LOSE YOURSELF IN 1980

SUMMER OLYMPICS

The British team won five Olympic gold medals – Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett, Daley Thompson and Allan Wells for athletics, and Duncan Goodhew for swimming – the UK finishing ninth overall. However, in response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Moscow Olympics was boycotted by 65 nations, including the United States, West Germany, Canada, Japan and China.

RONALD REAGAN FOR PRESIDENT

The former Republican Governor of California defeated Jimmy Carter in the US Presidential Elections. The results showed that Reagan won 489 electoral votes against 49 for the Democrats. At the age of 69, the onetime useful B-film leading man was then the oldest President-Elect in the history of the USA. He became the 40th President of the United States.

JOHN LENNON MURDERED

On the evening of December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shot former Beatle John Lennon four times as he entered the Dakota apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The musician was rushed by police car to St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center but was pronounced dead on arrival at 11.15pm. Lennon had moved to New York from London in 1971 with his wife, Yoko Ono.

Moscow and Los Angeles were the only two cities to pitch for the 1980 Olympics. LA won in 1984 – Russia boycotted them. Reagan was famous for many gaffes in office. ‘Trees cause more pollution than automobiles,’ is one of our favourites. Lennon had...