By: HISTORY.com Editors

1989

“Roger & Me” opens in U.S. theaters

Published: November 13, 2009Last Updated: May 27, 2025

Documentarian Michael Moore's first film, Roger & Me, opens in theaters on December 20, 1989. The film follows the economic impact of GM shutting down several auto factories in Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan.

Though Moore leavened his movie with goofy anecdotes and absurdist set-pieces, the humor did not disguise his rage at what had been done to Flint, a city that had once been so thriving that people came from all over the country in hopes of landing one of its thousands of blue-collar jobs that paid a middle-class wage.

By the end of the 1980s, however, Flint was falling apart—in part because of mismanagement at GM and in part because of forces beyond the company’s immediate control, like deindustrialization and globalization. Abandoned factories dotted the landscape, houses fell down and displaced auto workers did anything they could to make ends meet. At the end of the 1980s, Money magazine called Flint “the worst place to live in America.”

In the late 1970s, GM plants employed almost 100,000 people in Flint; today, they employ fewer than 7,000. General Motors CEO Roger Smith, who never bothered to see Moore’s film—“I’m not much for sick humor,” he said, “and I don’t like things that take advantage of poor people”—died in 2007.

Timeline

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Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on December 20th

1941

Hitler to Halder: No retreat!

In one of his first acts as the new commander in chief of the German army, Adolf Hitler informs General Franz Halder that there will be no retreating from the Russian front near Moscow. “The will to hold out must be brought home to every unit!” Halder was also informed that he could stay on […]

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1957

Elvis Presley is drafted

Elvis Presley receives his draft notice for the United States Army.

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1960

National Liberation Front formed

North Vietnam announces the formation of the National Front for the Liberation of the South at a conference held “somewhere in the South.” This organization, more commonly known as the National Liberation Front (NLF), was designed to replicate the success of the Viet Minh, the umbrella nationalist organization that successfully liberated Vietnam from French colonial […]

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1963

Berlin Wall opened for first time

More than two years after the Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany to prevent its citizens from fleeing its communist regime, nearly 4,000 West Berliners are allowed to cross into East Berlin to visit relatives. Under an agreement reached between East and West Berlin, more than 170,000 passes were eventually issued to West Berlin […]

1:28m read

1986

Man chased to his death in Howard Beach hate crime

On December 20, 1986, three Black men are attacked by a group of white teenagers yelling racial slurs in Howard Beach, a predominately white, middle-class, Italian-American neighborhood in Queens, New York. Earlier that night, the men were driving from Brooklyn to Queens, when their car broke down near Howard Beach. They walked several miles to […]

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1989

The U.S. invades Panama

The United States invades Panama in an attempt to overthrow military dictator Manuel Noriega, who had been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges and was accused of suppressing democracy in Panama and endangering U.S. nationals. Noriega’s Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) were promptly crushed, forcing the dictator to seek asylum with the Vatican […]

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1995

NATO assumes peacekeeping duties in Bosnia

During a brief military ceremony in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, French General Bernard Janvier, head of the United Nations peacekeeping force, formally transfers military authority in Bosnia to U.S. Admiral Leighton Smith, commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Southern Europe. The solemn ceremony cleared the path for the deployment of 60,000 NATO troops to […]

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