On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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LEAD: At Yerevan University and at the Polytechnical Institute, where passions have run high during this year of Armenian self-assertion, soldiers with automatic rifles take attendance each morning.
LEAD: Road crews were busy today tearing up and repaving specially treated pavement on two Essex County roads that was supposed to be extraordinarily safe but turned out to be deadly.
LEAD: ''TINY white lights and red bows may be exquisite decorating,'' said Geva Alder of Nashville, ''but they do not fill the soul.'' What fills the soul? ''Screaming excess,'' she replied. Christmas at the Alders is celebrated with hot-pink 1950's bubble lights with pink cords and sockets. Their tree, a rotating green cellophane beauty, is draped with pink icicles and crowned with a star of pink, aqua and lime green.
LEAD: New York City's top child-welfare official said yesterday that even if his agency had been aware that a Brooklyn mother had a history of child neglect, it still would have recommended that she retain custody of a 5-year-old girl who died in her care last week.
LEAD: THIS is the season that tries men's souls. Diesel or steam? Passenger or freight? The O-gauge trains you had as a child? Or the smaller HO trains your son wants?
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of December 21, 1988, covering December 22, 1988.
Anita Baker
U2
Soundtrack
Guns N' Roses
Bon Jovi
1988Scott Darling, American ice hockey player[†]
Scott Darling is an American former professional ice hockey goaltender. He previously played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Chicago Blackhawks and Carolina Hurricanes. Darling was selected by the Phoenix Coyotes in the sixth round, 153rd overall, of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft.
1988Mohamed El Shenawy, Egyptian footballer[†]
Mohamed El-Sayed Mohamed El-Shenawy Gomaa is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Egyptian Premier League club Al Ahly, which he captains, and the Egypt national team.
1988Leigh Halfpenny, Welsh rugby player[†]
Stephen Leigh Halfpenny is a Welsh rugby union player who plays as a fullback or wing for Harlequins in the English Premiership. Halfpenny is the third highest points scorer for Wales after Neil Jenkins and Stephen Jones.
1988Chico Mendes, Brazilian trade union leader and activist (born 1944)[†]
Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes, was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader, and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and Indigenous people. He was assassinated by a rancher on 22 December 1988. The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, a body under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, is named in his honor.
In 1988, the world population was approximately 5,141,992,542 people[†]