- January 10
- Daniel Ortega Saavedra inaugurated as President of Nicaragua. [1]
- January 13
- Express train derails in Ethiopia, kills at least 428. [1]
- January 14
- Sixteen indicted by US for granting sanctuary to Central American refugees. [1]
- British pound sterling sinks to record low: US$1.11. [1]
- January 15
- Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to John Ashbery and Fred Chapell. [1]
- Tancredo Neves is elected president of Brazil by the Congress, ending 21 years of military rule. [1] [85]
- January 17
- British Telecom announces it is going to phase out its famous red telephone boxes. [85]
- January 18
- US renounces jurisdiction of World Court despite previous promise. [1]
- January 20
- U.S. President Ronald Reagan is privately sworn in for a second term in office (publicly sworn in January 21). [85]
- January 21
- Bomb attack on Borobudur temple in Java. [1]
- January 23
- Britains' House of Lords debate first televised. [1]
- January 26
- Edmonton Oilers' Wayne Gretzky scores 50th goal in 49th game of season. [1]
- In Mendoza Province, Argentina, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake occurs. Six people killed, at least 238 injured and about 12,500 homes destroyed or damaged. [53]
- January 28
- In Hollywood, California, the charity single "We Are the World" is recorded by USA for Africa. [85]
- January 31
- South African President PW Botha offers to free Nelson Mandela if he denounces violence. [1]
- February 1
- AM stereo broadcasting starts in Australia. [85]
- February 4
- 20 countries (but not US) sign United Nations treaty outlawing torture. [1]
- Naval exercises canceled when US refuses to tell New Zealand of nuclear weapons. [1]
- February 5
- Australia cancels its involvement in U.S.-led MX missile tests. [85]
- February 8
- Opposition leader Kim Dae Jung returns to South-Korea. [1]
- February 9
- U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena is kidnapped and murdered in Mexico (his body is discovered March 5). [85]
- February 10
- Nelson Mandela rejects an offer of freedom from the South African government. [85]
- USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk. [1]
- February 11
- Jordan's king Hussein and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Arafat sign accord. [1]
- February 13
- Polish police arrest seven Solidarity leaders. [1]
- February 14
- Hostage CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is released in Beirut, Lebanon. [1] [85]
- February 15
- World chess championship match abandoned-Karpov 25, Kasparov 23. [1]
- February 16
- Israel begins withdrawing troops from Lebanon. [85]
- February 17
- Third person to receive an artificial heart (Murray Haydon). [1]
- February 19
- 148 die when an Iberia Boeing 727 crashes into a TV mast near Bilbao, Spain. [1] [57]
- ADM of Amsterdam declares bankruptcy. [1]
- Canned and bottled Cherry Coke introduced by Coca-Cola. [1]
- Disney's Mickey Mouse character welcomed in China. [1]
- William Schroeder is first artificial heart patient to leave hospital. He spends 15 minutes outside Humana Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. [1] [5] [85]
- February 20
- The Irish government approves by vote of 83-80 the sale of non-medical contraceptives without prescription to those over age 18. [129]
- February 24
- Birendra, Bir Bikram Shah Dev crowned King of Nepal. [1]
- February 27
- Mauritania's new constitutional charter published. [1]
- February 28
- The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day. [85]
- March 1
- Pentagon accepts theory that atomic war would cause a nuclear winter. [1]
- March 3
- Offshore Valparaiso, Chile, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurs. At least 177 people killed, 2,575 injured and extensive damage in central Chile. [53]
- National Union of Mine Workers in England end a 51-week strike. [1]
- March 4
- Virtual ban on leaded gas in USA ordered by EPA. [1]
- The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS, used since then to screen all blood donations in the United States. [85]
- March 6
- Mexican authorities find body of US drug agent Enrique C Salaazar. [1]
- Yul Brynner appears in his 4,500th performance of The King and I. [1]
- March 8
- A car bomb planted in Beirut targetting the Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah kills more than 80 people, and injures 200. [85]
- March 10
- French socialists lose election (National Front 9 percent). [1]
- Konstantin Chernenko, party leader/President of USSR (1984-85), dies at age 73 (born 1911). [1] [84]
- March 11
- Mikhail S Gorbachev replaces Konstantin Chernenko as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. [1] [85]
- Mohammed Al Fayed buys the London-based department store company Harrods. [85]
- March 15
- US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. [1]
- Vice-president Jose Sarney takes oath as the first civilian president of Brazil in 21 years, as the elected president Tancredo Neves had become severely ill on the day before. [85]
- March 16
- The Heinrich Köhler stamp auction firm of West Germany sells a Baden 1851 9-kreuzer postage stamp, printed on blue-green paper instead of deep rose, postally used on a folder letter, one of four known, for 2.645 million marks (US$833,600). [554.19]
- In Leeward Islands, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake occurs. [53]
- Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage by Islamic militants in Beirut, Lebanon. (He is eventually released on December 4, 1991.) [1] [85] [129]
- March 17
- Near the coast of Central Chile, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake occurs. [53]
- March 18
- In Mindanao, Philippine Islands, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake occurs. [53]
- Capital Cities Communications Inc acquires ABC TV. [1]
- March 19
- In Bolivia, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake occurs. [53]
- Spin Magazine begins publishing. [1]
- March 21
- Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research. [5]
- Bloodbath at Langa (Uitenhage) South Africa, 19 killed. [1]
- March 24
- Norwich City win the English League Cup at Wembley Stadium, beating Sunderland 1-0 in the final. [85]
- March 25
- The 57th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles, California. Amadeus wins Best Picture, F Murray Abraham wins Best Actor, and Sally Field wins Best Actress. [1] [85]
- Edwin Meese III becomes US Attorney General. [1]
- March 29
- Christos Sartzetakis elected President of Greece. [1]
- March 31
- El Salvador's President José Napoleón Duarte's Christian-Democrats win election. [1]
- April 1
- Two Japanese government-owned corporations, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, and Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation, are privatized and changed their names to Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, and Japan Tobacco. [85]
- April 3
- French government adopts equal electoral system. [1]
- April 6
- Sudan suspends constitution after coup under General Swarreddahab. [1]
- April 8
- Amdahl releases UTS/V, first mainframe Unix operating system. [1]
- India files suit against Union Carbide over Bhopal disaster. [1]
- April 11
- Enver Hoxha, party leader/premier of Albania, dies at age 76 (born 1908). [1] [85]
- April 13
- Ramiz Alia succeeds Enver Hoxha as party leader of Albania. [1]
- April 14
- Alan Garcia wins elections in Peru. [1]
- Jack C Burcham is 5th to receive "Jarvik 7" permanent artificial heart. [1]
- April 15
- South Africa ends its ban on interracial marriages. [1] [85]
- April 18
- In Yunnan Province, China, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurs. Twenty-three people killed, 300 injured. [53]
- April 19
- USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk. [1] [85]
- April 21
- Bomb attack in NATO/AEG-Telefunken building in Brussels, Belgium. [1]
- Tancredo Neves, President-elect of Brazil, dies at age 75 (born 1910). [1] [85]
- April 23
- Coca-Cola changes its secret flavor formula and releases New Coke. (The response is overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula is back on the market in less than 3 months.) [1] [85]
- April 24
- Pulitzer prize awarded to Carolyn Lizer for Yin. [1]
- In Luzon, Philippine Islands, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake occurs. [53]
- April 25
- Roger Miller's musical Big River, premieres at Eugene O'Neill Theater New York City for 1005 performances. [1]
- West German Parliament rules it illegal to deny the holocaust. [1]
- April 28
- The Australian Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP) splits. [85]
- April 30
- France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. [1]
- Last edition of Brink Daily Mail / Sunday Express in South Africa. [1]
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