1988 in the United States

This is a list of events from the year 1988 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government

* President: Ronald Reagan ( R-California)
* Vice President: George H. W. Bush ( R-Texas)
* Chief Justice: William Rehnquist (Wisconsin)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Jim Wright ( D-Texas)
* Senate Majority Leader: Robert Byrd ( D-West Virginia)
* Congress: 100th

Events

January

* January 1 –
**The Dell Computer Corporation is incorporated.
** The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is established, creating the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.
* January 2 – Michigan State Spartans football team wins the Rose Bowl Game against the USC Trojans.
* January 4 – Nick Jr. begins as a block of Nickelodeon programming for younger children.
* January 25
** Ronald Reagan delivers his final State of the Union Address.
** U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush and CBS News anchor Dan Rather clash over Bush's role in the Iran–Contra scandal during a contentious television interview.
* January 29 – The Midwest Classic Conference, a U.S. college athletic conference, is formed.

February

* February 3 – The Democratic-controlled United States House of Representatives rejects President Ronald Reagan's request for $36,250,000 to support the Nicaraguan Contras.
* February 12 – Anthony M. Kennedy is appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
* February 14 – Hours after learning the death of his sister, US speed skater Dan Jansen falls twice and fails to win a medal in the 500-meter race in the Calgary Winter Olympics.
* February 16 – Gunman Richard Farley kills seven people inside his former workplace, ESL Incorporated in Sunnyvale, California. He had been stalking colleague Laura Black who still worked there; however, she survived the shooting. Farley is currently on death row.
* February 17 – U.S. Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins, serving with a United Nations group monitoring a truce in southern Lebanon, is kidnapped (he is later killed by his captors).
* February 24 – ''Hustler Magazine v. Falwell'': The Supreme Court of the United States sides with ''Hustler'' magazine by overturning a lower court decision to award Jerry Falwell $200,000 for defamation.

March

* March 8 –
**Two U.S. Army helicopters collide in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, killing 17 servicemen.
**U.S. presidential candidate George Herbert Walker Bush defeats Bob Dole in numerous Republican primaries and caucuses on "Super Tuesday". The bipartisan primary/caucus calendar, designed by Democrats to help solidify their own nominee early, backfires when none of the six competing candidates are able to break out of the pack in the day's Democratic contests. Jesse Jackson, however, wins several Southern state primaries.
* March 13 – Gallaudet University, a university for the deaf in Washington, D.C., elects Dr. I. King Jordan as the first deaf president in its history, following the Deaf President Now campaign, considered a turning point in the deaf civil rights movement.
* March 16
** First RepublicBank of Texas fails and enters FDIC receivership, the second-largest FDIC assisted bank failure up to that point.
** Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
* March 26 – U.S. presidential candidate Jesse Jackson defeats Michael Dukakis in the Michigan Democratic caucuses, becoming the frontrunner temporarily for the party's nomination. Richard Gephardt withdraws his candidacy after his campaign speeches against imported automobiles fail to earn him much support in Detroit.

April

* Throughout the Month – The unemployment rate drops to 5.4%, the lowest since June 1974.
* April 1 – In Fort Wayne, Indiana, 8-year-old April Marie Tinsley is kidnapped and murdered.
* April 4 – Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona is convicted in his impeachment trial and removed from office.
* April 5 – Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis wins the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary.
* April 11 – The 60th Academy Awards, hosted by Chevy Chase, are held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Bernardo Bertolucci's '' The Last Emperor'' wins all nine of its nominations (the first film to do so since 1958's '' Gigi''), including Best Picture and Best Director.
* April 12 – Former pop singer Sonny Bono is elected Mayor of Palm Springs, California.
* April 14 – The USS ''Samuel B. Roberts'' strikes a naval mine in the Persian Gulf, while deployed on Operation Earnest Will, during the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War.
* April 18 – The United States Navy retaliates for the ''Roberts'' mining with Operation Praying Mantis, in a day of strikes against Iranian oil platforms and naval vessels.

May

* May 4 – PEPCON disaster in Henderson, Nevada: A major explosion at an industrial solid-fuel rocket plant causes damage extending up to ten miles away, including Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport.
* May 14 – Bus collision near Carrollton, Kentucky: A drunk driver traveling in the wrong direction on Interstate 71 hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group from Radcliff, Kentucky. The resulting fire kills 27 people, making it tied for first in the U.S. for most fatalities involving 2 vehicles to the present day. Coincidentally, the other 2-vehicle accident involving a bus that also killed 27 occurred in Prestonsburg, Kentucky thirty years prior.
* May 16 –
**A report by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.
**''California v. Greenwood'': The U.S. Supreme Court rules that police officers do not need a search warrant to search through discarded garbage.
* May 27 – Microsoft releases Windows 2.1.
* May 31 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan addresses 600 Moscow State University students during his visit to the Soviet Union.

June

* June 1 – The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, banning intermediate-range missiles in the United States and the Soviet Union, comes into effect.
* June 12 – Rusty Wallace wins the last NASCAR Winston Cup Series Budweiser 400 auto race at Riverside International Raceway in Riverside, California.
* June 14 – A small wildfire is started by a lightning strike in Montana, United States, near the boundary for Yellowstone National Park. The Storm Creek fire expands into the park, then merges with dozens of other drought-aggravated fires. Eventually, over of Yellowstone – 36% of the park's area – burns before firefighters gain control in late September.
* June 22 – '' Back to the Future'' director Robert Zemeckis releases ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' through Touchstone Pictures to universal acclaim and box office success. It brings a renewed interest in the Golden Age of American animation, spearheading modern American animation and the Disney Renaissance.
* June 28 – Four workers are asphyxiated at a metal-plating plant in Auburn, Indiana, in the worst confined-space industrial accident in U.S. history (a fifth victim dies two days later).
* June 29 – ''Morrison v. Olson'': The United States Supreme Court upholds the law allowing special prosecutors to investigate suspected crimes by executive branch officials.

July

* July 3 – Iran Air Flight 655 is shot down by a missile launched from the USS ''Vincennes''.
* July 4 – In Zurich Switzerland FIFA chose the United States as the venue to organize the 1994 FIFA World Cup, the United States won with 10 votes, surpassed Morocco with 7 votes and Brazil with 3 votes.
* July 6 – The first reported medical waste on beaches in the Greater New York area (including hypodermic needles and syringes possibly infected with the AIDS virus) washes ashore on Long Island. Subsequent medical waste discoveries on beaches in Coney Island, Brooklyn and in Monmouth County, New Jersey, force the closure of numerous New York–area beaches in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record in the American Northeast.
* July 13 – Miami Arena in Miami, Florida opens.
* July 14 – Volkswagen closes its Westmoreland Assembly Plant after ten years of operation (the first factory built by a non-American automaker in the U.S.).
* July 20 – The Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia nominates Michael Dukakis as their presidential candidate and Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate.
* July 26 – The death of Tate Rowland leads way to publicized rumors of a Satanic cult in the rural community of Childress, Texas.

August

* August 6–7 – Tompkins Square Park Police Riot in New York City: A riot erupts in Tompkins Square Park when police attempt to enforce a newly passed curfew for the park. Bystanders, artists, residents, homeless people and political activists are caught up in the police action, which takes place during the night of August 6 and into the early morning of August 7.
* August 9 – Wrigley Field has its first night game of baseball, ending long opposition to lights at the field.
* August 17 – Pakistani President

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