Earl Green is the creator, curator, and head writer of theLogBook.com.
NASA’s Magellan space probe, which has been mapping the planet Venus from orbit since September 1990, completes the first phase of its map-making mission, completing radar imaging of more than 80% of the planet’s surface. NASA authorizes an extended mission, lasting into 1992, which will yield a more complete map of the Venusian surface, including its polar regions.
The 77th episode of the syndicated series Superboy, starring Gerard Christopher and Stacy Haiduk, airs. Sherman Howard and Justina Vail (Seven Days) guest star.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The 22nd episode of the superhero series The Flash, based on the DC Comics character, airs on CBS, starring John Wesley Shipp and Amanda Pays. Mark Hamill (Star Wars, Batman: The Animated Series) guest stars in what is intended to merely be a lead-in to a second season, though CBS does not pick The Flash up for a second year, making this the final episode. John Wesley Shipp will return as both this series’ version of the Flash and as Barry Allen’s father in the much longer-lived 21st century series based on the character.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
Helen Sharman becomes the first British national in space, flying aboard Soyuz TM-12 to the Soviet space station Mir. Making her flight in a seat bought and paid for by a consortium of British commercial interests, Sharman tags along with cosmonauts Anatoly Artsebarsky and Sergei Krikalev, and she spends just a week in orbit before returning with Soyuz TM-13 cosmonaut Toktar Aubakirov. Artsebarsky and Krikalev remain aboard Mir for what is initially planned to be a five-month stay, though a shake-up in the flight schedule forces mission planners to ask Krikalev to stay aboard Mir even after Artsebarsky returns to Earth, resulting in Krikalev remaining on Mir for 10 months, not returning home until 1992 – at which point the Soviet Union will have ceased to exist.
NBC airs the 52nd episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. This is the third season finale, and is nearly the end of the series, but a fan letter-writing campaign helps convince NBC to renew the series.
This series is not fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The 78th episode of the syndicated series Superboy, starring Gerard Christopher and Stacy Haiduk, airs. Sherman Howard and Justina Vail (Seven Days) guest star in the third season finale.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 97th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. 
After three years of joint development on a CD-ROM peripheral for Nintendo’s new video game system, Sony and Nintendo part ways, leaving the public and the press confused over what will happen next. Hours after Nintendo unveils the specs and price point for its Super Nintendo Entertainment System to the press, Sony announces that it will release a new system called the Play Station in 1992, which will play both SNES cartridges and disc-based systems made by Sony. Of course, Sony’s development curve isn’t that simple, and the first Sony video game system won’t arrive until a few years – and a whole generation of computer game hardware – later.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 98th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Michelle Scarabelli (Alien Nation) guest stars; Patrick “Picard” Stewart directs this episode.
Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off on a nine-day mission with – for the first time in the shuttle program – a crew that’s nearly 50% female. Columbia carries the Spacelab module into orbit for a series of life sciences and biology experiments, the first flight devoted to such experiments since the Skylab era. Aboard Columbia for this flight are Commander Bryan O’Connor, Pilot Sidney Gutierrez, and mission specialists James Bagian, Tamara Jernigan, Rhea Seddon, Drew Gaffney and Millie Hughes-Fulford.
ELO offshoot band Electric Light Orchestra Part II releases its self-titled debut album (with the placement of “Part II” on the cover no doubt leaving some confusion as to whether or not this is the original band; it’s actually a new group formed by former ELO drummer Bev Bevan).
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 99th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Whoopi Goldberg and Tony Todd guest star. This episode ends the fourth season.
GNP Crescendo Records releases the second CD of Star Trek: The Next Generation soundtrack music, containing Ron Jones’ music from the fan favorite two-part story The Best Of Both Worlds.
GNP Crescendo releases a CD of music from the original Star Trek television series, presenting selections from the episodes The Doomsday Machine by Sol Kaplan and Amok Time by Gerald Fried.
With no new series in sight on TV, Virgin Publishing begins its long-awaited line of original print fiction with the first Doctor Who New Adventures novel, “Timewyrm: Genesys” by John Peel. The first book in a four-book cycle of linked stories, the novel picks up where the television series left off, featuring the seventh Doctor and Ace. Three further books are already in the works in the Timewyrm series, with other authors lining up for a chance to write later books in 1992 and beyond.
The Moody Blues release the album Keys Of The Kingdom, featuring the single “Bless the Wings (That Bring You Back).” This is the group’s first album of the 1990s, and the last studio album of new material until 1999.
Capitol Records releases the third Crowded House album, Woodface, featuring the singles “Chocolate Cake” and “Weather With You”, and adding Neil Finn’s brother (and fellow Split Enz alumnus) Tim Finn to the lineup.
NASA launches Space Shuttle Atlantis on a satellite deployment and science mission lasting nearly nine days. The fourth TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite) is launched, and several experiments are performed on board, including materials processing experiments. Atlantis’ crew consists of Commander John Blaha, Pilot Michael Baker, and mission specialists Shannon Lucid, James Adamson and David Low.
The World Wide Web is born as Tim Berners-Lee shows off his concept for implementing hypertext, consisting of cross-linked documents, on the internet. At the time of his demonstration, the net’s primary functions are Gopher, Telnet and Usenet, but as those services do not provide a simple, user-friendly experience for providing amusingly captioned cat pictures to the public, “the web”, also known as “the WWW”, quickly gains traction and prominence. While the internet’s infrastructure can trace its origins to the 1960s and ARPAnet, this marks the dawn of the public-facing internet (which now, of course, includes the site you are reading right now).
Virgin Publishing releases the second novel in the Doctor Who New Adventures series, “Timewyrm: Exodus” by early ’70s Doctor Who script editor Terrance Dicks. This book continues the four-part Timewyrm cycle and revisits the War Lord last seen in the 1969 TV story The War Games, and long before the TV episode Let’s Kill Hitler, places the Doctor in the company of Hitler. This is Dicks’ first Doctor Who prose which is not a direct adaptation of a television story.
Nintendo releases the city-building game SimCity for the Super NES, a game developed with MAxis.
The first episode of a reimagined version of the 1970s series Land Of The Lost premieres on ABC, starring Joseph Bottoms (The Black Hole).
Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off on a five-day mission to deliver the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) into a low Earth orbit, where the satellite spends over a year studying the outer layers of Earth’s atmosphere. UARS also focuses on study of Earth’s ozone layer. Other experiments are carried out aboard the orbiter by Commander John Creighton, Pilot Kenneth Reightler, , and mission specialists Mark Brown, Charles Gemar and James Buchli.
EMI Records releases the Electric Light Orchestra 2-disc set Early ELO: 1971-1973, gathering the band’s early material as well as alternate mixes and an unreleased song.
Chrysalis Records releases The Best Of Spandau Ballet, a career retrospective of the band’s heyday.
NBC airs the 53rd episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. This is the fourth season premiere.
This series is not fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 100th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Todd and Denise Crosby guest star. This episode is the beginning of the show’s fifth season.
NBC airs the 54th episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. Neal McDonough (Star Trek: First Contact, Arrow, Legends Of Tomorrow) guest stars.
This series is not fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 101st episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Paul Winfield (Star Trek II) and Ashley Judd guest star. 
NBC airs the 55th episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell.
This series is not fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.