* 1986 – Nikolas Asprogenis, Cypriot footballer

* 1986 – Aaron Curry, American football player

* 1986 – Ryota Moriwaki, Japanese footballer

* 1986 – Tara Osseck, American model, Miss Missouri 2009

* 1986 – Lorena, Spanish singer

* 1986 – Blerim Džemaili, Swiss footballer

* 1986 – Marcel Granollers, Spanish tennis player

* 1986 – Athena Lundberg, American model

* 1945 – Michael J. Smith, American astronaut ( d. 1986 )

* 1986 – Dianna Agron, American actress, singer, and dancer

* 1917 – Peanuts Lowrey, American baseball player ( d. 1986 )

* 1986 – Mario, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor

* 1986 – Nabil El Zhar, Moroccan footballer

* 1986 – A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimeters ( 13 inches ) of rain in a day on Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

* 1986 – Raphael Pyrasch, German rugby player

* 1986 – Reby Sky, American model and wrestler

* 1941 – Way Bandy, American make-up artist ( d. 1986 )

* 1986 – Michael Lerchl, German footballer

* 1986 – Daniel Preussner, German rugby player

* 1986 – Tyler " Telle " Smith, American singer-songwriter and musician ( The Word Alive and In Fear and Faith )

* 1986 – Rafaela Zanella, Brazilian model, Miss Brasil 2006

Mike Gatting was the captain in 1986 – 87 but his team started badly and attracted some criticism.

* 1941 – Ede Staal, Dutch singer-songwriter ( d. 1986 )

* 1986 – Mathieu Razanakolona, Canadian skier

* 1986 – Erik Bruhn, Danish ballet dancer, choreographer ( b. 1928 )

* 1986 – A nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union ( now Ukraine ), creating the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Between 1980 to 1986, Sakharov was kept under tight Soviet police surveillance.

In 1986, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had over 19 million members or approximately 10 % of the USSR's adult population.

The dramatic drop of the price of oil in 1985 and 1986, and consequent lack of foreign exchange reserves in following years to purchase grain profoundly influenced actions of the Soviet leadership.

Also, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 added motive force to Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika reforms, which eventually spiraled out of control and caused the Soviet system to collapse.

By the time Gorbachev ushered in the process that would lead to the dismantling of the Soviet administrative command economy through his programs of glasnost ( political openness ), uskoreniye ( speed-up of economic development ) and perestroika ( political and economic restructuring ) announced in 1986, the Soviet economy suffered from both hidden inflation and pervasive supply shortages aggravated by an increasingly open black market that undermined the official economy.

Moreover, the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and the mishandling of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which Gorbachev tried to cover up, further damaged the credibility of the Soviet government at a time when dissatisfaction was increasing.

* 1986 – Revolt in Kazakhstan against Communist Party of Kazakhstan, known as Zheltoksan, which becomes the first sign of ethnic strife during Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure

* 1986 – The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft.

* 1986 – The Soviet liner runs aground in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand.

* Finland's Relations with the Soviet Union, 1940 – 1986 by Peter Botticelli

However, activists remembered the messy crash of the Soviet Union's nuclear-powered Cosmos 954 satellite in Canada in 1978, and the 1986 Challenger accident had raised public awareness of the possibility of explosive spacecraft failures.

* John Anthony Walker ( born 1937 ), American communications specialist convicted in 1986 of spying for the Soviet Union

On 16 December 1986, the Soviet Politburo dismissed the long serving General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, Dinmukhamed Konayev.

Formally neutral and reluctant to become involved with the great powers except as a last resort, Kuwait turned to the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain for naval protection of its tanker fleet after twenty-one ships were attacked in the gulf since late 1986.

* Urban, Michael E. " From Chernenko to Gorbachev: A Repolitization of Official Soviet Discourse ," Soviet Union / Union Soviétique, 13, No. 2, 1986, 131 – 61.

However, the equipment – which was mainly Soviet weaponry from the 1960s and 1970s – was outdated and it proved inefficient during the 1986 bombing of Libya by the US Air Force.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was able to get Karmal to step down as PDPA General Secretary in 1986, and replace him with Najibullah.

* 1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus.

He was later quoted as saying that he had the idea of the attempt to reach Moscow even before the departure, and he saw the trip to Iceland ( where he visited Hofdi House, the site of unsuccessful talks between the United States and the Soviet Union in October 1986 ) as a way to test his piloting skills.

XXVII Congress of the CPSU | The Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1986

Kirkpatrick published an article called The Myth of Moral Equivalence in 1986, in which sharply criticized those who she alleged were claiming that there was " no moral difference " between the Soviet Union and democratic states.