Region
About 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas spread over the city; thousands died within days and estimates of total deaths range from about 3,800 to more than 15,000, with hundreds of thousands injured.
Ferdinand Marcos fled into exile on 25 February 1986 and Corazon Aquino became president, ending two decades of Marcos rule.
Mir hosted crews for most of 15 years, set endurance records still partly unbeaten and, through Shuttle-Mir, laid the groundwork for the International Space Station before being deorbited into the South Pacific.
All Soviet combat troops left Afghanistan by 15 February 1989; the war between the Kabul government and the mujahideen continued.
The protests were suppressed with thousands killed; a military coup on 18 September 1988 created the SLORC junta, and Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as leader of the democracy movement.
The Chinese government declared martial law and used the army to end the protests on 3-4 June 1989, killing hundreds or possibly thousands of people.
The USSR ceased to exist on 26 December 1991 and was replaced by 15 independent states; Russia took over the Soviet seat on the UN Security Council.
Timely forecasts and evacuations saved thousands of lives, but around 850 people died, lahars buried towns for years and the eruption cooled global temperatures by about 0.5 °C.
The earthquake killed 6,434 people, destroyed or damaged about 250,000 buildings and caused around 10 trillion yen in losses, leading to reforms in disaster response and the rise of Japanese volunteer organisations.
Sinosauropteryx became the first non-avian dinosaur known with a covering of simple feathers, opening a wave of feathered dinosaur discoveries.
Sovereignty over Hong Kong passed from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China, which made it a Special Administrative Region under 'one country, two systems'.
78.5 per cent of voters rejected autonomy within Indonesia; after militia violence and an international intervention, East Timor became independent in 2002.
