January 8 – AT&T agrees to divest itself into 22 subdivisions.
January 11–17 – A brutal cold snap sends temperatures to all-time record lows in dozens of cities throughout the Midwestern United States.
January 13 – Shortly after takeoff, Air Florida Flight 90 crashes into Washington, D.C.'s 14th Street Bridge and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 (five survive). On the same day, a Washington Metro train derails to the north, killing three (the system's first fatal accident).
April 6 – A blizzard unprecedented in size for April dumps 1–2 feet of snow on the northeastern United States, closing schools and businesses, snarling traffic, and canceling several major league baseball games.
Indianapolis 500: In what Indianapolis Motor Speedway historian Donald Davidson and Speedway public address announcer Tom Carnegie later call the greatest moment in the track's history, 1973 winner Gordon Johncock wins his second race over 1979 winner Rick Mears by 0.16 seconds, the closest finish to that date, after Mears draws alongside Johncock with a lap remaining, after erasing a seemingly insurmountable advantage of more than 11 seconds in the final 10 laps.
June 19 – Murder of Vincent Chin: Vincent Chin, a 27 year old Chinese American, is beaten unconscious by two white auto-workers in Highland Park, Michigan, who think he is Japanese and the cause of the declining prosperity of the American auto industry; he dies four days later.
June 25 – The Institute for Puerto Rican Policy is founded in New York City to research and advocate for Puerto Rican and Latino community issues. In 2006, it changes its name to the National Institute for Latino Policy.
July 16 – In New York City, The Reverend Sun Myung Moon is sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $25,000 for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Augustedit
August 20
Lebanese Civil War: A multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon. French troops arrive August 21, U.S. Marines August 25.
School teacher Carl Robert Brown murders eight people inside a welding shop in Miami, Florida, before being shot dead by a passing motorist.
September 3 – Speaker O'Neill and President Reagan settle one of the most unforgettable deals in US history (Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act), which would cut the ratio of spending of three to one and add more taxes.
September 15 – The first edition of USA Today is published.[8]
September 28 – 13 year old Lisa Ann Millican is murdered in Georgia after being abducted from a mall three days earlier by Alvin and Judith Neelley. She is tortured and raped, with Judith Neelley injecting her with Drano and Liquid Plumber in her neck and later shooting her to death.[9]
October 19 – Car designer John DeLorean is arrested for selling cocaine to undercover FBI agents (he is later found not guilty on the grounds of entrapment).[10]
November 3 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average surges 43.41 points, or 4.25%, to close at 1,065.49, its first all-time high in more than 9 years. It last hit a record on January 11, 1973, when the average closed at 1,051.70. The points gain is the biggest ever up to this point.
November 20 – University of California, Berkeley, executes "The Play" in a college football game against Stanford. Completing a wacky 57-yard kickoff return that includes 5 laterals, Kevin Moen runs through Stanford band members who had prematurely come onto the field. His touchdown stands and California wins 25–20.
December 2 – At the University of Utah, 61-year-old retired dentist Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart (he lives for 112 days with the device).
December 3 – A final soil sample is taken from the site of Times Beach, Missouri. It is found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin.
^"Eddie Murphy's 1st Appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" Remains Relevantly Funny 40 Later". Rare. 2020-06-12. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
^"This Day in Geek History: January 7". The Great Geek Manual. Retrieved 2013-03-25.
^Quinn, Dale (10 November 2008), "Spotlight: Auto-repair business is family affair", Arizona Daily Star, retrieved 2 December 2011
^PC World. PC World Communications. April 1992. p. 22.
^"1978 - 1982 The Unabomber: A Chronology". Court TV Online. Courtroom Television Network LLC. 1999. Archived from the original on 20 July 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
^"Patrick Fischer dies at 75; target of Unabomber". Los Angeles Times. 3 September 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
^Ferrell, O. C.; Hartline, Michael (2007). Marketing Strategy. Cengage Learning. p. 390. ISBN 978-0-324-36272-5.
^Neelley v. State, 494 So. 2d 669 – CourtListener.com
^Frank Schmalleger (2002). Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction. Prentice Hall. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-13-093350-8.
^UPI staff (October 20, 1982). "DeLorean held in jail". The Bulletin – Bend, Deschutes County, Oregon.
^Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (U.S.) (1983). Optical Engineering for Cold Environments: April 7-8, 1983, Arlington, Virginia. SPIE--the International Society for Optical Engineering. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-89252-449-5.
^Klara van Eyll, Böttcher 1725-2000, the story of a family enterprise, Cologne 2000, p.82-83.
^"Industrial application manufacturing: Roger Miller, Gateway Packaging Co". bizjournals.com. St Louis Business Journal. June 16, 2002.l
^"Eleanor Powell | American dancer and actress". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 3 April 2020.