These years rocked, literally. They had some of the best rock bands and musicians of all time, the likes of Rush (Canadian), Queen (British), Van Halen, and Cliff Burton of Metallica. But on a more serious note, there was a good deal of good and bad that happened in these decades.

Starting off with the bad, a breakdown for a good while in American-Soviet relations, effectively putting a halt to detente. The oil crisis in the middle east causes prices in the United States to skyrocket, leading to slight economic recession. The Challenger Shuttle exploding mere moments after launch was a tragedy, especially to the world of scientific discovery and spaceflight. On that note, Apollo 13 nearly becoming the first human deaths in space was a terrifying spectacle to kick off these two decades. Iran kidnapping a bunch of Americans and holding them hostage for ages was tense. The two superpowers taking turns boycotting the Summer Olympics, the 1980 one in Russia, and the 1984 one in the US. Then you have Regan calling the Soviets and “evil empire’ and escalating tensions even further, despite me agreeing very much with that sentiment.

Onto the good, the resuming of communication between the United States and the Soviet Union under Gorbachev brought about the quicker end of the Cold War, and although the Union would not dissolve until 1991, the cracks already showed when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. As mentioned before, the music industry was booming, hit after hit seemingly made every month by old and familiar faces. Thrash metal was seriously taking off too in the rock scene, and soon names like Judas priest, Metallica, and Megadeth would become well known bands for their work. In the world of film there had been incredible leaps, from the grainy technicolor World War II films to the fantastic works of Lucasfilm like Indiana Jones and Star Wars to the terrifying claustrophobia of ALIEN.

In all, a solid two decades of bumpy but effective deescalation in the Cold War and for many a golden age of American artistry.