Voting rights for women in the Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden (Switzerland)

Robert Folk of the University of Texas at Austin draws scientific attention to tiny spheroidal and ovoid objects found in sedimentary rocks near the Viterbo hot springs; these could be fossil nanobacteria, the calcified remains of organisms measuring 30 nm (while modern ones must measure at least a few hundred nm to contain the ribosomes that link amino acids together to form proteins).

United States. Researcher Paul Elrich pays Julian Simon $576 for losing his bet. and John Holdren. Ten years earlier, in 1980, Simon had asked Elrich to choose a basket of any resource. If after ten years the real price of the basket increased, Simon would lose the bet. Elrich chooses copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten on September 29, 1980. After ten years, all resources are cheaper. The entire portfolio costs about half as much. And starting in the year 2000, the dematerialization of goods and value begins, also leading to a sharp and steady decline in demand for quantities of raw materials by the most developed economies.

Evidence is accumulating for the existence of many other planetary systems

Evidence for the existence of black holes is mounting: 34 supermassive ones will be discovered in the centers of galaxies by the end of the century, including one in the center of the Milky Way and another in the center of Andromeda.

US intervention in Panama to capture General Noriega, accused of drug trafficking; within days, the Marines will gain control of the country; the victims will be 23 Marines and 400 Panamanians; General Noriega will take refuge in the Vatican embassy and after a few days will surrender to the Americans, then be tried and imprisoned in Miami (40 years for drug trafficking).

Erfurt, Thuringia, East Germany (GDR). A crowd ransacks the offices of the secret police, the Stasi. The same thing happens that day in Dresden. Vladimir Putin is also present in the Dresden offices, and he will write: “The fact that Moscow remained silent gave me the feeling that the country no longer existed: that it had begun a terminal illness.” A few days later, they receive the order to burn the archives: in Dresden, they use the designated incinerator, but due to the sheer volume of documents, it jams and explodes. They then switch to a furnace in the nearby barracks, but that too blows up due to the excessive heat. The remaining documents are then buried in a hole with the intention of burning them with napalm. However, the unit assigned to do this never arrives, so they are burned as best they can, simply with gasoline. Putin returns to Leningrad a few weeks later: on February 3, 1990.

Tiananmen Square. At the beginning of the seventh week of protests for democratic reforms in Beijing, the Chinese government authorized the army to forcefully disperse the Tiananmen Square demonstrators. By dusk on June 4, Chinese tanks had cleared the square: hundreds of people were killed and thousands of demonstrators and suspected dissidents arrested. The Tiananmen Square protests had begun following the death of Hu Yaobang, a Chinese leader and advocate for reform. Grieving students had gathered in Tiananmen Square, staging an impromptu demonstration in favor of democratic reforms. By May, nearly a million people had gathered in the square. The army was called in to quell the protests, but the demonstrators blocked their advance. The resulting tensions culminated in the brutal crackdown on June 3.

China. At a dinner during Richard Nixon’s private visit to Beijing, Chinese leader Jiang Zemin stood up without warning and recited Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in English.

Poland. Solidarity is legally recognized, and immediately participates in parliamentary elections and wins.

China. Chinese leader Hu Yaobang dies.

China. Hu Yaobang, recently dismissed for his ineffectiveness in quelling the initial student demonstrations, suffers a heart attack during a Politburo meeting. He dies the following week.

Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons: Cold fusion. It’s an electrolytic cell with heavy water (i.e., deuterium) and salts, and two electrodes, one of which is palladium. By passing an electric current through it, the hydrogen in one electrode apparently fuses, but the experiment won’t be reproducible in other laboratories—though this will remain controversial—but it certainly won’t be reproducible on a large scale, enough to produce a significant amount of energy.

Yoshi Yamamoto, independently of Milburn, shows that a Friedkin gate can be implemented using photons and beam-splitters

In Italy, CICAP (Italian Committee for the Control of Claims of the Paranormal) was founded, inspired by James Randi and following in the footsteps of the American CSICP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal). CICAP’s founding members were dozens of scientists and communicators, including Edoardo Amaldi, Piero Angela, Margherita Hack, Danilo Mainardi, James Randi, Tullio Regge, Carlo Rubbia, and Roberto Vacca.