March 8 - U.S. presidential candidate George Herbert Walker Bush defeats Robert Dole in numerous Republican primaries and caucuses on "Super Tuesday." The bipartisan primary/caucus calendar, designed by Democrats to help solidify their own nominee early, backfires when none of the 6 competing candidates are able to break out of the pack in the day's Democratic contests. Jesse Jackson, however, wins several Southern state primaries.
March 26 - U.S. presidential candidate Jesse Jackson defeats Michael Dukakis in the Michigan Democratic caucuses, becoming the temporary front-runner for the party's nomination. Richard Gephardt withdraws his candidacy after his campaign speeches against imported automobiles fail to earn him much support in Detroit.
April 28 - Aloha Flight 243 loses several yards of its upper fuselage while in flight; extraordinarily, the craft lands with only 1 fatality.
April 30 - World Expo '88 opens in BrisbaneQueensland, Australia. The exhibition runs for 6 months, hosting pavilions from over 70 countries and thrusting the city of Brisbane into the international spotlight.
May 14 - Bus disaster near Carrollton, Kentucky: A drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71, hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group from Radcliff, Kentucky. The resulting fire kills 27, making it tied for 1st in the U.S. for most fatalities involving 2 vehicles to the present day. Ironically, the other 2-vehicle accident involving a bus that also killed 27 occurred in Prestonsburg, KY 30 years prior.
May 14 - Wimbledon wins the English FA Cup after beating Liverpool 1-0 at Wembley. The south-west Londoners had pulled off one of the greatest upsets in the history of English football, as they had been top division members for just 2 years and had joined the Football League only 11 years earlier. Liverpool, meanwhile, had won a total of 30 major trophies including 17 league titles.
June 11 - The name of the General Public License (GPL) is mentioned for the first time.
June 11 - Wembley Stadium hosts a concert featuring stars from the fields of music, comedy and film, in celebration of the 70th birthday of imprisoned ANC leader Nelson Mandela.
June 28 - Four workers are asphyxiated at a metal-plating plant in Auburn, Indiana, in the worst confined-space industrial accident in U.S. history (a fifth victim dies 2 days later).
July 6 - The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires, killing 165 oil workers and 2 rescue mariners.
July 6 - The first reported medical waste on beaches in the Greater New York area (including hypodermic needles and syringes possibly infected with the AIDS virus) washes ashore on Long Island. Subsequent medical waste discoveries on beaches in Coney Island and in Monmouth County, New Jersey force the closure of numerous New York-area beaches in the middle of one of the hottest summers in the American Northeast on record.
