fessional debut in Albany, New York, fighting a
match in which he wins by a first-round knockout.
(Mar. 31) WrestleMania, an annual wrestling pay-
per-view event, debuts at Madison Square Garden
in New York City. (Jul.) For the fourth year in a
row, Martina Navratilova is the champion ladies
singles tennis player at Wimbledon; she will cap-
ture two more championships, in 1986 and 1987.
Crime:(Feb. 9) U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena
is kidnapped and murdered in Mexico; his body is
discovered on March 5. (May 11) The FBI brings
charges against the suspected heads of the five
New York City Mafia families.
1986
International events:(Jan. 20) The United Kingdom
and France announce their plans to build a rail
tunnel under the English Channel. (Feb. 7) Presi-
dent Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier flees
Haiti after twenty-eight years of family rule. (Feb.
25) President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philip-
pines goes into exile, and Corazon Aquino be-
comes the first Filipino woman president. (Mar.
26) An article inThe New York Timescharges that
Kurt Waldheim, former United Nations secretary
general and a candidate for president of Austria,
may have been involved in Nazi war crimes during
World War II.
Government and politics:(Oct. 11) President Rea-
gan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in
Reykjavík, Iceland, to discuss how they can re-
duce their intermediate missile stocks in Europe.
(Nov. 3) The Iran-Contra affair begins when a
Lebanese magazine reports that the United States
has been secretly selling weapons to Iran in order
to secure the release of seven American hostages
held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. (Nov. 25)
Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that
profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were ille-
gally diverted to the anticommunist Contra reb-
els in Nicaragua. (Nov. 26) President Reagan de-
nies his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal
and appoints three people to a special review
board, later called the Tower Commission, to in-
vestigate the affair.
Military and war:(Apr. 15) At least fifteen people die
after United States’ planes bomb targets in Tri-
poli, Libya, and that nation’s Benghazi region.
Society:(Jan. 20) Martin Luther King Day, a federal
holiday honoring the civil rights leader, is ob-
served for the first time. (May 25) At least five mil-
lion people participate in Hands Across America,
forming a human chain from New York City to
Long Beach, California, to raise money to com-
bat homelessness and hunger. (Jul. 5) After an ex-
tensive refurbishing, the Statue of Liberty is re-
opened to the public. (Oct. 28) The centennial of
the Statue of Liberty’s dedication is celebrated in
New York Harbor.
Business and economics:(Jan. 9) Kodak stops mak-
ing instant cameras after losing a patent fight with
Polaroid. (Oct. 9) News Corporation, Rupert Mur-
dock’s media company, completes its acquisition
of the Metromedia group of broadcasting stations
and launches the FOX Broadcasting Company.
(Nov. 11) Sperry Rand and Burroughs merge to
form Unisys, the world’s second-largest computer
company.
Transportation and communications:(Jul. 1) Sea-
board System Railroad and Chessie System, Inc.,
merge to create CSX Transportation, a railroad
company serving the East Coast. (Aug. 31) Aero-
méxico Flight 498 collides with a small Piper air-
craft over Cerritos, California, killing sixty-seven
passengers and fifteen people on the ground.
Science and technology:(Jan. 12) The space shut-
tle is launched with the first Hispanic astronaut,
Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz. (Jan. 19) Brain, the
first personal computer virus, begins to spread.
(Jan. 28) The space shuttleChallengerdisinte-
grates seventy-three seconds after its launch, kill-
ing its crew of seven astronauts, including school-
teacher Christa McAuliffe. (Feb. 9) Halley’s comet
reaches its closest point to the Sun during its
second visit to the solar system in the twentieth
century. (Feb. 19) The Soviet Union launches the
Mir space station. (Dec. 23) The aircraftVoyager
completes the first nonstop circumnavigation of
the Earth by air without refueling in nine days,
three minutes, and forty-four seconds.
Environment and health:About twenty-four million
Americans are regularly performing aerobics, 90
percent of them women. Geneticists begin dis-
cussing the possibility of mounting a project to se-
quence the human genome. (Apr. 26) A reactor
at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine ex-
plodes, killing thirty-one people; thousands of
other people are exposed to excessive amounts of
radiation, and radioactivity renders large areas of
Ukraine and Belarus uninhabitable.The Eighties in America Time Line 1151