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1980 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1980 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Events

January

  • 2 January – Workers at British Steel Corporation go on a nationwide strike over pay called by the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, which has some 90,000 members among British Steel's 150,000 workforce, in a bid to get a 20% rise. It is the first steelworks strike since 1926.
  • 19 January – The first UK Indie Chart is published in Record Business.
  • 20 January – The British record television 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 (1973).
  • 21 January – is beached at Brighton.
  • 28 January – Granada Television airs a controversial edition of World in Action on ITV, in which it alleges that Manchester United F.C. chairman Louis Edwards has made unauthorised payments to the parents of some of the club's younger players and has made shady deals to win local council meat contracts for his retail outlet chain.

February

March

April

  • 1 April
  • The steelworkers' strike is called off.
  • Britain's first official naturist beach is opened to the public in Brighton.
  • 2 April – 1980 St Pauls riot in Bristol.
  • 3 April – Education Act institutes the Assisted Places Scheme (free or subsidised places for children attending fee-paying independent schools based on results in the schools' entrance examination and means tests), gives parents greater powers on governing bodies and over admissions, and removes local education authorities' obligation to provide school milk and meals.
  • 4 April – Alton Towers Resort is opened by Madame Tussauds in Staffordshire as a theme park.
  • 6 April – The modernised Glasgow Subway is re-opened to the public, with new trains and renovated stations.
  • 10 April – The UK reaches an agreement with Spain to reopen its border with Gibraltar.
  • 18 April – Zimbabwe becomes independent of the United Kingdom.
  • 22 April – Unemployment stands at a two-year high of more than 1.5million.
  • 29 April – Filmmaker Sir Alfred Hitchcock dies aged 80 at his home in Los Angeles, only one month after his last public appearance.
  • 30 April
  • The Iranian Embassy Siege begins. A six-man terrorist team from the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan captures the Embassy of Iran in Prince's Gate, Knightsbridge, central London, taking 26 hostages.
  • Labour MP Thomas McMillan, 61, dies in hospital in London following a fall from a bus in the city two weeks previously.

May

  • 1 May – British Aerospace privatised.
  • 3 May – Liverpool win the Football League First Division title for 12th time.
  • 5 May – The SAS storm the Iranian Embassy building, killing 5 out of the 6 terrorists. One hostage is killed by the terrorists before the raid and one during it, but the remainder are freed. The events are broadcast live on television.
  • 10 May – West Ham United, of the Second Division, win the FA Cup for the third time in its history with a surprise 1–0 victory over First Division Arsenal in the final at Wembley Stadium. Trevor Brooking scores the only goal of the game to make West Ham United the third team from the Second Division to have won the trophy in the last eight years. As of 2021, West Ham are the last team from outside the top division to have won the FA Cup.https://www.historicalkits.co.uk/English_Football_League/FA_Cup_Finals/1980-1989.html
  • 16 May – Inflation has risen to 21.8%.
  • 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, resulting in a public outcry.
  • 28 May – Nottingham Forest retain the European Cup with a 1–0 win over Hamburger SV, the West German league champions, in Madrid. The winning goal is scored by Scotland international John Robertson. The European Cup has now been won by an English club for the fourth successive year, as Liverpool won it for two consecutive years before Forest's first victory last year.

June

July

  • 1 July – MG's Abingdon car factory looks set to close completely later this year as Aston Martin fails to raise the funds to buy it from British Leyland.
  • 8 July – Miners threatening to strike demand a 37% pay increase, ignoring pleas from Margaret Thatcher to hold down wage claims.
  • 10 July – Alexandra Palace in London gutted by fire.
  • 19 July–3 August – Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Olympics in Moscow and win 5 gold, 7 silver and 9 bronze medals.
  • 22 July – Unemployment has hit a 44-year high of nearly 1.9 million.
  • 24 July – Actor, singer and comedian Peter Sellers dies aged 54 of heart failure in London, shortly after dining with his fellow Goons Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan.
  • 29 July – 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.http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1980/07/29/T29078010/?s=Enterprise+Zone

August

  • 11 August
  • Margaret Thatcher visits the Harold Hill area of East London to hand of the keys to the 12,000th council tenants in Britain to buy their home under the right to buy scheme. However, she is met by jeering from neighbours of the family.
  • Tyne and Wear Metro opens on Tyneside after six years of construction, with the first phase between Haymarket in Newcastle and Whitley Bay. The light rail network is expected to grow throughout the 1980s.
  • 16 August – 37 people die as a result of the Denmark Place fire, arson at adjacent London nightclubs.
  • 20 August – Peter Sutcliffe victims: 47-year-old civil servant Marguerite Walls is murdered in Farsley, Leeds, by the "Yorkshire Ripper", Peter Sutcliffe, who at this time is awaiting trial for drink driving.
  • 28 August – Unemployment now stands at 2 million for the first time since 1935. Economists warn that it could rise to up to 2.5 million by the end of next year.

September

  • 1 September – Ford launches one of the most important new cars of the year, the third generation 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 and estate that follows a trend in this sector of car which is being repeated all over Western Europe. It will go on to be Britain's best-selling car of the decade starting from 1982.
  • 9 September – Bibby Line's Liverpool-registered ore-bulk-oil carrier sinks with the loss of all 44 crew south off Japan in Typhoon Orchid following structural failure. At 91,655 gross tons, she is the largest UK-registered ship ever lost.
  • 11 September – Chicago mobster Joseph Scalise with Arthur Rachel commit the Marlborough diamond robbery in London. The following day, they are arrested in Chicago after getting off a British Airways flight in the city; however, the 45-carat stone is never found.
  • 12 September – Consett Steelworks in Consett, County Durham closes with the loss of some 4500 jobs, instantly making it the town with the highest rate of unemployment in the UK.
  • 13 September – Hercules, a bear which had gone missing on a Scottish island filming a Kleenex advertisement, is found.
  • 21 September
  • First CND rally at RAF Greenham Common.
  • A Douglas A-26 Invader aircraft crashes during an air show at Biggin Hill Airport near London, and all seven people on board are killed.
  • 24 September – Peter Sutcliffe victims: 34-year-old Singapore-born doctor Upadhya Bandara is attacked and injured in Headingley, Leeds.

October

  • 3 October – The 1980 Housing Act comes into effect, giving council house tenants of at least three years' standing in England and Wales the right to buy their home from their local council at a discount.
  • 6 October – Deregulation of express coach services.
  • 8 October – British Leyland launches the Austin Metro, a small three-door hatchback which makes use of much of the Mini's drivetrain and suspension, including its 998 cc and 1275 cc engines. The Mini will continue to be produced alongside the Metro at Longbridge in Birmingham which was recently expanded to accommodate Metro production.
  • 10 October – Margaret Thatcher makes her "The lady's not for turning" speech to the Conservative Party conference after party MP's warn that her economic policy was responsible for the current recession and rising unemployment.
  • 15 October
  • James Callaghan, ousted as prime minister by the Conservative victory 17 months ago, resigns as Labour Party leader after four and a half years.
  • Former Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan, 86, criticises Margaret Thatcher's economic policies, claiming that she has "got the wrong answer" to the economic crises which she inherited from Labour last year. Her economic policies are also criticised by union leaders, who blame her policies for rising unemployment and bankruptcies, and warn that this could result in civil unrest.
  • 17 October – Elizabeth II makes history by becoming the first British monarch to make a state visit to the Vatican.
  • 22 October – Lord Thomson announces that The Times and Sunday Times will be closed down within five months unless a buyer is found.
  • 24 October – MG car production ends after 56 years with the closure of the plant in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, where more than 1.1 million MG cars have been built since it opened in 1924.
  • 25 October – Peter Sutcliffe victims: University student Maureen Lea is savagely attacked in Leeds.
  • 28 October – Margaret Thatcher declares that the government will not give in to seven jailed IRA terrorists who are on hunger strike in the Maze Prison in hope of winning prisoner of war status.
  • 31 October – The Night Ferry rail service linking London with Paris in France ends after 44 years (excluding World War II).

November

December

  • 8 December – Ex-Beatle John Lennon, 40, is shot dead in New York.
  • 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".
  • 12 December – Lord Kagan, a friend of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, is convicted of financial offences in connection with his Yorkshire-based textile business and jailed.
  • 14 December – Thousands of music fans hold a 10-minute vigil in Liverpool for John Lennon.
  • 18 December – Michael Foot's hopes of becoming prime minister in the next general election are given a boost by an MORI poll which shows Labour on 56% with a 24-point lead over the Conservatives.
  • 23 December – American animated special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer airs on ITV for the last time.
  • 26 & 28 December – Sightings of unexplained lights near RAF Woodbridge Suffolk, which become known as the Rendlesham Forest incident, the most well-known claimed UFO event in Britain.
  • 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.

Undated

Publications

Births

Deaths

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

See also

References