The Los Angeles Lakers dominated the 80s, winning five titles (1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, and 1988).

The Iran hostage crisis began in November 4, 1979, when a group of militarized Iranian college students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seized hostages, and demanded the extradition of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from the United States. It ended with the release of captives on January 20, 1981.

On July 7, 1981, Ronald Reagan--who had pledged during his 1980 presidential campaign to appoint the first woman to the Supreme Court--announced that he would nominate Sandra Day O'Connor as an Associate Justice. During her time on the Court, some publications ranked O'Connor among the most powerful women in the world.

Madonna became known as "The Material Girl" after her hit single of the same name hit the charts in 1984. She hates it, claiming she would never have done the song if she knew the name would stick.

On the original classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces was covered by nine stickers, and each sticker was one of six solid colors: white, red, blue, orange, green, or yellow.

In 1982, the compact disc (CD) was the most sophisticated way to store and play music. On the 25th anniversary of its first public release, it was estimated that 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.

Black Monday marked the largest drop in global equities since 1914, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 22% of its value. In Australia and New Zealand, the day is also referred to as Black Tuesday because of the time zone difference from the United States.

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members, including high school teacher Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first teacher in space. The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the Space Shuttle program and the formation of a special commission appointed by President Reagan to investigate the accident.

At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Greg Louganis struck the springboard with his head during the preliminary rounds, leading to a concussion. He completed the preliminaries despite his injury, then earned the highest single score of the qualifying round on his next dive and repeated the dive during the finals, earning the gold medal by a margin of 25 points.

During its 1986 apparition, Halley's Comet became the first comet to be observed in detail by spacecraft, providing the first observational data on the structure of a comet nucleus and the mechanism of coma and tail formation. A short-period comet visible from Earth every 75-76 years, it should appear again in 2061.