1993 in the United States

1993 in the United States
Decades:	1970s 1980s – 1990s – 2000s 2010s
Years:	1990 1991 1992 – 1993 – 1994 1995 1996
Flag
50 stars (1960 – present)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1991–present)

Events from the year 1993 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President: George H. W. Bush (Republican) (until January 20), Bill Clinton (Democratic) (starting January 20)
• Vice President: Dan Quayle (Republican) (until January 20), Al Gore (Democratic) (starting January 20)
• Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Tom Foley (D-Washington)
• Senate Majority Leader: George J. Mitchell (D-Maine)
• Congress: 102nd (until January 3), 103rd (starting January 3)

Events

January

January 20: Bill Clinton begins his first of two terms as President

• January 3 – In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
• January 5 – The state of Washington executes Westley Allan Dodd by hanging (the first legal hanging in America since 1965).
• January 5 – $7.4 million USD is stolen from Brinks Armored Car Depot in Rochester, New York in the 5th largest robbery in U.S. history. Four men, Samuel Millar, Father Patrick Moloney, former Rochester Police officer Thomas O'Connor, and Charles McCormick, all of whom have ties to the Provisional Irish Republican Army, are accused.
• January 19 – IBM announces a $4.97 billion loss for 1992, the largest single-year corporate loss in United States history to date.
• January 19 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq refuses to allow UNSCOM inspectors to use its own aircraft to fly into Iraq, and begins military operations in the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait, and the northern Iraqi no-fly zones. U.S. forces fire approximately 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Baghdad factories linked to Iraq's illegal nuclear weapons program. Iraq then informs UNSCOM that it will be able to resume its flights.
• January 20 – Bill Clinton succeeds George H. W. Bush as the 42nd President of the United States.
• January 25 – Mir Aimal Kasi fires a rifle and kills 2 employees outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
• January 31 – Super Bowl XXVII: The Buffalo Bills become the first team to lose 3 consecutive Super Bowls as they are defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, 52–17.

February

February 26: World Trade Center bombing

• February 6 – Former tennis player Arthur Ashe, 49, dies of the AIDS virus in New York. Ashe was believed to have contracted the virus from a blood transfusion during heart surgery 10 years ago.^[1]
• February 8 – General Motors Corporation sues NBC, after Dateline NBC allegedly rigged 2 crashes showing that some GM pickups can easily catch fire if hit in certain places. NBC settles the lawsuit the following day.
• February 11 – Janet Reno is selected by President Clinton as Attorney General of the United States.
• February 26 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a van bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing 6 and injuring over 1,000.
• February 28 – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, with a warrant to arrest leader David Koresh on federal firearms violations. Four agents and 5 Davidians die in the raid and a 51-day standoff begins.

March

• March 4 – Authorities announce the capture of suspected World Trade Center bombing conspirator Mohammad Salameh.
• March 9 – Rodney King testifies at the federal trial of 4 Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating his civil rights when they beat him during an arrest.
• March 11 – Janet Reno is confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in the next day, becoming the first female Attorney General of the United States.
• March 13–14 – The Great Blizzard of 1993 strikes the eastern U.S., bringing record snowfall and other severe weather all the way from Cuba to Quebec; it reportedly kills 184.
• March 22 – The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips.
• March 29 – The 65th Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California, with Unforgiven winning Best Picture.

April

April 19: The Waco Siege ends with a deadly fire

• April–October: The Great Flood of 1993: The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers flood large portions of the American Midwest.
• April – The Kuwaiti government claims to uncover an Iraqi assassination plot against former U.S. President George H. W. Bush shortly after his visit to Kuwait. Two Iraqi nationals confess to driving a car-bomb into Kuwait on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.^[2]
• April 9 – The rock band Nirvana plays a benefit concert for the Bosnian rape victims at San Francisco's Cow Palace
• April 19 – A 51-day stand-off at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ends with a fire that kills 76 people, including David Koresh.
• April 22 – In Washington, DC, the Holocaust Memorial Museum is dedicated.
• April 28 – An executive order requires the United States Air Force to allow women to fly war planes.

May

• May 1 – An outbreak of a respiratory illness later identified as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome begins in the southwestern United States; 32 patients die by the end of the year.^[3][4]

June

• June 5 – Minnesota v. Dickerson: The United States Supreme Court rules that the seizure of evidence during a pat-down search is unconstitutional.
• June 9 – The Montreal Canadiens win their 24th Stanley Cup, defeating the Los Angeles Kings in the Finals.
• June 20 – John Paxson's 3-point shot in Game 6 of the NBA Finals helps the Chicago Bulls secure a 99–98 win over the Phoenix Suns, and their third consecutive championship.
• June 23 – In Manassas, Virginia, Lorena Bobbitt cuts off the penis of her husband John Wayne Bobbitt.
• June 24 – A Unabomber bomb injures computer scientist David Gelernter at Yale University.
• June 27 – U.S. President Bill Clinton orders a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in the Al-Mansur District of Baghdad, in response to the attempted assassination of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush during his visit to Kuwait in mid-April.

July

April–October: The Great Flood of 1993

• July 19 – U.S. President Bill Clinton announces his 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy regarding gays in the American military.
• July 20 – White House deputy counsel Vince Foster commits suicide in Virginia.
• July 27 – Windows NT 3.1, the first version of Microsoft's line of Windows NT operating systems, is released to manufacturing.

August

• August 1 – The Great Flood of 1993 comes to a peak.
• August 4 – A federal judge sentences LAPD officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights.
• August 21 – NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

September

• September 4 – The second World Parliament of Religions is held in Chicago.
• September 6 – Canadian software specialist Peter de Jager publishes in Computerworld U.S. weekly magazine an article Doomsday 2000, which is the first known reference to Y2K – the 2000 Year problem.
• September 13 – PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands in Washington D.C., after signing a peace accord.

October

• October 3 – A large scale battle erupts between U.S. forces and local militia in Mogadishu, Somalia; 18 Americans and over 1,000 Somalis are killed.
• October 8 – David Miscavige announces the IRS has granted full tax exemption to the Church of Scientology International and affiliated churches and organizations, ending the Church's 40-year battle with the IRS and resulting in religious recognition in the United States.
• October 16 – U.S. President Bill Clinton sends 6 American warships to Haiti, to enforce United Nations trade sanctions against the military-led regime in that country.^[5]
• October 27 Wildfires begin^[6] in California which eventually destroy over 16,000 acres (65 km²) and 700 homes.

November

• November 11 – Microsoft releases Windows 3.11 for Workgroups to manufacturing.
• November 18 – In a status referendum, Puerto Rico residents vote with a slim margin to maintain Commonwealth status.
• November 17–22 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passes the legislative houses in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
• November 18 – The first meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation opens in Seattle.
• November 20 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his dealings with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.

December

• December 2 – STS-61: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair an optical flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.
• December 7 – Colin Ferguson opens fire with his Ruger 9 mm pistol on a Long Island Rail Road train, killing 16 and injuring 29.
• December 11 – A variety of Soviet space program paraphernalia are put to auction in Sotheby's New York, and sell for a total of US$6.8M. One of the items is Lunokhod 1 and its spacecraft Luna 17; they sell for $68,500.

Ongoing

• Iraqi no-fly zones (1991–2003)

Births

This section requires expansion.

• February 12 – Jennifer Stone, American actress
• April 4 – J. Xavier, American rapper and actor and TV host
• May 13 – Debby Ryan, American actress and singer
• May 14 – Miranda Cosgrove, American actress and pop recording artist
• July 26 – Taylor Momsen, American actress, musician and model
• August 11 – Alyson Stoner, American actress, dancer and singer
• December 7 – Jasmine Villegas, American teen R&B and pop singer.
• December 8 – AnnaSophia Robb, American actress

Deaths

This section requires expansion.

• January 6 – Dizzy Gillespie, American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer (born 1917)
• January 21 – Charlie Gehringer, American baseball player (born 1903)
• February 6 – Arthur Ashe, American tennis player (born 1943)
• February 11 – Joy Garrett, American actor and vocalist (born 1945)
• February 27 – Lillian Gish, American actress (born 1893)
• March 9 – Max August Zorn, German-born American mathematician (born 1906)
• March 17 – Helen Hayes, American actress (born 1900)
• March 31 – Brandon Lee, American actor and martial artist (born 1965)

References

External links

• Media related to 1993 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons