- The Berlin Wall falls
- Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests lead to 3,000 deaths
- World wide web is invented
- Official end of the Cold War
- Ayatollah Khomeini issues fatwa against Salman Rushdie over The Satanic Verses
- Southbank Centre holds exhibition of The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-war Britain
- First full-length episode of The Simpsons