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Trickle-Down Economics
States that corporate tax cuts are the best way to grow the economy because companies get more money and can hire more workers and increase the supply of labor.
https://www.thebalance.com/reaganomics-did-it-work-would-it-today-3305569 -
1980 Election
American presidential election in which Republican nominee Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter.
https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1980 -
AIDS
Center of Disease Control and Prevention publish a MMWR describing cases of rare lung infection in five young, previously healthy, gay men in Los Angeles. Many other cases like this were reported and this edition of the MMWR mark the first official reporting of what will become known as the AIDs epidemic.
https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/history/hiv-and-aids-timeline -
Release of the American Hostages by Iran
Iran released 52 Americans who had been held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. The hostages were placed on a plane in Tehran as Reagan delivered his inaugural speech.
https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/jan-20-1981-iran-releases-american-hostages-as-reagan-takes-office/ -
Assassination Attempt on Reagan
President Ronald Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as they were leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ronald-reagan-is-shot-by-john-hinckley-jr -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) AKA Star Wars
A program first initiated under President Ronald Reagan to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union.
http://www.coldwar.org/articles/80s/SDI-StarWars.asp -
1984 Election
Election in which Republican Ronald Reagan was elected to a second term, defeating Democrat Walter Mondale, a former U.S. vice president.
https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1984 -
Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika
Programs of the reform that followed a dismal decade for people in the USSR. The aims and results of this program were to reform the Soviet Union whilst maintaining control by the Communist Party but was not achieved.
http://alphahistory.com/coldwar/glasnost-and-perestroika/ -
The "Reagan Doctrine"
A strategy orchestrated and implemented by the United States under the Reagan Administration to overwhelm the global influence of the Soviet Union in an attempt to end the Cold War.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3369 -
Iran-Contra Affair
A secret U.S. government arms deal that freed some American hostages held in Lebanon but also funded armed conflict in Central America.
http://www.history.com/topics/iran-contra-affair -
The Challenger Disaster
On its 10th launch, the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing the seven crewmembers and changed the space program forever.
https://www.space.com/18084-space-shuttle-challenger.html -
1988 Election
American presidential election in which Republican George Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis.
https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1988 -
Unraveling of the Soviet Bloc
Started in Poland when its people voted for a non-communist government. Eastern European Communist dictatorships fell one right after another. By the fall of this year, West and East Germans were tearing down the Berlin Wall with pickaxes.
https://www.sutori.com/item/june-1989-unraveling-of-the-soviet-bloc-the-unraveling-of-the-soviet-bloc-star -
Tienanmen Square Massacre
Chinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters. The brutal Chinese government assault on the protesters shocked the West and brought denunciation and sanctions from the United States.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tiananmen-square-massacre-takes-place -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
When the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swamped the wall with hammers and picks and began to chip away at the wall itself.
http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-wall -
Operation Desert Storm
A military operation to expel occupying Iraqi forces from Kuwait, which Iraq had invaded and annexed months earlier.
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/01/operation-desert-storm-25-years-since-the-first-gulf-war/424191/ -
Collapse of the U.S.S.R.
The Soviet hammer and sickle flag is lowered for the last time over the Kremlin and is then replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier that day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union
