1987

Mathias Rust's red Cessna in Red Square, Soviet Union

1987 was the 1,987th year of the Common Era and the seventh year of the 1980s.

Events

• Chadian victory at the Battle of Fada during the Libyan-Chadian War of 1978-1987.
• Beginning of the Phosphorite War movement in the Estonian SSR of the Soviet Union.
• President Ronald Reagan acknowledges that the Iran-Contra Affair was an "arms-for-hostages" deal amidst protests against the affair.
• Macau is agreed to be returned to China in 1999 by Portugal.
• Sitiveni Rabuka leads a bloodless coup in Fiji.
• USS Stark is attacked by two Iraqi Exocet missiles, killing 47 sailors.
• 18-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust lands his plane in the Red Square of Moscow, Soviet Union, evading Soviet air defenses. He wanted to create an "imaginary bridge" to the East from the West to ease tensions during the Cold War. As a result, USSR Premier Mikhail Gorbachev fired several military leaders and gained backing for his Glasnost and Perestroika reforms from the people.
• The first chemical weapons bombing from a plane on a civilian town occurs when the Iraqi Air Force drops mustard gas bombs on the Iranian town of Sardasht.

Hit songs

• "Alone" - Heart
• "Always on my Mind" - Pet Shop Boys
• "Bad" - Michael Jackson
• "C'est La Vie" - Robbie Nevil
• "Don't Dream It's Over" - Crowded House
• "Heart and Soul" - T'Pau
• "Heartbreak Beat" - The Psychadelic Furs
• "Heaven is a Place on Earth" - Belinda Carlisle
• "Hysteria" - Def Leppard
• "I Just Died in Your Arms" - The Cutting Crew
• "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - U2
• "It's the End of the World as We Know It" - R.E.M.
• "La Bamba" - Los Lobos
• "Lips Like Sugar" - Echo and the Bunnymen
• "Little Lies" - Fleetwood Mac
• "New Sensation" - INXS
• "Never Gonna Give You Up" - Rick Astley
• "Never Let Me Down Again" - Depeche Mode
• "The One I Love" - R.E.M.
• "Pour Some Sugar on Me" - Def Leppard
• "Something So Strong" - Crowded House
• "Strangelove" - Depeche Mode
• "Sweet Child O' Mine" - Guns n' Roses
• "Walking Down Your Street" - The Bangles
• "Wanted Dead or Alive" - Bon Jovi
• "Welcome to the Jungle" - Guns n' Roses
• "With or Without You" - U2
• "You're the Voice" - John Farnham
• "You Keep Me Hanging On" - Kim Wilde

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