See:
Wikipedia .
Events:
January 2 - Georgia celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
January 9 - Connecticut celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
January 26 - Australia celebrates its bicentennial day.
February 3 - The United States House of Representatives rejects President Ronald
Reagan's request for $36.25 million to aid Nicaraguan Contras.
February 6 - Massachusetts celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
February 11 - Anthony M. Kennedy is appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
February 17 - US Lieutenant Colonel William Higgins, serving with a United Nations group
monitoring a truce in southern Lebanon is kidnapped (captors later kill him).
February 21 - On his own televangelism program being taped in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
Jimmy Swaggart confesses that he is guilty of an unspecified sin and will be will be
temporarily leaving the pulpit. The "unspecified sin" was an affair with a prostitute.
February 21 - British archeologists locate the grave of Boadicea under Platform 8 at King's
Cross railway station in London.
February 24 - The Supreme Court of the United States sides with Hustler magazine by
overturning a lower court decision to award Jerry Falwell $200,000 for defamation.
February 29 - Nazi document implicates Kurt Waldheim in WWII deportations.
March 1 - Anthony M. Frank is appointed United States Postmaster General.
March 6 - SAS men shoot three IRA men in the Gibraltar.
March 7 - The SAS shoot dead three Irish Republican Army members in Gibraltar.
March 8 - Two United States Army helicopters collide in Fort Campbell, Kentucky
killing 17 servicemen.
March 9 - Students at Gallaudet University go on strike for the selection of a Deaf
university president.
March 16 - The Halabja poison gas attack was carried out by Iraqi government forces.
March 16 - Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John
Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
March 16 - California v. Greenwood: In a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court of the United
States rules that police officers do not need a search warrant to search through discarded
garbage.
March 24 - Israeli court sentences Mordechai Vanunu to 18 years in prison for
disclosing Israel's nuclear program to The Sunday Times.
March 29 - Assassination of Dulcie September in Paris.
April 10 - The Great Seto Bridge opened to traffic in Japan.
April 12 - Former pop singer Sonny Bono is elected mayor of Palm Springs, California.
April 14 - In Geneva Agreement, Soviet Union commits itself to withdrawal of its
forces from Afghanistan.
April 14 - USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf while
deployed on Operation Earnest Will.
April 16 - Israeli commandos kill PLO's Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad) in Tunisia.
April 18 - U.S. Navy forces retaliate for the Roberts mining with Operation Praying
Mantis, a day of strikes against Iranian oil platforms and naval vessels.
April 25 - In Israel John Demjanuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in
World War II. He was accused of being a notorious guard at the Treblinka extermination
camp known as "Ivan the Terrible" by survivors. Conviction overturned by Israeli
Supreme Court.
April 28 - Maryland celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
May 15 - Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: After more than eight years of fighting, the
Red Army begins its withdraw from Afghanistan.
May 16 - A report by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties
of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.
May 23 - South Carolina celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
May 24 - Section 28 is passed as law by Parliament in the United Kingdom.
June 2 - In Canberra, the High Court rejects United Kingdom's bid to ban further
publication in Australia of the "Spycatcher", memoirs of former SIS agent Peter Wright.
June 6 - Queen Elizabeth strips jockey Lester Piggott of his OBE because he has
been sentenced to jail for repeated tax evasion.
June 21 - New Hampshire celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
June 25 - Virginia celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
June 28 - Five workers asphyxiated at a metal-plating plant in Auburn, Indiana, in the
worst confined-space industrial accident in US history.
June 29 - United States Supreme Court upholds the law allowing special prosecutor to
investigate suspected crimes by executive branch officials.
July 1 - Bologna, Italy: Quartetto Cetra's last concert after over forty years' musical career.
July 3 - Iran Air Flight 655 shot down by missiles launched from the USS Vincennes ship.
July 6 - The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions
and fires killing 165 oil workers and 2 rescue mariners.
July 26 - New York celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
July 28 - Child prodigy Brandon Iffert born in Korea.
August 9 - Wayne Gretzky is traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles
Kings in one of the most controversial transactions in hockey history.
August 17 - Pakistan President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and US Ambassador Arnold
Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
August 19 - Ceasefire begins in the Iran-Iraq war.
August 26 - Merhan Karimi Nasseri ends up stuck in the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris.
August 28 - A fire destroys part of Chiado quarter, in Lisbon's historical center.
September 5 - With US$2 billion in federal aid, the Robert M. Bass Group agrees to
buy the United States's largest thrift, American Savings and Loan Association.
September 17 - TV Show Garfield and Friends debuts on CBS.
September 17 - Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea opens.
September 22 - Ocean Odyssey drilling rig suffers a blowout and fire in the North Sea.
September 29 - NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster.
October 5 - Thousands riots in Algiers, Algeria against the government of National
Liberation Front - by October 10 army has killed and tortured about 500 people in
crushing the riots.
October 11 - Girls are allowed to study at Magdalene College, Cambridge, for the first
time. Male students wear black armbands and the porter flies a black flag.
October 12 - two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down executional style in
the Walsh Street police shootings in Australia.
October 19 - United Kingdom bans broadcast interviews with IRA members.
October 28 - Abortion: 48 hours after announcing it was abandoning RU-486, French
manufacturer Roussel Uclaf states that it would resume distribution of the drug, bowing
to pressure from the government of France.
October 29 - In Japan, the Sega Megadrive is released for the first time.
October 30 - Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for US$13.1 billion.
November 2 - The Morris worm is unleashed on the Internet.
November 8 - U.S. presidential election, 1988: George Herbert Walker Bush is elected
over Michael Dukakis.
November 11 - In Sacramento, California, police find a body buried in the lawn of
60-year-old boardinghouse landlady Dorothea Puente (seven bodies were eventually
found and Puente was convicted of three murders and sentenced to life in prison).
November 15 - In the Soviet Union, the uncrewed Shuttle Buran is launched by an
Energia rocket on her maiden orbital spaceflight (this was the first and last space flight
for the shuttle).
November 15 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed
by the Palestinian National Council meeting in Algiers, by a vote of 253 to 46.
November 16 - The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that the Estonia is
"sovereign" but stops short of declaring independence.
November 16 - In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan choose
populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister.
November 17 - The Netherlands becomes the second country to get connected to the Internet.
November 18 - War on Drugs: US President Ronald Wilson Reagan signs a bill into
law providing the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers.
November 22 - In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed.
November 30 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco for US$25.07 billion.
December 2 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the
first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state.
December 2 - Cyclone in Bangladesh leaves 5 million homeless - thousands dead.
December 7 - In Armenia an earthquake 6.9 on the Richter scale killed nearly 25.000,
injured 15.000 and left 400.000 persons homeless.
December 12 - The Clapham Rail disaster kills 35 and injures 132.
December 19 - The Consumer Product Safety Commission bans the sale of lawn darts
following the deaths of three children.
December 21 - Pan Am flight 103 is blown up by Libyan terrorists over Lockerbie,
Scotland, killing 259 on board and 11 on the ground.
December 22 - Assassination of Brazilian union and environmental activist Chico Mendes.
Unknown dates:
Al-Qaida established by Osama bin Laden.
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is the focus of a sex scandal, and later admits to being
with prostitutes and steps down from his television ministry.
Year in topic:
1988 in
film:
June 17 - Red Heat starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
July 15 - Die Hard starring Bruce Willis.
July 15 - A Fish Called Wanda.
July 16 - Akira (Japanese release date).
July 29 - Cocktail starring Tom Cruise.
December 9 - Mississippi Burning starring Gene Hackman.
December 16 - Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise.
December 16 - Dangerous Liaisons.
December 21 - Working Girl.
1988 in
music:
N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton is the first hip hop album to achieve widespread
mainstream success.
1988 in
sports:
January 16 - Sports commentator Jimmy 'the Greek' Snyder is fired by CBS a day after
publicly stating that African Americans had been bred to produce stronger offspring
during slavery.
January 31 - Super Bowl XXII Washington Redskins (42) defeat Denver Broncos (10).
February 13 - 1988 Winter Olympic Games open in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Summer - The Netherlands win the European Football Championship.
September 17-October 2 - 1988 Summer Olympics held in Seoul, Korea.
1988 in
television:
February 29 - The sitcom Day by Day premieres on NBC.
October 4 - Following in the footsteps of Cher, Actress Shirley MacLaine calls David
Letterman an "Asshole", on the air during a taping of Late Night.
October 27 - The last of Harding Lemay's "comeback" episodes air on Another World.
In the final minutes of the episode, Australian actress Carmen Duncan took over the role
of the legendary bitch Iris Cory Wheeler, after the role had been vacated for many years
by Beverlee McKinsey.
Births:
February 4 -
Carly Patterson, gymnast.
April 10 -
Haley Joel Osment, actor.
August 24 -
Rupert Grint, actor.
September 2 -
Nicky van den Houten.
November 15 -
Zena Grey, actress.
November 20 -
Suzanne Elise van den Houten.
November 28 -
Scarlett Pomers, actress (Star Trek: Voyager, Reba).
December 7 -
Adam James van den Houten.
Still borns:
January 20 -
Still born boy van den Houten.
Deaths:
January 2 -
Edmund Brisco Ford, geneticist.
January 5 -
Pete Maravich, Basketball Hall of Famer.
January 7 -
Trevor Howard, actor.
January 11 -
Pappy Boyington, aviator.
January 14 -
Georgi Malenkov, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the
Soviet Communist Party.
January 15 -
Seán MacBride, former Chief of Staff of the IRA and winner of the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1974.
January 20 -
Philippe de Rothschild, vineyard operator.
January 22 -
Parker Fennelly, comedian, actor.
February 1 -
Heather O'Rourke, child actress (Poltergeist) (b. 1975).
February 12 -
Willemtje van den Houten.
February 15 -
Richard Feynman, physicist.
February 19 -
René Char, French poet.
March 1 -
Joe Besser, member of the Three Stooges (b. 1907).
March 5 -
Alberto Olmedo, comedian, actor.
March 7 -
Divine, actor.
March 8 -
Henryk Szeryng, violinist.
March 10 -
Andy Gibb, singer.
March 31 -
William McMahon, twentieth Prime Minister of Australia.
April 3 -
Milt Caniff, cartoonist.
April 15 -
Kenneth Williams, actor and raconteur.
April 22 -
Irene Rich, actress.
May 8 -
Robert A. Heinlein, science fiction author.
May 11 -
Kim Philby, spy.
May 12 -
Chet Baker, jazz trumpeter.
May 18 -
Daws Butler, voice actor.
May 21 -
Sammy Davis, Sr., US dancer.
May 25 -
Ernst Ruska, Nobel Prize Physicist.
June 25 -
Hillel Slovak, Red Hot Chili Peppers, guitarist.
July 8 -
Ray Barbuti, American athlete.
July 27 -
Frank Zamboni, inventor most famous for the Zamboni machine for
resurfacing ice drinks.
August 17 -
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., lawyer, politician.
August 17 -
Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, Leader of Pakistan.
September 20 -
Izabella van den Houten.
September 28 -
Charles Addams, American cartoonist.
October 19 -
Son House, blues musician.
October 22 -
Henry Armstrong, American boxing champion.
October 31 -
John Houseman, actor, producer.
November 9 -
John N. Mitchell, former U.S. Attorney General and convicted
Watergate criminal.
November 13 -
Antal Dorati, Hungarian conductor (b. 1906).
November 19 -
Christina Onassis, Greek shipping magnate.
November 25 -
Maarten Lokker.
December 2 -
Tata Giacobetti, Italian singer and lyricist (Quartetto Cetra).
December 6,
Roy Orbison, pioneer Rock and Roll singer.
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