1989
1989 (
MCMLXXXIX) was a
common year starting on Sunday of the
Gregorian calendar. The
world population growth in absolute numbers is believed to have been the highest ever around this time. It has been called the "Year of Miracles", due to the fact that it was during this time the dissolution of the
Soviet Union began. [
1]
January
*
January 7 - Last day of the
Showa period due to the death of
Emperor Hirohito (aka
Emperor Showa after his death) in
Japan Akihito became
Emperor of Japan, and the
Heisei period began the following day.
*
January 8 - the
Kegworth Air Disaster - A
British Midland Boeing 737 crashes on approach to
East Midlands Airport, leaving 44 dead.
*
January 12 - George Bush names
William Bennett to be his Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and
James Watkins as Secretary of Energy.
*
January 16–
18 -
Race riots in
Overtown,
Miami.
*
January 10 -
Cuban troops begin withdrawing from
Angola.
*
January 10 - Assistant
Australian Federal Police commissioner
Colin Winchester is shot dead in the driveway of his Canberra home.
*
January 17 - A mentally ill man kills 5 children, wounds 30 and then shoots himself in
Stockton, California. This became known as the
Stockton massacre.
*
January 18 - Poland's
Communist party votes to legalize
Solidarity.
*
January 20 -
George Herbert Walker Bush succeeds
Ronald Wilson Reagan as
President of the United States of America. Soviets begin to airlift supplies to Afghanistan as they pull out.
*
January 24 - Serial killer
Ted Bundy is executed in
Florida's
electric chair.
*
January 30 - American
Olympic medalist
Bruce Kimball is sentenced to 17 years in prison for killing two teenagers in a drunk driving accident.
February
*
February 1 - Joan Kirner becomes Victoria's 1st female Deputy Premier after resignation of Robert Fordham, over VEDC (Victorian Economic Development Co-operation) Crisis.
*
February 2 -
Soviet war in Afghanistan: The last
Soviet Union armored column leaves
Kabul ending
nine years of military occupation.
*
February 3 - Military coup overthrows
Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of
Paraguay since 1954.
*
February 3 - After a
stroke,
P.W. Botha resigns party leadership and the presidency of
South Africa.
*
February 7 - The
Los Angeles, California city council bans the sale or possession of semiautomatic weapons.
*
February 10 -
Ron Brown is elected chairman of the
Democratic National Committee, becoming the first
African American to lead a major
American political party.
*
February 11 -
Barbara Clementine Harris is consecrated first female bishop in the
Episcopal Church (
United States of America).
*
February 14 -
Union Carbide agrees to pay
USD $470 million to the
Indian government for damages it caused in the
1984 Bhopal Disaster.
*
February 14 -
Iranian leader
Ruhollah Khomeini encourages
Muslims to kill
The Satanic Verses author
Salman Rushdie.
*
February 14 - The first of 24
satellites of the
Global Positioning System is placed into orbit.
*
February 15 -
Soviet war in Afghanistan: The
Soviet Union officially announces that all of its troops had left
Afghanistan.
*
February 16 -
Pan Am flight 103: Investigators announce that the cause of the crash was a
bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player.
*
February 23 - After protracted testimony,
Senate Armed Forces Committee rejects, by a vote of 11-9, Bush's nomination of
John Tower for Secretary of Defense.
*
February 24 -
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a three-million-
US dollar bounty for the death of
The Satanic Verses author
Salman Rushdie*
February 24 -
United Airlines Flight 811, a
Boeing 747 bound to
New Zealand from
Honolulu, Hawaii, rips open during flight, sucking nine passengers and crew out of the first class section.
*
February 27 -
Venezuela is rocked by the
Caracazo.
March
*
March 1 - The
Berne Convention, an international
treaty on
copyrights, is ratified by the
United States.
*
March 1 - A
curfew is imposed in
Kosovo where protests continue at the alleged intimidation of the
Serb minority.
*
March 1 -
Louis Wade Sullivan starts his term of office as
U.S. Secretary of Commerce, serving under
President George H. W. Bush.
*
March 1 -
James D. Watkins starts his term of office as
U.S. Secretary of Energy, serving under
President George H. W. Bush.
*
March 1 - The
Politieke Partij Radicalen,
Pacifistisch Socialistische Partij,
Communistische Partij Nederland and the
Evangelische Volks Partij amalgamate to form
Netherlands political party the
GroenLinks (GL, GreenLeft).
*
March 2 - 12
European Community nations agree to ban the production of all
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.
*
March 4 -
Time, Inc. and
Warner Communications announce plans for a merger, forming
Time Warner.
*
March 4 - The
Purley Station rail crash leaves 5 dead and 94 injured.
*
March 4 - First ACT (
Australian Capital Territory) elections held.
*
March 7 -
Iran breaks off
diplomatic relations with
United Kingdom over
Salman Rushdie's
The Satanic Verses.
*
March 9 - A strike forces financially troubled
Eastern Air Lines into
bankruptcy.
*
March 14 -
Gun control:
President George H. W. Bush bans the importation of certain guns deemed
assault weapons into the
United States.
*
March 14 - Christian General
Michel Aoun declares a 'War of Liberation' to rid
Lebanon of
Syrian forces and their allies.
*
March 18 - In
Egypt, a 4,400-year-old
mummy is found in the
Great Pyramid of Giza.
*
March 20 -
Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke weeps on national television as he admits marital infidelity.
*
March 23 -
Stanley Pons and
Martin Fleischmann announce that they have achieved
cold fusion at the
University of Utah.
*
March 23 - A 300 m (1,000 ft) diameter
Near-Earth asteroid misses the
Earth by 500,000 km (400,000 miles).
*
March 24 -
Exxon Valdez oil spill: In
Alaska's
Prince William Sound the
Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (11 million gallons) of
oil after running aground.
*
March 27 - The first free elections for the
Soviet parliament go against the
Communist Party.
April
*
April 4 -
Richard M. Daley is elected mayor of
Chicago, Illinois.
*
April 6 -
National Safety Council of Australia chief executive
John Friedrich is arrested after defrauding investors to the tune of $235 million.
*
April 7 -
Soviet submarine Komsomolets sinks in the
Barents Sea - 41 dead.
*
April 9 - Massacre of
Georgian demonstrators by
Red Army soldiers in
Tbilisi's central square during a peaceful rally; 20 citizens are killed (most of them young women), many injured.
*
April 15 - The
Hillsborough disaster, one of the biggest tragedies in
European football, takes place.
*
April 16 - The
Dilbert comic strip is syndicated for the first time.
*
April 19 -
Trisha Meili is savagely attacked while jogging in
New York City's
Central Park; as her identity remained secret for years, she became known as the "Central Park Jogger."
*
April 19 - 47 crew members die after a gun turret explodes on the US battleship
Iowa.
*
April 20 -
NATO debates modernising short range missiles; although the
U.S. and
UK are in favour,
West German chancellor
Helmut Kohl obtains a concession defering a decision.
*
April 21 - Students from
Beijing,
Shanghai,
Xian, and
Nanjing begin protesting in
Tiananmen Square.
*
April 21 -
Nintendo begins selling the
Game Boy in
Japan.
*
April 25 - End of term for
Baginda Almutawakkil Alallah Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail as the 8th
Yang di-Pertuan Agong of
Malaysia.
*
April 26 -
Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Yusuff Izzudin Shah Ghafarullahu-lahu,
Sultan of
Perak, becomes the 9th
Yang di-Pertuan Agong of
Malaysia.
May
*
May 1-
Disney-MGM Studios at
Walt Disney World opens to the public for the first time.
*
May 2-
Hungary dismantles 150 miles of barbed wire fencing, opening its border to Western Europe.
*
May 5-
North London M.F Taylor Born.
*
May 9 -
Andrew Peacock deposes
John Howard as Federal Opposition Leader.
*
May 11 - ACT (
Australian Capital Territory) Legislative Assembly meets for 1st time.
*
May 12 - A
Southern Pacific Railroad freight train crashes on Duffy Street in
San Bernardino, California.
*
May 14 -
Mikhail Gorbachev visits
China, the first Soviet leader to do so since the
1960s.
*
May 15 - Australia's first private tertiary institution,
Bond University, opens on the Gold Coast.
*
May 15 -
Jackie Mann, a 74-year-old former
Battle of Britain pilot, is abducted in
Beirut.
*
May 19 -
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989:
Zhao Ziyang meets the demonstrators in
Tiananmen Square.
*
May 20 -
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: The Chinese government declares martial law in
Beijing.
*
May 25 - The
Calgary Flames win the
Stanley Cup: The Calgary Flames of the
National Hockey League (NHL) win their first and only Stanley Cup with a 4-2 victory over the
Montreal Canadiens.
*
May 30 -
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: The 10 m (33 ft) high
Goddess of Democracy statue is unveiled in
Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators.
June
 |
The Unknown Rebel holds up a column of Chinese tanks sent to crush the student rebellion in Tiananmen Square
Jeff Widener (The Associated Press) |
*
June 1 - The
SkyDome (now known as
Rogers Centre) is opened in
Toronto.
*
June 3 - The
Ayatollah Khomeini dies.
*
June 4 - The
Tiananmen Square massacre takes place in
Beijing on the army's approach to the square, and the final stand-off in the square is covered live on television.
*
June 4 -
Ufa train disaster: A
natural gas explosion near
Ufa,
Russia kills 645 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.
*
June 4 -
Solidarity's victory in the first partly free parliamentary elections in post-war
Poland, this event was first of anti-
communist revolutions in
Central and
Eastern Europe in 1989 (almost all of them peaceful).
*
June 8 -
Kurt Waldheim elected president of
Austria.
*
June 13 - The wreck of the German battleship
Bismarck, which was sunk in 1941, is located 600 miles west of
Brest,
France.
*
June 14 -
Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor is arrested in
Beverly Hills, California after slapping a motorcycle
police officer.
*
June 16 - A crowd of 250,000 gathered at
Heroes Square in
Budapest for the historic reburial of
Imre Nagy, the former Hungarian prime minister who had been executed in 1958.
*
June 21 - British police arrest 250 citizens for celebrating the
summer solstice at
Stonehenge.
*
June 22 -
Ireland's first universities established since independence in
1922,
Dublin City University and the
University of Limerick, open.
July
*
July 2 -
Andreas Papandreou,
Prime Minister of Greece resigns. New government formed under
Tzannis Tzannetakis.
*
July 5 - The television show
Seinfeld premieres.
*
July 9-
12 : U.S. President
George Bush travels to Poland and Hungary, pushing for U.S. economic aid and investment.
*
July 14 : France celebrates 200th anniversary of
French Revolution.
*
July 14-
16 : At annual G-7 summit, leaders call for restrictions on gas emissions.
*
July 19 - A
Douglas DC-10 carrying
United Airlines flight 232 crashes in
Sioux City, Iowa killing 112; due to extraordinary efforts by the pilot and crew, 184 on board survive.
*
July 20 -
Burmese opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi is placed under house arrest.
*
July 26 - A federal
grand jury indicts
Cornell University student
Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. for releasing a
computer virus, making him the first person to be prosecuted under the
1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
August
*
August 6 - The
comic strip Bloom County ends.
*
August 7 - US Congressman
Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in
Ethiopia.
*
August 8 -
STS-28: The
Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission.
*
August 9 The
asteroid 4769 Castalia is the first asteroid directly imaged by
radar from
Arecibo.
*
August 13 - 13 people die in
hot air balloon accident near
Alice Springs, Australia.
*
August 18 - Leading presidential hopeful
Luis Carlos Galán is assassinated near
Bogotá in
Colombia.
*
August 19 -
Polish president
Wojciech Jaruzelski nominates Solidarity activist
Tadeusz Mazowiecki to be
Prime Minister, thus becoming the first non-communist in power in 42 years.
*
August 20 - In
Beverly Hills, California,
Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot their wealthy parents to death in their family's den.
*
August 20 - 51 people die when the
Marchioness pleasure boat collides with a
barge on the
River Thames adjacent to
Southwark Bridge.
*
August 23 - Two million indigenous people of
Estonia,
Latvia and
Lithuania, then still occupied by the
Soviet Union, joined hands to demand freedom and independence, forming an uninterrupted 600 km human chain.
*
August 23 -
Hungary removes border restrictions with
Austria.
*
August 23 - All of
Australia's 1,645 domestic airline pilots resign over an airline's move to sack and sue them over a dispute.
*
August 24 - Record-setting
baseball player
Pete Rose agrees to a lifetime ban from the sport following allegations of illegal gambling, thereby preventing his induction into the
Baseball Hall of Fame.
*
August 24 - Indonesia's first privately-owned television station, Rajawali Citra Televisi
Indonesia, (
RCTI) begins broadcasting.
*
August 25 -
Voyager II passes the planet
Neptune and its moon
Triton.
*
August 29 -
Yusef Hawkins is shot in
Bensonhurst section of
Brooklyn,
New York, sparking racial tensions between
African Americans and
Italian Americans.
September
*
September 5 - U.S. President
George Bush holds up a bag of
cocaine purchased across the street at
Lafayette Park in his first televised speech to the nation.
*
September 10 - The Hungarian government opens the country's western borders to refugees from the German Democratic Republic.
*
September 21 -
Hurricane Hugo makes landfall in
South Carolina, causing $7 billion in damage.
*
September 22 -
Deal barracks bombing: IRA bomb explodes at the
Royal Marine School of Music in
Deal,
United Kingdom, leaving 11 dead and 22 injured.
October
*
October 5 - US TV Evangelist
John Nunes is found guilty of embezzlement of $158 million.
*
October 9 - An official news agency in the
Soviet Union reports the landing of a
UFO in
Voronezh.
*
October 9 - In
Leipzig,
East Germany, protesters demand the legalization of opposition groups and
democratic reforms.
*
October 17 - The
Loma Prieta earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the
richter scale, strikes the
San Francisco-
Oakland region of Northern California, killing 63.
*
October 18 - The
Communist leader of
East Germany,
Erich Honecker, is forced to step down as leader of the country after a series of health problems.
*
October 19 - The
Guildford Four are freed after 14 years.
*
October 23 - The
Hungarian Republic is officially declared by president
Mátyás Szűrös (replacing the Hungarian People's Republic).
*
October 30 - The
qualification for the
1990 Football World Cup ends.
November
*
November 4 -
Typhoon Gay devastates the
Thai province of
Chumphon.
*
November 7 -
Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in
Virginia and becomes the first elected
African American governor in the
United States.
*
November 7 -
Cold War: The
Communist government of
East Germany resigns, although
SED leader
Egon Krenz remains head of state.
*
November 7 -
David Dinkins becomes the first
African American mayor of
New York City.
*
November 7 - In
California, convicted murderer
Richard Ramirez (the "Night Stalker") is sentenced to death.
*
November 9 -
Cold War: East Germany opens checkpoints in the
Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to freely travel to
West Germany for the first time in decades (the next day celebrating
Germans began to tear the wall down).
*
November 10 - After
45 years of Communist rule in
Bulgaria,
Bulgarian Communist Party leader
Todor Zhivkov is replaced by Foreign Minister
Petar Mladenov, who changes the party's name to the
Bulgarian Socialist Party.
*
November 10 -
Gaby Kennard becomes the first
Australian woman to fly non-stop around the world.
*
November 12 -
Brazil holds its first free presidential election since
1960*
November 16 - Six
Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter are shot in
San Salvador,
El Salvador*
November 16 -
South African President
FW de Klerk announces scrapping of
Separate Amenities Act.
*
November 17 -
Cold War:
Velvet Revolution begins - In
Czechoslovakia a peaceful student demonstration in
Prague is severely beaten back by riot police. This sparks a revolution aimed at overthrowing the Communist government (it succeeded on
December 29).
*
November 20 -
Cold War:
Velvet Revolution - The number of peaceful protesters assembled in
Prague,
Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
*
November 21 -
North Carolina celebrates its
bicentennial statehood.
*
November 22 - In west
Beirut, a bomb explodes near the motorcade of
Lebanese President
Rene Moawad and kills him.
*
November 28 -
Cold War:
Velvet Revolution - With other Communist regimes falling all around it and with growing street protests, the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announces they will give up their
monopoly on political power (elections held in December brought the first non-communist government to
Czechoslovakia in more than 40 years)
*
November 30 -
Deutsche Bank board member
Alfred Herrhausen is killed by a terrorist's bomb (the
Red Army Faction claimed responsibility for the murder).
December
*
December 1 -
Cold War:
East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist-dominated
SED its monopoly on power.
Egon Krenz, the Politburo and the Central Committee resign two days later.
*
December 3 -
Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of
Malta,
US President George Bush and Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the
Cold War between their nations may be coming to an end.
*
December 6 - The
École Polytechnique Massacre (or Montreal Massacre):
Marc Lépine, an anti-feminist gunman, murders fourteen young women at the
École Polytechnique in
Montreal.
*
December 10 -
Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj announced the establishment of Mongolia's democratic movement that peacefully changed the second oldest communist country into a democratic society.
*
December 14 -
Chile holds its first free election in 16 years.
*
December 15 - Drug baron
Jose Gonzalo Rodriquez Gacha is killed by
Colombian police.
*
December 17 -
Romania -
TimiÅŸoara: The start of the uprising that toppled the
communist regime in
Romania.
*
December 17 -
Brazil holds its first free election in 29 years.
Fernando Collor de Mello wins the election.
*
December 17 -
The Simpsons premieres.
*
December 20 -
Operation Just Cause is launched in an attempt to overthrow
Panama dictator Manuel Noriega.
*
December 22 - After a week of bloody demonstrations,
Ion Iliescu takes over as president of
Romania, ending
Nicolae CeauÅŸescu's
communist dictatorship.
*
December 22 - Two tourist coaches collide on the Pacific highway north of
Kempsey, Australia, killing 35.
*
December 25 -
Nicolae CeauÅŸescu and his wife
Elena are executed.
*
December 25 -
Bank of Japan governors announce a major interest rate hike, eventually leading to the peak and fall of the
bubble economy.
*
December 28 - A magnitude 5.6 earthquake hits
Newcastle, New South Wales,
Australia, killing 13 people.
*
December 29 -
Václav Havel elected the president of
Czechoslovakia.
*
December 29 - Riots break-out after
Hong Kong decides to forcibly repatriate
Vietnamese refugees.
Unknown Dates
*
Alan Bond's Bond Corporation goes into receivership with the largest debt in Australian history
* Homosexual Acts between consenting adults decriminalized in
Western Australia*
Rice University celebrates the
demisesquicentennial anniversary of its founding
*
Kamchatka opened to
Russian civilian visitors
* Retirement of the
Alize propeller-driven anti-submarine planes from carrier service in the French Navy
* The first national park, in Schiermonnikoog, is established in
The Netherlands*
Soviet submarine K-173,
Chelyabinsk, commissioned
* The wreck of the
Lady Elgin discovered off
Highland Park, Illinois by
Harry Zych*
Margaret Rey establishes the
Curious George Foundation to help creative children and prevent cruelty to animals
*
Veikko "Jammu" Siltavuori abducts and murders two 8 year old girls in
Myllypuro suburb in
Helsinki,
Finland*
Richard C. Duncan introduces the
Olduvai theory, about the collapse of the
Industrial Civilization* The
Museum of Jurassic Technology, is founded in
Culver City, California by David and Diana Wilson
* The unknown Swede
Marcus Schenkenberg is discovered by a photographer when rollerskating on Venice Beach, California
* 1,000,000th
Ford Taurus sold
* The last
Golden Toad is seen.
* The
Japan Fantasy Novel Award is established.
January
*
January 22 -
Jared Smith, American singer
*
January 25 -
Yasmien Kurdi, Filipino actress and singer
*
January 30 -
Khleo Thomas, American actor/MC
*
Marina Golbahari, Afghani actress
February
*
February 5 -
Jeremy Sumpter, American actor
*
February 7 -
Louisa Lytton,
Eastenders actress
*
February 12 -
Richard Fleeshman, English actor
*
February 21 -
Kristin Herrera, American actress
March
*
March 5 -
Jake Lloyd, American actor
*
March 16 -
Theo Walcott, English footballer
*
March 25 -
Alyson Michalka, American actress/singer
April
*
April 18 -
Alia Shawkat, American Actress
*
April 23 -
Nicole Vaidišová, Czech tennis player
May
*
May 5 -
Chris Brown, American singer
*
May 29 -
Riley Keough, American model
*
May 30 -
Kevin Covais,
American Idol Season 5 Contestant
June
*
June 2 -
Freddy Adu, Ghanaian-born footballer
July
*
July 13 -
Sayumi Michishige, Japanese singer
*
July 23 -
Daniel Radcliffe, British actor
*
July 25 -
Noel Callahan, Canadian actor
August
*
August 8 -
Sesil Karatantcheva, Bulgarian tennis player
*
August 9 -
Stefano Okaka Chuka, Italian footballer
*
August 21 -
Hayden Panettiere, American actress
September
October
*
October 4 -
Kimmie Meissner, American figure skater
*
October 11 -
Michelle Wie, American golf player
November
*
November 11 -
Reina Tanaka, Japanese singer
December
*
December 12 -
Harry Eden, British actor
*
December 18 -
Ashley Benson, American actress
*
December 27 -
Kateryna Lahno, Ukrainian chess player
*
December 28 -
Mackenzie Rosman, American actress
*
December 30 -
Ryan Sheckler, American skateboarder
For musicians born in 1989, see 1989 in music.January
*
January 3 -
Robert Banks, American chemist (b.
1921)
*
January 7 -
Frank Adams, British mathematician (b.
1930)
*
January 7 -
Hirohito,
Emperor of Japan (b.
1901)
*
January 10 -
Hai Teng, abbott of
Shaolin Temple (b.
1902?)
*
January 11 â€"
August Koern, Estonian statesman and diplomat (b. 1900)
*
January 21 -
Billy Tipton, American musician (b.
1914)
*
January 23 -
Salvador DalÃ, Spanish artist (b.
1904)
*
January 24 -
Ted Bundy, American serial killer (executed) (b.
1946)
February
*
February 1 -
Elaine de Kooning, American artist (b.
1919)
*
February 3 -
John Cassavetes, American actor and author (b.
1929)
*
February 6 -
Barbara W. Tuchman, American historian (b.
1912)
*
February 9 -
Osamu Tezuka, Japanese
Manga artist, e.g.
Astroboy (b.
1928)
*
February 11 -
George O'Hanlon, American actor and director (b.
1912)
*
February 24 -
Sparky Adams, American baseball player (b.
1894)
*
February 26 -
Roy Eldridge, American musician (b.
1911)
*
February 27 -
Paul Oswald Ahnert, German astronomer (b.
1897)
*
February 27 -
Konrad Lorenz, Austrian zoologist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b.
1903)
March
*
March 6 -
Harry Andrews, British actor (b.
1911)
*
March 8 -
Carl Stuart Hamblen, American musician (b.
1908)
*
March 9 -
Robert Mapplethorpe, American photographer (b.
1946)
*
March 14 -
Edward Abbey, American author and environmentalist (b.
1927)
*
March 14 -
Stephen D. Bechtel, Sr., American businessman (b.
1900)
*
March 19 -
Alan Civil, English French horn player (b.
1929)
*
March 27 -
Malcolm Cowley, American author (b.
1898)
*
March 27 -
Jack Starrett, American actor and director (b.
1936)
April
*
April 12 -
Gerald Flood, British actor (b.
1927)
*
April 15 -
Hu Yaobang,
General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (b.
1915)
*
April 16 -
Jocko Conlan, baseball player and umpire (b.
1899)
*
April 21 - Princess
Dukhye of Korea (b.
1912)
*
April 22 -
Emilio G. Segrè, Italian physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1905)
*
April 26 -
Lucille Ball, American entertainer (b.
1911)
*
April 30 -
Sergio Leone, Italian film director (b.
1929)
*
April 30 -
Yi, Bang-ja, Crown Princess of Korea (b.
1901)
May
*
May 1 -
Sally Kirkland, fashion editor at
LIFE (b.
1912)
*
May 9 -
Keith Whitley, American singer (b.
1955)
*
May 14 -
E.P. Taylor, Canadian business tycoon (b.
1901)
*
May 19 -
C.L.R. James, English writer and journalist (b.
1901)
*
May 20 -
John Hicks, English economist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1904)
*
May 20 -
Gilda Radner, American comedian and actress (b.
1946)
*
May 29 -
John Cipollina, American musician (
Quicksilver Messenger Service) (b.
1943)
June
*
June 3 - Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian political figure (b.
1900)
*
June 4 -
Dik Browne, American cartoonist (b.
1917)
*
June 7 -
Don the Beachcomber, American restaurateur (b.
1907)
*
June 9 -
George Wells Beadle, American geneticist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b.
1903)
*
June 15 -
Victor French, American actor and director (b.
1934)
*
June 20 -
Hilmar Baunsgaard, Danish politician (b.
1920)
*
June 27 -
Alfred Ayer, British philosopher (b.
1910)
*
June 28 -
Joris Ivens, Dutch filmmaker (b.
1898)
July
*
July 3 -
Jim Backus, American actor (b.
1913)
*
July 10 -
Mel Blanc, American voice actor (b.
1908)
*
July 11 -
Laurence Olivier, English actor and director (b.
1907)
*
July 16 -
Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor (b.
1908)
*
July 18 -
Donnie Moore, baseball player (suicide) (b.
1954)
*
July 20 -
Forrest H. Anderson, American politician (b.
1913)
*
July 22 -
Martti Talvela, Finnish bass (b.
1935)
*
July 23 -
Donald Barthelme, American writer (b.
1931)
*
July 30 -
Lane Frost, American bull rider (b.
1963)
August
*
August 1 -
John Ogdon, English pianist (b.
1937)
*
August 4 -
Maurice Colbourne, British actor (b.
1939)
*
August 7 -
Mickey Leland, American congressman
*
August 12 -
William Shockley, American physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1910)
*
August 13 -
Tim Richmond, American race car driver (b.
1955)
*
August 14 -
Robert Bernard Anderson, American political figure (b.
1910)
*
August 16 -
Jean-Hilaire Aubame, French-Gabonese politician (b.
1912)
*
August 16 -
Amanda Blake, American actress (b.
1929)
*
August 20 -
George Adamson, Indian-born conservationist (assassinated) (b.
1906)
*
August 22 -
John Clyne, Canadian jurist (b.
1902)
*
August 22 -
Diana Vreeland, American fashion editor (b.
1929)
*
August 22 -
Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the
Black Panther Party (murdered) (b.
1942)
*
August 29 -
Peter Scott, English naturalist, artist, and explorer (b.
1909)
*
August 30 -
Joe Collins, baseball player (b.
1922)
September
*
September 1 -
A. Bartlett Giamatti, American President of Yale University and baseball commissioner (b.
1938)
*
September 4 -
Ronald Syme, New Zealand-born classicist and historian (b.
1903)
*
September 8 -
Barry Sadler, Singer and writer (b.1941)
*
September 14 -
Dámaso Pérez Prado, Cuban musician (b.
1916)
*
September 17 -
Hugh Quincy Alexander, American politician (b.
1911)
*
September 22 -
Irving Berlin, American composer (b.
1888)
*
September 28 -
Ferdinand Marcos,
President of the Philippines (b.
1917)
*
September 30 -
Horace Alexander, English writer, pacifist, and ornithologist (b.
1889)
October
*
October 4 -
Graham Chapman, English comedian (b.
1941)
*
October 4 -
Secretariat, American racehorse (b.
1970)
*
October 6 -
Bette Davis, American actress (b.
1908)
*
October 9 -
Penny Lernoux, American journalist and author (b.
1940)
*
October 11 -
M. King Hubbert, American geophysicist (b.
1903)
*
October 26 -
Charles J. Pedersen, American chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1904)
November
*
November 1 -
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, American civil rights activist (b.
1898)
*
November 3 -
Timoci Bavadra, Fiji physician and politician (b.
1934)
*
November 5 -
Vladimir Horowitz, Russian pianist (b.
1903)
*
November 11 -
Kenneth MacLean Glazier, Sr., Canadian minister and librarian (b.
1912)
*
November 12 -
Sourou Migan Apithy, Beninese political figure (b.
1913)
*
November 22 -
C.C. Beck, American cartoonist (b.
1910)
*
November 25 -
George Cakobau, Fiji Governor General (b.
1912)
*
November 26 -
Ahmed Abdallah, Comorian politician (b.
1919)
*
November 29 -
Gubby Allen, English cricketer (b.
1902)
*
November 30 -
Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroonian politician (b.
1924)
December
*
December 1 -
Alvin Ailey, American dancer and choreographer (b.
1931)
*
December 5 -
John Pritchard, English conductor (b.
1921)
*
December 6 -
Frances Bavier, American actress (b.
1902)
*
December 6 -
Marc Lépine, Canadian mass murderer (b.
1964)
*
December 14 -
Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist and activist, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (declined) (b.
1921)
*
December 16 -
Silvana Mangano, Italian actress (b.
1930)
*
December 20 -
Kurt Böhme, German bass (b.
1908)
*
December 22 -
Samuel Beckett, Irish writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1906)
*
December 25 -
Nicolae CeauÅŸescu, Romanian dictator (executed) (b.
1918)
*
Physics -
Norman F. Ramsey,
Hans G. Dehmelt,
Wolfgang Paul*
Chemistry -
Sidney Altman,
Thomas R. Cech*
Medicine -
J. Michael Bishop,
Harold E. Varmus*
Literature -
Camilo José Cela*
Peace -
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th
Dalai Lama*
Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel -
Trygve Haavelmo*
The Very Reverend Lord MacLeod (Joint Award)
**
Professor Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (Joint Award)
*
The Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative,
Melaku Worede,
Aklilu Lemma /
Legesse Wolde-Yohannes and
Survival International
