# Flag File

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The Communist Party Central Committee, which sets Vietnamese policy, argued inconclusively during 1990. At issue was the moderation of Vietnam's rigid Marxist political and economic system.


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Above-average temperatures continued to dominate the United States weather pattern for most of 1990. In January 1991, scientists at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., announced that 1990 was the seventh warmest year in this century. ...


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The United States Bureau of the Census reported in September 1990 that the poverty rate in the United States had inched downward in 1989 for the sixth straight year. The 1989 rate, 12.8 per cent of the population, compared with 13.1 per cent in 1988. ...


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A bizarre coup attempt unfolded in Port-of-Spain, the capital of the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, from July 27 to Aug. 1, 1990. Iman Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of an Islamic sect, attempted to overthrow the government with support from more than ...


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The federation of six republics that make up Yugoslavia came dangerously close to breaking apart in 1990. Conflict deepened between Serbia, the largest and most populous republic, and the more Westernized and prosperous republics of Slovenia and ...


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A final agreement on land claims was initialed on April 1, 1990, the culmination of 17 years of on-and-off talks between representatives of the 6,500 Yukon Indians and the federal and territorial governments. The agreement gave Indians title to 16,000 ...


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The civil war in Afghanistan sputtered throughout 1990. The United States and the Soviet Union repeatedly held talks in an unsuccessful search for a settlement acceptable to both Afghanistan's Communist government and the Muslim guerrillas seeking to ...


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Richard M. Daley, elected mayor in a special election in April 1989, spent much of 1990 solidifying his control over the city government. In nearly every move he made during his first full year in office, Daley seemed to be preparing for his expected ...


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New York City experienced a fiscal crisis in 1990 as the budget went into a severe deficit. During the year, the city raised taxes and reduced many services to stop the flow of red ink, but it was not enough. Mayor David N. Dinkins announced on ...


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A simmering conflict roared back to life in September 1990 when an estimated 5,000 Rwandan rebels, members of the oppressed Tutsi ethnic group, left sanctuaries in Uganda to attack government forces in Rwanda. With the support of about 1,000 troops ...


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The population of Detroit in 1990 was given, tentatively, as 970,156, a 19.4 per cent drop from its 1980 population of 1.2 million. The latest figure was the preliminary total from the 1990 United States census released in August by the U.S. Bureau of ...


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Continuing an upturn that began in 1988, Houston's economy showed further signs of improvement in 1990, despite uncertainties about the national economy. Sales of existing homes, which had been in a severe slump during much of the 1980's, were at a ...


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The world's population reached approximately 5.3 billion in 1990, according to the United Nations (UN) Fund for Population Activities, whose annual population survey was released in May. The UN statisticians estimated that the global population will ...


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A drought in California and the Southwestern United States continued to cause shortages and restricted water use in 1990 along with questions about the region's ability to preserve its comfortable life style. The drought began in 1986 and was one of ...


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For the United States banking system and the economy as a whole, 1990 was a trying year. Banks were hard-hit as the nation teetered on the brink of its first recession since the early 1980's, and banking losses strained the insurance fund of the ...


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Economic stagnation, overbuilding, and the savings and loan crisis hit the United States construction industry like a sledge hammer in 1990. As a result of the savings and loan crisis, easily borrowed money became a thing of the past. By the end of ...


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Cities in the United States faced much the same problems in 1990 that have been troubling them for years: illegal drug use and trade, violent crime, inadequate affordable housing, floundering school systemsand lack of money to do anything about ...


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The world economy continued to grow in 1990, though at a slower rate than in 1989. In the United States, the economic growth rate was only about 1 per cent after adjusting for inflation. By year-end, most U.S. economists were predicting a recession, ...


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After ruling the Soviet Union for 74 years, the Communist party proved to be beyond reform and, despite a last-ditch coup attempt by party stalwarts, lost power.


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The lives and artistic achievements of Martha Graham and Dame Margot Fonteyn ended the war between ballet and modern dance.


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Developments in Africa in 1991 demonstrated that African nations are attempting to solve many of the political and economic problems that have been holding the continent back. Several of Africa's long-standing civil wars ended or were winding down ...


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The fact that AIDS can strike anyone was dramatically emphasized when Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Earvin (Magic) Johnson, Jr., announced on Nov. 7, 1991, that he was infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes ...


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A deteriorating economy plagued Albania's progress toward democracy in 1991. But in major steps toward restoring long-denied rights, the government lifted bans on religious worship and property ownership and granted Albanians the right to travel.


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Alberta's efforts to diversify its economy in 1991 were set back by the failure of several government-backed enterprises. In April, a magnesium smelter in High River was closed. Alberta's government had supported the project with $103 million ($91 ...


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A woman viewing an exhibit by the artist Christo was killed on Oct. 27, 1991, when a huge umbrella that was part of the exhibit blew away from its anchor, struck her, and hurled her against a rock. The exhibit, which was composed of 1,760 yellow ...


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Asia suffered from natural disasters in 1991 while groping toward peaceful resolutions to its largest wars. All Asian nations felt the effects of upheavals in the Communist world.


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For astronomers who observe the universe by using instruments aboard spacecraft, 1991 was a year of frustration, as two spacecraft experienced malfunctions, but it was also a year of great success. One recently launched satellite operated flawlessly, ...


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On Dec. 19, 1991, Australian Prime Minister Robert Hawke was toppled in a leadership challenge by parliamentary members of his party, the Australian Labor Party. In a 56 to 51 vote, the party elected former treasurer Paul Keating as its head. The ...


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In 1991 Austria continued to adapt to the increasing economic integration of western Europe into the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market) and to the collapse of Communist governments in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The civil war ...


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Few years have been as rich in freshly designed cars and trucks or as poor in sales as 1991. Although there were dozens of attractive new models, sales of new cars and trucks in the United States fell to an estimated 12.5 million, down 11.3 per cent ...


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Geneticists continued to make new discoveries in 1991. In July, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children in Portland, Ore.; and the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City independently ...


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The 1991 economic recession that gripped the United States and other nations hurt yachtsmen preparing for the 1992 America's Cup races off San Diego. Both U.S. syndicates contending for the defender's role had difficulty finding sponsors, and one of ...


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Despite a six-month suspension for losing his temper too often, 29-year-old Pete Weber became the star of the Professional Bowlers Association's (PBA) 1991 tour. The PBA tour included 34 bowling tournaments, which were held at various locations from ...


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Mike Tyson, who lost the world heavyweight championship in 1990, experienced difficulties outside the ring in 1991. He was indicted on September 9 in Indianapolis on charges of rape, and his November title bout against the current champion, Evander ...


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A political dynasty ended in 1991 when the Social Credit Party, in office for 36 of the last 39 years, was ousted in a provincial election. The party sank amidst scandal and resignations. Thirteen Cabinet ministers had resigned due to allegations of ...


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In elections held Oct. 13, 1991, the Bulgarian Socialist (formerly Communist) Party lost its parliamentary majority to the opposition Union of Democratic Forces (UDF). But the Socialists drew many more votes than expected, denying the UDF a hoped-for ...


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Chile's economy benefited in 1991 from the peaceful settlement of labor disputes and the decision by a rebel group to work within the system. These developments helped attract substantial new foreign business investment.


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China improved its relations with several important nations during 1991. This improvement followed a period of strained international relations which began in June 1989, when Chinese soldiers killed hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing, ...


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A two-year stalemate between President George Bush and Congress over legislation that would make it easier for minorities and women to sue their employers for discrimination ended when Bush signed the Civil Rights Act of 1991 into law on Nov. 21, ...


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Anniversaries brightened the musical scene in 1991, 200 years after the death of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the birth of opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. For composer Sergei Prokofiev and songwriter Cole Porter, there were 100-year ...


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Bill Clinton (1946- ), threw his hat into the presidential ring on Oct. 3, 1991, and became the fifth candidate to announce his bid for the Democratic nomination. The five-term governor of Arkansas hoped to appeal to the middle class with statements ...


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In Colombia, a new Constitution adopted in July 1991 raised hopes for an end to rebellion and drug terrorism. The most controversial provision of the new governing document provides that Colombians will not be extradited to foreign nations to stand ...


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The United States Department of Energy (DOE) on Aug. 15, 1990, urged Americans to adopt a series of energy conservation measures and outlined a strategy for increasing U.S. oil production to help compensate for a cutoff of oil supplies from lraq and ...


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International trade grew by roughly 5 per cent in 1990, a markedly lower rate of increase than in 1988 or 1989, when the rates were 9 per cent and 7 per cent. The more moderate expansion reflected a global economic slowdown. In the last six months of ...


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Anthony E. Hecht and Mark Strand, both among the half dozen best active American poets, each brought out a new collection in 1990.


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Philadelphia found itself tottering toward insolvency in 1990. The cash crisis was the result of a shrinking tax base caused by the flight of middle-class Philadelphians to the suburbs combined with soaring costs of social services and a sharp ...


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The 1990 Census: An American Self-Portrait

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The latest figures from the United States Bureau of the Census reveal a changing picture of who Americans are and where and how they live.


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Some of Iraq's ancient archaeological sites and treasures were among the victims of the Persian Gulf War and the civil uprisings that followed.


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Using massive air strikes and surprise movements by troops on the ground, an international military force spearheaded by the United States drove Iraqi invaders from the oil-rich nation of Kuwait.


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Algeria's experiment in democracy floundered in June 1991, only one year after the country held its first multiparty elections since 1962. Violent clashes between Islamic fundamentalists and police in Algiers, the capital, led President ChadIi ...


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The discovery of prehuman fossilized bones believed to be from 3 million to 3.5 million years old was reported in March 1991. The bones, found at Hadar in Ethiopia, have expanded scientists' knowledge of the earliest known hominid


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A 40-year monopoly on access to the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 1900's, was broken in 1991 by the actions of two scholars and of the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a ...


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Architecture in the United States was affected by the economy and environmental concerns more than by any other issues in 1991. As overbuilding and the worsening savings and loan crisis slowed construction throughout the country, the number of new ...


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During the second half of 1991, there were several signs that the Argentine economy, long mired in recession, was at last on the road to recovery. The economic turnaround came suddenly in August, when inflation was held to 1.3 per cent, its lowest ...


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President George Bush announced a sweeping reduction of United States nuclear forces on Sept. 27, 1991. Bush said the proposed reductions were designed to take advantage of the collapse of the Soviet empire and the rise of democracy there and in ...


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In the United States, Rick Mears won the Indianapolis 500, the world's richest race, and Michael Andretti won the series for Indy-type cars. Internationally, Ayrton Senna of Brazil won the World Drivers Championship for the second year. United States ...


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The economic recession in the United States and a sharp drop in air travel because of concerns about possible terrorist activities in connection with the Persian Gulf War pummeled the airline industry in 1991. Analysts predicted that the nation's ...


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Khaleda Ziaur Rahman (known as Khaleda Zia), the 46-year-old widow of a Bangladeshi president who was assassinated in 1981, became prime minister on March 20, 1991. Her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) won 139 of 300 parliamentary seats in elections ...


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In 1991, for the first time in the 1900's, a major league team rose from last place to first in one year and played in the World Series. Two teams achieved that featthe Minnesota Twins in the American League and the Atlanta Braves in the ...


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The Duke University men, the University of Tennessee women, and the Chicago Bulls won major basketball championships during 1991. In international basketball competition, the usually dominant United States did poorly. The University of Nevada, Las ...


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Belgium in 1991 continued to play a central role in the political and economic integration of the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market). At the same time, the nation struggled with internal divisions between Dutch-speaking Flemings in ...


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Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition movement to the ruling military junta in Burma (also called Myanmar), was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 14, 1991. The junta, called the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), denounced ...


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Four warring factions in Cambodia (formerly Kampuchea) signed a peace treaty in Paris on Oct. 23, 1991. The treaty called for the United Nations (UN) to administer a transitional government, leading to elections by early 1993.


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Public discussion in Canada in 1991 centered on proposed changes to the Constitution and on whether Quebec would secede from the nation. Discussion of these topics became heated in 1991 partly because the Meech Lake Accord had not been approved by all ...


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The Canadian recession took a toll on Canada's publishing industry in 1991 as book sales plummeted. Publisher Lester & Orpen Dennys closed its doors, as did Summerhill, Western Producer Prairie Books, and Hurtig Publishers.


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The process in nature that produces bones, teeth, sea shells, and other hard tissues was successfully mimicked in the laboratory, chemists reported in January 1991. Despite the importance of this process, known as biomineralization


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Elimination matches to determine who will challenge the overall world champion Garry Kasparov, 28, of the former Soviet Union, began in 1991. At year's end, four grandmaster challengers remained in contention: former world champion Anatoly Karpov, 40, ...


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The United States computer industry saw wide changes in 1991. Significant new products were introduced, including a computer that can read printed handwriting and also accept data entry from a keyboard. Leading computer companies formed new alliances ...


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Two dramatic happenings in Congress in 1991 captured public attention: a debate over authorizing the nation to wage war in the Middle East and televised Senate hearings on sexual harassment charges against a nominee for the Supreme Court of the United ...


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A major environmental battle began taking shape in the United States in May 1991 over the definition of wetlands


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In the most highly publicized trial of 1991, a jury in West Palm Beach, Fla., on December 11 acquitted William Kennedy Smith of rape and battery. Smith, 31, a nephew of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.), had been charged with raping a young woman ...


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More than in most years, murder dominated crime headlines during 1991. The arrest in Milwaukee, Wisc., of an alleged killer of at least 17 people was especially startling because of the gruesome fate of the victims. And in a scene that has become ...


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The collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union in 1991 brought an end to Soviet assistance to Cuba. Nevertheless, Cuban President Fidel Castro positioned himself and Cuba to survive, if not embrace, a changed world. Addressing members of Cuba's ruling ...


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Dimitrios I, the 77-year-old ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey) and spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians, died on Oct. 2, 1991, of a heart attack. On October 22, Metropolitan Bartholomew of ...


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President George Bush in April 1991, announced an ambitious but controversial plan for improving the nation's schools. The President's plan, called America 2000, proposed creating, by 1996, 535 New American Schools that would offer ...


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President Hosni Mubarak's support of the United States-led military coalition against Iraq during the Persian Gulf crisis in 1990 and 1991 earned him a role as a regional power broker. Egypt's ability to reassert its former leadership in the Arab ...


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In the final hours of 1991, President Alfredo Cristiani Burkard and antigovernment rebels reached an agreement in New York City to end El Salvador's 12-year-old civil war. A final agreement was to be signed in Mexico City on Jan. 16, 1992.


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Elections in the United States in 1991 ended with a controversial flourish on November 16 in Louisiana with the defeat of Republican David E. Duke in the governor's race. Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and Nazi sympathizer, lost to Edwin W. ...


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One of 1991's most remarkable innovations was the Data Discman manufactured by Sony Corporation. The Discman, a virtual portable library that can be read like an electronic book, is about the size of a thick paperback. It reads compact discs (CD's), ...


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Professional and college football in the United States crowned new champions in the 1991 season. The New York Giants, who won Super Bowl XXV in January 1991, slipped to an 8-8 record as the Washington Redskins won Super Bowl XXVI in January 1992. The ...


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France in 1991 continued to work toward the integration of western Europe in the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market). At home, the political scene was dominated by the appointment of Edith Cresson as France's first woman prime minister, ...


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Large eruptions from three volcanoes made headlines in 1991. These, like most of Earth's volcanoes, were located along subduction zones,


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The joy that accompanied the unification of East and West Germany in 1990 gave way in 1991 to the reality: Raising the living standards of the 17 million former East Germans was going to be costly and difficult. Even so, Germany's economy remained the ...


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Ian Woosnam of Wales, Ian Baker-Finch of Australia, and Payne Stewart and newcomer John Daly of the United States won the 1991 grand-slam tournaments for men. Meg Mallon won two of the four major tournaments for women, and Jack Nicklaus won two of the ...


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Prime Minister John Major struggled in 1991 to establish himself as a competent successor to Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher had dominated the British political scene as prime minister for more than 11 years, until November 1990, when she resigned and ...


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Public confidence in the ruling Hungarian Democratic Forum (HDF) and the country's fledgling parliamentary democracy slipped during 1991 despite some notable economic success. Foreign investment helped reduce the country's $20-billion foreign debt by ...


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The United States made figure-skating history in 1991 by sweeping all three of the women's medals in the world championships. American men had done that three times in the 1950's, but a sweep had never been achieved by women from any nation.


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The United States Department of State arranged a lottery in October 1991 that allowed 40,000 foreigners to win green cards, the document that indicates permanent residency status for immigrants. The first 40,000 applications to arrive at a Virginia ...


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Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the leader of India's largest political party, was assassinated on May 21, 1991, as he campaigned during elections for the lower house of Parliament. Gandhi was the second member of his family to die as a result of ...


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Native people in the Canadian province of Ontario have an innate right to self-government flowing from the Creator and from the First Nations' original occupation of the land, according to a historic agreement signed by Ontario officials ...


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Living standards for Indonesia's 186 million people continued to improve in 1991 despite inflation of more than 9 per cent and other economic problems. Industrial growth, primarily on the island of Java, led the expansion of the economy, which has ...


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The two political movements that in 1989 had united to end Communist rule peacefully in Czechoslovakia broke into factions in 1991. These two movements were the Civic Forum in the Czech Republicthe party of Czechoslovak President Vaclav ...


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A major event in dance during 1991 was a spectacular new production of The Sleeping Beauty


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A Democratic Party in disarray found new life on Nov. 5, 1991, as Pennsylvania voters handed the Administration of Republican President George Bush a major defeat in a special election for the U.S. Senate. Republican Richard L. Thornburgh, a former ...


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In 1991, Denmark forged closer ties with the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market). Then, in August, it became one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the newly independent Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and ...


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The percentage of high school seniors in the United States who have used illegal drugs declined to less than 50 per cent in 1990, according to a report by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research in January 1991. This was the lowest ...


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Many of the 2 million to 3 million people in the United States with chronic congestive heart failure could benefit from a widely used blood pressure drug, a five-year government study concluded on Aug. 1, 1991. Researchers found that adding the drug, ...


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The most visible environmental devastation in 1991 stemmed from the Persian Gulf War, especially from oil wells set afire in Kuwait. But Kuwait's ecological wounds were not the only major signs of environmental havoc. Scientists reported the worst ...


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Estonia declared full and immediate independence from the Soviet Union on Aug. 20, 1991, during an unsuccessful coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. In 1940, during World War II, the Soviet Union had forcibly annexed the three Baltic ...


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After nearly 30 years, Ethiopia's civil war came to an abrupt end in May 1991 as rebels in the provinces of Eritrea and Tigre toppled the military regime of Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam. On May 21, Mengistu resigned and fled by plane to Zimbabwe.


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Europe continued to reshape itself in fundamental ways in 1991. The industrialized countries of western Europe increasingly integrated their economies into a powerful trading bloc, while the former Communist countries of eastern Europe struggled to ...


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Retailers hoped in 1991 that new designer names in fashion design would bring new approaches to invigorate the fashion business. This, in turn, they hoped, would attract new customers during a time when business was sluggish. Some fashion industry ...


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The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took steps in 1991 to outlaw food labels that falsely suggest a product has a low fat content. For example, cooking oils with labels that picture a heart and claim to be cholesterol free could ...


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In 1991, Greece struggled to shore up a weak economy that threatened to prevent the country from benefiting fully from the removal of most trade barriers within the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market) by the end of 1992.


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On Jan. 14, 1991, Jorge Serrano Elias, 45, a businessman and adviser to former Guatemalan military governments, was sworn in for a five-year term as the president of Guatemala. Serrano faced an inflation rate of more than 75 per cent, unemployment of ...


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On Sept. 30, 1991, the Haitian military overthrew the nation's first democratically elected head of state, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The leader of the coup, Brigadier General Raoul Cedras, seemed unable to control his troops, and as many as ...


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The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on July 25, 1991, issued regulations that businesses must follow to implement many provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. That law, which bans discrimination by ...


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The National Hockey League's (NHL's) 1990-1991 season ended on an improbable note. The Pittsburgh Penguins and the Minnesota North Stars were unlikely opponents in the Stanley Cup finals. The Penguins won the championship, 4 games to 2.


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The struggle to determine America's 1991 thoroughbred Horse of the Year ended in a three-way battle among Black Tie Affair, who won the Breeders' Cup Classic; Arazi, a 2-year-old colt who ran every race except one in France; and Dance Smartly, a ...


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Iran's President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called for increased economic and political cooperation with the West and for closer relations with Arab Muslim states in May 1991. Some Middle East analysts argued that Rafsanjani's statement indicated ...


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An international military coalition, led by the United States, launched a massive bombing campaign against Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991. The attack began less than 17 hours after Iraq's President Saddam Hussein failed to meet a United Nations (UN) deadline ...


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The political future of Ireland's Prime Minister Charles J. Haughey seemed uncertain in 1991. The possibility arose that he would be replaced as leader of the Fianna Fail (Soldiers of Destiny) party, which he has led since 1979. In local elections ...


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Islam proved to be an important factor during the Persian Gulf crisis of 1990-1991 and in the politics of several Muslim countries in 1991. Saudi Arabia and Egypt's leading religious leaders cited Islamic law to justify the presence of foreign, ...


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Iraq launched 39 surface-to-surface missiles at Israel in February 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, killing 4 people and injuring 300 others. Despite intense public outrage, Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir did not order a military ...


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Italy in 1991 struggled to contend with organized crime and a disorganized government. In addition, a huge influx of poverty-stricken refugees arrived from nearby Albania, Europe's poorest nation.


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Leaders of the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) forced Toshiki Kaifu from the prime minister's job despite polls showing that between 55 and 65 per cent of the public supported him. Kiichi Miyazawa became prime minister on Nov. 5, 1991.


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King Hussein I worked during 1991 to repair Jordan's relations with Western countries and with some Persian Gulf states angered by Jordan's pro-Iraq tilt during the Persian Gulf crisis. In doing so, Hussein risked eroding his support among his ...


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Most of the world's Jews focused their attention on rapidly changing developments in the Soviet Union in 1991 and how those developments would impact on the Jewish community there. The policies of glasnost


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The United States economy slipped into its first recession in more than eight years in the first half of 1991. Unemployment averaged just more than a percentage point higher than in 1990 at 6.7 per cent, but there were widespread fears of joblessness. ...


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Latin Americans turned to the pursuit of an old dream in 1991the forging of a regional economic union. Governments that were, with rare exceptions, democratically elected reported progress toward the goal of economic union during the year.


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Latvia took advantage of the upheaval surrounding a coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in August 1991 to declare independence from the Soviet Union. In a nationwide referendum on March 3, nearly three-fourths of Latvia's people ...


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Lithuania, which first tried to secede from the Soviet Union in 1990, saw independence become a reality in 1991. Before that occurred, however, Lithuania stood up to military intimidation as the Soviet government attempted to crush the country's ...


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The United States magazine industry in 1991 suffered one of the most tumultuous years in its history. Advertising pages registered their steepest decline in two decades, as a nationwide recession forced advertisers to slash budgets. Unable to weather ...


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in 1991 launched a New Development Policy intended to make the nation an economically fully developed country by the year 2020. Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad presented the policy on June 17 to replace the New Economic Policy that had ...


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A month-long nursing strike, the longest such strike in Canada's history, ended Feb. 1, 1991, when Manitoba's 10,500 nurses accepted a two-year contract giving them a salary increase of 14 per cent over two years. The settlement disappointed many ...


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The United States economy entered its ninth recession since World War II (1939-1945) in 1990, and the recession continued into 1991. In the second half of 1991, manufacturers played an important role in the nation's attempt to rebound from the ...


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A Michigan doctor helped two women commit suicide on Oct. 23, 1991, refueling a nationwide debate concerning the medical ethics of such action. In a remote cabin in the Detroit area, pathologist Jack Kevorkian attached suicide devices that he had ...


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The Liberal Party retained power after elections on Sept. 23, 1991. The party, which was led by Premier Frank J. McKenna, had held all 58 legislative seats since 1987. In the September elections, the Liberals captured 46 seats and won just less than ...


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The Canadian recession, poor fishing conditions, and a drastic reduction in anticipated federal funding resulted in Newfoundland's harshest budget cuts since the province joined the Dominion of Canada in 1949. The budget, which was released on March ...


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Newspaper companies in the United States struggled through their toughest year in four decades during 1991. Advertising revenue and circulation, in a slump since 1989, fell even further in 1991. Several large and historic newspapers did not survive.


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Old rivalries surfaced in Nicaragua during 1991, evidence that the wounds of civil war were far from healed. On April 25, the first anniversary of President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro's assumption of office, expectations were gloomy that democracy ...


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The military regime of President Ibrahim Babangida proceeded with plans in 1991 to return Nigeria to civilian rule in October 1992. To stimulate local civilian political activity, Babangida in August and September 1991 raised the number of district ...


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Nobel prizes in peace, literature, economics, and the sciences were awarded in 1991 by the Norwegian Storting (parliament) in Oslo and by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Karolinska Institute, and the Swedish Academy of Literature in ...


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The development of complex life forms more than 500 million years ago was more sudden and widespread than scientists had believed. That conclusion was reported in May 1991 by paleontologists L. Ramskold of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in ...


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A cholera outbreak began in northern Peru in late January 1991. By November, the outbreak had reached epidemic proportions, with doctors reporting more than 275,000 cases and 2,664 deaths, according to the Pan American Health Organization.


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Flash floods on Nov. 5, 1991, left about 6,000 people dead on the central Philippine islands of Leyte and Negros. A less deadly disaster but one with more repercussions occurred in June, when Mount Pinatubo, a volcano 55 miles (89 kilometers) ...


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One of chemistry's most fascinating molecules, a carbon molecule in the shape of a soccer ball, became a plaything for physicists in April 1991. At that time, a team of researchers at AT&T Bell Laboratories announced that the molecules, popularly ...


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had a difficult year in 1991. The living standards of many Poles continued to slide and political divisions splintered the Solidarity movement, which had toppled the Communist government in 1989.


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A new method for ranking top-selling country and popular music albums was used for the first time in charts appearing in the May 25, 1991, issue of Billboard,


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Portugal in 1991 affirmed its commitment to political stability. In January, voters reelected Mario Alberto Soares, a former member of the Portuguese Socialist Party, to a second term as president. (Soares had given up party ties after his 1986 ...


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Lebanon's parliament ratified a wide-ranging security pact with Syria on Sept. 16, 1991. The pact, which expands on a cooperation treaty signed by the leaders of the two countries on May 22, calls for mutual cooperation on issues as diverse as ...


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Despite the presence of a west African peacekeeping force in Liberia, the civil war that began in December 1989 continued through much of 1991. The two rebel groups that overthrew President Samuel K. Doe in 1990and after that fought each other ...


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A slumping economy and growing resistance to higher taxes compounded the financial problems facing libraries in the United States in 1991. Many libraries, already hard-pressed by soaring costs for reading materials and shrinking support from ...


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Libya was accused in 1991 of involvement in the bombings of two civilian aircraft, in which 441 people died. On November 14, the United States accused two Libyan intelligence officials of building and planting the bomb that exploded aboard Pan ...


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A revival of ambitious, sprawling novels dealing with large themes marked American fiction in 1991. Such novels had grown unfashionable during the 1970's and 1980's, when slender, inward-looking minimalist novels flooded the literary market.


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Children's books published in 1991 continued to emphasize multicultural and environmental subjects. Picture books and toy books for preschoolers were plentiful, as were educational publications. Fewer books of poetry, fantasy, and folk tales were ...


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Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may occur far more often than previously believed, psychologists reported in March 1991. PTSD features a variety of symptoms, including recurring nightmares and memories of a traumatic event, difficulty ...


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Mexico's highly centralized government in 1991 continued to emphasize economic modernization and closer ties with the United States. The success of free-market policies, including selling government-owned businesses to private business owners, ...


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The Persian Gulf War, fought by a United States-led coalition to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in January and February 1991, had important political effects on the Middle East during the year. The collapse of Arab unity before the war opened ...


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King Hassan II celebrated 30 years of rule in February 1991. While the king won praise for his political skill, he also was criticized for his failure to increase popular participation in government and for the government's poor record on human ...


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The motion picture industry in 1991 experienced a year that was chaotic both creatively and commercially. Many of the most profitable movies were not released until the end of the year.


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During the last half of 1991, the Netherlands held the presidency of the Council of Ministers, the policymaking body of the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market). The EC presidency, which rotates among member nations every six months, ...


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The first phase of negotiations aimed at returning self-government to Northern Ireland began in Belfast on June 17, 1991. But the talks were called off on July 3 by British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Brooke in order to prevent a ...


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Canada drew up a tentative agreement on Dec. 16, 1991, to give the Inuit


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In 1991, Norway debated whether to apply for membership in the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market). Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of the Labor Party tried to rally nationwide support for a decision to join, but opinion polls ...


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The province gained its 21st premier on Feb. 26, 1991. Donald Cameron, a former dairy farmer and minister of industry, succeeded interim premier Roger S. Bacon. Cameron was elected to the post at a Progressive Conservative Party (PC) convention on ...


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In an effort to obstruct allied forces during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq allegedly opened Kuwaiti oil tankers, pipelines, and wells in January 1991 and flooded the Persian Gulf with crude oil. Scientists could not determine the exact amount of oil ...


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The recession that began in Canada in April 1990 hit Ontario hard as nearly 226,000 people in the province lost their jobs. This number represented three-fourths of all jobs lost in Canada during this time period. Ontario's unemployment rate climbed ...


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The Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA) that had come to power in a disputed 1990 election consolidated its power in 1991 under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In 25 national and provincial by-elections held on Jan. 10, 1991, the IDA won 19 of 25 seats, ...


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The Postal Rate Commission recommended on Jan. 4, 1991, that the price of a first-class United States stamp be raised from 25 cents to 29 cents. The U.S. Postal Service's Board of Governors had sought an increase to 30 cents but on January 22 accepted ...


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Exporters of one of the province's major agricultural products, potatoes, suffered a severe setback when food inspectors found a virus called PVY-n


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The number of inmates in state and federal prisons in the United States reached a record 804,524 by June 1991, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). However, the growth from June 1990 to June 1991 was the ...


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Highly evangelistic movements of Protestants, mainly from the United States, during 1991 hurried to convert to their faith people in the Soviet Union. This is an area of the world where there are few Protestants. A law passed in the Soviet Union in ...


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High levels of psychological stress substantially increase a person's chances of catching a cold, according to a study published in August 1991. The investigation found a link between mental stress and the functioning of the body's immune system, said ...


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The American Red Cross on May 19, 1991, announced a $100-million program to overhaul its blood bank system in an effort to improve the safety of its blood supplies. Red Cross officials said there had been incidents in which regional centers ...


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President George Bush signed major highway and mass transit legislation in 1991, after months of controversy and delay. The President, the United States Senate, and the House of Representatives each had somewhat different proposals for the ...


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President Turgut ozal in early 1991 offered political support to the United States-led military coalition against Iraq despite overwhelming opposition from Turkey's public, its military establishment, and many of its politicians. ozal had also ...


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The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist as a political entity on Dec. 25, 1991. That day, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev resigned, after six years in power. And the Soviet red flag, with its hammer standing for the workers and its sickle ...


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On Dec. 21, 1991, 11 former republics of the Soviet Union declared themselves the Commonwealth of Independent States and agreed that Russia would take over the Soviet Union's permanent United Nations (UN) Security Council seat. Of the new commonwealth ...


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All three branches of the U.S. government in 1991 were looking ahead to the presidential campaign in 1992. President George Bush and Congress were set to wrestle over controversial issues bypassed in 1991, including taxes, crime, and health care ...


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experienced a change in leadership during 1991. Nguyen Van Linh resigned as general secretary of the ruling Communist Party due to old age and poor health. He was succeeded on June 27 by Do Muoi, the prime minister. On August 9, Vo Van Kiet replaced ...


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Zoologists announced the discovery of a new whale species in February 1991. James G. Mead of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and Koen Van Waerebeck of the Peruvian Center for Cetalogic Studies in Lima, Peru, made the announcement ...


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Zoos and aquariums in the United States experienced many blessed events in 1991, but among the biggest were the births one week apart of two beluga whale calves at the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, during August. The ...


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At a national convention held in Johannesburg on Dec. 20 and 21 ,1991, representatives of some 20 racial, ethnic, and political groups gathered to lay the groundwork for a new constitution for South Africa in 1992. The goal is to give South Africa's ...


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In 1991 prepared for the removal of most trade barriers within the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market) by the end of 1992. In April 1991, the Spanish government removed the last remaining restrictions on moving currency in or out of ...


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Increased charges for cable television prompted the Federal Communications Commission in June 1991 to approve a plan to reregulate cable TV charges in communities having fewer than six broadcast stations. Cable rates, which had increased 61 per cent ...


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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) flew six successful space shuttle missions during 1991 and unveiled its newest shuttle, Endeavor.


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Richard M. Daley won reelection as mayor of Chicago on April 2, 1991, with 71 per cent of the vote. Daley easily defeated R. Eugene Pincham, a former judge and the leader of the Harold Washington Partynamed for Chicago's first black mayor, who ...


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The restructuring of New York City's government, mandated by a 1989 reform of the city charter, was completed in late 1991. On Nov. 5, New York City residents elected representatives to a new, expanded 51-member City Council. Twenty-two, or about 40 ...


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Detroit Police Chief William L. Hart and former Deputy Police Chief Kenneth Weiner were indicted by a federal grand jury on Feb. 11, 1991, for allegedly embezzling $2.6 million from a secret police fund supposedly set up for financing undercover ...


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Bob Lanier, a real estate developer, was elected mayor of Houston in a Dec. 7, 1991, nonpartisan runoff election. Crime was the dominant issue in the campaign and contributed to the defeat of Mayor Kathryn J. Whitmire after 10 years in office. ...


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A sweeping report on the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), released on July 9, 1991, concluded that the department had ignored long-standing violent and racist behavior by a problem group of officers. The report recommended that the ...


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June Rowlands was elected the first woman mayor of Toronto on Nov. 12, 1991. Rowlands, a member of the Liberal Party, captured 60 percent of the vote.


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For the 12,500 banks in the United States, 1991 was a messy, difficult year. Bankers suffered a recession, a dwindling insurance fund for depositors, a wave of big mergers, scandals, and the biggest attempt by Congress to rewrite complex banking laws ...


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Gripped by a continuing recession, the United States construction industry experienced a brief burst of optimism in February 1991. At that time, it appeared that the reconstruction of Kuwait, devastated by its invasion and occupation by Iraqi forces, ...


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Few cities in the United States had much to celebrate in 1991. A prolonged recession stretched financial resources even thinner than in years past, hampering efforts to combat drugs and crime, and to provide better education, health care, and ...


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The world economy in 1991 grew by only about 1 per cent, the smallest advance in nine years. The slowdown largely reflected a stagnant United States economy, which for the first time since 1982 failed to expand.


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President George Bush on Feb. 20, 1991, proposed a new national energy strategy for the United States. The goals of the master plan included increasing domestic energy production and encouraging conservation without increasing taxes or federal ...


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World trade in 1991 expanded by less than 1 per cent and remained at about $3.3 trillion. It was the smallest increase since 1982 and reflected a sluggish world economy, turmoil in the Soviet Union, and the effects of the Persian Gulf War.


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The most important book of American poetry to appear in 1991 was John Ashbery's Flow Chart.


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On Dec. 8, 1991, Puerto Ricans defeated by a 55 to 45 per cent margin a referendum that was supported by those who would like to see the island continue as a commonwealth of the United States in any future vote on Puerto Rico's politicalstatus. The ...


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The province's political parties debated in 1991 the issue of whether Quebec should seek independence from Canada. The Parti Quebecois (PQ) was committed to independence but divided on how to achieve it. At a convention in Quebec City in January, ...


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The collapse of Communist rule in the Soviet Union and ongoing political changes in eastern Europe continued to have an impact on religion. Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania relaxed restrictions on religion. Albania, ...


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The elections of Nov. 5, 1991, provided three notable bright spots for the Republican Party (GOP)in Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia. But one race, for a United States Senate seat from Pennsylvania, resulted in a stunning defeat with ...


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The leadership of major United States theaters underwent a number of changes in 1991. One of the year's saddest and most dramatic events was the death of producer Joseph Papp on October 31.


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A stunning track and field performance was given in 1991 by Mike Powell, a long jumper from Alta Loma, Calif., who shattered the oldest world record. In the 100-meter dash, Carl Lewis of Houston lost the world record and then regained it. This ...


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For the lower 48 states in the United States, 1991 was one of the warmest years in recent history. Continuing a trend that began in the 1970's, above-normal temperatures prevailed during eight of the first nine months of the year, with the highest ...


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The United States Bureau of the Census reported in September 1991 that the number of people living in poverty in the United States increased for the first time since 1983. People living below the poverty line increased to 33.6 million in 1990 from ...


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Leaders of 13 Caribbean nations met from July 1 to 4, 1991, at Basseterre in St. Christopher (commonly called St. Kitts) to review their progress toward creating a fully integrated common market by 1994. At the meeting, President Carlos Andres Perez ...


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Yugoslavia was torn apart by a bloody civil war during 1991, after a year of escalating violence between the country's two largest nationality groups, Serbs and Croats. Yugoslavia's breakup had struck many observers as inevitable after the death in ...


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New negotiations in 1991 between the Canadian federal and territorial governments and the Yukon's 14 bands of Indians involved land rights and self-government. By year's end, four bands expected to sign contracts specifying their land rights. Bands ...


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President Mobutu Sese Seko in 1991 faced the greatest challenge ever posed to his rule. Although Mobutu, Zaire's ruler since 1965, had promised in 1990 to allow multiparty democracy in Zaire, he used many tactics in 1991 to keep from making good on ...


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On the evening of Jan. 16, 1991, more Americans were watching a single television broadcast than they had at any other time in history. Hours before, a United States-led international coalition had started bombing Iraq, and President George Bush, in a ...


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Voters on Oct. 21, 1991, ousted the ruling Progressive Conservative Party (PC) led by Tory Premier Grant Devine. They voted in the New Democratic Party (NDP) led by Roy Romanow, a middle-of-the-road leader who promised fiscal responsibility. The NDP ...


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The United States farm economy in 1991 was dominated by purchases made by the former Soviet Union as that country's political structure and economy unraveled. The farm industry was also embroiled in an environmental controversy over federal regulation ...


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When the unorthodox shock program she had put into place in 1990 failed to revitalize Brazil's economy, 37-year-old Zelia Cardoso de Mello, the nation's first female economy minister, resigned on May 8, 1991. Brazilian President Fernando Collor de ...


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Retail toy sales in the United States for 1991 registered only a 3 per cent rise over 1990 sales. Industry analysts blamed the Persian Gulf War, the economic recession, and high unemployment for shoppers' unwillingness to spend money. Video games were ...


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International efforts to find a political solution to Afghanistan's civil war accelerated in 1991 as the collapsing Soviet Union reduced the military and economic support that had sustained the Afghan regime. Because it had been dependent on the ...


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Sharon Pratt Dixon, a Democrat and former utility company executive, was sworn in as Washington's mayor on Jan. 2, 1991. Dixon, 46, was the third person to be elected to that post since the District obtained home rule from Congress in 1974. She also ...


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Controversy swirled in 1991 around the accuracy of the 1990 Census of Population conducted by the United States Bureau of the Census. In April 1991, a Census Bureau survey of 165,000 households estimated that the 1990 census had missed 4 million to 6 ...


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Canada's recession hit the Montreal business community hard during 1991. More than 10,000 business executives in Montreal's downtown area lost their jobs. In the industrial sector, unemployment increased from 9.4 per cent in January to 12 per cent in ...


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The world's petroleum industry was affected by a series of political and economic crises throughout 1991. An attempted military coup in August in the Soviet Union, the world's largest oil producer, sent oil prices sharply higher for a few days. On ...


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In 1991, the population of the world reached 5.4 billion and was growing faster than ever before, with 250,000 babies being born every day. When the United Nations Fund for Population Activities released these statistics in May, it also reported that ...


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The first phase of the Great Man-Made River, a huge project for bringing water from beneath the Sahara Desert to Libya's coast was unveiled by Libyan leader Muammar Muhammad al-Qadhafi on Aug. 28, 1991. Despite its name, the project is actually a ...


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On Nov. 5, 1991, Edward G. Rendell, a former district attorney, was elected mayor of Philadelphia. Rendell, a Democrat, won in a 2 to 1 landslide. One of his major pledges was to return Philadelphia, which had been reeling from budgetary woes in ...


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Isaac Asimov died in 1992. He left a profound literary legacy in the fields of science fiction, popular science, and children's nonfictionamong others.


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Marlene Dietrich, who died in 1992, transcended her remarkable film and cabaret careers to become a cultural icon.


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National borders may have changed, but the Olympic spirit endured as the world's best athletes performed in France and Spain.


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Events and trends in Africa in 1992 were a blend of movement toward, and stubborn resistance to, more democratic government; war and efforts to bring peace; and continuing economic, climatic, and health problems. World attention was drawn to the ...


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There were reports in 1992 of an AIDS-like disease that did not show evidence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. The accounts first circulated at the Eighth International Conference on AIDS, held from July 19-24 in ...


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Albania underwent a political transformation in 1992. In March, the Democratic Party (DP) won a majority in national elections and emerged to form the country's first elected non-Communist government since Communist rule began in 1944. But the ...


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Ralph Klein, a former mayor of Calgary, was chosen to lead Alberta's Progressive Conservative Party on Dec. 5, 1992, after Premier Donald R. Getty announced his resignation on September 9. Klein was sworn into office on December 14.


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Political upheaval followed the unexpected resignation of President ChadIi Bendjedid on Jan. 11, 1992. Three days later, military leaders established a five-member ruling council headed by Mohammed Boudiaf, a hero of Algeria's war of independence from ...


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An ongoing debate over the origins of modern human beings remained intense in 1992. Two studies published in February strongly challenged a landmark genetic study that traced the origin of all modern people to a hypothetical woman living in Africa ...


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A bronze foot found on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea off Brindisi in southern Italy in July 1992 led archaeologists to one of the most important discoveries of ancient Greek and Roman statues ever made. At the site, archaeologists uncovered a ...


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The slow economy in the United States cast an even longer shadow over architecture in 1992 than it had in 1991, and contracts for major new projects were scarce. Growing uncertainty about the economic stability of the 12-nation European Community also ...


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Continuing its fight against inflation, Argentina began 1992 with a new currency, its fifth since 1971. The new currency unit, the peso, replaced the austral, which had dropped to an exchange rate of 10,000 to $1 U.S. because of hyperinflation. To ...


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Troubled was the word that best described the global automobile industry in 1992, dragged down by an economic slump that hit all of the major industrial countries. But as usual, most automakers persevered and continued introducing ...


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Al Unser, Jr., and Michael Andretti, 30-year-old sons of the legendary drivers Al Unser and Mario Andretti, won major honors in 1992 in American auto racing's IndyCar series. Nigel ManseIl, a 39-year-old Briton, won the world drivers' championship. ...


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The major airlines in the United States struggled through a financially disastrous year in 1992, with losses projected at almost $2 billion. That meant that losses for 1990 through 1992 totaled almost $8 billion. The red ink, which experts blamed on ...


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While continuing to face the problem of providing for its own impoverished people, Bangladesh in 1992 also had to deal with refugees from neighboring Burma (also called Myanmar). Thousands of Muslims began leaving Burma in late 1989 to escape a brutal ...


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In a traumatic 1992 season, major league club owners took control of the game from Francis (Fay) Vincent, Jr., the commissioner they elected in 1989. They forced Vincent to resign on Sept. 7, 1992, and prepared to restructure the office so that the ...


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The Chicago Bulls won the 1992 National Basketball Association (NBA) championship, and Duke University won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's title, each for the second consecutive year. Stanford University captured the NCAA ...


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George Herbert Walker Bush (1924- ), 41st President of the United States, lost his bid for a second term in 1992 to the Democratic challenger, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, in the November 3 election. Bush accepted defeat with good grace. The ...


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President-elect Bill Clinton in late 1992, preparing for his move into the White House in January 1993, began making appointments to his Cabinet. On December 10, he nominated Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr., (D., Tex.) as secretary of the Treasury and ...


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A United Nations (UN) force of about 16,000 troops, 3,600 police monitors, and 2,400 civilian administrators was deployed in Cambodia during 1992 in the most ambitious peacekeeping operation ever undertaken by the UN. The aim of the forces, named the ...


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With Canada's next federal election due in 1993 and the discussion over proposed changes to the nation's Constitution, books on Canada's history and political process were in abundance in 1992. Canada My Canada,


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Chemists at the University of California at Irvine in August 1992 reported creating the world's smallest battery, measuring about a millionth of an inch across. It was made using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM), a device that can manipulate ...


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In 1992, the chess world was enlivened by the sudden reappearance of chess genius Bobby Fischer. Fischer returned from a self-imposed 20-year exile to battle old rival Boris Spassky for a $5-million purse. In 1972, Fischer defeated Spassky for the ...


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The United States and Russia agreed on June 16 to the most massive arms cuts in the 40-year history of the nuclear age. The historic agreement seemed to confirm the end of the Cold War and the policy of massive deterrence that had dominated U.S. ...


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In 1992 Armenia continued its conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan that is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians. The conflict had begun in 1988, after Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh demanded that the Soviet ...


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The ailing economy in the United States continued to bruise the art world in 1992. Private galleries continued to close, and public art facilities had to tighten their belts. But it was a surprisingly vigorous year for museum construction and ...


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The most exciting announcement of 1992 in astronomy occurred in April, when astrophysicist George Smoot of the University of California at Berkeley reported data showing variations in temperature in the microwave background radiation that permeates ...


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in 1992 endured its third consecutive year of deep recession. The most fundamental economic problem was unemployment, which reached a record 11.4 per cent in November and remained well above 10 per cent for the entire year. The industries hardest hit ...


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Austria elected Thomas Klestil of the conservative Austrian People's Party as its president on May 24, 1992. This ended six years of diplomatic isolation for Austria under former President Kurt Waldheim, who was alleged to have been involved in Nazi ...


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The sequoia tree and the blue whale, long contenders for the title of the Earth's largest living organism, both took a back seat to the lowly fungus in 1992. In April, researchers from the University of Toronto in Mississauga, Ontario, and the ...


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The most expensive campaign in the history of yachting ended in May 1992 when America3


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Bosnia and Hercegovina proclaimed its independence from Yugoslavia on March 3, 1992. But the new nation, which is often called simply Bosnia, immediately became engulfed in a civil war that divided the country along ethnic lines and threatened its ...


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Marc McDowell of Madison, Wis., emerged in 1992 as a high achiever on and off the lanes. The 29-year-old bowling champion spent much of his time on his duties as the president of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) in Akron, Ohio, which ...


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Riddick Bowe convincingly defeated champion Evander Holyfield on Nov. 13, 1992, to capture the world heavyweight title. Both fighters entered the bout undefeated, but Bowe tallied more points on each of the three judges' scorecards to remain unbeaten ...


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The New Democratic Party (NDP) government, led by Premier Michael Harcourt, unveiled a series of measures in 1992 to protect the Pacific coast province's spectacular environment. In January, the NDP established a commission on land use to draw up a ...


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The armed forces that have run Burma (officially called Myanmar) since 1962 changed leaders on April 23, 1992. General Saw Maung stepped down as chairman of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). The SLORC is the ruling body created by ...


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President Patricio Aylwin Azocar in 1992 continued to struggle against the influence of the Chilean armed forces. Significant political power remained with former Chilean military dictator General Augusto Pinochet, who can remain as head of the ...


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Deng Xiaoping, China's senior leader, in 1992 stepped up his drive for market-oriented economic reforms while maintaining the Communist Party's grip on political power. Deng holds no official position in the country but dominates policymaking by the ...


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Riots erupted in Los Angeles, several surrounding communities, and other United States cities on April 29, 1992, after an almost all-white jury acquitted four white Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers of all charges but one in the beating of ...


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Worldwide festivities celebrating the 200th anniversary of the death of Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791 lingered into 1992. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for example, brought its Mozart honors to a close in February with cycles of ...


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On July 22, 1992, Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the billionaire drug kingpin who surrendered to Colombian authorities in 1991, escaped with his brother and eight other inmates from a prison in Envigado, Colombia. During his imprisonment, Escobar continued to ...


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Price wars for personal computers heated up in 1992, as the industry leadersInternational Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Apple Computer Company, and Compaq Computertried to regain ground lost to makers of lower-priced ...


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Although many United States dance companies were affected by the ailing U.S. economy, none was as hard hit in 1992 as was the American Ballet Theater (ABT), which is based in New York City. In May, the ABT's codirector Jane Hermann unexpectedly ...


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The presidential election victory of Bill Clinton, Democratic governor of Arkansas, on Nov. 3, 1992, marked only the second time in 24 years that a Democrat had captured the White House. It ended, at least for the moment, a widespread belief that ...


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In 1992, Denmark threw a roadblock across plans of the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market) for rapid economic and political union. In a national referendum on June 2, Danish voters rejected the so-called Maastricht Treaty, the EC's ...


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The first phase of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) went into effect on Jan. 26, 1992. As of that date, businesses open to the public, such as stores, hotels, and restaurants, and employing more than 25 people had to make reasonable ...


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Statistics released in May 1992 by the United States Department of Health and Human Services showed that for three straight quarters, hospitals in 21 U.S. cities reported an increase in the number of people receiving emergency room treatment for ...


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The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 1992 approved a new drug for fighting AIDS. The drug, known as DDC, joins AZT and DDI as the only approved AIDS drugs.


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Representatives from 178 countriesincluding 116 heads of stategathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from June 3 to 14, 1992, to discuss the future of Earth's environment at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, ...


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Estonia faced a severe fuel shortage in January 1992, after Russia, its main fuel supplier, raised its crude oil prices to world market levels. Food was also scarce, partly because of Russian cuts in wheat exports. The crisis led to the resignation of ...


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With the end of the civil war and the overthrow of the regime of President Mengistu Haile-Mariam in 1991, Ethiopians had high expectations in early 1992 that better times were at hand. They hoped that the new government would find solutions to the ...


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Many styles of clothing in 1992 were quiet and subdued. The most popular color for the fall season, fashion's most important time of the year, was black. The major change in clothes was a lengthening hemline. Because of the sluggish economy, young ...


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The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) on April 28, 1992, approved the Food Guide Pyramid as the basic guide for good eating habits. The pyramid replaced the traditional food wheel that depicted four food groups, ranked in no particular ...


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Dramatic changes came to professional and college football in 1992. The professional game, without a collective-bargaining agreement between club owners and players since 1987, came closer to adopting a system that would eventually grant free agency


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During 1992, Greece worked to strengthen its ailing economy in preparation for increased economic and political integration within the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market). Meanwhile, it maintained a stand-off with the EC and other ...


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Peace talks between the Guatemalan government and the National Revolutionary Union, the country's main armed opposition group, continued in 1992. However, they produced no formal peace agreement to end the civil war that has claimed at least 100,000 ...


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On June 19, Haiti's military leaders installed Marc L. Bazin, 60, as prime minister. A former World Bank official, Bazin replaced Joseph Nerette, who was installed as the country's interim president following the September 1991 military coup that ...


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High levels of iron in the body may play an important role in causing heart attacks, researchers from Finland reported in September 1992. American heart disease experts praised the study, but they emphasized that much additional research was needed to ...


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In a tumultuous 1991-1992 season marked by a first-ever players' strike and the ousting of the league president, the Pittsburgh Penguins emerged as the National Hockey League (NHL) champions. Even though they finished only third in their division ...


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The thoroughbreds who attracted the most attention in 1992 were the 3-year-old coltsA. P. Indy, who won the Breeders' Cup Classic, and Arazi, the would-be superstar who never lived up to expectations. The leading harness horse was Artsplace, a ...


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Supporters of President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani won a majority of the seats in Iran's 270-seat parliament in elections held in April and May 1992. Some Middle East analysts suggested that the victory of these candidates, who generally favor ...


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Iraq's President Saddam Hussein held on to power in 1992 despite deteriorating economic conditions resulting from a 1990 United Nations (UN) trade embargo and diplomatic and military efforts by Western countries to dislodge him.


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Prime Minister Charles Haughey, tainted by financial scandals involving friends, resigned Feb. 10, 1992. He had been prime minister since January 1989, though he was first elected to the office in December 1979. Since then, his terms as prime minister ...


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Political gains and losses and the emergence of the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union dominated the Muslim world in 1992. Governments in some Muslim countries tightened their control in the face of vibrant opposition by Islamic activists.


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Italy encountered serious political, social, and economic problems in 1992. A new president and a new prime minister took office and began to grapple with the seemingly insoluble problems of organized crime, an economy deeply in debt, government ...


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What was shaping up to be the biggest political scandal in Japanese history rocked the country in 1992. In February, investigators raided the offices of the country's second-largest parcel-delivery firm, Tokyo Sagawa Kyubin Company, long rumored to be ...


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Deteriorating economic conditions and election turmoil in 1992 threatened the fragile political stability that had prevailed in Lebanon since the end of that country's 16-year civil war in 1991.


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The promise of peace in Liberia seemed real at the beginning of 1992 but proved to be illusory. Fighting resumed despite the presence of troops from a five-nation west African peacekeeping force. The resumption of hostilities was due largely to ...


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Disasterscaused by both natural forces and human activityhit libraries in the United States in 1992. Hurricane Andrew assaulted southern Florida on August 24, causing about $20 million in damages to the Miami-Dade County Public Library ...


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A five-month standoff between Libya and three Western countries over international terrorism led the United Nations (UN) Security Council on March 31, 1992, to approve a resolution imposing limited economic sanctions against Libya. The action followed ...


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A wide range of literature in English was published outside the United States and Canada in 1992. In addition, large numbers of works were translated from other languages.


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Children's literature published in 1992 featured a large number of books about Christopher Columbus, in observance of the 500th anniversary of his first landing in the Americas. Picture books continued to be plentiful, as did books on multicultural ...


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Works by black American writers were at the forefront of American literature in 1992. These books included a range of fiction as well as criticism, essays, and other works.


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Scandal, reelection jitters, and veto battles with President George Bush marked the 1992 session of the 102nd Congress. As a result, Congress's accomplishments in 1992 were limited.


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The Endangered Species Act (ESA), scheduled for renewal in 1992, seemed endangered itself. Conservation groups advocated strengthening the act, which was designed to protect plant and animal species threatened with extinction. The Adminis-tration of ...


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In a decision hailed by advocates of children's rights, a judge in Orlando, Fla., ruled on July 9, 1992, that an 11-year-old boy had the right to sue his parents for a divorce. Circuit Court Judge Thomas S. Kirk said the boy, Gregory ...


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On March 8, 1992, the United Nations (UN) began deploying peacekeeping troops in Croatia. The move effectively ended the war launched by Serbia, the dominant republic of Yugoslavia, after Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991.


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The Cuban economy continued to falter in 1992, the first full year without financial aid from the former Soviet Union. Increased shortages of everything from cooking oil to gasoline inspired increasing numbers of Cubans to flee the island.


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Czechoslovakia in 1992 agreed that the federation, which had united Czechs and Slovaks in one state since 1918, would cease to exist as of Jan. 1, 1993. On Nov. 25, 1992, the Federal Assembly (parliament) approved legislation under which the Czech and ...


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The Serbian Orthodox Church issued an open letter on May 28, 1992, condemning Serbian government policies that it said promoted fratricidal fighting among Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in the former republics of Yugoslavia. The Orthodox ...


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Mounting frustration with the performance of public schools in the United States led to renewed debate in 1992 over education reforms. A report published in February by the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., revealed that after a decade ...


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In early 1992, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak tried to promote Islamic values in an unsuccessful attempt to reduce tensions between the government and Islamic fundamentalists, who believe Islamic law should be the basis of Egypt's legal system. The ...


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On Feb. 1, 1992, a cease-fire went into effect that effectively ended El Salvador's 12-year civil war, which had claimed an estimated 75,000 lives. Salvadorans formally marked the end of the civil war on December 15 after the Farabundo Marti National ...


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Democrat Bill Clinton, five-term governor of Arkansas, was elected 42nd President of the United States on Nov. 3, 1992. Clinton defeated the incumbent, Republican President George Bush, by an Electoral College landslide but by only five percentage ...


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The compact disc (CD) solidified its hold as the medium of choice in the electronics industry in 1992. And computer technology made deeper forays into consumer electronics as more products used CD-ROM (read-only memory), a device typically used in ...


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France was hit by unexpected political turbulence in 1992. Much of the turmoil surrounded the country's central role in promoting closer economic and political unity within the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market). In the meantime, the ...


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Four large earthquakes registering at least 6.3 on the Richter scale and a number of strong aftershocks shook California in 1992. On April 25, an earthquake registering 7.1 struck northern California about 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Eureka near ...


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When 1992 began, Georgia was in the midst of civil war, as opponents and supporters of Georgian President Zviad K. Gamsakhurdia battled each other in Tbilisi, the nation's capital. The fighting had begun on Dec. 22, 1991, three days before the Soviet ...


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In 1992, the second year after East and West Germany became one country in October 1990, the high cost of unification remained a central issue. The country struggled to maintain its status as Europe's strongest economy. It also confronted difficult ...


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Fred Couples, Davis Love III, and John Cook won major honors in 1992 on the men's professional tour. Lee Trevino, despite painful torn ligaments in his left thumb, dominated the senior tour. Dottie Mochrie, Betsy King, and Danielle Ammaccapane were ...


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Marital problems made 1992 one of the worst years for the British royal family. Speculation that the 1981 marriage of Charles, Queen Elizabeth II's eldest son and heir to the throne, and Princess Diana was in difficulties ended on Dec. 9, 1992, when ...


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The governing coalition headed by the Hungarian Democratic Forum (HDF) began its third year in power in May 1992. The HDF faced a growing rift within its own ranks, as well as increasingly energetic political opposition and a loss of public support ...


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Kristi Yamaguchi of Fremont, Calif., and Viktor Petrenko of Ukraine swept the figure-skating singles titles in 1992 in the Winter Olympics and the world championships. In speed skating, the year's major winners were two womenBonnie Blair of ...


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United States President George Bush set off months of controversy in 1992 by cracking down on an influx of boat people from Haiti. The Haitians were seeking asylum in the United States. Haitians began making boat journeys to the mainland ...


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Hindu fundamentalists on December 6 tore down a 430-year-old Muslim mosque, setting off riots throughout the country between Hindus and Muslims. The mosque had been located in the city of Ayodhya in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Within a week, ...


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Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D., Colo.), the only Native American serving in the Congress of the United States, on Nov. 3, 1992, became the first Native American to win a seat in the U.S. Senate since 1929. Campbell, who had served in the House of ...


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Repercussions from the 1991 massacre of demonstrators calling for independence for East Timor continued in 1992. The massacre by Indonesian soldiers had taken place on Nov. 12, 1991, at the funeral of an independence advocate in Dili, the capital of ...


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Strong pro-Iraqi and anti-American sentiments among Jordanians complicated efforts by King Hussein I in 1992 to ease Jordan's diplomatic isolation. Relations with many Western nations and some Persian Gulf states, angry over Jordan's support for Iraq ...


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The Jewish community in 1992 commemorated a major historical event of 500 years earlierthe expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 by a royal edict of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Perhaps the most important commemoration took place in Madrid, ...


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Kazakhstan enjoyed relative political and economic stability in 1992, in comparison with many of the other 11 former Soviet republics that became independent when the Soviet Union was dissolved in late December 1991. Throughout 1992, Kazakh President ...


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Political opponents of Kuwait's ruling Sabah family made a strong showing in national parliamentary elections held on Oct. 5, 1992. Opposition candidates captured 31 of 50 seats in Kuwait's National Assembly in that country's first parliamentary ...


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The United States economy in 1992 continued to limp out of a recession that began in July 1990. During the first two years of the recession, the nation lost 1.5 million jobs in the manufacturing, construction, and mining sectors. There were also heavy ...


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Latvia enjoyed political stability during 1992, its first year of independence. Latvia had declared independence from the Soviet Union in September 1991. But the country faced hurdles in its efforts to disentangle its economy from that of the former ...


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Lithuania returned former Communists to power in elections held on Oct. 25, 1992. The Democratic Labor Party (DLP), formerly the Communist Party, defeated the governing Sajudis, the Lithuanian nationalist movement. The DLP gained an absolute ...


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The biggest news in magazines in 1992 came in June when The


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The United Malays National Organization (UMNO), Malaysia's ruling party, in 1992 moved to curb the power of the hereditary rulers who head 9 of Malaysia's 13 state governments. Although they are not part of the elected governments, the nine sultans ...


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The federal House of Commons on March 10, 1992, passed a resolution honoring Louis Riel, the metis


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The manufacturing sector, which slumped badly in the last quarter of 1991, continued to sputter throughout 1992. According to a regional summary of United States business activity by the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), which sets the country's ...


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The world's first transplant of a baboon liver into a human being was carried out by surgeons at the University of Pittsburgh (Pa.) Medical Center on June 28, 1992. The patient was a 35-year-old man whose own liver was being destroyed by hepatitis B, ...


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Psychiatric facilities for people with mental illness are so scarce in the United States that jails have begun to serve as the nation's largest mental institution, a study concluded in September 1992. The study, which tabulated data from 1,391 local ...


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Publishers did not have to look far for bad news in 1992. The newspaper industry suffered through its third year of poor advertising sales and flat circulation numbers. In addition, several newspapers were affected by natural disasters, rioting, and ...


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Nicaraguan President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro drew criticism at home and abroad in 1992 for her failure to remove the leaders of the army and the police, who had been supporters of the previous Marxist Sandinista regime. Among her critics were the ...


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The military government of President Ibrahim Babangida proceeded throughout most of 1992 with its plan to return Nigeria to civilian rule. But by November, that plan had been derailed by rising tension and violence and continuing problems with the ...


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Nobel prizes in literature, peace, economics, and the sciences were awarded in October 1992 by the Norwegian Storting (parliament) in Oslo and by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Karolinska Institute, and the Swedish Academy of Literature in ...


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Negotiations to restore self-government to Northern Ireland and end years of violence between the nation's Protestants and Roman Catholics made some progress in 1992. The British government wanted a new regional government for Northern Ireland based ...


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In a November 1992 referendum, 69 per cent of the Inuit


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In 1992, Norway continued to move on a measured timetable toward membership in the European Community (EC or Common Market), despite political problems at home and in the EC. The country formally applied for EC membership on November 25. The move ...


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On Sept. 22, 1992, President Alberto Fujimori predicted victory in an armed struggle that had cost Peru an estimated 25,000 lives, $22 billion in damages, and 12 years of civil strife. His assessment followed the September 12 capture of Abimael Guzman ...


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Fidel V. Ramos, a 64-year-old retired general and former defense secretary, on June 30, 1992, was inaugurated as the new president of the Philippines. Ramos garnered about 24 per cent of the votes in May 1992 elections, beating six other contenders. ...


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Scientists in April 1992 announced the discovery of the long-sought cosmic seeds needed to start the formation of stars and galaxies in the early universe after the big bang. The team studied data from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) ...


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Political infighting and a weak government clouded progress toward economic and political reform in Poland in the first half of 1992. But a hopeful turn came with the formation in July of a new government and the resolution of conflicts between ...


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Even the popular music industry was not immune from the 1992 presidential election campaign in the United States. In June, Democratic candidate Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas criticized rap artist Sister Souljah for allegedly racist remarks she ...


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Portugal in 1992 felt both the benefits and complications of its membership in the European Community (EC or Common Market). In April, Portugal linked the value of its currency, the escudo, to that of the German mark and other currencies in the ...


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The North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada was signed by Mexico on Aug. 12, 1992. Trade representatives from the United States and Canada signed the agreement on the same day. To many Mexicans, the successful ...


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Pressured by economic woes and demands for political reforms, the government of King Hassan II held a referendum on a new Constitution on Sept. 3, 1992. Voters overwhelmingly approved the Constitution, which expands parliament's powers. Government ...


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Three promising directors made their debuts in 1992: Carl Franklin, Quentin Tarantino, and Allison Anders. Franklin directed One False Move,


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The year 1992 was marked in the Netherlands by difficult economic times and by concern for the future of the Maastricht Treaty, a blueprint for European economic and political union named for the Dutch city where it was approved in December 1991. The ...


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Premier Frank J. McKenna's government in 1992 faced official opposition for the first time in four years. The Liberal Party, which once held all 58 seats in the legislature, had lost 12 seats to three other parties in the September 1991 elections.


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The largest single layoff in Canadian history hit Newfoundland in July 1992 when federal Fisheries Minister John Crosbie announced a two-year shut-down of the inshore cod fishery located on the province's east coast. The fishery supported about 20,000 ...


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An explosion of methane gas deep underground at the Westray Mine in Plymouth killed 26 miners on May 9, 1992. The mine, located in Pictou County along the Foord Seam, holds the world's largest depository of bituminous coalas well as high levels ...


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The most advanced space mission ever designed to study ocean currents was launched in 1992. The Topex-Poseidon mission is a joint project undertaken by the United States and France. The European Ariane rocket, launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on ...


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Hit hard by the economic recession, Canada's leading manufacturing province tightened spending for public services in 1992. Premier Robert K. Rae, head of the New Democratic Party (NDP) government, went on television on January 21 to announce stiff ...


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American Samoa and Western Samoa, hit hard by Typhoon Val early in December 1991, recovered in 1992 from the storm's devastation. Lasting for five days, Val was the worst typhoon to hit the region in 30 years, leaving thousands homeless and destroying ...


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In 1992, Pakistan suffered the worst floods in its history. Heavy rains in the Himalaya in early September swelled rivers in northern Pakistan. To relieve pressure on dams, floodgates were opened, devastating hundreds of villages and farms. At least ...


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The discovery of six transitional species of dinosaurs in Montana, reported in July 1992, has helped paleontologists determine that dinosaurs living in that area about 75 million years ago were the descendants of earlier inhabitants and not migrants ...


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On February 28, 1992, Anthony M. Frank resigned as postmaster general, a position he had held since 1988. During his tenure, Frank often clashed with postal unions, but he was credited with persuading the unions to accept automation and a reduction in ...


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Islanders were stunned on Oct. 30, 1992, when Premier Joseph Ghiz announced he was resigning his post for personal reasons. Ghiz had been a strong supporter of Canada's failed constitutional reform package and the controversial free trade agreement ...


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The largest number of executions in the United States since 1962 took place in 1992. On October 21, the number reached 26 with the execution of Ricky Lee Grubbs in Missouri. In 1987, the death penalty was enforced 25 times, and in 1962, it was used 47 ...


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Although Protestant religious groups did not openly endorse a candidate in the 1992 presidential campaign, they were a factor in the elections. The Republican and Democratic candidates for President and Vice President were all members of Protestant ...


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People experience more nightmares in the weeks following a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, than they usually experience. But those nightmares pack a surprisingly modest emotional punch, psychologists reported in May 1992.


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Citing increased concern about the effects of exposure to lead, United States health officials in September 1992 ordered that millions of children covered by the Medicaid program be tested for lead poisoning. Lead poisoning can cause mental ...


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Russia remained in a state of political, economic, and social transition through 1992. The country, formerly the dominant republic of the Soviet Union, had become independent when the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991. The newly sovereign ...


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Some types of soft cheeses may not be safe for pregnant women, the elderly, and people suffering from certain medical conditions that weaken the immune system. Such people are at risk of developing a rare but potentially fatal form of food poisoning ...


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After a decade of drought, the central prairie province experienced a disastrously wet and cold summer in 1992, resulting in a projected $1-billion ($802-million U.S.) loss in the grain crop. By mid-September, only 23 per cent of the crop had been ...


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Increasingly vocal Islamic activists in Saudi Arabia in 1992 criticized the pro-Western policies of the government and its attempts to modernize Saudi society. The country's Islamic religious establishment, which has traditionally supported the ...


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The United States National Team, looking forward to the 1994 World Cup on home soil, made progress in 1992. But the collapse in July 1992 of the Major Soccer League (MSL), the only nationwide professional league, set American soccer back.


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Monthly social security benefits were set to increase by 3 per cent on Jan. 1, 1993, boosting the average monthly check by $19, to $653 from $634. At the same time, the maximum wage subject to the 6.2 per cent social security payroll tax was to rise ...


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The major concern for state governments in 1992 was avoiding big budget cuts or tax hikes that would upset voters in an election year. The resulting tight budgets meant that states lacked the funds to launch new programswith the exceptions of ...


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In 1992, financial markets in the United States and around the world struggled with faltering economies and the worst job market in years. In the United States, the markets were also skittish for much of the year from uncertainty over the outcome of ...


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Hasan al-Turabi, leader of the National Islamic Front party, in 1992 intensified the government's drive to impose Islam and Islamic law and culture on Sudan. Although former General Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir serves as prime minister, Al-Turabi is ...


Title:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (1992)

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The Supreme Court of the United States ended its 1991-1992 term on June 29 with a key abortion decision, affirming that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman's right to have an abortion but broadening the restrictions states can impose on the ...


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In 1992, Sweden moved ahead with plans to reduce generous government benefits and heavy government involvement in the economy. But it encountered some serious problems along the way. A currency crisis in September forced the coalition government of ...


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The United States remained the world's strongest nation in swimming in 1992. American men and women swimmers ranked first in Olympic medals with a total of 27, 11 of them gold medals. Americans also broke six world records and tied one during the ...


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In 1992, Thailand experienced its worst civil unrest since 1973. The National Peacekeeping Council (NPC), set up by the military after its February 1991 coup, held its first parliamentary elections on March 22, 1992. A coalition of five promilitary ...


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Live theater in the United Stateswhich has never enjoyed the popularity it has in Europelooked increasingly threatened in 1992 by both economic forces and changing tastes. Of particular concern was the threat faced by professional ...


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Among track and field athletes, none seemed surer to win gold medals in the Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, from July 25 to Aug. 9, 1992, than decathlete Dan O'Brien of Moscow, Ida., and pole vaulter Sergei Bubka of the Unified Team. Both ...


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The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, passed by the Congress of the United States in 1991, allocated $5.8 billion in federal funds for transit in 1992. However, the recession and a desire to bring the federal deficit under control led ...


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Turkey's domestic and foreign affairs in 1992 were buffeted by a deadly escalation in the continuing battle between government forces and Kurds fighting for a separate state in southeastern Turkey. Clashes between the government and the Kurds ...


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Ukraine in 1992 made little headway in transforming its economy from a Communist system to a free-market one. Political struggles, as well as a number of disputes with neighboring Russia, slowed progress toward economic reform during the country's ...


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The United Nations (UN) Security Council on Jan. 31, 1992, held its first-ever summit meeting with the leaders of each of its 15 member nations. The summit addressed the role of the UN in the post-Cold War period and noted that the meeting was being ...


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For yet another year, the United States government had to contend with a sagging economy and a record budget deficit. Those persistent problems and election-year politics overshadowed most other concerns of the federal government in 1992.


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President Carlos Andres Perez weathered two attempted coups in 1992. Rebellious officers led both uprisings, the first on February 4 and the second on November 27.


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The National Assembly, Vietnam's law-making body, adopted a new Constitution on April 15, 1992. The document recast the country's executive branch and fortified the market-oriented economic reforms undertaken in the mid-1980's. The Constitution said ...


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The year 1992 began with the warmest winter on record in the contiguous United States, surpassing by nearly 1 Fahrenheit degree (0.5 Celsius degree) the previous record set in the winter of 1953-1954. Above-normal temperatures prevailed in every major ...


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The number of Americans living in poverty increased for the second straight year in 1991, the United States Bureau of the Census reported in September 1992. The tally showed 35.7 million impoverished Americans, up from 33.6 million in 1990. The 1991 ...


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Belgium in 1992 continued on its path toward a less centralized system of government that would place most political and economic power in the hands of the country's three economic regionsFlanders, Wallonia, and Brussels. The process, known as ...


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Much of Asia in 1992 pursued economic change with varied success. Civil wars and rebel insurgencies were obstacles to progress in a few countries.


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Israel's Labor Party won a strong victory in national parliamentary elections held on June 23, 1992. The victory gave Labor, led by Yitzhak Rabin, control of Israel's government for the first time since 1977. Many people hailed Rabin's rise to prime ...


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In a referendum held on Oct. 26, 1992, Canadians voted down proposed amendments to the nation's Constitution. In a 55 per cent to 45 per cent vote, Canadians rejected the Charlottetown Accord that had been jointly fashioned by the federal government, ...


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Agricultural trade talks broke new ground in 1992. The United States and the European Community (EC) in November reached an agricultural accord that resolved an impasse of six years in global trade talks. And the United States, Mexico, and Canada in ...


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Brazilians had their eyes glued to television sets on Sept. 29, 1992, as the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Brazil's Congress, impeached President Fernando Collor de Mello on charges of corruption. The vote was 441 to 38. Collor was formally ...


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Pedro Rossello of the New Progressive Party was elected governor of Puerto Rico in November 1992. Rossello, a pediatric surgeon with no previous political experience, was to take office in January 1993. He pledged an early plebiscite on whether Puerto ...


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More than 5,000 Quebecers marched in Montreal on Oct. 24, 1992, demonstrating opposition to proposed revisions to Canada's Constitution and foreshadowing the No vote Quebec delivered two days later. All but four of Canada's provinces voted ...


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Religious differences were at the root of a number of conflicts in the world in 1992. The main new trouble spot was Yugoslavia. Under a Communist government, Yugoslavia had suppressed ancient ethnic and religious rivalries. When freedom came with the ...


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President George Bush was defeated in the election of Nov. 3, 1992, marking the end of a 12-year grip on the United States presidency by the Republican Party (GOP). The balloting also ended GOP hopes of scoring big gains in Congress. Although the ...


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Pope John Paul II underwent surgery in Rome on July 15, 1992, to remove his gall bladder and a tumor from his colon. Some cells in the tumor were in the process of becoming malignant, but physicians said these cells had not yet invaded intestinal ...


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Elections on Sept. 27 and Oct. 11, 1992, returned former Communist Party official Ion Iliescu to a second term as Romania's president. But in parliamentary elections, none of the 80 competing parties received enough votes to form a government.


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Mass starvation, brought on by civil war and drought, claimed at least 300,000 lives in Somalia in 1992. Responding to this mounting tragedy, the United Nations (UN) Security Council on December 3 authorized military intervention in Somalia to protect ...


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The many political factions in South Africa made progress in 1992 in their quest to resolve their differences and establish a new democratic political system in which all of the nation's racial groups are fairly represented. Outbreaks of violence were ...


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The world celebrated International Space Year during 1992, as nations sought to promote global cooperation in space exploration. Many of the missions launched in 1992 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the ...


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Two events focused the world's attention on Spain in 1992. They were the 25th Summer Olympic Games, which opened in the city of Barcelona on July 25, and Expo '92, which took place in Seville from April 20 to October 12.


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Because of the rapidly changing political map in Eastern Europe, new nations competed in international sport in 1992 and some old nations did not. Of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union before it collapsed in December 1991, Latvia, ...


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The decade-long civil war between the Sri Lankan government and separatist rebels continued undiminished in 1992. Since 1983, the government has been battling a guerrilla group called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which seeks to carve a ...


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Switzerland in 1992 ended decades of strict political neutrality that had kept the country out of nearly all international organizations, including the United Nations (UN). In a referendum on May 17, Swiss voters approved by a margin of 56 per cent to ...


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President Hafez al-Assad's image, which had improved somewhat in 1991 because of Syrian participation in the Middle East peace talks, suffered in 1992 from allegations of arms purchases, human rights abuses, interference in Lebanon, and drug ...


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Taiwan in 1992 took new steps in its cautious transition from authoritarian control by an entrenched political party to democratic government. Elections for the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan's lawmaking body, were held on December 19. For the first time, ...


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President George Bush and Congress wrestled with amending United States tax policy during most of 1992. Election-year politics ultimately blocked decisive action, however.


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Television, which had long been involved in the political process, had an even more pronounced role during the 1992 presidential election year. Much of that was due to the decision by Vice President Dan Quayle to criticize the popular CBS comedy ...


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For the second consecutive year, the world's leading tennis player was 18-year-old Monica Seles, born in Yugoslavia and trained in Florida. As in 1991, she won three of the four grand-slam tournaments, and in the fourth, at Wimbledon, she lost in the ...


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War continued to rage in what was once Yugoslavia as the country in 1992 completed its breakup into five separate states. The process had begun in June 1991, when the Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence. Macedonia ...


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Yukon Territory held a general election on Oct. 19, 1992, in which the New Democratic Party (NDP) government, led by Tony Penikett, was narrowly defeated for a third term in office. The Yukon Party, a new party drawn from the Progressive ...


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A political crisis that began in 1990 when opposition leaders demanded that Zaire's President Mobutu Sese Seko allow multiparty democracy persisted through 1992. But during the year, opposition leaders formed a transitional government.


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An octopus can learn by imitating another octopus, according to an April 1992 report by Italian biologists at the Zoological Station of Naples. The biologists trained one group of octopuses to attack a red ball and a second group to attack a white ...


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Zoos and aquariums in the United States opened an array of facilities in 1992 that simulated the wild habitats of the animals in the exhibits. And four new aquariums featured water life found in the geographic region in which the aquarium was located.


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European nations continued to redefine their economic, political, and security relationships in 1992, as they adjusted to the new Europe created by the dramatic events that ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union in December 1991. The countries of ...


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Retail toy sales in the United States in 1992 grew nearly 5 per cent over 1991 sales, the first healthy gain since 1987. Industry observers attributed the growth to signs of a recovery in the U.S. economy, which resulted in increased spending.


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The Communist government that had come to power in a military coup in 1978 collapsed in 1992. That government had been kept in power by troops from the former Soviet Union from 1979 until 1989. The halt of economic and military aid from Russia on Jan. ...


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A disaster that has been dubbed the Great Chicago Flood threw downtown Chicago into turmoil on April 13, 1992. The flood occurred when water from the Chicago River suddenly cascaded into an extensive network of underground freight tunnels and then ...


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Mayor David N. Dinkins and the City Council agreed on Oct. 29, 1992, to establish an independent 13-member civilian review board to investigate complaints against police officers. The new board replaced a 12-member board on which half the members were ...


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Detroit residents on Nov. 5, 1992, were shocked by the news that a black motorist, Malice W. Green, had been beaten to death by Detroit police officers. The incident seemed almost a replay of the 1991 Los Angeles case in which four white policemen ...


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Bob Lanier, a millionaire real estate developer, was installed as the city's 49th mayor on Jan. 2, 1992. Lanier rode into office on a wave of discontent over the city's crime problem and a proposed $1.2-billion monorail system championed by former ...


Description:
Ecologists and population experts in 1992 warned that the world's burgeoning birth rate was an environmental issue in need of immediate attention. Speakers at the United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, ...


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Southern Africa in 1992 experienced its worst drought of the 1900's. Meteorologists attributed the absence of rains to El Nino,


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Whereas most of the United States struggled with a sluggish economy, the nation's 12,011 banks and 2,023 savings and loans (S&L's) appeared to be headed for record profits in 1992. By the end of June 1992, banks had earned a record $15.5 billion ...


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The biggest surges in an otherwise lackluster construction market in 1992 came in the aftermath of disasters. Flooding in Chicago, riot damage in Los Angeles, and hurricanes in Florida and Hawaii brought work to the construction industry, but not ...


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The United States economy languished for much of 1992, along with the economies of many other major industrialized nations. Until late November, the economy's growth rate was so slow and unsteady that many observers described it as a continuation of ...


Description:
A major energy bill containing provisions affecting the production and use of virtually every form of energy was passed by the Congress of the United States on Oct. 8, 1992, after 18 months of debate. President George Bush signed the bill on October ...


Title:
The Lure and Lore of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Description:
After almost 50 years under the control of a small group of editors, fragments of ancient religious scrolls are at last available to all scholars eager to discover their significance for the history of Judaism and Christianity.


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The movement in many African countries toward more democratic forms of government continued in 1993. There were serious setbacks in some countries, however, suggesting that further progress in achieving democratic reforms may be difficult. Adding to ...


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A major European study published on April 3, 1993, questioned the long-term benefit of administering AZT, a commonly prescribed AIDS drug, before patients develop infections or other symptoms of full-blown AIDS. The AZT study involved 1,749 patients ...


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Serious differences emerged in 1993 within the Albanian government, headed by President Sali Berisha. The government failed to resolve disagreements over a proposed constitution, clouding progress toward the adoption of full-fledged democracy. ...


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Powered by the popularity of Premier Ralph Klein, the Progressive Conservative Party on June 15, 1993, swept to its seventh straight electoral victory since 1971. Klein, who was chosen premier in December 1992, had distanced himself from his ...


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Militant Islamic extremists in Algeria ambushed state security forces, assassinated public figures, and burned factories in 1993. The death total reached more than 2,000 by November in fighting that began when the military seized power in January ...


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The international art world's biggest upset of 1993 occurred at about 1 a.m. on May 27, when a car bomb exploded outside the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. After flying debris and shards of glass settled, rescuers discovered that the blast had ...


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Asia engaged in an arms race in 1993, though the continent was generally peaceful and its nations did not face any immediate external threats. The weapons buildup was fueled by rapid economic growth, which for the year averaged about 7 percent for ...


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Several asteroids that appear to orbit at the very edges of the solar system were reported by astronomers in 1993. Asteroids are small bodies that orbit the sun, most of them between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. They are made of leftover material ...


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The federal Labor government was returned to office on March 13, 1993, marking the Labor Party's fifth consecutive electoral victory. Prime Minister Paul J. Keating, who was facing his first election since becoming Labor Party leader in December 1991, ...


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In 1993 Austria formally opened talks on joining the European Community (EC or Common Market). Austrian leaders pledged to hold a popular referendum on the issue in 1994. If voters approve, Austria could become an EC member as early as Jan. 1, 1995.


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Although 1993 was no boom year for automakers, it was filled with good news for the resurgent United States auto industry. After more than a decade of heavy investment in new products, better tools, and modern business methods, the Big Three ...


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The worst riot in the United States in the 1900's erupted in Los Angeles on April 29, 1992. In five days of violence, looting, and arson, more than 50 people died and hundreds more were injured. The rioting was ignited by the verdict in the case of ...


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Figures from the 1990 census released in 1992 revealed that San Diego residents, on the average, make more money, are better educated, and are more likely to be employed than they were in 1980. But despite that seemingly rosy picture, San Diego's ...


Description:
The Toronto Blue Jays on Oct. 14, 1992, became the first Canadian baseball team to enter the World Series. On October 24, the team won the World Series against the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta, Ga., with a 4 to 3 victory in the 11th inning of the sixth ...


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Former Mayor Marion S. Barry, Jr., who was convicted of cocaine possession in 1990, completed his six-month sentence in federal prison on April 23, 1992. After his release, Barry returned to Washington, D.C., accompanied by a caravan of about 300 ...


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The United States Bureau of the Census in May 1992 released comprehensive statistics from its 1990 census of Americans. The statistics were compiled from detailed surveys of one-sixth of all U.S. housing unitsa total of 17.7 million households.


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In 1992, for the first time since 1989, few major crises disrupted the world oil industry. Oil production in Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union continued to decline because of political and economic problems, and border disputes ...


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World trade issues were prominent in the news in 1992. The United States and the 12-nation European Community (EC or Common Market) narrowly avoided a trade war in November. Conflicts over trade continued between the United States and Japan and the ...


Description:
Poetry in 1992 offered works for every taste. David Ferry's Gilgamesh,


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Edward G. Rendell took the oath of office on Jan. 6, 1992, to become Philadelphia's 127th mayor. The 49-year-old Rendell, a Democrat, told Philadelphians that the city had put off difficult choices for far too long in dealing with its ...


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Zhelyu Zhelev became Bulgaria's first directly elected president on Jan. 19, 1992. Zhelev, former leader of the ruling Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), had been appointed president by the country's parliament in 1990. In the election, he won 53 per ...


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The United States-led coalition that ousted Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War (1991) felt less certain of its victory in 1992. Despite Iraq's military defeat and the punishing consequences of economic sanctions imposed by the United ...


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Marian Anderson: A Voice Heard Once in 100 Years

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A singer known for her great range and for her unique part in a landmark civil rights protest dies at the age of 96.


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Dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev brought a special grace, power, and charisma to the world of ballet.


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A new analysis of finds from the Middle East may help resolve a debate over the relationship between modern human beings and Neanderthals, according to research published in May 1993. Neanderthals were a type of prehistoric people who lived in parts ...


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The discovery of an inscription bearing the first known mention outside the Bible of the House of David, the Israelite dynasty founded by the Biblical King David in about 1000 B.C., was announced by an Israeli archaeologist in August 1993. The ...


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The year 1993 was the year of the museum. New and renovated museums not just for art, but also for history and other themes, were opened during the year. At least two dozen major institutions, and an equal number of secondary ones, opened, creating ...


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President Carlos Saul Menem reached an agreement on Nov. 14, 1993, with the opposition Radical Civic Union that will permit Menem to seek a second term in 1995. Argentina's Constitution allows the nation's president only a single six-year term, but ...


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As the superpower tensions of the Cold War era gave way to regional conflicts,the United States deployed its armed forces to help maintain peace in several trouble spots around the world in 1993. The U.S. military effort in Somalia, however, turned ...


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Ongoing war over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in neighboring Azerbaijan, devastated Armenia's economy in 1993. Armenia, which is mainly Christian, supported the enclave in its five-year drive for independence from the mainly Muslim ...


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Nigel ManseIl of the United Kingdom, who in 1992 won the world Formula One championship, switched to Indianapolis-type cars in 1993 and won the IndyCar World Series title. Alain Prost of France took over ManseIl's car, won the world title for the ...


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For airlines in the United States, 1993 was a year of long-awaited recovery. The flow of red ink continuedexperts estimated that the industry would lose at least $500 million in 1993. But signs of profitability led airline analysts to predict ...


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Disastrous defeats in a five-year war over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh led to upheaval in Azerbaijan in 1993, as rebel forces overthrew the government. Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians. ...


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Political alignments shifted during 1993 but without challenging the authority of Prime Minister Khaleda Ziaur Rahman. Her Bangladesh Nationalist Party amended its constitution on September 1 so that the party chairman would be chosen by secret ballot ...


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The major leagues thrived in 1993, in part because of a last-to-first-place improvement by the Philadelphia Phillies and a tense battle in the National League Western Division between the Atlanta Braves and the San Francisco Giants. But in the end, ...


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In exciting professional play-off finals that matched superstars Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, the Chicago Bulls won the National Basketball Association (NBA) championship for the third consecutive year. Three and a half months later, Jordan ...


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Belgium in 1993 officially became a federal


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Delegates selected by the ruling military junta of Burma (officially called Myanmar) convened on Jan. 9, 1993, to write a new constitution. They met sporadically under tight junta controls until September 16, when they adjourned for the remainder of ...


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President Bill Clinton in 1993 assembled one of the most diverse Cabinets in United States history. His major appointees were approved by the Senate early in the year without serious opposition, except for one: attorney general.


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Cambodia enthroned Norodom Sihanouk as king on Sept. 24, 1993, under a new Constitution. But Sihanouk's path to a restored constitutional monarchy had been anything but smooth.


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President Paul Biya found it increasingly difficult in 1993 to maintain Cameroon's reputation as an economically developing, politically stable country. Biya's regime made an outward show of moving toward democracy, but it did everything it could to ...


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Canadians chose between two national political partiesboth of which were committed to maintaining national unityin a general election held on Oct. 25, 1993. The voters decisively rejected the Progressive Conservative Party (PC), which had ...


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After Kim Campbell replaced Brian Mulroney as prime minister of Canada on June 25, 1993, a stampede of books on Canada's first woman leader hit the bookstores. The most substantial was Robert Fife's Kim Campbell: The Making of a Politician.


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United States President Bill Clinton was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 1993. Clinton began his term with boundless optimism, but his first year in office turned out to be fairly rocky. He managed, however, to get his economic plan through ...


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Pablo Escobar Gaviria, 44, one of the world's most notorious criminals, died in a shoot-out with police and soldiers in Medellin, Colombia, on Dec. 2, 1993. Escobar was the multibillionaire head of the Medellin cocaine cartel and was wanted in the ...


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Increasingly powerful personal computers, the introduction of personal digital assistants, and the convergence of computing, telecommunications, and television were among the leading developments in the computer industry during 1993. But ...


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The first session of the 103rd Congress gave President Bill Clinton a narrow victory on his budget package and enacted much of his domestic agenda in 1993. Despite sharp criticism of some of the new Administration's foreign policy actions, Congress ...


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Two of United States President Bill Clinton's Cabinet appointments won praise from conservationists in 1993: Bruce Babbitt as secretary of the interior and Carol M. Browner as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The U.S. Senate confirmed both ...


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An Iowa couple won their fight to regain custody of their two-year-old daughter, known as Baby Jessica, in August 1993. On July 30, the Supreme Court of the United Sates refused to block an order requiring Jan and Roberta DeBoer of Ann Arbor, Mich., ...


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In 1993, Denmark reversed a 1992 vote against the Treaty on European Union, also known as the Maastricht Treaty. The treaty, set forth by the 12nation European Community (EC or Common Market), calls for much closer political, economic, and defense ...


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The impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a federal civil rights law whose major provisions took effect in July 1992, was difficult to assess in 1993. The difficulty stemmed in part from legal challenges to some ADA provisions that had ...


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Discussions about health-care reform in the United States in 1993 helped to focus attention on the economic toll of drug abuse. Experts estimated that substance abuse costs the nation $238 billion annually. The largest expense, $99 billion, came from ...


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The first drug capable of treating the abnormalities that underlie multiple sclerosis (MS) was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on July 23, 1993. Berlex Laboratories of Richmond, Calif., will sell the genetically ...


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Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew l of Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey) visited Serbia, the dominant republic of Yugoslavia, on Aug. 5 to 12, 1993. He called for respect for human rights and an end to fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a former republic ...


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The United States Congress on Jan. 21, 1993, confirmed Richard W. Riley as the sixth secretary of education. As governor of South Carolina from 1979 to 1986, Riley convinced the state's legislature to pass sweeping school reforms and to raise taxes to ...


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The year 1993 was supposed to have ushered in an era of increased harmony for Europe, but it turned out instead to be filled with problems that will not be easy to resolve. Many of the difficulties centered on the implementation of the Treaty on ...


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There was a brief flurry of interest in 1993 in bell-bottom pants and platform shoes. But many fashions presented by the world's leading designers never affected styles in the ready-to-wear market, as expected. The designs simply fizzled.


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The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Aug. 11, 1993, that labels on packages of all raw and partially cooked meat and poultry products must carry instructions for safe handling. The new requirements were designed to reduce ...


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The Dallas Cowboys, professional football's best team in 1992, were strong again in 1993, but not as dominant, sharing the honor of most regular season wins with the Buffalo Bills and the Houston Oilers. Four college teams entered the postseason bowl ...


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Conservative political parties won a stunning victory in parliamentary elections on March 21 and 28, 1993. The conservative Rally for the Republic Party (RPR) won 247 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, one of the two houses of Parliament. ...


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Earth's strongest earthquake since 1990 struck the Sea of Japan west of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido on July 12, 1993. The quake, which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, occurred in an active fault zone where geologists believe the ...


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In 1993, researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder attempted to lay to rest the notion that the world's largest living organisms are fungi. During the previous year, two different research teams claimed they had identified a huge fungal ...


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The French sailors Alain Gautier and Bruno Peyron won around-the-world yacht races in 1993. Gautier, piloting a crewless yacht, was concerned mostly with safety. Peyron wanted to set a speed record.


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Bosnia and Hercegovina in 1993 remained in the grip of a civil war that began soon after the former Yugoslav republic declared independence in March 1992. The fighting had pitted the government of Bosnia (as the country is often known), which sought ...


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The men's and women's professional tours struggled in 1993 to stay on national television. To make the sport more attractive to television, the men's Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) changed its stepladder format, adding a winner-take-all ...


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The invincibility of 31-year-old Julio Cesar Chavez of Mexico, generally regarded as the world's best fighter, pound for pound, was punctured in 1993. Almost everyone except two of three judges thought 29-year-old Pernell Whitaker of Norfolk, Va., had ...


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Premier Michael Harcourt announced on April 13, 1993, a decision to reduce but not ban commercial logging in one of Canada's last temperate rain forests located on Vancouver Island. Attempting to balance environmental and economic interests, the ...


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Two chemists surprised the scientific world in June 1993 when they reported they had produced diamondlike carbon by baking a liquid in an oven at a relatively low temperature and at atmospheric pressure. Previously, synthetic diamond was created by ...


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Two world championship matches made 1993 a unique year in the history of chess. On January 30, Nigel Short of the United Kingdom defeated Jan Timman of the Netherlands to earn the right to challenge world champion Garry Kasparov of Russia in a match ...


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Senator Eduardo Frei Ruiz Tagle, son of a popular former Chilean president, was elected president of Chile on Dec. 11, 1993. Frei represented the Coalition for Democracy, Chile's five-party ruling coalition. Chileans gave Frei 58 percent of the vote, ...


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China in 1993 confronted world opinion that opposed the Chinese government's handling of several volatile issues, including a nuclear weapons test, human rights issues, and weapons sales to Pakistan. China's government also faced domestic opposition ...


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For most of 1993, the top civil rights post in the United States remained vacant under the Administration of President Bill Clinton. On June 3, President Clinton abandoned his efforts to appoint Lani Guinier, a law professor at the University of ...


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Dozens of young pianists went to Fort Worth, Tex., in May 1993 for the Ninth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Promoters of this most famous of piano competitions sought to counteract its reputation as a battlefield for showy virtuosos by ...


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Most forms of crime fell to 20-year lows in the United States during 1993, but the number of violent crimes increased slightly. Religious fanaticism appeared to be the common element in the year's two most staggering incidents of violence.


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In January 1993, Croatia renewed its fight to regain territory seized by ethnic Serbs and the Serb-dominated federal Yugoslav army during a seven-month war that followed Croatia's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991. Croatian ...


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Those favoring a peaceful conclusion to the 34-year political stand-off between Cuba and the United States spoke out boldly in 1993. Their numbers included moderate Cuban exiles in the United States, who suggested various formulas for coping with what ...


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On Jan. 1, 1993, the Czech Republic became an independent state, as a 1992 agreement dividing Czechoslovakia into two separate nations went into effect. The transition to independence for the Czech Republic and neighboring Slovakia was peaceful and ...


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Two of the major dance companies in the United States, the American Ballet Theater (ABT) and the Joffrey Ballet, began 1993 in serious debt. ABT's debt of $5.7 million was so staggering it almost forced the troupe to declare bankruptcy. However, under ...


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Buoyed by its first presidential election victory in 16 years, the Democratic Party began 1993 with boundless optimism. But the gala inaugural of President Bill Clinton on January 20 proved to be a high point, with troubles mounting for Democrats ...


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Egypt's severe economic problems were overshadowed in 1993 by violent attacks from Islamic fundamentalists. In their efforts to topple the government of President Hosni Mubarak, the militants struck public officials, tourists, Coptic Christians, and ...


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A March 15, 1993, report by a United Nations (UN) commission blamed the Salvadoran army for most of the human rights abuses that occurred during the Salvadoran civil war from 1981 to February 1992. The commission said the army was responsible for 85 ...


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Bouncing back from the loss of the White House, the Republican Party (GOP) scored big election victories in 1993 at state and local levels. GOP candidates won governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia and, against the odds, captured mayor's seats in ...


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In 1993, people could see and buy a number of new products that were expected to point electronics in a new direction. Among those products, long awaited in the United States, was a wide-screen television, introduced by RCA Corporation. This TV had a ...


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The amount of ozone in Earth's stratosphere


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Estonia's economy in 1993 was the most prosperous of all 15 former republics of the Soviet Union. Inflation was about 25 percent, down from 1,000 percent in 1992. But despite economic improvement, voters devastated Estonia's governing Fatherland Party ...


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Ethiopia in 1993 continued its slow recovery from the civil war that ended in 1991 with the overthrow of President Mengistu Haile-Mariam. But political problems still threatened the nation.


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Georgia endured civil war in 1993. The government of Parliament Chairman Eduard A. Shevardnadze faced separatists who were fighting to establish an independent homeland in the western region of Abkhazia. Shevardnadze accused Russia of backing the ...


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in 1993 struggled through economic, social, and political problems arising from the reunification of Communist East Germany and democratic West Germany in October 1990. The country also worked to find a military role in world affairs that itand ...


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Nick Price of Zimbabwe and Betsy King and Dave Stockton of the United States won major honors on the 1993 professional golf tours. Prize money rose to $46 million for the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) men's tour, $26 million for the PGA ...


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Andreas Papandreou, who was prime minister of Greece from 1981 to 1989, returned to the post in 1993 after his Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) won the most seats in parliamentary elections held on October 10. The victory capped a remarkable ...


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Efforts to restore democracy to Haiti failed miserably in 1993. A United Nations (UN) plan to return exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power fell apart on October 11 when armed opponents of Aristide prevented UN peacekeepers from land-ing in ...


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Health-care news in the United States was dominated in 1993 by the promise of newly elected President Bill Clinton to reconfigure the nation's health-care system. Clinton wasted little time in trying to make good on his vow. He appointed his wife, ...


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Concern was aroused in the Southwestern United States in 1993 when people on and near the Navajo reservation on the Arizona-New Mexico border began dying of a mysterious viral infection. The disease first surfaced in the spring in the Four Corners ...


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On March 10, 1993, the People's Consultative Assembly unanimously elected 71-year-old President Suharto to his sixth consecutive five-year term. The next day, the assembly approved Suharto's choice as vice president, Try Sutrisno. Speculation arose ...


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In March 1993, officials of the Administration of United States President Bill Clinton declared that Iran was the world's most dangerous sponsor of terrorism and stated U.S. intentions to curb Iran's armament program and regional influence. Iranian ...


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Iraq's President Saddam Hussein clung to power in 1993 in spite of harsh United Nations (UN) sanctions. The United States hoped that the economic sanctions, imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, would help topple Hussein. However, Hussein was ...


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After an inconclusive general election on Nov. 25, 1992, plunged Ireland into political turmoil, a new coalition government was finally sworn in on Jan. 12, 1993. Prime Minister Albert Reynolds retained office and forged a coalition between his ...


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Ethnic, religious, and political conflicts continued to shape the public image of Islam in 1993. Among the main concerns were strife between Hindus and Muslims in India and atrocities against Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Terrorist attacks by Islamic ...


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In 1993, the United States economy continued its unsteady recovery from the 1990-1991 recession, and the labor market struggled along with it. Unemployment fell from 7.1 percent in January 1993 to 6.4 percent in November, but 8.3 million people ...


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Six present or former Latin-American leaders faced trial in 1993 on charges of corruption or abuse of human rights while in office. Charges ranged from looting the public treasury to murder.


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In 1993, Latvia held its first elections since gaining independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. But the country failed to achieve economic or political stability or to mend relations with Russia, which accused Latvia of violating human ...


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Hopes of prosperity and peace, buoyed by Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's $10-billion plan to rebuild Lebanon by the year 2000, faltered when Israel bombed southern Lebanon for a week in late July 1993. The Israelis said they were retaliating for rocket ...


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The civil war in Liberia continued into 1993. By year-end, however, Liberians had renewed hopes for peace.


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Not even libraries were immune in 1993 to the epidemic of violence in the United States. On April 18, a gunman went on a shooting spree in a public library in Sacramento, Calif., killing two reference librarians. The murders occurred right before the ...


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Libya failed to meet an Oct. 1, 1993, deadline to hand over two terrorist suspects, so the United Nations (UN) Security Council voted on November 11 to toughen economic sanctions against Libya. Previous UN sanctions, including bans on air traffic and ...


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As a group, Irish writers produced the finest fiction in English in 1993. They were led by Roddy Doyle, whose Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha


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Children's books published in 1993 were noteworthy for the number of books that emphasized multiculturalism and the environment. Many picture books were of folk tales, and books for middle and upper grades addressed getting along with others. ...


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The year 1993 produced no new trend in any genre in American literature. First-rate books were published in many areas, by both veteran writers and newcomers.


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Lithuanians on Feb. 14, 1993, elected Algirdas Brazauskas, head of the governing Democratic Labor Party (formerly the Communist Party), as president in Lithuania's first presidential election since it regained independence in 1991. Brazauskas won 60 ...


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A contest for the future leadership of the governing party, United Malays National Organization (UMNO), dominated Malaysian politics during 1993. The UMNO president, and Malaysia's prime minister since 1981, was 69-year-old Mahathir bin Mohamad. The ...


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Coming off a strong last quarter of 1992, and having spent years cutting costs, enhancing productivity, and boosting exports, manufacturers in the United States in 1993 had appeared poised to roar ahead. But cuts in defense spending, recessions across ...


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The Pittsburgh Penguins, who had won the Stanley Cup championship two consecutive seasons, rolled into the play-offs in April 1993 with an 18-game undefeated streak and the best regular-season record, only to lose in the second round. The Montreal ...


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The tragedies that struck thoroughbred racing in recent years returned during the 1993 Triple Crown series for 3-year-olds. Prairie Bayou, a gelding who was favored in the first Triple Crown race and won the second, died in the third.


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Hungary's internal political divisions became more confused in 1993 when Prime Minister Jozsef Antall, leader of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (HDF), died in office on December 12. President Arpad Goncz appointed Interior Minister Peter Boross as ...


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In 1992, Oksana Baiul of Ukraine could not pass junior qualification tests in figure skating. But in March 1993, at age 15, Baiul won the world figure-skating championship for women in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. In the 1993 European ...


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emerged as a hot political issue in the United States in 1993. Opinion polls during the year found a majority of Americans favored curbs on immigration. In 1992, some 1.1 million immigrants entered the United States, the most since 1907.


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South Asia's deadliest earthquake since 1935 struck a rural area southeast of Bombay in the predawn hours of Sept. 30, 1993. About 10,000 people were killed. Entire villages were virtually wiped out as brick and stone buildings collapsed.


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On Sept. 13, 1993, representatives of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a Declaration of Principles in Washington, D.C., setting forth details for Palestinian self-rule in the Israeli-occupied Arab territories ...


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Italy endured political, social, and economic turmoil in 1993 as a corruption scandal spread to nearly every aspect of Italian life. Public outrage helped usher in a new government and voting system.


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Japan experienced a political revolution in 1993. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that had governed since 1955 split and lost power to a coalition of seven parties. Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa resigned on July 22, 1993, and on August 6, the Diet ...


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Representatives of Jordan and Israel on Sept. 14, 1993, initialed an agenda in Washington, D.C., establishing a process by which the two countries hope to normalize relations. Jordan's King Hussein I, though initially angered by the revelation in ...


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The commemoration of milestone anniversaries of events associated with the Holocaust, and the opening of two major new museums preserving the memory of the Holocaust, were the highlights of developments in the Jewish community in 1993. During 1993, ...


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Financial troubles plagued Kuwait in 1993. The ruling Sabah family faced a newly elected opposition majority in angry parliamentary debates over how to deal with the growing national debt, estimated at between $20 billion and $30 billion.


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French researchers on Dec. 15, 1993, announced a major advance in an international effort to identify all the genes in the human bodya 15-year undertaking known as the Human Genome Project. The French breakthrough amounted to a rough map of the ...


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A major gap exists in the United States between the number of adults who have mental or addictive disorders and the number who seek treatment for those disorders, according to a comprehensive study reported in February 1993. The study was sponsored by ...


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Debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) dominated the news in Mexico during 1993. The treaty will eliminate tariffs on goods traded between Mexico, the United States, and Canada over 15 years, beginning on Jan. 1, 1994. The ...


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The Middle East was once again the site of startling developments in 1993 when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel revealed in August that they had been conducting secret peace negotiations in Norway since January and were close to ...


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One day after the Sept. 13, 1993, signing of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord in Washington, D.C., Morocco's King Hassan II hosted Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres at his palace near Rabat, the capital. It was ...


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With director Steven Spielberg's dinosaur thriller Jurassic Park


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The Netherlands in 1993 stayed committed to a more united European Community (EC or Common Market). The Dutch currency, the guilder, was one of the strongest in the European Monetary System (ERM), which links the values of the EC members' currencies. ...


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The Northwest Territories moved closer to division in 1993 as proceedings continued for the creation of Nunavut, a future home for Canada's Inuit


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Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland on Sept. 13, 1993, won reelection as the head of the minority Labor Party government. But the most striking feature of the national elections was the strong showing of the Center Party, which had based ...


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In provincial legislative elections on May 25, 1993, the Liberal Party toppled the Progressive Conservative government, which had been in office for 15 years. The Conservatives had held 25 seats in the 52-seat legislature, compared with the Liberals' ...


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The TOPEX-Poseidon satellite, a joint project of the United States and France, was a spectacular success in 1993. The satellite was launched in August 1992 to map the topography


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In a controversial decision, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted on Sept. 23, 1993, to award the Summer Olympics in the year 2000 to Sydney, Australia, over Beijing. The United States Congress adopted a resolution on July 26, 1993, saying ...


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The New Democratic Party (NDP) government of Premier Robert K. Rae undertook decisive steps in 1993 to reduce a ballooning public deficit. Ontario had secured lower-than-anticipated revenues because of a recession. At the same time, a loss of ...


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The year 1993 was marked by natural disasters in the Pacific Islands. On January 2 and 3, Typhoon Kina struck Fiji and Tonga, causing at least 20 deaths and leaving thousands of people homeless. Also on January 2 and 3, Typhoon Ninahit the Solomon ...


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Many music retailers reacted against high compact disc (CD) prices in 1993 by selling used CD's. This move created conflict with the major record labels and their distribution companies, who saw the practice as damaging to the sale of new CD's and ...


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Portugal in 1993 continued to try to modernize its economy within the European Community (EC or Common Market). However, the country suffered an economic recession along with the rest of Western Europe. Economic growth remained very slow, with ...


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The Postal Service recorded an operating deficit of $500 million in the fiscal year ending Sept. 17, 1993. Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon, Jr., had aimed for break-even operations in 1993, mostly by eliminating more than 47,000 postal jobs in ...


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Prince Edward Island's voters on March 29, 1993, affirmed Catherine Callbeck as leader of their province. She became the first woman ever elected to head a Canadian province. British Columbia's Rita Johnston had been appointed interim premier in 1991, ...


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At the end of 1992, state and federal prisons held 883,593 prisoners, according to the United States Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The number reflects a 7.2 percent increase in the prison population over 12 months. ...


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During his first year in office in 1993, United States President Bill Clinton drew criticism from various Christian right movements, notably the Christian Coalition of evangelist Pat Robertson. The Christian Coalition opposed many of Clinton's liberal ...


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Pope John Paul II, in his 15th year as pope, continued his worldwide travels in 1993. No other pope has traveled outside Italy as much as he has. From 1978 to 1993, the pope made more than 60 trips.


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The Romanian government continued to face serious economic problems in 1993. Industrial production was still in decline, and unemployment neared 11 percent by the end of 1993. Wages continued to fall, and inflation ran about 200 percent in late ...


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On Dec. 12, 1993, Russian voters went to the polls to remake the country's governing institutions for the first time since Russia gained independence following the Soviet Union's collapse in December 1991. The voters approved a new Constitution to ...


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Nationwide concern over the safety of Diet Pepsi cola arose in June 1993 after people in more than 20 states reported finding hypodermic syringes or other objects in Pepsi cans. But an investigation by the United States Food and Drug Administration ...


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The difficulty of managing public finances during a recession became apparent on Jan. 8, 1993, when Saskatchewan's deputy premier and minister of finance, Edward Tchorzewski, resigned his position because of stress. Associate Finance Minister Janice ...


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King Fahd and other members of Saudi Arabia's ruling Saud family came under increasing criticism from the Saudi people in 1993. They were accused of autocratic rule, corruption, and financial mismanagement.


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Mission failures and delays troubled the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1993. An unmanned mission to Mars disappeared in space. Three spy satellites blew up, and communications were lost with a weather satellite and a science ...


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Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez Marquez lost his parliamentary majority in national elections on June 6, 1993, but he and his Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) were able to stay in power with the support of two smaller nationalist parties. It was ...


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Some of the fun in sports suffered from fan violence, continued sanctions against college athletic programs for breaking recruiting rules, and escalating franchise fees and salaries in 1993.


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Sri Lanka suffered in 1993 more of the violence that has killed some 50,000 people in the last 10 years. On May 1, 1993, President Ranasinghe Premadasa and 23 others were killed in Colombo, the capital, when a youth on a bicycle rode into a May Day ...


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Fewer states found themselves running out of money as they approached the end of their fiscal year on June 30, 1993. Less than half the states made midyear cuts to their fiscal 1993 budgets, contrasted with 35 states that had belatedly slashed their ...


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Lower interest rates were the engine that drove financial markets in 1993 in the United States and abroad. Falling interest rates led many people to move their money out of low-paying accounts with banks and savings and loan associations and into ...


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In late April 1993 in Singapore, Taiwan and China held their highest-level talks since 1949, when Nationalist Chinese retreated to Taiwan after the Communist victory in China. Because Taiwan forbids any direct contact with China, semiofficial ...


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President Bill Clinton and congressional Democrats enacted new tax legislation in 1993 that Republicans labeled the biggest tax increase in the history of the world. Democrats countered that the measure, designed to raise about $241 billion through ...


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Companies from once separate industries such as telephone, cable television, and motion pictures rushed to form alliances in 1993. They were preparing for a new telecommunications era in which video, voice, and data will be carried over the same ...


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The television industry's fondness for sensational subjects reached new heights in 1993. During the first week of January, three networksCBS Inc., the American Broadcasting Companies (ABC), and the National Broadcasting Company ...


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Steffi Graf of Germany and Pete Sampras of the United States won the major honors in 1993, but greater attention went to an attack on Monica Seles and the death of Arthur Ashe. Ashe, the only black male winner of the Wimbledon and United States Open ...


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Two major accidents in 1993 focused attention on the unregulated nature of Thailand's rapid economic growth. On May 10, a fire swept through a toy factory outside Bangkok, the capital, killing 188 workers. Investigators reported that most doors in the ...


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Deriving 40 percent of its revenue from the federal government, the New Brunswick Liberal government under Premier Frank J. McKenna sought to raise more funds within the province. The 1993-1994 budget, introduced on March 31, 1993, raised the ...


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The province reeled from an ongoing crisis in its fishing industry, the mainstay of its economy for 400 years. A two-year closing of the northern cod fishery in 1992 was followed in 1993 by fishing quotas and bans. Overfishing both within and without ...


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American newspaper publishers in 1993 continued their forays into the electronic market. Bell South Advertising & Publishing Company Incorporated and Cox Enterprises Incorporated, the publisher of The Atlanta


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President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro tried to mend relations in 1993 with former supporters who had become some of her harshest critics. She also faced the possibility of armed conflict between right and left wing militants. General Humberto Ortega ...


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The military regime of President Ibrahim Babangida had set 1993 as the year that the nation would return to democratic, civilian government, and on June 12 Nigerians went to the polls to elect a new president. On June 23, however, the Babangida ...


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Peace efforts appeared to take a fresh turn in September 1993, when John Hume, the leader of the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), met with Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican ...


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Pakistan had a politically tumultuous 1993 that was punctuated in midyear by the resignations of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. An interim prime minister ushered in a three-month period of reform to prepare for elections ...


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A fossilized insect dating to the early Cretaceous Period (135 million to 120 million years ago) has yielded the first genetic material recovered from the age of the dinosaurs, researchers reported in June 1993. The researchers extracted DNAthe ...


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Peruvians voted to approve a new Constitution on Oct. 31, 1993. The new Constitution dissolved Peru's two houses of Congress in favor of a smaller, one-house legislature. It also allowed the president to run for a second term and to promote military ...


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President Fidel V. Ramos struggled with economic problems during 1993 in an effort to combat his nation's widespread poverty. On April 5, he signed a bill that granted him emergency powers for one year to deal with the chronic shortage of electrical ...


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In October 1993, the United States Congress halted construction of the world's largest experimental physics instrument, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) particle accelerator near Waxahachie, Tex. A particle accelerator is a device that ...


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Foreign investment and steady economic growth in 1993 gave Poland the strongest economy in the former Communist Eastern Europe. However, the economic situation of many Poles remained difficult. By September, officials estimated that about 15 percent ...


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From adolescence to young adulthood, boys and girls differ in the development of self-esteem, according to a study reported in June 1993 by psychologists Jack Block and Richard W. Robins of the University of California at Berkeley. The researchers ...


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In May 1993, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began investigating a mysterious flulike illness in the Four Corners area, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet. On June 11, the CDC reported that the ...


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Puerto Ricans voted on Nov. 14, 1993, to keep Puerto Rico a commonwealth of the United States. As residents of a commonwealth, Puerto Ricans have some, but not all, rights of U.S. citizens. Although the vote was nonbinding, voters were asked whether ...


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Quebec and Canada were stunned on Sept. 14, 1993, when Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa, leader of the provincial Liberal Party, announced he would retire from active politics as soon as a successor could be named. Daniel Johnson, a Bourassa Cabinet ...


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Church attendance has been dramatically lower than was previously estimated, according to survey results presented to the American Sociological Association in August 1993. The survey reported that 28 percent of Roman Catholics and 20 percent of ...


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Disheartened and nearly demoralized after the 1992 defeat of incumbent President George Bush, the Republican Party (GOP, for Grand Old Party) rebounded smartly in 1993. In June, Los Angeles got a Republican mayor for the first time since 1961. And in ...


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Kjetil-Andre Aamodt, age 21, of Norway established himself as the sport's newest superstar at the Alpine events of the 1993 World Ski Championships. Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg and Anita Wachter of Austria won two world medals each en route to World ...


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Slovakia became an independent state on Jan. 1, 1993, when the Czechoslovak federation broke apart into its two republics. The separation of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, approved by Czechoslovakia's parliament in November 1992, created problems ...


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The most significant moments of 1993 soccer involved France's Olympique Marseilles team, first on the playing field, then before police interrogators and in court. On May 26, in the European Cup final in Munich, Germany, Olympique Marseilles defeated ...


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A Cabinet nominee's woes in 1993 provoked a months-long debate over a law requiring social security taxes to be paid on household help. A violation of the law helped lead to the withdrawal on January 22 of Zoe Baird as President Bill Clinton's nominee ...


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United States and United Nations (UN) forces managed in 1993 to end the terrible famine that killed more than 300,000 Somalis in 1992. They were unable, however, to resolve the civil war that, along with drought, had led to the mass starvation.


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Negotiations aimed at establishing a multiracial democracy in which South Africa's black majority will finally be granted political power made great progress in 1993. But that progresswhich included the adoption of an interim Constitution in ...


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Efforts by Sudan's Prime Minister, General Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, to moderate Sudan's radical image abroad failed in 1993. On August 18, the Administration of United States President Bill Clinton added Sudan to a list of six other nations ...


Title:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (1993)

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In its 1992-1993 term, which ended on June 28, 1993, the Supreme Court of the United States lowered the constitutional wall between church and state and made it easier to challenge government actions designed to protect minority voting rights.


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In 1993, Sweden continued in its deepest recession since World War II (1939-1945). The country's economic output declined almost 2 percent in 1993. And Sweden's currency, the krona, plummeted almost 25 percent after the Swedish government in late 1992 ...


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After five years of disappointments, Janet Evans of Placentia, Calif., regained most of the sharpness that made her the world's best swimmer at the age of 16. Even so, she had to share attention in 1993 with 15-year-old Franziska van Almsick of ...


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Switzerland in 1993 continued to negotiate for membership in the European Community (EC or Common Market) even though Swiss voters in late 1992 rejected participation in another multinational group, a free trade zone that links many Western European ...


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A peace agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel signed on Sept. 13, 1993, drew criticism from Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad. The agreement allowed limited Palestinian self-rule in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and ...


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On Sept. 29, 1993, noted actress Jane Alexander was confirmed as the new director of the National Endowment for the Arts, the federal agency that awards grants to artistic groups. Alexander's appointment led some observers to hope for a new attention ...


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Chinese women stunned everyone in 1993 when they won the gold medals in three of the middle-distance and long-distance races in the world outdoor championships and weeks later shattered the world records in all three events. Many runners and coaches ...


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In October 1993, Rodney E. Slater, administrator of the United States Federal Highway Administration, proposed that private companies be allowed to operate the nation's highways. The proposal sought to head off projected costs to the government of ...


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A political era ended in Turkey when President Turgut ozal, leader of the Motherland Party (ANAP), died unexpectedly on April 17, 1993. Although popular in the West for his support of a free market economy and of the coalition against Iraq during the ...


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Internal struggles over the pace of economic reform brought Ukraine to the point of economic collapse in 1993. Reform-minded Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma resigned in September, leaving most power in the hands of President Leonid Kravchuk. At the time ...


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British Prime Minister John Major saw a dramatic slump in his Conservative Party's fortunes and in his own popularity during 1993. His premiership was marked by economic difficulties, party divisions, policy reversals, and a public perception that he ...


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Yugoslavia remained a focus of the world's attention in 1993, as the violence that had accompanied the country's breakup in 1991 and 1992 continued to flare. Political and economic life in Serbia and Montenegrothe only two of the six original ...


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The Yukon's largest employer, Curragh Incorporated, owner of a lead and zinc mine at Faro, went into receivership in September 1993. Beset by high costs and falling metal prices, the mine had not operated through the year, leaving almost 1,000 ...


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A political crisis that began in 1990 continued throughout 1993 as President Mobutu Sese Seko stubbornly hung onto power. During the year, the country seethed with unrest. In late January in Kinshasa, the capital, violence erupted after soldiers who ...


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Elaborate ornamentation on male birds, such as fancy feathers, attract female birds of the same species, enabling the fancy males to acquire mates more easily than less conspicuous males. But in crested auklets, a sea bird, both males and females have ...


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Zoos and aquariums in the United States opened a broad spectrum of naturalistic exhibits in 1993, virtually all of them emphasizing endangered species. Tropical rain forests and American waterways were the most frequently represented habitats.


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The entire downtown area was declared a public improvement district in January 1993 as Dallas strove to upgrade its image. Construction crews worked during the year to transform downtown Dallas into a showcase area that, city leaders hope, will spur ...


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Democrat Dennis Archer, a former justice on the Michigan Supreme Court, was elected mayor of Detroit on Nov. 2, 1993. Archer succeeded five-term Democratic Mayor Coleman A. Young, 75, who had announced in June that he would retire after 20 years. ...


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Mayor Bob Lanier easily won election to a second term on Nov. 2, 1993. The millionaire developer, who was first elected in 1992 on a platform of improving neighborhoods and beefing up law enforcement, had high approval ratings and faced no serious ...


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On April 17, 1993, a federal jury returned guilty verdicts against two Los Angeles police officers for violating the civil rights of motorist Rodney G. King in March 1991. The officers, Sergeant Stacey C. Koon and patrolman Laurence M. Powell, were ...


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Drenching rains in January 1993 ended San Diego's six-year drought. The rainfall, coupled with melting snow in the nearby mountains, kept municipal reservoirs 90 percent full through the summer. The month was the wettest January, and the ...


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The Toronto Blue Jays won their second World Series in a row on Oct. 23, 1993, setting off a huge, spontaneous celebration in the city's streets. The Blue Jays beat the Philadelphia Phillies 8-6 in the sixth game of the series with a dramatic ...


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United Nations (UN) peace efforts ran into serious difficulties in 1993, particularly in Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Haiti. On March 27, leaders of 15 Somali factions signed a UN-brokered agreement to end the nation's bloody two-year civil war ...


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President Bill Clinton took office on Jan. 20, 1993, promising to be an agent of change, something voters seemed to favor in electing him over incumbent George Bush in November 1992. Change was at the top of Clinton's agenda, with legislative ...


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Venezuelans returned former President Rafael Caldera to the presidency on Dec. 5, 1993. Caldera served as president of Venezuela in the early 1970's. He will take office again for a five-year term on Feb. 2, 1994.


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The secretary general of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), Do Muoi, visited a Buddhist pagoda and a Roman Catholic cathedral in early 1993. Buddhism and Roman Catholicism are the country's two main religions, but both have suffered years of ...


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Persistent heavy rainfall created havoc in many parts of the world during 1993. The central United States experienced the costliest flooding in its history, estimated at between $10 billion and $20 billion in damages, during the summer. Exces-sive ...


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The number of Americans in poverty increased for the third straight year in 1992, but the rise was statistically insignificant, the United States Bureau of the Census reported in October 1993. The agency said the number of impoverished Americans ...


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Floods, drought, and frost devastated crops in the United States in 1993. Water from the rain-swollen Mississippi and Missouri rivers covered thousands of farms in the Midwest. Heat and summer drought destroyed crops in states along the Atlantic Coast ...


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Government ministers passed through President Itamar Franco's Cabinet in 1993 as though through a revolving door. In May, Foreign Minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso became Brazil's fourth finance minister in eight months, but he was unable to curb the ...


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Retail toy sales in the United States leveled out in 1993 to gain just under 4 percent over 1992 levels, down from a 5 percent gain the year before. Continued sluggishness in the U.S. economy, along with apprehension about possible tax increases, ...


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Chicagoans were stunned on Oct. 6, 1993, when Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan announced his retirement from professional basketball. In explaining his decision, the 30-year-old Jordan said, I just don't have anything else to prove [as an ...


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Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former prosecutor, was elected mayor of New York City on Nov. 2, 1993. He narrowly defeated Democratic incumbent David N. Dinkins, the city's first black mayor.


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Rwanda was disrupted by strife between Hutus and Tutsis during 1993. Like its neighbor, Burundi, Rwanda has a Hutu majority and a Tutsi minority, but in Rwanda the Hutus have been in power for years. The Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front has ...


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John A. Wilson, chairman of the Washington, D.C., City Council, committed suicide on May 19, 1993. Wilson's death left open the second most powerful job in the District government at a time when the city was facing continuing fiscal problems and ...


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In 1993, the United States Bureau of the Census projected that by the year 2050, whites will represent 52.5 percent of the U.S. population, down sharply from 75.7 percent in 1990. The figures were released by the Census Bureau on Sept. 28, 1993.


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Montreal added to its reputation as a successful sports town on June 9, 1993, when the Montreal Canadiens won their 24th National Hockey League championship at Montreal's Forum stadium. But the Stanley Cup victory was tarnished by a downtown riot that ...


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An oversupply of oil in 1993 caused a decline in prices for much of the year, which benefited petroleum consumers. However, producers of crude oil suffered financially as a result of lowered fuel prices. By autumn, values of some crude oil had dropped ...


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United States President Bill Clinton in January 1993 reversed the so-called Mexico City policy that had been instituted by former President Ronald Reagan in 1984. The policy denied U.S. funding to organizations that included abortion counseling in ...


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Rain returned to southern and eastern Africa in 1993, ending what many had regarded as the worst drought of the 1900's. The drought affected an estimated 120 million people, with Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, and Somalia hardest hit. Rains ...


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The year 1993 opened for American poetry with a flourish, as Maya Angelou was invited to compose a poem for the inauguration of Bill Clinton as United States President on January 20. Angelou's On the Pulse of Morning celebrated the ...


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Democratic Mayor Edward G. Rendell, who was elected in 1991 on a pledge to restore the financial health of the nearly bankrupt city, was delivering on that promise in 1993. In fiscal 1993, which ended on June 30, the city balanced its budget for the ...


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Fifty years after the historic World War II invasion that liberated France from the Germans, the Allies gather once again on the beaches of Normandy.


Title:
Richard Nixon: How Will History Judge His Legacy?

Description:
Richard M. Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, died in April 1994, but controversies about his political career live on and probably will be revisited by historians for years to come.


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Revelations about government-sponsored radiation experiments on human subjects have shocked Americans.


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The emergence of democracy in Africa continued in 1994, though falteringly. The greatest success story was South Africa, which ended decades of white-minority rule, but several other nations also made progress. There were also setbacks, however, ...


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Researchers in the United States and France reported on Feb. 21, 1994, that the drug AZT can greatly reduce the risk that a pregnant woman infected with the AIDS virus will transmit the virus to her unborn child. The National Institute of Allergy and ...


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The United States military strained in 1994 to help keep order in a variety of trouble spots around the world. During the year, U.S. troops performed peacekeeping and humanitarian roles in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia, Macedonia, and Rwanda. In the ...


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Armenia agreed to a cease-fire with neighboring Azerbaijan on May 16, 1994, raising hopes for an end to their ongoing war over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan. By the end of 1993, Armenian forces occupied about 20 percent of ...


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Andy Warhol, the pop artist who became as famous as the celebrities he depicted, was a media star in 1994seven years after his death. The primary reason was a museum established in his honor in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pa. Billed as the ...


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Asia overcame a variety of natural disasters in 1994 to make uneven progress toward improving the lives of its diverse people. Civil wars disrupted life in areas of Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. ...


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The most spectacular astronomical event of 1994, if not of the entire century, occurred in July as pieces of a disintegrated comet plunged into the atmosphere of Jupiter. The impacts caused huge, fiery explosions on the giant planet.


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The Australian economy boomed in 1994, growing faster than it had for nine years. Unemployment fell to 9.5 percent of the work force in July 1994, its lowest level in three years. The rate had topped 11 percent during the depth of the recession, which ...


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The longest work stoppage in the history of professional sports ended the 1994 regular season 52 days early. There were no play-offs and no World Series. And as the year ended, negotiations between club owners and players were still stalled, and the ...


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Partly because Michael Jordan, their star player, had given up the sport and become a minor league baseball player, the Chicago Bulls failed in 1994 to win a fourth consecutive National Basketball Association (NBA) championship. Instead, the Houston ...


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Alexander Lukashenko, a former collective farm manager, was elected the first president of Belarus on July 10, 1994. Since Belarus split from the Soviet Union in 1991, the head of state had been the chairman of parliament. Lukashenko won a surprising ...


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A biological research project in July 1994 raised questions about a long-standing belief in sociologythat overcrowding in America's inner cities contributes substantially to stress and aggressiveness and thus to crime. That conclusion was based ...


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Women have traditionally sailed against women in racing sloops and have infrequently competed with and against men. But in 1994, a yacht with an all-female crew completed the 32,000-mile (51,500-kilometer) Whitbread Round the World race for only the ...


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Civil war continued in 1994 to ravage Bosnia (as the nation is often called), despite international efforts to end the hostilities. When the nation declared its independence from the Yugoslav federation in March 1992, the government intended to ...


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The citizens of Cameroon and other Francophone countries in Africathe former African colonies of Francewere shocked on Jan. 12. 1994, when their currency, the CFA franc, was devalued by 50 percent. The devaluation, aimed at strengthening ...


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Canada in 1994 again faced the possibility of losing Quebec, one of its largest provinces, when Quebecers voted the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) into provincial office on September 12. Immediately following the election, PQ leader and Quebec's new ...


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Two of Canada's foremost authors, Robertson Davies and Alice Munro, led a strong showing by the nation's fiction writers in 1994. Davies, who turned 81 during the year, showed no signs of flagging as a storyteller. In his new novel, The Cunning Man,


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A new coating material is a loner in the world of materials: Paints, marker inks, dirt, tar, adhesive tape, and even water hold no attraction for it. Chemist Donald L. Schmidt and his colleagues at Dow Chemical Company of Midland, Mich., described the ...


Description:
For the first time, a computer defeated a reigning world chess champion in a tournament game. Chess Genius,


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Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle of the center-left Coalition for Democracy was sworn in to a six-year term as president on March 11, 1994. Frei, the son of a former Chilean president, promised to fight poverty and double the nation's economic output.


Description:
The ruling Communist Party made minor leadership changes in 1994 as it anticipated the death of Deng Xiaoping, China's dominant leader since 1978. Deng turned 90 on Aug. 22, 1994, and other aging Communists opposed to his policies seemed poised to ...


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The United States Congress approved the California Desert Protection Act on Oct.8, 1994, designating about 7 million acres (2.8 million hectares) of arid but scenic landscape as national parks and preserves. The act was the largest land-preservation ...


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The most sensational trial of 1994 involved former professional football star O. J. Simpson, who was accused of stabbing to death his second ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a friend of hers, Ronald L. Goldman, outside her home in Brentwood, a ...


Description:
Crime captivated the public during 1994, from the sensational trial of former football star O. J. Simpson on murder charges to the passage of a major federal anticrime bill. Regardless of statistics that showed that most violent crime rates dropped ...


Description:
Croatia agreed on Jan. 19, 1994, to establish low-level diplomatic relations with Serbia, the dominant republic of Yugoslavia, ending fighting that had erupted sporadically since Croatia split from Yugoslavia in June 1991. But Croatian leaders ...


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Amid growing unrest over a seemingly endless string of hardships, Cubans fled their island nation by the thousands during 1994. Some 30,000 Cubans struck out for Florida during the year, often aboard fragile, unseaworthy craft. The exodus was the ...


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The Czech Republic remained politically stable in 1994, the nation's second year of independence since splitting from the former Czechoslovak federation in January 1993. The Czech economy also continued to show promise, in contrast to the troubles ...


Description:
United States banks and savings and loans (S&L's), which had been rocked by failures, scandals, and steep losses during the 1980's, continued their rebound in 1993. In the first half of the year, the number of banks that closed their doors due to ...


Description:
The construction industry experienced another disappointing year in 1993. Except for specialized pockets of prosperity, there was little or no growth in most construction markets. Competition remained intense and profits low. According to the F. W. ...


Description:
From the bomb blast that severely damaged the World Trade Center in New York City, to the floods that engulfed large areas of the Midwest, to the choking fires that swept through southern California, events in 1993 created vivid scenes of cities ...


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The United States economy in 1993 continued on a course of moderate growth with low inflation and low interest rates. By the end of the year, the pace of growth appeared to be strengthening, and many analysts predicted the economy might be poised for ...


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The three biggest automobile manufacturers in the United States said on Sept. 29, 1993, they would join forces with the federal government to develop a new generation of cars with three times the fuel efficiency of existing vehicles. Officials of ...


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The Administration of United States President Bill Clinton scored two big victories for freer international trade in 1993. One triumph led to a free-trade zone in North America, and the other reduced tariffs around the world.


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Conflict between President Sali Berisha's ruling Democratic Party and the Albanian Socialist Party continued to dominate Albanian politics in 1994. On April 3, Fatos Nano, leader of the Socialist Party and Berisha's chief opponent, was sentenced to 12 ...


Description:
A three-year-old civil struggle in Algeria erupted onto the world stage when four young Algerians, saying they were members of the Armed Islamic Group, hijacked an Air France airplane at Algiers, the capital, on Dec. 24, 1994. The hijackers killed ...


Description:
Fossils of an apelike human ancestor that lived more than 4 million years ago were discovered in Ethiopia, according to a September 1994 report by anthropologists Tim D. White of the University of California at Berkeley, Gen Suwa of the University of ...


Description:
In 1994, DNA testing helped solve archaeological mysteries ranging from the colonization of the Pacific and the Americas to the spread of disease in the ancient world. (DNA is deoxyribonucleic acid, the molecule of which genes are made.)


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The surge that lifted the American economy in 1994 lifted architecture as well. Home construction was up, new museums and theaters opened, and sports facilities emerged as a new growth industry.


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Argentina's first substantially new Constitution since 1853 took effect on Aug. 24, 1994. The document was drafted by a special assembly, which was elected in April and comprised 305 delegates from the country's major political parties.


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Austria voted to join the European Union (EU) in a nationwide referendum held June 12, 1994. Membership in the EU, formerly known as the European Community, started Jan. 1, 1995. About 66 percent of the voters approved membership in the union. The ...


Description:
Consumers grew weary of their old models in 1994 as the average age of cars and trucks in the United States reached eight years. De- mand for new cars and trucks soared, overwhelming dealers and auto factories. Sales of cars and light trucks in the ...


Description:
Tragedy and turmoil marred auto racing competition in 1994 in the United States and abroad. In the Grand Prix international series for the sleek Formula One cars, a three-time world champion, 34-year-old Ayrton Senna of Brazil, was killed in a race on ...


Description:
U.S. airlines pared down to essentials and restructured their finances in 1994, often turning to employees for bailouts. But hopes for a major airline recovery soured as the price of fares fell an average of 3 percent, largely due to the pressure put ...


Description:
Azerbaijan agreed to a cease-fire in its war with Armenia on May 11, 1994. The two former Soviet republics had fought since 1988 over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani President Heydar A. Aliyev ...


Description:
Agitation by an opposition political party, the Awami League, challenged parliamentary democracy and hindered Bangladesh's economic development in 1994. The league's action stemmed from the 1991 parliamentary elections, in which it had won only 88 of ...


Description:
Norm Duke and Walter Ray Williams, Jr., dominated the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) 1994 tour. The same situation prevailed on the Ladies Pro Bowlers Tour (LPBT), where Aleta Sill and Anne Marie Duggan swept most of the honors.


Description:
The two widely recognized world heavyweight champions lost their titles to underdogs in 1994, and one of the new champions lost his title six months later. After all the ups and downs, one of the new champions was the oldest heavyweight champion ever, ...


Description:
Bulgaria's former Communists returned to power following parliamentary elections on Dec. 18, 1994. The Bulgarian Socialist Party, formerly the Communist Party, won an absolute majority of 124 seats in the 240-seat parliament, taking 43.7 percent of ...


Description:
On Sept. 20, 1994, leaders of the ruling military junta of Burma (officially named Myanmar) held talks for the first time with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta had been keeping Suu Kyi under house arrest since July 1989. She headed the ...


Description:
People in Burundi watched anxiously in 1994 as neighboring Rwanda became a killing ground, with the majority ethnic group, the Hutus, murdering the minority Tutsis by the tens of thousands. Because Burundi has the same division as Rwanda between Hutus ...


Description:
Despite a $2-billion United Nations (UN) effort to bring peace and a popularly elected government to Cambodia, the country was mired in warfare, bureaucratic inefficiency, and official corruption in 1994. The UN had finally organized elections in May ...


Description:
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909 to end discrimination against African Americans, fired its executive director of 16 months, Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., on Aug. 20, 1994. The group's board of ...


Description:
The Bastille Opera of Paris, plagued by administrative strife and mounting deficits, in September 1994 dismissed Myung-Whun Chung, the South Korean-born conductor and pianist, as its music director. The opera's management claimed Chung refused to ...


Description:
President Bill Clinton suffered enormous political setbacks in 1994. He failed to get a health care reform bill enacted, and Republicans won control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954 in the November 8 midterm elections. Clinton ...


Description:
Ernesto Samper Pizano of the Liberal Party was inaugurated as president of Colombia on Aug. 7, 1994. Samper defeated Conservative Party candidate Andres Pastrana Arango in a June 19 run- off in the closest election in Colombian history.


Description:
Rapid growth in traffic on the information superhighway dominated personal computer news during 1994. By year's end some sources estimated that as many as 30 million individuals were using modems


Description:
The Democratic-controlled 103rd Congress tried but failed in 1994 to pass a health care bill, the number-one item on President Bill Clinton's priority list. Nor did Clinton manage to get a welfare-reform bill passed. The President waited until late in ...


Description:
An ever-present tension between artistic leaders of dance companies, who seek growth, and the companies' boards of directors, who desire financial restraint, escalated in 1994 as dance funding continued a downward trend. In the spring, at least four ...


Description:
The Democrats suffered a crushing defeat in the Nov. 8, 1994, midterm elections, losing control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954. In addition, Republicans took away governorships in New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and several ...


Description:
Danish voters in 1994 kept Social Democratic Party Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen in office, though his four-party coalition government suffered major losses in the general election on September 21. Rasmussen, whose coalition won only 75 seats in ...


Description:
The final phase of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 went into effect on July 26, 1994. As of that date, some 400,000 private businesses in the United States that employ 15 to 24 people had to have made reasonable efforts to remove ...


Description:
The suicide in April of rock star Kurt Cobain, 27, an alleged heroin user, drew attention to drug abuse in the United States in 1994. Various news sources reported that heroin had become popular among affluent people and that its use had increased in ...


Description:
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Jan. 11, 1994, approved the first new nonprescription pain reliever since 1984. The drug, naproxen sodium, has been available since 1976 as the prescription medications Naprosyn and Anaprox used ...


Description:
Since 1985, scientists have observed an annual thinning of ozone high above Antarctica from August to Octoberthe Southern Hemisphere's spring. So scientists were not surprised to find that this thinning, called an ozone hole,


Description:
Estonia sought to strengthen its ties to Western nations in 1994, as relations with Russia continued to be strained. In February, Estonia joined the Partnership for Peace, a new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program of cooperation with ...


Description:
Ethiopia in 1994 continued its slow recovery from a long civil war that ended in 1991, but the process was hindered by some serious setbacks.


Description:
The year 1994 saw Europe emerge unevenly from a long, deep economic recession and continue to adjust to the changing political climate of the post-Communist era. The European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Western ...


Description:
Glamour replaced grunge as the fashion catchword during 1994. Grunge, a style derived from clothes worn by rock musicians and their fans in the Seattle area, was an assortment of jackets, vests, sweaters, skirts in all lengths, ...


Description:
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shifted in 1994 to emphasizing science-based, state-of-the-art programs to prevent the contamination of food. Traditionally, the food safety programs of ...


Description:
In a professional season in which National Football League (NFL) teams produced more touchdowns and more points because of new rules favoring the offense, the teams with the best records were the San Francisco 49ers, the Dallas Cowboys, and the ...


Description:
On Jan. 30, 1994, Guatemalans voted yes in a referendum to approve reforms proposed by President Ramiro de Leon Carpio. The reform measures aimed to combat political corruption by making government officials more accountable for how they ...


Description:
On Oct. 15, 1994, Jean-Bertrand Aristide reclaimed the presidency of Haiti, as some 20,000 United States troops guarded the peace of the troubled, bankrupt nation. Behind a bullet-proof glass enclosure outside the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, ...


Description:
United States President Bill Clinton's promise of health care that can never be taken away for all Americans hit a wall in 1994. A deeply divided Congress failed to pass any legislation to reform health care, let alone Clinton's sweeping ...


Description:
The New York Rangers, who last won the National Hockey League's (NHL) Stanley Cup in 1940, captured it again in 1994. Then they endured a bitter dispute when their coach, Mike Keenan, quit a month after the season ended, citing a contract ...


Description:
At the climax of the 1994 racing seasonNovember's Breeders' Cup racesHoly Bull, the year's best thoroughbred, stayed home in his barn. His owners rested him for the season after he won nearly every race he entered during the year.


Description:
In parliamentary elections held in May 1994, Hungarians rejected the government of former Prime Minister Jozsef Antall, who died in office in December 1993. Antall's Hungarian Democratic Forum (HDF), led by Acting Prime Minister Peter Boross, lost ...


Description:
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey) reinstated three repentant clergymen of the Jerusalem patriarchate at a synod meeting in Istanbul in April 1994. The clergy had been deposed in 1993 because of their activities in ...


Description:
Troubled by the nation's slow pace of education reform, states and school systems took bold steps in 1994 to improve schools in the United States. For many years, local school systems have run public schools with public monies. But in 1994, education ...


Description:
President Hosni Mubarak's campaign to curb violence by militant Islamic fundamentalists seeking to establish an Islamic state had mixed results in 1994. Deadly clashes between government security forces and militants occurred often. But attacks ...


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Armando Calderon Sol of the incumbent National Republican Alliance (ARENA) was sworn in for a five-year term as president on June 1, 1994. Calderon Sol had won a runoff election on April 24. The national election was the first since a 1992 peace ...


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Republicans scored a smashing victory in the Nov. 8, 1994, midterm elections, seizing control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954 and taking governorships in a number of states. The outcome was seen by many observers as a dramatic ...


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A highlight of 1994 was the long-awaited first direct broadcast satellite television system in the United States. Called Digital Satellite System (DSS) and introduced by RCA Corporation, the device consisted of an 18-inch (46-centimeter) dish antenna ...


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Politics in France heated up in 1994 as candidates jockeyed to succeed President Francois Mitterrand in the May 1995 presidential election. In the meantime, Mitterrand continued his battle with prostate cancer and on July 18, underwent surgery to ...


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Geological research during 1994 ranged from the traditional to the highly innovative, with particular emphasis on studies of the geologic record of global environmental change. Earth scientists are keenly interested in learning how the climate varied ...


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In 1994, Georgia remained politically unstable and under a national state of emergency. In May, Parliament Chairman Eduard Shevardnadze persuaded party leaders to sign a Declaration of National Unity and Accord. But the agreement quickly unraveled in ...


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German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was narrowly named to a fourth four-year term on Oct. 16, 1994, despite a drop in popularity for his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.


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The professional tours were more successful than ever in 1994, with purse money reaching an all-time high. The Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) Tour comprised 51 tournaments worth $55-million, the PGA Senior Tour held 43 tournaments worth $32 ...


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Greece came into disfavor in the European Union (EU), formerly the European Community, on Feb. 16, 1994, when it unilaterally imposed a trade embargo on Macedonia, a former republic of the federal state of Yugoslavia. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia ...


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In 1994, former professional figure skaters participated in the Olympic Winter Games for the first time. The season also saw exceptional performances in the Olympics and a scandal involving the clubbing of Nancy Kerrigan, the top United States female ...


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Reacting to rising public concern, federal and state governments moved in 1994 to halt illegal immigration and restrict benefits to people residing in the United States without permission.


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India suffered from an outbreak of pneumonic plague that began in September 1994 in Surat, a city of 1.6 million in western India. The plague, an airborne infection originally harbored in rats, spread panic, causing hundreds of thousands of people to ...


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On April 29, 1994, United States President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and all but one member of the Cabinet met at the White House with 300 elected Native-American leaders of 547 federally recognized tribes. The White House said the meeting ...


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President Suharto said on March 12, 1994, that he would retire in 1998 at the end of his current five-year term, when he will be 77 years old. He was first elected president in 1968.


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The political fortunes of Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Iran's economy were hurt when some $9 billion in national debt fell due in 1994. Rafsanjani rescheduled some $10 billion in debt payments, but outsiders guessed that Iran's ...


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Braving a road of peace, King Hussein I of Jordan and Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin exchanged peace treaties on Oct. 26, 1994. They had agreed on July 25 to end the state of war that had existed between their countries since 1948. That ...


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Five major issues in 1994 dominated American Judaism's three main branchesOrthodox, Conservative, and Reform. The issues were interfaith marriage, homosexuality, spirituality, anti-Semitism


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Still traumatized by Iraq's 1990 invasion, Kuwait again felt threatened in early October 1994 when Iraq massed forces along their mutual border. The threat receded when the United States and other Western allies swiftly sent forces to Kuwait. But the ...


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The thriving United States economy created more than 3 million jobs in 1994. However, the threat of job loss continued to haunt Americans throughout the year. Medium-sized and small firms created new jobs, but large multinational corporations ...


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Political turmoil in Haiti and Mexico captured world attention during 1994. In Haiti, international determination combined with high-level diplomatic efforts by the United States and a show of U.S. military force allowed democracy a second chance. In ...


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Latvia and Russia in 1994 remained in conflict over the treatment of Latvia's more than 900,000 ethnic Russians. The government passed a law in June making it extremely difficult for people who are not ethnic Latvians to become citizens. The law drew ...


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Lithuania on Jan. 27, 1994, joined the Partnership for Peace, a new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program of cooperation with nations that had belonged to the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance led by the former Soviet Union. Lithuania had ...


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After four years of doldrums caused by declining advertising, the magazine industry began to spring back in 1994.


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Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad spent much of 1994 preparing his United Malays National Organization (UMNO) for parliamentary elections, expected in early 1995. The UMNO has held power in the region since before Malaysia became a unified country ...


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For the third year in a row, the United States economy, led by manufacturing, expanded as consumers spent more and businesses invested in new plants and equipment. Gross domestic product


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A worldwide effort to isolate the gene that causes an inherited form of breast cancer culminated on Sept. 14, 1994, in an announcement of the gene's discovery. The gene, called BRCA1, is thought to cause half of all cases of hereditary breast cancer. ...


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The American Psychological Association (APA) on Aug. 24, 1994, cautioned that a widely used procedure termed facilitated communication has no scientific basis. Facilitated communication has been adopted in educational programs throughout the United ...


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The Dec. 1, 1994, inauguration of Mexico's new president, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), capped a tumultuous year in which rebellion and political assassination rocked Mexico's political system. Zedillo's ...


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Rather than moving toward democracy in 1994, Nigeria declined further into authoritarian rule. The economy of Africa's most heavily populated country also continued to sink.


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Nobel prizes in literature, peace, sciences, and economics were awarded in October 1994 by the Norwegian Storting (parliament) in Oslo and by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Karolinska Institute, and the Swedish Academy of Literature in ...


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Efforts to achieve peace in Northern Ireland took a historic step forward when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) announced a complete cessation of military operations on Aug. 31, 1994. Demonstrations of relief and delight reverberated ...


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Norway voted against joining the European Union (EU), formerly the European Community, in a national referendum held Nov. 28 to 29, 1994. About 52 percent of the voters opposed joining the EU, with most of the opposition coming from rural areas. ...


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After years of preparation, teams of scientists from the United States, Japan, and Europe embarked in June 1994 on a pioneering program to study an undersea vent and a growing mound of material around it. The mound was located 2,250 miles (3,620 ...


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A new format for the Olympic Games took effect in 1994. Since 1924, the Winter and Summer Olympic Games had taken place in the same year, and both were held every four years. The International Olympic Committee, realizing that world attention and ...


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Poland's coalition government struggled in 1994 to sustain economic reform while easing the burden of those reforms on the population. The parliament, led by Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak's Polish Peasant Party and the Democratic Left Alliance, ...


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A 25th anniversary concert commemorating the legendary Woodstock rock festival rivaled the original in 1994. The event drew an estimated 350,000 people to a field in Saugerties, N.Y., where performances were held from August 12 to 14. Another 250,000 ...


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Portugal in 1994 emerged from a steep economic recession that had begun in 1992. The country's gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced within the country, rose 1 percent after two years of decline. Inflation, long a ...


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The Postal Service Board of Governors voted on March 7, 1994, to seek a 10.3 percent increase in postal rates, a request that was approved on November 30 by the independent Postal Rate Commission. The increase, which was to take effect on Jan. 1, ...


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State and federal prisons in the United States held 1,012,851 prisoners as of June 30, 1994, according to the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). It was the first time the U.S. prison population ever surpassed 1 million. The ...


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Controversies over abortion and sexuality dominated many Protestant denominations during 1994, as they had in recent years. On July 29, a former Presbyterian minister, Paul Hill, was arrested for shooting to death physician John Britton and another ...


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Romania's economic troubles grew worse in 1994, despite foreign financial aid. In May, the International Monetary Fund, a United Nations agency, granted Romania a $454-million loan requiring Romanian officials to pursue economic reforms. International ...


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Russia's advocates of Western-style reform were in a defensive position as 1994 began. Elections held on Dec. 12, 1993, had produced a parliament dominated by right wing nationalists and Communists, who were elected by a public that was weary of ...


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A group of United States government and private health organizations on June 21, 1994, began a national campaign to persuade parents to put healthy babies to sleep on their back or side rather than on their stomach. The campaign, called Back to Sleep, ...


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Economic problems and charges of human rights abuses tarnished Saudi Arabia's image in 1994. On August 24, the United States granted asylum to Mohammed al-Khilewi, former first secretary at the Saudi United Nations mission, who claimed that the ...


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United States Alpine skiers did better than expected in 1994, with two gold and two silver medals in the Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, and three race victories in the season-long World Cup series. Tommy Moe of Palmer, Alaska, and Diann ...


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Slovakia endured political turbulence in 1994, the nation's second year of independence since splitting from the former Czechoslovak federation in January 1993. A parliamentary vote of no confidence on March 11, 1994, ousted Prime Minister Vladimir ...


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Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's deployment of military forces near the Kuwaiti border in early October 1994 raised fears of another military confrontation between Iraq and the United States. The action also hurt Iraqi chances for a lifting of United ...


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Strains developed within the ruling coalition of Fianna Fail (also known as the Republican Party) and the Labour Party in 1994. Disagreements over actions taken by Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds finally led to a collapse of the government in ...


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Political events, often accompanied by violence, continued to dominate the world of Islam in 1994. Algerian officials said in August that about 10,000 people had been killed in political violence since January 1992, when the military seized power to ...


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Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) head Yasir Arafat all received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 in recognition of a 1993 accord between the PLO and Israel that could lead to ...


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Italy faced a tumultuous year politically in 1994. It began when Italian voters broke up the political order that had ruled their country through a succession of unstable governments for nearly 50 years by choosing a coalition of parties led by ...


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Japan had three different prime ministers in 1994 as its political system continued to change and its economy struggled out of a long recession. Political change had begun in 1993, when the conservative Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP), which had ...


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Political violence and rising crime in 1994 threatened the national reconciliation that followed Lebanon's civil war (1975-1991). Israel's continued occupation of a security zone in southern Lebanon and Israeli raids against the militant ...


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A peace agreement signed in July 1993 failed to end Liberia's civil war in 1994. Warring factions failed to abide by the pact, and new warring groups arose.


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Using new technologies became a top item on librarians' agendas in 1994. While librarians worked to meet basic community needs, they also planned to be part of the information superhighway,


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Libyan leader Muammar Muhammad al-Qadhafi celebrated 25 years in power on Sept. 1, 1994, with a massive military parade in Libya's capital, Tripoli. Qadhafi and 11 other military officers had won power in a coup on Sept. 1, 1969. All but 2 of the ...


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England exported important novels in 1994: Beryl Bainbridge's The Birthday Boys


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Children's books published in 1994 were notably multicultural. There were picture books on many subjects, especially fantasy and folk tales. Books for preteen and teen-aged readers focused on problems of growing up, often under difficult ...


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The year 1994 was noteworthy for much that was good from mature masters of the American novel. These writers held their own against an outpouring of excellent fiction from younger writers.


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The Arab-Israeli peace process moved forward so rapidly and on so many fronts in 1994 that few observers could predict its economic and political impact on the Middle East. But hopes for peace were also tempered by some of the bloodiest acts of ...


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King Hassan ll excluded opposition parties from a new government he formed in May when he appointed Abdellatif Filali prime minister. The king's promise to form a broader coalition government was delayed because of a politically sensitive vote slated ...


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For movie audiences and the film industry, 1994 was a year of monumental achievements and notable disappointments. By the end of 1994, Walt Disney Pictures' animated film The Lion King


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The Netherlands elected a new government on May 3, 1994. Willem Kok, leader of the Labor Party, became prime minister on August 22, at the head of an unusual, three-party coalition. Kok had been finance minister in the last coalition government, which ...


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Although 62 percent of adults in the United States read a newspaper each day in 1994, newspapers were still trying to appeal to a greater range and number of people. Newspapers said they were changing because the nation's population is changing.


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On May 18, President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro presented a proposal to Nicaragua's National Assembly that would place the army under civilian control. She also said that Sandinista General Humberto Ortega Saavedra would be replaced as Army commander ...


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The end of the Cold War had important repercussions for the Pacific in 1994. With the absence of a threat from the former Soviet Union, the strategic importance of the region declined. Aid to nations of the former Soviet bloc took priority over aid to ...


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Confrontations between Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and a former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, kept Pakistani politics in turmoil in 1994. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) had defeated Sharif's Pakistan Moslem League (PML) in parliamentary ...


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Two discoveries of fossil whales in Pakistan provided new insight in 1994 into how aquatic mammals such as whales and dolphins evolved from their four-legged, land-dwelling ancestors.


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A soap opera unfolded during 1994 in Lima, Peru's capital, as Peruvians prepared to go to the polls in April 1995 to select a new president. The drama was played out in the presidential palace, where President Alberto Fujimori, 56, though credited ...


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Political parties in the Philippines moved in 1994 to consolidate into two or three major parties in preparation for 1995 congressional elections. Political parties had proliferated after President Ferdinand Marcos was deposed in 1986. He had ruled ...


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The final missing piece in the puzzle of subatomic matter appeared to have been found, according to an April 1994 announcement by physicists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill. The scientists released evidence of the ...


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By 4 1/2 months of age, babies can recognize their own names upon hearing them and prefer their names over similar-sounding names, psychologists reported in June 1994. Infants begin to build a mental vocabulary in their native language during the ...


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Efforts to prevent lead poisoning have resulted in a major decline in levels of lead in the bloodstreams of Americans, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Ga., reported on July 27, 1994. Previous studies had ...


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On Jan. 7, 1994, a barge carrying 1.5 million gallons (5.7 million liters) of heavy diesel oil struck a coral reef and spilled half its cargo along 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) of pristine beaches in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. As the year ...


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Various religious groups played key roles at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, in September 1994. The Roman Catholic Church objected to passages in conference documents that it regarded as ...


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Republicans dealt Democrats an overwhelming defeat in the midterm election of Nov. 8, 1994, winning control of both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives for the first time since 1954 and scoring big gains in governors' races. ...


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On April 10, 1994, Roman Catholic bishops from Africa and other members of the hierarchy gathered at the Vatican to open a historic month-long meeting on the religious and social needs of African Roman Catholics. Pope John Paul II had called for the ...


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President Bill Clinton on Aug. 15, 1994, signed a bill making the Social Security Administration (SSA) an independent agency. The bill, passed unanimously by Congress earlier in the month, calls for the SSA to be separated from the Department of ...


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Hopes rose in 1994 for the possibility of bringing peace to Somalia, but at year-end the outlook did not look bright. The United Nations (UN), even though it had failed to achieve its objective of ending strife in the east African nation and ...


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The democratic reforms of recent years in South Africa reached fruition in 1994 with the country's first all-race elections in April and the installation of a new government in May. On May 9, the newly seated National Assembly chose Nelson R. Mandela ...


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Astronauts on the seven space shuttle missions flown in 1994 carried out a variety of scientific experiments, took spacewalks and measured how human activity has changed the surface of Earth. The first flight of the year began on February 3, when the ...


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Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez Marquez plunged in political popularity polls as his government was rocked by scandal in 1994. On April 30, Interior Minister Antoni Asuncion resigned, reportedly to spare the government further embarrassment, ...


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There were spectacular athletic displays in 1994 at the Winter Olympics and soccer's World Cup. But in many ways, the year in sports was a troubled one. The most serious difficulties occurred when collective-bargaining disputes shut down the major ...


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Ten Chinese swimmers tested positive in 1994 for the use of illegal body building drugs. Six of the swimmers were women, confirming the suspicions of many observers that banned substances had contributed to the recent rise of Chinese women to the top ...


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In a national referendum held on Feb. 20, 1994, Swiss voters approved banning truck traffic through the Swiss Alps by the year 2004 and called for all foreign freight to travel by rail through the Alps because it is less damaging to the environment. ...


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Peace talks between Syria and Israel, which began in October 1991, remained stalemated in 1994. Hopes for peace had been raised by a rare meeting between Syrian President Hafiz al-Asad and United States President Bill Clinton on January 16 after Syria ...


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The Justice Ministry tried in 1994 to reform Taiwan's political system. In 1989, opposition to the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party had become legal, and thereafter, elections had become frequent. But the buying of votes for as much as $190 apiece was ...


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In the wake of the November 1994 midterm elections, which many political analysts saw as an expression of middle-class anger, both the triumphant Republicans and the shaken Democrats began floating proposals for a middle-class tax cut. President Bill ...


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The communications landscape became more diverse in 1994 as telephone, cable, and entertainment companies expanded aggressively through mergers and alliances. The lengthy battle for control of Paramount Communications Incorporated came to symbolize ...


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Turkey suffered a financial crisis in 1994 when at least three banks failed in April and $9 billion of Turkey's $60-billion debt fell due. Inflation soared in May by nearly 30 percent, and the Turkish lira fell in value by 58 percent. In response to ...


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Ukraine began to show signs of stability in 1994, after approaching the brink of economic and political collapse in the final months of 1993. In presidential elections held in July, former Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma, a proponent of reform, defeated ...


Description:
The year 1994 began with a succession of scandals involving members of the ruling Conservative Party. As the year continued, Conservatives fared poorly in elections and dropped lower in opinion polls. Yet at year's end, the Con-servatives, in power ...


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The prestige of the United Nations (UN) suffered as a result of its inability to contain aggression by Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina in late 1994. The UN had taken decisive steps in early 1994 to deal with violations of UN resolutions regarding ...


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Democratic Party candidates were swamped by a Republican tidal wave in the Nov. 8, 1994, midterm elections, losing control of Congress for the first time since 1955. The catastrophic Democratic defeat was expected to severely limit President Bill ...


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In the closest national elections in Uruguay's history, Julio Maria Sanguinetti, 58, of the Colorado Party won the presidency on Nov. 27, 1994, by a single percentage point. Sanguinetti served as president from 1985 to 1990 and will take office for ...


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President Dingiri Banda Wijetunga called parliamentary elections for Aug. 16, 1994, six months ahead of schedule. In March elections for the Southern Provincial Council, Wijetunga's United National Party (UNP) had been defeated by the Sri Lanka ...


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The political makeup of state governments in the United States moved to the right in 1994, as November 8 elections put 30 of the 50 governorships in Republican hands. Before the elections, the nation had only 19 Republican governors. The Republican ...


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Good news in the economy at large brought bad news to the world of stocks and bonds in 1994. The United States economy grew more strongly than expected, prompting the Federal Reserve Board to push short-term interest rates up and causing a historic ...


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Sudanese authorities arrested international terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez, known as Carlos the Jackal, on Aug. 14, 1994. He was flown to France the next day to await trial there on charges of murder and kidnapping. The action surprised observers ...


Title:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (1994)

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The Supreme Court of the United States lost its senior member when Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun, 85, retired at the end of the 1993-1994 term on June 30. Blackmun was appointed to the high court by President Richard M. Nixon in 1970. He is best ...


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Sweden voted to join the European Union (EU) in a national referendum held on Nov. 13, 1994. The vote was 52.2 percent in favor of membership. Sweden joined Austria and Finland in becoming members of the EU, formerly known as the European Community, ...


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In February, record numbers of viewers tuned in to the Winter Olympics, which were broadcast from Lillehammer, Norway, by CBS Inc. and Turner Network Television (TNT). Viewers were particularly interested in the rivalry between United States ...


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Pete Sampras of the United States and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain won two titles each in 1994 grand-slam tournaments. The separate men's and women's tours were more lucrative than ever, with the men's purses reaching $58.6 million and the women's ...


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Scandals involving drugs and stolen gems flared during 1994. First, on May 10, United States officials said Thanong Siripreechapong, a member of the main opposition party, Chat Thai, had been indicted in 1991 in California on charges of smuggling tons ...


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The American theater could no longer deny in 1994 that the curtain was being forcibly rung down on live drama, due in part to the high cost of mounting new productions and the public's apparent preference for electronic entertainment.


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In a two-month span during the summer of 1994, African men broke the world records for three long runs3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 meters. In that period, the men's world records also fell in the 100-meter dash and the pole vault, two of the sport's ...


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A bidding war broke out in October 1994 for control of the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad, the sixth largest railroad in the United States. On June 30, the Burlington North- ern Railroad of Fort Worth, Tex., and the Santa Fe Pacific ...


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Rafael Caldera Rodriguez took the oath of office for a five-year term as president of Venezuela on Feb. 2, 1994. The 78-year-old leader, who was the nation's president from 1969 to 1974, quickly sought to defuse public anger over a growing banking ...


Description:
The last international restriction placed on Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War (1957-1975) was lifted on Feb. 3, 1994, when United States President Bill Clinton removed a U.S. embargo on trade. Clinton's decision, which followed earlier steps ...


Description:
Extreme weather battered many areas of the United States and the world in 1994. Severe cold and heavy snow descended on the Great Plains, the Midwest, and the Northeast in January, followed by record heat in many areas of the Southwest and the East in ...


Description:
A major overhaul of the federal welfare system seemed likely to occur in 1995 after the Republican Party swept midterm elections on Nov. 8, 1994, and captured control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954. The Republicans said they ...


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Nations of the Caribbean region signed a trade agreement on July 24, 1994. The agreement created a new regional organization, the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), which combines the 13 member nations of the Caribbean Community and Common Market ...


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Yugoslavia continued to play a crucial role during 1994 in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (often called Bosnia), which declared its independence from Yugoslavia in March 1992. Serbia and Montenegrothe two republics that now make up ...


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The year 1994 brought more bad news for Newfoundland's fishing industry, as scientists reported that fish stocks continued to decline. In spite of a two-year fishing ban, declared in 1992, on cod, haddock, and flatfish, stocks of northern cod in 1994 ...


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In a report released on July 13, 1994, Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples concluded that the federal government showed negligence when it relocated 17 Inuit


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Nova Scotia enacted tough measures to reduce its deficit in 1994. The budget imposed a 3 percent wage cut on public employees who earn more than $25,000 a year. The reduced wages will be frozen for the next three years. Budget cuts in health care will ...


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The ruling New Democratic Party, led by Premier Robert K. Rae, sponsored a series of landmark bills that came to a vote in June 1994, during the spring session of the Ontario legislature. The legislature passed a law that prohibits the sale of ...


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The provincial budget, released in April, included broad spending cuts intended to reduce Prince Edward Island's budget deficit. One of the budget's most dramatic measures involved the Public Sector Pay Reduction Act, which reduced the wages of civil ...


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Quebec faced two changes in leadership in 1994, and Quebecers continued to demonstrate their desire for reform in the province's government. On January 11, Daniel Johnson succeeded retiring Robert Bourassa as premier and head of the Liberal Party, ...


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Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, New York City's first Republican mayor since 1965, stunned political observers on Oct. 24, 1994, by crossing party lines and endorsing the state's Democratic governor, Mario M. Cuomo, for reelection. Giuliani, who supported ...


Description:
The world recoiled in horror from the events in Rwanda in 1994. Mass murder, civil war, and enormous refugee movements made the year one of the worst that any African country has ever experienced.


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A $112-million expansion of the Dallas Convention Center opened on Jan. 8, 1994, heralding a year of major revitalization for the downtown area. A $7-million face-lift of Main Street was completed in March, and a new downtown park, Pegasus Plaza, was ...


Description:
Detroit got its first new mayor in 20 years when Dennis W. Archer, 52, was sworn in on Jan. 3, 1994. Archer, a former Michigan Supreme Court judge, succeeded Mayor Coleman A. Young, 76, who decided not to run for a sixth term because of health ...


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Houston was elated in 1994 by its first-ever major professional sports championship, a seventh-game victory on June 22 by the Houston Rockets over the New York Knicks in the National Basketball Association finals. The win erased years of frustration ...


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A devastating earthquake rocked the Los Angeles area on Jan. 17, 1994, killing 57 people and injuring about 7,000 others. The property damage caused by the quake made it the costliest earthquake in United States history in terms of insured property ...


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The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City ruled on Aug. 8, 1994, that the federal government under former President George Bush had failed to adequately defend its decision not to correct the tally on the 1990 national census. The ...


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The magnitude 6.7-earthquake that struck the San Fernando Valley about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Los Angeles on Jan. 17, 1994, caused significant damage to the area's water supply facilities. The greatest damage occurred to the water ...


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A strong economy helped bolster bank profits in the United States in 1994 even as interest rates, which had sunk to a 25-year low in 1993, rose steadily through the year. In the first half of the year, the nation's 11,000 banks posted record profits ...


Description:
Just as the United States construction industry gained momentum leading into 1994, the Federal Reserve System, known as the central bank,


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Fresh ideas and a surge of energy helped to generate a renewed confidence in 1994 that the cities of the United States could begin to make progress against stubborn problems. At the same time, America's urban centers remained gripped by the fear of ...


Description:
The United States economy was so strong in 1994 that the Federal Reserve System, a government agency that helps oversee the nation's money supply and banks, began raising interest rates early in the year to slow the economy down and prevent a binge of ...


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Albanian President Sali Berisha reiterated his commitment to economic and political reform in 1995. After his defeat in a referendum on a new Constitution in November 1994, Berisha replaced many cabinet ministers. In early 1995, he launched an ...


Description:
Algeria was wracked by violence in 1995 as Muslim militants continued to resist the nation's military regime. The crisis, which had claimed an estimated 40,000 lives by late 1995, began in January 1992 when the military seized power to prevent a ...


Description:
Four-million-year-old fossils discovered in northern Kenya may belong to the oldest known humanlike species. That finding was reported in August 1995 by anthropologist Meave G. Leakey of the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi; anthropologist Alan ...


Description:
The discovery in Zaire of 80,000-year-old bone points used for hunting and fishing suggests that human beings in Africa were making and using tools thousands of years before tool use developed elsewhere. The finding was reported in April 1995 by ...


Description:
The most touted building of 1995 was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, designed by I. M. Pei. The museum in the $92-million structure, which opened in September, surveys the history of rock and roll from blues to heavy metal, ...


Description:
President Carlos Saul Menem of the Justicialist (Peronist) Party, was sworn in for a second term on July 8, 1995. Due to a 1994 change in Argentina's Constitution that allowed Menem to seek another term, he became only the second Argentine president ...


Description:
Austria entered the European Union (EU) with enthusiasm on Jan. 1, 1995. But the austerity demanded of EU members left many Austrians disillusioned and the political establishment divided.


Description:
Analysts had expected American automobile sales in 1995 to continue the strong momentum of 1994 and predicted near-record sales of 16 million vehicles. But their forecasts were far too optimistic. After a disastrous start, sales of cars and light ...


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Controversy struck the world's richest auto race, the Indianapolis 500, in 1995, allowing one Canadian driver, Jacques Villeneuve, to win and collect the $8,063,000 prize at the expense of another, Scott Goodyear. Controversy also threatened to strip ...


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Denver International Airport, located 23 miles (37 kilometers) northeast of downtown Denver, opened for business on Feb. 28, 1995. The 53-square-mile (137-square-kilometer) airport's opening came amid complaints about cost overruns and delays due to a ...


Description:
Azerbaijan's President Heydar A. Aliyev survived a coup attempt in March 1995. Insurgents led by Deputy Interior Minister Rovshan Dzhavadov clashed for several days with government forces in the capital, Baku, before being put down on March 17. ...


Description:
Violent prodemocracy demonstrations near Bahrain's capital, Manama, killed at least 10 civilians and 3 policemen in early 1995. The ruling Al Khalifa family, Arab sheiks of the small Persian Gulf island nation, blamed the violence on ...


Description:
Zaire continued to be disrupted by an ongoing political crisis in 1994 as forces opposed to President Mobutu Sese Seko fought to bring about democratic reform and oust Mobutu. But Mobutu held on.


Description:
Dutch biologists in March 1994 demonstrated an important link between the chemical composition of soil and the populations of snails and birds in forests in the Netherlands. Since the late 1980's, bird watchers had seen fewer birds in the forests, and ...


Description:
Zoos and aquariums across the United States presented new exhibits depicting an array of habitats in 1994. Aquatic themes were especially popular.


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In a televised address on Jan. 17, 1994, Premier Ralph Klein introduced a program of spending cuts designed to balance Alberta's budget by 1997. Klein told Albertans that his Progressive Conservative Party would reduce government spending by 20 ...


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The management of British Columbia's rich forests remained a crucial issue in the Pacific coastal province's affairs in 1994. Premier Michael Harcourt and the ruling New Democratic Party sought to balance the interests of environmentalists and the ...


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Manitoba became in 1994 the first province in Canada to abolish tax-free benefits for its legislators. An independent commission determined that a tax-exempt portion of the salaries of legislators should be eliminated after the next provincial ...


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Premier Frank J. McKenna established a new cabinet position in January by appointing engineer George Corriveau New Brunswick's minister for the information highway. The minister will be charged with exploring the possibilities of electronic ...


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The New Democratic Party government of Premier Roy Romanow continued in 1994 on its course to balance Saskatchewan's budget by the 1996-1997 fiscal year. Facing a projected deficit of $1.3 billion when it came to power in 1991, the Romanow government ...


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Indians of the Yukon Territory moved closer to autonomy on June 22, when the Canadian Parliament approved two bills granting them land ownership and limited self-government. Passage of the bills was held up for a time by the western-based Reform ...


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Farmers in the Midwestern United States in 1994 managed to clear enough debris, silt, and sand left by the 1993 floods of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries to plant crops of unparalleled bounty. The U.S. Congress, responding to ...


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On Oct. 3, 1994, Brazilians elected Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 63, to be the nation's next president. Cardoso was a member of the Social Democratic Party, and he was to begin a four-year term on Jan. 1, 1995. Cardoso was a former sociology professor ...


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Retail toy sales in the United States increased about 5 percent in 1994 from 1993. Price-conscious consumers again favored discount stores as their preferred toy outlets. Discount stores captured more than 40 percent of total dollar sales of toys in ...


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Crime was a major concern in Chicago in 1994 as drive-by shootings and gang warfare escalated. By December 12, when 881 homicides had been recorded, it appeared that the murder total for the year would approach the record of 970, set in 1974.


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The economy of San Diego continued to stagnate in 1994 as a result of corporate restructuring and military cutbacks. Several of the major defense contractors in the area announced plant closures during the year, forcing the layoff of thousands of ...


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In the biggest surprise of 1994 municipal elections, Councillor Barbara Hall was elected mayor of Toronto, defeating incumbent June Rowlands. Hall became just the second member of the socialist New Democratic Party to head the city. William Dennison, ...


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Former Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion S. Barry, Jr., who left office in disgrace after his 1990 conviction for cocaine possession, completed a remarkable political comeback in 1994. In the November 8 general election, after conducting a bold campaign ...


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The number of workers in the United States with full-time jobs whose earnings fell below the poverty line for a family of four increased by 50 percent from 1979 to 1992. That statistic was reported on March 30, 1994, by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, ...


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Montreal voters showed their dissatisfaction with how the city has been run the past few years by ousting two-term Mayor Jean Dore and most of his fellow Council members in the Nov. 6, 1994, municipal elections. Dore, who cruised to easy victories in ...


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The world used more petroleum in 1994 as many nations recovered from an economic slump. Although the rise in world oil demand was only a little more than 1 percent, that was enough to push total consumption of petroleum products in 1994 to 68 million ...


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The prospect of producing vast amounts of energy through nuclear fusion attracted attention through much of 1994. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) announced plans on October 21 to spend $1.8 billion on a new fusion device. The machine ...


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The United States Congress in 1994 passed legislation approving a broad expansion of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), one of the most sweeping trade liberalization agreements in history. The expansion lowered tariffstaxes on ...


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In his introduction to The Best American Poetry 1994,


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Mayor Edward G. Rendell said on October 28 that the city completed fiscal 1994, which ended on June 30, with a $15.3-million surplus in a budget of $2.3 billion. It was the second consecutive budget surplus. Not since the 1970's had Philadelphia ...


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The comic strip officially reached the age of 100 in 1995.


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Freedom fighter turned military strategist and politician, Yitzhak Rabin brought Israel to the brink of a lasting peace with its long-time enemies.


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Some African countries, most notably South Africa, continued to make progress toward democratic rule in 1995, but definite setbacks occurred in several other African nations, including Nigeria and Kenya. In still others, the democracy movement seemed ...


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A panel of scientific experts recommended in July 1995 that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allow Jeff Getty, an AIDS patient at San Francisco, to receive a transplant of bone marrow cells from a baboon. Physicians hoped that the ...


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The radical restructuring of United States military forces to reflect the reduction in superpower tensions and an increase in regional conflicts continued in 1995. During the year, U.S. troops participated in a variety of peacekeeping and humanitarian ...


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Armenia continued to occupy about 20 percent of neighboring Azerbaijan during 1995, but a fragile cease-fire negotiated in May 1994 held. Armenia consolidated its hold over the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which it seized from ...


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Unlike previous years, when the art market dominated news of the art world, 1995 was the year of the museum. Two events early in the year summarized the current state of United States art museums. On January 18, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ...


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Asia led the world in economic growth during 1995, raising the living standards of many people, though millions of Asians remained in poverty. The Asian Development Bank, an affiliate of the United Nations (UN), said in April that the economies of ...


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In 1995, astronomers discovered tiny moons that orbit Saturn and a bright new comet. Looking beyond our solar system, they found new evidence of distant planets, black holes, and the mysterious dark matter that fills the universe.


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A sharp increase in exports helped the national economy achieve a 3.75 percent growth rate during 1995. The Treasury predicted the economy would continue to grow at that rate for the next three years. Unemployment fell to 8.3 percent from 9.5 percent ...


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Bangladesh suffered political turmoil throughout 1995. Repeated general strikes sparked violence, caused economic disruptions, and discouraged foreign investment needed for economic progress.


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Despite all its positivesmarvelous regular seasons for the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves, a World Series win for the Braves, and Cal Ripken, Jr.'s besting of a supposedly unbreakable recordthe 1995 baseball season was almost a ...


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The National Basketball Association (NBA), whose 1994-1995 season escaped the labor shutdowns that hurt major-league baseball and hockey, locked out its players after the season because of little progress toward a collective-bargaining agreement. ...


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On Jan. 6, 1995, Russia and Belarus agreed to form a customs union removing all trade barriers between them. The agreement put the two countries on the road to closer economic integration but was bitterly opposed by nationalists in Belarus, who ...


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The government of Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene overcame political scandal and public discontent with budget austerity and unemployment to retain its control in elections held on May 21, 1995. Dehaene's Christian Democratic Party of Flanders, the ...


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California scientists reported in May 1995 that they had successfully revived 25 million-year-old bacteria and thus produced the oldest living organisms. The bacteria, which were identified as an ancient strain of Bacillus sphaericus


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Burundi teetered on the brink of total collapse in 1995. The country's ethnic groups, the majority Hutu and the minority Tutsi, parallel those of Rwanda, and violent conflict between these groups has characterized the history of both countries. Since ...


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Ethics problems plagued two members of President Bill Clinton's Cabinet in 1995, but they remained in their posts with strong backing from the White House. Attorney General Janet Reno asked federal judges to appoint an independent counsel to ...


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Cambodia slumped more deeply into corrupt, inefficient, and autocratic government in 1995. First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh said in August that the Western brand of democracy and freedom of the press is not applicable to Cambodia. ...


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President Paul Biya outlasted his opponents in 1995, stalling demands for democracy. Biya used such tactics as postponing municipal elections to encourage divisions within the opposition. He also stalled talks for a new constitution, refusing the ...


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Canada moved to the brink of dissolution in October 1995 when voters in Quebec consideredthen narrowly rejecteda referendum proposing separation from the Canadian federation. About 60 percent of French-speaking Quebecers voted to assert ...


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As Canada focused on an October 1995 referendumnarrowly defeatedthat proposed Quebec's separation from the Canadian federation, Canadian writers reflected a preoccupation with the state of the nation. In Nationalism Without Walls: The ...


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Allegations that President Ernesto Samper Pizano knowingly financed his 1994 campaign with $5.9 million in contributions from a drug cartel centered in the city of Cali threatened Colombia's political stability in 1995. The allegations had dogged ...


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Windows 95, a major new version of the operating system used on most of the world's personal computers, was introduced in August 1995 by the Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Washington. Windows 95 was designed to upgrade Microsoft's existing ...


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With Republicans in control for the first time in four decades, Congress in 1995 clashed repeatedly with Democratic President Bill Clinton on the size and scope of the federal government. The confrontation led to a partial shutdown of government ...


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Amid heated controversy, gray wolves returned to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, after an absence of nearly 70 years. In March, biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 14 wolves as part of a program the service initiated in the ...


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In one of the most sensational criminal trials of the 20th century, a Los Angeles jury on Oct. 3, 1995, found former football star O. J. Simpson not guilty of murdering his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald L. Goldman. The jury ...


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The United States experienced the worst terrorist attack in its history within its borders on April 19 when a truck packed with 4,800 pounds (2,200 kilograms) of explosives blew up outside the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma ...


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In 1995, for only the second time in the 144-year history of the America's Cup, the United States lost yachting's most treasured trophy. In the finals of the five-of-nine-race challenge series off San Diego, a New Zealand boat swept away the U.S. ...


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In 1995, international negotiators brought about agreement on a plan to end the nation's civil war. The plan called for dividing Bosnia (as the nation is often called) into two entities, one dominated by a Muslim-Croat federation and the other by ...


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In the United States, where 80 million people bowl, the men's Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) tour continued to struggle in 1995. One bowler who did well was Mike Aulby, who won two of the four most important tournaments and led the tour in ...


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After serving three years and six weeks of a six-year sentence for rape, Mike Tyson was released from an Indiana prison on March 25, 1995, and stepped into a confused heavyweight picture.


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On Jan. 25, 1995, a new government headed by Prime Minister Zhan Videnov, chairman of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, took office. The installation of the new government followed December 1994 elections in which the Socialist Partyformerly the ...


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The ruling military junta of Burma (officially named Myanmar) released democratic opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest on July 10, 1995. Aung San Suu Kyi had been confined for six years, since July 1989, despite the 1990 election ...


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New hope for insomniacs, at least those of the feline variety, was announced in June 1995. Chemist Richard A. Lerner and his colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, reported that they had identified and synthesized a ...


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Two official world chess champions continued to reign in 1995 as the International Chess Federation (FIDE), founded in 1929, and the Professional Chess Association (PCA) founded in 1993, failed to agree on a plan to unify the title. Anatoly Karpov of ...


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Chile's economy grew by nearly 7 percent as 1995 closed. In the year's first quarter, the country more than tripled its trade surplus to $827 million compared with $238.8 million in 1994.


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The ruling Communist Party in 1995 launched a largely unsuccessful campaign to end China's rampant corruption. The Chinese public increasingly resented the high lifestyle of party officials while they themselves earned meager wages. Reportedly, ...


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Race relations in the United States during 1995 were buffeted by crosscurrents of hope, despair, and anxiety as Americans struggled to find common ground and goals on volatile racial issues. From the acquittal of former football star O.J. Simpson on ...


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One of the most talked-about operatic premieres of 1995 was that of Harvey Milk


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President Bill Clinton, besieged by the first Republican-controlled Congress in 40 years, wielded his veto pen in 1995 to protect Democratic programs while moving toward a balanced budget. A historic clash between the White House and Capitol Hill led ...


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There was a resumption of conflict between government troops and Croatian Serbs in 1995. The two sides had observed an uneasy truce since the end of a 1991-1992 war between the newly independent Croatia, Serbiaone of two remaining republics in ...


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Dressed like a businessman rather than in his usual military outfit, President Fidel Castro courted good will and foreign investment in 1995 during visits to France, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Argentina, China, and the United States. While ...


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The Czech Republic continued to enjoy stability in 1995. President Vaclav Havel won widespread approval, and most citizens supported the country's move toward an open-market economy.


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The plight of New York City's world-famous Joffrey Ballet in 1995 illustrated two major currents in the United States dance world. First, the Joffrey faced the monetary crisis that dance in general faced. And second, the Joffrey's attempt to leave New ...


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The Democrats, struggling against Republican domination of Congress, suffered setbacks in 1995. Democrats groped for a successful strategy to counter congressional Republicans, who pushed through legislation to slash federal spend-ing and cut taxes in ...


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Denmark continued to enjoy one of Europe's strongest economies in 1995. The economics ministry forecast growth of 3.8 percent for the year, which was weaker than the exceptionally strong 4.5 percent rate recorded in 1994 but still more than the 2.7 ...


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Actor Christopher Reeve, best known for the title role in the movie Superman,


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Embattled Democrats showed scattered signs of a political comeback in 1995 as they won the governor's race in Kentucky and staved off a strong Republican drive for control of the Virginia legislature. Democrats also regained a majority in one branch ...


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New technologies were responsible for one new electronic product in 1995 as well as updated versions of two existing products. The new product, a hand-held radar device to detect steel reinforcing inside concrete, went on sale in June. The device, ...


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Once again in 1995, a hole emerged above Antarctica in the upper atmosphere's ozone layerthe thick layer of oxygen molecules that protects life against the sun's damaging ultraviolet radiation. As spring comes to this area of the ...


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Estonia's ruling coalition in 1995 broke apart amid scandal. In March elections, the Coalition Party and Rural Alliance won 41 of 101 seats in Estonia's parliament, soundly defeating the governing right-of-center coalition. Coalition Party leader Tiit ...


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The country's recovery from the civil war that ended in 1991 continued in 1995. Elections in 1994 for a constituent assembly led to a new Constitution, but strong controversy remained over the federal system. Ethiopia has about 80 ethnic groups, which ...


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The worst war in Europe in 50 years came to a close in 1995 as warring factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina negotiated a partition of the former Yugoslav republic. Also in 1995, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Western defense alliance, ...


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Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Christian Democratic Party maintained a firm grip on power in 1995 despite the continued weakening of their coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP). In local elections on May 14, the FDP failed to achieve the ...


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On the course and off, Greg Norman of Australia dominated the sport in 1995. Jim Colbert was the major winner on the seniors' tour, and 24-year-old Annika Sorenstam of Sweden was the top golfer on the women's tour.


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In 1995, Greece reached an interim agreement to resolve a four-year-old border dispute with the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. Greece had refused to recognize the republic since it declared its independence during the breakup of Yugoslavia in ...


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Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen of the conservative National Advancement Party took a commanding share of the votes in presidential elections held Nov. 12, 1995. Arzu, 49, former Guatemalan foreign minister and mayor of Guatemala City, won 42 percent of the ...


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Haitians went to the polls on Dec. 17, 1995, to elect a new president to succeed Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The winner in the election, Rene Preval of the Lavalas Party, was due to become Haiti's next president on Feb. 7, 1996, when Aristide's term was ...


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Republicans, who won control of the United States Congress in 1994, went to work in 1995 on their announced priorities. Those priorities differed strikingly from those of the Democrats, especially in terms of health-care policy.


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Gambling on Indian lands, permitted by a 1987 Supreme Court ruling, continued to grow in 1995. But it also met with resistance.


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President Suharto in 1995 celebrated the nation's 50th anniversary of declaring independence from the Netherlands by removing a special stamp from the identity cards of 1.35 million Indonesians. The stamp indicated that they had been accused of ...


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United States President Bill Clinton, whose Administration has called Iran the worst sponsor of global terrorism, took steps in 1995 to isolate Iran economically. But his efforts met with mixed success.


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The defection to Jordan on Aug. 8, 1995, of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's two sons-in-law and their wives presented the most serious crisis Hussein had faced since his defeat by a United States-led coalition in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The ...


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The coalition government of Ireland, led by Prime Minister John Bruton and with the help of Foreign Minister Dick Spring, devoted most of its energy in 1995 to the search for a peace settlement in Northern Ireland. Throughout the year, the Irish ...


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Social and demographic trends began to influence even the most conservative Muslim societies in 1995. The changes were subtle, but they held promise of transforming Islam's image in the world.


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Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the man who spearheaded the nation's historic peacemaking effort with its Arab neighbors, died by a Jewish assassin's bullets on Nov. 4, 1995, as he left a peace rally in Tel Aviv, Israel. Rabin's slaying stunned the ...


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The United States economy in 1995 lost some of its 1994 bloom as unemployment inched up in spring 1995. Some analysts feared that steady increases in short-term interest rates by the Federal Reserve System, the nation's central bank, were slowing U.S. ...


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Business occupied center stage in Latin America during 1995 as local and foreign companies scrambled to position themselves for what many observers believed was a coming economic boom. Politicians and governments played a supporting role with efforts ...


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On Oct. 1, 1995, Latvia held its first general election since passing a new citizenship law in 1994. Under the new law, citizens of the former Soviet Union who desire Latvian citizenship must satisfy a five-year residence requirement and pass tests in ...


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The failure of Lebanon's neighbors Israel and Syria to reach a peace agreement in 1995 hurt Lebanon's recovery from its long civil war (1975-1991). In February 1995, Israel imposed a naval blockade along Lebanon's southern coast, idling more than ...


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As 1995 came to a close, the prospects of an end to Liberia's six-year civil war were better than at any time in recent years. While prior peace negotiations had ended in disappointment, an agreement reached in 1995 seemed to be holding. However, ...


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In 1995, millions of people in the United States took part in a renaissance of the urban public library that began in the early 1990's. Stunning new central library buildings opened in Denver, Colorado; Phoenix; and San Antonio. New buildings were ...


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In 1995, the United States economy continued a manufacturing-led recovery from recession that began in March 1991. But unlike the rapid growth of 1994, the expansion of 1995 kept a moderate pace, slowed in part by seven interest rate hikes by the ...


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Researchers in Texas announced in November 1995 that a gene dubbed BRCA1 was responsible for nearly all breast cancers. The gene, first identified in October 1994, was previously linked only with hereditary breast cancers, which account for about 5 ...


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A severe but largely unrecognized epidemic of mental illness and behavioral problems is occurring in the world's poorest countries, according to a study presented to the United Nations (UN) on May 15, 1995. The study, which involved researchers from ...


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His country gripped suddenly and unexpectedly by a severe economic crisis, newly inaugurated President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon called on the Mexican people for sacrifice on Jan. 3, 1995. But even as he spoke of harsh measures to right the ...


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The Arab-Israeli peace process sustained a tragic blow on Nov. 4, 1995, when a Jewish extremist hoping to halt the process assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at a rally in Tel Aviv, Israel. The act shook the Israeli nation to its core ...


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Severe drought for three of the previous four years brought on what Morocco's King Hassan II declared a national disaster in 1995. Agricultural output fell by more than 50 percent. Inflation rose as the government was forced to buy grain ...


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On Aug. 10, 1995, United States President Bill Clinton said that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can and should regulate tobacco products. Clinton's call for new federal regulation of the tobacco industry came in response to increased smoking ...


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A new drug therapy for stroke may prevent long-term disabilities if administered promptly, according to a five-year study reported in December 1995 by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The study found that patients who received ...


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Many Orthodox churches expressed concern over continued fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina during 1995. On August 7, Patriarch Pavle of Serbia's Orthodox Church appealed for a peaceful resolution of the war. He condemned the Serbian government's military ...


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Over 51 million students entered the nation's elementary and secondary schools in autumn 1995the largest number in United States history. But parents, politicians, and others were troubled by the quality of the education that many of those ...


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Muslim militants machine-gunned the motorcade of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on June 26, 1995, as he arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to attend an Organization of African Unity meeting. Mubarak escaped unscathed, but the attack renewed concern ...


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On April 28, 1995, the United Nations (UN) withdrew most of the remaining members of its peacekeeping forces in El Salvador. The observers had been in place as part of a UN-mediated peace accord that ended the civil war that ravaged El Salvador during ...


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Men and women did not slavishly follow the dictates of powerful fashion designers in 1995. They dressed up for special events, like weddings and proms, but for the most part they wore casual clothes. The T-shirt was worn everywhere.


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The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and other federal agencies continued in 1995 to move toward a system in which the agencies establish performance standards and monitor the food industry's ...


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For the first time ever, major colleges had an actual, if not official, national championship game to determine the top team of 1995, and it was won by the University of Nebraska. At the professional level, the National Football League (NFL) attracted ...


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Voters in 1995 ushered in a change in French politics by electing the leader of the Rally for the Republic (RPR) party, Jacques Chirac, as president on May 7. Chirac, the former mayor of Paris, replaced Socialist leader Francois Mitterrand, ending ...


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Geological research during 1995 continued a trend toward nontraditional, interdisciplinary studies, which provided some startling discoveries. New insights were gained from the relatively recent geologic record of the last 1,000 years, as well as from ...


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On August 24, the Georgian parliament adopted a new Constitution, creating the office of an elected president to serve a five-year term. The leading presidential candidate, Parliament Chairman Eduard Shevardnadze, narrowly escaped assassination on ...


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Labor troubles almost wiped out the National Hockey League's 1994-1995 season before it began. Owners of the 26 teams, unable to reach a labor agreement with the players, locked them out for 103 days. When the season was finally played, the New Jersey ...


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Cigar, a 5-year-old thoroughbred, went undefeated in 1995, winning 10 stakes races and evoking comparisons to such all-time greats as Secretariat, Spectacular Bid, and Cigar's grandfather, Seattle Slew. The best harness horses were ...


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Economic issues dominated the government's agenda as it fought a $4-billion budget deficit in 1995. In March, Prime Minister Gyula Horn's socialist-liberal government unveiled an austerity plan that raised taxes, reduced the number of civil servants ...


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Figure skating was so popular among Americans in 1995 that many made-for-television competitions were held, each with its own rules and few with the blessing of the International Skating Union (ISU), the sport's world governing body. As a result, such ...


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Both legal and illegal immigration came under increasing attack in 1995 as United States lawmakers moved to restrict entry to the country. Federal budget cutbacks and job losses by Americans spurred calls for tighter control over U.S. borders and ...


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The Congress Party, which had governed India for most of the years since it gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, grew weaker in 1995. The party still controlled the national Parliament, but it held power in only a few state ...


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The country's political turmoil deepened in 1995. A government of nonelected technocrats moved hesitantly to reform the country's debt-ridden economy, while corruption allegations continued to undermine the credibility of the major political parties. ...


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Japan was battered by major problems in 1995. A January earthquake in Kobe killed thousands of people, and in March members of a religious sect released poisonous gas in the Tokyo subway system, sending thousands of commuters to the hospital. The ...


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King Hussein I of Jordan granted asylum on Aug. 10, 1995, to two powerful Iraqis, sons-in-law of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein who fled Iraq with their wives and families. Observers speculated that the king hoped to strengthen his ties with the ...


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Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform congregationsthe three major branches of Judaism in the United Stateswere concerned with six major issues during 1995. Those issues were the celebration of Jerusalem 3000; the growth of armed militias in ...


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Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev moved during 1995 to consolidate his power. In March, he dissolved the parliament that had been elected a year earlier.The first round of elections to the new parliament, held in December, were dominated by ...


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Failure to curtail yearly budget deficits since the 1991 Persian Gulf War eroded Kuwait's $100-billion prewar reserves to only $35 billion in 1995. On August 19, Kuwait's opposition-dominated parliament rejected a 1995-1996 $14-billion budget, hoping ...


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Political turbulence, mass deportations, and economic troubles marred the 26th year of leadership of Libya's Muammar Muhammad al-Qadhafi in 1995. Confrontations between Libyan security forces and Islamic militants erupted in June in Benghazi, Libya's ...


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British and Irish writers produced some fine literature in 1995. Felicia's Journey,


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Many children's books published in 1995 were multicultural, a trend that was also notable in 1994. Picture books in 1995 included many in Spanish/English or Spanish, talking beast tales, folk tales, and books about the environment. For preteens and ...


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No new American novel stood out during 1995 as an undisputed masterpiece. Nonetheless, much excellent work did appear, especially from veteran novelists and short-story writers.


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For most of 1995, Lithuanian citizens focused on threats to their health-care and banking systems, while politicians looked ahead to a parliamentary election scheduled for 1996. In June 1995, the government announced that it could no longer afford to ...


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After months of speculation, John F. Kennedy, Jr., on Sept. 7, 1995, unveiled the first issue of George,


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Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad called for parliamentary elections in April 1995, six months ahead of schedule, giving opponents of his United Malays National Organization (UMNO) little time to prepare. The UMNO dominated a 14-party coalition, ...


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Giant mergers dominated the United States entertainment industry in 1995, including motion pictures. In July, the Walt Disney Company announced that it had purchased Capital Cities/ABC Inc. for $19 billionthe world's largest entertainment ...


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The Netherlands in 1995 had one of the strongest economies in Europe as consumer demand and corporate investment increased at a brisk pace. The output of goods and services grew an estimated 3 percent, the highest growth rate in the Netherlands since ...


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The biggest problem newspapers faced in 1995 came from the paper they were printed on. After enjoying low newsprint prices since the late 1980's, United States publishers suddenly confronted tight supplies at a time when rising advertising volumes ...


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On June 15, 1995, President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro ended four months of political paralysis by reluctantly yielding to extensive changes in Nicaragua's Constitution that had been approved by Nicaragua's National Assembly in November 1994. The ...


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Nigeria's authoritarian rule continued in 1995, becoming so repressive it stirred international protests. By year's end, Nigeria's political and economic future was the bleakest since 1960, when the nation achieved its independence. Petroleum ...


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Nobel prizes in literature, peace, sciences, and economics were awarded in October 1995 by the Norwegian Storting (parliament) in Oslo and by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Karolinska Institute, and the Swedish Academy of Literature in ...


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Research in 1995 provided missing details about the transition between the Permian and Triassic periods, some 250 million years ago. This interval, called the Permo-Triassic (P-T) boundary, was the time of the greatest mass extinction in the history ...


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The United States, which had dominated this Western Hemisphere Olympic-style competition since it began in 1951, broke the records for gold medals and total medals in 1995. The quadrennial games March 8 to 26 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, attracted ...


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On April 9, 1995, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, 56, of the Change 90/New Majority coalition was elected to a second five-year term. He was inaugurated on July 28. Fujimori's success in guiding Peru's 1994 economic growth to a rate of 12 ...


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Voters in the May 1995 midterm elections for Congress gave President Fidel V. Ramos a weak vote of confidence. In the Senate, 12 of 24 seats were up for election, and Ramos candidates won 9. In the House of Representatives, all 204 seats were up for ...


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The year 1995 saw two long-awaited discoveries in physics. In March, physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) near Batavia, Illinois, confirmed the existence of the top quark, the last of the 12 fundamental building blocks of ...


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On Nov. 5, 1995, President Lech Walesa, whose popular support had been slipping all year, was defeated by Alexander Kwasniewski, 41, a former Communist. After Poland's Communist government was ousted in 1989, Kwasniewski had helped form a new ...


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People with a weakened immune system should ask their physicians about the safety of their drinking water before drinking any more of it, two federal government agencies said on June 15, 1995. The agencies made the recommendation after studies ...


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Puerto Ricans were increasingly angry in 1995 that their commonwealth had become a place of violence, beset by drug trafficking, gangs, and a growing murder rate. In an attempt to stem drug trafficking and the crime that goes with it, authorities ...


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Many religious groups in the United States were involved in politics in 1995. The Religious Right, a loose coalition of Protestant conservatives, had played a key role in the 1994 election of a Republican majority to the U.S. Congress. In 1995, the ...


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Emboldened by their control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years, Republican party leaders in 1995 translated their electoral ''revolution'' into legislation designed to slash taxes and federal spending. Grand Old Party (GOP) ...


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In October 1995, Pope John Paul II visited the United States for the fourth time since 1978, when he was elevated to the papacy and became the spiritual leader of the world's Roman Catholics. The main purpose of his five-day visit was to address the ...


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Romania experienced tensions with its Hungarian minority in 1995. On June 22, Romania applied for European Union (EU) membership, but strained relations between the Romanian government and ethnic Hungarians, who constitute about 8 percent of the ...


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The British government proceeded in 1995 with steps toward normalizing life in Northern Ireland, as the cease-fire announced by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in August 1994 continued to hold. The suspension of violence in the region offered the hope ...


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The government of Norway in 1995 worked to maintain its economic and political links with the rest of Western Europe in the wake of the rejection by voters in November 1994 of membership in the European Union (EU). The country's main ties with Europe, ...


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The area of ocean covered with ice at Earth's poles appears to be shrinking. That finding was announced in October 1995 by oceanographer Ola Johannessen and his colleagues at the Nansen Remote Sensing Center in Bergen, Norway. The researchers based ...


Description:
In June 1995, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the Winter Olympics for the year 2002 to Salt Lake City, Utah. Salt Lake City won on the first ballot, receiving 54 votes to 14 for Ostersund, Sweden; 14 for Sion, Switzerland; and 7 for ...


Description:
On June 13, 1995, French President Jacques Chirac announced that France would resume nuclear testing in its territory of French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean. France had conducted 175 nuclear tests in French Polynesia between 1966 and 1991, but ...


Description:
Military authorities arrested at least 36 high-ranking officersincluding a major general and a brigadier generalfor plotting to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in September 1995. The officers wanted to replace ...


Description:
Popular music once again became a target for public criticism in 1995, when Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole attacked the entertainment industry in a speech in Los Angeles on May 31 for bombarding our children with destructive messages of ...


Description:
Portugal's Socialist Party returned to power in 1995 after an absence of 10 years by winning 44 percent of the vote and 112 seats in the general election held on October 1. The governing, center-right Social Democratic Party won 88 seats, the ...


Description:
The Postal Service in August 1995 proposed a policy that would allow advertisers to send mail to addresses in certain areas by putting only Postal Patron or Neighbor on the mailing label. Previous guidelines required a specific ...


Description:
As 1995 began, federal and state prisons in the United States held 1,053,738 inmates, according to an August 1995 report by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The BJS said the prison population grew 8.6 ...


Description:
Both mainstream and evangelical Protestant groups were beset by financial scandals during 1995. The Episcopal Church suffered the most embarrassing setback, when on February 15 presiding Bishop Edmond Browning announced that former denominational ...


Description:
The brains of men and women work differently during an important step in understanding language, according to a study published in February 1995. The difference appears in a frontal area of the brain that helps regulate the perception and use of ...


Description:
Two events dominated Russian politics for most of 1995: the Russian invasion of the separatist region of Chechnya and preparations for the parliamentary elections that were held on December 17. Despite the turmoil caused by these events and by Russian ...


Description:
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in May 1995 warned parents that infant walkers are dangerous. The AAP, an organization of 48,000 pediatricians, urged a government ban on the manufacture and sale of walkerswheeled devices that a baby ...


Description:
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest petroleum producer and one of the biggest welfare states, took steps in 1995 to correct an economic crisis caused by sagging oil prices and more than a decade of overspending. On January 1, the kingdom released a ...


Description:
Alpine skiers from the United States, notably Picabo Street, enjoyed wide success in 1995. In the World Cup international series from November 1994 to March 1995, held mostly in Europe, the 23-year-old Street, from Sun Valley, Idaho, won six of the ...


Description:
Political life in Slovakia was full of conflict in 1995. The coalition government that formed in December 1994, made up of Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, the Peasant Party, the Slovak National Party, and the ...


Description:
In the summer of 1995, the United States national team enjoyed its best six-week stretch ever. In that span, it won the U.S. Cup by defeating three of the world's 10 highest-ranked teams and reached the semifinals of the South American championship.


Description:
Fighting escalated in 1995 between the government, which is controlled by Sinhalese Buddhists, the nation's ethnic majority, and a guerrilla army of Tamil Hindus, a minority group seeking an independent state in north and northeast Sri Lanka. Between ...


Description:
The year 1995 saw the enactment of a conservative agenda in many of the largest states in the Union. With Republicans in charge of 31 of the 50 governorships, many states adopted welfare reforms, enacted tougher criminal laws, and limited the damages ...


Description:
United States stock and bond markets boomed in 1995, as shrinking inflation and expanding corporate profits gave investors a powerful incentive to buy. After a strong finish to 1994, the economy settled into what came to be known as a soft ...


Description:
Tensions rose between Egypt and Sudan when Egypt accused Sudan's President Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir of supporting an assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on June 26, 1995. Sudan denied the charges. Mubarak called for ...


Title:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (1995)

Description:
During its 1994-1995 term, the Supreme Court of the United States issued important rulings on gun possession near schools, term limits for politicians, the racial redrawing of voting districts, and affirmative action. The term was also marked by the ...


Description:
Swedes voiced growing misgivings about the 15-nation European Union (EU) within months of joining, even though a faster-than-expected economic recovery raised the prospect that Sweden could join a common EU currency in 1999. The anti-Union sentiment ...


Description:
The most memorable television event of 1995 may have been the murder trial of football star-turned-actor O. J. Simpson. Simpson was accused of the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman on June 12, 1994. ...


Description:
In April 1995, Chuan Likphai set a record for coup-plagued Thailand by serving 32 months as a democratically elected prime minister. He was credited with liberalizing the nation's financial system and other reforms.


Description:
The punishing economics of Broadway continued to define New York City theater in 1995. New musicals, Broadway's traditional mainstay, found the Great White Way a difficult environment. Classic plays, however, proved surprisingly popular.


Description:
The outstanding athletes in 1995 were three African distance and middle-distance runners (Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, Moses Kiptanui of Kenya, and Noureddine Morceli of Algeria); a British triple jumper (Jonathan Edwards); and an American sprinter ...


Description:
Railway companies in the Western United States took steps in 1995 toward consolidating the five major railroads into just two. After a bidding war broke out in late 1994 over control of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railway, the Burlington ...


Description:
Prime Minister Tansu Ciller's True Path Party lost to a Muslim group, the Welfare Party, in general elections held on Dec. 24, 1995. The next day, Ciller resigned, along with her cabinet, though she was expected to stay in office until a new ...


Description:
Venezuelans continued in 1995 to feel the impact of the 1994 collapse of most of the nation's banks due to corruption and mismanagement. By October 1995, inflation was running at 52.7 percent, creating widespread havoc among all the nation's social ...


Description:
United States President Bill Clinton announced full diplomatic recognition of Vietnam on July 11, 1995, 20 years after the Vietnam War (1957-1975) ended. Some American political leaders as well as veterans' groups opposed the move because many U.S. ...


Description:
The first few days of 1995 featured cold weather in the Northeastern United States and warm dry weather in the Southwest. A string of Pacific storms from January 8 to 15 dropped torrential rains on coastal areas in California and up to 10 feet (3 ...


Description:
The Republican-led United States Congress clashed with President Bill Clinton in 1995 over his campaign promise to end welfare as we know it. Clinton's rejection of an interim spending bill on November 14 and his vow to veto legislation ...


Description:
The 25 nations of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) held their first meeting on Aug. 17 and 18, 1995, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The newly formed ACS includes all the Caribbean nations, including Cuba, together with the Latin ...


Description:
The presidents of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia (one of two republics making up the nation of Yugoslavia) sat down together at the peace table on Nov. 1, 1995, to seek an end to the war that had torn apart the Balkan region since 1992. U.S. ...


Description:
The PCP administration of Premier Gary Filmon won a third term in office on April 25, 1995, increasing its standing in the 57-seat legislature from 29 to 31 members. The opposition NDP gained two seats to control 22. The Liberal Party fell from six ...


Description:
New Brunswick, a small lumbering and fishing province heavily dependent on federal transfer payments, emerged in 1995 as a major Canadian center for customer service operations. The transformation began when the province set up the first telephone ...


Description:
Economic prospects for Newfoundland, hard hit by the collapse of the cod-fishing industry, brightened in 1995 as prospectors and geologists rushed to Voisey Bay on the mainland coast of Labrador, where a rich deposit of nickel, cobalt, and copper was ...


Description:
The Northwest Territories, which cover one-third of Canada's land mass, elected a new assembly on October 16. The 24 members of the assembly, which does not have political parties, planned to choose a speaker and a premier (leader of the government) ...


Description:
After two years of internal dissent, members of the governing Liberal Party voted on June 24, 1995, to continue their support for Premier John Savage, the party's leader. Had he been ousted, it would have been the first time in Canadian history that a ...


Description:
Provincial elections on June 8, 1995, handed power to the PCP, which had promised the most sweeping changes in the role of government in Canada's most populous province since the end of World War II (1939-1945). The victorious PCP was led by Michael ...


Description:
Retail toy sales in the United States were somewhat disappointing in 1995, rising just slightly more than 3 percent over 1994 sales, despite a relatively stable economy. Some industry analysts theorized that cautious consumer spending throughout the ...


Description:
With stunning speed, a new force known as the Taliban captured the southwestern half of Afghanistan in 1995 and more than once nearly took over the capital, Kabul. There, Burhanuddin Rabbani presided as president, despite the fact that his term had ...


Description:
Richard M. Daley won reelection as mayor of Chicago on April 4, 1995, with 60 percent of the vote. Former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, who ran as an independent, received 36 percent. Republican Ray Wardingley, a disabled veteran and former ...


Description:
Rudolph F. Crew, superintendent of the Tacoma, Washington school system, was appointed chancellor of New York City schools on Oct. 7, 1995. The appointment ended a long search that was complicated by a feud between City Hall and the Board of ...


Description:
The terrible conditions that emerged in Rwanda in 1994 did not significantly improve during 1995. There were many indications that fighting between the country's two major ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi, would continue, and the economy ...


Description:
On May 6, 1995, former Texas Secretary of State Ron Kirk was elected mayor of Dallas. He was the first African American to be elected mayor of a major Texas city. Kirk received 62 percent of the vote, attorney Darrell Jordan received 23 percent, and ...


Description:
In 1995, Detroit's battered image finally saw some improvement. The city leapfrogged on Money


Description:
Basic social security benefits were protected in 1995 from federal budget cuts that affected nearly every other United States government agency. Both President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress, fearing a political backlash from the ...


Description:
Somalia faced political difficulties in 1995, but events were not as bloody or chaotic as many observers had predicted. The decision of the United Nations (UN) in 1994 to remove its peacekeeping forces from the country in March 1995 did not lead to an ...


Description:
South Africa continued to make progress in 1995 in solving the many political, economic, and social problems that had resulted from decades of apartheid


Description:
Two historic dockings took place in 1995 between a United States space shuttle and the Russian space station Mir. A U.S. astronaut was carried into space aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for the first time and spent nearly four months on Mir. And ...


Description:
The government of Spain in July 1995 was shaken by allegations that Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez Marquez in the 1980's had authorized death squads to hunt down members of the Basque separatist group ETA (the initials stand for Basque Homeland and ...


Description:
Harsh business realities in the form of strikes, lockouts, franchise moves and threats to move nearly took the fun out of sports in 1995. Just one year after labor peace was achieved in the National Football League (NFL), the three other major ...


Description:
Four of the world's major swimming powersthe United States, Australia, Germany, and Russiadid well in major competitions in 1995. A fifthChinamade a few appearances internationally but, because so many of its swimmers had ...


Description:
The four governing parties of Switzerland won a majority in the lower house of parliament in an election held on Oct. 11, 1995. The Social Democratic Party, which campaigned in favor of eventual entry into the European Union (EU), became the biggest ...


Description:
Syria stood as the main Arab holdout to the Arab-Israeli peace process in 1995. Although both Syria and Israel seemed in 1994 to have accepted the principle of Syrian recognition of Israel as a nation in return for Israel's withdrawal from the ...


Description:
Taiwan in 1995 resisted China's pressure for reunification. The two had separated in 1949, when Communists took over the mainland, but China still regarded Taiwan as its province. In 1995, Taiwan sought world prominence for itself. On June 26, Taiwan ...


Description:
President Bill Clinton and the Republican-led Congress both favored major tax cuts in 1995 but clashed over the size of the reductions and who should receive them. The President vetoed a budget bill that included a seven-year, $245-billion package of ...


Description:
The big players in the communications world opened up their wallets in 1995 in hopes of positioning themselves for a new competitive order. Barriers separating broadcasting, cable, and telephone companies continued to break down after the expiration ...


Description:
Turkmenistan's President Saparmurad Niyazov consolidated single-party authoritarian rule in 1995. In a February 1994 referendum, Niyazov's presidential term had been extended to the end of the century. In 1995, every seat in the new 50-member Majlis


Description:
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma expanded his powers at the expense of the Rada


Description:
Government leadership by the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom (U.K.) faced challenges in 1995, as attacks on the prime minister, scandals, and infighting rocked the nation's ruling party. Britain's Labour Party, however, gained strength under ...


Description:
The largest gathering ever of government leaders celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations (UN) at UN Headquarters in New York City in October 1995. A total of 91 presidents, 8 vice presidents, 37 prime ministers, at least ...


Description:
A political standoff between Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress led to a partial shutdown of federal operations for six days in mid-November 1995. Clinton vetoed a bill to continue spending beyond November 13, ...


Description:
On March 1, 1995, Julio Maria Sanguinetti of the Colorado Party was sworn for a second five-year term as Uruguay's president. He had also served from 1985 to 1990.


Description:
On March 26, 1995, Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov held a referendum on extending his term of office by three years, to the year 2000. Karimov ignored international objections to voting procedures, such as restrictions on opposition campaigning, ...


Description:
President Mobutu Sese Seko remained in power in 1995, more securely than in previous years. Prime Minister Kengo wa Dondo achieved some success in bringing Zaire's inflation problem under control. But the impasse between Mobutu and opposition leader ...


Description:
Zoos and aquariums from Florida to Nebraska in 1995 opened a variety of blockbuster exhibits that realistically reproduced wild habitats. The aquatic world continued to be a popular focus of exhibits.


Description:
Plant physiologist Jane Shen-Miller at the University of California in Los Angeles reported in November that she and her colleagues had forced a 1,300-year-old lotus plant seed to sprout. The seed, one of several brought to California from the Beijing ...


Description:
A virus whose genes were incorporated into human genes in ancient times may help prevent a mother's immune system from rejecting the placenta during pregnancy. British and American researchers reported in August that cells in the wall of the placenta ...


Description:
Premier Ralph Klein, a fiscal conservative, pressed ahead with drastic spending cuts introduced when his Progressive Conservative Party (PCP) assumed power in 1992. The budget, released on Feb. 21, 1995, posted an estimated surplus of $110- million in ...


Description:
The NDP government of Premier Michael Harcourt on January 23 scuttled a plan by Alcan Aluminum Limited to add a 285-megawatt powerhouse to the massive Kemano hydroelectric project in northwest British Columbia on the grounds that the facility would ...


Description:
The calm of Canada's smallest province was disturbed on April 20, 1995, when a bomb exploded outside historic Province House, the seat of the province's legislature and the site of a conference held in 1864 that led to the formation of the Canadian ...


Description:
The debate over independence that dominated public affairs in Quebec before the October referendum showed no signs of abating after voters narrowly rejected the measure50.5 percent to 49.4 percent. The day after the vote, Jacques Parizeau, ...


Description:
The NDP government of Premier Roy Romanow swept to a solid electoral victory on June 21, 1995, winning a second majority in the legislature. The NDP took 42 seats in the 58-seat assembly and captured 48 percent of the popular vote. The Liberals moved ...


Description:
The economic prospects of the Yukon Territory's 31,000 inhabitants brightened in 1995 with the reopening of the Faro mine, 125 miles (200 kilometers) northeast of Whitehorse. The mine, which produces silver, zinc, and lead, was formerly the Yukon's ...


Description:
United States farmers in 1995 were plagued by a wet spring, followed by a hot, dry summer. The weather problems and insect infestations delivered a double blow to the nation's crops, particularly corn. The dramatic decline in U.S. corn production, ...


Description:
On Jan. 1, 1995, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 63, of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party was sworn in as president. In accord with a change to the Constitution approved in 1994, Cardoso was to serve a four-year term and was ineligible for reelection.


Description:
Houston gave itself the nickname Two-ston after winning another National Basketball Association (NBA) championship in 1995the city's second in a row. The Houston Rockets, led by superstar center Hakeem Olajuwon and his former ...


Description:
In the spellbinding climax to the most-watched media event of 1995, a Los Angeles jury on October 3 found former football star and sportscaster O. J. Simpson not guilty of murder. Although the presentation of evidence had lasted over eight months, the ...


Description:
Two sports milestones dominated the news in San Diego in 1995. The San Diego Chargers played their first Super Bowl game on January 29 in Miami's Joe Robbie Stadium. The Chargers, American Football Conference league champions, lost to the San ...


Description:
Known in the 1970's as the city that works and during the 1980's as a world-class city, Toronto in 1995 became a city painfully trying to chart a future course. The year was marked by a sensational murder trial, the worst ...


Description:
Faced with a ballooning budget deficit, serious erosion in city services, and finally bankruptcy, Washington in 1995 also faced a takeover of District finances by an oversight board created by the United States Congress on April 7. The creation of the ...


Description:
The number of people living in the United States in 1994 who were born in a foreign country was the highest since 1940, increasing to 8.7 percent of the U.S. population, from 7.9 percent in 1990. The U.S. Bureau of the Census reported these statistics ...


Description:
Terrorist acts created scenes of horror in cities of the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in 1995 during a year of militant violence.


Description:
The growth pace of the United States economy suddenly slowed in 1995, though the nation avoided an outright economic downturn or recession. By the year's end, the economy seemed to be heading toward sustained moderate growth.


Description:
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), a nuclear power industry organization based in Washington, D.C., reported in March 1995 that nuclear power plants in the United States set a performance record in 1994. The NEI said the average capacity factor of ...


Description:
A newly elected Republican majority ruling the United States Congress stymied some international trade initiatives by the Democratic Administration of President Bill Clinton in 1995. Despite these setbacks, important trade negotiations moved forward ...


Description:
The death of James Merrill at age 68 in February 1995 saddened poetry lovers. With the completion of his book-length poem The Changing Light at Sandover


Description:
One of the worst police scandals in Philadelphia history occurred in 1995. Six officers of the 39th District in North Philadelphia, a neighborhood of poor and mostly black residents, pleaded guilty during the year to faking evidence, framing innocent ...


Description:
A singer legendary for her taste, purity of sound, and stylistic innovations dies at age 79.


Description:
George Burns kept people laughing for more than 90 years.


Description:
In March 1996, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved ritonavir and indinavir, which are from a new class of HIV drugs called protease inhibitors. (HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is the virus that causes AIDS.) The new drugs ...


Description:
Alberta, rich in oil, gas, and other natural resources, achieved another year of spectacular success in budget cutting in 1996. On June 24, the Progressive Conservative Party (PCP) government of Premier Ralph Klein announced that the $506-million ...


Description:
Important fossil discoveries of distant human ancestors highlighted anthropology in 1996. New discoveries shed light on the relationship between Neanderthals and modern human beings. Scientists also announced that a third human species may have walked ...


Description:
Significant archaeological finds in 1996 expanded knowledge of prehistory (the period of human history before writing) and yielded ancient treasures. Researchers also unearthed traces of the 1607 fort in Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent ...


Description:
On July 26, 1996, President Carlos Saul Menem announced the resignation of Domingo Cavallo, the minister of economy, who was widely credited for playing a major role in stabilizing Argentina's economy and bringing inflation under control. Cavallo was ...


Description:
The year 1996 was dominated by two crime cases that shook the faith of many Belgians in their country's government and judicial system and prompted demands for fundamental reform.


Description:
Some 260,000 people from across Canada came together in downtown Montreal on Oct. 27, 1995, as part of a Stand Up for Canada rally held three days before a referendum on independence for Quebec. It was the largest political gathering in Montreal's ...


Description:
The world's thirst for petroleum continued to grow in 1995. That growth was expected to continue for a third straight year in 1996, barring a major economic slump. Until 1994, demand for oil had been flat because oil prices escalated during the ...


Description:
Investing in individuals will be the key to containing world population growth, according to the annual State of the World Population report, issued in July 1995 by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF). The report drew largely on ideas and ...


Description:
Several studies released in the United States during the summer of 1995 by various federal agencies and private environmental groups warned Americans about drinking water contamination. Some studies were released to counter the Republican Party's ...


Description:
Some of the nation's oldest banks announced mergers in 1995. In June, First Union Cor-poration of Charlotte, North Carolina, announced that it would acquire First Fidelity Bancorp of New-ark, New Jersey, for $5.4 billion. In July, PNC Corporation of ...


Description:
The pace of construction in the United States slowed in 1995 compared to the rapid gains of 1994. The decrease stemmed partly from interest rate increases that the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), the nation's central bank, ordered in 1994 to put the ...


Description:
In a process many people take for granted after more than 200 years, Americans elected a new president on Nov. 5, 1996.


Description:
The University of Pennsylvania throws a party for the 50-year-old computer that introduced the world to the age of information.


Description:
The United States launched cruise missile strikes against Iraq in 1996, five years after U.S. and allied forces had defeated the Iraqi military in the Persian Gulf War. President Bill Clinton ordered the strikes in response to Iraqi leader Saddam ...


Description:
On Sept. 22, 1996, President Levon Ter-Petrosian won a second five-year term, defeating former Prime Minister Vazgen Manukyan the first ballot. Ter-Petrosian won 52 percent of the vote to Manukian's 41 percent. Protesting accusations of election ...


Description:
Austria struggled to define its place in the European Union (EU) in 1996 as the government imposed tough austerity measures in a bid to qualify for the planned single EU currency. The measures provoked a strong public backlash, reflected in the ...


Description:
In April 1996, Azeri President Heydar A. Aliyev met with Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosian to discuss the eight-year-long war over the disputed Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. In a joint declaration, the two presidents agreed to maintain ...


Description:
Poverty and both civil and political instability were serious concerns in Africa in 1996. However, the climate for economic growth and democracy seemed more positive than in many past years. African immigrants in Europe, women's issues, and disease in ...


Description:
In 1996, astronomers studied a rock believed to be from Mars and examined data from a spacecraft orbiting Jupiter. They found new planets and were able to see the universe just as it was after the formation of the earliest galaxies. An amateur ...


Description:
John Howard succeeded Paul Keating as prime minister after early elections on March 2, 1996, gave Howard's Liberal Party 77 seats in the House of Representatives. Keating's Australian Labor Party, which had governed the nation for 13 years, captured ...


Description:
Automakers had anticipated that 1996 would be a good year, and they were not disappointed. Through the first nine months of the year, sales of light vehicles in the United States reached 11.6 million units, or 3.2 percent more than sales for the same ...


Description:
On June 11, 1996, executives of British Airways and American Airlines, a subsidiary of Dallas-based AMR Corp., announced an alliance. The airlines would coordinate schedules for nearly 500 weekly flights across the North Atlantic, jointly market their ...


Description:
A memorable 1996 season produced the greatest home-run barrage in major-league history and ended with the New York Yankees dethroning the Atlanta Braves as World Series champions. In December, the owners of the 30 National and American league clubs ...


Description:
Old reliables won the major basketball championships of the 1995-1996 season. The Chicago Bulls captured the National Basketball Association (NBA) title for the fourth time in six years under Coach Phil Jackson. The University of Tennessee won the ...


Description:
Major new clues into the nature and origin of life were reported in 1996 by scientists in Europe and the United States. In April, Belgian and American researchers announced that they and colleagues in several other countries had identified each of the ...


Description:
In 1996, Bosnia-Herzegovina (often called Bosnia) began to see effects of the peace treaty brokered in November 1995 in Dayton, Ohio, and signed one month later in Paris by Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian leaders. But obstacles to peace remained in ...


Description:
The growing season for plants in many countries in the Northern Hemisphere was a week longer in the mid-1990's than it was 20 years earlier, researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, reported in July 1996. Their ...


Description:
Strengthened by a change in leadership, the New Democratic Party (NDP) narrowly won a second mandate to govern British Columbia in an election held on May 28, 1996. Glen Clark, an aggressive 38-year-old former labor organizer, was elected leader of ...


Description:
In 1996, the government of Prime Minister Jean Chretien, stunned by the razor-thin defeat of a 1995 referendum


Description:
The Canadian literary scene in 1996 showed particular strength and vitality in the field of adult fiction. Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance


Description:
New insights into the chemical structure of spider silk were reported in January 1996 by scientists at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The researchers described how silk components come together to produce a fiber stronger and more elastic ...


Description:
In 1996 Croatian leaders, with the leaders of Bosnia and Serbia, came under continued pressure from international organizations and governments to live up to the commitments made in the 1995 Dayton accords. The international community complained about ...


Description:
On Feb. 24, 1996, Cuban MiG jet fighters shot down two small airplanes belonging to Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based Cuban exile organization. The incident occurred in international air space, but south of the 24th parallel, Cuba's legally ...


Description:
The Democratic Party retained control of the presidency in 1996. President Bill Clinton became the first Democrat to win a second term since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. Demo-crats, however, lost their battle to regain a majority of seats in both ...


Description:
Denmark enjoyed a strong economy in 1996. Although the European Union (EU) forecast Danish economic growth would slow to 1.3 percent, below the EU average, unemployment in Denmark was expected to fall to 6.1 percent in 1996, well below the EU average ...


Description:
President Bill Clinton easily won a second term in the 1996 presidential election, defeating Republican challenger former Senator Robert Dole of Kansas. The president captured electoral votes in 31 states and Washington, D.C. He took 379 electoral ...


Description:
The countries of Europe struggled in 1996 to define the economic, political, and security arrangements that would guarantee the region's stability into the next century. The nations of the European Union (EU), an organization of 15 Western European ...


Description:
On Feb. 7, 1996, Rene Preval, 53, took office as president for a four-year term. His inauguration was the first peaceful transfer of power from one democratically elected president to another since Haiti achieved independence from France in 1804.


Description:
In their first season at their new home in Denver, the Colorado Avalanche (formerly the Quebec Nordiques) won the Stanley Cup, becoming the 1995-1996 champions of the National Hockey League (NHL). This outcome surprised many fans because the Detroit ...


Description:
More than 340 million voters cast ballots between April 27 and May 7, 1996, in parliamentary elections that ousted the Congress Party, the party that held power for the nearly half century since India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947. ...


Description:
On Jan. 23, 1996, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno announced the return of four acres of land, considered sacred, to the Karuk Indians of northwestern California. The federal government had seized the site of the ancient Karuk village of Katimin after ...


Description:
Indonesia experienced its worst riots in more than two decades in 1996, after the government of President Suharto tried to weaken the political power of Megawati Sukarnoputri. Megawati, a daughter of Indonesia's former President Sukarno, was seen as a ...


Description:
Ireland held the rotating presidency of the European Union (EU) for six months in 1996, beginning July 1, and so led the negotiations aimed at creating a single currency for EU countries. The EU hoped to begin the circulation of a single currency in ...


Description:
Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad maneuvered during 1996 to keep tight control of his United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the nation's dominant political party. Mahathir has been president of the UMNO, as well as prime minister, since 1981 ...


Description:
Illicit drug use, especially among 12- to 17-year-olds, increased in recent years, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) released in August 1996. The report asked United States residents about their drug use. The survey ...


Description:
On April 19, 1996, the first drugs designed to cure peptic ulcers were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Peptic ulcers,


Description:
Physical differences in specific areas of the brains of men and women may explain why women tend to have better verbal abilities than men, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, reported in February 1996.


Description:
On Aug. 28, 1996, armed rebels of the Popular Revolutionary Army (known by the Spanish acronym EPR) attacked police and military posts in four Mexican states: Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Mexico. The raids, which left 13 dead and 23 wounded, marked ...


Description:
Hopes of stability in the Middle East were dashed in 1996. The election of a hard-line Israeli government froze the Arab-Israeli peace process. Interfactional Kurdish fighting in northern Iraq threatened to embroil other states. And Islamic militants ...


Description:
Nova Scotia, with fewer than 1 million inhabitants, boasts 13 universities, one of the largest concentrations of such institutions in Canada. In April 1996, after several years of talks, eight universities and colleges in Halifax announced an ...


Description:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced in July 1996 that the TOPEX-Poseidon satellite, a joint project of the United States and France, was capable of mapping the topography of the ocean's surface to the unprecedented ...


Description:
The world's best athletes gathered in Atlanta, Georgia, to compete in the 1996 Summer Olympic Games and mark the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympics.


Description:
The PCP government of Premier Michael Harris worked in 1996 to implement its 1995 campaign pledge to cut provincial spending, lower Ontario's income tax, and produce a balanced budg-et within five years. On Jan. 29, 1996, Ontario's legislature passed ...


Description:
Paleontology in 1996 was dominated by the unearthing of a gigantic, carnivorous dinosaur, electrifying fossil finds, discoveries concerning the origins of sharks and fishes, and an intriguing new theory regarding the world's greatest known mass ...


Description:
On Dec. 17, 1996, in Lima, the capital, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement--a Marxist, pro-Cuban rebel group--seized the residence of the Japanese ambassador to Peru during a party for the Japanese emperor's birthday. The 490 hostages included ...


Description:
Cameroon reaped benefits from major foreign investment, officially announced a new constitution, and conducted municipal elections in 1996.


Description:
As the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 75th anniversary on July 9, 1996, it grappled with problems of leadership, economics, and China's political role in the world. Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the party, as well as the nation's president ...


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The number of people who owned a personal computer (PC) continued to rise in 1996. The trend was fueled by falling prices, improved power and performance of the machines, and the wealth of information available on the World Wide Web. As PC's became ...


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Partisan clashes between the Republican-controlled United States Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton subsided in 1996 as Americans voiced their opposition to radical changes in government policy. President Clinton moved toward the political ...


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In 1996, the United States National Park Service tottered on the edge of insolvency. According to service officials, the U.S. Congress between 1983 and 1996 allowed the service's annual budget (adjusted for inflation) to decline by $202 million. ...


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A series of mail-bomb attacks that had baffled law-enforcement officials for 17 years may have been solved in April 1996 with the arrest in rural Montana of Theodore J. Kaczynski, 53. Kaczynski was accused of being the so-called Unabomber, an ...


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California voters on Nov. 5, 1996, approved a measure to end all forms of affirmative action by public agencies in that state. Affirmative action refers to policies aimed at increasing the numbers of people from certain social groups and ...


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A variety of problems struck both college and professional football in 1996. Among colleges, the bowl alliance created to crown an undisputed--if unofficial--national champion triggered confusion instead. Among the professionals, the Dallas Cowboys, ...


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President Jacques Chirac attempted in 1996 to regain the influence France had once wielded in Middle Eastern and African affairs. In April, Foreign Minister Herve de Charette tried to negotiate a cease-fire in southern Lebanon between the Israeli army ...


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In July, seismologists Xiaodong Song and Paul G. Richards of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, reported the first observations of evidence that Earth's solid inner core actually rotates 1.1 percent faster ...


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On Jan. 22, 1996, Fernando Botero Zea, former defense minister and President Ernesto Samper Pizano's 1994 campaign manager, publicly accused Samper of soliciting and knowingly accepting $6 million from Colombia's Cali drug cartel during the 1994 ...


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The country's political leadership underwent dramatic change in 1996 with the death of Andreas Papandreou, the Socialist leader who dominated Greek politics for two decades. Costas Simitis, a moderate, was elected as his successor.


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Four suicide bombings in Israel killed 61 people and injured more than 200 between Feb. 25 and March 4, 1996, reopening a divide among Israelis over the Arab-Israeli peace process. The militant wing of the pro-Iranian group Hamas claimed ...


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Italy made strides toward greater political stability in 1996 as voters elected a center-left (moderate to liberal) government that promised to modernize the economy and the constitution. The election--Italy's second in two years--was called after ...


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Ryutaro Hashimoto was reelected prime minister on Nov. 7, 1996. In early elections on October 20, his conservative Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) won 239 of the 500 seats of the lower house that dominates the Diet, the Japanese parliament. Elections ...


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Terrorist guerrillas stormed the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru, on Dec. 17, 1996, and took 490 hostages. Members of the Tupac Amaru, a Marxist, pro-Castro (Fidel Castro, leader of Communist Cuba), vowed to kill hostages one at a time ...


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The United States Department of Justice on Feb. 8, 1996, filed civil suits against Days Inn of America, Inc., and its parent company, HFS Inc., both of Parsippany, New Jersey, charging that five new Days Inn hotels failed to meet federal standards for ...


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In January 1996, Prime Minister Adolfas Slezevicius admitted to having shifted his personal savings only days before Lithuania's two largest commercial banks were declared insolvent in December 1995. President Algirdas Brazauskas demanded ...


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A record 51.7 million students entered U.S. elementary and secondary schools in the fall of 1996, and another 14.4 million students enrolled in colleges and universities. Schools struggled to find room for the students. In New York City there was a ...


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Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, became increasingly concerned in 1996 about the fate of the Arab-Israeli peace process. Early in the year, a series of deadly bombings in Israel by Palestinian militants heightened antipeace sentiment among many ...


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On Jan. 23, 1996, a team led by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell proposed a solution for breaking the deadlock in peace talks between the British and Irish governments and various political parties of Northern Ireland. The British had demanded that ...


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Employment in the Northwest Territories, which had a jobless rate of about 17 percent, was expected to receive a much-needed boost with the establishment of what would be the first diamond mine in North America. The $750-million open-pit mine was to ...


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Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland announced on October 23, 1996, that she would resign from office. Brundtland, 57, stated that she was relinquishing her job to Labor Party Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland to settle questions about her succession well ...


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On Sept. 2, 1996, the government signed a treaty ending about 25 years of civil war with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the main Muslim guerrilla group that had sought an independent state in the southern Philippines. In August, President ...


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In January 1996, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, demonstrated that hydrogen, the lightest element, could become a metal under the right conditions. A tiny sample of liquid hydrogen, squeezed by the ...


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In a close election, Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Communist, was elected president of Poland in November 1995. Winning with only 51 percent of the vote, Kwasniewski pledged to respect democracy and the market economy and reaffirmed Poland's desire ...


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President Bill Clinton was reelected on Nov. 5, 1996, the first Democratic president to win a second term in office since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. Clinton swept to a decisive victory, taking 31 states and the District of Columbia to win 379 ...


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Catherine Callbeck, the first woman to be elected premier of a Canadian province, stunned her supporters on Aug. 6, 1996, by announcing her resignation as premier of Prince Edward Island. Appointed premier in 1993, Callbeck led the Liberal Party to an ...


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Australian researchers implemented an extensive program in 1996 for early intervention and treatment of schizophrenia. Researchers found that early treatment and relapse detection might improve the outcome of this illness. Scientists also revealed in ...


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The NDP government of Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow swept to a solid electoral victory on June 21, 1995, winning a second majority in the legislature. The NDP took 42 seats in the 58-seat assembly and captured 48 percent of the popular vote. The ...


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Questions about the health of King Fahd and growing signs of Islamic extremism created unease in Saudi Arabia in 1996. After suffering a stroke in November 1995, King Fahd appointed a half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, regent in January 1996. ...


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Major League Soccer (MLS), a new, top-tier professional league, began its first season in the United States in 1996 and received greater public enthusiasm than anticipated. In October, D.C. United became the league's first champion. In international ...


Description:
The most significant event in Somalia in 1996 was the death on August 1 of General Mohamed Farah Aideed, leader of the Somali National Alliance (SNA). The SNA has been one of the three major factions in the country's civil war, which began in 1991. ...


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South Africa continued in 1996 to struggle with the problems of transition from apartheid


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During 1996, U.S. astronaut Shannon W. Lucid spent 188 days in space, setting both a U.S. space endurance record and a world space endurance record for women. U.S. space shuttle crews flew seven missions. Two unmanned spacecraft were launched to Mars. ...


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In 1996, John Major survived as prime minister of Great Britain with the backing of only a small majority in the House of Commons. With the Conservatives far behind the Labour Party in the polls, Major delayed the general election until the last ...


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Rather than risk factional fighting by selecting younger officials, the ruling Communist Party decided in 1996 to retain its aging leadership. More than 1,100 delegates to the eighth party congress held in June in Hanoi, the national capital, decided ...


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Extremes--heavy snow and rain, record cold, and drought--characterized weather in the United States during the winter of 1996. Particularly hard hit were the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast, where excessive precipitation caused significant ...


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Although officially a federal republic, Yugoslavia in 1996 continued to be dominated politically by Serbia. The former Yugoslavia, which comprised six republics, broke apart in 1991. The two remaining republics--Serbia and Montenegro--formed a new ...


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Iraq again in 1996 became the focus of regional and international attention when the United States on September 3 and 4 fired 44 sea-and-air-launched missiles at targets in southern Iraq. The United States also announced it was expanding the "no-fly" ...


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Zaire's political situation deteriorated dramatically in 1996. In November, hundreds of thousands of refugees abandoned camps in Zaire and started for home amidst the chaos of war. Most of the refugees were of the Hutu ethnic group and had left Rwanda ...


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Big-budget action-adventure movies shared box-office dollars in 1996 with dialogue-driven movies produced on a shoestring by independent film companies. The year also saw a growing interest in plotlines taken from the pages of classic literature and ...


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In 1996, a mini-renaissance of musicals and a tempest of controversy about the 50th annual Antoinette Perry (Tony) Awards made for more interest, activity, and headlines than the American theater industry had seen in years. The musical seemed in big ...


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Labor and employment. In 1996, the United States economy gained 2.4 million jobs, up from the 2 million created in 1995. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent in October, a level historically difficult to reduce without triggering inflation. ...


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The British Coast Guard declared a full environmental alert on Feb. 15, 1996, when the tanker Sea Empress, fully laden with about 36 million gallons (136 million liters) of crude oil, ran aground off the coast of Wales and began leaking oil from its ...


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The world's seven richest industrialized countriesthe so-called "Group of 7" (G-7)demanded reform of the United Nations (UN) at their annual summit meeting June 27-29, 1996, in Lyon, France. The communique from the United States, Japan, ...


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Zoos and aquariums across the United States welcomed the public to a large number of new, naturalistic exhibits in 1996. Aquatic animals and Asian wildlife provided dominant themes.


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Regulations to control the marketing of tobacco to teen-agers were issued in August 1996 by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA predicted that the rules would reduce teens' use of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, and other ...


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On Sept. 10, 1996, Hurricane Hortense slammed into Puerto Rico with 80-mile- (130-kilometer-) per-hour winds and up to 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain. In its wake, Hortense left 24 people dead and more than $200 million in damage. The United ...


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Lucien Bouchard, leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ), resigned his seat in Canada's Parliament to become premier of Quebec on Jan. 29, 1996. He replaced Premier Jacques Parizeau, who resigned after the narrow defeat of an October 1995 ...


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Radio led the deregulatory revolution in 1996. The year began on a grim note for the telecommunications world but changed quickly after the United States Congress made a number of major revisions to laws governing the industry. On February 1, Congress ...


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The Republican Party in 1996 failed to win the presidency but retained control of both houses of the United States Congress. Republicans picked up two seats in the Senate to widen their majority but lost several seats in the House of Representatives, ...


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Uncertainty over the political and physical health of Russian President Boris Yeltsin dominated Russian affairs throughout 1996. After staging a stunning political comeback to win reelection as president in July, Yeltsin immediately entered a ...


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Spain experienced a dramatic change of leadership in 1996 as voters ended 14 years of Socialist rule and elected a government led by the conservative Popular Party. The party, which ran a strong nationalist campaign, won 156 seats in the March 3 ...


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Sweden underwent a generational change of leadership in 1996 as Goran Persson, the 47-year-old, former finance minister, succeeded the retiring 61-year-old Ingvar Carlsson as prime minister on March 21. The changeover followed a December 1995 decision ...


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AT&T Corp., the long distance telephone giant, shocked the corporate world on Jan. 2, 1996, by announcing the elimination of 40,000 jobs, the largest single job cut ever in the telephone industry. AT&T later said that only 18,000 employees ...


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The Telecommunications Reform Bill, the most sweeping legislation affecting the United States telecommunication industry in 62 years, was signed into law on Feb. 8, 1996, by President Bill Clinton. The law lifted controls on cable television rates, ...


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Thailand held elections on Nov. 17, 1996, for the lower house of the National Assembly. The New Aspiration Party, 1 of 13 political parties in the race, won the election by two seats. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, head of the New Aspiration Party, formed a ...


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Ukraine in 1996 experienced political and economic turmoil surrounding the adoption of a new constitution and a new currency. The year ended with a controversial agreement with neighboring Russia to resolve a long-standing dispute over the former ...


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Scientists once believed that human beings could be defined by their ability to make and use tools, but that belief was shattered more than 20 years ago by the discovery that chimpanzees and other primates are also proficient in tool use. In January ...


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Architecture in the United States in 1996 continued to move in multiple directions. Architects touched every stylistic base from classic modernism to angry deconstructionism. (Deconstructionism is a design form that celebrates and highlights the ...


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A marble cupid in the foyer of the French Cultural Services in New York City became the focus of an intriguing puzzle in 1996. In January, art historian Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, in New York City, ...


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In 1996, symphony orchestras in the United States commissioned more new works and programmed a higher percentage of works by U.S. composers than ever before. However, orchestras also faced declining public funding, constrained private contributions, ...


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The 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the 73-year-old Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, formerly a prominent figure in the Solidarity campaign, but hitherto little known outside her own country. Much of her work belongs to an Eastern ...


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The trend toward publishing multicultural books for children continued in 1996, and more historical fiction for children was published as well. Outstanding books of 1996 included the following:


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The world of Indy-car racing was fragmented in 1996 by a power struggle in which the new Indy Racing League (IRL) began competing in opposition to Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), the long-time establishment. Although almost all major teams and ...


Description:
In May 1996, Steve Fossett, a 52-year-old American, set another record for sailing across the Pacific Ocean. Fossett, a Chicago securities dealer, made his record-breaking voyage on the Lakota, a 60-foot (18-meter) trimaran (sailboat with three hulls ...


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The most exciting bowler of 1996 turned out to be not one of the many stars of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) tour for men or the Ladies Pro Bowlers Tour for women. Instead, he was Earl Anthony, a 58-year-old member of the PBA Seniors ...


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The confusing picture in boxing's heavyweight division became even more confused in 1996 when the unthinkable happened. After giving up his World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title, Mike Tyson, the world's top heavyweight, lost his World Boxing ...


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By almost every standard, Tom Lehman was the golfer of the year in 1996. However, the year will probably be better remembered as the "Year of the Tiger," after Eldrick (Tiger) Woods, a charismatic, gentlemanly, 20-year-old college sophomore who turned ...


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Although Cigar lost three of his last four races, the 6-year-old bay was again the thoroughbred of the year in 1996. In November 1996, Cigar was retired as racing's all-time leading earner, with $9.9 million. Serena's Song, the 4-year-old filly who ...


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Fifteen-year-old Michelle Kwan of Torrance, California, and 24-year-old Todd Eldredge of South Chatham, Massachusetts, won individual gold medals at the 1996 World Figure Skating Championships in Edmonton, Canada. The championships, which were held ...


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In the 1995-1996 World Cup professional season, the major winners among the men included Lasse Kjus and Atle Skaardal of Norway and Alberto Tomba of Italy. Among the most successful women were Katja Seizinger of Germany, Picabo Street of the United ...


Description:
Among the sports stars of 1996 were a rash of home-run hitters in baseball, 20-year-old Tiger Woods in golf, a troubled Steffi Graf in tennis, Michael Jordan in professional basketball, and Michael Johnson in track and field. It was a year of soaring ...


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The United States Swimming Team dominated their events at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, due in part to the poor performance of China's women swimmers. Chinese women won 12 of 16 titles in the 1994 world championships, raising charges that they ...


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In 1996, 22-year-old Gata Kamsky became the first United States player to challenge a reigning world chess champion since Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky of the former Soviet Union in 1972. In July 1996, however, Kamsky lost 7.5 to 10.5 to ...


Description:
Lincoln Kirstein, the most influential advocate of ballet in the United States, died on Jan. 5, 1996, at the age of 88. By bringing choreographer George Balanchine from Europe to the United States in 1933, Kirstein in effect sowed the seeds of a ...


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Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, continued to fall short of regional and world expectations in 1996. The country remained in the grip of a repressive dictatorship that showed little interest in genuine democratic reforms.


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Pakistani President, Farooq Leghari, dismissed the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Nov. 5, 1996. President Leghari named Miraj Khalid as interim prime minister and called for new elections to take place on Feb. 3, 1997. Although the ...


Description:
In 1996, the manufacturing sector in the United States rebounded from a year of sluggish production activity and grew at a mild but steady rate. Although the 1995 downturn still haunted production lines in January 1996, factory output began to perk in ...


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The Socialist Party strengthened its political dominance in Portugal in January 1996 when Jorge Sampaio, a former Lisbon mayor and Socialist Party leader, was elected president. Sampaio received 52 percent of the vote, defeating Anibal Cavao Silva, ...


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On Dec. 3, 1996, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Circuit Court Judge Kevin S. C. Chang ruled that the state's ban on same-sex marriages violated the state Constitution because the state had demonstrated "no compelling state interest" in denying marriage licenses ...


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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was signed by President Bill Clinton on Aug. 21, 1996, after a long political battle. The law was designed to protect members of employee groups from being denied insurance, or charged more, ...


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In June 1996, three Orthodox Jewish political parties, holding 23 seats in the Israeli parliament, joined the coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was elected on May 29. As part of the coalition agreement, Netanyahu's ...


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In August 1996, German courts cleared Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a well-known Protestant witness against Adolf Hitler, of charges of treasonmore than 50 years after Bonhoeffer's death. Bonhoeffer, who was actively involved in the anti-Nazi resistance ...


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In February 1996, the discovery of what was believed to be the birthplace of Buddha was announced by archaeologists from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Japan. Prince Siddhartha Gautama, later known as Buddha, was born sometime before 500 B.C. ...


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On Nov. 14, 1996, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, died of cancer at the age of 68. Since his ordination in 1966, Bernardin had played roles in major developments in Roman Catholicism in the ...


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Germany's Steffi Graf and America's Pete Sampras remained the world's leading tennis players in 1996. The 27-year-old Graf dominated women's tennis, winning three of the year's four grand-slam tournaments. Sampras, 24 years old, won one grand ...


Description:
Michael Johnson, a 28-year-old American, had been a world-class sprinter since 1989. Svetlana Masterkova, a 28-year-old Russian, had been a world-class middle-distance runner before she took a two-year maternity leave in 1994. In 1996, both won two ...


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Tax cuts became a key issue in the 1996 United States presidential campaign. Although partisan differences blocked approval of major tax cuts, President Bill Clinton and the Republican-led U.S. Congress agreed on several tax measures to benefit small ...


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Despite a growing free-market economy, the coalition government of Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus failed in 1996 to win a majority in the parliamentary elections held May 31 and June 1. Klaus's moderate Civic Democratic Party captured only 29.6 percent ...


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Relations between Estonia and neighboring Russia deteriorated significantly during 1996. Russia continued to claim that Estonian laws discriminated against Russian-speaking citizens, most of whom moved to Estonia between 1939 and 1991, when the ...


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The first private trains to operate in the United Kingdom in almost 50 years began running on Feb. 4, 1996, as part of the government's plan to privatize the nation's rail system. The plan, detailed in the Railways Act of 1993, separated the operation ...


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On Jan. 14, 1996, Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen, 49, began a four-year term as Guatemala's president. He pledged to find a peaceful resolution to the 36-year-old civil war, in which more than 100,000 peoplecombatants and civiliansdied.


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Hungary in 1996 remained one of the most successful of former Communist nations in shifting to a free-market economy. Seeking to qualify for membership in NATO and the European Union, the Socialist-led government sought to improve Hungary's relations ...


Description:
Fashion took on a neater look in 1996, a trend that appeared midsummer when the 1997 men's styles were introduced at the New York City fashion shows. The male models had cut their shoulder-length hair, including their pony tails. The fresh, neater ...


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In July 1996, United States President Bill Clinton signed legislation that set a new standard for the allowable amount of residue from pesticides and other chemicals in agricultural products and processed foods. The new law prohibited any chemical ...


Description:
A major concern for librarians in 1996 was that new technology continued to widen the gap between the "information rich" and the "information poor." Since people in many U.S. households did not own a computerespecially those living in rural ...


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Online magazines, or webzines, were the talk of the magazine industry in 1996. Publishers flocked to the World Wide Web on the Internet, building online versions of their print magazines or creating new titles altogether. Conde Nast Publications ...


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The economics of publishing newspapers in the United States improved in 1996. The price of newsprint, the paper on which newspapers are printed, declined in 1996 for the first time since 1994. From a low of $420 per metric ton (2,200 pounds), in 1994, ...


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Nobel Prizes in literature, peace, the sciences, and economics were awarded in October 1996 by the Norwegian Storting (parliament) in Oslo and by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Karolinksa Institute, and the Swedish Academy of Literature in ...


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In 1996, an election year, the United States Congress passed two new laws that appeared to reflect an anti-immigrant mood in the country. The first bill, which cracked down on illegal immigration, was included in a major spending bill that ...


Description:
In November 1996, Romania elected its first non-Communist government since the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. Emil Constantinescu became the country's new president, and his reformist coalition won a majority in the legislature.


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President Bill Clinton signed legislation on Aug. 22, 1996, that radically revised the United States welfare system, abolishing the main federal welfare program, known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). AFDC, in effect since 1935, ...


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In February 1996, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the head of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), reestablished the Orthodox Church of Estonia as an autonomous church under his authority. Estonian Orthodox Christians and the ...


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A number of consumer manufacturers announced that they would begin to market digital video disc (DVD) players by the end of 1996. However, concerns in the industry, mainly about preventing the unauthorized copying of DVD movies, delayed the ...


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In 1996, developments in the Middle East and Southeast Asia were, at turns, hopeful, disturbing, and even ironic for followers of the Islamic faith.


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In 1996, states were in their best financial position since fiscal 1980, and many cut taxes. Nationwide, state tax cuts totaled $3.6 billion, mostly in personal income taxes. New York's $2-billion tax cut was the largest. Legislatures in Connecticut, ...


Description:
A powerful and unexpected rally after the November presidential election lifted U.S. stocks and bonds from what might have been an ordinary year to a dramatic ride for investors in 1996. Buying was spurred by a widespread belief that deficit spending ...


Title:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (1996)

Description:
During its 1995-1996 term, the Supreme Court of the United States issued important rulings on sexual equality, civil rights, the death penalty, and states' rights.


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Switzerland experienced its sixth straight year of economic stagnation in 1996, unleashing an unprecedented wave of corporate restructuring. Economic output was expected to grow by only 0.5 percent as a strong Swiss franc depressed exports.


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The May election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejected the previous Israeli government's formula of exchanging land for peace, stalled the Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations during 1996. In June, Netanyahu called Syria a terrorist ...


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Taiwan held the first direct, democratic election for a national leader in Chinese history on March 23, 1996, when Li Teng-hui garnered 54 percent of the vote to win the presidency. His main opponent, Peng Ming-min of the Democratic Progressive Party ...


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Iran's attempts to evade the U.S. campaign to isolate its Islamic regime met with setbacks in 1996. In August, the United States approved economic sanctions against any foreign company or bank investing more than $40 million in the oil and gas ...


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Jordan experienced serious social unrest in mid-August 1996 when the government lifted subsidies on bread, causing the price to double. Riots began in the southern city of Kerak and spread to nearby towns and to the capital, Amman. To quell the ...


Description:
Western investment flowed into Uzbekistan in 1996, as the government continued an economic reform program begun in 1994. Increased activity by Western firms brought Uzbekistan new respect on the world stage. Despite lingering concerns over ...


Description:
In 1996, a new coalition government, headed by Prime Minister Andris Skele, was in power in Latvia. Skele, a businessman with no party affiliation, was the third person in three months to be invited to form a government by President Guntis Ulmanis. ...


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Still recovering from the devastating 1975-1991 civil war, Lebanon suffered a new setback in 1996 when Israel launched an intense aerial and artillery attack on southern Lebanon on April 11. Israel said it acted in retaliation for rock-et attacks on ...


Description:
Prospects for a peaceful resolution to Liberia's civil war fared dismally during the first eight months of 1996. By the end of the year, however, hopes again ran high that the end of fighting and chaos was at hand.


Description:
Politics in Slovakia remained turbulent in 1996. Tensions continued between Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and President Michal Kovac.


Description:
Political events in Sierra Leone led to positive results in 1996. Previously ruled by the military and torn by civil war, this small West African nation conducted democratic elections, returned to civilian rule, and negotiated a cease-fire with ...


Description:
Clashes in 1996 between the parties of Cambodia's governing coalition triggered international concern about the government's stability. The fighting occurred between the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative ...


Description:
Burundi teetered on the brink of ethnic war between the minority Tutsi and the majority Hutu in 1996. The Tutsi continued to dominate the army and government, while the Hutu organized in the countryside. The legacy of the 1995 Hutu slaugher of Tutsi ...


Description:
The chain of secular (not associated with a religion) governments that had ruled Turkey since the founding of the modern state in 1923 was broken on June 28, 1996, when Necmettin Erbakan, leader of a Muslim group called the Welfare Party (Refah), ...


Description:
In 1996, reunion tours by veteran 1970's bands, such as the flamboyantly theatrical Kiss and the punk band the Sex Pistols, received widespread attention.


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For the first time in 60 years, United States farmers planted spring crops in 1996 with few restrictions from the federal government. The Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act, dubbed the "freedom to farm law," was signed by President Bill Clinton on ...


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On Oct. 10, 1996, the Brazilian government indefinitely postponed action on a decree, which was signed January 9 by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, that allowed citizens to appeal the government's land allocations to indigenous peoples (native ...


Description:
Retail toy sales in the United States in 1996 rose nearly 5 percent over 1995 sales, making it one of the best sales years since the beginning of the decade. Some industry watchers speculated that the presidential election fueled sales, since election ...


Description:
A fundamentalist Muslim militia group, the Taliban, captured Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, on Sept. 27, 1996, and claimed power as the new national government. However, with the fall of Kabul, the country remained divided among four armed factions. ...


Description:
Chicago in 1996 mourned the loss of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, head of the city's Roman Catholic Archdiocese, who died of cancer on November 14. Bernardin was widely known as a mediator who sought to resolve conflict within the Roman Catholic ...


Description:
Schools in New York City opened Sept. 4, 1996, to the worst overcrowding in 20 years. School officials said a surge in Caribbean and Asian immigrants, combined with a slow-paced construction program and a decline in the dropout rate, resulted in an ...


Description:
The legacy of genocide continued to dominate life in Rwanda in 1996. In 1994, the Hutu-controlled government had undertaken the mass killing of the minority Tutsi people. At least 500,000 Rwandansmany Tutsis and some moderate Hutuswere ...


Description:
The U. S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in March 1996 that the federal government need not revise 1990 census figures to adjust for an undercount of some 4 million people, primarily urban African Americans and Hispanics. The ruling was a setback for ...


Description:
In March 1996, residents of Montreal both mourned the loss of a revered sports and entertainment center and welcomed its multimillion-dollar replacement. The 72-year-old Forum, home of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team for 3,229 regular-season and ...


Description:
Prices of petroleum rose in 1996 as worldwide consumption increased for the third straight year and as the demand for oil unexpectedly exceeded the supply. Petroleum products were consumed at a rate of some 71.8 million barrels a daya 2.5 ...


Description:
The steady growth of the world's urban population was the focus of the State of the World Population report, published by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) in May 1996. In addition, urban growth was discussed at the United Nations Conference ...


Description:
The drought that began over the western Great Plains of the United States in the autumn of 1995 persisted throughout most of the region into the summer of 1996. From western Nebraska south to northern Mexico, the droughtthe worst since the ...


Description:
Bolstered by a continuing expansion of the United States economy, banks posted strong earnings in 1996. For the first half of 1996, earnings for the nation's 10,100 banks totaled $25.8 billion. The nation's 2,050 savings and loans (S&L's) posted ...


Description:
A major Philadelphia police scandal continued to unfold in 1996. The indictment of six police officers of North Philadelphia's 39th Police District in 1995 had led to a review of the arrests made by those officers. As a result, more than 160 criminal ...


Description:
Algerian President Liamine Zeroual strove in 1996 to create a stable political climate for national elections. Terrorism continued unabated, however, claiming nearly 2,000 lives a month in 1996. Algeria's civil strife had begun when the military took ...


Description:
Irregularities during the 1996 elections led European Union (EU) leaders to question Albania's commitment to political and economic reform. After the second round of elections, in June, President Sali Berisha's Democratic Party held 122 seats in the ...


Description:
Germany struggled economically in 1996 as a brief recession drove unemployment to its highest level since the end of World War II (1939-1945). Despite the difficulties and the unpopularity of some of the government's policies, Chancellor Helmut Kohl ...


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In January 1996, federal and state prisons and jails in the United States held an estimated 1,585,400 inmates, according to an August 1996 report by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The number was a historic high.


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Antigovernment violence in Libya in 1996 led observers to speculate about the stability of Muammar Muhammad al-Qadhafi's regime. In March, armed Libyan rebels clashed with security forces trying to recapture escaped prisoners near Benghazi, Libya's ...


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On Oct. 20, 1996, Nicaraguans elected Jose Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo of the conservative Liberal Alliance Party to a six-year term as president. Aleman's inauguration, scheduled for Jan. 10, 1997, would mark the first transfer of power from one ...


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Financial troubles topped the list of problems for most Pacific Island nations during 1996. According to a United Nations report released in April, only Tonga and Fiji had gross domestic products higher than those of the 1980's. Living standards in ...


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In 1996, the Sri Lankan army suffered its worst defeat in 13 years of civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE used terrorist tactics and guerrilla warfare in its fight to win an independent state in north and northeast Sri ...


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Sudanese leader Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir won election as president in March of 1996. Bashir's support of terrorism and failure to end a costly 13-year civil war devastated Sudan's economy and deepened the country's international isolation. Many ...


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In 1996, the Venezuelan government introduced measures to encourage investment in the country's flagging economy. In January, the oil industry, which was nationalized in 1976, granted contracts to 13 foreign companies for the development of crude oil ...


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In July 1996, in Bridgetown, Barbados, leaders of the 14 member nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) agreed to further integrate their economies. The leaders elected to adopt more economically sound methods for running their countries' ...


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On June 14, 1996, the first 11 miles (18 kilometers) of a light-rail, mass transportation system opened in Dallas. The line provided commuter service from downtown to the Oak Cliff section of south Dallas. Plans called for the Dallas Area Rapid ...


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Houston residents saw nearly a year of tough bargaining end in September 1996 with an agreement to build a $265-million, retractable-roof baseball park downtowna deal that would keep the Astros baseball team in Houston for at least 30 years. ...


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On June 4, 1996, the Los Angeles City Council approved Mayor Richard J. Riordan's $4 billion budget. The budget allocated 49 percent of city funds for police and security, 18 percent for fire protection, 5 percent for sanitation, and the balance for ...


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The major event of 1996 in San Diego was the Republican National Convention, held at the bayside San Diego Convention Center from August 12 to 15. About 1,990 delegates, 1,990 alternates, and their families, as well as 15,000 media representatives, ...


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Toronto experienced a transitional year in 1996. Ontario's largest city showed signs of pulling out of the economic recession that hit Canada in the early 1990's. But the unemployment rate in Metropolitan TorontoToronto proper and the four ...


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An audit of the 1995 fiscal year, presented to the U.S. Congress on Feb. 2, 1996, revealed that Washington's fiscal crisis had worsened. While the city government reduced deficit spending from $335.4 million in 1994 to $54.5 million in 1995, the ...


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Two new towers were officially designated the tallest buildings in the world in 1996. In April, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a professional and research organization located at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, voted to ...


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In mid-1996, attention became focused on the state of the world's cities. The global human population was approximately 5.6 billion and growing at the rate of about 250,000 a day. Nearly half the total2.5 billionlived in cities, compared ...


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The world economy strengthened slightly in 1996, as leading industrial nations recovered somewhat from a sharp 1995 slowdown, and developing nations with market economies turned in impressive gains. Most nations making a transition from state-run ...


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On March 12, 1996, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) began operating the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), the largest nuclear waste processing plant in the United States, at the DOE's Savannah River site in South Carolina.


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Trade issues became controversial in the early months of 1996, a presidential election year in the United States, but concern over international trade cooled as the economy gathered strength during the year and leaders defused trade disputes.


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In 1996, two collections of poems were published that became sentimental favorites while receiving well-deserved praise. Jane Kenyon, the author of Otherwise: New and Selected Poems,


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Manitoba suffered several outbreaks of labor unrest by public employees in 1996. A three-day walkout by about 800 prison guards beginning on May 4 followed a riot at Headingley Correctional Institution near Winnipeg on April 25 and 26. Seven guards ...


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The first scientific evidence showing a direct link between smoking and lung cancer was reported in October 1996 by researchers at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The researchers reported finding that a chemical ...


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The economy of the Netherlands continued to outperform most of its European Union (EU) partners in 1996 as demand for Dutch products from consumers at home and abroad grew. The government forecast growth of 2.5 percent, compared with an EU average of ...


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New Brunswick--led by Premier Frank McKenna, who commanded an overwhelming Liberal Party majority in the legislature--continued in 1996 on its course of attracting new investment and putting its financial house in order. The budget, presented on ...


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Trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund noted in their 1996 report that the fund would remain solvent through the year 2029. However, they warned that the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund would be bankrupt by the year 2001 unless changes were ...


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In 1996, President Eduard Shevardnadze renewed efforts to settle two secessionist conflicts in Georgia. Russian troops under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an alliance of former Soviet republics, continued to enforce ...


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The Socialist government of Prime Minister Zhan Videnov came under increasing pressure in 1996 from international and domestic groups. Videnov survived a vote of no-confidence in the legislature June 13, but popular protests against the government's ...


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The struggle continued in 1996 between the junta (military group holding power after a revolution) ruling Burma, which is officially named Myanmar, and the opposition National League for Democracy. The League had won parliamentary elections in 1990, ...


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Cabinet, U.S. President Bill Clinton's Cabinet lost one of its prominent members on April 3, 1996. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, 54, was killed in a plane crash while on a trade mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Thirty-two other Americans, ...


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On June 25, 1996, Chile became the fifth member of South America's Southern Cone Common Market (known as Mercosur). The agreement, signed in San Luis, Argentina, opened Chile's markets to unrestricted trade with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and ...


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The longest United States government shutdown in history ended on Jan. 6, 1996, when Democratic President Bill Clinton signed a stopgap spending bill to halt a 21-day stand-off with the Republican-controlled Congress. The shutdown had begun Dec. 16, ...


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The trend toward more democratic governments continued in Africa in 1997, though its momentum slowed. Despite democratic successes, war and violence remained a fact of African life. A particularly disturbing trend was the intervention of African ...


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In February 1997, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, reported that deaths in the United States from acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) had decreased for the first time since 1981, when the CDC began ...


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Premier Ralph Klein led his right-of-center Progressive Conservative Party (PCP) to a decisive reelection victory on March 11, 1997. The PCP won 63 of 83 seats in the provincial legislature and captured 51 percent of the popular vote, up from 45 ...


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The first successful isolation of DNA from the bones of a Neanderthal was reported in July 1997 by genetics expert Svante Paabo of the University of Munich, Germany. DNAdeoxyribonucleic acidis the molecule genes are made of. Neanderthals ...


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In March 1997, divers working under a permit from the state of North Carolina announced that they had discovered remains that they believed to be from Queen Anne's Revenge,


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A political coalition comprised of the center-right Radical Civic Union and the left-wing Front for a Country in Solidarity (Frepaso) captured control of the House of Deputies in midterm elections on Oct. 25, 1997. The coalition victory was a stunning ...


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There was a decidedly familiar look to two of the three major basketball championships decided during the 1996-1997 season. The Chicago Bulls took the National Basketball Association (NBA) title for the fifth time in seven seasons under coach Phil ...


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Man's best friendthe doghas been a companion to humans much longer than scientists had previously believed, according to new genetic findings reported in June 1997 by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). ...


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Vladimir Soljic, a Croat, became president of the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia in March 1997. Bosnia consists of two substatesa Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb republic. The president of the Serb Republic, Biljana Plavsic, spent much of ...


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The fires that blacken vegetation in Western deserts also provide the trigger for a dramatic regrowth of plant life, but not in the way that scientists had believed, botanists at Occidental College in Los Angeles reported in May. Biologists had ...


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The New Democratic Party (NDP) government of Premier Glen Clark, which narrowly retained power in 1996, broke new ground with social welfare measures in 1997. In July, the provincial legislature unanimously passed legislation allowing the province to ...


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Canada emerged from a general election on June 2, 1997, with its Parliament composed for the first time of five officially recognized political parties. Each of the parties owed its success to the election's most significant componentregional ...


Description:
The lives of men at the turn of the millennium


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Crime in the United States declined in 1997 nationwide for the sixth consecutive year, according to the results of government studies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced on November 23 that serious crimea category that includes ...


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On Dec. 12, 1997, President Franjo Tudjman's vow that Croatia would not participate in any sort of new Balkan alliance became federal law. The Croatian parliament passed a constitutional amendment banning Croatia's entry into a new Yugoslav federation ...


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Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy visited Cuba in January 1997the first visit by a high-ranking Canadian official since 1976. Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina welcomed Axworthy, noting, "Your country does not share the policy of ...


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The Democratic Party went on the defensive and deeply into debt during 1997 as officials from the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Justice Department investigated the possibility of illegal fund-raising practices during U.S. President Bill Clinton's 1996 ...


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Denmark enjoyed the benefits of one of Europe's strongest economies in 1997 as growth accelerated and unemployment fell to one of the lowest rates on the continent. Rising employment and higher wages generated strong demand from consumers, while low ...


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Republicans in 1997 won major victories in off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia and reelected mayors in New York City and Los Angeles, the nation's two largest cities. The Democratic Party, which was outspent by the Republicans in most key ...


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In 1996, Kazakhstan's President Askar Akayev continued to champion Western-style reforms in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. Akayev, a 51-year-old physicist, had been reelected in December 1995 with an overwhelming 75 percent of the popular vote.


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In March 1996, the National Research Council (NRC) recommended that new motor vehicles should carry labels to help consumers compare safety features. The NRC, an agency of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., advised the U.S. ...


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Violent antigovernment riots, bombings, and arson rocked Bahrain in 1996. The unrest alarmed the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, where Bahrain remained the key financial center.


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Bangladesh installed a new government in 1996, ending two years of political turmoil. Hasina Wajed ousted Khaleda Ziaur Rahman (known as Zia) and became prime minister on June 23. On October 9, former chief justice Shahabuddin Ahmed was sworn in as ...


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On April 2, 1996, presidents Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Boris Yeltsin of Russia signed a treaty creating a "community of sovereign republics." While the treaty recognized Russia and Belarus as "sovereign and equal," it outlined mutual ...


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Territorial disputes flared in Asia during 1996, spurring a continuing race for more modern weapons. China fired missiles at Taiwan in an attempt to influence voting in Taiwan's first direct election for president. But none of the disputes came to ...


Description:
The woman many viewed as a living saint passes away


Title:
Hong Kong 1997: Capitalism Comes to China

Description:
The British colony of Hong Kong was returned to Chinsese sovereignty on June 30, 1997, thus introducing a premier capitalist economy to the largest Communist nation in the world.


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A memorial is dedicated to Franklin Delano Roosevelt--one of the most revered American presidents.


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The centuries-old conflict between Hutu and Tutsi was significant far beyond the borders of Rwanda and Burundi. It also played a critical role in the revolution in Zaire.


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The cloning of sheep and other animals in 1997 ignited an ethical controversy over the possible cloning of human beings.


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The world's most famous ocean explorer passes away


Title:
Iditarod: Celebrating the Dog Days of Winter

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In March 1997, mushers and their teams of dogs competed in Alaska's 25th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, an event often heralded as the "last great race on earth."


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The man behind Thomas, the Tank Engine dies


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India has made dramatic progress during 50 years of independent rule and democracy--but great problems remain.


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Nations worldwide face tough questions as more and more people search for a better life.


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Many Asian countries experienced escalating financial troubles in 1997, which threatened economic growth and contributed to regional poverty. Southeast Asia was hit hard by plunging stock and currency values. In late 1997, sections of Southeast Asia ...


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In 1997, an unusually bright comet lit the spring sky. Astronomers received a flood of data from spacecraft exploring Jupiter and Mars and discovered a new galaxy. Telescopes in space revealed a huge fountain of antimatter and showed, for the first ...


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The economy of Australia grew in 1997 for the sixth year in a row, enjoying a growth rate of 3.2 percent coupled with the lowest inflation rate in the industrialized world1.7 percent in the quarter ending in June. The unemployment rate, however, ...


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Automobile sales in 1997 remained nearly constant with sales in 1996. According to Ward's Automotive Reports,


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Boeing Aircraft Company of Seattle, Washington, and McDonnell Douglas Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri, completed a $14-billion merger in August 1997 to form the world's largest aerospace manufacturer. European Commission, the executive arm of the ...


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In its fifth season without a full-time commissioner, Major League Baseball in 1997 had yet to regain the audience it lost in 1994, when a player strike forced the cancellation of the World Series. In an attempt to boost sagging attendance figures, ...


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In May 1997, biochemist James H. Tumlinson of the United States Department of Agriculture explained how a corn plant under attack by caterpillars sounds an alarm. When a hungry caterpillar bites down on a corn leaf, the plant releases compounds into ...


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General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, at age 82, announced on Sept. 11, 1997, that he would step down as commander of Chile's armed forces on March 11, 1998. The announcement was made on the 24th anniversary of the coup


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Jiang Zemin became leader of the People's Republic of China in February 1997, following the death of Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader of China since 1978. Jiang embraced Deng's legacy of economic reforms, which had introduced elements of capitalism ...


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Apple Computer Incorporated of Cupertino, California, shocked the personal computer (PC) industry in August by unexpectedly forming an alliance with its historic rival, Microsoft Corporation, of Redmond, Washington. As part of the agreement, Microsoft ...


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The U.S. Congress and President Bill Clinton in 1997 agreed on landmark legislation to cut taxes, reduce spending, and achieve a balanced federal budget by the year 2002. Representatives of both parties claimed a major victory when the president, on ...


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On May 31, 1997, the United States National Park Service dedicated nearly 11,000 acres (4,455 hectares) of tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas as the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. The preserve is dominated by such native ...


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The nations of Europe took historic steps in 1997 to heal the East-West divide that had split the continent since the end of World War II (1939-1945). The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance of Western European and North ...


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Problems continued to plague both college and professional football in 1997. On the collegiate level, the bowl alliance invented to determine the season's undisputedif unofficialnational champion was inadvertently derailed for the second ...


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France underwent great political change in 1997 as President Jacques Chirac's conservative allies lost control of the National Assembly (the lower house of parliament) to the Socialist Party. The Socialists had pledged to make jobs a top priority over ...


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Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, and the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado, published evidence in April 1997 that advanced the ...


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Germany experienced during 1997 some of its worst economic difficulties since the country's near-miraculous recovery after World War II (1939-1945). Unemployment in 1997 surged to a postwar record as industry invested heavily abroad to escape ...


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Greece made significant progress toward economic stability in 1997. The government of Prime Minister Costas Simitis sought to break the country's cycle of excessive public spending, high inflation, and devaluation by reducing the budget deficit and ...


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On Sept. 25, 1997, at least two Israeli intelligence agents allegedly attempted to assassinate Khaled Meshal, a leader of the militant Islamic group Hamas, in the Jordanian capital, Amman. The agents sprayed a nerve toxin into Meshal's ear. When ...


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Italy made great strides in 1997 toward reentering the economic and political mainstream of Europe. The government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi survived a challenge from his Communist allies, raising hopes that Prodi's center-left coalition might ...


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Ryutaro Hashimoto began a second term as prime minister in 1997. On September 5, his conservative Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) acquired a majority of seats in the lower house, which dominates the Diet, the Japanese Parliament, by winning over ...


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Midterm elections in Mexico and Argentina, in which opposition parties unseated their long-incumbent political rivals, were among the most important political events in Latin America in 1997. In July elections in Mexico, which many observers ...


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The Arab League, an association of 21 Arab states (and Palestinian Arabs) dedicated to promoting closer relations among members, voted on Sept. 21, 1997, to defy a UN embargo on flights from Libya and allow planes carrying Libyan dictator Muammar ...


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In January 1997, a new coalition government led by Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius of the conservative Homeland Union party settled into power in Lithuania. With the swearing-in of the new government officials on Dec. 10, 1996, Homeland Union ...


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Netherlands held the presidency of the European Union (EU), a group of 15 Western European nations, during a difficult six-month period in the first half of 1997. The government's main task was to lead the negotiations on a new EU treaty that was ...


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Premier Frank McKenna, who dominated New Brunswick's government for a decade, announced his resignation on Oct. 7, 1997. His successor, Ray Frenette, a former government minister, was chosen by the Liberal Party caucus and sworn in on October 13.


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Voters in Newfoundland overwhelmingly supported a government proposal to establish a nondenominational


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The Irish Republican Army (IRA), an unofficial military force that seeks to unite Northern Ireland with the independent Republic of Ireland, launched a campaign of bombings and bomb threats in Great Britain in the weeks before the British general ...


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The Northwest Territories moved in 1997 toward division and the creation of the new territory of Nunavut in April 1999. Nunavut was to be formed from the eastern part of the Territories, which is largely populated by Inuit, a people native to the ...


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A centrist-party coalition took control of Norway's government in 1997 for the first time in 25 years, after voters spurned the long-ruling Labor Party in an election for members of the Storting (parliament) on September 15. The coalition, made up of ...


Description:
In the spring of 1997, a team of Italian and Dutch astrophysicists studying mysterious bursts of gamma rays from outer space got their first clues to where the radiation is coming from. Gamma rays are similar to X rays but have higher energies. Both ...


Description:
In March 1997, the Polish government's decision to shut down the historic shipyard in the port of Gdansk and lay off the more than 3,000 workers sparked protests and rioting. The Gdansk shipyard was the birthplace of the Solidarity labor union, which ...


Description:
President Bill Clinton (1946- ) took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1997, to begin his second term. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 to be elected to a second term in office. During his 22-minute inaugural ...


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The Confederation Bridge, the world's longest bridge over a waterway that freezes in winter, opened on May 31, 1997. The new bridge extends 8 miles (13 kilometers) across the Northumberland Strait to link Prince Edward Island to mainland New ...


Description:
In April 1997, scientists at Rockefeller University in New York City and four other institutions reported that men who have inherited two copies of an altered gene, one from each parent, have a greater risk of developing obsessive-compulsive disorder ...


Description:
Children exposed to high electromagnetic fields (EMF's) at home are no more likely to develop leukemia than children in homes with lower levels of EMF's, according to a major study reported in July 1997. The eight-year, $5-million study was the ...


Description:
Political turmoil paralyzed the Haitian government for much of 1997. Prime Minister Rosny Smarth resigned on June 9 under pressure from political rivals who supported former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Smarth had charged that Aristide's ...


Description:
After a frustrating, 42-year drought, the Detroit Red Wings finally recaptured the Stanley Cup to become the 1996-1997 champions of the National Hockey League (NHL). Although five other teams had won more games than Detroit during the regular season, ...


Description:
The 50th-anniversary celebration of India's independence from Great Britain was overshadowed in 1997 by political turmoil and scandal. In April, Inder Kumar Gujral took office as prime minister, heading India's fourth government in 11 months. ...


Description:
The United States National Park Service in March 1997 selected a design for the Little Bighorn National Monument to memorialize the American Indians who died in the 1876 battle in which the Indians defeated the forces of Lieutenant Colonel George A. ...


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Indonesia experienced a financial crisis in 1997 when its currency fell 32 percent, and its stock market plunged 41.6 percent. In October 1997, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a United Nations (UN) affiliate, offered a $15-billion emergency aid ...


Description:
Ireland, with both parliamentary and presidential elections occurring in a single year, was dominated by political change in 1997. Bertie Ahern became taoiseach


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The severe economic problems that plagued Malaysia in 1997 halted several large development projects, including a $5-billion dam on the island of Borneo and a $2-billion, mile-long building in Kuala Lumpur, and slowed progress on a new capital south ...


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The worst flood to hit Manitoba in the 1900's drove at least 27,000 people from their houses and caused an estimated $400 million in damage in late April and early May. At least 445,000 acres (180,000 hectares) of farmland were inundated when the ...


Description:
A controversy about the age at which women should begin having mammograms to detect breast cancer at an early stage was apparently settled in 1997. In March, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recommended that women begin having a regular mammogram ...


Description:
Change of historic proportions dominated Mexican politics in 1997. In July midterm elections, parties in opposition to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (known in Spanish by the initials PRI) won 261 of the 500 seats in the Chamber of Depu-ties, ...


Description:
Events in 1997 revealed that the political consensus that the United States had developed with its Arab and Western allies after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait had frayed. In November 1997, Arab leaders openly refused to support U.S. calls to threaten ...


Description:
Premier John Savage, who narrowly escaped being ousted as head of Nova Scotia's Liberal Party in 1995, announced his resignation on March 20, 1997. After leading his party to victory in legislative elections in 1993, Savage had watched his popularity ...


Description:
New evidence that a huge meteorite crashed into the Caribbean Sea on the north side of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula about 65 million years ago was reported in February 1997 by an international team of marine geologists. The researchers, who had been ...


Description:
In September 1997, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected Athens to host the 2004 Summer Games. Stockholm, Rome, Buenos Aires, and Cape Town, South Africa, had also bid to host the Games. A group of citizens in Rome began a campaign in ...


Description:
The massive restructuring of Ontario's provincial and municipal governments, scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 1998, dominated Canada's largest province in 1997. In part, the plan by the PCP government of Premier Mike Harris involved cutting ...


Description:
Paleontologists Mikhail Fedonkin, of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, and Benjamin Waggoner, of the University of California at Berkeley, published a study in August 1997 that described Kimberella,


Description:
On April 22, 1997, Peruvian commandos stormed the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, the capital, ending a 126-day hostage crisis.


Description:
Political maneuvering in the Philippines intensified in 1997 as politicians prepared for the 1998 presidential elections. President Fidel V. Ramos was widely criticized for supporting an effort to change a constitutional one-term limit on the ...


Description:
In February 1997, the United States-Puerto Rico Political Status Act was introduced in the U.S. Congress. The bill, supported by pro-statehood Puerto Rican Governor Pedro J. Rossello, called for a referendum to be held by Dec. 31, 1998, that would ...


Description:
A census report published in April revealed that Quebec's population had dropped below 25 percent of the total Canadian population for the first time since the province joined the confederation in 1867. Although Quebec's population grew by 3.5 percent ...


Description:
The consolidation of radio stations into larger corporate entities continued to be the main business trend in United States commercial radio in 1997. Radio stations, which often post annual profits of 40 percent or more because of low operating costs, ...


Description:
The Republican Party in 1997 scored major victories in off-year elections and escaped much of the harsh criticism for fund-raising practices that was directed at the Democratic Party. However, Republicans in 1997 did face some questions about campaign ...


Description:
President of Russia Boris Yeltsin began 1997 with a case of double pneumonia. However, by spring Yeltsin's health had dramatically improved, and he actively reasserted control over the Russian political scene. A reorganized and reinvigorated ...


Description:
Saskatchewan enjoyed a healthy economy in 1997 due to 1996 grain harvests that were 25 percent higher than average and substantial revenues from oil fields. The fiscally conservative NDP government of Premier Roy Romanow balanced the province's books ...


Description:
Increasing unemployment and a growing population fueled concerns in 1997 about Saudi Arabia's future stability. The unemployment rate for Saudi nationals was unofficially estimated at 20 percent in 1997. Population pressures caused the government to ...


Description:
Soccer in 1997 was highlighted by South Africa's joyous advance to its first World Cup final and the fourth-straight women's world championship won by the United States. For the second year in a row, D.C. United took the Major League Soccer (MLS) ...


Description:
Somalia continued to be divided in 1997, as it had been since the outbreak of a civil war in 1991. While Somalia remained relatively peaceful in 1997, its warring factions made little progress in resolving their differences. In northern Somalia, ...


Description:
President Nelson Mandela, in his fourth state-of-the-nation address, on Feb. 7, 1997, identified three major problems facing South Africa. The first was a lack of financial resources that prevented the government from undertaking essential projects. ...


Description:
Space exploration in 1997 was marked by both triumphs and tribulations. Spacecraft photographed Jupiter, its moons, and an asteroid, explored Mars, and set off for Saturn. U.S. space shuttles flew eight missions. However, Russia's Mir space station ...


Description:
The 30-year struggle between Spain and Basque separatists intensified in 1997. The separatists seek independence for the Basque region of northern Spain. The conservative government of Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, which took power in 1996, ...


Description:
Sweden maintained an uneasy relationship with its partners in the European Union (EU), an organization of 15 Western European countries, in 1997. The Social Democrat-led government announced in June that Sweden would not join the single European ...


Description:
The competition for local telephone and television cable service in the United States promised by the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act failed to materialize in 1997. While the act permitted telephone and cable operators to enter one another's ...


Description:
The television industry's voluntary rating system for programming went into effect on Jan. 1, 1997. The system mandated that a small icon, displaying an "age rating," appear for 15 seconds at the start of each program in the upper-left corner of the ...


Description:
The Thai economy crashed in 1997, abruptly halting a decade of rapid growth and triggering a financial crisis throughout Southeast Asia. Thailand devalued its currency, the baht, in July, causing it to tumble more than 30 percent against the U.S. ...


Description:
On May 31, 1997, President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia signed a treaty of friendship between their two countries. Negotiations over the treaty had clouded Russian-Ukrainian relations for the last five years, mostly ...


Description:
The Conservative Party, after 18 years in power in the United Kingdom (U.K.), was defeated by the Labour Party in elections held on May 1, 1997. The Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, won with an overwhelming majority of 179 seats in Parliament. Blair, ...


Description:
Two extraordinary art museums, one in Spain and the other in the United States, topped the 1997 architectural news. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, which opened in October, was designed by American architect Frank O. Gehry. The museum, ...


Description:
In 1997, devastating earthquakes in central Italy damaged the treasured artworks of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. The quakes destroyed frescoes (wall and ceiling paintings) attributed to Giovanni Cimabue and Giotto, artists from the late ...


Description:
In 1997, a number of music critics expressed concern about the future of classical music. According to these critics, a decline in government funding for the arts, an abandonment of music education by public schools, and an aging and shrinking ...


Description:
The 1997 Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to Italian dramatist Dario Fo. His satirical political farces, Accidental Death of an Anarchist


Description:
In 1997, publishers, booksellers, and writers debated the importance of serious fiction in the United States. The term "mid-list," frequently noted in the debate, came to represent serious writers whose works usually generated modest sales. Retail ...


Description:
Multicultural and nonfiction informational books continued to dominate children's literature in 1997. Some of the outstanding books of 1997 included the following:


Description:
Independently produced films with relatively unknown casts outshone most Hollywood-backed motion pictures at the Academy Awards in March 1997, leading some critics to conclude that audiences prefer fresh concepts and storylines to familiar and safe ...


Description:
Yachtsmen the world over were appalled in March 1997 when a Maori activist walked into the Auckland, New Zealand, boating club where the America's Cup was on display and proceeded to beat the 150-year-old silver trophy with a sledgehammer. By August, ...


Description:
Bowling highlights in 1997 included the first $2-million career earnings winner on the men's Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) tour and a single-season earnings record on the Ladies Professional Bowlers Tour (LPBT). The year 1997 also marked the ...


Description:
The boxing scene took some bizarre twists in 1997. The year saw Riddick Bowe, the former World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight champion, end a short-lived venture in the United States Marine Corps; Oliver McCall, a heavyweight contender, suffer ...


Description:
For golf fans, the sport's crowning moment in 1997 came in April, when Eldrick (Tiger) Woods, the 21-year-old sensation playing in only his 15th professional competition, won the Masters Tournament with a performance that transcended the game. Woods's ...


Description:
Horse racing captivated public attention in June 1997, when a potential Triple Crown winner emerged for the first time in 19 years. Nevertheless, race track attendance continued to slide in 1997, because of competition from the growing casino and ...


Description:
Tara Lipinski, a 14-year-old from Houston, and Elvis Stojko, an innovative, 25-year-old Canadian, were the individual gold medalists at the World Figure Skating Championships at Lausanne, Switzerland, in March 1997. Lipinski became the story of the ...


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Vietnam voters elected to office a younger generation of Communist leaders in 1997. In June, Vietnam's top three leadersPrime Minister Vo Van Kiet, President Le Duc Anh, and Communist Party General Secretary Do Muoi, all in their 70's or ...


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The winter of 1997 was among the wettest of the century in the Western and North-central United States, but drier than normal in much of the Southwest. In the Northeast, an unusually warm winter ended with a major snowstorm and was followed by ...


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Widespread popular protests against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic continued in early 1997. The protests had begun in November 1996. In February 1997, Milosevic gave in to demands to allow opposition representatives who had won local elections ...


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The Yukon prepared to celebrate in 1998 the 100th anniversary of the spectacular gold rush of 1898, which brought thousands of people to the territory's mineral-laden creeks. The main concerns of the Yukon's 32,000 inhabitants in 1997, however, were ...


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The 31-year rule of President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire collapsed in May 1997 after a seven-month rebellion, which had been supported by at least three neighboring countries. Laurent Kabila, leader of the rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the ...


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Female artists and teen-age fans redirected the course of popular music in 1997, a year that experienced both a gender and generational takeover. Such female artists as Fiona Apple and Jewel, both of whom were in their 20's, and teen-age country ...


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The flurry of productions in New York in the spring of 1997 were remarkable more for their quantity than for artistic innovation. While the burst of excitement in the musical genre generated by 1996's Rent


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A special session of the United Nation's (UN) General Assembly was held in New York City in June 1997 to determine how best to implement ambitious environmental goals made at the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. However, disagreement ...


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Kofi Annan of Ghana began his term as the new secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) on Jan. 1, 1997. The 58-year-old Annan replaced Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, who did not win reelection for a second 5-year term. Annan had begun working for ...


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The San Diego Wild Animal Park opened "Heart of Africa," a 30-acre (12-hectare) representation of the diverse habitats of central and southern Africa in May 1997. A winding trail offered visitors areas of forest, savanna, and wetland. Among the 11 ...


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Controversy continued to plague Indy-car racing in 1997, with the Indy Racing League (IRL) and Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) still competing as rival entities.


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The World Cup professional season ended on a historic note at Vail, Colorado, in March 1997, when Luc Alphand became the first Frenchman to win the men's overall World Cup championship since Jean-Claude Killy in 1968. With his victory, Alphand also ...


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The 1997 sports year was highlighted by athletes achieving remarkable successes at early ages. A 14-year-old, 4-foot, 8-inch (140-centimeter) skater, Tara Lipinski of Houston, won both the 1997 U.S. and World figure skating championships. Eldrick ...


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In August 1997, Russia's Aleksandr Popov, returning to competition after being stabbed in a 1996 street altercation in Moscow, made the comeback of the year at the European Championships in Seville, Spain. He extended his winning streak in the 50 and ...


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In May 1997, Deep Blue, a supercomputer developed by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) of Armonk, New York, defeated Professional Chess Association World Champion Garry Kasparov of Russia in a six-game match by the score of 3.5 to 2.5. ...


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Lavish full-length ballets were the box-office draw in dance in the United States in 1997, but few companies could afford to produce them independently. The American Ballet Theater (ABT) and the San Francisco Ballet split the $2-million cost of ...


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The international fashion industry was shocked and saddened in 1997 by the murder of Gianni Versace, the Italian designer. Versace was shot and killed on July 15 outside his mansion in Miami Beach, Florida, allegedly by Andrew Cunanan, a suspect in ...


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Lower interest rates, improved business productivity, and robust corporate profits made 1997 the third straight banner year in U.S. stocks and bonds, despite a speed bump in October. Currency devaluations and tumbling stock markets in several Asian ...


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On March 12, 1997, President Bill Clinton proposed spending $175 billion over the next six years to repair the nation's crumbling bridges and highways. The proposed bill, the National Economic Crossroads Transportation Efficiency Act (NEXTEA), was to ...


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The U.S. armed forces were buffeted in 1997 by allegations of sexual misconduct among the ranks, reaching from enlisted men to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.


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President Bill Clinton reshuffled his Cabinet in 1997 as he began his second term in office. He selected Madeleine K. Albright as the first woman to become secretary of state, promoting her from the post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. ...


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On June 2, 1997, a federal jury in Denver, Colorado, found Timothy J. McVeigh, 29, guilty on 11 counts of murder and conspiracy in connection with the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. On June ...


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On June 26, 1997, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that, while terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to commit suicide with the assistance of their physicians, states were free to create laws allowing or banning ...


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Illicit drug use in the United States dropped from an estimated 18.0 percent of all 12- to 17-year-old children in 1995 to 16.7 percent in 1996, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's National Household Survey on Drug Abuse ...


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On Sept. 15, 1997, American Home Products Corporation of Madison, New Jersey, withdrew its drugs fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine from the market at the urging of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Concerns first arose about ...


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The number of students enrolled in elementary and secondary schools in the United States in the fall of 1997 reached 52.2 million. Another 14.1 million students enrolled in colleges and universities. The nation's elementary and secondary schools spent ...


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Federal and state prisons in the United States held 1,182,169 inmates as of Dec. 31, 1996more than double the number of inmates in 1985according to a 1997 report by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The ...


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Talking on a cellular telephone while operating a vehicle distracts drivers and increases the risk of an accident, researchers at the University of Toronto, Canada, reported in February. The scientists studied 699 drivers with cell phones who were ...


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State governments enjoyed a relatively quiet legislative year in 1997. Most states benefited from a strong economy, and many ended their fiscal years with a surplus of funds.


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Mother Theresa, a Roman Catholic nun who devoted her life to comforting the dying and aiding the poor, died on Sept. 5, 1997, in Calcutta, India, at the age of 87. Mother Theresa had founded a religious order of nuns, the Congregation of the ...


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Martina Hingis, a teenager from Switzerland, and Pete Sampras, a 25-year-old veteran from the United States, were the world's outstanding tennis players in 1997. Hingis, who turned 17 on September 30, won three grand-slam titles and more than $3 ...


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Poorly marketed in the United States and embroiled in politics abroad, track and field continued to suffer in 1997 from the erosion of its audience, drug problems among its athletes, and diminished media attention.


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The collapse of several private investment schemes involving an estimated half of all Albanian citizens led to widespread rioting and unrest in 1997. Protests, which began in late 1996, were particularly numerous in the south. Rioters burned ...


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On Aug. 29, 1997, as many as 300 civilians were massacred in Reis, a village south of the capital Algiers, in the most brutal attack on civilians since the country's civil war began in 1992. On Sept. 5, 1997, as many as 150 civilians were killed in ...


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Robert Kocharyan became prime minister of Armenia in March 1997, after Armen Sarkisyan resigned due to ill health. In November 1996, Kocharyan had been elected president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave claimed ...


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Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, Austria's long-serving leader, announced his immediate resignation on Jan. 18, 1997. Vranitzky's announcement followed growing dissent within his Social Democratic Party over the Social Democrats' poor showing in an October ...


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On March 26, 1997, a state court sentenced 15 Bahrainis to jail terms ranging from 3 to 15 years for their involvement in an alleged Iranian-backed plot to overthrow the ruling Al Khalifa family and install a fundamentalist Islamic government. The ...


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A struggle between Bangladesh's two main political parties continued in 1997 to threaten government and economic stability. The Bangladesh National Party (BNP), led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Ziaur Rahman (known as Zia), organized strikes ...


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President Alexander Lukashenko continued to exercise strict control over Belarus in 1997, despite increasing criticism from domestic and international observers. Lukashenko had installed a new, handpicked parliament in November 1996, but the former ...


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Belgium struggled in 1997 with the fear and discord that had erupted in the country in August 1996, when police had discovered a network believed to be responsible for the abduction, sexual abuse, and murder of four girls. Public concern rose again in ...


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More than 100 people were injured on Jan. 10, 1997, in clashes between opposition protesters and police in Bulgaria's parliament building. The violence erupted after the Socialist majority in parliament refused to allow a vote on a measure proposed by ...


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Mart Siimann replaced Tiit Vahi as prime minister of Estonia in March 1997, after Vahi nearly lost a no-confidence vote in the parliament. Vahi's popularity had suffered amid accusations of improper real estate dealings in the capital, Tallinn. ...


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Relations between Georgia and the United States were complicated in 1997 when a Georgian diplomat caused a three-car accident in Washington, D.C., by driving while intoxicated. A 16-year-old girl was killed in the crash. The United States threatened ...


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The opposition Christian Democratic Party broke up in July 1997 after being expelled from the European Union of Christian Democrats because of links to the extreme right-wing party of Hungarian nationalist Istvan Csurka. Although Hungary's coalition ...


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On Oct. 29, 1997, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered all United States personnel affiliated with United Nations (UN) inspections of Iraqi weapons programs out of the country. The UN inspectors had been attempting to verify if Iraq was complying ...


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Israeli intelligence agents on Sept. 25, 1997, attempted to assassinate Khaled Meshal, a political leader of the militant Islamic group Hamas, in the Jordanian capital of Amman. The action infuriated Jordan's King Hussein, who had been Israel's main ...


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In 1997, foreign investors purchased major stakes in Kazakhstan's lucrative natural resources and industrial sectors, which the Kazakh government continued to privatize. To encourage further investment, the government passed laws offering tax ...


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The largest recall of meat in United States history occurred on Aug. 21, 1997, when Hudson Foods, Inc. of Rogers, Arkansas, recalled 25 million pounds (11 million kilograms) of ground beef processed at the company's Columbus, Nebraska, plant. The ...


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Libraries won a number of major victories in 1997. In May, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent agency of the U.S. government that regulates radio, wire, and cable communication, voted unanimously to discount rates for ...


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The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), a professional group located in New York City, urged editors in June 1997 to resist pressure from advertisers trying to influence the kinds of stories and other editorial material published in ...


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In an unusual move, the executive editor of The San Jose


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Nobel Prizes in literature, peace, the sciences, and economics were awarded in October 1997 by the Norwegian Storting (parliament) in Oslo and by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Karolinska Institute, and the Swedish Academy of Literature in ...


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The United States economy in 1997 enjoyed another year of expansion without significant inflation. In November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the country's unemployment rate declined to 4.6 percent, the lowest jobless rate ...


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The manufacturing sector in the United States showed considerable strength in 1997, along with remarkably low costs for most raw materials. Some observers wondered if increasingly computer-driven companies may have produced a new era in which the ...


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A February 1997 Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) report revealed that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States had increased to an estimated 5 million people by October 1996. The INS report noted that approximately 41 percent ...


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The Advisory Council on Social Security recommended in January 1997 that the government invest a portion of social security tax funds in the stock market for the system to remain solvent through the year 2072. Investing in stocks involves a higher ...


Title:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (1997)

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In 1997, the Supreme Court of the United States issued important rulings on assisted suicide, gun control, free speech on the Internet, and the president's veto power.


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President Bill Clinton and the U.S. Congress announced in July 1997 the largest federal tax cut since 1981. The cut, a legislative compromise, benefited families with children, investors, and college students and provided total tax cuts worth more ...


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On Aug. 28, 1997, a California law went into effect that banned state-run affirmative action programs. Affirmative action programs were created to increase representation of certain racial or ethnic groups and women in areas of employment and ...


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The United States Justice Department indicted 20 members of a Mexico-based organized crime ring in August 1997 on charges that they had smuggled Mexicans who were deaf into the United States and had forced them to work as trinket peddlers on the ...


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President Bill Clinton, in his Feb. 6, 1997, State of the Union address, announced that 2 million people had moved off of welfare rolls since 1993. The president set a new goal of reducing the number of people on welfare by another 2 million by the ...


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On Sept. 26, 1997, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed into law a bill that gave a higher status to Russian Orthodoxy, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaismreligions that had been officially recognized by the former Soviet governmentthan to ...


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The transition to high-definition television (HDTV) in the United States formally began in April 1997, when the federal government cleared the way for the first update of the nation's broadcast-television standard in more than 40 years.


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Muslim leaders attending a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Teheran, Iran, condemned Israel on Dec. 11, 1997, as a "terrorist state." Turkish President Suleyman Demirel, however, did not endorse the declaration and left the ...


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Conservative and Reform Jews in Israel and the United States during 1997 called for religious pluralism


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On Oct. 4, 1997, an estimated 500,000 men gathered in Washington, D.C., for Stand in the Gap, an event sponsored by Promise Keepers, an evangelical Christian men's organization. Promise Keepers promoted the rally as a "day of heartfelt confession and ...


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Rioters in Rengasdenglok, Indonesia, attacked two Buddhist temples and four Christian churches on Jan. 30, 1997. The incident reflected an ongoing religious conflict in Indonesia, where about 90 percent of the more than 200 million people are Muslim. ...


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Burma became a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), an organization fostering cooperation primarily in economic development, on July 23, 1997. Burma was admitted to ASEAN despite human rights and narcotics trafficking charges ...


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The Hutu-Tutsi ethnic conflict continued in Burundi in 1997, despite peacemaking efforts by neighboring African countries. Between 1993 and 1996, at least 150,000 people had died in the armed conflict between Burundi's minority Tutsi, who controlled ...


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Hun Sen, second prime minister and head of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), staged a military coup


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Colombia. By August 1997, a full year before the end of President Ernesto Samper Pizano's four-year term, the Samper Administration had proved to be disastrous for Colombia by almost any standard. Economic growth, which had reached nearly 5 percent in ...


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The United States government launched a five-year balanced-budget plan on Aug. 5, 1997, when President Bill Clinton signed separate budget and tax bills designed to eliminate the national deficit by the year 2002. The legislation also offered tax cuts ...


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Public support for the government of Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus declined sharply in 1997, because of a financial crisis. On November 30, a scandal involving his party's fund-raising activities during the 1996 national elections forced Klaus out of ...


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On June 6, 1997, gunmen shot and seriously wounded Kuwaiti National Assembly member Abdullah al-Naibari, a leading spokeman for the opposition, as well as his wife, an act that shocked the nation of Kuwait. Five suspects, including two Iranians, were ...


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Political instability continued in Latvia in 1997, as Prime Minister Andris Skele resigned twice in seven months. In January, Skele quit in protest over the controversial appointment of a finance minister. In February, President Guntis Ulmanis ...


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On May 11, 1997, nearly 500,000 Lebanese participated in a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II in the capital, Beirut, a city that was still visibly battered from the 1975-1990 civil war. The pope spent two days in Lebanon, during which he stressed ...


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Liberia in 1997 celebrated the end of seven years of bloody civil war, the country's first free elections since 1971, and the inauguration of a new civilian government. Liberians experienced a renewed sense of optimism, though the country remained ...


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Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo, 51, was sworn in for a five-year term as Nicaragua's president on Jan. 10, 1997. Aleman called for national unity, a matter that political observers considered urgent, after the Liberal Alliance, a coalition of conservative ...


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The military government of General Sani Abacha continued its relentless persecution of political opponents in 1997, while at the same time exercising leadership in efforts to promote democracy in neighboring countries. Although human rights groups had ...


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On Sept. 12, 1997, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad in an attempt to revive the failing Arab-Israeli peace process. Only minor progress was reported from the meeting, but Assad agreed to additional ...


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The Taiwan National Assembly approved constitutional changes on July 18, 1997, that brought the island closer to formal independence from China. The island of Taiwan had separated from China in 1949, but China still regarded Taiwan as its province. ...


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Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan resigned on June 18, 1997, ending the first Islamic-oriented government in Turkey's 74-year history. Since Erbakan came to power as leader of a coalition government in June 1996, Turkey had become increasingly ...


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Despite the assurances of President Islam Karimov that Uzbekistan would work to expand political and religious freedoms, international observers in 1997 noted little real progress on human rights. In January 1997, the U.S. State Department gave ...


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Venezuela. The Venezuelan government was able to sell $4 billion in 30-year bonds on the international market in September 1997. Investment analysts saw the sale as a sign of renewed confidence in the strength of Venezuela's economy.


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The world looked on helplessly in the summer of 1997 as a series of eruptions from the Soufriere Hills Volcano on Montserrat destroyed much of the British colony in the Caribbean. On June 25, the volcano, which had been active since July 1995, spewed ...


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Francis E. George was installed as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago on May 6, 1997, following a five-month search. The 60-year-old Chicago native was appointed by Pope John Paul II to succeed the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin as spiritual ...


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Rudolph W. Giuliani was reelected to a second four-year term as mayor of New York City on Nov. 4, 1997. Giuliani campaigned on themes of reduced crime, a strong local economy, and record tourism to defeat the Democratic candidate, Manhattan Borough ...


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An upsurge in violence between the Tutsi and Hutu in 1997 inflicted severe hardships on Rwandans and blocked any hope of economic recovery. In early 1997, hundreds of people died in clashes between forces of the Tutsi-dominated government and Hutu ...


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Dallas public schools spent much of 1997 in turmoil. The appointment of Yvonne Gonzalez as the first Hispanic superintendent of schools in January was hailed by many, but her tenure was marked by a series of clashes between Hispanics and African ...


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On June 30, 1997, Richard J. Riordan began his second, and final, four-year term as mayor of Los Angeles, California's largest city. Riordan, a Republican, defeated Democratic state senator Tom Hayden on April 8 by an almost 2-to-1 margin. Riordan's ...


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Toronto experienced a year of upheaval in 1997. A bill merging the six municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto into one citypopularly known as Mega-citypassed the Ontario provincial legislature in April, despite formidable opposition from ...


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In September 1997, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a government agency that insures deposits at U.S. banks and savings and loans (S&L's), reported that profits at U.S. banks rose to $29.1 billion in the first half of 1997, up ...


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Construction on two long-awaited art museums was completed in 1997. In October, the Guggenheim Museum, designed by American architect Frank O. Gehry, opened in Bilbao, a city in the Basque region of northern Spain. The $100-million art complex ...


