istoryworld
Events relating to north america
President Reagan launches an air strike against Libya, accusing Gaddafi of involvement in international terrorism
20-year-old US boxer Mike Tyson knocks out Trevor Berbick to become the youngest ever world heavyweight champion
Details of the Iran-Contra affair spark a Washington scandal and the criminal prosecution of Oliver North
The Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill becomes the first rap (or hip hop) album to top the US chart
The US Congress begins an investigation of the Iran-Contra affair, eventually clearing President Reagan of direct involvement
Timberlake Wertenbaker bases her play Our Country's Good on Thomas Keneally's novel The Playmaker
US author Toni Morrison publishes her novel Beloved, loosely based on a real incident among freed slaves after the Civil War
US author Tom Wolfe gives a bleak view of contemporary New York in his novel The Bonfire of the Vanities
The Dow-Jones index loses 30% in a dramatic US stock-market collapse
John Adams' opera Nixon in China is performed in Houston
Barry Levinson directs Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in the film Rain Man
US athlete Carl Lewis sets a new world record for the 100 metres, winning gold at the Seoul Olympics
A woman is consecrated as Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts, becoming the first female bishop in the Anglican Communion's historic line of succession from St Peter
US architect Frank Gehry builds a strikingly unconventional house for his family in Santa Monica
Leading New York Graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat dies of an overdose
Republican George Bush ('read my lips, no new taxes') wins the US presidential election
M. Butterfly, by US author and composer David Henry Hwang, uses Puccini's opera as its inspiration
The supertanker Exxon Valdez spills vast quantities of oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska
US sculptor Richard Serra's Tilted Arc is removed from Federal Plaza, New York, after legal action by local protesters
The US unmanned spacecraft Galileo is launched from a space shuttle on a six-year voyage to Jupiter
President Bush sends 24,000 US troops to occupy Panama City and seize Manuel Noriega
Panama's dictator, Manuel Noriega, is captured by US troops and taken to Miami on drug trafficking charges
The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from a space shuttle and goes into orbit 370 miles (600 km) above the earth
Mikhail Baryshnikov and Mark Morris establish the White Oak Dance Project as a touring company
The Piano Lesson is the second of August Wilson's plays to win a Pulitzer Prize
