1980: What the world was like the last time Oklahoma State and Arkansas met on the football field

STILLWATER, Okla. (KNWA/KFTA) — It’s been more than four decades since the Cowboys and Razorbacks met on the football field.

The last meeting between the two came in the 1980 season in Little Rock as Arkansas defeated Oklahoma State 33-20.

The world was very different in 1980 than it is in 2024, so let’s take a look at what else happened in that year.

Different Leaders

In 1980, Bill Clinton was in the second year of his first stint as the Governor of Arkansas and Jimmy Carter was in the third year of his only term as President of the United States.

“Do you believe in miracles?”

The United States Olympic hockey team conquered the Soviet Union in the semifinals of the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid with a 4-3 victory.

The Americans trailed 3-2 entering the final period, but two goals in the third gave the U.S. the unlikely victory as the Soviets won the last four gold medals in the event dating back to the 1964 Games.

“11 seconds, you’ve got 10 seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles? YES!”, Al Michaels, who called the game on ABC Sports, said in his famous call at the end of the game.

The United States would go on to win the gold medal, defeating Finland 4-2.

Eruption in Washington

On the morning of May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens in Washington erupted , after it was shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale.

The north face of the mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche, with slabs of rock and ice falling into the lake below.

Nearly 150 square miles of forest were left dead or blown over by the eruption. A mushroom-shaped cloud of ash rose for miles. The eruption lasted around nine hours and roughly 50 related deaths were reported as a result.

“Puck Man”?

Pac-Man officially launched on June 29, 1980 , at Shinjuku ALTA in Tokyo. The video game was originally called “Puck Man” and was later rebranded as Pac-Man.

It launched in the United States later that year and was a hit. More than 100,000 units were sold in the first year of its release.

Redrum

“The Shining” was released in theaters on May 23, 1980.

“A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter, where a sinister presence influences the father into violence. At the same time, his psychic son sees horrifying forebodings from both the past and the future,” IMDB describes the movie’s plot .

The psychological horror film is considered by many to be one of the best films in the genre’s history and United States National Film Registry in 2018 for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” according to the Associated Press .

Magic becomes the center of attention

Earvin “Magic” Johnson dropped 42 points in the NBA title-clinching 123-107 win for the Los Angeles Lakers over the Philadelphia 76ers.

The NBA Finals MVP stepped up in the absence of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who was injured in the previous game to give what the NBA called one of the top moments in Finals history .

This Finals was the first to feature the three-point line which debuted at the beginning of the regular season.

The birth of CNN

The Cable News Network flipped the switch on June 1, 1980, becoming the first 24-hour news channel in American history.

The first story that aired on the network was about the attempted assassination of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan and the first show was anchored by the husband and wife duo of Dave Walker and Lois Hart.

Devastation in Texas

Hurricane Allen devastated portions of Texas as the first storm of the 1980 Atlantic Hurricane season.

The category 3 storm made landfall early on August 10 northeast of Brownsville at 115 miles per hour. At its peak, Allen was a category 5 and, at the time, had the lowest pressure of any Atlantic hurricane.

Allen also had the highest recorded wind speeds of any Atlantic hurricane in recorded history with winds of 190 mph. More than 200 people died as a result of the storm and Allen was one of seven storm names to be retired in the 1980s.

Reagan landslide

Former California Governor Ronald Reagan faced incumbent President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election.

Reagan rolled over Carter, winning 46 states and collecting 489 electoral votes. It was the most electoral votes collected by a candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 523 in 1936.

Carter was the first incumbent president to be defeated in an election since 1932.

“Hell on Earth” at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas

A fire started at The Deli at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino (now Horseshoe Las Vegas) in Las Vegas just after 7 a.m. on November 21, 1980. After the fire was put out, a total of 85 people were killed.

The fire led to much stricter fire codes.

“In 1980, many high-rises were not equipped with smoke detectors–much less sprinkler systems. The year after the disaster, both the Nevada and California legislatures beefed up state fire ordinances,” Los Angeles Times writer Susan Christian said in a 1990 article.

It was the second-deadliest hotel fire after 119 were killed in an Atlanta hotel fire in 1946.

Arkansas’s game against Oklahoma State kicks off Saturday at 11 a.m. on ABC.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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