1987
1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar.
Events
Environmental change
- January 1 - Frobisher Bay, Northwest Territories, changes its name to Iqaluit. In 1999, it will become the capital of Nunavut.
- January 3 - Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- January 4 - An Amtrak train en route from Washington, DC to New York collides with CONRAIL engines killing 16.
- January 5 - US President Ronald Wilson Reagan undergoes prostate surgery causing worries about his health.
- January 20 - Terry Waite, the special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury in Lebanon, is kidnapped in Beirut (released November 1991)
- January 22 - In Pennsylvania, R. Budd Dwyer, Treasurer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania shoots himself at a press conference after being found guilty on charges of bribery, fraud, conspiracy, and racketeering.
- January 24 - In Lebanon, gunmen kidnap Alann Steen , Jesse Turner , Robert Polhill and Mitheleshwar Singh .
- January 29 - William J. Casey ends his term as a director of CIA
- December 1 - NASA announces the names of four companies who were awarded contracts to help build the International Space Station: Boeing Aerospace, General Electric's Astro-Space Division, McDonnell Douglas, and the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell
- December 1 - Channel Tunnel digging commences
- Monday, December 7, 1987 - Delaware celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- December 8 - first Intifada begins
- Saturday, December 12, 1987 - Pennsylvania celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- Friday, December 18, 1987 - New Jersey celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- Friday, December 18, 1987 - programming language Perl 1.0 released
- December 20 - Dona Paz collides with Vector I - 749 confirmed deaths (probably closer to 3,000 due to unregistered passengers)
- December 29 - Prozac® makes its debut in the US
unknown dates
Year in Topic
Births
- March 9 - Bow Wow, rap musician, actor
- March 9 - Pikku G , Finnish rap musician
- April 9 - Jesse McCartney, actor and singer
- April 10 - Hayley Westenra, singer
- April 11 - Joss Stone, musician
- April 19 - Maria Sharapova, tennis player
- May 21 - Ashlie Brillault, actress (Lizzie McGuire)
- June 3 - Lalaine, actress (Lizzie McGuire)
- August 22 - Elena Canty , actress (The Ring 2)
- September 22 - Tom Felton, actor (Harry Potter movies)
- September 28 - Hilary Duff, actress, singer (Lizzie McGuire, Agent Cody Banks)
- December 7 - Aaron Carter, singer
- December 12 - Kate Todd , actress (Radio Free Roscoe)
Deaths
- January 15 - Ray Bolger, actor, singer, dancer (b. 1904)
- February 2 - Alistair MacLean, British thriller writer (heart attack; b. 1922)
- February 4 - Liberace, American pianist (b. 1919)
- February 22 - Andy Warhol, American artist, director, writer (b. 1928)
- March 2 - Randolph Scott, actor (b. 1898)
- March 3 - Danny Kaye, actor, American singer, comedian (b. 1918)
- March 19 - Louis-Victor de Broglie, French physicist and winner 1929 of the Nobel Prize in Physics (b. 1892)
- March 21 - Robert Preston, actor (b. 1918)
- March 21 - Dean Paul Martin, actor (b. 1951)
- March 26 - Eugen Jochum, German conductor (b. 1902)
- March 28 - Maria von Trapp, Austrian singer (b. 1905)
- April 2 - Buddy Rich, jazz drummer (b. 1917)
- April 3 - Tom Sestak, American football player (b. 1936)
- April 4 - C. L. Moore, science fiction writer (b. 1911)
- April 28 - Ben Linder, American engineer murdered in Nicaragua (b. 1959)
- May 3 - Dalida, French singer (b. 1933)
- May 4 - Paul Butterfield, blues musician (b. 1942)
- May 6 - William J. Casey, controversial director of the CIA (b. 1913)
- May 11 - Peter Tosh, musician (b. 1944)
- May 14 - Rita Hayworth, actress (b. 1918)
- May 19 - James Tiptree, Jr, science fiction author (b. 1915)
- June 2 - Andres Segovia, Spanish guitarist (b. 1893)
- June 6 - Fulton Mackay, actor (b. 1922)
- June 6 - Keith Paultur, inventor
- June 10 - Elizabeth Hartman, American actress, from suicide (b. 1943)
- June 22 - Fred Astaire, American actor, dancer (b. 1899)
- July 10 - John Hammond, record producer (b. 1910)
- August 17 - Rudolf Hess, Hitler's second-in-command (suicide) (b. 1894)
- September 4 - Bill Bowes, champion Yorkshire and England bowler (b. 1908)
- September 11 - Lorne Greene, Canadian actor (b. 1915)
- September 23 - Bob Fosse, theater choreographer and director (b. 1927)
- October 3 - Jean Anouilh, French dramatist (b. 1910)
- October 3 - Kalervo Palsa, Finnish artist (b. 1947)
- October 19 - Jacqueline du Pré, English cellist (b. 1945)
- October 20 - Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, Russian mathematician (b. 1903)
- October 28 - André Masson, French artist (b. 1896)
- October 29 - Woody Herman, American jazz musician (b. 1913)
- October 31 - Joseph Campbell, author and expert on mythology (b. 1904)
- December 10 - Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian violinist (b. 1901)
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