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Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, took office after defeating the Republican incumbent president Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. -
On May 25, 1977, Memorial Day weekend opens with an intergalactic bang as the first of George Lucas' blockbuster Star Wars movies hits -
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, located on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. -
In March 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. The phreatic blasts escalated for nearly two months until a catastrophic explosive eruption took place on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. -
The Iran–Contra affair, also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Contragate, Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Reagan administration -
On January 20, 1981, the hostages were finally freed—but only after Ronald Reagan had been sworn in as president. -
On March 30, 1981, Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States, was shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as Reagan was returning to his limousine after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton hotel. -
On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members. The spacecraft disintegrated 46,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 16:39:13 UTC. -
On 26 April 1986, reactor no.4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, exploded -
Bush, a Republican from Texas and the incumbent vice president for two terms under President Ronald Reagan, took office after defeating the Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. -
The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989 during the Peaceful Revolution, marking the beginning of the destruction of the figurative Iron Curtain, as East Berlin transit restrictions were overwhelmed and discarded. Sections of the wall were breached, and planned deconstruction began the following June. -
The invasion of Kuwait led to a United Nations Security Council embargo and sanctions on Iraq and a U.S.-led coalition air and ground war, which began on January 16, 1991, and ended with an Iraqi defeat and retreat from Kuwait on February 28, 1991. -
Nicknamed the "Dream Team", it was the first American Olympic team to include active professional players from the National Basketball Association (NBA). Team USA defeated its opponents by an average of 44 points during the tournament. The team has often been described as the greatest sports team ever assembled. -
Clinton was elected president in the 1992 election, defeating the incumbent Republican president George H. W. Bush, and the independent businessman Ross Perot. -
The trial of four white policemen following the arrest and beating of Rodney King, a black man, sparked a major investigation of police brutality in Los Angeles and violent race riots after a California court acquitted the police. -
Google was officially launched in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to market Google Search, which has become the most used web-based search engine. -
Although proceedings were delayed due to the bombing of Iraq, on the passage of H. Res. 611, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, on grounds of perjury to a grand jury (first article, 228–206) and obstruction of justice (third article, 221–212). -
On September 11, 2001, four coordinated terrorist attacks were committed against the United States when two hijacked planes were flown into the North and South Towers at the World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., while the fourth crashed in a field in Shanksville, PA.