What happened on May 18 1980?

Answer 1

Mount St. Helens erupted.

Ian Curtis, lead singer and songwriter of Joy Division, committed suicide.

On May, 18, 1980, the Kwangju Massacre took place in the city of Kwangju, South Korea.

At the time, the South Korean Government was in a state of flux. Seven months earlier, on October 26, 1979, president of 18 years Park Chung-hee had been assassinated. Less than two months later his successor, Choi Kyu Hah, was deposed by a military coup orchestrated by General Chun Doo Hwan, who took control of the government on December 12, 1979. Political unrest escalated throughout the country, and on May 17, 1980, Chun instituted martial law in South Korea.

On May, 18, 1980, during a confrontation between military troops and student demonstrators in Kwangju, the soldiers lost their objective discipline and started killing citizens indiscriminately, demonstrators or not. Events escalated, and citizens took up arms to defend themselves, but were ultimately crushed by the South Korean Army. Official casualties over the 10 day period of the Uprising are listed as being under 200, but there have been estimates of between 1000 to 2000 actual deaths.