WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO SEPTEMBER 1988
Find out what all happened January to September 1988

Gare de Lyon rail accident In Paris a train collides with a stationary train killing 56 people. (27. June 1988)

The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast votes to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, triggering the Nagorno-Karabakh War. (20. February 1988)

Svend Robinson becomes the first member of the Canadian House of Commons to come out as gay. (29. February 1988)

The USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. (14. April 1988)

Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers are killed by Special Air Service on the territory of Gibraltar in the conclusion of Operation Flavius. (6. March 1988)

The "8888 Uprising" occurs in Burma. (8. August 1988)

"Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park (20. August 1988)

32 people are killed and 1,674 injured when a bridge at the Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal collapses in Butterworth, Penang, Malaysia. (31. July 1988)

Space Shuttle: NASA launches STS-26, the return to flight mission, after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. (29. September 1988)

The St Jean Bosco massacre takes place in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (11. September 1988)

A report by United States' Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine. (16. May 1988)

In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. (14. April 1988)

The Seikan Tunnel, the longest undersea tunnel in the world, opens between Aomori and Hakodate, Japan. (13. March 1988)

General Ne Win, effective ruler of Burma since 1962, resigns after pro-democracy protests. (23. July 1988)

Sumgait Pogrom: The Armenian community of Sumgait in Azerbaijan was in the target of a violent pogrom. (27. February 1988)

President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash. (17. August 1988)

Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, is attacked on three sides by military units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet. (17. March 1988)

United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard. (3. July 1988)

The Chiado area in Lisbon is partially destroyed by a fire. (25. August 1988)

Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, returns aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-5 after 9 days on the Mir space station. (7. September 1988)