1989 in the United States
Encyclopedia

Incumbents

  • President - Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

     until January 20, George H W Bush
  • Vice President - George H W Bush until January 20, Dan Quayle
    Dan Quayle
    James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....


January

  • January 4 – Second Gulf of Sidra incident
    Gulf of Sidra incident (1989)
    The second Gulf of Sidra incident occurred on 4 January 1989 when two US F-14 Tomcats shot down two Libyan MiG-23 Flogger-Es that gave all appearances of attempting to engage them, as had happened seven years prior in the first Gulf of Sidra incident ....

    : Two Libya
    Libya
    Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

    n MiG-23 "Floggers"
    Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23
    The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union. It is considered to belong to the Soviet third generation jet fighter category, along with similarly aged Soviet fighters such as the MiG-25 "Foxbat"...

     are engaged and shot down by 2 US Navy F-14 Tomcat
    F-14 Tomcat
    The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is a supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental program following the collapse of the F-111B project...

    s.
  • January 17 – Stockton massacre
    Stockton massacre
    The Cleveland School massacre occurred on January 17, 1989, at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, United States. The gunman, Patrick Purdy, who had a long criminal history, shot and killed five schoolchildren, and wounded 29 other schoolchildren and one teacher, before committing...

    : Patrick Edward Purdy kills 5 children, wounds 30 and then shoots himself in Stockton, California
    Stockton, California
    Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...

    .
  • January 20 – George H. W. Bush
    George H. W. Bush
    George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

     succeeds Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

     as the 41st President of the United States of America.
  • January 24 – Serial killer Theodore Bundy is executed in Florida
    Florida
    Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

    's electric chair
    Electric chair
    Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...

    .

February

  • February 7 – The Los Angeles, California
    Los Angeles, California
    Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

     City Council bans the sale or possession of semiautomatic weapons.
  • February 10 – Ron Brown
    Ron Brown (U.S. politician)
    Ronald Harmon "Ron" Brown was the United States Secretary of Commerce, serving during the first term of President Bill Clinton. He was the first African American to hold this position...

     is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee
    Democratic National Committee
    The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...

    , becoming the first African American
    African American
    African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

     to lead a major United States political party
    Political party
    A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

    .
  • February 11 – Barbara Clementine Harris
    Barbara Clementine Harris
    Barbara Clementine Harris was the first woman ordained a bishop in the Anglican Communion.-Education:...

     is consecrated as the first female bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
  • February 14 – The first of 24 Global Positioning System
    Global Positioning System
    The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...

     satellite
    Satellite
    In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....

    s is placed into orbit.
  • February 23 – After protracted testimony, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee rejects, 11–9, President Bush's nomination of John Tower
    John Tower
    John Goodwin Tower was the first Republican United States senator from Texas since Reconstruction. He served from 1961 until his retirement in January 1985, after which time he was the chairman of the Reagan-appointed Tower Commission that investigated the Iran-Contra Affair. He was George H. W...

     for Secretary of Defense.

March

  • March 1 – The Berne Convention
    Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
    The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland in 1886.- Content :...

    , an international treaty
    Treaty
    A treaty is an express agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an agreement, protocol, covenant, convention or exchange of letters, among other terms...

     on copyright
    Copyright
    Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

    s, is ratified by the United States.
  • March 1 – Louis Wade Sullivan
    Louis Wade Sullivan
    Louis Wade Sullivan is an American physician and businessman. He served as the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President George H. W. Bush and founded the Morehouse School of Medicine....

     starts his term of office as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
  • March 1 – James D. Watkins
    James D. Watkins
    Admiral James David Watkins is a retired United States Navy officer and former Chief of Naval Operations who also served as U.S. Secretary of Energy during the George H. W. Bush Administration and chaired U.S. government commissions on HIV/AIDS and ocean policy. Watkins has also served on the...

     starts his term of office as U.S. Secretary of Energy.
  • March 4 – Time, Inc
    Time
    Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

    . and Warner Communications
    Warner Communications
    Warner Communications or Warner Communications, Inc. was established in 1971 when Kinney National Company spun off its non-entertainment assets, due to a financial scandal over its parking operations and changed its name....

     announce plans for a merger, forming Time Warner
    Time Warner
    Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

    .
  • March 13 – A geomagnetic storm
    Geomagnetic storm
    A geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a disturbance in the interplanetary medium. A geomagnetic storm is a major component of space weather and provides the input for many other components of space weather...

     causes the collapse of the Hydro-Québec power grid. 6 million people are left without power
    Power outage
    A power outage is a short- or long-term loss of the electric power to an area.There are many causes of power failures in an electricity network...

     for 9 hours. Some areas in the northeastern U.S. and in Sweden also lose power, and aurora
    Aurora (astronomy)
    An aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere...

    e are seen as far as Texas
    Texas
    Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

    .
  • March 14 – Gun control
    Gun control
    Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...

    : U.S. President George H. W. Bush
    George H. W. Bush
    George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

     bans the importation of certain guns deemed assault weapons into the United States.
  • March 22 – Clint Malarchuk
    Clint Malarchuk
    Clint Malarchuk , is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender who played in the National Hockey League between 1981 and 1992, and is currently an assistant coach with the Calgary Flames...

     of the NHL
    National Hockey League
    The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

     Buffalo Sabres
    Buffalo Sabres
    The Buffalo Sabres are a professional ice hockey team based in Buffalo, New York. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League .-Founding and early success: 1970-71—1980-81:...

     suffers an almost fatal injury when another player accidentally slits his throat.
  • March 23 – Stanley Pons
    Stanley Pons
    Bobby Stanley Pons is an American-French electrochemist known for his work with Martin Fleischmann on cold fusion in the 1980s and '90s.-Early life:...

     and Martin Fleischmann
    Martin Fleischmann
    Martin Fleischmann is a British chemist noted for his work in electrochemistry. He came to wider public prominence following his controversial publication of work with colleague Stanley Pons on cold fusion using palladium in the 1980s and '90s.-Early life:Born in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia,...

     announce that they have achieved cold fusion
    Cold fusion
    Cold fusion, also called low-energy nuclear reaction , refers to the hypothesis that nuclear fusion might explain the results of a group of experiments conducted at ordinary temperatures . Both the experimental results and the hypothesis are disputed...

     at the University of Utah
    University of Utah
    The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

    .
  • March 24 – Exxon Valdez oil spill
    Exxon Valdez oil spill
    The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused...

    : In Alaska
    Alaska
    Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

    's Prince William Sound
    Prince William Sound
    Prince William Sound is a sound off the Gulf of Alaska on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula. Its largest port is Valdez, at the southern terminus of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System...

     the Exxon Valdez
    Exxon Valdez
    Oriental Nicety, formerly Exxon Valdez, Exxon Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, S/R Mediterranean, Mediterranean, and Dong Fang Ocean is an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil in Alaska...

    spills 240000 barrels (38,157 m³) of oil
    Petroleum
    Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...

     after running aground.
  • March 29 – The 61st Academy Awards
    61st Academy Awards
    The 61st Academy Awards were presented on March 29, 1989 at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles. The date had been moved from its usual Monday telecast due to Easter, which was on March 26. For this show, there was no "official" host as the show opened with a stage-show featuring Merv Griffin, Snow...

     are held at the Shrine Auditorium
    Shrine Auditorium
    The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue, in Los Angeles, California, USA. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners.-History:...

     in Los Angeles, California
    Los Angeles, California
    Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

    , with Rain Man
    Rain Man
    Rain Man is a 1988 drama film written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass and directed by Barry Levinson. It tells the story of an abrasive and selfish yuppie, Charlie Babbitt, who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son,...

    winning Best Picture
    Academy Award for Best Picture
    The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

    .

April

  • April 14 The U.S. government seizes the Irving, California Lincoln Savings and Loan Association
    Lincoln Savings and Loan Association
    The Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, California was the financial institution at the heart of the Keating Five scandal during the 1980s Savings and Loan crisis....

    ; Charles Keating
    Charles Keating
    Charles Humphrey Keating Jr. is an American athlete, lawyer, real estate developer, banker, and financier, most known for his role in the savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s....

     (for whom the Keating Five
    Keating Five
    The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators – Alan Cranston , Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn , John McCain , and Donald W. Riegle,...

     were named – John McCain
    John McCain
    John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....

     among them) eventually goes to jail, as part of the massive 1980s Savings and Loan Crisis
    Savings and Loan crisis
    The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s was the failure of about 747 out of the 3,234 savings and loan associations in the United States...

     which costs U.S. taxpayers nearly $200 billion in bailouts, and many people their life savings.
  • April 19 – Trisha Meili
    Trisha Meili
    The Central Park Jogger case involved an assault and rape that took place in New York City's Central Park on April 19, 1989. The victim was Trisha Meili. Five juvenile males were tried and convicted for the crime...

     is attacked while jogging in New York City
    New York City
    New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

    's Central Park
    Central Park
    Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

    ; as her identity remains secret for years, she becomes known as the "Central Park Jogger."
  • April 19 – A gun turret explodes on the U.S. battleship Iowa
    USS Iowa (BB-61)
    USS Iowa was the lead ship of her class of battleship and the fourth in the United States Navy to be named in honor of the 29th state...

    , killing 47 crew members.
  • April 20 – NATO debates modernising short range missiles; although the U.S. and UK
    United Kingdom
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

     are in favour, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
    Helmut Kohl
    Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...

     obtains a concession deferring a decision.

May

  • May 1 – Disney-MGM Studios
    Disney's Hollywood Studios
    Disney's Hollywood Studios is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort. Spanning 135 acres in size, its theme is show business, drawing inspiration from the heyday of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s...

     at Walt Disney World opens to the public for the first time.
  • May 12 – A Southern Pacific Railroad
    Southern Pacific Railroad
    The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....

     freight train crashes on Duffy Street in San Bernardino, California
    San Bernardino, California
    San Bernardino is a city located in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area , and serves as the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States...

    .
  • May 25 – Thirteen days after a Southern Pacific train derails, a Calnev pipeline explodes at the same section of Duffy Street in San Bernardino, California.

June

  • June 12 – The Corcoran Gallery of Art
    Corcoran Gallery of Art
    The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...

     removes Robert Mapplethorpe
    Robert Mapplethorpe
    Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men...

    's gay photography exhibition.

July

  • July 9–12 – U.S. President George H. W. Bush
    George H. W. Bush
    George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

     travels to Poland and Hungary, pushing for U.S. economic aid and investment.
  • July 18 – Actress Rebecca Schaeffer
    Rebecca Schaeffer
    Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer was an American actress best known for her role in the sitcom My Sister Sam...

     is murdered by an obsessed fan, leading to stricter stalking laws in California.
  • July 19 – United Airlines Flight 232
    United Airlines Flight 232
    United Airlines Flight 232 was a scheduled flight from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado, to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, with continuing service to Philadelphia International Airport...

     (Douglas DC-10) crashes in Sioux City, Iowa
    Sioux City, Iowa
    Sioux City is a city in Plymouth and Woodbury counties in the western part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 82,684 in the 2010 census, a decline from 85,013 in the 2000 census, which makes it currently the fourth largest city in the state....

    , killing 112; 184 on board survive.
  • July 26 – A federal grand jury
    Grand jury
    A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...

     indicts Cornell University
    Cornell University
    Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

     student Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. for releasing a computer virus
    Computer virus
    A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...

    , making him the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
    Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
    The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is a law passed by the United States Congress in 1986, intended to reduce cracking of computer systems and to address federal computer-related offenses...

    .

August

  • August 7 – U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland
    Mickey Leland
    George Thomas "Mickey" Leland was an anti-poverty activist who later became a congressman from the Texas 18th District and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus...

     (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia
    Ethiopia
    Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

    .
  • August 7 – Federal Express
    FedEx
    FedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee...

     purchases Flying Tiger Line
    Flying Tiger Line
    Flying Tiger Line, also known as Flying Tigers, was the first scheduled cargo airline in the United States and a major military charter operator during the Cold War era for both cargo and personnel .- History :...

     for approximately 800 million U.S. dollars.
  • August 8 – STS-28
    STS-28
    STS-28 was the 30th NASA Space Shuttle mission, the fourth shuttle mission dedicated to United States Department of Defense purposes, and the eighth flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. The mission launched on 8 August 1989, lasted just over 5 days, and traveled 2.1 million miles during 81 orbits...

    : Space Shuttle Columbia
    Space Shuttle Columbia
    Space Shuttle Columbia was the first spaceworthy Space Shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. First launched on the STS-1 mission, the first of the Space Shuttle program, it completed 27 missions before being destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 near the end of its 28th, STS-107. All seven crew...

     takes off on a secret 5-day military mission.
  • August 16–17 – Woodstock '89
    Woodstock '89
    Woodstock '89 or "The Forgotten Woodstock" was a rock concert that took place in August 1989 on the site of the original Woodstock concert of 1969 as a spontaneous celebration of the event's 20th anniversary....

     festival.
  • August 20 – In Beverly Hills, California
    Beverly Hills, California
    Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...

    , Lyle and Erik Menendez
    Lyle and Erik Menendez
    Joseph Lyle Menendez and Erik Galen Menendez are brothers who are known for their conviction in a highly publicized trial for the shotgun murders in 1989 of their wealthy parents, entertainment executive Jose Menendez and his wife Mary "Kitty" Menendez , residents of Beverly Hills, California...

     shoot their wealthy parents to death in the family's den.
  • August 23 – Yusef Hawkins
    Yusef Hawkins
    Yusef Hawkins was a 16-year-old African American youth who was shot to death on August 23, 1989 in Bensonhurst, a heavily Italian American working-class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn...

     is shot in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn
    Brooklyn
    Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

    , New York
    New York
    New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

    , sparking racial tensions between African American
    African American
    African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

    s and Italian American
    Italian American
    An Italian American , is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship...

    s.
  • August 24 – Record-setting baseball
    Baseball
    Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

     player Pete Rose
    Pete Rose
    Peter Edward Rose , nicknamed "Charlie Hustle", is a former Major League Baseball player and manager. Rose played from 1963 to 1986, and managed from 1984 to 1989....

     agrees to a lifetime ban from the sport following allegations of illegal gambling, thereby preventing his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
  • August 29 – Harry Zych a diver and salvager files a lawsuit to gain ownership of the wreck of the Lady Elgin which he has recently discovered in Lake Michigan in Highland Park, Illinois
    Highland Park, Illinois
    Highland Park is a suburban municipality in Lake County, Illinois, United States, about north of downtown Chicago. As of 2009, the population is 33,492. Highland Park is one of several municipalities located on the North Shore of the Chicago Metropolitan Area.-Overview:Highland Park was founded...

    .

September

  • September 5 – U.S. President George H. W. Bush
    George H. W. Bush
    George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

     holds up a bag of cocaine
    Cocaine
    Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

     purchased across the street at Lafayette Park, in his first televised speech to the nation.
  • September 21 – Hurricane Hugo
    Hurricane Hugo
    Hurricane Hugo was a classical, destructive and rare Cape Verde-type hurricane which struck the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe, Montserrat, St. Croix, Puerto Rico and the USA mainland in South Carolina as a Category 4 hurricane during September of the 1989 Atlantic hurricane season...

     makes landfall in South Carolina
    South Carolina
    South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

    , causing $7 billion in damage.

October

  • October 5 – U.S. televangelist John Nunes is found guilty of embezzling $158 million.
  • October 13 – Friday the 13th mini-crash
    Friday the 13th mini-crash
    The Friday the 13th mini-crash refers to the stock market crash that occurred on Friday, October 13, 1989. The crash was apparently caused by a reaction to a news story of the break-down of a $6.75 billion leveraged buyout deal for UAL Corporation, the parent company of United Airlines. When the...

    : The Dow Jones Industrial Average
    Dow Jones Industrial Average
    The Dow Jones Industrial Average , also called the Industrial Average, the Dow Jones, the Dow 30, or simply the Dow, is a stock market index, and one of several indices created by Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow...

     plunges 190.58 points, or 6.91 percent, to close at 2,569.26, most likely after the junk bond market collapses.
  • October 17 – The Loma Prieta earthquake
    Loma Prieta earthquake
    The Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the Quake of '89 and the World Series Earthquake, was a major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area of California on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time...

    , measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale
    Richter magnitude scale
    The expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake....

    , strikes the San Francisco
    San Francisco, California
    San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

    Oakland
    Oakland, California
    Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

     region of Northern California, killing 67 people and delaying the 1989 World Series
    1989 World Series
    †: Game 3 was originally slated for October 17 at 5:35 pm; however, it was postponed when an earthquake occurred at 5:04 pm.-Game 1:Saturday, October 14, 1989 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California...

     for ten days
  • October 19 – The Wonders of Life
    Wonders of Life
    The Wonders of Life pavilion was an attraction at Epcot at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The pavilion was devoted to health and body related attractions. It is located inside a golden colored dome between Mission: SPACE and the Universe of Energy...

     pavilion opens at Epcot
    Epcot
    Epcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...

     in Walt Disney World, Florida
    Florida
    Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

    .
  • October 23 – The Phillips Disaster
    Phillips Disaster
    The Phillips Disaster refers to a devastating series of explosions and fire on October 23, 1989 near the Houston Ship Channel in Pasadena, Texas, USA. The initial blast registered 3.5 on the Richter Scale, and the conflagration took 10 hours to bring under control...

     in Pasadena, Texas
    Pasadena, Texas
    Pasadena is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the metropolitan area. It is the second-largest city in Harris County, 17th-largest in Texas, and 162nd largest in the United States. The area was founded in 1893 by John H. Burnett of Galveston....

     kills 23 and injures 314 others.

November

  • November 2 – North Dakota
    North Dakota
    North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

     and South Dakota
    South Dakota
    South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

     celebrate their 100th Birthdays.
  • November 7 – Douglas Wilder
    Douglas Wilder
    Lawrence Douglas "Doug" Wilder is an American politician, the first African American to be elected as governor of Virginia, and the second to serve as governor of a U.S. state. Wilder served as the 66th Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. When earlier elected as Lieutenant Governor, he was...

     wins the Virginia
    Virginia
    The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

     governor's race, becoming the first elected African American
    African American
    African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

     governor in the United States.
  • November 7 – David Dinkins
    David Dinkins
    David Norman Dinkins is a former politician from New York City. He was the Mayor of New York City from 1990 through 1993; he was the first and is, to date, the only African American to hold that office.-Early life:...

     becomes the first African American
    African American
    African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

     mayor of New York City
    New York City
    New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

    .
  • November 16 – Six Jesuit
    Society of Jesus
    The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

     priests—among them Ignacio Ellacuría
    Ignacio Ellacuría
    Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J. was a Jesuit priest, philosopher, and theologian who did important work as a professor and rector at the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" , a Jesuit university in El Salvador founded in 1965...

    , Segundo Montes
    Segundo Montes
    Segundo Montes, S.J. was a scholar, philosopher, educator, sociologist and Jesuit priest...

    , and Ignacio Martín-Baró
    Ignacio Martín-Baró
    Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J. was a scholar, social psychologist, philosopher and Jesuit priest...

    —their housekeeper, and her teenage daughter, are murdered by U.S. trained
    Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
    The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation , formerly the United States Army School of the Americas is a United States Department of Defense educational and training facility at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia in the United States...

     Salvadoran soldiers
    Military of El Salvador
    The Armed Forces of El Salvador, in Spanish Fuerza Armada de El Salvador is the official name of the combined armed forces of El Salvador...

    .
  • November 21 – North Carolina
    North Carolina
    North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

     celebrates its bicentennial statehood.

December

  • December 3 – Cold War
    Cold War
    The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

    : In a meeting
    Malta Summit
    The Malta Summit consisted of a meeting between U.S. President George H. W. Bush and U.S.S.R. leader Mikhail Gorbachev, taking place between December 2-3 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was their second meeting following a meeting that included then President Ronald...

     off the coast of Malta
    Malta
    Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

    , U.S. President George H. W. Bush
    George H. W. Bush
    George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

     and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
    Mikhail Gorbachev
    Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...

     release statements indicating that the Cold War
    Cold War
    The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

     between their nations may be coming to an end.
  • December 20 – Operation Just Cause
    United States invasion of Panama
    The United States Invasion of Panama, code-named Operation Just Cause, was the invasion of Panama by the United States in December 1989. It occurred during the administration of U.S. President George H. W...

    is launched in an attempt to overthrow Panama
    Panama
    Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

    nian dictator Manuel Noriega
    Manuel Noriega
    Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno is a Panamanian politician and soldier. He was military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989.The 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States removed him from power; he was captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the United States. Noriega was tried on...

    .

Undated

  • The Museum of Jurassic Technology
    Museum of Jurassic Technology
    The Museum of Jurassic Technology is an educational institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the lower jurassic...

     is founded in Culver City, California
    Culver City, California
    Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...

    by David and Diana Wilson.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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