The 1980s have been called “the decade of decadence,” and one of the era’s most notable movie characters, Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko, famously declared that “greed is…good.” But the decade was about more than just excess. It was a period marked by defining events that continue to resonate. The Soviet Unionbegan to collapse, AIDSemerged as a deadly epidemic, and work began on a little thing called the Internet. The decade is also remembered for its contributions to pop culture, which included the debut ofMTV. While influential, the 1980s had a particular impact on Gen Xers, many of whom came of age during the decade…read more

She was serving on the Arizona Court of Appeals when, in 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court. Reagan had promised during his campaign to nominate the first female Supreme Court justice. O’Connor was aware of the implications of her appointment. She later said at an event honoring her career, “I didn’t want to be the last woman on the Supreme Court. If I took the job and did a lousy job, it would take a long time to get another one.” O’Connor was sworn in on September 25, 1981. A moderate conservative, she valued pragmatism and precedent in her 24-year tenure…read more

On June 5, 1981, CDC published a report in the MMWR describing requests for the drug pentamidine to treat a deadly disease called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) in five previously healthy young men in Los Angeles. After the report’s publication, health officials also noticed a spike in cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) among gay men in New York. Health officials were alarmed that outbreaks of both PCP and KS, which were rare, deadly diseases associated with immune suppression, appeared in the same part of the population…read more

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated 46,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 a.m. EST. It was the first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft while in flight.

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a system architecture that has revolutionized mass communication, mass media, and commerce by allowing various computer networks around the world to interconnect. Sometimes referred to as a “network of networks,” the Internet emerged in the United States in the 1970s but did not become visible to the general public until the early 1990s. By 2020, approximately 4.5 billion people, or more than half of the world’s population, were estimated to have access to the Internet. And that number is growing, largely due to the prevalence of “smart” technology and the "Internet of Things," where computer-like devices connect with the…read more

massive oil spill that occurred on March 24, 1989, in Prince William Sound, an inlet in the Gulf of Alaska, Alaska, U.S. The incident happened after an Exxon Corporation tanker, the Exxon Valdez, ran aground on Bligh Reef during a voyage from Valdez, Alaska, to California. Delayed efforts to contain the spill and naturally strong winds and waves dispersed nearly 11,000,000 gallons (41,640 kilolitres) of North Slope crude oil across the sound. The spill eventually polluted 1,300 miles (2,092 kilometres) of indented shoreline, as well as adjacent waters, as far south as the southern end of…read more