- 2 days ago
The 1980s were iconic — but not everything from that era aged well.
In this video, we revisit 10 moments from the 80s that were once normal, accepted, or ignored but are now considered deeply disturbing by today’s standards.
From pop culture to real-world events, these moments show how much society has changed.
Subscribe to watchmojo.world for more:
• Disturbing history
• Pop culture breakdowns
• Moments that aged badly
In this video, we revisit 10 moments from the 80s that were once normal, accepted, or ignored but are now considered deeply disturbing by today’s standards.
From pop culture to real-world events, these moments show how much society has changed.
Subscribe to watchmojo.world for more:
• Disturbing history
• Pop culture breakdowns
• Moments that aged badly
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NewsTranscript
00:00There were no rules about how long we were allowed to think before we reported a strike.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at jaw-dropping events in the 1980s that are way worse.
00:10There's no way to stop this or contain this.
00:15The preventable Challenger tragedy.
00:17By the mid-80s, shuttle launches felt routine.
00:20The awe of the Apollo 11 moon landing was old news.
00:23Shuttle flights were just background noise.
00:25To reignite national excitement, NASA added a schoolteacher.
00:30Mr. McAuliffe to the Challenger mission.
00:32What are you most excited about?
00:33Seeing the Earth from that perspective.
00:35Of that small planet.
00:37Millions of kids tuned in from their classrooms to watch.
00:40History unfold.
00:41Instead, they watched a preventable disaster.
00:43Engineers had warned for...
00:45About the solid rocket booster O-rings failing in cold weather.
00:48Management pushed the launch anyway.
00:50I sure hope nothing happens tomorrow, but if it does, I'm...
00:55I'm not going to be the person to stand before a board of inquiry and tell them that I gave you...
01:00My approval of the launch, my rocket boosters in an environment that they were never qualified.
01:0573 seconds after liftoff, the shuttle disintegrated live on national...
01:10At the time, it was framed as a tragic accident.
01:13Looking back, it's one of the most...
01:15Disturbing examples of bureaucratic hubris in modern American history.
01:20I would say then that...
01:23No, no, no, no, no.
01:25We'll have to look at the list here.
01:26Rex 84's Secret Femiplan.
01:28Cold War tensions were high...
01:30In the 1980s, and Washington loved itself a doomsday drill.
01:33But if history teaches...
01:35Anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our...
01:40They had multiple every year, but one exercise crossed straight into pure...
01:45Dystopia.
01:45Appropriately, in 1984, the Reagan administration quietly ran a drill...
01:50called Rex 84, a continuity of government plan in case of national emergency.
01:55Sounds boring, right?
01:56Except the fine print included suspending the Constitution and declaring Marshall...
02:00law.
02:00They'd also create military camps to detain up to 400,000 immigrants with...
02:05Hints of domestic dissidents, too.
02:06Nobody outside the Beltway even knew about Rex 84.
02:10Until it surfaced in the Iran-Contra hearings.
02:12Colonel North, in your work at the...
02:15NSC, were you not assigned at one time to work on plans for the...
02:20Continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?
02:23With the Trump administration open...
02:25Reckx-84.
02:26Reckx-84.
02:27Reckx-84.
02:28Reckx-84.
02:29Reckx-84.
02:30Reckx-84.
02:31Reckx-84.
02:32Reckx-84.
02:33Reckx-84.
02:34Reckx-84.
02:35Reckx-84.
02:36Reckx-84.
02:37Reckx-84.
02:38Reckx-84.
02:39Reckx-84.
02:40Reckx-84.
02:41Reckx-84.
02:42Reckx-84.
02:43Reckx-84.
02:44Reckx-84.
02:45Reckx-84.
02:46Reckx-84.
02:47Reckx-84.
02:48Reckx-84.
02:49Reckx-84.
02:50Reckx-84.
02:51Reckx-84.
02:52Reckx-84.
02:53Reckx-84.
02:54Reckx-84.
02:55Reckx-84.
02:56Reckx-84.
02:57to fences and demanded a future without mushroom clouds i'd managed to get a little mention
03:02of the march in conventional women's magazines like cosmopolitan
03:07seem to remember and there were women who had seen these and
03:12and jumped at it and thought yes this is for me to the public it looked like a grassroots pro
03:17test margaret thatcher's government viewed it as a communist threat newly unearthed records
03:33you
03:22to reveal that undercover police infiltrated the campaign for nuclear disarmament for years
03:40you
03:27copper spied on activists feeding intel back to the state at the time these
03:32women were often mocked as eccentrics now we know they were also being surveilled like criminal
03:37criminals i'm very proud of what i did really some things never change as great britain remains one of
03:42the most robust surveillance states on earth andreve bay radioactive water leak everyone
03:47remembers chernobyl but the 1980s were littered with other nuclear accidents and near miss
03:52places you can imagine if there was an issue and there was a problem with the fuel
03:57it escaped into the uh the radioactivity escaped into the water systems you don't
04:02have very far to go to to make it to make it to the uh to the gulf and out into the baren sea
04:07most barely made headlines california san onofre plant for example suffered a leak in the
04:121980s that most people never heard about china's diabe plant meanwhile faced pro
04:17protests of her safety before it even opened but one of the most chilling took place in russia's andreve bay
04:22a soviet naval base in 1982 storage tanks holding spent nuclear fuel
04:27began leaking radioactive water straight into the barren sea workers tried to patch the holes with
04:32everything from lead sheets to frozen fish many had no protective gear whatsoever
04:37thousands were exposed to radiation and the contamination is still being cleaned up today today
04:42today i want to congratulate all those who have been involved in these complicated efforts of
04:47many years they have worked with foresight and determination and through their work
04:59you
04:52have made this region a safer place pfas forever chemicals use and cover
04:57ups did you know that non-stick pans have effectively poisoned the world people in the 1980s sure
05:02didn't and since most foods won't stick to silverstone cleaning up is quick and easy
05:07they were marketing non-stick pans waterproof jackets and stain proof carpets every day
05:12these products felt like miracles of modern living nobody thought twice about the chemicals making that pop
05:17possible but behind the scenes companies like 3m and dupont already knew the truth
05:22and there was I was very surprised that men told me that we could not do that
05:27they were using PFAS so called
05:32forever chemicals which don't break down and actually build up in the human body internal
05:37studies linked them to cancer immune disorders and reproductive harm but 3m and dupont
05:42buried the findings at the bottom of the letter is written in capital letters only
05:47only tell those who have a need to know all the while the products kept flying off the
05:52shelves consumers were dozing themselves with toxic chemicals that contaminate water supplies
05:57to this day damascus titan missile explosion in september 1980 a dropped
06:02wrench almost annihilated arkansas a maintenance worker at a titan 2 missile silo in damas
06:07damascus dropped a socket wrench while making routine repairs
06:10damascus dropped a socket wrench while making routine repairs
06:12from level to probably seven or eight
06:17The tool punctured the missile's fuel tank, unleashing a chain reaction no one could stop.
06:22We literally had to cut a fence and then, you know, break through a steel portal.
06:27And a caged-in entry and go down 35 feet to a 6,000-pound blast-lock door.
06:32Hours later, the silo exploded.
06:34Somehow, instead of detonating, the 9-
06:37megaton warhead was hurled out of its housing.
06:39It came to a safe rest just outside the silo.
06:42At the time, the story was reported as a strange accident in a rural town.
06:46Looking back, it was-
06:47It was one of the closest near-misses in U.S. history.
06:49Nuclear Armageddon could have started-
06:52with a Butterfingers movement.
06:53I look back on that and I know I was-
06:57I say lucky, blessed, or both.
06:59Joe Camel advertising campaign.
07:02It may be hard to imagine in 2025, but cigarette ads used to be everywhere.
07:06RJ Reynolds-
07:07In 1988, they rolled out Joe Camel in the U.S. market.
07:12The character lacked many typical Camel traits and essentially appeared as a muscular human
07:16with a Camel-
07:17He was a cartoon mascot in sunglasses, who looked less like a rugged cowboy, and more-
07:22like a cool, leather-clad rebel.
07:24To adults, it was just another ad campaign.
07:26To kids-
07:27It looked like a Saturday morning cartoon hero selling cigarettes.
07:30Studies later showed that by the-
07:32In the early 90s, Joe Camel was as recognizable to six-year-olds as Mickey Mouse.
07:36With all of this-
07:37Evidence stacking up against them, RJ Reynolds was pressured by the public to end the Joe
07:41Camel campaign.
07:42At the time, the campaign was hailed as clever marketing.
07:45Looking back, it's remembered as a cynical-
07:47scheme to hook children on nicotine.
07:49Like, there's not gonna be a 50-year-old guy going, hey, I should start-
07:52Smoking!
07:53Savings and loan deregulation.
07:54Savings and loans had once been the picture of-
07:57Savings and loan deregulation.
07:58Save mortgages and community trust.
08:00When inflation soared and the Fed-
08:02hiked interest rates, their model collapsed.
08:04When we try to beat inflation-
08:07With borrowed money, we just make the problem worse.
08:12The Biden administration promised to unshackle these banks, selling deregulation as the cure.
08:17The Biden administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal-
08:22Equal opportunities for all Americans with no barriers.
08:26They removed regular-
08:27regulatory guardrails to let S&L innovate.
08:30Instead, lenders dove headfirst-
08:32into speculative real estate and junk bonds.
08:34They had no clue what they were doing.
08:36Fraud-
08:37Spread across the sector.
08:38By the late 80s and early 90s, nearly a third of SNL had-
08:42collapsed.
08:43The bailout cost taxpayers over $100 billion.
08:46We will not-
08:47We will not rest until the cheats and the chiselers and the charlatans spend a little-
08:52large chunk of their lives behind the bars of a federal prison.
08:56What looked like-
08:57and modernization at the time, now reads as a dress rehearsal for the 2008 financial crisis.
09:02Byer spread HIV.
09:04For decades, Byer was best known for their aspirin.
09:07Their brand was synonymous with relief.
09:09In the 1980s, the company silently spread un-
09:12told suffering.
09:13At the time, Byer produced a blood clotting factor used by hemophiliacs.
09:17The medicine's called factor eight.
09:18It was an inject- an injection medicine.
09:20But their screening process-
09:22was less than robust, meaning that many high-risk donors' clotting factors contained HIV.
09:27Once the problem was discovered, Byer doubled down, and quietly pulled the tainted product
09:32from-
09:32the US market.
09:33They didn't destroy it or ring the alarm bells.
09:35Instead, they sold the stuff-
09:37stock in Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
09:39They had to figure out a way, Joe, to make a profit on-
09:42a product that they could not sell in America.
09:44Tens of thousands of patients, many children-
09:47were infected with HIV or hepatitis as a result.
09:50It remains one of the most disturbing-
09:52corporate scandals in medical history.
09:53The US government allowed it to happen.
09:57The S-
09:57FDA allowed this to happen.
09:58Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and-
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10:12notifications.
10:13Stanislav Petrov saves the world.
10:17On September 26, 1983, a single man may have saved the entire world.
10:22Soviet-
10:22early warning systems detected what looked like five US missiles incoming.
10:26The nightmare scenario-
10:27by protocol, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov should have reported it as a-
10:32confirmed strike-
10:33triggering immediate retaliation.
10:34Instead, he hesitated.
10:35.
10:36.
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11:22You
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