Here’s What Was Happening in the World the Year You Were Born

1980: Mount St. Helens erupts

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens, a volcano in Skamania County, Washington—50 miles north of Portland, Oregon—erupted. It triggered the biggest landslide in the earth’s recorded history and created an ash cloud that spread across the country. The natural disaster left 57 people dead, making it the deadliest and most destructive volcanic eruption in U.S. history.

Steve Olson, author of Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens, told PBS that the event has “probably been the most important volcanic eruption in the history of the study of volcanoes,” prompting research that has been beneficial worldwide.

1981: Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer get married

On July 29, 1981, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer (later the Prince and Princess of Wales) were married at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The ceremony, which cost $48 million—equivalent to roughly $170 million today—wasn’t just a wedding. It was a worldwide phenomenon and major pop-culture moment that grabbed a global television audience of 750 million people in 74 countries. While the pair appeared to be in love the day of their nuptials, their rocky marriage ended in 1996, just a year before Diana was killed in a car crash.

1982: The Tylenol murders captivate the nation

On Sept. 28, 1982, a 12-year-old girl was hospitalized after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol. She was dead within a few hours. The following day, six other people in the Chicago area took Tylenol and also died. When police tested capsules from these bottles of Tylenol, they found that the acetaminophen pills had been swapped with tablets containing lethal doses of potassium cyanide.

Within 48 hours, all Tylenol was pulled off the shelves in and around Chicago, and the drug’s manufacturer issued a nationwide recall. The murders sent shockwaves through the country and the rest of the world, and the person responsible for these deaths has still not been identified.

1983: Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space

On June 18, 1983, NASA astronaut Sally K. Ride made history, becoming the first American woman in space with the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger (yes, the same one that exploded in 1986).

When NASA introduced the space shuttle in 1976, it expanded astronaut selection from exclusively pilots to scientists and engineers, and also made women eligible for selection. In 1978, Ride was selected along with five other women for NASA Astronaut Group 8—the first American class to include women. Ride’s famous six-day trip to space opened the door for other female astronauts worldwide.

1984: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated

Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India, was assassinated on Oct. 31, 1984, in New Delhi. Two of her Sikh bodyguards, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, were responsible for her murder. Some believe her assassination was inevitable when, in June 1984, she ordered Operation Bluestar, which put the entire state of Punjab under martial law (a temporary state of military control). It also called for soldiers to invade the precincts of the Golden Temple, the most sacred shrine of the Sikhs, located in the Punjabi city of Amritsar.

As one of the most powerful women of the 20th century, Gandhi’s assassination made headlines worldwide.

1985: Wreckage of the RMS Titanic is discovered

The wreckage of the most famous sunken ship in the world, the RMS Titanic, was discovered on Sept. 1, 1985, roughly 350 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland. It was located in international waters two-and-a-half miles below the ocean surface, at a depth of 12,500 feet. Oceanographer Robert Ballard, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Jean-Louis Michel, of the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea, led the expedition.

The first serious—but unsuccessful—attempt to salvage the Titanic took place in July 1953 by Risdon Beazley Ltd., a Southampton, England-based salvage company. Ballard first tried to locate the Titanic in 1977, but the mission ended in failure. When he finally succeeded eight years later, it captivated people around the world.

1986: Chernobyl

On April 26, 1986, a power surge destroyed Unit 4 of the nuclear power station at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in what was then the Soviet Union. The surge resulted in a massive nuclear explosion and fire and released significant amounts of radioactive material into the environment. Approximately 116,000 people were evacuated from the area after the disaster, with another 230,000 people relocated from the highly contaminated area to other locations in the following years.

One person was immediately killed by the explosion, with another dying from injuries the following day. An additional 30 operators and firemen died within three months of the accident. On top of that, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in the most affected areas, around 5,000 people who were children and adolescents at the time of the explosion have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

Since then, the WHO also estimates there may be up to 9,000 excess cancer deaths as a result of the Chernobyl disaster among evacuees and residents of the contaminated regions of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, as well as those who worked on the cleanup operations. It is considered one of the most serious accidents in the history of nuclear power.

1987: Black Monday stock market crash

On Oct. 19, 1987—also known as Black Monday—the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 22.6%, kicking off the first global financial crisis of the modern era. To put that in perspective, on the first Black Monday (Oct. 28, 1929), which triggered the Great Depression, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by less than 13%. Black Monday of 1987 was one of the first major events resulting from globalization (which was still a new concept at the time), and an indication of just how intertwined global markets had become.

1988: Pan Am flight 103 bombing

On Dec. 21, 1988, Pan Am flight 103 to New York took off from Heathrow Airport in London. After fewer than 40 minutes in the air, the plane exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. The disaster killed all 449 passengers and crew members on board, as well as 11 people on the ground. It was one of the world’s deadliest acts of air terrorism, until 9/11.

The bombing took place at 30,000 feet, scattering debris over 845 square miles, in what’s considered the world’s largest crime scene. After identifying the bomb from a small fragment of the wreckage, British and American officials charged two Libyan intelligence operatives with the crime. In 2020, federal officials charged a third person for the bombing.

1989: Berlin Wall falls

The 96-mile Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 as a way to prevent people living in communist and Soviet-controlled East Germany from escaping to democratic and capitalist West Germany, which was controlled by the U.S., the United Kingdom and France. In addition to barbed wire and other fortifications, there were armed soldiers stationed along the Berlin Wall, with orders to shoot anyone trying to cross over from East Germany to West Germany.

The 1980s saw the weakening of the Soviet Union, leading to revolutions in communist bloc countries. On Nov. 4, 1989, roughly 250,000 people gathered for a mass protest in East Berlin. Five days later, the Berlin Wall started to come down. There had been confusion over whether East Germany was loosening their travel restrictions, and that night, people on both sides of the wall began dismantling it—a symbol of the fall of the Iron Curtain.

1990: First web server and foundation for the World Wide Web are created

The internet came about after decades of technological innovations, including those from Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist. He graduated from Oxford University and joined CERN—the large particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland—as a software engineer. Though scientists from around the world came to use the lab’s accelerators, Berners-Lee observed that sharing information was difficult.

The internet was developing quickly, and Berners-Lee’s work made it easier to navigate: In addition to creating the first web server, he also wrote the first web page editor and browser (called “WorldWideWeb.app”). The first web page existed on the open internet by the end of 1990.

1991: Breakup of Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia (meaning “the land of the southern Slavs”) formed after World War I when the Slovenian, Croatian and Bosnian territories that had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire united with the Serbian Kingdom. The country was dismantled under Nazi occupation during World War II, but was reunified after the war. Despite being a communist state, Yugoslavia broke away from Soviet influence in 1948, and its leaders focused on unifying the country.

But following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism and other revolutions across Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia became unstable. The Yugoslav republics of Slovenia and Croatia held referenda and voted overwhelmingly for independence in December 1990 and May 1991, respectively. Both countries declared their independence on June 25, 1991. Independence for Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia followed, while Serbia and Montenegro joined together to form the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. By January 1992, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia no longer existed.

1992: Establishment of the European Union

On Feb. 7, 1992, the Treaty on European Union, also known as the Treaty of Maastricht, was signed in the Netherlands by foreign-affairs and finance ministers of 12 countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.

The treaty established rules for the European Union, including the future single currency, foreign and security policy and closer cooperation in justice and home affairs. It entered into force the following year when the European single market was launched along with the “four freedoms” of movement for people, goods, services and money within the union.

1993: Branch Davidians and Waco, Texas, siege

On April 19, 1993, a 51-day standoff between the Branch Davidians, a religious sect, and federal law enforcement agencies in Waco, Texas, ended in tragedy. It started on Feb. 28, 1993, when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) tried to raid the group’s compound in order to serve warrants related to child abuse and weapons allegations.

But the Branch Davidians, including their leader, David Koresh, were tipped off ahead of time and were prepared to defend their Waco compound. The raid ended in a shoot-out that resulted in the deaths of four federal agents and 16 injuries. After that, the FBI assumed control of the negotiations, which took place during that 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian headquarters. In an attempt to end the standoff, federal officials pumped tear gas into the compound. The standoff ended when the compound was destroyed in a fire, killing 76 people, including children.

1994: End of apartheid in South Africa

On April 27, 1994, South Africa held its first democratic elections in which people from all races could participate. While South African president F.W. de Klerk decided to abandon apartheid, or enforced racial segregation, in 1990, it wasn’t until Nelson Mandela won the presidency in 1994—becoming the first Black person to do so—that it was considered the formal end of apartheid.

Prior to his win, Mandela, then 75, had spent 27 years in prison for fighting apartheid before being released in 1990. Once he was no longer incarcerated, he continued to work toward ending apartheid, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 along with de Klerk. Mandela served as president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, when he stepped down and retired from active politics.

1995: Oklahoma City bombing

At 9:02 am on April 19, 1995, a bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children. An Army veteran and security guard named Timothy McVeigh was responsible for creating, setting and detonating the bomb, which he made from fertilizer, diesel fuel and other chemicals. It’s considered the worst act of domestic terrorism in the nation’s history.

In a 2021 letter to a friend, McVeigh explained why he bombed the federal building. First and foremost, he said that it was “a retaliatory strike” or “counter-attack” in response to multiple raids that federal agents carried out in previous years, which typically ended with violence and damage. Specifically, he mentioned the FBI’s standoff with the Branch Davidians in Waco as an example.

1996: Dolly the sheep is cloned

On July 5, 1996, Scottish scientists made history when Dolly the sheep was born in Scotland. But Dolly (named after country singer Dolly Parton) wasn’t just any sheep: She was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. Prior to her birth, scientists believed that this was impossible, because specialized adult cells had a certain job—like a skin cell or a liver cell—and only held the information to do that job.

But Dolly started life in a test tube, as a single mammary cell of a Finn Dorset sheep. Its nucleus was removed and placed inside an empty egg cell from a Scottish Blackface Sheep. After six days, it was clear that the embryo was developing normally, and it was transferred to a surrogate mother. The world didn’t find out about Dolly until Feb. 22, 1997, when the scientists involved published their first research paper on their breakthrough.

1997: Heaven’s Gate mass suicide

Marshall Applewhite (known as Do to his followers) and Bonnie Nettles (known as Ti) founded Heaven’s Gate in the 1970s as part of the New Age movement. “Since the earliest days of Heaven’s Gate, Ti and Do taught that a UFO would descend to earth and, in a technological reenactment of the dispensationalist belief in the rapture of the faithful, bodily save the select few true believers,” religion professor Benjamin Ethan Zeller explained in a paper published in Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. Do and Ti targeted people disillusioned with society and religion when recruiting new members.

On March 19 and 20, 1997, Applewhite filmed a video message encouraging Heaven’s Gate members to organize a mass suicide because it was “the only way to evacuate this earth.” The suicides took place on March 22 and 23, 1997, in a suburban San Diego house, though police didn’t discover the bodies of the 39 members until March 26. It was quickly evident that the members took their own lives voluntarily in an event that was carefully orchestrated.

1998: Google is founded

It was the mid-1990s, and though the internet was becoming increasingly popular, effective search engines didn’t yet exist. So Stanford University graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page created one. It differed from other search engines of the era because it used a mathematical formula to determine the relevance of websites and how they should be ranked (called PageRank).

Brin and Page decided to create a search engine that used PageRank, naming it Google. After unsuccessfully attempting to sell PageRank to AltaVista for $1 million in 1998, the pair managed to secure funding for their search engine. On Sept. 7, 1998, in a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California, they incorporated the company as Google Inc.

1999: Columbine school shooting

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold—two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado—brought several firearms and homemade explosives to school. The bombs they planned to detonate in order to maximize casualties failed to explode, so the pair went on a 45-minute shooting spree throughout their school, killing 12 students and one teacher and injuring more than 20 others before taking their own lives. At that point, it was the deadliest school shooting in American history.

The tragedy shocked—and shook—the country, sparking debates about gun violence and gun control that are ongoing to this day. Journals kept by both Harris and Klebold offered clues as to why they’d commit this act of extreme violence. For example, they fantasized about hijacking an airplane and crashing it in New York City. They also specified that they wanted to commit a larger-scale mass murder than the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. Following the shooting, schools across the country implemented new zero-tolerance policies for weapons, installed metal detectors at their doors and hired security guards.

2000: Y2K bug

Instead of being excited about the start of a new millennium, many people in 1999 were apprehensive about the calendar change because of something called the “Year 2000 bug”—or “Y2K,” for short.

The concern was that at midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, computers wouldn’t know how to handle the transition from 1999 to 2000, and that Y2K would cause computer systems in banking, utilities, communications, insurance and manufacturing to malfunction. This, in turn, could trigger massive power outages, transportation shutdowns and bank closures. Or so people thought.

But when the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, nothing happened, and everything continued as usual.

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Sources:

• PBS: “What scientists have learned from Mount St. Helens’ devastating eruption, 45 years later”
• BBC: “The Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer”
• Chicago History Museum: “The Chicago Tylenol Murders”
• NASA: “Sally Ride – First American Woman in Space”
• UPI: “World leaders condemned the ‘senseless’ assassination of Indian prime minister”
• NOAA: “R.M.S Titanic – History and Significance”
• World Nuclear Association: “Chernobyl Accident 1986”
• Federal Reserve History: “Stock Market Crash of 1987”
• FBI: “Pan Am 103 Bombing”
• Office of the Historian: “The Berlin Wall Falls and USSR Dissolves”
• CERN: “A short history of the Web”
• Office of the Historian: “The Breakup of Yugoslavia, 1990–1992”
• European Union: “History of the European Union 1990-99”
• EBSCO: “Waco siege”
• Guardian: “The day apartheid died: South Africa’s first free elections – archive, 1994”
• National Museum Scotland: “The story of Dolly the sheep”
• Cambridge University Press: “Making Sense of the Heaven’s Gate Suicides”
• EBSCO: “Google is founded”
• EBSCO: “Columbine High School Massacre”
• National Museum of American History: “Y2K”

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