January 10 - Assistant AFP Police Commissioner Colin Winchester gunned down in driveway of Canberra home
January 12 - George Bush names William Bennett to be his Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and James Watkins as Secretary of Energy.
January 30 - American Olympic medalist Bruce Kimball is sentenced to 17 years in prison for killing 2 teenagers in a drunk driving accident.
February
February 1 - Joan Kirner becomes Victoria's first female Deputy Premier, after the resignation of Robert Fordham over the VEDC (Victorian Economic Development Co-operation) Crisis.
March 13 - A geomagnetic storm caused the collapse of the Hydro-Quebec power grid. Six million people were left without power for nine hours. Some areas in the northeastern U.S. and in Sweden also lost power, and auroras seen as far as Texas.
March 22 - Clint Malarchuk of the NHLBuffalo Sabres suffers an almost fatal injury when another player accidentally slits his throat in one of the most gruesome sports injuries of all time.
March 22 - Asteroid 4581 Asclepius approaches the Earth at a distance of 700,000 kilomters.
April 9 - Georgian demonstrators are massacred by Red Army soldiers in Tbilisi's central square during a peaceful rally; 20 citizens are killed , many injured.
April 16 - The ''Dilbert'' comic strip is syndicated for the first time.
April 18 - The Hillsborough disaster claims its 95th victim when 14-year-old Lee Nichol dies in hospital from his injuries.
April 19 - Trisha Meili is savagely attacked while jogging in New York City's Central Park; as her identity remains secret for years, she becomes known as the "Central Park Jogger."
April 19 - Seven crew members die after a gun turret explodes on the U.S. battleship ''Iowa''.
April 20 - NATO debates modernising short range missiles; although the U.S. and UK are in favour, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl obtains a concession deferring a decision.
May 25 - Thirteen days after a Southern Pacific train derails, a Calnev pipeline explodes at the same section of Duffy Street in San Bernardino, California.
June 4 - The Tiananmen Square massacre takes place in Beijing on the army's approach to the square, and the final stand-off in the square is covered live on television.
June 16 - A crowd of 250,000 gathers at Heroes Square in Budapest for the historic reburial of Imre Nagy, the former Hungarian prime minister who had been executed in 1958.
August 23 - Two million indigenous people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then still occupied by the Soviet Union, join hands to demand freedom and independence, forming an uninterrupted 600 km human chain called the Baltic Way.
August 24 - Record-setting baseball player Pete Rose agrees to a lifetime ban from the sport following allegations of illegal gambling, thereby preventing his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
August 24 - Indonesia's first privately owned television station, Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia, (RCTI) begins broadcasting.
September 6 - England holds Sweden to a 0-0 draw in Sweden, qualifying for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. The game became famous after Terry Butcher sustained a deep cut to his forehead early in the game. He received stitches but played on the entire game. By the end of the game, the front of Butcher's white shirt and shorts where almost entirely covered in blood.
November 9 - Cold War: East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to freely travel to West Germany for the first time in decades (the next day celebrating Germans began tearing the wall down).
December 1 - Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist-dominated SED its monopoly on power. Egon Krenz, the Politburo and the Central Committee resign 2 days later.
December 10 - Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj announces the establishment of Mongolia's democratic movement, that peacefully changes the second oldest communist country into a democratic society.