Explosion On North Sea Oil Rig

On this day in 1988, an explosion rips through an oil rig in the North Sea, killing 167 workers. It was the worst offshore oil-rig disaster in history. The Piper Alpha rig, which was the largest in the North Sea, was owned by Occidental Oil and had approximately 225 workers onboard at the time of […]

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U.S. Warship Downs Iranian Passenger Jet

In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft. Two missiles were fired from the American warship–the aircraft was hit, and all 290 people aboard were killed. The attack came near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when U.S. vessels […]

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Tyson Knocks Out Spinks

On June 27, 1988, heavyweight champion Mike Tyson knocks out challenger Michael Spinks 91 seconds into the first round. The decisive victory left the boxing world wondering if anyone could beat “Iron Mike” Tyson. Mike Tyson was born on June 30, 1966, in Brooklyn, New York. He had a troubled childhood in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood, […]

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Reagan-Gorbachev Summit In Moscow Ends

President Ronald Reagan ends his first trip to Moscow, and his fourth summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on notes of both frustration and triumph. Although there were no breakthroughs or agreements on substantive issues, the “Great Communicator,” as Reagan was known in the United States, was a hit with Soviet audiences. The May […]

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Reagan Arrives In Moscow For Summit TalksReagan Arrives In Moscow For Summit Talks

President Ronald Reagan travels to Moscow to begin the fourth summit meeting held in the past three years with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Though the summit produced no major announcements or breakthroughs, it served to illuminate both the successes and the failures achieved by the two men in terms of U.S.-Soviet relations. In May 1988, […]

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Gorbachev Consolidates Power

In an attempt to consolidate his own power and ease political and ethnic tensions in the Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev dismisses the Communist Party leaders in those two republics. Since coming to power in 1985, Gorbachev had faced numerous problems with his efforts to bring about domestic reform in […]

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Soviets Begin Withdrawal From Afghanistan

More than eight years after they intervened in Afghanistan to support the procommunist government, Soviet troops begin their withdrawal. The event marked the beginning of the end to a long, bloody, and fruitless Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In December 1979, Soviet troops first entered Afghanistan in an attempt to bolster the communist, pro-Soviet government threatened […]

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