According to a Google search, here are the four major events of 1988:

• USS Vincennes accidentally shoots down an Iranian airliner.
• A Pan Am Boeing jumbo jet crashes into the Scottish town of Lockerbie as a result of a bomb.
• Iran-Iraq war ends.
• Benazir Bhutto becomes President of Pakistan.

I'm not sure why Bhutto's election was a "major event": Pakistan is 8000 miles from Kansas City, where the NFHS plied its trade in the 80s. And Google did not even list the National Federation's adoption of the pro rules governing overthrows by infielders as a "major" event.

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