1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Soviet troops in Lithuania seize the Vilnius television station by force January 13, killing 15, wounding hundreds, and signaling a harsh new attitude by Moscow toward the republics (see 1990). Soviet Black Berets in Latvia kill five in an attack on ministry building at Riga, but the Republic of Georgia declares its independence April 9 (see 1992). The Moldovian Soviet Socialist Republic becomes the independent Republic of Moldova May 23, but leaders of the Trans-Dneister Autonomous Republic declare independence from Moldova, and fighting breaks out between the two (see 1990; 1992). Boris Yeltsin wins easy election June 13 as president of the Russian Republic in the first democratic elections ever held in Russia; Leningraders vote to rename their city St. Petersburg.
Former Iranian prime minister Shahpur Bakhtiar is found stabbed to death at his suburban Paris home August 6 at age 77, having survived two previous assassination attempts.
A coup attempt by Communist Party hard liners August 19 ends August 23 after President Yeltsin at Moscow calls for a general strike to resist the coup. Some tank commanders support Yeltsin and the coup leaders flee. Soviet President Gorbachev returns from brief detention in his Crimean summer home August 23 and suspends the Communist Party August 24, ending 74 years of communist rule. Ukraine proclaims independence from the Soviet Union August 24, threatening to strip Russia of her most productive agricultural territories. The Republic of Belarus declares independence August 25, having had her own seat in the United Nations since 1945; mathematician and physicist Stanislav Stanislavovich Shushkevich, 56, has headed the country's Supreme Soviet at Minsk and is named president (see 1994).
CIA director William H. Webster resigns August 31 and is replaced November 6 by Wichita-born Robert M. (Michael) Gates, 47, who was deputy director from 1986 to 1989 and will head the agency until 1993. Former CIA director John A. McCone has died at his Pebble Beach, Calif., home February 14 at age 89.
President Gorbachev persuades the all-Soviet Congress to surrender power September 5. It has lost authority over the 15 constituent republics, the nation verges on political and economic collapse; Gorbachev works with leaders of the republics to restore order, draft a new constitution, and create a noncommunist political order. He recognizes the independence of the Baltic republics September 6 as other republics gain autonomy.
Uzbekistan declares her independence August 31 under the leadership of President Islam Karimov, 53, who is relected; Kyrgyzstan declares her independence August 31 under the leadership of former metalworker Askar Akayev, 47,who becomes the country's first nationally chosen president October 12, restores Frunze's pre-Soviet name Bishkek, and will hold power until 2005; Azerbaijan's national assembly (Milli Medjlis) officially restores the country as an independent republic October 18. The Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan demands independence as war continues between Armenia and Azerbaijan (see 1988). Armenian soldiers help to carve out a corridor linking the region to Armenia and take control of nearby Azeri villages, and by the time a Russian-brokered cease-fire is declared in 1994 the conflict will have killed at least 30,000 people and displaced more than 80,000.
Turkmenistan declares her independence October 27 under the leadership of President Saparmurad A. Niyazov, 51, who has been reelected; Kazakhstan declares her independence in December under the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbatyev.
The autonomous enclave of Chechnya elects Dzhokhar Dudayev president and declares independence from Russia late in the year as the Soviet Union breaks apart. The largely Muslim state (population: about 1.2 million) has defied Russia for 3 centuries (see 1995).
The Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act (Nunn-Lugar Act) signed into law by President Bush December 12 initiates a "build-down" of nuclear capabilities in the former Soviet republics. Senate Armed Forces Committee chairman Samuel Augustus "Sam" Nunn, now 53 (D. Ga.), and former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Green "Dick" Lugar, not 59 (R. Ind.), have sponsored the measure after consultations with former Soviet leaders, and within 13 years half the nuclear arsenal of the cold-war enemy will have been scrapped, but security at the remaining stockpiles will be so lax that experts raise fears that terrorists may gain access to them.
Ukraine joins with Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgysztan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and four other former Soviet republics December 21 in a Commonwealth of Independent States. Mikhail Gorbachev resigns December 25, and the USSR is dissolved as Boris Yeltsin becomes president of Russia, a position he will hold until the end of 1999.
Norway's Olaf V dies at Oslo January 17 at age 87 after a 33-year reign. His 53-year-old son assumes the throne as Harald V.
Germany's Bundestag votes June 20 to move the nation's capital from Bonn to Berlin despite the high costs involved. Berlin is closer to East Germany, supporters of the move argue (see 1999).
Croatia and Slovenia declare independence from Yugoslavia June 25 but no world power recognizes them (see 1990). President Slobodan Milosevic orders the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) to subdue the breakaway republics, the army is composed mostly of Serbs, Serbo-Croat battles erupt, a civil war begins, Serb forces lay siege to the Croatian city of Vukovar, the European Community engineers a series of cease-fires, but the United States does not intervene to stop the bloodshed. The JNA and Serbian guerrillas launch a final offensive against Vukovar November 17, its last defenders flee November 19, and the city surrenders after an 86-day siege in which it has been virtually leveled with as many as 5,000 people dead. Only 10,000 people remain alive in the city, most of the original 50,000 having left (see 1992; Krajina, 1995).
Former head of Communist Czechoslovakia Gustav Husák dies at his native Bratislava November 18 at age 88.
Political and economic leaders from 12 European Community (EC) nations meet at Maastricht in the Netherlands and sign a treaty in December establishing a new entity: the European Union (EU) is intended to permit pursuit of a common foreign policy and will have greater powers than did the EC in matters that have heretofore been the sole province of individual, sovereign powers; initial signatories are Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, but Britain has been allowed to "opt out" of the EU's social chapter, which sets Continent-wide standards for workers' rights (Prime Minister Major has opposed the provision); the pact must be ratified by the voters of each country, and French voters next year will ratify it by a margin of only 51.05 percent to 48.9 percent (Danish voters will reject the treaty and not approve it until May 1993, by which time the other nations will have agreed to exempt Denmark from cooperating on matters of defense, police, and monetary policy) (see 1993).
U.S. and allied missiles and planes bomb targets in Iraq and Kuwait beginning January 17. Congress has voted January 12 to approve legislation permitting President Bush to make war on Iraq if she does not withdraw from Kuwait by January 15 in accordance with UN resolutions (see 1990). Pilots fly more than 1,000 missions per day in the first weeks of the Persian Gulf War, dropping thousands of pounds of TNT with computer-guided accuracy in history's heaviest bombing, and meeting little resistance. U.S. and allied casualties are minimal. Antiwar demonstrations ("No blood for oil") increase beginning the night of January 16 (they have been staged in U.S. cities for months) when news of the outbreak of hostilities reaches America. European cities also have peace demonstrations, but polls suggest most Americans united behind President Bush, who has the highest approval rating of any U.S. president since that enjoyed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in December 1941.
Turkey's parliament votes January 17 to let U.S. and allied planes use Turkish air bases for attacks on Iraq, but the war is costing the country billions in lost revenue and most Turks side with Iraq.
Iraqi missiles strike Tel Aviv and Haifa beginning January 18, causing little damage. Israel has refrained from taking any pre-emptive strike against Iraqi missile sites and does not retaliate lest it destroy the allied coalition. Washington sends in Patriot surface-to-air missile launchers manned by U.S. servicemen when the missiles prove effective in destroying airborne Iraqi Scud missiles over Saudi Arabia.
Operation Desert Storm begins February 24 and ends in 100 hours with Iraqi forces defeated. New York-born Gen. Colin L. (Luther) Powell, 53, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has advised President Bush to give economic sanctions more time to work, but Bush has spurned the advice; Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, 56, has planned the combined air and ground attack, using night-flying Apache attack helicopters to destroy Iraqi tanks, armored personnel carriers, trucks, and other vehicles while sending 270,000 U.S., British, and French troops in a sweep around the Iraqis' western flank while air attacks sever the main highway route from Baghdad to Basra. Iraq's 4,000 Soviet-built tanks are no match for the highly mobile, 65-ton Abrams tanks of the U.S. Army; the Abrams's armor plating is 2½ times as strong as steel, their turbine engines drive them at speeds of up to 45 miles per hour, their machine guns and cannon enable them to shoot targets as far as three kilometers away, and their thermo sights lock on to the exhaust pipes of enemy tanks, more than 3,900 of which are destroyed (only four U.S. tanks are lost). More than 100,000 Iraqi troops surrender, at least 3,500 Iraqi civilians are killed, but Saddam Hussein remains in power under terms of UN Resolution 687, adopted in April, and another 14,000 will die in the next few years of waterborne diseases. The economic sanctions imposed earlier by the UN remain essentially in place, preventing Saddam from selling oil to raise money for new military ventures, and Saddam agrees to accept the destruction of Iraq's long-range missiles and of its biological, chemical, and nuclear arsenals, with all facilities involved in the research and development of these weapons to be rendered harmless. The United Nations appoints a special inspection commission (UNSCOM), but although Iraq files a disclosure report within a few weeks of signing the UN resolution the report will turn out to be largely fictitious (see 1993). When Shiite and Kurdish forces rebel against Saddam's regime in some cities, he sends in helicopter gun ships to suppress the uprisings, killing some 35,000 Iraqis.
Turkey's former prime minister Süleyman Demirel regains office following general elections October 20 (see 1987). Now 66, he heads a coalition government with the Social Democrat People's Party (see 1993).
Israeli and Arab delegates confer at Madrid October 30 and 31 under pressure from Washington and Moscow to begin settling their differences (see 1993). Bilateral talks follow, and the United Nations General Assembly votes December 16 to rescind its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism.
Thailand's military stages a coup February 23, ousting Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhaven after 15 years in office and replacing him with Anand Panyarachun, 58, as interim prime minister until a new constitution can be written and elections held.
A bombing kills former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi May 21 as he campaigns for reelection southwest of Madras (Chennai). His death at age 46 ends the dynasty begun by his grandfather Pandit Nehru in 1947 and leaves the country in turmoil.
Jiang Qing, widow of China's late Mao Zedong, reportedly takes her own life in early June at age 77. Other members of her "Gang of Four"—Wang Hongwen, 56; Zhang Chunqiao, 74; and Yao Wenyuan, 60—remain in detention.
Cambodia's various factions sign a peace agreement after 12 years of hostilities (but see 1993).
Laos adopts a new constitution (see 1975). Prime Minister Kaysone Phomvihan visited France and Japan 2 years ago seeking financial aid, and he becomes president after 16 years as prime minister (but see 1992).
Mongolia stops calling herself the People's Republic of Mongolia after 67 years and drafts a new constitution allowing opposition parties and establishing a republican government with a 76-member unicameral parliament, the Great Hural. Former president Yumzhagiyen Tsedenbal dies at age 75, having led the country from 1952 until 1984; former president Jambyn Batmönh resigned in March of last year at age 63; former foreign trade minister Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat, 49, serves as president, and he will win Mongolia's first direct presidential election in 1993, but the 604,250-square-mile country has a population of only about 2.3 million.
Former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos returns to Manila November 4 after nearly 6 years' exile to face tax fraud and other charges. She stays in a $2,000-per-day suite at the Westin-Philippine Plaza but is evicted after 4 weeks and obliged to move into a modest two-story concrete house.
Burmese opposition leader and human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi, now 46, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but remains under house arrest and is unable to travel to Stockholm to accept (see 1989). Czechoslovakia's president Vaclav Havel has nominated her for the prize, calling her "an outstanding example of the power of the powerless" who has "refused to be bribed into silence."
Somalia's president Mohammed Siad Barre flees Mogadishu January 26 after a corrupt dictatorship that began in October 1969. Now close to 80, he has given women the right to vote, divorce, and gain custody of their children, but his own tribesman have turned against him. The rebel leader Ali Mahdi Mohammed is sworn in as interim president January 29 but the two factions of the United Somali Congress engage in bloodly conflict, Ali Mahdi flees Mogadishu in November, and more turmoil ensues (see 1993; famine 1992).
Mali's president Gen. Moussa Traore has his troops fire on demonstrators, some 300 youths are killed, and Traore is ousted in a coup d'état March 26; Lieut. Col. Amadou Toumani Touré, 42, announces on the radio at 6 o'clock in the morning that he has just arrested Toure and will organize elections as soon as minimum security can be established (see 1992).
Ethiopia's Moscow-backed dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, now 53, resigns under pressure May 21 and flies into exile after 14 years of increasingly repressive rule. Lieut. Col. Mengistu turns over the presidency to his vice president Lieut. Gen. Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan, 55, as rebel forces close in on Addis Ababa.
The central committee of Zimbabwe's ruling party (the African National Union-Patriotic Front, or ZANU-PF) votes in late June to remove phrases such as "Marxism-Leninism" and "scientific socialism" from the nation's constitution.
Zambia votes October 31 to elect union leader Frederick Chiluba, 48, president, thus ousting Kenneth Kaunda, now 67, after 27 years in office. Kaunda legalized opposition parties last year, this is the country's first pluralistic presidential election since Zambia became a one-party state in 1972, and Chiluba owes his victory to an economic decline that has seen increasing unemployment, dwindling copper reserves, decaying social services, worsening education, failing agriculture, and eroding the standard of living.
Haiti's president Jean-Bertrand Aristide takes office in February, tries to control the military, but is ousted September 30 in a bloody coup led by Brig. Gen. Raoul Cedras, 43 (see 1990). Other nations cut off all but humanitarian aid to the new regime (see 1993).
Surinam holds her first election since last year's bloodless coup; groups favoring renewed ties with the Netherlands win 38 seats in the 51-seat National Assembly May 25. The military's New Democratic Party wins only nine seats, and although some voter intimidation is reported in the interior international observers say the election was for the most part free and fair.
Nobel nuclear disarmament champion Alfonso García Robles dies of kidney failure at Mexico City September 2 at age 80.
Benton Harbor, Mich., student Eric McGinnis, 16, disappears May 19; the body of the black youth is fished out of the St. Joseph River 3 days later, police say he was the victim of an accidental drowning, but suspicions will persist that he has been murdered in a racial incident involving whites from the neighboring town of St. Joseph.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes 18 to 0 June 12 to remove almost all of the 250,000 names on a secret State Department list of aliens whose ideological views have been grounds for barring admission to the United States even for a visit under the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act of 1952. The Bush administration agrees to the move almost immediately.
Convicted Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie dies in prison at Lyons September 25 at age 77.
The annual Tailhook convention of U.S. Navy aviators at the Las Vegas Hilton September 5 to 7 attracts 4,000 people, some of whom wear T-shirts reading, "Women Are Property." Earlier conventions were mostly stag affairs except for prostitutes and "groupies." This time, scantily-clad women tend bar while strippers generally end up nude and participate in simulated sex acts with drunken members of the audience (which includes active and retired admirals as well as lower-ranking officers), pornographic films are shown, women are encouraged to expose their breasts in exchange for squadron T-shirts, and at least 25 women passing down a certain hallway are made to run the "gauntlet," meaning that they are encircled by as many as 70 groping male officers and sexually molested to varying degrees, a practice begun in 1986. Navy helicopter pilot Lt. Paula Coughlin, 30, files the first formal complaint, and a rear admiral is relieved of duty November 4 for not having reported the incident quickly enough (see 1992).
Sexual harassment in the U.S. workplace is the focus of public attention in mid-October as University of Oklahoma Law School professor Anita Hill, 35, charges that Savannah-born Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, 45, made indecent remarks to her while head of the Equal Opportunity Commission 8 years ago and, earlier, in the Department of Education. Both are black, but Thomas claims he is being "lynched" as an "uppity" black; the Senate votes 52 to 48 to confirm his appointment to succeed Thurgood Marshall, who has retired (although he once said, "I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband"). "Female circumcision is a physiological chastity belt," writes South African journalist Sue Armstrong in the February 2 issue of New Scientist. "[A] traditional practice that affects an estimated 80 million people in the world today, [it] entails different things in different cultures." Somalia's Mohammed Siad Barre has sponsored a health campaign to end genital mutilation, but while Somali women wear no veils, often sport sleeveless dresses, and do not behave submissively toward men, nearly all still undergo ritual clitoridectomy at a young age to discourage sexual intercourse outside marriage. (The procedure is common, if not universal, in about 20 African countries, several Middle Eastern nations, and in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Pakistan, mostly among Muslims and animists but also among some Christians.) Intercourse and menstruation may be extremely painful for a woman thus mutilated, and she may develop fistulas, vulval abscesses, or incontinence, to say nothing of increased susceptibility to AIDS.
South Africa's Parliament votes June 17 to repeal the nation's 41-year-old Population Registration Act, which has classified every newborn infant according to race (whether one was white, black, Asian, or of mixed parentage has determined whether one could vote or own land, where one could work, eat, or enjoy recreation, whom one could marry, and the like). But schools remain for the most part racially segregated, disparities continue between blacks and whites in government benefits such as old-age pensions, and many U.S. congressmen oppose any lifting of economic sanctions as premature (see 1986). President Bush lifts sanctions July 10. South African government aid to the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party soon comes to light.
Indonesian troops at East Timor's capital Dili open fire November 12 with U.S.-built M16 rifles on a crowd of mourners marching from a Mass at Motael Church to Santa Cruz cemetery for a ceremony that was to memorialize a young man killed earlier by the occupation forces (see politics, 1975). At least 270 Timorese die in the massacre, but the outside world hears nothing of the incident until November 21 (see 1999).
Three Korean women come to Tokyo in December and tell journalists about having been kidnapped and forced to work in Japanese Army brothels during World War II. The government insists that such brothels were run by independent entrepreneurs and never by the army (but see 1992).
European nations send aid to relieve distress among Kurds seeking refuge in remote areas from the killing squads of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. President Bush comes under attack for encouraging a Kurdish revolt and then not supporting it, he balks at interfering in Iraq's internal affairs, but he finally approves sending troops and supplies to help. Turkey accepts some refugees, Iran accepts far more, but both countries have problems with their own Kurdish minorities.
The Croatian city of Vukovar surrenders to Serb forces November 19. Serbs enter a hospital filled with refugees, take away hundreds of men, kill them, and bury them in a mass grave, beginning a series of atrocities that will mark the Balkan conflict.
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 signed into law by President Bush November 22 strengthens existing laws and provides for damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination (Bush had threatened to veto the measure but has changed his mind.)
Soviet citizens panic January 29 when the evening news reports that savings accounts have been frozen and 50- and 100-ruble banknotes will be withdrawn from circulation. Many have their savings in such notes, but the government decrees that large bills may be exchanged for their equivalent only up to a maximum of 1,000 rubles (about one month's salary), or 200 in the case of pensioners. The move is designed to halt inflation and quash black-market currency traders.
The Menatep bank at St. Petersburg conducts the first public stock offering since the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. The bank was founded 3 years ago as the Commercial Innovation Bank for Scientific and Technological Progress, and its head is Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology graduate Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, now 28, who has served as deputy secretary for Moscow's Frunze district before starting the bank in 1988 and will make himself the richest man in Russia. The bank will grow rapidly through currency speculation (see energy [Yukos], 1996).
Moscow-born economist Yegor (Timurovich) Gaidar, 35, heads a group of experts assembled in September to reform the Soviet economy; President Gorbachev appoints him deputy chairman in charge of economic policy November 5 (see 1992).
Argentina pegs her austral to the U.S. dollar March 19, setting an official exchange rate of between 9,700 and 10,000 australs to the dollar in a desperate effort to regain credibility after decades of irresponsible economic policy (see 1989). Making australs freely convertible to dollars, the new regime brings the inflation rate down to 84 percent, it will replace australs with pesos beginning January 1 of next year, and the inflation rate will drop to 17.5 percent; by 1995 it will be 1.6 percent as the government ends hyperinflation and removes many of the controls that have strangled business (but see 2001).
Inflation moderates in the United States, but rents are 35 percent above the 1982-1984 average, electricity 28 percent higher, medical care 56 percent higher, food 34 percent higher, entertainment 28 percent higher, footwear 24 percent higher, apparel nearly 9 percent higher. Public transit fares are virtually unchanged on average, gasoline prices slightly lower, fuel oil prices nearly 7 percent lower.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 3004.46 April 17, just over 4 years after closing above 2000 as it rallies after the Gulf War in anticipation of an early recovery from the 9-month recession (see 1990), and although Saudi Arabia has paid most of the $61 billion that the war has cost the Dow has trouble holding above 3000 amidst forecasts that the recession is not about to end. Executives and professionals feel the pinch as well as blue-collar workers.
A New York court indicts the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) July 29 on criminal charges of fraud, theft, and money laundering (see 1988). New York State seeks extradition of Aga Hassan Abedi, 68, a former Pakistani banker who founded BCCI in 1972, and Swaleh Naqvi of Abu Dhabi, the bank's former chief operating officer. The financial institution has allegedly loaned billionaire Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi the wherewithal to buy weapons for the Iran-Contra transactions of the 1980s.
Switzerland abolishes secret numbered bank accounts in July except in cases that involve ongoing litigation (see 1934). The numbered accounts have been used to hide drug profits and the loot of dictators worldwide; the Swiss end the practice in response to appeals by law-enforcement officials.
Japan's gross national product reaches $27,748 per person, up from $16,552 in 1986; her trade surplus with the United States reaches $43.4 billion, down from $55 billion; her private sector employs 60 million people, up from 56 million.
A Canadian diamond rush begins following the discovery September 9 of rich deposits under an Arctic lake in the Barren Lands of the Northwest Territories north of Yellowknife. British Columbia geologist Charles E. Fipke, 47, and Stewart L. (Lynn) Blusson, 53, who have defied conventional scientific wisdom, and after 10 years of prospecting have scraped together enough money to lease a helicopter at $600 per hour; with Bluson at the controls, they have spotted a small lake they previously missed. A core sample of soft, black kimberlite rock yields 81 diamonds, investors will pour billions of dollars into developing mines and finishing centers, and Canada will become the world's third largest diamond producer (after Botswana and Russia), challenging the De Beers cartel (De Beers controls 80 percent of world production, but by the end of this decade will control only 65 percent as first the Russians and then the Australians opt out of the cartel).
The Maastricht Treaty signed in December sets terms for a coordinated economic agenda and a monetary union designed to make it easier to transact cross-border business and make Europe more competitive with the United States. Membership in the new European Union (EU) is open only to nations whose budget deficits are less than 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), whose total government debt is no more than 60 percent of GDP, and whose inflation rate is within 1.5 percent of the three EU nations with the lowest inflation rates. The signatories agree to establish a single currency (the euro) which will come into use beginning at the start of 1999 (see French referendum, 1992).
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 3168.83, up from its 1990 year-end closing of 2633.66.
Iraq sets fire to two Kuwaiti oil refineries January 22 and an oil field near Kuwait's border with Saudi Arabia. By war's end 732 Kuwaiti wells are ablaze, raising doubts for many months about the future of the vital oilfield.
World oil prices drop sharply as the threat of an Iraqi military success fades. In the United States, No. 2 heating fuel is 90¢/gallon in January, down from $1.29 in December; gasoline $1.43/gal., down from $1.53 (in most other countries it is $2.50 to $4.50/gal.). The lower prices have a sharply negative impact on the economies of oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union.
Japan's worst nuclear-power accident occurs February 9, raising new anxieties about the safety of the nation's 37 atomic-energy plants. A leak of radioactive water contaminates the water in the steam generator at the Mihama plant of the Kansai Electric Power Co. in Fukui prefecture, about 220 miles west of Tokyo. A gauge registers an alarming increase in radioactivity in a cooling chamber, but operators delay taking action, thinking it may be a false reading. An emergency system shuts down the plant and injects water into the reactor's core to prevent a meltdown of nuclear fuel. The radioactivity released is about 8 percent of the plant's annual emissions (see 1997).
Eastern Airlines ceases operations January 18 after 62 years following a 22-month strike by machinists. Pan Am ceases operations December 4 after 68 years, partly as a result of bad publicity related to the 1988 Lockerbie explosion.
Former U.S. senator John G. Tower dies at Brunswick, Ga., April 5 at age 65 along with his 35-year-old daughter Marian and 21 other people when their Atlantic Southeast twin-engine turboprop crashes in flames while trying to land at the local airport; a Lauda Air Boeing 767 leaves Bangkok for Vienna May 26, explodes 16 minutes later, and crashes in the jungle, killing all 223 aboard.
New York's 78-year-old Grand Central becomes strictly a commuter terminal April 7 as Amtrak reroutes its remaining long-distance trains (to Albany, Montreal, Toronto, Schenectady, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, and Chicago). They now leave from Penn Station and move up Manhattan's West Side to the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge.
Boston engineers begin work on the Central Artery Project, designed to carry vehicular traffic through tunnels beneath the central city. The largest public-works project ever undertaken in America, the "Big Dig" will tie up traffic for more than a decade before its completion in the 21st century.
Japan's Ikuchi Bridge is completed for the western route of the Honshu-Shikoku project (see 1988). The world's longest-spanning cable-stayed bridge, it has a main span of 1,608 feet supported by two delta-shaped towers having two inclined planes of fan-arranged stays.
An overcrowded Zimbabwean bus flips over 180 miles southeast of Harare August 3, killing 80 students and seven adults coming home from a sports competition at another school. A survivor reports that some of the children had begged to be allowed to walk home and that the driver ignored appeals to slow down.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) applies during the summer for patents on 347 human genes. Salt Lake City-born physiologist J. (John) Craig Venter, 44, heads the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, it is announced October 28 that his team plans to file applications for patents on 2,000 additional genes. Biochemists heretofore have patented genes one at a time, experts say that if the patents are granted the NIH will control profits that may be derived from commercial application of the genes, there is speculation both that laboratories worldwide will rush to make their own patent applications and that government ownership of patents will discourage genetic research by private firms. Human Genome Project director James D. Watson ridicules Venter's approach, saying, "This offends our sense of justice" (see 1992).
Nobel physicist Carl D. Anderson dies at San Marino, Calif., January 11 at age 85; two-time Nobel physicist and transistor co-inventor John Bardeen of a heart attack at Boston January 30 at age 82; Nobel physician-molecular biologist Salvador H. Luria of a heart attack at his Lexington, Mass., home February 6 at age 78; Nobel biochemist Robert W. Holley of lung cancer at his Los Gatos, Calif., home February 11 at age 71; nuclear physicist William Penney, Baron Penney, at East Endred, outside London, March 3 at age 81; Nobel nuclear physicist Edwin M. McMillan of diabetes and a stroke at El Cerrito, Calif., September 7 at age 83.
Cholera strikes Peru January 23, beginning the first epidemic in a century. Environmental activists have called chlorinated drinking water a potential carcinogen and crusaded for a ban on all chlorinated compounds, budget restrictions have led Peruvian authorities to stop chlorinating water supplies, Chile works to block spread of the disease, but it reaches Brazil in March and by May has killed more than 700 Peruvians, making 100,000 ill. More than 1.3 million Latin Americans will contract cholera by 1996 and at least 11,000 of those will die.
Thousands of Iraqis fall ill from contaminated water and food in the wake of the Gulf War, which has knocked out water systems in Baghdad and other cities.
Federally-funded U.S. research links foam-coated breast implants to cancer. More than 2 million U.S. women have undergone implant surgery in the past 30 years; of the 150,000 who have the surgery each year at a cost of $2,500 to $4,000, about 80 percent do so for cosmetic reasons, only 20 percent for reconstruction after mastectomy. The Food and Drug Administration tells implant makers September 25 that they must give physicians warning information that patients can understand; many women contend that the government has no business depriving them of their option to have breast implants, they connect implant surgery to self-esteem and support cosmetic surgeons who oppose any ban, but critics say the implants can rupture, releasing silicone into the body and causing auto-immune disease disorders (see 1992).
Biochemist Florence B. Seibert dies at St. Petersburg, Fla., August 23 at age 93, having developed the protein substance used for the tuberculosis skin test.
A Swedish study reported in a September issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that the synthetic hormone tamoxifen may reduce by 40 percent the risk of a woman who has had cancer in one breast developing cancer in her other breast. Breast cancer affects one out of nine U.S. women (180,000 are diagnosed this year with having the disease, 46,000 will die of it). The National Breast Cancer Coalition is founded by U.S. activists who demand more research on the causes of breast cancer; made up mostly of volunteers, the coalition secures a $43 million increase in national funding for breast-cancer research in its first year (see 1992).
Parents of half the 4 million babies born in the United States go through some form of Lamaze-type education prior to delivery, up from about 25 percent in 1986, and above a certain income level nearly every expectant couple attends Lamaze-type classes (see 1956). Instructors certified by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit American Society of Psychoprophylaxis in Obstetrics/Lamaze conduct about half the classes, which typically cost $150 per couple.
The FDA acts October 9 to approve DDI, an AIDS drug that is much cheaper than AZT and can be taken by patients unable to tolerate AZT.
L.A. Lakers superstar Earvin "Magic" Johnson stuns the world November 7 by announcing that he has the AIDS virus and is retiring from basketball to devote his efforts to ending the spread of the disease that is killing 100 Americans per day. The Bush administration, like the preceding Reagan administration, has been mostly silent about AIDS lest the administration appear to condone casual sex.
The encyclical Centesimus Annus issued May 1 by Pope John Paul II to mark the centennial of the encyclical Rerum novarum notes that knowledge, science, know-how, and discovery are the chief sources of the wealth of nations.
The Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., ordains Elizabeth L. Carl, 44, as a priest of the church June 5, acknowledging that she "has for a number of years openly lived in a loving and intimate relationship with another woman" to whom she has made a lifelong and monogamous commitment, and while that troubles him he points to the "strength, leadership, spirituality, intellect, moral understanding, and commitment to Christ" that she has displayed.
Brooklyn's Crown Heights section has a race riot following the August 19 vehicular homicide of Gavin Cato, 7. A car driven by an Hasidic Jew of the Lubavitcher sect hit the boy near the corner of Utica Avenue and President Street. The car was part of a motorcade for the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem M. Schneerson. Australian Hasidic scholar Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, is stabbed 3 hours later by one or more of 10 to 15 black youths who have acted in apparent retaliation for Cato's death, Rosenbaum dies August 20 from a wound undetected in the emergency room, violence continues to August 22, and efforts to convict Rosenbaum's assailant or assailants will go on for years as relations between the Lubavitchers and their black neighbors (most are Caribbean immigrants) deteriorate.
The Minnesota state legislature enacts a law in May that permits groups of teachers and parents to set up "charter" public schools that are virtually free of school-district control. Minnesota becomes the first state to allow charter schools, other states will follow suit, and by the end of the century there will more than 1,500 such schools.
Media entrepreneur Christopher Whittle announces plans May 16 for the Edison Project, a scheme for operating a national network of for-profit private schools (see Channel One, 1990). The plan is soon changed to focus on operating individual public schools on a for-profit basis, the first four schools will open in 1995, and by the end of the century Edison Schools Inc. will have 74,000 pupils in more than 120 for-profit schools under its control from Maryland to California, but test scores will not support the company's claims that it can operate public schools more effectively than local school boards, its accounting practices will come under attack, its stock price will tank, and privatization will be discredited.
The BBC publishes its final issue of The Listener January 3 (see 1929).
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group recommends in June that the pre-1987 "Fairness Doctrine" be codified "into statutory law . . . [to] force the FCC into honoring Congressional intent and ensure balance on publicly owned airwaves" (see 1988), but a Senate bill on the issue will meet with the same failure as similar legislation in the House of Representatives; no such measure will succeed in this century, and right-wing talk-show hosts will continue to monopolize radio and television.
Veteran CBS newsman Harry Reasoner dies of cardiopulmonary arrest at Norwalk, Conn., August 6 at age 68.
Poland's rusty 2,120-foot Radio One 2,120-foot-eight-inch antenna tower at Topolno falls down August 18, ending reception of state radio programming in most of the country's northern and western regions, but 16 million Poles continue to receive the station's powerful signal.
The U.S. first-class postal rate goes to 29¢ February 3 (see 1988) but remains lower than in most countries.
London publisher Robert Maxwell buys the strike-bound New York Daily News for $40 million March 31, ending the paper's 5-month strike and enabling him to lay off 35 management workers. Now 68, Maxwell disappears mysteriously from his luxury yacht November 5 off the Canary Islands; his naked body is found, and although autopsy results are inconclusive it is generally believed that he committed suicide. He has secretly siphoned off $1.2 billion from his employee pension funds and from his two flagship companies to keep his media empire from collapsing, but his debts have exceeded his profits; the Daily News files for bankruptcy protection in December (see 1992).
The New York Times publishes a story April 17 profiling a woman who has accused William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of Sen. Edward F. Kennedy (D., Mass.), of having raped her on the grounds of the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach, Fla. The story gives the woman's name (Patrica Bowman) and quotes unidentified sources in characterizing her history, drawing fire from Philadelphia-born Times columnist Anna Quindlen, 38, whose April 21 column recalls the discretion shown by the paper in the case of the 1988 Central Park jogger story and concludes that any woman who accuses a "well-connected man" of rape "had better be prepared to see not only her name but her drinking habits in print." The Times publishes an apology April 26 after receiving a lot of criticism, Smith is indicted May 11 (he will be acquitted after a sensational trial in which questions are raised about his accuser's sexual history and mental state), and the Times runs a story sympathetic to his accuser May 12.
The June 1 issue of McGraw-Hill's print publication Byte says, "Compression will be handled primarily by the content provider," introducing a term that will be widely used in place of writer.
The Supreme Court rules June 21 that states and localities may prohibit nude dancing without violating First Amendment rights. Laws may require that dancers wear at least G-strings and pasties, the Court rules in a 5-to-4 decision. Critics fear that the ruling may lead to further censorship.
Martha Stewart Living magazine begins publication in July; circulation will reach 2.3 million by 1997.
Allure magazine begins publication at New York, where the Newhouse family has launched a monthly based on beauty and fashion.
Former New Yorker magazine editor William Shawn dies in his upper East Side apartment December 8 at age 85, taking to his grave the fact that he has for 40 years carried on an extra-marital affair with writer Lillian Ross, now in her 70s. He and Ross (no relation to the late Harold Ross) set up house 10 blocks south of the Shawn apartment and jointly raised her adopted son, Erik, while Shawn and his wife, Cecille, raised their son, Wallace.
The World Wide Web allows researchers to exchange images as well as messages via the Internet (see 1990). Tim Berners-Lee has come up with the www name, he writes the first Web browser for giving computer users access to information on the Web and reading it, and will later say he wanted to give people the ability to use hypertext for obtaining up-to-date information and to create a space that everyone could share and to which they could contribute their ideas and solutions. He also wanted to keep information from being lost by creating agents to integrate it with real life (see 1994; Mosaic, 1993).
IBM exits the typewriter business as personal computers with word-processing programs make typewriters almost obsolete (see Selectric, 1961).
Nonfiction: The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration And How It Changed America by New Orleans-born journalist Nicholas Lemann, 37; There Are No Children Here by New York-born Wall Street Journal reporter Alex Kotlowitz, 36, is about two young brothers in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes housing project; Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby by Yale Law School professor Stephen L. (Lisle) Carter, 37; The Empire and the New Barbarians (L'empire et les nouveaux barbares) by French physician-author Jean-Christophe Rufin, 39, who joined Doctors Without Borders in his 20s; The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy by Seymour M. Hersh; Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years by Haynes Johnson; The Work of Nations by Scranton, Pa.-born Harvard economist Robert B. Reich, 45; Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World by Stephen J. Greenblatt; Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War by Robert K. Massie; Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by New York-born Wall Street Journal reporter Susan Faludi, 31: "If establishing masculinity depends most of all on succeeding as the prime breadwinner, then it is hard to imagine a force more directly threatening to fragile American manhood than the feminist drive for economic equality"; The Beauty Myth by San Francisco-born writer Naomi Wolf, 29: "We are in the midst of a violent backlash against feminism that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against women's advancement: the beauty myth"; Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government by Toledo, Ohio-born libertarian humorist P. J. (Patrick Jake) O'Rourke, 43; Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? by Monterey, Calif.-born columnist Mary Tyler Ivins, now 47, who has been at the Dallas Times-Herald since 1980.
Chinese studies pioneer John King Fairbank suffers a heart attack and dies at Cambridge, Mass., September 14 at age 84.
Fiction: Murther & Walking Spirits by Robertson Davies; Immortality by Milan Kundera; The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo) by José Saramago, whose satire creates a furor by having God use Jesus to create a religion that spawns violence and intolerance (a Lisbon jury will select the novel to represent Portugal for a 1992 literary prize, the government will veto the choice as blasphemous, and Saramago will vacate his small Lisbon apartment to live at Lanzarote in the Canary Islands); Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder, whose examination of Western Philosophy from before Socrates to Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Sartre will be an international bestseller; The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks; A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley; St. Maybe by Anne Tyler; Wartime Lies by Polish-born New York lawyer-novelist Louis Begley, 57, who survived the Holocaust as a child; Object Lessons by New York Times syndicated columnist Anna Quindlen; Garden State by New York-born editor-novelist Hiram F. "Rick" Moody III, 29; Lost in the City (stories) by Arlington, Va.-born author Edward P. Jones, 40, is about black working-class families in Washington, D.C.
Novelist-poet-playwright Robert Chouquette dies at Montreal January 22 at age 85; novelist-playwright Graham Greene of a blood disorder at Vevey, Switzerland, April 3 at age 86; Max Frisch of cancer at his home near his native Zürich April 4 at age 79; Sean O'Faolain at Dublin April 20 at age 91; Jerzy Kosinsky is found dead in his New York apartment May 3 at age 57 (he has had a severe heart condition and has evidently taken his own life); novelist-biographer Sir Angus Wilson dies following a stroke at Bury St. Edmonds May 31 at age 77; Frank Yerby of heart failure at Madrid November 29 at age 76.
Poetry: Questions about Angels by Billy Collins; Helen by C. K. Williams; The Oxopetra Elegies (Ta elegeia tes oxopetra) by Odysseus Elytis, now 79; Nearly a Legend (Casa una Leyenda) by Claudio Ramírez.
Poet-novelist Howard Nemerov dies of cancer at his University City, Mo., home July 5 at age 71; James Schuyler of a stroke at New York Spril 12 at age 67; poet-literary critic Laura Riding (Jackson) of cardiac arrest at Sebastian, Fla., September 2 at age 90; poet George Barker at Itteringham, Norfolk, October 27 at age 78.
Juvenile: Dogs Don't Tell Jokes by Louis Sachar.
Author-illustrator Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) dies at his La Jolla, Calif., home September 24 at age 87.
Painter Rufino Tamayo dies of pneumonia at Mexico City June 24 at age 91; Robert Motherwell of a stroke on Cape Cod July 17 at age 76.
Sculpture: Adjustable Well Bras by Vito Acconci; Cleavage (marble) by Louise Bourgeois; Bible Bike and Borealis (series) by Robert Rauschenberg; Medusa Head by Chris Burden; Terra Firma (a homeless man, supine on the ground) by Alison Saar. Giacomo Manzu dies at Ardea January 17 at age 82; Jean Tinguely of a stroke at Bern August 30 at age 66 (most of his works have been designed to self-destruct).
Adobe Systems introduces the Adobe Premiere personal computer program for editing digitized video and multimedia productions (see Photoshop, 1990).
Eastman Kodak introduces its first digital camera (see 1990). Its lens inverts and focuses the light that comes through it on the surface of a charge-coupled device, whose electrons convert the light into electrical signals, which are turned into images made up of millions of pixels that can be stored on computer disks or sent over the Internet. The digital camera costs upwards of $20,000 and is intended for photojournalists (see Apple's QuickTake, 1994).
Polaroid lens and camera inventor Edwin H. Land dies at Cambridge, Mass., March 1 at age 81, having received more than 500 patents for his contributions to light and plastics.
Theater: Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon 2/21 at New York's Richard Rodgers Theater, with Irene Worth, Mercedes Ruehl, South Orange, N.J.-born actor Kevin Spacey, 31, 780 perfs.; Silly Cow by English playwright Ben Elton 2/27 at London's Haymarket Theatre, with Patrick Barlow, Victoria Carling, Kevin Allen; The Substance of Fire by California-born playwright Jon Robin Baitz, 29, 3/17 at New York's Playwrights Horizon Theater, with Nelsonville, Ohio-born actress Sara Jessica Parker, 25, Patrick Breen, Ron Rifkin; Don't Dress for Dinner by French playwright Marc Camoletti 3/26 at London's Apollo Theatre, with John Quayle, Simon Cadell, Su Pollard; Park Your Car in Harvard Yard by Wakefield, Mass.-born playwright Israel Horovitz, 52, 11/7 at New York's Music Box Theater, with Jason Robards Jr., El Paso-born actress Judith Ivey, 40, 124 perfs.
Actress Eva Le Gallienne dies of heart failure at her Weston, Conn., home June 3 at age 92; Dame Peggy Ashcroft at London June 14 after suffering a stroke at age 83; Bernard Miles at Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, June 14 at age 73; Mildred Dunnock at Oak Bluffs, Mass., July 5 at age 90; Colleen Dewhurst of cancer at her South Salem, N.Y., home August 21 at age 67; Aline MacMahon at New York October 12 at age 92; New York Public Theater founder Joseph Papp (Yosl Papirofsky) of prostate cancer at New York October 31 at age 70.
Television: Blossom 1/3 on NBC with Mayim Bialik, 15, as Blossom Russo; Michael Stoyanov, 22, as her oldest brother Anthony; Joseph Lawrence, 14, as her jock younger brother who is always saying, "Whoa!" (to 5/22/1995, 113 episodes); Two Point Four Children on BBC-1 with Belinda Lang, Gary Olsen, Julia Hills; Soldier, Soldier on Britain's Central Independent TV with David Haig, Cathryn Harison, Sean Baker; Sisters 5/11 on NBC, with Swoosie Kurtz, Meridian, Miss.-born actress Sela Ward, 33, Schenectady, N.Y.-born actress Patricia Kalember, 33, Oregon-born actress Julianne Phillips (Julianne Smith), 29 (to 5/4/1996); Home Improvement 9/17 on ABC with Denver-born actor Tim Allen (originally Tim Dick), 38, as a handyman, Bethesda, Md.-born actress Patricia Richardson, 40, Bisbee, Ariz.-born actor Earl Hindman, 48 (to 5/25/1999, 204 episodes); Brooklyn Bridge 9/20 on CBS with Danny Gerard as postal worker's son Alan, Marion Ross as his immigrant grandmother (to 8/6/1993); Civil Wars 11/20 on ABC with Mariel Hemingway as divorce lawyer Sydney Guilford, Peter Onorati as divorce lawyer Charlie Howell in a series (created by Steve Bochco) about destroyed marriages and broken homes (to 3/2/1993).
Comedian Danny Thomas dies after a heart attack at Los Angeles February 6 at age 79; George Gobel following surgery at Encino, Calif., February 24 at age 71; Michael Landon of pancreatic and liver cancer at his Malibu home July 8 at age 54; Redd Foxx at Los Angeles October 11 at age 68 after suffering a heart attack on the set of his new series The Royal Family.
Films: Jacques Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse with Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Emmanuelle Beart; Barry Levinson's Bugsy with Warren Beatty, Annette Bening; Alan Parker's The Commitments with Robert Arkins; Jean-Pierre Jennet's Delicatessen with Marc Caro, Marie-Laure Dougnac; Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa with Marco Hofschneider; James Lapine's Impromptu with Judy Davis as George Sand, Hugh Grant as Frédéric Chopin; Agnes Varda's Jacquot de Nantes with Jacques Demy; Oliver Stone's JFK: The Untold Story with Kevin Costner as 1960s New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison probing the 1963 presidential assassination, Sissy Spacek as his wife, Donald Sutherland as his informant; Yves Robert's My Father's Glory with Philippe Caubere; Jennie Livingston's documentary Paris Is Burning about homosexual black and Latino men; Martha Coolidge's Rambling Rose with Robert Duvall, Diane Ladd, and Ladd's Los Angeles-born daughter Laura Dern, 25; Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs with Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster; Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise with Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon; Alain Corneau's Tous les Matins du Monde with Jean-Pierre Marielle, Gerard Dépardieu.
Actor Dean Jagger dies of heart disease at Santa Monica February 5 at age 87; silent-screen star Vilma Banky at Los Angeles March 18 at age 93; director Sir David Lean at his London home April 16 at age 83; director Don Siegel of cancer at his Nipomo, Calif., home April 20 at age 78; actor Wilfred Hyde-White of heart failure at Woodlands Hills, Calif., May 6 at age 87; Joan Caulfield of cancer at Los Angeles June 18 at age 69; Jean Arthur of a heart ailment at Carmel, Calif., June 19 at age 90; Lee Remick of cancer at her Los Angeles home July 2 at age 55; James Franciscus of emphysema at Los Angeles July 8 at age 57; silent-film star Gladys Hulette at Montebello, Calif., at age 95; director Frank Capra at his La Quinta, Calif., home September 3 at age 94; producer Joe Pasternak at Hollywood September 13 at age 89; Fred MacMurray of pneumonia at Santa Monica November 5 at age 83; Gene Tierney of emphysema at her home in Houston November 6 at age 70; Yves Montand after a heart attack at Senlis, France, November 9 at age 70; director Tony (Cecil Antonio) Richardson of AIDS at Los Angeles November 14 at age 63; Klaus Kinski of a heart attack at Lagunitas, Calif., November 23 at age 65; Ralph Bellamy of a lung ailment at Los Angeles November 29 at age 87.
Hollywood musicals: Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise's Beauty and the Beast with Walt Disney animation, music and lyrics by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (who dies of AIDS at New York March 14 at age 40).
Stage musicals: The Will Rogers Follies 3/31 at New York's Palace Theater, with Keith Carradine, music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, direction and choreography by Tommy Tune, 981 perfs.; Matador 4/16 at the Queen's Theatre, London, with Nicky Henson, John Barrowman, Stefanie Powers, music by Michael Leander, lyrics by Edward Seago; The Secret Garden 4/25 at New York's St. James Theater, with Daisy Eagan, Mandy Patinkin, music by Lucy Simon, book and lyrics by Marsha Norman based on the 1903 Burnett story, 709 perfs.; 70 Girls, 70 6/17 at London's Vaudeville Theatre, with music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb; Nutmeg and Ginger 6/21 at London's New Orange Tree Theatre, with music by Julian Slade.
Actor-singer Alfred Drake dies at his native New York July 25 at age 77.
Pennsylvania-born soprano Renée Fleming, 31, makes her Metropolitan Opera debut 3/16 singing the role of the contessa in the 1785 Mozart opera Le Nozze di Figaro. Raised at Rochester, N.Y., she won the Richard Tucker award last year.
Dancer Dame Margot Fonteyn dies of cancer at Panama City, Panama, February 21 at age 71; Martha Graham of cardiac arrest at her New York home April 1 at age 96; pianist Rudolf Serkin of cancer at Guilford, Vt., May 8 at age 88; Austrian-born composer Ernst Krenek at Palm Springs, Calif., December 23 at age 91, having written 21 operas.
Popular songs: Metallica (CD) by the hard rock/heavy metal band includes their single "Enter Sandman;" Out of Time (CD) by R.E.M., which switches from college radio rock to pop rock and gains a huge following; Achtung Baby (CD) by U2 includes the singles "One" and "Love Is Blindness," "Even Better than the Real Thing," "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses," and "Mysterious Ways"; "Baby Baby" by Amy Grant; "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams; "Walking in Memphis" by Mark Cohn; Cooleyhighharmony (CD) by the Philadelphia rhythm & blues band Boyz II Men (Wanya Morris, 18; Michael McCary, 18; Shawn Stockman, 18; Nathan Morris, 20) includes the singles "Motown Philly" and "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday;" Use Your Illusions (I and II) (CDs) by Guns N' Roses; Ten (CD) by the 1-year-old Seattle alternative-rock band Pearl Jam (Chicago-born singer Eddie Vedder [originally Edward Louis Severson III], 26; guitarist Stone Gossard, 25; bassist Jeff Ament, 28; Mike McCready, 25; and Dave Krusen, 25) whose numbers include "Jeremy," "Alive," and "Evenflow"; Spellbound (CD) by Paula Abdul (written by V. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Lord of the Family Stand); Solace (CD) by Sarah McLachlan; Luck of the Draw (CD) by Bonnie Raitt includes the single "Something to Talk About."
The nightclub Ministry of Sound opens in what has been an old warehouse in South London. Investment banker and opera lover James Palumbo, 28, has put up £250,000 to start the club in partnership with Mark Rodol, it will go bankrupt next year as drug dealers overrun the place and employees skim profits, Palumbo will quit his job to clean up the mess, he will stage outrageous publicity stunts, and Ministry will become a popular record label, syndicated radio show, Internet web site, magazine publisher, and merchandise purveyor.
Dance instructor Arthur Murray dies at Honolulu March 3 at age 95; jazz cornetist Jimmy McPartland of lung cancer at Port Washington, N.Y., March 13 at age 83; electronic musical instrument inventor-manufacturer Leo Fender at Fullerton, Calif., March 21 at age 81; folk singer and Kingston Trio cofounder Dave Guard of lymphoma at his Rollinsford, N.H., home March 22 at age 56; jazz trumpet player-composer Miles Davis of pneumonia following a stroke at Santa Monica May 28 at age 65; jazz saxophonist Stan Getz of liver cancer at his Malibu home June 6 at age 64 (he has continued performing and recording to the end); record-store magnate Sam Goody (Samuel Gutowitz) of heart failure at Queens, N.Y., August 8 at age 87 (his Sam Goody chain has grown to have 320 outlets across the country); country singer Dottie West dies at Nashville, Tenn., September 4 at age 58 of injuries sustained in an August 30 automobile accident (she filed for bankruptcy last year and the Internal Revenue Service has auctioned off some of her possessions to pay back taxes); country-and-western singer Ernest Jennings "Tennessee Ernie" Ford dies of a liver ailment at Reston, Va., October 17 at age 72; rock 'n' roll concert promoter Bill Graham in a helicopter crash outside San Francisco October 25 at age 60; veteran jazz trumpeter Buck Clayton at New York December 8 at age 80; South African singing group Ladysmith Black Mambazo cofounder Headman Tshabalala near Durban December 10 at age 44 after being shot in a roadside dispute; minstrel-troubadour-folk singer Richard Dyer-Bennet dies at Monterey, Mass., December 14 at age 78.
The New York Giants beat Buffalo 21 to 19 at Tampa January 27 in Super Bowl XXV. Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals founder Paul Brown dies of pneumonia at his Cincinnati home August 5 at age 82, having introduced innovations such as helmet face guards and diagrammed pass patterns.
The Chicago Bulls defeat the Los Angeles Lakers June 12 in the fifth game of a series to win their first National Basketball Association championship. Led by guard Michael Jordan, they prevail over Lakers star Magic Johnson.
Michael Stich, 22, (Ger) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Steffi Graf in women's singles; Stefan Edberg wins in U.S. men's singles, Monica Seles, 17, (Yugo) in women's singles.
Little League baseball founder Carl E. Stotz dies at his native Williamsport, Pa., June 4 at age 82.
The Minneapolis Twins win the World Series by defeating the Atlanta Braves 4 games to 3.
A U.S. team beats Norway November 30 to win the first women's World Cup 2 games to 1 in the soccer final held at Guangzhou (Canton).
Contract bridge expert Charles Goren dies of a heart attack at Encino, Calif., April 3 at age 90, having writtten more than two dozen books about the game and been officially named "Mr. Bridge" in 1969.
British designer Ronit Zilkha launches her first collection at London; still in her early 20s, she will open stand-alone stores and have concessions in major department stores throughout the U.K.
Jane Fonda is married on her 54th birthday December 21 to Atlanta media tycoon Ted Turner, now 53, at his ranch outside Tallahassee, Fla.
Los Angeles police notice a car speeding on Foothill Freeway March 3 and pursue a motorist who turns out to be a 25-year-old unarmed black ex-convict named Rodney G. King. He resists arrest, throws four officers off his back, is not subdued by two 50,000-volt blasts from a stun gun, and attacks one of the officers. A local resident sees the fracas, turns on a video camera that he was planning to use the next day for the Los Angeles marathon, and tapes the ferocious 81-second baton beating that ensues. Local television station KTLA edits out the final seconds of King's resistance and sends copies of the tape around the world. The officers involved are indicted, but critics demand the dismissal of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, whose LAPD paid $11.3 million last year to settle lawsuits for brutality (see riots, 1992).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 March 26 that using as evidence a confession extracted from a defendant by third-degree or other coercive methods can be "harmless error." A 6-to-3 decision April 16 places severe limitations on a state prisoner's right to raise constitutional claims in federal habeas corpus proceedings. The Court rules 5 to 4 June 17 that prison conditions such as overcrowding, poor sanitation, and exposure to violence do not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment unless prisoners can show that administrators have acted with "deliberate indifference" to human needs. The Court rules 6 to 3 June 20 that elections for judges are covered by the federal Voting Rights Act, a decision that will put more black judges on benches in Southern states and counties. The Court rules 5 to 4 June 20 that police may board a long-distance bus without a warrant and ask passengers for permission to search their luggage for drugs (seeMinnesota v. Carter, 1998).
Ohio Governor Richard F. Celeste grants clemency to 26 women serving prison sentences for killing their abusive husbands or companions.
Mexican drug lord Oliverio Chavez Arajuois is shot and wounded in his cell at Tamajulipas state prison in Matamoros May 17. Chavez surrenders to authorities at the prison May 30, ending a takeover of the prison that has continued for nearly 2 weeks, during which time rival drug gang leader German Botero Yepez and 17 other prisoners have died while armed inmates loyal to Chavez held riot police and antiterrorist troops at bay. Chavez has allegedly been the chief agent of Colombia's Medellín Cartel in Mexico.
Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar Gavira turns himself in to authorities June 19 on the promise of President César Gaviria Trujillo that he will not be extradited to the United States for trial despite evidence that he and his cohorts have killed hundreds in a 2-year orgy of bombings and assassinations. The multibillionaire is held in a luxurious prison at his hometown of Engivado, 10 miles from Medellín; the Cali Cartel takes over and cocaine exports continue (see 1993).
Channelview, Texas, housewife Wanda Webb Holloway, 37, is convicted September 3 on a charge of murder for hire. Her eighth-grade daughter Shanna Harper, 13, tried out for the school cheerleading squad and was rejected; another girl, Amber Heath, made the squad 2 years in a row, and Mrs. Holloway wanted Amber and her mother, Verna, eliminated before the two girls went to high school. Police caught Mrs. Holloway before her hit man could carry out the killing, Amber Heath made the cheerleading squad again, Shanna was rejected again; Mrs. Holloway is sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The Law Lords of Britain's House of Lords (equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court) decide October 24 to reject a 250-year-old legal principle that there is no such crime as rape inside marriage.
Iraq pumps Kuwaiti crude oil into the Persian Gulf beginning January 24, causing pollution far worse than the 1979 blowout in the Mexican Gulf. The vast slick threatens to foul Saudi Arabian water desalinization plants before being blown out to sea, taking a heavy toll on marine life. Fallout from blazing Kuwaiti oil wells contaminates air, water, and ground surface throughout the Persian Gulf area, creating severe health hazards to humans as well as to plant and animal life. Most of the fires are extinguished by year's end.
Nigeria's Yankari National Park is established in Bauchi state on 870 square miles that were set aside as a game reserve in 1956. Situated at an elevation of 1,600 feet, the park features ancient sandstone cisterns carved for water storage, the Wikki Warm Springs, swamps, grasslands, thick bush, other savanna vegetation, and wildlife that include antelope, baboons, bushbucks, crocodiles, elephants, giraffes, hartebeest, hippopatamuses, hyenas, leopards, lions, roan, and waterbuck.
Costa Rica has her worst earthquake since 1910 April 22. Registering 7.4 on the open-ended Richter scale of ground motion and energy release, its epicenter is reportedly 70 miles southeast of San Jose. It causes considerable damage, knocking out the "jungle" railroad built in the 1870s from Port Limon to San Jose and making a Caribbean coast waterway almost unnavigable, but killing no more than 51 people; a quake in northern India October 19 registers 7.0 on the Richter scale and leaves 2,000 dead.
A cyclone out of the Bay of Bengal strikes Bangladesh April 30, killing 138,866, flooding croplands, and destroying 80 percent of livestock.
Mount Pinatubo on Luzon in the Philippines erupts beginning in early June, caking fields, roads, and vehicles with talc-like gray ash, closing airports, and forcing evacuation of 20,000 Americans from Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Station.
The Halloween storm that roils the North Atlantic from Puerto Rico to Nova Scotia in late October is the worst in a century. Even before it turns into a nameless hurricane it has killed 12 people (including six swordfishermen out of Gloucester and a Coast Guard helicopter rescue worker) and caused more than $2 billion in property damage, destroying houses, beaches, and wetlands.
California has its fifth straight year of drought. Farmers control 83 percent of the water delivered by vast federal, state, and city of Los Angeles dams, aqueducts, and reservoirs; they pay as little as $2.50 per acre foot to irrigate their crops while cutbacks are imposed on angry residents of the booming cities who resent use of precious Sierra Nevada and Colorado River water to grow crops such as rice.
A record 23.6 million Americans receive food stamps in August, an increase of more than 3 million from last year. Nearly one in 10 Americans depends on the government for food, up from two per 100 in 1979 and 1980. Many first-time food-stamp applicants have lost their jobs through corporate downsizing, their unemployment benefits have expired, and they have children to feed in 80 percent of cases; hunger has spread from Appalachia and the inner cities to the suburbs.
The mayor of Moscow announces a coupon rationing system in early November as panic buying sweeps the city in anticipation of free-market prices (see 1990). The system would apply to basic foods such as bread, meat, butter, and eggs. European Community leaders meeting at Maastricht in December discuss sending food aid to Moscow and other Russian cities.
Food-label regulations announced by the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture in November are the broadest, most comprehensive regulations thus far, affecting virtually all food available in grocery stores—80,000 different kinds of foods sold under 300,000 labels. The intent is to make sense of supermarket claims and descriptions such as "fresh," "lite," "low in cholesterol," "reduced fat," and the like. The new labels are expected to be in place by early 1993, more frequent content analyses and revised labels are expected to cost manufacturers $1.7 billion over the next 20 years, and many of them change their package sizes or take other steps to justify low-fat claims.
Average U.S. food prices in January: white bread 70.5¢/1 lb. loaf, French bread $1.28, eggs (grade A, large) $1.10/doz., milk $1.38/½-gal., chicken 89¢/lb., ground beef $1.65/lb. (all figures higher in the Northeast, lower in the South).
U.S. sales of salsa outstrip those of ketchup by $40 million as Americans turn increasingly to hot, spicy, Hispanic-style foods (see tortilla sales, 1990). The food industry uses more and more ethnic spices to flavor products in which fat and salt content have been lowered.
A New York Times-CBS poll released in early December shows that the vast majority of U.S. families with children eat dinner together on a typical night despite pressures on single-parent families and those in which both parents work outside the home (see 1990).
Only 51 percent of Americans over age 10 drink coffee, down from 75 percent in 1971.
China has 1.15 billion. India has 850 million, the former Soviet Union 293, United States 250, Indonesia 185.5 (about 60 percent of them in Java), Brazil 150, Japan 125, Nigeria 117, Bangladesh 116, Mexico 88, Germany (united) 77, Vietnam 68, Britain 58, France 57, Egypt and Turkey 56 each, Iran 53.5, South Korea 44, Spain 39.5, Poland 39, Canada 26.5, North Korea 24, Taiwan 20, Iraq 17, Saudi Arabia 15.3, and Israel 5 (see 2000)
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 May 23 in Rust v. Sullivan that Congress did not violate the Constitution in 1970 when it barred employees of federally-financed family-planning clinics from providing information about abortion. President Bush vetoes a bill November 19 that would appropriate $205 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services, claiming that it would allow abortion to be discussed by doctors and others who work at clinics that receive federal funding.
Poland's state-financed hospitals perform 29,989 abortions, down from 105,332 in 1988, when communists ran the government and the Catholic Church had less influence. Pope John Paul II visits his native land, where abortion is the leading form of birth control, and appeals in June for a legislative ban on the practice (see 1992).
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