| 7th January 1989 | Hirohito, Emperor of Japan (b. 1901) dies. |
| 20th January 1989 | George H. W. Bush succeeds Ronald Reagan as the 41st President of the United States of America. |
| 2nd February 1989 | The Satellite television service ‘Sky Television plc’ is launched in Europe. |
| 15th February 1989 | The Soviet Union announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan. |
| 24th February 1989 | Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a $3-million bounty on the head of “The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie. |
| 20th March 1989 | Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke breaks down on national television as he admits marital infidelity. |
| 1st April 1989 | Margaret Thatcher's new local government Poll tax is introduced in Scotland. |
| 12th April 1989 | Sugar Ray Robinson, American boxer (b. 1921) dies following a long fight with Alzheimer‘s Disease. |
| 15th April 1989 | The Hillsborough disaster claims the life of ninety-six Liverpool supporters in one of the biggest tragedies in football. |
| 4th June 1989 | The Tiananmen Square massacre takes place in Beijing on the army's approach to the square. The final stand-off is covered live on television. |
| 21st June 1989 | British police arrest 250 people for celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge. |
| 14th July 1989 | France celebrates the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. |
| 20th August 1989 | Fifty-one people die when the ‘Marchioness’ pleasure boat collides with a barge on the River Thames, adjacent to Southwark Bridge. |
| 25th August 1989 | ‘Voyager II’ passes the planet Neptune and its moon Triton. |
| 20th September 1989 | F. W. de Klerk is sworn in as State President of South Africa. |
| 19th October 1989 | The Guildford Four are freed after fourteen years in jail, having been wrongfully convicted for bombings carried out by the Provisional IRA. |
| 9th November 1989 | East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to travel freely to West Germany for the first time in many decades. The next day, celebrating Germans begin tearing the rest of the wall down. |
| 25th December 1989 | Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena are executed after their unsuccessful escape attempt. |