football team were disqualified, and one of them never capped for Poland again?
• 1980's Rescue at Rigel by Epyx was one of the first science fiction computer role-playing games?

Facts on topics related to 1980

1981

• Chicago mayor Jane Byrne moved into the notoriously miserable Cabrini-Green housing project in 1981?
• Norwegian football commentator Bjørge Lillelien famously taunted Margaret Thatcher after Norway's victory over England in 1981?
• Sarah Brady became an advocate of gun control and led actions to reduce gun violence after her husband White House Press Secretary James Brady sustained a disabling head wound during the Reagan assassination attempt in 1981?
• Torchwood will be the first spin-off from Doctor Who since an unsuccessful pilot for K-9 and Company in 1981?
• before the bobsleigh track in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy was shortened to its current configuration in 1981, it was used as part of the film For Your Eyes Only?
• in a British by-election in 1981, John Desmond Lewis ran for office under the name Tarquin Fin-tim-lim-bim-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olè-Biscuitbarrel, drawing inspiration from a Monty Python skit about silly elections?
• the Chilean football club Cobreloa reached the finals of South America's principal club competition, the Copa Libertadores, in 1981, only four years after the club's founding?
• the Palau Congressional Library was founded in 1981, and has a staff of two?
• the only international cricket in South Africa between 1971 and 1981 comprised 6 private tours and 1 women's test match, because no test match playing nation was willing to tour the country because of its apartheid policy?
• when the John Bull ran under its own power in 1981 it became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world?

1979

• Swiss artist Harald Naegeli spent several months in jail in 1984 for the graffiti he had painted in Zürich from 1977 to 1979?
• Chris Woods cost Queens Park Rangers 250,000 pounds from Nottingham Forest in 1979 even though he had never played a League game before his transfer?
• a Catalan wine was secretly added to the classified Bordeaux wine category of the 1979 Gault Millau Wine Olympics and won?
• despite its federal mandate to provide only intercity rail service, Amtrak operated the Calumet commuter train between Chicago, Illinois and the Indiana suburb of Valparaiso from 1979 to 1991?
• the Soviet D-10 tank gun (pictured) of World War II was built until 1979 for the world's most common tank (the T-55), which remains in service?
• the first comprehensive campaign of unionized labor was the subject of the 1979 Academy Award-winning film Norma Rae?

1975

• footballer Alan Taylor scored two goals in the quarter final, two goals in the semi final and two goals in the final of the 1975 FA Cup as his club West Ham United won the competition?
• public broadcasting in New Zealand of color television began in 1975?
• J.M. Legard's 2006 novel Giraffe is based on the real-life mass killing of giraffes at the zoo in the Czechoslovakian town of Dvůr Králové nad Labem on the night of 30 April 1975?
• in 1975 a freak Typhoon caused the Banqiao Dam in China's Henan Province to fail, killing over 200,000 people?
• in 1975 a freak typhoon caused the Banqiao Dam in China's Henan Province to fail, killing over 200,000 people?
• the 1975 U.S. Supreme Court case NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc. allowed all workers in unionized workplaces to have a union representative present during management inquiries that might result in discipline?
• the Angolan War of Independence lasted from 1961 until 1989, even though Portugal left Angola in 1975?
• the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment, launched in 1975, was one of the first demonstrations that showed the potential of satellite technology as an effective mass communication media?

1977

• Swiss artist Harald Naegeli spent several months in jail in 1984 for the graffiti he had painted in Zürich from 1977 to 1979?
• Wayne Townsend cast the tie-breaking vote in 1977 in the Indiana State Senate for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment making Indiana the last state to approve the failed measure?
• in 1977, K. Leroy Irvis of Pennsylvania became the first Black American to serve as a speaker of the house in any state legislature in the United States?
• in 1977, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration banned the use of electroslag welding for joining certain bridge structural members due to quality concerns?
• the People's Republic of China attempted to promulgate a second round of orthographical reform in 1977, only to retract it 9 years later amidst mounting opposition and confusion?

1978

• former New Jersey Representative Edward J. Patten was unanimously cleared by the House Ethics Committee of charges associated with the 1978 Koreagate scandal?
• in 1978, Governor of Florida Reubin Askew gave the Bee Gees "honorary citizenship" after the success of their single "Night Fever"?
• in 1978, the nitrate-base film vaults of both the US National Archives and George Eastman House autoignited?
• one of the Sunken Forests of New Hampshire off the coast of Rye, New Hampshire, hasn't been above the surface of the Atlantic Ocean since 1978?
• the 1978 musical film The Wiz re-tells L. Frank Baum's popular story The Wizard of Oz in an urban setting and with an entirely African-American cast?
• the golden age of arcade games began with the release of Space Invaders in 1978?
• the first fossilised dinosaur eggs found in the world, which are also the oldest dinosaur embryos ever discovered, belong to Massospondylus and were found in Golden Gate Highlands National Park, South Africa in 1978?

1983

• Graftgold is an independent computer games developer formed in 1983 when Steve Turner decided to quit his day job as a commercial programmer?
• James Autry received a stay on his execution in October 1983 after the needles for his lethal injection had been inserted into his arms?
• a freak decompression accident on board the oil rig Byford Dolphin in 1983 literally caused a man to explode?
• the Department of Food Science at Purdue University was created during Bernard J. Liska's tenure as Dean of Agriculture in 1983?
• the recent Capitol Hill massacre is regarded as the worst mass-killing in Seattle since the 1983 Wah Mee Massacre?

1982

• Elizabeth Taylor made her London stage debut in 1982 at the Victoria Palace Theatre in a revival of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes?
• folk singer/guitarist Nic Jones suffered multiple broken bones and brain damage after a serious car accident in February 1982?
• Indian trade unionist Dutta Samant led an estimated 200,000 workers on a year-long strike in 1982, causing the exodus of the textile mill industry from Mumbai?
• Tom Hanks was in a 1982 TV movie called Mazes and Monsters about a group of college students and their interest in the eponymous role-playing game?
• Bill Boaks, a retired Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander, won only 5 votes (a record low in a British Parliamentary election) in a 1982 by-election?
• Cold Sunday was a specific meteorological event which took place on January 17, 1982, when unprecedentedly cold air swept down from Canada, sending temperatures in the United States far below existing all-time record lows?
• Eduardo Malapit, mayor of Kauai, Hawaii, from 1974 to 1982, was the first mayor of Filipino descent in the United States?
• Peotone Mill, a windmill built in 1871, was donated to the village of Peotone, Illinois in 1982 after being idle for nearly a century, and was registered on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in the same year?
• the United States has a numerical system of bicycle routes (similar to the system for roads and highways), which hasn't been expanded since its creation in 1982?
• the Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang was built in 1982 to commemorate the "victory" of Korea over Japan in the WWII?

1960

• Sofia Petrovna, a book by Russian writer Lydia Chukovskaya written in 1939-1940, and published in the West in 1960s, was published in the Soviet Union only in 1988?
• David Gross and Alan Kotok built Expensive Tape Recorder, a digital audio program that ran on MIT's TX-0 computer circa 1960?
• the 1960–1961 NBC Western series Klondike featured James Coburn as con man Jeff Durain in the Alaskan gold rush town of Skagway?
• the dispute regarding the distribution of the Zira and Firozpur administrative districts to India was settled as part of an agreement between the governments of India and Pakistan in 1960, thirteen years after partition?

1969

• Boston Red Sox pitcher Mike Nagy was selected as American League rookie pitcher of the year in 1969, but never pitched another full season due to injury?
• Prince Charles was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester in 1958, though his actual investiture did not take place until 1 July 1969?
• "I Want You Back", the 1969 debut single by The Jackson 5, was originally intended for both Gladys Knight & the Pips and Diana Ross, and has been sampled by Blackstreet, Jay-Z, and Lil' Romeo?
• American Zoetrope was originally housed in a warehouse in San Francisco in 1969?
• capital punishment in the Vatican City was legal (but not carried out) between 1929 and 1969?
• Charles S. Joelson resigned from the United States House of Representatives on September 4, 1969 in order to become a judge in the New Jersey Superior Court?
• in 1969 noted writer Norman Mailer ran for Mayor of New York City advocating New York City secession?
• on Christmas Eve 1969, when California lawyer and noted political activist Ricardo Cruz was a law student at Loyola Law School, he was arrested for leading a march of several hundred demonstrators protesting the newly constructed, $4 million St. Basil's Cathedral?
• on December 26 and 27, 1969 during the War of Attrition the elite special forces unit Sayeret Matkal kidnapped a whole Egyptian P-12 radar system in a mission called Operation Rooster 53?

2007

• Colombian National Police Sub-Intendant John Frank Pinchao was kidnapped by the FARC guerrillas for almost 9 years, until finally escaping in 2007?
• Adriana Pirtea lost the 2007 Chicago Marathon to Berhane Adere when Adere slipped down the side of the street and crossed outside of the finish-line tape?
• Robert Adley became on December 10, 2007, the newest Republican member of the Louisiana State Senate, just fifty-six days after he was easily reelected as a Democrat in the October 20 jungle primary?
• a massive mudflow destroyed two-thirds of the Valley of Geysers on June 3, 2007?
• former world chess champion Garry Kasparov helped to organise the Saint Petersburg March of the Discontented (pictured) on 3 March 2007?
• in 2007, the John Edwards's headquarters in the online game Second Life was attacked by the griefing group the Patriotic Nigras?
• on November 3, 2007, Navy beat Notre Dame after losing for 43 consecutive years, ending college football's longest bilateral streak?
• the 2007 main event World Series of Poker bracelet, awarded on July 17, 2007, is made with 136 grams of 18-carat white gold set with 120 diamonds?
• the Dead Plane EP is one of five limited edition singles and EPs released on five different labels by No Age on the same day, March 26, 2007?
• the second line of the Valenciennes tram (pictured) will open in 2007, but will reuse the platform of a railway line that opened in 1838?