The Phantom of the Opera officially opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London on October 9, 1986, after two weeks of previews. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical starred Michael Crawford as the Phantom and Sarah Brightman as Christine Daaé, was directed by Harold Prince, and went on to become the longest-running show in Broadway history before…
On September 8, 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show made its national television debut, airing in 138 markets across the United States and reaching 92 percent of American TV households. Winfrey became the first Black woman to own and host a nationally syndicated talk show — and within a single season, she had displaced Phil Donahue…
John Hughes wrote the script in six days. The Ferrari wasn’t real. And Alan Ruck was 29 playing 17. Here’s everything you didn’t know about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
On August 21, 1986, Lake Nyos in northwestern Cameroon experienced a limnic eruption — a sudden, catastrophic release of dissolved carbon dioxide from its depths. The invisible gas cloud traveled 25 kilometers downhill and suffocated 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock across four villages while they slept. It remains the deadliest limnic eruption ever recorded. At…
In the summer of 1986, a movie didn’t just top the box office — it redefined what cool looked like for an entire generation. Top Gun gave Gen X its fighter pilot fantasy: leather jacket, Ray-Ban Aviators, a Navy F-14 Tomcat roaring off a carrier deck, and Kenny Loggins screaming about the danger zone. It…
On July 18, 1986, James Cameron’s Aliens opened in 1,437 North American theaters. The sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror film traded slow dread for full-blown combat, turned Ellen Ripley into cinema’s first true action heroine, and earned Sigourney Weaver a rare Best Actress Oscar nomination for a science-fiction role. It grossed $85 million domestically…
Madonna True Blue arrived on June 30, 1986, her third studio album and the first record she co-wrote and co-produced top to bottom. It spawned five hit singles — “Live to Tell,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” “True Blue,” “Open Your Heart,” and “La Isla Bonita” — hit number one in a record 28 countries, and sold…
Labyrinth (1986) premiered in U.S. theaters on June 27, 1986. Directed by Jim Henson, executive produced by George Lucas, and starring David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin King opposite a teenage Jennifer Connelly, the $25 million fantasy bombed at the box office — grossing just $12.7 million domestically — before home video turned it into…
On June 22, 1986, Diego Maradona scored the Hand of God goal — then the Goal of the Century — to knock England out of the World Cup.
The Karate Kid Part II opened wide on June 20, 1986, and ended its first weekend with $12.6 million in the bank — a franchise record at the time, more than half a million dollars above what the original earned in its 1984 debut. By Labor Day, John G. Avildsen’s sequel had outgrossed The Karate…
On March 13, 1986, cosmonauts Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyev launched aboard Soyuz T-15 to become the first crew of the Mir space station — beginning 15 years of continuous human habitation in orbit and changing space exploration forever.
