30 Years Ago: A Look Back At 1989 - The Atlantic

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BREAKING: The U.S. and Israel have attacked Iran. Read our coverage here. 30 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1989
  • Alan Taylor
  • October 7, 2019
  • 43 Photos
  • In Focus

Three decades ago, a number of uprisings took place around the world, with unhappy citizens taking to the streets—and in some cases, taking up arms—to try to change or remove their governments. A student-led pro-democracy demonstration in China’s Tiananmen Square was violently crushed in June, while hundreds of thousands of anti-Communist protesters in Czechoslovakia were able to bring about a nonviolent “Velvet Revolution.” It was also the year of the Loma Prieta earthquake in Northern California, the inauguration of President George H. W. Bush, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and much more. Photographers were also busy documenting the lives of Harrison Ford, Michael Jackson, Steve Jobs, Menudo, and many others. Take a step into a visual time capsule now, for a brief look at the year 1989.

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  • A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. The man, calling for an end to the violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way. The Chinese government crushed a student-led demonstration for democratic reform and against government corruption, killing hundreds, or perhaps thousands of demonstrators in the strongest anti-government protest since the 1949 revolution. #

    Jeff Widener / AP Read more

  • Michael Jackson performs live at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on January 18, 1989. #

    Andrew D. Bernstein / Getty Read more

  • Former President Ronald Reagan looks down from his helicopter departing Capitol Hill after the swearing-in of President George H. W. Bush. #

    Pete Souza / White House / The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Read more

  • George H. W. Bush is sworn in as the 41st president of the United States, while his wife, Barbara, looks on, in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 1989. #

    Bettmann / Getty Read more

  • A low-flying Afghan helicopter gunship sweeps past a convoy along the Salang highway providing air cover for the Soviet convoy sending food and fuel to the capitol on January 30, 1989, outside Kabul, Afghanistan. The last stages of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan took place in February of 1989, after more than nine years of war. #

    Liu Heung Shing / AP Read more

  • A group of punks stand on a street in Tallinn, Estonia, in February of 1989. #

    Peter Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Read more

  • Steve Jobs of NeXT Computer Inc., seated, and David Norman, president of Businessland, pose beside a NeXT work station in San Francisco, California, on March 30, 1989. #

    Paul Sakuma / AP Read more

  • Tugboats pull the crippled tanker Exxon Valdez toward Naked Island in Alaska's Prince William Sound, on April 5, 1989, after the ship was pulled from a reef. The tanker grounded on Bligh Reef, March 24, and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water. #

    Rob Stapleton / AP Read more

  • An oil-covered bald eagle, its feathers fouled by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, sits in a cage. The oil covered approximately 26,000 square kilometers of the surface of Prince William Sound, and fouled more than 1,000 kilometers of shoreline, with initial assessments numbering the animals killed by the spill in the hundreds of thousands. #

    Natalie Fobes / Corbis via Getty Read more

  • Ricky Martin (at left) and fellow members of the pop group Menudo, photographed in 1989 #

    DMI / The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Read more

  • A young woman looks out the window of a train headed from Tallinn to Vilnius. #

    Peter Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Read more

  • The actors Jeff Goldblum and Gregory Hines pose for a photograph in New York's Central Park in 1989. #

    DMI / The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Read more

  • The aerobics instructor Anne Grossman (left, front) and Karen Shaffer (right, front) lead a women's exercise class at their Pennington Jazzercise Center in Penington, New Jersey, in April of 1989. #

    George Tiedemann / The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Read more

  • Liverpool soccer fans arrive at Anfield Stadium to pay their respects as flower tributes cover the 'Kop' end of the field, in Liverpool, on April 17, 1989, following April 15, when fans surged forward during the FA Cup semifinal between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, when the crash barriers gave way, killing 96 Liverpool fans and injuring more than 200 others. #

    Peter Kemp / AP Read more

  • Hungarian border guards cut a hole into the Iron Curtain on May 2, 1989, opening its border with Austria and the west near Hegyeshalom, some 50 kilometers east of Vienna. #

    Bernhard J. Holzner / AP Read more

  • Alicia Custodio, a volunteer for Upward Fund, an organization that runs after-school programs in the East Harlem section of New York City, helps children with the use of an Apple computer on June 8, 1989. The center was set up to keep kids off the streets and to teach them skills they could use in the future. #

    Reggie Lewis / AP Read more

  • Fred Rogers rehearses the opening of his PBS show "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" during a taping in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 28, 1989. #

    Gene J. Puskar / AP Read more

  • A statue modeled after the Statue of Liberty is ready for unveiling in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, on May 30, 1989. The 30-foot styrofoam statue was erected by striking university students. #

    Liu Heung Shing / AP Read more

  • A demonstrator speaks to the pro-democracy crowd in Tiananmen Square in 1989. #

    David Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Read more

  • Chinese citizens and students of Chengdu clash with Chinese troops on June 4, 1989, during a riot following the proclamation of martial law in the city. #

    AFP / Getty Read more

  • A citizen stands in front of a line of tanks in this June 5, 1989, photo taken during the crushing of the Tiananmen Square uprising. #

    Arthur Tsang / Reuters Read more

  • A rickshaw driver pedals wounded people, with the help of bystanders, to a nearby hospital in Beijing after they were injured during clashes with Chinese soldiers in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. #

    Liu Heung Shing / AP Read more

  • People walk through the aftermath of the crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Chinese leaders vented their frustration on student dissidents and their pro-democracy supporters, killing several hundred and wounding thousands in a violent military crackdown ending six weeks of student demonstrations. #

    David Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Read more

  • A close view of the planet Neptune taken from the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it flew past in the summer of 1989, passing within about 3,000 miles of the gas giant, on its way out of the solar system. #

    The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty / NASA Read more

  • East Germany celebrates 40 years of Communism with a military parade during a state visit from Mikhail Gorbachev in October of 1989. #

    Peter Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Read more

  • The Public Enemy members Flavor Flav (left) and Chuck D. (right) and the performer George Clinton (center) pose for a portrait in October of 1989 in Los Angeles, California. #

    Aaron Rapoport / Corbis / Getty Read more

  • Nicaraguan Contra rebels march in formation near a camp in Yamales, Honduras. #

    Cindy Karp / The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Read more

  • Fans and players gather on the field at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California, after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake took place just before the start of Game 3 of the 1989 World Series. #

    Bettmann / Getty Read more

  • Emergency workers prop up a collapsed building in the Marina district disaster zone after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake on October 17, 1989, in San Francisco, California. #

    Otto Greule Jr / Getty Read more

  • The Cypress Freeway, damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. The earthquake caused nearly $6 billion in damages, killed 63 people, and wounded more than 3,750. #

    Lloyd Cluff / Corbis via Getty Read more

  • West Berlin citizens continue their vigil atop the Berlin Wall, calling for it to be torn down, in front of the Brandenburg Gate in this November 10, 1989, photo. #

    Reuters Read more

  • A man wields a pickax to participate in the destruction of the Berlin Wall, between Potsdam Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. #

    Jacques Langevin / Sygma via Getty Read more

  • West Berliners crowd in front of the Berlin Wall early on November 11, 1989, as they watch East German border guards demolishing a section of the wall in order to open a new crossing point between East and West Berlin. Two days before, Gunter Schabowski, the East Berlin Communist party boss, declared that starting from midnight, East Germans would be free to leave the country, without permission, at any point along the border, including the crossing points through the wall in Berlin. The wall was built by the East German government in August of 1961 to seal off East Berlin from the part of the city occupied by the three main Western powers to prevent mass illegal immigration to the West. According to the August 13 Association, which specializes in the history of the Berlin Wall, at least 938 people— 255 in Berlin alone—died, shot by East German border guards, attempting to flee to West Berlin or West Germany. #

    Gerard Malie / AFP / Getty Read more

  • A West German resident offers champagne to an East German man passing through Checkpoint Charlie. #

    David Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Read more

  • The actor and comedian Eddie Murphy, holding his People's Choice Award, poses with fellow comedian Arsenio Hall during a 1989 Beverly Hills, California, backstage telecast photo shoot. #

    George Rose / Getty Read more

  • Czechoslovakian citizens flood the streets of Prague during the Velvet Revolution. Massive nonviolent protests, strikes, and the fall of other Warsaw Pact nations led the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia to relinquish power, ending single-party rule in Czechoslovakia. #

    Peter Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Read more

  • In Warsaw, Poland, the leader of the "Solidarity" trade union, Lech Walesa, meets with Warsaw University students on December 1, 1989. Walesa would go on to become the first democratically elected president of Poland in 1990. #

    Wojtek Laski / Getty Read more

  • American Army troops rush ashore in Panama during "Operation Just Cause," with a stated aim to depose the former ally Manuel Noriega in December of 1989. #

    Jason Bleibtreu / Sygma via Getty Read more

  • American soldiers arrest Panamanians during "Operation Just Cause." #

    Jean-Louis Atlan / Sygma via Getty Read more

  • The actor Harrison Ford, star of 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," is shown speaking in a 1989 photo. #

    AP Read more

  • Bucharest's residents protect themselves from the crossfire between an army tank and pro-Ceausescu troops during clashes in the Republican square in Bucharest, Romania, on December 23, 1989. A violent uprising took place in December, during which the country's Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled and shot on Christmas Day. More than 1,000 Romanians were killed across the country during clashes between demonstrators and Ceausescu's security forces, in what amounted to eastern Europe's most violent anti-Communist revolution. #

    Charles Platiau / Reuters Read more

  • An armed anti-Communist civilian fighter chases supposed Securitate secret police agents loyal to the Communist power during street fighting on December 24, 1989, in downtown Bucharest. #

    Christophe Simon / AFP / Getty Read more

  • Annie Lennox of Eurythmics sings in concert, bathed in a red glow, circa 1989. #

    Dave Hogan / Hulton Archive / Getty Read more

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