Three decades ago, the long-fought Iran-Iraq war had reached a deadly stalemate, the stock markets took a huge hit on Black Monday in October, American politicians were gearing up for the 1988 presidential race, Baby Jessica was rescued from a well, broadcast live on CNN, and much more. Photographers were also busy documenting the lives of Pee-wee Herman, Menudo, Mikhail Gorbachev, Howard Stern, Princess Diana, Donald Trump, Bernie Goetz, and many others. Take a step into a visual time capsule now, for a brief look at the year 1987.
30 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1987
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Members of the Puerto Rican group singing group "Menudo" hold a press conference at New York's Hard Rock Cafe on May 27, 1987. They are, left to right: Ralphie Rodriguez, Ricky Martin, Ruben Gomez, Sergio Gonzales, Ramone Acevedo and Charlie Masso. #
Mario Suriani / AP -
In the Persian Gulf, a view of the guided missile frigate USS Stark listing to port after being hit by two Iraqi Exocet missiles within 30 seconds. 37 sailors were killed. Though exact details remain unclear, the Iraqi government at the time stated that the attack was in error, that the Iraqi pilot had thought the Stark was an Iranian tanker, and officially apologized to the United States. The incident took place two miles outside an exclusion zone enforced during the Iran-Iraq war. #
U.S. Department of Defense. -
Backstage at Carnegie Hall in New York, Liza Minelli meets guests after her show, including Henry Kissinger, Nancy Kissinger, Donald Trump and his wife Ivana Trump, on June 11, 1987. #
Ron Frehm / AP -
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Michael S. Swavley, vice president of marketing for Compaq Computer Corporation, introduces the new Compaq Portable III at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York, on February 18, 1987. The Compaq Portable III, starting with a weight of 18 pounds, provides the power and function of a high performance desktop computer in a small, self-contained unit that is easy to carry. #
Richard Drew / AP -
Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North, former aide to former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, is sworn in on July 7, 1987, before the House and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, District of Columbia, on arms sales to Iran and diversion of profits to Nicaraguan Contra rebels. North testified under limited immunity. The "Irangate" saga erupted 30 November 1986 into a new crisis for the US President Reagan administration with the resignation of Admiral John Poindexter as the President's National Security Advisor and the dismissal of North, a member of the National Security Council Staff. "Ollie" North, a much-decorated Marine officer, known to White House cynics as the President's "Swashbuckler in Chief", was linked to the transfer of some $30 million profit from the Iran weapons sales to Contra rebels fighting the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua. #
Chris Wilkins / AFP / Getty -
A crowd estimated at 800,000 jams the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, on May 24, 1987, as a walk is kicked off to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bridge that spans the San Francisco Bay. #
Paul Sakuma / AP -
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Anti-government protesters staging a sit-down strike in the center of Seoul, South Korea, on June 14, 1987, scatter in panic as tear gas grenades, hurled by police, explode. Police repeatedly broke up demonstrations in the city center for a fourth day. #
Itsuo Inouye / AP -
Mayor Bernie Sanders of Burlington, Vermont, sings into the microphone during a recording session on November 20, 1987. The mayor, accompanied by a backup group of Vermont singers, was putting out a tape of five songs and a discussion of his philosophy that will be available in stores. Sanders feels music is a powerful way to communicate with the masses. #
Toby Talbot / AP -
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First lady of Arkansas Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at a conference at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas, beside her husband, Governor Bill Clinton, on July 16, 1987. #
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Hubert C. Vykukal uses the Ames Neutral Buoyancy Test Facility water tank for the evaluation of the AX-5 spacesuit developed at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, in August of 1987. The AX-5 was one of two concepts under evaluation that may have lead to a space station spacesuit. It was designed for routine, daily space operations, a departure from limited usage provided by previous spacesuits. AX-5 was built entirely of aluminum and has no fabric parts. #
Bettmann / Getty -
After the 'Black Monday" stock market crash of 1987, passengers on board the F train in New York read about it in newspapers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by nearly 23% in a single day, on October 19, 1987. By the end of the month, global markets had lost between 20% and 45% of their value, but gradually recovered over the next few years. #
James Marshall / Corbis via Getty -
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Soviet Communist Party leader Mikhail Gorbachev, left, and East Germany's state and Communist party leader Erich Honecker exchange kisses at East Berlin's Schoenefeld airport on May 27, 1987. Mr. Gorbachev arrived in East Berlin to attend the Warsaw Pact summit. #
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Iranian soldiers wear gas masks near a canal in the Shalamcheh area, southeast of Basra, Iraq, on January 16, 1987. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was accused of using mustard gas and the nerve agent taubun in his country's war with neighboring Iran as well as his 1987-88 crackdown on Iraq's Kurdish minority. #
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Minnesota Twins Kirby Puckett (left) celebrates with teammate Frank Viola (right) after they defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 to win the 1987 World Series in this October 25, 1987 photo. #
Gary Hershorn / Reuters -
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Congressional candidate Nancy Pelosi, D-California, waves at her Headquarters in San Francisco on April 7, 1987. Pelosi held a slight edge over San Francisco city Supervisor Harry Britt, for the seat of the late Rep.Sala Burton, according to early election results. #
Paul Sakuma / AP -
Wearing traditional robes of the Invisible Empire, Ku Klux Klan members form a circle around a burning cross in Rumford, Maine on September 27, 1987. Lead by the group’s national leader Imperial Wizard James W. Farrands, the Klan had gathered on a rural farm in western Maine for a rally. #
Scott Perry / AP -
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Radio shock jock Howard Stern speaks at a rally in New York's Dag Hammerskjold Plaza on April 24, 1987, where more than 2,000 people showed their support after the FCC censured Stern's off-color broadcasts. #
Richard Drew / AP -
Eighteen-month old "Baby Jessica" McClure is held by rescue worker Steven Forbes Friday night, October 16, 1987 after she was trapped 22 feet underground in an abandoned water well for 58 hours. The rescue efforts were broadcast live on CNN, capturing much of America's attention at the time. #
Eric Gay / AP -
Actress Morgan Fairchild and funny man Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) pose for photographers as they enter the American Comedy Awards at the Los Angeles Palladium Theater on May 20, 1987. #
Mark Terrill / AP -
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Guardian Angels, police, photographers, and others scramble as the car containing Bernhard Goetz leaves State Supreme Court in New York, Tuesday, June 16, 1987. Goetz was exonerated on twelve of thirteen counts by a jury in the case against him stemming from the 1984 shootings of four youths in a New York subway car. #
David Bookstaver / AP -
Brian Bosworth of the Seattle Seahawks in a 1987 game against the Denver Broncos at Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colorado. "The Boz" had just been drafted by the Seahawks, signing the biggest rookie contract in NFL history at the time. An injury forced his retirement just two years later. #
Owen C. Shaw / Getty -
The corpse of a Libyan soldier lies buried in the sand near Libyan army tanks captured by Forces Armees Nationales Chadiennes (FANT), or National Army of Chad. The FANT mission in early 1987 was to reconquer the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Prefecture and recover the territory in northern Chad that had been under Libyan control. #
Patrick Robert / Sygma via Getty -
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Participants of the Lesbian and Gay march on Washington hold their hands high during a rally on the National Mall on October 11, 1987. U.S. Park Police estimated some 200,000 people participated in the rally. #
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Diana, Princess of Wales is pictured during an evening reception given by the West German President Richard von Weizsacker in honor of the British Royal guests in the Godesberg Redoute in Bonn, Germany on Monday, November 2, 1987. Prince Charles and Princes Diana were touring Germany in an official state visit. #
Herman Knippertz / AP -
The "gar-barge", a barge full of 3,100 tons of Brooklyn garbage, floats around near Key West, Florida, on May 7, 1987. The barge, originally chartered to be towed from New York to North Carolina, but local officials denied the barge entry in North Carolina, and ordered it to move on. The barge spent months in 1987 moving from port to port, as far south as Belize, trying to find someone to take its garbage, with no luck. The "gar-barge" cargo was eventually returned to Brooklyn for incineration. #
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"Saturday Night Live" host Bill Murray, a former cast member, during rehearsals at Studio 8H in New York's Rockefeller Center, on March 19, 1987. At left is SNL's creator and producer, Lorne Michaels. #
G. Paul Burnett / AP -
Senator Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, speaks at a press conference in Boston on April 15, 1987, the start of what was planned as three-day campaign trip through New England. #
Gerald Herbert / AP -
Surgeon General C. Everett Koop accepts a pipe from Mr. Potato Head, who used it for the past 35 years, at a ceremony in Washington on November 17, 1987, to kick off this year's Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society. #
Doug Pensinger / AP -
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The Singapore-registered tanker "Norman Atlantic" sits ablaze in the Straits of Hormuz on December 6, 1987, after being attacked by an Iranian gunboat. The 86,129 ton tanker was carrying a cargo of naphtha liquid gas from Kuwait. All 22 crewmen left the ship and no injuries were reported. #
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Bag-covered bodies are strewn across the hillsides flanking Middlebelt Road in Romulus, Michigan, on August 16, 1987 after a Northwest Airlines MD-82, en route to California via Phoenix, crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport. #
Dale Atkins / AP -
A 1987 photo shows televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker while they were still married. Tammy later divorced Jim while he was in prison for bilking 116,000 followers of his PTL ministries out of $158 million in the 1980s. #
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Music groups Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys pose atop a restaurant in midtown Manhattan on May 11, 1987. The two groups held a news conference to announce their 40-city "Together Forever" tour, which was to kick off in Hawaii on June 12. In front from left, are, Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell, Jospeh "Rappers Run" Simmons, and Davy D; in back from left are, Mike D., Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, King Ad-Rock, and MCA. #
Marty Lederhandler / AP -
Vice President George Bush and wife, Barbara, wave to supporters that turned out in Houston, Texas, to hear him announce he was a candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, on October 12, 1987. #
Ed Kolenovsky / AP -
Hundreds of mounted policemen using sabers and riot troopers using tear gas clashed with rock-throwing squatters on April 24, 1987 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The policemen had order to evict 95 families who illegally occupied almost 40,000 square yards of privately-owned land. The two-hour clash left more than 20 squatters and 30 policemen injured. Forty-four people were arrested. #
Luiz Luppi / AP -
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Pennsylvania State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer holds a pistol as he prepared to shoot himself in front of cameras during a news conference in his State Capitol office in Harrisburg. #
Paul Vathis / AP -
First Lady Nancy Reagan watches an anti-drug musical entitled Just Say No performed by teenage students from the Chantilly, Virginia, High School Drama Department at the Cameron Elementary School, on February 26, 1987, in Alexandria, Virginia. #
Scott Stewart / AP -
Two men wearing Irish Republican Army (IRA) black masks and berets carry the coffin of Tony Gormley, during his funeral near Dungannon, Northern Ireland on May 11, 1987. He was one of eight IRA members who died on May 8, after conflict with security forces when they attacked the police station at Loughgall in Co., Armagh. #
Peter Kemp / AP -
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William Shatner, more used to kisses from beautiful aliens in his role as Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, gets a whale of a kiss from Yaka the 10,000-pound killer whale at a Vallejo, California, wildlife park, on Monday, March 16, 1987. Shatner, whose crew captured whales of a different breed to save the Earth in the latest Star Trek movie, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, made the appearance to promote contributions to the California Rare and Endangered Species Preservation Program. #
Paul Sakuma / AP
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