Decade: 1980's
What's in:
Marriage
Fax's
Frozen yogurt
Suchi in America
Swatch watches
Pac Man video game
Vanity Fair Magazine under Tina Brown
Pets - Shar Peis, Akitas
Sharper Image catalogues
Sony Watchman
Diets - Fit for Life, The Rotation Diet, The 8-Week Cholesterol Cure, The T-Factor Diet, Never Say Diet,
Weight Watchers, The J. Diet
Jane Fonda's workouts
Macintosh computers
Yuppies
CD Players
Cocaine
Cabbage Patch dolls
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Martin Luther King Day celebrations
Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita
California Wines
Baby Boomers
Animated movies
Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs
as pets
California Raisins
Joe Isuzu - lying spokesman
Live Aid
Los Angeles Lakers
Health foods: oat bran, fiber
Dinosaurs
Disk cameras by Kodaks
Federal Express
Australia
Minneapolis
Skateboards
Soft cookies
Condoms
Merger Madness
NutraSweet
Fitness
Anti-smoking
New Age Movement
Jane Fonda's Workout Tape
Home-testing: pregnancy, cancer, etc.
The Mall
Cellular & cordless phones
Call waiting
800-900-970 telephone #'s
Laser beams
Fiber-optic cables
Desktop publishing
Microwave ovens
Filofax
15 second TV Commercials
Cabbage Patch Dolls
One-stop shopping
California Cuisine
Space shuttle Columbia
Halley's comet
Tampons in China
Bob Geldof's Live Aid Concert
Time Warner Inc.
MTV
Lottery fever
The rose as America's national flower
Execution by lethal injection
Whos's in:
President Ronald Reagan
President George Bush
Francois Mitterrand of France
British PM Margaret Thatcher
Michael Jackson
Madonna
Basketball greats Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird
Physicist Stephen Hawking
Ice Hockey players Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe
Essayist Robert Fulghum
Lee Iococca
Robert De Niro
Mikhail Gorbachev
Robin Williams
Eddie Murphy
Pee-wee Herman
Corazon Aquino
Mike Tyson
Mayor Clint Eastwood
Prince Charles and his Di
Prince Andrew and his Fergie
Gary Kasparov
Geraldine Ferraro
Anatoly Karpov
Sandra Day O'Connor
Nolan Ryan
Vanessa Williams
Sally Ride
Bob Geldof
Paul Hogan
Arsenio Hall
The Aussie yachtsmen who stole America's cup
Dr. Ruth Westheimer
Lech Walesa
Rupert Murdock
Bishop Desmond Tutu
Elie Wiesel
Ding Xiaoping
Wolfgang Puck
Roseanne Barr
Ted Turner
Bill Cosby
Dustin Hoffman
Lee Iococca
Steve Jobs
Tina Turner
Nancy Reagan
Bruce Springsteen
George Michael
Oprah Winfrey
Alice Waters
Donald Trump
Steven Spielberg
The Times/Events:
Berlin Wall dismantled after 28 years; Germany reunited
Brits triumph in short war between Britain and Argen- tina for the Falkland Islands
Cold War Ends
Racial riots in Miami cause $100 million damage
Rhodesia granted independence; new name Zimbabwe
U.S. invade Panama to capture Noriega
Terrorism around the world: Cruise ship Achille Lauro hijacked-tourist murdered; U.S. bombs Libya to
retaliate for their bombing Berlin disco
U.S. invades Grenada to boot out Marxist government
Titanic raised
Space shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after launch; 7 astronauts killed
8 year Iran-Iraq War
52 U.S. hostages freed from Iran after 444 days
Chernobyl Nuclear accident
Drought/Famine in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa
Population figures in millions
(1989)
China, 1,069
India, 833.4
U.S.S.R., 287
U.S., 247.1
Japan, 123
Italy, 57
Britain, 56.6
France, 55.8
FASHION & BEAUTY:
Women:
The "fresh, sexy, simple look"
Georgio Armani suits
Karl Lagerfeld rescues House of Chanel
Azzedine Alaia's skintight look
Trend toward elegance
Ponchos in the winter
Leg warmers
Less makeup
Padded shoulders
The "Madonna look"
Spandex
Mousse in hair
Shoulder pads
Retin-A
Norma Kamali's "sweats"
Single diamond earring
Men:
Reeboks
Nike
Minoxidil to help grow hair
Ponytails
Tie-die jeans
Single earring
Long, baggy shorts
Loosely cut jackets
Padded shoulders
Suspenders back in
Hot Models
Jerry Hall, Tatjana Patitz, Iman, Talisa Soto, Brooke Shields
ART:
Robert Motherwell's 'Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 172 (with blood)'
Neo-Geo Art
Neo Expressionists:
Julian Schnabel
David Salle
Jean Michel Basquiat
'Quality Meats for the Public,' 'Red Joy,' 'Charles the First,' 'Leonardo da Vinci's Greatest Hits' by Jean
Michael Basquiat
'White Armoire and White Table' by surrealist Marcel Broodthaers
BAD GUYS:
AIDS
Muammar al-Qaddafi
The Iran-Contra affair-Oliver North, Admiral John M. Poindexter and a befuddled Ronald Reagan
Ayatollah Khomeni
Pete Rose
Manuel Noriega
Nicolae Ceaucescu
Ivan Boesky
George Steinbrenner
John W. Hinkley, Jr.
Bernhard Goetz
Capt. Joseph Hazelwood and the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 200,000 bbl of crude oil off the Alaskan coast
Michael Milken
Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos
Jim and Tammy Bakker
Baptist Rev. Jerry Falwell
Acid Rain
Toxic waste
Global warming: the Greenhouse effect
Ozone hole in atmosphere over Antarctica
Savings and Loans
ABSCAM bribery scandal; 7 congressmen convicted
Kurt Waldheim
Smoking Crack
Leona Helmsley
Zodiac Killer
Ted Bundy
Richard Ramirez the 'Nightstalker' mass murderer
Mass murderer Henry Lee Lucas
The people who injected Tylenol capsules with strychnine in New York
Wayne B. Williams
The burglars who stole $22 million from Brinks vault in Rome
"Wilding"
The guys who sunk the Greenpeace Ship 'Warrior Rainbow' in New Zealand
Gary Hart and model Donna Rice
Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic
MONEY:
Junk Bonds: Hundreds of small companies financed, led by Drexel Burnham Lambert
Major stock market drops in 1987 and 1989
Collapse of S&Ls
Recession 1980,'81,'82
Michael Milken's salary 1987-$550 million
Stanford M.B.A. grad avg. starting 1988: $53,515
Law school grad, avg. starting 1988 $37,000
Minimum wage 1981-89 - $3.35 per hr.
U.S. deficit (Fiscal 1989) $152.1 billion
One million Americans are millionaires (1986)
Corporate stocks overtake real estate as prime investment of wealthy people
The Price of Art:
Jasper Johns $17 million
Van Gogh $53.9 million
Monet $24.6 million
Renoir $17.6 million
Rembrandt $10.3 million
Gauguin $24.2 million
Picasso $51.3 million
Braque $9.5 million
Turner $10 million
Einstein manuscript $1.2 million; Da Vinci notebook $5 million; Original script of "Citizen Kane" $210,000;
$4.3 million for Mozart manuscript of 9 symphonies
19.7 carat emerald $2.1 million; 85.9 carat pear-shaped diamond $9 million
1c British Guiana 1856 rare postage stamp $850,000
Japanese worldwide real-estate investments
World's largest bond crash-Washington Power System defaults on $2 billion
Hot stox: Disney, Genetech
Federal debt triples, business debt increases 2.5 times, household debt doubles, personal savings flags
Single bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite initialed by Thomas Jefferson sold at Christie's for $157,500
$100,000,000 fine paid by Ivan F. Boesky to SEC for insider trading
Sunken treasure worth over $400 million found off Florida in 350 year-old Spanish galleon
Time buys Warner Communications for $14 billion creating Time Warner Inc.
MUSIC:
Madonna
Rap Music
Pink Floyd's double album "The Wall" with movie and tour
Michael Jackson's "Thriller"
most successful album in history - 48 million sales
Bruce Springsteen
Also: Prince, Billy Joel, Queen, Olivia Newton-John, Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand, Kenny Rogers, Dolly
Parton, Sheena Easton, Juice Newton, Kim Carnes, Rick Springfield, Lionel Richie, Darryl Hall and John
Oates, J. Geils Band, Jennifer Warnes, Irene Cara, Bonnie Tyler, Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Deniece
Williams, Cyndi Lauper, George Michael, Wham, Huey Lewis and the News, Whitney Houston, Robert Palmer,
Guns 'n Roses, Tiffany, Bobby McFerrin, Def Leppard, Chicago, Paul Simon, Janet Jackson, Bette Midler, Fine
Young Cannibals
Dire Straights 'Brothers in Arms' sells 21 million copies
LITERATURE:
James Michener's "Space," "The Covenant," and "Texas"
Truman Capote's "Music for Chameleons"
James Baldwin's "Evidence of Things Not Seen"
Gore Vidal's "Lincoln"
Robert Ludlum: "The Bourne Identity," "The Parcival Mosaic," "The Aquitaine Progression," "The Icarus
Agenda"
John Le Carre's "The Russia House," "The Little Drummer Boy"
"Gorky Park" by Martin Cruz Smith
"Rage of Angels," by Sidney Sheldon
"Noble House," "by James Clavel
"The Hotel New Hampshire," by John Irving
Steven King: "Firestarter," "The Talisman," "Pet Sematary," "Skeleton Crew," "The Tommy- knockers,"
"Cujo," "Christine," "It," "Misery"
"Red Storm Rising," "The Cardinal of the Kremlin," by Tom Clancy
John Updyke's "Rabbit Redux," "Rabbit is Rich," "The Witches of Eastwick"
Gabriel Garcia Marquez "Love in the Time of Colera"
Toni Morrison's "Tar Baby," and "Beloved"
Fay Weldon's "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil"
E.L. Doctorow's "Loon Lake," "World's Fair"
Anne Tyler's "The Accidental Tourist," "Breathing Lessons"
Alice Walker's "The Color Purple"
Salman Rushdie "Midnight's Children," "The Satanic Verses"
Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," "Cat's Eye"
"The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan
Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" sells 1.7 million copies
DIED:
Record albums
John Lennon
Movie Stars:
Lord Laurence Olivier, Trevor Howard, David Niven, Peter Sellers, James Mason, Ray Bolger, Rudy Vallee,
Mae West, George Raft, Peter Lawford, Natalie Wood, Cary Grant, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Danny
Kaye, William Powell , James Cagney, Ray Milland, Dolores Del Rio, Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth,
Broderick Crawford, Jackie Coogan, Fred Astaire, Norma Shearer, Orson Welles,
Yul Brynner, Rock Hudson, Bette Davis, Johnny Weissmuller,Ingrid Bergman, Lee Marvin, Grace Kelly,
Simone Signoret, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, Raj Kapoor
TV Stars:
John Belushi, Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Jackie Gleason, Desi Arnaz, Phil Silvers, Lorne Greene, Dan Rowan,
Marlin Perkins, Dave Garroway, Arthur Godfrey, Jack Webb
25,000 in volcano eruption/ mud avalanche in Colombia
Afternoon newspapers
1,500 by toxic gas in Cameroons
Up to 4,000 by U.S. troops in Panama invasion
Vic Morrow and 2 vietnamese children killed by helicopter on "Twilight Zone" movie set
57 in second Mt. St. Helens volcano eruption
Earthquake body count: 20,000 in Mexico City; 4,000 in Algeria; 3,000 in Southern Italy; 1,000 in Turkey;
very few in massive 7.1 San Francisco quake
Airline deaths: 269 in Korean airline shot down by Soviets; 259 in bombed Pan Am London- N.Y. flight; 290
in Iranian jet shot down by U.S. Navy ship; 520 in Japanese Airline crash into mountain
241 Marines in Beirut terrorist attack
5,000 + dead as Hutus battle Tutsis in Burundi
392 when train falls into canyon in South Africa
400 trampled to death at Mecca as Iranians clash with Saudi riot police near Great Mosque
90 in hailstorm in Bangladesh
Playboy Clubs
Commercial whaling by Soviets
7 astronauts in Space Shuttle Challenger
11,000 in Bangladesh
hurricane
700 in Chinese massacre at Tiananmen Square
3,350 in toxic gas cloud at Bhopal, India Union Carbide plant
452 in Mexico City explosion
A liberal Supreme Court
The E.R.A.
M*A*S*H
Gimbels
B. Altman's
Guilt-free
Guilt-free
Guilt-free
Guilt-free
sex
smoking
drugs
eating of fatty foods
Public Baths
The Moral Majority
Saturday Review
Emperor Hirohito
George Meany
Andre Kostelanetz
Red Smith
Meyer Lansky
Cecil Beaton
Baron Philippe de Rothschild
Carl Furillo
James Beard
Salvador Dali
Billy Fury
Jimmy Durante
Karen Carpenter
Liberace
Bill Haley
Yuri Andropov
Eubie Blake
Frederick Loewe
Ethel Merman
Thelonious Monk
Efrem Zimbalist
Andy Warhol
David Susskind
Henry Cabot Lodge
Jacob Javitz
Robert Mapplethorpe
Andy Gibb
King Umberto II Italy
Sir Michael Redgrave
Robert Preston
Marc Chagall
Maria von Trapp
Montovani
Archbishop Oscar Romero
Harry Bridges
Jesse Owens
Marvin Gaye
Gen. Omar Bradley
Joe Louis
Abbie Hoffman
Sugar Ray Robinson
Gen. Mark Clark
Earl Fatha Hines
Ansel Adams
Buster Crabbe
Sam Ervin
Harold Arlen
Arthur Michael Ramsey Archbishop of Canterbury
Duchess of Windsor
Count Basie
Muddy Waters
Norm Van Brocklin
Christine Jorgensen
Marshall Tito
Paul Butterfield
Bob Marley
Chester Gould
Kim Philby
George Jessel
Hermione Gingold
Jack Dempsey
Andres Segovia
Ayatollah Khomeini
Satchel Paige
Benny Goodman
Geraldine Page
Alan J. Lerner
Meredith Willson
Kate Smith
Dennis Day
Helen Gahagan Douglas
Andrei Gromyko
Herman Kahn
Dame Flora Robson
Hyman Rickover
Mel Blanc
Harry Chapin
Herbert von Karajan
Jim Fixx
George Gallop
Averell Harriman
Shah Mohammad Pahlavi Iran
Luis Bunuel
Fred Waring
Lynn Fontanne
Roy Cohn
Ira Gershwin
Rudolf Hess
George Adamson
Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino
Huey Newton
R.D. Laing
Ruth Gordon
Lehman Engel
Henry Moore
Albert Speer
Sir James Pitman
Arthur Schwartz
Hank Greenberg
Roy Wilkins
Laura Ashley
Dan Rowan
Irving Berlin
John Bonham
King Leopold III Belgians
Ferdinand Marcos
Henry Ford II
Charles Addams
Virgil Thompson
Secretariat (Racehorse)
Anwar Sadat
Terence Cardinal Cooke
Nelson Riddle
Sir Ralph Richardson
Moshe Dayan
Pierre Mendes-France
Jacqueline du Pre
Edith Head
Woody Herman
Indira Gandhi
Vladimir Horowitz
Leonid Brezhnev
Siobhan McKenna
Sheilah Graham
Stepin Fetchit
Christina Onassis
Rachel Roberts
Lotte Lenya
John Carradine
Marty Feldman
Roy Orbison
Jascha Heifetz
Stuart Symington
Andrei Sakharov
Colonel Harland Sanders
Aleksey Kosygin
Arthur Rubinstein
Joan Miro
Billy Martin
Hoagy Carmichael
Dennis Wilson
Dian Fossey
Marshall McLuhan
Rick Nelson
Choreographers:
Bob Fosse, Alvin Ailey, Jr., Michael Bennett, Gower Champion, Robert Joffrey, George Balanchine
Directors:
George Cukor, Sam Peckinpah John Cassavetes, Lee Strasberg, Otto Preminger, Sergio Leone, Alfred
Hitchcock, Abe Burrows, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, William Wyler, John Huston, Francois Truffaut, John
Houseman, Joseph Losey, Josh Logan, Jacques Tati
Writers:
Christopher Isherwood, Henry Miller, Bruce Chatwin, Alistair MacLean, Joy Adamson, Tennessee Williams,
Barbara Tuchman, L. Ron Hubbard, Laura Z. Hobson, Bernard Malamud , Simone de Beauvoir, Erskine
Caldwell, Enid Bagnold
Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, Daphne du Maurier, Irwin Shaw, Robert Heinlein
William Saroyan, Sir John Betjeman, Kenneth Clark, Louis L'Amour, Lillian Hellman, John Cheever, I.F.
Stone, C.P. Snow, Ross Macdonald, Kenneth Tynan, Paddy Chayevsky, Truman Capote, Irving Stone, Joseph
Alsop, Lowell Thomas, Alec Waugh, Georges Simenon, Christy Brown, Robert Graves, James Baldwin, Clare
Boothe Luce, Jean Anouilh, Katherine Anne Porter, Robert Penn Warren, Nathaniel Benchley, Dwight
Macdonald, Marc Connelly, Samuel Beckett
SLANG & BUZZ WORDS:
Hey, Dude
To have an attitude about something or someone
Shop 'til you drop
Wannabes
Yuppies
Let me share this with you...
Get out of my face
Bodacious!
Gnarley, man
Dweeb
I don't do windows
Read my lips
Where's the beef?
Just say no
Cool out
Chill out
To waffle (be indecisive)
Yo
Significant other
Quality time
Longtime companion
He's my main man
SCIENCE & MEDICINE:
First artificial heart, Jarvik-7, implanted in Barney Clark at University of Utah Med Center
Swiss scientists announce first successful cloning of a mammal, replicating three mice
Genetic fingerprinting
Cold-fusion experiments at University of Utah discredited by others
Huge star discovered over 2,000 times bigger than sun- R136a
Fiber-optic cable research
World's first separation of Siamese Twins joined at the head at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore
First test tube quadruplets born in Australia
William J. Schroeder 2nd man to receive artificial heart
Voyager 2 reaches Neptune, 2.8 billion miles away from earth
Medical community faces AIDS epidemic
First gene transplant in mammals
Genetic engineering provides first artificial insulin, hepatitis B vaccine, experiments in cancer- fighting cells
First patent to Harvard on genetically altered mouse predisposed to getting cancer
First surgery on a fetus
RELIGION:
Over 11,000 couples, followers of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon are married in various mass ceremonies in
South Korea and New York
Pope John Paul II shot, seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square Vatican City by Turkish terrorist
Worldwide Catholic population 580 million (1982)
ENTERTAINMENT:
Plays:
Neil Simon's "I Ought to Be in Pictures," "Brighton Beach Memoirs," "Biloxi Blues," "Broadway Bound"
Harold Pinter's "Betrayal"
Alan Ayckbourne's "Henceforward," "A Small Family Business"
Sam Shepard "Fool for Love"
August Wilson "the Piano Lesson," "Fences"
David Mamet "Glengarry Glen Ross," "Speed the Plow"
Wendy Wasserstein's "The Heidi Chronicles"
Beth Henley's "Crimes of the Heart"
Musicals:
Les Miserables
Phantom of the Opera
Cats
Sunday in the Park with George
La Cage Aux Folles
Movies:
Tim Burton's "Batman"
Robert Zemeckis's "Back to the Future," and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
Steven Spielberg's "E.T. The Extraterrestrial," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of
Doom"
Oliver Stone's "Platoon"
"The Last Emperor"
Barry Levinson's "Rain Man," "Tin Men," "Good Morning Vietnam"
Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing"
George Lucas's Star Wars Trilogy: "The Empire Strikes Back, "Return of the Jedi,"
Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull"
And: "Coal Miner's Daughter," "The French Lieutenant's Woman," "POn Golden Pond," "Gandhi," "Tender
Mercies," "Ghostbusters," "Amadeus," "Kiss of the Spider Woman," "Out of Africa," "Sex, Lies and
Videotape," "Dangerous Liaisons"
Television:
Drama: "thirtysomething," "Magnum, P.I.," "Hill Street Blues," "Falcon Crest, " "Simon and Simon,"
"Dynasty," "Cagney & Lacey," "L.A. Law"
Comedy: "The Wonder Years," "Golden Girls, "Newhart," "Family Ties," "Cheers," "Gimme a Break," "The
Facts of Life" "Rosanne," "The Cosby Show"
Quiz: "Wheel of Fortune"
MEDIA:
Cable TV especially CNN, HBO, MTV
Spy Magazine
Fox Television-new network
USA Today
'The Far Side,' cartoons by Gary Larson, debuts in the San Francisco Chronicle
Walter Cronkite retires as CBS anchorman after 19 years
Washington Post returns Pulitzer Prize after learning that reporter invented winning story
New York Times is first newspaper to break AIDS story (calling it rare cancer in homosexuals)
Time and Warners merge