The World in 1987 the year Wall Street lost a fifth in a day
28KComputers on the internet
1 in 2US homes with a VCR
$0.95Gallon of gas (US)
22ยขUS postage stamp
3rdElection win for Thatcher (UK)
12Countries in the EEC
1.1BPeople in China
1stRugby World Cup played
1stFinal Fantasy game (Japan)
On Black Monday the Dow Jones fell 22.6% in one trading day. If a family had $1,000 in shares that morning, about $226 of it was gone by dinner.
Life back then

Friday night meant a walk to the video shop, where the good tapes were already gone and bringing one back late cost you a fine. Half of American homes had a VCR, so people recorded shows and swapped the cassettes at school. A fax machine was the fastest way to get a page across the world, and a phone in a car meant someone had money. U2's The Joshua Tree played from every stereo that spring, and in Japan a small team shipped the first Final Fantasy just before Christmas.
The year in 8 events
- ๐ฏ๏ธMar 6 The ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes soon after leaving Zeebrugge, Belgium. 193 people die.
- ๐บApr 19 The Simpsons appear as short cartoons on The Tracey Ullman Show.
- โ๏ธMay 28 Mathias Rust, a teenage pilot from West Germany, flies through Soviet air defenses and lands a small plane next to Red Square.
- ๐งฑJun 12 Standing at the Berlin Wall, President Reagan calls on Gorbachev to tear it down.
- ๐Sep 16 Countries sign the Montreal Protocol and agree to phase out the chemicals eating the ozone layer.
- ๐Oct 19 Black Monday. Stock markets crash around the world and the Dow loses 22.6% in a single day.
- ๐๏ธDec 8 Reagan and Gorbachev sign the INF Treaty in Washington, scrapping a whole class of nuclear missiles.
- ๐ฏ๏ธDec 20 The ferry Doรฑa Paz sinks after hitting a tanker off the Philippines. More than 4,000 people die.