Compiled by
FIONA GARTLAND
JANUARY
* Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper is charged with murder. The 35-year-old lorry driver is eventually convicted of murdering 13 women between 1975 and 1980 and assaulting seven others. He was given 20 life sentences for his crimes and is still incarcerated in Broadmoor.
* Ronald Reagan is sworn in as the 40th president of the United States. Ballyporeen, Co Tipperary, his ancestral home, held celebrations.
* The first DeLorean DMC-12 sports car was manufactured in Dunmurry, Belfast. Production of the distinctive gull-wing-door vehicle continues for only a year; 9,000 are made before the company folds.
* Rupert Murdoch is given permission by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to take over the Timesnewspapers in Britain. There had been extensive opposition to the move with Labour MPs claiming the decision amounted to a "pay-off" by then prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
* John Lennon's Imaginewas top of the Irish music charts. The single was released in the wake of his murder a month earlier.
FEBRUARY
* Ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean win gold in the European championships in Innsbruck, Austria. The couple become world champions the following month in Connecticut.
* A magnitude 6.7 earthquake hits Athens, killing 16 people and injuring thousands, with many historic buildings damaged.
* The Prince of Wales announces his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer after months of speculation. The world watches as Charles and Diana are asked if they are in love. “Of course,” the doe-eyed Diana replies. “Whatever in love means” is Charles’s response.
MARCH
* A month-long oil strike ends as 800 tanker drivers resume work. Lengthy queues at petrol stations had dominated as supplies dwindled and some petrol stations closed. Oil had run out at the Ballymun flats as workers attempted to secure a better wage than £111 a week. A settlement was eventually worked out at the Labour Court with the basic rising to £134.
* Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest leaving the Hilton Washington Hotel but makes a full recovery after surgery. Three other people, including Reagan’s press secretary James Brady, are wounded in the incident. John Hinckley jnr is charged but found not guilty by reason of insanity.
* The Oscar for Best Picture is won by Ordinary People, Ronald L Schwary, producer (Paramount). It also collected three other awards, including best director for Robert Redford. The leading actor award went to Robert De Niro for his role as Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, and the leading actress was Sissy Spacek as country and western singer Loretta Lynn in The Coalminers Daughter.
* Among this month's Irish music chart hits was More and Moreby Joe Dolan
APRIL
* The Eurovision Song Contest is held in Dublin following a win in 1980 for Johnny Logan's What's another Year. Doireann Ní Bhriain presents the event from the RDS and 20 contestants take part. Ireland's representative is Sheeba who sing Horoscopes. The contest is won by the UK group Bucks Fizz who sing Making Your Mind Up.
* The Brixton riots begin. High unemployment coupled with racial tensions and a police crackdown on crime, combine to trigger violent disturbances in London. Over the summer, the violence spreads to Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield and Manchester.
* US space shuttle Columbiatakes off for the first time. The flight lasts two days and the shuttle returns to earth after orbiting the planet 36 times, landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
* Steve Davis becomes world snooker champion at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield for the first time. He goes on to win world championships five times in the 1980s. His cool playing style and modesty earned him the ironic nickname “Interesting” Davis. It also earned him the title of first millionaire in the sport.
* Among number one hits in the Irish music charts this month was the Eurovision winner – Making Your Mind Up
MAY
* An Aer Lingus Boeing 737 flying from Dublin to London is hijacked. It is ordered to fly to Tehran but had insufficient fuel and landed in Paris. Hijacker Laurence Downey, a 55-year-old Australian, had doused himself in petrol before going into the cockpit with a cigarette lighter. He demanded that pope John Paul II make public the Third Secret of Fatima. After 10 hours, French security forces storm the aircraft and the 103 passengers and five crew are rescued unhurt. Downey was subsequently jailed for five years for air piracy.
* Pope John Paul II is shot in St Peter’s Square, Vatican City. He is seriously wounded, but makes a full recovery. Assassin Mehmet Ali Agca is arrested and given life imprisonment. The pope, who asked for prayers for Agca, interceded to have him pardoned in 2000 and he was deported to Turkey.
* The first IRFU match goes ahead in South Africa after a 20-year absence. Petitions were signed against it and it was condemned by many political and religious figures, who saw it as adding support to the apartheid regime in South Africa. Ireland was favourite to win, but of the seven matches played, the majority, including both test matches, were lost.
* The Irish charts include number one hit Stars on 45 by Starsound.
JUNE
* Shergar wins the Epsom Derby. The horse, which is to be at the centre of an infamous kidnapping in 1983, was ridden by jockey Walter Swinburn. The dark bay colt, owned by the Aga Khan, won the derby by 10 lengths and won four other races in the same year, earning the title European Horse of the Year.
* The Center for Disease Control in the US publishes a report about the occurrence, without identifiable cause, of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, in five men in Los Angeles. It marks the beginning of public awareness of Aids.
* A passenger train in Bihar, India, derails and plunges into the Kosi river. More than 800 people are killed.
* Six young people in Medjugorje in then Yugoslavia claim they see an apparition of the Virgin Mary.