1980s - Additional Significant World-wide Events

Additional Significant World-wide Events

Worldwide

• Beginning of the AIDS pandemic.
• There were numerous protests demanding that the US government take action against AIDS, which were fuelled by the AIDS-related deaths of celebrities such as Rock Hudson and Liberace, and by the case of Ryan White, a child who became infected by HIV through contaminated blood supplies.
• National safety campaigns raised awareness of seat belt usage to save lives in car accidents, helping to make the measure mandatory in most parts of the world by 1990. Similar efforts arose to push child safety seats and bike helmet use, already mandatory in a number of regions.
• Rejection of smoking based on health concerns increased throughout the Western world.
• Political correctness in the 1980s and increasingly in the following 1990s, was a trend of behaviour, in Western societies, designed to fit the mores of those opposed to forms of prejudice against certain minority groups .
• The role of women in the workplace increased greatly. Continuing the 1970s' trend, more women in the English-speaking world took to calling themselves "Ms.", rather than "Mrs." or "Miss." A similar change occurred in Germany, with women choosing "Frau" instead of "Fräulein" in an effort to disassociate marital status from title. In most Western countries, women began to exercise the option of keeping their maiden names after marriage; in Canada, legislation was enacted to end the practice of automatically changing a woman's last name upon marriage.
• Opposition to nuclear power plants grew, especially after the catastrophic 1986 Chernobyl accident.
• Environmental concerns intensified. In the United Kingdom, environmentally friendly domestic products surged in popularity. Western European countries adopted "greener" policies to cut back on oil use, recycle most of their nations' waste, and increase focus on water and energy conservation efforts. Similar "eco-activist" trends appeared in the US in the late 1980s.
• Increased awareness and opposition to white-minority apartheid rule in South Africa occurred in the Western world.
• Counterculture in the eastern world revolved around "pro-democracy" stances in opposition to multiple communist states perceived as authoritarian.
• Gay rights became more widely accepted in the Western world.
• Militancy against communist governments in Europe and Asia, collapse of the Warsaw Pact precipitated the end of the Cold War.
• A joint American-French expedition discovers the wreck of the RMS Titanic on 1 September 1985 at a depth of 2.5 miles (4 km) at 41°43′55″N 49°56′45″W / 41.73194°N 49.94583°W / 41.73194; -49.94583.

Africa

• Opposition against Apartheid in South Africa and worldwide grows to a mass international condemnation of racial segregation policies comes to a peak by December 1989 in the Springbok summit when SA President de Klerk grants clemency to imprisoned ANC activist Nelson Mandela who was released in February 1990.
• The 1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia occurred, resulting in international efforts to help the Ethiopian people, including the famous Live Aid concert in July 1985.

Americas

• Ten thousand Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum on 6 April 1980. On 7 April the Cuban government granted permission for the emigration of Cubans seeking refuge in the Peruvian embassy.
• The 1986 World's Fair, Expo 86, was held in Vancouver, Canada. It was the last fair held in North America and was considered a great success in comparison to the then-recent American Expositions.
• In 1984 crack cocaine reached American cities and the marked the start of the crack epidemic.

Asia

• Vietnam continued to occupy Cambodia and battle the Khmer Rouge throughout the entire decade. Relations with China remained hostile, and there were frequent border skirmishes, although none were comparable to the 1979 conflict. The country remained one of Asia's poorest and was totally dependent on Soviet economic assistance. Mikhail Gorbachev began reducing foreign aid to the communist bloc in the late 1980s, and this combined with the deaths of elderly Vietnamese leaders such as Le Duan brought about the gradual adoption of a relatively free market system similar to that of China.
• Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, husband of the first female president of the Philippines was shot dead at the Manila International Airport on 21 August 1983. The killers were never identified.
• In China, increasing demands for political freedom culminated in the Tiananmen Square Massacre in June 1989, when tanks and troops of the People's Liberation Army crushed student protesters who were camped in the square, killing or injuring 3000 or more people. Hardliners took over the government afterwards, and China ended the '80s as an international pariah.