1988 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal government

• President: Ronald Reagan
• Vice President: George H. W. Bush
• Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Jim Wright
• Senate Majority Leader: Robert Byrd
• Congress: 100th

  Governors

Lieutenant governors

Events

January

• January 1 – The Dell Computer Corporation is incorporated.
• January 1 – The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is established, creating the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.
• January 2 – Michigan State Spartans football team wins the Rose Bowl Game against the USC Trojans.
• January 25 – U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush and CBS News anchor Dan Rather clash over Bush's role in the Iran–Contra scandal during a contentious television interview.
• January 29 – The Midwest Classic Conference, a U.S. college athletic conference, is formed.

  February

• February 3 – The Democratic-controlled United States House of Representatives rejects President Ronald Reagan's request for $36,250,000 to support the Nicaraguan Contras.
• February 12 – Anthony M. Kennedy is appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
• February 16 – Gunman Richard Farley kills seven people inside his former workplace, ESL Incorporated in Sunnyvale, California. He had been stalking colleague Laura Black who still worked there; however, she survived the shooting. Farley is currently on death row.
• February 17 – U.S. Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins, serving with a United Nations group monitoring a truce in southern Lebanon, is kidnapped.
• February 24 – Hustler Magazine v. Falwell: The Supreme Court of the United States sides with Hustler magazine by overturning a lower court decision to award Jerry Falwell $200,000 for defamation.

  March

• March 8
• *Two U.S. Army helicopters collide in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, killing 17 servicemen.
• *U.S. presidential candidate George Herbert Walker Bush defeats Bob Dole in numerous Republican primaries and caucuses on "Super Tuesday". The bipartisan primary/caucus calendar, designed by Democrats to help solidify their own nominee early, backfires when none of the six competing candidates are able to break out of the pack in the day's Democratic contests. Jesse Jackson, however, wins several Southern state primaries.
• March 13 – Following the Deaf President Now protests, Gallaudet University selects I. King Jordan as the first deaf president in its history.
• March 16
• *First RepublicBank of Texas fails and enters FDIC receivership, the second-largest FDIC assisted bank failure up to that point.
• *Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
• March 26 – U.S. presidential candidate Jesse Jackson defeats Michael Dukakis in the Michigan Democratic caucuses, becoming the frontrunner temporarily for the party's nomination. Richard Gephardt withdraws his candidacy after his campaign speeches against imported automobiles fail to earn him much support in Detroit.

  April

• April – The unemployment rate drops to 5.4%, the lowest since June 1974.
• April 1 – In Fort Wayne, Indiana, 8-year-old April Marie Tinsley is kidnapped and murdered.
• April 4 – Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona is convicted in his impeachment trial and removed from office.
• April 5 – Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis wins the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary.
• April 11 – The Last Emperor wins nine Oscars.
• April 12 – Former pop singer Sonny Bono is elected Mayor of Palm Springs, California.
• April 14 – The USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a naval mine in the Persian Gulf, while deployed on Operation Earnest Will, during the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War.
• April 18 – The United States Navy retaliates for the Roberts mining with Operation Praying Mantis, in a day of strikes against Iranian oil platforms and naval vessels.

  May

• May 4 – PEPCON disaster in Henderson, Nevada: A major explosion at an industrial solid-fuel rocket plant causes damage extending up to ten miles away, including Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport.
• May 14 – Bus collision near Carrollton, Kentucky: A drunk driver traveling in the wrong direction on Interstate 71 hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group from Radcliff, Kentucky. The resulting fire kills 27 people, making it tied for first in the U.S. for most fatalities involving 2 vehicles to the present day. Coincidentally, the other 2-vehicle accident involving a bus that also killed 27 occurred in Prestonsburg, Kentucky thirty years prior.
• May 16
• *A report by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.
• *California v. Greenwood: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that police officers do not need a search warrant to search through discarded garbage.
• May 27 – Microsoft releases Windows 2.1.
• May 31 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan addresses 600 Moscow State University students during his visit to the Soviet Union.

  June

• June-November – Wildfires spread through Yellowstone.
• June 1 – The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, banning intermediate-range missiles in the United States and the Soviet Union, comes into effect.
• June 28 – Four workers are asphyxiated at a metal-plating plant in Auburn, Indiana, in the worst confined-space industrial accident in U.S. history.
• June 29 – Morrison v. Olson: The United States Supreme Court upholds the law allowing special prosecutors to investigate suspected crimes by executive branch officials.

  July

• July 3 – Iran Air Flight 655 is shot down by a missile launched from the USS Vincennes.
• July 4 – In Zurich Switzerland FIFA chose the United States as the venue to organize the 1994 FIFA World Cup, the United States won with 10 votes, surpassed Morocco with 7 votes and Brazil with 3 votes.
• July 6 – The first reported medical waste on beaches in the Greater New York area washes ashore on Long Island. Subsequent medical waste discoveries on beaches in Coney Island, Brooklyn and in Monmouth County, New Jersey force the closure of numerous New York–area beaches in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record in the American Northeast.
• July 13 – Miami Arena in Miami, Florida opens.
• July 14 – Volkswagen closes its Westmoreland Assembly Plant after ten years of operation.
• July 20 – The Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia nominates Michael Dukakis as their presidential candidate and Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate.
• July 26 – The death of Tate Rowland leads way to publicized rumors of a Satanic cult in the rural community of Childress, Texas.

  August

• August 6-7 – Tompkins Square Park Police Riot in New York City: A riot erupts in Tompkins Square Park when police attempt to enforce a newly passed curfew for the park. Bystanders, artists, residents, homeless people and political activists are caught up in the police action, which takes place during the night of August 6 and into the early morning of August 7.
• August 9 – Wrigley Field has its first night game of baseball, ending long opposition to lights at the field.
• August 17 – Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Raphel, are killed in a plane crash near Bhawalpur.
• August 18 – The Republican National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana nominates Vice President George H. W. Bush as their presidential candidate and Dan Quayle as his running mate.

  September

• September 5 – With US$2,000,000,000 in federal aid, the Robert M. Bass Group agrees to buy the United States' largest thrift, American Savings and Loan Association.
• September 15 – Nicholas F. Brady is sworn in as the new Secretary of Treasury, succeeding James Baker.
• September 17-October 2 – The United States participates in the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea and ranks in third place, bringing home 36 gold, 31 silver and 27 bronze medals for a total of 94 medals behind the Soviet Union in first place and East Germany in second.
• September 29
• *STS-26: NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, with Space Shuttle Discovery.
• *The Space Shuttle Discovery goes back into orbit putting the US back into the Space Race, it deployed the TDRS-C satellite into orbit.

  October

• October 3 – STS-26 lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California after four days of its successful maiden flight and satellite deployment.
• October 5 – In Omaha, Nebraska, in the only vice presidential debate of the 1988 U.S. presidential election, the Republican vice presidential nominee, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, insists he has as much experience in government as John F. Kennedy did when he sought the presidency in 1960. His Democratic opponent, Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, replies, "Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy. I served with Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." The audience response to Senator Bentsen's remark is overwhelmingly positive.
• October 13 – In the second U.S. presidential debate, held by U.C.L.A., the Democratic Party nominee, Michael Dukakis, is asked by journalist Bernard Shaw of CNN if he would support the death penalty if his wife, "Kitty", were to be raped and murdered. Gov. Dukakis' reply, voicing his opposition to capital punishment in any and all circumstances, is later said to have been a major reason for the eventual failure of his campaign for the White House.
• October 15 – Kirk Gibson hits a dramatic home run to win Game 1 of the World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers, over the Oakland Athletics, by a score of 5–4.
• October 20 - The Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Oakland Athletics, 4 games to 1, to win their 6th World Series Title.
• October 27 – Ronald Reagan decides to tear down the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow because of Soviet listening devices in the building structure.
• October 30 – Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for US$13,100,000,000.
• October 31 – National Park of American Samoa is established.

  November

• November – The unemployment rate drops to 5.3%, the lowest level since May 1974.
• November 2 – The Morris worm, the first computer worm distributed via the Internet, written by Robert Tappan Morris, is launched from MIT.
• November 8 – 1988 United States presidential election: George H. W. Bush is elected as 41st President of the United States over Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis.
• November 11 – In Sacramento, California, police find a body buried in the lawn of sixty-year-old landlady Dorothea Puente. Seven bodies are eventually found and Puente is convicted of three murders and sentenced to life in prison.
• November 13 – Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian law student in Portland, Oregon is beaten to death by members of the Neo-Nazi group East Side White Pride.
• November 18 – War on Drugs: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill providing the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers.
• November 21 – Ted Turner officially buys Jim Crockett Promotions, known as NWA Crockett, and turns it into World Championship Wrestling.
• November 22 – In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed.
• November 30 – Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco for US$25,000,700,000 in the biggest leveraged buyout deal of all time.

  December

• December 1 – The first World AIDS Day is observed.
• December 9 – The last Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant roll off the assembly line in a Chrysler factory.
• December 12 – Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev begins an official visit to the United States.
• December 14 – After Yasir Arafat renounces violence, the U.S. says it will open dialogue with the PLO.
• December 16 – Perennial U.S. presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche is convicted of mail fraud.
• December 19 – Gorbachev cuts short his visit to the United States and returns home to the Soviet Union, as thousands of people have died in an earthquake in Armenia.
• December 21 – Pan Am Flight 103 is destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, United Kingdom; killing 270 people, including 178 U.S. citizens.

  Undated

• BlackRock founded as a global asset management company in New York City by Larry Fink and others; it will become the world's largest.

  Ongoing

• Cold War

  Births

• January 2 - Mandy Harvey, jazz and pop singer
• January 3 - J. R. Hildebrand, race car driver
• January 8
• * Allison Harvard, model
• * Lily Nicksay, actress
• January 12 - Andrew Lawrence, actor, singer and director
• January 14 - Hakeem Nicks, American football player
• January 15
• * Skrillex, musician and DJ
• * Jessica Poland, singer-songwriter
• January 18 - Ashleigh Murray, actress and singer
• January 21 - Vanessa Hessler, American-Italian model and actress
• January 22 - Nick Palatas, actor
• January 28 - Alexandra Krosney, actress
• January 29 - Cyntoia Brown, murderer of Johnny Mitchell Allen and convicted robber.
• January 30 - Rob Pinkston, actor
• February 2 - Zosia Mamet, actress
• February 4 - Charlie Barnett, actor
• February 6
• * Anna Diop, actress
• * Bailey Hanks, singer, actress and dancer
• February 7 - Matthew Stafford, American football player
• February 10 - Seth Gamble, porn actor
• February 12
• * DeMarco Murray, American football player
• * Greta Salpeter, singer-songwriter, pianist
• February 18 - Sarah Sutherland, actress
• February 19 - Stacie Chan, actress and voice actress
• February 20 - Kealoha Pilares, American football player
• February 23 - Byron Maxwell, American football player
• February 24 - Alexander Koch, actor
• February 25 - Gerald McCoy, American football player
• March 1
• * Katija Pevec, actress
• * Trevor Cahill, baseball player
• March 3 - Josh Duggar, television personality
• March 14 - Stephen Curry, basketball player
• March 19
• * Freddie Smith, actor
• * Clayton Kershaw, baseball player
• March 22 - Tania Raymonde, actress
• March 24 - Nick Lashaway, actor
• March 27 - Brenda Song, actress
• March 28
• * Geno Atkins, American football player
• * Ryan Kalish, baseball player
• March 29 - Kelly Sweet, singer
• March 31 - DeAndre Liggins, basketball player
• April 1 - Brook Lopez, basketball player
• April 3
• * Kam Chancellor, American football player
• * Brandon Graham, American football player
• April 11 - Pete Kozma, baseball player
• April 13 - Allison Williams, actress
• April 15 - Chris Stuckmann, film critic, filmmaker, author and YouTuber
• April 18 - Kayleigh McEnany,political commentator White House Press Secretary
• April 21
• * Jencarlos Canela, singer-songwriter and actor
• * Christoph Sanders, actor
• April 25 - Sara Paxton, actress, singer and model
• April 27
• * Austin Amelio, screen actor
• * Lizzo, born Melissa Jefferson, African American singer-songwriter and rapper
• May 5
• * Jessica Dubroff, trainee aviator
• * Brooke Hogan, reality star and singer
• May 7 - Brandon Jones, actor, musician and producer
• May 10 - Mat Franco, magician
• May 11 - Jeremy Maclin, American football player
• May 17 - Nikki Reed, actress, singer-songwriter and screenwriter
• May 23 - Zachary Wohlman, boxer
• May 27 - Alicia Sixtos, actress
• June 2 - Joe Young, American football player
• June 6 - Gideon Glick, actor and singer
• June 27 - Alanna Masterson, actress
• July 6 - Brittany Underwood, actress and singer
• July 7 - Chase Williamson, actor and film producer
• July 10
• * Antonio Brown, American football player
• * Heather Hemmens, actress
• July 12
• * Patrick Beverley, basketball player
• * LeSean McCoy, American football player
• * Christine Marie Cabanos, voice actress
• July 13
• * Colton Haynes, actor and model
• * Chris Sheffield, actor
• * Steven R. McQueen, actor and model
• July 14 - Chase Williamson, actor and film producer
• July 17
• * Summer Bishil, actress
• * Anderson East, musician
• * Luke Stocker, American football player
• July 18 - Ambyr Childers, actress
• July 19
• * Shane Dawson, Internet personality, actor, comedian, director and author
• * Cherami Leigh, actress
• * Trent Williams, American football player
• July 20
• * Julianne Hough, ballroom dancer, country music singer and actress
• * Stephen Strasburg, baseball player
• July 23 - Kevin Tway, golfer
• July 25 - Linsey Godfrey, actress
• July 26
• * Francia Raisa, actress
• * Caitlin Gerard, actress
• July 28
• * Ayla Brown, basketball player and singer
• * Greg Hardy, American football player
• July 30 - Nico Tortorella, actor and model
• July 31
• * A. J. Green, American football player
• * Charlie Carver, actor
• * Krystal Meyers, singer-songwriter/musician
• August 12 - Leah Pipes, actress
• August 16
• * Rumer Willis, actress and singer
• * Ryan Kerrigan, American football player
• August 19
• * Hoodie Allen, hip-hop artist
• * Veronica Roth, novelist and short story writer
• August 23
• * Jeremy Lin, basketball player
• * Kim Matula, actress
• August 26
• * Tori Black, pornographic actress
• * Evan Ross, actor and musician
• * Danielle Savre, actress and singer
• August 27 - Alexa Vega, actress and singer
• August 28 - Shalita Grant, actress
• August 31 - Tanaya Henry, model and actress
• September 1 - Chanel West Coast, rapper, singer, actress, model and television personality
• September 7
• * Kevin Love, basketball player
• * Paul Iacono, actor
• September 9 - McKey Sullivan, fashion model
• September 10 - Jared Lee Loughner, spree killer
• September 19 - Katrina Bowden, actress
• September 29 - Kevin Durant, basketball player
• October 2
• * Brittany Howard, musician
• * Corrin Campbell, vocalist, bassist, songwriter and pianist
• October 4 - Melissa Benoist, actress and singer
• October 10 - Linval Joseph, American football player
• October 14
• * Max Thieriot, actor
• * MacKenzie Mauzy, actress
• * Pia Toscano, singer and American Idol contestant
• October 17 - Dee Jay Daniels, actor
• October 21
• * Hope Hicks, public relations consultant, White House Communications Director
• * Glen Powell, actor
• October 30 - Janel Parrish, actress and singer
• November 2 - Lindze Letherman, actress
• November 4 - Dez Bryant, American football player
• November 6
• * Robert Ellis, singer-songwriter and guitarist
• * Emma Stone, actress
• November 7 - Reid Ewing, actor
• November 8 - Jared Kusnitz, screen actor
• November 11 - Alexandra Kyle, actress
• November 14 - Michael Cox, American football running back
• November 18 - Jeffrey Jordan, basketball player
• November 22 - Matt Bruenig, lawyer, blogger, policy analyst and commentator
• December 1
• * Ashley Monique Clark, actress
• * Tyler Joseph, singer
• * Zoë Kravitz, actress, singer and model
• December 14 -
• * Nate Ebner, American football player
• * Vanessa Hudgens, actress and singer
• December 18 - Erica Rivera, actress, singer, rapper, dancer and artist
• December 21 - Danny Duffy, baseball player
• December 23 - Mallory Hagan, beauty pageant titleholder

  Deaths

• January 3 – Joie Chitwood, race car driver and stuntman
• January 5 – Pete Maravich, basketball player
• January 7 – Zara Cisco Brough, Nipmuc Chief
• January 11 – Isidor Isaac Rabi, physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for invention of the atomic beam magnetic resonance method of measuring magnetic properties of atoms and molecules
• January 22 – Parker Fennelly, comedian and actor
• January 25 – Colleen Moore, actress
• February 1 – Heather O'Rourke, actress
• February 3 – Robert Duncan, poet
• February 14 – Frederick Loewe, composer
• February 15 – Richard Feynman, theoretical physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for work on quantum electrodynamics
• March 7
• * Edmund Berkeley, computer scientist
• * Divine, drag singer and character actor
• * Robert Livingston, screen actor
• April 25 - Valerie Solanas, radical feminist, attempted murderer of Andy Warhol
• May 8
• * Robert A. Heinlein science fiction author
• * Ruby M. Rouss, WAC and first female President of the Virgin Islands Legislature
• May 20 – Laurie Dann, murderer
• May 30 – Ella Raines, screen actress
• June 10 – Louis L'Amour, western novelist
• July 12 – Joshua Logan, stage and film writer
• July 25 – Judith Barsi, actress and murder victim
• August 8
• * Alan Ameche, footballer
• * Alan Napier, actor
• August 21 – Ray Eames, architect and designer, partner of Charles Eames
• August 28 – Max Shulman, novelist, short-story writer and dramatist
• September 1 – Luis Walter Alvarez, experimental physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for bubble chamber research into particle physics
• September 28 – Charles Addams, cartoonist
• October 31 – John Houseman, screen actor-producer
• November 25 – Alphaeus Philemon Cole, portrait artist, engraver and supercentenarian
• December 6 – Roy Orbison, rock singer-songwriter and guitarist
• December 26 – Glenn McCarthy, oil tycoon and businessman
• December 27
• * Hal Ashby, film director
• * Jess Oppenheimer, radio and television producer
• December 30 – Isamu Noguchi, artist and landscape architect