Many of these events I honestly do not remember. My parents were not the news buffs that have become in this modern day. We might have occasionally turned on the local NBC or CBS television stations to see the local and the occasional national news, but this was not the norm in our family. Do you have memories of the following events?
February 2: The Dalai Lama meets Pope John Paul II in India.
February 3: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces the formation of commission of inquiry on the Challenger accident.
February 3: Mother Teresa and the Pope meet in Calcutta.
February 7: The U.S. female figure skating championship is won by Debi Thomas.
(Photo Courtesy: https://sjsa.org/debi-thomas/)
February 8: The U.S. male figure skating championship is won by Brian Boitano.
February 8: The crime film A Better Tomorrow, starring Yun Fat Chow, premieres in Hong Kong.
February 9: Halley’s Comet reaches the 30th perihelion, which is the closest approach to the sun.
February 9: The tomb of Tutankhamun’s treasurer Maya is found in Egypt.
February 10: The album John Lennon: Live in NYC is released posthumously.
February 11: Activist Anatoly Scharansky is released by the USSR and leaves the country.
February 14: The 36th Berlin International Film Festival takes place, with Stammheim winning the Golden Bear.
February 15: The largest NBA crowd to date gathers to watch Philadelphia at Detroit.
February 15: Ferdinand Marcos wins a rigged presidential election in the Philippines, and the Philippines National Assembly authorises him 6 more years.
February 16: Mário Soares, from the Socialist Party, is elected the first civilian President of Portugal.
February 18: The first anti-smoking ad appears on TV, featuring actor Yul Brynner who died of smoking-induced lung cancer on October 10, 1985.
(Video Courtesy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdHcIxbLzWE)
The anti-smoking campaign sticks out. I remember around the airing of this Public Service Announcement (PSA), my dad turned to my sister and I and told us not to smoke. The vagueness of my memory is that he was trying to paraphrase Yul Brynner and the paralleled that he once smoked, briefly, while he was serving in the U.S. Marine Corp. While I have no facts, I imagine it was during his tour in Vietnam.
February 19: The U.S. Senate ratifies the UN’s ant-genocide convention 37 years later.
February 20: Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson sexually harasses a woman in Albany, New York.
February 21: AIDS patient Ryan White returns to classes at Western Middle School.
February 25: The 28th Grammy Awards takes place, with We Are The World winning Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and Sade winning Best New Artist.
(Photo Courtesy: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5221465)
This song does bring back memories! Hearing this play in the overhead speakers of Ames, KMart, Montgomery Ward, and the car radio I can remember this was a fantastically popular song. At ten years old, I did not grasp the lyrics and the power of them until I was in my late teens when I was listening to impact of that song. What a concept and idea; trying to bring all of us, every race, tribe, nation together and attempt to live and coexist together. Where is this 40 years later?
February 27: The Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis.
February 27: The Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis.
Where were you in February 1986?
(Events courtesy: https://www.historic-newspapers.com/blogs/article/1986-timeline?srsltid=AfmBOopuxknzNHBrUqV7xJDvHa3RQfp0BjRssKbgnTz4sTB4WYcsIM-J#February)
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