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Brian's World> 80s> 80s Timeline
Brian's 80s Timeline
This page will feature lots of 80s information and events presented in chronological order.
1980
January 1, 1980: New Years Day; The decade of decadence begins.
1981
1982
1983
August 1, 1983: The United States increased their support to Chad. An aircraft carrier was positioned off the coast of Libya.
August 2, 1983: James Jamerson, a Motown bass player dies in Los Angeles at age 45.
August 5, 1983: Crosby, Stills, and Nash star David Crosby is sentenced to five years in prison for cocaine possession and three years for possession of illegal firearms from a Dallas, TX judge.
August 6, 1983: Nomi Klaus, a performace artist known for his operatic voice dies of AIDS in New York at age 38.
August 10, 1983: It is announced that audio cassette sales in the US account for 53 percent of all music sales.
August 13, 1983: KC and the Sunshine Band hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart with "Give It Up".
August 17, 1983: Songwriter Ira Gershwin dies in New York at age 86.
August 20, 1983: "Eighteen Greatest Hits", a Michael Jackson/Jackson 5 compilation hits #1 on the UK Album Chart.
August 20, 1983: Culture Club become the first group in 20 years to have three singles from their debut album enter the US Top Ten.
August 20, 1983: Johnny Ramone , from the punk band The Ramones, suffers a near-fatal blow to the head during a street fight over his girlfriend.
August 26, 1983: Russian President Andropov offers to destroy SS20 missles "to the level equal in number to those in Britain and France" if the US cancel their plans to deploy further missles in Europe. The offer is rejected.
August 27, 1983: Dub poet Michael Smith is stoned to death in Jamaica, one day after addressing a political meeting.
August 28, 1983: Thin Lizzy play their farewell gig at the last day of the Reading Rock Festival.
August 31, 1983: All 269 people on board a South Korean Boeing 747 are killed when Soviet fighters destroy the plane for violating Soviet airspace.
August 1983: Marc Almond announces his disenchantment with the music business. He vows to quit and never return to the forefront of pop.
August 1983: Limahl is kicked out of the band Kajagoogoo and begins a solo career.
August 1983: AC/DC hire a new drummer, Simon Wright.
August 1983: ELO drummer, Bev Bevan, replaces Bill Ward in Black Sabbath due to the fact that Bill "is far too sick to tour".
August 1983: Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger (both from The Beat/English Beat fame) announce their new group, General Public.
August 1983: Bauhaus calls it quits.
August 1983: The Au Pairs announce their break up.
August 1983: Rip Rig & Panic announce their split up.
September 1, 1983: US President Ronald Reagan orders an amphibious force (including 1600 Marines) to sail to Lebanon following further outbreaks of fighting in Beirut.
September 3, 1983: After 8 weeks at #1 on the US Singles Chart, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police is ousted by The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dream (Are Made Of This)".
September 3, 1983: UB40 hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart with "Red Red Wine".
September 8, 1983: The British Embassy advises British citizens to leave Lebanon due to the continued fight for control over Beirut.
September 10, 1983: Michael Jackson's album THRILLER (already a #1 album for 19 weeks) returns to the #1 position on the US Album Chart. It knocks The Police's Syncronicity album to #2.
September 10, 1983: New Order's "Confusion" is the best selling independent single in the UK.
September 12, 1983: During a meeting of the UN Security Council, the Soviet Union vetoes a resolution "deeply deploring" the shooting down of the South Korean airliner and calls for a UN inquiry.
September 17, 1983: Paul Young hits #1 on the UK Album Chart with NO PARLEZ.
September 21, 1983: Fighting in Lebanon escalates and President Reagan accuses Syria of blocking attempts to negotiate a peace treaty.
September 22, 1983: The Everly Brothers play their first concert in over ten years at The Royal Albert Hall.
September 22, 1983: Billy Joel hits #1 on the US Singles Chart with "Tell Her About It".
September 22, 1983: UB40 top the UK Album Chart with LABOUR OF LOVE.
September 22, 1983: Culture Club reaches #1 on the UK Singles Chart and remains there for six weeks.
September 22, 1983: Reggae artist Prince Far I is assassinated by gunmen at his home in St. Catherines's Jamaica. Motives for the murder are unknown.
September 1983: The Clash fire founder/guitarist Mick Jones.
September 1983: Bow Wow Wow fire their singer Annabella Lwin.
September 1983: Within a span of a few weeks Marillion drummer Andy Ward is replaced by John Marter. Marter is replaced by Johnathan Mover. Mover is replaced by Ian Mosley.
October 15, 1983: Genesis' album GENESIS enters the UK Album Chart at #1.
October 15, 1983: Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" reaches the top position on the US Singles Chart.
October 22, 1983: Sales of Culture Club's single for "Karma Chameleon" pass the one million mark in the UK. It becomes only the third platinum single of the eighties. (The others are Human League "Don't You Want Me" and Dexy's Midnight Runners "Come On Eileen".)
October 22, 1983: Culture Club's album COLOUR BY NUMBERS debuts at #1 on the UK Album Chart.
October 22, 1983: The Jam's album SNAP! debuts at #2 on the UK Album Chart.
October 25, 1983: President Reagan orders US troops to invade Grenada "just in time to thwart a Soviet-backed take-over of the island of Cuba".
October 1983: Vince Clarke, of Depeche Mode/Yazoo fame, announces his new music project, The Assembly.
October 1983: John Lydon (Sex Pistols) begins touring in the UK with his new band Public Image Ltd.
October 1983: John Coghlan, ex-Status Quo, starts a new band named Stranger.
October 1983: Don Snow (formally of Squeeze)starts a new band named Out.
October 1983: Greg Lake replaces John Wetton in Asia.
October 1983: Peter Wolf leaves the J. Geils Band to pursue a solo career.
October 1983: Chris Stamey leaves the DBs.
October 1983: Mick Moody leaves Whitesnake.
November 5, 1983: Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" reaches #1 on the UK Singles Chart.
November 12, 1983: Lionel Richie reaches #1 on the US Singles Chart with "All Night Long".
November 12, 1983: Lionel Richie's album CAN'T SLOW DOWN knocks Culture Club's COLOUR BY NUMBERS from the #1 position.
November 19, 1983: Tom Evans, former bass player with Badfinger is found hanged at his home in Surry, England at the age of 36.
November 23, 1983: The Soviet Union breaks off peace talks in Geneva as it appears they are losing the arms race.
November 26, 1983: Quiet Riot's METAL HEALTH becomes the best selling album in the US.
November 26, 1983: "PYT" becomes the sixth US Top Ten single from Michael Jackson's TRILLER album.
November 1983: Stan Ridgeway leaves the band Wall Of Voodoo.
November 1983: Guitarist Wayne Hussey leaves the band Dead Or Alive.
November 1983: Former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant announces his new band and embarks on a world tour.
November 1983: Michael Jackson's THRILLER becomes the best selling album in the history of CBS Records formerly held by Simon and Garfunkel's GREATEST HITS.
December 1, 1983: Greenpeace is fined 50,000 British Pounds for disobeying a court ruling forbidding them interfering with nuclear waste being dumped into the Irish Sea.
December 3, 1983: Duran Duran enter the UK Album Chart at #1 with their record SEVEN AND THE RAGGED TIGER.
December 3, 1983: U2 enter the UK Album Chart at #2 with UNDER A BLOOD RED SKY.
December 10, 1983: "Say Say Say" by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson becomes the best selling single in the US.
December 10, 1983: Paul Young's NO PARLEZ album returns to the top of the UK Album Chart.
December 10, 1983: The Flying Pickets reach #1 on the UK Singles Chart with "Only You".
December 17, 1983: Ousted PLO leader Yasser Arafat leads his troops in an evacuation of Tripoli.
December 28, 1983: Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys drowns while diving near Marina del Ray, CA at age 39.
December 31, 1983: Michael Jackson's THRILLER once again returns to the #1 position on the US Album Chart. The album is selling faster than originally a year ago. It becomes only the third album in history to have worldwide sales in excess of 20 million.
December 1983: After 491 weeks, Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON overtakes Johnny Mathis' GREATEST HITS as the longest running chart album in the history of Billboard Magazine.
December 1983: Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon" becomes the best selling UK single in the eighties.
December 1983: Guitarist Brian Robertson leaves Motorhead.
December 1983: Tony Kaye replaces Yes keyboardist Eddie Jobson.
December 1983: Jake Burns (Stiff Little Fingers) announces his new band, Jake Burns & The Big Wheel.
December 1983: Pete Townshend issues a statement saying that The Who will never work as a band again.
1984
January 14, 1984: BBC Radio One stops playing "Relax" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood because of "overtly obscene lyrics".
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August 5, 1984: Film actor Richard Burton dies at the age of 58.
August 13, 1984: During a microphone test, President Regan jokes that "he will begin bombing Russia in five minutes". After tape recordings are made public, the Kremlin issues a statement denouncing his sense of humor.
August 16, 1984: John DeLorean, maker of the famous DeLorean car is cleared of all eight counts of possessing and distributing cocaine.
August 11, 1984: Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Two Tribes" became the UK's longest reigning chart topper since back in 1955 when Slim Whitman's "Rose Marie" did the same. It was number one for nine weeks.
August 11, 1984: Ray Parker Jr.'s song "Ghostbusters" hit number one on the US Singles Chart. It remained there for three weeks.
August 18, 1984: Wham's song "Careless Whisper" finally knocks Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Two Tribes" from the top position on the British Singles Chart.
August 25, 1984: The Mont Louis, a French cargo ship collides with a German Ferry and sinks in The English Channel. Thirty 15-ton containers of radioactive toxic gas are retrieved after an extensive salvage operation.
August 25, 1984: Truman Capote, and American novelist, is found dead at his home in Los Angeles. He was 59 years old.
August 1984: Captain Sensible left The Damned which he co-founded back in the summer of 1976.
August 1984: Richard Branson, who started Virgin (records, cola, airlines) announced he was closing The Venue, one of London's most prestigious clubs, after owning it for two years.
September 1, 1984: Tina Turner at age 46, hit number one on the US Singles Chart with "What's Love Got To Do With It?" and held the top spot for three weeks.
September 3, 1984: Citizens of black townships near Johannesburg, South Africa begin looting and setting fires after several people are killed by South African riot police.
September 15, 1984: Prince Harry is born to the Prince Charles and Princess Diana of Wales.
September 15, 1984: Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax" became the longest running chart hit, at 56 weeks, since Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me" in 1967/68. It was also the fourth best selling single of all time in the UK.
September 20, 1984: More than 20 people are killed when an Islamic militant suicide driver rams a car with explosives into the US Embassy in East Beirut.
September 29, 1984: Police seize an Irish trawler carrying a huge load of weapons and ammunition to the IRA from American sympathizers.
September 30, 1984: The music division of Thorn EMI reports a world-wide loss of $5 million during the last six months.
September 1984: Helen Terry leaves Culture Club after working with them for 18 months.
September 1984: After a police raid and confiscation of 17 offending titles from a local record shop, magistrates in Nothwich, Cheshire, England rule that albums by Crass, Crucifixion, Agent Orange and various others are obscene.
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November 25, 1984: Recording began for Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?".
December 2, 1984: One of London's longest running pub venues, The Hope And Anchor, closes after financial difficulty.
December 2, 1984: Nick Heyward, Feargal Sharkey, and Alvin Stardust participate in a Benefit For Ethiopia at London's Royal Albert Hall.
December 3, 1984: Band-Aid's charity fund raising single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" hits stores in the UK.
December 8, 1984: Frankie Goes To Hollywood get their third number one in the UK with "The Power Of Love". The are the first group since Gerry and the Pacemakers (in 1963) to hit number one with their first three singles.
December 8, 1984: Patrick Cavanaugh, manager of The Coasters, is convicted of first degree murder in the slaying of band member Buster Wilson. Wilson was found dismembered near Modesto, California in May 1980.
December 25, 1984: Stacey Keach spends Christmas in a British jail on drug charges.
December 27, 1984: Fil director Sam Peckinpah died in Los Angeles, California at age 59.
December 1984: The Dream Syndicate break up.
December 1984: The LA band Gun Club break up.
December 1984: ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill accidentally shoots himself in the abdomen with a .38 Derringer he kept in his boot.
1985
January 2, 1985: A Soviet Cruise missle crashes in Finland after being fired from a submarine in the Barents Sea. Russian apologies are accepted after they explain that it was only a target which went astray.
January 7, 1985: Prince's PURPLE RAIN album continues to hold the number one position in the US Album Chart. It has been there since August of 1984. PURPLE RAIN is the best selling album since Michael Jackson's THRILLER.
January 7, 1985: Sade's DIAMOND LIFE has spent it's entire chart life of 23 weeks in the UK Album Top 10. It was the best selling album of 1984
January 9, 1985: The coldest winter in 50 years is in full swing. Even Texas and the South of France are pounded by snow and blizzards.
January 11, 1985: A Brazilian rock festival in Rio is the biggest ever staged. Performers include Queen, Rod Stewart, Yes, Iron Maiden, Whitesnake, and AC/DC.
January 14, 1985: Band Aid's "Do The Know It's Christmas?" becomes the best selling British single of all time.
January 20, 1985: President Reagan is inaugurated for his second term in the White House.
January 28/29, 1985: 46 artists gather to record "We Are The World" as USA For Africa, America's version of Band Aid.
January 31, 1985: President Botha of South Africa offers to release Nelson Mandela, the leader of the outlawed African National Congress, if he agrees to certain demands. Mandela rejects the offer and refuses to cooperate while he and his people are denied freedom.
January 1985: Blues artist Willie Dixon files charges in federal court that Led Zeppelin's 1969 hit "Whole Lotta Love" was substantially plagiarized from his 1962 composition "You Need Love", first recorded by Muddy Waters.
January 1985: Three former members of Mothers Of Invention, Don Preston, Bunk Gardner, and Jimmy Carl Black sue Frank Zappa, alleging breach of contract and fraud.
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April 13, 1985: USA For Africa's "We Are The World" hit number one on the US Singles Chart and remained there for four weeks.
April 20, 1985: USA For Africa's "We Are The World" hit number one on the British Singles Chart and remained there for two weeks.
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July 13, 1985: Bob Geldolf's benefit concerts, Live-Aid, take place at Wembley Stadium in London and Philadelphia, PA.
July 13, 1985: Duran Duran's theme for the James Bond film "A View To A Kill" reached number one on the US Singles Chart and remained there for two weeks before falling to number four on July 27th.
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1986
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1987
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1988
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1989
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June 1989: Brian Nern, founder and ruler of Brian's World graduates from Fairfax High School in Fairfax, VA. Phew! (hee hee)
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