December 1988

• In Ordzhonikidze, North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, four men and a woman hijacked a bus carrying 30 schoolchildren, a teacher and a driver and demanded US$2 million in ransom and a cargo plane to leave the country. • Carlos Salinas de Gortari took office as President of Mexico. • The first World AIDS Day was held. • NASA postponed the planned launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the STS-27 mission due to weather. • Born: • Ashley Monique Clark, American television actress; in Brooklyn, New York City • Nadia Hilker, German actress; in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany • Tyler Joseph, American singer; in Columbus, Ohio • Dan Mavraides, Greek-American professional basketball player; in Boston, Massachusetts • Taione Vea, Tonga rugby union player; in Auckland, New Zealand • Died: • J. Vernon McGee, 84, American Presbyterian minister and theologian, died of heart failure. • Alun Oldfield-Davies , 83, Welsh broadcaster and public servant ==December 2, 1988 (Friday)==

• A cyclone in Bangladesh left 5 million homeless and thousands dead. • Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated republic. • Agreeing to the bus hijackers' demands, the Soviet government gave them $2 million and an Aeroflot Ilyushin-76 cargo plane with a crew of eight to fly it. After the plane took off from Mineralnyye Vody, the hijackers decided to fly to Israel rather than Pakistan or Iraq, as they had intended. The plane landed at a military airstrip near Ben Gurion Airport in Lod, Israel, where the hijackers surrendered. Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Minister of Defense, criticized the Soviet response to the hijacking, saying, "I must admit I can't understand how they could manage to leave the Soviet Union without the Soviet authorities doing anything to prevent it." A few hours later, astronaut Mike Mullane used the shuttle's robot arm to deploy the mission's cargo, the Lacrosse 1 satellite (also known as ONYX) for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office and the Central Intelligence Agency. In a 2001 interview, shuttle commander Robert L. Gibson would reveal that the satellite experienced a problem after deployment which required that the shuttle rendezvous with it for the issue to be corrected. Gibson's comments and confusion over the identification of the 100th U.S. spacewalk during the STS-98 mission in February 2001 would lead to speculation that STS-27 crewmembers—possibly astronauts Jerry L. Ross and William Shepherd—conducted a classified spacewalk to repair the satellite. • Born: • Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick, English fashion designer; in London, England • Alfred Enoch, British actor; in London, England • Fuse ODG (born Nana Richard Abiona), English rapper; in Tooting, South London, England • Stephen McGinn, Scottish footballer; in Glasgow, Scotland • Died: • Karl-Heinz Bürger, 84, German SS and police leader • Tata Giacobetti (born Giovanni Giacobetti), 66, Italian singer and jazz musician (Quartetto Cetra), died of a heart attack. • Lloyd Rees AC CMG, 93, Australian landscape painter ==December 3, 1988 (Saturday)==

• In the United Kingdom, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health Edwina Currie provoked outrage by stating that most of Britain's egg production was infected with the salmonella bacteria, causing an immediate nationwide decrease in egg sales. • Mission Control requested that the STS-27 crew use Atlantis' robot arm to photograph the heat shield under the shuttle's right wing. According to his own later account, when shuttle commander Robert L. Gibson saw the tile damage on the camera monitor, he thought, "We are going to die." Due to the classified nature of the mission, the crew was required to use an encryption technique to send video of the damage to mission control, causing ground controllers to underestimate the severity of the damage and inform the crew that it was no worse than on previous flights. • Kevin Clark, American child actor and musician; in Highland Park, Illinois (d. 2021, bicycle accident) ==December 4, 1988 (Sunday)==

• Riding his motorcycle without a helmet, American actor Gary Busey had a near-fatal accident, sustaining a head injury that placed him in a coma for four weeks. He would regain consciousness on January 6, 1989, and would subsequently recover and resume his acting career. • Born: • Miki Kanie, Japanese Olympic archer; in Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan • Mario Maurer (a.k.a. Nutthawuth Suwannarat), Thai model and actor; in Bangkok, Thailand • Andriy Pylyavskyi, Ukrainian footballer; in Kiev, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union • Died: • Osman Achmatowicz, 89, Polish chemist and academic • Jan Mesdag (born Jan Henry de Vey Mestdagh), 34, Dutch singer and cabaret artist, died of complications from AIDS. • Fernand Mourlot, 93, French printer and publisher • Joseph Zimmerman, M.S.F., 64, Swiss Catholic prelate, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Morombe in Madagascar, died due to a fall from stairs. ==December 5, 1988 (Monday)==

• The day before reentry, STS-27 commander Gibson, still convinced that there was a strong possibility he and his shuttle crew would die the next day, told them to relax, saying, "No reason to die all tensed up." • The United States Secret Service and the Soviet Mission to the United Nations notified the Trump Organization that Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev would not visit Trump Tower during their upcoming visit to New York City. Trump spokespeople cited scheduling and security issues as reasons for the cancellation, but senior Soviet officials said that the Kremlin canceled the visit because of the problematic symbolism of the event. • Born: Joanna Rowsell, English Olympic champion cyclist; in Carshalton, Greater London, England • Died: • Einar Forseth, 96, Swedish artist • Monica Beatrice McKenzie, 83, New Zealand dietitian ==December 6, 1988 (Tuesday)==

• The Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 granted self-government to the Australian Capital Territory. • U.S. President-elect Bush nominated Thomas R. Pickering as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, despite reports that Pickering helped arrange a secret donation to the Nicaraguan Contras when he was U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. Pickering was only the second career diplomat ever named to the post. • Adam Eaton, American Major League Baseball outfielder; in Springfield, Ohio • Ravindra Jadeja, Indian international cricketer; in Navagam Ghed, Jamnagar district, Saurashtra, Gujarat, India • Sandra Nurmsalu, Estonian musician; in Alavere, Harju County, Soviet-occupied Estonia, Soviet Union • Sabrina Ouazani, French actress; in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, France • Nils Petersen, German professional and Olympic footballer; in Wernigerode, East Germany • Nobunaga Shimazaki, Japanese voice actor; in Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan • Johnny Strange, English performance artist, street performer and stunt performer; in Lancashire, England • Died: • Timothy Patrick Murphy, 29, American actor, died of AIDS. • Roy Orbison, 52, American rock musician, died of a heart attack. • Veerendra (aka Veerinder Singh; born Subhash Dhadwai), 40, Indian film actor, writer, producer and director, was shot along with actress Manpreet Kaur and cameraman Pritam Singh Balla while filming a scene for the movie Jatt Te Zameen on location in Talwandi Kalan, Punjab, India. Veerendra died at the scene; the other two victims survived. ==December 7, 1988 (Wednesday)==

... • In Soviet Armenia, the 6.8 Spitak earthquake killed nearly 25,000, injured 31,000 and left 400,000 homeless. The town of Spitak was completely destroyed. • Singing Revolution: The Estonian language replaced Russian as the official language of the Estonian SSR. • In South Africa, anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela was transferred from the Constantiaberg Clinic, the second of two hospitals where he had been treated for tuberculosis, to a house at Victor Verster Prison, where he would serve the last 14 months of his imprisonment until his release on February 11, 1990. • Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, made an official visit to the United States, meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan and President-elect Bush at the Governors Island Summit in New York City. Gorbachev also promised major cuts in defense spending in a speech at the United Nations before cutting his visit short and flying home due to the earthquake in Armenia. • In his apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, American visual artist Chuck Close collapsed due to pain. He was able to present an award at the residence of the Mayor of New York City that evening, but then went to the hospital, where he experienced a convulsion and became paralyzed. Due to a blood clot damaging his spinal cord, Close would continue to have limited mobility, but would develop a new artistic style in the process of learning to paint again. • Born: • Juan Abarca, Chilean footballer; in San Vicente de Tagua Tagua, Chile • Nathan Adrian, American Olympic champion swimmer; in Bremerton, Washington • Emily Browning, Australian actress; in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Angelina Gabueva, Russian tennis player; in Ordzhonikidze, North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union • James Marshall, New Zealand rugby union player; in Auckland, New Zealand • Died: • Christopher Connelly, 47, American actor, died of lung cancer. • Dorothy Jordan, 82, American actress, died of congestive heart failure. • Peter Langan, 47, Irish restaurateur, died due to injuries from an October fire. ==December 8, 1988 (Thursday)==

• The six-man crew of the Soviet space station Mir – Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Georgiyevich Titov, Musa Manarov, Valeri Polyakov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Volkov and Sergei Krikalev and French spationaut Jean-Loup Chrétien – were forced to cut short a teleconference with diplomats from 47 countries due to preparations for the following day's spacewalk. • Six people, including the pilot, died and 50 were injured as a result of the 1988 Remscheid A-10 crash in Remscheid, West Germany. • The British government announced that it would close North East Shipbuilders with the loss of 2,400 jobs, bringing an end to the 600-year-old shipbuilding industry in Sunderland, England. • Surface-to-air missiles shot down an American DC-7 carrying crop-dusting insecticides from Dakar, Senegal, to Agadir, Morocco, and damaged a second DC-7. All five crewmembers of the downed plane were killed. • U.S. President Ronald Reagan gave his final press conference in the East Room of the White House before leaving office on January 20, 1989. Reagan began the press conference by joking to reporters, "Got to stop meeting like this." He also expressed condolences to the Soviet Union over the Armenian earthquake. When asked whether he trusted Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan emphasized the need to "trust but verify". • A U.S. military CH-47 Chinook helicopter participating in joint Honduran-U.S. maneuvers crashed near La Ceiba, Honduras, killing all five people aboard. • Born: • Ahn Byung-keon, South Korean footballer; in Seoul, South Korea • Denis Biryukov, Russian volleyball player; in Volgograd, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union • Marcus Gilchrist, National Football League safety; in High Point, North Carolina • Linnea Liljegärd, Swedish footballer; in Arvika, Sweden • Philip Major, Canadian racing driver; in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Damien Marcq, French footballer; in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France • Ferdinand Tille, German volleyball player; in Mühldorf, West Germany • Simon van Velthooven, New Zealand Olympic track cyclist and America's Cup sailor; in Palmerston North, New Zealand • Jerry Vandam, French footballer; in Lille, France • Veronika Zvařičová, Czech Olympic biathlete; in Krnov, Czechoslovakia • Died: • Airini Grennell, 78, New Zealand singer, pianist and broadcaster • John Joe McGirl, 67, Irish politician, chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army • Sir Andrew McKee, , 86, Royal Air Force officer • Gene Quill, 60, American jazz alto saxophonist (Phil and Quill) • Hellmuth Reymann, 96, World War II German Army officer • Anne Seymour, 79, American character actress • Ulanhu, 80, Chinese general and politician ==December 9, 1988 (Friday)==

• Spationaut Chrétien and cosmonaut Volkov conducted a spacewalk from Mir, the first EVA in history involving a spacewalker (Chrétien) who was not a member of the Soviet or U.S. space program. They installed the Enchantillons and ERA experiments on the exterior of Mir; when ERA failed to deploy properly, Volkov kicked it, causing it to unfold. • Born: • Pietro Aradori, Italian professional basketball player; in Brescia, Italy • Kwadwo Asamoah, Ghanaian footballer; in Accra, Ghana • Adam Gettis, National Football League guard • Ji Liping, Chinese Olympic swimmer; in Shanghai County, Shanghai, China • Kim Kum-ok, North Korean Olympic long-distance runner and politician; in Pyongyang, North Korea • Georges Mandjeck, Cameroonian footballer; in Douala, Cameroon • Denarius Moore, National Football League wide receiver; in Tatum, Texas • Travian Robertson, National Football League defensive end; in Laurinburg, North Carolina • Korey Toomer, National Football League linebacker; in Las Vegas, Nevada • Veronika Vítková, Czech Olympic biathlete; in Vrchlabí, Czechoslovakia • Rhys Webb, Welsh rugby union player; in Bridgend, Wales • Robbie Weir, Northern Irish footballer; in Belfast, Northern Ireland • Died: • Wally Borrevik, 67, American professional basketball player • Maria De Matteis, 90, Italian costume designer ==December 10, 1988 (Saturday)==

• The naked body of 27-year-old American mathematician Scott Johnson was discovered at the bottom of the cliffs at North Head, New South Wales, Australia (near Manly, New South Wales). The death would be ruled a suicide but would be reinvestigated in the 21st century as a homophobic hate crime due to the persistence of Johnson's brother, Steve Johnson. 49-year-old Scott Price of Sydney would be arrested in May 2020 for Johnson's murder. • The Soviet Union declared this day a national day of mourning in the wake of Wednesday's earthquake in Armenia. General Secretary Gorbachev toured the damaged cities. • James W. Black, Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment." • The trawler Arctic II was capsized by a large wave and sank about north of Unimak Pass in Alaska. All five crewmembers boarded a life raft, but captain Stan Michna and crewman Gary Heeney were swept off the raft by another large wave and were lost. The three survivors were rescued by the fishing vessel American Beauty. • Born: • Wilfried Bony, Ivorian footballer; in Bingerville, Ivory Coast • Pak Chol-min, North Korean international footballer; in Pyongyang, North Korea • Neven Subotić, Serbian footballer; in Banja Luka, Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia • Died: • Richard S. Castellano, 55, American actor • Anthony Cottrell , 81, New Zealand rugby union player • Johnny Lawrence, 77, English cricketer and coach • Dorothy de Rothschild (born Dorothy Mathilde Pinto), 93, English philanthropist and activist ==December 11, 1988 (Sunday)==

• An Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane carrying rescue workers to Leninakan, a city devastated by the Armenian earthquake, crashed into the side of a mountain, killing 77 people. • An explosion at an illegal fireworks shop at the La Merced Market in Mexico City set off multiple explosions and fires, killing over 60 people. • Born: Tim Southee, New Zealand international cricketer; in Whangārei, Northland Region, New Zealand • Died: Frank S. Pepper, 78, British comics writer ==December 12, 1988 (Monday)==

• The Clapham Junction rail crash in London killed 35 people and injured 484. • At the Monday morning astronaut meeting in Houston, Texas, STS-27 mission commander Robert L. Gibson amused the military astronauts present and disgusted the civilians by joking that, although he still could not reveal details of the shuttle's payload, "I can say Armenia was its first target! And we only had the weapon set on stun!" • Hahm Eun-jung, South Korean singer and actress; in Seoul, South Korea • Isaac John, New Zealand rugby league footballer; in Tokoroa, Waikato, New Zealand • Died: June Tarpé Mills, 70, American comics artist and writer ==December 13, 1988 (Tuesday)==

• Angolan Civil War: In Brazzaville, Congo, representatives from the governments of Angola, Cuba and South Africa signed the Brazzaville Protocol, mandating the withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola and paving the way for Namibia's independence through the Tripartite Accord. • The Troubles in Portadown: 31-year-old Protestant civilian John Corry, a British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary contractor, was shot and killed by the Irish Republican Army at his garage in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. • Born: • Darcy Blake, Welsh footballer; in New Tredegar, Wales • Rickie Fowler, American professional golfer; in Murrieta, California • Paul Johnston, English cricketer; in Hartlepool, County Durham, England • James Tamou, New Zealand rugby league footballer; in Palmerston North, New Zealand • Died: • André Jaunet, 77, French flutist, died of liver cancer. • Brynmor John, 54, Welsh Labour politician, died of a heart attack. • Roy Urquhart (born Robert Elliot Urquhart), , 87, British Army officer ==December 14, 1988 (Wednesday)==

• At 12:00 a.m. on the night of December 13, the RTVE broadcast signal cut out, beginning the 1988 Spanish general strike, called by the Workers' Commissions and Unión General de Trabajadores trade unions against the economic policies of the government of Prime Minister Felipe González. The strike brought Spain to a complete standstill for 24 hours, with 95% of the country's workers taking part. The strike would force the González government to withdraw its controversial "Plan de Empleo Juvenil" (Youth Employment Plan) and negotiate with the workers over their additional demands. • After Yasser Arafat renounced violence, the U.S. said it would open dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). • Born: • Nicolas Batum, French professional and Olympic basketball player; in Lisieux, France • Nate Ebner, National Football League safety and special teamer and Olympic rugby sevens player; in Columbus, Ohio • Vanessa Hudgens, American actress and singer; in Salinas, California • Hayato Sakamoto, Japanese professional and Olympic champion baseball shortstop; in Itami, Hyōgo, Japan • Died: Stuart Symington, 87, American politician, United States Senator from Missouri ==December 15, 1988 (Thursday)==

• Born: • Floyd Ayité, French footballer; in Bordeaux, France • Boaz van de Beatz (born Boaz de Jong), Dutch-Israeli record producer and DJ • Emily Head, English actress; in Fulham, London, England • Steven Nzonzi, French footballer; in La Garenne-Colombes, France ==December 16, 1988 (Friday)==

• A Mitsubishi MU-2 Marquise air taxi operated by Broughton Air Services crashed at Sturt Meadows Station in Western Australia. All 10 people aboard were killed. • A series of burglaries took place and a man was murdered during the early hours around the M25 motorway in England, beginning the M25 Three case, later to be considered a miscarriage of justice. • Edwina Currie resigned as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health. • U.S. President-elect Bush announced his nomination of John Tower, a former U.S. Senator from Texas and former chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to be his Secretary of Defense. The U.S. Senate would reject Tower's nomination on February 21, 1989. • Lyndon LaRouche, a perennial candidate for U.S. President, was convicted of mail fraud. • In Virginia Beach, Virginia, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot, a student at Atlantic Shores Christian School, shot and killed 41-year-old teacher Karen Farley and wounded 37-year-old teacher Sam Marino before his gun jammed and teacher Hutch Matteson tackled and disarmed him. Authorities discovered three Molotov cocktails in Elliot's locker and pipe bomb materials in his bookbag. Elliot would be sentenced to life in prison in December 1989. • Born: • Robin Cheong, New Zealand Olympic taekwondo athlete; in Uijeongbu, South Korea • Mats Hummels, German footballer; in Bergisch Gladbach, West Germany • Gael Mackie, Canadian Olympic artistic gymnast; in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • Park Seo-joon, South Korean actor and singer; in Seoul, South Korea • Anna Popplewell, English actress; in London, England • David Simón, Spanish footballer (born David Simón Rodríguez Santana); in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain • Died: • John Cameron, 90, New Zealand cricketer • Hunter Hendry, 93, Australian cricketer • Ryōhei Koiso (born Ryohei Kishigami), 85, Japanese artist • Sylvester (born Sylvester James Jr.), 41, American singer-songwriter, died of complications from HIV/AIDS. ==December 17, 1988 (Saturday)==

• Born: • Liisa Ehrberg, Estonian racing cyclist • Grethe Grünberg, Estonian ice dancer; in Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union • Kris Joseph, Canadian National Basketball Association player; in Montreal, Quebec, Canada • Amélie Lacoste, Canadian figure skater; in Montreal, Quebec, Canada • Steve Rapira, New Zealand rugby league footballer; in Hamilton, Waikato, New Zealand • David Rudisha, Kenyan Olympic champion middle-distance runner; in Kilgoris, Narok County, Kenya • Craig Sutherland, Scottish footballer; in Edinburgh, Scotland • Rin Takanashi, Japanese film and television actress; in Chiba Prefecture, Japan • Died: Jerry Hopper (born Harold Hankins Hopper), 81, American film and television director, died of heart disease. ==December 18, 1988 (Sunday)==

• In Soweto, South Africa, Jerry Richardson, the coach of the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC), stabbed and killed Koekie Zwane (real name Pricilla Mosoeu), girlfriend of a member of the football club. MUFC members may have assisted Richardson in the killing. The MUFC was a vigilante group associated with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, whom Richardson would later accuse of ordering him to kill Zwane on suspicion of her being an informer. • Former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos was released from St. Francis Medical Center in order to receive 24-hour medical care at his home. • Seth Doege, American and Canadian football quarterback and coach; in San Angelo, Texas • Erica Rivera, American actress and singer; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Brianne Theisen-Eaton (born Brianne Theisen), Canadian Olympic track and field athlete; in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada • Imad Wasim (born Syed Imad Wasim Haider), Pakistani cricketer; in Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales • Died: • R. Arumugam, 35, Malaysian footballer, died in a traffic collision. • Niyazi Berkes, 80, Turkish Cypriot sociologist ==December 19, 1988 (Monday)==

• 1988 Cannes and Nice attacks: At about 3:30 a.m., French far-right extremists carried out a false flag bomb attack on an immigrant hostel in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, killing one person and injuring 12. Most of the hostel's guests were Tunisians, but the sole fatality from the attack was George Iordachescu, a Romanian exile. The bombers left behind leaflets bearing Stars of David and claimed responsibility in the name of the so-called "Masada, Action and Defense Movement" to imply that Jewish terrorists were to blame. • In the 1988 Sri Lankan presidential election, Ranasinghe Premadasa was elected President of Sri Lanka with 50.43% of the vote. • Born: • Casey Burgess, Australian television personality and singer (Hi-5); in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Mami Matsuyama, Japanese gravure idol, singer and actress; in Aomori Prefecture, Japan • Alexis Sánchez, Chilean footballer; in Tocopilla, Chile • Peter Winn, English semi-professional footballer; in Grimsby, England • Died: Robert Bernstein, 69, American comic book writer, playwright and concert impresario, died of heart failure. ==December 20, 1988 (Tuesday)==

• The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was signed at Vienna. • The three-month-old daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York was christened Beatrice Elizabeth Mary. • Trooper Johnny Montague Edrington of the Kentucky State Police was shot and killed with his own handgun during a traffic stop on Highway 80 west of London, Kentucky. His body was found in a ditch. the suspects would not yet have been apprehended. • Died: Max Robinson, 49, American broadcast journalist, first African American network news anchor in the United States, died of complications from AIDS. ==December 21, 1988 (Wednesday)==