The 1980s became the Me! Me! Me! generation of status seekers.   During the 1980s, hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts, and mega-mergers spawned a new breed of billionaire.  Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley, and Ivan Boesky iconed the meteoric rise and fall of the rich and famous.  If you've got it, flaunt it and You can have it all! were watchwords.   Forbes' list of 400 richest people became more important than its 500 largest companies.  Binge buying and credit became a way of life and 'Shop Til you Drop' was the watchword.  Labels were everything, even (or especially) for our children.  Tom Wolfe dubbed the baby-boomers as the 'splurge generation.'  Video games, aerobics, minivans, camcorders, and talk shows became part of our lives.   The decade began with double-digit inflation, Reagan declared a war on drugs, Kermit didn't find it easy to be green, hospital costs rose, we lost many, many of our finest talents to AIDS which before the decade ended spread to black and Hispanic women, and  unemployment rose.  On the bright side, the US Constitution had its 200th birthday, Gone with the Wind turned 50,  ET phoned home, and in 1989 Americans gave $115,000,000,000 to charity.  And, Internationally, at the very end of the decade the Berlin Wall was removed - making great changes for the decade to come!   At the turn of the decade, many were happy to leave the spendthrift 80s for the 90s, although some thought the eighties TOTALLY AWESOME. 
 

Science and technology made terrific strides in the eighties.  Large numbers of Americans began using personal computers in their homes, offices, and schools.  Columbia, America's first reusable spacecraft was launched in 1981.  A sad day in our history was January 28, 1986, when space shuttle Challenger exploded 74 seconds after liftoff at Cape Canavaral, Florida killing all seven astronauts, including school teacher Christa McAuliffe.  Research money allowed for studies and new treatments for  heart,cancer, and other diseases.  Major advances in genetics research led to the 1988 funding of the Human Genome Project.  This project will locate the estimated 80,000 genes contained in human DNA. (Try the Timeline)

During this decade Wayne Williams was arrested in Atlanta for the murders of 23 black children, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman Supreme Court Justice, 52 hostages were released from their 444 days of captivity in Iran, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial inscribed with 57,939 names of American soldiers killed or missing in Vietnam was dedicated, income climbed more than 20 percent, Ivan Boesky ofDrexel Burnham Lambert made headlines with Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman presidential candidate,  Jesse Jackson was the first black candidate, the stock market tripled in 7 years yet survived the 1987 crash,  and televangelist Jim Bakker was sentenced to 45 years for selling bogus lifetime vacations.  The sexual revolution encountered a major adversary when Rock Hudson died of AIDS in 1985.  Prisons overflowed and violent crime rates which, in 1980, had tripled since 1960, continued to climb with the appearance of crack in 1985.  From 1985 to 1990 the use of cocain addiction was up 35 percent, though the number of users had declined.  Nancy Reagan's Just Say No campaign had great influenceToward the end of the decade, President Bush called for a kinder, gentler nation and volunteerism and contributions reached an all time high.

Families changed drastically during these years.  The 80s continued the trends of the 60s and 70s - more divorces, more unmarrieds living together, more single parent families.  The two-earner family was even more common than in previous decades, more women earned college and advanced degrees, married, and had fewer children.
 

LINKS

YEAR TITLE ARTIST
1980 Please Don't Go - single K.C. and the Sunshine Band
1980 The Wall - album Pink Floyd
1981 Woman in Love - single Stevie Wonder 
1981 Greatest Hits- album Kenny Rogers 
1982 Ebony & Ivory - single Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder
1982 Tattoo You - album Rolling Stones
1983 Let's Dance - single David Bowie
1983 Flashdance - album Sound Track
1984 To All the Girls I've Loved Before - single Julio Iglesias, Willie Nelson
1984 An Innocent Man - album Billie Joel
1985 Night Shift - single The Commodores
1985 Born in the U.S.A.- album Bruce Springsteen
1986 That's What Friends are For - single 
 Group
1986 Whitney Houston - album Whitney Houston
1987 Give me Wings - single Michael Johnson
1987 The Joshua Tree - album U2
1988 Got My Mind Set on You - single George Harrison
1988 Dirty Dancing - album Soundtrack
1989 Better Man - single Clint Black
1989 Nick of Time - album Bonnie Raitt

LINKS

BOOKS
 

A Chronicle of American Music 1700-1995 - ML200.H15  - Arranged by year, historical highlights, world cultural highlights, American art and literature, music - commercial and cultural.

Music Since 1900 - ML197.S634 - Arranged by day, includes important premiers and musical events.
The Great American Song Thesaurus - ML128.S37L4 - Arranged by year, summary of world and musical events, list of important songs.
Show Tunes 1905-1985 - ML390.S983 - Features important composers.  Lists their shows and the published music for each show.
Illustrated History of Popular Music - ML3470 .M36 - 20 volumes covering the music, events, and people of Rock.
 
1980: John Lennon shot dead
Former Beatle John Lennon has been shot dead by an unknown gunman who opened fire outside the musician's New York apartment.

The 40-year-old was shot several times as he entered the Dakota, his luxury apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side, opposite Central Park, at 2300 local time.

He was rushed in a police car to St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center, where he died.

His wife, Yoko Ono, who is understood to have witnessed the attack, was with him.

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