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Star Wars Movie Premier
This was one of the defining motion pictures in cinema history, and, for many people who lived during the era of bewilderment and cynicism following U.S. Pres. -
Three Mile Island Meltdown
This was a cooling malfunction caused by part of the core to melt reactor 2. -
Jimmy Carter Elected President
When Carter pardoned all Vietnam draft evaders and negotiated several major foreign policy agreements. He also confronted stagflation. He established diplomatic relations with China and he also confronted stagflation. -
Mount. St. Helens Eruption
A high speed blast leveled millions of trees and ripped soil from bedrock. The eruption fed a towering plume of ash for more than nine hours, and winds carried the ash hundreds of miles away. -
Iran Hostages Released
On this day the hostages were finally released, but this happened after Ronald Reagan had been sworn in as president. -
Assassination Attempt on President Reagan
The president of the United States was shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C. When Reagan was returning to his limousine after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton hotel. -
Iran/ Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair, also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered around arms trafficking. -
Challenger Shuttle Explosion
It was an explosion of the U.S. space shuttle orbiter Challenger. -
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was the explosion of the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine and also near the Belarus border in the Soviet Union. -
George H.W. Bush Elected President
Republican from Texas and the incumbent vice president for two terms under President Ronald Reagan, took office following his landslide victory over Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall was the first step towards German reunification. In 1989, political changes in Eastern Europe and civil unrest in Germany put pressure on the East German government to loosen some of its regulations on travel to West Germany. -
Start of the Persian Gulf War
The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial. naval bombardment on 17 January 1991, continuing for five weeks. This was followed by a ground assault on 24 February. -
Original U.S.A. Olympic Basketball Dream Team
This was known as the best basketball team ever. This team had 11 future Hall of Famers. They mostly won all their games by at least 30 points. -
Bill Clinton Elected President
Clinton was elected president in the 1992 election, defeating the incumbent Republican Party president George H. W. Bush, and the independent businessman Ross Perot. He became the first president to be born in the Baby Boomer generation. -
Rodney King Decision & L.A. Riots
The jury found Koon and Powell guilty, and they were sentenced to 30 months in prison. Wind and Briseno were acquitted on all charges. King himself sued Los Angeles for negligence and was awarded $3.8 million. -
Launch of Google
The first version of Google was released in August 1996 on the Stanford website. BackRub is written in Java and Python and runs on several Sun Ultras and Intel Pentiums running Linux. It used nearly half of Stanford's entire network bandwidth. -
Bill Clinton Impeached by the House of Representatives
He was formally impeached by the House on two charges. The specific charges against Clinton were lying under oath and obstruction of justice. -
World Trade Center/Pentagon/Shanksville, PA Attacks
On this day, two planes crashed into the twin towers. Tus was a terrorist attack. ALdo on this day. multiple planes crashed in different places.