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In 1980, the world population was approximately 4,447,606,236 people[†]
1980Rohan Bopanna, Indian tennis player[†]
Rohan Machanda Bopanna is an Indian professional tennis player who specializes in doubles. He attained the world No. 1 ranking after winning his first major men's doubles title at the 2024 Australian Open with Matthew Ebden, becoming the oldest first-time No. 1 at the age of 43.
1980Omar Bravo, Mexican footballer[†]
Omar Bravo Tordecillas is a Mexican football manager and former footballer who played as a striker.
1980Suzanna Choffel, American singer-songwriter[†]
Suzanna Choffel is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has appeared on national television and in film. Known for her distinct voice and reggae-inspired guitar technique, her music has been described as "a unique sound equal parts Beat poetry, smoky soul grooves and indie-pop eccentricity".
1980Alex Garcia, Brazilian basketball player[†]
Alex Ribeiro Garcia, commonly known as either Alex Garcia, or simply as Alex is a Brazilian professional basketball player. He also represented the senior Brazilian national team. He is a 6-foot-3-inch (1.91 m) 225 pounds (102 kg) shooting guard-small forward.
1980Giedrius Gustas, Lithuanian basketball player[†]
Giedrius Gustas is a former Lithuanian professional basketball player. At the height of 1.90 m tall and a weight of 86 kg, he mainly played at the point guard position. During his club playing career, as a member of Žalgiris Kaunas, he won the EuroLeague championship in 1999. As a member of the Barons LMT, he won the Europe Cup championship in 2008. He was also a member of the senior Lithuanian national team, and with Lithuania, he won the gold medal at the 2003 EuroBasket and the bronze medal at the 2007 EuroBasket.
1980Scott Hamilton, New Zealand rugby player and coach[†]
Scott Elliot Hamilton is a New Zealand international rugby union player, who plays both on the wing or at fullback; he played two times for the All Blacks in 2006 and has played for the Crusaders in Super Rugby and Canterbury in the NPC. New Zealand's provincial competition. Hamilton moved to Leicester Tigers in 2008 where he played 142 games in 7 seasons winning three Premiership Rugby titles in 2009, 2010 and 2013.
1980Jack Hannahan, American baseball player[†]
John Joseph "Jack" Hannahan IV is an American former professional baseball utility player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Detroit Tigers, Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians, and Cincinnati Reds, and in the KBO League for the LG Twins.
1980Michael Henrich, American ice hockey player[†]
Michael Henrich is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. An NHL first-round draft pick of the Edmonton Oilers in 1998, Henrich played several years of professional hockey in North America before moving to professional hockey in Europe. Henrich is the first Jewish player to be selected in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft, and the only player taken in the first round of the 1998 NHL Entry Draft who did not play a regular season game in the National Hockey League.
1980Phil McGuire, Scottish footballer and manager[†]
Philip McGuire is a Scottish former professional footballer. He is currently the manager of Carnoustie Panmure in the SJFA East Superleague.
1980Aja Volkman, American singer-songwriter[†]
Aja Volkman is an American singer and songwriter, best known as the frontwoman of the indie rock band Nico Vega. She has also released an EP titled Egyptian as a duo with her then husband Dan Reynolds under the moniker Egyptian.
1980Alan Hardaker, English lieutenant and businessman (born 1912)[†]
Alan Hardaker OBE was an English football administrator for the Football League, a wartime Royal Navy officer, and previously an amateur footballer. He was born in Hull, Yorkshire and was the second son to John and Emma Hardaker. He was younger brother of Ernest Hardaker.
1980Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister.[†]
Robert Gabriel Mugabe was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) from 1975 to 1980 and led its successor political party, the ZANU – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), from 1980 to 2017. Ideologically an African nationalist, during the 1970s and 1980s he identified as a Marxist–Leninist, and as a socialist during the 1990s and the remainder of his career.
In "The Great Gatsby," Nick Carraway is asked what he does for a living. He replies simply, "I'm a bond man."
Rates on Treasury bills soared to record heights yesterday, exceeding 15 percent for the first time in the Government's weekly sales of these shortterm securities. Until last October, bills had never been sold at rates as high as 10 percent, and they reached 13 percent only two weeks ago.
Outside St. Brigid's School, on a mostly burned-out, abandoned block of Avenue B on Manhattan's Lower East Side, one bare, scrawny tree stood in a snow flurry. Inside a first-floor classroom, Sister Linda Anne Mitchell announced to her fourth-grade class: "That tree looks kind of dead out there now. But it's going to come alive-- the whole world's going to come alive at Easter."
BOGOTA, Colombia, March 3--On a makeshift flagpole on the roof of the Dominican Embassy here, the black, red and blue flag of the M-19 guerrilla movement hangs limply in the thin Andes air. In the three-story embassy and residence below, hooded terrorists, captive diplomats from 17 countries and a group of other prisoners have spent five days in close quarters.
BOSTON, March 3--A record number of Massachusetts voters, 1.5 million, are expected to cast ballots tomorrow in the first large-state Presidential primary of 1980, in which Representative John B. Anderson of Illinois, who polled less than 10 percent of the Republican vote in New Hampshire last week, now emerges as a strong contender.
Rupert Murdoch agreed yesterday to buy Cue-New York magazine for $5 million and announced plans to merge the biweekly entertainment, arts and dining guide into his rival New York magazine, a step that could make New York both more prosperous and more appealing editorially.
In numbing cold, thousands of transit and city police officers paid tribute yesterday to a transit policeman, Irving W. Smith, who was killed while off duty Friday stopping a bar holdup in Brooklyn.
WASHINGTON, March 3--The Administration's new anti-inflation effort emerged today, in the view of senior economic officials, as likely to call for spending reductions of about $4 billion in the current fiscal year and about $15 billion next year in an attempt to balance the fiscal year 1981 budget.
IN a few weeks, eastern Long Island's potato farmers will begin planting their crop. But this year they will do so without a pesticide known as Temik. It was withdrawn from use last month, leaving behind worried residents, whose water wells have been contaminated, and perplexed farmers who now must cope with the destructive Colorado potato beetle and the golden nematode without their chemical weapon of choice.
Eastern Air Lines plans to announce today an all-out entry into the alreadycrowded New York-California market, stressing fare and service innovations aimed at drawing customers from its "Big Three" competitors.
I was wondering if anything interesting on the news was going on when I was born, and decided to create this website for fun. The purpose is to show people what was going on when they were born. With this website I've found out that it was a pretty slow news day on my birthday, but I bet it would feel cool to know a historical event happened on your birthday.
The data used in this project is provided by the New York Times API. They have by far the best API I was able to find, with articles dating back to the 1950s. There weren't any other major newspapers that had an API with close to as much data. The closest was the Guardian API, but theirs only went back to the 1990s. I decided to only use articles from the New York Times because their API was by far the best. This tool works if you have a birthday after the 1950s or so.
Some important dates in history I'd recommend looking up on this website are:
These historical events are just a few examples of the fascinating moments in history you can explore through this tool. Whether you're interested in your own birthday, significant historical dates, or just curious about what was making headlines on any given day, this website offers a unique window into the past through the lens of contemporary news coverage.
You can read more on our blog.