Earl Green is the creator, curator, and head writer of theLogBook.com.
Completely refitted from a lightweight airframe originally fabricated for stress, vibration and thermal testing, Space Shuttle Challenger is rolled out of her Rockwell International assembly plant in Palmdale, California. Experience gained in the construction of Challenger’s sister ship, Columbia, means that the second completed shuttle in the fleet is over one ton lighter than Columbia. Challenger would make her first flight in just under a year.
ABC airs the fifth episode of the cop show spoof Police Squad, in color, starring Leslie Nielsen and created by the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker team behind the hit movie Airplane! Florence Henderson (The Brady Bunch) guest stars. 
Japanese arcade game manufacturer Taito introduces its latest game, Jungle King, though the game will be known by that name for all of three months. A sampled “Tarzan yell” draws the legal wrath of the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, and Taito rushes to replace the loincloth-clad player character with a more covered-up, pith-helmeted explorer, retitling the game Jungle Hunt in the process.
ITV airs the 62nd episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Tom Bosley (Happy Days), Janet Leigh (Psycho), and Frank Sinatra Jr. guest star.
Space Shuttle Columbia lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California, making its first-ever landing on a concrete runway. After greeting the returning astronauts and inspecting the shuttle, President Ronald Reagan – with the partially-dismantled prototype Enterprise as a backdrop – declares NASA’s Space Shuttle system fully operational, saying “the test flights are over.” Columbia Commander Ken Mattingly later reveals that there was tremendous pressure on NASA to land Columbia on Independence Day, regardless of how many mission objectives had been met, to maximize the publicity value of the President’s speech. But the quick turnaround time and almost-weekly flight schedule that NASA had publicized throughout the 1970s is already a pipe dream: post-mission the four missions flown so far prove that post-landing servicing of each orbiter takes longer than expected. Columbia won’t fly again until the first “operational” mission in November.
ABC airs the sixth episode of the cop show spoof Police Squad, in color, starring Leslie Nielsen and created by the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker team behind the hit movie Airplane! William Conrad, Dick Clark, and Dick Miller guest star in the final episode of the series.
Mattel Electronics releases the Lock ‘n’ Chase cartridge for the Intellivision home video game system, based on the Data East arcade game of the same name.
Walt Disney Records releases Wendy Carlos’ soundtrack from the movie Tron. Two Journey songs also appear on the album.
Disney’s Tron – the first movie to pay homage to the ’80s video game craze and the first movie to arrive with video game tie-ins already in the works – premieres in theaters. Starring Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges, the film establishes of the most distinctive visual idea of the decade, that of a person being “sucked into” the digital world, where glowing body armor is worn. 
ITV airs the 63rd episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Carol Drinkwater (Chocky) guest stars.
NASA launches Landsat 4, the fourth Landsat Earth resource observation satellite and the first to be redesigned from the ground up (previous Landsats had been based on NASA’s Nimbus satellites from the 1960s and ’70s). For the first time, Landsat data processing and distribution is handled by another government agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, which partners with NASA on all future Landsat satellites. Landsat 4 is the first Landsat to link up to NASA’s TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite) system, thus enabling real-time data transmission to Earth even when Landsat 4 isn’t passing over a ground station. Landsat 4 remains operational through the end of 1993.
ITV airs the 64th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Peter Barkworth guest stars.
ITV airs the 65th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Anthony Valentine guest stars.
The Soviet Union’s Salyut 6 space station, unoccupied for over a year, re-enters Earth’s atmosphere with the Kosmos 1267 module still docked; both the station and its added module disintegrate over unpopulated ocean.
Wargame publisher Avalon Hill’s subsidiary Microcomputer Games Inc. releases the computer role playing game Telengard for the Apple II computer. It promptly consumes the webmaster’s entire summer.
Bally/Midway releases the official Tron arcade game, based on Disney’s movie, in the United States. Containing multiple games based, either directly or loosely, on action setpieces from the movie, the arcade game is an instant hit even as the film struggles in theaters.
ITV airs the 66th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Edward Albert and Terry O’Quinn (Lost) guest star.
Island Records releases the second solo album by Steve Winwood, Talking Back To The Night, featuring the singles “Still In The Game” and “Valerie”.
ITV airs the 67th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Shane Rimmer (Thunderbirds) guest stars.
ITV airs the 68th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Richard Johnson guest stars.
Mattel Electronics releases the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Cartridge for the Intellivision home video game system, licensed from TSR.
IRS Records releases the second Wall Of Voodoo album, Call Of The West, featuring the single “Mexican Radio”.
Atari releases its “edutainment” cartridge Math Gran Prix for the Atari VCS, a title designed to stave off critics of video games’ negative effects on kids’ schoolwork. Perhaps predictably, Math Gran Prix fails to cross the retail finish line – the same parents complaining that the Atari is keeping homework from getting done aren’t buying educational games for it.
The video game wars officially enter a new generation of hardware as Connecticut-based toymaker Coleco unveils the Colecovision home video game system. Packaged with an almost-but-not-quite-arcade-accurate port of the hit game Donkey Kong, and pushed by an advertising campaign focusing on the message of “bringing the arcade experience home,” Colecovision’s best opening gambit may be an “Expansion Module” allowing the use of Atari VCS games on the console, making it possible for Atari owners to step up without having to rebuild their game libraries from scratch.
The Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-7 mission lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome for a week-long stay in space, including a visit to space station Salyut 7. The three-person Soyuz crew includes the first woman in space since 1963. Cosmonauts Leonid Popov, Aleksandr Serebrov and Svetlana Savitskaya deliver supplies to Salyut 7 and perform experiments while docked to the station; on August 27th, they depart from the station aboard the Soyuz T-5 vehicle, leaving the newer T-7 capsule for the station crew’s use.
ITV airs the 31st episode of P.J. Hammond’s science fiction series Sapphire & Steel, starring David McCallum and Joanna Lumley. David Collings and Edward de Souza guest star.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
Taito releases the arcade video game Zoo Keeper.
Activision releases the Pitfall! cartridge for the Atari VCS home video game system. Subtitled “The Adventure of Pitfall Harry” (implying that further adventures are yet to come), this becomes one of the Atari VCS’ “killer app” games, and is ported to other systems and updated for more modern platforms for decades to come.
ITV airs the 69th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. John Duttine guest stars in the fifth season finale.
Atari releases the arcade video game Gravitar.