ood.
12/12/1987, Pennsylvania celebrated the 200th anniversary of its statehood.
8/12/1987. Gorbachev and Reagan signed an arms reduction treaty, to eliminate medium range nuclear missiles from Europe.
7/12/1987, Delaware celebrated the 200th anniversary of its statehood.
29/9/1987, John M Poindexter resigned from the US Navy over the Iran-Contra affair.
3/8/1987, The US Irangate hearings ended.
8/4/1987, Francis C Denebrink, US naval officer, died aged 90
31/3/1987, In the ‘Baby M’ case, the US Supreme Court denied parental rights to surrogate mothers.
19/2/1987, The US lifted sanctions on Poland.
11/2/1987, The US tested an atom bomb in Nevada.
25/11/1986. US Vice-Admiral Pointdexter and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North were dismissed from the Security Council after revelations that money from arms sales to Iran had been channelled to Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas. Weapons were covertly sold to Iran to secure the release of 7 US hostages held by pro-Hezbollah groups in Lebanon, and the profits from the sales diverted to back Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
4/11/1986. Democrats won control of the US Senate.
15/4/1986. The USA launched air strikes against Libya, in retaliation for Libya’s alleged support of terrorism, and a bombing in a Berlin nightclub. Libya had also fired two missiles at the US radar base on Lampedusa; both missed. Benghazi and Tripoli were bombed, killing at least 100 people, including Gaddaffi’s 15-month-old adopted daughter, Hanna. The departure of the US planes from British airfields caused widespread protests in the UK. On 17/4/1986 two British hostages in Lebanon were killed in retaliation for the US raids.
27/2/1986, The United States Senate allowed its debates to be televised on a trial basis.
25/1/1985, In a case that divided American society, New York subway vigilante Bernard Goetze (born 7 November 1947) was told by a Grand Jury that he would not face charged of murder for shooting four Black youths at close range on 22 December 1984; he would be tried for illegal possession of handguns. Goetze served 8 months of a 1-year sentence on the handgun charge; one of his victims, rendered a quadriplegic by the shooting, was awarded US$ 43 million in a civil judgement against Goetze.
2/11/1984, Velma Barfield became the first woman to be executed in the USA since 1962.
26/7/1984, G H Gallup, US survey pioneer, died aged 82.
21/7/1984. The man who popularised jogging, James J Fixx, had a heart attack and died whilst out running in Vermont, aged 52.
1/5/1984, Reagan concluded a visit to China.
25/10/1983. 2,000 US Marines invaded Grenada to restore order after, on 19/10/1983, Grenada’s army had murdered the Prime Minister (Maurice Bishop) and taken power. Britain opposed the US invasion. The US said it had saved Grenada from becoming a Soviet-Cuban colony.
22/10/1983, The announcement by Washington that Pershing II and Cruise Missiles were to be deployed in Europe precipitated large anti-nuclear demonstrations in Britain, Germany and Italy.
4/5/1983, President Reagan affirmed his backing for the Right-wing Contras in their battle against the Sandinistas.
23/3/1983. President Reagan proposed his ‘Star Wars’ missile defence system, calling the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’.
4/2/1983, US President Reagan condemned the violence associated with a strike of truck drivers.
2/2/1983. The US and USSR began START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) in Geneva.
7/12/1982, The first execution by lethal injection was carried out in the USA, in Texas, on Charles Books Jr.
2/11/1982, Democrats made large gains in US mid-term elections. The Republicans retained control of the Senate.
12/6/1982, 800,000 marched for peace in New York City.
7/6/1982, Graceland, the mansion in Memphis, Tennessee where Elvis Presley lived until his death in 1977, was opened to the public.
5/5/1982, Secretary Janet Smith in the computer science department at Vanderbilt University was injured when she opened a package from the Unabomber.
13/1/1982, An Air Florida jet crashed into the frozen Potomac River near the White House, killing 78.
30/11/1981.