January 28, 1986. The space shuttle Challenger explodes after its launch from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven astronauts on board.

January 26, 1986. Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army Rebel group takes over Uganda after leading a successful 5-year guerrilla war in which up to half a million people are believed to have been killed. Museveni is still president of Uganda in 2012, serving his fourth term as president after his reelection in 2011.

February 7, 1986. President Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Baby Doc”, son of “Papa Doc”) flees Haiti, ending 28 years of dictatorial rule by the Duvalier family. Army leader General Henri Namphy heads a new National Governing Council.

February 9, 1986. Halley’s Comet reaches its perihelion, the closest point to the Sun, during its second visit to the solar system in the 20th Century.

February 18, 1986. The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.

February 25, 1986. Known as the People Power Revolution, over two million Filippinos bring about the downfall of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos through a sustained campaign of civil resistance against regime violence and electoral fraud. Marcos and his wife Imelda flee the Philippines as Corazon Aquino, the widow of slain opposition leader Benigno Aquino, is named interim president of the island country.

April 26-30,1986. An explosion rips through the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in Ukraine, Soviet Union. One nuclear at CHernobyl is still blazing, and three other reactors have been shut down. About 15,000 people have been evacuated from the vicinity of the power plant. A book for young people about the Chernobyl disaster that I can recommend is Andrea White’s Radiant Girl, the fictional story of one girl whose life is changed forever by the nuclear disaster. From my interview with Ms. White:

I got the idea for Radiant Girl, my most recent book about the Chernobyl disaster, from a photograph I saw on the Internet. The photo showed a girl on a motorcycle in the Dead Zone–where towns and families once flourished–and when I saw that picture of the girl I knew I wanted to write about Chernobyl. The inscription was, “As I pass through the checkpoint into the Dead Zone, I feel like I have entered an unreal world. It is divinely eerie like the Salvador Dali painting of the dripping clocks.”

June 12, 1986. South Africa declares a nationwide state of emergency, and 1000 black activists are arrested.

September 5-6, 1986. Pan Am Flight 73, with 358 people on board, is hijacked at Karachi International Airport by four Abu Nidal terrorists. In Istanbul, two Abu Nidal terrorists kill 22 and wound 6 inside the Neve Shalom synagogue during Shabbat services. Abu Nidal, leader of this Palestinian terrorist group, told a journalist in 1985: “I am the evil spirit which moves around only at night causing … nightmares.”

March 23, 1983. President Ronald Reagan proposes, in a televised speech, a new missile defense system to protect the United Stats from Soviet attack. The media calls the new defense system, “Star Wars.”

April 4, 1983. First flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger, NASA’s second space shuttle. Columbia, launched in April, 1981, was the first space shuttle.

June, 1983. Thousands of people in Chile take part in nationwide protests against the rule of dictator General Augusto Pinochet.

June 9, 1983. Britain’s Conservative government, led by Margaret Thatcher, is re-elected by a landslide majority

July 23, 1983. Riots in Sri Lanka, known as Black July. These riots, in which Sri Lankan mobs attack Tamil rebels and other Tamil citizens, leave between 400 and 3,000 Tamils dead and millions of dollars worth of their property destroyed. The riots are the beginning of a deadly Sri Lankan civil war.

August 21, 1983. Benigno Aquino, Jr., Philippines opposition leader, is assassinated in Manila as he returns from exile in the U.S. His widow, Corazon Aquino, will be inspired by her husband’s life and death to run for President of the Philippines in 1986.

August 31, 1983. Korean Air Lines Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter near Moneron Island when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 passengers on board are killed, including U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald.

October 23, 1983. Suicide truck-bombings destroy both the French and the United States Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. servicemen, 58 French paratroopers and 6 Lebanese civilians.

October 25, 1982. United States troops invade Grenada at the request of Eugenia Charles of Dominica, a member of the Organization of American States.

October 30, 1983. Argentina holds its first democratic elections after seven years of military rule. In December, Raul Alfonsin will be inaugurated as the democratically elected president of Argentina.

February 2-3, 1982. The Hama massacre begins in Syria. Syrian president Hafez al-Assad orders the army to purge the city of Hama of the Muslim Brotherhood and other rebels. Ten to twenty thousand Syrians die in the ensuing massacre.

June 2, 1982. Forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon in their “Operation Peace for the Galilee,” eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut. The United Nations Security Council votes to demand that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon.

June 14, 1982. Argentinian forces that had invaded the nearby Falkland Islands in April surrender to British forces after a fierce war over control of the islands. Although Argentina still claims the island group that it calls the Malvinas, Great Britain retains control of the government of the Falklands.

August, 1982. Israeli troops drive the Palestinian Liberation Organization out of its base in Beirut, Lebanon. Yassir Arafat and other Palestinian leaders evacuate to Tunisia.

September 18, 1982. The Lebanese Christian Militia (the Phalange) kill thousands of Palestinians in refugee camps. The massacre is in retaliation for the assassination of pro-Israel president-elect, Bachir Gemayel, as well as several Palestinian massacres against Lebanese Christians.

October, 1982. Socialist Felipe Gonzales becomes prime minister of Spain.

November 12, 1982. Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev dies of a heart attack and is succeeded by Premier Yuri Andropov.

November 14, 1982. The leader of Poland’s outlawed Solidarity movement, Lech WaÅ‚Ä™sa, is released from 11 months of internment near the Soviet border.

December 2, 1982. The first operation to successfully implant an artificial heart in a human being is performed on retired dentist Barney Clark at the University of Utah Medical Center. The heart, the Jarvik-7, is named after its inventor, Robert Jarvik.

CD’s (compact discs) and CD players are first released to the public in 1982. The first album to be released on CD is Billy Joel’s 52nd Street.

January, 1979. Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia is overthrown by the invading Vietnamese.

January 16, 1979. The Shah of Iran is sent into exile as Muslim fundamentalists take over the governing of Iran. Opposition to the Shah has been led by supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini, a Muslim leader who has been living in exile himself in Paris.

March 26, 1979. Egypt and Israel sign a peace treaty at the White House in Washington, D.C. Palestinians and their Arab supporters in other countries see this agreement as a betrayal since the treaty does not settle the question of a Palestinian state or the future of Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, or Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

May 4, 1979. Conservative Margaret Thatcher becomes prime minister of Great Britain, the first female to ever hold that position. She promises a complete transformation of the British economy along conservative lines.

June, 1979. US President Jimmy Carter and Soveit Premier Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II treaty limiting nuclear weapons.

July 1, 1979. A revolutionary new portable stereo system, the Sony Walkman, is launched in Japan. With the help of lightweight plastic earphones the Walkman enables the listener to enjoy radio or music wherever he goes.

July 20, 1979. Sandinista rebels overthrow Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. Somoza flees to the US, taking with an estimated $20 million from the Nicaraguan treasury.

November, 1979. THe US Embassy in Tehran, Iran is taken over by followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and nearly 100 embassy staff members and US marines are taken hostage.

November, 1979. Saudi Arabian troops storm the Great Mosque at Mecca, which had been occupied by Shiite Muslims.

December 27, 179. The USSR invades Afghanistan. The Russians say that they have been asked to provide “urgent political, moral, military, and economic assistance” to the Afghans. The Soviets install a puppet government in Kabul, the capital, but most of the country is controlled by the Mujahideen, Muslim fundamentalist guerillas who want to rule the country in accordance with their interpretation of Muslim law.