On this day in 1986, driving legend Richard Petty makes the 1,000th start of his National Association for Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) career, in the Miller American 400 in Brooklyn, Michigan. He became the first driver in NASCAR history to log 1,000 career starts. Petty grew up on the NASCAR circuit: His father was Hall […]
Continue ReadingTutu Meets With Botha
Bishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Prize for Peace, meets with South African President P.W. Botha to discuss the nationwide state of emergency declared by Botha in response to the anti-apartheid protests. “This is not likely to help restore law and order and peace and calm,” Tutu said of the government crackdown after […]
Continue Reading“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” Released; Features 1961 Ferrari
The hit John Hughes-directed teen comedy “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” released on this day in 1986, stars a young Matthew Broderick as a popular high school student in suburban Illinois who fakes an illness in order to score a day off from school, then leads his best friend and his girlfriend on a whirlwind day […]
Continue ReadingWaldheim Elected Austrian President
At the end of a controversial campaign marked by allegations that he had participated in Nazi atrocities during World War II, former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim is elected president of Austria, a largely ceremonial post. After the annexation of his country by Nazi Germany in 1938, Waldheim was conscripted into the Germany army and […]
Continue ReadingBo Jackson Drafted By Kansas City Royals
On June 7, 1986, the Kansas City Royals draft football star Bo Jackson, the 1985 Heisman Trophy winner out of Auburn University, in the fourth round of the Major League Baseball amateur draft. Jackson’s decision to pursue baseball instead of football shocked the NFL and football fans across the country. Jackson was drafted by the […]
Continue ReadingPollard Admits To Selling Top-Secret Information To Israel
Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top-secret U.S. military intelligence information to Israel. The former Navy intelligence analyst sold enough classified documents to fill a medium-sized room. Pollard was arrested in November 1985 after authorities learned that he had been meeting with Israeli agents every two weeks for the last year. He was […]
Continue ReadingThe Decision In A Well-known Securities Fraud Case Is Upheld
The U.S. Court of Appeals upholds the conviction of writer R. Foster Winans for securities fraud. Winans, author of the “Heard on the Street” column for the Wall Street Journal, entered into a scheme with two brokers at Kidder Peabody to give them advance information about his column. The brokers, Kenneth Felis and Peter Brant, […]
Continue ReadingShoemaker Becomes Oldest Man To Win Kentucky Derby
On May 3, 1986, 54-year-old Willie Shoemaker, aboard 18/1 shot Ferdinand, becomes the oldest jockey ever to win the Kentucky Derby. The victory was just one of Shoemaker’s 8,833 wins, a record that stood until 1999, when it was broken by Laffit Pincay. William Lee Shoemaker was born prematurely on August 19, 1931, in the […]
Continue ReadingRoger Clemens Strikes Out 20 Batters In Single Game
On April 29, 1986, in a game against the Seattle Mariners at Fenway Park, Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox becomes the first pitcher in Major League Baseball to strike out 20 batters in a nine-inning game. Ten years later, Clemens repeats the feat, the only player in baseball history to do so. Clemens […]
Continue ReadingMaria Shriver Marries Arnold SchwarZenegger
Almost a decade after they met at a celebrity tennis tournament, the television news reporter Maria Shriver marries the movie actor and former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger on this day in 1986. Politically, it seemed an unlikely match: Shriver, then a co-anchor for the CBS Morning News in New York City, was a Democrat and a […]
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