The counting game :D

[neicey69]

1981

Jan. 1 - Gasoline and diesel are sold by the litre rather than the gallon.
Nov. 13 - The Canadarm is first deployed aboard the Space Shuttle.

All the Canadian-exclusive news I could find from 1981 :L

[ShadyVale]

1982..

Jan 7th - Commodore 64 8-bit home computer is launched by Commodore International in Las Vegas; it becomes the all-time best-selling single personal computer model.
Jan 30th - The first computer virus, the Elk Cloner, written by 15-year old Rich Skrenta, is found. It infects Apple II computers via floppy disk.
Apr 17th - By Proclamation of the Queen of Canada on Parliament Hill, Canada patriates its constitution, gaining full political independence from the United Kingdom; included is the country's first entrenched bill of rights.
Apr 20th - Pitfall! is released for the Atari 2600, becomes the dominate genera in the gaming industry, until Nintendo 64's release of Banjo-Tooie, on Nov, 20 2000.
May 1st - A crowd of over 100,000 attends the first day of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, TN, which is kicked off with an address by Pres. Ronald Reagan. Over 11 million people attend during its 6-month run.
Jun 8th - Pres. Ronald Reagan becomes the first American chief executive to address a joint session of the British Parliament.
Jun 11th - E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is released in the United States, which would become the biggest box-office hit for the rest of the decade.
Jul 2nd - Larry Walters, a.k.a. Lawn Chair Larry, flies 16,000 feet (4,900 m) above Long Beach, California, in a lawn chair with weather balloons attached.
Jul 9th - Intruder Michael Fagan breaches Buckingham Palace security as far as into the bedroom of Elizabeth II
Aug 17th - The first compact discs (CDs) are produced in Germany.
Sep 1st - The U.S. Air Force Space Command is founded.
Oct 1st - In Orlando, Florida, Walt Disney World opens the second largest theme park, EPCOT Center, to the public for the first time.
Oct 1st - Sony launches the first consumer compact disc (CD) player (model CDP-101).


*neicey, you don't have to just do Canadian historical events. I choose to stick mostly to US stuff so it leaves the door open for others to post things about their countries, but you can add anything that you find interesting or think others would find interesting. For example in 1981, the assassination attempt on Pres Ronald Reagan, the first DeLorean DMC-12 rolling off the production line (thanks Ireland), shuttle Columbia becoming the first manned reusable spacecraft to return from orbit.

[neicey69]

1983

Jan. 19th – Apple Inc. releases the Apple Lisa personal computer.
Mar. 25th - Michael Jackson performs Billie Jean and introduces the moonwalk.
Apr. 4th - The Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on its maiden voyage.
Jun. 1st - Mario Bros is released for the 2600.
Sept. 16th – President Ronald Reagan announces that the Global Positioning System (GPS) will be made available for civilian use.
Nov. 2nd - U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honor American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. It is first observed in 1986.
Nov. 18th – A Christmas Story is released.
Dec. 2nd – Michael Jackson's Thriller video is aired on MTV for the first time.

[ShadyVale]

1984...

Apr 1st - singer Marvin Gaye is shot to death by his father, a day before his 45th birthday.
Apr 4th - U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
Apr 23rd - U.S. researchers announce their discovery of the AIDS virus.
Apr 24th - An X-class solar flare erupts on the Sun.
May 8th - The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Jun 3rd - Ronald Reagan visits his ancestral home in Ballyporeen, the Republic of Ireland.
Jun 6th - Tetris is officially released in the Soviet Union on the Electronika 60.
Jul 13th - Terry Wallis, a 19-year-old living in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, falls into a deep coma after a severe automobile accident; he will eventually awaken 19 years later on Jun 13, 2003.
Aug 30th - Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.
Sep 26th - The U.K. and the People's Republic of China sign the initial agreement to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.
Oct 5th - Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Oct 11th - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
Oct 12th - The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the British Cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.
Oct 31st - Galileo forgiven by Vatican for work on the Earth orbit 368 years after being condemned.
Dec 10th - Cisco Systems is founded.
? - Crack cocaine is first introduced into Los Angeles and soon spreads across the United States in what becomes known as the crack epidemic.
? - Chrysler introduces the first vehicles to be officially labeled as "minivans". They are branded as the Chrysler Town & Country, Dodge Caravan, and Plymouth Voyager.

[Neko92]

1985...


Bowling For Soup - 1985
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K38xNqZvBJI

[ShadyVale]

1986...

Jan 19th - The first PC virus, Brain, starts to spread.
Jan 24th - The Voyager 2 space probe makes its first encounter with Uranus.
Jan 28th - Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates 73 seconds after launch, killing the crew of seven astronauts (Francis R. Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair, Gregory B. Jarvis, S. Christa McAuliffe)
Feb 19th - The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.
Apr 26th - A mishandled safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union "killed at least 4,056 people and damaged almost $7 billion of property". Radioactive fallout from the accident is concentrated near Belarus, Ukraine and Russia and at least 350,000 people are forcibly evacuated from these areas. After the accident, "traces of radioactive deposits unique to Chernobyl were in nearly every country in the northern hemisphere"
Jul 5th - The Statue of Liberty is reopened to the public after celebrating its centennial and an extensive refurbishment.
Dec 23rd - The Rutan Voyager completes the first nonstop circumnavigation of the earth by air without refueling in 9 days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds.
? - The first commercially available 3D printer is sold.

[Neko92]

1987

Rick Astley's song "Never gunna give you up" is released.... Becomes a meme 20 years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[ShadyVale]

1988...

Mar 24th - The first McDonald's restaurant in a country run by a Communist party opens in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
May 31st - U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan addresses 600 Moscow State University students, during his visit to the Soviet Union.
Jun 23rd - NASA scientist James Hansen testifies to the U.S. Senate that man-made global warming has begun.
Aug 11th - Al-Qaeda is formed by Osama bin Laden.
Sep 29th - NASA resumes shuttle flights, with Shuttle Discovery, after being grounded since the Challenger disaster.
Oct 27th - Pres. Ronald Reagan decides to tear down the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow because of Soviet listening devices in the building structure.
Nov 2nd - The Morris worm, the first computer worm distributed via the Internet, written by Robert Tappan Morris, is launched from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S.
Nov 10th - The U.S. Air Force acknowledges the existence of the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk in a Pentagon press conference.
Nov 15th - In the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle Buran is launched by an Energia rocket on its maiden orbital spaceflight (the first and last space flight for the shuttle).
Dec 6th - During a successful career comeback, singer Roy Orbison dies of a heart attack in Hendersonville, Tennessee aged 52.
Dec 9th - The last Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant roll off the assembly line in a Chrysler factory in the U.S., ending production Chrysler products in the country.
? - TAT-8, the first transatlantic telephone cable to use optical fibers, is completed. This led to more robust connections between the American and European Internet.
? - Near the end of the year, the first proper and official Internet connection to Europe is made between Princeton, New Jersey and Stockholm, Sweden.
? - The U.S. Drought of 1988 causes big crop damage in many states, impacts many portions of the U.S. and causes around $60 billion in damage. Multiple regions suffer in the conditions. Heat waves cause 4,800 to 17,000 excess deaths while scorching many areas of the U.S.

[Neko92]

1989

[ShadyVale]

1990...
Jan 1st - PSINet and EUnet begin selling Internet access to commercial customers in the U.S. and Netherlands respectively.
Jan 7th - The Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public because of safety concerns.
Jan 13th - Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected black governor as he takes office in Richmond, VA.
Feb 14th - The Pale Blue Dot photograph of Earth is sent back from Voyager 1 after completing its primary mission, from around 3.5 billion miles away.
Feb 27th - Exxon and its shipping company are indicted on 5 criminal counts for the Exxon Valdez oil spill (Mar. 24th 1989)
Mar 1st - Steve Jackson Games is raided by the U.S. Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Mar 6th - An SR-71 sets a U.S. transcontinental speed record of 1 hour 8 minutes 17 seconds, on what is publicized as its last official flight.
Mar 8th - The Nintendo World Championships were held within the Fair Park's Automobile Building, kickstarting an almost year long gaming competition across 29 American cities.
Mar 15th - The first high speed (T1) transatlantic Internet connection is made over the TAT-8 fiber optic cable between CERN and Cornell University, allowing faster Internet communication between North America and Europe.
May 22nd - Microsoft releases Windows 3.0.
June - Joanne Rowling gets the idea for Harry Potter while on a train from Manchester to London Euston railway station. She begins writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone which will be completed in 1995 and published in 1997.
Jun 2nd - The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 88 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12; 37 tornadoes occur in Indiana, eclipsing the previous record of 21 during the Super Outbreak of April 1974.
Jun 7th - Nickelodeon Studios opens. Universal Studios Orlando opens the same day.
Jun 26th - U.S. Pres. George H. W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act, designed to protect disabled Americans from discrimination.
Aug 1st - RELCOM is created in the Soviet Union by combining several computer networks. Later in August, the Soviet Union got its first connection to the Internet.
Aug 12th - "Sue", the best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex specimen ever found, is discovered near Faith, South Dakota by Sue Hendrickson.
Aug 28th - The Plainfield Tornado (F5 on the Fujita scale) strikes the towns of Plainfield, Crest Hill, and Joliet, Illinois, killing 29 people (the strongest tornado to date to strike the Chicago metropolitan area).
Oct 3rd - East Germany and West Germany reunify into a single Germany.
Oct 30th - The first transatlantic fiber optic cable TAT-8 fails, causing a slowdown of Internet traffic between the U.S. and Europe.
Nov 13th - The first known web page is written.
Dec 1st - Channel Tunnel workers from the U.K. and France meet 40 metres beneath the English Channel seabed, establishing the first land connection between Great Britain and the mainland of Europe for around 8,000 years.

1990 World Population Census: World 5,263,593,000; Africa 622,443,000, Asia 3,167,807,000, Europe 721,582,000, Latin America 441,525,000, North America 283,549,000, Oceania 26,687,000.