Jan 4George H. W. Bush is 1st sitting Vice President since Millard Filmore (in 1850) to declare himself President of the United States

Jan 7Akihito becomes the 125th Emperor of Japan after the death of his father Horohito

Jan 9 "Pat Sajak Show" premieres on CBS

Jan 9Johnny Bench andCarl Yastrzemski are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Jan 10 LA Kings centerWayne Gretzky becomes NHL’s all-time leading scorer in combined regular season & playoff points; 4 assists in 5-4 home win over Edmonton brings his total to 2,011, 1 more than Gordie Howe

Jan 12 Ex-dictator of UgandaIdi Amin expelled from Zaire

Jan 13 British comedy sketch show series "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" starringStephen Fry andHugh Laurie debuts on BBC1

Jan 14 1,000 muslims burn Salman Rushdies' "Satanic Verses" in Bradford, England

Jan 17Al Arbour wins his 600th NHL game as coach

Jan 18 4th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: Dion;Otis Redding;The Rolling Stones; The Temptations;Stevie Wonder; The Ink Spots; Bessie Smith; TheSoul Stirrers; andPhil Spector

Jan 19 US PresidentRonald Reagan pardons NY Yankees ownerGeorge Steinbrenner for supplying illegal funds for Nixon's re-election campaign

Jan 20 Pittsburgh centerMario Lemieux becomes just the 2nd player in NHL history to score 50 goals in less than 50 games; #50 in 44th game as the Penguins lose 7-3 to the Jets in Winnipeg

Jan 20Reagan becomes 1st US President elected in a "0" year, since 1840, to leave office alive

Jan 22 After winning his third Super Bowl as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers,Bill Walsh retires

Jan 22 Super Bowl XXIII, Joe Robbie Stadium, Miami, FL: San Francisco 49ers beat Cincinnati Bengals, 20-16; MVP:Jerry Rice, SF, WR

Jan 25Michael Jordan scores his 10,000th NBA point in his 5th season

Jan 27 Detroit Red Wings centerSteve Yzerman becomes the 4th NHL player to record 100 points in 50 games or less with a goal and 2 assists as Red Wings beat Toronto, 8-1

Jan 29 Game-winning RBI, official statistic dropped after 9 years of use NY MetsKeith Hernandez is the all-time leader with 129

Feb 1Diana, Princess of Wales visits New York City

Feb 2F. W. de Klerk replacesP. W. Botha as South Africa's National Party leader

Feb 3 Military coup overthrows Paraguayan DictatorAlfredo Stroessner who flees to Brazil

Feb 6 Poland's communist government begins "Round Table" talks with the Solidarity trade union and its leaderLech Wałęsa in an attempt to ease growing social unrest

Feb 7 Tennis superstarBjörn Borg apparently attempts suicide in Milan, Italy

Feb 10 Celtic KC Jones & CavalierLenny Wilkens elected to NBA Hall of Fame

Feb 10Miami Vice's 100th episode seen on TV

Feb 12 Loyalist paramilitary group kill Pat Finucane, a Belfast lawyer who represented republican hunger strikerBobby Sands, while he is having dinner with family

Feb 14 Supreme Leader of Iran,Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa calling for the death ofSalman Rushdie and his publishers due to his novel "Satanic Verses". A bounty is also placed on his head.

Feb 15 Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan ends as the last Soviet troops cross the Soviet-Afghan border

Feb 16 Dodgers pitcherOrel Hershiser signs $7.9M-3 year contract

Feb 16 Red Sox pitcherRoger Clemens signs $7.5M-3 year contract

Feb 17 Former baseball player and managerLeo Durocher injured in a car crash

Feb 18 "A Better Man" single released byClint Black (Billboard Song of the Year 1989)

Feb 19 31st Daytona 500:Darrell Waltrip wins when Hendrick Racing team decides to use fuel strategy, being the only car not to pit in the closing laps

Feb 21Pete Rose meets with MLB CommissionerPeter Ueberroth to discuss his gambling

Feb 22 31st Grammy Awards: "Don't Worry Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin; "Faith"byGeorge Michael; andTracy Chapman win

Feb 22 UK physicistStephen Hawking calls the proposed missile defense system known as Star Wars a "deliberate fraud"

Feb 24 Panamanian boxing legendRoberto Durán wins 4th world title in different weight divisions when he beats Iran Barkley in a 12 round split decision in Atlantic City; 37-year-old Durán wins WBC middleweight title

Feb 24 Stalker Margaret Ray found inDavid Letterman's home, claims to be his wife

Feb 25Mike Tyson TKOsFrank Bruno in 5 for heavyweight boxing title

Feb 26 California court throws out most of Margo Adams's $12 million breach-of-contract suit against Red Sox third basemanWade Boggs

Feb 26 NFL Dallas Cowboys fire coachTom Landry after a 29-year career

Feb 26 NY Yankees announce thatTom Seaver is their new TV sportscaster

Mar 2Madonna's "Like a Prayer" premieres on worldwide Pepsi commercial

Mar 2 NY Mets starsKeith Hernandez andDarryl Strawberry famously nearly come to blows in front of reporters and TV crews at spring training

Mar 3Robert McFarlane gets a $20,000 fine and two years probation for pleading guilty to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra illegal arms-for-hostages scandal

Mar 7Dino Ciccarelli is traded by the Minnesota North Stars to the Washington Capitals

Mar 12 Computer scientistTim Berners-Lee submits his first proposal for an "information management system" to his boss at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) who finds it “vague, but exciting”