1989 Year in Review

 Highlights/Favorite Memories:

• See Amman 1987-90 Blog Site.     

U.S. Events:

·         A San Francisco Bay area earthquake measuring 7.1 in magnitude, killed 67 and injured over   3,000. Over 100,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. (Oct. 17)

·         George Herbert Walker Bush inaugurated as 41st US President (Jan. 20).

·         Ruptured tanker Exxon Valdez sends 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince   William  Sound (March 24).

·         US jury convicts Oliver North in Iran-Contra affair (May 4).

·         Army Gen. Colin R. Powell is first black Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff (Aug. 9).

World Events:

·         US planes shoot down two Libyan fighters over international waters in Mediterranean (Jan. 4).

·         Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini declares author Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses offensive   and sentences him to death (Feb. 14).

·         Tens of thousands of Chinese students take over Beijing's Tiananmen Square in rally for   democracy (April 19 et seq.). More than one million in Beijing demonstrate for democracy;   chaos spreads across nation (mid-May et seq.). Thousands killed in Tiananmen Square as   Chinese leaders take hard line toward demonstrators (June 4 et seq.).

·         Mikhail S. Gorbachev named Soviet President (May 25).

·         P. W. Botha quits as South Africa's President (Aug. 14).

·         Deng Xiaoping resigns from China's leadership (Nov. 9).

·         After 28 years, Berlin Wall is open to West (Nov. 11).

·         Czech Parliament ends Communists' dominant role (Nov. 30).

·         Romanian uprising overthrows Communist government (Dec. 15 et seq.); President Ceausescu   and wife executed (Dec. 25).

·         US troops invade Panama, seeking capture of General Manuel Noriega (Dec. 20).

Movies:

“Rain Man” won four awards, including the Best Picture; Dustin Hoffman for Best Actor and Barry Levinson as Best Director.   Jodie Foster won Best Actress for “The Accused”.  Best Supporting Actor went to Kevin Cline “A Fish Called Wanda”.  Best supporting Actress was Geena Davis “Accidental Tourist”.  

Super Bowl

Super Bowl XXIII:  The 49ers defeated the Bengals 20–16, winning their third Super Bowl. The game is best remembered for the 49ers' fourth-quarter game-winning drive. Down 16–13, San Francisco got the ball on their own 8-yard line with 3:10 on the clock and marched 92 yards down the field in under three minutes. They then scored the winning touchdown on a Joe Montana pass to John Taylor with just 34 seconds left in the game. The game was tight throughout. The teams combined for five field goals, and battled to a 3–3 score by the end of the second quarter, the first halftime tie in Super Bowl history. Cincinnati's only touchdown, a 93-yard kickoff return by Stanford Jennings in the third quarter, was quickly answered by a four-play, 85-yard drive that ended with San Francisco wide receiver Jerry Rice's 14-yard touchdown reception. Rice, who was named the Super Bowl MVP, caught 11 passes for a Super Bowl record 215 yards and a touchdown, while also rushing once for five yards.

World Series

The 1989 World Series was between the Athletics and Giants.  The four-game sweep by the Athletics at the time would mark only the third time in World Series history that a team never trailed in any game, with the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers, 1966 Baltimore Orioles, and later the 2004 Boston Red Sox being the only other times this occurred, and the first in the playoff era (post-1968). This marked the fourth World Series matchup, and first since 1913, between the two franchises. The previous three matchups occurred when the Giants were in New York and the Athletics resided in Philadelphia. The then New York Giants defeated the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1905 World Series four games to one, the Athletics defeating the Giants in the 1911 World Series four games to two, and then again in the 1913 Fall Classic four games to one. The series would be historic in other ways as well: the 76-year gap between matchups was the longest in World Series history, a record this World Series would hold until 2018 when the Red Sox and Dodgers met for their first World Series meeting in 102 years; it also marked the first time two franchises had faced off in the World Series after having once played each other when both were based in a different city.  This Series was also known as the "Bay Bridge Series," "BART Series," "Battle of the Bay," and "Earthquake Series".  The 1989 7.2 Loma Prieta earthquake that occurred before the start of Game 3. It was the first cross-town World Series (involving two teams from the same metropolitan area) since 1956, and only the third such series that did not involve New York City (the 1906 and 1944 World Series, which featured matchups between the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns respectively, were the others).