1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
Moscow agrees April 14 to withdraw Soviet forces from Afghanistan (the first group leaves May 17), promises to have all 115,000 out by mid-February 1989, and agrees to restore a nonaligned Afghan state. Former Pathan (Pashtun) leader Abdul Ghaffar Khan has died at Peshawar January 20 at age 97. Occupation of the country since December 1979 has cost at least 15,000 Soviet and more than 1 million Afghan lives. Mujahideen resistance fighters, covertly supplied by the CIA, step up efforts to oust the puppet regime at Kabul (see 1992). War has broken out in February and March between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the issue of autonomy for Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave that the late Josef Stalin placed inside Azerbaijan even though its people are mostly Christian while Azerbaijans are mostly Shiite Muslims. The enclave has demanded autonomy (see 1991).
The Communist Central Committee votes May 26 to limit the terms of officials. President Reagan visits Moscow from May 29 to June 1 but accomplishes little besides antagonizing party leader Gorbachev with appeals for increased civil and religious liberties. Delegates to a communist conference at Moscow July 1 endorse Gorbachev's proposals, including partial transfer of power from the party to democratically elected legislatures, and approve inauguration of the position of president. Gorbachev is named president October 1 and addresses the United Nations in New York December 7, promising unilateral reduction of Soviet troops, missiles, and munitions on the western frontiers of the Warsaw Bloc.
Romania's president Nicolae Ceausescu announces in March that he will undertake a program to demolish 8,000 of the country's 13,000 villages and resettle residents, including ethnic Hungarians, in urban housing complexes.
Hungary's Communist Party ousts former premier János Kádár from his post as general secretary May 22 after nearly 32 years of power. Károly Grósz becomes premier (see 1989).
French voters reelect President Mitterand to a 7-year term July 8, rejecting his right-wing challenger Jacques Chirac. Statesman Edgar Faure has died at Paris March 30 at age 79, having written detective novels under the name Edgar Sanday.
Onetime atomic spy Klaus Fuchs dies in East Germany January 28 at age 76; Soviet double agent Kim Philby at Moscow May 11 at age 76; French Résistance leader Henri Frenay at an undisclosed location August 6 at age 82; Bavarian premier Franz Josef Strauss of heart failure at Regensburg October 3 at age 73.
Former North Yemen president Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Iryani dies at Damascus March 14 at age 76.
Iraqi forces recover Fao April 18 after a 2-day battle that has cost 10,000 Iraqi lives (at least 53,000 Iraqis and possibly 120,000 Iranians have died fighting for the city in the past few years). German engineers have modified Iraq's Soviet-built Scud missiles to extend their range from 190 miles to 375 (the Hussein) and even 560 (the Abbas), but with payloads of 1,102 and 661 pounds of explosives, respectively (the standard Scud carries about 2,100 pounds) and with an accuracy margin of only 1,100 to 3,300 yards (see 1991).
The skipper of the U.S.S. Vincennes in the Persian Gulf mistakes an Iran Air A300 Airbus for an attacking plane July 3 and shoots it down, killing all 290 aboard. Embarrassed Washington officials will offer reparations next year to families of the victims.
Iran regains most of the territory lost earlier as the combatants reach a stalemate. President Khomenei has insisted that Iraq's president Saddam Hussein must step down and Iraq pay war damages before there can be peace, but he agrees July 20 to a cease-fire following some Iranian military setbacks. Direct negotiations begin after nearly 8 years of hostilities and Iran accepts an Iraqi truce plan August 8, agreeing to a cease-fire followed by direct talks to end the conflict that has cost 105,000 Iraqi lives (Iran has lost at least 1 million) and left the country with $85 billion in war debt. Iraq still has more than 1 million men under arms, they are well supplied with modern Soviet-built weaponry, they represent the fourth or fifth largest army in the world, and they have gained battle experience, but Saddam Hussein engages in frequent purges of officers lest any of them become political rivals; he is hard pressed to service Iraq's foreign debts and begins to step up his nuclear development program while contemplating further military adventures (see 1990).
Israel begins deporting nationalists seized in January rioting as Israeli police and troops kill hundreds of rock-throwing young Arab demonstrators in a continuation of the intifada that roils the country (see 1987). Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likkud Party promises a hard line against the Arabs, Israeli troops make mass arrests and enforce curfew rules, they demolish houses occupied by "troublemakers," Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) senior official Abu Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir) is believed to have directed the uprising and is assassinated April 16 along with two bodyguards and a driver in Tunisia, and Israel reportedly ordered the killing. Jordan's King Hussein announces July 31 that he is ceding the West Bank to the PLO and abandoning the area ruled by his family from 1948 to 1967. He questions the effectiveness of U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East. Yirzhak Shamir's Likkud Party wins the November elections as the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) or the secular PLO orchestrates further violence, with militants killing Arabs believed to be collaborating with the Israelis (see 1990).
Taiwan's president Chiang Ching-kuo dies January 13 at age 77 after a 13-year administration in which he has continued the repression begun by his late father, Chiang Kai-shek (although he has announced January 2 that he would permit some dissent). Chiang is succeeded by Lee Teng-hui, 65, the first native-born Taiwanese to hold the position. Educated in America, Lee is an expert in agricultural planning; he moves to lift the martial law that has existed in the country since 1949.
Sri Lanka's leftist People's Party leader Wijaya Kumaratunga is gunned down February 16 outside his suburban Colombo home; police say his two assassins were members of the extremist People's Liberation Party (see 1987). A onetime film idol, Kumaratunga is survived by his widow, Chandrika (née Bandaranaike), 42, whose father and mother both served as prime minister. India has sent more than 45,000 troops into Sri Lanka and deploys thousands more in an effort to fight terrorism (see 1993).
Surinam's National Assembly elects Hindu businessman Ramsewak Shankar president and he is sworn in at Paramaribo January 25, ending nearly 8 years of military rule (see 1987). Shankar calls for a "renewed . . . working relationship" with the Netherlands and improved economic ties with the United States. Henck Arron is sworn in as vice president and premier (but see 1989).
Panamanian dictator Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega is indicted by federal grand juries in Tampa and Miami February 5 on charges of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers (see 1981), but when President Delvalle tries to oust Noriega he is dismissed February 26 by the National Assembly. The United States and most Latin American countries pledge support for Delvalle, Noriega's opponents stage a general strike in March, the government closes the banks, U.S. sanctions are imposed, and civil disorders follow as workers go unpaid and the government seizes flour mills and Canal docks (see 1989).
Ecuador's voters elect social democrat Rodrigo Boja Cevallos, 52, in the May presidential balloting to succeed right-wing ideologue León Febres Cordero Ribadeneira, 57, who has refused to let Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega into the country. Inaugurated August 10, the new president says Ecuador will maintain a nonaligned foreign policy and that he will increase government control over the nation's free-market economy; he meets with Ortega at Quito August 11 and formally restores diplomatic relations with Nicaragua.
Mexico's ruling PRI Party succeeds in having its candidate elected president in July. Carlos Salinas de Gortari, 40, is a Harvard-educated political economist, but the margin of his victory is the narrowest ever, and opposition parties challenge the result.
Former Uruguayan opposition leader Wilson Ferreira Aldunate dies of cancer at Montevideo March 15 at age 69; former Uruguayan president Aparicio Méndez at Montevideo June 26 at age 83; former Panamanian president Arnulfo Arias Madrid at Miami August 10 at age 86.
A new Brazilian constitution promulgated October 5 abolishes many of the vestiges of the former military regime, including the power of the president to legislate, the use of torture and extradition for political crimes, and government censorship of the arts. Drafted by the 559-member Constituent Assembly, it is the nation's eighth constitution since independence was declared in 1822 and provides for a presidential election to be held in November of next year.
Venezuelan voters return former president Carlos Andres Perez to power by a large majority in the December elections (but see 1993).
Angola, South Africa, and Cuba agree August 8 to an immediate truce in Angola and neighboring Namibia after mediation by U.S. diplomats in the long conflict.
Algeria has riots beginning October 4 at Algiers, spreading quickly to Oran and other cities, and killing as many as 500 unarmed civilians. Islamic fundamentalists join with disenchanted university students and school children in a campaign of terrorism and violence that will leave as many as 65,000 people (and possibly far more) dead by 1998. President Chadli Benjedid declares a state of siege October 6, troops fire on demonstrators, Benjedid goes on television October 10 asking for more time to institute "total and comprehensive reforms," but the unrest continues until October 11 and Benjedid does not lift his emergency decree until October 12, when he sends the army back to its barracks. The ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) that has governed since independence in 1962 has become notoriously corrupt, with officials at every level of the bureaucracy allegedly on the take, the military factions and civilian elite that administer the government have shown themselves to be hopelessly inept, oil and gas account for 95 percent of the nation's exports, and the collapse of oil prices has revealed the extent of Algeria's economic problems (an unemployment rate of at least 40 percent, inflation running at 15 to 20 percent per year, unavailability of many consumer goods except at high prices on the black market), which Islamic fundamentalists blame on the secular government. An austerity program has been in place since January, and a drought has increased food prices, although bread remains subsidized. President Benjedid works to draft a new constitution that allows for free elections, a free press, and the creation of opposition political parties, promising to reform the authoritarian system (but see 1992).
Pakistan's Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq deposes Prime Minister Mohammed Junejo in May and dissolves the National Assembly, saying that it has not moved swiftly enough to establish Islamic law or address ethnic conflicts. Zia is killed August 18 at age 64 when his plane explodes in flight (U.S. ambassador Arnold I. Raphel, 45, is also killed). Benazir Bhutto is elected prime minister in December and at age 35 becomes the first woman to head a Muslim state (see 1990).
Burma has political turmoil as Rangoon police club a student to death in March and let 41 suffocate in a crammed van. Aung Sang Suu Kyi, 44, returns from exile in England in April; daughter of the Burmese hero who was assassinated in 1947, she receives support at a political protest in front of Convocation Hall on the Rangoon University campus June 21, which leads to a march by 1,000 students in downtown Rangoon. Police crack down, killing as many as 300. Gen. Ne Win closes all schools, resigns as chairman of the Socialist Program Party July 23, and is succeeded as head of state by Gen. Sein Lwin (ret.), 64, who has directed the major blood baths since 1962 (see 1981). Burmese by the tens of thousands demonstrate in Rangoon streets against Sein Lwin, thousands are killed, but monks control Mandalay. Ne Win retains actual power; now 77, he has Sein Lwin replaced August 19 by his attorney general, U Maung Maung. Prisoners are released, freedom of the press is permitted for the first time since 1962, but Gen. Saw Maung is both prime minister and foreign minister; he has his troops open fire on demonstrators September 19, orders strikers back to work, and kills hundreds in a renewal of savagery directed by Ne Win (see 1989).
Thailand's prime minister Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda resigns in August, ending a long series of military governments (see 1977). The flamboyant Chatichai Choonhaven, 66, becomes prime minister, having returned to Bangkok in 1972 after years in the diplomatic service. He has served in a variety of major political positions; his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, cigar, and wine glass have made him a conspicuous figure, and he will hold office until 1991 as his country's economy booms with growth rates as high as 13 percent per year.
A New York court indicts former Philippines president Ferdinand E. Marcos and his wife, Imelda, October 21 on fraud and racketeering charges and orders them to New York. They face 50 years' imprisonment and fines totaling $1 million. Marcos, now 71, is called too ill to travel but Imelda shows up.
Onetime Mafia courtesan Judith Exner Campbell admits in a February 29 People magazine interview that she acted as a courier between the late President John F. Kennedy and mob boss Sam Giancana from 1960 until after JFK's inauguration in 1961, crisscrossing the country carrying sealed manila envelopes. Exner has previously written about her 2½-year affair with Kennedy but did not disclose her role as his go-between with the mob; now 54 and terminally ill with lung cancer, she acknowledges that she lied to a Senate committee in 1975 when she said that Kennedy was unaware of her friendship with mobsters.
Sen. Joseph (Robinette) Biden Jr., 45, (D. Del.) campaigns for his party's presidential nomination but drops out following revelations by aides to Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, 54, that he has used lines from a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock without attribution, plagiarized a paper at Syracuse University Law School, and exaggerated his academic record. Biden will remain an outstanding member of the Senate into the 21st century.
World War II flying ace Gregory "Pappy" Boyington dies at Fresno, Calif., January 11 at age 76; former NATO commander Gen. Lauris Norstad (ret.) of cardiac arrest at Tubac, Ariz., September 12 at age 81.
Vice President George H. W. Bush wins the U.S. presidential election with 53 percent of the popular vote to 46 percent for Michael Dukakis, who takes 10 states. The first sitting vice president to win election since 1836, Bush has narrowly defeated religious broadcaster Pat Robertson in the Republican primaries; Sen. Barry Goldwater opposed Robertson, saying, "I believe in separation of church and state. Now, he doesn't believe that . . . I just don't think he should be running." Now 64, Bush has accepted his party's nomination in August with an address written largely by New York-born White House speechwriter Peggy Noonan (Rahn), 36, who called for "a thousand points of light" (private charity) in lieu of government spending and makes promises—"Read my lips—no new taxes" (he has also promised to tax capital gains at a lower rate). A protégée of Reagan communications director Pat Buchanan, Noonan is a onetime Democrat who wrote the line in a Reagan speech calling Nicaragua's contras "the moral equal to our Founding Fathers."
An Iraqi Air Force helicopter appears over the Kurdistani city of Halabja late in the morning of March 16. The city of 80,000 is about 15 miles from the Iranian border, its Kurdish population has for years been in revolt against the regime of Saddam Hussein, whose bombers have earlier used chemical weapons against it. Iraqi artillery now bombard the town, unmarked bombers drop what may be napalm, and in early afternoon a helicopter releases poison gas that smells like a mixture of garlic and apples, smothering the city and killing at least 4,000 men, women, and children (some estimates say 12,000). German companies have built facilities in Iraq to produce the gas, which is also used to kill an estimated 10,000 Iranian soldiers.
President Reagan vetoes a Civil Rights Restoration Act March 16 but Congress overrides his veto March 22, expanding the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.
Close to 2 million South African blacks strike June 6 in a 3-day walkout to protest a crackdown on anti-apartheid groups (see 1987). Employers and unions agree to negotiate on a bill to curb labor's powers, but labor demands abolition of pass laws so that blacks may move to cities, and a new law entitling residents of so-called tribal homelands to South African citizenship. The African National Congress (ANC) conducts a bombing campaign against mainly civilian targets, fears increase that the nation will be engulfed in civil war between blacks and whites, but the ANC's president Nelson R. Mandela opens negotiations from his prison cell with the government of P. W. Botha (see 1990).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously June 20 in New York State Club Association, Inc., v. The City of New York that the city's 1984 law banning discrimination against women and minorities in private clubs with more than 400 members does not violate First Amendment rights. The ruling supports the city's human rights law and will affect clubs in every other U.S. city.
Ship owner Daniel K. Ludwig turns over much of his vast wealth to two foundations, one at Zürich and the other at New York, with the ostensible purpose of finding cures for cancer.
NASA launches a space vehicle September 29 in the first U.S. manned space launch since the 1986 Challenger disaster.
President Reagan and Canada's prime minister Mulroney sign a trade agreement January 2 that eliminates tariffs and lowers other trade barriers (see 1987). Canada's House of Commons approves the accord August 31, ending a century of economic nationalism (see NAFTA, 1993).
U.S. unemployment falls in April to 5.4 percent, lowest since 1974.
Median weekly U.S. earnings: lawyer $914, pharmacist $718, engineer $717, physician $716, college teacher $676, computer programmer $588, high school teacher $521, registered nurse $516, accountant $501, editor, reporter, $494, actor, director, $488, writer, artist, entertainer, athlete, $483, mechanic $424, truck driver (heavy) $387, carpenter $365, bus driver $335, laborer $308, secretary $299, truck driver (light) $298, machine operator $284, janitor $258, hotel clerk $214, cashier $192 (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics).
The poverty rate of U.S. families headed by women declines sharply as a result of women obtaining better-paying jobs. Families headed by women are still 4.5 times as likely to be poor as families headed by men. Such families constitute 15 percent of the population but more than 50 percent of the poor. Welfare policies give the poor incentives to avoid marriage, but nearly three out of four young black women who bear children out of wedlock marry by the time they are 24 and thus emerge from poverty.
Polish workers strike for 3 weeks in August demanding return of the outlawed Solidarity organization and political and economic reforms. They go back to work September 3.
President Reagan signs a trade bill in August giving him broad powers to retaliate against countries found to be engaged in unfair trade practices. A protectionist trade bill to limit textile imports passes the House 248 to 150 and the Senate 59 to 36, but the president vetoes the measure September 28.
U.S. savings and loan institutions lose $13.44 billion (see 1982). Chief regulator of the S&Ls is former architect Danny Wall, who knows virtually nothing about banking (see 1989).
A U.S. federal jury at Tampa, Fla., indicts the Luxembourg-based Bank of Credit & Commerce International October 11 on charges of having conspired to launder over $32 million in profits from alleged U.S. cocaine sales by Colombia's Medellín Cartel. Also indicted are two BCCI units and nine of its executives plus 85 persons in seven U.S. cities (see 1991).
Shares of British Steel PLC begin trading on the London Stock Exchange December 5 as the Conservative government continues its privatization program of selling off state-owned assets (see 1967).
Trial lawyer (and Baltimore Orioles owner) Edward Bennett Williams dies of colon cancer at Washington, D.C., August 13 at age 68, having represented clients who included Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, mobster Frank Costello, fugitive financier Robert Vesco, and former Teamsters Union bosses Jimmy Hoffa and Dave Beck; former Teamsters Union boss and reputed mobster Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano dies of a heart attack in prison at Lompoc, Calif., December 12 at age 71 (he has been serving a 20-year sentence on charges of murder and racketeering).
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 30 at 2168.57, up 229.74 (11.8 percent) from its 1987 close of 1938.80. The New York Stock Exchange has announced February 4 that it would curb use of its electronic trading system when the Dow rose or fell more than 50 points in a day. The Nasdaq closes at 381.38, up 15.4 percent since the end of 1987.
Moscow transforms the USSR's Ministry of the Gas Industry into Gazprom—a state-owned enterprise that will be Russia's most powerful company. The world's largest producer of natural gas, it has 370,000 employees and one-third of the world's proven gas reserves, supplying about 30 percent of Western Europe's natural gas.
Texas oilman Glenn H. McCarthy dies at Houston December 26 at age 81.
A Soviet-built Ilyushin Il-18 plows into a Chinese hillside January 19, killing 108; an Avianca Boeing 727 crashes after takeoff on a domestic flight March 17, killing 136, including two soccer teams; a gaping hole opens in the fuselage of a 19-year old Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 April 28, flight attendant C. B. Lansing is swept to her death, but the plane lands safely at Maui Airport and the airline industry institutes new maintenance procedures; a Pan Am 747 explodes in flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, December 21, killing all 259 aboard plus 11 on the ground (a bomb planted by a Mideastern terrorist in Frankfurt is blamed).
Air Canada bans smoking on all transatlantic flights (see 1992). A new U.S. federal law bans smoking on domestic flights of 2 hours or less (see 1973; 1990).
Union Station reopens at Washington, D.C., September 29 following a $160 million restoration (see 1907).
Italy inaugurates 155-mile-per-hour rail service on the Direttisima between Rome and Florence.
British Rail introduces the Electra locomotive on its London-Leeds run, increasing speed to 140 miles per hour.
A long-distance British Rail commuter train slams into the back of another commuter train in southwest London December 12, killing 33 people and injuring 113 in the nation's worst railroad crash in more than 20 years.
Japan's Seikan Tunnel opens between Honshu and Hokkaido. Begun in 1964 for Japanese National Railways, the longest tunnel in the world runs for 33.4 miles, with 14.3 miles of it beneath the Tsugaru Strait. Some 1,000 workers have been employed in building the undersea tunnel, and 34 have been killed by cave-ins and flooding during the course of its construction.
Japan's 43,374-foot Seto Great Bridge (Seto-Ohashi Bridge) is completed (see Kanmon Bridge, 1975); the world's longest bridge of any kind, it carries cars, trucks, and trains six miles between Kojima on Honshu with Sakaide on the island of Shikoku via a series of bridges and viaducts linking five small islands. Included are a 3,084-foot suspension bridge, a curving viaduct, two identical 1,378-foot cable-stayed bridges, an S-plan structure incorporating a continuous truss viaduct with a main span of 804 feet, and two nearly identical suspension bridges of 3,248 and 3,609 feet each (the suspension bridges are the first designed to carry railroad traffic since John Roebling's Niagara Gorge Bridge of 1855) (see Ikuchi Bridge, 1991).
Japan's 56-year-old Bridgestone Corp. acquires the 88-year-old Firestone Tire & Rubber in March for $2.6 billion. Firestone has 1,500 automobile service centers, but it has been hard hit by its recall of defective steelbelted radial tires between 1978 and 1980 (see 2000).
India has 552,000 miles of hard-surfaced roads, up from 66,000 in 1947, and although dirt roads still account for more than half the total there is a grid of national highways that extends for more than 20,000 miles to connect virtually all the nation's cities.
Apple Computer files suit against Microsoft Corp. in March for infringing on its Macintosh copyrights by using icons in the Windows program introduced for personal computers by Microsoft 2 years ago. The suit will fail, and Apple will reject Bill Gates's advice that it license its program, which remains superior to Microsoft's Windows (see 1990; Windows 95, 1995).
Wilkes-Barre, Pa.-born physicist William D. (Daniel) Phillips, 36, discovers that atoms reach a temperature six times lower than their predicted theoretical limit. Inspired by the work published 3 years ago by Stanford University physicist Steven Chu, Phillips has developed new and improved ways to measure the temperature of laser-cooled atoms at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. (see Cohen-Tannoudji, 1995).
The National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Energy Department draw up plans for a project whose goal is to map the complete sequence of genes in the human genetic makeup (see Mullis, 1983; medicine [genetically-engineered vaccine], 1986). The challenge is as daunting as any that ever faced the scientific community: while it is known that physical traits are encoded in the human genetic material DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) (see Watson, Crick, 1953), DNA is made up of long chains of organic molecules called nucleotides, the chains are found inside every cell, they arrange themselves into separate coils called chromosomes, there are 24 types of chromosomes, each physical trait corresponds to a length of DNA on a chromosome, that length is known as a gene, a human has roughly 75,000 genes (the sum is known as the genome), but the formidable task now undertaken is to find the location of every gene on the chromosomes, and then to determine the sequence of the estimated 3 billion nucleotides that comprise the chromosomes. Nobel laureate James D. Watson is appointed part-time head of the Office for Human Genome Research at the NIH October 1 (it will be renamed the Center for Human Genome Research next year); world scientists meet at Valencia, Spain, from October 24 to 26 for discussions on cooperation in an international genome project, and Japan has launched two pilot programs by December 2 (see 1991).
Nobel physicist Isidor I. Rabi dies at New York January 11 at age 89; Nobel physicist Richard Feynman of abdominal cancer at Los Angeles February 15 at age 69; evolutionary theorist Sewall Wright of complications from a hip fracture at Madison, Wis., March 3 at age 79; Nobel electrical engineer and electron microscope inventor Ernst Ruska at West Berlin May 27 at age 81; Nobel physicist Luis W. Alvarez of cancer at Berkeley, Calif., September 1 at age 77; physicist George Uhlenbeck at Boulder, Colo., October 30 at age 87; anatomist Raymond Dart of a cerebral hemorrhage at Johannesburg November 22 at age 95; Dutch-born Nobel behavioral zoologist Nikolaas Tinbergen of a stroke at Oxford December 21 at age 81.
Prozac is introduced in January by Eli Lily, whose Illinois-born biochemist Ray W. Fuller, now 52, synthesized the drug fluoxetine hydrochloride 15 years ago. It slows the reabsorption of serotonin in the brain. Bryan B. Molloy and Klaus K. Schmiegel have developed the antidepressant drug, it gained approval for marketing in Belgium 2 years ago, and it received FDA approval December 29 of last year despite questions as to whether it was any more effective than a placebo; Lily claims it has no adverse side effects (but see crime, 1989), U.S. pharmacies will be filling 65,000 prescriptions for Prozac per month within 2 years, 4.5 million Americans will have taken it by the end of 1991, it will be generating $1 billion per year in revenue for Lily, and by the end of the century more than 40 million people will be using it in 90 countries, along with comparable medications such as Paxil and Zoloft.
A bill to expand Medicare by protecting the elderly and disabled from "catastrophic" medical costs clears Congress June 8 and President Reagan signs it into law July 1 (but see 1989).
U.S. healthcare spending reaches $51,926 per capita as costs run out of control, accounting for 11.1 percent of the gross national product. Sweden spends 9.1 percent, Canada and France 8.5, the Netherlands 8.3, West Germany 8.1, Austria and Switzerland 8, Ireland 7.9, Finland and Iceland 7.5, Belgium 7.1, Luxembourg and New Zealand 6.9, Australia and Norway 6.8, Italy and Japan 6.7, Britain 6.2, Denmark 6.1, Spain 6, Portugal 5.6, Greece 3.9, Turkey 3.6. Every industrial nation except the United States and South Africa has a national healthcare program, but defenders of the costly U.S. system maintain that it provides better treatment than do other systems.
A congressional investigation raises alarms about cosmetic breast surgery, FDA Product Surveillance investigators find that the failure rate of breast implants is among the highest of any surgery-related procedure they have studied, and a Dow Corning study finds that silicone-gel implants cause cancer in more than 23 percent of test rats (see 1985). FDA Commissioner Frank Young dismisses the Dow Corning study, saying, "The risk to humans, if it exists at all, would be low" (see 1991).
One out of four U.S. babies is born by cesarean section—up from one out of 20 in 1970 (only Brazil has a higher rate) (see 1980). Cesarean section is the most frequently performed operation in U.S. hospitals: an estimated 934,000 such procedures are performed this year and the cost of cesareans tops $3 billion. The Health Insurance Association of America reports that in Northeastern metropolitan areas 2 years ago doctors charged $230 more for a C-section than for a vaginal delivery—$1210 as opposed to $980. A cesarean requires 4 more days in hospital, making it twice as long, and twice as expensive, as a vaginal birth, and hospital charges for a cesarean are about $1,050 higher.
Nobelist cardiac catheterization pioneer André F. Cournand dies at Great Barrington, Mass., February 19 at age 92; gynecologist and laparascopic surgery pioneer Patrick C. Steptoe of cancer at Canterbury, Kent, March 21 at age 74, having pioneered in vitro fertilization in 1978 with the world's first "test-tube baby;" gerontologist Asa Aslan dies at Bucharest May 20 in her early 90s, having made extravagant claims for the efficacy of "Gerovital H3" (a form of procaine, or Novocaine) in restoring youth.
Surgeon Philippe Mouret performs Europe's second laparosocopic cholecystectomy June 20, and the first in the United States is performed June 22 (see 1987); by the early 1990s more than 15,000 surgeons will have received some training in the technique, and it will quickly supersede traditional gallbladder surgery for the estimated 600,000 operations performed annually in America.
Former U.S. Navy patrol boat commander Elmo R. Zumwalt, 3rd, dies of lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease at Fayetteville, N.C., August 13 at age 42. His father, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., ordered spraying of Agent Orange in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War, the younger Zumwalt has defended his father's decision to use the defoliant as a means of preventing enemy ambushes near the water's edge, they have co-authored a book, My Father, My Son, and controversy continues over what, if any, health effects Agent Orange may have had on U.S. combat forces.
Baton Rouge, La., television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, 52, visits Nicaragua's president Daniel Ortega February 12, confesses sin February 21, and is removed from his pulpit by the Assemblies of God after revelations that he has had sex with a prostitute. Swaggart has lost 69 percent of his viewers and 72 percent of the enrollment at his Bible college. He is defrocked April 8 and ordered to stay off TV for a year but returns in 3 months.
The Ssi Lai Temple dedicated on a 15-acre site at Hacienda Heights, Calif., is the largest Buddhist monastery in America. Built at a cost of nearly $29 million for an order founded in Taiwan by Chinese-born monk Hsing Yun, now 61, it will reach out to native-born Americans.
The former archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey dies at Oxford April 23 at age 83.
The Family Research Council founded by Covington, Ky.-born Reagan White House assistant Gary (Lee) Bauer, 42, will help to politicize school prayer and other right-wing religious causes such as opposition to abortion and homosexuality.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 87 percent of U.S. women aged 25 to 29 have high-school diplomas versus 84.7 percent of men in that age group; 21.9 percent of the women have had 4 years of college, versus 23.4 percent of the men.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously February 24 that Hustler magazine's criticism of evangelist Jerry Falwell was within the rules protecting attacks on public figures.
A report issued in February by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group indicates that radio and TV station coverage of events is "grossly unbalanced" (see abolition of FCC's "Fairness Doctrine," 1987). Broadcasters are "not disposed to cover opposing viewpoints when they do not view themselves as subject to the Fairness Doctrine obligation," the report concludes (see 1991).
Radio personality Rush (Hudson) Limbaugh (III), 37, begins a syndicated program of right-wing opinion that will attract a huge audience and bring Limbaugh an annual income of some $23 million by the mid-1990s. Son of a Cape Girardeau, Mo., judge who owned the radio station that gave him his start as a teenager, he disparages liberal "dittoheads," "feminazis," and others whose views he finds distasteful.
Turner Network Television (TNT) is founded by Ted Turner, who has purchased the M-G-M library of old films.
A 14-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) television screen developed by Japanese engineers at Sharp offers flat-screen pictures in full color with full motion (see technology, 1962).
Broadcast journalist David Schoenbrun dies of a heart attack following prostate surgery at New York May 23 at age 73; onetime Nazi radio propagandist Mildred "Axis Sally" Gillars of colon cancer at Columbus, Ohio, June 25 at age 87. She was released from prison at age 60 and has taught music at a Roman Catholic convent school in Columbus.
Britain's Thatcher government imposes a "Sinn Fein Ban" October 19 on BBC and commercial TV stations, forbidding sound-plus-picture broadcasts of statements supporting groups associated with terrorism in Northern Ireland.
The U.S. first-class postal rate goes to 25¢ per ounce April 3 (see 1985; 1991).
Rupert Murdoch agrees August 7 to pay Walter H. Annenberg $3 billion for Triangle Publications (TV Guide, Daily Racing Form, and Seventeen).
Vogue magazine names London-born editor Anna Wintour, 38, to its top job in July. Wintour's career at House & Garden and, before that, at British Vogue has been unremarkable, but she will be credited with raising Vogue's influence in the $110 billion fashion industry in the next 10 years and boosting the magazine's revenues.
Syndicated cartoonist Milton A. Caniff of "Terry and the Pirates" and "Steve Canyon" fame dies of lung cancer at New York April 3 at age 81; gossip columnist Jimmy Fidler at Los Angeles August 9 at age 89; journalist Adela Rogers St. Johns at Arroyo Grande, Calif., August 10 at age 94; New Yorker magazine cartoonist Charles Addams of a heart attack at New York September 29 at age 76; National Enquirer owner-publisher Generoso Pope Jr. of a heart attack at West Palm Beach, Fla., October 2 at age 61 (his paper has grown to have a circulation of 4.5 million); Picture Post magazine founder Sir Edward G. W. Hulton dies at London October 8 at age 81; former gossip columnist Sheila Graham of congestive heart failure at Palm Beach, Fla., November 17 at age 84.
Nonfiction: The Trial of Socrates by journalist I. F. Stone, who has studied classical Greek for his research and takes Socrates to task for preaching against Athenian democracy; Battle Cry of Freedom by North Dakota-born Princeton Civil War historian James M. (Munro) McPherson, 51; Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner; Parting the Waters: America in the King Years by Atlanta-born writer Taylor Branch, 41; The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 by English-born Yale historian Paul (Michael) Kennedy, 43; A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by physicist Stephen W. Hawking; Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on Our Civil Religion by Lewis H. Lapham; A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Holyoke, Mass.-born journalist Neil Sheehan, 51, who worked at Saigon in the early 1960s; Day of Reckoning: The Consequences of American Economic Policy under Reagan and After by Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman; The Best Congress Money Can Buy by Philip M. Stern.
Historian Karl Schriftgeisser dies at Londonderry, Vt., August 20 at age 84; writer-social philosopher Jean-Paul Aron of AIDS at Paris August 20 at age 61 (a nephew of the late Raymond Aron, he was one France's first public figures to admit that he was suffering from AIDS); philosopher George Grant dies at Halifax, N.S., September 27 at age 69.
Fiction: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie incenses some Muslim readers with its alleged "blasphemies" (see 1989); The Middleman and Other Stories by Indian novelist Bharati Mukherjee, 46; Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco; Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez; The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies, now 75, completes the "Cornish Trilogy"; Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey; Paris Trout by Pontiac, Mich.-born novelist Pete (Peter Whittemore) Dexter, 45; Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler; The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Washington, D.C.-born novelist Michael Chabon, 25; Lucid Stars by Boston-born novelist Andrea Barrett, 23; . . . And Members of the Club by Ohio novelist Helen Hooven Santmyer (née Wright), 88; The Bean Trees by Arizona novelist Barbara Kingsolver, 33; The Twenty-Seventh City by Illinois-born novelist Jonathan Franzen, 29; Kitchen by Japanese novelist Banana Yoshimoto, 24; Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard.
Novelist Alan Paton dies of throat cancer at Durban April 12 at age 85. He has opposed economic sanctions against South Africa and called one man-one vote unworkable in his country; Michael Shaara dies of a heart attack at his Tallahassee, Fla., home May 5 at age 58; Robert A. Heinlein at Carmel, Calif., May 8 at age 80; Louis L'Amour of lung cancer at Los Angeles June 10 at age 80, having written 86 novels, 14 story collections, and one work of nonfiction, all of them still in print; novelist-playwright Rose Franken dies at Tucson, Ariz., June 22 at age 92; short story writer and poet Raymond Carver of cancer at his Port Angeles, Wash., home August 2 at age 50; novelist-playwright Max Shulman of bone cancer at his Hollywood, Calif., home August 28 at age 69; novelist and short-story writer Nancy Hale of a stroke at Charlottesville, Va., September 24 at age 80; Cynthia Freeman of cancer at San Francisco October 22 at age 73.
Poetry: To Urania by Joseph Brodsky; The Apple that Astonished Paris by Billy Collins.
Poet Robert Duncan dies of a heart attack at San Francisco February 3 at age 69.
Juvenile: The Way Things Work: From Levers to Lasers, Cars to Computers—A Visual Guide to the World of Machines by David A. Macaulay; Sourcery and Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett.
Author Peggy Parish dies of an aneurysm at Manning, S.C., November 19 at age 61, having written 11 books about Amelia Bedelia.
The Young British Artists have their beginnings as London art student Damien Hirst, 23, at Goldsmiths College rents an abandoned Docklands warehouse and puts on a show of his own works and those of 18 other unknown artists, whose neo-conceptualist collages, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and videos are calculated to tweak convention and shock observers with their provocative treatments of such subjects as life, death, sex, and the boredom of existence. Most of the artists are of working-class or lower middle class origins and most have been inspired by Goldsmiths Irish-born professor Michael Craig-Martin, himself a conceptualist. Calling the show Freeze (the artists will become known also as the Freeze generation), Hirst prints glossy catalogues, puts out some buzz in the art world, opens the exhibition August 6, and attracts buyers who include advertising mogul Charles Saatchi, 43, who is told that all the works have been spoken for (seeSensation, 1997).
Painting: Diagrammed Couplet No. 1 by Brice Marden; Blond Vivienne (oil on cutout aluminum) by Tom Wesselmann; Shadow on Water with Ball and Rubber Rings (photo collage) by David Hockney. Romare Bearden dies at New York March 12 at age 75; Jean-Michel Basquiat of a drug overdose at New York August 12 at age 27.
Sculpture: Diva and Lazarus by Los Angeles-born sculptor Alison Saar, 32; Tourists II by Duane Hanson. Louise Nevelson dies at New York April 17 at age 88; Isamu Noguchi of heart failure at New York December 30 at age 84.
Theater: The Piano Lesson by August Wilson 1/9 at Boston's Huntington Theater, with Carl Gordon, Rock Dutton, Starletta DuPois; M. Butterfly by Hong Kong-born Los Angeles-born playwright David Henry Hwang, 30, 3/20 at New York's Eugene O'Neill Theater with Rochester, N.Y.-born actor John Lithgow, 42, B. D. Wong, John Getz, 777 perfs.; The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein 4/15 at New York's off-Broadway Playwrights Horizons Theater, with John Allen, Peter Friedman, Boyd Gaines; Speed-the-Plow by David Mamet 5/2 at New York's Royale Theater with Madonna, Joe Montegna, New York-born actor Ron Silver, 42, 278 perfs.; Our Country's Good by U.S.-born British playwright (Lael Louisiana) Timberlake Wertenbaker, 37 (based on The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally) 9/1 at London's Royal Court Theatre, with Nick Dunning, Ron Cook, Linda Bassett, Lesley Sharp; Rumors by Neil Simon 11/17 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with Joyce Van Patten, André Gregory, Ken Howard, Ron Leibman, Lawrence Linville, 531 perfs.
Playwright Paul Osborn dies at New York May 12 at age 86; Miguel Pinero of cirrhosis of the liver at New York June 16 at age 41; actor Bramwell Fletcher at Westmoreland, N.H., June 22 at age 80; director Joshua Logan of supranuclear palsy at New York July 12 at age 79 (he has been controlling his manic depression with lithium since 1969); actress Florence Eldridge dies at Long Beach, Calif., August 1 at age 86; playwright Edward Chodorov at New York October 9 at age 84; actress Bonita Granville (Wrather) of cancer at Santa Monica October 11 at age 65.
Television: The Wonder Years 3/28 on ABC with Fred Savage, 11, as Kevin Arnold; Danica McKellar, 13, as Winnie Cooper in a 1968 suburban America show created by Growing Pains creators Neal Marlens and Carol Black (to 5/12/1993); In the Heat of the Night 3/15 on NBC with Carroll O'Connor as a Sparta, Miss., police chief, Howard Rollins as officer Virgil Tibbs (to 5/11/1994); Red Dwarf on BBC-2 with Craig Charles; London's Burning on LWT with Mark Arden, James Hazeldine; Hale & Pace on LWT with British comedians Gareth Hale and Norman Pace; Empty Nest 10/8 on NBC with Richard Mulligan as widowed Miami pediatrician Harry Weston, Los Angeles-born actress Kristy McNichol, 25, Dinah Manoff in a spinoff of the sitcom The Golden Girls that has been running since 1985 (to 6/17/1995); Roseanne 10/18 on ABC with former Denver stand-up comic Roseanne Barr, 36, as a rotund, salty-tongued, male-baiting blue-collar mother of three. The show will soon have a larger audience than any other (to 5/20/1997); Murphy Brown 11/14 on CBS with Candice Bergen, now 42, in the title role (written by creator-producer Diane English, 40) of a TV network executive (to 5/18/1998); You Rang M'Lord? 12/29 on BBC in Paul Shane, Su Pollard, Donald Hewlett in a sequel to Hi-De-Hi! (to 4/24/1993).
Radio comedian Jim "Fibber McGee" Jordan dies at Beverly Hills April 1 at age 91 of a blood clot in the brain resulting from a fall in his home; veteran British talk-show host (Fredric) Russell Harty dies of liver failure caused by hepatitis at Leeds June 8 at age 53.
Films: Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire with Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander. Also: Jonathan Kaplan's The Accused with Los Angeles-born actress Jodie (originally Alicia Christina) Foster, 26, as a gang-rape victim and Newport Beach, Calif.-born actress Kelly McGillis, 31, as her lawyer; Woody Allen's Another Woman with Gena Rowlands; Louis Malle's Au Revoir Les Enfants with Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejito; Penny Marshall's Big with Oakland, Calif.-born actor Tom Hanks, 32; Fred Schepisi's A Cry in the Dark with Meryl Streep, Sam Neill; Stephen Frears's Dangerous Liaisons with Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Santa Ana, Calif.-born actress Michelle Pfeiffer, 30; Claude Sautet's A Few Days with Me (Quelques Jours Avec Moi) with Daniel Auteuil, Sandrine Bonnaire; Charles Sturridge's A Handful of Dust with James Wilbym, Kristin Scott Thomas, 28; Istvan Szabo's Hanussen with Klaus Maria Brandauer, Erland Josephson; Mike Leigh's High Hopes with Philip Davis, Ruth Sheen; Marcel Ophuls's documentary Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie; Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ with Willem Dafoe; Martin Brest's Midnight Run with Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin; Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning with Gene Hackman; Bille August's Pelle the Conqueror with Pelle Hvenegaard, Max von Sydow; Barry Levinson's Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise; Sidney Lumet's Running on Empty with Detroit-born actress Christine Lahti, 38, Judd Hirsch; Marina Goldovskaya's documentary Solovki Power about a Soviet gulag (prison camp) in the White Sea's Solovetsky archipelago; Claude Chabrol's The Story of Women with Isabelle Huppert; Juzo Itami's A Taxing Woman (Masura no onna) with Nobuko Miyamoto, Tsutomu Yamazaki; Errol Morris's documentary The Thin Blue Line; Antony Thomas's documentary Thy Kingdom Come . . . Thy Will Be Done about "born-again" Christianity; Francis Ford Coppola's Tucker: The Man and His Dream with Jeff Bridges; Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being with Daniel Day-Lewis, Lena Olin, Paris-born actress Juliette Binoche, 24; Robert Zemeckis's Who Framed Roger Rabbit with English actor Bob Hoskins, 45, interacting with animated characters; Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown with Carmen Marua; Mike Nichols's Working Girl with New York-born actress Melanie Griffith, 31, Sigourney Weaver, Harrison Ford.
Actor Trevor Howard dies of influenza and bronchitis at Bushey, England, January 7 at age 71; director Emeric Pressburger of pneumonia at Saxstead, England, February 5 at ate 85; actress Colleen Moore of cancer at Templeton, Calif., January 25 at age 87; screenwriter I. A. L. Diamond of multiple myeloma at Beverly Hills April 21 at age 67; Ella Raines of cancer at Sherman Oaks, Calif., May 30 at age 66 (or 67); actor Ralph Meeker of a heart attack at Woodland Hills, Calif., August 5 at age 67; cinematographer Lucien Ballard in California October 1 at age 84 after being injured in a bicycle accident; producer-director Melvin Frank dies following open-heart surgery at Los Angeles October 12 at age 75; actor-comedian Ken Murray at Beverly Hills October 12 at age 85; actor-director-producer John Houseman of spinal cancer at Malibu October 30 at age 86; actor John Carradine of heart, lung, and kidney ailments at Milan November 27 at age 82; director Hal Ashby of liver and colon cancer at Malibu December 27 at age 59.
Film musicals: Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective with Michael Gambon (made for BBC television); Clint Eastwood's Bird with Forest Whitaker as Charlie Parker.
Former Broadway musical composer Frederick Loewe dies at Palm Springs, Calif., February 14 at age 86, having suffered a heart attack in 1958; onetime Broadway musical star Irene Rich dies at California's Hope Ranch April 22 at age 96; onetime Broadway stage and musical star Hazel Dawn at New York August 26 at age 97.
Choreographer Robert Joffre dies of liver, renal, and respiratory failure at New York March 25 at age 57; dancer Hugh Laing of cancer at New York May 10 at age 77; choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton at his Sussex home August 18 at age 83.
Popular songs: Simple Pleasures (album) by New York-born singer Bobby McFerrin, 38, includes "Don't Worry, Be Happy"; "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses; Green (album) by R.E.M. (Rolling Stone magazine readers vote R.E.M. the best U.S. rock band); Rattle and Hum (album) by U2; "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston; Roll with It (album) by English rocker Steve Winwood; Faith (album) by George Michael; Talk Is Cheap (album) by Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones; I'm Your Man (album) by Leonard Cohen, now 53, includes "First We Take Manhattan" and "Everybody Knows"; Touch (album) by Halifax, N.S.-born Canadian singer-songwriter-guitarist Sarah McLachlan, 20; "Colors" by Newark, N.J.-born Los Angeles rap artist Ice-T (originally Tracy Morrow, 20, for the Dennis Hopper film Colors).
Radio actor-singer Lancelot Patrick "Lanny" Ross of heart failure at New York April 25 at age 82; jazz trumpeter-vocalist Chet Baker in a fall from an Amsterdam hotel window after taking heroin May 14 at age 58; jazz composer-arranger-trumpeter-vocalist Sy (Melvin James) Oliver of lung cancer at New York May 28 at age 77; former Café Society nightclub proprietor Barney Josephson of internal bleeding at New York September 29 at age 86; big-band vocalist Billy Daniels of cancer at Los Angeles October 7 at age 73; jazz saxophonist Charlie Rouse of lung cancer at Seattle November 30 at age 64; singer-songwriter Roy Orbison of a heart attack at Nashville December 6 at age 52.
Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter plays with eight major orchestras in the United States and Canada, performs in Europe, returns to the United States to make her Carnegie Hall debut 12/14 (she has been limiting her public appearances to 80 per year), and launches her first North American recital tour.
Former San Francisco Opera conductor Kurt Adler dies of a heart attack at Ross, Calif., February 9 at age 82; oboist Leon Goossens at Tunbridge Wells, England, February 12 at age 90; emigré Soviet pianist Youri Egorov of complications from AIDS at Amsterdam April 15 at age 33; former Metropolitan Opera tenor James McCracken of complications from a stroke at New York April 29 at age 61.
Washington beats Denver 42 to 10 at San Diego January 31 in Super Bowl XXII.
Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney dies of a stroke at Pittsburgh August 25 at age 87.
National Basketball Players Association founder Larry Fleisher retires after reaching an agreement that guarantees players a majority of the National Basketball Association's revenues in salary and benefits; Fleisher dies of an apparent heart attack at New York May 4 at age 58.
The Chicago Bulls beat the Cavaliers 101 to 100 at Cleveland May 7 as Bulls guard Michael Jordan's jump shot at the buzzer wins a five-game NBA playoff series. The Bulls defeat the New York Knicks May 19 and advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals but lose to Detroit.
Stefan Edberg, 22, (Sweden) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Steffi Graf, 19, (W. Ger.) wins tennis's first "grand slam" since Margaret Court of England did it in 1970. Mats Wilander, 23, becomes the first Swede to win the U.S. singles title.
Real estate developer-horse breeder John W. Galbreath dies at his Darby Dan horse farm outside Columbus, Ohio, July 20 at age 90; ice resurfacer inventor Frank Zamboni of a heart attack at Paramount, Calif., July 28 at age 87.
Stars and Stripes retains the America's Cup, defeating New Zealand 2 to 0 off San Diego, but New Zealand protests. A New York State Supreme Court judge will rule in March 1989 that the San Diego Yacht Club's use of a catamaran was unfair and that San Diego must forfeit yachting's most prestigious trophy to the giant mono-hulled New Zealand; a New York appeals court will reverse the decision 6 months later.
Soviet athletes win 132 medals in the Olympic Games at Seoul, East German athletes 102, U.S. athletes 94. North Korea boycotts the games, insisting that she has the right to host half the competition. Katarina Witt has won her second figure skating gold medal in the winter Olympics at Calgary, Alberta, where Cornwall, N.Y.-born speed skater Bonnie (Kathleen) Blair, 23, has won the 500-meter in record time. East St. Louis-born athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, 26, the long jump (24 feet, 3½ inches); Canadian runner Ben Johnson, 26, wins the 100-meter dash September 24, setting a 9.79-second record, but is stripped of his gold medal September 27 for using performance-enhancing anabolic steroids (the medal is given, instead, to Carl Lewis). Tennis is reinstated as an Olympic sport after a 64-year hiatus. U.S. diver Greg Louganis repeats his 1984 successes, winning both the springboard and platform competitions.
Legendary miler Glenn Cunningham dies of an apparent heart attack at Menifee, Ark., March 10 at age 78; former English football (soccer) star John Edward Thompson "Jackie" Milburn of lung cancer at his native Ashington, Northumberland, October 9 at age 64.
The Los Angeles Dodgers win the World Series, defeating the Oakland Athletics 4 games to 1.
Former New York Giants pitcher Carl Hubbell dies of injuries sustained in a car crash in Arizona November 21 at age 85; former New York Yankees pitcher Vic Raschi of a heart attack at Groveland, N.Y., October 14 at age 69.
Eames Chair co-creator and industrial designer Ray Eames dies of cancer at Los Angeles August 21 at age 72.
Lorcin Engineering Co. is founded near Los Angeles by handgun manufacturers James Waldorf and Errol Brown, who invest $110,000 each to start a company that will have annual sales of $8.2 million by 1994, using cheap parts and labor to assemble semiautomatic pistols that can be sold at retail for $69 at a 60 percent profit and will often be used for violent crime.
Colombian drug traffickers kidnap Attorney General Carlos Mauro Hoyos Jimenez at Medellín January 25 and leave his blindfolded, handcuffed, bullet-ridden body at a nearby town, where it is found after a radio station receives a call saying that Hoyos was killed for "betraying the country." Hoyos had been investigating the release in December of Jorge Luis Ocho Vasquez and was en route to the airport for a flight to Bogotá (see 1989).
Former CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite testifies January 28 in the trial of Colombian drug lord Carlos Lehder at Jacksonville, Fla., that when he tried to dock his yacht at Norman's Key in the Bahamas 10 years ago he was turned away (see Lehder, 1987). Confessed drug trafficker George Baron testifies before a Senate subcommittee February 16 that he paid the Bahamian prime minister Lynden O. Pindling as much as $5 million to protect his marijuana smuggling operation between 1978 and 1981, and that Lehder paid Pindling $200,000 per month. A U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency official testifies February 22 that cooperation by Bahamian authorities in the war against drug trafficking has been "truly outstanding," with seizures of marijuana and cocaine up 300 percent over the previous year, but he concedes that official corruption is a "serious factor"; a State Department official testifies the same day that the Bahamian government has "not dealt effectively with systematic corruption" related to the drug trade. Lehder and his codefendant Jack Carlton Reed are found guilty May 19, Lehder is sentenced July 20 to life imprisonment without parole plus 135 years and fined $350,000 (the federal district judge says the sentence is intended as "a signal to our society that it will do everything it can to rid itself of this cancer" of illicit drugs), Reed draws a sentence of 15 years' imprisonment.
"Preppy" murder suspect Robert E. Chambers Jr. pleads guilty March 25 to first-degree manslaughter in the 1986 killing of Jennifer Levin after a 13-week trial in which his lawyers have tried to depict his victim as a tramp. He admits in a plea-bargaining arrangement on the 9th day of jury deliberations that he intended to injure Levin seriously and "thereby caused her death." Sentenced to 5 to 15 years' imprisonment for manslaughter and burglary, Chambers says August 10 that he will not contest a $25 million wrongful death suit filed against him by Levin's parents.
Brazilian floods and mud slides kill 117 February 7.
Global warming threatens mankind, NASA climatologist James E. Hansen, 47, tells the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources June 23. Increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases are probably to blame, he says (see 1995; Kyoto Protocol, 1997).
North America has its warmest summer in 52 years; forest fires blacken 2.2 million acres of Alaskan wilderness and about 3.8 million acres elsewhere in the United States. A "prescribed burn" designed to prevent forest fires rages out of control at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and destroys 1.2 million acres of woodlands, including 995,000 in the park itself, but no trees are killed in at least one-third of the damaged area. The National Park Service adopted a policy in 1972 of letting wildfires burn naturally unless they threaten human lives and property, but the practice of prescribed burns draws criticism (see Los Alamos, 2000).
Chinese floods in early August kill thousands along the eastern coast, leave hundreds of thousands homeless.
Bangladesh has floods in early September that cover much of the country, the worst in 70 years, with 1,000 dead and millions homeless. Donor nations rush aid, and the government asks that international experts work on flood control projects.
New York State declares that the Love Canal area is habitable once again and begins in September to allow 200 homes north of Love Canal to be sold to new families (see 1980). Nearly 240 homes closest to the canal have been demolished, 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals remain below ground, but the Federal Housing Authority will provide mortgage insurance for the re-inhabited homes in 1992, and Hooker Chemical's parent company Occidental Petroleum will pay the state $98 million in 1994 for the clean-up and relocation; it will pay the federal government $129 million in 1995 and pay $20 million in 1997 to settle a class action suit filed in behalf of 1,300 people.
An earthquake August 20 jolts villages on the border between India and Nepal. Registering 6.6 on the Richter scale it kills 1,450; a quake measuring 7.0 rocks an area on the border between Turkey and Soviet Armenia December 7, killing an estimated 25,000.
Brazilian rubber tapper Francisco "Chico" Mendes Filho is shot dead December 22 at his home in Xapuri, raising a worldwide storm of protest against ranchers who are clearing the western Amazonian rain forest (see 1987). Mendes has rallied families to stand up against the chain saws and bulldozers (see 1989).
Zebra mussels (Dreissena sp.) indigenous to the Black and Caspian seas begin to proliferate in the Great Lakes, having been discharged in ballast water from oceanic freighters that arrived via the St. Lawrence Seaway (see Eurasian ruffe, 1986). First observed in Lake St. Clair, they will clog the water-intake pipe at Monroe, Mich., next year and by the end of the century their colonies will infest not only the Great Lakes but also most stretches of the Mississippi, Illinois, Mohawk, Hudson, St. Lawrence, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Arkansas rivers as well as many lakes. By filtering out plankton, the mussels make the water clearer, but this allows more sunlight to reach the bottom, which leads to an increase in underwater weeds that inhibit boat traffic. Catches of yellow perch will increase substantially, however, as the action of the mussels increases populations of insect larvae, leeches, and snails on which the fish feed.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports June 23 that half the country's agricultural counties have been designated as drought disaster areas after the driest spring since the dust-bowl year of 1934. Drought reduces North American crops, and the hot summer raises fears that "global warming" poses a threat to human survival. The U.S. grain harvest is only about 190 million metric tons as compared with 300 million in a more typical year, and in some parts of Iowa the corn crop is only one-fourth what it was last year; commodity prices soar, and the United States is obliged for the first time in history to import grain for domestic needs (see 1989).
Leaders of the seven largest industrial democracies meet for 3 days at Toronto in June but rebuff President Reagan's demand that high priority be given to ending government farm subsidies by the year 2000. U.S. farm subsidies are $26 billion, up from $3 billion in 1981.
Famine in southern Sudan kills an estimated 250,000 during the rainy season as civil war continues to wrack the country.
Biochemist Charles Glen King dies at Kennett Square, Pa., January 24 at age 91, having isolated vitamin C in 1932.
Eli Lily consults with MIT researchers Richard and Judith Wurtman, the company concludes that serotonin controls the brain's "satiety center," and it applies for Food and Drug Administration approval to market the new anti-depressant drug Prozac as a treatment for obesity (see 1994). Patients on Prozac have been found to lose weight without dieting. The Wurtmans found Interneuron Pharmaceuticals and work to develop the serotonin-boosting diet drug dexfenfluramine (see 1982; 1994).
Aflatoxin contaminates some of the drought-ravaged U.S. corn harvested in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa (see 1977). The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for restricting interstate shipments of corn containing even the slightest amount of aflatoxin, but Reagan administration budget cuts have reduced the number of FDA inspectors and those who remain can only make spotty surveillances. Regulators and industry officials argue that the contaminated corn will be diluted by billions of bushels of clean corn, meatpackers say that livestock would get sick before aflatoxin residues affected their meat, but testing by many food companies, dairy farmers, ranchers, livestock finishers, and meat packers in the Midwest (which produces 70 percent of the nation's corn) is haphazard at best (Southeastern states are far more efficient).
Congress enacts legislation requiring warning labels on all alcoholic beverages.
British Junior Health Minister Edwina Curry resigns December 16 after 2 weeks of controversy over her charge that most British eggs are infected with salmonella. Egg sales have plummeted and raisers have slaughtered flocks.
Kellogg introduces Common Sense Oat Bran cereal, other cereal companies offer similar products, but although studies show that oat bran lowers blood-serum cholesterol, and many responsible physicians and nutritionists endorse its use, most oat bran cereals contain sodium and saturated fats, and the promise of oat bran as a heart-disease preventive will prove to be overblown (see 1990).
Nestlé S.A.'s Carnation subsidiary introduces Good Start H.A. (hypoallergenic) infant formula in a bid to seize part of the $1.6 billion U.S. infant formula market from Abbott Laboratories (Similac) and Bristol-Myers (Enfamil). Pediatricians are quick to recommend Good Start for colicky babies, but mothers of milk-allergic infants begin to report serious reactions: some babies vomit violently after ingesting Good Start and then go limp. Despite efforts to encourage breast-feeding, some 80 percent of U.S. infants are still given formula at least some of the time.
U.S. food processors introduce 962 new microwavable products, up from 278 in 1986, as microwave oven ownership soars.
Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for $13.1 billion and adds it to the tobacco company's General Foods division, which becomes Kraft General Foods, the world's largest food company. By 1994 food will account for half of Philip Morris's sales, but only 38 percent of its profits; beer will account for 7 percent of its sales and 4 percent of its profits (56 percent of profits will come from tobacco).
The New York investment banking house Kohlberg Kravis Roberts agrees in October after a bidding contest to pay $24.9 billion for RJR Nabisco in the largest leveraged buyout thus far in history (see 1985). RJR Nabisco had sales last year of $15.8 billion, KKR partner Henry Kravis says, "Oreos will still be in children's lunchboxes."
The Arkansas-based discount retailer Wal-Mart opens its first Super-Center November 17 at Wheeler, Okla., selling meats, produce, dairy products, and baked goods in addition to the packaged foods that it has offered along with dry goods at its regular discount stores. By the end of the century Wal-Mart will have more than 700 Super-Centers nationwide, and they will be undercutting supermarket chains as well as Main Street grocers.
New York's City Council enacts a law in April requiring restaurants with 50 seats or more to provide separate sections for smokers and nonsmokers. Many restaurants predict a slump in business, but their dire outlook will prove unfounded.
McDonald's announces April 29 that it will open 20 Moscow restaurants, staffed by Soviet workers and run by Soviet managers trained at McDonald's Hamburger Universities. Instead of Big Macs, the restaurants will serve the Bolshoi Mak at two rubles ($3.38—about 1 percent of a month's pay for the average Russian). In a joint venture with the Food Services Division of the Moscow City Council, the company will also build a food-processing plant to service the restaurants.
Britain's Licensing Act receives royal assent May 20, permitting 65,000 pubs in England and Wales to remain open from 11 o'clock in the morning until 11 o'clock at night on weekdays with more restricted hours on Sundays (see 1916). Most publicans are unwilling to pay extra wages and will continue to say, "Time, Gentlemen, please" well before 11 o'clock.
Canada's Supreme Court rules January 28 that a law restricting abortion is unconstitutional.
The Reagan administration acts January 29 to bar most family planning clinics from providing abortion assistance if they receive federal funds.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives approval May 23 to cervical cap contraceptives long available in Europe.
A federal jury finds G. D. Searle guilty in a case that involves testing and marketing the Copper-7 intrauterine contraceptive device. The jury awards plaintiffs $8.7 million.
France and China act September 24 to authorize use under medical supervision of the steroid drug RU-486 (mifepristone) which induces abortion in the first months of pregnancy (see 1986). The French government pays virtually the entire cost of the two-step pill-taking process, but although anti-abortion activists say the pills will increase the total number of abortions they will be proved wrong, and most women wishing to end their pregnancies will opt for the quick surgical procedure. Hoechst-Roussel, U.S. subsidiary of the West German maker Roussel-Uclaf, does not apply for FDA approval lest pro-life groups boycott the company's other products (see 1990).
Illegal U.S. immigrants flood agency offices prior to the May 4 expiration date for the amnesty program set up under the 1986 Immigration Control and Reform Act.
China's central authorities give up hope that the nation's population can be held to 1.2 billion by the year 2000 (see 1980). Peng Peiyun takes over as fourth head of the State Family-Planning Commission and acknowledges that the figure was probably unrealistic; the population is already over 1 billion, and she says that by 2000 it will likely be 1.27 billion.
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