01|The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the government knowingly breached contracts with various savings and loan associations that had been induced by bank regulators in the 1980s to salvage other savings and loans and thus assume huge liabilities. By changing accounting procedures, the government went back on its word, plunging the savings and loans into insolvency and per the court, is liable for damages, which could run into billions of dollars.|
01|Federal authorities arrest and charge 12 people, said to be members of an Arizona paramilitary group called the Viper Militia, for conspiring to blow up government buildings--federal, state, and local--in Phoenix, Arizona.|
01|Leonel Fernandez Reyna, a 42-year-old lawyer who was raised in New York City, is elected President of the Dominican Republic.|
01|Seventy-five years of communist control of Mongolia ends when a coalition of democratic parties take 48 of the 76 seats of the Great Hural, the Mongolian parliament, away from the Communist People's Revolutionary Party.|
02|Vice President Al Gore announces that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has selected the Lockheed Martin Corporation to build an experimental, reusable, wedge-shaped rocket that, if successful, could lead to a fleet of privately owned and operated rockets that would haul government as well as private payloads.|
02|Federal agents seize 90 high-powered rifles and hundreds of pounds of a bomb-making compound from the house of one of the twelve Viper Militia members who were arrested July 1 on charges of conspiring to blow up seven government buildings, federal, state, and local, in Phoenix.|
02|The U.S. government offers a $2-million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the June 25 bombing that killed 19 Americans in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.|
02|A massive power failure of uncertain causes cuts off electrical power to millions of people in 15 western states, including California and Arizona.|
03|Russian voters turn their backs on the nation's communist past and reelect Boris Yeltsin president by an unexpectedly wide margin over Gennadi Zyuganov, Communist Party leader.|
03|A 24-year-old man, prompted by the dares of friends, sets off fireworks inside a Scottown, Ohio, fireworks store filled with pre-holiday shoppers. The resulting blaze kills 8 people, including 2 children, and seriously injures 12.|
03|British Prime Minister John Major announces that England will return to Scotland the Stone of Scone, a cherished relic of Scottish history. Edward I of England "acquired" the 400-pound (180-kilogram), gray sandstone rock--the coronation "seat" of Scottish kings--on July 3, 1297, and removed it to Westminster Abbey, where it was incorporated into the King Edward Throne that has been used in all subsequent English coronations. While the Stone of Scone will be returned to Edinburgh, Scotland, it will transported to London for future coronations.|
03|A statue of Arthur Ashe is unveiled on famed Monument Avenue in the tennis champion's home town of Richmond, Virginia. Placement of the 12-foot- (3.7-meter-) tall statue of the African-American athlete on the same avenue with monuments to Robert E. Lee and other Confederate Civil War heroes has been a source of controversy.|
04|Kim Jong Il, North Korea's de facto leader, postpones his formal ascension to power as president and general secretary of the communist Workers Party for another year of mourning, the third since the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, on July 8, 1994.|
04|Ramon Garbey and Joel Casamayor, Cuban boxers training in Mexico for the Olympics, defect to the United States after making their way to San Diego via Tijuana from their training camp in Guadalajara.|
04|Storms dump up to 22 inches (55.8 centimeters) of rain across nine central and southern Chinese provinces, flooding at least 1.75 million acres (700,000 hectares) of farmland and killing 31,000 head of livestock. As many as 270 people are dead, and hundreds of thousands flee their homes for higher ground.|
05|According to U.S. Labor Department figures, the unemployment rate stands at 5.3 percent, the lowest point in six years. The Labor Department also reports a major increase in hourly earnings during June, suggesting that wage stagnation in the U.S. may be easing. The average hourly pay of 83 million nonmanagement production workers rose nine cents to $11.82, which is the largest percentage increase since September 1983 and the largest one-month cash increase on record.|
06|Steffi Graf, in a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain, takes her 7th Wimbledon and 20th Grand Slam title.|
07|Police in Northern Ireland, fearing violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics, cancel the annual Orange Order march, which commemorates the 1690 battle of the Boyne in which the Protestant William of Orange defeated his Roman Catholic father-in-law, King James II.|
07|Dutchman Richard Krajicek takes the Wimbledon singles crown by beating MaliVai Washington of the United States, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3, in the first final in 110 years to be played by two unseeded men.|
07|A United Nations' spokesperson at the opening of the 11th international AIDS conference, currently meeting in Vancouver, Canada, announces that India, less than six years after the HIV virus was first detected there, leads the world in infections of the virus that causes AIDS. Three million of India's 950 million citizens are infected.|
07|The government of Indonesia acknowledges the presence of dengue fever in the central region of Java, where at least 41 children under the age of 5 have died in the last 3 months.|
08|Hurricane Bertha rips through a string of Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, leaving at least 3 people dead and 20 missing.|
08|The Turkish Parliament breaks 73 years of zealous secularism by approving a coalition government led by Necmettin Erbakan, leader of the conservative, Muslim-oriented Welfare Party.|
09|The U.S. Senate passes a bill that will raise the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 an hour. The bill, nearly identical to one already passed by the House of Representatives, virtually assures a raise of 90 cents an hour to more than 10 million Americans.|
09|Bodyguards for the sons of the Libyan leader, Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, open fire on anti-Gadhafi-chanting spectators at a soccer match in Tripoli, the capital, triggering a stampede and riot that results in the death of at least 20 people.|
10|Russia bombards two villages 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Grozny, the destroyed Chechen capital. Launched less than one week after Boris Yeltsin was reelected President of Russia, the attack apparently violates the peace accord that Yeltsin signed with Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev less than six weeks earlier.|
10|Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking before a joint session of Congress, pledges adherence to his predecessor's agreements with Palestinians, but emphasizes his greater commitment to Israel's security.|
10|The death toll from flooding in southern, central, and eastern China, which has affected millions of lives, reaches 500.|
11|Results from studies announced at the 11th international AIDS conference in Vancouver, Canada, show that combinations of drugs, new and old, suppress HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, below the level of detection for significant periods of time. The findings suggest that people with AIDS may be able to live, like diabetics, relatively normal life spans through daily drug therapy.|
11|Ross Perot declares that he will seek the presidential nomination of the Reform Party, the political party he created in September 1995.|
11|Northern Ireland police, responding to four days of violent demonstrations by tens of thousands of Protestants, rescind their ban on the annual march of the Orange Order, which commemorates the 1690 Battle of the Boyne that led to centuries of English Protestant ascendancy in Ireland. Protestant marchers pass through a Roman Catholic neighborhood with relatively little violence and no injuries.|
11|The U.S. State epartment cancels Colombian President Ernesto Samper's visa on the grounds that he "assisted or abetted" drug trafficking. A State Department spokesman declares that Samper took money from drug traffickers during his 1994 presidential campaign and in exchange has established policies that favor drug traffickers.|
11|A bomb destroys a trolleybus during morning rush hour in Moscow's Pushkin Square, injuring five riders and the driver. The explosion takes place just one day after President Yeltsin signed a decree giving security adviser Aleksandr Lebed greater power to fight crime in Moscow.|
12|A concealed bomb blows apart a second Moscow trolleybus, wounding more than 30 rush-hour passengers. Authorities order all city police to work 12-hour shifts and give up days off. Boris Yeltsin orders 1,000 elite army troops onto the streets of Moscow, which the Russian President describes as "infested with terrorists"--interpreted by many as referring to Chechen separatists.|
12|Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, leaders of Sinn Fein--the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, announce that the peace process in Northern Ireland is "in absolute ruins" as a result of wide-spread sectarian violence, which they blame on the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British government.|
12|Hurricane Bertha slams into the North Carolina coast with driving rain and 105-mile (168.9-kilometer) per-hour winds and causes severe property damage in some coastal areas south of Wilmington.|
13|Matching the winning streak set half a century ago by the legendary Citation, a six-year-old bay named Cigar captures his 16th straight victory by taking the Arlington Citation Challenge by three and one-half lengths.|
14|A luxury hotel in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, is blown apart just minutes after an anonymous caller triggers an evacuation. Climaxing a week of rioting by both Protestants and Catholics, the bombing, for which the Irish Republican Army denies responsibility, is the first terrorist explosion in Northern Ireland since a cease-fire was established 22 months ago.|
15|A British court grants Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, a preliminary decree of divorce, expected to become final on August 28. Diana, who will share with Charles equal access to their sons, William and Harry, is expected to receive a one-time settlement of $22.5 million. She will retain her Kensington Palace apartment and the title of princess, but will give up her right to be Queen of England and to the honorific HRH--her royal highness.|
15|Russian President Boris Yeltsin's last-minute cancellation of an appointment with Vice President Al Gore and sudden departure for a sanitarium outside of Moscow ignites world-wide speculation on the state of his health and the nature of current Kremlin power struggles.|
15|The stock market drops precipitously--with Dow Jones Industrial stocks falling 161 points--continuing a trend that began when the government reported on July 5 that employment was booming and wages rising.|
16|A stiff and pale Boris Yeltsin meets with Al Gore at the rural sanitarium that the Russian president checked into July 15 after canceling a scheduled meeting with the American vice president. The pair were joined by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, whose presence may signal his emergence as successor to the visibly exhausted Yeltsin.|
16|Dow Jones industrial average stocks plunge 212 points and then rebound 219 points, leaving the market basically unchanged at the end of the heaviest trading day in the 204-year history of the New York Stock Exchange.|
16|President Clinton announces that he will direct Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to issue regulations to the states requiring welfare recipients to go to work within two years of first receiving benefits.|
16|After President Clinton grants citizens the right to sue foreign companies operating Cuban plants that were American owned before being seized by the Castro government, the President suspends that right for the next six months. These contradictory acts appear to be candidate Clinton's tack for sailing through the internationally and domestically hazardous shoals of Cuban economic isolation.|
16|E. coli bacteria-infected eel sushi served to Japanese students at school cafeterias is believed to have poisoned more than 4,000 children in areas around Osaka. The outbreak of food poisoning was first noticed on July 12.|
17|Trans World Airlines Flight 800, en route to Paris from New York's Kennedy International Airport, explodes 13,700 feet (4,176 meters) above the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Long Island, killing all aboard the Boeing 747-100. Among the 230 passengers and crew members were 21 residents of Montoursville, Pennsylvania--16 high school students and 5 chaperons--embarking on a French Club-sponsored tour of France.|
17|Columbia University seismologists announce that the inner core of Earth spins independently of the rest of the planet and faster, making the core virtually a planet within a planet.|
17|William J. Perry, secretary of the Defense Department, announces that as much as two-thirds of the American garrison in Saudi Arabia, approximately 4,000 men and women, will be moved--for protection against terrorist attack--into remote desert areas.|
18|Chechen commander Salman Raduyev claims on Russia's NTV television network that rebel chief Dzhokar Dudayev is alive. The Russian Interior Ministry announced in April that Dudayev was killed in an ambush last March, Chechen rebels have continued to maintain that their leader is alive and in command.|
18|Fighting for a separate state on the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka, Tamil Tiger rebels attack and overrun the Mullaitivu army camp 175 miles (282 kilometers) from Colombo, killing more than 150 government troops. The incident comes a week before the anniversary of the anti-Tamil riots that triggered 13 years of ethnic conflict and the death of more than 50,000 people.|
19|Radovan Karadzic, Bosnian Serb political chief, formally gives up political power, a step that may clear the way for national elections in the fall in Bosnia.|
19|The centennial Summer Olympics open in Atlanta with a gala pageant featuring 100 performers, 10,000 athletes from 197 nations, and legendary heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali, who lit the Olympic flame.|
19|Republican presidential nominee Robert Dole confirms that General Colin Powell will publicly announce his support for Dole on the opening night of the Republican convention this August in San Diego.|
19|Rival parades staged by Catholics and Protestants in Omagh, Northern Ireland, ignite another round of sectarian violence, leading police to fire plastic bullets at stone-throwing rioters.|
20|Millions of people in the central and southern provinces of China are stranded by flood waters, which since seasonal rains began in late June, have ruined 2.5 million acres (1.1 million hectares) in crops, destroyed 810,000 buildings, and led to the death of at least 850 people.|
20|Three hundred people of the Tutsi tribe are killed and 150 more wounded when Hutu rebels attack a Burundi refugee camp sheltering mostly widows and orphans.|
21|The Japanese government warns the public not to eat raw meat after announcing that more than 8,000 people have been stricken with food poisoning, 6,000 in the industrial city of Sakai on Osaka Bay. Raw eel and beef liver had been suspected of carrying the E. coli bacteria that caused the food poisoning, but researchers were unable to pinpoint the exact carrier of the highly virulent 0-157:H7 strain.|
21|In the largest exchange of prisoners since the conflict in Lebanon began in 1982, Israel exchanges 45 Shiite prisoners and the remains of 100 Hezbollah guerrillas with the Shiite Muslim guerrilla group for the remains of two Israeli soldiers last seen in 1986.|
21|Tom Lehman wins golf's British Open with a 72-hole total of 271. He is the first American to conquer the Royal Lytham course since Bobby Jones won the Open in 1926.|
21|A 32-year-old Dane, Bjarne Riis, riding for the German Telekom team, crosses the finish line on Paris' Champs-Elysees to win the 2,423-mile (3,899- kilometer) Tour de France, which began three weeks ago in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. Riis is the first Dane to win the Tour de France, considered the world's greatest bicycle race, since the competition was begun in 1903. Five-time winner Miguel Indurain finished in 11th place, 14 minutes and 14 seconds behind Riis.|
22|The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announces that it will delay a $330 million installment of its $10.2 billion loan to Russia due to the government's poor performance in collecting taxes. While the IMF's move will have little immediate effect in Russia, the one-month delay may unnerve foreign investors.|
22|Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski enters prison via the Federal Medical Center at Rochester, Minnesota, where he will be medically evaluated before being moved to a correctional facility. Charged with 17 counts of misuse and embezzlement of Federal funds, the once powerful Congressman was sentenced to 17 months in prison and fined $100,000 after pleading guilty to 2 counts of mail fraud.|
22|A bomb explodes in the Lahore, Pakistan, international airport, killing at least 6 people and seriously wounding 20.|
22|Government officials in Beijing announce that millions of army troops, police officers, and students have been sent to 9 central and southern Chinese provinces to help rescue millions of people left homeless by flooding. In Hunan province alone, 19 million people in 12 cities and 56 counties have been affected by flooding along the Yangtze River.|
23|Leon Panetta, White House chief of staff, states that chemical residue on the bodies of victims and on debris recovered from the crash of T.W.A. Flight 800 may point toward terrorism, but that it was premature to conclude that the explosion, which killed all 230 passengers and crew members, resulted from a terrorist attack.|
23|Varieties of meat that the Japanese typically consume--raw eel, fish, and beef liver--disappear from grocery counters in the wake of official warnings that they may carry a highly virulent strain of E. coli bacteria, 0-157:H7.|
23|Following the Senate's lead, the House of Representatives passes legislation that imposes economic sanctions on foreign corporations that invest $40 million or more in Libya or Iran. Existing sanctions on foreign corporations conducting business with Cuba, imposed by the Helms-Burton bill, are viewed by America's allies as an intrusion on sovereignty and have lead to disputes between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, and the European Union.|
23|Two guests at Queen Elizabeth's summer garden party at Buckingham Palace are knocked to the ground and superficially burned when struck by lightning during an unexpected cloudburst. The guests were standing approximately 150 feet (46 meters) from the royal tent, where the Queen had taken shelter.|
24|Douglas Hogg, British minister of agriculture, announces in Parliament that the government will forbid the use and ban the sale of sheep, goat, and deer brains, spinal columns, and spleens. The ban results from research, which Hogg referred to as "theoretical," that connects mad cow disease--bovine spongiform encephalopathy--with animal feed incorporating the ground organs and offal of lambs infected with scrapie, a fatal disease affecting the nervous system of sheep. Cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy have been linked, in turn, to human beings who have contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob syndrome, a similar degenerative disease of the brain.|
24|Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, pledging at an emergency cabinet meeting that the government would combat the current outbreak of food poisoning, announces that 7 people have died and 8,000 have been sickened, including 1 of every 8 elementary students in Sakai, an industrial city on Osaka Bay.|
24|The United Nations is assembling an intervention force to prevent a genocidal civil war between the ethnic Tutsi and Hutu of Burundi, which is verging on political collapse. According to the U.S. State Department, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, Burundi's Hutu President, yesterday sought shelter in the American Embassy in Bujumbura, the capital, when the presidential palace was surrounded by paratroopers of the Tutsi-dominated Burundi army.|
24|Two bombs explode simultaneously on separate cars of a commuter train in the Colombo, Sri Lanka, suburb of Dehiwala, killing 67 passengers and wounding more than 450. Authorities blame Tamil separatists, who last week marked the 13th anniversary of their campaign for an independent homeland by successfully attacking a major military base, Mullaitivu, 175 miles (282 kilometers) northeast of Colombo, the capital.|
25|Robert T. Francis, Vice Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, announces that the cockpit voice recorder, one of the two so-called black boxes, from the doomed Trans World Airlines Flight 800 has been found and the recording analyzed by aviation experts. The tape, according to Francis, captured "a brief fraction-of-a-second sound," indicating that whatever happened aboard the 747 jetliner, happened suddenly--a finding consistent with the explosion of a bomb. Francis, however, reiterates that mechanical failure is yet to be ruled out as the cause of the explosion.|
25|President Clinton, after spending nearly three hours with relatives of victims of the Trans World Airlines Flight 800 crash, announces that security at the nation's airports will be substantially increased by measures that "could increase the inconvenience and expense of air travel": all planes arriving or departing the country will be thoroughly inspected; and luggage, bags, and cargo will be carefully scrutinized.|
25|The Trans-Siberian Railroad's Moscow-Beijing run stops dead in its tracks when electric power to the line is cut due to unpaid bills amounting to $10 million.|
26|Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board reveal that radar records indicate that the Trans World Airlines Flight 800 that crashed on July 17 continued in flight 13,700 feet (4,175 meters) above the Atlantic Ocean for approximately 24 seconds after the explosion that triggered the jetliner's final destruction. Investigators are still unable to determine if the jet crashed as the result of mechanical failure or a bomb.|
26|A report completed by the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation reveals that undercover agents, carrying fake bombs on their persons, were able to breach security at four of the nation's largest airports and enter secured areas, allowing them easy access to commercial airliners, in 40 percent of all attempts.|
26|A man claiming to be Lebanese and carrying a bomb hijacks Iberia Airline Flight 6621 from Madrid and forces the Havana-bound DC 10 to land in Miami. None of the 231 passengers and crew is hurt.|
26|The Tutsi-dominated Burundi military concludes a coup d'etat, which began on July 24, in which President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, a Hutu, is replaced by Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi. Buyoya, a moderate who held power between 1987 and 1993, arranged the democratic elections that led to the election of a Hutu President by the country's Hutu majority. Burundi has been dominated, through its military, by the Tutsi minority since the East African nation's independence from Belgium in 1962.|
27|A pipe bomb packed with nails and screws explodes amid a tightly packed crowd at a late-night rock concert in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park, killing 1 woman, injuring 111 others. A Turkish camerman also died running to film the scene.|
27|Rioting erupts on the streets of Jakarta when police raid the headquarters of the Indonesian Democratic Party, a group that opposes President Suharto's tight, 30-year control over the country. The opposition party is led by Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Indonesian's founder Sukarno, who died in 1970 while under Suharto's house arrest.|
28|Officials of the National Transportation Safety Board state that the Boeing 747 used on the fatal Trans World Airlines Flight 800 was "decapitated" by what they believe to have been a concealed bomb. The explosion is thought to have split the front--the cock pit plus the first- and business-class sections--from the back end of the jet, leaving the back end, engines still running, hurtling through the sky for as long as 23 seconds before it burst into a ball of fire.|
29|President Clinton announces at a White House conference on children's television that the television industry has agreed to broadcast three hours of children's educational programming per week. Strongly resisted by the National Association of Broadcasters representing more than 1,400 local stations, the agreement will be encoded in a Federal Communications Commission regulation, which will require demonstration of compliance when a station applies for license renewal.|
29|Patrick J. Buchanan, television panelist and commentator and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, angrily spurns Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour's offer of a 15-second, videotaped appearance at the party's national convention in August. Barbour, who made the offer to block a repeat of Buchanan's "cultural war" speech at the 1992 convention, stated that he believed Buchanan should be treated like "other losing candidates."|
29|A spokesperson for the Reform Party announces that Ross Perot, the party founder, and Richard D. Lamm, former Governor of Colorado, have both received sufficient support in a mail-in survey of members to qualify as candidates for the party's presidential nomination.|
30|The Federal Election Commission (FEC) sues the Christian Coalition for illegally promoting such Republican candidates as Newt Gingrich, Jessie Helms, and Oliver North. Calling the coalition's nonpartisan posture a sham, FEC chairman Lee Ann Elliott announces that Democrats and members of her own Republican Party voted to bring the suit, which alleges that the coalition illegally contributed money to various conservative candidates. The Christian Coalition, founded by evangelist Pat Robertson after his unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, has been under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service since its 1989 application for tax-exempt status.|
30|Pravda, Russia's oldest and most famous communist newspaper, dies--the victim of an emerging market economy and its editors' unwillingness to change political direction. Founded by Lenin in 1912, the paper was once read daily by 11 million people.|
31|President Clinton announces that he will sign the third version of a Republican-sponsored, welfare-reform bill. Twice vetoed, the legislation, which will reverse 60 years of domestic social policy and affect the lives of as many as 25 million Americans, will end the federal guarantee of cash assistance for poor children and impose a five-year benefits limit to most recipients.|
31|Federal agents, investigating the July 27th bombing at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park, conduct a 10-hour search of the apartment of a security guard on duty in the park at the time of the deadly explosion. The security guard, believed to be the Federal Bureau of Investigation's lead suspect, was hailed earlier in the week as a hero and interviewed on television for alerting police to the knapsack concealing the pipe bomb, which exploded while police were evacuating the audience of a late-night rock concert.|
31|Faction leaders in the six-year-old Liberian civil war agree to immediately disarm their soldiers and end all hostilities.|
31|To isolate people infected with the E. coli 0157:H7 bacterium, Japan's Health and Welfare Ministry invokes a 19th-century law that grants emergency powers to the government during epidemics. Seven people have died and approximately 9,000 people, many of them children, have been infected since the highly virulent bacterium was initially detected in May.|
