10/04/81: Michael Bailey stabbed in Brixton

On Friday 10 April 1981 at around 5 p.m. a young black man, Michael Bailey, was stabbed in a fight in the Brixton area of suburban London. While running for help he was stopped by police officers who were then accused by other residents of having stabbed Bailey themselves and furthermore hindering medical assistance.

The incident is said to have been the spark that started the ensuing 'Brixton Riots' over the following weekend.

pic: guardian

Police harassment increased tension in Brixton when Operation Swamp ’81 was launched  in early April 1981. Police used the hated “sus” laws, which allowed them to search anyone they suspected of having committed a crime. In just five days, police stopped and searched almost 950 people, arresting 150. Black people made up just 6 percent of London’s population in the late 1970s. But 44 percent of those arrested under sus were black. Unemployment in the area stood at 13 per cent overall, and 25 per cent among the West Indian community. Half of young black men were jobless.

Flyer calling for an end to 'Sus' laws, 1981

sources: wikipedia, dailymail.co.uk
flyer pic: irr.org.uk

3/4/81: BBC1 continuity before 9 O'Clock News

Friday 3 April 1981, 9 p.m.

BBC One continuity announcement just prior to the Nine O'Clock News. Call My Bluff was about to start on the BBC's second channel, while a new episode of Starsky and Hutch would be on after.

 

Main news items: Ronald Reagan's recovery, West Yorkshire internal police enquiry, car bomb in N. Ireland, investigation into last year's North Sea Oil disaster and Prince Charles' visit to New Zealand.

The evening news was read by Richard Baker (b. 1925) who also introduced the first BBC television news broadcast on 5 July 1954. Baker retired as a newsreader in 1982.

see also: Richard Baker: The birth of TV news (BBC)

30/3/81: Ronald Reagan assasination attempt

On Monday 30 March 1981 an assassination attempt was made on the US President Ronald Reagan.

John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to shoot  Reagan outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C., at around 2.27 PM local time, just after the president had addressed the Building and Construction Workers Union of the AFL-CIO. Hinckley was armed with a .22 revolver with exploding bullets and was only ten feet away from Reagan when he began shooting. Hinckley’s first shot hit press secretary James Brady and other shots wounded a police officer Thomas Delahanty and a Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy. The sixth and final shot hit Reagan’s limo and then ricocheted into the President’s chest.

pic. reaganlibrary.archives.gov  - taken seconds after the assassination attempt on President Reagan. James Brady and police officer Thomas Delahanty lie wounded on the ground

Shortly afterwards, Reagan was subjected to an emergency thoracotomy lasting 105 minutes. He came close to death losing over half of his blood volume in the emergency room and during surgery to remove the bullet. He left the hospital thirteen days later. 

pic. crimemagazine.com

James Brady became permanently disabled from his gunshot wound and became an ardent supporter of gun control as a result of this event. He died on August 4, 2014, 33 years after the shooting. His death was ruled a homicide, caused by the gunshot.

At his trial in 1982, in Washington, D.C., charged with 13 offenses, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21,  and has since remained under constant institutional psychiatric care.

source: history.com, wikipedia

6/3/81: Walter Cronkite's last CBS Evening News

15/2/81: NBC News Update With Jane Pauley

A brief news bulletin broadcast on NBC, February 15, 1981.

   

News items include the Polish Communist leader in Czechoslovakia, the Atlanta murders, the cost of heating oil, and a possible Beatles reunion after the death of John Lennon.

Jane Pauley (b. 1950) was a newsreader and anchorwoman on NBC's Today news programme from 1976-1989 and from 1992-2003, she co-hosted NBC's Dateline NBC. In 2004 she began her own daytime talkshow which was then cancelled after one season.

Source: youtube, wikipedia.

2/2/81: "National service for jobless?" - The Guardian

On Monday 2 February 1981 UK national daily The Guardian ran an article on "a new move to persuade the Government to revive national community service for thousands of young unemployed".

The plan was being endorsed by both a Labour and a Tory MP as well as leading figures in social services and the Church. They all considered that it would be better to take everybody under the age of 18 out of the labour market and into a form of community service. The work involved would include helping old people, cleaning up council estates, helping the mentally handicapped, assisting staff in schools, museums and art galleries and national parks, and increasing council services which were being hit by the cuts under the new Thatcher Conservative government.

pic: Neil Libbert / The Guardian

source: theguardian.com,

27/1/81: released US hostages arrive in Washington DC

Tuesday January 27 1981: the caravan of buses carrying the former hostages and their relatives makes its way through the crowd on hand to greet them on Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue,

The 52 Americans were held hostage in Iran for 444 days after their capture at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Source and picture: usnews.com

25/1/81: Jiang Qing sentenced to death

On 25 January 1981, Jiang Qing (b. 1914), the fourth wife and widow of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, was sentenced to death for her “counter-revolutionary crimes” during the Cultural Revolution.

Originally an actress in Communist theater and film, she married Mao in 1939. In 1966, Mao made her the first deputy head of the Cultural Revolution and gave her far-reaching powers over China's intellectual and cultural life.

But after her husband’s death in 1976, Jiang (aka "Madame Mao") and three other radicals who had come to power in the revolution were singled out as the “Gang of Four.” She was arrested and in 1977 expelled from the Communist Party. Three years later, in 1980, the Gang of Four were put on trial and two of its members were sentenced to death.

pic: BBC / AFP

On January 25, 1983, exactly two years after she was condemned, the Chinese government commuted her sentence to life imprisonment. In 1991, she died in prison of an apparent suicide.


Text and info adapted from history.com

20/1/81: Ronald Reagan becomes 40th President of the United States

On January 20 1981 Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) was sworn in as 40th President of the United States of America. It was the first of two terms, meaning that his presidency lasted until the same date in 1989. Aged 69, Reagan was the oldest person to be made President and also the oldest person to hold the office in his final year, aged 77.

pic: inaugural.senate.gov

During his presidency the US would see a return to conservative foreign and domestic politics with a new emphasis on the Cold War and hostilities towards the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries in general. Reagan was also an advocate of free markets and laissez-faire economics, believing that the American economy had been hindered by excessive regulations and social programs. His politics found particular empathy with UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who had been elected in 1979.

pic. realclearpolitics

source: wikipedia

19/1/81: Lady Diana Spencer

On the morning of Monday 19th January Lady Diana Spencer is photographed returning to the kindergarten school where she worked in Pimlico, London. She had allegedly just returned from a weekend at the royal residence in Sandringham. Speculation over her relationship with Prince Charles, and a possible engagement, had been growing since the autumn of 1980.

source and pics.: princessdianabookboutique.wordpress.com

8/1/81: The Trans-en-Provence UFO sighting

In the early evening of January 8th, 1981 French farmer Renato Nicolai reported to have seen an unidentified flying object hurtle through the early evening sky, subsequently to land some 500 metres away, only to take off again leaving behind a sizeable scorched patch on the ground. The event took place near Trans-en-Provence in the south of France.

Although the UFO sighting and its alleged physical traces have been the subject of serious investigation by authorities and UFO organisations, the event has also been met with more sceptical interpretations.

Sources: UFO Casebook, Wikipedia
see also: ufoevidence.org