January 28, 1986. The space shuttle Challenger explodes after its launch from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven astronauts on board.

January 26, 1986. Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army Rebel group takes over Uganda after leading a successful 5-year guerrilla war in which up to half a million people are believed to have been killed. Museveni is still president of Uganda in 2012, serving his fourth term as president after his reelection in 2011.

February 7, 1986. President Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Baby Doc”, son of “Papa Doc”) flees Haiti, ending 28 years of dictatorial rule by the Duvalier family. Army leader General Henri Namphy heads a new National Governing Council.

February 9, 1986. Halley’s Comet reaches its perihelion, the closest point to the Sun, during its second visit to the solar system in the 20th Century.

February 18, 1986. The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.

February 25, 1986. Known as the People Power Revolution, over two million Filippinos bring about the downfall of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos through a sustained campaign of civil resistance against regime violence and electoral fraud. Marcos and his wife Imelda flee the Philippines as Corazon Aquino, the widow of slain opposition leader Benigno Aquino, is named interim president of the island country.

April 26-30,1986. An explosion rips through the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in Ukraine, Soviet Union. One nuclear at CHernobyl is still blazing, and three other reactors have been shut down. About 15,000 people have been evacuated from the vicinity of the power plant. A book for young people about the Chernobyl disaster that I can recommend is Andrea White’s Radiant Girl, the fictional story of one girl whose life is changed forever by the nuclear disaster. From my interview with Ms. White:

I got the idea for Radiant Girl, my most recent book about the Chernobyl disaster, from a photograph I saw on the Internet. The photo showed a girl on a motorcycle in the Dead Zone–where towns and families once flourished–and when I saw that picture of the girl I knew I wanted to write about Chernobyl. The inscription was, “As I pass through the checkpoint into the Dead Zone, I feel like I have entered an unreal world. It is divinely eerie like the Salvador Dali painting of the dripping clocks.”

June 12, 1986. South Africa declares a nationwide state of emergency, and 1000 black activists are arrested.

September 5-6, 1986. Pan Am Flight 73, with 358 people on board, is hijacked at Karachi International Airport by four Abu Nidal terrorists. In Istanbul, two Abu Nidal terrorists kill 22 and wound 6 inside the Neve Shalom synagogue during Shabbat services. Abu Nidal, leader of this Palestinian terrorist group, told a journalist in 1985: “I am the evil spirit which moves around only at night causing … nightmares.”