Signs of Our Times

1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

1982  

  • Vietnam War Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
  • Space Shuttle Columbia completes its first mission to space
  • E.T. is top grossing movie
  • First Successful Heart Transplant
  • Olivet High School, Class of 1982 Graduates
1983  

  • U.S. Embassy in Lebanon is bombed in a terrorist attack
  • Cellular phones make their first U.S. appearance in Chicago
  • Crack cocaine is developed
  • Cabbage Patch dolls is the toy of the year
  • Michael Jackson’s Thriller Album sells millions
  • Australia II wins the America’s Cup
  • America invades Grenada
1984  

  • Madonna has first hit with “Like a Virgin”
  • Apple Computers releases the first Macintosh personal computer
  • Photographer Ansel Adams dies at age 82
  • Famine in Ethiopia kills hundreds of thousands
  • Geraldine Ferraro is the first woman to run for vice-president from a major party
  • Ronald Reagan wins re-election
1985  

  • Mikhail Gorbachev becomes general secretary of the Communist party in the U.S.S.R.
  • Les Miserables premieres in London
1986  

  • Space shuttle Challenger explodes after lift-off
  • The Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine explodes
  • Platoon, earns Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
  • Electronic games from Nintendo debut.
  • The U.S. is caught selling arms to Iran during its war with Iraq and using the profits to fund Contra forces in Nicaragua.
1987  

  • Iran-Contra
  • The Class of 1982 Celebrate 5 year Reunion
     
1988  

  • The Satanic Verses, is published
  • Dustin Hoffman wins the Best Actor Academy Award for Rain Man, which also wins Best Picture.
  • Vice-President George Bush wins the presidential election
1989  

  • Soviet forces leave Afghanistan after nine years of war.
  • The Berlin Wall begins to be dismantled
  • The Exxon Valdez runs aground.
  • The United States invades Panama
1990  

  • Nelson Mandela is released from prison
  • The Hubble Space Telescope is launched.
  • Operation Desert Shield begins in the Persian Gulf
  • East and West Germany are united
  • Dances With Wolves is released.
  • Lech Walesa becomes president of post-communist Poland.
1991  

  • The Persian Gulf War begins
  • Clarence Thomas goes to the Supreme Court
  • The USSR officially ends
1992  

  • The Internet Society is chartered, and 1,000,000 host computers are connected in a network.
  • Euro Disney opens in France,
  • China opens its first McDonald's.
  • Riots erupt in Los Angeles after local policemen are acquitted of beating Rodney King the previous year in a videotaped incident.
  • Bill Clinton, is elected president of the United States.
  • The North American Free Trade Agreement establishes the world's largest trading bloc.
  • The Class of 1982 Celebrate 10 year Reunion
1993  

  • The Elvis Presley stamp goes on sale
  • The bombing of the World Trade Center
  • FBI and ATF raid the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas
  • cloned nonviable human embryos.
  • The Hubble Space telescope is repaired
1994  

  • Janet Reno, appoints an independent counsel to investigate the Whitewater
  • Nancy Kerrigan is physically assaulted
  • South Africa elects Nelson Mandela as president
  • Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis dies
  • Paula Jones files a sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton.
  • O.J. Simpson is arrested for murders.
  • Forrest Gump, wins the Oscar for Best Picture of 1994.
  • America Online announces 1 million subscribers.
  • The Channel Tunnel (Chunnel) opens
1995  

  • The bombing of the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City kills 168 people
  • The first rendezvous of a NASA spacecraft with Mir
  • O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders
1996  

  • Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber is arrested
  • The line-item veto is signed into law
  • A bomb explodes During the Olympic in Alanta
  • TWA flight 800 explodes off the coast of Long Island
  • Tiger Woods wins the U.S. Amateur Golf Tournament for the third year in a row and turns to Pro.
  • Prince Charles and Princess Diana are divorced.
  • Bill Clinton is re-elected president
  • JonBenet Ramsey is found dead
1997  

  • Titanic, becomes a blockbuster hit.
  • Heaven's Gate cult commit suicide
  • Timothy McVeigh is found guilty of the Oklahoma City bombing
  • NASA's Pathfinder lands on Mars
  • Dolly the sheep is a cloned
  • Princess Diana is killed in an automobile accident
  • Mother Teresa, dies of a heart attack
  • America Online reaches 10 million subscribers
  • The Class of 1982 Celebrate 15 year Reunion
1998  

  • El Nino, affects the world climate
  • The Internet. users numbers between 30-60 million
  • Microsoft, is charged with allegedly using an operating-system monopoly to unfairly expand into the Internet industry.
  • India and Pakistan, conduct independent underground nuclear tests.
  • Two American embassies are destroyed by terrorist bombings
  • The Clinton sex scandal explodes
  • Starr Report is released in September
  • Clinton becomes the second American president to be impeached.
  • Mark McGwire breaks record with 70 home runs
1999  

  • Michael Jordan announces his retirement from basketball.
  • President Clinton is acquitted of impeachment charges.
  • Joe DiMaggio, dies at age 84.
  • Stanley Kubrick, dies at age 70.
  • Two teenage students kill 15 and wound 23 in Columbine High School
  • John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, sister-in-law die in plane crash
  • Microsoft is found to be a monopoly
  • Panama gains control of the Panama Canal in December.
  • World prepares for Y2K Bug
     
2000  

  • Charles M. Schulz, dies at age 77
  • Completion of mapping the genetic code of a human DNA
  • Elian Gonzalez, returns to Cuba with his father.
  • Hillary Rodham Clinton wins her bid for the U.S. Senate
  • George W. Bush is finally declared the president-elect more than a month after Election Day
     
2001  

  • Dale Earnhardt is killed during the final lap of the Daytona 500
  • California's energy shortage worsens
  • U.S. Navy spy plane makes an emergency landing in China
  • Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh is executed
  • Slobodan Milosevic faces criminal charges at The Hague.
  • September 11, two hijacked airliners slam into the twin towers of the World Trade Center
  • Third airliner crashed into the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C.
  • Fourth airliner crashes in to a field near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • September 18, President Bush addresses the nation
  • Multi-national coalition led by the United States begins a War on Terrorism
     
2002  
 
  • The Class of 1982 Celebrate 20 year Reunion

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Please contact Todd Harris ( olivet1982@harrisarts.com ) for more information.