WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO AUGUST 1986
Find out what all happened February to August 1986

The Loscoe gas explosion leads to new UK laws on landfill gas migration and gas protection on landfill sites. (24. March 1986)

Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel. (4. June 1986)

The United States launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, its bombing raids against Libyan targets in response to a bombing in West Germany that killed two U.S. servicemen. (15. April 1986)

Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden, is assassinated in Stockholm. (28. February 1986)

Pianist Vladimir Horowitz performs in his native Russia for the first time in 61 years. (20. April 1986)

Nezar Hindawi's attempt to detonate a bomb aboard an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv is thwarted. (17. April 1986)

Mswati III is crowned King of Swaziland, succeeding his father Sobhuza II. (25. April 1986)

Dragon Quest, the game credited as setting the template for role-playing video games, is released in Japan. (27. May 1986)

The Chernobyl Disaster: The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster (2. May 1986)

Davis Phinney becomes the first American cyclist to win a road stage of the Tour de France. (6. July 1986)

The European Community adopts the European flag. (26. May 1986)

The Parliament of New Zealand passes the Homosexual Law Reform Act legalising homosexuality in New Zealand. (9. July 1986)

The United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise becomes the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to transit the Suez Canal, navigating from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to relieve the USS Coral Sea. (28. April 1986)

Aeroméxico Flight 498 collides with a Piper PA-28 over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air and 15 on the ground. (31. August 1986)

People Power Revolution: President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos flees the nation after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the Philippines' first woman president. (25. February 1986)

The Soviet passenger liner  Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 423. (31. August 1986)

A Mexicana Boeing 727 en route to Puerto Vallarta erupts in flames and crashes in the mountains northwest of Mexico City, killing 167. (31. March 1986)

A nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine), creating the world's worst nuclear disaster. Reactor No. 4 with its enclosing sarcophagus. (26. April 1986)

Twenty-eight years of one-family rule end in Haiti, when President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees the Caribbean nation. (7. February 1986)

The Hinton train collision: 23 people are killed when a VIA Rail passenger train collides with a 118-car Canadian National freight train near the town of Hinton, Alberta, west of Edmonton. It is the worst rail accident in Canada until the Lac-Mégantic, Quebec derailment in 2013 which killed forty-seven people. (8. February 1986)