1990 in the United Kingdom

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1990 in the United Kingdom:
Other years
1988\| 1989 \| 1990 \| 1991 \| 1992
Sport and Music
British and Irish current events
1990 English cricket season
Football England \| Scotland
1990 in British music

Events from the year 1990 in the United Kingdom.

1 Incumbents
2 Events
3 Publications
4 Births
5 Deaths
6 References
7 See also

[edit] Incumbents

Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
Prime Minister - Margaret Thatcher, Conservative (until 28 November), John Major, Conservative

[edit] Events

January - Vauxhall enters the coupe segment of the car market with the launch of its Cavalier-based Calibra, which is the first coupe built by General Motors in Europe since the demise of the Opel Manta in 1988.
19 January - Police in Johannesburg, South Africa break up a demonstration against the cricket match played by rebel English cricketers led by Mike Gatting.^[1]
25 January - Recent hurricane-force winds are reported to have killed 39 people in England and Wales.^[2]
15 February - The UK and Argentina restore diplomatic links after 8 years. Diplomatic ties were broken off links in response to Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982.
1 March - a new Official Secrets Act comes into force.^[3]
15 March - Iraq hangs British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spying. Daphne Parish, a British nurse, is sentenced to 15 years in prison for being an accomplice to Mr Bazoft.
31 March - 200,000 protesters in Poll Tax Riots in London.^[4]
1 April - Strangeways Prison riot in Manchester, lasting for over three weeks.^[5] Finally ends on 25 April.
2 April - An earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale and centred on the Shropshire town of Bishop's Castle is felt throughout much of England and Wales^[6].
11 April - Customs and Excise officers seize parts of an Iraqi supergun in Middlesbrough.^[7]
May - Rover Group launches a heavily facelifted version of its Metro, which has been the best-selling car of the combine previously known as British Leyland and more recently Austin Rover since its 1980 launch.
19 May - British agriculture Minister John Gummer feeds a hamburger to his 5-year-old daughter to counter rumours about the spread of Mad cow disease and its transmission to humans.
24 May - Bobby Robson announces that he will be leaving his job as England national football team manager after this summer's World Cup to take charge of the Dutch club PSV Eindhoven.
7 June - France, Italy and West Germany lift bans on British beef imposed during the BSE outbreak.^[8]
20 June - Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major proposes the "hard ecu", a currency which would ciruclate into parallel with national currencies as an alternative to full monetary union.^[9]
4 July - England's chances of winning the World Cup are ended by a penalty shoot-out defeats at the hand of West Germany in the semi-finals.
14 July - Trade and Industry Secretary Nicholas Ridley resigns following an interview in The Spectator in which he likened the European Union to Hitler's Germany.^[10]
15 July - The Football Association names Graham Taylor as the new England manager. Taylor, 46, recently took Aston Villa to second place in the English league, and also reached an FA Cup final with his previous club Watford.
20 July - An IRA bomb explodes at Stock Exchange Tower, the base of the London Stock Exchange.
30 July - IRA car bomb kills British MP Ian Gow, a staunch unionist.
31 July - The England cricket team defeats the India national cricket team in a high-scoring Lord's test match totalling 1,603 runs.^[11]
1 August - British Airways Flight 149 is seized by the Iraqi Army at Kuwait International Airport following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
14 August - A survey carried out by the BBC reveals that 20% of taxpayers in England and Wales had not paid their Poll tax (community charge) by 30 June this year. [1]
23 August - British hostages in Iraq are paraded on TV.^[12]
27 August
- four found guilty in the Guinness share-trading fraud trial.^[13]
- The BBC begins broadcasting on BBC Radio 5 Live, its first new station for 23 years.^[11]
September - Ford launches the MK4 Escort and Orion, while Nissan launches the NMUK-built Primera.
19 September - The IRA try to assassinate Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Terry at his home near Stafford. Hit by at least nine bullets, the former Governor of Gibraltar survives.
8 October - Pound Sterling joins the Exchange Rate Mechanism.^[14]
18 October - Eastbourne by-election won by the Liberal Democrat David Bellotti.
November - British Sky Broadcasting founded as a merger between Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting.^[15]
1 November - Geoffrey Howe, Deputy Prime Minister, resigns over the government's European policy.^[16]
13 November - Geoffrey Howe makes a dramatic resignation speech in the House of Commons, attacking the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher's hostility towards the EC.
20 November - Margaret Thatcher fails to win outright victory in a leadership contest for the Conservative Party.^[17]
22 November - Margaret Thatcher announces she will resign as Leader of the Conservative Party and therefore as Prime Minister.^[18]
27 November John Major is elected Leader of the Conservative Party, defeating Douglas Hurd and Michael Heseltine.^[19]
28 November - John Major appointed Prime Minister by the Queen.^[20]
1 December - Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 meters beneath the English Channel seabed,^[11] establishing the first ground connection between the United Kingdom and the mainland of Europe since the last ice age.
8 December - The UK grinds to a halt following heavy snow overnight. Large parts of the country are without power after snowfall brings down power lines, disrupting the electricity supply. Many rural areas are cut off for several days, while the Army is called out to help restore power.
11 December - The first British hostages in Iraq released by Saddam Hussein arrive back in the UK.
13 December - Russell Bishop is sentenced to life imprisonment (with a recommended minimum of 15 years) for the abduction, indecent assault and attempted murder of a seven-year-old girl in Brighton earlier this year. Bishop, 24, was cleared of murdering two other girls in 1987.
19 December - Tony Adams, the Arsenal captain and England defender, is sentenced to four months in prison for a drink-driving offence committed in Southend-on-Sea on 6 May this year.
26 December - The fatwa (order to kill) against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie is upheld by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, more than one year after it was first issued. Rushdie is still living in hiding.^[21]