The News of 1990.

January:

• Poland becomes the first country in Eastern Europe to begin abolishing its state socialist economy, also withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact
• Glasgow begins its year as European Capital of Culture, the first of the British Isles
• The first internet companies catering to commercial users, PSINet and EUNet, begin selling internet access to commercial customers in the US and Netherlands respectively
• General Manuel Noriega is deposed as leader of Panama and surrenders to invading American forces
• As part of the Singing Revolution, 300,000 people demonstrate for independence in the Lithuania SSR
• Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office in Richmond, Virginia
• The National Assembly of Bulgaria votes to end one party rule by the Bulgarian Communist Party
• Thousands storm the Stasi headquarters in East Berlin in an attempt to view their government records
• Soviet troops occupy Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, under the emergency decree issued by Soviet premier Michael Gorbachev, and kill over 130 protestors who were demonstrating for independence
• The government of Haiti declares a state of emergency, under which it suspends civil liberties, imposed censorship and arrests political opponents
• Robert Tappan Morris is convicted of releasing the Morris worm
• Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, gives birth to a girl, becoming the first modern head of government to bear a child while in office
• Lord Justice Taylor published his report on the Hillsborough Disaster, he recommends all top division stadiums are all-seater by 1994 and the rest of the Football League by 1999 but rules out a proposed ID card scheme to combat hooliganism as “unworkable”

February:

• F W de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress and releases Nelson Mandela from Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town, after 27 years behind bars
• Representatives of NATO and the Warsaw Pact reach an agreement for German reunification
• The Pale Blue Dot photograph of Earth is sent back from Voyager 1
• The UK and Argentina restore diplomatic relations after 8 years following the Falklands War
• Ayatollah Khamenei renews his predecessors’ fatwa on author Salman Rushdie, which was imposed the previous year following controversy over the book The Satanic Verses

March:

• Police seal of Brixton, South London, after another night of protests against the poll tax
• Prosper Avril is ousted in a coup in Haiti, eighteen months after seizing power
• The Lithuanian SSR declares independence from the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union later announces the declaration is invalid
• The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union approves changes to the Constitution of the Soviet Union to create a US-style presidency; Mikhail Gorbachev is elected to a five-year term as the first ever President of the Soviet Union
• Iraq hangs British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spying; British nurse, Daphne Parish, is sentenced to 15 years imprisonment as an accomplice
• Fernando Collor de Mello takes office as President of Brazil, the first democratically elected president since Jânio Quadros in 1961
• Twelve paintings and a Shang dynasty vase, collectively worth $100 to $300 million, are stolen from a museum in Boston, Massachusetts by two thieves posing as police officers in the largest art theft in US history
• After 75 years of South African rule since World War I, Namibia becomes independent
• Bob Hawke’s Labor Government is re-elected with a reduced majority, narrowly defeating the Liberal/National Coalition
• US President George H W Bush posthumously awards Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal
• After it’s first free elections, the Estonian SSR declares the Soviet rule to have been illegal since 1940 and declares a transition period for full independence
• A massive anti-poll tax demonstration in Trafalgar Square turns into a riot, 471 people are injured and 341 are arrested

April:

• The poll tax takes effect in England and Wales amid widespread protests
• The longest prison riot in Britain’s history, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, lasts for 3 weeks and 3 days
• Birenda of Nepal lifts a ban on political parties following violent protests
• Conservative New Democracy leader, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, becomes Prime Minister of Greece
• The Socialist Republic of Slovenia holds Yugoslavia’s first multiparty election since 1938; a centre-right coalition forms Yugoslavia’s first non-Communist government since 1945
• Lothar de Maizière becomes prime minister of East Germany, heading a conservative coalition that favours German reunification
• Lebanese kidnappers release American educators Robert Polhill, who had been held hostage since January 1987, and Frank H Reed, who had been held since September 1986
• West Germany and East Germany agree to merge currency and economies on 1st July
• The Hubble Telescope is launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery
• President of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, lifts a 20-year ban on opposition parties
• Violeta Chamorro is sworn in as President of Nicaragua, the first woman in her own right as a head of state in the Americas
• Stephen Hendry, 21, becomes the youngest ever world snooker champion
• Customs and Excise officers seize parts of an Iraqi supergun In Middlesbrough

May:

• In London, a man brandishing a knife robs a courier of bearer bonds worth £292 million
• The Latvian SSR declares independence from the Soviet Union
• The Estonian SSR restores the formal name of the country, the Republic of Estonia, as well as other national emblems
• Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier assumes office as President of Costa Rica
• Jeanne Calment becomes the oldest verified person ever at the age of 115
• Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr Gachet is sold sir a record $82.5 million
• The World Health Organisation removes homosexuality from its list of diseases
• The US and the USSR agree to end production of chemical weapons and to destroy most of their stockpiles
• The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania
• A Kashmiri Islamic leader is assassinated and Indian security forces open fire on mourners carrying his body, killing at least 47
• Leaders of the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen announce the unification as the Republic of Yemen
• In Burma’s first multiparty election in 30 years, the National League for Democracy wins by a landslide
• César Gaviria is elected President of Colombia
• Boris Yeltsin becomes the first ever elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
• Manchester United win the FA Cup in a replayed final, following a 3-3 draw with Crystal Palace, 1-0
• British agriculture Minister John Gummer feeds a hamburger to his five year-old daughter to counter rumours about the spread of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

June:

• Members of the Provisional IRA shoot and kill Major Michael Dillon-Lee and Private William Robert Davies of the British Army
• The 1990 FIFA World Cup begins in Italy; West Germany defeat Argentina 1-0 in the final
• In Czechoslovakia’s first free elections since 1946, the Civic Forum wins the most seats but fails to secure a majority
• Alberto Fujimori is elected President of Peru
• In Algeria’s first multiparty election since 1962, the Islamic Salvation Front wins control of more than half of municipalities and provinces
• The destruction of the Berlin Wall officially starts
• Kathleen Margaret Brown and Irene Templeton become the first female Anglican priests in the UK

July:

• A stampede in a pedestrian tunnel leading to Mecca kills 1426
• Somali President Siad Barre’s bodyguards massacre anti-government demonstrators during a football match, killing 65 people and injuring 300 more
• Belarus declares its sovereignty
• British former MP Ian Gow is assassinated by a Provisional IRA car bomb outside his home in England
• UEFA lifts the ban on English clubs in European competitions, five years after all teams were excluded due to the Heysal disaster
• Graham Taylor, manager of Aston Villa, is appointed as the new England manager following the end of Bobby Robson’s contract
• Aldi opens its first store in Britain, in Stechford, Birmingham
• An IRA bomb explodes at the base of the London Stock Exchange

August:

• Zhelyu Zhelev is elected the first non-Communist President of Bulgaria in 40 years
• Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War
• More than 500 people are killed when fighting breaks out between the Xhosa and Zulu people
• The best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex specimen ever found is discovered in South Dakota
• The Armenian SSR declares its independence from the Soviet Union
• Northern Irish writer Brian Keenan is released from the Lebanon after five years
• The BBC begins broadcasting on Radio 5, it’s first new station for 23 years

September:

• Geoffrey Palmer resigns as Prime Minister of New Zealand and is replaced by Mike Moore
• Premier of North Korea, Yon Hyong-muk, meets the President of South Korea, Roh Tae-woo, the highest level contact between Korean leaders since 1945
• Liberian President Samuel Doe is captured by rebel leader Prince Johnson and killed in a filmed execution
• Sri Lankan Army soldiers massacre 184 civilians in Batticaloa
• Provisional IRA attempt to assassinate Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Terry at his home in Stafford; he survives despite being hit by 9 bullets

October:

• Tim Berners-Lee begins his work on the World Wide Web
• The Rwandan Patriotic Front invades Rwanda from Uganda, marking the start of the Rwandan Civil War
• East Germany and West Germany reunify into a single Germany
• Israeli police kill 17 Palestinians and wound over 100 near the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount
• Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions
• South Africa ends segregation of libraries, trains, buses, toilets, swimming pools and other public facilities
• The New Zealand National Party wins the New Zealand general election, with leader Jim Bolger becoming prime minister
• The Norwegian government headed by Prime Minister Jan P Syse collapses, Gro Harlem Brundtland assumes office
• The first transatlantic fibre optic cable TAT-8 fails, causing a slowdown of internet traffic between Europe and the US
• Former Prime Minister, Edward Heath, leaves Baghdad on a plane bound for Heathrow with 33 freed hostages; Saddam Hussein promises to release a further 30 in the near future

November:

• The earliest known portable digital camera is sold in the US
• Mary Robinson defeats Brian Lenihan to become the first female President of Ireland
• Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at a New York City hotel
• Akihito is enthroned as the 125th emperor of Japan
• The first known webpage is written
• The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is released in Japan
• Margaret Thatcher resigns as Prime Minister after 11 years and is replaced by John Major
• Neil Kinnock, Labour leader since October 1983, becomes the longest serving opposition leader in British political history
• British Sky Broadcasting, BSkyB, is founded as the result of a merger between Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting
• The FA deducts Arsenal two points and Manchester United one point and fines both clubs £50,000 for a mass player brawl in a league match the previous month

December:

• The German federal election, the first since reunification, is won by Helmut Kohl
• Following massive demonstrations by students and workers, Ramiz Aia, leader of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, announces free national elections will be held in 1991
• The first constitution of the Republic of Croatia is adopted
• In a referendum, Slovenia vote by a landslide in favour of independence
• Channel tunnel workers from the UK and France meet 40 metres beneath the seabed, establishing the first land connection between the UK and mainland Europe for around 8,000 years
• The UK government makes £42 million compensation available to the 1,200 haemophiliacs infected with the AIDS virus through blood transfusions
• Poundland opens its first store, in Burton-upon-Trent
• Netto launches its first UK store in Leeds
• Arsenal captain, Tony Adams, is sentenced to four months in prison for a drink-driving offence

Other:

• The highest grossing film of the year is Ghost, making over $500 million worldwide
• Due to the popularity of Ghost, the best-selling single of the year in the UK is The Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody”