8.TT.1.1

**__Entertaining 80’s__** This 8th grade exit project is about the 80’s. It will tell you about some of the most entertaining events of the 80’s.Events like the release of the famous Pac-man game, to the Challenger crash all the way to the fall of theBerlin wall. On May 22, 1980 the game Pac-man was released inJapan, although it was called Puck-man inJapan. Later, in October the U.S released the game. When it was released in the U.S its name was changed due to the closeness of puck and another English word, also it lost its real game design. The game designer, Torn Iwaton, was inspired by food. Pac-man was created by the thought of pizza. The power ups were cookies. Even the original name, Puck-man was about food. Puck-puck is used in Japanese as munching. For years this game has been enjoyed by many. One of the reasons Pac-man is so popular is because it is a simple game good for both genders of any age range. In 1981 the first women was appointed to the Supreme Court. Her name was Sandra Day O’Connor. She was born inEl PasoTexason March 26, 1930. She grew up on a ranch riding horse like a tomboy. O’Connor was a bright student and graduated when she was only sixteen. She then went to college were she meet her husband, John Jay O’Connor, who was in a class below her. They got married on December 20, 1952. They also had a family including three sons and many grandchildren. Before she was appointed she was theArizonastate senator. She was nominated by President Ronald, Reagan to close a gender gap in his election. On July 7, 1981 she was sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger. Her husband standing faithfully by her side when she was sworn in. O’Connor was with the court for twenty years before she announced that she would retire as soon as she found her successor. This was because John was severely sick, so she wanted to spend time with him. She retired on January 31, 2006 when her successor, Samuel Alito, took over. Sandra got to spend three years with her husband before he died on November 11, 2009 from Alzheimer’s disease. After his death Sandra started focusing more on her interest like golf, tennis, reading, and dancing. In 1982 King Henry’s most beloved ship; The Mary Rose was pulled out of the water. This project cost four million pounds, 6.27 million U.S dollars. Mary Rose was built in 1509, the year King Henry became king. The Mary Rose was known to be his favorite ship. It leaded the army of his ships proudly, always at the front. His sister liked the Mary Rose too after all he did name it after her. When Mary Rose sank, she took seven hundred sailors lives with her. The pull was hard and time consuming. It was post panned twice because of technical problems. Some say it was because it was found fifty feet below sea level. The raise itself took two hours just for the first jagged edge to come out of the water. The whole time this was happening sixty million people watched the event. But the pull was well worth it. After 437 years under water it still contained a lot of artifacts, over 14,000 artifacts to be exact the ship was restored and is now waiting for a new museum to be built to house her. In 1983 women’s history took a big leap. When the first American women went to space. The woman was Sally Ride. She was born inEncino,Californiaon May 26, 1951. Sally was a good tennis player, and went toWestlakeschool for girls on a tennis scholarship. She later attendedSworthmoreCollegebut soon dropped out, because the pressure to become a pro tennis player was too much. It took her three months to decide she was not good enough to be a pro tennis player. So she wentStanfordUniversity. Sally was a bright student and had her PhD at the age of twenty-seven. She then learned that NASA was looking for astronauts. She immediately tried out and was lucky enough to make it. The first shuttle that she rode was the Challenger (STS-7). A few years later she went back to school and got her bachelor’s in physics and English in 1973. Five years later Sally had her PhD in physics. On one of her missions she helped deploy satellites in space. On her next mission she served as a specialist, she never got to go on her third trip. It was cancelled because of the Challenger accident. As a replacement she became the director of California Space Institute of theUniversityofCalifornia. In 1984 disaster hitIndia. A huge gas leak reeked havoc on a densely populated city. It happened because of a Union Carbide’s storage tank for their pesticide plant. It was built here to help the local economy. But it did the exact opposed when the owner tried to use cheaper chemicals to help the failing plant. The chemical was Mic. and it was not only cheaper but it was more dangerous. The worker complained about this new chemical, but the owner did nothing about it. As if it was karma, all six safety features failed that night. It was estimated that twenty-seven tons of the chemical leaked in to the city. The city housed 900,000 people. The victims were asleep and helpless when the leak got to their homes. Many awoke by the screams of the children. Some people suffocated while the others chocked on their own bile. The rest collapsed in pain. Because of this tragedy 14,787 people died. Some were injured to the point of needing disability checks from the government. The reason this leak happened was thought to be faulty water values from were the leak must for started. For the victims who died a memorial was built in the horror of them. In 1985, a new Coke caused uproar. It was April 23 when Coca-Cola Company took one of the biggest risks in consumers’ goods. They changed their soda to compete with Pesi. Changing one of their key ingredients to high fructose corn syrup. Before the change it was the world’s most popular soft drink. The company tried to re-energize it, to give another diminution. Making it smoother, rounder yet bolder. But the new Coke gave the opposite result of what they were looking for. The consumer responded in on uproar. The consumers thought the change of Coke was like trampling the American flag. After the new Coke came out people started hoarding the old Coke. The demand was so high people were paying $30 for a case. Things like the ‘Society for the Preservation of the Real thing’, and ‘Old Cola Drinkers of America’, started to spring up all over the nation. Over 100,000 people joined trying to bring back the old Coke. There were blind taste test all putting the new Coke in the lead. The company owners could not figure out why the profit was not coming in for the new Coke. Finally one of their marketing directors suggested the idea that some people could not stand taste of the new Coke and the ones that picked the new Coke liked both. After that the old coke came back as the classic. As an after analyst Sam Craig (a professor of marketing at NY University) said the main problem was that they the owners didn’t as their consumers if they even wanted a new Coke. So their consumers felt betrayed. In 1986 the disaster of the decade happened. It was a horrible event, one that left the nation scarred. The date January 28 will stick in the minds of many and hearts of lots. It was the day the Challenger space shuttle exploded Along with the explosion it took several lives with it including Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Ran McNair, Judy Resnik, Ellsion Onizuka, Gregary Jaris, and the most remembered Christa Mcauliffe was the one who was making history. She was the first citation to go to space. And the only teacher, Christa Mcauliffe was social studies teacher at ConcordHigh Schoolin New Hampshire. She was selected from over 11,000 applicants. The flight was supposed to be a regular flight. It was the 25th space shuttle mission NASA had done. The 10th launch of the space shuttle Challenger. But there were warning signs. InFlorida the night before was a very cold night and formed icicle under the launch pad. NASA was concerned about the safety. The subcontractor of the “o” rings told NASA it should be cancelled. But the pressure of being six days behind and the million dollars they had spent to go to the moon pushed NASA to move forward. Like many NASA workers predicted the Challenger exploded. Killing it’s passengers and destroying all the equipment inside. The cause was a failure in the “o” rings. In recognition NASA suspended shuttle flights for two years. This accident could have been avoided if NASA would not have been pressured to move on quickly On October 19,1987, the economy took a major hit. With the stock market hitting an all time low. The event was called Black Monday. Many people tried to find a cause, but in truth there was no real cause, just panic among people. Many people thought it would be the start of a depression. Because they thought that because of the sudden drop of the economy would cause the industry to slow down work which meant they would have lay off worker. But in reality it didn’t cause that much jobs lose. The market dropped a total of 22.6 percent. This is called the drop of history because it was so unexpected, and with such a great drop in on day for Wall Street. For example S and P (a stock) dropped 20.4 percent that day. This frightened the people. They naturally looked for someone to blame. Demarcrats blamed Reagan, while others blamed the stock market itself. Both blames were turned down because of lack of evidence. This disaster was not all bad, because it brought attention to the need of trading curbs and circuit breakers. This is now employed in the stock market. In 1988 a terrorist attack frightened the nation. It happened on December, 21. The Pan Am Flight 103 flight was bombed and it exploded overScotland. It was coming fromLondon’sHeathrowInternationalAirport, going to New York Kennedy International airport. The bomb was made out of plastic explosives which were popular for terrorist attacks. This attack killed 261 people, 250 of them were on the plane, and 16 of them were crew members, and 11were killed on the ground. The 11 from the ground were killed by falling debris from the plane. But the worst was how the people on the plane died. They were crushed, hit, ripped apart or cut to death most still awake at the time. There were two lucky people on the plane that survived. The fact that most of the victims were younger than 35 and 189 civilians were killed, a lot for the time from this accident, (The most killed at the time.), caused theUnited Statesto get involved. After a thorough investigation Abdelbaset Ali- Mahmed alMegrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah were tried. Even though justice was severed many people in that city where it crashed suffered mental problems. In 1989, the end of the 80’s brought change. Like inBerlin, where their famous wall fell on November, 9. The wall had been a symbol of the cold war.Berlinhad been politically divided since the end of WW2. The wall was first constructed by the east side to keep the west side out. The east side was serving as the capital of German Democratic Republic. They used the wall as a border that they controlled, if you were from the west you hardly ever got to cross. Many people tried to rise over the wall, trying to get it destroyed but they all were killed. It took three decades to try to get the wall taken down. It was finally allowed to be deconstructed when Garbotshov (leader from the east) reformed. The destruction started in September but didn’t end in November. The fall of the wall symbolized the end of the cold war. After this a lot of things changed, like the stores staying open later and free crossing of sides. As soon as people heard the news they came to see if it was true. When it was found true both sides celebrated at theBerlinwall. After this chaos ensured the west was now running ramped in the east and the east in the west. After a great deal of time the chaos calmed down and was replaced with happiness in the nation. This was the start of something new for the nation. As you can see the 80’s was full of great, and tragic times and a very remarkable decade.