1988

Decades: 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s - 1980s - 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s

Years: 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 - 1988 - 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993

Events

• 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 11, Anthony M. Kennedy is appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
• 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.
• 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.
• March 7- The SAS shoot dead three Irish Republican Army terrorists 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 - 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.
• 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.
• May 24 - Section 28 is passed as law by Parliament in the United Kingdom.
• 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.
• July 6 - The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires killing 167 oil workers.
• August 17 - Pakistan President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and US Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
• August 23 - Singing Revolution: two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stood on the Vilnius-Tallinn road, holding hands
• 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 bankrupt thrift, American Savings and Loan Association.
• September 17 - TV Show Garfield and Friends debuts on CBS.
• September 29 - NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster
• 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 H. W. 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 was "sovereign" but stopped 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 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 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 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.

• Akira, anime film, released.
• Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea
• Former pop singer Sonny Bono is elected mayor of Palm Springs, California.
• Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is the focus of a sex scandal, and later admits to being with prostitutes and steps down from his television ministry.
• Iran Air Flight 655 shut down by missiles throwm from the USS Vincennes ship

Year in topic

• 1988 in film
  • Dangerous Liaisons
  • Mississippi Burning
  • Working Girl starring Harrison Ford
  • Die Hard starring Bruce Willis
  • Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise
  • Cherry 2000 starring Melanie Griffith
• 1988 in literature
• 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 Championships
• 1988 in television
  • February 29 - The soap opera 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

Births

• August 24, Rupert Grint, actor
• November 15, Zena Grey, actress

Deaths

• 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 22 - Parker Fennelly, comedian, actor
• February 1 - Heather O'Rourke, child actress who starred in "Poltergeist" movies
• February 15 - Richard Feynman, physicist
• February 19 - René Char, French poet
• March 5 - Alberto Olmedo, comedian, actor
• March 7 - Divine, actor
• March 8 - Henryk Szeryng, violinist
• March 10 - Andy Gibb, singer
• April 3 - Milt Caniff, cartoonist
• 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 25 - Ernst Ruska, Nobel Prize Physicist
• June 25 - Hillel Slovak, Red Hot Chili Peppers, guitarist
• August 17 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., lawyer, politican
• August 17 - Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, Leader of Pakistan
• September 28 - Charles Addams, American cartoonist
• October 19 - Son House, blues musician
• October 22 - Henry Armstrong, American boxing champion
• November 9 - John N. Mitchell, former U.S. Attorney General and convicted Watergate criminal
• November 19 - Christina Onassis, Greek shipping magnate
• December 6, Roy Orbison, pioneer Rock and Roll singer

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, Jack Steinberger
• Chemistry - Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber, Hartmut Michel
• Medicine - Sir James W. Black, Gertrude B. Elion, George H. Hitchings
• Literature - Naguib Mahfouz
• Peace - The United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces, New York City, New York.
• Economics - Maurice Allais

Referenced By