1989

See: Wikipedia.
Events:
January 7 - Akihito becomes Emperor of Japan following the death of Hirohito. The Heisei
period begins.
January 9 - The Sega Genesis is released in New York, New York and Los Angeles,
California.
January 10 - Cuban troops begin withdrawing from Angola.
January 20 - George Herbert Walker Bush succeeds Ronald Wilson Reagan as President
of the United States of America.
January 24 - Serial killer Ted Bundy is executed in Florida's electric chair.
February 2 - Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: The last Soviet Union armored column leaves
Kabul ending nine years of military occupation.
February 3 - After a stroke, P.W. Botha resigns party leadership and the presidency of
South Africa.
February 10 - Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee
becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party.
February 11 - Barbara Clementine Harris is consecrated first female bishop in the Episcopal
Church (United States of America).
February 14 - Union Carbide agrees to pay USD $470 million to the Indian government for
damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal Disaster.
February 14 - Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini encourages Muslims to kill the author of
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie.
February 14 - The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System is placed into orbit.
February 15 - Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: The Soviet Union officially announces that
all of its troops had left Afghanistan.
February 16 - Pan Am flight 103: Investigators announce that the cause of the crash was a
bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player.
February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a three-million-US dollar bounty for
the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.
February 24 - A United Airlines Boeing 747 bound to New Zealand from Honolulu, Hawaii
rips open during flight, sucking 9 passenger and crew out of the first class section. Luckily
most passengers and crew were still belted to their seats at the time.
March 1 - The Berne Convention is ratified and enters into force with regard to
the United States.
March 1 - Louis Wade Sullivan starts his term of office as U.S. Secretary of Commerce,
serving under President George Herbert Walker Bush.
March 1 - James D. Watkins starts his term of office as U.S. Secretary of Energy,
serving under President George Herbert Walker Bush.
March 1 - The Politieke Partij Radicalen, Pacifistisch Socialistische Partij,
Communistische Partij Nederland and the Evangelische Volks Partij amalgamate to
form Netherlands political party the GroenLinks (GL, GreenLeft).
March 2 - 12 European Community nations agree to ban the production of all
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end century.
March 4 - Time, Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger,
forming Time-Warner.
March 9 - A strike forces financially-troubled Eastern Airlines into bankruptcy.
March 14 - Gun control: President George Herbert Walker Bush bans the importation
of assault rifles into the United States.
March 18 - In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found in the Great Pyramid of Giza.
March 23 - Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce cold fusion at the
University of Utah.
March 23 - A 1,000-foot diameter Near-Earth asteroid misses the Earth by 400,000 miles.
March 24 - Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Alaska's Prince William Sound the Exxon
Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (11 million gallons) of oil after running aground.
April 4 - Richard M. Daley elected mayor of Chicago.
April 7 - Soviet submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Barents Sea.
April 15 - Hillsborough disaster, one of the biggest tragedies of European
football, takes place.
April 25 - End of term for Baginda Almutawakkil Alallah Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj ibni
Almarhum Sultan Ismail as the 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
April 26 - Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Yusuff Izzudin Shah
Ghafarullahu-lahu, Sultan of Perak becomes the 9th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
May 30 - Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: The 33-foot high "Goddess of
Democracy" statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators.
June 1 - The SkyDome stadium is opened in Toronto.
June 3 - The Ayatollah Khomeini dies.
June 4 - Suppression of the Tiananmen Square massacre takes place in Beijing
and is covered live on television.
June 4 - Solidarity's victory in the first partly free parliamentary elections in
post-war Poland spark off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions
in Eastern Europe.
June 4 - Train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia kills 645 as two
trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.
June 14 - Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor is arrested in Beverly Hills, California after
slapping a motorcycle police officer.
June 22 - Irelands first universities are established since independence in
1922, they are Dublin City University and University of Limerick.
July 2 - Andreas Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece resigns. New government
formed under Tzannis Tzannetakis.
July 19 - A Douglas DC-10 carrying United Airlines flight 232 crashes in Sioux
City, Iowa killing 112 but due to extraordinary efforts by the pilot and his crew, 184
on board survive.
July 26 - A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert Tappan
Morris, Jr. for releasing a computer virus, making him the first person to be
prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
The asteroid 4769 Castalia is the first asteroid directly imaged, by radar from Arecibo.
August 6 - The comic strip Bloom County ends.
August 7 - US Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX), and 15 others die in a plane
crash in Ethiopia.
August 8 - STS-28: The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day
military mission.
August 18 - Leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán is assassinated near
Bogotá in Colombia.
August 19 - Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski nominates Solidarity activist
Tadeusz Mazowiecki to be Prime Minister, thus becoming the first non-communist
in power in 42 years.
August 20 - In Beverly Hills, California, Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot their wealthy
parents to death in their family's den.
August 20 - 51 people die when the Marchioness pleasure boat collides with a
barge on the River Thames.
August 23 - Baltic Way, uninterrupted 600 kilometre human chain, in which two million
indigenous people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then still occupied by the
Soviet Union, joined hands to demand freedom and independence.
September 10 - The Hungarian government opens the country's western borders to
refugees from the German Democratic Republic.
September 15 - The Sega Genesis is released in the rest of North America.
October 9 - An official news agency in the Soviet Union reports the landing of a
UFO in Voronezh.
October 9 - In Leipzig, East Germany protesters demand the legalization of
opposition groups and democratic reforms.
October 17 - An earthquake measuring 7.1 on the richter scale strikes the San
Francisco / Oakland area in the United States, killing 63.
November 7 - Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia and becomes the
first elected African American governor in the United States.
November 7 - David Dinkins becomes the first African American mayor of New York City.
November 7 - In California, convicted murderer Richard Ramirez (the "Night Stalker")
is sentenced to death.
November 9 - Cold War: Communist-controlled East Germany opens checkpoints in
the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to freely travel to West Germany for the
first time in decades (the next day celebrating Germans began to tear the wall down).
November 10 - After 45 years of communist rule in Bulgaria, Bulgarian Communist
Party leader Todor Zhivkov is replaced by Prime Minister Petre Mladenov, who
changes the party's name to the Bulgarian Socialist Party.
November 17 - Cold War: Velvet Revolution begins - In Czechoslovakia a
peaceful student demonstration in Prague is severely beaten back by the communist
riot police. This sparks a revolution aimed at overthrowing the communist
government (it succeeded on December 29).
November 20 - Cold War: Velvet Revolution - The number of peaceful protesters
assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an
estimated half-million.
November 22 - In west Beirut, a bomb explodes near the motorcade of
Lebanese President Rene Moawad and kills him.
November 28 - Cold War: Velvet Revolution - With other communist regimes
falling all around it and with growing street protests, the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia announces they will give up their monopoly on political power
(elections held in December brought the first non-communist government to
Czechoslovakia in more than 40 years).
November 30 - Deutsche Bank board member Alfred Herrhausen is killed by a
terrorist's bomb (the Red Army Faction claimed responsibility of the murder).
November 30 - A storeowner in Palm Harbor, Florida named Richard Mallory
takes a ride with Aileen Wuornos and is seen for the last time (Mallory became
the first of seven people killed by the female serial killer over the next year).
December 1 - Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional
provision granting the communist party the leading role in the state (Egon Krenz,
the Politburo and the Central Committee resigned two days later)..
December 3 - Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, US President George
Herbert Walker Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements
indicating that the cold war between their nations may be coming to an end (some
commentators from both nations exaggerated the wording and independently
declared the Cold War over).
December 6 - The École Polytechnique Massacre (or Montreal Massacre): Marc
Lépine, an anti-feminist gunman, murders fourteen young women at the École
Polytechnique in Montreal.
December 14 - Chile holds its first free election in 16 years.
December 17 - Brazil holds its first free election in 29 years Fernando Collor
de Mello wins the election.
December 20 - United States invades Panama (Operation Just Cause).
December 22 - After a week bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as
president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceausescu's communist dictatorship.
December 25 - Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena are executed.
December 25 - Bank of Japan governors announce a major interest rate hike, eventually
leading to the peak and fall of the "bubble economy."
December 29 - Václav Havel elected the president of Czechoslovakia - a
big victory of the Velvet Revolution.
December 29 - Riots break-out after Hong Kong decides to forcibly
repatriate Vietnamese refugees.

Unknown Dates:
Rice University celebrates the demisesquicentennial anniversary of its founding.
Kamchatka opened to Russian civilian visitors.
Retirement of the Alize propeller-driven anti-submarine planes from carrier service
in the French Navy.
The first national park, in Schiermonnikoog, is established in The Netherlands.
Soviet submarine K-173, Chelyabinsk, commissioned.
The wreck of the Lady Elgin discovered off Highland Park, Illinois by Harry Zych.
Margaret Rey establishes the Curious George Foundation to help creative children
and prevent cruelty to animals.
The most known child murder in Finland was done by Veikko "Jammu" Siltavuori,
who abducted and murdered two 8 year old girls in Myllypuro suburb in Helsinki.
Nintendo released its popular handheld video game player, Game Boy.

Year in topic:
1989 in film:
Friday, April 21, 1989 - Field of Dreams.
Wednesday, May 24, 1989 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade starring Harrison
Ford and Sean Connery.
Friday, June 2, 1989 - Dead Poets Society.
Wednesday, June 14, 1989 - Do the Right Thing.
Friday, June 23, 1989 - Batman.
Wednesday, July 12, 1989 - When Harry Met Sally...
Wednesday, August 9, 1989 - The Abyss starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio,
and Michael Biehn.
Wednesday, November 22, 1989 - Back to the Future Part II starring Michael J. Fox.
Wednesday, December 13, 1989 - Driving Miss Daisy.
Saturday, December 16, 1989 - Godzilla vs Biollante (Japanese release date).
Wednesday, December 20, 1989 - Born on the Fourth of July.
1989 in literature:
A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving.
Stephen R. Lawhead writes Arthur part of the Pendragon Cycle.
Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye is published.
Bill Watterson publishes Yukon Ho!
1989 in music:
Amon (later Deicide) releases Sacrificial.
Bad Religion releases their popular Epitaph Records album No Control.
The Band are inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising helps invent the field of alternative rap.
N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton is the first hip hop album to achieve
widespread mainstream success.
1989 in sports:
Sunday, January 22, 1989 - Super Bowl XXIII San Francisco 49ers (20) def.
Cincinnati Bengals (16).
Saturday, February 11, 1989 - US female Figure Skating championship
won by Jill Trenary.
Tuesday, March 21, 1989 - Sports Illustrated reports allegations that tie Pete Rose
to baseball gambling.
Thursday, August 24, 1989 - Following allegations that he gambled on baseball, Baseball
player Pete Rose is banned from baseball for life by commissioner Bart Giamatti.
1989 in television:
The Seinfeld Chronicles premieres on NBC. The show would later be retitled Seinfeld and
become one of the most popular sitcoms in television history.
The Simpsons premieres on FOX. The characters had first appeared two years
earlier as a segment on the Tracey Ullman Show.

Births:
January 3 - Alex D. Linz, actor.
February 28 - William van den Houten.
April 11 - Chantelle van den Houten.
June 2 - Freddy Adu, soccer prodigy.
July 23 - Daniel Radcliffe, actor.
October 11 - Michelle Wie, golf prodigy.
November 8 - Martine van den Houten.

Deaths:
January 6 - Chris Gueffroy, last person killed crossing the GDR border.
January 7 - Emperor Hirohito of Japan.
January 21 - Billy Tipton, jazz musician (b. 1914).
January 23 - Salvador Dalí, artist.
January 24 - Ted Bundy, serial killer (electrocuted).
February 3 - John Cassavetes, actor, director, writer.
February 6 - Roy Eldridge, jazz musician (b. 1911).
February 6 - Barbara W. Tuchman, historian.
February 11 - George O'Hanlon, actor/director.
February 27 - Konrad Lorenz.
March 9 - Robert Mapplethorpe, artist.
April 7 - Johannis Antonius van den Houten.
April 22 - Adriaan van den Houten.
April 26 - Lucille Ball, actress, comedienne.
April 30 - Sergio Leone, director.
May 14 - E. P. Taylor, Canadian business tycoon.
May 20 - Gilda Radner, comedian, actress.
May 31 - Gerardus Jan van den Houten.
June 3 - The Ayatollah Khomeini, Iranian religious and political figure.
June 28 - Joris Ivens, filmmaker.
July 10 - Mel Blanc, voice actor (b. 1908).
August 22 - Diana Vreeland, fashion editor.
August 29 - Peter Scott, naturalist, artist, and explorer.
September 1 - Bart Giamatti, academic, Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
September 22 - Irving Berlin, composer (b. 1888).
September 28 - Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, Philippine political figure and strongman.
October 4 - Secretariat, Triple Crown winner in 1973, two-time Horse of the Year (b. 1970).
October 4 - Graham Chapman, comedian.
October 11 - M. King Hubbert, geophysicist.
November - Johannes Antonius van den Houten.
November 5 - Vladimir Horowitz, pianist.
November 11 - Kenneth MacLean Glazier, Sr., minister, librarian.
December 6 - Marc Lépine, mass murderer of 14 women.
December 16 - Silvana Mangano, actress.
December 22 - Samuel Beckett, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1969.
December 23 - Willem Beije.
December 25 - Nicolae Ceausescu, former ruler of Romania (executed).

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