Life In 1988

    1988 30 Years Ago

-          Year of the Reader begins (Jan. 1^st.)

-          Hewlett-Packard introduces HP-28S Advanced Scientific Calculator (Jan. 8^th.)

-          Supreme Court rules (5-3) public school officials have broad powers to censor school newspapers, plays & other expressive activities (Jan. 13^th.)

-          US accepts immigration of 30,000 US-Vietnamese children (Jan. 21^st.)

-          Cerebral Palsy telethon raises $21 million (Jan. 24^th.)

-          The Phantom of the Opera, the longest running Broadway play ever, opens (Jan. 26th)

-          Australia celebrates its bicentennial (Jan. 26th.)

-          European Community plans removal of internal boundaries on Jan 1, 1992 (Feb. 13^th.)

-          18th Easter Seal Telethon raises $35,200,000 (March 6^th.)

-          British pound note ceases to be legal tender, replaced by one pound coin (March 11^th.)

-          Russia announces it will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan (April 7^th.)

-          Federal smoking ban during domestic airline flights of 2 hrs or less (April 23^rd.)

-          John Demjanjuk (Ivan the Terrible), sentenced to death in Jerusalem (April 25^th.)

-          USSR begins withdrawing its 115,000 troops from Afghanistan (May 15^th.)

-          US Surgeon General C Everett Koop reports nicotine as addictive as heroin (May 16^th.)

-          US Supreme Court rules trash may be searched without a warrant (May 16^th.)

-          Section 28 passed as law by Parliament in the United Kingdom prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality. Repealed 2001/2004 (May 24^th.)

-          1st Children's Miracle Network Telethon raises $590,000 (June 5^th.)

-          Russian Orthodox Church celebrates it's 1,000th anniversary (June 5^th.)

-          Spontaneous 100,000 strong mass night-singing demonstrations in Estonian SSR eventually give name to the Singing Revolution (June 10-14th.)

-          Women sentenced to 90 years in 1st product tampering murder case (June 17^th.)

-          200,000 demonstrate in Soviet Armenia for incorporation of Nagorno-Karabak (July 14^th.)

-          Israeli diplomats arrive in Moscow for 1st visit in 21 years (July 28^th.)

-          Congress votes $20,000 to each Japanese-American interned in WW II (Aug. 4^th.)

-          Renovated Central Park Zoo reopens after 4 years (Aug. 8^th)

-          The "8888 Uprising" occurs in Burma (Aug. 8^th.)

-          Iran-Iraq begin a cease-fire in their 8-year-old war (11 PM EDT) (Aug. 9^th.)

-          Australia unveils 1st platinum coin (Koala) (Aug. 22^nd.)

-          Estimated by this date 50,000 Kurdish civilians and soldiers killed by Iraq, many using chemical weapons, in aftermath of Iran-Iraq War (Sept. 3^rd.)

-          Latvian flag raised in Riga for first time since annexation by USSR (Oct. 7^th.)

-          Britain bans broadcast interviews with IRA members (Oct. 19^th.)

-          Britain ends suspects' right to remain silent in crackdown on IRA (Oct. 20^th.)

-          The Morris worm, first internet-distributed computer worm to gain mainstream media attention launched from MIT, strikes Pentagon, SDI research lab & 6 universities (Nov. 2^nd)

-          Soviet Union agrees to allow teaching of Hebrew (Nov. 3^rd.)

-          Soviets stop jamming Radio Liberty; 1st time in 38 yrs (Nov. 30^th.)

-          Benazir Bhutto named 1st female Prime Minister of a Muslim country (Pakistan) (Dec. 1^st.)

-          Lockerbie disaster: Pan Am Flight 103 destroyed mid air by a terrorist bomb killing all 258 on board over Scotland (Dec. 21^st.)

-          South Africa signs accord granting independence to South West Africa (Dec. 22^nd)

-          Bulgaria stops jamming Radio Free Europe after more than 3 decades (Dec. 27^th.)

-          Price of a postage stamp in 1988: 25 cents.

-          Sony "Disk Jockey" 10 CD disc player/changer $399.99.

-          The Soviet Union cancelled history exams in 1988 because increased government transparency had revealed that the textbooks were filled with lies.

-          Air Canada bans smoking on all transatlantic flights.

-          CDs out-sold vinyl records for the first time.

-          Price of a movie ticket: $4.00.

-          Soviet McDonald’s: 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). Prozac is introduced to the public.

-          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.

-          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.)

-          The Soviet Union: economic restructuring (perestroika) begins.

-          First transatlantic fibre optic cable laid able to carry 40,000 telephone calls simultaneously.

-          Gallaudet University, a university for the deaf in Washington, D.C., elects Dr. I. King Jordan as the first deaf president in its history. This conclusion of the Deaf President Now campaign is a turning point in the deaf civil rights movement.

-          Microsoft releases Windows 2.1.

-          Near the end of the year, the first proper and official Internet connection to Europe was made between Princeton, New Jersey and Stockholm, Sweden.