20-year-old US tennis player John McEnroe wins the singles title in the US Open for the first of four times

The small firm of Microsoft wins the contract to provide the operating system of the IBM personal computer

US author Sam Shepard's play True West has its premiere in New York

Martin Scorsese directs Robert de Niro in Raging Bull

US choreographer Mark Morris founds his own company, the Mark Morris Dance Group, based in New York

Republican Ronald Reagan wins the US presidential election against the incumbent Jimmy Carter

Beatle John Lennon is murdered by a psychopath on the steps of his and Yoko Ono's apartment block in New York

Henry and Jane Fonda, father and daughter, star with Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond

Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first woman appointed to the US Supreme Court

President Reagan is shot outside a hotel in Washington by John W. Hinckley Jr, but survives

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is described for the first time in a US medical journal

The IBM PC 5150, the first Personal Computer, is launched with a chip by Intel and software by Microsoft

Raiders of the Lost Ark launches an ongoing series for director Steven Spielberg and actor Harrison Ford

Steven Spielberg directs E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, in which an alien is stranded on earth and is befriended by a young boy

Dustin Hoffman, in Tootsie, plays a man who becomes a star in the persona of an actress

Little Shop of Horrors, by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, opens in New York

Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church (or 'Moonies'), is convicted in the USA of tax fraud and imprisoned

8,000-year-old human remains are found in a waterlogged burial site at Windover, in Florida

George Segal's bronze monument The Holocaust is unveiled in San Francisco

Michael Jackson's releases the album Thriller, which goes on to sell 40 million copies in ten years

President Reagan proposes a Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) against nuclear attack

Philip Johnson completes the A.T. & T. skyscraper in New York, an early example of Post-Modernism

The US system MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) becomes the industry standard for electronic communication in music

A new version of the Apple adds the mouse to personal computers

Classical ballerina Natalia Makarova triumphs on Broadway in On Your Toes