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Top Song(s)
• Madonna - Like a Prayer
• Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise
• Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy
• Roxette - The Look
• The Bangles - Eternal Flame
Top Film(s)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Back to the Future Part II
• Batman
• Do the Right Thing
• Crimes and Misdemeanors
Best Selling Book(s)
• The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
• Number the Stars - Lois Lowry
• The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
• The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
• The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs - Jon Scieszka
Famous Deaths
• January 7 - Hirohito, 124th Emperor of Japan (1926-89)
• January 23 - Salvador Dalí, Spanish surrealist artist (Crucifixion)
• February 6 - Nuno Oliveira, Portuguese equestrian, horse trainer, dressage instructor, author
• March 4 - James A. Parsons, American metallurgist and inventor (stainless steel)
• April 26 – Lucille Ball, film and television comedy actress and model
• May 8 - Rudolf Uhlenhaut, British-German automotive engineer and test driver
• June 12 - Peter Baden, Norwegian composer, organist and music critic
• July 10 – Mel Blanc, voice actor, actor, radio comedian and recording artist
• August 22 – Huey P. Newton, African-American revolutionary and political activist
• September 28 – Ferdinand Marcos, politician, 10th president of the Philippines
Medical/Science/Technology
• Asteroid 4769 Castalia is the first asteroid directly imaged, by radar from Arecibo.
• Discovery of the cystic fibrosis trans-membrane conductance regulator gene.
• The New Zealand Department of Conservation begins to implement a Kakapo Recovery Plan.
• GNU Bash is released.
• A federal grand jury indicts Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. for releasing a computer virus.
• The global concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere reaches 350 (parts per million) by volume.
• Supplee's paradox is published.
• Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce cold fusion at the University of Utah.
• Asteroid 5128 Wakabayashi is discovered by Masahiro Koishikawa.
• The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is first identified by Michael Houghton and his team.
Political
• January 12 – President-elect George H. W. Bush announces the final members of his cabinet.
• January 20 – George H. W. Bush is sworn in as the 41st president of the United States.
• February 9 – President Bush delivers his first address to the 101st Congress.
• February 10 - President Bush meets with Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney in Ottawa.
• February 23–27 – U.S. President Bush visits Japan, China, and South Korea, attending the funeral of Hirohito.
• March 1 - The Berne Convention, an international treaty on copyrights, is ratified by the United States.
• March 15 – The United States Department of Veterans Affairs becomes established.
• March 20 – Dick Cheney is sworn in as the new Secretary of Defense, succeeding Frank Carlucci.
• March 22 - Congress passes a bill to protect the job of whistle blowers who expose government waste or fraud.
• May 31 – Jim Wright announces his resignation as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
National
• January 13 – Bernhard Goetz is sentenced to one year in prison and fined $5,000 for shooting four young men on the New York subway in 1984.
• February 11 – Barbara Harris is the first woman consecrated as a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
• March 13–17 – The Food and Drug Administration bans the import of grapes from Chile after traces of cyanide are found in two grapes.
• March 24 – In Alaska's Prince William Sound the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels of oil after running aground.
• April 1 – Bill White becomes president of baseball's National League, becoming the first African American to head a major sports league.
• April 9 – More than 300,000 demonstrators march in Washington, D.C. in support of legal abortion in the United States.
• June 23–24 – Three shipping accidents in a 12-hour period create oil spills in Rhode Island, Delaware and Texas.
• August 20 – In Beverly Hills, California, Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot their wealthy parents to death in the family's den.
• September 21 – Hurricane Hugo makes landfall in South Carolina, causing $7 billion in damage.
• October 4 – More than 55,000 Boeing machinists go on strike. They return to work on November 22 after winning higher pay.
Worldwide
• January 2 – Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa takes office as the third President of Sri Lanka.
• February 15 - Soviet–Afghan War: The Soviet Union announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan.
• March 1 - A curfew is imposed in Kosovo, where protests continue over the alleged intimidation of the Serb minority.
• April 7 – The Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets sinks in the Barents Sea, killing 41.
• May 20 – 1989 Tiananmen Square protests: The Chinese government declares martial law in Beijing.
• June 4 - A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.
• July 14–16 – At the 15th G7 summit, leaders call for restrictions on gas emissions.
• August 13 – 1989 Alice Springs hot air balloon crash: An accident near Alice Springs, Australia kills thirteen people.
• September 23 - A cease-fire in the Lebanese Civil War stops the violence that had killed 900 people since March.
• December 6 - The DAS Building bombing occurs in Bogotá, killing 52 people and injuring about 1,000.