30 Facts You Forgot About The 80s
- Elexus Jionde
- Apr 6
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
It's hard to believe that the 1980s were over 40 years ago! How much of that important decade do you remember?
Mr. T was famously pictured getting a kiss from Nancy Reagan in 1983. The move was unexpected, with observers saying it hinted at her ‘mischievous’ nature. Said a surprised Mr. T, “Oh wow! Now that’ll start some scandals. Thank you Mrs. Reagan. Wow, she kissed me!"
During the First Intifada, in which Palestinians fought against Israeli oppression, a game developer trivialized the ongoing violence by creating a video game that showed the brutal power dynamic that Palestinians were protesting.
In 1985, Black Enterprise Magazine surveyed their middle-class audience of black readers, finding that in the Palestine vs. Israel Conflict, 58% of the polled were indifferent and 29.7% supported Palestine.
When O.G. “pick-me” Shahrazad Ali published the misogynistic and controversial “The Blackman’s Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman,” Black-owned bookstores like Harlem’s Liberation Bookstore refused to sell the work, especially because she encouraged physical abuse for women who got out of line.
On March 30th 1981, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to kill Ronald Reagan, to get the attention of teenage actress Jodie Foster. In the hospital, Reagan asked medical personnel if they were all Republicans.
In 1987, 19-day-old Carlina White was kidnapped from Harlem Hospital by a woman named Annugetta Pettway, who took her 45 miles away to Bridgeport Connecticut and raised her as Nejdra “Netty” Nance. In 2010, Netty discovered she was the kidnapped Carlina.
Before dating apps and online dating, there was VHS dating.
In 1980, 4-year-old Bryon Anthony McCane II, future member of Bone Thugz N Harmony, was kidnapped by his father. In 1983, a babysitter saw his picture among those of missing children at the end of the television film Adam and called the police. The movie was based on the story of Adam Walsh, whose 1981 murder also led to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and his father John hosting America’s Most Wanted.
In 1985, Al Gore’s wife Tipper Gore was joined by Republican legislators in creating the “Filthy Fifteen,” a list of songs conservatives considered to be the worst on the market. Prince’s ‘Darling Nikki’ was at the center of the controversy, and eventually led to the music industry attempting to self-regulate with the Parental Advisory Label.
Spike Lee’s 1989 release of “Do The Right Thing” was timely, hitting theaters just one month before the teen mob murder of Yusuf Hawkins in Bensonhurst, an Italian-American neighborhood in Brooklyn. Protests against the murder brought out all the racists.
Johnson & Johnson issued a nationwide recall for 31 million bottles of Tylenol after 7 murders by cyanide poisoning in Chicago in 1982. The panic over the murders, which were never solved, led to changes in packaging.
Before Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces, there were party lines — designated hotlines to meet local teens in the 80s. They were often extremely expensive and initially unregulated.
Fresh off of the wave of cult activity and tragedies that occurred in the seventies, thousands of people were questioned and investigated, while approximately 200 people were charged with satanic ritual abuse-related crimes. Dozens were convicted and some spent years battling crusading prosecutors while they sat behind bars. Multiple murders featuring satanic elements were tied into conspiracy theories and some people profited from the paranoia.
Part of the satanic panic paranoia was the popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which was allegedly linked to 28 fatalities in the 1980s, the most infamous deaths being youth deaths by suicide. The moral panic over the game damaged its reputation.
Prince performed a free concert at Gallaudet University, a school for deaf people, in 1984! Said one happy student, ”I had a lot of fun. I felt his music. I couldn’t hear the words, but I could feel the vibrations. Deaf people really appreciate and love loud music.” Students successfully protested against a non-deaf president in 1988.
Due to racist and homophobic stigmas, a lack of HIV/AIDs research led to misinformation, The New York Times falsely reported that HIV could be spread via saliva in 1984.
In 1989 when Charles Stuart murdered his wife Carol and shot himself in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, he blamed the incident on a black man. Boston police immediately flipped the city upside down, harassing black men with 150 stop and frisks a day for over a month. A man named William Bennett was the prime suspect for police. Charles died by suicide after his story unraveled.
Ronald Reagan deregulated marketing, allowing companies to advertise to children as much as they wanted, despite expert testimony and data showing that young children can’t distinguish between ads and reality. There was a 300% increase in cartoons that had licensed characters, and tons of products, like cereal.
When white supremacists and nazi skinheads appeared on an episode of The Geraldo Show to flaunt their bigotry, a fight with conservative black activist Roy Innis devolved into a melee— in which Geraldo got his nose broken. (57:59- 58:46 of this video)
In an attempt to inspire nationwide interest in STEM, The Teacher in Space project failed catastrophically when schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe and six NASA crew members were killed aboard the Challenger space shuttle on live TV.
When 1-year-old Jessica McClure was trapped in a Texas well for 56 hours, CNN’s coverage of the successful rescue brought international attention to Jessica and everyone involved. Her parents divorced and her rescuer, Robert O’Donnell, had PTSD that led to suicide in 1995.
When 13-year-old Ryan White contracted HIV/AIDS from a contaminated hemophilia treatment, the town of Kokomo, Indiana rallied against him, bullying him out of his own school district.
The 1989 “Aryan Woodstock” festival for skinheads and white supremacists’ turnout of 100 supporters was outnumbered by the 400 protesters and 500 police officers in attendance. Womp Womp.
While Burkina Faso leader Thomas Sankara prioritized the well-being of its country’s citizens, this threatened important relationships with the Ivory Coast and greedy colleagues, who eventually became his undoing.
When a BBC report on the ongoing Ethiopian famine aired, charities responded globally, fundraisers using striking and controversial imagery now known as “poverty porn,” to generate Western interest.
Following the assassination of revolutionary leader Maurice Bishop in 1983, Reagan authorized an invasion of Grenada, distributing emergency instructional cards to the country’s citizens.
The 1983 film “Spring Break” caused a surge in co-eds (more than 370,000 college students) to visit Fort Lauderdale each year. By the way, a 1984 federal law increased the drinking age from 18 to 21.
Teen girls were stereotyped as being unsuitable for video games, unless it was Pac-Man, which was an international phenomenon. Arcade games were so popular that people made and sold counterfeit versions on the black market. It was a lucrative illegal trade until the market became flooded with copies and duds.
Between 1980 and 1990, the interracial dating rates of black men married to white women rose from 122,000 to 150,000. Since then, that number has doubled to over 355,000.
In the most popular episode of the most popular talk show of the decade, Oprah wheeled out a wagon of 67 pounds of animal fat to show how much weight she had lost on her diet. Why? She faced tremendous fatphobia from the public, showcasing the era's beauty standards.
Lastly, we can’t forget George H.W. Bush holding up a bag of crack on national TV in 1989 :D The crack was sold to an undercover DEA agent by an 18-year-old named Keith Jackson in LaFayette Park, right across from the White House. The teen had been lured to sell the three ounces of cocaine for approximately $2400. Said Bush on TV, vowing to beat what he called "the greatest domestic threat" facing America on the precipice of the 90s, “This. This is crack cocaine, seized a few days ago by drug enforcement agents in a park just across the street from the White House.”
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