50 Fun Facts About 1986

Which NASA space shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff in January 1986 with teacher Christa McAuliffe aboard?

Challenger was doomed by rubber O-ring seals that lost their flexibility in the record cold of launch morning. Engineers had warned that the seals might not hold at such low temperatures.

Which Soviet nuclear power plant, close to the city of Pripyat, suffered a reactor explosion in April 1986?

Chernobyl went unacknowledged by Moscow for two days, until radiation set off alarms at a nuclear plant in Sweden more than 1,000 km away.

Which Tom Cruise film was the highest-grossing movie of 1986?

Top Gun made flying jets look so thrilling that the Navy set up recruitment booths in some theaters to catch enthusiastic fans.

Which talk-show host's daytime programme went national in September 1986 and ran for twenty-five seasons?

Oprah Winfrey went national months after an Oscar nomination for The Color Purple. Her show became the highest-rated daytime talk show in US television history.

In a live 1986 television special, Geraldo Rivera opened a sealed vault said to have belonged to which gangster?

Al Capone's vault, beneath Chicago's Lexington Hotel, held only dirt and empty bottles. About 30 million people watched anyway, a record audience for a syndicated special.

Which Hollywood star was elected mayor of the small town of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, in April 1986?

Clint Eastwood won in a landslide over the sitting mayor, then set about overturning a local ordinance that restricted the sale of ice cream cones.

Which Argentine footballer scored the so-called Hand of God goal against England at the 1986 World Cup?

Diego Maradona knocked the ball in with his left hand, unseen by the referees. Four minutes later he scored again, a solo run hailed as the Goal of the Century.

Which famous comet returned to the inner Solar System in 1986 and is not due back until 2061?

Halley was met by a fleet of spacecraft, and Europe's Giotto probe sent back the first detailed look at a comet's nucleus. Seen from Earth, though, it was the least favourable showing on record.

Which video game, released in Japan in February 1986, introduced the hero Link and the kingdom of Hyrule?

The Legend of Zelda took its princess's name from Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. Its US cartridge was among the first with a built-in battery for saving progress.

Which May 1986 fundraising event tried to form an unbroken human chain from Manhattan to Long Beach, California?

Hands Across America drew about five million people, but the chain was broken in many places, particularly in the Southwestern desert.

Which 20-year-old boxer beat Trevor Berbick in November 1986 to become the youngest heavyweight champion in history?

Mike Tyson stopped Berbick in the second round to take the WBC belt, aged 20 years and four months.

Which team won the 1986 World Series after a famous Game 6 error by Boston first baseman Bill Buckner?

The New York Mets were twice one strike away from losing the Series before the error let them steal Game 6. They then took Game 7 for their first title since 1969.

What nickname did 335-pound Chicago Bears rookie William Perry carry into the Super Bowl in January 1986?

The Refrigerator got the name at Clemson, when a teammate squeezed into an elevator beside him and said he was about as big as one. He scored a touchdown in the Bears' Super Bowl win.

In the 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which make of sports car do the truants borrow from Cameron's father?

The Ferrari seen on screen was often a stand-in: the production had a number of replicas of the 1961 250 GT California Spyder made for filming.

Which 1986 sequel earned Sigourney Weaver a Best Actress Oscar nomination?

Aliens brought the first Best Actress nomination ever given for a science-fiction film, at a time when the Academy gave the genre little respect.

Which Vietnam War film, drawn from director Oliver Stone's own time as an infantryman, won Best Picture for 1986?

Platoon was Stone's answer to the heroic picture of the war in John Wayne's The Green Berets. He appears in it briefly himself, as a battalion commander.

Which animation studio became an independent company in 1986 with funding from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs?

Pixar began as part of the Lucasfilm computer division. Its desk-lamp mascot comes from Luxo Jr., a short film the studio made that same year.

Which US television network launched in October 1986 with a late-night talk show hosted by Joan Rivers?

Fox was launched by News Corporation to take on ABC, CBS and NBC, and became the most successful attempt at a fourth US network.

Which prime-time soap opened its autumn 1986 season by revealing that the whole previous season had been a dream?

Dallas used the twist to bring back Bobby Ewing, killed off a season earlier. Pam Ewing woke to find him alive in the shower, and a year of plot was erased.

Which composer's musical The Phantom of the Opera opened in London's West End in 1986 and on Broadway in 1988?

Andrew Lloyd Webber's then-wife, a classical soprano, starred as the heroine Christine. The show went on to become the longest-running in Broadway history.

Which rock band joined Run-DMC on a 1986 remake of Walk This Way, the first hip-hop single in the Billboard top five?

Aerosmith's Steven Tyler breaks through a wall separating the two acts in the video, which stages the song as a duel between neighbouring studios.

Which rock band's third album, Slippery When Wet, was released in August 1986 and became their best-seller?

Bon Jovi recorded it in Canada over the first half of the year. It kept selling so well that it was the best-selling album of 1987 in the United States.

Which singer's album True Blue, released in June 1986, was the best-selling album of the year worldwide?

Madonna drew on her marriage to the actor Sean Penn for the album's themes of love and devotion, and it topped the charts in a record twenty-eight countries.

Which singer's 1986 album Graceland was partly recorded in Johannesburg with South African musicians, despite a boycott?

Paul Simon was hooked by a bootleg cassette of South African street music. Anti-apartheid groups attacked him for breaking the boycott, yet the record won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Which singer's 1986 album Control followed her break from her father's management and yielded five hit singles?

Janet Jackson had just fired her father as her manager, and she teamed up with the producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to find a sound of her own.

Which British singer's 1986 hit Sledgehammer came with a stop-motion video that went on to win nine MTV awards?

Peter Gabriel lay under a sheet of glass for 16 hours to shoot a single scene of the video, which was animated one frame at a time.

Which city, where DJ Alan Freed championed early rock and roll, was chosen in 1986 to house its Hall of Fame?

Cleveland won after its civic leaders pledged $65 million in public money. The first inductees, honoured that January, included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and James Brown.

Which group's debut album Licensed to Ill, released in November 1986, became the first rap LP to top the Billboard 200?

Beastie Boys never made another record for Def Jam, moving to Capitol Records before their next album. Licensed to Ill later passed ten million US copies.

The alien from Melmac in ALF, the sitcom that began on NBC in September 1986, longed to eat which household pets?

Cats were never quite safe in the Tanner household, where the furry visitor kept eyeing the family pet, Lucky, as a meal.

Which pop star, who once wore a dress made of raw meat, was born Stefani Germanotta in Manhattan in March 1986?

Lady Gaga owes her stage name, by her early producer's account, to a phone spell checker that changed the Queen song title Radio Ga Ga in a text message.

Which senator's widow became president of the Philippines in February 1986 after Ferdinand Marcos fled into exile?

Corazon Aquino had never held political office before she became the first female president in Philippine history. The Marcos family was flown into exile in Hawaii.

Which Swedish prime minister was shot dead while walking home from a Stockholm cinema with his wife in February 1986?

Olof Palme had decided to see the film at very short notice and was walking without his bodyguards when a lone gunman struck on a central street.

Which North African country did US warplanes bomb in April 1986 in retaliation for a West Berlin nightclub attack?

Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi was blamed by President Reagan for the disco bombing ten days earlier. The United Nations General Assembly later voted to condemn the raid.

In which city did Reagan and Gorbachev hold an October 1986 summit that collapsed at the last minute?

Reykjavik ended without a deal because Reagan would not give up research on his space-based missile shield. The progress made there still led to the 1987 treaty on intermediate-range nuclear forces.

Profits from secret US arms sales to Iran, exposed in November 1986, were meant for Contra rebels in which country?

Nicaragua's left-wing Sandinista government was one the Reagan administration wanted overthrown. The scandal broke after a Lebanese magazine reported the weapons dealings.

Which Soviet space station, the first assembled in orbit from separate modules, had its core module launched in 1986?

Mir, a Russian word meaning 'peace' or 'world', stayed in orbit until 2001 and so outlived the Soviet Union that launched it.

Which planet did Voyager 2 reach in January 1986, finding new moons later named Juliet, Portia and Puck?

Uranus has never been visited by any other spacecraft. Voyager 2 passed within 81,500 km of its cloud tops, then flew on for three more years to Neptune.

Which musician's song Happy Birthday campaigned for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, first observed in January 1986?

Stevie Wonder released the song in 1980 to popularise the campaign and hosted a rally for it the next year. President Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983.

Which business leader led the commission that raised money to restore the Statue of Liberty for its 1986 centennial?

Lee Iacocca was given the job by President Reagan in 1982. The statue reopened over a four-day Liberty Weekend with a new torch whose flame is covered in 24-karat gold.

Which Canadian city hosted the Expo 86 world's fair, opened in May 1986 by the Prince and Princess of Wales?

Vancouver timed the fair, themed on transportation and communication, to coincide with the city's own hundredth birthday.

Which 1986 comedy about an outback bushman let loose in Manhattan became the highest-grossing Australian film worldwide?

Crocodile Dundee overtook Mad Max 2 as Australia's biggest earner worldwide, and in the United States only one film took more money that year.

Which NBA star broke the single-game playoff scoring record with 63 points against the Boston Celtics in April 1986?

Michael Jordan's 63 came in a double-overtime defeat and beat a mark set by Elgin Baylor. The Celtics' Larry Bird likened facing him that day to playing against God in disguise.

Which golfer won the 1986 Masters at age 46 with a back-nine charge, claiming his sixth green jacket?

Jack Nicklaus shot 30 on the back nine to win by a single stroke. It was his 18th and final major, and it made him the oldest champion the Masters had seen.

Who married Prince Andrew at Westminster Abbey in July 1986 and became a duchess the same day?

Sarah Ferguson wed four months after the engagement was announced. The Queen made Andrew a duke that morning, so his bride left the abbey a duchess.

Which US cyclist won the Tour de France in 1986, the first rider from outside Europe to do so?

Greg LeMond had spent the previous Tour riding in support of his French team leader, Bernard Hinault. A year after his win he was accidentally shot and seriously injured while hunting.

Which Holocaust survivor and author of the memoir Night was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986?

Elie Wiesel was honoured for speaking out against violence, repression and racism. He wrote 57 books, and Night drew on his imprisonment at Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

Which judge joined the US Supreme Court in 1986 as its first Italian-American justice, after a unanimous Senate vote?

Antonin Scalia, the only child of an immigrant from Sicily, went on to serve on the court for nearly thirty years, until his death in 2016.

Which pitcher struck out 20 batters in a nine-inning game in April 1986, a major-league first?

Roger Clemens did it at Fenway Park against the Seattle Mariners, then finished the season with both the Cy Young Award and the league's Most Valuable Player award.

Which South American country was first chosen to host the 1986 World Cup but withdrew, leaving Mexico to step in?

Colombia pulled out in 1982, largely for economic reasons. Mexico's rescue made it the first country to host the World Cup more than once.

Which Nigerian playwright won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first African to receive that award?

Wole Soyinka was once charged with holding up a radio station at gunpoint, to swap a premier's recorded speech for a tape alleging electoral malpractice.