- January 10
- In Australia, Assistant AFP Police Commissioner Colin Winchester gunned down in driveway of Canberra home. [43]
- Cuban troops begin withdrawing from Angola. [43]
- January 11
- 140 nations agree to ban chemical weapons (poison gas, etc.). [1]
- January 12
- Idi Amin expelled from Zaire. [1]
- January 13
- "Friday the 13th" virus strikes hundreds of personal computers in Britain. [1]
- Ruins of Mashkan-shapir (occupied 2050-1720 BC) found in Iraq. [1]
- January 14
- 1,000 Muslims burn Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses in Bradford, England. [1]
- 29-year-old French woman gives birth to sextuplets in Paris. [1]
- Former Belgian premier Paul Vanden Boeynants kidnapped. [1]
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- January 16
- Police arrest writer Vaclav Havel in Prague, Czechoslovakia. [1]
- USSR announces plan for two-year manned mission to Mars. [1]
- January 17
- Patrick Edward Purdy kills five children, wounds 30 and then shoots himself in Stockton, California. [1] [43]
- Victoria Murden and Shirley Metz are first women to reach South Pole overland (on skis). [1]
- January 18
- Astronomers discover pulsar in remnants of Supernova 1987A (LMC). [1]
- The Communist Party of Poland votes to legalize Solidarity. [43]
- January 20
- George H.W. Bush succeeds Ronald Reagan as the 41st President of the United States of America. [1] [43]
- The Soviets begin to airlift supplies to Afghanistan as they pull out. [43]
- January 22
- USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakstan/Semipalatinsk. [1]
- In Tajikistan, a magnitude 5.3 earthquake occurs. Two hundred seventy-four people killed, many injured, extensive damage. [53]
- January 23
- Challenge to "who is a Jew" law filed in Israeli Supreme Court. [1]
- January 24
- Serial killer (100 women) Ted Bundy is executed in Florida's electric chair. [1] [43]
- January 26
- AT&T reports first loss in 103 years; US$1.67 billion in 1988. [1]
- Stéphane Steinier, Belgian journalist, kidnapped and murdered. [1]
- January 29
- Dow Jones Industrial Average jumps 38.06 to hit 2256.43; recoups 508-point loss since October 1987. [1]
- Episcopal church appoints first female bishop. [1]
- January 30
- Five pharoah sculptures from 1470 BC found at temple of Luxor. [1]
- 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. [43]
- February 2
- The last Soviet Union armored column leaves Kabul, Afghanistan, ending nine years of military occupation. [43]
- Satellite television service Sky Television PLC is launched in Europe. [43]
- February 3
- After a stroke, Pieter Willem Botha resigns his party's leadership and the presidency of South Africa. Frederik Willem de Klerk replaces Botha as South Africa's Nationalist Party leader. [43] (February 2 [1])
- A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954. [1] [43]
- February 6
- Lech Walesa begins negotiating with the Polish government. [1]
- February 8
- US Boeing 707 crashes into Santa Maria mountain, 145 die. [1]
- February 9
- Michael Manley's Socialist Party wins Jamaica parliamentary election. [1]
- February 10
- To gain deregulation, WWF admits pro wrestling is an exhibition and not a sport, in a New Jersey court. [1]
- February 11
- Barbara Clementine Harris is consecrated as the first female bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA. [1] [43]
- February 12
- Five Pakistani Muslim rioters killed protesting Satanic Verses book. [1]
- February 13
- Kidnapped Belgian Premier Vanden Boeynants is freed. [1]
- February 14
- African National Congress (ANC) opens office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. [1]
- Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issues a religious decree, a fatwa, calling on all Muslims to execute Salmon Rushdie and everyone involved in the publication of the book The Satanic Verses. [43] [1700.18]
- Union Carbide agrees to pay US$470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopol disaster. [1] [43]
- The first of 24 Global Positioning System satellites is placed into orbit. [43] [457]
- World's first satellite Skyphone opens. [1]
- February 15
- Israel attacks border strip Taba near Egypt. [1]
- The Soviet Union officially announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan. Fifteen thousand Soviet soldiers were killed during the ten years of Soviet occupation. [1] [43]
- February 16
- Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and North Yemen form common market. [1]
- William Hayden becomes governor-General of Australia. [1]
- Pan Am flight 103 crash investigators announce that the cause of the crash was a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player. [43]
- February 17
- Six-week study of Arctic atmosphere shows no ozone "hole". [1]
- Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya form common market. [1]
- USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk. [1]
- February 19
- Broadway's biggest flop (lost US$5.3 million) Legs Diamond closes at Mark Hellinger Theater in New York City after 64 performances. [1]
- Edgar Bowers wins Bollingen Prize. [1]
- February 20
- Total eclipse of the Moon. [1]
- February 21
- US bust Chinese heroin ring, capture record 820 pounds heroin ($1 billion street value). [1]
- February 22
- New York Lotto pays US$26.9 million to one winner (numbers are 1-5-12-19-44-50). [1]
- United Kingdom physicist Stephen Hawking calls US Strategic Defence Initiative a "deliberate fraud". [1]
- US authors demonstrate against Iranian death treats against Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses. [1]
- February 24
- 150-million-year-old fossil egg (oldest dinosaur embryo) found. [1]
- United Airlines Flight 811, a Boeing 747 bound to New Zealand from Honolulu, Hawaii, rips open during flight, sucking nine passengers and crew out of the first class section. [1] [43]
- After 44 years, the Estonian flag is raised to the Pikk Hermann castle tower. [43]
- February 25
- First independent blue-collar labor union in Communist Hungary forms. [1]
- 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). [43]
- The Berne Convention, an international treaty on copyrights, is ratified by the United States. [43]
- A curfew is imposed in Kosovo, where protests continue over the alleged intimidation of the Serb minority. [43]
- March 2
- Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by 2000. [1] [43]
- Exxon Houston runs aground in Hawaii, spills 117,000 gallons of oil. [1]
- Madonna's "Like a Prayer" premieres on worldwide Pepsi commercial. [1]
- March 3
- Robert McFarlane gets $20,000 fine, two years probation for Iran-Contra. [1]
- Jammu Siltavuori abducts and murders two 8-year old girls in Myllypuro suburb in Helsinki, Finland. [43]
- March 4
- The first Australian Capital Territory elections are held. [43]
- The Purley Station rail crash in London, England, leaves five dead and 94 injured. [43]
- March 7
- Iran breaks off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom over Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses. [1] [43]
- Partial eclipse of the Sun (Hawaii, North West North America, Greenland). [1]
- In Geneva, Switzerland, the Geneva international auto show is held, over eleven days. Chevrolet introduces the Corvette ZR-1 and LT5 engine. [8]
- March 9
- Soviet Union officially submits to jurisdiction of the World Court. [1]
- March 10
- In Malawi, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake occurs. At least 9 people killed, 100 injured, about 50,000 left homeless. [53]
- March 12
- Two cyanide-contaminated Chilean grapes found (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA). [1]
- Madagascar AREMA party wins parliamentary election. [1]
- March 13
- US Food and Drug Administration orders recall of all Chilean fruit in US. [1]
- A geomagnetic storm causes the collapse of the Hydro-Quebec power grid. Six million people are left without power for nine hours. Some areas in the northeastern U.S. and in Sweden also lose power, and auroras are seen as far south as Texas. [43]
- March 14
- Christian General Michel Aoun declares a 'War of Liberation' to rid Lebanon of Syrian forces and their allies. [43]
- Stack's auctions a $1000 US Treasury note for US$100,000, a record price for paper money. [482.38]
- March 18
- In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found in the Great Pyramid of Giza. [5] [43]
- March 19
- Boeing V-22 Osprey VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft makes maiden flight. [1]
- In the Mexican Gulf off Louisiana, the South Pass 60 oil drilling platform explodes, killing 7. [720.123]
- March 21
- First sea test of Trident 2 missile self-destructs, Cape Canaveral. [1]
- March 22
- Asteroid 4581 Asclepius approaches the Earth at a distance of 700,000 kilometres. [43]
- March 23
- Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce that they have achieved cold fusion at room temperature at the University of Utah. [1] [43]
- A 300m (1,000 feet) diameter Near-Earth asteroid misses the Earth by 500,000km (400,000 miles). [43]
- March 24
- In Alaska's Prince William Sound, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spills 38.1 million litres of crude oil after running aground, spreading more than 160km, polluting more than 1120km of coastline. [1] [43] [129] [391.24]
- March 25
- Birth of Chicken Kentucky, first partial birth in space (chicken). [1]
- March 27
- The first free elections for the Soviet parliament go against the Communist Party; Boris Yeltsin wins. [1] [43]
- March 29
- First US private commercial rocket takes suborbital test flight (New Mexico). [1]
- I M Pei's pyramidal entrance to the Louvre opens in Paris France. [1]
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