1988 Calendar
What Happened In Year 1988?
- February 5, 1988 – Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.
- February 17, 1988 – New Year’s Day in Chinese calendar. Start of the year of the Earth Dragon in Chinese astrology.
- March 25, 1988 – The Candle demonstration in Bratislava is the first mass demonstration of the 1980s against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
- April 18, 1988 – The United States launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II.
- April 30, 1988 – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II officially opens World Expo '88 in Brisbane, Australia.
- May 16, 1988 – A report by United States’ Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.
- May 24, 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom’s Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted.
- June 27, 1988 – Gare de Lyon rail accident In Paris a train collides with a stationary train killing 56 people.
- July 6, 1988 – The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires. 167 oil workers are killed, making it the world’s worst offshore oil disaster.
- August 8, 1988 – The “8888 Uprising” occurs in Burma.
- September 13, 1988 – Hurricane Gilbert is the strongest recorded hurricane in the Western Hemisphere, later replaced by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 (based on barometric pressure).
- September 18, 1988 – End of pro-democracy uprisings in Myanmar after a bloody military coup by the State Law and Order Restoration Council. Thousands, mostly monks and civilians (primarily students) are killed by the Tatmadaw.
- November 15, 1988 – In the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle Buran makes its only space flight.
- November 16, 1988 – In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan elect populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister of Pakistan.
- November 22, 1988 – In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed.
- December 2, 1988 – Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state.
- December 6, 1988 – The Australian Capital Territory is granted self-government.
- December 20, 1988 – The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is signed in Vienna.
- December 21, 1988 – A bomb explodes on board Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270.
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