What a strange thing to write about, huh? Let me give you some background information.

As a young Pamela I loved perusing through the 26ish volumes of books that made up the encyclopedia collection that my parents had somehow acquired. Flash forward to present day and my workplace is moving to a new office, so they’re pretty much everything in the office. Yup, all the conference tables, desk chairs, filing cabinets, projector screens, various monitors, etc. So a silent auction was held this week for various items that were up for sale and everything else was free to whoever put a yellow sticker with their name on the items first.

I bought a few things (let me know if you want a separate post on those items) and a few free items as well. Everything was too heavy for me to put into my little car but I did slap my yellow sticker onto this atlas and took it home immediately.

As I skimmed the pages I noticed that Germany was split into West Germany and East Germany, which made me wonder how old the atlas was, as Germany had not been reunited until 1990. I looked until I found MCMLXXXII typed out towards the front. I put it into Google and… voila! 1982.Time for some pictures!

Yellow Stickered Atlas

USA page!

Hello Illinois!

After closing the book for the night, that got me thinking. What else happened in 1982? Here are lots of fun facts about 1982 I found on Wikipedia.

• January 7 – The Commodore 64 8-bit home computer is launched (released in August)
• March 8 – Mexican-American tattoo artist and make up line owner Kat Von D is born
• March 26 – The groundbreaking occurs for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. (Dedicated later in the year on November 13)
• March 29 – The 54th Academy Awards are hosted by Johnny Carson
  • Best Picture – Chariots of Fire
  • Best Director – Warren Beatty, Reds
  • Best Actor – Henry Fonda, On Golden Pond
  • Best Actress – Katharine Hepburn, On Golden Pond
  • Multiple Nominations and awards:
    • Reds – 12 nominations, 3 awards
    • On Golden Pond – 10 nominations, 3 awards
    • Ragtime – 8 nominations
    • Raiders of the Lost Ark – 8 nominations, 4 wins
    • Chariots of Fire – 7 nominations, 4 wins
• April 5 – English actress Hayley Atwell is born
• May 1 – President Ronald Reagan gives the opening address for the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee
• May 30 – Spain enters NATO as the 16th member, first new member since West Germany entered in 1955
• June 11 – U.S. release date of E.T.
• June 21 – Prince William, now Duke of Cambridge, is born
• July 11 – Italy beats West German 3-1 and wins the 1982 FIFA World Cup taking place in Spain
• September 7 – The musical Cats opens on Broadway for a run that would last 18 years
• September 14 – American actress and Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly dies (b. 1929)
• September 19 – Scott Fahlman posts the first emoticons
• September 21 – The United Nations proclaims the first International Day of Peace
• Last week of September – Banned Books Week is founded in the U.S.
• October 1 – Walt Disney World opens EPCOT Center
• October 1 – The first CD player is launched by Sony
• October 6 – Madonna releases her debut single “Everybody”
• October 18 – First Lady of the United States Bess Truman dies (b. 1885)
• October 28 – English actor Matt Smith is born
• October 30 – The DeLorean Motor Company ends production
• November 30 – Michael Jackson releases his album Thriller
• December 26 – The computer wins Time magazine’s Man of the Year award, the first time it is awarded to a non-human
• December 29 – American actress Alison Brie is born
• Unknown – The People’s Republic of China becomes the first nation to have a population of 1 billion
• Unknown – The Toyota Camry is introduced
• Unknown – La Casa de los Espiritus (The House of Spirits) by Chilean author Isabel Allende is published
• Unknown – The Color Purple by American author Alice Walker is published
• Nobel Prizes of 1982
  • Physics – Kenneth G. Wilson
  • Chemistry – Aaron Klug
  • Medicine – Sune K. Bergstrom, Bengt I. Samuelsson, John R. Vane
  • Literature – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • Peace – Alva Myrdal, Alfonso Garcia Robles
  • Economics – George Stigler

So 1982 seems like it was a pretty good year overall. I really enjoyed perusing through the USA section and I’m looking forward to looking through the rest of the book. Learning more about the year this book was published was also nice and I really fun to read about. I hope you had a good time reading this post and feel free to leave me suggestions of places I should look up in my book!

Thanks for reading!