The Bathroom Readers’ Institute was born in 1987. Here’s what was going on in the rest of the world in 1987.

The Tracey Ullman Show, a variety program on the new Fox Network, airs a short cartoon called “The Simpsons.”
Sen. Gary Hart, the likely 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, drops out of the race after reports surface of an extramarital affair.
Scientists spot a naked-eye supernova, the first since 1604.
Jim Bakker resigns as head of PTL Ministries after admitting to having an affair with his secretary, Jessica Hahn.
Surgeons in Baltimore perform the first dual heart-lung transplant.
In July, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 2,500 for the first time in history. The market crashes the following October, plunging 800 points.
Prozac is approved for sale in the United States.
While visiting Berlin in June, President Reagan gives a speech imploring Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
Nineteen-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evades Soviet fighter jets and lands a plane in Moscow’s Red Square. He’s imprisoned for a year.
Margaret Thatcher is elected to her third consecutive term as British prime minister.
The Minnesota Twins beat the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games to win their first World Series championship.
World population reaches 5 billion. (Twenty years later, it’s about 6.6 billion.)
America celebrates the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution.
Born in 1987: Hilary Duff, Maria Sharapova, Joss Stone, Lil’ Bow Wow, Marco Andretti, Elizabeth Smart.
Died in 1987: Danny Kaye, Fred Astaire, Andy Warhol, Woody Hayes, James Baldwin, Maria von Trapp, Rudolf Hess, Andres Segovia, Clare Boothe Luce, Liberace, John Huston, and Joseph Campbell.