1986
A nuclear reactor explodes at Chernobyl, Ukraine; Soviet authorities deny any cause for concern • Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after lift-off, killing its seven crew members • Corporal punishment is abolished in British schools • Film: Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources (Fr) • Mark Tansey (US) paints Forward Retreat
1987
World population exceeds five billion • Soviet leader Gorbachev and President Reagan sign historic treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals • British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wins a third term • Black Monday: Dow Jones share index nose-dives initiating a global stock market crash • Toni Morrison (US): Beloved
1988
Benazir Bhutto becomes Prime Minister of Pakistan: first woman leader of a Muslim country • Islamic terrorists blow up a Pan Am 747 commercial jet over Lockerbie, Scotland; 270 people killed • Armenian earthquake claims over 25,000 lives • End of Iran-lraq war • Physicist Stephen Hawking (Eng): A Brief History of Time
1989
George H. W. Bush takes office as 41st president of the USA • Soviet forces pull out of Afghanistan following nine-year occupation • Berlin Wall demolished • Playwright Vaclav Havel becomes President of Czechoslovakia following peaceful Velvet Revolution • F. W. de Klerk becomes State President of South Africa • Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini offers $3m reward to any Iranian who assassinates Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses • 96 Liverpool Football Club supporters crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web s • Soon after 21:00 on 14 December 1989, Sakharov went to his study to take a nap before preparing an important speech he was to deliver the next day in the Congress. His wife went to wake him at 23:00 as he had requested but she found Sakharov dead on the floor. According to the notes of Yakov Rapoport, a senior pathologist present at the autopsy, it is most likely that Sakharov died of an arrhythmia consequent to dilated cardiomyopathy at the age of 68. He was interred in the Vostryakovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.
1990
Nelson Mandela freed after 27 years in a South African prison • Germany is reunified • New local taxes spark ‘poll tax’ riots in London • Margaret Thatcher ousted by own Conservative party; John Major succeeds her as Prime Minister • Iraq invades and annexes Kuwait • Hubble space telescope launched • Human Genome Project begun
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (Russian: Андре́й Дми́триевич Са́харов; 21 May 1921 – 14 December 1989) was a Russian nuclear physicist, dissident, and activist for disarmament, peace and human rights.
He became renowned as the designer of the Soviet Union's RDS-37, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov later became an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the Soviet Union, for which he faced state persecution; these efforts earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. The Sakharov Prize, which is awarded annually by the European Parliament for people and organizations dedicated to human rights and freedoms, is named in his honor.
1986
Chess is a musical with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of the pop group ABBA, lyrics by Tim Rice, and a book by Richard Nelson based on an idea by Rice. The story involves a politically driven, Cold War–era chess tournament between two grandmasters from America and the USSR and their fight over a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other. Although the protagonists were not intended to represent any real individuals, the character of the American grandmaster (named Freddie Trumper in the stage version) was loosely based on Bobby Fischer, while elements of the story may have been inspired by the chess careers of Russian grandmasters Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov.
Songs from Chess the complete cast recording
CHESS Mountain Duet
Song from the musical CHESS, performt by: Elaine Paige Tommy Körberg
CHESS The Epilogue - You and I - The Story of Chess
The final song form the musical CHESS,
performt by Tommy Körberg and Elaine Paige
15 August
Krzysztof Penderecky - Die schwarze Maske.
Die schwarze Maske (The Black Mask) is an opera by composer Krzysztof Penderecki using a German libretto by the composer and Harry Kupfer which is based on a 1928 play by Gerhart Hauptmann. The opera premiered at the Salzburg Festival on 15 August 1986, after which there were productions mounted at the Vienna State Opera and the Great Theatre, Warsaw during the following opera seaso
Krzysztof Penderecki - Die schwarze Maske / Černá maska / The Black Mask / Czarna maska.
Libreto: Harry Kupfer
Originální hra: Gerhart Hauptmann
Opera Kraków, dirigent Kai Baumann, 20/1/2000
21 May
The Mask of Orpheus (1984), by Harrison Birtwistle, opens at the London Coliseum.
The complex atonal opera receives immense critical praise and proves a turning point in the composer’s career.
This year also completion of Earth Dances for orchestra.
Harrison Birtwistle - Earth Dances
Ensemble Modern Orchestra
Pierre Boulez
Gian-Carlo Menotti – Goya.
Libretto by the composer.
Gian-Carlo Menotti – Goya.
Goya 28 Nov 1986
13 June
John Adams’s exhilarating orchestral miniature Short Ride in a Fast Machine is first performed in Mansfield, Massachusetts.
John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
The BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop
Malcolm Arnold completes his ninth and final symphony.
Malcolm Arnold: Symphony No 9, Op 128.
Charles Groves-BBC Philharmonic-Premiere-1992
9 October
Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera opens at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London. The musical begins its run on Broadway 15 months later, with other productions following worldwide. It becomes the most financially successful musical work of all time.
