Major anesthetic themes in the 1980s

Abstract

The 1980s expanded the benefits and drawbacks of technological advances. Ted Turner founded CNN in 1980, and by mid-decade, the PC, the MAC, and Windows were released, altering how we work, play, and communicate. The 1988 opening of the internet added to the revolution. Events and international politics proceeded in unexpected directions, all under the watchful gaze of television and international media. We learned of John Lennon's 1980 assassination. We learned that a toxic gas leak killed 16,000 people in Bhopal, that an earthquake devastated Mexico City, that an oil spill from the Exxon Valdez contaminated hundreds of miles of pristine Alaskan coastline, and that a meltdown occurred in the Chernobyl nuclear energy plant. Thousands of spectators and millions on television saw the space shuttle Challenger explode shortly after launch. The world watched the brutal suppression of protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989.