1986 CE

The Chernobyl disaster becomes the world's worst nuclear power plant accident; the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster kills all seven crew members shortly after launch; Halley's Comet makes its closest approach to Earth; the 1986 FIFA World Cup is held in Mexico and won by Argentina; the People Power Revolution forces Ferdinand Marcos from power in the Philippines; Olof Palme is assassinated in Stockholm, Sweden; the Lake Nyos disaster kills 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock in Cameroon; the 1986 United States bombing of Libya targets Libya; and Mir is launched as the first modular space station.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

January 1 – Spain and Portugal enter the European Community, which becomes the European Union in 1993.source
January 1 – Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.source
January 29 – Yoweri Museveni is sworn in as President of Uganda.source
February 16 – Mário Soares wins the second round of the Portuguese presidential election.source
February 17 – The Single European Act is signed.source
February 25 – 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.source
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.source
March 3 – Full independence of Australia - Australia Act 1986: This law formally severed all legal ties between Australia and the United Kingdom.source
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.source
April 17 – 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.source
April – The government of Ivory Coast requests international diplomatic use of the French form of its name, Côte d'Ivoire.source
May 8 – Óscar Arias is inaugurated into his first term as President of Costa Rica.source
June 8 – Former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim is elected president of Austria.source
July 4 – The Statue of Liberty is reopened to the public after celebrating its centennial and an extensive refurbishment.source
August 6 – Australian Democrats leader Don Chipp retires from federal parliament and is succeeded by Janine Haines, the first woman to lead a political party in Australia.source
September 28 – The Democratic Progressive Party is founded. It was part of the Tangwai movement in the new generation to challenge Kuomintang in Taiwan's one-party politics, and is currently one of only two parties to win presidential elections in Taiwan.source
October 1 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the Goldwater–Nichols Act into law, making official the largest reorganization of the United States Department of Defense since the Air Force was made a separate branch of service in 1947.source
October 9 – United States District Court Judge Harry E. Claiborne becomes the fifth federal official to be removed from office through impeachment.source
October 11–12 – Cold War: Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe, which end in failure.source
October 21 – The Marshall Islands became an associated state under the Compact of Free Association.source
October 26 – The state funeral of President Samora Machel of Mozambique takes place in Maputo.source
November 1 – Queensland, Australia: Joh Bjelke-Petersen wins his final election as Premier of Queensland with 38.6% of the vote. He resigns on December 1, 1987, following revelations of his involvement with corruption released in the Fitzgerald Inquiry.source
November 3 – The Northern Mariana Islands enter in a political union with the United States. The island's government adopted its own constitution in 1977, and the constitutional government took office in January 1978. The covenant was fully implemented November 3, 1986, pursuant to Presidential Proclamation no. 5564, which conferred United States citizenship on legally qualified island residents.source
November 6 – Alex Ferguson is appointed as the new manager of Manchester United.source

Conflict & Security

January 13–24 – South Yemen Civil War.source
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.source
February 7 – 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.source
February 16 – Ouadi Doum air raid: The French Air Force raids the Libyan Ouadi Doum airbase in northern Chad.source
February 22 – The People Power Revolution begins in the Philippines to remove President Ferdinand Marcos from office.source
April 1 – Sector Kanda: Communist Party of Nepal (Mashal) cadres attack a number of police stations in Kathmandu, seeking to incite a popular rebellion.source
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.source
April 17 – The Hindawi affair begins when an Irish woman is found carrying explosives onto an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv.source
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.source
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.source
June 4 – Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.source
September 6 – In Istanbul, two Abu Nidal terrorists kill 22 and wound 6 inside the Neve Shalom Synagogue during Shabbat services.source
September 7 – Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet survives an assassination attempt by the FPMR; 5 of Pinochet's bodyguards are killed.source
November 3 – Iran–Contra affair: The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been selling weapons to Iran in secret, in order to secure the release of 7 American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.source
November 21 – Iran-Contra Affair: National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, start shredding documents implicating them in selling weapons to Iran and channeling the proceeds to help fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.source
December 4 – 29 people are killed in the Pozzetto massacresource
December 16 – Jeltoqsan, mass anti-government protests, break out across the Kazakh SSR, resulting in the massacre of over 165 protesters.source
December 19 – Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov is permitted to return to Moscow after six years of internal exile.source

Exploration & Expansion

May 2 – Expo 86, the 1986 World Exposition on Transportation and Communication, a World's fair, opens in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.source
October 29 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher officially opens the M25 Motorway, which encircles Greater London, in a ceremony on the carriageway near Potters Bar. It became Europe's second longest orbital road upon completion, and provides the first and only full bypass of London.source
December 23 – Rutan Voyager completes the first nonstop circumnavigation of the earth by air without refueling in 9 days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds.source
Cadbury Dairy Milk range adopts separate wrappers for different countries until 1992.source

Religion & Belief

April 13 – Pope John Paul II officially visits the Great Synagogue of Rome, the first time a modern Pope has visited a synagogue.source
July 23 – In London, the then Prince Andrew, Duke of York (later Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor) marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.source
September 7 – Desmond Tutu becomes the first black Anglican Church bishop in South Africa.source

Economy & Finance

February 3 – Pixar is founded by John Lasseter along with Steve Jobs.source
March 13 – Microsoft Corporation holds its initial public offering of stock shares.source
September 4 – Eusko Alkartasuna, the Basque Social Democratic Party, is created in Vitoria-Gasteiz.source
September 6 – The Big Mac Index is introduced in The Economist newspaper as a semi-humorous international measure of purchasing power parity.source
Average per capita income in Japan exceeds that in the United States.source

Technology & Infrastructure

January 11 – The Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, Australia, at this time the world's longest prestressed concrete free-cantilever bridge, is opened.source
January 20 – The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel.source
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.source
April 21 – Lorimar-Telepictures launches as a mass media company.source
May 16 – Paramount Pictures releases Top Gun.source
June 7 - Washington DC metro opens Falls Church, Vienna, and Dunn Loring train stations on the Orange line.source
June 23 – Eric Thomas develops LISTSERV, the first email list management software.source
August 6 – A low-pressure system moving from South Australia and redeveloping off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 mm in of rain in a day on Sydney.source
October 3 – TASCC, a superconducting cyclotron, officially opens at Chalk River Laboratories.source
October 9 – News Corporation completes its acquisition of the Metromedia group of companies, thereby launching the Fox Broadcasting Company.source
October 30 – The National Park Passport Stamps program begins in the United States.source
The first commercially available 3D printer is sold.source

Science & Discovery

January 24 – The Voyager 2 space probe makes its first encounter with Uranus.source
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 (the first was in 1910).source
February 11 – Human rights activist Natan Sharansky is released by Soviet authorities and leaves the country for Israel.source
February 15 – The Beechcraft Starship makes its maiden flight.source
February 19 – The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.source
March 8 – The Japanese Suisei probe flies by Halley's Comet, studying its UV hydrogen corona and solar wind.source
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.source
April 13 – The first child born to a non-related surrogate mother is born.source
April 18 – Titan 34D-9 explodes just after launch while carrying the final KH-9 satellite.source
May 12 – NBC unveils its current peacock logo at the finale of its 60th anniversary special.source
July 2 – Walt Disney Pictures releases the company's 26th animated film, The Great Mouse Detective.source
August 6 – Metroid is released by Nintendo for the Famicom Disk System.source
August 31 – The cargo ship Khian Sea departs from the docks of Philadelphia, carrying 14,000 tons of toxic waste. It wanders the seas for the next 16 months trying to find a place to dump its cargo. The waste is later dumped in Haiti.source
October 3 – A hybrid solar eclipse was visible off the coast of Iceland, and was the 53rd solar eclipse of Solar Saros 124.source
December 14 – Rutan Voyager, an experimental aircraft designed by Burt Rutan and piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, begins its flight around the world from Edwards Air Force Base in the United States.source
December 31 – Soviet submarine Krasnoyarsk (K-173) is commissioned.source

Health & Medicine

February 7 – Anti-Duvalier protest movement: President Jean-Claude Duvalier ("Baby Doc") flees Haiti, ending 28 years of family rule.source
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.source
June 12 – South Africa declares a nationwide state of emergency.source
August 20 – In Edmond, Oklahoma, United States Postal Service employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his coworkers before committing suicide.source
October 26 – Bus deregulation goes into effect in the United Kingdom, except Greater London and Northern Ireland.source
November 1 – Sandoz chemical spill: A major environmental disaster near Basel, Switzerland pollutes the Rhine, when an agrochemical storehouse catches on fire.source

Crime & Justice

February 10 – The Maxi Trial (Italian: Maxiprocesso) begins in the bunker room of the Ucciardone prison (Palermo). It will be the largest trial against the Sicilian Mafia.source
February 27 – The United States Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis.source
February 28 – Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme is shot to death on his way home from the cinema in Stockholm, Sweden.source
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.source
April 17 – Lebanon hostage crisis: British journalist John McCarthy is kidnapped in Beirut (he is released in August 1991) and three others are killed in retaliation for the bombing of Libya.source
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.source
July 7 – Australian drug smugglers Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers are executed in Malaysia.source
August 19 – Two weeks after it was stolen, the Picasso painting The Weeping Woman is found in a locker at the Spencer Street Station in Melbourne, Australia.source
November 18 – Greater Manchester Police announce that they will search for the bodies of 2 missing children (who both vanished more than 20 years ago) after the Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley confess to 2 more murders.source
December 20 – Three African Americans are assaulted by a group of white teens in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens, New York. One of the victims, Michael Griffith, is run over and killed by a motorist while attempting to flee the attackers.source
Opus Pro, a Latvian hard rock group, is established.source

Disasters & Accidents

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.source
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.source
February 16 – The Soviet liner sinks in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand.source
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.source
March 15 – Hotel New World collapses; 33 were killed and 17 rescued from rubble.source
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.source
March 31 – Mexicana Flight 940 crashes near Maravatío, Mexico, killing 167.source
April 2 – A bomb explodes on a Trans World Airlines flight from Rome to Athens, killing 4 people.source
April 14 – Hailstones weighing 1 kg lb fall on Gopalganj District, Bangladesh, killing 92.source
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.source
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".source
May 25 – The Bangladeshi double-decked ferry Shamia capsizes in the Meghna River, southern Barisal, Bangladesh, killing more than 500 by some estimates.source
June 9 – The Rogers Commission releases its report on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.source
June 14 – Fantasyland's Mindbender derails and kills three people.source
August 31 – The Soviet passenger liner collides with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev in the Black Sea and sinks almost immediately, killing 398.source
August 31 – Aeroméxico Flight 498, a Douglas DC-9, collides with a Piper PA-28 over Cerritos, California, killing 82 (67 on both aircraft and 15 on the ground).source
September 5 – Pan Am Flight 73, with 358 people on board, is hijacked at Karachi International Airport by four Abu Nidal terrorists.source
October 19 – Mozambican President Samora Machel's plane crashes in South Africa, killing him and 33 and others.source
October 22 – In New York City, WNBC Radio's traffic helicopter crashes into the Hudson River, killing traffic reporter Jane Dornacker. The last words heard on-the-air are Dornacker's screams of terror, "Hit the water! Hit the water! Hit the water!"source
November 6 – 45 people are killed in the 1986 British International Helicopters Chinook crash.source
December 4 – The MV Amazon Venture oil tanker begins leaking oil while at the port of Savannah in the United States, resulting in an oil spill of approximately 500,000 gal L.source
December 31 – Dupont Plaza Hotel arson: A hotel fire in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.source

Climate & Environment

June – Construction of the Oosterscheldekering, the world's largest openable storm surge flood barrier, is completed in the Netherlands.source
August 16 – Typhoon Wayne formed over the South China Sea, going on to become one of the longest-lived tropical cyclones at 21 days, and kill 490.source
August 21 – The Lake Nyos disaster, a limnic eruption, occurs in Cameroon, killing nearly 2,000 people.source
September 13 – The 6.0 Kalamata earthquake shook southern Greece with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). The shock left at least 20 dead, 300 injured, and caused $5 million in damage.source
October 10 – The 5.7 San Salvador earthquake shook San Salvador, El Salvador with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Up to 1,500 people were killed.source
December 7 – A magnitude 5.7 earthquake destroys most of the Bulgarian town of Strajica, killing 2 people.source

Culture & Society

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.source
March 3 – The first paper is published describing the atomic force microscope invented the previous year by Gerd Binnig, Calvin Quate and Christopher Berger.source
March 24 – The 58th Academy Awards are held in Los Angeles, with Out of Africa winning Best Picture.source
April 29 – The diamond jubilee of Hirohito is held at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan in Tokyo.source
May 26 – Swedish rock band Europe releases its third studio album, The Final Countdown. The title track would become one of the band's most notable works, achieving global success.source
June 22 – In one of the most famous FIFA World Cup matches, Argentinian football player Diego Maradona scores one handball goal (nicknamed the "Hand of God") and then dribbles past the entire English football team to score a second goal (nicknamed "The Goal of the Century") with Argentina winning 2–1 against England.source
June 29 – Argentina defeats West Germany 3–2 in the final to win the 1986 World Cup at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.source
July 5 – 20 – The inaugural Goodwill Games are held in Moscow, marking the first international event in a decade for competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.source
July 11 – The New Zealand Homosexual Law Reform Act decriminalizes consensual sex between men from the age of 16.source
September 1 – Jordan University of Science and Technology is established in Jordan.source
October 9 – The Phantom of the Opera, the longest running Broadway show in history, opens at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.source
October 16 – The International Olympic Committee chooses Albertville, France to be the host city of the 1992 Winter Olympics and Barcelona, Spain to be the host city of the 1992 Summer Olympics. The IOC also announces that the summer and winter games will separate with the winter games on every even, common year; and the summer games on every leap year starting from 1992.source
October 25 – A routine slow roller slips through Bill Buckner's legs, allowing the New York Mets to complete a stunning comeback in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series against the Boston Red Sox. The Mets won 6–5 in 10 innings.source
October 27 – The New York Mets win 4 games to 3 in the 1986 World Series against the Boston Red Sox.source
December 6 – Johnny Hallyday released his 35th album Gang.source
The band Sweet Children (now known as Green Day) was formed by the lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong.source

Births

February 10 – Radamel Falcao, Colombian footballersource
February 11 – Gabriel Boric, President of Chilesource
March 28 – Bowe Bergdahl, American soldier and deserter captured by the Talibansource
May 23 – Ryan Coogler, American film director, producer, and screenwritersource
June 11 – Shia LaBeouf, American actor, performance artist, and filmmakersource
June 27 – Drake Bell, American actor, voice actor, singer, songwriter, and musiciansource
August 3 – Charlotte Casiraghi, Monegasque heiress, royal and socialitesource
August 13 – Demetrious Johnson, American mixed martial artist and former 11-time UFC Flyweight World Champion, and also the current ONE Flyweight World Championsource
August 27 – Sebastian Kurz, Austrian politician, 25th Chancellor of Austriasource
August 29 – Hajime Isayama, Japanese manga artist, and creator of Attack on Titansource
September 21 – Lindsey Stirling, American violinist, dancer, performance artist, and composersource
November 10 – Nong-O Gaiyanghadao, Thai Muay Thai kickboxer and former ONE Bantamweight Muymay Thai World Championsource
November 20 – Oliver Sykes, English musician and vocalist of Bring Me the Horizonsource
December 1 – Andrew Tate, American-British Internet personality and former professional kickboxersource

Deaths

February 25 – A three-day riot begins in Cairo, Egypt when around 25,000 conscripts of the Central Security Forces (CSF), 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.source
April 11 – The infamous FBI shootout in Miami results in the death of two FBI agents and the wounding of five others.source