- Feb 1 Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 at perihelion
Event of Interest
Feb 1 Diana, Princess of Wales visits New York City
Diana Spencer
Event of Interest
Feb 2 F. W. de Klerk replaces P. W. Botha as South Africa's National Party leader
F. W. de Klerk
P. W. Botha
- Feb 3 Baseball's National League announces Yanks' broadcaster Bill White will its 1st African American President
- Feb 3 Military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay
- Feb 3 Start 1st Test Cricket, NZ v Pak, washed out
- Feb 4 Australian cricketer Dean Jones scores 216 v WI at the Adelaide Oval
- Feb 5 Kareem Abdul-Jabar becomes 1st NBA player to score 38,000 points
Event of Interest
Feb 6 Solidarity union leader Lech Wałęsa begins negotiating with Polish government
Lech Wałęsa
NHL All-Star Game
Feb 7 40th NHL All-Star Game, Northlands Coliseum, Edmonton: Campbell Conference beats Wales Conference, 9-5; MVP: Wayne Gretzky, LA Kings, C
Wayne Gretzky
Event of Interest
Feb 7 Tennis superstar Björn Borg apparently attempts suicide in Milan
Björn Borg
- Feb 8 5 cm of snow falls in outskirts of Los Angeles
- Feb 8 American jockey Chris Antley begins record 64-day consecutive winning streak; ends 1 May and includes 147 winners from 486 mounts
- Feb 8 US Boeing 707 crashes into Santa Maria mountain, 145 die
- Feb 9 Kevin Johnson (Phoenix) ends NBA free throw streak of 57 games
- Feb 9 Michael Manley's Socialist Party wins Jamaica parliamentary election
Hall of Fame
Feb 10 Celtic KC Jones & Cavalier Lenny Wilkens elected to NBA Hall of Fame
Lenny Wilkens
- Feb 10 Miami Vice's 100th episode seen on TV
- Feb 10 Minor League Football System opens organizational meeting, St Louis
- Feb 10 Ron Brown chosen 1st African American chairman of a major US party (Democrats)
- Feb 10 Test Cricket debut of Aaqib Javed, Pak v NZ age 16 years 189 days
- Feb 10 Tony Robinson of Jamaica becomes Nottingham's 1st black sheriff
- Feb 10 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- Feb 10 To gain deregulation WWF admits pro wrestling is an exhibition & not a sport, in a NJ court
- Feb 10 39th Berlin International Film Festival: "Rain Man" wins the Golden Bear
- Feb 11 Barbara Clementine Harris consecrated 1st female bishop (Episcopalian)
- Feb 11 US female Figure Skating championship won by Jill Trenary
- Feb 12 39th NBA All-Star Game, Astrodome, Houston, TX: West beats East, 143-134; MVP: Karl Malone, Utah Jazz, F
- Feb 12 5 Pakistani Muslim rioters killed protesting "Satanic Verses" novel
- Feb 12 50th PGA Seniors' Championship Men's Golf, PGA National GC: Larry Mowry wins only career major title; beats Miller Barber & Al Geiberger by 1 stroke
- Feb 12 Barbara Harris becomes 1st female bishop of a US Episcopal church
- Feb 12 Wayne Gretzky sets 2 records, his 45th hat trick & 10th 40+ goal season
- Feb 12 Thursday's Child sets sailing record, NY-Cape Horn-SF, 80 d 20 h
- Feb 12 US male Figure Skating championship won by Christopher Bowman
- Feb 12 Loyalist paramilitary group kill Pat Finucane, a Belfast lawyer who represented republican hunger striker Bobby Sands, while he is having dinner with family
- Feb 13 Kidnapped Belgian Premier Vanden Boeynants freed
- Feb 13 Salvadoran army attacks Encuentros hospital, rapes, kills patients
- Feb 13 Oklahoma football player Charles Thompson is charged with selling cocaine; he is later sentenced to 2 years in prison
- Feb 14 African National Congress (ANC) opens office in Amsterdam
- Feb 14 Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 mill damages for Bhopol disaster
- Feb 14 World's 1st satellite Skyphone opens
Historic Publication
Feb 14 Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie and his publishers due to his novel "Satanic Verses". A bounty is also placed on his head.
Ayatollah Khomeini
Salman Rushdie
- Feb 16 Egypt, Iraq, Jordan & North Yemen form common market
Contract of Interest
Feb 16 Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser signs $7.9M-3 year contract
Orel Hershiser
Contract of Interest
Feb 16 Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens signs $7.5M-3 year contract
Roger Clemens
Event of Interest
Feb 17 Former baseball player and manager Leo Durocher injured in a car crash
Leo Durocher
Music Single
Feb 18 "A Better Man" single released by Clint Black (Billboard Song of the Year 1989)
Clint Black
- Feb 19 "Legs Diamond" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 64 performances
- Feb 19 Edgar Bowers wins Bollingen Prize
- Feb 19 31st Daytona 500: Darrell Waltrip wins when Hendrick Racing team decides to use fuel strategy, being the only car not to pit in the closing laps
- Feb 20 Members of 1949 Oklahoma football team cancel an April reunion because of the deplorable conduct of Oklahoma players
- Feb 20 An IRA bomb destroys a section of a British Army barracks in Ternhill, England
Event of Interest
Feb 22 UK physicist Stephen Hawking calls the proposed missile defense system known as Star Wars a "deliberate fraud"
Stephen Hawking
- Feb 22 US authors demonstrate against Iranian death threats against Salman Rushdee, author of "The Satanic Verses"
- Feb 22 31st Grammy Awards: Don't Worry Be Happy, Faith, Tracy Chapman
- Feb 22 1st Spanish commercial on network TV (Pepsi-Cola-CBS Grammy Award)
- Feb 24 150 million year old fossil egg found in Utah with a fossilized dinosaur embryo inside, the oldest dinosaur egg yet found in the Northern Hemisphere
- Feb 24 Harold E Ballard sells CFL Hamilton Tiger-Cats to David Braley
Event of Interest
Feb 24 Margaret Ray found in David Letterman's home, claims to be his wife
David Letterman
Event of Interest
Feb 24 Panamanian boxing legend Roberto Durán wins 4th world title in different weight divisions when he beats Iran Barkley in a 12 round split decision in Atlantic City; 37 year old Durán wins WBC middleweight title
Roberto Durán
- Feb 25 1st independent blue-collar labor union in Communist Hungary forms
- Feb 25 Javed Miandad scores 271 v NZ at Eden Park
- Feb 25 Lowest baramotric pressure in Netherlands (956.7 mbar at De Bilt)
Boxing Title Fight
Feb 25 Mike Tyson TKOs Frank Bruno in 5 for heavyweight boxing title
Mike Tyson
Frank Bruno
Event of Interest
Feb 26 Dallas Cowboys fire coach Tom Landry after a 29-year career
Tom Landry
- Feb 26 "Jerome Robbins' Broadway" opens at Imperial Theater NYC for 634 performances
- Feb 26 Lowest barometric pressure in Netherlands (95.5 hPa)
Event of Interest
Feb 26 NY Yankees announce that Tom Seaver is their new TV sportscaster
Tom Seaver
- Feb 26 California court throws out most of Margo Adams's $12 million breach-of- contract suit against Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs
- Feb 27 German war criminals Aus der Funten and Fischer freed in Holland
- Feb 27 Venezuela is rocked by the riots of Caracazo
- Feb 28 Gretchen Polhemus, 23, (Texas), crowned 38th Miss USA
- Feb 28 Memo by Brian Gumbel criticizing Today Show co-workers becomes public
- Feb 28 10-time All Star second baseman and manager Red Schoendienst and umpire Al Barlick are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame