January 7

• In retaliation for alleged involvment in the December 27, 1985 airport attacks, the United States freezes all Libyan assets and orders all U.S. citizens in Libya home.

January 11

• In a bidding war for James Clavell's new novel Whirlwind a new record is set at 5 million dollars.

January 13

• A coup in Yemen turns into a brief civil war.

January 18

• "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne and Friends begins a 4-week reign as the number 1 song.

January 20

• A military coup in Lesotho overthrows prime minister Leabua Johnathan. Justin Lekhanya becomes the new prime minister.

• France and Great Britain announce that they will be linked with the construction of the "chunnel", a pair of rail tunnels under the English Channel.

January 24

• Voyager 2 visits Uranus.

• With the civil war in Yemen nearly over, Ali Nasser Mohammed is overthrown and Haider Abu Bakr al-Attas becomes president.

• L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, dies of a stroke at the age of 74.

January 26

• A military coup in Uganda overthrows president Tito Okello. Yoweri Museveni becomes president.

• The launch of the space shuttle Challenger, is delayed for the sixth time in a week. Morton Thiokol (the company that designed the o-ring seals for the booster rockets) engineers are concerned that the o-rings might fail in the unusually cold weather. The concerns are rejected and the launch is rescheduled for the following day.

January 28

• The space shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all 7 people onboard.

• Ford pulls its commercials that compare the Aerostar minivan to the space shuttle.

February

• Cyanaide is again found in Tylenol capsules, this time killing a woman in the New York area. Tylenol announces it will no longer sell capsules.

February 2

• Oscar Arias Sanchez is elected president of Costa Rica.

February 7

• President Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier of Haiti flees to France, ending a 28-year Duvalier family dictatorship, after several weeks of unrest in Haiti.

• Presidential elections are held in the Philipines between longtime president Ferdinand Marcos and challenger Corazon Aquino. Both sides claim victory.

February 15

• The National Assembly of the Philipines declares Ferdinand Marcos the winner of the February 7 presidential election, even though independent tallies show the vote overwhelmingly in favor of Corazon Aquino. A period of unrest begisn in the Philipines as domestic and international sources urge Marcos to step down.

• Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know?" begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.

February 16

• Mario Soares is elected president of Portugal.

February 19

• The United States finally ratifies a 1948 United Nations treaty banning genocide.

February 20

• The U.S.S.R. launches the space station Mir into orbit.

February 25

• Ferdinand Marcos accepts a U.S. offer of asylum and flees the Philipines along with his wife Imelda, who leaves behind (among other things) thousands of pairs of shoes. Meanwhile, Corazon Aquino becomes president of the Philipines.

February 26

• Robert Penn Warren becomes the first poet laureate of the United States.

February 28

• Swedish president Olof Palme is assasinated in Stockholm at the age of 59. Ingvar Carlsson becomes the new president.

March 1

• "Kyrie" by Mr. Mister begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.

March 6

• Artist Georgia O'Keeffe dies at the age of 98.

March 15

• The American Medical Association issues a statement that it is ethical for doctors to withhold life-prolonging medical treatment from terminally-ill patients.

• Starship's "Sara" begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

March 16

• Jacques Chirac becomes prime minister of France.

March 18

• Author Bernard Malamud dies at the age of 71.

March 20

• The House of Representatives voted down a controversial aid bill to the contras totalling 100 million dollars.

March 22

• "These Dreams" by Heart begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

March 24

• During maneuvers in the Guld of Sidra, U.S. Navy ships are fired on by Libyan missles. The U.S. forces respond by destroying two approaching Libyan ships and damaging the missile site.

March 25

• 20 million dollars in aid to Honduras is approved by Congress.
• In the Senate, a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget fell one vote short.

March 29

• Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" begins a 3-week reign as the number 1 song.

March 30

• Actor James Cagney dies at the age of 86.

April 2

• A terrorist bomb on a TWA flight from Rome to Athens explodes, killing 4 people.
• The three-point field goal is adopted by the NCAA at 16 feet, 9 inches from the basket.

April 3

• The U.S. National Debt exceeds 2 trillion dollars, having doubled in five years.

April 5

• A bomb explodes at a discotheque in West Berlin, killing 2 people and injuring 155. The discotheque was frequented by U.S. servicemen leading to speculation that the bombing was sponsored by Libya.

April 8

• Actor Clint Eastwood becomes the mayor of Carmel, California.

April 11

• Dodge Morgan sets a new world record for sailing around the world when his American Promise completes the 27,000 mile trip in 150 days.

April 14

• Certain that Libya is to blame for the April 5 discotheque bombing, the United States bombs several targets in Tripoli and Benghazi. The bombing fails in its secret goal of killing Col. Muammar al-Ghadaffi, insead killing his baby daughter. France oppossed the bombing and would not permit the warplanes, which were launched from Great Britain, to fly over her airspace. As a result, the planes had to fly the long route around Europe to reach Libya.

• Author Simone de Beauvoir dies at the age of 78.

April 17

• The first megabit memory chips, capable of holding up to 1 million bits of data, go into production at IBM.

April 18

• A Titan rocket explodes shortly after launch.

April 19

• "Kiss" by Prince begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.

April 21

• Geraldo Rivera opens Al Capone's "vault" on live network TV, revealing nothing save for a bottle and some dirt.

April 23

• South Africa abolishes its laws that restrict the freedom of movement of its black citizens, but keeps in place its policies of segregated neighborhoods.

April 25

• Swaziland's Prince Makhosetive is crowned King Mswati III.

April 26

• A series of explosions at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the U.S.S.R., the worst nuclear accident ever, releases radiation that forces the evacuation of thousands of people, makes a large area unliveable, and has causes numerous birth defects and cancer deaths. The cloud of radioactive material forms a band that circles the northern hemishphere. 31 people are killed by the initial explosions.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger marries Maria Shriver.

April 27

• Cable network HBO's signal is seized by a video pirate who broadcasts a message saying he won't pay for cable TV.

April 28

• The U.S.S.R. is forced to admit to the Chernobyl accident after Sweden detects high levels of radiation in the upper atmosphere.

April 29

• In a settlement of a long-running battle, France's Pasteur Institute is given credit over The U.S.'s National Institutes of Health for developing the first AIDS blood test.
• In the worst library fire in US history, some 800,000 books are damaged at a cost of 22 million dollars. The fire was deliberately set.

May 2

• A U.S.-Canadian team completes an expedition to the North Pole by dogsled, the first such expedition since 1909.

• Gro Harlem Brundtland becomes prime minister of Norway.

May 3

• Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

May 4

• A Delta rocket malfunctions after launch and is self-destructed.

• Najinullah becomes secretary-general of Afghanistan's communist party.

May 6

• Donald Pelotte becomes the first Native-American bishop in the Catholic church.
• Sadiq al-Mahdi becomes prime minister of the Sudan as power is transferred toa civilian government.
• David Smith's 1963 welded-steel sculpture Voltri-Bolton XXIII set a new price record at an auction, bringing in 1.3 million dollars.

May 9

• Mountaineer Tenzing Norkey, who together with Sir Edmund Hillary was one of the first people to climb Mt. Everest, dies at the age of 72.

May 10

• "West End Girls" by Pet Shop Boys begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

May 16

• After Patrick Duffy agrees to return to the television show "Dallas", his character Bobby Ewing (who was murdered last year) suddenly appears in Pam's shower. This season finale draws the most interest since the "Who shot J.R.?" cliffhanger.

May 17

• Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All" begins a 3-week reign as the number 1 song.

May 19

• President Reagan signed into law a new gun control law that weakened an 1968 bill and allowed for interstate retail sales of rifles.

May 25

• In an event called Hands Across America, millions of people form a human chain across the United States to raise money for the homeless and hungry.

• Virgilio Barco Vargas is elected president of Colombia.

May 28

• Errol Barrow becomes prime minister of Barbados.

May 30

• Geneticlaly-engineered plants, in this case tobacco plants, are used on a farm for the first time.

June 5

• Model Marla Hanson is slashed in the face by two men with razor blades while her ex-landlord, Steve Roth (to whom she allegedly owes $850) looks on. She will require over a hundred stitches.
• Former National Security Agency employee Ronald W. Pelton was convicted of spying for the USSR.

June 8

• Kurt Waldheim, a former Nazi soldier during World War II, is elected president of Austria.

June 7

• "Live to Tell" by Madonna begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

June 9

• It is announced that the Challenger explosion was caused by a faulty o-ring seal in one of the booster rockets.

• Franz Vranitzky becomes chancellor of Austria.

June 13

• Bandleader and clarinetist Benny Goodman dies at the age of 77.

June 14

• Playwright and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner dies at the age of 67.

• "On My Own" by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald begins a 3-week reign as the number 1 song.

June 17

• U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger announces his resignation.

• Singer Kate Smith dies at the age of 79.

June 19

• Murray Haydon, the third artificial heart recipient, dies atb the age of 59.

• FBI agent Richard Miller is convicted of espionage, the first FBI agent ever convicted of spying for the U.S.S.R.

• Cyanide-laced Extra-Strength Excedrin kills two people in the Seattle area.

• University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias dies of a heart attack brought on by a cocaine overdose.

June 27

• The World Court rules that U.S. interference in Nicaragua's government is illegal and orders the U.S. to pay damages. The U.S. ignores the order, having declared the court to have no jusrisdiction.

• Cleveland Browns safety Don Morris dies of a cocaine overdose.

June 30

• The U.S. Supreme Court rules that there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution protecting homosexuality.

July 2

• NASA announces it will change the shuttle booster rocket joints to prevent future explosions.

July 3

• Singer Rudy Vallee dies at the age of 84.

July 4

• The United States celebrates the 100th birthday of the Statue of Liberty with a huge party in New York Horbor.

July 5

• "There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)" by Billy Ocean begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

July 7

• The U.S. Supreme Court rules part of the 1985 Gramm-Rudman Act unconstitutional.

• U.S. Attorney general Ed Meese presents the result of his pornographu commission's findings -- a 1,960 document that becomes popular reading material because of its lists of X-rated films, books, and magazines... and 200 pages of samples from these materials.

July 12

• "Holding Back the Years" by Simply Red begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

July 14

• Truong Chinh becomes secretary general of Vietnam's communist party.

July 19

• "Invisible Touch" by Genesis begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

July 20

• Briatin's Prince Andrew marries Sarah Ferguson.

July 26

• Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

• U.S. diplomat W. Averell Harriman dies at the age of 94.

July 27

• Greg Lemond becomes the first American to win the Tour de France, beating his nearest competitor by 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

July 29

• The United States Football League (USFL) is awarded $1 when it wins an antitrust lawsuit against the national Football league (NFL).

August 2

• Leslie Alexander becomes the first female rabbi to participate in a service in a major conservative Jewish congregation.

• Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love" begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.

August 13

• William Schroeder, the second person to receive an artificial heart and the longest to live with one, dies at the age of 54.

August 16

• "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.

August 21

• A cloud of toxic gas erupts from Lake Nios in northwestern Cameroon. The cloud drifts across four villages, killing over 1,500 people.

• Mary Beth Whitehead, who gave birth to a baby girl for another couple for a $10,000 fee and then decided to keep the baby, begins her court battle to determine custody.

August 30

• Steve Winwood's "Higher Love" begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

August 31

• Admiral Nakhimov, a Soviet passenger ship, collides with a freighter in the Black Sea and sinks. 398 of the 1,234 people on board are killed.

• A single-engine plane collides with an Aeromexico flight over the Los Angeles area, killing 67 people and destroying ten homes.

• Sculptor Henry Moore dies at the age of 88.

September 3

• The "Twilight Zone" trial of John Landis and four other charges with manslaughter in the helicopter accident that killed three people on the set of "Twilight Zone: The Movie" begins.

September 4

• Harvard University begins a celebration of its 350th anniversary. It is the oldest university in the U.S.

September 5

• Terrorist hijack a Pan-Am jet in Pakistan heading from India to West Germany and finally the U.S. When the planes generator runs down and the lights go out, the hijackers panick and begin shooting and throwing grenades at the 389 people on board. Commandos storm the plane and capture the terrorists, but 21 people are killed and 100 are injured.

September 6

• Terrorists attack a synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey, during a service. 21 worshippers are killed, and the terrorists inadvertantly blow themselves up with a grenade.

• "Venus" by Bananarama begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

September 8

• The first in a series of terrorist bombings in Paris takes place.

September 13

• "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

September 15

• It is revealed that Michael Jackson is sleeping in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to extend his life to 150.

September 17

• A department store bombing in Paris, the fifth bombing in nine days, kills 5 people and injures 50. Lebanese terrorists are suspected.

September 20

• "Stuck With You" by Huey Lewis and the News begins a 3-week reign as the number 1 song.

September 23

• The rose becomes the official flower of the United States.

September 26

• On the season premiere of the TV show "Dallas", the re-appearance of Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) is explained that he was never really killed, Pam only dreamed thatr he had been killed. And, in fact, the entire previous season was her dream, too.

October 2

• The United States bans investments and many trades with South Africa, and bans South Africa Airlines from landing in the United States.

October 5

• A mercenrary plane running supplies to the contra rebels is shot down by the Nicaraguan military, killing 3 of the 4 mercenaries. The U.S. Government claims to have no involvement.

October 9

• Eugene Hasenfus, imprisoned in Managua and the sole survivor of the mercenary plane shot down in Nicaragua on October 5, claims that his contra supply run was under command of the CIA.
• In the first impeachment trial held by the Senate in 50 years, Judge Harry E. Clairborne was convicted of 3 of 4 articles of impeachment by the US Senate, thus removing him from office.

October 10

• An earthquake strikes San Salvador, El Salvador, killing 500 people.

• It is suggested that Lt. Colonel Oliver North be questioned about the downed mercenary plane due to his contacts with the contra rebels.

October 11

• Janet Jackson's "When I Think of You" begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.
• After two days of meetings in Reykjavik, Iceland, no agreement was reached between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in arms control talks.

October 19

• President Samora Machel of Mozambique dies in a plane crash at the age of 53.

October 20

• General Motors announces it is withdrawing all operations from South Africa.

• Yitzhak Shamir becomes the prime minister of Israel.

• Eugene Hasenfus claims that George Bush was aware of the mercenary supply run to the contra rebels.

October 21

• IBM announces it is withdrawing all operations from South Africa.

October 25

• "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.

November 1

• A chemical storage facility in Basel, Switzerland burns, spilling thousands of pounds of poisonous chemicals into the Rhine River.

November 2

• David P. Jacobsen, director of the American Hospital in Beirut, was freed after 18 months of captivity.

November 3

• Al Shiraa, a Lebanese magazine, reveals that the United States has been secretly selling arms to Iran to secure the release of hostages held in Lebanon.

• Joaquim Chissano becomes the president of Mozambique.

November 4

• Iranian Parliament speaker Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani reports that five Americans disguised as airline workers with irish passports, including former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, had recently visited Iran to provide arms in exchange for Iran's help in reducing terrorism.

November 6

• The United States admits that it has been selling arms to Iran.

November 8

• Boston's "Amanda" begins a 2-week reign as the number 1 song.

November 9

• Atef Sedki becomes prime minister of Egypt.

November 13

• U.S. President Ronald Reagan admits knowledge of the sale of arms to Iran.

November 14

• Ivan Boesky is penalized $100,000,000 for illegal insider trading.

November 15

• Eugene Hasenfus is sentenced to 30 years in prison in a Nicaraguan court, but is released in a few days.

November 19

• Eastman Kodak announces it is withdrawing all operations from South Africa.

November 22

• 20-year-old Mike Tyson becomes the youngest heavyweight boxing champion in history when he defeats Trevor Berbick.

• "Human" by Human League begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

November 25

• President Reagan states that he was only partially informed of the details of the arms sale to Iran.

• Vice Admiral John Poindexter resigns from National Security Advisor and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North is fired over their roles in the arms sale to Iran.

November 26

• President Reagan appoints a 3-man commission, the "Tower Commission" led by former senator John Tower, to investigate the arms sale to Iran.

November 29

• Actor Cary Grant dies at the age of 82.

• "You Give Love a Bad Name" by Bon Jovi begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

December 1

• President Reagan experiences the greatest one month popularity drop in history, falling from 67% on November 1 to 46%.

December 2

• Actor/producer/bandleader Desi Arnaz dies at the age of 69.

December 6

• "The Next Time I Fall" by Peter cetera and Amy Grant begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

December 13

• "The Way It Is" by Bruce Hornsby and the Range begins a 1-week reign as the number 1 song.

December 15

• A. N. R. Robinson becomes the prime minister of trinidad and Tobago.
• Carnegie Hall reopens after being closed for 7 months for 50 million dollars in renovations.

December 18

• Nguyen Van Linh becomes general secretary of the Vietnamese communist party.

December 20

• "Walk Like an Egyptian" by Bangles begins a 4-week reign as the number 1 song.

December 23

• The experimental aircraft Voyager becomes the first airplane to fly around the world on a single load of fuel.

December 31

• A hotel fire in San Juan, Puerto Rico, started by a disgruntled employee who only intended a small fire to scare the management, kills 95 people.

• Researchers for Bell Laboratories and the University of Houston announce that they have produced alloys that are superconductive at higher temperatures than previously possible.

• Gary Hart meets Donna Rice at a New Year's Eve party.