Chrongraphy of events from 1 January 1980 to 31 December 1989
Page last
modified 23/52022
(+9999) = Day count from end of
World War Two in Europe. �Easter Sundays
derived from https://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/easter/easter_text2b.htm
For dates from 1/1/1990 click here
Jump to:-
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31/12/1989, Sunday (+16,308)
Ryan
Sheckler, athlete, was born.
30/12/1989, Saturday (+16,307) The
US and the Vatican were negotiating over ending the refuge of ex-dictator
Manuel Noriega, who had fled to the Vatican Embassy in Panama City to avoid
capture and extradition to the USA. At one stage the US lost patience and
played rock music at full volume outside the Embassy continuously from
loudspeakers erected by the US forces.
29/12/1989, Friday (+16,306) (1) Riots
in Hong Kong after forcible repatriation of Vietnamese boat people began.
(2) The Czechs elected playwright Vaclav Havel as
President.
28/12/1989, Thursday (+16,305) (1) A
magnitude 5.6 earthquake hit Newcastle, New South Wales, killing 13 people
injuring 100.
(2) Alexander Dubcek, the reformist leader sacked in 1968 was elected leader
of Czechoslovakia�s federal assembly.
27/12/1989, Wednesday (+16,304)
(Egypt, Syria) Egypt and Syria resumed full diplomatic
relations.
26/12/1989, Tuesday (+16,303)
Nobel Prize winning Irish dramatist Samuel Beckett died in Paris, aged 83.
25/12/1989, Monday (+16,302) (1) The Bank of Japan announced a large rise in
interest rates, leading to the collapse of Japan�s bubble economy.
(2) President
Ceausescu and his wife were tried and shot. On 27/12/1989 the Romanian
press was freed.
24/12/1989, Sunday (+16,301) (1) Deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega gave
himself up to the Papal Nuncio in Panama City, having dodged US troops trying
to capture him.
(2) Rebel forces led by Charles Taylor, a descendant of
the freed American slaves, entered Liberia from Cote D�Ivoire, with the
objective of deposing the dictatorial Liberian President Samuel Doe. A civil
war began, which ended in 9/1990 with the torture and execution of Doe by
another rebel group. Another civil war began, with Taylor now pillaging the
country.
23/12/1989, Saturday (+16,300)
The Bank of Japan announced a major interest rate rise, leading to the peak and
bursting of the Japanese �bubble� economy.
22/12/1989, Friday (+16,299) (1) Berlin�s Brandenburg Gate reopened, after
the fall of the Berlin Wall.
(2) A Romanian
revolution overthrew President Nicolae Ceausescu. Ceausescu�s son Nicu was
arrested, and the Queen cancelled Nicolae�s honorary knighthood. Ion Iliescu
took over as President.
21/12/1989, Thursday (+16,298) The USA invaded Panama and ousted
General Noriega. Noriega sought refuge in the Vatican Mission, where he
remained until 3/1/1990. He then surrendered to US forces.
20/12/1989, Wednesday (+16,297) (1) President Nicolae
Ceausescu declared a state of emergency. His last public appearance with his wife Elena was in
Bucharest on 21/12/1989. As he addressed the crowd of 100,000, in
University Square, there were catcalls of �murderers of Timisoara�. Ceausescu
was hustled back indoors and Romanian television ceased broadcasting the event.
This was the signal for a general uprising that afternoon, and the Securitate began firing
indiscriminately into the crowd. Many were wounded or killed but the crowd
sensed the army was now with them, except for diehard factions of the
Securitate.
(2) The US invaded Panama (Operation Just Cause) with
23,000 troops and installed the apparent winner of the 1989 elections,
Guillermo Endara, as President, Noreiga was accused of drug-related activities.
19/12/1989, Tuesday (+16,296) Lithuania called for independence
from the USSR.
18/12/1989, Monday (+16,295)
The EEC signed a 10-year trade pact with the USSR.
17/12/1989, Sunday (+16,294) (1) In
the town of Timisoara, in
Transylvania, Romania, troops fired on 10,000 demonstrators in Timisoara, killing
2,000. Ethnic Hungarians within Romania were protesting against the suppression
of the Hungarian language in schools, also books in Hungarian.
(2) Brazil held its first free elections in 29 years. Ferdinand
Collor de Mello defeated Jose Sarney. Brazil faced a massive foreign debt
burden; interest payments ate up 40% of export earnings. The IMF imposed
austerity measures on Brazil, despite recent rapid growth in the economy, to
guarantee loan repayments. Prices rose, wages were cut, and annual inflation
stood at 700%. Economic problems increased calls for democracy.
(3) The Simpsons,
a spin-off from The Tracy Ullman Show,
premiered on US TV.
16/12/1989, Saturday (+16,293)
Lee van Cleef, movie star, died.
15/12/1989, Friday (+16,292) In
Bulgaria, 50,000 demonstrators outside Parliament demanded the end of Communist
rule.
14/12/1989, Thursday (+16,291) (1) Chile
held its first free elections in 16 years. years. The winner was the Christian Democrat,
Patricio Alwyn.
(2) Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov died.
13/12/1989, Wednesday (+16,290) (1) In South Africa, President F W de Klerk met
with ANC leader Nelson Mandela for the first time.
(2) Hong Kong
began to forcibly repatriate Vietnamese boat people by plane.
12/12/1989, Tuesday (+16,289)
New York heiress Leona Helmsley was fined US$ 7 million and sentenced to 4
years prison for tax evasion. She had said �only little people pay taxes�.
10/12/1989, Sunday (+16,287)
(1) In
Mongolia, Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj announced the establishment of a democratic
movement within the country.
(2) Czechoslovakia convened a �Government of National Understanding;
Gustav Husak was removed from the office of President.
7/12/1989, Thursday (+16,284)
A gunman claiming to hate feminists massacred 14 women at the University of
Montreal.
6/12/1989, Wednesday (+16,283) In Colombia, 40 were killed
by a bomb at the security police headquarters.
5/12/1989, Tuesday (+16,282) Czechoslovakia
opened its border with the West.
4/12/1989, Monday (+16,281)
3/12/1989, Sunday (+16,280) The
East German leader Egon Krenz and the politbureau resigned. A USSR-USA summit
was held in Malta. The Cold war was declared over at 12.55pm that day.
2/12/1989, Saturday (+16,279) VP Singh, leader of the Janata
Dat Party, replaced Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister of India, although Rajiv�s
Congress Party remained the largest single party.
1/12/1989, Friday (+16,278) (1) The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope
John Paul II met in Rome, ending 70 years of hostility between the Roman
Catholic Church and the Soviet Union.
(2) The East German Parliament voted to remove the
Communist monopoly on power.
====================================================================================
30/11/1989, Thursday (+16,277) (1) Rebels in the Philippines attacked Cory Aquino�s palace and three
military bases.
(2) The Red Army, a West German terrorist group, blew up
Alfred Herrhausen, head of the Deutschebank in Frankfurt.
29/11/1989, Wednesday (+16,276)
28/11/1989, Tuesday (+16,275) The
monopoly on power by the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia ended.
27/11/1989, Monday (+16,274)
Czech workers staged a 2-hour general strike, organised by the Civic Forum
political opposition.
26/11/1989, Sunday (+16,273) The
Bulgarian government voted to disband the secret police.
24/11/1989, Friday (+16,271) (1) President Ceausescu was re-elected as
leader of Romania. However in Czechoslovakia the Communist leadership resigned.
(2) Czechoslovak General Secretary Gustav Husak resigned.
22/11/1989, Wednesday (+16,269)
A bomb exploded in West Beirut near the motorcade of the Lebanese
President, Rene Moawad, killing him and 23 others.
21/11/1989, Tuesday (+16,268) North
Carolina celebrated the 200th anniversary of its statehood.
20/11/1989, Monday (+16,267) Major
anti-government demonstrations in Czechoslovakia.
18/11/1989, Saturday (+16,265)
17/11/1989, Friday (+16,264)
In Czechoslovakia, students protesting
peacefully in Prague were severely beaten by riot police. This sparked a
revolution which toppled the Communist government on 29/12/1989. Protestors
grew from 200,000 on 19/11/1989 to an estimated 500,000 on 20/11/1989.
16/11/1989, Thursday (+16,263)
A pillar of apartheid was removed when the South African President, F W de
Klerk removed beach access restrictions which separated racial access. The
Separate Amenities Act, permitting Whites to monopolise public space, was also
to be repealed.
15/11/1989, Wednesday (+16,262)
Lech Walesa, leader of the Polish Solidarity movement, addressed a Joint
Session of the United Nations Congress.
14/11/1989, Tuesday (+16,261) Czechoslovakia
lifted travel restrictions.
13/11/1989, Monday (+16,260) Hans
Modrow was elected Prime Minister of East Germany.
12/11/1989, Sunday (+16,259)
11/11/1989, Saturday (+16,258) In El
Salvador the rebel Farabundo Marti National Front began an uprising against te
US-backed administration of President Alfredo Cristiani. Rebel guerrillas took
over some suburbs of the capital, San Salvador.
10/11/1989, Friday (+16,257) (1)
(Bulgaria) The rule of Bulgarian President,
Todor Zhikov ended after 35 years in power, as Soviet support for him fell
away. The Berlin Wall had collapsed the day before. Zhikov was later sentenced
to 7 years house arrest for embezzlement of State funds, but was acquitted by
the Bulgarian Supreme Court of inciting racial hatred (see 10/5/1989). He died
in 1998.
(2) Bulldozers began to demolish the Berlin Wall.
9/11/1989, Thursday (+16,256) The East German
government lifted the Iron Curtain to allow free travel between East and West
Berlin.
Thousands of East Berliners visited the West. 100,000 East Berliners visited
West Berlin. The Berlin Wall originally
went up on 13/8/1961.
8/11/1989, Wednesday (+16,255) In Virginia, Douglas Wilder
became the first Black Governor in the USA.
7/11/1989, Tuesday (+16,254) The entire East German
Government resigned, replaced the following day with Hans Modrow as Prime
Minister.
6/11/1989, Monday (+16,253) David Dinkins became the
first African-American mayor of New York City.
5/11/1989, Sunday (+16,252) Refugees
were reportedly leaving East Germany at the rate of 300 an hour.
4/11/1989, Saturday (+16,251) See 7/10/1989. Pro-democracy
rallies sparked by Gorbachev�s visit to East Germany resulted a million-strong
protest in East Germany.
3/11/1989, Friday (+16,250) Political
unrest in Bulgaria.
1/11/1989, Wednesday (+16,248)
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30/10/1989,
Monday (+16,246) Seamus Hayes, show jumping
champion, died.
29/10/1989, Sunday (+16,245) 60,000
took part in an ANC (Africa National�
Congress) rally in South Africa.
26/10/1989, Thursday
(+16,242) Mrs Thatcher�s Chancellor, Mr
Nigel Lawson, resigned. Sir Alan Walters, part-time financial advisor to Mrs
Thatcher, had derided the European Monetary System that Mr Lawson wanted the UK
to join as �half baked�, in an article in 1988. This caused a public and
embarrassing� row between Mrs Thatcher
and Mr Lawson. However on 8/10/1990 Mrs Thatcher reluctantly agreed to her
Chancellor, John Major, taking the UK into the Exchange Rate Mechanism. However
on �Black Wednesday� in 1992 the UK was ignominiously forced out of the ERM,
along with the Italian Lira, by currency speculators.
24/10/1989, Tuesday (+16,240) Fake US TV preacher Jim
Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined US$ 500,000 for swindling
millions of dollars out of his followers.
23/10/1989, Monday (+16,239) 62 members of the Lebanese
Parliament agreed to an equal power distribution between Christians and
Muslims.
21/10/1989, Saturday (+16,237)
20/10/1989, Friday (+16,236)
Anthony Quayle, actor, died.
19/10/1989,
Thursday (+16,235) The Guildford Four
had their convictions quashed after serving 15 years for the IRA Guildford and Woolwich
pub bombings.
18/10/1989, Wednesday (+16,234)
(1) San Francisco was hit by the Loma Prieta
earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale. At least 273 people were killed
and 650 injured. Many of the deaths occurred when the top deck of the Nimitz Freeway
collapsed onto a lower road deck, crushing motorists.
(2) Erich Honecker was dismissed as General Secretary of
the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany).
16/10/1989, Monday (+16,232)
At a committee of the Convention in International Trade of Endangered Species,
at Lausanne, Switzerland, a ban on the international ivory trade was passed by
76 votes to 11.
12/10/1988, Thursday (+16,228) A week of rioting concluded in Algeria,
against corruption in the FLN Government. Government buildings and ;luxury goods
shops were targeted; Government troops killed 280 rioters.
9/10/1989, Monday (+16,225) East Germans in Leipzig
demonstrated, demanding the legalisation of opposition groups and democratic
reforms.
8/10/1989, Sunday (+16,224) Armand Traore, French footballer, was born,
7/10/1989, Saturday (+16,223) (1) On a visit to East Germany, Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev urged the East German government to introduce reforms. See
4/11/1989.
(2) The
Hungarian Communist party changed its name to the Socialist Party.
6/10/1989, Friday (+16,222) Sophia Thomalla, German television actress,
was born.
5/10/1989, Thursday
(+16,221) In Paris, the Moulin Rouge celebrated its centenary.
4/10/1989, Wednesday (+16,220) (1) 10,000
East Germans left Prague by train for West Germany.
(2)
Millions of fleas were released in the Norfolk Broads to eat algae clogging up
the waterways.
3/10/1989, Tuesday (+16,219) (1) The Shetland Island of Foula was
shocked by its first crime in over 80 years. A Land Rover had been vandalised;
a 17-year-old was later convicted and fined �50.
(2) In Panama,
a military coup against Noriega failed.
2/10/1989, Monday (+16,218) Liesbeth Ribbius Peletier, 1st female
advisor of State in The Netherlands, died.
1/10/1989, Sunday (+16,217) Pakistan rejoined the Commonwealth
after 17 years.
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30/9/1989, Saturday (+16,216) Jordan Taylor, US basketball player, was
born.
29/9/1989, Friday (+16,215) Georges Ulmer, French composer died (born
1919)
28/9/1989, Thursday (+16,214) Ex-President Marcos of the
Philippines died in Honolulu.
27/9/1989, Wednesday (+16,213) Hungary abolished its restrictive
emigration laws.
26/9/1989, Tuesday (+16,212) Over 1,500 East German refugees
occupied the West German embassies in Prague and Warsaw.
25/9/1989, Monday (+16,211) Archaeologists opened the Titus of the
Rhine grave in Amsterdam.
24/9/1989, Sunday (+16,210) The Arab League negotiated a ceasefire
in Lebanon.
23/9/1989, Saturday (+16,209) Mara Scherzinger, German actress, was born.
22/9/1989, Friday (+16,208) The IRA bombed the Royal Marines School in Deal. 10 bandsmen were
killed and 22 injured.
21/9/1989, Thursday (+16,207)
Hurricane Hugo with 140 mph winds battered South Carolina and Georgia. The
Caribbean was also badly affected.
20/9/1989, Wednesday (+16,209) Musical "Miss Saigon,"
premiered in London.
19/9/1989, Tuesday (+16,205)
Poland became the first country in Eastern Europe to end one-party rule, as
Solidarity�s Tadeusz Mazowiecki became Prime Minister.
18/9/1989, Monday (+16,204) Serge Ibaka, basketball player, was born/.
17/9/1989, Sunday (+16,203) (1) The northeast Caribbean was hit by
Hurricane Hugo.
(2) The Sunday
Correspondent was launched. It closed in 11/1990.
16/9/1989, Saturday (+16,202) Hungary opened its border with
Austria to refuges fleeing the East on 11/9/1989. At least 16,000 East German
refugees cross from Hungary into Austria.
15/9/1989, Friday (+16,201) US writer Robert Penn Warren, born
24/4/1905 in Guthrie, Kentucky, died in Stratton, Vermont.
14/9/1989, Thursday (+16,200) US performed a nuclear test at Nevada.
13/9/1989, Wednesday (+16,199) 20,000 demonstrated against
Apartheid in South Africa, and the killing of 23 protestors during the
Whites-only elections the previous week. Protestors were from all races.
12/9/1989,
Tuesday (+16,198) The �Democracy Now� movement
was founded in East Germany,
10/9/1989,
Sunday (+16,196) Hungary began accepting many refugees
from East Germany. Hungary opened its border with Austria, providing a route to
the West. The East German Government condemned the move as �treachery�.
4/9/1989, Monday (+16,190) The first of a series of
�Monday Demonstrations� calling for democracy were held in ;Leipzig, East
Germany.
1/9/1989,
Friday (+16,187) The US broke off diplomatic
relations with Panama.
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31/8/1989,
Thursday (+16,186) (1) The
Soviet Republic of Moldavia�s Parliament voted to make Moldavian, not Russian,
the official language.
(2)
Libya and Chad signed a peace agreement ending 25 years of war.
29/8/1989,
Tuesday (+16,184) Peter
Scott, yachtsman, died (born 14/9/1909).
27/8/1989, Sunday (+16,182) The Medellin drugs cartel declared guerrilla war on
the Colombian Government, after President Virgilio Barco reinstated extradition
to the USA, a process abandoned by the courts after bribery and threats of
violence.
26/8/1989,
Saturday (+16,181) The
Mini celebrated its 30th birthday. In 1959 just 20,000 were made; in
1970 the figure was 381,000, after the car had won several rallies and been
adopted by public figures such as John Lennon, Peter Sellers, Twiggy and
Marianne Faithfull.
25/8/1989,
Friday (+16,180) Voyager 2 sent back pictures of Neptune and its moon, Triton,
flying within 5,000 kilometres of the planet.
24/8/1989,
Thursday (+16,179)
23/8/1989,
Wednesday (+16,178) 2 million
Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians formed an uninterrupted 600 kilometre
human chain to demand independence from Moscow. Hungary removed all border
restrictions with Austria.
22/8/1989,
Tuesday (+16,177)
British Telecom launched the first �pocket phones� which worked within 100
metres of a base station.
21/8/1989,
Monday (+16,176)
20/8/1989,
Sunday (+16,175) The Thames pleasure cruiser Marchioness
was hit by a dredger; 51 young persons attending a party on board were killed.
She was hit by the sand dredger Bowbelle under Southwark Bridge in the early
hours of the morning. Survivors said the dredger loomed up in the night without
lights.
19/8/1989, Saturday (+16,174) Tadeusz
Mazowiecki of Solidarity became Prime minister of Poland, the first
non-Communist PM in 42 years.
18/8/1989, Friday (+16,173) The
Qantas Boeing 747-400 Spirit of Australia flew non-stop from London to Sydney
in 19 hours 10 minutes.
17/8/1989, Thursday (+16,172)
Richard Hart, accused of theft, became Britain�s first electronically
tagged suspect and was allowed home.
3/8/1989, Thursday (+16,158)
=====================================================================================
28/7/1989, Friday (+16,152) In
Iran, Rafsanjani became the new elected President.
27/7/1989, Thursday (+16,151) More �boat people� were
arriving in Hong Kong, hoping to reach California.
26/7/1989, Wednesday (+16,150)
Robert T Morris Jr. was charged with releasing the Morris Worm� computer virus on 2/11/1988. He was the first
person to be prosecuted under the 1986 US Computer Fraud and Misuse Act.
25/7/1989, Tuesday (+16,149)
24/7/1989, Monday (+16,148) Japan�s Liberal Democratic
Party suffered its first defeat in 30 years, forcing the resignation of Prime
Minister Sosuke Uno. A scandal involving Uno�s former mistress ruined his
career.
23/7/1989, Sunday (+16,147) Daniel
Radcliffe, actor, was born.
21/7/1989, Friday (+16,145)
20/7/1989,
Thursday (+16,144) The Burmese opposition leader, Aung Suu Kyi, was
placed under house arrest, after public campaigning. She was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1991 whilst still in captivity.
19/7/1989, Wednesday (+16,143)
General Wojciech Jaruselski, who imposed martial law in 1981, was elected
President of Poland by 270 votes out of 537, However he was the only candidate,
233 voted against and 34 abstained. Solidarity declared the vote illegal.
Poland was bankrupt with a resentful population.
17/7/1989, Monday (+16,141) Soviet
miners went on strike.
15/7/1989, Saturday (+16,139)
Georgians and Abkhazians clashed in the Abkhazia region of Georgia; 11 were
killed and 127 injured.
14/7/1989, Friday (+16,138) Margaret Thatcher upset French
festivities on Bastille Day when she denied that the French Revolution had
inspired Human Rights.
13/7/1989, Thursday (+16,137)
12/7/1989, Wednesday (+16,136) In Ireland, a Fianna Fail � Progressive Democrat
coalition headed� by Charles Haughey came
to power.
11/7/1989, Tuesday (+16,135) Sir Lawrence Olivier, actor,
died.
10/7/1989. Monday (+16,134) Mell Blanc, the voice behind
Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, died.
9/7/1989, Sunday (+16,133) In Somalia, the Roman Catholic
Bishop of Mogadishu was assassinated.
7/7/1989, Friday (+16,131)
5/7/1989, Wednesday
(+16,129) (1) In the US, Colonel Oliver North
was fined US$ 150,000 and given a suspended prison sentence for his role in the
Iran-Contra affair.
(2) The TV series Seinfeld began.
4/7/1989, Tuesday
(+16,128) Rodgers Kola, Zambian footballer, was born.
3/7/1989, Monday
(+16,127) Britain stated there would be no automatic right of abode in the
UK for Hong Kong citizens concerned about life under future Chinese rule.
2/7/1989, Sunday
(+16,126) An IRA car bomb exploded in Hannover, Germany; the first of a
series of IRA attacks on British troops in West Germany.
1/7/1989, Saturday (+16,125) The average UK house price
was �61,514.
=====================================================================================
29/6/1989, Thursday (+16,123) In Ireland, Charles Haughey
became acting Taoiseach (Prime Minister) as coalition negotiations continued.
27/6/1989, Tuesday (+16,121) Laurence Olivier, British actor, died.
22/6/1989, Thursday (+16,116) (1) Ireland�s first
universities established since independence in 1922 were set up: Dublin City
University and University of Limerick.
(2)
In China, seven students were shot after
televised show trials following the Tiananmen Square protests.
(3) The captain of the Herald
of Free Enterprise was charged with manslaughter.
21/6/1989, Wednesday (+16,115)
(1) The first public executions of Tiananmen Square
demonstrators began in China.
(2)
British police arrested 250 people for
celebrating the Summer solstice at Stonehenge.
19/6/1989, Monday (+16,113)
The second round of elections to the Polish National Assembly. Solidarity won
an overwhelming victory.
15/6/1989, Thursday (+16,109) A
General Election in Ireland produced no overall winner. Fianna Fail, the
largest Party, began coalition negotiations with other Parties.
14/6/1989, Wednesday (+16,108) Ronald Reagan was given a
knighthood by Queen Elizabeth.
13/6/1989, Tuesday (+16,107) (1) Mikhail Gorbachev and Chancellor Kohl agreed that East and West Germany
should be reunited.
(2) The wreck of the German battleship Bismarck which was sunk in 1941, was
discovered 600 miles west of Brest, France.
12/6/1989, Monday (+16,106) Live TV broadcasts from the House of
Commons began, after MPs voted 293 to 69 in favour. Live radio broadcasts began
on 9/6/1975.
9/6/1989, Friday (+16,103) In China, the show trials of
the leaders of the Tiananmen Square demonstration began.
6/6/1989, Tuesday (+16,100) There was hysteria at the
funeral of Ayatollah Khomenei in Tehran.
4/6/1989, Sunday (+16,098) (1) Poland held partially-free elections. The
result was a major embarrassment for the country�s leaders as Solidarity won the lion�s share of the
vote. On a turnout of 62% - smaller than Solidarity had hoped for � the union�s
candidates had by 6/6/1989 won all Warsaw�s constituencies except
Zoliborz, where the result was still awaited. In some constituencies Solidarity
won over 80% of the vote cast. Few government candidates won over 18% of the
votes cast.
(2)� Massacre in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, as troops opened fire and brought
in tanks. On
early morning Sunday 4th June the army entered the Square. 2,600
were killed and 10,000 injured as soldiers fired on demonstrators, and tanks
drove over them.
(3) Ali Khamenei was appointed Supreme Leader of Iran.
3/6/1989, Saturday (+16,097)
(1) Death of the
Ayatollah Khomeini, religious leader
of Iran. Born in 1900, Khomeini attended several Islamic schools before moving
to the city of Soq in 1922 where he became a Shiite scholar. Khomeini�s spite
against western influences and his advocacy of Islamic purity won him many
followers and in the 1950s he was acclaimed as an Ayatollah, or major religious
leader. Thrown out of Iran in 1964 he continued his fight against the Shah in
exile. In 1979 his influence caused massive riots in Tehran, forcing the
departure of the Shah. Unpopular in the West, Khomeini is mainly remembered for
reinstating Islamic punishments and for a long and exhausting war with Iraq.
(2) Liquid gas stored beside a railway in Chelyabinsk,
USSR, exploded, killing 800.
1/6/1989, Thursday (+16,095)
======================================================================================
30/5/1989, Tuesday (+16,093) Food
riots in Argentina threatened the economic reforms of the new President, Carlos
Menem.
29/5/1989, Monday (+16,092) Burma
changed its name to Myanmar.
28/5/1989, Sunday (+16,091) Don
Revie, footballer, died (born 10/7/1927).
26/5/1989, Friday (+16,089) Denmark legalised same-sex marriages.
20/5/1989, Saturday (+16,083)
17/5/1989, Wednesday (+16,080) (1)
The Communist Government of Czechoslovakia freed playwright Vaclav Havel after
he served just three months of a nine month sentence.
(2) Over one million people gathered in central Beijing
to support the student pro-democracy demonstrators.
16/5/1989, Tuesday (+16,079) The
first successful hole-in-the �heart operation on an adult was performed at the
Brook Hospital, Greenwich, London. The patient was 66-year-old Eileen
Molyneaux.
15/5/1989, Monday (+16,078)
Carlos Menem won the presidential elections in Argentina.
14/5/1989, Sunday (+16,077) Gorbachev
visited China, the first Soviet leader to do so since the 1960s.
10/5/1989, Wednesday (+16,073) 300,000 Bulgarians of Turkish
ethnicity left Bulgaria for Turkey. Bulgaria had begun a process of
�Bulgarisation� against its ethnic minorities such as the Roma and Pomak
communities in 1984, encouraging (or forcing) them to adopt Bulgarian surnames.
From 1985 onwards, the Bulgarian military stepped up �assimilation� efforts,
including assault, rape, imprisonment and even execution of those who resisted.
Then on 10/5/1998 Bulgaria relaxed exit restrictions and on 29/5/1989 the
Bulgarian President, Todor Zhikov, asked Turkey to accept all Bulgarian Muslims
who wished to emigrate.
8/5/1989, Monday (+16,071)
Slobodan Milosevic became President of Serbia.
7/5/1989, Sunday (+16,070) In
Panama, General Noriega was defeated in elections. However he ignored the
result and remained in power.
5/5/1989, Friday (+16,068)
4/5/1989, Thursday (+16,067)
The US space shuttle launched the Magellan probe to make a radar map of the
surface of Venus.
3/5/1989, Wednesday (+16,066)
Christine Jorgensen, first openly trans-sexual (male to female) person in the
USA, died.
2/5/1989, Tuesday (+16,065) (1) The Iron Curtain began to break down. Hungary
dismantled 150 miles of barbed wire fence, opening its border to Western
Europe.
(2) China imposed martial law as pro-democracy protestors
camped in Tiananmen Square.
(3) Kampuchea announced it would revert to being called
Cambodia.
1/5/1989, Monday (+16,064) A
riot at Risley Remand Centre began, in protest at conditions there. It ended
three days later with the promise of an enquiry.
======================================================================================
30/4/1989, Sunday
(+16,063) Sergio Leone, film director, died.
26/4/1989, Wednesday
(+16,059) Bangladesh was hit by a
huge tornado, 1.6km wide. All houses in an area of 6 square kilometres were
obliterated. 1,300 died, 12,000 were injured and over 80,000 left homeless.
21/4/1989, Friday (+16,054) Nintendo
began selling Game Boys in Japan.
20/4/1989, Thursday (+16,053) A gun turret on US battleship
Iowa exploded, killing 47 sailors.
19/4/1989, Wednesday (+16,052) Daphne du Maurier, writer,
died.
18/4/1989, Tuesday (+16,051) An
explosion at Cormorant Alpha oil platform led to the shutdown of 25% of North
Sea oil production.
17/4/1989, Monday (+16,050) (1) Chinese students demonstrated in
Tiananmen Square, Beijing, calling for democracy.
(2) In Poland, Solidarnosc was legalised after an 8-year
ban.
15/4/1989, Saturday (+16,048) (1) Football fans were crushed at Hillsborough
stadium, Sheffield. 95 Liverpool fans were crushed against steel
fences designed to prevent a pitch invasion after police opened gates to let
more fans in, to see the semi final of the FA cup. 200 were injured.
(2) In China, death of disgraced Party Chairman Hu
Yaobang. He had been ousted in 1987� for
failing to suppress student protests calling for democracy and human rights.
Students eulogised him and began daily marches in Tiananmen Square calling for
democratic reforms.
13/4/1989, Thursday (+16,046)
Israeli soldiers attacked Arab villagers in the West Bank, killing 6
Palestinians. The soldiers claimed they were attacked by rioting youths, but an
investigation in 5/1989 found the soldiers had acted without provocation.
12/4/1989, Wednesday (+16,045)
Abbie Hoiffman, US political activist, died.
11/4/1989, Tuesday (+16,044) Douglas
Smith, champion jockey, died (born 21/11/1917).
10/4/1989, Monday (+16,043) Michael
Dunlop, Northern Irish motorcycle racer, was born.
9/4/1989, Sunday (+16,042) Red
Army soldiers massacred Georgian demonstrators in Tbilisi�s main square,
killing 20 people. Poison gas was allegedly used.
8/4/1989, Saturday (+16,041) 40
soviet submariners died when a nuclear powered Mike class submarine caught
fire, and refused assistance from Western merchant ships.
7/4/1989, Friday (+16,040) President
Gorbachev of the USSR visited Britain, and invited Queen Elizabeth II to visit
Moscow.
6/4/1989, Thursday (+16,039) The UK Government announced
it was to abolish the �job for life� guarantee to all dockworkers.
5/4/1989, Wednesday (+16,038) (1)
The Polish Trades Union Solidarnosc won the right to contest partially-free
elections in Poland and to publish its own newspaper. Solidarnosc had been
banned by the Polish Government under General Jaruzelski since 1982.
(2) Vietnam announced it would withdraw its troops from
Cambodia by September 1989.
2/4/1989, Sunday (+16,035) Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited
Cuba, to meet Fidel Castro and try to halt the deterioration in relations
between the two countries.
1/4/1989, Saturday (+16,034)
==================================================================================
31/3/1989, Friday (+16,033) The
Master of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker was sacked for drunkenness.
30/3/1989, Thursday (+16,032)
29/3/1989, Wednesday (+16,031) In France, President Mitterrand
inaugurated the huge glass Louvre Pyramid.
28/3/1989, Tuesday (+16,030) The
remains of the Piper Alpha oil rig were sent to the bottom of the North Sea.
27/3/1989, Monday (+16,029)
26/3/1989, Sunday (+16,028) The first free elections were held in the
USSR. Pro-reform candidates won many seats.
25/3/1989, Saturday (+16,027) Oil from the 987 foot tanker Exxon Valdez was spilled on the Alaskan
coast. She had run aground on 24/3/1989 and was holed in Prince William Sound.
35,000 tons of crude oil polluted 100 miles of coastline.
24/3/1989, Friday (+16,026) US Congress agreed to renew a
US$ 40 million aid programme for the Right-wing Contra rebels fighting the
Sandinista Government in Nicaragua. Funding ceased due to the Iran-Contra
scandal.
22/3/1989, Wednesday (+16,024) (Environment)
The University of Wuppertal, Germany, inaugurated a research programme to
monitor the Earth�s ozone layer. The system comprised a satellite
spectroradiometer to be launched into orbit in 1993.
15/3/1989, Wednesday (+16,017)
15,000 Hungarians marched in Budapest, calling for democracy.
14/3/1989, Tuesday (+16,018) In
the USA, the Bush administration announced a ban on the import of
semi-automatic assault rifles.
12/3/1989, Sunday (+16,106) (Computer) The
original proposal for the World Wide Web was submitted by Tim Berners-Lee, a
computer scientist at CERN.
9/3/1989, Thursday (+16,011) Robert Maplethorpe, photographer, died.
8/3/1989, Wednesday (+16,010) (1) China declared martial law in Tibet.
(2) The Vatican dismissed Archbishop Paul Marcinkus from
his position as chief of the Vatican�s bank. which had made losses of� US$ 88 million.
7/3/1989, Tuesday (+16,009) Chinese troops fired on Tibetan
monks and civilians demanding independence in Lhasa. Some reports said hundreds
died. China annexed Tibet in 1950, and protests for Tibetan independence had
been growing since 1985.
6/3/1989, Monday (+16,008)
Harry
Andrews, actor, died aged 77.
5/3/1989, Sunday (+16,007) As environmental awareness grew
worldwide, the Ozone Layer Conference opened in London.
4/3/1989, Saturday (+16,006) (1) Pope John Paul II branded Salman Rushdie�s
novel The Satanic Verses blasphemous for suggesting that part of the Koran was
inspired by the Devil.
(2) Train crash
at Purley station, London, killed 5 and injured 94.
3/3/1989, Friday
(+16,005) Robert
McFarlane was fined $20,000, plus two years� probation, for his role in the
Iran-Contra affair.
2/3/1989, Thursday
(+16,004) All 12 EC nations agreed to ban
the production of CFCs by 2000.
1/3/1989, Wednesday (+16,003) A curfew was imposed in Kosovo;
protests continued at alleged intimidation of the Serb minority.
=====================================================================================
28/2/1989, Tuesday (+16,002) (1) The Venezuelan President Peres faced food
riots as prices rose.
(2) Hereford
Cathedral dropped plans to sell the Mediaeval Mappa Mundi to raise money.
27/2/1989, Monday (+16,001)
Belgrade imposed emergency powers in Kosovo as Yugoslavia�s Serbs attempted to
resist secession by ethnic Albanians.
25/2/1989, Saturday (+15,999)
24/2/1989, Friday (+15,998) A cargo door fell off a
Boeing 747 over the Pacific, killing 51.
23/2/1989, Thursday (+15,997) (1) The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee
rejected, 11�9, President Bush's nomination of John Tower for Secretary of
Defense.
(2) Stanley Pins and Martin Flieschmann announced Cold
Fusion at the University of Utah.
22/2/1989, Wednesday (+15,996) Death of Aldo Jacuzzi,
American manufacturer of the eponymous baths.
21/2/1989, Tuesday (+15,995) (1) Czech writer Vaclav Havel was jailed for
anti-government demonstrations.
(2) Two members of Winnie Mandela�s bodyguard were
charged with the murder of 14-year-old Stompie Mocketsi.
19/2/1989, Sunday (+15,993)
18/2/1989, Saturday (+15,992) In Afghanistan., President Najibullah
imposed a State of Emergency to bolster his authority.
17/2/1989, Friday (+15,991) Scientists warned of a threat to the
ozone layer over the Arctic.
16/2/1989, Thursday (+15,990)
Harley Street kidney specialist Dr Raymond Crockett resigned over a �cash for
kidneys� scandal in which organs were taken from poor Turks for wealthy
patients.
15/2/1989, Wednesday (+15,989) The United National Party won the Sri
Lankan parliamentary election.
14/2/1989, Tuesday (+15,988) (1) Ayatollah Khomeini issued a �fatwa� ordering
Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie. Rushdie had published the �Satanic
Verses� which angered Muslims worldwide. On 7/3/1989 Iran severed relations
with the UK.
(2) Union Carbide agreed to pay US$ 470 million to the
Indian Government in compensation for the 1984 Bhopal disaster.
(3) The first of 24 satellites for the Global Positioning
System were placed in orbit.
(4) Skyphone, the world�s first satellite telephone
service, was launched on a British Airways flight from London to New York.
13/2/1989, Monday (+15,987) The Salvadoran Army attacked Encuentros
Hospital, and raped its patients.
12/2/1989, Sunday (+15,986) 12 people died in riots in Pakistan
over Salman Rushdie�s �Satanic Verses�.
11/2/1989, Saturday (+15,985) Political
Parties were allowed in Hungary.
10/2/1989, Friday (+15,984) The People�s National Party was elected,
under Michael Manley. Austerity measure continued.
9/2/1989, Thursday (+15,983) Gia Farrell US pop singer-songwriter, was
born in Suffern, New York.
8/2/1989, Wednesday (+15,982) An Independent Air Boeing 707 crashed
into Santa Maria Mountain in the Azores, killing 144 passengers.
7/2/1989, Tuesday (+15,981)
Violent storms and updraughts caused a rain of sardines over the town of
Ipswich, Australia.
5/2/1989, Sunday (+15,979)
Rupert Murdoch launched Sky TV.
3/2/1989, Friday (+15,977) (1)
General Stroessner of Paraguay was ousted after eight terms and 35 years in
office.
(2) British Telecom banned �chatlines�, because some
people got addicted to them and ran up huge bills which they couldn�t pay.� One 12-year-old ran up a bill of �6,000. The
Internet had yet to arrive.
2/2/1989, Thursday (+15,976)
The last Soviet soldier left
Afghanistan, ending 9 years of bitter war against the Mujaheddin rebels.
120,000 Soviet soldiers marched north along the Salang Highway, leaving behind
much armament. These rebels then marched on Kabul and Jalabad and threatened President
Najibulah. Najibulah imposed martial law as Mujaheddin rockets fell on Kabul.
1/2/1989, Wednesday (+15,975)
In Western Australia the towns of Kalgoorlie and Boulder merged to form the
City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
====================================================================================
27/1/1989, Friday (+15,970)
Sir Thomas Octave Sopwith, designer of the World War One biplane called the
Sopwith Camel, died.
23/1/1989, Monday (+15,966) Death of Spanish surrealist painter Salvador
Dali. He was aged 78, and had lived
as a recluse since his wife, Gala, died in 1982. Art collectors were troubled
by revelations that Dali had signed blank canvasses for others� to paint.
20/1/1989, Friday (+15,963) George
Herbert Walker Bush was sworn in as 41st US President.
19/1/1989, Thursday (+15,962) Police in Prague used tear
gas and water cannon to break up a large demonstration commemorating the 20th
anniversary of the death of Jan Palach, a student who burnt himself to death in
protest at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The 1989 protests
were led by Vaclav Havel, a dissident writer who led the Charter 77 human
rights movement.
18/1/1989, Wednesday (+15,961)
Astronomers discovered a pulsar in the remnants of Supernova 1987A.
17/1/1989, Tuesday (+15,960) A
gunman shot five children dead and injured 39 others at a Californian school
playground.
15/1/1989, Sunday (+15,958)
14/1/1989, Saturday (+15,957) British Muslims held public burnings
of Salman Rushdie�s The Satanic Verses.
13/1/1989, Friday (+15,956) The �Friday the 13th� virus hit
hundreds of IBM computers across Britain.
12/1/1989, Thursday (+15,955)
Former Ugandan President Idi Amin was expelled from Zaire; he sought refuge in
Senegal.
11/1/1989, Wednesday (+15,954) President Reagan delivered his farewell speech to the USA.
10/1/1989, Tuesday (+15,953) Cuban troops began withdrawing from
Angola.
9/1/1989, Monday (+15,952) A British Midland Boeing 737 fell
short of the runway at East Midlands Airport and ended up on the M.1 motorway,
near Kegworth. 47 died in the 12 week old aircraft, 15 seconds away from
landing at the airport. Reports suggested the pilot shut down the wrong, good,
starboard, engine after being warned of an engine failure. Witnesses saw the
port engine on fire.
8/1/1989, Sunday (+15,951) The Soviet Union promised to eliminate its
chemical weapons.
7/1/1989, Saturday (+15,950)
Emperor Hirohito of Japan died, aged 87. He had ruled for more than 62 years. 500,000 people
lined the streets for his funeral on 24/2/1989; US & British war veterans
protested that their countries should not honour a war criminal. Hirohito had
opposed war with the USA in the 1930s, he was also against the Japanese
invasion of Manchuria and Japan�s alliance with Nazi Germany. In 1941 he
proposed peace with Washington, but was persuaded by the War Minister and his
generals to hit Pearl Harbour. He was buried near his father�s mausoleum in the
Imperial Palace Gardens in Japan; his son Akihito, 55, succeeded him.
6/1/1989, Friday (+15,949) James Durbin, US pop singer, was born.
5/1/1989, Thursday (+15,948)
A US aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean shot down two Libyan fighter
aircraft.
4/1/1989, Wednesday (+15,947) British Muslims in Bradford ritually
burnt a copy of Salman Rushdie�s The
Satanic Verses.
3/1/1989, Tuesday (+15,946) The first commercial advertisement
appeared in the Russian newspaper Izvestia.
2/1/1989, Monday (+15,945) Ranasinghe Premadasa was sworn in as
President of Sri Lanka.
1/1/1989, Sunday (+15,944) (1) Namibia was granted independence
from South Africa.
(2) The Montreal Protocol (see 16/9/1987) came into
force. Ozone-Depleting Chemicals were to be phased out by 2000.
=====================================================================================
31/12/1988, Saturday (+15,943)
In the Pakistani capital Islamabad, the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi and
his Pakistani counterpart Benazir Bhutto signed the first agreement between the
two countries for 16 years.
30/12/1988, Friday (+15,942)
In the USA, Colonel Oliver North subpoenaed Presidents Ronald Reagan and George
Bush to testify in the Iran-Contra trial.
27/12/1988, Tuesday (+15,939)
22/12/1988, Thursday (+15,934)
The withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola was announced.
21/12/1988, Wednesday (+15,933)
Terrorists blew up a Pan-Am jumbo jet carrying more than
270 passengers over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. All the
passengers and 17 in Lockerbie itself died in the crash, on the evening of the
21st. The flight was from Frankfurt to the USA via Heathrow. The
bomb had been hidden in a transistor radio in the hold. After a three year
investigation two Libyans, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al
Megrahi were blamed for the bombing. However the Libyan leader, Colonel Gadhafi,
refused to extradite the two men, so the U.N. imposed sanctions on Libya, under
pressure from America. Eventually the two men were extradited to Holland to
face a year-long trial under Scottish law, under which Megrahi was found guilty
and Fhimah was acquitted.
19/12/1988, Monday (+15,931)
16/12/1988, Friday (+15,928)
Edwina Curry, Britain�s Junior Health Minister, resigned over her statement a
fortnight earlier that most British eggs were contaminated with salmonella. Egg
sales plummeted and famers demanded compensation.
15/12/1988, Thursday (+15,927) The USA resumed contacts with the PLO,
after a 13-year boycott.
14/12/1988, Wednesday (+15,926) (1) Yasser Arafat, PLO leader, renounced terrorism
and accepted Israel�s right to exist within secure borders.
(2) In Spain, 8 million workers went on strike against
government economic policies.
13/12/1988, Tuesday (+15,925)
In Brazzaville, South Africa signed an accord granting independence to Namibia.
12/12/1988, Monday (+15,924) A major train crash at Clapham Junction, south London.
38 died and 113 were injured as two morning rush hour trains collided. An
express train ran into the back of a London commuter train that had stopped on
the line to report a faulty signal. A third train was derailed and a fourth was
stopped in time to avoid a further collision.
11/12/1988, Sunday (+15,923) An Ariane rocket carrying an Astra 1A
satellite to bring 16 TV channels to Britain was launched from French Guyana.
10/12/1988, Saturday (+15,922) Severe earthquake, 6.9 on the
Richter scale, hit Armenia. 100,000 were reported to have died as the cities of
Spitak and Leninakan were flattened. However the death toll was later reduced
to 25,000. 15,000 were injured and 400,000 left homeless.
9/12/1988, Friday (+15,921)
The Michael Hughes Bridge, Sligo, Ireland, officially opened.
8/12/1988, Thursday (+15,920)
The new Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, released 1,000 political
prisoners.
7/12/1988, Wednesday (+15,919) (1)
Yasser Arafat recognised the existence of Israel.
(2) Gorbachev cut the Red Army by 10%.
(3) Nelson Mandela was moved to a
luxury house within the grounds of Pollsmoor Prison.
6/12/1988, Tuesday (+15,918)
US rock star Roy Orbison died of a heart attack, aged 52.
5/12/1988, Monday (+15,917) Elizabeth Gleadle, Canadian Athlete, was
born.
4/12/1988, Sunday (+15,916) Edwina Curry rashly claimed that most
British eggs were infected with salmonella. She had to resign on 16/12/1988.
3/12/1988, Saturday (+15,915) Michela Quattrociocche, Italian film actress,
was born.
2/12/1988, Friday (+15,914) A 110 mph cyclone in Bangladesh left
thousands dead and 5 million homeless.
1/12/1988, Thursday (+15,913) (China) The Chinese Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Qian Qichen, visited Moscow.
=====================================================================================
30/11/1988, Wednesday (+15,912) Benazir Bhutto
became the first woman Prime Minister of Pakistan; the first female leader of
an Islamic country. These were the first democratic elections in
Pakistan for 11 years. Her father, Zufilqar Ali Bhutto, was leader of Pakistan
from 1971 until he was deposed in a military coup headed by General Zia in
1977; Zufilqar was hanged in 1979. Benazir inherited the leadership of the
People�s Party and was an ongoing annoyance to the military regime until Zia
died in 1987 in a plane crash.
27/11/1988, Sunday (+15,909) John Carradine, actor, died.
22/11/1988, Tuesday (+15,904) The
US Stealth bomber, invisible to radar and heat seeking missiles, first appeared
in public.
21/11/1988, Monday (+15,903)
Brian Mulroney was re-elected Conservative Prime Minister of Canada, with a
reduced majority. He had campaigned on a free trade with the USA policy.
19/11/1988, Saturday (+15,901)
18/11/1988, Friday (+15,900) (Environment) Two years after a serious
pollution incident damaged the Rhine River, the first warning station in a
chain of sensors was installed at Huningue, France, to monitor the river for
pollutants.
17/11/1988, Thursday (+15,899)
The Netherlands became the second country to connect to the Internet, after the USA.
16/11/1988, Wednesday (+15,898)
(1) The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR
declared that Estonia is �sovereign�, adopting their own constitution, but
stopped short of declaring independence.
(2) A peace pact signed between the Khartoum Government
and southern Sudan rebels this day soon fell apart.
15/11/1988, Tuesday (+15,879) (Space exploration) The USSR launched
an unmanned space shuttle, Buran.
14/11/1988, Monday (+15,896)
In Algiers, the Palestine National Council declared a Palestinian State on the
West Bank and Gaza.
10/11/1988, Thursday (+15,892) The oil tanker Odyssey
spilled 140,000 tons of crude oil off the coast of Canada.
9/11/1988, Wednesday (+15,891) The Pentagon unveiled its new
�Stealth� fighter plane, supposedly invisible to enemy radar. It used
radar-absorbent materials and a �faceted� surface that reflected radar signals
at odd angles.
8/11/1988, Tuesday (+15,890) (1) George Bush became Republican president of the USA, defeating George
Dukakis of the Democrats.
(2) In the UK, the death toll from AIDS reached 1,002,
with 1,862 cases reported. A government report issued on 30/11/1988 feared that
up to 50,000 in the UK could be HIV+ and that by 1992 17,000 AIDS deaths might
have occurred.
(3) Salman Rushdie won the Whitbread Prize for his book, The Satanic Verses.
5/11/1988, Saturday (+15,887)
1/11/1988, Tuesday
(+15,883) Batman�s faithful sidekick, Robin, was killed off by The Joker after a
reader�s poll of DC Comics voted he should go.
=====================================================================================
31/10/1988, Monday (+15,882) General
Galtieri of Argentina was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment because of his
incompetent management of the Falklands War.
30/10/1988, Sunday (+15,881) The head of the Unification
Church, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, presided over a mass wedding of 6,516 couples
in Korea.
29/10/1988, Saturday (+15,880)
27/10/1988, Thursday (+15,878) Frank
Devlin, badminton champion, died (born 16/1/1900).
26/10/1988, Wednesday (+15,877) Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev promised to free all political prisoners by the end of the year.
25/10/1986, Tuesday (+15,876)
19/10/1988, Wednesday (+15,870)
Son House, musician, died.
18/10/1988. Tuesday (+15,869) The
Home Secretary Douglas Hurd banned all broadcasts involving terrorist
spokesmen.
16/10/1988, Sunday (+15,867)
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and SDLP leader John Hume shared the Nobel
Peace Prize, for their part in forging the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement.
13/10/1988, Thursday (+15,864) The Turin Shroud was declared
to be a fake; it was dated to between 1260 and 1390.
12/10/1988,
Wednesday (+15,863) The USSR offered
US$600 million reparations to Afghanistan.
11/10/1988,
Tuesday (+15,862) Women were allowed to
study for the first time at Magdalene College, Cambridge, UK. Male students
wore black armbands and the porter flew a black flag.
8/10/1988,
Saturday (+15,859) John Milburn, footballer, died.
5/10/1988, Wednesday (+15,856) The
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was defeated in a plebiscite meant to
reinforce his rule. 55% voted against him.
3/10/1988, Monday (+15,848) Cable TV Network TNT (Turner
National Television) was launched by media mogul Ted Turner.
=====================================================================================
29/9/1988,
Thursday (+15,850) NASA recommenced
space flights, grounded after the Challenger
disaster.
27/9/1988, Tuesday (+15,848) The National League for
Democracy was formed this day in Burma, led by Aung San� Suu Kyi.
26/9/1988, Monday (+15,847) The Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson
flew home from the Seoul Olympics in disgrace after being stripped of his 100m
medal after failing a drugs test. He had run the 100m 2 days earlier in a
record time of 9.79 seconds but was found to have taken steroids. Afterwards
Ben Johnson divided his time between his family in Toronto and acting as
personal bodyguard for Libya�s Colonel Gaddafi.
25/9/1988, Sunday (+15,846) (Christian, Women)
In the USA, Barbara Harris, a divorcee, was elected first woman bishop in the
Anglican Church, to serve as Bishop of Massachusetts (inaugurated 11/2/1989).
24/9/1988, Saturday (+15,845) Large
and angry protests against the World Bank and IMF meetings in West Berlin.
23/9/1988, Friday (+15,844)
Arwel Hughes, Welsh composer, died aged 79.
22/9/1988, Thursday (+15,843)
Brazil reached an agreement with its creditors to reschedule debts of US$62.1
billion.
21/9/1988, Wednesday (+15,842)
State of Emergency proclaimed in Nagorno-Karabakh.
20/9/1988, Tuesday (+15,841) 20
million were made homeless in floods in Bangladesh.
19/9/1988, Monday (+15,840)
Thiemo de Bakker, Dutch tennis player, was born.
18/9/1988, Sunday (+15,839) In
Haiti, General Namphy was deposed in a military coup.
17/9/1988, Saturday (+15,838) The
24th Olympic Games opened in Seoul.
16/9/1988, Friday (+15,837) (1) A military junta seized power in
Burma.
(2) 1,330 were reported to have died in
floods in Bangladesh.
15/9/1988, Thursday (+15,836)
The Federation of Yugoslavia looked increasingly fragile as 200,000 Serbs
protested in Belgrade against persecution of them in the province of Kosovo by
ethnic Albanians. Kosovo was the home of Serbian culture, and had a Serbian
king for two centuries. By 1988 it was populated by 1.7 million ethnic
Albanians and only 200,000 Serbs. Serbs make up 40% of Yugoslavia�s 23 million
population. Serbians organised more mass anti-Albanian demonstrations on
25/9/1988.
14/9/1988, Wednesday (+15,835) On route to Sydney, a 6-man
expedition arrived in Delhi in a London taxi. Its meter, on London rates,
showed a fare of �13,200.
13/9/1988, Tuesday (+15,834)
6/9/1988, Tuesday
(+15,827) 11 year old Thomas Gregory
from London became the youngest person to swim the Channel.
5/9/1988, Monday (+15,826)
Britain now had 1,730 reported cases of AIDS and 949 deaths.
4/9/1988,
Sunday (+15,825) Nutritionists
blamed junk food for Britain�s
increased youth violence.
2/9/1988, Friday (+15,823)
1/9/1988, Thursday
(+15,822) Luis Walter Alvarez, researcher into subatomic particles, born
13/6/1911 in San Francisco, California, died in Berkeley, California.
=====================================================================================
31/8/1988, Wednesday (+15,821) Widespread flooding in Bangladesh
left 25 million homeless.
28/8/1988, Sunday (+15,818)
The longest trial in Spanish history came to an end after 15 months. Alleged
sales of toxic olive oil had killed 600 and injured thousands more.
21/8/1988, Sunday (+15,811) British licencing laws were
relaxed to allow pubs to open for 12 hours a day.
20/8/1988, Saturday (+15,810) 8
British soldiers were killed in a landmine attack on a bus near Ballygawley,
County Tyrone.
19/8/1988, Friday (+15,809)
18/8/1988, Thursday (+15,808)� In Hong Kong, the Light Rail Transit line
between Tuen Mun and Yuen Long, 23 km, opened.
17/8/1988, Wednesday (+15,807) General Zia ul Haq of Pakistan
died when his aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from a military
demonstration of US tanks at Bahawalpur for Islamabad. The US ambassador to
Pakistan was on board. A bomb or missile attack was suspected.
16/8/1988, Tuesday (+15,806) IBM introduced
software for artificial intelligence.
15/8/1988, Monday (+15,805)
IRA bomb in Omagh killed 29.
14/8/1988, Sunday (+15,804) Enzo
Ferrari, racing car designer and builder, died at his home in Modena aged 90.
13/8/1988, Saturday (+15,803)
12/8/1988, Friday (+15,802) US
artist Jean Michel Basquiat died of a drugs overdose, aged 27.
11/8/1988, Thursday (+15,801)
Devastating floods brought chaos to Sudan. After 13 hours of rain, 1.5
million people had been made homeless and an unknown number drowned.
8/8/1988, Monday (+15,798) (1) The Iran-Iraq war ended after 8
years, and 1 million casualties. A further 1.7 million were wounded,
1.5 million made homeless, and US$ 400 billion of the two country�s resources
had been expended. Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran accepted resolution 598 of the UN
Security Council calling for a ceasefire, despite earlier pledging to fight
until total victory had been achieved.
(2) Angola, South Africa, and Cuba agreed a ceasefire in
the Angolan Civil War.
(3) A popular uprising in Myanmar against the military
rule there. The uprising was timed for this day as 8888 was deemed an
auspicious date. However the people did not succeed, but the revolt was
brutally suppressed by the army, with some 3,000 people killed.
3/8/1988, Wednesday (+15,793) Matthias Rust was freed from
prison in Russia.� He had served 14
months of a 4-year sentence for flying a plane from Germany to land in Red
Square, Moscow.
====================================================================================
31/7/1988, Sunday (+15,790) King Hussein of Jordan announced that he is
ceding the Israeli-controlled West Bank to the PLO.
29/7/1988, Friday (+15,788)
Unmarried couples sharing a house rushed to
beat the Conservative Chancellor Lawson�s 1/8 deadline after which unmarried
couples would no longer be able to claim two lots of tax relief on a joint
mortgage of �30,000 each. This sparked a record mortgage lending in the UK in
the 3rd quarter of 1988 of �3.6 billion, up from �2.2 billion in the
2nd quarter 1988. House prices soared in what became known as the Lawson Boom, followed by the negative
equity of the early 1990s as house prices fell again.
28/7/1988, Thursday (+15,787)
Paddy Ashdown was elected leader of the SDP.
26/7/1988, Tuesday (+15,785) New York celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
23/7/1988, Saturday (+15,782) General Ne Win resigned as Burmese Head of
State, in the face of large pro-democracy protests. A more moderate President,
Maung Maung, took office, promising multiparty elections within 3 months
20/7/1988, Wednesday (+15,779) Iran and Iraq agreed a ceasefire in
their war.
18/7/1988, Monday (+15,777) On Nelson Mandela�s 70th
birthday, there was a worldwide call for him to be released from prison. He had
been held since 1964.
11/7/1988, Monday (+15,770) 8,500 people in the UK were known to
be carrying the AIDS virus.
7/7/1988, Thursday (+15,766) (1) The first of two Soviet probes was sent to
study Phobos, a moon of Mars. The second probe was launched on 12/2/1988.
Later, Phobos I was accidentally sent
a �suicide� instruction.
(2) Tottenham Hotspur Football Club paid a record �2
million transfer fee to Newcastle United for Paul Gascoigne.
6/7/1988, Wednesday (+15,765)
173 men died in an explosion on the
Piper Alpha oilrig in the North Sea. Many more were injured as a series
of explosions wrecked the rig whilst they slept. The 12-year-old rig was 120
miles off the Aberdeen coast. Flames shot 400 feet into the air and only 62
survived, many by jumping over 100 feet into the sea. The heat could be felt
one mile away, and hampered rescue efforts. 165 oil workers and 2 rescue
workers were killed.
5/7/1988, Tuesday (+15,764) The Church of England voted
for the ordination of women.
3/7/1988, Sunday (+15,762) The US cruiser Vincennes mistakenly
shot down an Iranian airliner, killing 286 people on a flight from Bandar Abbas
to Dubai. The US believed the aircraft was a fighter plane.
1/7/1988, Friday (+15,760) The average UK house price
was �51,405.
=====================================================================================
27/6/1988, Monday (+15,755) Train
crash at Gare de Lyons, Paris, 57 killed.
26/6/1988, Sunday (+15,755) Vietnam
said its troops would withdraw from Kampuchea, formerly Cambodia.
25/6/1988, Saturday (+15,754) Virginia
celebrated the 200th anniversary of its statehood.
21/6/1988, Tuesday (+15,750) (1) The Myanmar regime imposed martial law in
the face of student protests.
(2) New
Hampshire celebrated the 200th anniversary of its statehood.
19/6/1988, Thursday (+15,745) In Haiti, Leslie Manigat, civilian
President, was deposed in a military coup and replaced by General Henri Namphy.
14/6/1988, Tuesday (+15,743) In
the UK, top executives pay was rising at 22% a year, compared with a national
average of 8.5%.
13/6/1988, Monday (+15,742) The first beauty contest was
held in the USSR.
10/6/1988, Friday (+15,739)
8/6/1988, Wednesday
(+15,737) British writer Russell Harty died.
5/6/1988, Sunday (+15,734) Kay
Cottee sailed into Sydney harbour, the first woman to sail solo round the world
non-stop.
4/6/1988, Saturday (+15,733) Sir Douglas Nicholls,
Governor of South Australia, the first aborigine to hold this position and to
receive a knighthood, died.
1/6/1988, Wednesday (+15,730)
=====================================================================================
27/5/1988, Friday (+15,725)
In Canada, a man who �sleepwalked�, drove over to his mother�s house and killed
her with an iron bar, was acquitted of murder.
26/5/1988, Thursday (+15,724)
Andrew Lloyd Webber�s musical Cats opened in Moscow with a British and American
cast.
25/5/1988, Wednesday (+15,723) The Iranians suffered reverses on
land in their war against Iraq. They were driven off the Fao Peninsula and off
land east of Basra (both in Iraq).
24/5/1988, Tuesday (+15,722) (1) In
the UK, the controversial Section 28 law was passed. This made the promotion of
homosexuality in schools illegal.
(2) Snow fell in the Syrian Desert and Damascus had ten
hours of snowfall for the first time in 50 years.
(3) Liverpool�s Albert Dock, restored as a business and
leisure centre, was opened by the Prince of Wales.
23/5/1988, Monday (+15,721) South Carolina celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
22/5/1988, Sunday (+15,720) Janos Kadar was replaced as Communist leader
of Hungary by Karoly Grosz. This paved the way for reforms such as the
legalisation of other political Parties.
21/5/1988, Saturday (+15,719) Jonathan Howson, English
footballer, was born in Morley, England.
20/5/1988, Friday (+15,718) British
licensing laws were liberalised. The Licensing Act received Royal Assent, and
65,000 pubs in England and Wales could now open 11am to 11pm Monday to
Saturday.
19/5/1988, Thursday (+15,717) In India, Sikh rebels occupying the
Golden Temple in Amritsar surrendered.
18/5/1988, Wednesday (+15,716) Daws Butler, cartoon voice for Yogi Bear
and Huckleberry Hound, died.
17/5/1988, Tuesday (+15,715) Sainsbury announced sales of over �5 billion in the UK in 1987,
selling 10.7% of all UK groceries.
16/5/1988, Monday (+15,714) The US Surgeon-General declared that
nicotine�s �pharmacological and behavioural processes� were addictive in
similar ways to heroin and cocaine.
15/5/1988, Sunday (+15,713) Soviet troops began leaving Afghanistan. On
15/4/1988 Mr Eduard Shevardnaze, the Soviet Foreign Minister set the seal on
the Kremlin�s decision to withdraw more than 100,000 Soviet troops in
Afghanistan, after 8 � years of occupation. Some 155,000 troops would be
withdrawn by 15/5/1988, and the remainder, as many troops as this again, would
go by 15/2/1989. But Washington said it would continue to supply arms to the
Mujaheddin who were fighting the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. During the
Soviet occupation, up to one million Afghans were said to have been killed and
over a third of the population had fled.
13/5/1988, Friday (+15,711) Chet Baker, US jazz trumpeter, died.
11/5/1988, Wednesday (+15,709)
Soviet spy Kim Philby died in Moscow aged 76.
10/5/1988, Tuesday (+15,708) President
Mitterand of France won a second
term. The Right was split, but the far Right Jean Marie Le Pen got 14.38% of
the vote, 4 million votes. In Marseilles, Le Pen led with 28% of the vote.
9/5/1988, Monday (+15,707) The new Australian Parliament
building in Canberra was inaugurated.
8/5/1988, Sunday (+15,796) Robert A
Heinlein, writer, died.
7/5/1988, Saturday (+15,705) Boston saw the first meeting
of people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens.
5/5/1988, Thursday (+15,703) In the US, Eugene Antonio became the
country�s first Black Roman Catholic Archbishop.
3/5/1988, Tuesday (+15,701)
Carl
Erhardt, ice hockey player, died (born 13/2/1897).
2/5/1988, Monday (+15,700) In
Poland, thousands of shipyard workers went on strike, and 7 Solidarnosc union
leaders were detained.
1/5/1988, Sunday (+15,699) Tamil guerrillas set off a land mine
in Sri Lanka under a bus,
killing 26 passengers.
=====================================================================================
30/4/1988, Saturday (+15,698) The
World Expo 1988 opened in Brisbane, Australia.
29/4/1988, Friday (-15,697) (1) The worst industrial unrest in Poland since the
1981 martial law crackdown on Solidarnosc. Workers demanded large pay rises
after the Polish government raised food prices by 40%, rents by 50%, and
electricity by 100%; a spell of austerity was needed to restore economic
stability, said the government.
(2) McDonalds announced plans for 20 restaurants in
Moscow to sell the �Bolshoi Mac�.
28/4/1988, Thursday (-15,696)
Sian Edwards, 28, became the first
woman to conduct at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
27/4/1988, Wednesday (+15,695)
David Scarboro, British actor, died (born 1968)
26/4/1988, Tuesday (+15,694) The
Swiss food giant Nestle bid �2.1
billion for the York confectioners, Rowntree.
On 23/6/1988 Rowntree accepted a �2.55 billion bid from Nestle. Nestle already
owned 12% of Rowntree, and Suchard owned 29.9% of Rowntree. Both Swiss
companies want Rowntree, maker of brands like Kit Kat, Quality Street, and
Smarties, as a bridgehead into the European Community.
25/4/1988, Monday (+15,693) In
Israel, John Demanjuk, known as Ivan the Terrible, was sentenced to death for
war crimes relating to the gas chambers at Treblinka concentration camp.
20/4/1988, Wednesday (+15.688)
19/4/1988, Tuesday (+15,687) A two-day battle in which the Iraqis
recovered their port city of Fao from the Iranians was in progress. The battle
for Fao cost 53,000 Iraqi and 120,000 Iranian lives. After Fao the front line
was in much the same position as the frontier had been 8 years earlier when the
war broke out.
18/4/1988, Monday (+15,686) The USA retaliated against Iran for
its mining of the Gulf. After warning the Iranians to evacuate, US warships
destroyed Iranian oil platforms at Sirri and Sisan. Iranian boats fired back
and were sunk by the US.
17/4/1988, Sunday (+15,685) Louise Nevelson, sculptor born in Kiev,
Russia, in 23/9/1900, died in New York.
16/4/1988, Saturday (+15,684)
The Palestine Liberation Organisation�s chief military commander, Khalil al
Wazir, was assassinated at his Tunis home; the PLO blamed an Israeli hit squad.
Mr Wazir had organised many attacks from Lebanon into Israel, and orchestrated
the Palestinian intifada in the Occupied Territories.
15/4/1988, Friday (+15,683)
North Korean President Kim Il Sung received 43,000 gifts as he instituted
lavish celebrations for his 76th birthday.
14/4/1988, Thursday (+15,682) In the Geneva Agreement, the USSR
agreed to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan. President Ceausescu of
Romania announced plans to demolish 8,000 villages and forcibly resettle their
population in urban areas.
13/4/1988, Wednesday (+15,681) Allison Williams, US actress, was born.
12/4/1988, Tuesday (+15,680) China�s National People�s Congress
voted to allow private enterprise and the transfer of use of land between
private individuals. They did not, however, allow outright private ownership of
land.
11/4/1988, Monday (+15,679) Jean �Jeff� Donnell, US actress, died aged
66 of a heart attack.
10/4/1988, Sunday (+15,678) Haley Joel Osment, actor, was born.
9/4/1988, Saturday (+15,677) (Space
exploration) The landmark work A Brief History of Time was published by
Stephen Hawking.
7/4/1988, Thursday (+15,675)
Gorbachev, in Geneva, signed a peace accord on Afghanistan.
4/4/1988, Monday (+15,672)
The Midlands-based TV soap opera �Crossroads�
ended on episode 4,510. The first episode was broadcast in November 1964.
3/4/1988. Sunday (+15,671) Easter Sunday. Ethiopia and
Somalia concluded a peace agreement, ending 11 years of border conflict.
2/4/1988, Saturday (+15,670) Israeli
troops killed six Palestinians, the highest total in a single day so far. On
6/4/1988 the first Israeli civilian victim of the fighting died, a 15-year old
girl.
1/4/1988, Friday (+15,669) Iraq was accused of using
poison gas on Kurdish villagers.
====================================================================================
30/3/1988, Wednesday (+15,667)
29/3/1988, Tuesday (+15,666) Plans
were unveiled by Canadian developers for an 888-foot tower block, costing �3
billion, at Canary Wharf, London
Docklands, to be completed by 1992.
28/3/1988, Monday (+15,665)
Roll-out of the new Airbus A320.
26/3/1988, Saturday (+15,663)
24/3/1988, Thursday (+15,661)
In Israel, Mordecai Vanunu was found guilty of revealing Israeli nuclear
secrets to the Sunday Times.
23/3/1988, Wednesday (+15,660) In Nicaragua, Contra commanders and
Government officials signed a 60-day ceasefire agreement.
22/3/1988, Tuesday (+15,659)
In Australia, doctors turned off the life support system of a terminally ill
female patient for the first time.
21/3/1988, Monday (+15,658) Lee Cattermole, English footballer, was
born.
20/3/1988, Sunday (+15,657) Iraqi planes attacked the Iranian oil
terminal at Kharg Island, killing 54. Two supertankers were hit and exploded
into flames. The Iraqis had more fighter planes than the Iranians. Iraq and
Iran continued to fire missiles into each other�s capital cities.
19/3/1988, Saturday (+15,656)
In Belfast, 2 British soldiers were lynched at IRA funerals.
18/3/1988, Friday (+15,655) Percy Thrower, horticulturalist,
died.
17/3/1988, Thursday (+15,654) Grimes, Canadian musician, was born.
16/3/1988, Wednesday (+15,653) News broke that Saddam Hussein
had used chemical weapons on Halabja, a Kurdish town. 5,000 Kurds died.
15/3/1988, Tuesday (+15,652) The Conservative Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, cut the standard rate of income
tax from 27% to 25%. The highest rate was cut from 60% to 40%. Total tax
cuts in his budget amounted to �4 billion, mostly going to higher income
earners. On 20/3/1988 a survey in the UK found 60% of the population opposed
these tax cuts.
14/3/1988, Monday (+15,651) (China, Vietnam) Three
days of conflict between China and Vietnam began over the disputed Spratly
Islands.
13/3/1988, Sunday (+15,650) (Railway Tunnels)
The Seikan Tunnel, 53.85km long, Japan, opened on the Honshu-Hokkaido line.
12/3/1988, Saturday (+15,649) The British �1 note ceased to be
legal tender, and was replaced by the �1
coin.
11/3/1988, Friday (+15,648) Katsuhiko Nakajima, Japanese professional
wrestler, was born.
10/3/1988, Thursday (+15,647)
The Chinese Army occupied Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, after large anti-Chinese
demonstrations by Tibetans.
9/3/1988, Wednesday (+15,646) Ronald Cove-Smith, rugby player, died (born
26/11/1899)
6/3/1988, Sunday (+15,643) Three IRA terrorists shot dead by SAS
men in Gibraltar; they were allegedly planning a bomb attack.
4/3/1988, Friday (+15,641) Israel
banned all foreign journalists as the Arab unrest continued.
3/3/1988, Thursday (+15,640)
The Liberals and the SDP merged to form the Social and Liberal Democratic
Party.
2/3/1988, Wednesday (+15,639)
The Soviet Army was sent to Azerbaijan to quell unrest there. Tension
between Azerbaijan and Armenia grew. Azerbaijan rejected a call for the enclave
of Nagorno-Karabakh to be returned to Armenian control; Karabakh had been part
of Azerbaijan since 1921, although mainly populated by Armenians. Armenia
invaded and occupied large parts of Azerbaijan lying between Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh.
1/3/1988, Tuesday (+15,638) Soviet troops enforced a curfew in Sumgait, Azerbaijan, following ethnic unrest.
=============================================================================
29/2/1988, Monday (+15,637)
(1) In the UK, prescription charges rose by 20p to �2.60 per item from 1/4/1988.
In February 2003 they were �6.20 an item, up 158.3% on February 1988. Over this
period the RPI rose 72%.
(2) In South Africa, Archbishop Desmond \Tutu was arrested for illegally demonstrating
outside the Parliamentary building in Cape Town. He was protesting
against the death sentence imposed on the Sharpeville Six for killing a Black
Councillor.
23/2/1988, Tuesday (+15,631)
21/2/1988, Sunday (+15,629) The
grave of the warrior queen Boadicea discovered under platform 8 of Kings Cross
railway station, London.
20/2/1988, Saturday (+15,628) The
Regional Soviet of Nagorny Karabakh voted to transfer the region from
Azerbaijan to Armenia.
15/2/1988, Monday (+15,623) Richard F Feynman, theoretical physicist,
died.
9/2/1988, Tuesday (+15,617) In
Britain, the House of Commons voted to allow proceedings to be televised.
8/2/1988, Monday (+15,616) Soviet President Gorbachev
announced that Russian troops were to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in May
1988.
7/2/1988, Sunday (+15,615) In
Haiti, Leslie Manigat was inaugurated as President, ending 2 years of military
rule.
6/2/1988, Saturday (+15,614) (1) Massachusetts celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
(2) A survey in the UK found that out-of-order phone boxes and Post Office queues were the top irritants of modern life.
5/2/1988, Friday (+15,613) 3.8
million plastic noses were sold for the first ever Comic Relief Red Nose
Day. �15 million was raised.
4/2/1988, Thursday (+15,612)
The Soviet Union posthumously rehabilitated Nikolai Bukharin and 9 other Soviet
leaders executed or imprisoned after the 1938 show trials.
3/2/1988, Wednesday (+15,611)
In the USA, the Democrat-controlled House of Democrats rejected President
Reagan�s request for US$36.25 million to support the Nicaraguan Contras.
2/2/1988, Tuesday (+15,610) In
London, 2,000 nurses and other health workers held a one-day strike over pay.
1/2/1988, Monday (+15,609)
Two Arab youths were shot dead by Israeli
settlers as the violence in Israel continued, from January 1988.
=====================================================================================
31/1/1988, Sunday (+15,608) The British
Social Democratic Party agreed to merge with the Liberal party, see 3/3/1988.
29/1/1988, Friday (+15,606) Junior Health Minister
(Conservative), Edwina Curry, told people they should forego holidays to pay
for private health care.
26/1/1988, Tuesday (+15,603) Australia
celebrated its bicentennial.
25/1/1988, Monday (+15,602)
Ramsewak Shankar was inaugurated as President of Surinam, ending 8 years of
military rule.
24/1/1988, Sunday (+15,601) (Biology) Biochemist Charles Glen King, who first
isolated vitamin C, died in Westchester, Pennsylvania.
23/1/1988, Saturday (+15,600) The
British Liberal Party voted to accept a merger with the Social Democratic Party
(see 3/3/1988)
20/1/1988, Wednesday (+15,597) The Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, cracked down hard on the Palestinians. Beatings were routine
and charity aid to the strike-hit West Bank and Gaza Strip was banned by
Israel.
17/1/1988, Sunday (+15,594) Nicaraguan Sandinista leader,
Daniel Ortega, offered a ceasefire to the Contras.
16/1/1988, Saturday (-15,593) Ballard
Berkeley, British actor, died aged 83
15/1/1988, Friday (+15,592) Arab
uprising in Israel began. Sporadic violence had occurred on 8/1/1988.
14/1/1988, Thursday (+15,591) Georgy
M Malenkov, Prime Minister of the USSR (1953-55), died.
13/1/1988, Wednesday (+15,590)
(1) Chiang
Ching Kuo, President of Taiwan since 1978, died. Lee Teng Hui became President
of Taiwan. The first Taiwan-born leader of the country, he was a reforming
technocrat who accelerated the pace of economic liberalisation.
(2) One in
every 61 babies born in New York in December 1987 had the AIDS virus. Doctors
believed up to 40% of them would develop AIDS. In the UK, there were 1,277 AIDS cases; 697 had died from the disease.
12/1/1988, Tuesday (+15,589) (Space exploration) The USSR launched
Phobos-2, to rendezvous with the Martian moon, Phobos.
11/1/1988, Monday (+15,588)
9/1/1988, Saturday (+15,586) Connecticut
celebrated the 200th anniversary of its statehood.
8/1/1988, Friday (+15,585) Violence
in Gaza and Jerusalem as young Palestinians protested after Friday prayers. See
15/1/1988.
7/1/1988, Thursday (+15,584)
Trevor Howard, actor, died.
6/1/1988, Wednesday (+15,583)
4/1/1988, Monday (+15,581) (India) Indian Kami Bheel, who
possessed the world�s longest moustache at 7ft 10 inches from tip to tip, was
found decapitated.
3/1/1988, Sunday (+15,580) An
Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon killed 21 people.
2/1/1988, Saturday (+15,579) Georgia
celebrated the 200th anniversary of its statehood.
1/1/1988, Friday (+15,578)
=====================================================================================
31/12/1987, Thursday (+15,577)
29/12/1987, Tuesday (+15,575) (Medical) Prozac
made its debut in the USA. It was initially developed as a drug to treat high
blood pressure, but the success seen in animals in this area failed to
materialise with humans. However it found a role as an anti-depressant. Before
Prozac and other drugs, depression, sometimes romantically referred to as
�melancholy�, could lead to committal to a mental institution in the most
severe cases, so sufferers were reluctant to seek treatment. Prozac
boosts the level of serotonin in the brain by preventing its destruction after
it has delivered its message; it is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor or
SSRI. Although some patients have alleged that it changes personality, even
leading to suicide attempts, some 35 million people (2006) take it worldwide.
28/12/1987, Monday (+15,574) Tunisia and Libya restored diplomatic
relations.
27/12/1987, Sunday (+15,583) Lily Luahana Cole, English actress, was born.
26/12/1987, Saturday (+15,572) (Railway
Tunnels) The Jundushan railway tunnel, China, on the Datong to
Quinhuangdao line, opened.
25/12/1987, Friday (+15,571)
Israeli security forces cracked down on Arab rioters.
24/12/1987, Thursday (+15,570) Joop den Uyl, former Dutch Prime
Minister, died.
23/12/1987, Wednesday (+15,569) Tommaso Bellazzini, Italian footballer,
was born.
22/12/1987, Tuesday (+15,568) Prime Minister Mugabe of Zimbabwe and
Joshua Nkomo agreed to unite the ZANU (PF) and ZAPU parties.
21/12/1987, Monday (+15,567) 2,000 killed in a ferry disaster in The
Philippines.
20/12/1987, Sunday (+15,566)
Iraq claimed it had repulsed an attack by
two Iranian brigades 125 miles north of Basra. Iran claimed it was a successful
lightning raid.
19/12/1987, Saturday (+15,565)
Karim
Benzema, French football player, was born in Lyon, France.
18/12/1987, Friday (+15,564) New Jersey celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
17/12/1987, Thursday (+15,563) Gustav Husak resigned as General
Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party; succeeded by Milos Jakes.
16/12/1987, Wednesday (+15,562) In Italy, 338 people were convicted in
the largest Mafia trial ever.
15/12/1987, Tuesday (+15,561)
12/12/1987, Saturday (+15,558) Pennsylvania
celebrated the 200th anniversary of its statehood.
11/12/1987, Friday (+15,557) At Christies auction house,
London, Charlie Chaplin�s cane and bowler sold for �82,500, and his boots for
�38,500.
10/12/1987, Thursday (+15,556)
9/12/1987, Wednesday (+15,555) The Intifada, the popular
Palestinian uprising against Israeli authority, began.
8/12/1987, Tuesday (+15,554) Gorbachev
and Reagan signed an arms reduction treaty, to eliminate medium range nuclear
missiles from Europe.
7/12/1987, Monday (+15,553) Delaware
celebrated the 200th anniversary of its statehood.
6/12/1987, Sunday (+15,552) A Palestinian
stabbed and killed an Israeli shopper in Gaza. This provoked a revenge attack,
which started the Intifada, see 9/12/1987.
4/12/1987, Friday (+15,550)
1/12/1987, Tuesday (+15, 547)
Digging began on the Channel Tunnel.
====================================================================================
30/11/1987, Monday (+15,546)
James Baldwin, actor, died.
29/11/1987, Sunday (+15,545) A
referendum was held on a proposed new Polish Constitution. Solidarnosc was
banned from political participation but its boycott of the process meant too
few voted and the result was disqualified. The process proved Solidarnosc
dissent against Communism was still strong.
28/11/1987, Saturday (+15,544)
25/11/1987, Wednesday (+15,541)
The Category 5 typhoon, Nina, hit the Philippines, with 165 mph winds and a
major storm surge, killing 1,036 people.
24/11/1987, Tuesday (+15,540) Li
Peng succeeded Zhao Ziyang as Chinese Prime Minister.
23/11/1987, Monday (+15,539) Of
the 128 new airlines created in the USA after deregulation, only 37 were still
in business.
21/11/1987, Saturday (+15,537)
18/11/1987, Wednesday (+15,534)
(1) The worst fire in the history of
the London Underground killed 31 at King�s Cross. An
accumulation of rubbish and fluff under a wooden escalator had been ignited by
a cigarette end. Sprinklers had not been installed despite a recommendation in
1984 for them, and administrative errors meant passengers were still
disembarking from Piccadilly Line trains as the fire spread. A �no smoking�
rule came into force across the London Underground on 24/11/1987.
(2) US Congress accused Reagan of failing to uphold the
laws of the USA, in the Iran-Conttra Affair, since he was responsible as
President for the illegal actions of his aides.
17/11/1987, Tuesday (+15,533) The
UK Government announced plans for a Community Charge (Poll Tax) to be levied in 1990.
16/11/1987, Monday (+15,532)
13/11/1987, Friday (+15,529)
The first criminal conviction based on
genetic fingerprinting saw a rapist sentenced to 8 years at Bristol Crown
Court.
12/11/1987, Thursday (+15,528)
President Gorbachev sacked Boris Yeltsin as head of the Communist Party after
Yeltsin criticised him for the slow pace of perestroika
(reconstruction).
11/11/1987, Wednesday (+15,527)
(Price) Van Gogh�s painting, Irises,
sold for US$53.9 million, the highest price paid for a painting.
10/11/1987, Tuesday (+15,526) Jessica
Tovey, Australian actress, was born.
9/11/1987, Monday (+15,525) A
bomb explosion in Colombo, Sri Lanka, killed 32.
8/11/1987, Sunday (+15,524)� An IRA bomb exploded at a Remembrance Day
service at Eniskillen, N Ireland, killing 11 people.
5/11/1987, Thursday (+15,520) Govan Mbeki was released from prison in
South Africa after being held for 24 years on Robben island. He had been
sentenced to life in 1964 for treason against the South African Government, He
went on to serve in the post-Apartheid Government.
1/11/1987, Sunday (+15,517) French police boarded the trawler Eksund and discovered arms intended for
the Provisional IRA.
====================================================================================
29/10/1987, Thursday (+15,514) Woody Herman, musician,
died.
26/10/1987, Monday (+15,511) The City Airport in the London
Docklands opened for short landing and take-off aircraft.
25/10/1987, Sunday (+15,510) At the 13th Communist Party Congress
in Beijing, Deng Xiaoping resigned as Party leader.
22/10/1987,
Thursday (+15,507) The first volume of
the Gutenberg Bible became the world�s most expensive book when it was sold at
auction at New York for US$ 5.39 million.
19/10/1987, Monday (+15,504) �Black Monday� on Wall Street wiped
millions off stock prices around the world. Wall Street ended the day a record
22% lower, 508 points down, a bigger fall than in the 1929 crash. The FT in
London fell almost 250 points, threatening the UK government�s sell-off of BP
shares. There were concerns that the US trade deficit, now at US$ 15.7 billion,
and a 40% fall in the value of the Dollar, would cause higher interest rates.
16/10/1987, Friday (+15,501) A severe hurricane hit Britain. 19 people died when storms
battered the south of England, as winds of up to 100 mph tore up trees by the
roots. Kew Garden recorded a gust of 94 mph and lost trees overnight that had
taken 200 years to grow. Property damage was between �100 and �600 million. This
was stated to be the worst storm in Britain since 1707.
15/10/1987, Thursday (+15,500) (1) The Queen abdicated as monarch of
Fiji.
(2) In Burkina Faso, the authoritarian and absolute rule of Thomas Sankora
led to a rebellion mounted by Blaise Compaore. Sankara was shot and Compaore
gained power.
11/10/1987, Sunday (+15,496) A sonar survey of Loch Ness
failed to find any trace of the monster.
6/10/1987, Tuesday (+15,491) (Fiji) Colonel
Rabuka declared Fiji a Republic.
3/10/1987, Saturday (+15,488) French
playwright Jean Anouilh died.
2/10/1987, Friday (+15,487) 6
Buddhist monks in Tibet protesting against the Chinese occupation were killed
by the Chinese. On 6/10/1987 China banned all foreigners from visiting Tibet.
1/10/1987, Thursday (+15,486) (Earthquake)
(1) A 20-second earthquake hit Los Angeles, killing 7 and
injuring 100. The 6.1 magnitude quake hit the morning rush hour at 7.40 am, and
was the strongest in the area since 1971.
(2) 48 year old surrogate grandmother Mrs Pat Anthony gave birth
to triplets for her daughter Karen Ferriera-Jorge in Johannesburg, South
Africa.
======================================================================================
30/9/1987, Wednesday (+15,485) At the University of
Pennsylvania Hospital, Susan Lazarchick had the first successful transplant of
the body�s most complex joint, the knee.
29/9/1987, Tuesday (+15,484) John M Poindexter resigned
from the US Navy over the Iran-Contra affair.
28/9/1987, Monday (+15,483)
Hilary Duff, pop star, was born.
27/9/1987, Sunday (+15,482) 27/9.1987, Nationalist demonstrations
broke out in Lhasa, Tibet, against Chinese rule there imposed in 1950 (see
7/10/1950). Furthermore, China had been encouraging poor Han Chinese to
resettle in Tibet, competing for job opportunities and housing with poorer
indigenous Tibetans. The Chinese were at first taken by surprise, having
believed that the Tibetans were subjugated and pacified.
26/9/1987, Saturday (+15,481) Jang
Keun-Suk, TV actor, was born.
25/9/1987, Friday (+15,480) (Fiji)
The second coup of 1987 in Fiji, led by Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka. He opposed
what he saw as domination of the Fijian economy by Indian-ethnicity families.
24/9/1987, Thursday (+15,479)
Grey Damon, US TV actor, was born.
23/9/1987,
Wednesday (+15,478)
The book, Spycatcher,
memoirs of former British intelligence officer Peter Wright, was to be
published in Australia despite opposition by Britain�s MI5.
22/9/1987, Tuesday (+15,477) In
the UK, the Home Secretary prohibited the sale of semi-automatic rifles.
21/9/1987, Monday (+15,476) The US seized an Iranian ship
in the Gulf.
20/9/1987, Sunday (+15,475) Michael
Stewart, US playwright, died aged 63.
19/9/1987, Saturday (+15,474) The Pope concluded his visit
to the US.
18/9/1987, Friday (+15,473)
Americo Tomas, 14th President of Portugal, died (born 1894).
17/9/1987, Thursday (+15,472) In
Britain, the Liberal Party Assembly voted for merger talks with the SDP.
16/9/1987, Wednesday (+15,471) 16/9/1987, The Montreal
Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was negotiated and signed
by 24 countries. By 2006 over 180 countries had signed it. These countries promised to freeze CFC production (used as a refrigeration gas) at
current levels and halve it within 12 years. The hole in the ozone layer over
Antarctica had been discovered in 1984.
15/9/1987, Tuesday (+15,470) West Germany established diplomatic
relations with Albania.
13/9/1987, Sunday (+15,468)
11/9/1987, Friday (+15,466) The British Conservative government
announced plans to abolish the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA).
10/9/1987, Thursday (+15,465) Ben Baker, British athletics (high jump)
champion, died (born 15/2/1892)
9/9/1987, Wednesday (+15,464)
7/9/1987, Monday (+15,462) The world�s first conference
on artificial life began, at Los Alamos National Laboratories, USA.
6/9/1987, Sunday (+15,461) The
historic Venice regatta was held without gondoliers for the first time since
1315. The gondoliers were on strike as a protest against the damage to the
fabric of Venice caused by powerboats.
5/9/1987, Saturday (+15,460) Without prior notice, the
Myanmar Government declared the 25, 35 and 75 Kyat banknotes were demonetised
and worthless, not exchangeable for any other currency. The move was aimed at
black marketeers operating along the Myanmar-Thailand border, and in fact this
trade was halted within days. However it also meant that ordinary Burmese
citizens lost 80% of their wealth, and tourists were left with worthless
currency. The move led to serious popular unrest in Myanmar in 1988,
culminating in the �8888� uprising of * August 1988.
4/9/1987, Friday (+15,459) Matthias Rust was sentenced
to four� years in a Soviet labour camp,
however he was released on 3/8/1988. See 28/5/1987.
3/9/1987, Thursday (+15,458)
Coup in Burundi. The Military Committee for National Redemption was founded.
2/9/1987, Wednesday (+15,457) Philips introduced the
CD-video.
1/9/1987, Tuesday (+15,456) Belgium became one of the
first countries to ban smoking inside public buildings, a decade before Britain
followed suit.
=====================================================================================
31/8/1987, Monday (+15,455) Petros
Kravaritis, Greek footballer, was born.
30/8/1987, Sunday (+15,454) In
Britain, Dr David Owen announced the formation of the breakaway �continuing
SDP� Party.
29/8/1987, Saturday (+15,453) Lee
Marvin, actor, died.
28/8/1987, Friday (+15,452) John
Huston, film director, died.
19/8/1987, Wednesday (+15,443) Michael Ryan, 27, shot dead 16 people in Hungerford, Berkshire, and
injured another 14, then shot himself dead. He had been depressed by the
death of his father. A former paratrooper, he had a large gun collection.
17/8/1987, Monday (+15,441) Former top Nazi Rudolf Hess, born 1894, committed suicide in Spandau
Prison, Berlin, after 46 years spent there.� He was 93 when he died. He had been the only
inmate, and demolition of the prison began almost immediately.
15/8/1987. Saturday (+15,439) (1) Caning was officially banned in
Britain, except in independent schools.
(2) Sextuplets, three boys and four girls, were born to Susan
Halton in Liverpool�s Oxford Street Hospital.�
Their combined weight was 9 � pounds. None survived; the last lived
until 31/8/1987.
12/8/1987, Wednesday (+15,436) Reagan admitted that US
Government policy on the Iran-Contra affair was �out of control�
10/8/1987,
Monday (+15,434)
One person a day was dying of AIDS in Britain.
7/8/1987, Friday (+15,431) The leaders of El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua signed a peace plan in Guatemala City to end
the 10-year conflict in the region.
6/8/1987, Thursday
(+15,430) In Britain, the SDP voted
to merge with the Liberal Party. Dr David Owen resigned as SDP leader.
5/8/1987, Wednesday
(+15,429) Georg Gassman, German politician, died.
4/8/1987, Tuesday
(+15,428) Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka agreed to surrender arms to the� Indian peacekeeping force.
3/8/1987, Monday (+15,427) The US Irangate hearings
ended.
====================================================================================
31/7/1987, Friday (+15,424) 400
Iranian pilgrims died in clashes with Saudi security forces in Mecca.
29/7/1987, Wednesday (+15,422) President Jatawardene of
Sri Lanka and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (mediator in the Tamil
conflict) signed a Treaty to end Tamil violence in Sri Lanka. A semi-autonomous
Tamil homeland in northern Sri Lanka was proposed, and recognition of the Tamil
Tigers as a political Party once they had disarmed. An Indian peacekeeping force
was to police the agreement.
26/7/1987, Sunday (+15,419) A
heatwave in Greece killed over 1,000 people.
24/7/1987, Friday (+15,417) Author Jeffery Archer won a
record �500,000 libel damages against The Star newspaper over allegations that
he had paid a prostitute, Monica Coghlan, �70 for sex. See 19/7/2001.
14/7/1987, Tuesday (+15,407)
Taiwan legalised opposition Parties.
11/7/1987, Saturday (+15,404) The
world population was officially stated to have attained 5 billion.
5/7/1987, Sunday
(+15,398) Ernest Ward, rugby player, died (born 30/7/1920).
4/7/1987, Saturday (+15,397)
Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, 73. was convicted in France, and sentenced
to life imprisonment.
1/7/1987, Wednesday (+15,394)
(1) The EU passed the Single European
Act.
(2) The average UK house price was �43,165.
====================================================================================
28/6/1987, Sunday (+15,391) Emrys
Lloyd, champion fencer, died (born 8/9/1908).
24/6/1987, Wednesday (+15,387) Jackie Gleason, actor, died.
22/6/1987, Monday (+15,385) Fred Astaire, US actor, died.
19/6/1987, Friday (+15,382) 21 died and 45 were injured in a
Basque separatist car bomb in an underground car park in Barcelona. Amongst the
dead were several young children. The atrocity alienated all but the most
militant ETA supporters; with Franco gone, the organisation now lacked any real
purpose.
18/6/1987, Thursday (+15,381) UK
unemployment figures fell below 3 million.
17/6/1987, Wednesday (+15,380) (Environment) The Dusky Seaside
Sparrow became extinct as the last individual died. It had lived in the wetlands of Florida but
much of its habitat was destroyed to make way for the Kennedy Space Centre and
for new highways. Its food, mosquitoes, had been destroyed by DDT spraying,
which then entered the birds themselves and caused their eggshells to thin, so
their breeding was unviable. A captive breeding programme was begun at
Disneyworld in the 1970s, but only 5 birds could be recovered, all male.� Attempts were made to cross-breed them with
similar sparrows to preserve some of the species characteristics but this
failed, and by 3/1986 only one of the sparrows was still alive.
15/6/1987, Monday (+15,378)
13/6/1987, Saturday (+15,376) Geraldine Page, actress, died.
12/6/1987, Friday (+15,375) (1) In the Central African Republic,
Bokassa was found guilty of treason and murder, but acquitted of cannibalism.
He was sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to life in prison. Six
years later, President Andre Kolingba freed him
in an amnesty; he died of a heart attack shortly afterwards.
(2) Mrs Thatcher elected Prime
Minister with a majority of 101. She was the first PM to achieve a
third term for 160 years. The Conservatives won 375 seats, Labour 229, Alliance
22 and Nationalists 6.
10/6/1987, Wednesday (+15,373) (Korea)
President Chun of South Korea named his successor as General Roh Tae Woo. This
provoked demonstrations because Roh, close friend of Chun, had supported his coup
against the military after the 1979 assassination of Park.
1/6/1987, Monday
(+15,364) Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karami was killed by a bomb attack
on the helicopter he was travelling in. Salim Huss succeeded
him.
======================================================================================
31/5/1987, Sunday
(+15,363) The World Health Organisation first designated this day �No
Tobacco Day�, to highlight the health problems caused by smoking.
30/5/1987, Saturday (+15,362)
29/5/1987, Friday (+15,361)
John Howard Northrop, chemist and Nobel prize winner, died.
28/5/1987, Thursday (+15,360) A 19-year-old West German, Mathias
Rust, evaded Soviet air defences and landed a light plane in Red Square, Moscow,
from Helsinki, Finland. He was immediately detained, and released on 3/8/1988.
17/5/1987, Sunday (+15,349) Iraqi Exocet missiles hit the USS
Stark in the Gulf, killing 37 and injuring 21 sailors. Baghdad said it was an
accident.
15/5/1987, Friday (+15,347)
Rita Hayworth, US actress, died of Alzheimer�s Disease.
14/5/1987, Thursday (+15,346)
A coup toppled the Fiji Government, in protest at the influence of Indians in
the administration.
12/5/1987, Tuesday (+15,344) 12/5/1987,
Rajiv Gandhi imposed direct Federal rule from New Delhi on the mainly Sikh
province of Punjab, removing its provincial autonomy. The Sikhs in Punjab had
wanted their own country, separate from India as Pakistan was, at Independence
in 1947, but this did not happen. They have been agitating for independence
ever since. Under Indira Gandhi�s rule (1966-84), which was nominally
democratic but veered towards autocracy, especially in times of crisis, the
Punjab was even subdivided by creating the new Province of Haryana, to weaken
Punjab identity, and attacked the Sikhs at the Golden temple, Amritsar (see
6/6/1984). The Direct Rule was in revenge for the assassination of his mother,
Indira Gandhi on 31/10/1984. The immediate cause of Rajiv Gandhi�s move was the
assassination of Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, a Sikh politician who had
collaborated closely with both Indira and Rajiv, by militant Sikh separatists.
Sikh Separatism in the Punjab remains a major issue in Indian politics.
11/5/1987,
Monday (+15,343) Klaus Barbie went on trial in Lyon for WW2 war crimes.
10/5/1987, Sunday (+15,342) In elections in Malta, the Nationalist Party
defeated the ruling Labour Party.
9/5/1987, Saturday
(+15,341) Abufemi Awolowo, Nigerian politician, died.
8/5/1987, Friday (+15,340)
Nine IRA gunmen were killed in a battle with police and soldiers in County
Armagh, in an attack on a RUC post at Loughgall.
7/5/1987, Thursday (+15,339)
6/5/1987, Wednesday (+15,338) William J Casey, CIA
Director, died.
5/5/1987, Tuesday (+15,337) In the USA, Congressional
hearings began into the Iran-Contra Affair.
3/5/1987, Sunday (+15,335)
1/5/1987, Friday
(+15,333) Electrification of the Kings Cross (London) line reached as far
north as Peterborough.
=====================================================================================
30/4/1987, Thursday (+15,332) In Britain, the Court of Appeal ruled
that a man could not prevent a woman who was carrying his child from having an
abortion.
25/4/1987, Saturday (+35,327) In
Britain, an IRA car bomb killed Lord Justice Maurice Gibson and Lady Gibson.
20/4/1987, Monday (+15,322) In Algiers, the Palestinian National
Council re-elected Arafat as leader, but with reduced power.
19/4/1987, Sunday (+15,321) Easter Sunday. Maria Sharapova, tennis player, was born.
17/4/1987, Friday (+15,319) US President Reagan announced a 100% tariff on
some Japanese imports, as the US trade deficit ballooned to US$ 16.5 billion by
July 1987.
14/4/1987, Tuesday (+15,316)
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev out-manoeuvred the White House by proposing
sweeping arms cuts, beyond those envisaged by US President Reagan.
13/4/1987, Monday (+15,315) Portugal and China agreed to the
return of Macao to China in 1999.
12/4/1987, Sunday (+15,314) Elections in Fiji won by an Indian-dominated
coalition.
11/4/1987, Saturday (+15,313) Primo Levi, Italian Jewish writer, died
aged 67.
10/4/1987, Friday (+15,312) Shay Mitchell, Canadian actress, was born.
9/4/1987, Thursday (+15,311)
The UK government launched an inquiry into the Al Fayed takeover of
Harrods.
8/4/1987, Wednesday
(+15,310) In Beirut, Lebanon, Syrian
forces lifted �a 5-months siege of
Palestinian refugee camps by Shiite Amal militiamen.
7/4/1987, Tuesday (+15,309) The
Herald of Free Enterprise was righted
(capsized 6/3/1987). On 8/4/1987 104 more bodies were found inside the ship.
5/4/1987, Sunday (+15,307)
3/4/1987, Friday (+15,305)
Myra Hindley confessed to two more murders, in an attempt to prove her
rehabilitation.
2/4/1987, Thursday,
(+15,304) Buddy Rich, US jazz musician, died aged 69 (born 1917).
1/4/1987, Wednesday
(+15,303) Japan privatised its railways, to seven companies.
====================================================================================
31/3/1987, Tuesday (+15,302) In the �Baby M� case, the US Supreme Court
denied parental rights to surrogate mothers.
30/3/1987, Monday (+15,301) �Sunflowers�,
the painting by Vincent Van Gogh, was sold for �24,750,000 at Christie�s
auction, London.
28/3/1987, Saturday (+15,299) Maria von Trapp, singer,
died.
24/3/1987, Tuesday (+15,295)
20/3/1987, Friday (+15,291)
The drug AZT was launched to combat AIDS.
19/3/1987, Thursday (+15,290) Three men were sentenced to life
imprisonment for the murder of PC Blakelock on Broadwater Farm Estate,
Tottenham, north London.
14/3/1987, Saturday (+15,285)
10/3/1987, Tuesday (+15,281) (1) The Roman Catholic Church banned contraception by artificial
means.
(2) The Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey was re-elected for
a third term.
9/3/1987, Monday
(+15,280) (Road traffic) The Chrysler
Motor Corporation announced its purchase of the ailing American Motors
Corporation.
8/3/1987, Sunday
(+15,279) Milana Vayntrub, TV actress, was born.
7/3/1987, Saturday
(+15,278) Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar became the first cricketer to score
10,000 runs in Test Cricket.
6/3/1987, Friday (+15,277)
The ferry Herald of Free Enterprise
capsized, after leaving Zeebrugge with her bow doors open. 193 people died, out
of 650 on board. The bow doors of the 7,951 ton roll-on-roll-off vessel had
been left open as she left Zeebrugge, and water had entered the car deck and
destabilised her. She did not sink completely because of a shallow sandbank
beneath. Sea temperature was just 3 C, which would kill a person in 15 minutes.
3/3/1987, Tuesday (+15,274) US actor Danny Kaye died.
1/3/1987, Sunday (+15,272)
====================================================================================
24/2/1987, Tuesday (+15,267) Mayuko Iwasa, actress, was born.
23/2/1987, Monday (+15,266) (Space exploration) A tank full of
7,000 tons of ultrapure water detected a flash of neutrinos at the same time as
a supernova was seen, proving the theory that supernovae collapsed into neutron
stars.
22/2/1987, Sunday (+15,265) (1) Syrian forces occupied west Beirut to stop
fighting between Shiite and Druse militias.
(2) Andy Warhol, American pop artist famous for his pictures of soup cans,
died. He was born on 6/8/1926 to Czechoslovak immigrants in Pittsburgh.
21/2/1987, Saturday (+15,264) Ashley
Green, US actress, was born.
20/2/1987, Friday (+15,263) In
Salt Lake City, USA, a bomb exploded in a computer store. This attack by the
Unabomber lead to the most expensive manhunt in FBI history to date.
19/2/1987, Thursday (+15,262) The US lifted sanctions on
Poland.
18/2/1987, Wednesday (+15,261) Vicente
Guaita, Spanish footballer, was born
17/2/1987, Tuesday (+15,260) In
Ireland, elections returned Fianna Fail as the largest Party.
16/2/1987,
Monday (+15,259)
John Demanjuk, also known as Ivan the Terrible,
a former car worker who had lived in the US for 40 years, went on trial in
Israel accused of murdering hundreds of Jews at Treblinka� He was the second war criminal to be tried in
Israel after Adolph Eichmann.
15/2/1987, Sunday (+15,258)
The World Health Organisation announced that a total of 38,401 AIDS
cases had been reported in 85 countries. The AIDS virus had been discovered in
the USA on 23/4/1984.
14/2/1987, Saturday (+15,257) Bola Sete, guitarist, died aged 63.
13/2/1987, Friday (+15,256) London�s property boom resulted in
the sale of a 5 foot 6 inch by 11-foot broom cupboard being put on the market
for �36,000.
12/2/1987, Thursday (+15,255) Lang Jefferies, Canadian actor, died aged
55.
11/2/1987, Wednesday (+15,254)
(1) The US
tested an atom bomb in Nevada.
(2) British Airways was privatised and floated on the London
Stock Exchange.
10/2/1987, Tuesday (+15,253) In
the USSR, 140 political dissidents were released.
8/2/1987, Sunday (+15,251)
5/2/1987, Thursday
(+15,248) (1) (Space) Japan launched the Astro-C
satellite to observe neutron stars and Black Holes, using X rays and gamma
rays.
(2) SOGAT called off its picket of Rupert Murdoch�s Wapping
plant.
4/2/1987, Wednesday (+15,247)
Death of US pianist Liberace, unofficially of AIDS. The official cause of
death was a brain tumour.
2/2/1987, Monday (+15,245) Alistair MacLean, novelist, died.
===================================================================================
29/1/1987, Thursday (+15,241) (1) President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines
put down a second attempted coup against her two-year-old administration.
Rebels supporting ex-dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda abandoned
the TV station in Manila they had occupied on 27/1/1987. Loyalist troops had
thwarted the rebels by cutting power to the TV station.
(2) The Tower Report, commissioned by the US Senate,
asserted that the Reagan administration had misled Congress in the Iran-Contra
Affair.
27/1/1987, Tuesday (+15,239) In the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev proposed
reforms including secret ballots for electing party officials.
25/1/1987, Sunday (+15,237) In West
German Parliamentary elections, the incumbent CDU//FDP coalition won a further
term.
24/1/1987, Saturday (+15,236) 162 police and 33
demonstrators were injured in clashes outside Rupert Murdoch�s News
International plant in Wapping, east London.
23/1/1987, Friday (+15,235)
22/1/1987, Thursday (+15,234)
Pennsylvania politician R Budd Dwyer committed suicide by shooting himself on
national TV, after being convicted of bribery and corruption charges.
21/1/1987, Wednesday (+15,233)
In Austria, a coalition government under Dr Franz Ranitzky took office.
20/1/1987, Tuesday (+15,232) Terry Waite, envoy of the Archbishop
of Canterbury, was taken hostage in Lebanon. He was not released until 18/11/1991.
His captors knew he was linked to the Irangate scandal and believed he was a
CIA spy. In fact he had been sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury to negotiate
the release of other hostages in Lebanon.
16/1/1987, Friday (+15,228) The first US commercial for condoms was
aired, shown on KRON in San Francisco.
5/1/1987, Monday (+15,217) Genetic fingerprinting was first used to
catch a murderer, Colin Pitchfork. Police asked all men in Narborough,
Leicestershire, to take DNA tests after two 15 year old girls were killed.
2/1/1987, Friday (+15,214) The
traditional golliwogs in Enid Blyton�s Noddy books were replaced by neutral
gnomes to remove any taint of racism.
1/1/1987, Thursday (+15,213) The town of
Frobisher Bay in Canada�s Northwest territories changed its name to Iqaluit. In
1999 it would become capital of Nunavut.
=====================================================================================
31/12/1986, Wednesday (+15,212) Esso announced that it was
disinvesting in South Africa.
30/12/1986, Tuesday (+15,211) The
use of canaries in UK coal mines was discontinued.
29/12/1986,
Monday (+15,210) Harold Macmillan, Lord Stockton, former Conservative
Prime Minister 1957-1963, died, aged 92.
23/12/1986,
Tuesday (+15,204)
The aircraft Voyager landed in California, to become the first aircraft to fly
round the world without refuelling.
19/12/1986, Friday (+15,200) Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev released from internal exile the dissident Andrei Sakharov and his
activist wife Yelena Bonner, Sakharov had been interned since 1/1980 for
criticising the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
17/12/1986, Wednesday (+15,198)
Mrs Davina Thompson made medical history at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, UK,
when she was given a new heart, lungs, and liver.
16/12/1986, Tuesday (+15,197) Bokassa
was, to his surprise, deported from France to face trial in the Central African
Republic.
1/12/1986, Monday (+15,182)
====================================================================================
30/11/1986, Sunday (+15,181)
2911/1986, Saturday (+15,180) British-born US actor Cary Grant died.
28/11/1986, Friday (+15,179)
26/11/1986, Wednesday (+15,177)
Malcolm Nokes, athlete (hammer throwing) died.
25/11/1986, Tuesday (+15,176) US
Vice-Admiral Pointdexter and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North were dismissed
from the Security Council after revelations that money from arms sales to Iran had been channelled to Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas. Weapons were
covertly sold to Iran to secure the release of 7 US hostages held by
pro-Hezbollah groups in Lebanon, and the profits from the sales diverted to
back Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
21/11/1986, Friday (+15,172) The UK Government began an AIDS
awareness advertising campaign focussed on safe sex.
10/11/1986, Monday (+15,161)
President Ershad announced an end to martial law in Bangladesh.
9/11/1986, Sunday (+15,160) Israel
announced that Mordechai Vanunu, 31, was in �lawful detention� in Haifa but
denies he was kidnapped from Britain. On 5/10/1986 the Sunday Times had printed Vanunu�s revelations about Israel�s
nuclear arsenal at Dimona, backed up with his photographs. He never collected
his money, and was probably lured into a honeytrap by a female Mossad agent,
then sent in diplomatic baggage to Jerusalem.
8/11/1986, Saturday (+15,159) Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet
politician, died.
7/11/1986, Friday (+15,158) (1) In the USA, the Simpson-Mazzoli Act legalised
the residential status of millions of illegal immigrants; the Act was signed by
President Reagan this day.
(2) Lebanese magazine Ash Shiraa revealed that the USA
had sold arms to Iran to try and persuade Iranian-backed terrorists in Lebanon
to free Western hostages. It was later also revealed that funds from these
sales were remitted� to Contra forces in
Nicaragua.
6/11/1986, Thursday (+15,157)
4/11/1986, Tuesday (+15,155) Democrats
won control of the US Senate.
3/11/1986, Monday (+15,154)
Joaquim Chissano was elected President of Mozambique.
2/11/1986, Sunday (+15,153)
Britain�s first artificial heart transplant operation was performed at Papworth
Hospital, Cambridge.
1/11/1986, Saturday (+15,152) (Environment) A spill of toxic chemicals
turned the River Rhine red.
====================================================================================
31/10/1986, Friday (+15,151)
29/10/1986, Wednesday (+15,149)
The final section of the M.25
London Orbital Motorway was opened.
28/10/1986, Tuesday (+15,148)
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia dismissed Sheikh Yamani from his post at the Oil
Ministry. King Fahd was dissatisfied with the low price Yamani had set for
Saudi oil.
27/10/1986, Monday (+15,147) It
was the �Big Bang� day on the London Stock Exchange, the day the money market
was deregulated. But a computer failed and a shambles ensued.
26/10/1986, Sunday (+15,146) (1) Buses in all the UK, except Northern Ireland and London,
were deregulated.
(2) Jeffery Archer
resigned as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party after allegations that he
had made a payment to a prostitute to leave the UK, to avoid a scandal.
24/10/1986, Friday (+15,144)
23/10/1986, Thursday (+15,143) Edward Adelbert Doisy,
biochemist, died.
22/10/1986, Wednesday (+15,142) US President Reagan
radically simplified the tax system, reducing the 15 tax brackets to just 2
(15% and 28%). Tax breaks for the wealthy were removed and the lower-paid
removed from the tax system. However there were more taxes on business, which
then raised prices.
21/10/1986, Tuesday (+15,141)
20/10/1986, Monday (+15,140) Yitzhak Shamir succeeded Shimon Peres as
Israeli Prime Minister.
19/10/1986, Sunday (+15,139) President Samora Machel of
Mozambique was killed in a plane crash on the South African border. He was
succeeded by Chissano on 3/11/1986.
13/10/1986, Monday (+15,133)
12/10/1986, Sunday (+15,132) Queen Elizabeth II visited China, the
first British monarch to visit the country.
11/10/1986, Saturday (+15,131) Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev
met in Reykjavik to discuss intermediate arms limitations. The talks ended in
failure.
10/10/1986, Friday (+15,130) An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the
Richter Scale hit San Salvador, killing some 1,500 people.
6/10/1986, Monday (+15,126) In
Britain a new newspaper, The Independent, began publication.
3/10/1986, Friday (+15,123) US President Reagan attempted
to veto economic sanctions on South Africa but this was prevented by the US
Senate.
2/10/1986, Thursday (+15,122)
The US imposed sanctions on South Africa.
===================================================================================
27/9/1986, Saturday (+15,117) Cliff Burton, musician (Metallica), died.
22/9/1986, Monday (+15,112)
At Harefield Hospital, Middlesex, a 2 � month old baby became the youngest
heart and lung transplant patient.
21/9/1986, Sunday (+15,111) (1) The Stockholm Accord was signed,
at a 35-nation conference. Advance warning of troop movements by NATO or the
Warsaw pact was agreed.
(2) In the UK, Prince Charles stated on
TV that he talked to his plants.
16/9/1986, Tuesday (+15,106) James Brough, rugby player, died (born 5/11/1903).
13/9/1986, Saturday (+15,103) The Mount Data Peace Accord was signed between
the Government of the Philippines and the Cordillera People's Liberation Army
ending the latter's campaign for greater autonomy for the Cordillera region.
8/9/1986, Monday (+15,098) In Sunderland, the Japanese
car maker Nissan opened a factory.
7/9/1986, Sunday (+15,097)
Bishop Desmond Tutu was appointed Archbishop of Cape Town, the first Black
head of the South African Anglicans.
6/9/1986, Saturday (+15,096) Arab
terrorists killed 21 at an Istanbul synagogue.
5/9/1986, Friday (+15,095)
Muslim terrorists mounted another attack on the West when they seized a Pan-Am
jet at Karachi Airport, killing 15 and injuring another 127.
===================================================================================
31/8/1986, Sunday (+15,090) UK sculptor Henry Moore, born 1898,
died aged 88.
24/8/1986, Sunday (+15,083)
Wallis Simpson died.
23/8/1986, Saturday (+15,082) Riots
continued in Soweto, South Africa, with 13 dead and over 70 injured.
21/8/1986, Thursday (+15,080) Volcanic activity around Lake
Nyos, Africa, caused nearly 2,000 people to die from CO2 poisoning.
17/8/1986, Sunday (+15,076) Boeing
celebrated the roll-out of its 5,000th airliner.
16/8/1986, Saturday (+15,075) Ryan
Price, champion jockey, died.
14/8/1986, Thursday (+15,073) In Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was jailed by General Zia.
6/8/1986, Wednesday (+15,065) A
storm dumped a record 328 mm or rain in one day on Sydney, Australia.
=====================================================================================
24/7/1986, Thursday (+15,052)
MPs in the UK voted to abolish the cane in state schools.
23/7/1986, Wednesday (+15,051)
Prince Andrew married Miss Sarah Ferguson in Westminster Abbey, and was
created Duke of York.
22/7/1986, Tuesday (+15,050)
18/7/1986, Friday (+15,046) Stanley Rous, footballer, died (born
25/4/1895).
12/7/1986, Saturday (+15,040)
In Northern Ireland, over 100 were injured in Orange Day clashes between
Catholics and Protestants.
3/7/1986, Thursday (+15,031) Rudy Vallee, singer, died.
1/7/1986, Tuesday (+15,029) Average
wages in the UK were �9,625 per year. GPs got �18,772, 195% of average.
Teachers got �11,128, 116% of average. Train drivers got �10,608, 110% of
average. Factory workers got �7,436, 77% of average. The average UK house price
was �37,627.
====================================================================================
30/6/1986, Monday (+15,028)
Broad Street Station, London, closed to make way for the new Broadgate
Development.
29/6/1986, Sunday (+15,027)
27/6/1986, Friday (+15,025) (1) (Railways) The
Eisenertz to Vordenberg railway closed. It was built to carry iron ore from
Eisenertz, but foreign ore undercut the mine here.
(2) In a referendum, 63% of
Irish voters rejected a proposal to amend the Constitution so as to permit
divorce. See 27/2/1997.
26/6/1986, Thursday (+15,024) In Dublin, a referendum to
amend the Irish Constitution and allow divorce in limited circumstances was
overwhelmingly defeated. Some women had voted against, as the benefits a
divorcee would be entitled to were uncertain.
25/6/1986, Friday (+15,023) The
US Congress approved US$ 100 million aid to the Nicaraguan Contras (later
accused of drug running) in their fight against the Sandinista Government.
20/6/1986, Friday (+15,018) Movement of sheep in Cumbria was
banned because of radiation residues from Chernobyl.
14/6/1986, Saturday (+15,012) Alan
Jay Lerner, singer� in Camelot and My Fair Lady, died.
13/6/1986, Friday (+15,011)
Benny Goodman, US jazz musician, died.
12/6/1986, Thursday (+15,010)
South
Africa declared a State of Emergency and restricted press reporting.
11/6/1986, Wednesday (+15,009)
10/6/1986, Tuesday (+15,008) Queen
Elizabeth II made Bob Geldof a knight, for his fundraising activities.
9/6/1986, Monday (+15,007) Humphrey
Hicks, croquet champion, died (born 20/5/1904).
8/6/1986, Sunday (+15,006) Kurt
Waldheim was elected president of Austria, amid controversy over his alleged
collaboration with the Nazis in World War Two.�
He was inaugurated on 8/7/1986.
3/6/1986, Tuesday (+15,001) Italy released some 8,000 prisoners,
including suspected terrorists, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of
the republic.
====================================================================================
31/5/1986, Saturday (+14,998) James
Rainwater, physicist who help0ed determine the shape of atomic nuclei, died.
26/5/1986, Monday (+14,993) The EU adopted a starred flag.
25/5/1986, Sunday (+14,992) Bob
Geldof�s Race Against Time had 30 million people worldwide running for Sport
Aid to raise money for the starving in Africa.
18/5/1986, Sunday (+14,985) Sri Lankan forces attempted to gain control
over the Jaffna Peninsula in the north, held by Tamil rebels.
16/5/1986, Friday (+14,983)
Ex-President Galtieri of Argentina was jailed for negligence during the
Falklands War.
15/5/1986, Thursday (+14,982)
Theodore H White, journalist, died.
14/5/1986, Wednesday (+14,981)
Anne Frank�s complete diary was published.
9/5/1986, Friday (+14,976) Tenzing Norgay, or Tensing, the first
joint conqueror of Everest, died.
4/5/1986, Sunday (+14,971) Babrak
Karmal resigned as General Secretary of of the People�s Democratic (Communist)
Party of Afghanistan. He was succeeded by Najibullah, former head of the secret
police.
3/5/1986, Saturday (+14,970) Violent
protests at Wapping between pickets and police.
2/5/1986, Friday (+14,969)
1/5/1986, Thursday (+14,968)
1.5 million Black workers went on strike in South Africa
====================================================================================
30/4/1986, Wednesday (+14,967) After unusually high
radiation levels were detected in Scandinavia, the USSR acknowledged that an
accident had taken place at Chernobyl.
26/4/1986, Saturday (+14,963) The nuclear power station at Chernobyl, near Kiev, suffered a major fire, explosion, and radiation leak. 31 were killed directly, but
many thousands more were exposed to radiation. Unseasonably warm weather on
25/4/1986 led to number 4 reactor being shut down; with coolant systems down,
an engineer ordered more power to test a turbine; this caused the no.4 reactor
to explode.
24/4/1986, Thursday (+14,961) Wallis, Duchess of Windsor,
for whom a British King abdicated, died in Paris aged 89.
23/4/1986, Wednesday (+14,960)
(1)
The UK Government dissolved the Northern Ireland Assembly. After four years of
operation, it had become a platform for Unionist attacks on the Anglo-Irish
Agreement, signed in 1985.
(2) President P
W Botha of South Africa announced there would be no more arrests under the
hated �pass laws� whereby Black people had to carry their passes at all times.
22/4/1986, Tuesday (+14,959)
18/4/1986, Friday (+14,955) South
African Prime Minister PW Botha repealed the Pass Laws, which had restricted
the movement of non-Whites in South Africa since 1948.
17/4/1986, Thursday (+14,954) In Libya, three British
hostages were murdered in revenge for British participation in US air raids on
Libya.
16/4/1986, Wednesday (+14,953)
15/4/1986, Tuesday (+14,952) The USA launched air strikes against Libya, in retaliation for Libya�s
alleged support of terrorism, and a bombing in a Berlin nightclub. Libya had
also fired two missiles at the US radar base on Lampedusa; both missed.
Benghazi and Tripoli were bombed, killing at least 100 people, including
Gaddaffi�s 15-month-old adopted daughter, Hanna. The departure of the US planes
from British airfields caused widespread protests in the UK. On 17/4/1986 two
British hostages in Lebanon were killed in retaliation for the US raids.
14/4/1986, Monday (+14,951) 2.2
lb (1 kg) hailstones fell in Golalganj district, Bangladesh, killing 92 people.
13/4/1986, Sunday (+14,950) Pope
John Paul II visited a synagogue in Rome, the first time a modern Pope had
visited a synagogue.
12/4/1986,
Saturday (+14,949) (Aviation)
Heathrow Airport, London, opened its fourth terminal.
11/4/1986, Friday (+14,948) Brian Keenan, an Irish
teacher, was taken hostage by Muslim extremists in Beirut.
8/4/1986, Tuesday (+14,945) Clint Eastwood was elected Mayor of his
native city, Carmel, California.
5/4/1986, Saturday (+14,942) The La Belle discotheque in West Berlin,
Germany, was bombed by terrorists. 2 died and over 100 were injured.
3/4/1986, Thursday (+14,940) IBM launched its first laptop computer,
the PC Convertible.
====================================================================================
31/3/1986, Monday (+14,937) (1) The
Greater London Council was abolished, along with other Metropolitan
Councils in large UK cities; municipal responsibilities passed to the
individual Boroughs. Mrs Thatcher saw the GLC, led by Ken Livingstone, as
too Left wing. Mrs Thatcher especially objected to the GLC�s Fares Fare policy,
involving subsidy of transport fares.
(2) Fire badly
damaged Hampton Court Palace, London.
30/3/1986, Sunday (+14,936) Easter
Sunday. James Cagney, US actor, died.
29/3/1986, Saturday (+14,935) The first test-tube
quintuplets were born, in London.
28/3/1986, Friday (+14,934) More
than 6,000 US radio stations all played �We Are the World� simultaneously.
21/3/1986, Friday (+14,927)
20/3/1986, Thursday (+14,926) In
France, Jacques Chirac, Gaullist, was appointed Prime Minister.
19/3/1986, Wednesday (+14,925)
The engagement between Prince Andrew and Miss Sarah Ferguson was announced.
18/3/1986, Tuesday (+14,924) UK
Income Tax was reduced to 29%.
17/3/1986, Monday (+14,923) The
US$ reached its lowest post war rate against the Japanese Yen.
16/3/1986, Sunday (+14.922) In
French elections, the opposition won a narrow majority ending five years of
Socialist rule.
13/3/1986, Thursday (+14,919) (Space
exploration) The Russian spacecraft Soyuz T15 made the first ferry
between space stations.
7/3/1986, Friday (+14,913) South Africa lifted the State of Emergency
imposed in July 1985.
6/3/1986, Thursday (+14,912) Georgia O�Keefe, artist, died in Santa
Fe, New Mexico.
5/3/1986, Wednesday (-14,911) Andrew Jenks, US filmmaker, was born.
4/3/1986, Tuesday (+14,910) The first issue of the newspaper �Today�
appeared; it was published by Eddie Shah.
3/3/1986, Monday (+14,909) Jed Collins, US football player, was born.
2/3/1986, Sunday (+14,908) The Queen signed a formal proclamation
giving Australia legal independence from Britain. Britain first shipped
convicts to Australia in 1788; Australia had been self-governing since 1901.
1/3/1986, Saturday (+14,907) Ely Cathedral became the first
cathedral in Britain to levy an admission charge.
======================================================================================
28/2/1986, Friday (+14,906) The Swedish Prime Minister, Olof
Palme, was assassinated, and his wife Lisbeth wounded, in an ambush in central
Stockholm. Neither the perpetrator nor a motive were ever discovered.
27/2/1986, Thursday (+14,905) The United States Senate allowed
its debates to be televised on a trial basis.
26/2/1986, Wednesday (+14,904) The European Court ruled that the
retirement age for men and women should be the same. The British Government did
nothing to equalise retirement ages or pension rights.
25/2/1986, Tuesday (+14,903) (1) Right-wing President Marcos, who had ruled since
1965, was forced to flee the Philippines, after defeat by Corazon Aquino
(born 1933). Mrs Aquino�s husband had been shot by Marcos� troops in
1983. President Marcos fled to the roof of the palace and were whisked away by
US helicopters.
(2) President
Gorbachev of the USSR first used the term �Perestroika� (restructuring) in a
speech to the 27th Congress of the Communist Party.
23/2/1986, Sunday (+14,901)
22/6/1986, Saturday (+14,900) In the
Philippines, Defence Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Deputy Chief of Staff Fidel
Ramos took over the HQ of the Philippines Defence Ministry and declared
opposition to President Marcos and support for Corazon Aquino.
21/2/1986, Friday (+14,899) Shigechiyo Izumi, the world�s
oldest man, died in Japan aged 120.
20/2/1986, Thursday (+14,898) Francisco
Paolo Mignone, composer, died aged 88.
19/2/1986, Wednesday (+14,897)
The USSR launched the Mir space
station.
18/2/1986, Tuesday (+14,896)
16/2/1986, Sunday (+14,894) Clashes
between police and 5,000 pickets at Rupert Murdoch�s Wapping newspaper plant.
Murdoch had moved production of The
Sunday Times and News of the World
to Wapping to outflank striking print workers; the papers were being produced
by managers and journalists. See 25/1/1986.
15/2/1986, Saturday (+14,893) In the
Philippines, President Marcos declared himself the victor in elections.
Opposition members walked out in protest.
14/2/1986, Friday (+14,892)
12/2/1986, Wednesday (+14,890)
The Channel Tunnel agreement was signed in Canterbury.
Britain and France had agreed to build the Tunnel on 24/1/1986.
11/2/1986, Tuesday (+14,889) As
Gorbachev continued to liberalise the USSR, political prisoners including
Anatoly Scharansky and Yuri Orlov were released and allowed to leave the
country.
7/2/1986, Friday (+14,885) Baby Doc Duvalier was ousted from
government in Haiti, ending 28 years of one-family rule there. He fled to exile
in France, taking perhaps US$ 100 million with him. In Port-au-Prince, members
of Duvalier�s secret police, the Tonton Macoutes, were lynched by an angry mob.
2/2/1986, Sunday (+14,880) Women voted for the first time in Liechtenstein.
29/1/1986, Wednesday (+14,876)
Leif Erickson, actor, died.
28/1/1986, Tuesday
(+14,875) The US
space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after take-off on its 10th
flight, killing 7 astronauts. 90 seconds after blast off from Cape
Canaveral, and nine miles up. An �O� ring failed due to the extreme and
unseasonal cold; ice had to be chipped from the shuttle before take-off. The
fuel tanks containing liquid hydrogen and oxygen ignited. Rescue ships reached
the crash site a few miles offshore but were held up for an hour due to the
rain of burning debris. There were five men and two woman on board, including a
schoolteacher, Mrs Christa McAutcliffe. It was President Reagan�s idea to send
a schoolteacher into space, and she won the competition from over 11,000
applicants. Her husband and two children were amongst the thousands of
spectators. The space shuttle fleet was grounded for three years, and this
disaster was a factor in the termination of the shuttle programme in 2011.
27/1/1986, Monday (+14,874)
Lilli Palmer, actress, died.
26/1/1986, Sunday (+14,873)
25/1/1986, Saturday (+14,872) Overnight,
to avoid Trades Union objections, the Times, Sunday Times, The Sun and News of
the World moved from Fleet Street London to a new production plant at Wapping.
See 16/2/1986.
24/1/1986, Friday (+14,871) US
spacecraft Voyager 2 passed within 51,000 miles of the cloud tops of Uranus.
The space probe detected an ocean of water some 6,000 miles deep.
23/1/1986, Thursday (+14,870)
Joseph Beuys, German performance artist, died aged 64.
22/1/1986, Wednesday (+14,869)
In India, three Sikhs were sentenced to death for the murder of Indira Gandhi.
21/1/1986, Tuesday (+14,868)
20/1/1986, Monday (+14,867) Britain
and France announced plans to build the Channel Tunnel, after an historic agreement in Lille.
The expected cost was �5 billion. Trains were expected to run by April 1993. A
Channel Bridge was rejected as too hazardous, but it was hoped to add a road
tunnel early in the 21st century.
19/1/1986, Sunday (+14,866) The
first computer virus, called Brain, began to spread.
17/1/1986, Friday (+14,864)
15/1/1986, Wednesday (+14,862) Soviet President Gorbachev
spoke of the continuing occupation of Afghanistan as a �bleeding wound�.
14/1/1986, Tuesday (+14,861)
Donna Reed, actress, died.
11/1/1986, Saturday (+14,858)
9/1/1986, Thursday (+14,856)
Michael Heseltine resigned from Mrs Thatcher�s Cabinet, claiming she was
stifling debate.
8/1/1986, Wednesday (+14,855)
President Reagan froze Libyan assets in the US. Mrs Thatcher refused to
join the US in this action.
4/1/1986, Saturday (+14,851) Christopher Isherwood, writer, was born.
1/1/1986, Wednesday (+14,848) (1) (European Union)
Spain and Portugal became
the 11th and 12th members of the EC.
(2) (Whaling) The International Whaling
Commission (IWC) placed a moratorium on commercial whaling. However some
nations, including Norway, Iceland and Japan, continued to hunt whales under
the guise of �scientific research� which was permitted by the IWC.
However the ban had had a beneficial effect. In 1900, before commercial whaling
took off, there were 200,000 blue whales worldwide. They were hunted for their
,massive oil content; 30,000 were killed in 1931 alone. Their population
plummeted to just 1,500 in the 1960s. Since the IWC ban, they have recovered to
a population of around 4,500 in 2005.
====================================================================================
31/12/1985, Tuesday (+14,847)
Ricky Nelson, musician, died.
30/12/1985, Monday (+14,846) In
Pakistan, General Zia ended martial law.
29/12/1985, Sunday (+14,845) Dian
Fossey, US zoologist and conservationist, died.
28/12/1985, Saturday (+14,844)
Fernand Braudel, French historian, died aged 83.
27/12/1985, Friday (+14,843) At
Rome and Vienna airports, Abu Nidal terrorists opened fire, killing 18 and
injuring 120.
26/12/1985, Thursday (+14,842)
Harold P Warren, US film director, died (born 1928).
25/12/1985, Wednesday (+14,841) Comic Relief, a global
poverty relief charity, was founded.
23/12/1985, Monday (+14,839)
17/12/1985, Tuesday (+14,833) In
Northern Ireland, all 15 Unionist MPs resigned their seats in protest at Mrs
Thatcher and Garret Fitzgerald signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement on 15/11/1985.
16/12/1985, Monday (+14,832) Rock
Hudson, actor, died.
7/12/1985, Saturday (+14,823) Robert Graves, writer and poet, died.
5/12/1985, Wednesday (+14,820) Frankie Muniz, US racing car driver, was
born.
2/12/1985, Monday (+14,818) Philip Larkin, poet, died.
===================================================================================
23/11/1985, Saturday (+14,809) Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Egyptian
airliner and forced it to land in Malta. Egyptian commandos stormed the plane
on 24/11/1985, but 60 were killed in this operation.
21/11/1985, Thursday (+14,807) Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev
ended their meeting with an agreement to reduce their nuclear arsenals by a
mutual 50%.
20/11/1985, Wednesday (+14,806) Microsoft released its first
version of Windows, Windows 1.0.
19/11/1985, Tuesday
(+14,805) Reagan and Gorbachev met in
Geneva, the first such meeting for 6 years.
17/11/1985, Sunday (+14,803)
16/12/1985, Saturday (+14,802) 8,000
Americans had now died of AIDS.
15/11/1985, Friday (+14,801)
The Anglo-Irish agreement was signed in Belfast by Mrs Thatcher and Dr
Fitzgerald.
14/11/1985, Thursday (+14,800) Holmfriour
Karlsdottir of Iceland, 22, was crowned the 35th Miss World.
13/11/1985, Wednesday (+14,799)
Nevado del Ruiz, a volcano in Colombia, dormant since 1845, erupted,
sending mudflows down into the town of Armero, killing almost all the
population of 25,000.
9/11/1985, Saturday (+14,795) Russian Gary Kasparov became the
youngest World Chess Champion at age 22, defeating Anatoly Karpov, who had held
the title for 10 years.
6/11/1985, Wednesday (+14,792) M-19 guerrillas invaded the Colombian
Ministry of Justice, gunning down 11 judges and 90 other people.
3/11/1985, Sunday (+14,789) In New Zealand, two French
agents pleaded guilty to the sinking of the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior,
and the manslaughter of the photographer on board.
2/11/1985, Saturday (+14,788) The
South African Government imposed emergency restrictions on the reporting of
unrest.
==================================================================================
30/10/1985, Wednesday (+14,785)
27/10/1985, Sunday (+14,782) Julius
Nyerere retired as President of Tanzania after 24 years. He was succeeded by
Ali Hassan Mwinyi.
26/10/1985, Saturday (+14,781)The Australian Government gave
the Aborigines the landmark of Ayers Rock, now known by its Aboriginal name,
Uluru.
24/10/1985, Thursday (+14,779) Wayne Rooney, English footballer, was
born.
22/10/1985, Tuesday (+14,777)
20/10/1985, Sunday (+14,776) Harry
Wragg, champion jockey, died.
19/10/1985, Saturday (+14,774) Coal
miners in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire set up the Union of Democratic
Mineworkers (UDM).
18/10/1985, Friday (+14,773)
Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System. Its game console achieved
major success with the game �Super Mario Bros�.
17/10/1985, Thursday (+14,772) In Britain, the House of Lords
voted to allow doctors to prescribe contraceptives to girls aged under 16
without parental consent, despite a campaign against this by Catholic mother
Mrs Victoria Gillick.
16/10/1985, Wednesday (+14,771)
Claude Stroud, actor, died.
15/10/1985, Tuesday (+14,770) Sir Clive Sinclair, maker of
the C5 electric tricycle, called in the receivers.
10/10/1985, Thursday (+14,765) Orson Welles, US actor, died aged 70.
7/10/1985, Monday (+14,762) (1) Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian
cruise liner Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean, killing a US passenger.
The terrorists surrendered two days later.
(2) Riots
erupted in Broadwater Farm Estate, Tottenham, London, after a Black woman, Cynthia Jarrett, collapsed and died whilst
police searched her home. Within hours, police were lured to the
estate by fake 999 calls and then came under attack from bricks, stones, petrol
bombs, and were even shot at. From 6.30 pm until well after midnight both Black
and White youths fought 500 police in riot gear. PC Blakelock, 40, was hacked
to death.
2/10/1985, Wednesday (+14,757)
Hollywood actor Rock Hudson died of AIDS, aged 59.
1/10/1985, Tuesday (+14,756) (1) Rioting
in Toxteth, Liverpool.
(2) The Israeli
Air Force bombed the PLO HQ in Tunis.
=====================================================================================
30/9/1985, Monday (+14,755) Charles
Richter, the US seismologist who devised the Richter Scale, died.
29/9/1985, Sunday (+14,754) 209 people have been arrested
in rioting in Brixton.
28/9/1985, Saturday (+14,753) Riots
erupted in Brixton after a Black woman, Cherry Groce, was shot during a police
raid.
26/9/1985, Thursday (+14,751) The
British Government announced �1 million funding to stop the spread of AIDS.
22/9/1985, Sunday (+14,747)
French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius admitted that French agents had sunk the
Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior in
Auckland, New Zealand, on 10/7/1985. The French Defence Minister was forced to
resign.
19/9/1985, Thursday (+14,744)
(Earthquake,
Mexico) Major
earthquake in Mexico resulted in 4,700 dead and 30,000 injured.� The quake measured 8.1 on the Richter Scale,
killing 9,000 people and injuring a further 30,000. 95,000 were made homeless.
A second quake the following day hampered rescue operations.
17/9/1985, Tuesday (+14,742)
Fashion designer Laura Ashley died after falling downstairs at her home.
16/9/1985, Monday (+14,741) In
China, 10 Politburo members and 64 members of the Central Committee resigned to
make way for younger replacements.
13/9/1985, Friday (+14,738) The Saudi Arabian oil minister, Ahmad Zaki
Yamani, began selling oil in large quantities cheaply, so try and force out of
production the higher costs oilfields in Algeria, Canada, Egypt, Mexico,
Nigeria, Norway, the UK, the USA and Venezuela, The world oil price fell 60%
over the next few months.
11/9/1985, Wednesday (+14,736) Jock
Stein, footballer, died (born 5/10/1923).
10/9/1985, Tuesday (+14,735)
John Stein, footballer, died.
9/9/1985, Monday (+14,734) Race
riots erupted in Handsworth, Birmingham.
4/9/1985, Wednesday (+14,729) The wreck of The Titanic
was photographed by a remote-controlled submarine on the seabed off
Newfoundland.
2/9/1985, Monday (+14.727) In Kampuchea, the Khmer Rouge
leader Pol Pot retired.
1/9/1985, Sunday (+14,726) A
joint US-French expedition found the wreck of the Titanic off Newfoundland.
====================================================================================
27/8/1985, Tuesday (+14,721) President Buhari of Nigeria was overthrown
in a coup, and replaced by Major General Babangida.
23/8/1985, Friday (+14,717) (Germany) Hans Tiedge, Head of West German
counter-intelligence, was discovered to be an East German agent.
22/8/1985, Thursday (+14,716)
34 died at Manchester Airport when a Boeing 737 burst into flames on the
runway.
17/8/1985, Saturday (+14,711) Iraqi jet fighters carrying French Exocet
missiles bombed the main Iranian oil terminal at Kharg Island.
15/8/1985, Thursday (+14,709) South African President Botha reiterated
his commitment to Apartheid.
12/8/1985, Monday (+14,706) In Japan�
a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 on a domestic flight crashed into a
mountain, killing 520 people.
7/8/1985, Wednesday (+14,701) BBC journalists went on
strike after the UK Government intervened to cancel on episode of Real Lives
which featured an interview with Martin McGuiness of Sinn� Fein.
6/8/1985, Tuesday (+14,700) In
Hiroshima, tens of thousands
marked the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the city.
2/8/1985, Friday (+14,696) Rolls Royce manufactured its 100,000th car,
a royal blue Silver Spur saloon.
====================================================================================
31/7/1985, Wednesday (+14,694)
28/7/1985, Sunday (+14,691) In Peru
there was a democratic transfer of power from Fernando Belaunde Terry to Alan
Garcia Perez. However Peru was far from stable, with the Marxist rebel
organisation Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) controlling large areas of the
country.
27/7/1985, Saturday (+14,690) Ugandan President Milton
Obote, who regained power in 1980 after being deposed by Idi Amin in 1971, was
overthrown in a military coup. He was replaced by General Tito Okello.
26/7/1985, Friday (+14,689)
25/7/1985, Thursday (+14,688) Film star Rock Hudson was
admitted to hospital suffering from AIDS.
24/7/1985, Wednesday (+14,687) (Arts) Alice DG Miller, US screenwriter, died (born
28/6/1894).
23/7/1985, Tuesday (+14,686) John
Wardle, cricketer, died (born 8/1/1923).
21/7/1985, Sunday (+14,684)
20/7/1985, Saturday (+14,683) State
of emergency imposed in 36 areas of South Africa. Suspects
could now be arrested without a warrant and held indefinitely without trial.
19/7/1985, Friday (+14,682) In
Italy, 261 died when a dam burst, flooding the tourist resort of Tesero.
18/7/1985, Thursday (+14,681)
Congress reined back President Reagan�s support for the Contras in Nicaragua,
stating that he can now only send them �non-lethal aid�.
16/7/1985, Tuesday (+14,679) Heinrich Boll, writer, died.
13/7/1985, Saturday (+14,676) Live Aid pop concerts in Britain and
America raised over �50 million for famine victims in Africa. Bob Geldof
performed at Wembley.
11/7/1985, Thursday (+14,674) Dr
H Harlan Stone announced he had devised a self-adhesive zipper to be used
instead of stitches where patients need to be re-operated on.
10/7/1985, Wednesday (+14,673)
The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior
was blown up in Auckland harbour, New Zealand. Limpet mines had been attached
to the ship, killing one crewmember. French security forces were implicated.
The Rainbow Warrior was to have taken part in a protest against French nuclear
tests at Mururoa atoll in the south Pacific.
9/7/1985, Tuesday (+14,672) In
Malaysia, the Proton car company launched the Proton Saga car.
8/7/1985, Monday (+14,671) The
UK lifted its ban on trading with Argentina.
5/7/1985, Friday (+14,668)
2/7/1985, Tuesday (+14,665) The General Synod of the Church of England
approved the ordination of women, despite strong opposition within the
Church.
1/7/1985, Monday (+14,664) The average UK house price
was �34,378.
====================================================================================
30/6/1985, Sunday (+14,663) The US
hostages from a TWA jet hijacked by two Shi�ite gunmen on 24/6/1985 and
diverted to Beirut, were released, following Syrian intervention.
27/6/1985, Thursday (+14,660)
24/6/1985, Monday (+14,657) Keith Hardcastle, Britain�s
longest surviving heart transplant patient, died 6 years after his operation.
23/6/1985, Sunday (+14,656) An Air India jet broke up in
mid air off Ireland, killing all 239 on board.
22/6/1985, Saturday (+14,655) Patricia
Ward, tennis player, died (born 27/2/1929).
18/6/1985, Tuesday (+14,651)
15/6/1985, Saturday (+14,648)
Percy
Fender, cricketer, died (born 22/8/1892).
14/6/1985, Friday (+14,647)
Shiite Muslim gunmen hijacked a US TWA jet and forced it to fly to Beirut. The
passengers were held hostage for 17 days, then released.
10/6/1985, Monday (+14,643) Israel withdrew from most of southern
Lebanon, except for a security zone in the far south which it still occupied.
6/6/1985, Thursday (+14,639) A
skeleton, conformed on 21/6/1985 as that of Nazi Josef Mengele, was unearthed
in Argentina,
5/6/1985, Wednesday (+14,638)
The UK Government approved Stanstead as London�s third airport site.
4/6/1985, Tuesday (+14,637)
3/6/1985, Monday (+14,636) In Italy, compulsory Roman Catholic
instruction in schools ended and Catholicism was no longer the state religion.
2/6/1985, Sunday (+14,635)
President Jayewardene of Sri Lanka discussed the ethnic violence in his country
with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
1/6/1985, Saturday (+14,634) A TWA
airliner flying from Athens to Rome was hijacked by Islamist terrorists and
forced to fly to Beirut, where the hostages were held for 17 days.
====================================================================================
31/5/1985, Friday (+14,633) 500,000
tons of food had been delivered to alleviate a severe famine in Ethiopia, as
millions starved.
30/5/1985. Thursday (+14,632)
The death of Roy Plomley, who created the long running radio series Desert Island Discs in 1941.
29/5/1985,
Wednesday (+14,631) Europe�s worst
football riot saw 41 Italian and Belgian football fans dead at the Liverpool
versus Juventus match at the Heysel stadium, Belgium. Spectators were crushed
when a wall collapsed under the weight of fans trying to escape rampaging
British supporters. On 2/6/1985 FIFA imposed a worldwide ban on British
football fans.
28/5/1985,
Tuesday (+14,630)
25/5/1985,
Saturday (+14,627) A cyclone and tidal wave killed over
20,000 people in Bangladesh.
20/5/1985,
Monday (+14,622)
Israel freed 1,150 Palestinians in exchange for three Israelis.
19/5/1985,
Sunday (+14,621) Shi�ite Muslim militia attempted to drive out
the Palestinians from the Lebanese refugee camps of Sabra, Shatila and
Bourj-el-Barajneh, near Beirut.
14/5/1985,
Tuesday (+14,616) Tamil violence spread
across Sri Lanka.
12/5/1985,
Sunday (+14,614) Prince Andrew opened the new Falkland
Islands Airport, which had cost the UK �276 million.
11/5/1985,
Saturday (+14,613) Fire broke out in the main stand of
Bradford City football ground, killing 56 spectators and injuring over 170.� A cigarette or match ignited accumulated
rubbish under the stands.
10/5/1985, Friday (+14,612) The
World Health Organisation announced that AIDS cases were doubling every year in
the USA and Europe. Worldwide, 11,000 AIDS cases had been reported since the
virus was discovered on 23/4/1984.
5/5/1985,
Sunday (+14,607)
1/5/1985,
Wednesday (+14,603) May Day celebrations in
Gdansk, Poland. 10,000 Solidarity supporters clashed with police.
====================================================================================
30/4/1985,
Tuesday (+14,602) Britain�s first Black
bishop, Wilfrid Wood, was appointed.
25/4/1985,
Thursday (+14,597)
23/4/1985,
Tuesday (+14,595) New Coke was introduced by
the Coca Cola company, and production of the original Coke was halted.� A few months later in July 1985 the company
had to admit the new product was a flop and reverted to the original soft
drink.
22/4/1985,
Monday (+14,594) In Argentina, the trial began
of nine former military leaders, including Galtieri.
15/4/1985,
Monday (+14,587) South Africa abolished
racial sex laws. Interracial marriages were now legal.
13/4/1985,
Saturday (+14,585) Oscar Nemon, Croatian sculptor, died aged
79.
11/4/1985,
Thursday (+14,583) (1)
An 18-month old boy became the
first British baby to die of AIDS.
(2) In
Albania, Communist leader Enver Hoxha died, aged 78,after 41 years in power. He
was succeeded as Head of the Albanian Communist Party by Ramiz Alia.
8/4/1985,
Monday (+14,580) Rupert Murdoch bought
Twentieth Century Fox.
7/4/1985,
Sunday (+14,579) Easter Sunday.
6/4/1985,
Saturday (+14,578) Coup in Sudan, led by General Swar al
Dahab.
3/4/1985,
Wednesday (+14,575)
1/4/1985,
Monday (+14,573)
The UK Government imposed an alcohol ban on selected football grounds.
=====================================================================================
31/3/1985,
Sunday (+14,572) In
Britain, the National Coal Board announced a record loss of �2,225 million.
30/3/1985,
Saturday (+14,571) Harold Peary, actor, died of a heart attack
aged 76.
29/3/1985,
Friday (+14,570)
Luther Terry, US Surgeon-General whose report in 1964 concluded that smoking
caused cancer, died.
28/3/1985,
Thursday (-14,569) Marc Chagall, French
painter (born 7/7/1887 to poor Jewish parents in Vitebsk, Russia), died in St
Paul de Vence. He had moved to Berlin in 1922, and then to Paris in 1932. In
1941 he fled to the US to escape the advancing Nazis, returning to France after
World War Two ended.
24/3/1985,
Sunday (+14,565)
21/3/1985,
Thursday (+14,562) In South Africa, 19
died when police opened fire on a crowd of Black people on the 25th
anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre.
20/3/1985,
Wednesday (+14,561) The Belgian Parliament
approved the deployment of Cruise Missiles.
19/3/1985,
Tuesday (+14,560)
18/3/1985,
Monday (+14,559) (1)
Both Iran and Iraq claimed victory in one of the biggest battles in the
Gulf War, six days after an Iranian offensive began near Basra.
(2)
Australian Seven Network TV launched a new soap, Neighbours.
17/3/1985,
Sunday (+14,556) Expo '85, World's Fair, opened at Tsukuba,
Ibaraki, Japan. It ran until September 16.
16/3/1985,
Saturday (+14,557)
American journalist Terry Anderson was kidnapped in Lebanon, see 4/12/1991.
15/3/1985,
Friday (+14,556) (1) Brazil returned to civilian
rule under President Jose Sarney, after 21 years of military rule.
(2) In Britain, blood donors were now to be tested for
AIDS.
(3) On the Internet, the first .com name was registered, symbolics.com, by the Symbolics
Corporation. However .edu names still predominated.
14/3/1985,
Thursday (+14,555) As the situation in Lebanon
deteriorated, the USA evacuated its officials from the country.
13/3/1985, Wednesday
(+14,554) The first episode of Neighbours
appeared on Australian TV. The show performed poorly for the first 4 months,
then it switched channels and the cast was joined by Kylie Minogue and Jason
Donovan.
12/3/1985,
Tuesday (+14,553)
11/3/1985,
Monday (+14,552) (1) In the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev (54 years old) succeeded Konstantin
Chernenko, who died on 10/3/1985.
See 13/2/1984.
(2)
The Al-Fayed brothers won control of the House of Fraser Group to become owners
of Harrods.
10/3/1985,
Sunday (+14,551)
Death of Konstantin Chernenko, General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party
since 1984.
7/3/1985,
Thursday (+14,548) Dr Alec Jeffreys, at Leicester
University, discovered a method of creating �genetic fingerprints� from DNA in
blood, semen or saliva.
4/3/1985,
Monday (+14,545) In the USA, the Environmental
Protection Agency banned the use of leaded fuel for motor vehicles.
3/3/1985,
Sunday (+14,544) End of the 12 month miner�s strike
which began on 5/3/1984. 153 of Britain�s 174 coal mines went on strike; some
mines in Nottinghamshire and Kent stayed working.. One of the most powerful
images of this strike was the �Battle
of Orgreave� � see 29/5/1984. The result was not only a defeat for the
National Union of Miners but for the whole trades union movement under the
Thatcher government; the miners had failed to secure any agreement on pit
closures. A large number of miners deserted the NUM and set up the Democratic
Union of Mineworkers, after being refused a strike ballot by the NUM leader
Arthur Scargill. The strike was officially estimated, by the Coal Board, to
have cost it �1.75 billion. However Mr Scargill put the real cost at over �5
billion, or enough to keep every pit open and to employ every miner in work for
32 years.
The strike was triggered by a National Coal Board plan
to close 20 pits and shed 20,000 miner�s jobs, under the leadership of the
American, Ian McGregor. The NCB made a 5.2% pay offer to the miners.
2/3/1985,
Saturday (+14,543)
1/3/1985,
Friday (+14,542) (1) Uruguay returned to civilian rule under
President Sanguinetti after 12 years of military dictatorship under which
inflation had risen to 66% and foreign debt rose to US$ 3 billion.
(2) The
Pentagon officially accepted the theory that nuclear war would lead to a
prolonged �nuclear winter�.
======================================================================================
28/2/1985,
Thursday (+14,541)
9 RUC men were killed by an IRA attack on Newry police station.
25/2/1985,
Monday (+14,538)
49% of UK miners have returned to work, 51% remain on strike.
22/5/1985,
Friday (+14,535)
The UK� reached an all-time low against the US$ of $1.0765.
20/2/1985,
Wednesday (+14,533) The Irish Dail
passed a Bill to allow shops to sell contraceptives.
19/2/1985,
Tuesday (+14,532) (1) The
BBC began broadcasting Eastenders. 13 million people watched the first
episode, in which the pensioner Reg Cox died in his Albert Square home.
(2) William J
Schroeder became the first artificial heart recipient to leave hospital.
16/2/1985,
Saturday (+14,529) Israel began to withdraw from
Lebanon.
11/2/1985,
Monday (+14,524) The Pound fell below
US$1.10.
5/2/1985, Tuesday
(+14,518) The Gibraltar � Spain border fully reopened.
4/2/1985, Monday
(+14,517) New Zealand barred a US warship from its waters after the USA
refused to confirm whether or not there were nuclear weapons on board.
1/2/1985, Friday (+14,514)
====================================================================================
29/1/1985,
Tuesday (+14,511) Oxford
University refused to award Mrs Thatcher an honorary degree because of her
policies on education.
28/1/1985,
Monday (+14,510)
The case against the civil servant Clive Ponting, charged with leaking
information about the sinking of the Belgrano,
opened.
25/1/1985,
Friday (+14,507)
In a case that divided American society, New York subway vigilante Bernard
Goetze (born 7 November 1947) was told by a Grand Jury that he would not face
charged of murder for shooting four Black youths at close range on 22 December
1984; he would be tried for illegal possession of handguns. Goetze served 8
months of a 1-year sentence on the handgun charge; one of his victims, rendered
a quadriplegic by the shooting, was awarded US$ 43 million in a civil judgement
against Goetze.
23/1/1985,
Wednesday (+14,505) A House of Lords
debate was televised live for the first time.
22/1/1985,
Tuesday (+14,504) Arthur Bryant, English
historian, died aged 85.
20/1/1985,
Sunday (+14,502)
19/1/1985,
Saturday (+14,501) Thomas Richards, athlete (marathon), died.
18/1/1985,
Friday (+14,500) Protests continued at
Greenham Common USAF base; a protester managed to enter the base.
17/1/1985,
Thursday (+14,499) British Telecom
announced it was to phase out the famous red telephone boxes.
16/1/1985,
Wednesday (+14,498) Matt Holloway, New Zealand
rugby player, was born.
13/1/1985, Sunday (+14,495)
11/1/1985, Friday
(+14,493) The Shkoder(Albania) - Podgorica freight line opened.
10/1/1985,
Thursday (+14,492)
(Tech) Clive Sinclair launched the C5, a battery-powered tricycle.
Priced at �399, the C5 could be driven by 14 year olds without a licence,
insurance or helmet, and was not subject to road tax. A factory that could
produce 200,000 C5s a year was to open at Merthyr Tydfil in June 1985.
7/1/1985, Monday (+14,489)
4/1/1985,
Friday (+14,486) Mrs Kim Cotton,
believed to be the first commercial surrogate mother in Britain, gave birth to
a girl.
3/1/1985,
Thursday (+14,485)
Ethiopian Jews settled in Israel.
2/1/1985,
Wednesday (+14,484)
1/1/1985,
Tuesday (+14,483) The
first mobile phone call in the
UK was made, by Ernie Wise to Vodafone.
===================================================================================
31/12/1984,
Monday (+14,482) Rajiv Ghandi became
Prime Minister of India. In the UK, the � p coin ceased to be legal tender. A
useful emergency screwdriver disappeared from people�s pockets.
26/12/1984,
Wednesday (+14,477)
Terence Johnson, long distance walker, died.
23/12/1984,
Sunday (+14,474) Terrorist bomb killed 29 on a train in
Bologna, Italy.
22/12/1984,
Saturday (+14,473) Dom
Mintoff resigned as President of Malta.
19/12/1984,
Wednesday (+14,470) (1) Rajiv Ghandhi won the Indian elections by a large majority.
(2)
Ted Hughes was appointed Poet Laureate in succession to Sir John Betjeman.
(3)
Mrs Thatcher signed an agreement to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.
15/12/1984,
Saturday (+14,466) (Space
exploration) The USSR launched the Vega-1 space probe, which made a
close approach to Halley�s Comet.
14/12/1984, Friday (+14,465) A group of rock stars led by Bob Geldof formed �Band
Aid� to raise money for Ethiopian famine victims.
10/12/1984, Monday
(+14,461) Bishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign
against Apartheid.
3/12/1984,
Monday (+14,454) The Union Carbide
disaster at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh State, India. 410 died
immediately as 30 tons of poison gas (methyl isocyanate) leaked; the final toll
was 4,000 dead and 20,000 seriously injured; 150,000 required hospital
treatment.
2/12/1984,
Sunday (+14,453) The
Thatcher government was accused of �gross incompetence� in Parliament as shares
in the newly privatised British Telecom commanded an opening premium of nearly
90%. Films on included Ghostbusters and
Gremlins.
1/12/1984,
Saturday (+14,452) King Hussein of Jordan held talks with
President Mubarak of Egypt on peace initiatives for the West Bank.
===================================================================================
30/11/1984,
Friday (+14,451) Tamil Tigers began a
purge of Sinhalese from north east Sri Lanka, killing 127 people.
28/11/1984,
Wednesday (+14,449)
26/11/1984,
Monday (+14,447) The US restored full
diplomatic relations with Iraq (severed in 1967).
25/11/1984,
Sunday (+14,446)
Bob Geldof and other rock stars recorded �Do
They Know It�s Christmas� for the Band Aid famine relief initiative in
Ethiopia. All proceeds from sales of the songs would go towards famine relief.
22/11/1984,
Thursday (+14,443) The Law Lords upheld
the Government�s ban on Union membership at GCHQ Cheltenham.
20/11/1984,
Tuesday (+14,441)
The North Wales branch of the NUM voted to end the strike.
19/11/1984,
Monday (+14,440)
An explosion at the PEMEX chemical plant at Ecatepec, Mexico, killed 540.
10/11/1984,
Saturday (+14,431)
9/11/1984, Friday (+14,430) Delta Goodrem, singer and
songwriter, was born.
8/11/1984, Thursday (+14,429) (Space
exploration) The USA retrieved a satellite from space.
7/11/1984, Wednesday (+14,428) (1) (USA) President Reagan won the US elections, for a second term, with a landslide victory.
His opponent Walter F Mondale lost in 49 states and only carried his home
state, Minnesota, by 3,761 votes.
(2) (Railways)
The Tynda to Urgal railway, Russia, opened.
6/11/1984, Tuesday (+14,427) (1) In Dublin, the High Court froze striking
British coal mineworkers money after a court decision that the strike, now in
its� 35th week, was illegal
and that the Union must pay a fine within 14 days or have its assets seized.
(2) Chile�s
president Pinochet re-imposed a
state of emergency.
5/11/1984, Monday (+14,426) Daniel Ortega was elected President
of Nicaragua.
4/11/1984, Sunday (+14,425)
British Air Force began food airlift to famine-struck province of Tigre,
Ethiopia.
3/11/1984, Saturday (+14,424)
Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi was cremated.
2/11/1984, Friday (+14,423) Velma Barfield became the first
woman to be executed in the USA since 1962.
1/11/1984, Thursday (+14,422)
Rajiv Ghandi, son of Indira, was sworn in as Indian Prime Minister.
====================================================================================
31/10/1984, Wednesday (+14,421) (1) ACAS
talks between the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Coal Board
broke down again.
(2)
Mrs Indira Ghandi,
Prime Minister of India, 67, was shot dead by a Sikh member of her bodyguard,
whilst in New Delhi. Beant Singh, one of the attackers, was then shot dead by
other loyal bodyguards. She was succeeded by her son, Rajiv Ghandi. Indira Ghandi
was cremated on 3/11/1984. The assassination was in revenge for Indian troops
storming the Golden Temple of Amritsar.
30/10/1984, Tuesday (+14,420)
The body of pro-Solidarity priest Father Jerzy Popieluszko, 37, was found by
police frogmen in a reservoir in Wloclawek Reservoir, northern Poland. He had
been kidnapped 12 days earlier; hardline opponents of Prime Minister Wojciech
Jaruzelski were suspected.
28/10/1984, Sunday (+14,418)
26/10/1984, Friday
(+14,416) Baby Fae, 14 days old, received a transplanted heart from a
baboon., She survived a further 20 days.
25/10/1984,
Thursday (+14,415) The hepatitis virus
was identified.
24/10/1984, Wednesday
(+14,214) The Ethiopian Government appealed for Western food aid to save an
estimated 6.4 million from starvation.
23/10/1984,
Tuesday (+14,413) The Police Federation
in Britain said that from now all Police Forces in England and Wales should be
equipped with plastic bullets. The end was announced for the old �H� shaped TV
aerials, used for the old 405-line service. The 43 transmitters broadcasting on
this frequency were to be closed to make way for the growing number of mobile
and car phones.
22/10/1984, Monday (+14,407)
21/10/1984,
Sunday
(+14,406) Francois Truffaut, French film director, died aged
52.
20/10/1984, Saturday
(+14,405) Carl Ferdinand Cori, biochemist, died.
14/10/1984,
Sunday (+14,404) Martin Ryle, English radio astronomer, died
aged 66.
12/10/1984,
Friday (+14,402) Five people died and
more than 30 were injured when the IRA planted as bomb at the Grand Hotel,
Brighton, where the Conservatives were holding their annual Party Conference.
Mrs Thatcher herself had just left a bathroom that was destroyed, but escaped
injury as she sat in the lounge of her suite writing a speech. She
still gave the speech the following day. However 5 were killed and over 30
others injured, including Margaret Tebbit, wife of the Trade and Industry
Secretary, who was paralysed from the neck down.
11/10/1984, Thursday
(+14,401) Kathryn D Sullivan became the first woman to walk in space, from
the Space Shuttle Challenger.
10/10/1984,
Wednesday (+14,400)
Arthur Scargill was fined �1,000, and the NUM �200,000, for contempt of court.
9/10/1984,
Tuesday (+14,399)
Jordan mended relations with Egypt when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
visited Amman. Egypt had been despised by the Arab world since the late
President Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with |Israel at Camp David in 1979.
Now King Hussein of Jordan met with Arab hostility for mending relation with
Egypt, a move sparked by problems in the Jordanian economy arising from a
downturn in trade resulting from the Iran-Iraq war.
3/10/1984, Wednesday (+14,393) Ashlee Simpson, singer,
was born.
======================================================================================
30/9/1984, Sunday
(+14,390)
27/9/1984, Thursday (+14,387) Avril Lavigne, singer, was born.
26/9/1984,
Wednesday (+14,386) China and the UK signed an initial agreement
to hand Hong Kong back to China in 1997.
25/9/1984, Tuesday (+14,385)
21/9/1984,
Friday (+14,381)
Violence at Maltby Colliery, near Rotherham, as the miners strike went on.
20/9/1984,
Thursday (+14,380)
40 died when a suicide bomber attacked the US Embassy in Beirut.
18/9/1984,
Tuesday (+14,378)
17/9/1984,
Monday (+14,377) France and Libya reached
agreement on the withdrawal of both countries� troops from Chad by
mid-November.
16/9/1984,
Sunday (+14,376) Miami
Vice was first broadcast on NBC TV.
15/9/1984,
Saturday (+14,375) Prince Harry (Henry Charles Albert
David) was born to Diana, Princess of Wales.
14/9/1984,
Friday (+14,374) After Israeli elections on 23/7/1984 produced
no overall winner, with Shimon Peres� :Labour Party taking 44 seats and Yitzhak
Shamir�s Right Wing Likud Party taking 41 seats, no party had a clear majority.
This day a coalition arrangement was made, with each leader alternating for 25 months. Shimon
Peres started the first 25 month leadership period this day.
13/9/1984, Thursday (+14,373)
US pilot Joe Kittinger became the first person to fly a hot air balloon across
the Atlantic. He took off from Caribou, Maine, USA, and landed in Montenotte,
Italy, 86 hours later, having flown 3,543 miles.
12/9/1984,
Wednesday (+14,372)
The British High Court granted an injunction against the Greenham Common peace
camp.
9/9/1984,
Sunday (+14,369) Ian MacGregor, Chairman of the National Coal
Board, arrived in Edinburgh for talks with Arthur Scargill.
5/9/1984,
Wednesday (+14,365) Western Australia became
the last Australian State to abolish capital punishment.
4/9/1984,
Tuesday (+14,364) (1) A
large car bomb killed 23 at the US Embassy in Beirut.
(2) Brian
Mulroney (Progressive Conservative Party) was elected to government.
3/9/1984,
Monday (+14,363) 14 died in rioting in
Sharpeville and other Black townships around Johannesburg.
=================================================================================
28/8/1984,
Tuesday (+14,357) The space shuttle Discovery made its maiden flight.
25/8/1984, Saturday (+14,354) Truman Capote, author, died.
22/8/1984,
Wednesday (+14,351) �Coloureds� were
allowed to vote in South African elections.
21/8/1984, Tuesday (+14,350) Half a million people in Manila demonstrated against
the rule of Ferdinand Marcos, on the first anniversary of the assassination of
Benigno Aquino. Marcos had ruled since 1972.
18/8/1984,
Saturday (+14,347) Clive Ponting, a civil servant, was
charged with an offence under the Official Secrets Act, relating to information
allegedly passed on to an MP about the circumstances surrounding the sinking of
the General Belgrano during the
Falklands War.
14/8/1984, Tuesday (+14,343) English writer JB Priestley
died.
8/8/1984,
Wednesday (+14,337) In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe
announced plans for a one-Party State.
6/8/1984, Monday
(+14,335) Pop star Prince released Purple Rain. The album spend 24
consecutive weeks at number one in the Billboard Charts, and sold over 13
million copies in the USA alone.
5/8/1984,
Sunday (+14,334) Richard Burton, Welsh actor, died aged 58.
4/8/1984,
Saturday (+14,333) Violent clashes between Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
3/8/1984, Friday (+14,332) The
Republic of Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso.
1/8/1984,
Wednesday (+14,330)
====================================================================================
29/7/1984,
Sunday (+14,327) Svetlana
Savitskaya, first woman to walk in space, returned to earth, from the Salyut-7
space station.
28/7/1984,
Saturday (+14,326) The 23rd Olympic Games
opened in Los Angeles.
27/7/1984,
Friday (+14,325)
British actor James Mason died.
26/7/1984,
Thursday (+14,324) G H Gallup, US survey
pioneer, died aged 82.
23/7/1984,
Monday (+14,321) An Air Canada Boeing 767 ran
out of fuel halfway between Montreal and Edmonton. A mistake had been made in
fuelling after a switch from gallons to litres. The pilot, a gliding
enthusiast, succeeded in safely gliding the plane to a disused military base at
Gimli; the plane was dubbed the Gimli Glider.
21/7/1984,
Saturday (+14,319) (1) Poland granted amnesty to 652 political
prisoners.
(2) The
man who popularised jogging, James J Fixx, had a heart attack and died whilst
out running in Vermont, aged 52.
19/7/1984, Thursday (+14,317) Jacques Delors was
nominated as President of the European Commission from January 1985.
16/7/1984,
Monday (+14,314) The High Court ruled that the
Government�s ban on Trades Unions at GCHQ Cheltenham was legal. The Lords voted
to abolish the Greater London Council (GLC) and other Metropolitan Authority
elections.
14/7/1984,
Saturday (+14,312) In New Zealand general elections, the
Labour Party defeated the ruling National Party
12/7/1984,
Thursday (+14,310)
In the USA, G Ferraro became the first woman to run for Vice President.
11/7/1984, Wednesday
(-14,309) The USA announced that all passenger cars made after 1/4/1989
must have driver side airbags or automatic seat belts.
10/7/1984,
Tuesday (+14,308) National dock strike in
Britain over use of unauthorised labour.
9/7/1984, Monday (+14,307) (1) A bolt
of lightning set fire to the roof of York Minster. The 700 year old building
suffered serious damage to the south transept.
(2)
British Rail�s catering division, Travellers Fare, increased the price of a cup
of tea from 20p to 22p, and coffee from 30p to 32p.
7/7/1984, Saturday (+14,305) Dame Flora Robson, actress,
died.
5/7/1984,
Thursday (+14,303)
1/7/1984, Sunday (+14,299) (1)The average UK house price was �31,050.
(2) Argentina�s football star, Diego Maradonna, was
signed by Naples for �1million.
====================================================================================
30/6/1984, Saturday (+14,298) Pierre
Trudeau resigned as Prime Minister of Canada.
29/6/1984, Friday (+14,297)
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi dismissed the Governor and the Police Chief
of Punjab.
26/6/1984, Tuesday (+14,294) Michel Foucault, philosopher, died.
24/6/1984, Sunday (+14,292) David Milford, rackets champion, died.
22/6/1984, Friday (+14,290) The
first Virgin Atlantic flight
left Gatwick for New York. The single fare was �99.
15/6/1984, Friday (+14,283) Meredith Wilson, composer, died.
8/6/1984, Friday (+14,276) The State of New South Wales, Australia,
decriminalised homosexuality after six years of public protest.
6/6/1984, Wednesday (+14,274) Indian
troops stormed the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar. 712 Sikhs and 90 soldiers
were killed.
=====================================================================================
30/5/1984, Wednesday (+14,267) Prince Charles castigated
modern architecture, in a speech to the Royal Institute of British Architects
at Hampton Court, London.
29/5/1984, Tuesday (+14,266) The �Battle of Orgreave� occurred during the Miner�s
Strike. 84 people were arrested and 69 injured (41 police, 28
miners) when 4,000 police held back 7,000 pickets who were trying to prevent
coking coal being moved out of Orgreave to the British Steel works at
Scunthorpe. Two convoys of 34 lorries raced through the picket lines with
supplies for the blast furnaces. Mr Arthur Scargill, leader of the National
Union of miners, was blamed for inflaming the situation. The miner�s strike was
then 12 weeks old, having begun on 5/3/1984. It lasted until 3/3/1985.
28/5/1984, Monday (+14,265) Eric Morecambe, comedian on
the Morecambe and Wise show, died in Cheltenham.
19/5/1984, Saturday (+14,256) Sir
John Betjeman, Poet Laureate since 1972, died aged 78.
14/5/1984, Monday (+14,251) Australia introduced a
one-dollar coin.
13/5/1984, Sunday (+14,250) A huge
explosion at the Russian naval base of Severomorsk, on the Kola Peninsula.
Fires burnt for 5 days afterwards. The Northern Fleet, some 150 ships, was
effectively out of action for 6 months. The cause may have been inadequate radar
shielding causing a detonation in the missile stores, where warheads,
propellants and detonators were all stored in too-close proximity.
7/5/1984, Monday (+14,244) Moscow announced it would boycott the 1984
Los Angeles Olympics, in revenge for the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow
Olympics.
4/5/1984, Friday (+14,241) British actress Diana Dors died.
2/5/1984, Wednesday (+14,239) Queen Elizabeth II opened the
Liverpool International Garden Festival..
1/5/1984, Tuesday (+14,238) Reagan concluded a visit to
China.
===================================================================================
30/4/1984, Monday (+14,237)
27/4/1984, Friday (+14,234)
The UK Government expelled 30 Libyan diplomats.
24/4/1984, Tuesday (+14,231)
23/4/1984, Monday (+14,230) The discovery of the AIDS
virus was announced in the USA.
22/4/1984, Sunday (+14,229) Easter
Sunday. Britain broke off diplomatic relations with Libya over the shooting of
Yvonne Fletcher on 17/4/1984.
19/4/1984, Thursday (+14,226)
18/4/1984, Wednesday (+14,225) (Biology) Kenneth S Cole, US biophysicist, died.
17/4/1984, Tuesday (+14,224) In London, the Libyans opened fire from their People�s
Bureau, killing 25 year-old policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher. A police siege
of the Libyan Embassy began and on 22/4/1984 the UK Government broke off
diplomatic relations with Libya. The siege ended on 27/4/1984 and 30 Libyans
from the Bureau were deported. The British Ambassador and other diplomats
returned from Tripoli.
16/4/1984, Monday (+14,223)
Count Basie, US jazz pianist, died aged 79.
15/4/1984, Sunday (+14,222) Alexander
Trocchi, Scottish writer, died aged 58.
13/4/1984, Friday (+14,220) India captured most of the
Siachen glacier on its disputed Kashmir frontier with Pakistan.
12/4/1984, Thursday (+14,219) (1) The Bill to privatise
British Telecom was passed by the UK Parliament. A Bill to
privatise BT was put before Parliament in 1983, but was opposed by the Trades
Unions, and was lost to the General Election of 1983. It was reintroduced soon
after the election and guillotined so as to speed it up.
(2) The US Senate voted to cut funding for the CIA to mine
Nicaraguan harbours. This was an attempt to stop arms being shipped to rebels
in El Salvador, but was also seen as an attack on the Nicaraguan economy.
10/4/1984, Tuesday (+14,217)
9/4/1984, Monday (+14,216) In Derbyshire, over 100
miners were arrested in violence connected with the miners� strike.
8/4/1984, Sunday (+14,215) Pyotr
Kapitza, Soviet low-temperature physicist, died aged 89.
7/4/1984, Saturday (+14,214) (Space exploration) The space shuttle
Challenger was launched on its 5th mission.
6/4/1984, Friday (+14,213) An
abortive coup in Cameroon. The Cameroonian President, Paul Biya, a Christian
from the south of the country, had ordered that all northern Muslim palace
guards be replaced by southern Christians. Several days of fighting ensued but
the rebel ringleaders were arrested and 35 executed. Biya consolidated his
power.
5/4/1984, Thursday (+14,212)
India imposed detention without trial in Punjab.
4/4/1984, Wednesday (+14,211) Bailiffs evicted women from
the Greenham Common protest site.
3/4/1984, Tuesday (+14,210)
India declared Punjab a �dangerously disturbed area�.
1/4/1984, Sunday (+14,208) Marvin Gaye, US soul singer, died.
=====================================================================================
30/3/1984, Friday (+14,206) Karl Rahner, German Jesuit priest, died
aged 80.
24/3/1984, Saturday (+14,200) First performance of Philip Glass�s opera, Akhnaten.
22/3/1984, Thursday (+14,198) British civil servant Sarah Tisdall was
jailed for 6 months for leaking to The Guardian the Cruise Missiles were on
their way to Britain.
18/3/1984, Sunday (+14,194) The
Oxford and Cambridge boat race was run on a Sunday for the first time. The day
before, the race had been abandoned because the Cambridge boat had been damaged
in a collision.
15/3/1984, Thursday (+14,191) Only 21 of Britain�s 174 coal
mines were working as strikes against the Coal Board�s 5.2% pay offer, and its
pit closure programme became official. The strike was to drag on for a year.
14/3/1984, Wednesday (+14,190) Gerry Adams was shot and injured
in an attempt to assassinate him.
13/3/1984, Tuesday (+14,189) In the UK, Mr Nigel Lawson delivered his first
Budget.
12/3/1984, Monday (+14,188) 100
UK coal mines were now on strike. NUM ;leader Arthur Scargill called for a
national strike, but did not fulfil the legal obligation of calling a strike
ballot. Some mining districts such as Nottinghamshire did not fully support the
strike.
9/3/1984, Friday (+14,185)
7/3/1984, Wednesday (+14,183)
Donald Maclean, British Foreign Office official and Soviet secret agent who
fled to the USSR in 1951, died aged 70.
6/3/1984, Tuesday (+14,182) Start
of the 12 month miner�s strike. See 3/3/1985, and 29/5/1984 � Orgreave. Miners
from 100 pits threatened with closure went on strike. The strike had been
precipitated by the decision by the National Coal Board, announced 1/3/1984, to
close Cortonwood Colliery. The NCB planned to close a total of 21 collieries
and make 20,000 employees redundant.
5/3/1984, Monday (+14,181) Scientists warned of a �Greenhouse Effect�
amid growing concern that carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels was
damaging the environment.
4/3/1984, Sunday (+14,180) The speaker of the Iranian Parliament claimed
that 400 Iranian soldiers had been killed by Iraqi chemical weapons.
3/3/1984, Saturday (+14,179) John Monaghan, boxer, died (born 21/8/1920).
2/3/1984, Friday (+14,178) Louis Basile, actor, died aged 48.
1/3/1984, Thursday (+14,177) A joint South African-Angolan monitoring
commission began monitoring South African troop withdrawal from Angola.
====================================================================================
29/2/1984, Wednesday (-14,176) Pierre Trudeau announced he was stepping
down after 15 years as Canadian Prime Minister.
28/2/1984, Tuesday (+14,175) French
farmers protested against foreign meat imports into France. There was a meat
glut in Europe and President
Mitterand�s government had ended rail subsidies for transport� of agricultural produce from Brittany. Farmers
hijacked and burned lorries with agricultural produce from other EEC member
states, or gave the lorries contents away to hospitals and schools. Farmers
also blockaded railway lines and Channel ports, and main roads. In one incident
farmers ransacked government offices in Brest, Brittany.
27/2/1984, Monday (+14,174) Iraq began a blockade of the main Iranian
oil terminal at Kharg Island, and threatened to attack tankers loading there.
26/2/1984, Sunday (+14,173) US
marines pulled out of Beirut.
15/2/1984, Wednesday (+14,162) Ethel Merman, actress, died.
13/2/1984, Monday (+14,160) Konstantin
Chernenko became the leader of the USSR. See 11/3/1985. Yuri Andropov had died
on 7/2/1984. Andropov came to power in 16/6/1983.
11/2/1984, Saturday (+14,158) Iraq began
bombing non-military targets in Iran.
10/2/1984, Friday (+14,157) Harold MacMillan was awarded
an earldom, on his 90th birthday. He chose the name of Stockton from
his first constituency in 1924.
9/2/1984, Thursday (+14,156) Yuri Andropov, Soviet leader, died after only 15 months in office.
He was succeeded by Konstantin
Chernenko.
8/2/1984, Wednesday (+14,155)
7/2/1984, Tuesday (+14,154) Bruce McCandless made the
first space walk without an attachment to the spacecraft, from the space
shuttle Challenger.
6/2/1984, Monday (+14,153)
President Gemayel of Lebanon ordered a 24-hour curfew, as Shi�ite Muslim and
Drize militias overran West Beirut.
3/2/1984, Friday (+14,150) The
space shuttle Challenger was launched
on its 4th mission.
1/2/1984, Wednesday (+14,148) The UK Chancellor, Nigel Lawson,
announced the forthcoming abolition of the halfpenny coin.
=====================================================================================
30/1/1984, Monday (+14,146) West German chancellor Helmut Kohl concluded
a 5-day visit to |Israel. His visit had been disrupted by demonstrations.
28/1/1984, Saturday (+14,144) Andre Iguodala, basketball player, was
born.
26/1/1984, Thursday (+14,142) The Governor of the Maze
Prison resigned after a critical report on IRA prisoner escapes.
25/1/1984, Wednesday (+14,141) The Government announced that
Trades Unions would be illegal at GCHQ Cheltenham.
24/1/1984, Tuesday (+14,140) The first Apple Macintosh computer went on sale.
20/1/1984, Friday (+14,136) Johnny Weissmuller, US actor who played
Tarzan, died.
18/1/1984, Wednesday (+14,134)
Malcolm Kerr, President of the American University, Beirut, was assassinated by
pro-Iranian militias.
17/1/1984, Tuesday (+14,133) The
Reagan-nominated US Commission on Civil Rights declared that numerical quotas
for the promotion of African-Americans and others ;�may merely constitute
another form of discrimination�.
15/1/1984, Sunday (+14,131)
14/1/1984, Saturday (+14,130) Ray
Kroc, US business entrepreneur who developed the McDonalds fast food chain,
died aged 81.
13/1/1984, Friday (+14,129) A cooling tower at Fiddlers
Ferry power station, Lancashire, collapsed in high winds. Turbulence caused by
the closely grouped towers was blamed.
12/1/1984, Thursday
(+14,128)
11/1/1984, Wednesday
(+14,127) Two British lorry drivers were hijacked by French farmers as they drove
through France; the farmers were protesting at cheap meat imports into France.
10/1/1984, Tuesday (+14,126) General Zia of Pakistan freed
Benazir Bhutto, daughter of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had
been executed in 1979.
3/1/1984, Tuesday (+14,119)
1/1/1984, Sunday (+14,117) In Nigeria, a 19-member Supreme
Military Council assumed power.
====================================================================================
31/12/1983, Saturday (+14,116) Brunei became independent from the UK. It joined ASEAN, becoming
the 6th member, in 7/1/1984. The new State derived considerable
wealth from its offshore oil reserves.
30/12/1983, Friday (+14,115)
British racing car driver Violette Cordery died (retired 1938).
29/12/1983, Thursday (+14,114)
28/12/1983, Wednesday (+14,113)
Dennis Wilson, musician, died.
27/12/1983, Tuesday (+14,112) Pope John Paul II met his
would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali, in a prison cell in Rome after conducting a
Christmas service at the prison.� There
were growing rumours that the Bulgarian secret services were involved in the
assassination attempt.� Ali had been
imprisoned for life for the crime.
25/12/1983, Sunday (+14,110) An
IRA bomb exploded in London�s Oxford Street.
20/12/1983, Tuesday (+14,105)
The PLO were forced out of Lebanon. The Syrian Army forced Yasser Arafat and
4,000 supporters to leave Tripoli, under arrangement of safe passage out by the
UN.
17/12/1983, Saturday (+14,102) 6
died and 91 were injured when an IRA
bomb exploded outside Harrods in London.�
5 died and 91 were injured.
10/12/1983, Saturday (+14,095) An IRA bomb exploded at
London�s Woolwich Barracks.
9/12/1983, Friday (+14,094) The
1,000th Boeing 737 was produced.
6/12/1983, Tuesday (+14,091) Turkey�s National Security Council
dissolved, ending three years of military rule.
3/12/1983, Saturday (+14,088) Women
peace campaigners broke into Greenham Common US airbase.
====================================================================================
30/11/1983, Wednesday (+14,085) Microsoft
Word was first released.
28/11/1983, Monday (+14,083) The
Thatcher government announced an end to the monopoly by opticians on the sale
of glasses.
26/11/1983, Saturday (+14,081) 6,800 gold bars worth �25
million were stolen from the Brinks-Mat security warehouse at Heathrow Airport.
Only a fraction of the gold was ever recovered, and only 2 men were ever
convicted of the crime.
25/11/1983, Friday (+14,080)
Anton Dolin, English ballet dancer, died aged 79.
18/11/1983, Friday (+14,073)
In Liverpool Janet Walton, 31, gave birth to sextuplets, all girls.
15/11/1983, Tuesday (+14,070) (1)
The Turkish part of Cyprus declared independence. Led by Rauf
Dektash, the �republic� was recognised only by Turkey.
(2) �The Greenham Common women�s group mounted
their first protest against the US cruise missiles sited there. The first
cruise missiles had arrived in the UK on 13/11/1983.
14/11/1983, Monday (+14,069) The world�s largest airport
opened near Riyadh. The King Khalid International Airport covered 86 square
miles of desert and cost �2.1 billion.
13/11/1983, Sunday (+14,068) The
first Cruise Missiles arrived at Greenham Common.
12/11/1983, Saturday (+14,067) (1) Gerry
Adams was elected leader of Sinn� Fein.
(2) The Lord
Mayor�s show in London featured the first woman Mayor, Dame Mary Donaldson.
8/11/1983, Tuesday (+14,063) Betty Nuthall, tennis champion, died (born
23/5/1911).
4/11/1983, Friday (+14,059) The Governor of Grenada declared a State of
Emergency.
1/11/1983, Tuesday (+14,056) Edward Phelps, rowing champion, died (born
17/6/1908).
====================================================================================
30/10/1983, Sunday (+14,054) The
first democratic elections were held in Argentina after 7 years of military
rule.
25/10/1983, Tuesday (+14,049) 2,000
US Marines invaded Grenada to
restore order after, on 19/10/1983, Grenada�s army had murdered the Prime
Minister (Maurice Bishop) and taken power. Britain opposed the US invasion. The
US said it had saved Grenada from becoming a Soviet-Cuban colony.
23/10/1983, Sunday (+14,047) A suicide truck bomber
destroyed the US Marine Corps barracks at Beirut International Airport, killing
241 US servicemen.
22/10/1983, Saturday (+14,046) The announcement by
Washington that Pershing II and Cruise Missiles were to be deployed in Europe
precipitated large anti-nuclear demonstrations in Britain, Germany and Italy.
19/10/1983, Wednesday (+14,043) Left-wing coup in Grenada. Prime
Minister Maurice Bishop was killed.
16/10/1983, Sunday (+14,040) Cecil Parkinson (see 14/10/1983) was
succeeded by Norman Tebbit
14/10/1983, Friday (+14,038) British Trade and Industry Secretary Cecil
Parkinson resigned after revelations of adultery with his secretary Sarah Keays
emerged.
12/10/1983, Wednesday (+14,036) The Chinese Communist Party began its
biggest purge of membership since the Cultural revolution. The records of 40
million Party members were to be reviewed. The Anti Spiritual Pollution
Campaign was launched, with the (initial) approval of Deng Xiaoping. It was an
attempt to roll back economic reform and Western influence. Individualism and
hedonism were condemned, as were academics who promoted alternatives to
Communism.
10/10/1983, Monday (+14,034) Shamir became Prime Minister
in Israel.
9/10/1983, Sunday (+14,033) North
Korean dissidents set off a bomb at the Martyr�s Mausoleum, Yangon, Myanmar. 16
South Koreans were killed and the South Korean President, Chun Doo Hwan, only
narrowly escaped death.
8/10/1983, Saturday (+14,032) Joan
Hackett, actress, died.
7/10/1983, Friday (+14,031) Plans to abolish the Greater
London Council were announced.
6/10/1983, Thursday (+14,030)
The Indian Government took over direct control of Punjab Province in response
to growing unrest there.
5/10/1983. Wednesday (+14,029) Lech Walesa, leader of the
Polish trade union Solidarnosc, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
2/10/1983, Sunday (+14,026) Neil Kinnock, 41, became leader of the
British Labour Party. Roy Hattersley was his deputy.
====================================================================================
27/9/1983, Tuesday (+14,021)
Jose Mar�a de Tavira Bianchi, Mexican actor, was born
26/9/1983, Monday (+14,020) The Soviet Union�s early
warning system appeared to show missiles had been fired from the USA. However
the officer in charge, Stanislav Petrov, chose to delay any response. In fact
satellites had spotted reflections of sunlight from the ground.
25/9/1983, Sunday (+14,019) 38 IRA prisoners escaped from
the Maze prison; a prison guard was stabbed to death during the escape.
24/9/1983, Saturday (+14,018) In Italy, the executives
responsible for the Seveso dioxin disaster were jailed.
21/9/1983, Wednesday (+14,015)
18/9/1983, Sunday (-14,012) St Kitts and Nevis became
independent.
17/9/1983, Saturday (+14,011)
Vanessa Williams became the first African-American Miss America.
10/9/1983, Saturday (+14,004) The
heaviest man in the US, Jon Browner Minnoch, died weighing 362 kg. When
admitted to hospital in March 1978, he weighed 635 kg, or 102 stone.
8/9/1983, Thursday (+14,002) The UK Government made it obligatory for
NHS hospitals to allow private contractors to tender for catering, cleaning and
laundry services.
4/9/1983, Sunday (+13,998) (1) In Lebanon, civil war broke out in the Chouf
Mountains following Israel�s withdrawal.
(2) Earthquake at Pozzuoli, Naples, caused major panic,
as people feared another eruption of nearby Vesuvius.
3/9/1983, Saturday (+13,997) Ellie
Lambeti, Greek actress, died (born 1926).
2/9/1983, Friday (+13,996) Israel�s Prime Minister Menachem Begin resigned, and was
replaced by Yitzhak Shamir.
1/9/1983, Thursday (+13,995) A Korean airliner was shot
down by Soviet fighter planes after it had strayed into USSR airspace, killing
269 people.
===================================================================================
31/8/1983, Wednesday (+13,994) Russell Doig of Surrey won a
special prize for catching a salmon in the Thames, the first salmon caught
there for 150 years. The fish weighed 6 lb.
30/8/1983, Tuesday (+13,993) (Space exploration) The third flight
by the Challenger space shuttle.
28/8/1983, Sunday (+13,991)
21/8/1983, Sunday (+13,984)
The
Philippines opposition leader, Benigno Aquino, was shot dead minutes after
returning home from exile. Born in
1932, Benigno became a Senator at 35 and was the leader of the opposition to
Philippines leader Ferdinand Marcos during the period of martial law from 1972.
Had martial law not been declared and the Presidential elections due for 1973
been run, it is generally accepted that
Benigno Aquino would have won. In fact Aquino was arrested in November 1977
on charges of murder and subversion. In 1980, suffering from a heart condition,
Aqiuion was allowed to leave for exile and treatment in the USA. His assassination was widely believed to be
on the orders of Marcos, and it unleashed protests that led to the collapse of
the Marcos Presidency; in February 1986, Benigno�s widow, Cory Aquino, became
President of the Philippines.
20/8/1983, Saturday (+13,983) US
President Reagan lifted the ban on exports of pipe-laying equipment to the
USSR.
19/8/1983, Friday (+13,982)
France sent a further 3,500 troops to assist President Hissein Habre of Chad.
18/8/1983, Thursday (+13,981) Hurricane Alicia hit the
Texas coast, killing 22 and causing over US$ 3.8 billion (in 2005 terms)
damage.
17/8/1983, Wednesday (+13,980)
Ira Gershwin, singer, died.
14/8/1983, Sunday (+13,977) French police intercepted a large consignment
of arms intended for the IRA.
12/8/1983, Friday (+13,975) 17 people were killed in
Santiago, Chile, in protests against General Pinochet.
11/8/1983, Thursday (+13,974)
Faya Largeau in Chad fell to Libyan troops.
9/8/1983, Tuesday (+13,972)
7/8/1983, Sunday (+13,970) France
sent paratroopers to supplement 500 �military instructors� in Chad.
6/8/1983, Saturday (+13,969) The oil tanker Castillio de Bellver spilled 255,000
tons of crude oil off Cape Town, South Africa.
5/8/1983, Friday (+13,968) A bomb killed 15 at a Lebanese
mosque.
4/8/1983, Thursday (+13,967) Bettino Craxi became Italy�s
first Socialist Prime Minister.
2/8/1983, Tuesday (+13,969) Libyan planes bombed Faya Largeau in Chad.
==================================================================================
29/7/1983, Wednesday (+13,959)
Luis Brunel, Spanish film maker, died aged 83.
28/7/1983, Thursday (+13,960)
Sri Lanka imposed a ban on political parties advocating partition of the island
between Tamils and Sinhalese.
27/7/1983, Wednesday (+13,959)
Prisoners
in Welikaldi jail killed 52 Tamil inmates in their cells.
26/7/1983,
Tuesday (+13,958)� Mrs Victoria Gillick lost her case in the
High Court to prevent doctors prescribing contraceptives to girls under 16
without parental consent.
25/7/1983,
Monday (+13,957) The Sri Lankan Government
imposed a curfew following attacks on the Tamil community.
24/7/1983,
Sunday (+13,956) 20 Tamils
on a bus were lynched by a Sinhalese mob.
23/7/1983,
Saturday (+13,955) Civil war began in Sri Lanka.
22/7/1983,
Friday (+13,954) Polish
Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski lifted martial law after 19 months.
21/7/1983, Thursday (+13,953) The world's
lowest temperature was recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at -89.2 C
(-128.6 F).
20/7/1983, Wednesday (+13,952)
The Israeli Cabinet agreed on a partial withdrawal of troops from Lebanon, to
south of the Chouf Mountains.
19/7/1983, Tuesday (+13,951)
18/7/1983, Monday (+13,950) Donald Cockell, boxer, died (born 22/9/1928).
15/7/1983, Friday (+13,947) Armenian
terrorists set off a bomb at Paris airport.
1/7/1983, Friday (+13,933) In
the UK, a pint of milk cost 21p, and a loaf of bread cost 42p, equivalent to
�0.87 in 2003. Actual 2003 price was �0.65. A pint of lager cost �0.61,
equivalent to �1.27 in 2003. Actual 2003 price was �2.25. 20 cigarettes cost
�1.05, equivalent to �2.18 in 2003. Actual 2003 price was �4.55. A gallon of
four-star petrol cost �1.65, equivalent to �3.42 in 2003. Actual 2003 price was
�3.32. The TV licence cost �46, equivalent to �95.42 in 2003; actual 2003 price
was �116. A family car cost �5,811, equivalent to �12,053 in 2003. Actual 2003
price was �11,145. The average UK house cost �27,622, equivalent to �57,297 in
2003. Actual 2003 price was �129, 443. Average weekly earnings were �147.40,
equivalent to �305.75 in 2003. In fact, 2003 weekly earnings were �464.70.
====================================================================================
28/6/1983, Tuesday (+13,930) Alexander
Borromeo, Filipino footballer, was born.
27/6/1983, Monday (+13,929) Britain
announced plans to build a new airport in the Falkland Islands, costing �215
million.
26/6/1983, Sunday (+13,928) Yasser Arafat was expelled from Syria.
21/6/1093, Tuesday (+13,923) In Britain, David Owen became leader of
the SDP.
18/6/1983, Saturday (+13,920) Sally
Ride became the first woman in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, with four male astronauts.
16/6/1983, Thursday (+13,918) Andropov
was elected Soviet leader of the USSR. However he died on 7/2/1984.
14/6/1983, Tuesday (+13,916) Protests in Santiago, Chile,
against the rule of General Pinochet.
13/6/1983, Monday (+13,915) (1)
The US spacecraft Pioneer 1 became the first man-made object to leave the Solar
System.
(2) Roy Jenkins resigned as leader of the SDP, to be
replaced by David Owen.
12/6/1983, Sunday (+13,914) Michael Foot resigned as
leader of the Labour Party.
11/6/1983, Saturday (+13,913)
British Cabinet reshuffle. Nigel Lawson became Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir
Geoffrey Howe became Foreign Secretary, Leon Brittan became Home Secretary, and
Cecil Parkinson became Trade and Industry Secretary.
10/6/1983, Friday (+13,912) Mrs Thatcher won her second term as Prime Minister.
She gained a majority of 144 seats. The Conservatives won 397 seats, Labour won
209, Nationalists 4, and the Liberal/SDP Alliance won 23 seats. Mr Nigel Lawson became Chancellor of
the Exchequer. The vote was split 42% Conservative, and 28% Labour. Michael
Foot was Labour leader, with a divided and weakened party. The Falkland
victory, as well as declining unemployment, assured her victory.
9/6/1983, Thursday (+13,911) In
Portugal, a centre-Left coalition took office under Mario Soares.
1/6/1983, Wednesday (+13,903) Caroline Bradley, equestrian
showjumping, died (born 14/4/1946).
====================================================================================
25/5/1983, Wednesday (+13,896)
The USA agreed to export high-technology items to China.
24/5/1983, Tuesday (+13,895) A large IRA bomb damaged the
Andersonstown police station in Belfast.
23/5/1983, Monday (+13,894) (Russia) Radio Moscow announcer Vladimir Danchev
praised Afghan Muslims for standing up to Russia; he was removed from the air.
After some 6 months in a psychiatric hospital, he returned to work.
22/5/1983, Sunday (+13,893) (Biology) Albert Claude, Belgian biologist, died.
21/5/1983, Saturday (+13,892) The US made AIDS top health
priority.
19/5/1983, Thursday (+13,890)
17/5/1983, Tuesday (+13,888) Israel, Lebanon, and the US
signed an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
16/5/1983, Monday (+13,887) London police began using
wheel clamps to curb illegal parking.
9/5/1983,
Monday (+13,880)
(1) Mrs Thatcher called a General Election.
(2) Pope John
Paul II retracted the ban on Galileo Galilei.
6/5/1983,
Friday (+13,877)
West Germany pronounced that the �Hitler Diaries� were a fake, made from paper
not available until at least 1955.� The
magazine Stern was swindled out of an
undisclosed sum for the �diaries�. See 23/4/1983.
5/5/1983, Thursday
(+13,876) John Williams, actor, died.
4/5/1983,
Wednesday (+13,875)
President Reagan affirmed his backing for the Right-wing Contras in their
battle against the Sandinistas.
3/5/1983, Tuesday (+13,874)
1/5/1983,
Sunday (+13,872) (1) (Medical) The HIV
virus that caused AIDS was identified
(2) (Poland)
Polish police broke up demonstrations in 20 Polish cities.
====================================================================================
30/4/1983,
Saturday (+13,871) George
Balanchine, Russian dance director, died aged 79.
26/4/1983, Tuesday (+13,867)
Honda opened a new car factory in Ohio, USA.
24/4/1983,
Sunday (+13,865) Turkey
restored political parties.
23/4/1983, Saturday (+13,864) The German weekly magazine Stern announced it had possession of hitherto unknown �Hitler
Diaries�. See 6/5/1983.
22/4/1983,
Friday (+13,863) Lech Walesa, leader of Polish
trades union Solidarnosc, returned to work at the Gdansk shipyard.
21/4/1983,
Thursday (+13,862)
In Britain, the �1 coin
entered circulation for the first time. One pound notes were replaced in
England and Wales, but remained in circulation in Scotland and Northern
Ireland.
20/4/1983, Wednesday
(+13,861) In the US, President Reagan delayed inflation-linked increases in
welfare payments for 6 months and proposed raising the minimum retirement age
to 67 by 2027.
18/4/1983,
Monday (+13,859)
The US Embassy in Beirut was hit by a car bomb, killing 63 people.
15/4/1983,
Friday �(+13,856) The first non-American Disney
theme park opened, near Tokyo.
14/4/1983,
Thursday (+13,855)
The first cordless telephone was introduced in Britain.
12/4/1983,
Tuesday (+13,853)
Chicago got its first Black mayor.
7/4/1983, Thursday (+13,848) Don Peterson and Story
Musgrave performed the first space walk from the Space Shuttle.
4/4/1983, Monday (+13,845) (Space
exploration) The space shuttle Challenger was launched.
3/4/1983, Sunday (+13,844) Easter Sunday.
2/4/1983, Saturday (+13,843) (Football)
Felix Borja, Ecuadorian footballer, was born
1/4/1983, Friday (+13,842)
Thousands of CND supporters formed a human chain linking Greenham Common to
Burghfield, in protest at the installation of Cruise Missiles.
=====================================================================================
31/3/1983, Thursday (+13,841) President Reagan of the US halted further
sales of F-16 fighter aircraft to Israel until it fully withdrew from Lebanon.
30/3/1983, Wednesday (+13,840) (Sport)
Donald Cerrone, athlete, was born.
29/3/1983, Tuesday (+13,839) The
first laptop computer went on
sale, in the USA. It was the TRS-80 Model 100, and came with 8k or 24k of memory.
28/3/1983, Monday (+13,838) Ian
McGregor became chairman of the British Coal Board. He disliked Trqade Unions and public ownership. He now began to close
uneconomic pits, angering the National Union of Miners (NUM).
27/3/1983, Sunday (+13,837) (Sport)
Robert Guerrero, US boxer, was born.
26/3/1983, Saturday (+13,836)
Anthony Blunt, the Queen�s former art adviser, and Soviet spy, died.
25/3/1983, Friday (+13,835)
23/3/1983,
Wednesday (+13,833)
President Reagan proposed his �Star Wars� missile defence system, calling
the Soviet Union an �evil empire�.
22/3/1983, Tuesday
(+13,832) The US Army awarded AM General the contract for a new type of
;land vehicle,, the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or Humvee. This
was to be a versatile off-road vehicle that could ford 5 feet of water.
20/3/1983, Sunday (-+13,830)
18/3/1983,
Friday (+13,828)
King Umberto II of Italy, in exile since 1946, died in a Geneva clinic aged
78.
17/3/1983,
Thursday (+13,827)
Mrs Thatcher was the target of an IRA letter bomb campaign.
15/3/1983,
Tuesday (+13,825) Rebecca West, British
author, died aged 90.
10/3/1983, Thursday (+13,820) (Biology)
Ulf von Euler, Swedish biochemist, died.
9/3/1983, Wednesday (+13,819) Joshua Nkomo fled Zimbabwe.
8/3/1983, Tuesday (+13,818) The Australian Dollar was devalued 10%.
7/3/1983, Monday (+13,817) (Sport) Taylor Tankersley, US baseball player, was born.
6/3/1983, Sunday (+13,816) (1) In West German elections, the incumbent CDU/FDP coalition won a
majority. The Greens won seats in Parliament for the first time.
(2) Australian
Christopher Massey set a world water skiing speed record of 143.08 mph.
5/3/1983, Saturday (+13,815) Labour
politician Bob Hawke won elections in Australia and became Prime Minister. He
succeeded Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who had been in office for seven
years.
4/3/1983, Friday (+13,814) Bertha Wilson was appointed
the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada.
3/3/1983, Thursday (+13,813) Herge, creator of Tintin,
died.
2/3/1983, Wednesday (+13,812) The last episode of
M*A*S*H, watched by 125 million viewers around the world.
1/3/1983, Tuesday (+13,811) Swatch watches went on sale.
Made in Switzerland, they were an attempt to recapture some of the market lost
to Japanese watch makers. The name meant �second watch�, a fun accessory rather
than an upmarket watch.
====================================================================================
28/2/1983, Monday (+13,810) The final episode of M*A*S*H
was broadcast in the US. It was the most watched episode in history.
26/2/1983, Saturday (+13,808)
24/2/1983,
Thursday (+13,806) Tennessee Williams, US
playwright (born 26/3/1911) died in New York City.
23/2/1983,
Wednesday (+13,805)
Sir Adrian Boult, English conductor, died in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, aged
93.
22/2/1983, Tuesday
(+13,804) Hindus killed 3,000 Muslims in Assam, India.
20/2/1983,
Sunday (+13,802)
16/2/1983,
Wednesday (+13,798)
Arson was suspected as forest fires raged in South Australia, making 8,500
homeless.
15/2/1983,
Tuesday (+13,797) The Christian Phalangist
militia withdrew from Beirut, allowing the Lebanese Government control over the
city.
11/2/1983, Friday
(+13,793) Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon resigned following an official
investigation of the massacres of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Chatila
refugee camps, near Beirut.
9/2/1983,
Wednesday (+13,791)
Dennis Nilsen, mass murderer, was arrested after human remains were found
at his house in Muswell Hill, north London.�
Nilsen, 37 years old, confessed to police to the murders of 15 men over
4 years.
8/2/1983,
Tuesday (+13,790)
Shergar, the 1981 Derby Winner, owned by the Aga Khan, was stolen from his
stable in County Kildare and a �2 million (US$ 3.7 million) ransom demanded. The horse was never seen again; it probably
became catfood.
7/2/1983,
Monday (+13,789)
(1) Iran opened a new offensive in the
south-east of Iraq.
(2)
The Polish Communist Party suffered a financial crisis as many members refuse
to pay their dues.
6/2/1983,
Sunday (+13,788)
The trial of Klaus Barbie began in Lyons, France. Known as the �Butcher of
Lyons� during World War Two, Barbie deported hundreds of French Resistance
fighters and Jews on trains to Nazi death camps Barbie was tracked down to
Bolivia by Nazi-hunters Serge and Beatie Klarsfeld in 1971 but not extradited
until 1983.
5/2/1983,
Saturday (+13,787) Klaus Barbie was extradited from
Bolivia to France to face Nazi war crimes charges.
4/2/1983,
Friday (+13,786)
US President Reagan condemned the violence associated with a strike of truck
drivers.
3/2/1983,
Thursday (+13,785)
In the UK, unemployment reached an all-time high of 3,224,715, as Thatcherite monetarist policies began
to bite.
2/2/1983,
Wednesday (+13,784)
The US and USSR began START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) in Geneva.
====================================================================================
30/1/1983,
Sunday (+13,781) Nigeria
expelled 2 million foreigners from its territory. The country�s oil boom of the
1970s had diverted much infrastructure into the oil sector, with much migration
into the cities. Basic infrastructure collapsed and debt and poverty were major
problems. Nigerian President Shehu Shagari made foreigners the scapegoats for
Nigeria�s problems.
26/1/1983,
Wednesday (+13,777) (Space) IRAS, the Infra-Red Astronomy
Satellite, was launched. It observed astronomical phenomena from bodies too
cool to emit visible light. It stopped functioning on 22/11/1983.
19/1/1983,
Wednesday (+13,770)
Nazi war criminal, Klaus Barbie,
was arrested in Bolivia.
18/1/1983,
Tuesday (+13,769) In Britain, the Franks
Report exonerated the Thatcher Government of any blame for Argentina invading
the Falkland Islands on 2/4/1982.
17/1/1983,
Monday (+13,768)
The start of Breakfast TV on BBC with Frank Bough and Selina Scott.
10/1/1983,
Monday (+13,757) Carwyn James, rugby player,
died.
8/1/1983,
Saturday (+13,759)
During a 5-day morale-boosting trip by Mrs Thatcher to the Falkland Islands,
she spoke to troops aboard the HMS Antrim.
7/1/1983,
Friday (+13,758)
The US sent arms to Guatemala.
6/1/1983,
Thursday (+13,757) In a reshuffle of the
British Cabinet, Michael Heseltine became Defence Secretary.
3/1/1983,
Monday (+13,754)
Poland formed new trade unions.
1/1/1983, Saturday (+13,752)
====================================================================================
31/12/1982, Friday (+13,751).
28/12/1982, Tuesday (+13,748)
20/12/1982,
Monday (+13,740) Artur Rubenstein,
Polish-American pianist, died aged 95.
19/12/1982,
Sunday (+13,739) Poland
lifted martial law. In May 1981 more than 3,000 Poles were arrested when Polish
police used teargas and water cannons� to
break up anti-government demonstrations in Warsaw. Other serious riots took
place in the Polish cities of Szcecin, Wroclaw, the steel town of Nova Huta,
and the Baltic port of Gdansk where Solidarnosc began. In October 1981
Solidarnosc and Rural Solidarnosc were banned, but their leader, Lech Walesa, who
had been held in prison since late 1981, was released on 12/11/1982.
17/12/1982,
Friday (+13,737)
15/12/1982,
Wednesday (+13,735)
The border between Spain and Gibraltar opened for the first time in 13
years, to pedestrians only.
14/12/1982,
Tuesday (+13,734) In Ireland, Dr Garrett
Fitzgerald was elected Prime Minister as head of a Labour-Fine Gael coalition.
12/12/1982,
Sunday (+13,732) 30,000
women formed a human chain around the 14.5 km (9 mile) perimeter fence of the Greenham Common US airbase in Berkshire
to protest at the installation of 96 Cruise Missiles there.
8/12/1982,
Wednesday (+13,728) The UK Government banned
Danny Morrison and Gerry Adams from entering the UK
mainland.
7/12/1982, Tuesday
(+13,727) The first execution by lethal injection was carried out in the USA, in
Texas, on Charles Books Jr.
6/12/1982, Monday (+13,726) An IRA bomb in the Droppin
Well pub in BallyKelly killed 19 people and injured 66.
5/12/1982, Sunday (+13,725) The
Greater London Council invited Danny Morrison and Gerry Adams to London,
causing outrage.
2/12/1982, Thursday (+13,722) At
the University of Utah, 61 year old retired dentist Barney Clark became the
first person to receive a permanent artificial heart. He lived for 112 days
with the device.
====================================================================================
24/11/1982, Wednesday (+13,714)
In Ireland, the second General Election of 1982 again gave no clear majority;
the incumbents Fianna Fail held the most seats. A coalition was formed with
Fine Gael, 14/12/1982.
23/11/1982, Tuesday (+13,713) In
the USA, TV commercials were deregulated, removing restrictions on length and
content.
22/11/1982, Monday (+13,712)
Ramiz Alia became new Head of State in Albania, succeeding Haxhi Lleshi.
19/11/1982, Friday (+13,709)
16/11/1982, Tuesday (+13,706) Ivor Jones, rugby player, died.
15/11/1982, Monday (+13,705) (Rail Tunnels) The Haruna rail tunnel,
15.35 km long, Japan, also the Nakayama Tunnel, 14.65 km long, also the Uonuma
Tunnel, 8.65 km long, als0 the Shin Shimizu Tunnel, 13.5 km long, opened.
14/11/1982, Sunday (+13,704) In Britain, 20,000 women surrounded the
Greenham Common airbase in a peaceful protest.
13/11/1982, Saturday (+13,703) A memorial to the veterans of the Vietnam
War was unveiled in Washington DC.
12/11/1982, Friday (+13,702) (Poland) In Poland, Lech Walesa was freed after one year�s detention.
11/11/1982, Thursday (+13,701) (Ireland)
Sinn Fein and the SDLP boycotted the opening of the new Northern Ireland
Assembly.
10/11/1982, Wednesday (+13,700) (1) (Russia) Leonid Illyich Brezhnev, Soviet
leader for 18 years, died of a heart attack aged 75. He was succeeded by Yuri
Andropov.
(2) Geoffrey
Prime was jailed for 15 years for spying.
9/11/1982, Tuesday (+13,699)
Thousands of Soviet troops died in a fire inside the Salang Pass road tunnel,
Afghanistan.
8/11/1982, Monday (+13,698) James Dickinson, footballer, died (born
24/4/1925).
7/11/1982, Sunday (+13,697) Salvador Contreras, Mexican composer,
died aged 71
6/11/1982, Saturday (+13,696) Sowelu, Japanese pop singer, was born in
Tokyo, Japan.
5/11/1982, Friday (+13,695) Jacques Tati, French film-maker, died aged
74.
4/11/1982, Thursday (+13,694) Soft landing on Venus by the Soviet space
probe Venera 14.
3/11/1982, Wednesday (+13,693) EH Carr, English historian of Soviet
Russia, died aged 90.
2/11/1982, Tuesday (+13,692) Democrats made large gains in US mid-term
elections. The Republicans retained control of the Senate.
1/11/1982, Monday (+13,691) Channel
4 began transmitting. It aimed to cater to minority audiences. The TV show Countdown
was launched.
===================================================================================
31/10/1982, Sunday (+13,690) The
Thames Flood Barrier was raised for the first time.
30/10/1982, Saturday (+13,689) New Constitution in Portugal ended the
influence of the military in government.
29/10/1982, Friday (+13,688) Nicolas Gob, Belgian actor, was born.
28/10/1982, Thursday (+13,687) The
Socialist Party won Spanish elections, and Felipe Gonzalez was elected Prime
Minister.
24/10/1982, Sunday (+13,683)
20/10/1982, Wednesday (+13,679) Sinn Fein won five seats in elections to
the Northern Ireland Assembly.
19/10/1982, Tuesday (+13,678)
The Northern Ireland Office announced that support for the loss-making De
Lorean car plant in Belfast would end, causing its closure. Around UK� 70
million of Government money had gone into the factory, sited in an area of 21%
unemployment. The gull-winged car design failed to attract buyers during a
recession in America, and high executive salaries and the costs of New York
offices did not help. The closure would cost some 1500 jobs in Belfast.
18/10/1982, Monday (+13,677) Pierre Mendes France, French politician,
died aged 75.
17/10/1982, Sunday (+13,676) (Football)
Nick Riewoldt, Australian footballer, was born.
16/10/1982, Saturday (+13,675) (Medical) Hans
Hugo Selye, Austrian endocrinologist who pioneered studies on stress, died.
15/10/1982, Friday (+13,674) Imran Naqvi, actor, was born.
14/10/1982, Thursday (+13,673) 5,837
people were married simultaneously in Seoul, South Korea; the world�s largest
mass wedding.
13/10/1982, Wednesday (+13,672) Strikes in Polish shipyards were
suppressed by the military.
12/10/1982, Tuesday (+13,671),
A Falklands Victory Parade was held in the City of London.
11/10/1982, Monday (+13,670) King
Henry VIII�s flagship Mary Rose was
raised at Southsea, Hampshire, having sunk in 1545. �This was the culmination of 17 years research
on the wreck, involving almost 25,000 dives.
10/10/1982, Sunday (+13,669) The US imposed trade sanctions on Poland.
9/10/1982, Saturday (+13,668) (Jewish)
In an attack
on a synagogue in Rome, 1 died.
8/10/1982, Friday (+13,667) The trades union Solidarnosc was outlawed in
Poland.
7/10/1982, Thursday (+13,666) (1) In the UK, the major banks cut their base rate
from 10.5% to 10%..� British Steel warned
that one or more of its large plants would have to close.
(2) Andrew Lloyd Webber�s musical CATS premiered on
Broadway. It ran for 18 years and 7.485 performances, until 10/9/2000.
3/10/1982, Sunday (+13,662)
2/10/1982, Saturday (+13,661) Paul
Volcker, Chairman of the US Federal reserve System, expressed concerns about
the damage to the US economy from anti-inflation policies, with higher
unemployment and interest rates. Monetarism was abandoned, and after peaking at
10.8% in 11/1982, US unemployment began to fall. Later, lower inflation and
interest rates created a recovery in US shares.
1/10/1982, Friday (+13,660) In Germany, the Christian
Democrat leader Helmut Kohl was elected, replacing Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor
of West Germany.
=====================================================================================
30/9/1982, Thursday (+13,659)
The TV sitcom Cheers first broadcast on US TV. It was set in a bar in Boston.
The TV show Frasier was a spin-off.
28/9/1982, Tuesday (+13,657)
27/9/1982, Monday (+13,656) On the opening day of the
Labour Party Conference in Blackpool, delegates voted to exclude the left-wing
group Militant Tendency.� The Labour
Party began to move to the Right.
26/9/1982, Sunday (+13,655) US President Reagan sent
marines into Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission; Italian and French troops were
also to arrive, and Syrian and Israeli forces would leave Lebanon. In Israel,
300,000 Israelis had demonstrated against their country�s involvement in the
massacres (see 17/9/1982).
25/9/1982, Saturday (+13,654) 400,000 people marched in
Israel demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
22/9/1982, Wednesday (+13,651)
The TUC staged a �day of action� in support of the NHS workers pay claim.� UK unemployment rose to 3,343,075 in
September.
19/9/1982, Sunday (+13,648) In
Sweden, the Social Democrats won the elections.
18/9/1982, Saturday (+13,647)
Christian Phalangist militiamen entered West Beirut refugee camps and massacred
800 Palestinians.
17/9/1982, Friday (+13,646) (1)
Lebanese Christian militia massacred hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the
Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Lebanon. This was in revenge for the
assassination of Christian president-elect Bashir Gemayel, replaced by his
brother Amin.
(2) The British aircraft carrier Invincible returned from the Falklands, with Prince Andrew on
board, to a rapturous welcome at Portsmouth.�
UK inflation dropped to 8%.
16/9/1982, Thursday
(+13,645) Israeli troops now controlled all of Beirut.
15/9/1982, Wednesday (+13,644) In response to the
assassination of the Lebanese President, Israeli troops fought their way into
West Beirut
14/9/1982, Tuesday (+13,643) Mr Bachir Gemayel,
President-elect of Lebanon, was killed when a terrorist bomb destroyed his
party HQ in Christian East Beirut.
13/9/1982, Monday (+13,642) A
report by Lord Shackleton on proposals for the economic development of the
Falkland Islands recommended investment of �100 million.
5/9/1982, Sunday (+13,634) Douglas
Bader, the famous WW2 pilot with two artificial legs, died. He was born on
21/2/1910.
3/9/1982, Friday (+13,632) Anti-Mafia chief murdered in
Rome.
2/9/1982, Thursday (+13,631) The Israeli Government
totally rejected President Reagan�s new Middle East Peace Plan, and on 5/9/1982
announced that 13 new settlements were to be built in Gaza and the West Bank.
1/9/1982, Wednesday (+13,630)
At the 12th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, Hua
Guofeng, who had succeeded Chairman Mao, was removed from the Politburo.
===================================================================================
31/8/1982, Tuesday (+13,629) Israel ousted the PLO from
Beirut, Lebanon.
30/8/1982, Monday (+13,628)
Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman died.
29/8/1982, Sunday (+13,627) The
officially-recognised synthesis of element 109, Meitnerium at the Institute for
Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt, Germany.
26/8/1982, Thursday (+13,624) Argentina lifted the ban on political
parties.
20/8/1982, Friday (+13,618) A multinational force landed
in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon. French troops arrived on
21st August, and US Marines on the 25th.
19/8/1982, Thursday (+13,617) US
Congress approved a reversal of earlier tax-cutting measures.
17/8/1982, Tuesday (+13,615)
15/8/1982, Sunday (+13,613) (Biology) Hugo Theorell, Swedish biochemist, died.
14/8/1982, Saturday (+13,612) Barclays Bank opened on a
Saturday, for the first time in 13 years.
12/8/1982, Thursday (+13,610) Israeli
jets bombed West Beirut. The city was divided by the Green Line.
5/8/1982, Thursday (+13,603)
John Charnley, British orthopaedic surgeon, died aged 70.
4/8/1982, Wednesday (+13,602) The UN censured Israel, as
its troops were still in Lebanon.
====================================================================================
31/7/1982, Saturday (+13,598)
29/7/1982, Thursday (+13,596)
Vladimir Zworykin, Russian-born US pioneer of TV technology, died aged 92.
28/7/1982, Wednesday (+13,595)
LeAnn Rimes, singer, was born.
27/7/1982, Tuesday (+13,594)
Israeli jet fighters attacked West Beirut, killing 120 including civilians.
26/7/1982, Monday (+13,593) The West German rescue ship,
Cape Anamur, entered its home port of Hamburg with 285 Vietnamese boat people
who were fleeing the Communist regime which took over South Vietnam after the
withdrawal of the USA. Boat people faced a perilous journey even before they
tried to find asylum, facing dangers such as rape, robbery, murder, and
abduction on the seas from pirates.
25/7/1982, Sunday (+13,592)
23/7/1982, Friday (+13,590) The International Whaling
Commission decided to end whaling by 1986.
22/7/1982, Thursday (+13,589) Britain lifted the 200-mile
exclusion zone around the Falkland Islands.
21/7/1982, Wednesday (+13,588) The Reverend Moon, of the
Unification Church or Moonies, married 4,000 in a mass ceremony in New York.
20/7/1982, Tuesday (+13,587) IRA bombs killed many in London�s Hyde and Regent Parks. The first
bomb exploded at 10.43.a.m. as members of the Queen�s cavalry were passing.
Four soldiers were killed and many civilians wounded by the bomb which was
packed with 4 and 6 inch nails, also killing many horses. The second bomb went
off under the bandstand at Regents Park at 12.55.p.m. where members of the
Royal Green Jackets were giving a concert. 7 soldiers were killed and 28
injured.
19/7/1982, Monday (+13,586)
18/7/1982, Sunday (+13,585) Priyanka
Chopra, actress, was born.
17/7/1982, Saturday (+13,584) Israeli
Prime Minister Menachem Begin gave the PLO a deadline of 30 days to leave
Lebanon. On 30/8/1982 Yasser Arafat left for Tunisia.
15/7/1982, Thursday (+13,582)
13/7/1982, Tuesday (+13,580)
Iranian troops entered Iraq, attempting to take Basra, but were repulsed.
12/7/1982, Monday (+13,579) Hostilities between Britain
and Argentina, over the Falklands, officially ceased.
9/7/1982, Friday (+13,576) An
intruder entered the Queen�s bedroom at Buckingham Palace.� Michael Fagan, 35, asked the Queen for a
cigarette whilst sitting on the end of her bed in Buckingham Palace.
7/7/1982, Wednesday (+13,574) Hungary became a member of
the World Bank.
6/7/1982, Tuesday (+13,573) In Britain, Lord Franks was
appointed to Chair of the Committee of Privy Councillors to investigate the
background to the Falklands Invasion.
5/7/1982, Monday (+13,572)
4/7/1982, Sunday (+13,571) The men�s finals of Wimbledon
were scheduled for a Sunday for the first time. Jimmy Connors beat his
fellow-American John McEnroe.
3/7/1982, Saturday (+13,570) (1) (Israel) In Israel,
Peace Now organised a protest against the war in Lebanon; 100,000 Israelis took
part. However a counter-demonstration was organised by supporters of the war,
with 200,000 people, many bussed in from distant Israeli towns.
(2) (Trades Unions) UK Prime
Minister Mrs Thatcher, shortly after the Falklands War, made a speech� at Cheltenham where she spoke of the
�Falklands factor and linked the threat �to Britain� from �the Argies� to the
threat posed by industrial action by the railway Trades Unions NUR and ASLEF.
2/7/1982, Friday (+13,569) Roy Jenkins was elected
leader of the SDP.
1/7/1982, Thursday (+13,568) The average UK house price
was �24,851.
====================================================================================
29/6/1982, Tuesday (+13,566)
28/6/1982, Monday (+13,565) (Rail Tunnels) The Furka Base Tunnel,
Switzerland, 15.381 km long, opened on the Furka-Oberalp line.
27/6/1982, Sunday (+13,564) (Space exploration) The US space
shuttle Columbia made its fourth flight.
23/6/1982, Wednesday (+13,560) (Rail Tunnels) The Ichinoseki Tunnel,
Japan, 9.74 km long, was opened on the Ichinoseki-Katami line.
21/6/1982, Monday (+13,558) (UK Royal) Prince William (Arthur Philip
Louis) was born in London to Prince Charles (Prince of Wales) and Princess
Diana.
18/6/1982, Friday (+13,555) (Argentina,
Falklands Islands) Fourteen
Argentinean Army Generals at an army base decided unanimously to depose General
Galtieri, who had taken on the UK to claim the Falklands Islands. By declaring
an end to all hostilities, the 10,600 Argentinean PoWs still held on the
Falklands could be repatriated.
17/6/1982, Thursday (+13,554) The body of Roberto Calvi, a
key figure in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, was found hanging under Blackfriars
Bridge, London. Archbishop Marcinkus, President of the Vatican Bank, was also
linked to the affair.
15/6/1982, Tuesday (+13,552)
14/6/1982, Monday (+13,551) Argentinean forces formally
surrendered to British forces on the Falkland Islands.�
13/6/1982, Sunday (+13,550) King
Khalid of Saudi Arabia died.� His
brother, Fahd, became King.
12/6/1982, Saturday (+13,549)
800,000 marched for peace in New York City.
11/6/1982, Friday (+13,548) (1) The USA moved towards a protectionist policy,
placing tariffs on imported steel to protect its own steel industry.
(2) The QE2
liner returned to Southampton, from the Falklands, carrying the survivors from
three wrecked British warships.
10/6/1982, Thursday (+13,547)
Israeli forces invading Lebanon reached the edge of Beirut.
9/6/1982, Wednesday (+13,546) Israeli forces in Lebanon were just 3
kilometres south of Beirut Airport and had reached the Beirut to Damascus
Highway, where they were fighting against Syrian forces.
8/6/1982, Tuesday (+13,545)
British troops landed near Port Stanley, Falkland Islands.
7/6/1982, Monday (+13,544) (1) 7/6/1982, Hissein Habre�s forces seized
N�Djamena and forced Oueddi to flee. N�Djamena, the Chadian capital, is located
in southern Chad, latitude 12 N. However Chad north of 15 N was occupied by
pro-Libyan forces, effectively partitioning the country.
�(2) Graceland,
the mansion in Memphis, Tennessee where Elvis Presley lived until his death in
1977, was opened to the public.
6/6/1982, Sunday (+13,543) Israel
invaded Lebanon, eventually penetrating as far north as Beirut.� The UN Security Council demanded that Israel
withdraw.
5/6/1982, Saturday(+13,542) Scott Speer, US film-maker, was born.
4/6/1982, Friday (+13,541) Israeli jets bombed guerrilla bases in
Lebanon in retaliation for the Argov shooting.
3/6/1982, Thursday (+13,540)
Israeli Ambassador, Argov, was shot by Palestinians.
2/6/1982, Wednesday (+13,539) Jewel Staite, Canadian actress, was
born.
1/6/1982. Tuesday (+13,538) British
forces continued their advance in the Falkland Islands, (see 2/4/1982),
fighting with the Argentineans 12 miles from Port Stanley. The Argentinian
forces surrendered on 14/6/1982, the day Port Stanley was recaptured. Total
casualties were 254 British and 750 Argentine lives.
=====================================================================================
31/5/1982, Monday (+13,537) Jonathan Tucker, US film director, was
born.
30/5/1982, Sunday (+13,536) Spain
joined NATO.� She became the 16th
member and the first to join NATO since West Germany was admitted in 1955.
29/5/1982, Saturday (+13,535) (1) Pope John Paul II visited Canterbury Cathedral
with the Archbishop. On 30/5/1982 he visited Coventry Cathedral, and spoke of
his hope for an end to war.
(2) Battle of Goose Green in the Falkland Islands.
British paratroopers defeated a larger Argentine force in the first land battle
of the war.
28/5/1982, Friday (+13,534) (1) British troops reached Darwin in the Falklands
Islands.
(2) Pope John Paul II landed at Gatwick Airport, becoming
the first Pope to visit the United Kingdom for 450 years.
27/5/1982, Thursday (+13,533) Natalya Neidhart, Canadian wrestler, was
born.
26/5/1982, Wednesday (+13,532) Kielder
Water, a large reservoir in Northumbria, opened.
25/5/1982, Tuesday (+13,531) HMS
Coventry and the merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor were sunk in the
Falkland War, with the loss of 32 lives. The loss of Atlantic Conveyor was a disaster that could soon have meant the end
of the British attempt to regain the Falklands.
24/5/1982, Monday (+13,530) Iranian
troops retook Khorramshahr.
22/5/1982, Saturday (+13,528)
21/5/1982, Friday (+13,527) Argentine rockets sunk the
British cruiser Ardent; 22 men died. On 24/5/1982 another British
cruiser, the Antelope, was sunk, with 8 men lost.� On 25/5/1982 Argentine Exocet missiles
destroyed HMS Coventry, a destroyer, and the Cunard container ship Atlantic
Conveyor; 32 people were killed. This day 5,000 UK troops landed at San
Carlos Bay on the Falkland Islands and raised the Union Jack.
20/5/1982, Thursday (+13,526) (Science) Merle Anthony Truve, US physicist, died.
18/5/1982, Tuesday (+13,524)
14/5/1982, Friday (+13,520) British
forces landed on East Falkland island, to oust the Argentinean forces.
13/5/1982, Thursday (+13,519) The EEC banned the rubber
bullets being used by police in Northern Ireland.
12/5/1982, Wednesday (+13,518) (1)
A Spanish priest, Juan Hernandes, tried to stab Pope John Paul II with a
bayonet as he visited the Fatima shrine on a pilgrimage.
(2) The QE2 sailed south to join the Falkland Islands
Task Force.
11/5/1982, Tuesday (+13,517)
9/5/1982, Sunday (+13,515) Israeli planes attacked the
PLO bases south of Beirut.
8/5/1982, Saturday (+13,514)
Canadian Formula I racing car driver Gilles Villeneuve was killed in an
accident whilst qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.
7/5/1982, Friday (+13,513)
6/5/1982, Thursday (+13,512) Hungary joined the
International Monetary Fund.
5/5/1982, Wednesday (+13,511) Secretary Janet Smith in the
computer science department at Vanderbilt University was injured when she
opened a package from the Unabomber.
4/5/1982, Tuesday (+13,510) An Argentinean Exocet missile
sank the British ship HMS Sheffield. 20 men were killed.
3/5/1982, Monday (+13,509)
2/5/1982, Sunday (+13,508)
The Argentine cruiser General Belgrano
was torpedoed and sunk by British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror, off the
Falkland Islands. 800 of the 1,042 crew survived. The General Belgrano,
originally called The Phoenix, had
been sold to Argentina by the |USA after World War Two, and was the last surviving
warship from Pearl Harbour.
1/5/1982, Saturday (+13,507) British naval forces, the HMS Hermes under commander Sandy
Woodward, entered the Argentine exclusion zone around the Falklands, and the
Falklands War began. Stanley Airport was bombed by UK forces.
======================================================================================
30/4/1982, Friday (+13,506) The
US Government, after some discussion, expressed support for Britain in the
Falklands war.
25/4/1982, Sunday (+13,501) Israel
withdrew from the Sinai, after 15 years of occupation. Britain recaptured South
Georgia from Argentina.
22/4/1982, Thursday (+13,498)
Ricardo Ezecson dos Santos Leite, Brazilian footballer, was born.
21/4/1982, Wednesday (+13,497)
Menachem Begin, Israeli Prime Minister, ordered the Israeli Army to attack PLO
bases in Lebanon, in retaliation for a breach of a 1981 ceasefire agreement.
20/4/1982, Tuesday (+13,496)
Andrew Sandham, cricketer, died.
19/4/1982, Monday (+13,495) The
USA banned its citizens from tourist trips to Cuba.
17/4/1982, Saturday (+13,493) Salisbury,
capital of Zimbabwe, was renamed Harare.
15/4/1982, Thursday (+13,491) The
5 men who killed Sadat in Egypt were executed. They were Muslim fundamentalists
who disagreed with Sadat�s negotiating with Israel.
12/4/1982, Monday (+13,488) 12,000 Argentinean troops
were stationed in the Falklands.
11/4/1982, Sunday (+13,487)
Easter Sunday.
10/4/1982, Saturday (+13,486)
6/4/1982, Tuesday (+13,482) (1)
A blizzard dumped 1-2 feet of snow in the north-eastern US, unprecedented for
April.
(2) Britain banned the import of Argentinean products.
5/4/1982, Monday (+13,481) The British Foreign
Secretary, Lord Carrington, resigned, as
a British invasion fleet left Portsmouth for the Falklands. On 18/3/1982
an Argentine scrap-metal dealer had raised the Argentine flag on South Georgia,
a sign of intention from Argentina that was not interpreted correctly by the
British Foreign Office. See 1/5/1982.