In the year 1986
Anthropology
At Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Tim White [b. August 24, 1950] and Donald Johanson locate 302 pieces of a female Homo habilis 1,800,000 years old, now known as OH62. It is the first time that bones from the limbs of H. habilis have been found. OH62 was short, only about 1 m (3 ft) tall, giving her the nickname "dik-dik hominid" (the dik-dik is a tiny African antelope); her body was more apelike than had been expected. See also 1960 Anthropology.
Archaeology
A fisherman wading in the Acula River near Veracruz, Mexico, discovers a stone stele in the riverbed. When raised, the stele is discovered to be covered with a previously unknown form of writing, dating from the first century ce. The writing is similar to glyphs used by the Maya and other Central American groups.
Brickyard workers digging clay in Sanxingdui, Sichuan, China, uncover two pits from about 1000 bce in which bronze, jade, and gold masks and other objects were left as sacrifices.
Harold L. Dibble invents a system based on the electronic theodolite, a surveying device that records the exact three-dimensional position of artifacts as they are found in a "dig." Combined with a computer, entire levels can be shown or graphed, saving archaeologists hours of drudgery.
Astronomy
A team of seven astronomers called the Seven Samurai, which includes Alan Dressler and Sandra M. Faber, discover that our galaxy, the galaxies of the local group, and other components of the local supercluster of galaxies move toward a point in the direction of the Southern Cross, called the Great Attractor. The name is coined by Dressler during a news conference to announce the discovery. See also 1981 Astronomy.
The U.S. space probe Voyager 2 passes within 82,000 km (51,000 mi) of the planet Uranus. It passes the planet and its moons at a speed of more than 51,000 km (32,000 mi) per hour, taking pictures and measurements that are radioed to Earth. Ten more satellites of Uranus are discovered, as well as much new basic information about the system. See also 1981 Astronomy.
Biology
Arthur Ashkin [b. September 2, 1922] and his colleagues trap individual living bacteria and particles of DNA using refraction and the radiation pressure of a laser, allowing new methods for observing them and manipulating them. See also 1985 Physics.
On May 29 Agracetus, a biotechnology company in Wisconsin, conducts the first field trials of genetically engineered organisms, genetically altered tobacco. See also 1973 Biology.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture grants the Biologics Corporation of Omaha, Nebraska, the world's first license to market a living organism produced by genetic engineering, a virus used as a vaccine to prevent a herpes disease in swine. See also 1973 Biology.
Richard Morris, Gary Lynch, Michel Baudry, and coworkers show that by blocking NMDA (N-methyl-D-asparate) receptors in the brain they can interfere with learning in rats. NMDA receptors, when stimulated by an electrical charge and the neurotransmitter glutamate, cause calcium ions to enter nerve cells. See also 1999 Biology.
Rita Levi-Montalcini [b. Turin, Italy, April 22, 1909] of Italy and Stanley Cohen of the United States win the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their studies of the mechanisms of cell and organ growth. See also 1973 Biology.
Chemistry
Americans Dudley R. Herschbach and Yuan T. Lee, inventors of the crossed-beam molecular technique, and Canadian John C. Polanyi, inventor of chemiluminescence as a way of studying chemical reactions and bonds, win the Nobel Prize for chemistry. See also 1972 Chemistry; 1967 Chemistry.
Communication
On February 21 France launches SPOT, a satellite designed to photograph surface details of Earth as small as 9 m (30 ft) across. See also 1972 Earth science.
In Europe, FM radio stations begin to utilize the radio data system (RDS) to transmit digital data via the subcarrier signal of FM. RDS can be used to transmit messages that appear on a small display screen attached to suitably equipped radios or for other purposes. See also 1992 Communication.
The first DAT (digital audio tape) recorders are demonstrated in Japan. See also 1982 Communication.
Terrence J. Sejnowski at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore develops a neural network computer that can learn to read a text out loud without knowing any pronunciation rules. See also 1980 Communication.
Computers
Compaq leaps past IBM by introducing the DeskPro, a computer using an advanced 32-bit microprocessor, the Intel 80386. DeskPro can run software three times faster than the fastest 16-bit computers, such as the IBM and its clones. See also 1985 Computers.
David Miller [b. Hamilton, Scotland, February 19, 1954] develops a tiny optical switch that later becomes the basis of the first optical computer. See also 1990 Electronics.
Construction
The Annacis Bridge in Canada is completed using the cable-stayed design, a method involving a deck supported by cables strung from isolated towers (as opposed to a suspension bridge in which the cables are from strung from another cable between towers); at 465 m (1525 ft), its main span is the longest to date for the cable-stayed design. See also 1991 Construction.
Earth science
In August oceanographers discover a vast plume of hot water rising off the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the Pacific; the plume is thought to have been caused by a vent in the ocean's floor where two tectonic plates are moving apart. See also 1965 Earth science; 1990 Earth science.
Lake Nyos in Cameroon emits a gas that kills about 1750 people and much of the livestock around the lake. Later, investigators decide that the gas was largely carbon dioxide released in an underwater eruption of the volcano that formed the lake, or possibly caused by turnover of the lake waters. See also 1984 Earth science.
A miner in the La Toca amber mine in the Dominican Republic finds a complete frog, 35,000,000 to 40,000,000 years old, preserved as a fossil in amber.
Ecology & the environment
Chernobyl nuclear reactor number 4, near Kiev, U.S.S.R., explodes at 1:23 a.m. local time on April 26, leading to a catastrophic release of radioactivity that kills 31 people within a few weeks and forces the mass evacuation of all families within 30 km (18.6 mi) for an indefinite period. Later studies will show a higher death rate from thyroid cancer in the region as well. See also 1957 Ecology & the environment.
A worldwide ban on whaling, with limited exceptions for traditional societies, begins by international agreement. See also 1977 Ecology & the environment.
All the known black-footed ferrets in the wild are captured and put into a captive breeding program after canine distemper kills most of the known population. See also 1981 Ecology & the environment.
The U.S. government sets lower standards for the permissible amount of lead in air and bans the use of solder containing lead. See also 1984 Ecology & the environment; 1991 Ecology & the environment.
Energy
The experimental laser fusion device Nova at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) creates the first fusion reaction induced by a laser. Ten laser beams that deliver total energy of 100 trillion watts during one-billionth of a second converge on a hydrogen-filled glass sphere. A small number of hydrogen nuclei fuse into helium nuclei. See also 1952 Tools; 2003 Energy.
The giant Guri Dam (a.k.a. Raul Leoni Dam) is built in Venezuela to supply 100,000 megawatts of power to that country -- the world's largest hydroelectric power source of its time. See also 1895 Energy.
Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States uses a two-well system to produce geothermal power; the 4-km (2.5-mi) wells are connected at the bottom. Water inserted in one well emerges at a temperature of 190°C (375°F) from the other. The plant produces 4 megawatts of electricity. See also 1903 Energy.
Mathematics
Ramachandran Balasubramanian, Jean-Marc Deshouillers, and François Dress show that every natural number is the sum of at most 19 fourth powers, a conjecture first put forth by Edward Waring in 1770. Waring also thought every natural number is the sum of at most nine cubes, which remains unproven. See also 1770 Mathematics.
Medicine & health
A team from MIT led by Robert A. Weinberg announces on October 16 the discovery of a gene that can suppress the cancer retinoblastoma. It is the first gene known to inhibit tumor growth.
Louis Kunkel [b. New York, October 13, 1949] and coworkers discover the gene that is defective in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a common, fatal form of the disease. See also 1983 Medicine & health; 1988 Medicine & health.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July approves a hepatitis B vaccine made by yeast (Chiron's Recombivax HB), the first vaccine to be approved for humans that is produced by genetic engineering. See also 1981 Medicine & health.
In Europe the first stent is implanted in a coronary artery. The stent is a coil that is used to keep the artery from narrowing again after angioplasty.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves OKT3, the first monoclonal antibody to be approved for therapeutic use in humans; it aids in organ transplants. See also 1975 Medicine & health.
Tony Hodges patents a split computer keyboard (the two halves can be adjusted to different angles of attack for each hand) to prevent such repetitive stress injuries as carpal tunnel syndrome. See also 1993 Medicine & health.
Physics
K. Alex Müller [b. Basle, Switzerland, April 20, 1927] and J. Georg Bednorz [b. Neuenkirchen (Germany), May 16, 1950] discover an oxide combination that is superconducting at 30 K (30°C, or 54°F, above absolute zero), the highest known temperature for superconductivity. It is a breakthrough that leads to other materials that are superconducting at much higher temperatures. See also 1911 Physics; 1987 Physics. (See essay.)
Steven Chu [b. St. Louis, Missouri, February 28, 1948], John Bjorkholm, Alex Cable, and Arthur Ashkin trap individual atoms using the radiation pressure of a laser, creating optical tweezers. Particles are kept in place because they move toward a region of maximum laser intensity. See also 1997 Physics.
Gerd Binning and Heinrich Rohrer of IBM win a Nobel Prize in physics for their 1981 invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), a device used to image surfaces closely, even in terms of individual molecules or atoms. See also 1981 Tools.
Transportation
The space shuttle Columbia begins a mission on January 12. The crew includes Charles Bolden, Jr., Robert Cenker, Franklin Chang-Diaz, Robert Gibson, Steven Hawley, George Nelson, and Bill Nelson, the first U.S. congressman in space.
The last mission of the U.S. Challenger begins and ends after 73 seconds on January 28. Seals called O-rings in the solid-fuel boosters wear through, causing the entire fuel supply to explode. The blast kills elementary school teacher Christa McAuliffe and astronauts Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, and Gregory Jarvis. See also 1985 Transportation.
The Soviet space station Mir (Peace), a more modern version of the Salyut 7, is launched without a crew by the Soviet Union (Russia) on February 20. Vladimir Solovyev and Leonid Kizim are launched on the Soyuz T 15 mission on May 5. They become the first cosmonauts to board the Mir space station. Mir becomes the first space station to remain in regular use with human crews aboard for any length of time. See also 1987 Transportation.
A bicycle designed by Gardner Martin and powered by Fred Markham sets on May 11 the human-powered land speed record of 105.37 km (65.48 mi) per hour.
The European A320 Airbus is the first commercial aircraft to use a "fly-by-wire" system. As part of the electronic control system (which replaces hydraulic controls), a computer makes some of the decisions for the pilot.
Richard G. (Dick) Rutan [b. Loma Linda, California, July 1, 1938] and Jeana Yeager [b. Fort Worth, Texas, May 18, 1952] pilot the lightweight airplane Voyager, entirely built of composites and designed by Elbert L. (Burt) Rutan [b. Dinuba, California, June 17, 1943], around the world without refueling in a nine-day trip that starts on December 14. See also 1990 Transportation.
American Literature
1986
Drama and Theater
A. R. Gurney Jr.: The Perfect Party. This witty farce concerns a middle-aged college professor's futile efforts to host the perfect party. Critics see a parable about the theater itself, which tries to force a degree of spontaneity out of an artificial setting and is subject to the same kind of carping that the poor professor invites.
Emily Mann: Execution of Justice. Mann's most ambitious drama deals with the trial of Dan White for the 1978 murder of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and gay city supervisor Harvey Milk. It portrays the uproar among San Francisco's gay community when White was sentenced to less than eight years in prison.
Richard Nelson (b. 1950): Principia Scriptoriae. Nelson's award-winning play concerns two young intellectuals who meet while imprisoned in a Latin American jail for distributing subversive literature. It features Nelson's characteristic concern with writers torn between personal beliefs and professional obligations. The Chicago-born playwright has been described as America's most prolific dramatist during the 1980s. His other works include Vienna Notes (1978), Rip Van Winkle or "The Works" (1981), Between East and West (1984), and Americans Abroad (1989).
Neil Simon: Broadway Bound. The last play in Simon's trilogy, preceded by Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues, concerns aspiring writer Eugene Jerome, who is now on the verge of fulfilling his ambition by writing for the radio--but his life is complicated by family and personal troubles. Simon's adept character development makes his hero's ambitions arise naturally from the fully depicted social context of the post-World War II years.
August Wilson: Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Set in a turn-of-the-century black boardinghouse in Pittsburgh, the play is one of a series that explores African American life decade by decade. In it Herald Loomis turns up, claiming he has escaped from forced labor, only to find that his wife is now a religious fanatic. The plot is less important than Wilson's provocative effort to render the feel of African American life and the conflicts, neuroses, and confused quests engendered in a world marked by paranoia.
Robert M. Wilson: the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down. Wilson's multimedia stage epic is described by reviewer John Rockwell as "a sequence of dreamy stage-pictures without overt plot but interweaving a variety of world myths and historical personages." It is the unanimous choice of the Pulitzer Prize drama jury, but their decision is overturned by the Pulitzer board because of reluctance to give the award to a work so few had seen.
Fiction
Kathy Acker (1948-1997): Don Quixote. Controversial because of her "plagiarism," Acker, who has been described as a "punk novelist," deliberately borrows from Cervantes, destabilizing his text by overlaying it with surrealism. Acker counters that "plagiarism became a strategy of originality." She also dismisses charges of pornography leveled by feminist critics: only by glorifying the taboo, Acker claims, can one create a "new myth" for empowering women. The writer's other books include I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac (1974), Great Expectations (1982), Blood and Guts in High School (1984), and Pussy, King of the Pirates (1996).
Paul Auster: Ghosts. The second novel in Auster's New York trilogy is another takeoff on the detective novel genre. Blue, a detective, is hired by White to follow Black. All three allegorical characters merge, as Blue spends years watching Black writing a book in a room across the street. Why? The answer is never clear, though critics suggest that Auster's theme is precisely the unresolved nature of reality, which detective stories usually resolve with a closed plot and simplified characters.
Donald Barthelme: Paradise. Barthelme's novel shows a middle-aged architect living out a male fantasy with three lingerie models. According to one reviewer, "It is a disturbing book because it is a fantasy of freedom in a world where there is no freedom."
Pat Conroy (b. 1945): The Prince of Tides. Conroy achieves his greatest success with this saga of the dysfunctional Wingo family of South Carolina. Conroy would write the screenplay for the popular 1991 film version. His previous novels include The Water Is Wide (1972), The Lords of Discipline (1980), and Beach Music (1995).
Robert Coover: Gerald's Party. Coover's surrealistic novel treats a fashionable party during which a celebrated actress is found murdered. One reviewer discerns a social satire "exposing the crude sensationalism which underlies the guests' cultural pretensions" and "the moral insensibility which binds them to all but pleasure."
Andre Dubus: The Last Worthless Enemy. The collection draws its central theme from the conflict between religious belief and desire. Notable stories include "Land Where My Fathers Died," "Deaths at Sea," and "Rose." His Selected Stories would appear in 1988.
Stanley Elkin: Stanley Elkin's The Magic Kingdom. Elkin's darkly humorous novel explores human perseverance in the face of an absurd universe. Eddy Bale, having lost his own son to a terminal illness, takes a group of dying children to Disney World.
Louise Erdrich: The Beet Queen. This novel is about a family who live in Argus, North Dakota, near an Indian reservation. Karl fathers a mixed-blood child named Dot, the beet queen of the title. She later marries Gerry Nanapush, making the worlds of the town and the reservation converge and confront each other. This novel is part of a tetralogy focusing on life near the same reservation.
Richard Ford (b. 1944): The Sportswriter. The book concerns Frank Bascombe, a man who has not been able to fulfill his dreams as a writer and is devastated by his young son's death. It wins the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Critics note Ford's grasp of the lives of ordinary people, making their unremarkable trials the stuff of intensely imaginative prose. Rock Springs, a story collection, would follow in 1987, and a sequel to The Sportswriter, Independence Day, would appear in 1995. Born in Mississippi, Ford was educated at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan.
Larry Heinemann (b. 1944): Paco's Story. Heinemann's novel about a wounded soldier's return home from Vietnam wins the National Book Award and confirms the writer's reputation, according to Duncan Spencer, as "the grunt's novelist of the Vietnam War." Heinemann was an infantry sergeant in Vietnam.
Ernest Hemingway: The Garden of Eden. At his death Hemingway left more than three thousand pages of manuscript, including novels he was still working on. This posthumous publication is autobiographical and concerns an author's first two marriages. The work is noteworthy for its exploration of the nature of sex and male-female relationships, demonstrating a less macho side of the author.
Ernest HemingwayTama Janowitz (b. 1957) Slaves of New York. Janowitz loosely weaves together episodes from the quirky but rather mundane lives of Manhattanites living on the fringes of the art scene. Her apparently affectless prose style keeps the stories going despite the lethargy and randomness of her subjects' lives. The work would inspire a 1989 film in which Janowitz also appeared. A Cannibal in Manhattan (1987), The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group (1992), and By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee (1996) would follow.
David Leavitt (b. 1961): The Lost Language of Cranes. Leavitt's novel concerns a father who has concealed his homosexuality for twenty-seven years, his uncomprehending wife, and their gay son. Leavitt's abiding theme is the repercussions of gay identity for family and society. His sensitive but also provocative handling of this theme has attracted considerable critical controversy and respect. The Pittsburgh-born writer's first book, Family Dancing (1984), treats various domestic conflicts.
Sue Miller (b. 1943): The Good Mother. Miller's debut novel concerns a divorced mother's attempt to retain custody of her daughter in the face of charges that she had negligently permitted her lover to have an "improper" relationship with the child. Much of the book is taken up with a courtroom battle, which Miller renders "dramatic and convincing," according to reviewer Robert Wilson. After spending six months atop the bestseller list, the novel would be made into a film in 1988.
Susan Minot (b. 1956): Monkeys. Minot's highly praised first novel depicts the siblings of the Vincent family of suburban Boston. They are forced to cope with their father's alcoholism and their mother's death. The book prompts Anne Tyler to proclaim Minot as "one of the youngest and most impressive new arrivals on the literary scene." Lust and Other Stories would follow in 1989, and her second novel, Folly, about an upper-class Boston family between the two world wars, would be published in 1992.
Reynolds Price: Kate Vaiden. Kate's life is marred by her father's murder of her mother and his suicide when she is only eleven. She cannot break free from her past, though her efforts to confront it are remarkable, and Price eloquently evokes her memories.
Ishmael Reed: Reckless Eyeballing. With his typical shotgun satire, Reed sprays many targets--especially New York women and Jews--for dominating the political and culture discourse of the 1980s. Reed's protagonist, Ian Ball, a struggling playwright, shamelessly fawns on the feminists to get his work produced. The book is attacked as anti-Semitic and misogynist by some critics, while others claims that Reed retains his preeminent position as an African American satirist whose target this time is the cultural establishment.
Philip Roth: The Counterlife. This novel continues the story of Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's alter ego. Part of the novel is set in Israel and includes vibrant political discussions; another part shifts to London, where Nathan is married to an English woman and confronts anti-Semitism. Critics consider it one of Roth's most intellectually alive and masterfully written novels.
Norman Rush (b. 1933): Whites. Rush receives high praise and a Pulitzer Prize nomination for this story collection, described by reviewer George Packer as exploring the "moral and spiritual quandaries of middle-class foreigners who happen to be stuck out in Botswana." Their experiences are based on the author's as codirector of the Peace Corps in Botswana.
Mary Lee Settle: Celebration. Settle authentically evokes widely different settings and characters--in this case, London, Kurdistan, Hong Kong, and Africa. Three characters face crises--the death of a husband and cancer surgery, a disastrous love affair, the betrayal and murder of innocent people--against a backdrop of the first moon landing in 1969.
Mona Simpson (b. 1957): Anywhere But Here. Simpson's acclaimed first novel treats a mother's attempt to make her daughter into a child star in Hollywood. The book is praised by Laura Shapiro in Newsweek as a "big, complex and masterfully written... achievement," which establishes Simpson as one of America's "best young novelists." The Lost Father (1991) is a sequel. Born in Wisconsin, Simpson was educated at the University of California at Berkeley and received an MFA from Columbia.
Art Spiegelman (b. 1948): Maus: A Survivor's Tale--My Father Bleeds History. The first volume of Spiegelman's illustrated Holocaust tale substitutes mice and cats for the Jews and the Nazis. Derived from his family history and described as "a meditation on my awareness of myself as a Jew," Spiegelman's acclaimed "comic book" would be continued in Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here the Troubles Begin (1991), a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award that also prompts a special Pulitzer Prize for the series. Born in Sweden, where his parents lived after their release from Nazi concentration camps, Spiegelman created the underground comic anthology Raw.
Robert Stone: Children of Light. A screenwriter's wife deserts him and, looking for a way to recapture his youth, he becomes involved with an actress who is also attempting to regain her bearings after marital troubles. Critics admire Stone's penetrating portrayal of characters who attempt to recapture the spirit of the 1960s only to be corrupted by crass commercialism and careerism.
Peter Taylor: A Summons to Memphis. Taylor's novel is a Southern family drama in which a widower's decision to remarry at the age of eighty-one prompts his son to review the past, particularly the family's move from Nashville to Memphis in 1931. The book wins the Pulitzer Prize.
John Updike: Roger's Version. In this ingenious rewriting of The Scarlet Letter, theology professor Roger Lambert is Updike's version of Roger Chillingworth. Lambert suspects his wife of committing adultery but manages eventually to recover some of his compassion and spirituality, reflecting Updike's faith in human redemption and his mitigation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's dark vision.
David Foster Wallace (b. 1962): The Broom of the System. Wallace's debut novel, a quest told from multiple perspectives and through many subplots, provokes some critics to compare the work favorably with the novels of Thomas Pynchon and John Barth; others find it self-indulgent and derivative. Wallace would follow it with a story collection, Girl with Curious Hair (1989). Born in Ithaca, New York, Wallace attended Amherst College and the University of Arizona.
James Welch: Fool's Crow. Welch portrays the clash between indigenous Americans and white settlers in the Two Medicine territory of Montana in the 1870s. The book draws on both historical documentation and the author's own family stories in what historian Dee Brown has said is perhaps "the closest we will ever come in western literature to understanding what life is like for a western Indian."
Richard Wiley (b. 1944): Soldiers in Hiding. Wiley's PEN/Faulkner Award-winning first novel focuses on the dilemma of a young Japanese American trumpet player who is in Japan at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack and is subsequently forced to fight with the Japanese army. One reviewer describes the protagonist as "a remarkably apt symbol for the dislocation of World War II." The California-born writer had served in the Peace Corps in Korea and had been a language teacher in Japan. His subsequent novels would include Fools' Gold (1988), Festival for Three Thousand Maidens (1991), Indigo (1992), and Ahmed's Revenge (1998).
Sherley Anne Williams: Dessa Rose. In what has been described as a "neo-slave narrative," Williams explores the relationship between a slave and the white plantation mistress who harbors her. Williams is also author of the critical volume Give Birth to Brightness (1972) and the poetry collections The Peacock Poems (1975) and Some One Sweet Angel Chile (1982).
Richard Yates: Cold Spring Harbor. Considered by critics as one of the finest contemporary writers on suburban America, Yates sets this novel in the period just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although his male protagonist's problems--a failing marriage, a divorce, alcoholism--make this work seem morbid, it is also praised for Yates's impressive integration of character and environment in a compelling narrative.
Literary Criticism and Scholarship
Ralph Ellison: Going to the Territory. Ellison's second collection of essays, reviews, speeches, and interviews treats figures such as Erskine Caldwell, Richard Wright, and Duke Ellington while considering the question of American democracy and identity. His Collected Essays would be issued in 1995.
Marianne Moore: The Complete Prose. This is a collection of four hundred essays, reviews, and short stories written between 1907 and 1968. Many deal with Moore's reflections on the art and craft of poetry.
Arnold Rampersad (b. 1941): The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume 1: 1902-1941: I, Too, Sing America. This biography by the distinguished professor and literary critic, covering Hughes's childhood through the Harlem Renaissance, wins virtually universal praise. Reviewer David Nicholson calls it "the best biography of a black writer we have had." The second volume, Dream a World, would appear in 1988.
Nonfiction
Renata Adler: Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS, et al.; Sharon v. Time. Adler examines the issues and the courtroom maneuvering in two famous 1984-1985 libel cases. Adler concludes that in both cases the press acted irresponsibly.
Paula Gunn Allen: The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Allen contends that there is no contradiction between being an American, a Native American, and a woman. A poet and novelist as well, with a Ph.D. in Native American studies, Allen is one of the most important scholars of Native American literature and history.
Maya Angelou: All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes. The fifth installment of Angelou's memoirs describes her four-year residence in Ghana during the 1960s and African Americans' search for their African roots.
Bernard Bailyn: Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America at the Eve of the Revolution. Bailyn wins his second Pulitzer Prize for this account of immigration to America, based on records kept by customs officials in England and Scotland from 1773 to 1776.
John W. Dower (b. 1938): War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. Dower, a professor of history and Japanese studies at the University of California at San Diego, wins the National Book Critics Circle Award for this exploration of racism in the Pacific theater of World War II and the ways in which both the Americans and the Japanese promoted demeaning ethnic stereotypes of each other.
Barry Holstun Lopez (b. 1945): Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape. This is both a travel book and work of natural history in which natural phenomena symbolize larger philosophical concepts. Based on fifteen extended trips to the Canadian Yukon over the course of five years, the work wins a National Book Award. The natural history writer's other books include Winter Count (1981), Field Notes (1994), and About This Life (1998).
Richard Rhodes (b. 1937): The Making of the Atom Bomb. Journalist Rhodes had devoted five years of research to this detailed account of the Manhattan Project, which wins the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb would follow in 1995.
David K. Shipler (b. 1942): Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land. Shipler, a New York Times correspondent and chief of the Jerusalem bureau from 1979 to 1984, is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his account (to be updated and revised in 2002) of everyday life of ordinary people on both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Gloria Steinem: Marilyn. Written to accompany George Barris's photographs, Steinem supplies a biographical portrait of Marilyn Monroe in a feminist and archetypal context.
Poetry
Turner Cassity: Hurricane Lamp. This collection concerns travel, newspapers, books, and unusual items such as bar guides and annual reports. Turner's ingenuity is evident in the way he makes poetry out of material such as stock market reports. His major contribution to contemporary poetry is his insistence that no subject matter--if intensely and imaginatively explored--is unfit for poetry.
Rita Dove: Thomas and Beulah. Composed of two sequences of poems in a novel-like structure, this book shifts between male and female viewpoints--those of a husband and wife based partly on the poet's grandparents. One of the main themes is how this couple shapes their private lives. This sensitive epic of family life, with its intimacies and solitude, established Dove's reputation and won her the Pulitzer Prize.
Brad Leithauser: Cats of the Temple. Leithauser's second collection is nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and prompts critic John Gross to declare Leithauser "one of the most gifted American poets to have come over the horizon in years." He would be recognized as one of the leading exponents of the so-called New Formalists. Subsequent collections are The Mail from Anywhere (1990) and The Odd Last Thing She Did (1998).
Publications and Events
Brad LeithauserPoet laureate of the United States. Robert Penn Warren is named the first official poet laureate of the United States.
Wikipedia
1986
Years : 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
Centuries: 19th century · 20th century · 21st century
Decades: 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s
Years: 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
1986 by topic:
Arts
Architecture - Art - Film - Literature - Music - Television
Science and technology
Archaeology - Aviation - Meteorology - Rail transport - Radio - Science
By country
Australia - Canada - India - Ireland - Malaysia - Mexico - South Africa - United Kingdom - Wales
Other topics
Awards - Sport - Law - State leaders - Religious leaders
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Birth and death categories
Births - Deaths
Establishments and disestablishments categories
Establishments - Disestablishments
1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar.
Events
January
Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger.January 1 - Spain and Portugal enter the European Community, which later became the European Union.
January 1 - Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands and is separated from the Netherlands Antilles.
January 9 - After losing a patent battle with Polaroid, Kodak leaves the instant camera business.
January 12 - Space shuttle Columbia is launched with the first Hispanic-American astronaut, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz.
January 19 - The first PC virus, Brain, starts to spread.
January 20 - The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel.
January 20 - The first federal Martin Luther King Day, honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
January 24 - Voyager 2 space probe makes first encounter with Uranus
January 28 - Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates 73 seconds after launch, killing its crew of six astronauts and the schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
January 29 - Yoweri Kaguta Museveni became President of the Republic of Uganda after leading a successful five-year liberation struggle.
February
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Flees to Hawaii.February 7 - 28 years of one-family rule end in Haiti, when President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees the Caribbean nation.
February 9 - Mohinder Amarnath becomes the first batsman dismissed for handling the ball in one-day international cricket.
February 9 - Comet Halley reaches its perihelion, the closest point to the Earth, during its second visit to the solar system in the 20th century.
February 11 - Human Rights activist Anatoly Shcharansky is released by the USSR and leaves the country.
February 16 - The Soviet liner Mikhail Lermontov runs aground in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand
February 16 - With the Opération Coup de poing the French air force badly damages the Libyan airbase of Ouadi Doum in northern Chad.
February 19 - The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station
February 19 - After waiting 37 years, the United States Senate approves a treaty outlawing genocide
February 25 - EDSA Revolution: President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines goes into exile to USA after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the first Filipino woman president, first as in interim president.
February 25 - Egyptian military police, protesting bad salaries, enter four luxury hotels near the pyramids, set fire to them and loot them
February 27 - The United States Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis
February 28 - Swedish prime minister Olof Palme is shot dead on his way home from the cinema.
March
March 4 - Launch of the Today national tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom that pioneered the use of computer photosetting and full-colour offset printing at a time when British national newspapers were still using Linotype machines and letterpress.
March 8 - Japanese spacecraft Suisei flies by Halley's Comet, studying its UV hydrogen corona and solar wind.
March 9 - United States Navy divers find the largely intact but heavily-damaged crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The bodies of all seven astronauts were still inside.
March 27 - A car bomb explodes at Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, killing 1 police officer.
March 31 - A fire devastates Hampton Court Palace in Surrey, England.
March 31 - Judas Priest releases Turbo.
April
The Chernobyl reactor following the explosion.April 2 - A bomb explodes on a TWA flight from Rome to Athens - 4 dead
April 5 - In the terroristic La Belle discotheque bombing the West-Berlin discotheque, a known hangout for U.S. soldiers, was bombed, killing 3 and injuring 230 people. Libya is held responsible.
April 13 -- Pope John Paul II officially visits the Synagogue of Rome — the first time a modern Pope had visited a synagogue.
April 14 - 2.2 lb (1 kg) hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92.
April 15 - At least 15 people died after USA planes bombed targets in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and the Benghazi region as part of Operation El Dorado Canyon
April 17 - British journalist John McCarthy kidnapped in Beirut (released in August 1991) - three others are found dead, Revolutionary Cells claims responsibility in retaliation for the US bombing of Libya.
April 17 - Treaty signed, ending Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly.
April 17 - The Hindawi Affair begins when an Irishwoman is found unknowingly carrying explosives onto an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv.
April 26 - In Ukraine, one of the reactors at the Chornobyl (Chernobyl) nuclear plant explodes creating the world's worst nuclear disaster. 31 are killed directly by the incident, many more died from cancer in later years, many thousands more were exposed to significant amounts of radioactive material, vast territories in Ukraine and Belarus rendered uninhabitable.
April 27 - "Captain Midnight" interrupts HBO satellite feed
May
May 2 - The 1986 World Exposition in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada opens.
May 7 - Steaua Bucharest wins the European Champions Cup in Sevilla
May 25 - Hands Across America
May 26 - The European Community adopts the European flag.
May 31 - The Football World Cup 1986 is held in Mexico
June
June 4 - Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.
June 8 - Former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim is elected president of Austria.
June 9 - The Rogers Commission releases its report on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
June 29 - Argentina defeat West Germany 3-2 to win the Football World Cup 1986
July
July 5 - The Statue of Liberty is reopened to the public after an extensive refurbishing
July 23 - In London, Prince Andrew, Duke of York marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.
July 30 - Estate agent Suzy Lamplugh vanishes after a meeting in London
August
August 6 - A low pressure system moving from South Australia and redeveloping off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimetres of rain in a day on Sydney.
August 18 - Australian Democrats leader Don Chipp retires from federal parliament and is succeeded by Janine Haines, becoming the first woman to lead a political party in Australia.
August 19 - Picasso painting Weeping Woman is found in a locker at the Spencer Street Station in Melbourne, Australia. It had been stolen two weeks earlier.
August 20 - In Edmond, Oklahoma, United States Postal Service employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers before committing suicide.
August 21 - The Lake Nyos tragedy occurs, killing nearly 2000 people.
August 31 - The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov collides with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev in the Black Sea and sinks almost immediately, killing 398.
August 31 - An Aeroméxico Douglas DC-9 collides with a Piper PA-28 over Cerritos, California, killing 67 on both aircraft and 15 on the ground.
August 31 - Cargo ship Khian Sea departs from the docks of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, carrying 14,000 tons of toxic waste. It will wander the seas for the next 16 months trying to find a place to dump its cargo.
September
September 5 - Pan Am Flight 73 with 358 people on board is hijacked at Karachi International Airport by four armed men of the Abu Nidal organization which operated much in the same manner as Al Qaeda.
September 6 - In Istanbul, two Arab terrorists from Abu Nidal's terror organization kill 22 and wound six inside the Neve Shalom synagogue during Sabbath services.
September 7 - Desmond Tutu becomes the first black to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
September 21- Cheryl Keeton is found dead in her van on the Sunset Highway, inspiring the novel Dead By Sunset
September 27 - A tour bus carrying heavy metal band Metallica crashes in Sweden, killing their bassist, Cliff Burton.
October
October 1 - President Ronald Reagan signs the Goldwater-Nichols Act into law, making official the largest reorganization of the United States Department of Defense since the Air Force was made a separate branch of service in 1947.
October 9 - United States District Court Judge Harry E. Claiborne becomes the fifth federal official to be removed from office through impeachment. Michael Crawford, British actor/singer was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) by the Queen, as well as receiving his second Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for The Phantom of the Opera.
October 10 - An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter Scale strikes San Salvador, El Salvador, killing an estimated 1,500 people.
October 11 - Cold War: Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe (the talks break down in failure).
October 26 - Bus deregulation in the United Kingdom, except Greater London and Northern Ireland.
October 27 - The New York Mets win the Major League Baseball World Series, beating the Boston Red Sox in seven games.
October 28 - The centennial of the Statue of Liberty's dedication is celebrated in New York Harbor.
October 28 - Jeremy Bamber is found guilty of the murder of his parents, sister and twin nephews and is given five life sentences.
November
November 1 - Queensland, Australia: Joh Bjelke-Petersen wins his final election as Premier of Queensland with 38.6% of the vote. He resigns on December 1 1987 following revelations of his involvement corruption released in the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
November 3 - Iran-Contra Affair: The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been selling weapons to Iran in secret in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.
November 11 - Sperry Rand and Burroughs merge to form Unisys, becoming the second largest computer company
November 12 - Australian singer John Farnham releases the album "Whispering Jack", which becomes the highest selling album in Australia's history.
November 21 - Iran-Contra Affair: National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary start to shred documents implicating them in the sale of weapons to Iran and channeling the proceeds to help fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
November 25 - Iran-Contra Affair: US Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
November 26 - Iran-Contra Affair: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces that as of Monday, December 1 former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft will serve as members of the Special Review Board looking into the scandal (they became known as the Tower Commission). Reagan denies involvement in the scandal.
December
December 14 - Voyager, an experimental aircraft designed by Burt Rutan and piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, begins its flight around the world.
December 19 - Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov is permitted to return to Moscow after years of internal exile
December 23 - Voyager completes the first nonstop circumnavigation of the earth by air without refueling in 9 days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds
December 31 - A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.
Unknown dates
Atomic force microscope invented
The National park passport stamps program begins.
Births
January
January 17 - Chloe Rose Lattanzi, Australian actress and singer
January 24 - Mischa Barton, British-born American actress
January 24 - Ricky Ullman, Israeli-born actor
January 29 - Drew Tyler Bell, American actor
February
February 5 - Claudia Cruz, Dominican model and beauty queen
February 15 - Valeri Bojinov, Bulgarian footballer
February 19 - Maria Mena, Norwegian singer
February 21 - Charlotte Church, Welsh soprano
February 25 - Justin Berfield, American actor
March
March 9 - Brittany Snow, American actress
March 14 - Jamie Bell, British actor
March 16 - Ken Doane, American Professional wrestler
April
April 3 - Amanda Bynes, American actress and variety show host
April 8 - Erika Sawajiri, Japanese actress and model
April 10 - Vincent Kompany, Belgian soccer player
April 28 - Keri Sable, American pornographic actress
May
May 17 - Tahj Mowry, American actor
June
June 3 - Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player
June 11 - Shia LaBeouf, American actor
June 13 - Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, American actresses and entrepreneurs
June 25 - Aya Matsuura, Japanese singer
July
July 2 - Lindsay Lohan, American actress and singer
July 6 - Caroline Welz, Tallest woman in Germany and model
August
August 3 - Charlotte Casiraghi, heir to the Monaco throne
August 20 - Robert Clark, Canadian actor
September
September 3 - Shaun White, American professional snowboarder
September 12 - Emmy Rossum, American actress and singer
September 16 - Hasib Hussain, British suicide bomber (d. 2005)
September 18 - Keeley Hazell, British model
September 29 - Lisa Foiles, American actress and singer
October
October 9 - Laure Manaudou, French swimmer
October 21 - Natalee Holloway, missing woman
October 30 - Thomas Morgenstern, Austrian ski jumper
November
November 3 - Jasmine Trias, Filipino - American singer
November 5 - BoA, Korean singer
November 15 - Sania Mirza, Indian tennis player
December
December 8 - Amir Khan, British Boxer
Deaths
January
January 1 - Alfredo Binda, Italian cyclist (b. 1902)
January 4 - Phil Lynott, Lead singer and Bassist of Thin Lizzy (b. 1949)
January 7 - Juan Rulfo, Mexican writer (b. 1917)
January 8 - Pierre Fournier, French cellist (b. 1906)
January 10 - Jaroslav Seifert, Czech writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
January 14 - Donna Reed, American actress (b. 1921)
January 24 - L. Ron Hubbard, American writer and founder of Scientology (b. 1911)
January 24 - Gordon MacRae, American actor, singer (b. 1921)
January 24 - Vincente Minnelli, American director (b. 1903)
January 27 - Lilli Palmer, actress (b. 1914)
January 28 - Crew of Space Shuttle Challenger:
Greg Jarvis (b. 1944)
Christa McAuliffe (b. 1948)
Ronald McNair (b. 1950)
Ellison Onizuka (b. 1946)
Judith Resnik (b. 1949)
Francis R. Scobee (b. 1939)
Michael J. Smith (b. 1945)
February
February 1 - Alva Myrdal, Swedish politician, diplomat, and writer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1902)
February 6 - Frederick Coutts, the 8th General of The Salvation Army (b. 1899)
February 11 - Frank Herbert, American author (b. 1920)
February 24 - Tommy Douglas, Canadian politician and "Father of Medicare" in Canada (b. 1904)
February 27 - Jacques Plante, Canadian hockey player (b. 1929)
February 28 - Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden (b. 1927)
March
March 4 - Richard Manuel, Canadian musician (The Band) (b. 1943)
March 4 - Howard Greenfield, American songwriter (b. 1936)
March 6 - Georgia O'Keeffe, American artist (b. 1887)
March 10 - Ray Milland, Welsh actor (b. 1907)
March 23 - Moshe Feinstein, Orthodox Rabbi (b. 1895)
March 30 - James Cagney, American actor (b. 1899)
April
April 3 - Peter Pears, English tenor (b. 1910)
April 7 - Leonid Kantorovich, Russian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)
April 14 - Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist writer (b. 1908)
April 15 - Jean Genet, French writer (b. 1910)
April 22 - Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian of religions and writer (b. 1907)
April 23 - Otto Preminger, Austrian-born film director (b. 1906)
April 26 - Broderick Crawford, American actor (b. 1911)
April 26 - Dechko Uzunov, Bulgarian painter (b. 1899)
May
May 3 - Robert Alda, American-born actor (b. 1914)
May 4 - Henri Toivonen, Finnish rally car driver (b. 1956)
May 9 - Tenzing Norgay, Nepalese sherpa (b. 1914)
May 12 - Elisabeth Bergner, Austrian actress (b. 1897)
May 15 - Elio de Angelis, Italian race car driver (b. 1958)
May 15 - Theodore H. White, American writer (b. 1915)
May 23 - Sterling Hayden, American actor (b. 1916)
May 25 - Chester Bowles, American politician (b. 1901)
May 31 - James Rainwater, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1917)
June
June 13 - Benny Goodman, American jazz musician (b. 1909)
June 14 - Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (b. 1899)
June 16 - Maurice Duruflé, French composer (b. 1902)
June 17 - Kate Smith, American singer (b. 1907))
June 19 - Coluche, stage name of Michel Colucci, French comedian and humorist (b. 1944)
July
July 4 - Oscar Zariski, Russian mathematician (b. 1899)
July 6 - Jagjivan Ram, Indian politician (b. 1908)
July 8 - Hyman Rickover, American admiral (b. 1900)
July 8 - Skeeter Webb, baseball player (b. 1909)
July 14 - Raymond Loewy, French-born industrial designer (b. 1893)
July 15 - Billy Haughton, American harness driver and trainer (b. 1923)
July 24 - Fritz Albert Lipmann, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1899)
August
August 2 - Roy Cohn, American lawyer and anti-Communist (b. 1927)
August 20 - Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer, and playwright (b. 1923)
August 31 - Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland (b. 1900)
August 31 - Henry Moore, British sculptor (b. 1898)
September
September 4 - Hank Greenberg, baseball player (b. 1911)
September 25 - Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov, Russian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1896)
September 27 - Cliff Burton, American bassist (Metallica) (b. 1962)
October
October 5 - James H. Wilkinson, English mathematician (b. 1919)
October 9 - Michael Crawford, after opening in Phantom on October 9, 1986, was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) by the Queen, as well as receiving his second Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
October 16 - Arthur Grumiaux, Belgian violinist (b. 1921)
October 22 - Albert Szent-Györgyi, Hungarian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1893)
October 23 - Edward Adelbert Doisy, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1893)
October 25 - Forrest Tucker, American actor (b. 1919)
October 26 - Jackson Scholz, American runner (b. 1897)
October 28 - Ian Marter, British actor and writer (b. 1944)
October 31 - Robert S. Mulliken, American physicist and chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1896)
November
November 6 - Elisabeth Grümmer, Alsatian soprano (b. 1911)
November 8 - Artur London, Czech statesman (b. 1915)
November 8 - Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician (b. 1890)
November 18 - Gia Carangi, Supermodel (b. 1960)
November 21 - Dar Robinson, American film stuntman (b. 1947)
November 22 - Scatman Crothers, American actor, musician (b. 1910)
November 29 - Cary Grant, British actor (b. 1904)
December
December 2 - Desi Arnaz, Cuban born actor (b. 1917)
December 8 - Ben Dover, American actor (b. 1940)
December 28 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian film director (b. 1932)
December 29 - Harold Macmillan, British statesman (b. 1894)
Nobel prizes
Physics - Ernst Ruska, Gerd Binnig, Heinrich Rohrer
Chemistry - Dudley R Herschbach, Yuan T Lee, John C Polanyi
Physiology or Medicine - Stanley Cohen, Rita Levi-Montalcini
Literature - Wole Soyinka
Peace - Elie Wiesel
Economics - James Buchanan Jr
Templeton Prize
Rev. Dr. James McCord
Fiction
Events in the Video Games Shenmue and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City take place.