This Year in History:
1987
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
In 1986, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its first group of inductees: Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, James Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and the Everly Brothers. Since then, the Hall has added a new class of inductees each year in four categories: Performers, […]
Richard Crafts, a Connecticut man accused and later found guilty of murdering his wife and disposing of her body in a wood-chipper, is arrested on January 13, 1987. Helle Crafts, a Pan Am flight attendant, had vanished on November 18, 1986. Although her body was never found, authorities did find enough evidence to convict her husband […]
On February 25, 1987, the NCAA suspends the Southern Methodist University football program for 1987 season for repeated rules violations but stops short of imposing the so-called “death penalty.” Still, the sanctions are the most severe levied by the NCAA against a major college football program. The NCAA also significantly reduced the number of football […]
In a surprising announcement, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev indicates that his nation is ready to sign “without delay” a treaty designed to eliminate U.S. and Soviet medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe. Gorbachev’s offer led to a breakthrough in negotiations and, eventually, to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in December 1987. Gorbachev […]
A British ferry leaving Zeebrugge, Belgium, capsizes, drowning 188 people, on March 6, 1987. Shockingly poor safety procedures led directly to this deadly disaster. Lord Justice Barry Sheen, an investigator of the accident, later said of it, from top to bottom, the body corporate was affected with the disease of sloppiness. The Herald of Free […]
On March 24, 1987, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) holds its first-ever demonstration on Wall Street—the world’s financial center—targeting pharmaceutical companies that were profiting off the AIDS pandemic. At the busy intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in New York City, 250 protestors disrupted morning rush hour traffic. Demonstrators laid in the […]
Responding to a 911 call, police raid the Philadelphia home of Gary Heidnik and find an appalling crime scene. In the basement of Heidnik’s dilapidated house is a veritable torture chamber where three naked women were found chained to a sewer pipe. A fourth woman, Josefina Rivera, had escaped and called police. Gary Heidnik was […]
Just days before he is to travel to Moscow for talks on arms control and other issues, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz states that he is “damned angry” about possible Soviet spy activity in the American embassy in the Soviet Union. Soviet officials indignantly replied that the espionage charges were “dirty fabrications.” Secretary Shultz […]
Klaus Barbie, the former Nazi Gestapo chief of German-occupied Lyon, France, goes on trial in Lyon more than four decades after the end of World War II. He was charged with 177 crimes against humanity. As chief of Nazi Germany’s secret police in Lyon, Barbie sent 7,500 French Jews and French Resistance partisans to concentration […]
On June 12, 1987, in one of his most famous Cold War speeches, President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the repressive Communist era in a divided Germany. In 1945, following Germany’s defeat in World War II, the nation’s capital, Berlin, was divided into four […]
In a dramatic turnaround, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev indicates that he is willing to negotiate a ban on intermediate-range nuclear missiles without conditions. Gorbachev’s decision paved the way for the groundbreaking Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the United States. Since coming to power in 1985, Gorbachev had made it clear that he sought a […]
On August 7, 1987, Lynne Cox braves the freezing waters of the Bering Strait to make the first recorded swim from the United States to the Soviet Union. Lynne Cox’s swimming career began in her native New Hampshire when she was just nine years old. Not long after that, her parents moved the family to […]
A plane crash at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Michigan kills 156 people on August 16, 1987. A four-year-old girl was the sole survivor of the accident, which was caused by pilot error. Northwest Flight 255 was headed to California with a stopover in Phoenix when it pulled away from the gate in Detroit. While the […]
Rudolf Hess, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s former deputy, is found strangled to death in Spandau Prison in Berlin at the age of 93, apparently the victim of suicide. Hess was the last surviving member of Hitler’s inner circle and the sole prisoner at Spandau since 1966. Hess, an early and devoted follower of Nazism, participated […]
On August 29, 1987, the home of the Ray brothers—three HIV-positive Florida boys—burns down in what was almost certainly a case of arson. The three brothers, who are not in the house at the time, have already faced intense discrimination due to their HIV status, and today their story serves as a reminder of the […]
The thriller Fatal Attraction, about a married man who has a fling with a woman who then becomes obsessed with him and stalks his family, premieres in U.S. theaters on September 11, 1987. Fatal Attraction, which starred Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, was a box-office hit and garnered six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, […]
On September 18, 1987, cesium-137 is removed from an abandoned cancer-therapy machine in Brazil. Hundreds of people were eventually poisoned by radiation from the substance, highlighting the danger that even relatively small amounts of radiation can pose. In 1985, the Goiania Institute of Radiotherapy moved to a new location and left behind an obsolete Cesium-137 […]
An earthquake in Whittier, California, kills 6 people and injures 100 more on October 1, 1987. The quake was the largest to hit Southern California since 1971, but not nearly as damaging as the Northridge quake that would devastate parts of Los Angeles seven years later. Whittier is a small town south of Los Angeles […]
On October 10, 1987, the song “Here I Go Again” by English hard-rock group Whitesnake tops the Billboard pop singles chart in the United States. Today, what most people remember about the song is its saucy video: The actress Tawny Kitaen spends a great deal of it in a white negligee, writhing and cartwheeling across […]
On October 16, 1987, in an event that had viewers around the world glued to their televisions, 18-month-old Jessica McClure is rescued after being trapped for 58 hours in an abandoned water well in Midland, Texas. The drama unfolded on the morning of October 14, 1987, when McClure fell through the 8-inch-wide opening of an […]
