WHAT ALL HAPPENED JUNE TO DECEMBER 1980
Find out what all happened June to December 1980

Italian Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 mysteriously explodes in mid air while in route from Bologna to Palermo, killing all 81 on board. Also known in Italy as the Ustica disaster (27. June 1980)

The Quietly Confident Quartet of Australia wins the Men's 4 x 100 metre medley relay at the Moscow Olympics, the only time the United States has not won the event at Olympic level. (24. July 1980)

Iran–Iraq War: Operation Morvarid – The bulk of the Iraqi Navy is destroyed by the Iranian Navy in the Persian Gulf. (Commemorated in Iran as Navy Day.) (28. November 1980)

Institution of sharia in Iran. (7. July 1980)

Israel's Knesset passes the Jerusalem Law (30. July 1980)

Flood in Ibadan after 12 hours of heavy downpour killed over 300 people and properties worth million destroyed. (31. August 1980)

A bomb explodes at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200. (2. August 1980)

Former Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle is killed in Asunción, Paraguay. (17. September 1980)

Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting. (1. June 1980)

The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak. Seven tornadoes hit Grand Island, Nebraska, which take five lives, 357 single-family homes, 33 mobile homes, 85 apartments, 49 businesses and cause $300 million in damages all told, according to statistics compiled on the deadly storm by the National Weather Service and the American Red Cross. (3. June 1980)

Salvadoran Civil War: Four U.S. nuns and churchwomen, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel, are murdered by a military death squad. (2. December 1980)

A train crash kills 18 people in County Cork, Ireland. (1. August 1980)

"O Canada" officially becomes the national anthem of Canada. (1. July 1980)

The government of Poland legalizes the Solidarity trade union. (24. October 1980)

Pope John Paul II shakes hands with the Dalai Lama during a private audience in Vatican City. (9. October 1980)

The African National Congress in South Africa publishes a call to fight from their imprisoned leader Nelson Mandela. (10. June 1980)

Lake Peigneur drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole. (20. November 1980)

Princess Caroline of Monaco divorces Philippe Junot. (9. October 1980)

The St. Gotthard Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel at 10.14 miles (16.224 km) stretching from Göschenen to Airolo. (5. September 1980)

After weeks of strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, the nationwide independent trade union Solidarity is established. (17. September 1980)