Matthew Stuart meets with Boston prosecutors and tells them that his brother, Charles, was actually the person responsible for murdering Charles’s wife, Carol. The killing of Carol Stuart, who was pregnant at the time, on October 23, 1989, had touched off a national outrage when Charles Stuart told authorities that the couple had been robbed […]
Noriega Surrenders To U.S.
On this day in 1990, Panama’s General Manuel Antonio Noriega, after holing up for 10 days at the Vatican embassy in Panama City, surrenders to U.S. military troops to face charges of drug trafficking. Noriega was flown to Miami the following day and crowds of citizens on the streets of Panama City rejoiced. On July […]
Sitcom Actress Murdered; Death Prompts Anti-Stalking Legislation
On this day in 1989, the 21-year-old actress Rebecca Shaeffer is murdered at her Los Angeles home by Robert John Bardo, a mentally unstable man who had been stalking her. Schaeffer’s death helped lead to the passage in California of legislation aimed at preventing stalking. Schaeffer was born November 6, 1967, in Eugene, Oregon. She […]
A Mother Is Arrested And Accused Of Killing Her Four Children
rested in Georgia for the 1982 murder Martha Ann Johnson is arof her oldest child, Jennyann Wright, after an Atlanta newspaper initiated a new investigation into her suspicious death. Johnson’s three other children had also mysteriously died between 1977 and 1982. Back in September 1977, Johnson (who was only 21 at the time) and her […]
Do The Right Thing Released
On this day in 1989, the writer-director Spike Lee’s third feature film, Do the Right Thing–a provocative, racially charged drama that takes place on one block in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, on the hottest day of the year–is released in U.S. theaters. The block in question is home to Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, the only white-owned business […]
Congress Votes New Sanctions Against China
In yet another reaction to the Chinese government’s brutal massacre of protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing earlier in the month, the House of Representatives unanimously passes a package of sanctions against the People’s Republic of China. American indignation, however, was relatively short-lived and most of the sanctions died out after a brief period. On […]
Batman Released
On this day in 1989, Tim Burton’s noir spin on the well-known story of the DC Comics hero Batman is released in theaters. Michael Keaton starred in the film as the multimillionaire Bruce Wayne, who has transformed himself into the crime-fighting Batman after witnessing his parents’ brutal murder as a child. As the film’s action […]
Cease-Fire Established In Angolan Civil War
After nearly 15 years of civil war, opposing factions in Angola agree to a cease-fire to end a conflict that had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The cease-fire also helped to defuse U.S.-Soviet tensions concerning Angola. Angola was a former Portuguese colony that had attained independence in 1975. Even before that date, however, various […]