Iran–Contra affair
Arms for Iran, money for Nicaraguan rebels
In November 1986 the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa revealed that the Reagan administration had secretly sold arms to Iran to free hostages; part of the proceeds funded Nicaragua's Contras despite a ban by Congress. Once Oliver North's secretary transposed a Swiss account number, sending $10 million from Brunei to a stranger.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — 18 years earlier
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 6 years earlier
- 1981 AIDS first described — 5 years earlier
- 1997 Kyoto Protocol — 11 years later
- 2008 Global financial crisis — 22 years later
Europe
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 3 years later
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 3 years later
- 1990 German reunification — 4 years later
- 1991–2001 Yugoslav Wars — 5 years later
- 1992 Maastricht Treaty — 6 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — 25 years earlier
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — 1 year earlier
- 1986 Chernobyl disaster — same year
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — 3 years later
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — 5 years later
Middle East
- 1988–1994 First Nagorno-Karabakh War — 2 years later
- 1988 Spitak earthquake — 2 years later
- 1989 9 April tragedy in Tbilisi — 3 years later
- 1990–1991 Gulf War — 4 years later
- 1990 Black January in Baku — 4 years later
Africa
- 1967 First human heart transplant — 19 years earlier
- 1974 Lucy is discovered — 12 years earlier
- 1983–1985 The Ethiopian famine — 3 years earlier
- 1994 End of apartheid in South Africa — 8 years later
- 1998–2003 Second Congo War — 12 years later
Asia
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — 20 years earlier
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 11 years earlier
- 1984 Bhopal disaster — 2 years earlier
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — 18 years later
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — 25 years later
Oceania
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 6 years later
Alive at the time
- Nelson Mandela (aged 68)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 56)
- Jorge Luis Borges (aged 87)
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) (aged 85)
- Mother Teresa (aged 76)
- Ronald Reagan (aged 75)
- Richard Nixon (aged 73)
- Edmund Hillary (aged 67)
- Henry Kissinger (aged 63)
- Jimmy Carter (aged 62)