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The Miracle on Ice
The opening ceremonies of the 1980 Winter Olympics Games are held in Lake Placid, New York. One of the most thrilling moments includes the Miracle on Ice when a team of U.S. amateur ice hockey players defeated the vaunted Soviet Union professional all-star team in the semi-final game, then won the gold medal over Finland. -
Mt. St. Helens Volcano
The Mt. St. Helens volcano, in Washington State, erupts, killing fifty-seven people and economic devastation to the area with losses near $3 billion. The blast was estimated to have the power five hundred times greater than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. -
Iranian Hostage Crisis
the release of the fifty-two Americans still held hostage in Tehran. The Iranian hostage crisis, which lasted four hundred and forty-four days, was negotiated for the return of $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets. -
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President Ronald Reagan
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Challenger Explosion
The Challenger Space Shuttle explodes after liftoff at Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing seven people, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire school teacher. -
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President George H. W. Bush
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Berlin Wall Falls
The Berlin Wall, after thirty-eight years of restricting traffic between the East and West German sides of the city, begins to crumble when German citizens are allowed to travel freely between East and West Germany for the first time. One day later, the influx of crowds around and onto the wall begin to dismantle it, thus ending its existence. -
Soviet Union Falls
The Soviet Union collapses under economic and political strain. It is broken into 15 independent countries and is the end of the Cold War -
9/11
Islamic fundamentalist terrorists hijack four U.S. airliners and crash them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York City. The attack of two planes levels the World Trade Center and the crash of one plane inflicts serious damage to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, causing nearly 3,000 deaths. The fourth plane is heroically crashed by passengers into Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The plot is attributed to the Al-Qaeda organization led by Osama Bin Laden. -
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President Bill Clinton