The McMartin Preschool Trials

Los Angeles prosecutors announce that they will retry teacher Raymond Buckey, who was accused of molesting children at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California. The McMartin trials had already taken over six years and cost more than $13.5 million without a single guilty verdict resulting from 208 charges. However, […]

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First McDonald’s Opens In Soviet Union

The Soviet Union’s first McDonald’s fast food restaurant opens in Moscow. Throngs of people line up to pay the equivalent of several days’ wages for Big Macs, shakes, and french fries. The appearance of this notorious symbol of capitalism and the enthusiastic reception it received from the Russian people were […]

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John McEnroe Disqualified From The Australian Open

On January 21, 1990, at the Australian Open in Melbourne, American tennis player John McEnroe becomes the first player since 1963 to be disqualified from a Grand Slam tournament for misconduct. A left-handed serve-and-volleyer with a masterful touch, McEnroe was a dominant force in professional tennis in the early 1980s, […]

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Barry Arrested On Drug Charges

At the end of a joint sting operation by FBI agents and District of Columbia police, Mayor Marion Barry is arrested and charged with drug possession and the use of crack, a crystalline form of cocaine. At the Vista International Hotel in downtown Washington, Barry was caught smoking the substance […]

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Soviets Send Troops Into Azerbaijan

In the wake of vicious fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Azerbaijan, the Soviet government sends in 11,000 troops to quell the conflict. The fighting–and the official Soviet reaction to it–was an indication of the increasing ineffectiveness of the central Soviet government in maintaining control in the Soviet republics, […]

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Gorbachev Elected President Of The Soviet Union

The Congress of People’s Deputies elects General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev as the new president of the Soviet Union. While the election was a victory for Gorbachev, it also revealed serious weaknesses in his power base that would eventually lead to the collapse of his presidency in December 1991. Gorbachev’s election […]

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Trains Collide In Pakistan

Two trains collide in Sangi, Pakistan, on this day in 1990, killing between 200 and 300 people and injuring an estimated 700 others. This was the worst rail accident to date in Pakistan. The train Zakaria Bahauddin (named after a holy man according to Pakistani tradition) had a capacity of […]

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The Husband Did It: The Controversial Stuart Case

Matthew Stuart meets with Boston prosecutors and tells them that his brother, Charles, was actually the person responsible for murdering Charles’s wife, Carol. The killing of Carol Stuart, who was pregnant at the time, on October 23, 1989, had touched off a national outrage when Charles Stuart told authorities that […]

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Noriega Surrenders To U.S.

On this day in 1990, Panama’s General Manuel Antonio Noriega, after holing up for 10 days at the Vatican embassy in Panama City, surrenders to U.S. military troops to face charges of drug trafficking. Noriega was flown to Miami the following day and crowds of citizens on the streets of […]

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