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1986 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988

Sport and Music

British and Irish current events

1986 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1986 in British music

Events from the year 1986 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - Margaret Thatcher, Conservative

Events

• 4 January -
  • - Phil Lynott, the former lead singer of rock band Thin Lizzy, dies in Salisbury Hospital at the age of 36. He had been admitted on Boxing Day after collapsing at his home in Kew. Lynott's condition had deteriorated over the last few days, and he finally died as a result of multiple organ failure - the consequence of heavy drinking and drug abuse.^[1]
    • - The first MORI poll of the year shows the Labour Party have a five-point lead over the Tories with 38% of the vote, while Liberal/SDP Alliance's dreams of an electoral breakthrough are looking more remote as they can only score at 28%. [1]
• 9 January - Michael Heseltine resigns as Defence Secretary over the Westland affair.^[2]
• 20 January - The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel, which they hope to open by the early 1990s.
• 24 January - Leon Brittan resigns as Trade and Industry Secretary over Westland affair.^[3]
• 15 February - In the Wapping dispute, fifty-eight people arrested by police at a demonstration.
• 17 February - The UK signs the Single European Act.^[4]
• 4 March - Launch of the Today national tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom that pioneered the use of computer photosetting and full-colour offset printing at a time when British national newspapers were still using Linotype machines and letterpress.^[5]
• 31 March
  • A fire causes extensive damage at Hampton Court Palace in Surrey.
  • The Greater London Council is abolished, as are the metropolitan county councils of West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire..^[6]
• 7 April - Clive Sinclair sells rights to ZX Spectrum and other inventions to Amstrad.^[7]
• 17 April
  • Journalist John McCarthy is kidnapped in Beirut, where three other hostages are found dead. The Revolutionary Cells (RZ) claims responsibility as revenge for the recent American bombing of Libya.
  • Treaty signed, ending Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly.
• 24 April - Wallis, The Duchess of Windsor, dies at her home in Bois de Boulogne, Paris. She was 89 years old.
• 29 April - Wallis, The Duchess of Windsor, is buried at Frogmore.^[8]
• 30 April - rioting erupts overnight in prisons across Britain. Dozens of prisoners have escaped, while rioting prisoners at Stafford Prison have set the prison canteen alight by smashing windows and dumping a burning matress onto the roof of the canteen. The worst disturbances came at Northeye Prison in Sussex, where a 70-strong mob of prisons took over the jail and set fire to the canteen, hospital wing and sports hall. [2]
• 10 May - The first all-Merseyside FA Cup final ends in a 3-1 win for Liverpool over Everton, who become only the third team this century to win the double; having already secured the Football League First Division title.^[9]
• 10 June - Patrick Joseph Magee found guilty of Brighton hotel bombing 20 months ago and sentenced to life imprisonment.^[10]
• 12 June - Derek Hatton, leader of Liverpool council, expelled from the Labour Party for belonging to the Militant Tendency faction.^[11]
• 22 June - The England football team's hopes of winning the World Cup are ended with a 2-1 defeat in the quarter-finals by Argentina, a game in which Diego Maradona was allowed a blatantly handballed goal. [3]
• 24 June - Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party stage protest at dissolution of Northern Ireland Assembly.^[12]
• 29 June - Richard Branson beats Atlantics speed record but is denied Blue Riband award.^[13][14]
• July - Nissan begins production of the Bluebird at its landmark factory near Sunderland.
• 1 July - Gary Lineker becomes the most expensive British football ever in a £2.75million move from Everton to FC Barcelona. [4]
• 2 July - 24 hours after Gary Lineker's transfer, Ian Rush sets a new transfer record for a British footballer when he agrees a £3,200,000 move from Liverpool to Juventus of Italy, but is loaned back to Liverpool for a season. [5]
• 10 July - Austin Rover launches its new Honda-based Rover 800 executive car, which replaces the decade-old Rover SD1. The car will also be sold in America under the Sterling marque.
• 12 July - Rioting breaks out in Portadown in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics.^[15]
• 23 July - In London, Prince Andrew, Duke of York marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.^[16]
• 24 July–2 August - 1986 Commonwealth Games held in Edinburgh.
• 28 July - Estate agent Suzy Lamplugh vanishes after a meeting in London.^[17]
• 30 July - A MORI poll shows that Labour are now nine points ahead of the Tories with 41% of the vote, with Liberal/SDP Alliance support now at 25%. [6]
• August - The GCSE exam replaces both the GCE 'O' Level and CSE exams for 16-year olds.^[4]
• 15 August - The latest MORI poll shows that the Tories have eliminated Labour's nine-point lead and drawn level with them by gaining 37% in the latest opinion poll, in the space of just over two weeks. [7]
• 22 August - John Stalker, deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester police, cleared of misconduct over allegations of associating with criminals.^[18]
• 29 August - Britain's oldest twins, May and Marjorie Chavasse, celebrate their 100th birthday.^[19]
• 8 September - Margaret Thatcher officially opens the first phase of the Nissan car factory at Sunderland, which has been in use for two months. It is the first car factory to be built in Europe by a Japanese carmaker.
• 19 September - Two people killed and 100 injured at the Colwich rail crash.^[20]
• 7 October - first edition of The Independent published.^[21]
• 12 October - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the People's Republic of China; the first visit to that country by a British monarch.^[21]
• 14 October - The MetroCentre, a shopping complex built on the Tyneside Enterprise Zone, is opened. It is similar in concept to the Merry Hill Shopping Centre that is being developed near Dudley in the West Midlands.
• 24 October - UK breaks off diplomatic relations with Syria over links to Hindawi Affair.^[22]
• 26 October
  • Bus deregulation in the United Kingdom, except Greater London and Northern Ireland.
  • Jeffrey Archer resigns as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party over allegations concerning prostitutes.^[23]
• 27 October - London Stock Exchange is computerised, and opens to foreign companies.^[4]
• 28 October - Jeremy Bamber is found guilty of the murder of his parents, sister and twin nephews and is sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum of 25 years, which is likely to keep him behind bars until at least 2011.^[24]
• 29 October - Margaret Thatcher opens the completed M25 London Orbital Motorway. [8]
• November - Vauxhall launches its second generation Carlton executive saloon, giving the British division of General Motors a fresh rival for the Ford Granada and Rover 800.
• 3 November - The Tories top a MORI poll for the first time this year, coming one point ahead of Labour with 40% of the vote. Liberal/SDP Alliance support has slumped to 18%. [9]
• 6 November -
  • - Forty seven oil workers killed when a Chinook helicopter carrying them from the Brent oilfield crashed.^[25]
    • - Alex Ferguson is appointed manager of Manchester United football club.
• 18 November - Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who are both still behind bars some 20 years after their Moors Murders convictions, confess to the murders of two missing children. They admit their responsibility for the deaths of Pauline Reade, who vanished in July 1963 at the age of 16, and Keith Bennett, who was last seen in June 1964 at the age of 12.
• 20 November - Police begin their search for the two newly identified Moors Murders victims.^[26]
• 1 December - Government launches inquiry into financial irregularities at Guinness.^[27]
• 8 December - British Gas shares floated on the Stock Exchange.
• 17 December - The world's first heart, lung and liver transplant is carried out at Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire.^[21]
• 22 December - David Penhaligon, a leading Liberal Party MP, dies in a car crash near Truro in Cornwall at the age of 42. [10]
• 25 December - The second highest audience of all time on British television is attracted by the Christmas Day episode of EastEnders, the BBC 1 soap opera, in which Den Watts (Leslie Grantham) serves the divorce papers on his wife Angie (Anita Dobson) after discovering that she had feigned a terminal illness to try and stop him from leaving her. More than 30,000,000 viewers tune in for the episode of the TV series which first went on air nearly two years.
• 29 December - Earl of Stockton, the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, dies at his home in East Sussex at the age of 92. [11]

Undated

• Mathematician Simon Donaldson wins a Fields Medal.^[28]
• The Harrison Birtwistle opera The Mask of Orpheus premieres in London.^[28]
• Inflation has reached a 19-year low of 3.4%. [12]

Publications

• Kingsley Amis's novel The Old Devils.
• Iain Banks' novel The Bridge.
• John le Carré's novel A Perfect Spy.
• Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel The Light Fantastic.

Births

• 13 May - Robert Pattinson, actor
• 24 January - Mischa Barton, British-born American actress
• 21 February - Charlotte Church, soprano
• 12 March - Danny Jones, musician and singer
• 14 March - Jamie Bell, actor
• 16 September - Hasib Hussain, suicide bomber (died 2005)
• 18 September - Keeley Hazell, model
• 8 December - Amir Khan, boxer

Deaths

• 4 January
  • Phil Lynott, singer (born 1949)
  • Christopher Isherwood, novelist (born 1904)
• 10 March - Ray Milland, actor (born 1907)
• 3 April - Peter Pears, tenor (born 1910)
• 29 April - Wallis, The Duchess of Windsor (born 1896)
• 23 April - Jim Laker, cricketer (born 1922)
• 31 August - Henry Moore, sculptor (born 1898)
• 18 September - Pat Phoenix, actress (born 1923)
• 5 October - James H. Wilkinson, mathematician (born 1919)
• 28 October
  • John Braine, novelist (born 1922)
  • Ian Marter, actor and writer (born 1944)
• 29 November - Cary Grant, actor (born 1904)
• 22 December - David Penhaligon, Liberal Party MP (born 1944)
• 29 December - Harold Macmillan, former Prime Minister (born 1894)

References

See also