Agreeing to the bus hijackers' demands, the
Soviet government gave them $2 million and an
Aeroflot Ilyushin-76 cargo plane with a crew of eight to fly it. After the plane took off from
Mineralnyye Vody, the hijackers decided to fly to
Israel rather than
Pakistan or
Iraq, as they had intended. The plane landed at a military airstrip near
Ben Gurion Airport in
Lod, Israel, where the hijackers surrendered.
Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli
Minister of Defense, criticized the Soviet response to the hijacking, saying, "I must admit I can't understand how they could manage to leave the Soviet Union without the Soviet authorities doing anything to prevent it."[1]
STS-27:
Mission Control requested that the shuttle crew use Atlantis'robot arm to photograph the
heat shield under the shuttle's right wing. According to his own later account, when shuttle commander Robert L. Gibson saw the tile damage on the camera monitor, he thought, "We are going to die." Due to the classified nature of the mission, the crew was required to use an
encryption technique to send video of the damage to mission control, causing ground controllers to underestimate the severity of the damage and inform the crew that it was no worse than on previous flights.[17]
Riding his
motorcycle without a
helmet, American actor
Gary Busey had a near-fatal accident, sustaining a head injury that placed him in a coma for four weeks. He would regain consciousness on January 6, 1989, and would subsequently recover and resume his acting career.[34]
STS-27: The day before reentry, shuttle commander Gibson, still convinced that there was a strong possibility he and his crew would die the next day, told them to relax, saying, "No reason to die all tensed up."[17]
The
United States Secret Service and the Soviet Mission to the United Nations notified the
Trump Organization that
Mikhail and
Raisa Gorbachev would not visit
Trump Tower during their upcoming visit to New York City. Trump spokespeople cited scheduling and security issues as reasons for the cancellation, but senior Soviet officials said that the
Kremlin canceled the visit because of the problematic symbolism of the event.[44]
Speaking about the cancellation of the Gorbachevs' visit to Trump Tower,
Donald Trump commented, "Trump Tower represents something very beautiful but also very opulent, and I had always questioned whether or not they'd be able to do it, on a political basis."[44]
STS-27: Space Shuttle Atlantis and its crew returned safely to Earth, surviving the damage to the orbiter's heat shield and landing at
Edwards Air Force Base in
California at 3:36:11 p.m.
Pacific Standard Time.[5] During reentry, Gibson kept a close eye on a gauge that would indicate a developing problem, saying afterwards that this would have given him "at least 60 seconds to tell mission control what I thought of their analysis."[17] 707 of the shuttle's heat shield tiles proved to have been damaged; one tile near the shuttle's nose was completely lost, causing a metal antenna anchor plate underneath it to become partly melted during reentry.[6][17] Had the damage been in a different location, Atlantis would have been destroyed during its return to Earth, as
Space Shuttle Columbia would be after
sustaining similar damage in 2003.[17]
Veerendra (aka Veerinder Singh; born Subhash Dhadwai), 40, Indian film actor, writer, producer and director, was shot along with actress
Manpreet Kaur and cameraman
Pritam Singh Balla while filming a scene for the movie Jatt Te Zameen on location in
Talwandi Kalan,
Punjab, India. Veerendra died at the scene; the other two victims survived.[60][61]
In
South Africa,
anti-apartheid revolutionary
Nelson Mandela was transferred from the Constantiaberg Clinic, the second of two hospitals where he had been treated for
tuberculosis, to a house at
Victor Verster Prison, where he would serve the last 14 months of his imprisonment until his release on February 11, 1990.[65][66]
In his apartment on the
Upper West Side of
Manhattan, New York City, American visual artist
Chuck Close collapsed due to pain. He was able to present an award at the residence of the
Mayor of New York City that evening, but then went to the hospital, where he experienced a convulsion and became paralyzed. Due to a
blood clot damaging his
spinal cord, Close would continue to have limited mobility, but would develop a new artistic style in the process of learning to paint again.[73]
U.S. President Ronald Reagan gave his final press conference in the
East Room of the
White House before leaving office on January 20, 1989.[88][89] Reagan began the press conference by joking to reporters, "Got to stop meeting like this." He also expressed condolences to the Soviet Union over the Armenian earthquake. When asked whether he trusted Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan emphasized the need to "
trust but verify".[88]
A U.S. military
CH-47 Chinook helicopter participating in joint Honduran-U.S. maneuvers crashed near
La Ceiba,
Honduras, killing all five people aboard.[91]
Spationaut Chrétien and cosmonaut Volkov conducted a spacewalk from Mir, the first EVA in history involving a spacewalker (Chrétien) who was not a member of the Soviet or U.S. space program. They installed the Enchantillons and ERA experiments on the exterior of Mir; when ERA failed to deploy properly, Volkov kicked it, causing it to unfold.[83]
The Soviet Union declared this day a national day of mourning in the wake of Wednesday's earthquake in Armenia. General Secretary Gorbachev toured the damaged cities.[64]
Approximately 3000 people attended a peaceful rally in
Prague, Czechoslovakia, marking the 40th anniversary of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first rally in the city's third district in almost 20 years. The district would ban such rallies again at a meeting on December 22.[127]
The
trawlerArctic II was capsized by a large wave and sank about 55 miles (89 km) north of
Unimak Pass in
Alaska. All five crewmembers boarded a
life raft, but captain Stan Michna and crewman Gary Heeney were swept off the raft by another large wave and were lost. The three survivors were rescued by the
fishing vesselAmerican Beauty.[129]
An
Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane carrying rescue workers to
Leninakan, a city devastated by the Armenian earthquake, crashed into the side of a mountain, killing 77 people.[137][138]
At the Monday morning astronaut meeting in
Houston, Texas, STS-27 mission commander Robert L. Gibson amused the military astronauts present and disgusted the civilians by joking that, although he still could not reveal details of the shuttle's payload, "I can say Armenia was its first target! And we only had the weapon set on stun!"[6]
At 12:00 a.m. on the night of December 13, the
RTVE broadcast signal cut out, beginning the
1988 Spanish general strike, called by the
Workers' Commissions and
Unión General de Trabajadorestrade unions against the economic policies of the government of
Prime MinisterFelipe González. The strike brought Spain to a complete standstill for 24 hours, with 95% of the country's workers taking part. The strike would force the González government to withdraw its controversial "Plan de Empleo Juvenil" (Youth Employment Plan) and negotiate with the workers over their additional demands.[158][159][160]
A series of burglaries took place and a man was murdered during the early hours around the
M25 motorway in England, beginning the
M25 Three case, later to be considered a
miscarriage of justice.[171]
Edwina Currie resigned as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health.[29]
In
Virginia Beach, Virginia, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot, a student at
Atlantic Shores Christian School, shot and killed 41-year-old teacher Karen Farley and wounded 37-year-old teacher Sam Marino before his gun jammed and teacher Hutch Matteson tackled and disarmed him. Authorities discovered three
Molotov cocktails in Elliot's locker and
pipe bomb materials in his bookbag.[175][176] Elliot would be sentenced to life in prison in December 1989.[177]
In
Soweto, South Africa, Jerry Richardson, the coach of the
Mandela United Football Club (MUFC), stabbed and killed Koekie Zwane (real name Pricilla Mosoeu), girlfriend of a member of the football club. MUFC members may have assisted Richardson in the killing. The MUFC was a
vigilante group associated with
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, whom Richardson would later accuse of ordering him to kill Zwane on suspicion of her being an
informer.[199]
Former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos was released from St. Francis Medical Center in order to receive 24-hour medical care at his home.[110]
1988 Cannes and Nice attacks: At about 3:30 a.m., French far-right extremists carried out a
false flag bomb attack on an immigrant hostel in
Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, killing one person and injuring 12. Most of the hostel's guests were
Tunisians, but the sole fatality from the attack was George Iordachescu, a
Romanian exile. The bombers left behind leaflets bearing
Stars of David and claimed responsibility in the name of the so-called "Masada, Action and Defense Movement" to imply that Jewish terrorists were to blame.[209][210][211]
Trooper Johnny Montague Edrington of the
Kentucky State Police was shot and killed with his own handgun during a traffic stop on
Highway 80 west of
London, Kentucky. His body was found in a ditch. As of 2021[update] the suspects would not yet have been apprehended.[219]
Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over
Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player in one of the plane's luggage compartments, killing a total of 270 people (259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground).
Libya was suspected of involvement.[29][225][226][227] The victims of the bombing included:
In
Figueras, Spain, 84-year-old artist
Salvador Dalí was hospitalized after vomiting blood from an intestinal lesion. He would be released from the hospital on December 25.[250] Dalí would die of heart failure on January 23, 1989.[251]
The day after the death of Bernt Carlsson, the United Nations Commissioner for Namibia, in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing,[231][232][252][253] representatives of Angola, Cuba and South Africa signed the Tripartite Accord, granting independence to Namibia from South Africa and ending the direct involvement of foreign troops in the Angolan Civil War.
Afonso Van-Dunem of Angola,
Isidoro Malmierca Peoli of Cuba and
Pik Botha of South Africa signed the accords at the
headquarters of the United Nations in New York City.[254] Botha and other South African officials had been booked to fly to New York on Flight 103 but cancelled their bookings.[232]
At the Venustiano Carranza penitentiary in
Tepic, Mexico, prisoners denied
Christmas parole began a violent uprising, taking employees and visiting relatives hostage. About 10 inmates tried to storm the office of prison warden Samuel Alvarado, killing him in a shootout.[255]
Salvadoran Civil War: Leftist rebels set off four
car bombs near the
San Salvador headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
Defense Ministry; they also launched bombs over the walls of the compound by
catapult. Three civilians were killed in the attack and 38 people were wounded.[267]
The prison uprising in Tepic, Mexico, ended with at least 22 people dead. Commandos stormed the prison twice; during the first raid, Jorge Armando Duarte, the leader of a commando team, tried to talk the prisoners into surrendering and was shot and killed in response. The second raid successfully quelled the uprising.[255]
Nanjing anti-African protests: At
Hohai University in
Nanjing, China, two African students attending a
Christmas Eve university dance refused to register the names of the Chinese women accompanying them. The ensuing dispute became an overnight melee in which 13 people were injured.[273][274] For seven hours, Chinese students threw rocks and bottles at dormitories occupied by African students.[274] The event marked the beginning of anti-African protests that would last into
January and were a precursor of later pro-democracy protests in China.[275]
PLO leaders met at Yasser Arafat's home outside
Baghdad,
Iraq, to discuss forming a government for a Palestinian state.[276]
Queen
Elizabeth II broke precedent by broadcasting a second
Christmas message to comfort those suffering after the Armenian earthquake, the Clapham Junction rail crash and the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.[277][278]
27-year-old Susan Dzialowy died after reentering her burning apartment on the
Southwest Side of
Chicago,
Illinois, to save her three children, unaware that they had already escaped.[280]
In northern
Indiana, six members of one family and a fiancée were killed in a traffic accident while traveling to a Christmas celebration.[281]
Nanjing anti-African protests: Over 2000 Chinese students arrived on the Hohai University campus at noon and again threw rocks and bottles at the African students' dormitories. They then marched to other campuses and threw rocks and bottles at dormitories also housing African students.[274]
Also in the early morning hours, Lieutenant Thurman Earl Sharp of the
Marion County, Indiana Sheriff's Office was working the late shift at a second employment job to allow another officer to be with his family on
Christmas Eve. He interrupted a gun store burglary in progress, was shot and killed and left at a remote building entrance; his patrol car was hidden behind a
dumpster. The day shift relief officer discovered his body. As of 2021[update] Sharp's murder would remain unsolved.[297]
Nanjing anti-African protests: About 130 African students sought shelter at the central railway station in Nanjing, hoping to travel to
Beijing. Meanwhile, about 1000 Chinese protestors marched through the streets decrying China's preferential treatment of foreigners. Several thousand Chinese protesters shouting anti-African slogans gathered at the train station later in the day. The protests were motivated partly by unfounded rumors that a Chinese person was killed in the disturbance on the night of December 24. In the evening, police placed the African students on buses, and they were driven away.[274]
34-year-old Brazilian footballer
Enéas de Camargo (aka Enéas) died of pneumonia two days before his scheduled release from a
São Paulo hospital where he was being treated for injuries from an August 22 car accident.[206][333]
Jess Oppenheimer, 75, American radio and television producer, head writer and producer of I Love Lucy, heart failure due to complications from intestinal surgery[342]
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union established the
Order "For Personal Courage", the last new order established in the Soviet Union before its collapse.[344]
Four people were killed and 17 injured in a hotel fire in
La Roche-sur-Yon, France.[345]
In
Orlando, Soweto, South Africa, a group of people acting on the instructions of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela abducted four youths from a
Methodistmanse run by the Reverend
Paul Verryn. The kidnappers, including Jerry Richardson, John Morgan, Katiza Cebekhulu, Xoliswa Falati and members of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted Thabiso Mono, Pelo Mekgwe, Kenneth Kgase and
Stompie Seipei due to unfounded allegations that Verryn had sexually abused youths resident at the manse. They took the boys to Madikizela-Mandela's residence in Diepkloof Extension, where Richardson, Cebekhulu, Falati, MUFC members and Madikizela-Mandela herself assaulted the youths. Seipei was falsely accused of being a police informer and was assaulted most severely of the four. He would be murdered on January 1, 1989; the other three youths would be released in January.[199]
In response to the December 21 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the
Federal Aviation Administration announced new security measures to take effect within 48 hours for all U.S. airlines at European and Middle Eastern airports.[227]
Former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos was again hospitalized at St. Francis Medical Center in Honolulu for treatment of congestive heart failure and possible pneumonia.[110]
Branko Mikulić, the
Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, submitted a letter of resignation for himself and the 30 members of his
Cabinet due to the country's economic problems, the first such resignation since communist rule began in 1945.[381]
The Czechoslovak prototype aircraft
L-610M made its first flight.[382][383]
^
abIams, John (9 December 1988).
"Soviet Quake Kills Thousands". Schenectady Gazette. Vol. XCV, no. 60. UPI. p. 1. Retrieved 1 November 2021 – via Google News.
^
abcPortree, David S. F. (March 1995).
Mir Hardware Heritage(PDF). Johnson Space Center Reference Series. NASA. pp. 116–117. Archived from
the original(PDF) on 7 September 2009. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
^Eliason, Marcus (26 December 1988).
"Britain's ship industry fades away". The Spokesman-Review. No. 158. Spokane, Washington. Associated Press. p. A10. Retrieved 31 October 2021 – via Google News.
^Gordon, Gregory (9 December 1988).
"U.S. Plane Downed in N. Africa, 5 Dead". Schenectady Gazette. Vol. XCV, no. 60. UPI. p. 1. Retrieved 1 November 2021 – via Google News.
^Payne, Airini (May 2002).
"Grennell, Airini Ngā Roimata". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Retrieved 2 November 2021 – via Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
^Gracia, D. (2006).
"La huelga general de 1988" [The general strike of 1988]. Los 20 días que conmovieron España. Expansión (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 November 2021.
^"「格闘美神 武龍」のイメージガールに松山まみ決定" [Mami Matsuyama decided to be the image girl of "Fighting Beauty Wulong"] (in Japanese).
ITmedia Inc. 17 March 2006. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
^"The year NASA returned to space". Lodi News-Sentinel. No. 15, 483. Lodi, California. UPI. 31 December 1988. p. 13. Retrieved 5 November 2021 – via Google News.
^McDonald, Dugald J. (2000).
"Peek, Charles Edward". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Retrieved 2 November 2021 – via Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
^
ab"22 killed in prison riot". Nation/World. The Tuscaloosa News. 25 December 1988. p. 3A. Retrieved 2 November 2021 – via Google News.
^"Volunteers clean off 570 oil-soaked birds". The Spokesman-Review. No. 158. Spokane, Washington. Associated Press. 26 December 1988. p. A6. Retrieved 30 October 2021 – via Google News.
^"Rebels urged to end car bombings". World Digest. The Spokesman-Review. No. 158. Spokane, Washington. 26 December 1988. p. A2. Retrieved 30 October 2021 – via Google News.
^"China reports assault by African students". Associated Press. The Spokesman-Review. No. 158. Spokane, Washington. 26 December 1988. p. A2. Retrieved 1 November 2021 – via Google News.
^"Rebels free soldiers, predict victory". The Spokesman-Review. No. 158. Spokane, Washington. Associated Press. 26 December 1988. p. A2. Retrieved 1 November 2021 – via Google News.
^"Troubled player shot in dispute". Sports Digest. The Spokesman-Review. No. 158. Spokane, Washington. 26 December 1988. p. C2. Retrieved 1 November 2021 – via Google News.
^"2,000 Chileans flee eruption of volcano". World Digest. The Spokesman-Review. No. 158. Spokane, Washington. 26 December 1988. p. A2. Retrieved 1 November 2021 – via Google News.
^"Little Luke Nelson". In the Spotlight. Lodi News-Sentinel. No. 15, 483. Lodi, California. 31 December 1988. p. 4. Retrieved 5 November 2021 – via Google News.
^"Meiyin Wang". ProCyclingStats. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
^"Herluf Bidstrup". Lambiek Comiclopedia. Lambiek. 14 September 2020. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
^"Julanne Johnston". Silent Hollywood.com: The Silent Film Database. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
AllMovie gives Johnston's date of death as December 30, 1989.
^"John Loder". Virtual History. Retrieved 30 October 2021.
^Kniefacz, Katharina; Posch, Herbert.
"Otto Karl Josef Zdansky". Memorial book for the Victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna in 1938.
University of Vienna. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
^"10 more bodies found". The Straits Times. 30 December 1988. p. 1. Retrieved 30 October 2021 – via NewspaperSG, Government of Singapore.
^Goettmann, Alphonse; Goettmann, Rachel, eds. (1998).
Becoming Real: Essays on the Teachings of a Master(PDF). Translated by Nottingham, Theodore J. Nottingham Publishing. p. 21. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
^Bailey, Richard (29 December 2011).
"Remembering Mike Beuttler". Former F1 Figures. Richard's F1. RichardsF1.com. Archived from
the original on 25 July 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
^"Let L-610". AIRCRAFT TECHNICAL DATA & SPECIFICATIONS. Airliners.net.
VerticalScope Inc. Retrieved 3 November 2021. This source gives the date of the Let L-610's first flight as December 28, 1988.
Agreeing to the bus hijackers' demands, the
Soviet government gave them $2 million and an
Aeroflot Ilyushin-76 cargo plane with a crew of eight to fly it. After the plane took off from
Mineralnyye Vody, the hijackers decided to fly to
Israel rather than
Pakistan or
Iraq, as they had intended. The plane landed at a military airstrip near
Ben Gurion Airport in
Lod, Israel, where the hijackers surrendered.
Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli
Minister of Defense, criticized the Soviet response to the hijacking, saying, "I must admit I can't understand how they could manage to leave the Soviet Union without the Soviet authorities doing anything to prevent it."[1]
STS-27:
Mission Control requested that the shuttle crew use Atlantis'robot arm to photograph the
heat shield under the shuttle's right wing. According to his own later account, when shuttle commander Robert L. Gibson saw the tile damage on the camera monitor, he thought, "We are going to die." Due to the classified nature of the mission, the crew was required to use an
encryption technique to send video of the damage to mission control, causing ground controllers to underestimate the severity of the damage and inform the crew that it was no worse than on previous flights.[17]
Riding his
motorcycle without a
helmet, American actor
Gary Busey had a near-fatal accident, sustaining a head injury that placed him in a coma for four weeks. He would regain consciousness on January 6, 1989, and would subsequently recover and resume his acting career.[34]
STS-27: The day before reentry, shuttle commander Gibson, still convinced that there was a strong possibility he and his crew would die the next day, told them to relax, saying, "No reason to die all tensed up."[17]
The
United States Secret Service and the Soviet Mission to the United Nations notified the
Trump Organization that
Mikhail and
Raisa Gorbachev would not visit
Trump Tower during their upcoming visit to New York City. Trump spokespeople cited scheduling and security issues as reasons for the cancellation, but senior Soviet officials said that the
Kremlin canceled the visit because of the problematic symbolism of the event.[44]
Speaking about the cancellation of the Gorbachevs' visit to Trump Tower,
Donald Trump commented, "Trump Tower represents something very beautiful but also very opulent, and I had always questioned whether or not they'd be able to do it, on a political basis."[44]
STS-27: Space Shuttle Atlantis and its crew returned safely to Earth, surviving the damage to the orbiter's heat shield and landing at
Edwards Air Force Base in
California at 3:36:11 p.m.
Pacific Standard Time.[5] During reentry, Gibson kept a close eye on a gauge that would indicate a developing problem, saying afterwards that this would have given him "at least 60 seconds to tell mission control what I thought of their analysis."[17] 707 of the shuttle's heat shield tiles proved to have been damaged; one tile near the shuttle's nose was completely lost, causing a metal antenna anchor plate underneath it to become partly melted during reentry.[6][17] Had the damage been in a different location, Atlantis would have been destroyed during its return to Earth, as
Space Shuttle Columbia would be after
sustaining similar damage in 2003.[17]
Veerendra (aka Veerinder Singh; born Subhash Dhadwai), 40, Indian film actor, writer, producer and director, was shot along with actress
Manpreet Kaur and cameraman
Pritam Singh Balla while filming a scene for the movie Jatt Te Zameen on location in
Talwandi Kalan,
Punjab, India. Veerendra died at the scene; the other two victims survived.[60][61]
In
South Africa,
anti-apartheid revolutionary
Nelson Mandela was transferred from the Constantiaberg Clinic, the second of two hospitals where he had been treated for
tuberculosis, to a house at
Victor Verster Prison, where he would serve the last 14 months of his imprisonment until his release on February 11, 1990.[65][66]
In his apartment on the
Upper West Side of
Manhattan, New York City, American visual artist
Chuck Close collapsed due to pain. He was able to present an award at the residence of the
Mayor of New York City that evening, but then went to the hospital, where he experienced a convulsion and became paralyzed. Due to a
blood clot damaging his
spinal cord, Close would continue to have limited mobility, but would develop a new artistic style in the process of learning to paint again.[73]
U.S. President Ronald Reagan gave his final press conference in the
East Room of the
White House before leaving office on January 20, 1989.[88][89] Reagan began the press conference by joking to reporters, "Got to stop meeting like this." He also expressed condolences to the Soviet Union over the Armenian earthquake. When asked whether he trusted Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan emphasized the need to "
trust but verify".[88]
A U.S. military
CH-47 Chinook helicopter participating in joint Honduran-U.S. maneuvers crashed near
La Ceiba,
Honduras, killing all five people aboard.[91]
Spationaut Chrétien and cosmonaut Volkov conducted a spacewalk from Mir, the first EVA in history involving a spacewalker (Chrétien) who was not a member of the Soviet or U.S. space program. They installed the Enchantillons and ERA experiments on the exterior of Mir; when ERA failed to deploy properly, Volkov kicked it, causing it to unfold.[83]
The Soviet Union declared this day a national day of mourning in the wake of Wednesday's earthquake in Armenia. General Secretary Gorbachev toured the damaged cities.[64]
Approximately 3000 people attended a peaceful rally in
Prague, Czechoslovakia, marking the 40th anniversary of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first rally in the city's third district in almost 20 years. The district would ban such rallies again at a meeting on December 22.[127]
The
trawlerArctic II was capsized by a large wave and sank about 55 miles (89 km) north of
Unimak Pass in
Alaska. All five crewmembers boarded a
life raft, but captain Stan Michna and crewman Gary Heeney were swept off the raft by another large wave and were lost. The three survivors were rescued by the
fishing vesselAmerican Beauty.[129]
An
Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane carrying rescue workers to
Leninakan, a city devastated by the Armenian earthquake, crashed into the side of a mountain, killing 77 people.[137][138]
At the Monday morning astronaut meeting in
Houston, Texas, STS-27 mission commander Robert L. Gibson amused the military astronauts present and disgusted the civilians by joking that, although he still could not reveal details of the shuttle's payload, "I can say Armenia was its first target! And we only had the weapon set on stun!"[6]
At 12:00 a.m. on the night of December 13, the
RTVE broadcast signal cut out, beginning the
1988 Spanish general strike, called by the
Workers' Commissions and
Unión General de Trabajadorestrade unions against the economic policies of the government of
Prime MinisterFelipe González. The strike brought Spain to a complete standstill for 24 hours, with 95% of the country's workers taking part. The strike would force the González government to withdraw its controversial "Plan de Empleo Juvenil" (Youth Employment Plan) and negotiate with the workers over their additional demands.[158][159][160]
A series of burglaries took place and a man was murdered during the early hours around the
M25 motorway in England, beginning the
M25 Three case, later to be considered a
miscarriage of justice.[171]
Edwina Currie resigned as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health.[29]
In
Virginia Beach, Virginia, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot, a student at
Atlantic Shores Christian School, shot and killed 41-year-old teacher Karen Farley and wounded 37-year-old teacher Sam Marino before his gun jammed and teacher Hutch Matteson tackled and disarmed him. Authorities discovered three
Molotov cocktails in Elliot's locker and
pipe bomb materials in his bookbag.[175][176] Elliot would be sentenced to life in prison in December 1989.[177]
In
Soweto, South Africa, Jerry Richardson, the coach of the
Mandela United Football Club (MUFC), stabbed and killed Koekie Zwane (real name Pricilla Mosoeu), girlfriend of a member of the football club. MUFC members may have assisted Richardson in the killing. The MUFC was a
vigilante group associated with
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, whom Richardson would later accuse of ordering him to kill Zwane on suspicion of her being an
informer.[199]
Former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos was released from St. Francis Medical Center in order to receive 24-hour medical care at his home.[110]
1988 Cannes and Nice attacks: At about 3:30 a.m., French far-right extremists carried out a
false flag bomb attack on an immigrant hostel in
Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, killing one person and injuring 12. Most of the hostel's guests were
Tunisians, but the sole fatality from the attack was George Iordachescu, a
Romanian exile. The bombers left behind leaflets bearing
Stars of David and claimed responsibility in the name of the so-called "Masada, Action and Defense Movement" to imply that Jewish terrorists were to blame.[209][210][211]
Trooper Johnny Montague Edrington of the
Kentucky State Police was shot and killed with his own handgun during a traffic stop on
Highway 80 west of
London, Kentucky. His body was found in a ditch. As of 2021[update] the suspects would not yet have been apprehended.[219]
Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over
Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player in one of the plane's luggage compartments, killing a total of 270 people (259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground).
Libya was suspected of involvement.[29][225][226][227] The victims of the bombing included:
In
Figueras, Spain, 84-year-old artist
Salvador Dalí was hospitalized after vomiting blood from an intestinal lesion. He would be released from the hospital on December 25.[250] Dalí would die of heart failure on January 23, 1989.[251]
The day after the death of Bernt Carlsson, the United Nations Commissioner for Namibia, in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing,[231][232][252][253] representatives of Angola, Cuba and South Africa signed the Tripartite Accord, granting independence to Namibia from South Africa and ending the direct involvement of foreign troops in the Angolan Civil War.
Afonso Van-Dunem of Angola,
Isidoro Malmierca Peoli of Cuba and
Pik Botha of South Africa signed the accords at the
headquarters of the United Nations in New York City.[254] Botha and other South African officials had been booked to fly to New York on Flight 103 but cancelled their bookings.[232]
At the Venustiano Carranza penitentiary in
Tepic, Mexico, prisoners denied
Christmas parole began a violent uprising, taking employees and visiting relatives hostage. About 10 inmates tried to storm the office of prison warden Samuel Alvarado, killing him in a shootout.[255]
Salvadoran Civil War: Leftist rebels set off four
car bombs near the
San Salvador headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
Defense Ministry; they also launched bombs over the walls of the compound by
catapult. Three civilians were killed in the attack and 38 people were wounded.[267]
The prison uprising in Tepic, Mexico, ended with at least 22 people dead. Commandos stormed the prison twice; during the first raid, Jorge Armando Duarte, the leader of a commando team, tried to talk the prisoners into surrendering and was shot and killed in response. The second raid successfully quelled the uprising.[255]
Nanjing anti-African protests: At
Hohai University in
Nanjing, China, two African students attending a
Christmas Eve university dance refused to register the names of the Chinese women accompanying them. The ensuing dispute became an overnight melee in which 13 people were injured.[273][274] For seven hours, Chinese students threw rocks and bottles at dormitories occupied by African students.[274] The event marked the beginning of anti-African protests that would last into
January and were a precursor of later pro-democracy protests in China.[275]
PLO leaders met at Yasser Arafat's home outside
Baghdad,
Iraq, to discuss forming a government for a Palestinian state.[276]
Queen
Elizabeth II broke precedent by broadcasting a second
Christmas message to comfort those suffering after the Armenian earthquake, the Clapham Junction rail crash and the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.[277][278]
27-year-old Susan Dzialowy died after reentering her burning apartment on the
Southwest Side of
Chicago,
Illinois, to save her three children, unaware that they had already escaped.[280]
In northern
Indiana, six members of one family and a fiancée were killed in a traffic accident while traveling to a Christmas celebration.[281]
Nanjing anti-African protests: Over 2000 Chinese students arrived on the Hohai University campus at noon and again threw rocks and bottles at the African students' dormitories. They then marched to other campuses and threw rocks and bottles at dormitories also housing African students.[274]
Also in the early morning hours, Lieutenant Thurman Earl Sharp of the
Marion County, Indiana Sheriff's Office was working the late shift at a second employment job to allow another officer to be with his family on
Christmas Eve. He interrupted a gun store burglary in progress, was shot and killed and left at a remote building entrance; his patrol car was hidden behind a
dumpster. The day shift relief officer discovered his body. As of 2021[update] Sharp's murder would remain unsolved.[297]
Nanjing anti-African protests: About 130 African students sought shelter at the central railway station in Nanjing, hoping to travel to
Beijing. Meanwhile, about 1000 Chinese protestors marched through the streets decrying China's preferential treatment of foreigners. Several thousand Chinese protesters shouting anti-African slogans gathered at the train station later in the day. The protests were motivated partly by unfounded rumors that a Chinese person was killed in the disturbance on the night of December 24. In the evening, police placed the African students on buses, and they were driven away.[274]
34-year-old Brazilian footballer
Enéas de Camargo (aka Enéas) died of pneumonia two days before his scheduled release from a
São Paulo hospital where he was being treated for injuries from an August 22 car accident.[206][333]
Jess Oppenheimer, 75, American radio and television producer, head writer and producer of I Love Lucy, heart failure due to complications from intestinal surgery[342]
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union established the
Order "For Personal Courage", the last new order established in the Soviet Union before its collapse.[344]
Four people were killed and 17 injured in a hotel fire in
La Roche-sur-Yon, France.[345]
In
Orlando, Soweto, South Africa, a group of people acting on the instructions of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela abducted four youths from a
Methodistmanse run by the Reverend
Paul Verryn. The kidnappers, including Jerry Richardson, John Morgan, Katiza Cebekhulu, Xoliswa Falati and members of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted Thabiso Mono, Pelo Mekgwe, Kenneth Kgase and
Stompie Seipei due to unfounded allegations that Verryn had sexually abused youths resident at the manse. They took the boys to Madikizela-Mandela's residence in Diepkloof Extension, where Richardson, Cebekhulu, Falati, MUFC members and Madikizela-Mandela herself assaulted the youths. Seipei was falsely accused of being a police informer and was assaulted most severely of the four. He would be murdered on January 1, 1989; the other three youths would be released in January.[199]
In response to the December 21 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the
Federal Aviation Administration announced new security measures to take effect within 48 hours for all U.S. airlines at European and Middle Eastern airports.[227]
Former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos was again hospitalized at St. Francis Medical Center in Honolulu for treatment of congestive heart failure and possible pneumonia.[110]
Branko Mikulić, the
Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, submitted a letter of resignation for himself and the 30 members of his
Cabinet due to the country's economic problems, the first such resignation since communist rule began in 1945.[381]
The Czechoslovak prototype aircraft
L-610M made its first flight.[382][383]
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