| 20th January 1981 | Ronald Reagan succeeds Jimmy Carter as the 40th President of the United States. Minutes later, Iran releases the fifty-two Americans who had been held captive for 444 days, ending the Iran hostage crisis. |
| 13th February 1981 | Rupert Murdoch buys The Times and The Sunday Times for £12 million. |
| 10th March 1981 | Sir Geoffrey Howe announces the British budget, which raises taxes in the middle of a recession. |
| 29th March 1981 | The first London Marathon is held with 7,500 runners. |
| 30th March 1981 | U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington D.C. hotel by John Hinckley Junior. Two police officers and Press Secretary James Brady are also wounded. |
| 4th April 1981 | Bucks Fizz wins the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest with the song, “Making Your Mind Up“. |
| 11th April 1981 | Rioters in Brixton throw petrol bombs, attack police and loot shops. |
| 5th May 1981 | Bobby Sands, Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer and elected member of the House of Commons, dies aged twenty-seven while on hunger strike in HM Prison Maze. |
| 11th May 1981 | Bob Marley, Jamaican singer and musician (b. 1945) dies. |
| 13th May 1981 | Pope John Paul II is shot and nearly killed by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish gunman, as he enters St. Peter's Square in Rome to address a general audience. |
| 22nd May 1981 | Peter Sutcliffe is found guilty of being the Yorkshire Ripper. He is sentenced to life imprisonment on thirteen counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder. |
| 27th May 1981 | Liverpool FC wins the European Cup, beating Real Madrid 1-0 in Paris. |
| 13th June 1981 | At the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, Marcus Sarjeant fires six blank shots at the Queen. |
| 3rd July 1981 | The Toxteth riots begin in Liverpool after a mob saves a youth from being arrested. Shortly afterward, the Chapeltown riots start in Leeds after increased racial tension. |
| 29th July 1981 | Lady Diana Spencer marries Charles, Prince of Wales. |
| 24th August 1981 | Mark David Chapman is sentenced to twenty years to life in prison, after being convicted of murdering John Lennon in Manhattan eight months earlier. |
| 14th September 1981 | Margaret Thatcher appoints Cecil Parkinson as Chairman of the Conservative Party. |
| 29th September 1981 | Bill Shankly, former Liverpool football manager (b. 1914) dies. |
| 15th October 1981 | The heavy metal band Metallica forms. |
| 1st November 1981 | Antigua and Barbuda gain independence from the United Kingdom. |
| 8th December 1981 | Arthur Scargill becomes President-elect of the National Union of Mineworkers. |