Dashed left edge = started before June 1981 ·
Dashed right edge = ongoing beyond June 1981
Events in June 1981 8
1958 – 1981Terry Fox (1958-1981)Died 28 June 1981, aged 22Canadian athlete and cancer research campaigner Terry Fox died in New Westminster, British Columbia, on 28 June 1981. He had run 5,373 kilometers across Canada on a prosthetic leg in his Marathon of Hope before cancer forced him to stop in 1980. The annual Terry Fox Run held in his memory has since raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research.
1981The Clash play Bond's CasinoNew York residencyFire marshals cut ticket numbers, so the band plays 17 shows.
1981French Open 1981Men: Björn Borg · Women: Hana MandlíkováBorg's final Grand Slam title.
1981Radio Free Europe -- the debut singleR.E.M. records 'Radio Free Europe' as their debut single for the tiny Hib-Tone label in June 1981. The single's combination of Buck's chiming guitar arpeggios, Mills's melodic bass, Berry's driving drums and Stipe's deliberately obscured vocals -- singing fragments of lyric over each other, mumbling rather than enunciating -- is immediately distinctive. It is played on college radio stations across America and named the best independent single of 1981 by the New York Times. The sound that emerges from this recording -- jangly, melodic, slightly mysterious -- becomes the template for a decade of American college rock.
1981 – 2009Jade Goody (1981-2009)Died 22 March 2009, aged 27Goody rose to fame as a contestant on the British reality show Big Brother and became one of the country's best-known reality television personalities. She continued to document her life publicly after being diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer, raising awareness of the disease. Her death drew major national media coverage in Britain.
1981Israeli airstrike destroys Iraq's Osirak reactorOperation Opera targets Iraqi nuclear facilityIsraeli fighter jets destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad on 7 June 1981, in a raid codenamed Operation Opera. Israel said the strike prevented Iraq from developing nuclear weapons. The attack was condemned by the UN Security Council but is widely cited in later debates over preemptive strikes on nuclear facilities.
1981Operation OperaIsraeli strike on OsirakEight Israeli F-16s, escorted by F-15s, destroy Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad.
1981For Your Eyes Only — Roger MooreA deliberate return to gritty realism after the excess of Moonraker. Bond investigates the theft of a British military encryption device, racing against the KGB. The film opens with Bond scattering the remains of his murdered wife Tracy — a rare moment of genuine emotional continuity in the series. Budget: $28 million. Box office: $195.3 million.