1988

1988 is a leap year starting on Friday (click on link for calendar).

Years: 1985 1986 1987 - 1988 - 1989 1990 1991
Decades: 1950s 1960s 1970s - 1980s - 1990s 2000s 2010s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century 1988 in aviation 1988 in film 1988 in literature 1988 in music 1988 in sports 1988 in television List of state leaders in 1988

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Events

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January 1988

Tuesday, January 26, 1988 - Australia celebrates its bicentennial day.

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February 1988

Wednesday, February 3, 1988 - The United States House of Representatives rejects President Ronald Reagan's request for $36.25 million to aid Nicaraguan Contras.
Thursday, February 11, 1988 - Anthony M. Kennedy is appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
February 17 - US Lieutenant Colonel William Higgins, serving with a United Nations group monitoring a truce in southern Lebanon is kidnapped (captors later kill him)
Sunday, February 21, 1988 - On his own televangelism program being taped in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jimmy Swaggart confesses that he is guilty of an unspecified sin and will be will be temporarily leaving the pulpit. The "unspecified sin" was an affair with a prostitute.
February 21 - British archeologists locate the grave of Boadicea under Platform 8 at King's Cross railway station in London
Wednesday, February 24, 1988 - The Supreme Court of the United States sides with Hustler magazine by overturning a lower court decision to award Jerry Falwell $200,000 for defamation.
February 29 - Nazi document implicates Kurt Waldheim in WWII deportations

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March 1988

Tuesday, March 1, 1988 - Anthony M. Frank is appointed United States Postmaster General
March 6 ? SAS men shoot three IRA men in the Gibraltar
Monday, March 7, 1988 - The SAS shoot dead three Irish Republican Army members in Gibraltar.
Tuesday, March 8, 1988 - Two United States Army helicopters collide in Fort Campbell, Kentucky killing 17 servicemen
Wednesday, March 9, 1988 - Students at Gallaudet University go on strike for the selection of a Deaf university president
March 15 ? Robber in Montpellier, France tries to rob a bank brandishing a gun made of nougat
Wednesday, March 16, 1988 - The Halabja poison gas attack was carried out by Iraqi government forces.
Wednesday, March 16, 1988 - Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Wednesday, March 16, 1988 - Supreme Court of the United States rules that police officers do not need a search warrant to search through discarded garbage
March 24 ? Israeli court sentences Mordechai Vanunu to 18 years in prison for disclosing Israel's nuclear program to The Sunday Times
March 29 - Assassination of Dulcie September in Paris

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April 1988

April 10 - The Great Seto Bridge opened to traffic in Japan
Tuesday, April 12, 1988 - Former pop singer Sonny Bono is elected mayor of Palm Springs, California
April 14 ? In Geneva Agreement, Soviet Union commits itself to withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan
Thursday, April 14, 1988 - USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf while deployed on Operation Earnest Will
April 16 - Israeli commandos kill PLO's Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad) in Tunisia
Monday, April 18, 1988 - U.S. Navy forces retaliate for the Roberts mining with Operation Praying Mantis, a day of strikes against Iranian oil platforms and naval vessels
Monday, April 25, 1988 - In Israel John Demjanuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II. He was accused of being a notorious guard at the Treblinka extermination camp known as "Ivan the Terrible" by survivors. Conviction overturned by Israeli Supreme Court.

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May 1988

Sunday, May 15, 1988 - Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: After more than eight years of fighting, the Red Army begins its withdraw from Afghanistan
Monday, May 16, 1988 - A report by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.
Tuesday, May 24, 1988 - Section 28 is passed as law by Parliament in the United Kingdom

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June 1988

June 2 - In Canberra, the High Court rejects United Kingdom's bid to ban further publication in Australia of the "Spycatcher", memoirs of former SIS agent Peter Wright
June 6 - The Queen Elizabeth strips jockey Lester Piggott of his OBE because he has been sentenced to jail for repeated tax evasion
Wednesday, June 29, 1988 - United States Supreme Court upholds the law allowing special prosecutor to investigate suspected crimes by executive branch officials.

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July 1988

Sunday, July 3, 1988 - Iran Air Flight 655 shot down by missiles launched from the USS Vincennes ship
Wednesday, July 6, 1988 - The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires killing 165 oil workers and 2 rescue mariners.

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August 1988

Tuesday, August 9, 1988 - Wayne Gretzky is traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in one of the most controversial transactions in hockey history.
Wednesday, August 17, 1988 - Pakistan President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and US Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
August 19 - Ceasefire begins in the Iran-Iraq war
August 26 - Merhan Karimi Nasseri ends up stuck in the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris
Sunday, August 28, 1988 - A fire destroys part of Chiado quarter, in Lisbon's historical center.

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September 1988

Monday, September 5, 1988 - With US$2 billion in federal aid, the Robert M. Bass Group agrees to buy the United States's largest bankrupt thrift, American Savings and Loan Association
Saturday, September 17, 1988 - TV Show Garfield and Friends debuts on CBS
Saturday, September 17, 1988 - Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea opens
Thursday, September 22, 1988 - Ocean Odyssey drilling rig suffers a blowout and fire in the North Sea. (See also July 6th)
Thursday, September 29, 1988 - NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster

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October 1988

October 5 - Thousands riots in Algiers, Algeria against the government of National Liberation Front - by October 10 army has killed and tortured about 500 people in crushing the riots
October 11 - Girls are allowed to study at Magdalene College, Cambridge, for the first time. Male students wear black armbands and the porter flies a black flag
October 19 - United Kingdom bans broadcast interviews with IRA members
Friday, October 28, 1988 - Abortion: 48 hours after announcing it was abandoning RU-486, French manufacturer Roussel Uclaf states that it would resume distribution of the drug, bowing to pressure from the government of France
Saturday, October 29, 1988 - In Japan, the Sega Megadrive is released for the first time.
Sunday, October 30, 1988 - Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for US$13.1 billion.

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November 1988

Wednesday, November 2, 1988 - The Morris worm is unleashed on the Internet
Tuesday, November 8, 1988 - U.S. presidential election, 1988: George Herbert Walker Bush is elected over Michael Dukakis.
Friday, November 11, 1988 - In Sacramento, California, police find a body buried in the lawn of 60-year-old boardinghouse landlady Dorothea Puente (seven bodies were eventually found and Puente was convicted of three murders and sentenced to life in prison)
Tuesday, November 15, 1988 - In the Soviet Union, the uncrewed Shuttle Buran is launched by an Energia rocket on her maiden orbital spaceflight (this was the first and last space flight for the shuttle)
Tuesday, November 15, 1988 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council meeting in Algiers, by a vote of 253 to 46
Wednesday, November 16, 1988 - The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that the Estonia is "sovereign" but stops short of declaring independence
Wednesday, November 16, 1988 - In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan choose populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister
Thursday, November 17, 1988 - The Netherlands becomes the second country to get connected to the Internet
Friday, November 18, 1988 - War on Drugs: US President Ronald Wilson Reagan signs a bill into law providing the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers
Tuesday, November 22, 1988 - In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed
Wednesday, November 30, 1988 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco for US$25.07 billion.

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December 1988

Friday, December 2, 1988 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state
December 2 - Cyclone in Bangladesh leaves 5 million homeless - thousands dead
Wednesday, December 7, 1988 - In Armenia an earthquake 6.9 on the Richter scale killed nearly 25.000, injured 15.000 and left 400.000 persons homeless.
December 12 - The Clapham Rail disaster kills 35 and injures 132
Monday, December 19, 1988 - The Consumer Product Safety Commission bans the sale of lawn darts following the deaths of three children
Wednesday, December 21, 1988 - Pan Am flight 103 is blown up by Libyan terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 on board and 11 on the ground
December 22 - Assassination of Brazilian union and environmental activist Chico Mendes

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Unknown dates

Al-Qaida established by Osama bin Laden
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is the focus of a sex scandal, and later admits to being with prostitutes and steps down from his television ministry.

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