1986 in Scotland

Centuries:	18th; 19th; 20th; 21st; ;
Decades:	1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s; 2000s;
See also:	List of years in Scotland; Timeline of Scottish history; 1986 in: The UK • England • Wales • Elsewhere; Scottish football: 1985–86 • 1986–87; 1986 in Scottish television

Events from the year 1986 in Scotland.

Incumbents

24 March – Edinburgh–Bathgate line reopened to rail passengers.
26 March – Kenny Dalglish becomes the first Scotland national football team player to be capped 100 times at senior level.
April – Scottish Unionist Party established.^[1]
8 May – 1986 Scottish regional elections, result in the Conservatives losing control of the two Regional Councils where they previously held a majority: Grampian and Tayside.
24 July–2 August – Commonwealth Games held in Edinburgh.^[2]
c. August – the millionth council house to be sold under the right to buy scheme is sold to its tenants in Scotland, seven years after the scheme was launched in the United Kingdom.^[3]
9 September – MS Norsea launched at Govan, the largest passenger ship built on the Clyde (31785 GT) and last large passenger ship built in the U.K.
26 October – bus deregulation in Great Britain: First Magic Bus (Stagecoach) operation, in Glasgow.
6 November – 1986 British International Helicopters Chinook crash: 45 oil workers killed when a Chinook helicopter carrying them from the Brent oilfield crashes in Shetland.^[4]
December – the St Kilda islands become the first World Heritage Site in Scotland.
James Nelson, a confessed and convicted matricide, is ordained a minister of the Church of Scotland.^[5]
Highland Wildlife Park taken over by Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

3 January – Allan Walker, footballer
13 February – Jamie Murray, tennis player
16 April – Paul di Resta, racing driver
27 April – Hayley Mulheron, netball player^[6]
12 May – Luke Douglas, Australian-Scottish rugby league player
26 May – Fern Brady, stand-up comedian
5 June – Charlotte Dobson, racing sailor
18 June – Richard Madden, actor
17 September – Sophie (Xeon), born Samuel Long, singer-songwriter and record producer (died 2021 in Greece)
13 November – Kevin Bridges, stand-up comedian
11 December – Kris Doolan, footballer

28 March – BBC Scotland screens Bill Bryden's The Holy City, a retelling of the Easter story set in Glasgow.
Robert Alan Jamieson's novel Thin Wealth and Shetland dialect poetry collection Shoormal are published.
Gilded Balloon comedy venue in Edinburgh first opens.

^ "Abstracts on Organisations". CAIN Web Service. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
^ "Edinburgh 1986 | Commonwealth Games Federation". thecgf.com. Archived from the original on 7 April 2018. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
^ Thatcher, Margaret (10 October 1986). "Speech to Conservative Party Conference". Margaret Thatcher Foundation. Retrieved 26 February 2013.
^ "1986: Oil workers die in helicopter crash". BBC News. 6 November 1986. Retrieved 8 December 2011.
^ "Rev James Nelson". The Daily Telegraph. London. 4 August 2005. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
^ "Glasgow 2014 - Hayley Mulheron Profile". results.glasgow2014.com. Retrieved 14 February 2020.