1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events

Environmental change

• Varroa destructor, an invasive parasite is found in the US
• October 15 - Hurricane force winds cause extensive damage in southern England.

January

• January 1 - Frobisher Bay, Northwest Territories, changes its name to Iqaluit. In 1999, it will become the capital of Nunavut.
• January 3 - Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• January 4 - An Amtrak train en route from Washington, DC to New York collides with CONRAIL engines killing 16.
• January 5 - US President Ronald Wilson Reagan undergoes prostate surgery causing worries about his health.
• January 20 - Terry Waite, the special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury in Lebanon, is kidnapped in Beirut (released November 1991)
• January 22 - In Pennsylvania, R. Budd Dwyer, Treasurer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania shoots himself at a press conference after being found guilty on charges of bribery, fraud, conspiracy, and racketeering.
• January 24 - In Lebanon, gunmen kidnap Alann Steen , Jesse Turner , Robert Polhill and Mitheleshwar Singh .
• January 29 - William J. Casey ends his term as a director of CIA

February-May

• February 11 - British Airways is privatised and listed on the London Stock Exchange.
• February 11 - Constitution of the Philippines goes into effect.
• February 11 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• February 12 - Unabomber bomb explodes in Salt Lake City, Utah
• February 23 - Supernova 1987a is observed, the first "naked-eye" supernova since 1604.
• February 26 - Iran-Contra affair: The Tower Commission rebukes American President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff.
• May 8 - Gary Hart drops out of the running for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1988 U.S. presidential election, amid allegations of an extra-marital affair with Donna Rice
• May 11 - The first heart-lung transplant takes place (Baltimore, Maryland)
• May 11 - Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II
• May 14 - Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka executes a bloodless coup on the island of Fiji.
• May 17 - Iran-Iraq War: The USS Stark (FFG-31), while patrolling the Persian Gulf, is struck by two exocet missiles from an Iraqi F-1 Mirage fighter killing 37 sailors and injuring 21 other crew members
• May 28 - 19-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evades Soviet air defense and lands a private plane on Red Square in Moscow. He is immediately detained and will later be released on Wednesday, August 3, 1988.

June-September

• The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to "fairly" present controversial issues
• July 11 - Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke's Goverment is re-elected for a 3rd term
• August 9- 9 people die + 11 injured when 19 year old Julian Knight goes on shooting rampage in Melbourne(Hoddle St Massacre )
• August 16 - A McDonnell Douglas MD-82 carrying Northwest Airlines flight 255 crashes on takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport killing all but one of the 156 people on-board (sole survivor was four-year old Cecelia Cichan). The crew forgot to properly set the plane's flaps
• August 17 - The Harmonic Convergence is observed.
• August 17 - Rudolf Hess is found hanging in his cell in Spandau Prison
• August 19 - Order of the Garter opened to women
• August 19 - Hungerford Massacre: In the United Kingdom, Michael Ryan kills 16 with an assault rifle and then commits suicide
• September 2 - In Moscow, the trial of 19-year-old pilot Mathias Rust, who flew his Cessna airplane into Red Square in May 1987, begins.
• Monday-Monday, September 7-September 21 - World's first conference on artificial life, Los Alamos National Laboratory

October

• Wednesday-Friday, October 14-October 16 - The US is caught up in a drama that unfolds on television as a young child, Jessica McClure, falls down a well and is later rescued.
• October 19 - Black Monday: stock market falls sharply around the world.
• October 23 - British jockey Lester Piggott is jailed for 3 years for tax evasion
• October 23 - On a vote of 58-42, the United States Senate rejects President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court.
• October 30 - The NEC PC Engine is released in Japan.

December

• December 1 - NASA announces the names of four companies who were awarded contracts to help build the International Space Station: Boeing Aerospace, General Electric's Astro-Space Division, McDonnell Douglas, and the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell
• December 1 - Channel Tunnel digging commences
• Monday, December 7, 1987 - Delaware celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
• December 8 - first Intifada begins
• Saturday, December 12, 1987 - Pennsylvania celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
• Friday, December 18, 1987 - New Jersey celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
• Friday, December 18, 1987 - programming language Perl 1.0 released
• December 20 - Dona Paz collides with Vector I - 749 confirmed deaths (probably closer to 3,000 due to unregistered passengers)
• December 29 - Prozac® makes its debut in the US

unknown dates

• Pendolino train in Italy
• Shoko Asahara founds Aum Shinrikyo
• Barry Minkow’s ZZZZ Best fraud unravels

Year in Topic

• 1987 in film
  • February 6 - Black Widow
  • March 6 - Lethal Weapon starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover
  • May 16 - Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold
  • May 20 - Beverly Hills Cop II starring Eddie Murphy
  • June 3 - The Untouchables
  • June 12 - Predator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • June 26 - Dragnet
  • July 17 - Jaws 4: The Revenge
  • November 13 - The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
• 1987 in literature
• 1987 in music
  • August 28 - Michael Jackson releases Bad, his follow-up to 1982's Thriller
• 1987 in rail transport
• 1987 in science
• 1987 in sports
• 1987 in television
  • CBS becomes the last American network to cease a chime intonation at the beginning of telecasts; satellite feeds have made the tones obsolete (the chime served as a signal to the affiliates to start airing the network feed in sync with everyone else).
  • April 5 - Married... with Children premieres on the FOX television network.
  • September 28 - Star Trek: The Next Generation premieres on syndicated television with the first part of a two-part episode "Encounter at Farpoint"

Births

• March 9 - Bow Wow, rap musician, actor
• March 9 - Pikku G , Finnish rap musician
• April 9 - Jesse McCartney, actor and singer
• April 10 - Hayley Westenra, singer
• April 11 - Joss Stone, musician
• April 19 - Maria Sharapova, tennis player
• May 21 - Ashlie Brillault, actress (Lizzie McGuire)
• June 3 - Lalaine, actress (Lizzie McGuire)
• August 22 - Elena Canty , actress (The Ring 2)
• September 22 - Tom Felton, actor (Harry Potter movies)
• September 28 - Hilary Duff, actress, singer (Lizzie McGuire, Agent Cody Banks)
• December 7 - Aaron Carter, singer
• December 12 - Kate Todd , actress (Radio Free Roscoe)

Deaths

• January 15 - Ray Bolger, actor, singer, dancer (b. 1904)
• February 2 - Alistair MacLean, British thriller writer (heart attack; b. 1922)
• February 4 - Liberace, American pianist (b. 1919)
• February 22 - Andy Warhol, American artist, director, writer (b. 1928)
• March 2 - Randolph Scott, actor (b. 1898)
• March 3 - Danny Kaye, actor, American singer, comedian (b. 1918)
• March 19 - Louis-Victor de Broglie, French physicist and winner 1929 of the Nobel Prize in Physics (b. 1892)
• March 21 - Robert Preston, actor (b. 1918)
• March 21 - Dean Paul Martin, actor (b. 1951)
• March 26 - Eugen Jochum, German conductor (b. 1902)
• March 28 - Maria von Trapp, Austrian singer (b. 1905)
• April 2 - Buddy Rich, jazz drummer (b. 1917)
• April 3 - Tom Sestak, American football player (b. 1936)
• April 4 - C. L. Moore, science fiction writer (b. 1911)
• April 28 - Ben Linder, American engineer murdered in Nicaragua (b. 1959)
• May 3 - Dalida, French singer (b. 1933)
• May 4 - Paul Butterfield, blues musician (b. 1942)
• May 6 - William J. Casey, controversial director of the CIA (b. 1913)
• May 11 - Peter Tosh, musician (b. 1944)
• May 14 - Rita Hayworth, actress (b. 1918)
• May 19 - James Tiptree, Jr, science fiction author (b. 1915)
• June 2 - Andres Segovia, Spanish guitarist (b. 1893)
• June 6 - Fulton Mackay, actor (b. 1922)
• June 6 - Keith Paultur, inventor
• June 10 - Elizabeth Hartman, American actress, from suicide (b. 1943)
• June 22 - Fred Astaire, American actor, dancer (b. 1899)
• July 10 - John Hammond, record producer (b. 1910)
• August 17 - Rudolf Hess, Hitler's second-in-command (suicide) (b. 1894)
• September 4 - Bill Bowes, champion Yorkshire and England bowler (b. 1908)
• September 11 - Lorne Greene, Canadian actor (b. 1915)
• September 23 - Bob Fosse, theater choreographer and director (b. 1927)
• October 3 - Jean Anouilh, French dramatist (b. 1910)
• October 3 - Kalervo Palsa, Finnish artist (b. 1947)
• October 19 - Jacqueline du Pré, English cellist (b. 1945)
• October 20 - Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, Russian mathematician (b. 1903)
• October 28 - André Masson, French artist (b. 1896)
• October 29 - Woody Herman, American jazz musician (b. 1913)
• October 31 - Joseph Campbell, author and expert on mythology (b. 1904)
• December 10 - Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian violinist (b. 1901)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - J. Georg Bednorz, K. Alexander Müller
• Chemistry Donald J Cram, Jean-Marie Lehn, Charles J. Pedersen
• Medicine - Susumu Tonegawa
• Literature - Joseph Brodsky
• Peace- Oscar Arias Sanchez

Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

• Robert Solow

Right Livelihood Award

• Johan Galtung, Chipko Movement , Hans-Peter Dürr / Global Challenges Network , Institute for Food and Development Policy / Frances Moore-Lappé and Mordechai Vanunu