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The USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) strikes a naval mine in the Persian Gulf, while deployed on Operation Earnest Will during the Tanker War phase of the Iran-Iraq War.

April 16 - Israeli commandos kill the PLO's Abu Jihad in Tunisia.

April 16 - In Forlì, Italy, the brigate rosse kill Senator Roberto Ruffilli, an advisor of Prime Minister Ciriaco de Mita.

April 18 - United States Navy retaliates for the Roberts mining with Operation Praying Mantis, in a day of strikes against Iranian oil platforms and naval vessels.

April 25 - In Israel, Ivan Demjanjuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II. He was accused by survivors of being the notorious guard at the Treblinka extermination camp known as "Ivan the Terrible". The conviction is later overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.

April 28 - Aloha Flight 243 loses several yards of its upper fuselage while in flight, killing one.

April 30 - World Expo '88 opens in Brisbane Queensland, Australia.

May 4 - PEPCON disaster in Henderson, Nevada: A major explosion at an industrial solid-fuel rocket plant causes damage extending up to 10 miles away, including Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport.

# May 14 - Bus collision near Carrollton, Kentucky: A drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71, hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group from Radcliff, Kentucky. The resulting fire kills 27, making it tied for 1st in the U.S. for most fatalities involving 2 vehicles to the present day. Coincidentally, the other 2-vehicle accident involving a bus that also killed 27 occurred in Prestonsburg, KY 30 years prior.

May 14 - Wimbledon wins the English FA Cup after beating Liverpool 1–0 at Wembley. The southwest Londoners had pulled off one of the greatest upsets in the history of English football, as they had been top division members for just 2 years and had joined the Football League only 11 years earlier. Liverpool, meanwhile, had won a total of 30 major trophies including 17 league titles.

May 15 - Soviet war in Afghanistan: After more than eight years of fighting, the Red Army begins withdrawing from Afghanistan.

May 16 - A report by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.

May 16 - California v. Greenwood: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that police officers do not need a search warrant to search through discarded garbage.

May 24 - Section 28 (outlawing promotion of homosexuality in schools) is passed as law by Parliament in the United Kingdom.

May 31 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan addresses 600 Moscow State University students, during his visit to the Soviet Union.

June 5 - The first National Cancer Survivors Day is held.

June 6 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom strips jockey Lester Piggott of his Order of the British Empire following his jailing for tax irregularities.

June 11 - The name of the General Public License (GPL) is mentioned for the first time.

June 11 - Wembley Stadium hosts a concert featuring stars from the fields of music, comedy and film, in celebration of the 70th birthday of imprisoned ANC leader Nelson Mandela.

June 25 - The Netherlands defeats the Soviet Union 2–0 to win Euro 88.

June 28 - Four workers are asphyxiated at a metal-plating plant in Auburn, Indiana, in the worst confined-space industrial accident in U.S. history (a fifth victim dies 2 days later).

June 29 - Morrison v. Olson: The United States Supreme Court upholds the law allowing special prosecutors to investigate suspected crimes by executive branch officials.

June 30 - Roman Catholic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrates four bishops at Ecône, Switzerland for his apostolate, along with Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, without a papal mandate.

July 3 - The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, providing the second connection between the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus.

July 3 - Iran Air Flight 655 is shot down by missiles launched from the USS Vincennes.

July 6 - The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires, killing 165 oil workers and two rescue mariners.

July 6 - The first reported medical waste on beaches in the Greater New York area (including hypodermic needles and syringes possibly infected with the AIDS virus) washes ashore on Long Island. Subsequent medical waste discoveries on beaches in Coney Island and in Monmouth County, New Jersey force the closure of numerous New York-area beaches in the middle of one of the hottest summers in the American Northeast on record.

July 14 - Volkswagen closes its Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania plant after 10 years of operation (the first factory built by a non-American automaker in the U.S.).

July 20 - The Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia nominates Michael Dukakis for U.S. President and Lloyd Bentsen for Vice President.

# July 31 - Thirty-two people are killed and 1,674 injured when a bridge at the Sultan Abdul Halim Ferry terminal collapses in Butterworth, Malaysia.

Allama Arif Hussain Hussaini the leader of Pakistani Shia muslims was killed in Peshawar.

August 5 - The 1988 Malaysian constitutional crisis culminates in the ouster of the Lord President of Malaysia, Salleh Abas.

August 6 – August 7 - Tompkins Square Park Police Riot in New York City: A riot erupts in Tompkins Square Park when police attempt to enforce a newly-passed curfew for the park. Bystanders, artists, residents, homeless people and political activists are caught up in the police action which took place during the night of August 6 and into the early morning of August 7.

August 8 - 8888 Uprising: Thousands of protesters in Burma, now known as Myanmar, are killed during anti-government demonstrations.

# August 17 - The Pakistani president, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, and the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Raphel, are killed in a plane crash near Bhawalpur.

August 18 - The Republican National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana nominates George H.W. Bush for President and James "Dan" Quayle for Vice President of the United States of America.

August 19 - A truce begins in the Iran-Iraq war.

August 20 - The Iran-Iraq war ends, with an estimated one million lives lost.

August 25 - A fire destroys part of Chiado quarter, in Lisbon's historical center.

# August 26 - Mehran Karimi Nasseri, "The terminal man", is stuck in the De Gaulle Airport in Paris, where he will continue to reside until August 1, 2006.


holy **** he stay there nearly 20 yrs

August 28 - Seventy-five people are killed and three-hundred and forty-six injured in one of the worst airshow disasters in history at Germany's Ramstein Air Base, when three jets from the Italian air demonstration team, Frecce Tricolori, collide, sending one of the aircraft crashing into the crowd of spectators.

September 5 - With US$2 billion in federal aid, the Robert M. Bass Group agrees to buy the United States's largest thrift, American Savings and Loan Association.

# September 11 - In Estonia, 300 000 demonstrate for independence.

September 12 - Hurricane Gilbert devastates Jamaica; it turns towards Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula 2 days later, causing an estimated $5 billion in damage.

September 16th- I was born :)

# September 17 – October 2 - The 1988 Summer Olympics are held in Seoul, South Korea.

September 22 - The Ocean Odyssey drilling rig suffers a blowout and fire in the North Sea. (See also July 6)

September 24 – September 26 - Large, militant protests against the 1988 World Bank and IMF meetings take place in West Berlin.

September 29 - STS-26: NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster, with Space Shuttle Discovery.

Thousands riot in Algiers, Algeria against the National Liberation Front government

Chilean president Augusto Pinochet is defeated in a national plebiscite which sought to renew his mandate.

In Omaha, Nebraska, in the only vice presidential debate of the 1988 U.S. presidential election, the Republican party vice presidential nominee, Senator "Dan" Quayle of Indiana, insists he has as much experience in government as John F. Kennedy did when he sought the presidency in 1960. His Democratic party opponent, Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, replies, "Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy. I served with Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." The tremendously positive audience response to Sen. Bentsen's remark solidified the reputation of Sen. Quayle as a political lightweight.

October 11 - Women are allowed to study at Magdalene College, Cambridge, for the first time. Male students wear black armbands and the porter flies a black flag.

October 12 - Walsh Street police shootings: Two Victoria Police officers are gunned down, execution style, in Australia.

October 13 - In the second U.S. presidential debate, held by U.C.L.A., the Democratic party nominee, Michael Dukakis, is asked by journalist Bernard Shaw of CNN if he would support the death penalty if his wife, "Kitty", were to be raped and murdered. Gov. Dukakis' reply, voicing his opposition to capital punishment in any and all circumstances, is later said to have been a major reason for the eventual failure of his campaign for the White House.

October 15 - Kirk Gibson hits a dramatic home run to win Game One of the World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers, over the Oakland Athletics, by a score of five runs to four.

October 19 - The United Kingdom bans broadcast interviews with IRA members. The BBC gets around this stricture through the use of professional actors.

# October 23 - Super Mario Bros. 3 is released in Japan

October 27 - Ronald Reagan decides to tear down the new US embassy in Moscow because of Soviet listening devices in the building structure

October 28 - Abortion: 48 hours after announcing it was abandoning RU-486, French manufacturer Roussel Uclaf states that it would resume distribution of the drug, bowing to pressure from the government of France.

October 29 - Pakistan's General Rahimuddin Khan resigns from his post as the governor of Sindh, following attempts by the President of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, to limit the vast powers Gen. Rahimuddin had accumulated.

October 30 - Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for US$13.1 billion.

October 30 - Expo '88 in Brisbane Australia draws to a close after a six month spectacular.

October 30 - Formula One: Ayrton Senna clinches his first World Championship with a phenomenal drive in the Japanese Grand Prix, recovering from 16th place on the first lap to win the race and beat rival Alain Prost into second place.

November 1 - In the Israeli election, Likud wins 47 seats, Labour wins 49, but Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir remains in office.

November 3-November 5: Thousands of South Korean students demonstrate against former president Chun Doo Hwan.

November 8 - United States presidential election, 1988: George H. W. Bush is elected over Michael Dukakis.

November 11 - In Sacramento, California, police find a body buried in the lawn of 60-year-old boardinghouse landlady Dorothea Puente (7 bodies are eventually found and Puente is convicted of 3 murders and sentenced to life in prison).

# November 15 - In the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle Buran is launched by an Energia rocket on its maiden orbital spaceflight (the first and last space flight for the shuttle).

November 15 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed at the Palestinian National Council meeting in Algiers, by a vote of 253 to 46.

November 15 - The very first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, is launched by Nico Roozen, Frans van der Hoff and ecumenical development agency Solidaridad in the Netherlands.

November 16 - The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that Estonia is "sovereign" but stops short of declaring independence.

November 16 - In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan choose populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister. Elections were held as planned despite head of state Zia-ul-Haq's death earlier in August.

November 18 - War on Drugs: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill providing the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers.

November 21 - Canadian federal election, 1988: Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada win a second majority government.

November 21 - Ted Turner Officially Buys Jim Crockett Promotions, known as NWA Crockett, and turns it into World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

November 22 - In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed.

November 23 - Former Korean president Chun Doo Hwan publicly apologizes for corruption during his presidency, announcing he will go into exile.

November 30 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco for US$25.07 billion in the biggest leveraged buyout deal of all time.

December 2 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state.

December 2 - A cyclone in Bangladesh leaves 5 million homeless and thousands dead.

December 7 - In Armenia an earthquake 6.9 on the Richter scale kills nearly 25,000, injures 15,000 and leaves 400,000 homeless.

December 7 - Estonian becomes the official language of Estonia.

December 9 - The last Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant roll off the assembly line in a Chrysler factory.

December 12 - The Clapham Junction rail crash kills 35 and injures 132.

December 20 - The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.

December 21 - Pan Am Flight 103 is blown up by Libyan terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing a total of 270 people. Those responsible are believed to be of either Iranian or Libyan origin.

December 22 - Brazilian union and environmental activist Chico Mendes is assassinated.

The Labtec mouse was created in 1988.

TAT-8, the first transatlantic telephone cable to use optical fibers, is completed.

Zebra mussels found in the Great lakes.

The US Drought of 1988 causes big crop damage in many states, impacts many portions of the United States and causes around $60 billion in damage. Multiple regions suffered in the conditions. Heat waves caused 4800 to 17000 deaths while scorching many areas of the United States during 1988.

b-days.......

January 22 - Greg Oden, American basketball player

February 20 - Rihanna, Barbadian R&B singer

May 5 - Brooke Hogan, American reality star and singer

May 17 - Nikki Reed, American actress

December 14 - Vanessa Hudgens, American actress and singer

deaths...................

August 14 - Enzo Ferrari, Italian car maker (b. 1898)