- January 10
- Daniel Ortega Saavedra inaugurated as President of Nicaragua. [1]
- January 13
- Express train derails in Ethiopia, kills at least 428. [1]
- January 14
- Sixteen indicted by US for granting sanctuary to Central American refugees. [1]
- British pound sterling sinks to record low: US$1.11. [1]
- January 15
- Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to John Ashbery and Fred Chapell. [1]
- Tancredo Neves is elected president of Brazil by the Congress, ending 21 years of military rule. [1] [85]
- January 17
- British Telecom announces it is going to phase out its famous red telephone boxes. [85]
- January 18
- US renounces jurisdiction of World Court despite previous promise. [1]
- January 20
- U.S. President Ronald Reagan is privately sworn in for a second term in office (publicly sworn in January 21). [85]
- January 21
- Bomb attack on Borobudur temple in Java. [1]
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- January 23
- Britains' House of Lords debate first televised. [1]
- January 26
- Edmonton Oilers' Wayne Gretzky scores 50th goal in 49th game of season. [1]
- In Mendoza Province, Argentina, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake occurs. Six people killed, at least 238 injured and about 12,500 homes destroyed or damaged. [53]
- January 28
- (to January 29) At the A&M studios in Los Angeles, California, 45 of the world's top recording artists create and record the song "We Are the World" under the project "USA for Africa", promoted by Ken Kragen, and conducted by Quincy Jones. [1] [85] [457]
- January 31
- South African President PW Botha offers to free Nelson Mandela if he denounces violence. [1]
- February 1
- AM stereo broadcasting starts in Australia. [85]
- February 4
- 20 countries (but not US) sign United Nations treaty outlawing torture. [1]
- Naval exercises canceled when US refuses to tell New Zealand of nuclear weapons. [1]
- February 5
- Australia cancels its involvement in U.S.-led MX missile tests. [85]
- February 8
- Opposition leader Kim Dae Jung returns to South-Korea. [1]
- February 9
- U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena is kidnapped and murdered in Mexico (his body is discovered March 5). [85]
- February 10
- Nelson Mandela rejects an offer of freedom from the South African government. [85]
- USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk. [1]
- February 11
- Jordan's king Hussein and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Arafat sign accord. [1]
- February 13
- Polish police arrest seven Solidarity leaders. [1]
- February 14
- Hostage CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is released in Beirut, Lebanon. [1] [85]
- February 15
- World chess championship match abandoned-Karpov 25, Kasparov 23. [1]
- February 16
- Israel begins withdrawing troops from Lebanon. [85]
- February 17
- Third person to receive an artificial heart (Murray Haydon). [1]
- February 19
- 148 die when an Iberia Boeing 727 crashes into a TV mast near Bilbao, Spain. [1] [57]
- ADM of Amsterdam declares bankruptcy. [1]
- Canned and bottled Cherry Coke introduced by Coca-Cola. [1]
- Disney's Mickey Mouse character welcomed in China. [1]
- William Schroeder is first artificial heart patient to leave hospital. He spends 15 minutes outside Humana Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. [1] [5] [85]
- February 20
- The Irish government approves by vote of 83-80 the sale of non-medical contraceptives without prescription to those over age 18. [129]
- February 24
- Birendra, Bir Bikram Shah Dev crowned King of Nepal. [1]
- February 27
- Mauritania's new constitutional charter published. [1]
- February 28
- The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day. [85]
- March 1
- Pentagon accepts theory that atomic war would cause a nuclear winter. [1]
- March 3
- Offshore Valparaiso, Chile, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurs. At least 177 people killed, 2,575 injured and extensive damage in central Chile. [53]
- National Union of Mine Workers in England end a 51-week strike. [1]
- March 4
- Virtual ban on leaded gas in USA ordered by EPA. [1]
- The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS, used since then to screen all blood donations in the United States. [85]
- March 6
- Mexican authorities find body of US drug agent Enrique C Salaazar. [1]
- Yul Brynner appears in his 4,500th performance of The King and I. [1]
- March 8
- A car bomb planted in Beirut targetting the Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah kills more than 80 people, and injures 200. [85]
- March 10
- French socialists lose election (National Front 9 percent). [1]
- Konstantin Chernenko, party leader/President of USSR (1984-85), dies at age 73 (born 1911). [1] [84]
- March 11
- Mikhail S Gorbachev replaces Konstantin Chernenko as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. [1] [85]
- Mohammed Al Fayed buys the London-based department store company Harrods. [85]
- March 15
- Virginia-based American computer-maker Symbolics registers the first Internet domain name: symbolics-dks.com. [1285.10]
- US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. [1]
- Vice-president Jose Sarney takes oath as the first civilian president of Brazil in 21 years, as the elected president Tancredo Neves had become severely ill on the day before. [85]
- March 16
- The Heinrich Köhler stamp auction firm of Federal Republic of Germany sells a Baden 1851 9-kreuzer postage stamp, printed on blue-green paper instead of deep rose, postally used on a folder letter, one of four known, for 2.645 million marks (US$833,600). [554.19]
- In Leeward Islands, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake occurs. [53]
- Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage by Islamic militants in Beirut, Lebanon. (He is eventually released on December 4, 1991.) [1] [85] [129]
- March 17
- Near the coast of Central Chile, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake occurs. [53]
- March 18
- In Mindanao, Philippine Islands, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake occurs. [53]
- Capital Cities Communications Inc acquires ABC TV. [1]
- March 19
- In Bolivia, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake occurs. [53]
- Spin Magazine begins publishing. [1]
- March 21
- Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research. [5]
- Bloodbath at Langa (Uitenhage) South Africa, 19 killed. [1]
- March 24
- Norwich City win the English League Cup at Wembley Stadium, beating Sunderland 1-0 in the final. [85]
- March 25
- Edwin Meese III becomes US Attorney General. [1]
- March 29
- Christos Sartzetakis elected President of Greece. [1]
- March 31
- El Salvador's President José Napoleón Duarte's Christian-Democrats win election. [1]
- April 1
- Two Japanese government-owned corporations, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, and Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation, are privatized and changed their names to Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, and Japan Tobacco. [85]
- April 3
- French government adopts equal electoral system. [1]
- April 6
- Sudan suspends constitution after coup under General Swarreddahab. [1]
- April 8
- Amdahl releases UTS/V, first mainframe Unix operating system. [1]
- India files suit against Union Carbide over Bhopal disaster. [1]
- April 11
- Enver Hoxha, party leader/premier of Albania, dies at age 76 (born 1908). [1] [85]
- April 13
- Ramiz Alia succeeds Enver Hoxha as party leader of Albania. [1]
- April 14
- Alan Garcia wins elections in Peru. [1]
- Jack C Burcham is 5th to receive "Jarvik 7" permanent artificial heart. [1]
- April 15
- South Africa ends its ban on interracial marriages. [1] [85]
- April 18
- In Yunnan Province, China, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurs. Twenty-three people killed, 300 injured. [53]
- April 19
- USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk. [1] [85]
- April 21
- Bomb attack in NATO/AEG-Telefunken building in Brussels, Belgium. [1]
- Tancredo Neves, President-elect of Brazil, dies at age 75 (born 1910). [1] [85]
- April 23
- Coca-Cola changes its secret flavor formula and releases New Coke. (The response is overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula is back on the market in less than 3 months.) [1] [85]
- April 24
- Pulitzer prize awarded to Carolyn Lizer for Yin. [1]
- In Luzon, Philippine Islands, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake occurs. [53]
- April 25
- Roger Miller's musical Big River, premieres at Eugene O'Neill Theater New York City for 1005 performances. [1]
- West German Parliament rules it illegal to deny the holocaust. [1]
- April 28
- The Australian Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP) splits. [85]
- April 30
- France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. [1]
- Last edition of Brink Daily Mail / Sunday Express in South Africa. [1]
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