1989 in History

Events in History

Events 1 - 100 of 455

• Jan 1 NYC transit fare rises from $1.00 to $1.15
• Jan 1 Year of the Young Reader begins

• Jan 2 UCLA beats Arkansas Razorbacks, 17-3 to win the Cotton Bowl Classic in Dallas; record 7th consecutive football bowl game victory for the Bruins
• Jan 3 Russian newspaper Izvestia gets its 1st commercial advertisement
• Jan 4 Comet Tempel 1 at perihelion
• Jan 4 US F-14s shoot down 2 Libyan jet fighters over Mediterranean

• Jan 7 International Conference on Limitation of Chemical Weapons opens in Paris
• Jan 8 Boeing 737-400 crashes at Kegworth, England, 46 die
• Jan 8 Soviet Union promises to eliminate stockpiles of chemical weapons
• Jan 8 Beginning of Japanese Heisei era.
• Jan 11 140 nations agree to ban chemical weapons (poison gas, etc)
• Jan 11 Kindergarten student caught with loaded handgun at Bronx school
• Jan 12 6 claim to survive in rubble, 35 days after Armenian quake (hoax)

• Jan 13 Computers across Britain hit by "Friday the 13th"/Jerusalem virus
• Jan 13 Ruins of Mashkan-shapir (occupied 2050-1720 BC) found in Iraq
• Jan 13 Subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz begins 1-year jail sentence

• Jan 14 29 year old French woman gives birth to sextuplets in Paris
• Jan 14 Former Belgian premier Paul Vanden Boeynants kidnapped
• Jan 15 Cerebral Palsy telethon raises $22.6 million
• Jan 16 USSR announces plan for 2-yr manned mission to Mars
• Jan 17 Gunman opens fire in California schoolyard; 5 students slain, 30 wounded
• Jan 17 Murden & Metz are 1st women to reach South Pole overland (on skis)
• Jan 18 Astronomers discover pulsar in remnants of Supernova 1987A (LMC)
• Jan 18 IBM announces earnings up 10.4% in 1988

• Jan 20 George H. W. Bush inaugurated as 41st US President, Dan Quayle becomes 44th Vice President

• Jan 22 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
• Jan 23 Challenge to "who is a Jew" law filed in Israeli Supreme Court
• Jan 23 100s feared dead after a powerful earthquake strikes the Soviet Central Asian republic of Tajikistan
• Jan 24 1st reported case of AIDS transmitted by heterosexual oral sex
• Jan 25 Augusto Alcalde, 1st South American Zen teacher, receives Dharma Transmission


• Jan 26 AT&T reports 1st loss in 103 years; $1.67 B in 1988
• Jan 26 Madison Square Garden announces 2-year $100m renovation plan
• Jan 26 Test debut of Mark Taylor, Australia v West Indies, Sydney
• Jan 26 US computer security expert warns of catastrophic virus
• Jan 27 German war criminals Fischer & Aus der Funten freed
• Jan 29 Cleveland's Chris Dudley misses 5 free throws during 1 foul attempt
• Jan 29 Dow jumps 38.06 recoups 508-pt loss since Oct 1987; index at 2,256.43
• Jan 29 Episcopal Church of the United States appoints Barbara Harris as its first female bishop
• Jan 29 L I preacher Gene Profeta pleads guilty to tax-evasion
• Jan 29 Orlando Arena opens in Orlando, Florida
• Jan 29 USSR's Phobos II enters Martian orbit
• Jan 30 Five Pharaoh sculptures from 1470 BC found at temple of Luxor
• Jan 30 Joel Steinberg found guilty of 1st degree manslaughter of daughter
• Jan 30 Olympian, Bruce Kimball, is sentenced to 17 years in prison for killing 2 teenagers in a drunk driving accident
• Jan 30 The American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan closes.
• Feb 1 Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 at perihelion

• Feb 1 The Western Australian towns of Kalgoorlie and Boulder amalgamate to form the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
• Feb 2 0°F (-18°C) or below in 15 US states

• Feb 3 Military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay

• Feb 8 5 cm of snow falls in outskirts of Los Angeles
• Feb 8 US Boeing 707 crashes into Santa Maria mountain, 145 die
• Feb 9 Michael Manley's Socialist Party wins Jamaica parliamentary election
• Feb 10 Miami Vice's 100th episode seen on TV
• Feb 10 Ron Brown chosen 1st African American chairman of a major US party (Democrats)
• Feb 10 Tony Robinson of Jamaica becomes Nottingham's 1st black sheriff
• Feb 10 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• Feb 11 Barbara Clementine Harris consecrated 1st female bishop (Episcopalian)
• Feb 11 US female Figure Skating championship won by Jill Trenary
• Feb 12 5 Pakistani Muslim rioters killed protesting "Satanic Verses" novel
• Feb 12 Barbara Harris becomes 1st female bishop of a US Episcopal church
• 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 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

• Feb 14 The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System are placed into orbit.
• Feb 15 Israel attacks border strip Taba near Egypt

• Feb 16 Egypt, Iraq, Jordan & North Yemen form common market
• Feb 16 William Hayden becomes Governor-General of Australia
• Feb 17 6-week study of Arctic atmosphere shows no ozone "hole"
• Feb 17 Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia & Libya form common market
• Feb 17 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
• Feb 19 Edgar Bowers wins Bollingen Prize
• 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
• Feb 21 US bust Chinese drug smuggling ring, capturing a record 820 lbs of heroin worth $1 billion at street value
• Feb 22 Finish ministry of Public health installs sex vacation to thwart stress
• Feb 22 NY Lotto pays $26.9 million to one winner (#s are 1-5-12-19-44-50)
• Feb 22 US authors demonstrate against Iranian death threats against Salman Rushdee, author of "The Satanic Verses"
• 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 US Boeing 747 loses parts of roof over Pacific, 9 die
• Feb 24 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• Feb 25 1st independent blue-collar labor union in Communist Hungary forms
• Feb 25 Lowest baramotric pressure in Netherlands (956.7 mbar at De Bilt)
• Feb 26 Lowest barometric pressure in Netherlands (95.5 hPa)
• Feb 27 German war criminals Aus der Funten and Fischer freed in Holland
• Feb 27 Venezuela is rocked by the riots of Caracazo

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Birthdays in History

• Jan 6 Baby lion-tailed macaques, at Woodland Park Zoo (Seattle)
• Jan 14 29-year-old Marie Claude Adam gives birth to sextuplets by Caesarean section in Port Royale, France
• Feb 9 Wu Chia-ching, Taiwanese pool player
• Feb 19 L A Baby orangutan, at Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle
• Feb 22 Alia Sabur, American college educator, born in NYC, New York
• Mar 13 Peaches Geldof, English columnist and daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, born in London (d. 2014)
• Mar 14 Oliver Bernsen, son of Corbin Bernsen & Amanda Pays
• Mar 25 Chicken Kentucky, 1st partial birth in space (chicken)

• May 29 Danielle Riley Keough, grand daughter of Elvis Presley
• Jun 2 Freddy Adu, Ghanaian-American footballer
• Jul 22 Caroline Giuliani, daughter of NY mayor Rudy Giuliani, born in NYC, New York
• Oct 4 Dakota Johnson, American actress and daughter of Melanie Griffith & Don Johnson, born in Austin, Texas

• Nov 6 Jozy Altidore, American footballer, born in Livingston, New Jersey
• Dec 20 Virgilio Falco, Italian politician

Weddings in History

• May 28 Delta Burke (Designing Women) weds Gerald McRaney (Major Dad)
• Jun 18 John Wayne Bobitt marries Lorena L Gallo
• Jun 26 Melanie Griffith & Don Johnson marry for 2nd time

Divorces in History

• May 18 Lisa Strawberry files for divorce from Darryl

Deaths in History

• Jan 3 Sergei Lvovich Sobolev, Russian mathematician (b. 1909)
• Jan 3 Nick Virgilio, American Haiku poet, dies at 60

• Jan 10 Herbert Morrison, American radio reporter (b. 1905)
• Jan 10 Colin Winchester, Australian Assistant Police Commissioner, murdered (b. 1933)
• Jan 17 Sterling A Brown, American poet/critic (Southern Road), dies at 87
• Jan 18 Bruce Chatwin, British writer, dies at 49

• Jan 26 Paul Daels, Flemish chairman (IJzerbedevaart committee), dies
• Jan 27 Thomas Sopwith, British aviation pioneer (b. 1888)
• Feb 1 Elaine de Kooning, American artist, dies at 70
• Feb 6 Barbara Tuchman, historian (Guns of August-Pulitzer), dies at 77
• Feb 6 Chris Gueffroy, East German attempted defector (b. 1968)
• Feb 8 Maurits Kok, Dutch writer/poet (Railroad Strike), dies at 81
• Feb 9 Osamu Tezuka, Japanese manga artist (Kimba the White Lion), dies of cancer at 60
• Feb 12 Mauritius Balfoort, French/Flemish director, dies at 83
• Feb 12 Thomas Bernhard, Austrian novelist, playwright and poet whose work some describe as "the most significant literary achievement since World War II", dies at 58
• Feb 13 Wayne Hays, American politician (b. 1911)
• Feb 14 James Bond, American ornithologist (b. 1900)
• Feb 19 Jaap van de Merwe, Dutch journalist/cabareter (Hadjememaar), dies
• Feb 22 Moisés da Costa Amaral, East Timorese leader, dies at 50
• Feb 23 Hans Hellmut Kirst, German author (The Lieutenant Must Be Mad), dies at 74
• Feb 27 Conrad Lorenz, Austria zoologist (Nobel 1973), dies
• Feb 27 Konrad Lorenz, Austrian zoologist and ethologist (Man & His Ideas, Nobel Prize 1973), dies at 85
• Feb 27 Paul Oswald Ahnert, German astronomer, dies at 91
• Feb 28 Hermann Burger, Swiss poet and writer, dies at 46
• Mar 1 Henk van Stipriaan, Dutch journalist & VARA radio host, dies at 64
• Mar 9 Robert Mapplethorpe, American photographer, dies at 42
• Mar 11 Johan Fleerackers, Flemish linguist, dies at 57
• Mar 11 James Kee, American politician (b. 1917)
• Mar 11 John J. McCloy, United States Secretary of War (b. 1895)
• Mar 14 Edward Abbey (environmental author), dies after surgery at 62
• Mar 14 Zita of Bourbon-Parma, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, dies at 96
• Mar 15 Muhammad Jameel Didi, Maldivian poet (b. 1915)
• Mar 18 Harold Jeffreys, English mathematician (Theory of Probability) and geophysicist, dies at 97
• Apr 1 Henk Gortzak [Hendricus Gortzak], Dutch carpenter and politician (CPN/PSP), dies at 57
• Apr 5 María Cristina Gómez, Salvadoran Teacher (b. 1938)
• Apr 7 Tikhon Toropets, patriarch of Russian Orthodox/saint, dies at 123(?)
• Apr 8 John Wyer, English sports car racing team manager, dies at 79
• Apr 10 Joan Barry, dies at 85
• Apr 11 Henk van Galen Last, Dutch journalist, dies at 68
• Apr 12 Abbie Hoffman, yippie peace activist of the 60's, dies at 52
• Apr 15 Hu Yaobang, Chinese politician (General Secretary of the Communist Party of China 1982–87), dies at 73
• Apr 16 Tawfieq Yusuf Awwaad, Lebanese writer, dies
• Apr 17 Charles Lampkin, dies
• Apr 19 Daphne Du Maurier, English writer (Rebecca, Jamaica Inn), dies at 82
• Apr 21 Princess Deokhye of Korea, last princess of the Korean Empire, dies at 76

• Apr 27 Kōnosuke Matsushita, Japanese industrialist (founded Panasonic), dies at 94
• Apr 28 Olaf J. de Landell, Dutch writer, dies at 77
• Apr 30 Sergio Leone, Italian director who invented spaghetti westerns (The Man with No Name trilogy), dies of a heart attack at 60
• Apr 30 Yi Bangja, Crown Prince Euimin of Korea (1926-70), dies at 87
• May 1 David Webster, South African white anti-apartheids activist, murdered
• May 1 Sally Kirkland, American fashion editor (Vogue magazine) and manager (Lord & Taylor), dies at 76
• May 2 Giuseppe Siri, Italian Catholic Cardinal (b. 1906)
• May 2 Veniamin Kaverin, Russian writer (b. 1902)
• May 3 Christine Jorgensen, 1st transsexual, dies at 62
• May 3 Edward Ochab, Polish Communist politician (b. 1906)
• May 4 Evelle Jansen Younger, American prosecutor (Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan), dies at 70
• May 12 Joe Valdez Caballero, creator of hard taco, shell, dies at 81
• May 16 Hassan Khaled, sheik of Lebanon, murdered
• May 17 Dan Alderson, American scientist (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and sci-fi fandom figure, dies of diabetes at 47
• May 19 Abel Herzberg, Russian-Dutch Jewish lawyer (Eichmann in Jerusalem), dies at 95
• May 19 CLR James, West Indian writer and journalist (b. 1901)
• May 20 Erzsébet Galgoczi, Hungarian writer, dies at 58
• May 20 John R Hicks, English economist (Nobel 1972), dies
• May 23 Georgy Tovstonogov, Russian theatre director (b. 1915)
• May 24 Herwig Hensen [Flor Mielants], Flemish dramatist/poet, dies at 72
• May 27 Arseny Tarkovsky, Russian poet (b. 1907)
• May 30 Claude Pepper, American politician (Rep-D-FL, 1963-89), dies at 88
• May 31 Charles A Hufnagel, doc (artificial heart valve pioneer), dies at 72

• Jun 4 Dik Browne, cartoonist (Hi & Lois, Hagar the Horrible), dies at 71
• Jun 7 Milton van Embricqs, Suriname/Dutch publicist, dies
• Jun 9 Piet[er J] Lieftinck, Dutch minister of Finance (1945-52), dies
• Jun 9 Wolfdietrich Schnurre, German writer, dies at 68
• Jun 9 George Beadle, US Biologist and Nobel Laureate (biochemical genetics), dies at 85
• Jun 15 Maurice Bellemare, Canadian politician (b. 1912)
• Jun 17 Stanley David Griggs, American astronaut (STS 51-D), dies in plane crash at 59 (b. 1939)
• Jun 18 I. F. Stone, American journalist (b. 1907)
• Jun 19 Hy Gardner, newspaper columnist, dies at 80
• Jun 19 Isidore Feinstein Stone, author (I F Stone's Weekly), dies at 81
• Jun 22 Lucien Saulnier, Canadian politician, dies at 72
• Jun 23 Werner Best, German jurist and nazi leader (b. 1903)
• Jun 27 A. J. Ayer, English Neopositivist philosopher (Logical Positivism), dies at 78
• Jun 28 Joris Ivens, Dutch director (A Tale of the Wind, Rain), dies at 90
• Jul 3 Andrei Gromyko, Soviet politician (President of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), dies just short of his 80th birthday
• Jul 6 Janos Kádár, 46th Prime Minister of Hungary 5th Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary (1956-58), dies at 77
• Jul 13 Abdul Rahman Qassemlu, Iran Kurds leader, murdered
• Jul 13 Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, Cubans general, executed
• Jul 14 Frank Bell, British educator and founder of The Bell Educational Trust Limited, dies at 72
• Jul 17 Heinz Risse, German writer, dies at 91
• Jul 19 Kazimierz Sabbat, Polish president (b. 1913)
• Jul 20 Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, commander (French resistance), dies
• Jul 22 Martti Talvela, Finnish bass (b. 1935)
• Jul 23 Donald Barthelme, American author (b. 1931)
• Jul 25 Steve Rubell, American night club owner (b. 1943)
• Jul 30 Lane Frost, American bull rider, dies from injuries sustained by being gored by a bull at 25
• Aug 7 Mickey Leland, American politician (Rep-D-Texas 1979-89), dies with 15 others in plane crash in Ethiopia at 44

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