1986

Events

January

• January 1
• * Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
• * Spain and Portugal enter the European Community, which becomes the European Union in 1993.
• January 11 – The Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, Australia, at this time the world's longest prestressed concrete free-cantilever bridge, is opened.
• January 13–24 – South Yemen Civil War.
• January 20 – The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel.
• January 21 – Conservative protestors attacked a mock shanty town that had been erected on the Green at Dartmouth College as part of anti-apartheid protests.
• January 24 – The Voyager 2 space probe makes its first encounter with Uranus.
• January 25 – Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army Rebel group takes over Uganda after leading a five-year guerrilla war in which up to half a million people are believed to have been killed. They will later use January 26 as the official date to avoid a coincidence of dates with Dictator Idi Amin's 1971 coup.
• January 28 – Space Shuttle Challenger disaster – STS-51-L: Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates 73 seconds after launch from the United States, killing the crew of seven astronauts, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
• January 29 – Yoweri Museveni is sworn in as President of Uganda.

  February

• February 3 – Pixar is founded by John Lasseter along with Steve Jobs.
• February 7
• * Anti-Duvalier protest movement: President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees Haiti, ending 28 years of family rule.
• * The snap presidential election in the Philippines earlier announced by President Ferdinand Marcos is held amidst controversy, that paves the way for a chain of protests, culminating in the People Power Revolution.
• February 8 – Hinton train collision: A Canadian National train heading westbound collides with a Via Rail train in Hinton, Alberta; 23 people are killed and 71 injured in the accident.
• February 9 – Halley's Comet reaches its perihelion, the closest point to the Sun, during its second visit to the Solar System in the 20th century.
• February 10 – The Maxi Trial begins in the bunker room of the Ucciardone prison. It will be the largest trial against the Sicilian Mafia.
• February 11 – Human rights activist Natan Sharansky is released by Soviet authorities and leaves the country for Israel.
• February 15 – The Beechcraft Starship makes its maiden flight.
• February 16
• * The Soviet liner sinks in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand.
• * Ouadi Doum air raid: The French Air Force raids the Libyan Ouadi Doum airbase in northern Chad.
• * Mário Soares wins the second round of the Portuguese presidential election.
• February 17 – The Single European Act is signed.
• February 19
• * The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.
• * The United States Senate approves a treaty outlawing genocide.
• February 22 – The People Power Revolution begins in the Philippines to remove President Ferdinand Marcos from office.
• February 25
• * The 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union opens in Moscow. The General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev introduces the keywords of his mandate to the audience: Glasnost and Perestroika.
• * People Power Revolution: President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines is ousted from power and goes into exile in Hawaii after 20 years of dictatorial rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the first Filipino woman president and forms an interim government with Salvador Laurel becoming her Vice-president and Prime Minister.
• * A three-day riot begins in Cairo, Egypt when around 25,000 conscripts of the Central Security Forces, staged protests in and around the city. Three luxury hotels, several nightclubs, restaurants and cars were looted and burned in the tourist districts near the Pyramids over several days. The riot became known as the Egyptian Conscripts Riot. At least 25 people died during the first day in Cairo, and an estimated 8,000 people, mostly conscripts in regions outside the city, were killed in total.
• February 27 – The United States Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis.
• February 28 – Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme is shot to death on his way home from the cinema in Stockholm, Sweden.

  March

• March 1 – Olof Palme's deputy Ingvar Carlsson becomes acting Prime Minister of Sweden. He is elected Prime Minister by the Swedish Riksdag on March 15.
• March 3 – The first paper is published describing the atomic force microscope invented the previous year by Gerd Binnig, Calvin Quate and Christopher Berger.
• March 8 – The Japanese Suisei probe flies by Halley's Comet, studying its UV hydrogen corona and solar wind.
• March 9 – United States Navy divers find the largely intact but heavily damaged crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger; the bodies of all seven astronauts are still inside.
• March 13
• * In a Black Sea incident, American cruiser USS Yorktown and the destroyer USS Caron, claiming the right of innocent passage, enter the Soviet territorial waters near the southern Crimean Peninsula.
• * Microsoft Corporation holds its initial public offering of stock shares.
• March 15 – Hotel New World collapses, 33 killed and 17 rescued from rubble.
• March 24 – The 58th Academy Awards are held in Los Angeles, with Out of Africa winning Best Picture.
• March 26 – An article in The New York Times charges that Kurt Waldheim, former United Nations Secretary-General and candidate for president of Austria, may have been involved in Nazi war crimes during World War II.
• March 27 – Russell Street Bombing: A car bomb explodes at Russell Street Police Headquarters in Russell Street, Melbourne, killing a woman constable, the first Australian policewoman to be killed in the line of duty.
• March 31 – Mexicana Flight 940 crashes near Maravatío, Mexico, killing 167.

  April

• April – The government of Ivory Coast requests international diplomatic use of the French form of its name, Côte d'Ivoire.
• April 1 – Sector Kanda: Communist Party of Nepal cadres attack a number of police stations in Kathmandu, seeking to incite a popular rebellion.
• April 2 – A bomb explodes on a Trans World Airlines flight from Rome to Athens, killing 4 people.
• April 5 – 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing: The West Berlin discothèque La Belle, a known hangout for United States soldiers, is bombed, killing three and injuring 230; Libya is held responsible.
• April 11 – The infamous FBI shootout in Miami results in the death of two FBI agents and the wounding of five others.
• April 13
• * Pope John Paul II officially visits the Great Synagogue of Rome, the first time a modern Pope has visited a synagogue.
• * The first child born to a non-related surrogate mother is born.
• April 14 – Hailstones weighing fall on Gopalganj District, Bangladesh, killing 92.
• April 15 – Operation El Dorado Canyon: At least 15 people die after United States planes bomb targets in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and the Benghazi region.
• April 16 – The United Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Netherlands sign a peace treaty, thus ending the Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War, one of the longest wars in human history.
• April 17
• * Lebanon hostage crisis: British journalist John McCarthy is kidnapped in Beirut and three others are killed in retaliation for the bombing of Libya.
• * The Hindawi affair begins when an Irish woman is found carrying explosives onto an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv.
• * An alleged state of war lasting 335 years between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly declared peace, bringing an end to any hypothetical war that may have existed.
• April 18 – Titan 34D-9 explodes just after launch while carrying the final KH-9 satellite.
• April 21 – Lorimar-Telepictures launches as a mass media company.
• April 26 – Chernobyl disaster: A mishandled safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union "killed at least 4,056 people and damaged almost $7 billion of property". Radioactive fallout from the accident is concentrated near Belarus, Ukraine and Russia and at least 350,000 people are forcibly resettled away from these areas. After the accident, "traces of radioactive deposits unique to Chernobyl were in nearly every country in the northern hemisphere".
• April 29 – The Diamond Jubilee of Hirohito is held at the Kokugikan in Tokyo.

  May

• May 2 – Expo 86, the 1986 World Exposition on Transportation and Communication, a World's fair, opens in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
• May 8 – Óscar Arias is inaugurated into his first term as President of Costa Rica.
• May 12 – NBC unveils its current peacock logo at the finale of its 60th anniversary special.
• May 16
• * The Seville Statement on Violence is adopted by an international meeting of scientists, convened by the Spanish National Commission for UNESCO, in Seville, Spain.
• * Paramount Pictures releases Top Gun.
• May 23 – Somali President Siad Barre is injured in a car accident in Mogadishu and taken to Saudi Arabia for treatment. Somali opposition groups see this as an opportunity to try to remove Barre, beginning the Somali Civil War.
• May 25
• * Hands Across America: At least 5,000,000 people form a human chain from New York City to Long Beach, California, to raise money to fight hunger and homelessness.
• * The Bangladeshi double-decked ferry Shamia capsizes in the Meghna River, southern Barisal, Bangladesh, killing more than 500 by some estimates.
• May 27
• * Islamic scholars Isma'il and Lois Lamya al-Faruqi are murdered in their home in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, drawing attention due to their academic prominence and the brutality of the attack.