| |
|
1988 |
| January 26th |
 |
Australia
celebrated its bicentennial. |
|
| February
3rd |
|
President
Ronald Reagan had his request for $36.25 million to support
the Nicaraguan Contras rejected by the United States House of
Representatives controlled by the Democrats. |
|
| February
17th |
|
U.S.
Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins, working with a United
Nations group monitoring a truce in southern Lebanon, was kidnapped.
Lieutenant Higgins was killed by the kidnappers. |
|
| February
21st |
|
Televanglist
Jimmy Swaggart confessed on his show that he was guilty of an
unspecified sin and will be leaving the pulpit. The "unspecified
sin" was an affair with a prostitute. |
|
| February
29th |
|
Austrian
diplomat and conservative politician Kurt Waldheim was implicated
in WWII deportations in a Nazi document. Waldheim was Secretary-General
of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and Federal President
of Austria from 1986 to 1992. |
|
| March 7th |
|
In
Gibraltar the British SAS fatally shot three unarmed IRA (Irish
Republican Army) members, in an mission named 'Operation Flavius'. |
|
| March 16th |
|
During
the Iraq-Iran war, Iraqi forces used poison gas on an attack
on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja, 150 miles northeast of
Baghdad. |
|
| March 16th |
|
Lieutenant
Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter were indicted
on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, with
regard to the Iran-contra affair. |
|
| March 19th |
|
British
army Corporals Woods and Howes were killed by the IRA (Irish
Republican Army). |
|
| March 24th |
|
An
Israeli court sentenced Mordechai Vanunu to 18 years in prison
for disclosure of Israel's nuclear program to the British broadsheet,
The Sunday Times. |
|
| April 14th |
|
USS
Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) hit a mine in the Persian Gulf while
deployed on 'Operation Earnest Will' during the 'Tanker War'
phase of the Iran-Iraq War. |
|
| April 14th |
|
In
Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union agreed to and withdraw
its troops from Afghanistan. |
|
| April 16th |
|
Israeli
commandos killed the PLO's Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad) in Tunisia. |
|
| April 18th |
|
U.S.
Navy forces retaliated for the mining of USS Samuel B. Roberts
(April 14th) with 'Operation Praying Mantis', with a day of
strikes against Iranian oil platforms and naval vessels. |
|
| April
25th |
|
In
Israel, a Jerusalem court sentenced John Demjanuk to death by
hanging for war crimes committed in World War II. He was accused
by survivors of being the infamous guard at the Treblinka extermination
camp known as "Ivan the Terrible". The Israeli Supreme
Court later overturned the decision for a lack of evidence. |
|
| May 11th |
|
Kim
Philby (Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby) died in
Moscow, Russia, aged 76. Philby was a high ranking member of
British intelligence who was a double agent for the Soviet Union. |
|
| May 15th |
|
After
more than eight years of fighting in Afghanistan, Soviet troops
began its withdraw from Afghanistan. |
|
| May 31st |
|
United
States President Ronald Reagan while on a walkabout in Red Square,
Moscow, was asked if he still thought he was visiting a "evil
empire". To Gorbachev's delight, Reagan answered "No." |
|
| July 3rd |
|
US
warship USS Vincennes launched a missile attack and shot down
Iran Air air bus flight 655. All 290 passengers and crew were
killed. |
|
| July 6th |
|
The
Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea was destroyed
by explosions and fires that killed 165 oil workers and 2 rescue
mariners. |
|
| August 17th |
|
Pakistan
President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and the US Ambassador Arnold Raphel
were killed in a plane crash. |
|
| August 19th |
|
In
the Middle-East the hostilities stopped as the ceasefire began
in the Iran-Iraq war. |
|
| August 20th |
|
The
Iran-Iraq war ended. It is believed that an estimated 1 million
lives had been lost, in a brutal and bloody war described as
similiar to Europe's trench war in WWI during 1914-1918. |
|
| August 26th |
|
Merhan
Karimi Nasseri ("The terminal man") was stuck in the
De Gaulle Airport in Paris, where he continued to reside as
a non-person until October 2005. |
|
| September
12th |
|
Hurricane
Gilbert devastated Jamaica, it turned towards Mexico's Yucatan
Peninsula two days later and caused damages estimated at US$5
billion. |
|
| September
22nd |
|
The
Ocean Odyssey drilling rig suffered a blowout and fire in the
North Sea, so soon after the Piper Alpha drilling platform disaster
of July 6th. |
|
September
24th - 26th |
|
Large
demonstrations by left-wing militants protested against the
1988 World Bank and IMF meetings in West Berlin. |
|
| September
29th |
|
NASA
resumed space shuttle flights with the launch of 'Discovery'
mission STS-26. The Space Shuttles that had been grounded since
the Shuttle 'Challenger' disaster of January 28th 1986. |
|
| October 5th |
|
In
Chile, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was defeated in a national
election that sought to renew his mandate. |
|
| October 19th |
|
The
British government banned broadcast interviews with IRA members.
The BBC used actors' voiceovers when conducting interviews of
members of the Irish terrorist group to by-pass the ban. |
|
| November
8th |
|
In
the 1988 U.S. presidential election Republican George Herbert
Walker Bush Snr. was elected the new President of the United
States, beating Democrat Michael Dukakis. |
|
| November
15th |
|
In
the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle Buran was launched by
an Energia rocket on her maiden orbital spaceflight. It would
be the one and only time that the Buran, the USSR's version
of NASA's Space Shuttle, would fly. |
|
| November
15th |
|
An
independent State of Palestine was proclaimed by the Palestinian
National Council meeting in Algiers, by a vote of 253 to 46. |
|
| November
16th |
|
The
Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declared that Estonia was
'sovereign', the declaration stops short of declaring its independence. |
|
| November
16th |
|
In
the first open election in more than 10 years, voters in Pakistan
elected populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be the new Prime
Minister. |
|
| November
18th |
|
US
President Ronald Reagan signed a bill making it law providing
the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers. |
|
| November
22nd |
|
In
Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth
bomber was revealed. |
|
| December
2nd |
|
Benazir
Bhutto was sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming
the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated
state. |
|
| December
2nd |
|
A
cyclone in Bangladesh left thousands of people dead and nearly
5 million people homeless. |
|
| December
7th |
|
In
Armenia a 6.9 earthquake killed nearly 25,000 people, injured
15,000 and left 400,000 homeless. |
|
| December
12th |
|
In
London, England, 'The Clapham Junction' rail crash killed 35
and injured 132 people. |
|
| December
21st |
|
Lockerbie
bombing. Libyan terrorists blew up Pan Am flight 103. The plane
exploded over Scotland and showered the town of Lockerbie. 207
innocent people were killed on the plane and in Lockerbie. |
|
| |
|
Soviet
cosmonauts spent 326 days on the Mir space station. |
|
| |
|
Roh
Tae Woo became the new Prime Minister of South Korea. |
|
| |
|
South
African forces withdrew from Namibia in Africa. |
|
| |
|
: Return To Top :
Return to : Global
Timeline Menu
| 1900-1909
| 1910-1919 | 1920-1929
| 1930-1939 | 1940-1949
|
| 1950-1959 | 1960-1969
| 1970-1979 | 1980-1989
| 1990-1999 |
| 2000-2011 |
|
