January
1st	Greece enters the European Community, which later becomes the European Union
4th	Sheffield police arrest Peter Sutcliffe, a 34-year-old lorry driver, on suspicion of being the Yorkshire Ripper who has killed 13 women and attacked seven others over the last six years
6th	Brazilian double decker boat Novo Amapo capsizes on the Amazon River, Belem de Cajari, Macapa, Brazil, killing 230
13th	Donna Griffiths, a schoolgirl in Pershore, Worcestershire, UK, begins an uncontrollable series of sneezes that end September 16, 1983 - after 978 days
16th	Protestant gunmen shoot and wound Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and her husband
19th	United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity
20th	Ronald Reagan succeeds Jimmy Carter, becoming the 40th President of the United States. Minutes later, Iran releases the 52 Americans held for 444 days, ending the Iran hostage crisis
21st	The first De Lorean DMC-12 automobile, a stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors, rolls off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland
22nd	Fowzi Nejad, sole survivor of the terrorists from the Iranian Embassy siege in London, pleads guilty to manslaughter of two hostages and gets jailed for life
25th	Four former Labour cabinet ministers (Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, William Rodgers and David Owen) issue the Limehouse Declaration, leading to the formation of the Social Democratic Party
25th	Chiang Ching ('Madame Mao') is sentenced to death in the People's Republic of China
27th	Indonesian passenger ship Tamponas 2 catches fire and capsizes in the Java Sea, killing 580

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February
4th	Gro Harlem Brundtland becomes the Prime Minister of Norway
8th	Nineteen fans of Olympiacos FC and two fans of AEK Athens died and 54 injured after a stampede at the Karaiskaki Stadium in Pireus, possibly because Gate 7 did not open immediately after the end of the game
9th	Polish Prime Minister Józef Pinkowski resigns and is replaced by General Wojciech Jaruzelski
10th	A fire at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel casino kills 8 and injures 198
13th	Rupert Murdoch buys The Times and The Sunday Times for £12 million
14th	A fire at the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin, Ireland in the early hours killed 48 and injured 214
14th	Australia withdraws recognition of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia
24th	A powerful, magnitude 6.7 earthquake hits Athens, killing 16 people, injuring thousands and destroying several buildings, mostly in Corinth and the nearby towns of Loutraki, Kiato and Xylokastro

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March
1st	Bobby Sands, a Provisional Irish Republican Army member, begins a hunger strike for political status in Long Kesh prison (he dies May 5, the first of 10 men)
10th	Sir Geoffrey Howe announces the British budget, raising taxes in the middle of a recession
11th	Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet is sworn in as President of Chile for another 8-year term
19th	Three workers are killed and 5 injured during a test of the Space Shuttle Columbia
29th	The first London Marathon starts with 7,500 runners
30th	U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by John Hinckley, Jr.. Two police officers and Press Secretary James Brady are also wounded
31st	The 53rd Academy Awards, hosted by Johnny Carson, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Robert Redford's directorial debut in Ordinary People wins Best Picture and Best Director

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April
2nd	Tony Benn announces that he will challenge Denis Healey for the Deputy Leadership of the British Labour Party
4th	UK pop group Bucks Fizz win the Eurovision Song Contest 1981 with the song, Making Your Mind Up
10th	IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands wins the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election
11th	The Brixton riots start with rioters in South London throwing petrol bombs, attacking police and looting shops
12th	The Space Shuttle Columbia (John Young, Robert Crippen) launches on the STS-1 mission, returning to Earth on April 14

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May
5th	Bobby Sands Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer and elected member of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom dies aged 27 while on hunger strike in HM Prison Maze
7th	The Greater London Council election results in a small Labour majority. On May 8, Ken Livingstone becomes Leader of the Council
10th	In the second round of the presidential elections in France, François Mitterrand beats Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
10th	Totenham Hotspur won The FA cup
13th	Pope John Paul II is shot and nearly killed by Mehmet Ali Ağca, a Turkish gunman, as he enters St. Peter's Square in Rome to address a general audience
15th	Donna Payant is murdered by serial killer Lemuel Smith - the first time a female prison officer has been killed on-duty in the United States
21st	In France, Socialist François Mitterrand becomes President
22nd	Peter Sutcliffe is found guilty of being the Yorkshire Ripper. He is sentenced to life imprisonment on 13 counts of murder and seven of attempted murder
30th	Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman is assassinated in Chittagong

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June
5th	The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 5 homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems (the first recognised cases of AIDS)
6th	Seven coaches of an overcrowded passenger train fall off the tracks into the River Kosi in Bihar, India; about 800 die
7th	The Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor
12th	Major League Baseball goes on strike, forcing the cancellation of 38 percent of the schedule
13th	At the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, Marcus Sarjeant fires six blank shots at Queen Elizabeth II
21st	Wayne Williams, a 23-year-old African American, is arrested and charged with the murders of 2 other African Americans. He will later be suspected of 28 others, in the Atlanta child murders
22nd	Iranian president Abolhassan Banisadr is deposed

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July
2nd	The Wonderland Gang were murdered in a drug-related plot that involved porn star John Holmes and was allegedly masterminded by businessman and drug dealer Eddie Nash
3rd	The Toxteth riots start after a mob save a youth from being arrested
17th	Two skywalks filled with people at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri collapse into a crowded atrium lobby, killing 114
17th	Israeli aircraft bomb Beirut, destroying multi-storey apartment blocks containing the offices of PLO associated groups, killing approximately 300 civilians and resulting in worldwide condemnation and a U.S. embargo on the export of aircraft to Israel
19th	The 1981 Springbok Tour commences in New Zealand, amid controversy over the support of Apartheid
29th	Lady Diana Spencer marries Charles, Prince of Wales

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August
1st	MTV (Music Television) is launched on cable television in the United States
5th	Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work, during their strike
9th	Major League Baseball resumes from strike with the All-Star Game in Cleveland's Municipal Stadium
12th	The original Model 5150 IBM PC with a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 processor is released in the United States at a base price of $1,565
19th	Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi sends 2 Sukhoi Su-22 fighter jets to intercept 2 U.S. fighters over the Gulf of Sidra. The American jets destroy the Libyan fighters
24th	Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment after being convicted of murdering John Lennon in Manhattan eight months ago
28th	South African troops invade Angola

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September
14th	Margaret Thatcher appoints Cecil Parkinson as Chairman of the Conservative Party
16th	The Liberal Party Assembly votes for an electoral pact with the new Social Democratic Party
18th	France abolishes capital punishment
19th	Simon and Garfunkel perform The Concert in Central Park, a free concert in New York in front of approximately a half a million people
20th	Brazilian river boat Sobral Santos capsized Amazon River, Óbidos, Brazil, killing at least 300
21st	Belize becomes independent
26th	The first flight of the Boeing 767 airliner
27th	TGV high speed rail service between Paris and Lyon, France begins

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October
6th	Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is assassinated during a parade by army members who were part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization; they opposed his negotiations with Israel
10th	A Provisional IRA bomb at Chelsea Barracks in London kills a woman pensioner
15th	The heavy metal band Metallica forms in Los Angeles, California
16th	Gas explosions occur in coal mines at Hokutan Yūbari, Hokkaidō, Japan, killing 93
21st	Andreas Papandreou becomes Prime Minister of Greece
22nd	Liberal candidate Bill Pitt wins the Croydon North West byelection, the first election win by the Liberal-S.D.P. Alliance
26th	An IRA bomb in a Wimpy Bar in Oxford Street, London, kills a bomb disposal expert

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November
1st	Antigua and Barbuda gain independence from the United Kingdom
9th	Edict No 81-234 abolishes slavery in Mauritania
12th	Space Shuttle Columbia, piloted by Joe Engle and Richard Truly, lifts off for its second mission
12th	The Church of England General Synod vote to admit women to holy orders
18th	IBM Introduced the IBM PC. Scientific Solutions announces the first PC add-in cards
23rd	Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua
30th	In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe (the meetings end inconclusively on Thursday, December 17)

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December
1st	A Yugoslavian DC-9 crashes into a mountain while approaching Ajaccio Airport in Corsica, killing 178
5th	American general James Lee Dozier is kidnapped in Verona by Italian Red Brigades
8th	Arthur Scargill became President-elect of the National Union of Mineworkers
9th	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania police officer Daniel Faulkner is shot and killed during a routine traffic stop of a vehicle driven by William Cook, Mumia Abu-Jamal's younger brother
11th	In the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, army units kill 900 civilians
13th	Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland, to prevent the dismantling of the communist system by Solidarity
15th	A car bomb destroys the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 61 people. Syrian intelligence is blamed
28th	The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia
31st	A coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaces it with the PNDC led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings