Puzzle book series Where’s Wally?, created by English illustrator Martin Handford, made its debut on the 21st of September, 1987, which makes Wally thirty-two years old today.
As the series was released around the world, several countries changed Wally’s name (e.g. “Where’s Waldo” that so often appears in popular culture in the United States).
King’s College Chapel, Cambridge in England is seen here covered in scaffolding on the 18th of July, 1987.
The chapel, built during the Wars of the Roses, is home to the world’s biggest fan vault, and famous for its stained glass windows.
The closed nuclear city of Pripyat (При́п’ять), Ukraine is pictured here on the 23rd of April, 1983, three years and three days before the Chernobyl (Chornobyl in Ukrainian) disaster.
At the time of the disaster Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and the fallout from the event caused great harm to areas of Ukraine and much of Belarus.
Pripyat was evacuated on the 27th of April, 1986, and today stands as a ghost town.
East German figure skating star Katarina Witt is photographed here on the 9th of January, 1982. She was sixteen years old when the picture was taken.
Witt went on to win both the World and European titles that year. Two years later she won her first of two Winter Olympic gold medals, at the Sarajevo Games.
The Royal Navy’s HMS Ark Royal is photographed here under construction in Wallsend, England on the 10th of March, 1981.
The ship was launched in June of the same year.
This photograph, dated the 2nd of March, 1986, was released to the media to introduce “the new generation of American Ballet Theatre stars”.
Pictured are Gil Boggs, Amanda McKerrow, John Turjoman and Bonnie Moore.
A 1985 interview with Turjoman and Moore, where they discuss interpreting Romeo and Juliet as very young dancers, can be read HERE.
McKerrow went on to be known as one of the greatest ballerinas in the history of ABT.
On the 24th of November, 1995, Ireland became the last country in Europe to legalise divorce. This occurred because of a referendum to change the constitution – not the first attempt to achieve this.
Opposition in the failed 1986 referendum. X
Divorce had been specifically forbidden in the 1937 Irish constitution. A heavily Catholic country, there was very strong opposition to the legal breakup of a marriage, just as there was when it came to the legalisation of contraception, which was only made available in the 1980s.
The success of the 1995 referendum was a close thing; the results were just over 50% in favour and 49.79% opposed.
This photograph is of fireworks over the Washington Monument on the 4th of July, 1986.
The recovered wreckage in 2007. X
On the 27th of June, 1980, Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 disappeared from the sky during a flight from Bologna to Palermo, Italy.
The plane crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea, killing all eighty-one people on board.
While it was concluded by British investigators that a bomb on the aircraft caused the disaster, to this day Italian officials insist a missile was fired at the plane.
The disaster occurred in the middle of a wave of terrorist acts to hit Italy (such as the Bologna Bombing), fuelled by far left and right-wing groups in the country’s north.
In Times Gone By... 
