NOVEMBER 1989 Berlin Wall Comes Down, the Cold War Ends
Astonishing Eighties
JUNE 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests and Massacre
NOVEMBER 1980 Ronald Reagan Elected, Pledges New Conservatism Ronald Reagan, veteran screen actor and two-term governor of California, had sought the Republican nomination in 1976 and barely been turned back by Nixon’s successor, the incumbent Gerald Ford. In 1980 Reagan captured the nomination easily and mounted an aggressive campaign against President Jimmy Carter, whose voter appeal was severely diminished by high inflation, apparent Soviet success in developing nations, and the Iran hostage crisis. Reagan was decisively elected in November, capturing 50.7% of the vote to Carter’s 41%. Upon becoming president, and acting in accord with earlier promises, President Reagan launched an effort to reduce the size of government, securing a 25% reduction in individual and corporate taxes and making substantial cuts in most domestic programs aside from Social Security and Medicare. At the same time President Reagan pushed through an enormous increase in the military budget in an effort to rebuild armed forces he believed had deteriorated under Nixon, Ford, and Carter. SEE FIGURE 66 JANUARY 1981 Orange County Population Reaches 2,000,000 Orange County is commonly portrayed as a sleepy suburb of Los Angeles, well-manicured but inescapably boring. While such a portrait may have been accurate in the immediate post-World War II era, it was no longer true by the time the county’s population reached two million in early 1981. By then, Orange County had become an important entity of its own, and careful observers discovered in it not a simple hinterland but an economically and culturally dynamic region. It had quietly become a major export center for the international economy, with nearly 25% of its firms involved in overseas commerce. In other words, while Orange County had become increasingly independent of Los Angeles, it had also become more and more tied to the wider world. As a result, it had become surprisingly cosmopolitan and socially diverse. Such a change
JUNE 1988 Voters Approve the Irvine Open Space Agreement
SEPTEMBER 1986 Orange County Performing Arts Center Opens
APRIL 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
Figure 66. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger administering the oath of office to Ronald Reagan. Image courtesy of National Archives .
AUGUST 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles
had occurred simultaneously with growth of diverse communities and what has been called an “hour glass economy,” characterized by glaring economic inequalities.
SEPTEMBER 1982 Centers for Disease Control Uses the Term AIDS for the First Time
JULY 1981 First Woman Appointed to U.S. Supreme Court
AUGUST 1981 Release of the First Personal Computer
Gaining new momentum in the 1960s, the feminist movement in the United States grew steadily stronger in succeeding years. It addressed a wide range of issues that included gender inequality, family obligations, employment opportunity, divorce law, and reproductive rights. Achieving significant legal victories, among them the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Educational Equity Act of 1974, and Supreme Court decisions outlawing gender discrimination, it gradually transformed attitudes toward women. An important milestone was President Reagan’s appointment in 1981 of the first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor of Arizona, to the United States Supreme Court, where she would serve with distinction for twenty-four years. The 1980s witnessed other accomplishments as well, including the nomination of Geraldine Ferraro for vice president by the Democratic Party in 1984. In 1992, a breakthrough year, the number of women elected to the House of Representatives increased from 30 to 48 and to the Senate from three to seven, including two from California. SEE FIGURE 67 ON FOLLOWING PAGE
JULY 1981 First Woman Appointed to U.S. Supreme Court
JANUARY 1981 Orange County Population Reaches 2,000,000
NOVEMBER 1980 Ronald Reagan Elected, Pledges New Conservatism
ASTONISHING EIGHTIES
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