This is a list of important events the occured during 1989. Exact dates are listed when known.

• The fall of the Berlin wall on November 9th.
• Cold fusion is announced in March and then denounced at the end of summer as clumsy science.
• Arsenio Hall becomes first African-American to host a nightly talk show January 3rd.
• The "beginning of the end" for the communist rulers in Eastern Europe; the Cold War comes to an end
• Salmon Rushdie wanted dead by Iranian leader Khomeini
• Kim Basinger buys Braselton, Georgia for $20 million.
• Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska in March.
• Lucille Ball dies April 26.
• Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, UK: 96 dead, 170 wounded during a soccer match between Liverpool F.C. and Nottingham Forest F.C. in April.
• Students protest on Tienanmen Square, Beijing, China - the army intervenes; 3000-7000 killed, June 3rd.
• Worldwide ban of ivory
• The Fourteenth Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989
• The stealth bomber is finished.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles become an over night sensation
• Time and Warner combine to become Time Warner Inc.
• Panama invasion, loud rock music drives Manuel Noreiga from his asylum.
• Rob Lowe is spotted in a soft porn video with an underage girl.
• The parents of the Menendez brothers are found murdered, Lyle and Erik are later accused of the murders.
• Milli Vanilli gets Best New Artist Grammy which is later stripped when it's learned they were lip synching for another (much uglier) duo.
• Geraldo Riveria gets his nose broken on his show by a violent guest
• Pete Rose is banned from baseball for betting on games, August 24.
• Collin Powell is appointed Joint Cheifs of Staff, highest army post to ever be held by a black officier.
• October 17th quake disrupts the third game of the world series between San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics.
• TV Guide releases a picture of a newly slim Oprah Winfrey which turns out to be her head on Ann-Margret's body.
• Princess Anne anounces her seperation from her husband.
• Michael Milken is indicted on 98 fraud and racketering charges.
• Vietnam withdraws from Cambodia, September 26, after almost 11 years of occupation.
• Pan Am files chapter 11
• Burma changes it's name to Myanmar
• Earthquake hits Newcastle, N.S.W. Australia in December. Several people died with more injured. Millions of dollars of damage.
• Soviet Union begins fully withdraws from Afghanistan after 10 years of fighting with Afghan mujihadeen forces.
• December 6, 1989 deemed the Montreal Massacre. At approximately 5 o'clock pm, 25 year old women hater walks into Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal and kills 14 women, injuring 13 others before turning the shot gun on himself. This day is remembered as the worst single-day massacre in Canadian history. Attached to his suicide note was a list of 19 women in Montreal who had succeeded in non-traditional female employment - firefighters, police officer, journalist but said "The lack of time (because I started too late) has allowed these radical feminists to survive." Ironically, everyone remembers the murderer but only their survivors remember the women murdered because they were female. The women were:Geneviève Bergeron, aged 21; Hélène Colgan, 23; Nathalie Croteau, 23; Barbara Daigneault, 22; Anne-Marie Edward, 21; Maud Haviernick, 29; Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31; Maryse Leclair, 23; Annie St.-Arneault, 23; Michèle Richard, 21; Maryse Laganière, 25; Anne-Marie Lemay, 22; Sonia Pelletier, 28; and Annie Turcotte, aged 21.
• Vance vs. Judas Priest: Parents of two teenaged Judas Priest fans who attempted suicide in December 1985 sue the band, claiming that a subliminal message in the song "Better by You, Better than Me" influenced their actions. (Justice Jerry Carr Whitehead will rule in favor of the band in 1993.)