Timeline December 1986

Events in December 1986 15

• 1894 – 1986 Harold Macmillan (1894-1986) Died 29 December 1986, aged 92 British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963, overseeing decolonisation in Africa and a period of postwar prosperity at home. He coined the phrase "wind of change" in a landmark speech to the South African parliament. He was made Earl of Stockton shortly before his death.
• 1902 – 1986 Elsa Lanchester (1902-1986) English actress, the Bride of Frankenstein and wife of Charles Laughton.
• 1917 – 1986 Desi Arnaz (1917-1986) Died 2 December 1986, aged 69 Cuban-born actor and bandleader who co-starred in and produced the pioneering sitcom I Love Lucy with his wife Lucille Ball. Through their company Desilu, he helped pioneer the multi-camera format and rerun syndication model still used in television today. He died in California of lung cancer.
• 1971 – 1986 Weather Report Co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report with keyboardist Joe Zawinul. The group achieved international success and redefined the possibilities of electric jazz over fifteen years.
• 1983 – 1986 Early Musical Career Discovered singing with the band Ton Ton Macoute in the mid-1980s, having previously been sent to a reform school where a nun gave her her first guitar.
• 1986 1986: Alain Prost McLaren Prost won his second consecutive title after Nigel Mansell suffered a dramatic tyre blowout at the final race in Adelaide while leading the championship.
• 1986 Dollywood Opens Opened Dollywood, a theme park in the Great Smoky Mountains near her childhood home in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The park would grow into a major economic engine for the region and eventually attract over three million visitors per year.
• 1986 I, Tina and Break Every Rule Published her autobiography I, Tina, which detailed the abuse she suffered during her marriage to Ike Turner. Released the album Break Every Rule and embarked on a record-breaking world tour.
• 1986 Inverted Region Confirmed The 'inverted region' predicted by Marcus theory 30 years earlier was finally confirmed experimentally by John R. Miller and colleagues, vindicating one of the most daring predictions in theoretical chemistry.
• 1986 Return to Germany Returned to Germany for the first time, a pivotal journey in reconciling her conflicted feelings about her homeland. She described herself as 'a writer, a woman, a lover, a swimmer, a parent, a German-born American.'
• 1986 That's What Friends Are For Won a Grammy for Song of the Year for That's What Friends Are For, performed by Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder as an AIDS charity single.
• 1986 The Singing Detective Starred as Philip Marlow in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective, a BBC television serial widely regarded as one of the greatest TV dramas ever made.
• 1986 F-15E Strike Eagle first flight Two seats, ground attack The dual-role F-15E flies, adding deep strike to the Eagle's air superiority mission.
• 1986 Platoon released Oliver Stone's Vietnam War film opens in theaters Oliver Stone's Platoon, drawn from his own combat experience, opened in US theaters and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was among the first major Hollywood films to portray the Vietnam War from an infantry soldier's perspective without overt heroism. The film's success prompted a wave of similarly unflinching war films.
• 1986 Elsa Lanchester dies in Woodland Hills Elsa Lanchester dies aged 84.