This is a list of important events the occurred during 1981. 

• The 1st launch of a space shuttle (Columbia)
• Reagan fires the striking air traffic controllers and breaks up their union.
• Pope shot by insane Turk, May 13.
• Sandra Day O'Connor becomes first female Supreme Court Justice
• Mitterand becomes French president (and will remain pres. well into the 90s)
• Prince Charles and Diana Spencer marry on July 29
• Luke and Lauras's Wedding (General Hospital), Most watched wedding in history next to Charles and Diana.
• Dynasty premiers in primetime hours and becomes a hit.
• The US Agriculture Department trys making ketchup a school lunch vegetable
• The first IBM-PC's begin to roll of the lines.
• The first DeLorean sports cars roll off the assembly line.
• August 1, The birth of MTV, the 24 hour-a-day music television station
• Private satelite dishes are given the ok by the FCC
• Fruit fly break out in California.
• Regan starts toying with the Libyains, and deploys ships in the Gulf of Sidra, which Libya claimed rights to even though no one else recognized it as theirs.
• Pac-Man is introduced in the US and sparks a huge craze.
• Spain allows legal divorces.
• Poland government crushes the Solidarity movement.
• The first reports of homosexual men dying due to a mysterious breakdown of the bodies' immuminzation system. Later it becomes known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, aka AIDS and researches realize it can strike anyone.
• 52 American hostages released in January after 14 months in captivity in Iran
• Antigua gained its independence November 1,1981
• Assasination attempt on Ronald Regean on March 30, 1981 by John Hinkley