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Jan 1, 1988 - President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev exchanged optimistic New Year's greetings, expressing mutual hope they would reach an arms control treaty on strategic weapons within six months. Jan 11, 1988 - World War II flying ace Gregory "Pappy" Boyington died in Fresno, Calif., at age 75. |
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Feb 29, 1988 - A Nazi document was discovered that implicated participation of Austrian president and former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim in WWII deportations. |
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April 24, 1988 - Movie is being cast of life and career of late Atterbury Job Corps boxing coach who played a big part in development of local Golden Gloves tournament. April 25, 1988 - To the cheers of spectators, a judge in Jerusalem sentenced John Demjanjuk to death after the retired Ohio autoworker was convicted of being "Ivan the Terrible," a Nazi death camp guard who had killed tens of thousands of people. Demjanjuk's conviction was later overturned. |
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May 29, 1988 - President Reagan began his first visit to the Soviet Union as he arrived in Moscow for a superpower summit with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. |
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June 25, 1988 - American-born Mildred Gillars, better known during World War II as "Axis Sally" for her Nazi propaganda broadcasts, died in Columbus, Ohio, at age 87. (Gillars had served 12 years in prison for treason.) |
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July 3, 1988 - The US Navy USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus A-300 in the Persian Gulf from the cruiser ship Vincennes. All 290 people aboard were killed after the crew of the Vincennes misidentified the plane as an Iranian F-14 fighter. In 1996 the US paid $131.8 million in compensation of which half would go directly to the families of the people killed. Iran filed suit in World Court in 1989 and settled out of court in Feb, 1996. |
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Aug 10, 1988 - President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, a measure providing $20,000 payments to Japanese-Americans interned by the U.S. government during World War II. Aug 15, 1988 - President Reagan bade a sentimental farewell on the first night of the Republican national convention in New Orleans, and praised the man destined to succeed him, Vice President George Bush. Aug 16, 1988 - Vice President George Bush tapped Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle to be his running mate. |
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Dec 21, 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 was downed over Lockerbee, Scotland by a terrorist bomb. 270 people were killed aboard the Boeing 747. Libya was accused of responsibility for the bombing, which killed 259 people onboard and 11 on the ground. Two Libyan operatives, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and A-Amin Khalifa Fahimah, were indicted in 1991 and thought to be in hiding in Libya. They were sent to the Netherlands for trial in 1999 and implicated Mohammed Abu Talb, a Palestinian terrorist jailed in Sweden.
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