Seattle
- Microsoft Word 1.0 was released on October 25; Microsoft also announced Windows in November.
- Howard Schultz joined Starbucks (then a six-store coffee-bean roaster) as director of retail operations and marketing.
- The Seahawks made the playoffs for the first time and went to the AFC Championship under Chuck Knox.
- The Sub Pop fanzine, written by Bruce Pavitt out of Olympia and then Seattle, was tracking a new American underground rock scene.
The United States
- Return of the Jedi released, completing the original Star Wars trilogy.
- The TV movie The Day After aired on November 20 to roughly 100 million viewers and reshaped the public conversation about nuclear war.
- The M*A*S*H series finale on February 28 became the most-watched scripted episode in U.S. television history.
- Sally Ride became the first American woman in space aboard STS-7 (June 18).
- Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") in March.
The World
- Soviet fighters shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over Sakhalin on September 1, killing all 269 aboard.
- A truck-bomb attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut killed 241 service members on October 23.
- The U.S. invaded Grenada (Operation Urgent Fury) on October 25.
- The compact disc launched commercially in the U.S.
- Argentina returned to civilian democracy under Raúl Alfonsín.
Program
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