1980: Thirty-two-year-old Italian Enso Francone, in Moscow for the summer Olympics, chains himself to a fence in Red Square to protest Soviet persecution of homosexuals. With Western journalists looking on, a group of KGB officers moves in and drags Francone away.

1981: George Hamilton plays the twin roles of Don Diego Vega and his look-alike gay brother Bunny Wigglesworth in the new farce Zarro, the Gay Blade, which is roundly panned by critics.

1988: Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis officially becomes the Democratic candidate for president, at the party’s convention in San Francisco. In his acceptance speech, he calls AIDS “the greatest public health emergency of our lifetime, and a disease that must be conquered.”