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1980 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982

Sport and Music

British and Irish current events

1980 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1980 in British music

Events from the year 1980 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - Margaret Thatcher, Conservative

Events

• 2 January - Workers at British Steel go on a nationwide strike over pay in a bid to get a 20% pay rise The walkout has been called by the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, which has some 90,000 members among British Steel's 150,000 workforce.^[1]
• 20 January - The British record TV audience for a film is set when some 23,500,000 viewers tune in for the ITV showing of the James Bond film Live and Let Die, released in 1973 and starring Roger Moore who is now in the process of filming his fifth film as the spy.
• 14 February–23 February - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, United States and win one gold medal.
• 25 February - first episode of the popular political sitcom Yes Minister broadcast by the BBC.
• 20 March - Radio Caroline, the pirate radio station, forced to cease transmission when the ship on which it was based sank.^[2]
• 25 March
  • The British Olympic Association vote to defy the government, and send athletes to the Olympic Games to be held in Moscow, USSR in the summer of 1980.^[3]
  • Robert Runcie enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.^[2]
• 27 March - The Alexander Kielland North Sea accommodation platform for oil workers collapses into the sea, killing 123 oil workers. A massive wave hit one of the legs of the platform, causing it to break and fall into the water.^[4]
• 10 April - The UK reaches agreement with Spain to re-open the Spain-Gibraltar border.
• 18 April - Zimbabwe becomes independent of the United Kingdom.^[2]
• 30 April - The Iranian Embassy Siege begins. A six-man terrorist team calling itself the "Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan" (DRMLA) captures the Embassy of Iran in Prince's Gate, Knightsbridge, central London, taking 26 hostages.^[2]
• 1 May - British Aerospace privatised.^[5]
• 5 May - The SAS storm the Iranian Embassy building, kill 5 out of the 6 terrorists and free all the hostages.^[6]
• 10 May - West Ham United win the FA Cup with a 1-0 victory over Arsenal in the final at Wembley Stadium. Trevor Brooking scores the only goal of the game to make West Ham United only the second team from the Second Division to have won the trophy in postwar years. [1]
• 27 May - Inquest into the death of New Zealand born teacher Blair Peach (who was killed during a demonstration against the National Front last year) returns a verdict of misadventure, sparking a public outcry.^[7]
• June - ** British Leyland launches its Morris Ital range of family saloons and estates, which are a reworking of the nine-year-old Marina that was one of Britain's most popular cars during the 1970s. It will be produced for up to four years until an all-new front-wheel drive model is launched.
  • • The UK economy slides into recession.
• 17 June - Secretary of State for Defence, Francis Pym reveals to the House of Commons that US nuclear cruise missiles would be located at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire and the disused RAF Molesworth base in Cambridgeshire.^[8]
• 19 June - Gunmen attack the British embassy in Iraq, three unknown attackers shot dead by Iraqi security forces.^[9]
• 30 June - the pre-decimal Sixpence withdrawn from circulation.^[2]
• July - Alexandra Palace in London destroyed by fire.^[10]
• 19 July–3 August - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and win 5 gold, 7 silver and 9 bronze medals.
• 29 July - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announces the introduction of Enterprise Zones as an employment relief effort in some of regions of Britain which have been hardest hit by deindustrialisation and unemployment. [2]
• 1 September - Ford launches one of the most important new cars of the year - the mark 3 Escort, which is a technological innovation in the small family car market, spelling the end of the traditional rear-wheel drive saloon in favour of the front-wheel drive hatchback. An estate version is also available.
• 11 September- The Marlborough diamond is stolen in London.^[11]
• 12 September - The Marlborough diamond thieves are arrested in Chicago after getting off a British Airways flight in the city. However, the stolen diamond has not been found.[3]
• 13 September - Hercules the bear who had gone missing on a Scottish island filming a Kleenex advert is found.^[12]
• 21 September - First CND rally at RAF Greenham Common.^[5]
• 8 October - British Leyland launches the Austin Metro, a small hatchback which uses the much of the Mini's mechanical design but an entirely different body which offers more space and practicality. Production of the 21-year-old Mini, however, is set to continue for the foreseeable future.
• 10 October - Margaret Thatcher makes her famous "The lady's not for turning" speech to the Conservative Party conference.^[13]
• 17 October - Queen Elizabeth II makes history by becoming the first British monarch to make a state visit to the Vatican.^[14]
• 10 November - Michael Foot is elected Leader of the Labour Party.^[15]
• 8 December - John Lennon is shot dead in New York.^[16]
• 10 December - Frederick Sanger wins his second Nobel Prize in Chemistry, jointly with Walter Gilbert, "for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids".^[17]
• 28 December - The Independent Broadcasting Authority award contracts for commercial broadcasting on ITV. TV-am is awarded the first ever breakfast TV contract, and is set to go on air by 1983.^[18]

Undated

• Inflation has risen to 18% as Margaret Thatcher's battle against inflation is still in its early stages. [4]

Publications

• The Alternative Service Book.
• Douglas Adams' novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
• Anthony Burgess's novel Earthly Powers.
• William Golding's novel Rites of Passage, first of the To the Ends of the Earth trilogy.
• David Lodge's novel How Far Can You Go?.
• Iris Murdoch's novel Nuns and Soldiers.

Births

• 2 January — Rebekah Teasdale, model and journalist
• 20 January — Jenson Button, racecar driver
• 10 February — Steve Tully, footballer
• March 13 — Linda Clement, Scottish field hockey player
• 8 April — Ben Freeman, actor
• April 8 — Cheryl Valentine, Scottish field hockey midfielder
• 30 May — Steven Gerrard, footballer
• 1 June — Oliver James, actor
• 4 June — Philip Olivier, actor
• 29 June — Katherine Jenkins, soprano
• 28 October — Alan Smith, footballer
• 19 November — Adele Silva , actress
• 6 December — Steve Lovell, footballer
• 7 December — John Terry, footballer
• 20 December — Ashley Cole, footballer
• 25 December — Laura Sadler, television actress (died 2003)

Deaths

• 11 January - Barbara Pym, novelist (born 1913)
• 18 January - Sir Cecil Beaton, photographer (born 1904)
• 17 February - Graham Sutherland, artist (born 1903)
• 1 March - Dixie Dean, football player (born 1907)
• 29 April - Alfred Hitchcock, film director (born 1899)
• 14 May - Hugh Griffith, actor (born 1912)
• 18 May - Ian Curtis, musician and singer (Joy Division) (born 1956)
• 7 June - Elizabeth Craig, writer (born 1883)
• 12 June - Billy Butlin, founder of Butlins (born 1899, South Africa)
• 23 June - John Laurie, actor (born 1897)
• 1 July - C. P. Snow, novelist and physicist (born 1905)
• 24 July - Peter Sellers, actor (born 1925)
• 26 July - Kenneth Tynan, theatre critic (born 1927)
• 24 August - Yootha Joyce, actress (born 1927)
• 25 September - John Bonham, drummer (Led Zeppelin) (born 1948)
• 6 October - Hattie Jacques, Carry On films actress (heart attack) (born 1922)
• 4 November - Johnny Owen, boxer (born 1956)
• 22 November - Norah McGuinness, painter and illustrator (born 1901)
• 26 November - Rachel Roberts, actress (suicide) (born 1927)
• 3 December - Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (born 1896)
• 8 December - John Lennon, singer, songwriter, and guitarist (The Beatles) (murdered) (born 1940)

References

See also