January 7 - President Reagan announces that the U.S. will sever economic ties with Libya.
January 18 - The first Hispanic American astronaut, Franklin Chang-Diaz, is aboard the space shuttle
Columbia's six-day mission.
January 20 - Formal observances of Martin Luther King Day begin in the U.S.
January 28 - The space shuttle Challenger explodes after takeoff.
February 18 - Jeff Keith, a 22-year-old student from Boston College completes a run across the U.S. despite having lost one leg to cancer.
February 24 - The Nature Conservancy environmental group buys 17 acres of desert in California to protect the world's oldest known plant, a creosote bush.
April 6 - A terrorist bomb explodes in a German club, killing 61 Americans.
May 15 - The earliest dinosaur skeleton yet discovered is unearthed in the Painted Desert, Arizona.
July 13 - Vice President Bush serves as acting President for eight hours during surgery on President Reagan.
October 8 - The U.S. Senate finds Federal District Judge Harry E. Claiborne guilty on three counts of impeachment and remove him from office after he refused to give up his position while in prison.
