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1980North America - USA
 
The Personal Computer (PC) is launched by IBM. 
1980Middle East
 
Iran-Iraq War 
1982South America
 
Falklands War 
1983North America - USA
 
Larry Clark publishes Teenage Lust.
1983North America - USA
 
Gilles Peress publishes Telex Iran.
1983North America - USA
 
The Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) opens officially in San Diego's historic Balboa Park cultural complex with a 7,500 square-foot space 
1984North America - USA
 
The Getty Museum on Los Angeles opens a photographic department with Weston Naef as the first curator. By the end of 1984, through the acquisition of a number of key collections (including those of Samuel Wagstaff, Volker Kahman/Georg Heusch and Bruno Bischofberger), the collection has grown to 25,000 prints, 1,500 daguerreotypes, 475 albums containing almost 40,000 photographs and about 30,000 stereographs and cartes-de-visite. 
1985North America - USA
 
Jim Goldberg publishes Rich and Poor.
1986North America - USA
 
The space shuttle Challenger explodes. 
1986North America - USA
 
The Iran-Contra Affair becomes public 
1986North America - USA
 

 
Nan Goldin, 1986, Book cover for Nan Goldin "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" (Aperture, 1986), Book cover, Creative Commons - Wikipedia, LL/47565
Nan Goldin publishes The Ballad of Sexual Dependency that examines her own life through personal snapshots taken between 1971 and 1985 of her sexual partners, friends and acquaintances as they progress through a personal hell of drugs and sex. The book captures the essence of self-absorption in a surrounding world that doesn't care.
1986North America - USA
 
Bruce Weber publishes O Rio de Janeiro.
1987North America - USA
 
Bill Burke publishes I Want To Take Picture.
1987North America - USA
 

 
Robert Mapplethorpe, 1986, Andy Warhol, Gelatin silver print, Fabien Fryns Fine Arts (CLOSED), LL/5217
Andy Warhol dies following a gall bladder operation. He had never fully recovered from a gunshot he received in July 1968 from Valerie Solanis of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men). He remains one of the seminal figures of Pop Art and his conversion of the banal into art continues to influence photography.
1987Middle East
 
First Intifada (Israel and the Occupied territories) 
1987Europe - Russia
 
Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Soviet Union) 
1987North America - USA
 
Karl Baden commences the Every day series in which he takes a stylistically similar self-portrait each day.
1988North America - USA
 

 
Joel Sternfeld, 1987, Book cover for Joel Sternfeld "American Prospects" Introduction by Andy Grundberg. Afterword by Anne W. Tucker (Houston: the Museum of Fine Arts and Times Books, 1987), Book cover, Swann Galleries - New York, LL/28647
Joel Sternfeld publishes American Prospects.
1988North America - USA
 
The Daguerreian Society (3043 West Liberty Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15216-2460, USA - www.daguerre.org) is founded to promote the study of all aspects of Daguerreotypes. 
1988North America - USA
 
The Piss Christ photograph of Andres Serrano encourages Senator Jesse Helms (Republican, North Carolina) to argue against federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
1989Europe - Spain
 
Joan Fontcuberta and Pere Formiguera publish Fauna.
1989Europe - Germany
 
Fall of the Berlin Wall (Germany) 
1990North America - USA
 
Allen Ginsberg publishes Allen Ginsberg Photographs.
1990North America - USA
 
Adobe releases Photoshop 1.0 for Apple Macintosh computers. 
1990North America - USA
 
An exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe at the Cincinnati Art Museum is closed down when the work is accused of being obscene. Although the Museum is cleared there is a shift towards censorship in the arts.
1991North America - USA
 
Lothar Baumgarten publishes Carbon.
1991Africa - Northern Africa
 
Algerian Civil War 
1991Europe
 
Balkan Wars 
1991Middle East
 
First Gulf War 
1992North America - USA
 
Tim Berners-Lee develops the HTML protocol for exchanging information over the WWW. 
1992North America - USA
 
Kodak releases the Photo-CD, it is the first popular method of storing digital images that is available to the public. 
1992North America - USA
 
The JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) image compression standard for digital images is published in IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics. As it is non-proprietary and has a high compression rate it becomes the preferred means for transmitting photographic images over the Internet. 
1993North America - USA
 
The play Angels in America by Tony Kushner is shown on Broadway. 
1993North America - USA
 
The first browser for WWW HTML pages is released by NCSA. 
1994North America - Mexico
 
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) fights for the rights of indigenous peoples in the Chiapas region of Mexico. 
1994Europe - Germany
 
Christian Boltanski publishes Menschlich.
1994North America - USA
 
Time magazine is critised for placing a digitally altered photograph of O.J. Simpson on the front cover. 
1994North America - USA
 
Jock Sturges publishes nude photographs of children in his book Radiant Identities (Aperture) - the book creates considerable controversy with opinions divided between those arguing for freedom of expression whilst others argue that it is child pornography.
1995Europe
 
Massacre of Muslims at Srebrenica in the Balkans by Bosnian Serbs 
1995North America - USA
 
Richard Prince publishes Adult Comedy Action Drama.
1995Asia
 
Chechen War 
1996North America - USA
 
David LaChapelle publishes LaChapelle Land.
1996North America - USA
 
Microsoft releases the first version of its Internet Explorer WWW browser. 
1997Europe - Great Britain
 
The Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. 
1998North America - USA
 
American politics are thrown into upheaval by the Clinton White House sex scandal. 

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