The following events occurred in December 1988:
December 1, 1988 (Thursday) In Ordzhonikidze, North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, four men and a woman hijacked a bus carrying 30 schoolchildren, a teacher and a driver and demanded US$2 million in ransom and a cargo plane to leave the country. Carlos Salinas de Gortari took office as President of Mexico.
The first World AIDS Day was held. STS-27: NASA postponed the planned launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis from Kennedy Space Center in Florida due to weather. Born: Ashley Monique Clark, American television actress; in Brooklyn, New York City Nadia Hilker, German actress; in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany Tyler Joseph, American singer; in Columbus, Ohio Zoë Kravitz, American actress, singer and model; in Los Angeles, California Dan Mavraides, Greek-American professional basketball player; in Boston, Massachusetts Taione Vea, Tonga rugby union player; in Auckland, New Zealand Died: J. Vernon McGee, 84, American Presbyterian minister and theologian, heart failure Alun Oldfield-Davies , 83, Welsh broadcaster and public servant
December 2, 1988 (Friday) A cyclone in Bangladesh left 5 million homeless and thousands dead. Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated republic. Agreeing to the bus hijackers' demands, the Soviet government gave them $2 million and an Aeroflot Ilyushin-76 cargo plane with a crew of eight to fly it. After the plane took off from Mineralnyye Vody, the hijackers decided to fly to Israel rather than Pakistan or Iraq, as they had intended. The plane landed at a military airstrip near Ben Gurion Airport in Lod, Israel, where the hijackers surrendered. Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Minister of Defense, criticized the Soviet response to the hijacking, saying, "I must admit I can't understand how they could manage to leave the Soviet Union without the Soviet authorities doing anything to prevent it."
At 9:30:34 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, NASA launched Space Shuttle Atlantis on the classified STS-27 mission. Unbeknownst to the five-man crew, 85 seconds after liftoff, falling insulation from one of the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) severely damaged the shuttle's thermal protection system. A few hours later, astronaut Mike Mullane used the shuttle's robot arm to deploy the mission's cargo, the Lacrosse 1 satellite (also known as ONYX) for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office and the Central Intelligence Agency. In a 2001 interview, shuttle commander Robert L. Gibson would reveal that the satellite experienced a problem after deployment which required that the shuttle rendezvous with it for the issue to be corrected. Gibson's comments and confusion over the identification of the 100th U.S. spacewalk during the STS-98 mission in February 2001 would lead to speculation that STS-27 crewmembers—possibly astronauts Jerry L. Ross and William Shepherd—conducted a classified spacewalk to repair the satellite. U.S. President-elect George H. W. Bush and his defeated opponent in the presidential election, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, held a joint press conference. Born: Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick, English fashion designer; in London, England Alfred Enoch, British actor; in London, England Fuse ODG (born Nana Richard Abiona), English rapper; in Tooting, South London, England Stephen McGinn, Scottish footballer; in Glasgow, Scotland Soniya Mehra, Indian Bollywood actress Died: Karl-Heinz Bürger, 84, German SS and police leader Tata Giacobetti (born Giovanni Giacobetti), 66, Italian singer and jazz musician (Quartetto Cetra), heart attack Lloyd Rees AC CMG, 93, Australian landscape painter
December 3, 1988 (Saturday) In the United Kingdom, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health Edwina Currie provoked outrage by stating that most of Britain's egg production was infected with the salmonella bacteria, causing an immediate nationwide decrease in egg sales.