Britain and the World 1989

BRITAIN AND THE WORLD SINCE 1953

Home | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 |1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003

	1989
Jan3	Margaret Thatcher becomes the longest serving British Prime Minister this century
Jan4	Two Libyan jets are shot down by US
Jan8	British Midland Boeing 737-400 on a flight from Heathrow to Belfast crashes on approach to East Midlands Airport - the Kegworth Air Disaster led to the deaths of 44 people out of 126 passengers and crew who were on the plane
	The Imperial Son of Heaven Emperor Michinomiya Hirohito dies from stomach cancer at the age of 82. He is succeeded by Crown Prince Akihito to the Chrysanthemum Throne
Jan17	A gunman kills five children and wounds thirty others in an unprovoked attack on a school playground in Stockton California. The gunman after the massacre shot himself
Jan20	George Bush inaugurated as 41st President & Dan Quayle becomes 44th Vice President of USA
	Reagan becomes 1st President elected in a "0" year, since 1840, to leave office alive
Jan24	Ted Bundy the serial killer of at least 22 women is electrocuted in the electric chair in Florida
Jan30	Olympian, Bruce Kimball, is sentenced to 17 years in prison for killing two teenagers in a drunk driving accident
Feb2	FW de Klerk replaces Botha as South Africa's Nationalist Party leader
Feb3	Military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay
Feb13	The highest gust of wind ever recorded in th UK at a low level site occurred at Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire. It measured 123 knots an hour
Feb14	Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini charges that Salman Rushdie's novel, **The Satanic Verses, is blasphemous and issues an edict (fatwa) calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie**
Feb15	Last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan
Feb25	In Las Vegas Mike Tyson TKOs Frank Bruno in five rounds when fighting for the World Heavyweight Title
Mar1	A curfew is imposed in Kosovo where protests continue at the alleged intimidation of the Serb minority.
Mar2	Gareth Morris the last Trades Unionist at GCHQ leaves after being sacked for being a Union member. A Day of Shame
Mar3	Three IRA members on mission in Gibraltar shot by SAS; at their funeral in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast,loyalist Michael Stone kills three people; at the funeral of the three killed by Stone, two non-uniformed Army personnel attacked and killed by mourners after being pulled from vehicle. Stone receives a 30 year sentence for the killings
Mar4	The Purley rail crash in which five people died and 94 were injured occured when the 12.17 Littlehampton to London Victoria crashed into the rear of the 12.50 Horsham to Victoria. At the subsequent inquiry British Rail blame driver error
Mar7	Iran broke off diplomatic relations with Britain over Salman Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses".
Mar25	The Exxon Valdez runs into a reef causing 11 million gallons of crude oil to pour into Prince William Sound and creates an major environmental disaster
Mar31	The first nuclear power station to be turned off. After 27 years the station at Berkely Glos is shut down but it will not be fully decommissioned for another 100 years
Apr1	Universal free eye tests are ended. Another day of shame
Apr7	A Soviet nuclear-powered submarine, carrying nuclear warheads, caught fire and sank off Norway with the loss of more than 40 crew members
Apr11	Members of the Abbey National vote to convert the building society to a bank and float it on the Stock Exchange
Apr15	96 crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium in a FA Cup Semi-Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. For a full review of the circumstances that led to the disaster and the aftermath please click here
Apr18	Zimbabwe gains independence
Apr19	A 16" gun turrett exploded on the US battleship Iowa killing 47 ratings. The ship was on exercises 300 miles north east of Puerto Rico
Apr20	Scientists stated the Earth narrowly missed being struck by an asteroid weighing 400 million tons.
Apr24	Peter Scudamore became the first National Hunt jockey to ride 200 winners in a season.
Apr27	Beijing students take over Tiananmen Square in China
Apr30	The Italian Film director Sergio Leone dies aged 60
May1	Steve Davis wins his sixth World Snooker title defeating John Parrott a record 18 - 3 in the final
May15	Jackie Mann a 74 year old former Battle of Britain pilot is abducted in Beiruit by Arab terrorists
May24	Sonia Sutcliffe the wife of the Yorkshire Ripper wins libel damages of £600,000 against Private Eye for an allegation that she profited from the sale of her life story
Jun2	Rolling Stone's bass guitarist Bill Wyman marries Mandy Smith
Jun3	10,000 Chinese soldiers are blocked by 100,000 citizens protecting students demonstrating for democracy in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Hundreds are killed
Jun4	Gas from a leaking pipeline exploded, engulfing two packed passenger trains on the Trans-Siberian railway; 575 people were killed and more than 600 injured in the second worst rail disaster ever.
Jun7	Peter Shilton made his record 109th appearance for England against Denmark, passing Bobby Moore's long-standing record.
Jun13	The wreck of the German Battleship Bismarck which was sunk in 1941 is located 600 miles west of Brest France
Jun21	Police arrest 250 citizens for celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge in Wiltshire
Jul19	The BBC programme "Panorama" accuses Lady Porter Tory Leader of Westminster City Council of "gerrymandering"
Jul20	Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for her outspoken attacks on the country's military rulers.
Jul23	Mark Calcavecchia wins the British Open Golf Championship at Royal Troon after the first ever triple play-off
Jul27	Christer Pettersson was found guilty and jailed for life for the 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He was later acquitted and the crime has remained unsolved
Aug20	"The Marchioness" collides with the dredger Bowbelle on the River Thames adjacent to Southwark Bridge. The result was the loss of 51 lives. It was the worst loss of life on the Thames for over 100 years
Aug25	After a 12-year, 4-billion-mile space journey, Voyager 2 flew over the cloudtops of the giant planet Neptune and its moon Triton, sending back photographs of swampy areas, frozen lakes and craters.
Aug30	Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips separated after 16 years of a marriage dogged by constant rumors of estrangement
Sep22	At 8.26a.m. a bomb explodes at the Royal Marines School of Music in Deal killing 11 bandsmen and injuring 22. The I.R.A. were responsible for the carnage and loss of life
Oct5	US TV Evangelist Jim Bakker is found guilty of fleecing his followers of $158 million. Praise The Lord
Oct17	The deadliest U.S. quake since 1906 shook the entire San Francisco Bay area. Centered near Santa Cruz, 50 miles (80 km) south of San Francisco, it was a magnitude 6.9 quake, and killed 67 people and injured more than 600.
Oct19	The Guildford Four are freed after 14 years for crimes they did not commit. Investigations revealed that the evidence had been either fabricated or concocted and that the police had mislead the original trial
Oct26	The Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson resigns and is succeeded by John Major
Nov9	East Germany opens all its border points
Nov10	Guerrillas battle with government forces in El Salvador
	Germans begin punching holes in the Berlin Wall
Nov12	Brazil holds its first free presidential election since 1960
Nov18	National Hunt Jockey Peter Scudamore breaks the record for the total number of winners ridden in a season
Nov21	House of Commons proceedings first televised with the Labour MP Bob Cryer opening the debate on the Queens Speech
Nov27	Colombian jetliner bombed killing 107 people
Nov30	Frank Warren the Boxing Promoter is seriously injured in a shooting incident
	Lord Aldington the Tory Peer wins libel damages of £1.5 million from Nickolai Tolstoy after the latter alleged that he was "a man with the blood of 70,000 men women and children on his hands". He was refering to the forced repatriation of Cossacks and Slavs to Stalins Russia after 1945. Eleven years later he has still not received any of the award and is living in "reduced circumstances
Dec2	VP Singh(Janata Dal) replaces Rajiv Ghandhi(Congress) as Prime Minister of India
Dec7	A gunman claiming to hate feminists massacres 14 women at the University of Montreal.
Dec9	The sale of the UK Water industry to the private sector is over-subscribed 5.7 times
Dec13	The RFU ends its opposition to pure amateurism in Rugby Union
Dec20	US troops invade Panama and overthrow the government of Manuel Noriega. Noriega, wanted on drug charges, takes refuge in the Vatican mission until January 3, 1990.
Dec21	Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's final speech He and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad on Xmas Day after being found guilty of "Crimes against the People"
Dec26	Samuel Beckett the writer of "Waiting For Godot" dies in Paris
Dec29	Vaclav Havel becomes president of Czechoslovakia

Last Updated 21/07/03 10:15

Return to Main HomePage