1989 World Events

January 10: Cuban troops begin withdrawing from Angola.

January 20: George H. W. Bush is inaugurated as the 41st President of the United States.

January 22: The San Francisco 49ers defeat the Cincinnati Bengals 20 to 16 in Super Bowl XXIII.

January 24: Serial killer Ted Bundy is executed in Florida.

February 15: The nine year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ends when the Soviet Union announces that all of its troops have left the country

February 19: Nascar racing driver Darrell Waltrip wins the 1989 Daytona 500.

February 24: Author Salman Rushdie has a $3 million bounty placed on his head by Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini for writing the book Satanic Verses.

March 9: Financially troubled Eastern Airlines is forced to file for bankruptcy.

March 27: The Communist Party loses the first free elections for the Soviet Parliament.

April 7: The Soviet submarine K-278 known as the Komsomolets sinks in the Barents Sea. It claims the lives of 41 seaman.

April 21: Nintendo begins selling the Game Boy in Japan.

April 29: The movie Rain Man wins the oscar for best picture at the Academy Awards.

May 1: Disney's MGM Studios theme park opens in Orlando, Florida for the first time.

May 25: The Calgary Flames defeat the Montreal Canadians 4 games to 2 to win the 1989 Stanley Cup.

May 28: Racing driver Emerson Fittapaldi wins the 73th running of the Indianapolis 500.

June 3: Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini dies.

June 4: The Tiananmen Square massacre takes place in Beijing, China.

June 13: The Detroit Pistons defeat the Los Angelus Lakers 4 games to 0 to capture the NBA championship.

June 13: The wreck of the German World War II battleship Bismarck is located 600 miles of of the coast of France.

June: Buzz Aldrin comes to Taylor's Bookstore in Addison, Texas to promote and sign copies of his book Men From Earth. For my personal account of this signing follow the Buzz Aldrin link.

June: One day after meeting Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, my friend Andy Sheppard and I drive down to New Braunfels, Texas for a private meeting with Apollo 16 moonwalker Charlie Duke. For my personal account of this meeting, follow the Charlie Duke link.

July 5: The television series Seinfeld premiers.

July 19: United Airlines flight 232 crashes in Sioux City, Iowa. The crash of the DC-10 kill 112 people. Through heroic efforts by the pilot 184 passengers survive.

July 22: A 20th anniversary celebration is held for Apollo 11 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. For my personal account of this celebration follow the Apollo 11 link.

July 26: Robert Morris Jr. is indicted by a federal grand jury for releasing a computer worm. He is the first person prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

August 8: NASA launches space shuttle Columbia on a 5 day secret Department of Defense mission.

August 25: The interplanetary spacecraft Voyager flies by Neptune and its moon Triton.

October 13: The Dow Jones Industrial average plunges 190.58 points. This stock market crash becomes known as the Friday the 13th mini-crash.

October 23: The Hungarian People's Republic is officially replace with the Hungarian Republic in a movement away from communism and towards a multi-party democracy.

October 28: The Oakland Athletics defeat the San Francisco Giants 4 games to 0 to win the 1989 World Series.

November 7: The Communist government of East Germany resigns.

November 9: East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall. This allows East German citizens to visit West Germany freely for the first time in decades.

November 10: German citizens begin tearing down the Berlin Wall.

November 10: The name of the Bulgarian Communist Party is changed to the Bulgarian Socialist Party after Communist party leader Todor Zhivkov is replaced by Petar Mladenov.

November 28: The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announces that they will give up their monopoly of political power.

December 17: The first full length episode of The Simpsons premiers on Fox Television Network.

December 25: Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife Elena are executed after the government of Romania is overthrown.