In the News 1989
- Michael Milken is indicted on 98 fraud and racketeering charges.
- Burma changes its name to Myanmar
- Soviet Union begins fully withdraws from Afghanistan after 10 years of fighting with Afghan mujahedeen forces.
-Salman Rushdie's novel Satanic Verses is published and sparks immediate controversy. Islamic militants put a price on his head. Visionary Jargon Lanier coins the term virtual reality and produces the equipment to experience it. - Pete Rose is banned from baseball for betting on games, August 24, 1989 Science
- Human gene transfer developed by Steven Rosenberg, R. Michael Blaese, and W. French Anderson (US). Background: genetic engineering
- First World Wide Web server and browser developed by Tim Berners-Lee (England) while working at CERN.
- Peter Deutsch of McGill University who develops Archie, an archive of FTP sites, the first effort to index the Internet. Another indexing system, WAIS (Wide Area Information Server), is developed by Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines Corp. Background: Computers and Internet
- Voyager 2 speeds by Neptune after making startling discoveries about the planet and its moons
Sports
Super Bowl
San Francisco d. Cincinnati (20-16)
World Series
Oakland A's d. SF Giants (4-0)
NBA Championship Detroit Pistons d. LA Lakers (4-0)
Stanley Cup - Calgary d. Montreal (4-2)
Wimbledon
Women: Steffi Graf d. M. Navratilova (6-2 6-7 6-1)
Men: Boris Becker d. S. Edberg (6-0 7-6 6-4)
Kentucky Derby Champion Sunday Silence
NCAA Basketball Championship Michigan d. Seton Hall (80-79 OT)
NCAA Football Champions Miami-FL (11-1-0)
Economics
US GDP (1998 dollars): $5,438.70 billion
Federal spending: $1143.17 billion
Federal debt: $2868.0 billion
Median Household Income (current dollars): $28,906
Consumer Price Index: 124 Unemployment: 5.3% Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.25
The Movies:
• Glory
• Born on the Fourth of July
• My Left Foot
• Sex, Lies, and Videotape
• Field of Dreams
Around the Country
- President George H. W. Bush (41) inaugurated - January 20, 1989
- Exxon Valdez sends 11 million gallons - March 25, 1989
- World Series interrupted by Earth Quake - October 17, 1989 (Oakland A’s Sweep the San Francisco Giants)
Around the World
- US planes shoot down two Libyan fighters over international waters in Mediterranean - January 4, 1989 - 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre - June 4, 1989
- P. W. Botha quits as South Africa's President - August 14, 1989 - Czech Parliament Ends Communist domination November 30, 1989 - Berlin Wall Comes Down - November 9, 1989 - Romanian uprising overthrows Communists December 15, 1989 - Romanian tyrant President Ceausescu and wife executed - December 25, 1989
- US Troops liberate Panama, US capture of General Manuel Noriega - December 20, 1989
Academy Awards:
• Best Picture - Driving Miss Daisy
• Best Actor - Daniel Day Lewis (My Left Foot)
• Best Actress - Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy) Gold Logie: Daryl Somers (Hey Hey It's
Saturday, Nine)
Science
- Human gene transfer developed by Steven Rosenberg, R. Michael Blaese, and W. French Anderson (US). Background: genetic engineering
- First World Wide Web server and browser developed by Tim Berners-Lee (England) while working at CERN.
- Peter Deutsch of McGill University who develops Archie, an archive of FTP sites, the first effort to index the Internet. Another indexing system, WAIS (Wide Area Information Server), is developed by Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines Corp. Background: Computers and Internet
- Voyager 2 speeds by Neptune after making startling discoveries about the planet and its moons
Entertainment
- Arsenio Hall becomes first African-American to host a nightly talk show January 3, 1989
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles become an overnight sensation
- Milli Vanilli gets Best New Artist Grammy which is later stripped when it's learned they were lip synching for another (much uglier) duo. -
Farewells:
• Jim Backus (shipwrecked with Gilligan)
• Lucille Ball (Comedienne)
• Samuel Beckett (Irish playwright)
• Salvador Dali (Surrealist Painter)
• Bette Davis (Actress with piercing eyes)
• Dolores Ibarruri Gomez (La Pasionaria) (Spanish Communist politician, orator, memoirist, journalist and writer)
• Ferdinand Marcos (Former Philippine President)
• Billy Martin (Major League Baseball)
• Laurence Olivier (Actor)
• Sugar Ray Robinson (Legend of the Ring)
• Andrei Sakharov (Soviet nuclear scientist)
• R.D. Laing (Psychopathologist)
• Robert Penn Warren (American Poet)
• Nicolae Ceausescu (Romanian Despot)
