1981

Events

January

• January 1
• * Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union.
• * Palau becomes a self-governing territory.
• January 6 – A funeral service is held in West Germany for Nazi Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz following his death on December 24.
• January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensive, gaining control of most of Morazán and Chalatenango departments.
• January 15 – Pope John Paul II receives a delegation led by Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa at the Vatican.
• January 20 – Iran releases the 52 Americans held for 444 days, minutes after Ronald Reagan is sworn in as the 40th President of the United States, ending the Iran hostage crisis.
• January 21 – The first DeLorean automobile, a stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors, rolls off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland.
• January 24 – An earthquake of magnitude in Sichuan, China, kills 150 people. Japan suffers a less serious earthquake on the same day.
• January 25 – In South Africa the largest part of the town Laingsburg is swept away within minutes by one of the strongest floods ever experienced in the Great Karoo.
• January 27 – The Indonesian passenger ship Tampomas II catches fire and capsizes in the Java Sea, killing 580 people.

  February

• February 4 – Gro Harlem Brundtland becomes Prime Minister of Norway.
• February 8 – In Greece, 20 fans of Olympiacos F.C. and 1 fan of AEK Athens die, while 54 are injured, after a stampede at the Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraeus, possibly because Gate 7 does not open immediately after the end of the game.
• February 9 – Polish Prime Minister Józef Pińkowski resigns and is replaced by General Wojciech Jaruzelski.
• February 14 – Stardust fire: A fire at the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin, Ireland, in the early hours kills 48 young people and injures 214. In 2024 these will be declared as unlawful killings.
• February 17–22 – Pope John Paul II visits the Philippines.
• February 23 – 1981 Spanish coup d'état attempt : Antonio Tejero, with members of the Guardia Civil, enters the Spanish Congress of Deputies and stops the session where Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo is about to be named president of the government. The coup fails after being denounced by King Juan Carlos.
• February 24 – A powerful magnitude earthquake hits Athens, killing 22 people, injuring 400 people and destroying several buildings and 4,000 houses, mostly in Corinth and the nearby towns of Loutraki, Kiato and Xylokastro.

  March

• March 1 – 1981 Irish hunger strike: Bobby Sands, a Provisional Irish Republican Army member, begins a hunger strike for political status at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland, dying on May 5, the first of 7 IRA and 3 INLA hunger strikers to die.
• March 11 – Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet is sworn in as President of Chile for another 8-year term.
• March 17 – In Italy, the Propaganda Due Masonic lodge is discovered.
• March 19 – Two or three workers are killed and four are injured during a ground test of Space Shuttle Columbia at Kennedy Space Center in the United States.
• March 29 – The first London Marathon starts, with 7,500 runners.
• March 30 – Attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan: U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley Jr.; two police officers and Press Secretary James Brady are also wounded.

  April

• April 4 – UK pop group Bucks Fizz's song "Making Your Mind Up" wins the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, Ireland.
• April 11 – 1981 Brixton riot: Rioters in south London, UK, throw petrol bombs, attack police and loot shops.
• April 12 – The Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Columbia, with NASA astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen, launches on the STS-1 mission, returning to Earth on April 14. It is the first time a crewed reusable spacecraft has returned from orbit.

• April 15 – The first Coca-Cola bottling plant in China is opened.
• April 18 – A Minor League Baseball game between the Rochester Red Wings and the Pawtucket Red Sox at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, becomes the longest professional baseball game in history: 8 hours and 25 minutes/33 innings.
• April 26 – French presidential election: A first-round runoff results between Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand.

  May

• May – Daniel K. Ludwig abandons the Jari project in the Amazon basin.
• May 1 – Pensions in Chile: The new Chilean pension system, based on private pension funds, begins.
• Aer Lingus flight 164 is hijacked just before landing at London Heathrow airport. The flight continues on to France before the hijacker who reportedly demanded for the releasing of the third secret of Fatima, is subdued.
• May 4 – The European Law Students' Association was founded in Vienna by law students from Austria, West Germany, Poland and Hungary.
• May 6 – A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., from among 1,421 other entries.
• May 11 – The Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley dies at age 36 from cancer.
• May 13 – Pope John Paul II assassination attempt: Pope John Paul II is shot by Mehmet Ali Ağca, a Turkish gunman, as he enters St. Peter's Square in Vatican City to address a general audience. The Pope recovers.
• May 15 – A prison officer, 31-year-old Donna Payant, disappears at Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York. She is later found to have been murdered by convicted serial killer Lemuel Smith. It is the first time a female prison officer has been killed while on duty in the United States.
• May 21 – François Mitterrand becomes the first socialist President of the French Fifth Republic.
• May 22 – Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe is found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on 13 counts of murder and 7 of attempted murder in England.
• May 25 – In Riyadh, the Gulf Cooperation Council is created among Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
• May 26 – The Italian Forlani government resigns over its links to the fascist Masonic cell Propaganda Due.
• May 30 – Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman is assassinated in Chittagong.
• May 31 – Burning of Jaffna library, one of the most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the century.

  June

• June 5 – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States report that five homosexual men in Los Angeles have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, the first recognized cases of AIDS.
• June 6 – Bihar train disaster: Seven coaches of an overcrowded passenger train fall off the tracks into the Bagmati River in Bihar, India, killing between 500 and 800.
• June 7 – The Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, killing ten Iraqi troops and a French technician.
• June 10 – Alfredo Rampi, a 6-year-old boy, falls into an artesian well in Vermicino, near Rome. After nearly three days of failed rescue attempts followed with bated breath from all over Italy, Alfredo dies inside the well, at a depth of.
• June 13 – At the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, teenager Marcus Sarjeant fires 6 blank shots close to Queen Elizabeth II, startling her horse.
• June 18
• * The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States is founded.
• * The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter makes its first flight at Groom Lake, Nevada.
• June 22 – Iranian president Abolhassan Banisadr is deposed.
• June 27
• * The first game of paintball is played, in Henniker, New Hampshire, United States.
• * The E-mu Emulator sampler keyboard with floppy disk operation is unveiled at NAMM international Sound & Music Expo, Chicago. Production Model Serial Number 001 is issued to Stevie Wonder.

  July

• July 1 – Wonderland murders: The Wonderland Gang of cocaine dealers is brutally murdered in Los Angeles. Eddie Nash is suspected of involvement, but will never be convicted.
• July 3 – The Toxteth riots in Liverpool, England, start after a mob prevents a youth from being arrested. Shortly afterward, the Chapeltown riots in Leeds start amid increased racial tension.
• July 7 – United States President Ronald Reagan nominates the first woman, Sandra Day O'Connor, to the Supreme Court of the United States.
• July 9 – Donkey Kong is released, marking the first Donkey Kong and Mario smash hit arcade game developed by Nintendo in Japan.
• July 10
• * Mahathir Mohamad becomes the 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia.
• * 1981 Handsworth riots in Birmingham begin, followed by further 1981 England riots in several urban areas including Liverpool and Leeds.
• July 16–21 – England become the first team this century to win a cricket Test match after the follow-on when they beat Australia by 18 runs at Headingley cricket ground, Leeds, England.
• July 17
• * Hyatt Regency walkway collapse: Two skywalks filled with people at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, collapse into a crowded atrium lobby, killing 114.
• * Israeli aircraft bomb Beirut, destroying multi-story apartment blocks containing the offices of PLO-associated groups, killing approximately 300 civilians and resulting in worldwide condemnation and a U.S. embargo on the export of aircraft to Israel.
• July 19 – The 1981 Springbok Tour commences in New Zealand, amid controversy over the support of apartheid.
• July 21 – Panda Tohui is born in Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, the first panda to ever be born and survive in captivity outside of China.
• July 29 – A worldwide television audience of over 750 million people watch the Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in London, UK.
• July 30 – 1981 Polish hunger demonstrations: As many as 50,000 demonstrators, mostly women and children, take to the streets in Łódź to protest about food ration shortages in Communist Poland.