99 Fun Facts About 1988

Which Canadian city hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics?

Calgary's Games ended without one official gold medal for the host, a repeat of Montreal 1976. The nearest miss came on the ice, where Brian Orser took silver behind American Brian Boitano in the 'Battle of the Brians'.

Which 1988 US number one used no instruments, only one singer's overdubbed voice?

Don't Worry, Be Happy was all Bobby McFerrin: lead, falsetto backing, bass line and whistle, layered one take at a time. It spent two weeks at the top that autumn and won Grammys for Song and Record of the Year.

Which Soviet program reached factory floors on January 1, 1988, when a new law on state enterprises took effect?

Perestroika means 'restructuring'. The law, passed in 1987, let factories sell whatever they made beyond their state orders, and told them the state would no longer cover their losses.

In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh voted to leave which Soviet republic and join Armenia?

Azerbaijan kept the mostly Armenian enclave: its regional soviet voted 110 to 17 to ask for a transfer, and Baku and Moscow both refused. A week later, anti-Armenian riots broke out in Sumgait.

Where did an SAS team shoot dead three unarmed IRA members in Operation Flavius on March 6, 1988?

Gibraltar was where the three were stopped as they walked toward the Spanish border. London first said a bomb had been planted; within a day the Foreign Secretary admitted there was no bomb and the trio were unarmed.

What happened to Aloha Airlines Flight 243 on April 28, 1988?

It lost its roof in midair, a long stretch of cabin ceiling peeling away over Hawaii, yet the pilots landed on Maui minutes later. Every passenger survived; the one person lost was a flight attendant swept out of the cabin.

Which Australian city hosted World Expo 88, which opened on April 30?

Brisbane's fair was opened by Queen Elizabeth II and ran for half a year on the south bank of the city's river. After it closed, the site was remade as South Bank Parklands.

Which country's president won a second seven-year term in May 1988 by beating his own prime minister?

France re-elected François Mitterrand with 54% of the vote over Jacques Chirac, the conservative prime minister he had been forced to share power with for two years.

From which country did the Soviet Army begin withdrawing on May 15, 1988?

Afghanistan had tied down Soviet troops for more than eight years. April's Geneva Accords set the timetable: half the force was out by August, and the last soldiers left on February 15, 1989.

Which arms treaty came into force when Reagan and Gorbachev exchanged ratification papers at the Moscow Summit in June 1988?

The INF Treaty had been signed in Washington the previous December; swapping the ratified copies in Moscow switched it on. By 1991 it had scrapped 2,692 missiles, a whole class of nuclear weapon.

Which country won the UEFA Euro 1988 tournament hosted by West Germany?

Netherlands lost 1-0 to the Soviet Union in their opening game, then met the same side in the Munich final and won 2-0. Marco van Basten sealed it with a volley from an almost impossible angle.

Which NASA scientist told the US Senate in June 1988 that human-made global warming had begun?

James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute, told senators he was 99 percent certain the warming was real. He spoke in the middle of a drought and a Washington heat wave, and news outlets across the country carried his warning.

Which US warship shot down Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988?

USS Vincennes, an Aegis guided-missile cruiser, took the climbing Airbus for an attacking F-14 fighter. All 290 people aboard died; in 1996 Washington paid compensation but never apologised or accepted liability.

Which North Sea oil platform exploded on July 6, 1988, killing 167 people?

Piper Alpha burned for weeks until Red Adair, the American oil-well firefighter whose feats inspired a John Wayne film, put it out. Only 61 of the men on board survived.

The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, named for an Ottoman conqueror, opened in 1988 in which Turkish city?

Istanbul gained a second bridge between Europe and Asia, named for Mehmed the Conqueror, the sultan who took the city in 1453. Prime Minister Turgut Ozal opened it by driving the first car across the Bosphorus himself.

In which country did the 8888 Uprising against the government take place on August 8, 1988?

Burma, now Myanmar, saw nationwide strikes begin on 8-8-88, the date that named the uprising. Weeks later Aung San Suu Kyi, home to be at her sick mother's bedside, entered politics with a speech to a vast crowd at the Shwedagon Pagoda.

Which organization's founding followed a meeting of jihadi leaders including Osama bin Laden on August 11, 1988?

The meeting came as the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was under way.

Which Pakistani president was killed in a plane crash near Bahawalpur on August 17, 1988?

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq had ruled since his 1977 coup. His C-130 fell minutes after take-off, killing the US ambassador too; no cause was ever proved, and one theory blamed a bomb in crates of mangoes loaded as a gift.

Which war effectively ended with a ceasefire on August 20, 1988?

The Iran-Iraq War ended after eight years with the border where it had started and nothing gained by either side. Ayatollah Khomeini said accepting the UN truce was more deadly than drinking poison.

Which country's aerobatic team was involved in the Ramstein air show disaster on August 28, 1988?

Italy's Frecce Tricolori were flying their 'pierced heart', in which a solo jet flies through the point where the rest of the team cross. The soloist arrived too low and too fast, struck another jet and fell into the crowd; 70 people died.

Which hurricane devastated the Caribbean and Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula in September 1988?

Gilbert deepened explosively over the western Caribbean and was a Category 5 storm within a day. A NOAA aircraft measured 888 millibars at its centre, an Atlantic record that stood until Wilma in 2005.

Which bid won the IOC vote on September 15, 1988, to host the 1994 Winter Olympics?

Lillehammer beat Anchorage, Ostersund and Sofia, two years after finishing fourth in the vote for 1992. The IOC had decided in 1986 to stop holding summer and winter Games in the same year, so these came just two years after the last.

Which Space Shuttle returned NASA to flight on September 29, 1988, after the Challenger disaster?

Discovery flew mission STS-26 after a 32-month grounding, with redesigned booster joints and new pressure suits for launch. Its five astronauts were the first all-veteran American crew since Apollo 11.

Which dictator lost a national plebiscite on his rule on October 5, 1988?

Augusto Pinochet lost with about 56 percent voting No. The opposition had fifteen minutes of late-night television each night for a month, and filled it with a rainbow logo and a cheerful jingle promising that joy was coming.

Which team upset the Oakland Athletics to win the 1988 World Series?

Los Angeles Dodgers trailed 4-3 with two out in the ninth inning of Game 1 when Kirk Gibson, hurt in both legs, limped up to pinch-hit and homered off Oakland's star closer. It was his only plate appearance of the Series.

Which pitcher broke a 20-year-old record with 59 straight scoreless innings in 1988 and was named World Series MVP?

Orel Hershiser passed the 58 2/3 innings set in 1968 by Don Drysdale, who by 1988 was his own club's broadcaster. Drysdale came down from the booth to congratulate him on the field.

Cornell graduate student Robert Morris released his 1988 Internet worm through which other university's computers, to hide where it came from?

MIT was only the decoy: Morris released the worm there so it would not be traced back to Cornell. He became the first person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and later joined MIT's own faculty.

Whom did George H. W. Bush defeat in the November 1988 US presidential election?

Michael Dukakis led the polls after his party's convention, then rode in an M1 tank to look strong on defence. Reporters laughed at the sight, and the Bush campaign turned the footage into an attack ad.

Which Soviet space shuttle made its only orbital flight on November 15, 1988?

Buran circled the Earth twice with nobody aboard and landed itself on a runway under computer control. The programme was cancelled, and in 2002 the orbiter was crushed when the roof of its hangar at Baikonur collapsed.

In which city was an independent State of Palestine proclaimed on November 15, 1988?

Algiers was hosting the Palestine National Council, the PLO's parliament in exile, and Yasser Arafat read the declaration out to it. The text had been drafted by the poet Mahmoud Darwish.

What was the name of the first Fairtrade label, launched in 1988?

Max Havelaar is the hero of an 1860 Dutch novel attacking the colonial coffee trade. A Dutch aid agency and Mexican coffee farmers borrowed his name for their label, which first put fairly traded beans into mainstream shops.

In November 1988, well before Lithuania declared independence, which Soviet republic first declared its own laws supreme over Moscow's?

Estonia's parliament claimed the right to veto any Soviet law. Other republics copied the move, though Lithuania was first to declare outright independence, in March 1990.

Who became the first woman elected to lead a Muslim-majority country's government, on December 2, 1988?

Benazir Bhutto was 35 when she took the office her father had held before the army overthrew him and had him hanged. She had been through prison, house arrest and exile before her party won the election.

Where did the Spitak earthquake kill at least 25,000 people on December 7, 1988?

Soviet Armenia's disaster pushed Moscow into something almost unheard of in the Cold War: asking the outside world for help. Rescue teams, sniffer dogs and medical supplies flew in from abroad, the United States included.

Over which Scottish town was Pan Am Flight 103 blown up on December 21, 1988?

Lockerbie lost 11 of its residents when the wreckage fell on its streets, and all 259 people aboard died. The bomb had been hidden inside a radio-cassette player packed in a suitcase in the hold.

What was TAT-8, which entered service in 1988?

A transatlantic fiber-optic cable, TAT-8 was the first to carry calls between America and Europe as pulses of light. Some thought no other cable would ever be needed, and it was running at full capacity within 18 months.

Which invasive species was first found in North America's Great Lakes in 1988?

Zebra mussels turned up in Lake St. Clair, probably flushed out of the ballast tanks of an ocean-going ship. They spread through the lakes and packed the water-intake pipes of power and treatment plants until the flow choked.

Which Egyptian author won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Naguib Mahfouz was the first Arab writer to win the prize. In 1994 an extremist angered by one of his novels stabbed him in the neck; he survived, but nerve damage left him barely able to write.

Which banned substance did sprinter Ben Johnson test positive for after winning the 100 metres in Seoul?

Stanozolol, an anabolic steroid, was found in his urine sample and cost him the gold and his world record within days. He later admitted years of steroid use, but has always denied taking that particular drug.

Which East German swimmer won six golds in Seoul across three different strokes?

Kristin Otto won all four of her individual races and both relays. After reunification, East German officials admitted giving her performance-enhancing drugs; she has always denied knowingly taking them.

Which diver hit his head on the springboard in Seoul yet still won both diving titles?

Greg Louganis had the cut stitched, climbed back up to finish the round and went on to win both finals. In 1995 he revealed that he had been diagnosed with HIV months before the Games and had kept it secret in Seoul.

Which Caribbean nation's bobsleigh team made a famous Winter Olympic debut in 1988?

Jamaica recruited its crew from army volunteers, and the sled overturned at speed on its third run. The film Cool Runnings has the men carry it over the line; in reality they simply walked it to the end of the track.

Which quarterback was MVP of Super Bowl XXII in January 1988 after throwing four touchdowns?

Doug Williams had emergency root canal surgery the day before, then threw all four scores in a second quarter that brought Washington 35 points. He was the first Black quarterback to start a Super Bowl.

Which film was the highest-grossing of 1988 and won Best Picture at the following Oscars?

Rain Man grew out of its screenwriter's meeting with Kim Peek, a savant who had memorised thousands of books. Peek could read two pages at once, the left page with his left eye and the right page with his right.

Who played the villain Hans Gruber in the 1988 film Die Hard?

Alan Rickman was 41 and had just played the seducer Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses on Broadway. Gruber was his very next part, and it made him famous around the world.

Which Back to the Future director made 1988's part-animated Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Robert Zemeckis directed the actors while animator Richard Williams's team in London drew the cartoon cast. Producer Steven Spielberg talked rival studios into lending their stars, so Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny share a scene.

Which singer, who co-founded the Traveling Wilburys in 1988, died of a heart attack that December?

Roy Orbison died at 52, weeks after the Wilburys' first album came out and before his own comeback record, Mystery Girl, reached the shops. In the band he was billed as Lefty Wilbury, one of five supposed half-brothers.

Which pop star, born in February 1988, was signed by Def Jam after auditioning for Jay-Z?

Rihanna was 15 when an American producer visiting Barbados heard her audition in 2003. When she sang for Jay-Z two years later, the label's chairman told him not to let her leave the building unsigned.

Which NBA star, a Cavalier's son, was born in Akron in 1988?

Stephen Curry arrived while his father Dell was spending a single season with the Cavaliers. Dell then joined the Charlotte Hornets for a decade, so the Akron-born son grew up in North Carolina instead.

Which major league ballpark, the last without lights, hosted its first night game in August 1988?

Wrigley Field had staged 5,687 straight Cubs day games before the lights came on. The first attempt, on 8 August, was rained out after three and a half innings, so the official debut came a night later.

Which of Batman's allies did DC Comics readers vote to kill off in a 1988 telephone poll?

Robin, then a teenager named Jason Todd, lost by a narrow majority on two 900 numbers, one to save him and one to finish him. The Joker carried out the verdict.

Which animals, trapped by Arctic ice off Alaska in October 1988, were freed with help from two Soviet icebreakers?

Gray whales, three of them, were found by an Inupiaq hunter near Point Barrow, and their plight became a worldwide news story. The youngest died before a path to open water was cut.

Which NBA star won the 1988 Slam Dunk Contest with a perfect-scoring leap from the free-throw line?

Michael Jordan's final dunk scored a perfect 50 to edge out Dominique Wilkins in Chicago. It gave him back-to-back contest titles.

Which actor played the title ghost in Tim Burton's 1988 comedy Beetlejuice, opposite Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin?

Michael Keaton was suggested by producer David Geffen, and Tim Burton, who did not know his work, was quickly convinced. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Makeup.

Which actor played a duet on a giant floor piano in Big, the 1988 comedy about a boy turned adult?

Tom Hanks and co-star Robert Loggia rehearsed at home on cardboard pianos, and the studio hired doubles in case they got it wrong. The role earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

Which English singer topped the US chart in March 1988 with a single that later became an internet prank?

Rick Astley's hit topped charts in 25 countries, then found a second life from 2007 as the bait-and-switch link known as the Rickroll.

What was banned in 1988 on United States domestic flights of less than two hours?

Smoking was then pushed off US domestic flights of under six hours in 1990, and off every domestic and international flight in 2000.

Which antidepressant did Eli Lilly begin selling in the United States in January 1988, weeks after winning approval?

Prozac reached annual US sales of $350 million within a year of its launch. Its generic name is fluoxetine.

Which Christian relic did three laboratories carbon-date in 1988, placing its origin in the Middle Ages?

The Shroud of Turin was dated to between 1260 and 1390, which matches its first certain appearance in the 1350s. Parts of the test are still argued over.

Which fictional kingdom is Eddie Murphy's Prince Akeem heir to in the 1988 comedy Coming to America?

Zamunda's crown prince swaps palace life for Queens, New York, where he takes an entry-level job at McDowell's, a burger restaurant fending off trademark complaints from McDonald's.

Which actor won an Oscar as the Anglophobe weapons man in the 1988 heist comedy A Fish Called Wanda?

Kevin Kline took Best Supporting Actor, the film's one win from three nominations. His character and Jamie Lee Curtis's Wanda pose as brother and sister to hide that they are lovers.

Which actor took Lieutenant Frank Drebin from a cancelled TV comedy to cinemas in 1988's The Naked Gun?

Leslie Nielsen first played the bumbling detective in Police Squad!, which ABC cancelled in 1982 after only six episodes. The film version was popular enough to launch a series.

Which Studio Ghibli film, released in Japan in 1988, features a furry forest spirit and a Catbus?

My Neighbor Totoro opened on the same bill as the wartime tragedy Grave of the Fireflies. Its title creature went on to become Studio Ghibli's mascot.

Which Bernardo Bertolucci epic, shot in Beijing's Forbidden City, won all nine of its Oscar nominations in April 1988?

The Last Emperor was only the second film, after 1958's Gigi, to be nominated for nine Oscars and win every one. It follows Puyi, who took China's throne at the age of two.

Which film won Cher the Best Actress Oscar in April 1988 for playing a widowed bookkeeper from Brooklyn?

Moonstruck has her fall for her fiancé's hot-tempered younger brother, played by Nicolas Cage. The film won three Oscars in all, including one for its original screenplay.

Which studio's 1988 short Tin Toy became the first computer-animated film to win an Academy Award?

Pixar showed the unfinished short to a standing ovation from scientists and engineers at a computer graphics convention in August 1988. Its toy's-eye view of a destructive baby later inspired Toy Story.

Which 1988 fantasy film, directed by Ron Howard from a George Lucas story, starred Warwick Davis in the title role?

Willow pushed Industrial Light & Magic to a breakthrough in digital morphing, the effect that melts one shape into another. Lucas had first had the idea for the story in 1972.

Which child actor played Kevin Arnold in The Wonder Years, which premiered right after the Super Bowl in January 1988?

Fred Savage's series won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1988 after only six episodes had aired. An adult version of his character narrates every story.

Which hospital drama ended in May 1988 by hinting that a boy with a snow globe had imagined it all?

St. Elsewhere closes on Tommy Westphall, a doctor's autistic son, shaking a globe that holds a replica of the hospital. Fans later argued that any show sharing its characters must be imaginary too.

Which singer shot to fame by standing in for Stevie Wonder at Wembley's Nelson Mandela birthday tribute in June 1988?

Tracy Chapman had already played a short afternoon set when Stevie Wonder hit technical trouble and she was sent back on. Her song Fast Car began climbing the US chart soon afterwards.

Which band scored a first US number one in 22 years with Kokomo, from the 1988 Tom Cruise film Cocktail?

The Beach Boys recorded the song without Brian Wilson, who did not attend the sessions. It also turned out to be their final top-40 hit.

Which country did Canadian singer Céline Dion represent when she won the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin in 1988?

Switzerland took only its second Eurovision title thanks to her. The United Kingdom finished as runner-up for the eleventh time.

Which Australian soap opera made Kylie Minogue famous before her debut album, Kylie, arrived in 1988?

Neighbours cast her as Charlene Mitchell, a schoolgirl turned garage mechanic. Her record label signed her in 1987 on the strength of the character's popularity.

Which Hollywood workers' 153-day strike in 1988 forced US networks to delay the start of the fall TV season?

Writers walked out, 9,000 of them, from March to August. New and returning series that normally began in late September were held back until late October or even December.

Which tennis player won all four majors and Olympic singles gold in 1988, a sweep dubbed the Golden Slam?

Steffi Graf was the first tennis player to manage it, and she was still a teenager. Her first major title had come only a year earlier, and she went on to win 22 of them.

In which Winter Olympic sport did Britain's Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards become a folk hero by finishing last in 1988?

Ski jumping had never had a British Olympic entrant before Edwards, whose thick glasses misted up under his goggles at altitude. He heard he had qualified while working as a plasterer in Finland.

Which hockey superstar did the Edmonton Oilers trade away in August 1988, weeks after winning the Stanley Cup?

Wayne Gretzky heard of the plan from his father two hours after lifting the Cup. The deal sent him and two team-mates to the Kings for players, draft picks and $15 million in cash.

Which heavyweight champion knocked out challenger Michael Spinks in only 91 seconds in Atlantic City in 1988?

Mike Tyson earned a record purse of around $22 million for a minute and a half of work. It was the richest fight boxing had seen at the time, grossing some $70 million.

Which hobbled pinch hitter, injured in both legs, won Game 1 of the 1988 World Series with a ninth-inning home run?

Kirk Gibson's two-out blast came off star closer Dennis Eckersley and turned a 4–3 deficit into a win. It was his only trip to the plate in the whole Series.

Which driver won his first Formula One world title in 1988 as McLaren took fifteen of the sixteen races?

Ayrton Senna beat team-mate Alain Prost by three points after winning a then-record eight Grands Prix. The one race McLaren lost went to Ferrari, four weeks after founder Enzo Ferrari died.

Which American won both the heptathlon and the long jump at the 1988 Summer Olympics, coached by her husband?

Jackie Joyner-Kersee was the first American woman to win Olympic gold in either event. Her husband Bob Kersee also coached her sister-in-law, the sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner.

Which annual wrestling pay-per-view was first staged at Madison Square Garden in 1988, headlined by Hulk Hogan?

SummerSlam's first main event pitted Hogan and his tag-team partner against Ted DiBiase and André the Giant. The show was created to help the WWF compete with a rival promotion.

Which NBA expansion team began play in November 1988, joining the league alongside the Charlotte Hornets?

Miami Heat fans had a long wait for a win: the team lost its first 17 games, at the time the worst start to a season in NBA history.

Which club beat champions Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final, only eleven years after joining the Football League?

Wimbledon won 1–0 through a Lawrie Sanchez goal, and goalkeeper Dave Beasant made the first penalty save ever seen in an FA Cup final. It remains one of the competition's biggest shocks.

Which physicist's 1988 bestseller A Brief History of Time famously contains only a single equation?

Stephen Hawking had been warned that every equation he included would halve his readership. The book went on to sell more than 25 million copies in 40 languages.

Which Salman Rushdie novel, first published in September 1988, was banned from import into India over fears of unrest?

The Satanic Verses was a Booker Prize finalist and won the Whitbread novel award that year. In February 1989 Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for its author's death.

Which 16-bit console did Sega release in Japan in October 1988, before selling it in North America as the Genesis?

Mega Drive sales were poor at home against rivals from Nintendo and NEC, yet under one name or the other the console thrived in North America, Brazil and Europe.

Which NFL coach turned broadcaster lent his name to a football video game that Electronic Arts first released in 1988?

John Madden's first game ran on the Apple II and had no season play. Its 1990 Sega follow-up grew into the yearly Madden NFL series.

Which company did Steve Jobs found after leaving Apple, unveiling its black cube-shaped computer in October 1988?

NeXT priced the machine at $6,500 and aimed it at universities. Apple bought the company in 1997 for $427 million, a deal that brought Jobs back as an adviser and later as chief executive.

Which English singer, born in May 1988, named her 2008 debut album after her age at the time?

Adele called the record 19 to reflect her age while she was writing it, and followed it with 21 and 25. She had signed with XL Recordings in 2006, the year she left the BRIT School.

Which Japanese island was joined to the main island of Honshu when the Seikan rail tunnel opened in March 1988?

Hokkaido had relied on ferries across the Tsugaru Strait, where five ships sank in a 1954 typhoon, killing 1,430 passengers. The tunnel runs for more than 53 kilometres, 23 of them under the seabed.

Which US national park saw 36 percent of its area burn during the record wildfires of summer 1988?

Yellowstone had come out of an unusually dry winter with only 31 percent of its normal snowpack. Lightning, not people, starts most of the fires in the park.

Which animal, engineered at Harvard for cancer research, became the first mammal ever patented in April 1988?

A mouse carrying an activated cancer gene, the OncoMouse, earned Harvard the patent. Because DuPont had paid for the research, the university gave it exclusive commercial rights.

Which Soviet design bureau's Mriya, the heaviest aircraft ever built, made its maiden flight in December 1988?

Antonov completed only one of the giants, built to carry Soviet spacecraft on its back. It was destroyed in 2022 in the fighting for an airfield near Kyiv during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Christa Luding-Rothenburger won 1988 Winter and Summer Olympic medals, in speed skating and which other sport?

Cycling was only her off-season training, taken up on her coach's advice, yet it made her the only athlete to win Winter and Summer medals in one year. The Games no longer share a year.

Which country did swimmer Anthony Nesty represent when he beat Matt Biondi by 0.01 seconds for 1988 Olympic gold?

Suriname's Nesty touched in 53.00 seconds to Biondi's 53.01 in the 100-metre butterfly. He had moved to Florida as a teenager to train at a school known for producing elite swimmers.

Which tobacco and food conglomerate did KKR buy for $25 billion in 1988, then the largest leveraged buyout in history?

RJR Nabisco's takeover battle ran through October and November and became a byword for corporate greed. It was retold in the bestseller Barbarians at the Gate, later an HBO film.

Which golfer became the first British winner of the Masters in 1988 after a famous shot from a fairway bunker?

Sandy Lyle followed the bunker shot with a birdie putt on the 18th green to claim the green jacket. He had already won the Open Championship in 1985.

Which chat system did Jarkko Oikarinen create at Finland's University of Oulu in August 1988?

IRC was written to replace a program called MultiUser Talk on the university's bulletin board, and at first it ran on a single server. Other Finnish universities soon set up servers of their own.