Photographs of the 1980s that Changed the World
Royal Wedding - The Tank Man - Berlin Wall - Space Shuttle
F Royal wedding Princes Charles married Diana Spencer 1981

Tiananmen Square 1989 A hunger strike by 3,000 students in Beijing had grown to a protest of more than a million as the injustices of a nation cried for reform. For seven weeks students of the People's Republic, protested in Tiananmen Square with the government dispatched soldiers and tanks to curb the rally. As the world waited as young man simply would not move, standing with his shopping bags before a line of tanks, a hero was born. Today this brave man is commonly referred to as "The Tank Man" His true identity is still unknown. It is   believed he will not reveal himself for fear of the long jail term. A second hero emerged as the tank driver refused to crush the man, and instead drove his tank around him. Soon this dream would end, and blood would fill Tiananmen. But this picture had shown a billion Chinese that there is hope

The fall of the Berlin Wall 1989 At that time, the Cold War was still dominant. Hardly anybody predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union until just before it happened in 1989, so most 1980 forecasts for the year 2000 retained the Cold War as the defining feature. The fall of the Berlin Wall is a very visible sign of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nobody anticipated this dramatic change even a few years in advance

9 November 2009 Berlin marks 20 years since the fall of the wall 10s of thousands of people, including dissidents, songwriters, priests and political leaders who helped to engineer the collapse of communism in the former eastern bloc, braved a cold and rain,  to mark 20 years since the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the cold war. Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, retraced the first steps she and tens of thousands of other east Germans made to the west 20 years ago, as celebrations across Europe included memorial services, candlelit vigils and – the highlight of the day – a scheduled toppling of 1,000 giant dominoes along an almost one-mile stretch of the wall's route.

28 January 1986 The American space shuttle, Challenger, has exploded killing all seven astronauts on board. The five men and two women - including the first teacher in space - were just over a minute into their flight from Cape Canaveral in Florida when the Challenger blew up. The astronauts' families, at the airbase, and millions of Americans witnessed the world's worst space disaster live on TV. The danger from falling debris prevented rescue boats reaching the scene for more than an hour