The year 1989 is considered a historical turning point for the
wave of revolutions that swept the Eastern Bloc, starting in
Poland. Collectively known as the Revolutions of 1989, they
heralded the end of the Soviet Union two years later and the
beginning of the post-Cold War era of United States
dominance in world affairs.
Events Of
January 1989
January 4 - Gulf of Sidra incident (1989): two Libyan
MiG-23 "Floggers" are engaged and shot down by two US Navy
F-14 Tomcats.
January 7 - Shōwa period ends with the death of Emperor
Hirohito (aka Emperor Shōwa) after 62 years and 14 days of
his reign in Japan. Akihito becomes Emperor of Japan,
beginning the Heisei period the following day.
January 8 - The Kegworth Air Disaster: A British Midland
Boeing 737 crashes on approach to East Midlands Airport,
leaving 47 dead.
January 17 - The Stockton massacre: Patrick Edward Purdy
kills 5 children, wounds 30 and then shoots himself in
Stockton, California.
January 18 - The Communist Party of Poland votes to
legalize Solidarity.
January 20 - George H. W. Bush succeeds Ronald Reagan as
the 41st President of the United States of America.
January 24 - Serial killer Theodore Bundy is executed in
Florida's electric chair.
Events Of
February 1989
February 1 - Joan Kirner becomes Victoria's first female
Deputy Premier, after the resignation of Robert Fordham over
the VEDC (Victorian Economic Development Co-operation)
Crisis.
February 2 - Soviet war in Afghanistan: The last Soviet
Union armored column leaves Kabul, ending 9 years of
military occupation.
February 2 - Satellite television service Sky Television
plc is launched in Europe.
February 3 - A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner,
dictator of Paraguay since 1954.
February 3 - After a stroke, Pieter Willem Botha resigns
his party's leadership and the presidency of South Africa.
February 7 - The Los Angeles, California City Council bans
the sale or possession of semiautomatic weapons.
February 10 - Ron Brown is elected chairman of the
Democratic National Committee, becoming the first African
American to lead a major United States political party.
February 11 - Barbara Clementine Harris is consecrated as
the first female bishop of the Episcopal Church in the
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 Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.
February 14 - The first of 24 Global Positioning System
satellites is placed into orbit.
February 15 - Soviet war in Afghanistan: The Soviet Union
announces that all of its troops have 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 23 - After protracted testimony, the U.S. Senate
Armed Services Committee rejects, 11–9, President Bush's
nomination of John Tower for Secretary of Defense.
February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US
$3-million bounty on the head of The Satanic Verses author
Salman Rushdie.
February 24 - United Airlines Flight 811, a Boeing 747
bound to New Zealand from Honolulu, Hawaii, rips open during
flight, sucking 9 passengers and crew out of the first class
section.
February 24 - After 44 years, Estonian flag is raised to
the Pikk Hermann castle tower.
February 27 - Venezuela is rocked by the Caracazo, a wave
of protests and looting.
Events Of
March 1989
March 1 - The Berne Convention, an international treaty on
copyrights, is ratified by the United States.
March 1 - A curfew is imposed in Kosovo, where protests
continue over the alleged intimidation of the Serb minority.
March 1 - Louis Wade Sullivan starts his term of office as
U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
March 1 - James D. Watkins starts his term of office as
U.S. Secretary of Energy.
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 - Twelve European Community nations agree to ban
the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end
of the century.
March 3 - Jammu Siltavuori abducts and murders two 8 year
old girls in Myllypuro suburb in Helsinki, Finland
March 3 - Portugal wins the FIFA U-20 World Cup defeating
Nigeria on the final by 2–0 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
March 4 - Time, Inc. and Warner Communications announce
plans for a merger, forming Time Warner.
March 4 - The Purley Station rail crash in London leaves 5
dead and 94 injured.
March 4 - The first ACT (Australian Capital Territory)
elections are held.
March 7 - Iran breaks off diplomatic relations with the
United Kingdom over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.
March 9 - A strike forces financially troubled Eastern Air
Lines into bankruptcy.
March 13 - A geomagnetic storm caused the collapse of the
Hydro-Québec power grid. Six million people were left
without power for nine hours. Some areas in the northeastern
U.S. and in Sweden also lost power, and auroras seen as far
as Texas.
March 14 - Gun control: U.S. President George H. W. Bush
bans the importation of certain guns deemed assault weapons
into the United States.
March 14 - Christian General Michel Aoun declares a 'War
of Liberation' to rid Lebanon of Syrian forces and their
allies.
March 18 - In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found in
the Great Pyramid of Giza.
March 20 - Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke weeps on
national television as he admits marital infidelity.
March 22 - Clint Malarchuk of the NHL Buffalo Sabres
suffers an almost fatal injury when another player
accidentally slits his throat.
March 22 - Asteroid 4581 Asclepius approaches the Earth at
a distance of 700,000 kilometers.
March 23 - Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce
that they have achieved cold fusion at the University of
Utah.
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.
March 29 - The 61st Academy Awards are held at the Shrine
Auditorium in Los Angeles, California with Rain Man winning
Best Picture.
Events Of
April 1989
April 1 - Margaret Thatcher's new local government tax,
the Poll tax, is introduced in Scotland.
April 4 - In Brussels, Belgium, NATO celebrates its 40th
anniversary.
April 6 - National Safety Council of Australia chief
executive John Friedrich is arrested after defrauding
investors to the tune of $235 million.
April 7 - The Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets sinks in
the Barents Sea, killing 41.
April 9 - Georgian demonstrators are massacred by Red Army
soldiers in Tbilisi's central square during a peaceful
rally; 20 citizens are killed , many injured.
April 14 US government seizes Irving, CA Lincoln Savings
and Loan Association, eventually sends Charles Keating (for
whom the Keating Five were named -- to jail. Part of the massive 80s Savings and Loan Crisis
which cost US taxpayers nearly $200 billion in bailouts, and
many people their life savings.[1]
April 15 - The Hillsborough disaster, one of the biggest
tragedies in European football, claims the life of 96
Liverpool supporters.
April 19 - Trisha Meili is attacked while jogging in New
York City's Central Park; as her identity remains secret for
years, she becomes known as the "Central Park Jogger."
April 19 - Forty-seven crew members die after a gun turret
explodes on the U.S. battleship Iowa.
April 20 - NATO debates modernising short range missiles;
although the U.S. and UK are in favour, West German
chancellor Helmut Kohl obtains a concession deferring a
decision.
April 21 - Students from Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, and
Nanjing begin protesting in Tiananmen Square.
April 25 - The term of Baginda Almutawakkil Alallah Sultan
Iskandar Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail as the 8th Yang
di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia ends.
April 25 - Motorola introduces the Motorola MicroTAC
Personal Cellular Telephone, then the world's smallest
mobile phone.
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.
Events Of
May 1989
May 1 - Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World opens to
the public for the first time.
May 2 - The first crack in the Iron Curtain - Hungary
dismantles 150 miles of barbed wire fencing along the border
with Austria.
May 9 - Andrew Peacock deposes John Howard as Federal
Opposition Leader of Australia.
May 11 - The ACT (Australian Capital Territory)
Legislative Assembly meets for the first time.
May 12 - A Southern Pacific Railroad freight train crashes
on Duffy Street in San Bernardino, California.
May 14 - Mikhail Gorbachev visits China, the first Soviet
leader to do so since the 1960s.
May 15 - Australia's first private tertiary institution,
Bond University, opens on the Gold Coast.
May 19 - Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: Zhao Ziyang
meets the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
May 20 - Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: The Chinese
government declares martial law in Beijing.
May 22 - The Nordland Days in Leningrad region (Leningrad
oblast) open.
May 25 - The Calgary Flames win the Stanley Cup: The
Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League (NHL) win their
first and only Stanley Cup with a 4–2 victory over the
Montreal Canadiens.
May 25 - Thirteen days after a Southern Pacific train
derails, a Calnev pipeline explodes at the same section of
Duffy Street in San Bernardino, California.
May 26 - Arsenal win the First Division league title with
the last kick of the season thanks to a late goal from
Michael Thomas against Liverpool.
May 30 - Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: The 10 m (33
ft) high Goddess of Democracy statue is unveiled in
Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators.
Events Of
June
1989
June 3 - The SkyDome (now known as Rogers Centre)
is opened in Toronto.
June 3 - The Ayatollah Khomeini dies.
June 4 - The Tiananmen Square massacre takes place in
Beijing on the army's approach to the square, and the
final stand-off in the square is covered live on
television.
June 4 - Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion
near Ufa, Russia kills 645 as 2 trains passing each
other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.
June 4 - Solidarity's victory in Polish elections is
the first of many anti-communist revolutions in Central
and Eastern Europe in 1989.
June 7 - 176 are killed in Surinam's worst air
disaster.
June 8 - Kurt Waldheim is elected president of
Austria.
June 12 - Corcoran Gallery of Art removes Robert
Mapplethorpe's photography exhibition.
June 13 - The wreck of the German battleship Bismarck,
which was sunk in 1941, is located 600 miles west of
Brest, France.
June 16 - A crowd of 250,000 gathers at Heroes Square
in Budapest for the historic reburial of Imre Nagy, the
former Hungarian prime minister who had been executed in
1958.
June 21 - British police arrest 250 people for
celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge.
June 22 - Ireland's first universities established
since independence in 1922, Dublin City University and
the University of Limerick, open.
June 23 - Batman (1989 film) is released to positive
reviews and becomes the highest grossing film based on a
DC comic book, until The Dark Knight (2008)
Events Of July 1989
July 2 - Andreas Papandreou, Prime Minister of
Greece resigns. A new government is formed under Tzannis
Tzannetakis.
July 5 - The television show Seinfeld premieres.
July 9–12 - U.S. President George H. W. Bush travels
to Poland and Hungary, pushing for U.S. economic aid and
investment.
July 14 - France celebrates the 200th anniversary of
the French Revolution.
July 14–16 - At the annual G-7 Summit, leaders call
for restrictions on gas emissions.
July 19 - United Airlines Flight 232 (Douglas DC-10)
crashes in Sioux City, Iowa, killing 112; 184 on board
survive.
July 20 - Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi
is placed under house arrest.
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.
Events Of August
1989
August 7 - U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15
others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.
August 7 - Federal Express purchased Flying Tiger Line for
an amount circa 800 million USD
August 8 - STS-28: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a
secret 5-day military mission.
August 9 The asteroid 4769 Castalia is the first asteroid
directly imaged by radar from Arecibo.
August 13 - A hot air balloon accident near Alice Springs,
Australia kills 13.
August 14 - The Sega Genesis is released in North America.
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,
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 the
family's den.
August 20 - Fifty-one people die when the Marchioness
pleasure boat collides with a barge on the River Thames
adjacent to Southwark Bridge.August 25: Voyager II at Neptune.
August 23 - Two million indigenous people of Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania, then still occupied by the Soviet
Union, join hands to demand freedom and independence,
forming an uninterrupted 600 km human chain called the
Baltic Way.
August 23 - Hungary removes border restrictions with
Austria.
August 23 - All of Australia's 1,645 domestic airline
pilots resign over an airline's move to sack and sue them
over a dispute.
August 23 - Yusef Hawkins is shot in the Bensonhurst
section of Brooklyn, New York, sparking racial tensions
between African Americans and Italian Americans.
August 24 - Record-setting baseball player Pete Rose
agrees to a lifetime ban from the sport following
allegations of illegal gambling, thereby preventing his
induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
August 24 - Indonesia's first privately owned television
station, Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia, (RCTI) begins
broadcasting.
August 25 - Voyager II passes the planet Neptune and its
moon Triton.
Events Of September 1989
September 5 - U.S. President George H. W. Bush holds up a
bag of cocaine purchased across the street at Lafayette Park
in his first televised speech to the nation.
September 6 - The South African general election (the last
under apartheid) returns the National Party with a
much-reduced majority.
September 6 - England holds Sweden to a 0–0 draw in
Sweden, qualifying for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. The game
became famous after Terry Butcher sustained a deep cut to
his forehead early in the game. He received stitches but
played on the entire game. By the end of the game, the front
of Butcher's white shirt and shorts where almost entirely
covered in blood.
September 10 - The Hungarian government opens the
country's western borders to refugees from the German
Democratic Republic.
September 14 - Agreement of cooperation between Leningrad
oblast (Russia) and NordlandCounty (Norway) is signed in
Leningrad, by the chairmen Lev Kojkolainen and Sigbjřrn
Eriksen
September 20 - F. W. de Klerk was sworn in as State
President of South Africa.
September 21 - Hurricane Hugo makes landfall in South
Carolina, causing $7 billion in damage.
September 22 - Deal barracks bombing: An IRA bomb explodes
at the Royal Marine School of Music in Deal, United Kingdom,
leaving 11 dead and 22 injured.
Events Of October 1989
October 4 - Python member Graham Chapman passes away of a
rare spinal cancer.
October 5 - U.S. televangelist John Nunes is found guilty
of embezzling $158 million.
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 13 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges
190.58 points, or 6.91 percent, to close at 2,569.26 most
likely after the junk bond market collapsed. This mini-crash
became known as the Friday the 13th mini-crash.
October 17 - The Loma Prieta earthquake, measuring 7.1 on
the Richter scale, strikes the San Francisco-Oakland region
of Northern California, killing 63.
October 18 - The Communist leader of East Germany, Erich
Honecker, is forced to step down as leader of the country
after a series of health problems.
October 19 - The Guildford Four are freed after 14 years.
October 19- The Wonders of Life pavilion opens at Epcot
October 21 - The Heads of Government of the Commonwealth
of Nations issue the Langkawi Declaration on the
Environment, making environmental sustainability one of the
Commonwealth's main priorities.
October 23 - The Hungarian Republic is officially declared
by president Mátyás Szűrös (replacing the Hungarian People's
Republic).
October 23 - Phillips Disaster in Pasadena, Texas killed
23 and injured 314 others.
October 30 - The qualification for the 1990 Football World
Cup ends.
Events Of November 1989
Cold War: East Germany Nov 7, 9; Bulgaria Nov 10;
Czechoslovakia Nov 17, 20, 28
November 2 - North Dakota and South Dakota celebrate their
One Hundredth Birthdays.
November 4 - Typhoon Gay devastates the Thai province of
Chumphon.
November 7 - Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in
Virginia, becoming 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 - Cold War: The Communist government of East
Germany resigns, although SED leader Egon Krenz remains head
of state.
November 9 - Cold War: East Germany opens checkpoints in
the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to travel freely to
West Germany for the first time in decades (the next day
celebrating Germans began tearing the wall down).
November 10 - After 45 years of Communist rule in
Bulgaria, Bulgarian Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov is
replaced by Foreign Minister Petar Mladenov, who changes the
party's name to the Bulgarian Socialist Party.
November 10 - Gaby Kennard becomes the first Australian
woman to fly non-stop around the world.
November 10 - CKO a Canadian national all-news radio
network suddenly terminated all broadcasting during the
newscast at noon (Eastern time), due to financial losses.
The station began broadcasting on July 1, 1977.
November 12 - Brazil holds its first free presidential
election since 1960. This marked the first time that all
Ibero-American nations, excepting Cuba, had elected
constitutional governments simultaneously.
November 13 - Herbert (Bo) D. Daugherty was born.
November 16 - Six Jesuit priests — among them Ignacio
Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, and Ignacio Martín-Baró — their
housekeeper, and her teenage daughter, are murdered by U.S.
trained Salvadoran soldiers.
November 16 - South African President F.W. de Klerk
announces the scrapping of the Separate Amenities Act.
November 16 - UNESCO adopts the Seville Statement on
Violence at the twenty-fifth session of its General
Conference.
November 17 - Cold War: The Velvet Revolution begins - In
Czechoslovakia a peaceful student demonstration in Prague is
severely beaten back by riot police. This sparks a
revolution aimed at overthrowing the Communist government
(it succeeds 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 21 - North Carolina celebrates its bicentennial
statehood.
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 - The Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia announces they will give up their
monopoly on political power (elections held in December
bring the first non-communist government to Czechoslovakia
in more than 40 years).
November 30 - Deutsche Bank board member Alfred Herrhausen
is killed by a bomb (the Red Army Faction claims
responsibility for the murder).
Events Of December 1989
December 1 - Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes
the constitutional provision granting the
Communist-dominated SED its monopoly on power. Egon Krenz,
the Politburo and the Central Committee resign 2 days later.
December 3 - Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of
Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the
Cold War between their nations may be coming to an end.
December 6 - The École Polytechnique Massacre (or Montreal
Massacre): Marc Lépine, an anti-feminist gunman, murders 14
young women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.
December 10 - Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj announces the
establishment of Mongolia's democratic movement, that
peacefully changes the second oldest communist country into
a democratic society.
December 14 - Chile holds its first free election in 16
years.
December 15 - Drug baron José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha is
killed by Colombian police.
December 17 - In Timişoara, Romania, an uprising begins
against the communist regime, sparking the Romanian
Revolution.
December 17 - Brazil holds its first free election in 29
years; Fernando Collor de Mello wins the election.
December 17 - The first full length episode of The
Simpsons, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", premieres on
FOX.
December 20 - Operation Just Cause is launched in an
attempt to overthrow Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
December 22 - After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion
Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae
Ceauşescu's communist dictatorship, who flees his palace in
a helicopter to escape inevitable execution.
December 22 - Two tourist coaches collide on the Pacific
highway north of Kempsey, Australia, killing 35.
December 25 - Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu and his
wife Elena are executed after their unsuccessful escape
attempt.
December 25 - Bank of Japan governors announce a major
interest rate hike, eventually leading to the peak and fall
of the bubble economy.
December 28 - A magnitude 5.6 earthquake hits Newcastle,
New South Wales, Australia, killing 13.
December 29 - Václav Havel is elected president of
Czechoslovakia.
December 29 - Riots break-out after Hong Kong decides to
forcibly repatriate Vietnamese refugees.
Other Events Of 1989
Alan Bond's Bond Corporation goes into receivership with
the largest debt in Australian history.
Homosexual Acts between consenting adults decriminalized
in Western Australia.
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.
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Events Of
January 1989 
Events Of
February 1989
Events Of
March 1989
Events Of
April 1989
Events Of
May 1989
Events Of
June
1989
Events Of July 1989
Events Of September 1989
Events Of October 1989
Events Of November 1989
Events Of December 1989
Other Events Of 1989
