In the case "Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson," a former employee sued the vice president for sexual harassment that had occurred over the four-year period she had worked at the bank. The Supreme Court held that this type of discrimination had in fact been made illegal by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
U.S. warplanes bombed targets in Libya. Reagan ordered the attacks after reports accused Libya's leader, Muammar Qaddafi, of supporting terrorist attacks against Americans in Europe and the Middle East.
"The Oprah Winfrey Show" goes into national syndication on 120 channels, reaching an audience of 10 million people.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was signed by President Ronald Reagan. The law was passed in order to control and deter illegal immigration to the United States. Its major provisions stipulate legalization of undocumented aliens who had been continuously unlawfully present since 1982 (amnesty), legalization of certain agricultural workers, sanctions for employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers, and increased enforcement at U.S. borders.
Colonel Oliver North arranged a deal where U.S. arms were secretly and illegally sold to Iran and the profits of this arms-deal were sent to the contras in Nicaragua.
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1986
January 20, 1986 - Martin Luther King Day is officially observed for the first time as a federal holiday in the United States. Photo (Below, Right) Crowds of the Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C. surround the Washington Monument. August 28, 1963.
January 28, 1986 - The Challenger Space Shuttle explodes after lift off at Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing seven people, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire school teacher.
May 25, 1986 - Five million people make a human chain across the United States in the Hands Across America campaign to fight hunger and homelessness.
September 18, 1986 - A tentative agreement on a world-wide ban on medium-range missiles is reached between the Soviet Union and the United States. This agreement would not be expanded to include long-range missiles when President Reagan refused capitulation to the demand from Mikhail Gorbachev to limit development of the Star Wars missile defense shield.
November 3, 1986 - The first reporting of the Iran-Contra affair, diverting money from arm sales to Iran to fund Nicaraguan contra rebels, begins the largest crisis in the Reagan tenure.
Congress investigated the Iran-Contra arms deal and charged Colonel North and others with crimes. Although Reagan claimed he knew nothing of the illegal arms deal, he accepted full responsibility.
University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom published his controversial best-selling book, "The Closing of the American Mind." In this book, Bloom argued that American education had become morally and intellectually bankrupt. He felt that colleges and universities did not teach students how to think critically and how to put ideas in a historical context.
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1987
August 12, 1987 - Near the end of hearings into the Iran-contra affair, President Reagan admits to a policy that went astray, but denied knowledge of the diversion of funds to the contras.
October 19, 1987 - The stock market crash known as Black Monday occurs on the New York Stock Exchange, recording a record 22.6% drop in one day. Stock markets around the world would mirror the crash with drops of their own.
October 23, 1987 - The President's nominee to the Supreme Court, Robert Bork, is rejected by the U.S. Senate, 58-42, in the largest margin of rejection for the role in history.
December 8, 1987 - The United States and the Soviet Union sign an agreement, the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, to dismantle all 1,752 U.S. and 859 Soviet missiles in the 300-3,400 mile range.
December 31, 1987 - El Malpais National Monument in New Mexico is established by legislation. It preserved a natural volcanic area, a seventeen mile lava tube system, and remains from the Pueblo Indian culture.
The vote count in the presidential election was: G. Bush (Rep) 48,886,097 p.v./426 e.v. M. Dukakis (Dem) 41,809,074 p.v./111 e.v.
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1988
February 3, 1988 - The United States House of Representatives rejects the request of President Reagan for $36.25 million to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
April 12, 1988 - The first patent for a genetically engineered animal is issued to Harvard University researchers Philip Leder and Timothy Stewart.
May 4, 1988 - The deadline for amnesty application by illegal aliens is met by 1.4 million applications. It is estimated that 71% of those who applied had entered the United States from Mexico.
October 31, 1988 - Poverty Point National Monument in Louisiana is established by President Ronald Reagan in order to preserve some of the most extensive earthworks from prehistoric times in North America.
November 8, 1988 - Vice President under Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, claims victory in the presidential election over Democratic challenger Michael S. Dukakis, Governor of Massachusetts. The Electoral College vote tallied 426 for Bush and 111 for Dukakis.
In China, thousands of people were either killed or arrested by government troops during a pro-democracy demonstration.
In Poland, Solidarity (a non-communist party) gained power after winning the first free elections to be held since the communists took control after World War II.
Anti-communist demonstrations in Czechoslovakia and East Germany forced the communist rulers to resign. Unlike previous Soviet leaders, Gorbachev did not send in Soviet troops to crush anti-communist movements in Eastern Europe.
Anti-communist demonstrators tore down the Berlin Wall. Once again, Gorbachev did not send Soviet troops to crush the demonstration.
U.S. troops invaded Panama in order to arrest the Panamanian leader, Manuel Noriega. Bush claimed this action was necessary because of Noriega's dictatorial rule and drug smuggling.
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1989
January 6, 1989 - Economic reports on the previous year from the Labor Department indicate a growth rate of 3.8%, the largest in four years and an unemployment rate of 5.3%, a low of fourteen years.
March 24, 1989 - The Exxon Valdez crashes into Bligh Reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound, causing the largest oil spill in American history, eleven million gallons, which extended forty-five miles.
August 9, 1989 - The Savings and Loan Bailout is approved by Congress and signed into law by President George Herbert Walker Bush. The total cost of the bill would approach $400 billion over thirty years to close and merge insolvent Savings and Loans.
August 10, 1989 - Army General Colin Powell is elevated to the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, becoming the first African American to be nominated to that post.
November 9, 1989 - The Berlin Wall, after thirty-eight years of restricting traffic between the East and West German sides of the city, begins to crumble when German citizens are allowed to travel freely between East and West Germany for the first time. One day later, the influx of crowds around and onto the wall begin to dismantle it, thus ending its existence.
East and West Germany reunited into a single German nation.
The Cold War was declared over as Western Allies (the U.S. and other NATO members) discussed future cooperation with the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations.
President Bush signed into law a new Clean Air Act, usually cited as the main domestic policy achievement of his four years in office.
South Africa freed Nelson Mandela, the leader of the African National Congress. He had been imprisoned for 27 years for leading the fight to overthrow the white government of South Africa and its apartheid policies. When Mandela visited the U.S., President Bush was among those present to greet him.
A large bailout of savings and loans institutions became necessary when it was discovered that nearly 2,000 of them were insolvent and facing closure as the result of bad loans and reckless financial speculation following the bank deregulation of the 1980s. Congress created the Resolution Trust Corporation to administer the bailout, which ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. President Bush suffered some embarrassment when it was revealed that his son, Neil, was involved with one of the failed banks.
An exhibit of the works of photographic artist Robert Mapplethorpe generated considerable heated discussion, as some of Mapplethorpe's work is seen as being on the borderline between pornography and art photography. This caused heated political debate because the exhibition was partially publicly funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The debate caused Congress to legislate strict restrictions on future NEA grants.
The U.S. government banned all smoking on domestic airline flights.
Iraq invaded Kuwait. The U.N. asked all nations to stop trade with Iraq. Meanwhile the U.S. sent military forces to Saudi Arabia to protect it from possible Iraqi attack.
The U.N. Security Council set January 15, 1991 as a deadline for Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait. After that date, the U.N. authorized its members to use force against Iraq. With Cold War rivalry gone, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were able to cooperate in passing these U.N. resolutions.
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The 1990's - Prosperity as the World Turns
1990
February 7, 1990 - The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party gives up its monopoly of power, continuing the trend, since the beginning of the Berlin Wall coming down, that the Cold War was about to end. The ending of the Cold War was completed, in many ways, by the strong policies of U.S. President Ronald Reagan toward the Soviet block. Six days later, a plan to reunite Germany was announced.
March 18, 1990 - The largest art theft in U.S. history occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, when two thieves posing as policemen abscond twelve paintings worth an estimated $100-200 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
April 1, 1990 - The 1990 census is conducted, counting 248,718,301, for an increase of 9.8% over the 1980 census. This is the smallest increase in the population rate since 1940. The geographic center of the United States population is now ten miles southeast of Steelville, Missouri.
April 24, 1990 - The Hubble Telescope is placed into orbit by the United States Space Shuttle Discovery. One month later, the telescope becomes operational.
June 1, 1990 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty to eliminate chemical weapon production and begin the destruction of each nation's current inventory.
August 2, 1990 - Iraq invades its neighbor, Kuwait, setting into motion the beginning of U.S. involvement in the Gulf War. Four days later, the United Nations begins a global trade embargo against Iraq. On November 29, the United Nations passes a resolution, #678, stating that Iraq must withdraw its forces from Kuwait by January 15, 1991 or face military intervention. Photo above right: President George H.W. Bush eating Thanksgiving Dinner with Gulf War troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, November 22, 1990. Photo: Photographic Office.
August 6, 1990 - Tumacacori National Monument is enlarged and re-titled a Historical Park by legislation signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. The site, including the historic Spanish mission church of San Jose de Tumacacori, was founded by Padre Eusebio Kino in 1691.
The Gulf War to liberate Kuwait started on January 16th as U.S. and other U.N. members began air strikes against Iraq.
After only a few days of ground fighting, Iraqi troops were forced out of much of Kuwait. On March 3rd, Iraq and the U.N. forces signed a cease-fire ending the Gulf War. Iraq agreed to pull all of its remaining forces out of Kuwait.
The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) treaty, on which negotiations had begun in 1982. This treaty was to reduce the two nations' strategic nuclear arsenals to a combined total of approximately 6,000 warheads by 2001.
Faced with strikes and public demonstrations, Gorbachev promised to support a new Soviet constitution, which would give the 15 republics of the U.S.S.R. more power (April 24). The U.S.S.R. also moved further away from a strict command economy toward a free-market economy by allowing individuals to own factories (July 1).
A group of hard-line communists tried to seize control of the Soviet government. They put Gorbachev under house arrest (August 18). They told the Soviet people that Gorbachev's policies were weakening the Soviet Union. But the Soviet army, and crowds led by Boris Yeltsin (president of the Russian republic), refused to obey the new communist government. Without support, the plot failed and Gorbachev was set free.
The Federal Reserve Board cut interest rates in an effort to encourage economic growth and end a recession, which had started in 1989.
The leaders of three important Soviet republics (Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia) decided that their republics would secede from the U.S.S.R. (December 7). They decided to join together in a new union called the Commonwealth of Independent States. This new union is a confederation in which the republics are independent. There is no strong central government. The republics, however, have promised to cooperate with each other.
The Soviet Union came to an end. Gorbachev resigned. Meanwhile, the remaining republics of the former U.S.S.R. joined the new Commonwealth of Independent States.
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1991
January 12, 1991 - U.S. Congress passes a resolution authorizing the use of force to liberate Kuwait. Operation Desert Storm begins four days later with air strikes against Iraq. Iraq responds by sending eight Scud missiles into Israel.
February 27, 1991 - The Gulf War ends one day after Iraq withdraws its forces from Kuwait and sets the oil fields on fire. A cease fire is declared and Iraq accepts the condition of disarmament after one hundred hours of ground fighting. On April 3, the United Nations Security Council passes Resolution 687, calling for the destruction and removal of the entire Iraqi chemical and biological weapons stockpile, plus ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers. Iraq also agrees to withdraw its support of international terrorism.
October 3, 1991 - The governor of Arkansas, William Jefferson Clinton, announces his intention to seek the 1992 Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States.
July 29, 1991 - Bank of Credit and Commerce International is indicted in New York for the largest bank fraud in history.
November 27, 1991 - The United Nations Security Council unanimously votes to adopt Resolution 721, which would lead the way to establishing peacekeeping forces in Yugoslavia. Three months later, another resolution would approve a peacekeeping force be sent.
President Bush's popularity dropped mainly because his policies seemed unable to pull the American economy out of a recession.
Euro Disneyland (later renamed Disneyland Resort Paris) opened in April near Paris, France. Initially criticized by Europeans as being a crass American cultural import, Disneyland Resort Paris later became Europe's top commercial tourist destination, with 13.1 million visitors in 2002.
A civil war broke out in the former Yugoslavian republic of Bosnia. Bosnian Serbs began a policy of killing and torture (called "ethnic cleansing") to drive Bosnian Muslims out of Bosnia.
Democrats nominated Bill Clinton as their presidential candidate. He promised government programs, which would strengthen America's economy. He also promised, if elected, to propose a program that would guarantee health insurance to all Americans.
In "Operation Restore Hope," President Bush sent 25,000 U.S. troops into the African nation of Somalia to support U.N. efforts to distribute food to starving Somalis. These efforts were being threatened by clashing armed groups who stole the food before it could get to the Somali people.
The vote count in the presidential election was: B. Clinton (Dem) 43,682,624 p.v./370 e.v. G. Bush (Rep) 38,117,331 p.v./168 e.v. R. Perot (Ind) 19,217,213 p.v./ 0 e.v.
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1992
January 26, 1992 - The renewed nation of Russia, part of the Soviet Union dissolved on December 26, 1991, and their leader Boris Yeltsin announce that they will stop targeting the cities of the United States with nuclear weapons. (Photo bottom of page) President Bill Clinton & Russian President Boris Yeltsin at the FDR Library in Hyde Park, New York, 10/23/1995. Photo: White House Photographic Office.
February 24, 1992 - The Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve is established through legislation signed by President George H.W. Bush. The park in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands is the only location under the jurisdiction of the United States where the men of Christopher Columbus are known to have been.
May 7, 1992 - The 27th Amendment to the Constitution is passed two hundred and two years after its initial proposal. It bars the United States Congress from giving itself a midterm or retroactive pay raise. This amendment had been originally proposed by James Madison in 1789, as part of twelve amendments, of which ten would become the original Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791.
August 21, 1992 - The Siege of Ruby Ridge is begun by United States Marshals, lasting ten days. The incident would end with the acquittal of all but one minor charge against the Weaver family and lead to admonishment of the handling of the incident by Federal authorities.
November 3, 1992 - In a three way race for the presidency of the United States, Democratic candidate Bill Clinton defeats incumbent President George H.W. Bush and businessman H. Ross Perot of the Reform Party. Many trace the loss of President Bush to his reneging a pledge for "no new taxes." Clinton received only 43% of the popular vote, but 370 Electoral votes to Bush with 37.4% and 168 Electoral College votes. Perot garnered 18.9% of the popular vote, but no Electoral College delegates.
