Columbia High School - Class Of 1986

Then . . . and . . . Now

Gasoline      Then    $.78 - $1.29    Now     $2.65 - $2.80

Swatch         Then    $30.00             Now    $90.00

'86 Bronco    Then    $15,000          Now    $2,450     (2006 Ford Explorer $27,000)

Thunderbird   Then $13,000           Now    $28,000

Movie Ticket    Then $4.75               Now    $7.00

Album            Then   $11.00             CD Now $18.00

Ropers          Then   $99.00              Now    $149.00

Economics - 2006

Median Household Income (2004 dollars):  $44,389
Unemployment:   4.6%
Cost of a first-class stamp:   $0.37

Economics - 1986

US GDP (1998 dollars):   $4,422.20 billion
Federal spending:   $990.34 billion
Federal debt:   $2120.6 billion
Median Household Income
(current dollars):  $24,897
Consumer Price Index:   109.6
Unemployment:   7.0%
Cost of a first-class stamp:   $0.22

Events

Barry Diller, head of News Corp., creates Fox, the fourth television network. Fox offers 10 hours of prime-time programming a week.
The Television Bureau of Advertising announces that the average American household watches television for more than seven hours a day.
The Oprah Winfrey Show hits national television.
The Academic American Encyclopedia is available on CD-ROM. It is the first reference work published in this medium.
Nintendo video games introduced in U.S.

Movies

Platoon, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Color of Money, The Mission

Entertainment Awards

Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
Music: Wind Quintet IV, George Perle

Oscars awarded in 1986
Academy Award, Best Picture: Out of Africa, Sydney Pollack, producer (Universal)

Nobel Prize for Literature: Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)

Grammys awarded in 1986
Record of the Year: "We Are the World," USA for Africa
Album of the Year: No Jacket Required, Phil Collins (Atlantic)
Song of the Year: "We Are the World," Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, songwriters

Miss America: Susan Akin (MS)

Sports

Super Bowl
Chicago d. New England (46-10)

World Series
NY Mets d. Boston Red Sox (4-3)

NBA Championship
Boston d. Houston (4-2)

Stanley Cup
Montreal d. Calgary (4-1)

Wimbledon
Women: Martina Navratilova d. H. Mandlikova (7-6 6-3)
Men: Boris Becker d. I. Lendl (6-4 6-3 7-5)

Kentucky Derby Champion
Ferdinand

NCAA Basketball Championship
Louisville d. Duke (72-69)

NCAA Football Champions
Penn St. (12-0-0)

World Cup
Argentina d. W. Germany (3-2)

Do you remember these events?

January

Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

January 1 - Spain and Portugal enter the European Community, which later became the European Union.
January 9 - After losing a patent battle with Polaroid, Kodak leaves the instant camera business.
January 19 - The first PC virus, Brain, starts to spread.
January 20 - The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel.
January 20 - The first federal Martin Luther King Day, honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
January 28 - Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates 73 seconds after launch, killing its crew of six astronauts and the schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.

February

February 9 - Comet Halley reaches its perihelion, the closest point to the Earth, during its second visit to the solar system in the 20th century.
February 19 - The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station

March

March 9 - United States Navy divers find the largely intact but heavily-damaged crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The bodies of all seven astronauts were still inside.
March 31 - Judas Priest releases Turbo.

April

The Chernobyl reactor following the explosion.

April 2 - A bomb explodes on a TWA flight from Rome to Athens - 4 dead
April 5 - In the terroristic La Belle discotheque bombing the West-Berlin discotheque, a known hangout for U.S. soldiers, was bombed, killing 3 and injuring 230 people. Libya is held responsible.
April 13 -- Pope John Paul II officially visits the Synagogue of Rome — the first time a modern Pope had visited a synagogue.
April 15 - At least 15 people died after USA planes bombed targets in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and the Benghazi region as part of Operation El Dorado Canyon
April 17 - British journalist John McCarthy kidnapped in Beirut (released in August 1991) - three others are found dead, Revolutionary Cells claims responsibility in retaliation for the US bombing of Libya.
April 17 - The Hindawi Affair begins when an Irishwoman is found unknowingly carrying explosives onto an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv.
April 26 - In Ukraine, one of the reactors at the Chornobyl (Chernobyl) nuclear plant explodes creating the world's worst nuclear disaster. 31 are killed directly by the incident, many more died from cancer in later years, many thousands more were exposed to significant amounts of radioactive material, vast territories in Ukraine and Belarus rendered uninhabitable.
April 27 - "Captain Midnight" interrupts HBO satellite feed

September

September 5 - Pan Am Flight 73 with 358 people on board is hijacked at Karachi International Airport by four armed men of the Abu Nidal organization which operated much in the same manner as Al Qaeda.
September 27 - A tour bus carrying heavy metal band Metallica crashes in Sweden, killing their bassist, Cliff Burton.

October

October 11 - Cold War: Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe (the talks break down in failure).
October 27 - The New York Mets win the Major League Baseball World Series, beating the Boston Red Sox in seven games.
October 28 - The centennial of the Statue of Liberty's dedication is celebrated in New York Harbor.