What Was The Most Important 1980's Historical Event That Changed Your Life?

Self (somewhat) ^

[SilvieWaldorfMD]

What 1980's event helped re-shape your life, thoughts, person and/or change your focus and outlook on life?

You can answer as many times as you desire.

[Clemenza]

Very true, which is why I have problems with my cousins, who spent their formative years under President C—stain.

[wastedyears]

Looks like Joe Satch likes the wah pedal a lot.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Fieldmarshal, didn't your brother meet Charles Hanover Saxe Coburg once?"

I don't have a brother. He met my nephew at his school in Berkeley, California. The photo is at the top of my FReeper page, it made all the national newspapers the day some network reporter took it.

[Former War Criminal]

You had to mention Billy B.

Yeah...that hurt.

[wastedyears]

I have that album on CD.

I like Expresso Love.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’d say the event was 1986 when my junior high/high school (public school) decided to run a mock election for Governor of my state. The tyrannical principal wanted a unanimous vote for the corrupt rodent running and that struck me as being akin to a Soviet-style vote. I had been a (brainwashed) liberal Democrat up to that point, and that was the final straw for me, and I told them where they could get off, and I was the fly in the ointment of that dog and pony show election. I’ve been a pain in their ass for the last 22 years... however, I have matured from switching from partisan Dem to partisan Republican to being a Conservative first by the late ‘90s. That’s a party switch almost unto itself.

[wastedyears]

I do believe I was a natural birth.

[CalvaryJohn]

Chernobyl. What a Godawful disaster.

[Clemenza]

We all know that Bob Stanley was really responsible for that debacle. Stanley was to the Sox in the 80s what Kenny Rogers was to the Mets in the 1990s.

The amazing thing is how Jesse Orozco made the national papers for getting the final out in game seven. The guy spent much of '86 blowing saves.

[mdittmar]

It was Carters malaise speech "A Crisis of Confidence" in 1979 for me,I was able to vote for the first time in 1980.

[FredZarguna]

Historical event, folks. Personal history isn't history.

In 1960 we were cowering in school corridors several times a year expecting the Russians to blow the world to smithereens. I'd never have believed when I was watching The Wall being built that by 1989 I would be watching the German people tear it down; symbolic of the close of a bright decade in the cause of human liberty, in a century that was often very dark.

[EDINVA]

Jimmuh Catah. The last time I voted Dem.

I’m with you (tho Carter was more 70’s than 80’)

Other than getting married in 1980 and having 3 kids in 1982-84, I’d have to say pulling the lever for Reagan in 1980, from which I not only never turned back, but have become prouder of each year. And believe me, as a former Dem, I stood in that voting booth for quite some time before pulling that lever! God, am I glad I did !!!!

[Perdogg]

I see that and just sigh.

[Perdogg]

Achilles Lauro?

[Billthedrill]

1. The Miracle On Ice.

2. The U.S. Navy achieves a dramatic increase in operational efficiency due to my leaving active duty in 1980.

3. Reagan's election.

4. The microcomputer revolution (I saw it from Silicon Valley).

5. The fall of the Soviet Union.

There was an awful lot of stuff in between, but those were the signal events from my personal point of view. Item (1) may seem curious to anyone who wasn't around at the time - it was the final crashing repudiation to the post-Vietnam malaise of Jimmy Carter and a finger thrust into the face of the international Left. In itself it was a silly athletic contest; in the context of the time it was a watershed.

[Perdogg]

08/13/81 - 20 years after the Berlin Wall was erected President Reagan signed “Reaganomics” into law.

[P.O.E.]

Solidarity, Pope John Paul II, and Ronald Reagan are to be credited with the collapse of the USSR.

[allmendream]

1989 (i was class of 89). Reagan showed just how Capitalism and Conservatism was supposed to work at home, the Berlin Wall came down, and the jubilant spirit of freedom that was sweeping the globe was brutally crushed under the tank tracks of the Chinese Communists. I still don't buy Chinese, not until they are free.

http://and-still-i-persist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/image.jpeg

[Clemenza]

4. The microcomputer revolution (I saw it from Silicon Valley).

I can remember a textbook showing a photo of Woz and Jobs and thinking "do these guys shower?" I also remember my family having this in their magazine rack:

[rabscuttle385]

What 1980's event helped re-shape your life, thoughts, person and/or change your focus and outlook on life?

The days on which my parents legally immigrated to the United States: my mom, through Los Angeles; and my dad, through New York. I thank God that my sister and I were born here instead of in the Philippines or behind the Iron Curtain in Romania.