What happened in 1989

World3

• Feb 17The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) is formed.
• Dec 3Cold War: Malta Summit – Concluding a 2-day meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between their nations may be coming to an end. Gorbachev implies criticism of the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.
• Dec 25Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu: Deposed Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife are summarily tried and executed outside Bucharest.

Japan4

• Jan 7Emperor Hirohito dies; his son Akihito ascends as the 125th Emperor of Japan, followed by the change in the era name from Shōwa to Heisei on the following day.
• Jan 11The Lexus and Infiniti luxury car brands are launched at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit with the unveiling of the 1990 Lexus LS and Infiniti Q45 sedans.
• Feb 24The state funeral of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) in Tokyo is attended by leaders and representatives of 160 nations.
• AprGame Boy releasedA handheld console made by a team led by Yokoi Gunpei. It used cheap, proven parts instead of the newest ones and a black-and-white screen so the batteries would last long (“lateral thinking with withered technology”).

North America19

• Feb 24United Airlines Flight 811, a Boeing 747, suffers uncontrolled decompression after leaving Honolulu International Airport; nine passengers are blown out of the cabin to their deaths.
• Mar 4Time Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger, forming Time Warner. (Now Warner Bros. Discovery)
• Mar 24Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Alaska's Prince William Sound, the Exxon Valdez spills of oil after running aground.
• Mar 29The 61st Academy Awards are held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, with Rain Man winning Best Picture, and Jodie Foster wins her first award for Best Actress.
• Apr 19The USS Iowa turret explodes on the U.S. battleship Iowa, killing 47 crew members.
• Jul 5The television sitcom Seinfeld premieres in the United States.
• Jul 17The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber makes its first flight, in the United States.
• Jul 19United Airlines Flight 232 (Douglas DC-10) crashes in Sioux City, Iowa, killing 112; 184 on board survive.
• Aug 8STS-28: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission.
• Sep 17Hurricane Hugo devastates the Caribbean and the southeastern United States, causing at least 71 deaths and $8,000,000,000 in damages.
• Oct 17The 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake shakes the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Coast with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Sixty-three people are killed and the 1989 World Series in baseball is postponed for ten days as a result of the earthquake.
• Oct 18NASA launches the uncrewed Galileo orbiter on a mission to study the planet Jupiter, via Atlantis mission STS-34.
• Nov 17Walt Disney Pictures 28th animated film, The Little Mermaid and United Artists's All Dogs Go to Heaven are both released in theatres.
• Dec 6École Polytechnique massacre (or Montreal Massacre): Marc Lépine, an anti-feminist gunman, murders fourteen young women at the italic=no.
• Dec 17The first full-length episode of the animated series of The Simpsons, created by Matt Groening made its debut on FOX in the United States with the episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".

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Europe31

• Feb 14The Satanic Verses controversy: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of Iran (d. June 3), issues a fatwa calling for the death of Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie and his publishers for issuing the novel The Satanic Verses (1988).
• Feb 16Pan Am Flight 103: Investigators announce that the cause of the 1988 crash was a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player.
• Mar 9Revolutions of 1989: The Soviet Union submits to the jurisdiction of the World Court.
• Apr 5The Polish Government and the Solidarity trade union sign an agreement restoring Solidarity to legal status, and agreeing to hold democratic elections on June 4 (Polish Round Table Agreement), which initiates the 1989 revolution and the overthrow of communism in Central Europe.
• Apr 15The Hillsborough disaster, one of the biggest tragedies in European football, claims the lives of 94 Liverpool F.C. supporters in Sheffield, England, a further three dying later.
• Jun 41989 Polish legislative election: Solidarity's victory in the first round is the first of many anti-communist revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe.
• Aug 23Singing Revolution: Two million indigenous people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania join hands to demand freedom and independence from Soviet occupation, forming an uninterrupted 600 km human chain called the Baltic Way.
• Nov 17Cold War: Velvet Revolution – A peaceful student demonstration in Prague, Czechoslovakia, is severely beaten back by riot police. This sparks a revolution aimed at overthrowing the Communist government (it succeeds on December 29).
• Nov 20Cold War: Velvet Revolution – The number of peaceful protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia, swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
• Nov 28Cold War: Velvet Revolution – The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announces they will give up their monopoly on political power (elections held in December bring the first non-Communist government to Czechoslovakia in more than forty years).
• NovFall of the Berlin WallThe wall that symbolized the Cold War division was opened on November 9. East and West Germany reunified the following year, 1990.
• Dec 16The Romanian Revolution begins in Timișoara, initiated by the Hungarian minority.
• Dec 21Nicolae Ceaușescu addresses an assembly of some 110,000 people outside the Romanian Communist Party headquarters in Bucharest. Unprecedentedly, most of the crowd turns against him.
• Dec 22After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as President of Romania, ending the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, who flees his palace in a helicopter after the palace is invaded by rioters. Most of the army has joined with the rioters in Bucharest.
• Dec 23Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu are captured in Târgoviște.

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USSR / Russia5

• Feb 15Soviet–Afghan War: The Soviet Union announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan.
• Mar 261989 Soviet Union legislative election: The first (and last) contested elections for the Soviet parliament, Congress of People's Deputies, result in losses for the Communist Party; the first session of the new Congress opens in late May.
• Jun 4Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.
• AugGazprom, an energy production and sales organization in Russia, becomes state-run enterprise, changing from the Soviet Ministry of Gas Industry.
• Oct 9An official news agency in the Soviet Union reports the landing of a UFO in Voronezh.

Asia13

• Apr 15Hu Yaobang, the former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, dies. The public reaction to his death spawned a chain of events which led to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
• Apr 21Students from Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an and Nanjing begin protesting in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
• Apr 26The Daulatpur–Saturia tornado, the deadliest tornado ever recorded, kills an estimated 1,300 people in the Dhaka Division of Bangladesh.
• Apr 27A major demonstration occurs in Beijing as part of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
• May 171989 Tiananmen Square protests: More than 1,000,000 Chinese protesters march through Beijing demanding greater democracy, leading to a crackdown.
• May 191989 Tiananmen Square protests: Zhao Ziyang meets the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
• May 201989 Tiananmen Square protests: The Chinese government declares martial law in Beijing.
• May 291989 Tiananmen Square protests: The high Goddess of Democracy statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators.
• Jun 41989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre: A violent military crackdown takes place on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
• Jun 51989 Tiananmen Square protests: An unknown Chinese protester, "Tank Man", stands in front of a column of military tanks on Chang'an Avenue in Beijing, temporarily halting them, an incident which achieves iconic status internationally through images taken by Western photographers.
• Aug 24Indonesia's first commercial television network, RCTI (stands for Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia), is established, and went on air for the first time.
• Nov 6The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is established.
• Dec 2The Second Malayan Emergency concludes with a peace agreement. The Malayan Communist Party disbands and Chin Peng remains in exile in Thailand until his death in 2013.

Middle East7

• Mar 7Iran breaks off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.
• Jun 41989 Iranian supreme leader election: Ali Khamenei is elected Supreme Leader of Iran after announcing the death of Ruhollah Khomeini the day before.
• Jun 5State funeral of Ruhollah Khomeini: Eight people are killed and hundreds injured in a human crush during the viewing of the body of Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini at the Musalla in Tehran, two days after his death at the age of 89 in Tehran.
• Jul 6The Tel Aviv–Jerusalem bus 405 suicide attack, the first Palestinian suicide attack on Israel, takes place.
• Jul 28At the Iranian presidential election, electors overwhelmingly elect Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as President of Iran and endorse changes to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, increasing the powers of the president.
• Nov 5Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir is attacked by Maronite demonstrators loyal to Michel Aoun and who reject the nomination of Rene Moawad as president of the country. One of the demonstrators asks the Patriarch to kiss the picture of General Aoun raised above his head, and many follow him saying: "Kiss the picture, kiss the picture". The Patriarch refuses. The scene is hysterical and tragic to the point that Archbishop Bechara Boutros al-Rahi leaves the Patriarch's side and heads to the church of the Patriarchate because he can no longer bear the sight.
• Nov 22In West Beirut, a bomb explodes near the motorcade of Lebanese President René Moawad, killing him.

Latin America15

• Jan 10In accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 626 and the New York Accords, Cuban troops begin withdrawing from Angola.
• Feb 31989 Paraguayan coup d'état ("La Noche de la Candelaria"): A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954.
• Feb 27Venezuela is rocked by the Caracazo, a wave of protests and looting.
• May 7The 1989 Bolivian general election was held in Bolivia.
• May 14Carlos Menem wins the Argentine presidential election.
• May 31Tarapoto massacre: Six members of the guerrilla group Revolutionary Movement Tupac Amaru (MRTA) of Peru, shoot dead eight gay and transgender people in the city of Tarapoto.
• Jun 7Surinam Airways Flight 764 crashes in Paramaribo, Suriname, killing 176.
• Aug 18Leading Colombian presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán is assassinated near Bogotá.
• Oct 21Tan-Sahsa Flight 414 crashes into forest during approach killing 131 of 146 people on board.
• Nov 16Six Jesuit priests are murdered by U.S. trained Salvadoran soldiers.
• Nov 27Colombian domestic passenger flight Avianca Flight 203 is bombed by the Medellín drug cartel in an (unsuccessful) attempt to kill presidential candidate for the 1990 elections César Gaviria Trujillo. All 107 people on board as well as three people on the ground are killed.
• Dec 6The DAS Building bombing occurs in Bogotá, killing 52 people and injuring about 1,000.
• Dec 14Chile holds its first free election in sixteen years, electing Patricio Aylwin as president. This marks the first time that all Ibero-American nations, except Cuba, have elected constitutional governments simultaneously.
• Dec 17Brazil holds the second round of its first free election in 29 years; Fernando Collor de Mello is elected to serve as president from 1990.
• Dec 20The United States invasion of Panama ("Operation Just Cause") is launched in an attempt to overthrow Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.

Africa5

• Jan 4Gulf of Sidra incident (1989): Two Libyan MiG-23 "Floggers" are engaged and shot down by two US Navy F-14 Tomcats.
• Sep 19UTA Flight 772 explodes over Niger, killing all 171 people on board (the Islamic Jihad Organization claims responsibility).
• Nov 14Elections are held in Namibia, leading to a victory for the South West Africa People's Organisation.
• Nov 21The Members of the Constituent Assembly of Namibia begin to draft the Constitution of Namibia, which will be the constitution of the newly independent Namibia.
• Dec 24Charles Taylor's troops cross into Liberia from the Ivorian border, launching their first attack, sparking the First Liberian Civil War.