1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989   Boy George is Britain's latest pop idol The halfpenny coin is phased out Torvill and Dean skate off with the Olympic gold for ice dancing National miners' strike begins Sarah Tisdall, a Foreign Office clerk, is jailed for six months for whistle-blowing AIDS virus is discovered Thames Barrier is officially opened Eric Morecambe dies aged 58 Robert Maxwell buys the Mirror newspaper group for £113.4 million 11-day-old Holly Roffey becomes the world's youngest heart transplant patient York Minster is set ablaze by a bolt of lightning. £1 million damage Martina Navratilova wins the women's championship at Wimbledon for the fifth time BMX bike cult hits Britain Richard Burton dies at 58 in Geneva 22 people die from salmonella-type poisoning at a hospital in Wakefield An IRA bomb blasts the Conservative conference headquarters in Brighton Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India, assassinated by her bodyguards A 15-day-old baby receives a baboon's heart in a transplant at Loma Linda University Medical Centre in California     Copyright © 1998, NHS