October 15, 1989

That fall of 1989, gas ran $1.02 a gallon and Bush was in the White House — the Berlin Wall had not yet fallen, but Eastern Europe was already shifting — Hungary had just opened its border with Austria, allowing tens of thousands of East Germans to cross freely into the West for the first time in decades. On American screens and airwaves, "The Cosby Show" was pulling in the biggest television audiences of the season while Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much" sat at the top of the charts. The Oakland Athletics clinched the World Series against the San Francisco Giants in a series interrupted by a major earthquake that struck the Bay Area during Game 3, and across the Atlantic, Denmark became the first country in the world to legally recognize same-sex civil unions.