Events from the year 1989 in the United States.
Incumbents Federal government President: Ronald Reagan (R-California) (until January 20) George H. W. Bush (R-Texas) (starting January 20) Vice President: George H. W. Bush (R-Texas) (until January 20) Dan Quayle (R-Indiana) (starting January 20) Chief Justice: William Rehnquist (Virginia) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Jim Wright (D-Texas) (until June 6) Tom Foley (D-Washington) (starting June 6) Senate Majority Leader: Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) (until January 3) George J. Mitchell (D-Maine) (starting January 3) Congress: 100th (until January 3), 101st (starting January 3)
State governments Governors and lieutenant governors Governors
Lieutenant governors
Events January
January 1 – The Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement comes into effect. January 4 – Second Gulf of Sidra incident: Two Libyan MiG-23 "Floggers" are engaged and shot down by two United States Navy F-14 Tomcats. January 10 – Harris Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago settles a government enforcement action by agreeing to pay $14 million in backpay to women and minorities, the largest such settlement ever obtained from a single employer. January 11 President Ronald Reagan delivers his farewell address to the nation. The National Collegiate Athletic Association adopts Proposition 42, which withdraws athletic scholarships from athletes who fail to meet minimal academic standards. January 12 – President-elect George H. W. Bush announces the final members of his cabinet, naming James D. Watkins as Secretary of Energy and William Bennett as the first director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. January 13 – Bernhard Goetz is sentenced to one year in prison and fined $5,000 for shooting four young men on the New York subway in 1984. January 16 – A Hispanic Miami police officer shoots and kills a speeding black motorcyclist in the Overtown section of Miami, Florida, starting three days of rioting. January 17 – Stockton schoolyard shooting: Patrick Edward Purdy kills five children, wounds 30 and then shoots himself in Stockton, California. January 18 – The Republican National Committee elects Lee Atwater as its chairman. January 20 – George H. W. Bush is sworn in as the 41st president of the United States, and Dan Quayle is sworn in as the 44th vice president. January 22 – The San Francisco 49ers defeat the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII. January 24 Serial killer Ted Bundy is executed in Florida's electric chair. Joel Steinberg is convicted of manslaughter in the beating death of a 6-year-old child he was raising. January 29 – Shining Time Station, a children's sitcom debuts on PBS. Starring Didi Conn, Brian O'Connor and Ringo Starr, the series introduces British children's television series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends to America. January 31 – Northway, Alaska records the highest mean sea level pressure on record in the United States with a reading of 31.85 inHg (1078.6 millibars)World and US High Barometric Pressure records
February February 7 The Los Angeles, California City Council bans the sale or possession of semiautomatic weapons. The 101st United States Congress rejects a proposed 51 percent pay raise for its members, federal judges, and certain other high-ranking government officials. February 9 – President Bush delivers his first address to the 101st Congress. February 10 Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first African American to lead a major United States political party. President Bush meets with Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney in Ottawa, laying the groundwork for the Acid Rain Treaty of 1991. February 11 – Barbara Harris is the first woman consecrated as a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. February 14 – The first of 24 Global Positioning System satellites is placed into orbit. February 23 – After protracted testimony, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee rejects, 11–9, President Bush's nomination of John Tower for Secretary of Defense. February 23–27 – U.S. President Bush visits Japan, China, and South Korea, attending the funeral of Hirohito and then meeting with China's Deng Xiaoping and South Korea's Roh Tae-woo. February 26 – 60 Minutes in the United States airs a report claiming that apples sprayed with Alar may cause cancer in children, leading many schools to remove apples from their cafeterias.
March
March – The unemployment rate drops to a low of 5.0%, the lowest since December 1973. March 1 The Berne Convention, an international treaty on copyrights, is ratified by the United States. Louis W. Sullivan starts his term of office as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. James D. Watkins starts his term of office as U.S. Secretary of Energy. March 3 – Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane is fined $20,000 and given two years' probation for misleading Congress about the Iran–Contra affair. March 4 Time Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger, forming Time Warner. Eastern Air Lines machinists and baggage workers walk off the job to protest pay cuts. The airline subsequently filed for bankruptcy protection five days later, on March 9. March 9 – By a vote of 53 to 47, the Senate votes to reject the nomination of John Tower as United States Secretary of Defense. President Bush subsequently nominated Dick Cheney the next day, and Cheney was confirmed and sworn in as defense secretary on March 17. March 13 – A geomagnetic storm causes the collapse of the Hydro-Québec power grid. 6 million people are left without power for 9 hours. Some areas in the northeastern U.S. and in Sweden also lose power, and aurorae are seen as far as Texas. March 13–17 – The Food and Drug Administration bans the import of grapes from Chile after traces of cyanide are found in two grapes. March 13–18 – The Space Shuttle Discovery flies mission STS-29. March 14 – Gun control: U.S. President George H. W. Bush bans the importation of certain guns deemed assault weapons into the United States. March 15 – The United States Department of Veterans Affairs becomes established. March 20 – Dick Cheney is sworn in as the new Secretary of Defense, succeeding Frank Carlucci. March 22 Congress passes a bill to protect the job of whistle blowers who expose government waste or fraud. National Football League commissioner Pete Rozelle, commissioner since 1960, announces he will step down when a replacement is found. Clint Malarchuk of the NHL Buffalo Sabres suffers an almost fatal injury when another player accidentally slits his throat. March 23 – Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce that they have achieved cold fusion at the University of Utah. March 24 – Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Alaska's Prince William Sound the Exxon Valdez spills of oil after running aground. March 29 – The 61st Academy Awards, the first since 1971 with no official host are held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, with Barry Levinson's Rain Man winning four awards out of eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. The television broadcast is the most-viewed in Oscar history until 1998, garnering nearly 43 million viewers.
April April 1 – Bill White becomes president of baseball's National League, becoming the first African American to head a major sports league. April 2 – The World Wrestling Federation holds WrestleMania V from the Atlantic City Convention Hall (Promoted as Trump Plaza) in Atlantic City, New Jersey. April 3 The Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team defeats the Seton Hall Pirates men's basketball team to win the 1989 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. Richard M. Daley is elected Mayor of Chicago. April 5 – Beginning of the Pittston Coal strike after miners had worked 14 months without a contract. April 9 – More than 300,000 demonstrators march in Washington, D.C. in support of legal abortion in the United States. April 14 – The U.S. government seizes the Irving, California Lincoln Savings and Loan Association; Charles Keating (for whom the Keating Five were named – John McCain among them) eventually goes to jail, as part of the massive 1980s Savings and loan crisis which costs U.S. taxpayers nearly $200 billion in bailouts, and many people their life savings. April 17 – The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct charges House Speaker Jim Wright with improperly evading limits on outside income and accepting improper gifts. April 19 Trisha Meili is 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." A gun turret explodes on the U.S. battleship Iowa, killing 47 crew members. April 20 – NATO debates modernizing short range missiles; although the U.S. and U.K. are in favor, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl obtains a concession deferring a decision.
May May 1 – Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World opens to the public for the first time. May 4 In the trial of Oliver North on charges related to the Iran–Contra affair, the jury finds North guilty of three criminal charges and not guilty of nine. STS-30 was launched, deploying the Venus-bound Magellan probe. May 8 – STS-30 lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California after four days of its mission and the successful deployment of a Venus spacecraft. May 12 – A Southern Pacific Railroad freight train crashes on Duffy Street in San Bernardino, California. May 15–25 – Los Angeles schoolteachers go on strike. The strike ends with the teachers gaining more administrative control and a 24% pay raise. May 19 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 2,500 for the first time since Black Monday (1987). May 25 – Thirteen days after the Southern Pacific train derailment, the Calnev Pipeline explodes at the same section of Duffy Street in San Bernardino, California. May 26 – United States House of Representatives Majority Whip Tony Coelho resigns from the United States House of Representatives, saying he wants to spare his family from an investigation into his finances. May 31 – Jim Wright announces his resignation as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
June June 4 – Jerome Robbins' Broadway wins the Tony Award for Best Musical and five other Tonys. June 6 – The United States House of Representatives elects Tom Foley as its new speaker. June 12 – The Corcoran Gallery of Art cancels Robert Mapplethorpe's photography exhibition, "Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment", due to its sexually explicit content., cited in June 13 The Detroit Pistons beat the Los Angeles Lakers to win the 1989 NBA Finals. President Bush vetoes a minimum-wage bill passed by Congress on May 17 that would have increased the minimum wage to $4.55 an hour. June 14 – A Titan IV blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. June 21 – In Texas v. Johnson, the United States Supreme Court rules that burning the Flag of the United States is protected speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. June 23 – The film Batman opens on general release, to massive anticipation, following the Pop Culture phenomenon known as “Batmania”. It earned more than $40 million in its first weekend, a box office record. June 23–24 – Three shipping accidents in a 12-hour period create oil spills in Rhode Island, Delaware and Texas. June 26 – In Penry v. Lynaugh, the Supreme Court rules that states can execute murderers as young as 16 or who are mentally challenged. June 27 – A federal appeals court overturns the February 1988 conviction of Lyn Nofziger for illegal lobbying.
July July 3 – In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the Supreme Court gives the states new authority to restrict abortions. July 5 The television show Seinfeld premieres.