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1986 Fun Facts, Trivia and History |
Quick Facts from 1986: |
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Top Ten Baby Names of 1986:Jessica, Ashley, Amanda, Jennifer, Sarah, Michael, Chris, Topher, Matthew, Joshua, David |
Fashion Icons and Sex Symbols:Christie Brinkley, Elle Macpherson |
Leading Men and Hollywood Hunks:Tom Cruise, Michael Hutchence, Mickey Rourke, Paul Newman |
“The Quotes”“With heart, faith, and steel. In the end, there can only be one.” “I feel the need… the need for speed!” “Pork. The other white meat.” “Yeah… That’s The Ticket.” “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.” |
Time Magazine’s Man of the Year:Corazon Aquino |
Miss America:Susan Akin (Meridian, MS) |
Miss USA:Christy Fichtner (Texas) |
The Little Recognized Invention:Jim Moylan invented the gas tank indicator arrow (the little triangle on your gas gauge indicating which side your gas tank is on) in 1986 and was introduced in select Ford models in 1989. He chose not to patent it, and other manufacturers soon copied his idea in their vehicles. |
The Hero:Neerja Bhanot (September 7, 1963 – September 5, 1986) was the Senior Flight attendant on the infamous Pan Am Flight 73 on September 5, 1986. The plane was scheduled to fly from Mumbai to the United States. Before takeoff, four hijackers boarded the plane at Karachi airport in Pakistan and held 380 passengers and 13 crew members hostage at gunpoint during a 17-hour standoff. When the hijackers demanded the passports of the Americans on board to take those passengers as collateral for a trade, Bhanot hid the passports under seat cushions, flushed them down the toilet, and threw them down the trash shoot. The hijackers were unable to distinguish the American passengers from non-American passengers. The situation escalated as the hijackers began shooting and detonating explosives. Bhanot deployed the emergency escape doors and began frantically guiding passengers out of the plane. One of the last to remain, a hijacker grabbed her by her ponytail and shot her point-blank while she was shielding three American children from gunfire. She died two days before her 22nd birthday. She saved the majority of the passengers and the flight crew. |
The Tragedies:Space Shuttle Challenger blew up 73 seconds after take-off, killing all seven crew members. Thousands of school-age children watched the flight live because teacher Christa McAuliffe was a crew member. During one of the strangest natural disasters in history, Lake Nyos suffocated over 1,700 people in one night with CO2. |
The Scandals:The term “Going postal” originated from a mass shooting committed by a US Postal Service employee, Patrick Sherrill, in an act of workplace rage. Fourteen people were killed in the rampage. Iran-Contra: Several members of the Reagan Administration helped sell arms to Iran, a known enemy of the United States, and used the proceeds to fund the Contras, an anti-communist guerrilla organization in Nicaragua. The USSR’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant reactor # 4 had a mishap, giving radiation poisoning to an estimated 500,000 to 6,000,000 people. The remaining three reactors operated until 1991, 1996 and 2000 respectively. The USSR created and distributed a forged letter that “exposed” the US government’s “conspiracy” to overstate the seriousness of Chernobyl meltdown. Cleveland, Ohio’s Balloonfest released 1.5 million balloons in the air to break a Guinness World Record. Guinness never recognized the event. |
Tonight Show host Johnny Carson’s good friend and occasional guest Tonight Show host, Joan Rivers, started a late-night talk show on FOX. He never spoke to her again. Bobby Ewing came out of the shower alive. The prior season of Dallas had been a dream. 12 members of a Florida jury got stuck in the courthouse elevator for 20 minutes. The jurors were hearing a case against the Otis elevator company. |
Pop Culture Facts & History:
Andy Warhol’s final work before his death was the cover of Aretha Franklin’s 1986 album Aretha. ‘The Wave’ was first brought to worldwide attention during the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Initially released in 1979 and worldwide in 1986, the word “Walkman” entered the Oxford English Dictionary. Teacher Pleasant Rowland created the first ‘American Girl’ dolls. Mattel bought the product line in 1998. Burning Man started in the Black Rock Desert of northwest Nevada in 1986 with 35 attendees and free admission. The phrase “Be afraid. Be very afraid” was first spoken (in Pop Culture) by Geena Davis in the 1986 film The Fly. James Cameron got the approval to make Aliens by writing the word ‘Alien’ on a board, then adding an ‘s’ and turning it into a dollar sign. Pixar started as a computer division of Lucasfilm in 1979. Then, George Lucas sold the company to Steve Jobs and renamed it “Pixar” in 1986. Both Lucasfilm and Pixar are the sister companies and part of The Walt Disney Company. Hosted by Geraldo Rivera, The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults was the most-watched live television special of 1986, with an audience of 30 million. The vault was hidden under the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, where the Prohibition-era gangster Capone ran his criminal operations until his arrest in 1931. A Food Packing Plant owner in California came up with the baby carrot as a way of not wasting misshapen carrots. Camcorders started to become a regular household item. While working as a marine biology teacher in 1986, Stephen Hillenburg was asked to create an educational comic about anthropomorphized sea life. He later adapted the characters within it, such as “Bob the Sponge,” into one of the most popular and longest-running children’s series of all time. #spongebob Aerosmith and Run DMC mixed rock and hip hop with Walk This Way. Two unknown men attacked CBS broadcaster Dan Rather in 1986 in New York while repeating, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” R.E.M. turned the phrase into the song What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? and it was the first song to debut at number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart. Peter Gabriel’s stop-motion music video for Sledgehammer raised the bar for video production. Harrods, a small restaurant in the town of Otorohanga, New Zealand, was threatened with a lawsuit by the famous department store of the same name. In response, the town changed its name to Harrodsville and renamed all its businesses ‘Harrods.’ Orson Welles gave his voice in the 1986 animated adaptation of The Transformers. This was his last role before his death. Mets fan Mike Sergio parachuted onto the Shea Stadium field during the 1986 World Series. Although jailed for 21 days and given 500 hours of community service, he refused to reveal the pilot’s name. #notarat In 1986, Danny Heep became the first player in a World Series to be a designated hitter (DH) with the initials “D.H.” Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise, increased Navy recruitment by 500%. Five-year-old Levan Merritt fell into the gorilla enclosure and lost consciousness. Jambo, a gorilla, stood guard over the boy, even petting him, while the boy was unconscious, placing himself between the boy and other gorillas in what ethologists analyze as a protective gesture. The cost of a Super Bowl ad in 1986: $550,000. |
American History:During the Civil War, Scott County of Tennessee broke away from the rest of the state to join the Union and technically did not rejoin the state until 1986. King County, the largest county in Washington state, was named after slave owner (and former US Vice President) William Rufus King. In 1986, the county council voted to retroactively change the namesake without changing names – King County is now officially named in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. |
The Disappointment:Finding out that last year’s Dallas TV show’s entire season was just Bobby Ewing’s (Patrick Duffy) dream |
The Habits:Participating with ‘Hands Across America’ on Sunday, May 25, 1986. Over six million people participated and at 3:00 EST, radio stations across America played the song Hands Across America. |
1st Appearances & 1986’s Most Popular Christmas Gifts, Toys and Presents:Real Ghostbusters action figures, My Pet Monster, Panini Football stickers, Outburst, Balderdash |
Popular and Best-selling Books From 1986:A Perfect Spy by John le Carre |
Broadway Show:Me and My Girl (Musical) Opened on August 10, 1986, and closed on December 31, 1989 |
East End Show:The Phantom of the Opera (Musical) Opened on October 9, 1986 |
Best Film Oscar Winner:Out of Africa (presented in 1986) |
The Big Movies: (according to boxofficemojo)1. Top Gun |
1986 Most Popular TV Shows:1. The Cosby Show (NBC) |
1986 Billboard Number One SongsDecember 21, 1985 – January 17, 1986: January 18 – February 14: February 15 – February 28: March 1 – March 14: March 15 – March 21: March 22 – March 28: March 29 – April 18: April 19 – May 2: May 3 – May 9: May 10 – May 16: May 17 – June 6: June 7 – June 13: June 14 – July 4: July 5 – July 11: July 12 – July 18: July 19 – July 25: July 26 – August 1: August 2 – August 15: August 16 – August 29: August 30 – September 5: September 6 – September 12: September 13 – September 19: September 20 – October 10: October 11 – October 24: October 25 – November 7: November 8 – November 21: November 22 – November 28: November 29 – December 5: December 6 – December 12: December 13 – December 19: December 20, 1986 – January 16, 1987: |
Sports:World Series Champions: New York Mets |
More 1986 Facts and History Resources:Most Popular Baby Names (BabyCenter.com) |
