This is a list of important events the occured during 1987. Exact dates are listed when known.

• "Baby Jessica," Jessica McClure falls down the well and is later rescued. Wednesday October 14th, 1987 --9:30am cst through Friday October 16th, 1987--8:30pm cst
• Battle for "Baby M" begins. William and Eilizabeth Stern of New Jersey hired Mary Beth Whitehead to carry a baby to term for them. After it was all over, surrogate contracts were declared illegal and the Sterns won the right to bring "Baby M" up and allow Mrs. Whitehead visitation rights.
• Herald of Free Enterprise sinks in North Sea; 189 die
• German lands airplane on Red Square, Moscow
• Thatcher re-elected (again)
• The INF agreement between the US and the USSR
• Black Monday - Stock market drops 22% on October 19th.
• Artists protest the ongoing Sistine Chapel restoration.
• Condom commericals begin to appear on TV for the first time.
• US budget reaches the trillion dollar mark.
• Robert Bork was denied a Supreme Court appointment after opposition to his involvement in Richard Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" was raised.
• Jessica Hahn is implicated in the Jimmy Bakker scandal
• Gary Hart scandal with model Donna Rice destroys his career.
• Bruce Willis marries Demi Moore, November 21
• Klaus Barbie is convicted of Nazi war crimes and sentenced to life in prision. On a similar note, Rudolf Hess strangled himself at age 93 after having been in prision since 1941. He was the sole prisioner at the facility.
• Porn star Cicciolina wins a seat in the Italian parliment
• The last California Condor was taken in to captivity. There were only 27 in captivity at that point. By 1992 57 were in captivity and were beginning to be re-released into the wild.
• The marriage of Charles and Diana starts to deteriorate, they begin living alone.
• World Population reaches 5 billion
• The largest stock-market drop in Wall Street history occurred on "Black Monday" -- October 19, 1987 -- when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508.32 points, losing 22.6% of its total value. That fall far surpassed the one-day loss of 12.9% that began the great stock market crash of 1929 and foreshadowed the Great Depression
• The year that Lane Frost won the PRCA World Championship in Bull Riding.
• Les Miserables is awarded 8 Tony awards, including Best Musical.