01|A federal district judge rules that third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot has no constitutional right to be included in presidential debates between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, the Democratic and Republican candidates for president.|
02|President Bill Clinton announces that the emergency summit meeting between Yasir Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to resolve differences between the Palestinian and Israeli leaders. They do, however, agree that negotiators will continue to debate stalled provisions of previous agreements--including the Oslo Accords. Clinton called the meeting in an attempt to halt continuing violence between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.|
03|Defense Secretary William Perry announces that up to 7,500 American troops will remain in Bosnia through mid-March 1997. Approximately 15,000 troops are currently stationed in Bosnia as part of a one-year peace-keeping mission, which was scheduled to end on December 20, 1996.|
04|The National Center for Health Statistics, a federal agency in Washington, D.C., discloses that the number of births by teen-age mothers dropped in 1995, for the fourth consecutive year. The number of births by unmarried women also declined in 1995, by 4 percent.|
05|Steam and ash from the erupting Loki volcano blasts 33,000 feet (10,058 meters) above Iceland, diverting all flights from the area. Since the eruption began on October 1, molten rock, flowing from a 5-mile (8-kilometer) fissure, has melted through a 2,000-foot (609-meter) glacier that covers nearly 10 percent of the island, threatening widespread flooding along the southern and eastern coasts.|
06|As agreed at the Washington, D.C., summit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, negotiators meeting at Erez Crossing in the Gaza Strip concentrate on working out a timetable for a Palestinian takeover of the city of Hebron.|
07|Twenty British soldiers and three civilians are wounded when a British army base in Northern Ireland is rocked by two explosions, believed to be caused either by bombs or mortar shells set by the Irish Republican Army.|
08|The 78-year-old Pope John Paul II is operated on for what doctors described as an inflamed appendix. The chief surgeon, Francesco Crucitti, announces that the pope's medical team found no new or serious ailments.|
09|Leaders in Kashmir, the only Indian state with a Muslim majority, resume power over local affairs, triggering a widespread strike lead by Muslim separatists. Six years ago, control of the troubled state was assumed by the national government, because of agitation by those who wish Kashmir to secede from India and either join Pakistan or become independent.|
10|Two military factions in Afghanistan's long civil war forge an alliance against the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban party, currently in control of much of the country. The new alliance, which holds Afghanistan's mountainous Hindu Kush region, proclaims a nonfundamentalist government and vows to force out the Taliban, which has instituted traditional Islamic law and banned women from schools and the workplace.|
11|International law enforcement officials arrest 34 people in Pakistan; Bangkok, Thailand; and Chicago; New York; and Detroit on charges of drug smuggling. According to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, the Southeast Asia-based ring has for 15 years distributed heroin on the streets of Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee from a North-Side Chicago dress shop operated by a Nigerian woman.|
12|Thousands of U.S. citizens and immigrants of Hispanic ancestry march on Washington's National Mall to display ethnic pride and protest what is perceived as the country's growing anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic attitude.|
13|In Baltimore's Camden Yards, the New York Yankees defeat the Orioles 6-4 to take the 1996 American League Championship. The Yankees, who dominated the American League throughout the 1950's and 1960's, had not competed in a World Series since 1981.|
14|In another swing of the balance of power in northern Iraq, Kurdish rebels of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan retake Sulaimaniya, the area's second largest city and stronghold of the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). From headquarters in London, KDP leaders claim that thousands of Iranian forces have joined in the fight on the side of the Patriotic Union. Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces do not appear to be reinforcing the KDP.|
14|Stocks making up the Dow Jones industrial average climb 40.62 points in a single day to send the average past 6,000 for the first time in history.|
15|King Hussein of Jordan, escorted by Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, visits the West Bank in a show of support of the Palestinian-Israel peace talks and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The visit is King Hussein's first to the West Bank since Jordan lost the territory to Israel in the 1967 war.|
16|The Danish parliament passes legislation suspending the right of assembly to biker groups, such as Hell's Angels and the Bandidos, which have been involved in brutal gang warfare in Copenhagen, the capital, and other Scandinavian cities for more than two years. Labeled "disturbing" by civil rights groups, the law allows police to stop gang members from entering clubhouses or even congregating in private.|
17|Appearing on national television, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, dismisses Alexander Lebed as his national security chief. Lebed, who was hailed by Yeltsin as his political heir only four months ago, is accused of being too ambitious and branded as insubordinate. Lebed, the country's most popular politician, halted Russia's ruinous war in Chechnya.|
17| The Atlanta Braves defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in the seventh game of the National League championship series to win the pennant. The Braves ralied from a 3-1 series deficit.|
18|The Democratic National Committee suspends the fund-raising activities of vice chairman John Huang, who has been associated with a prominent Indonesian family and has raised considerable sums of money from Asian businesses. Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole accused President Bill Clinton of being under the influence of "foreign money."|
19|Scientists in Melbourne, Australia, announce the discovery of a shrub on the island of Tasmania that they believe to be the world's oldest living organism--some 40,000 years old. The single plant, called King's Holly, stands 26 feet (7.8 meters) high and grows along a mountain gully for nearly 1 mile (1.6 kilometers).|
20|Japan's Liberal Democrats, the country's major conservative party, take 239 of 500 seats in the lower house of Parliament. Although short of a majority, the Liberal Democrats, who have dominated Japan's post-war politics, view the election as a major victory after being out of power since 1993.|
21|Arnoldo Aleman, a former major of Managua and a conservative who advocates free enterprise and a closer relationship with the United States, is elected president of Nicaragua over the leftist Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega.|
22|A spokesman for the organization charged with supervising elections in Bosnia announces that the municipal elections scheduled for the fall of 1996 have been postponed because of "continuing political problems in municipalities across Bosnia," which has been interpreted to mean that Bosnian Serbs are refusing to cooperate.|
23|At a meeting in a Dallas airplane hangar, Scott Reed, campaign manager for Republican candidate Bob Dole, asks Ross Perot, third-party candidate, to quit the race and endorse Dole. Perot refuses, calling the request "weird." The meeting is generally interpreted as a sign of desperation by Dole, who trails President Bill Clinton by as much as 20 percentage points according to most polls.|
24|In a formal statement sent to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope John Paul II announces that evolution may be more than a hypothesis and that the human body may be the end result of a gradual process, rather than God's immediate creation. The concept of evolution was introduced approximately 150 years by Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species.|
25|Toronto, Canada's largest city, is paralyzed when thousands of angry people fill downtown streets, protesting the provincial government's nearly $1-billion budget cut. Such cuts, which eventually are to total as much as $6 billion, are expected to profoundly affect welfare, public hospitals, and universities.|
26|The U.S. Justice Department announces that Richard A. Jewell, the security guard under suspicion of setting the July 27 pipe bomb at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park, is no longer a suspect. Initially hailed as a hero for pointing out the knapsack containing the bomb, Jewell has proclaimed in recent months that he was innocent and a captive of the media and the Justice Department's prolonged and baseless investigation.|
26|After 18 years without a championship, the New York Yankees win baseball's World Series by beating the Atlanta Braves 3-2 in game six.|
27|Fighting between Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups in eastern Zaire forces more than 200,000 refugees, primarily Hutus from Rwanda, to flee farther into Zaire. Tutsi rebel attacks also forced the removal of international aid and United Nations officials.|
28|Rwanda rejects a proposal by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, United Nations Secretary General, to resolve its conflict with Zaire before the fighting and chaos spread further. Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu denies that his troops have invaded Zaire, where more than one million Hutu refugees, primarily from Rwanda, live in camps along the border of Zaire and Rwanda.|
29|Germany's most respected economic institutes announce at a joint news conference that Europe's strongest economy--that of Germany--will not meet the European Union's (EU) budget criteria for a single currency by the 1997 deadline. Officials in the capital, Bonn, counter by stating that Germany will do whatever is necessary to meet the challenge.|
30|While thousands of Hutu refugees, who have lived in Zairian camps since the 1994 Rwandan civil war, flee into Burundi, the armies of Zaire and Rwanda lob artillery shells across their joint border. Hutu-dominated Zaire accuses Tutsi-dominated Rwanda of sending troops to re-enforce Tutsi rebels in Zaire. Denying the charge, Rwanda claims Zaire is carrying out Tutsi genocide.|
31|When intense fighting between Zairian military forces and Tutsi rebels draws near Goma, hundreds of thousands of Hutu flee camps where most of the 1.1 million Rwandan Hutu in eastern Zaire have found refuge since 1994. Escaping into the bush, refugees trek westward toward Mugunga, currently the world's largest refugee camp. Fearing reprisal for the 1994 mass killing of 500,000 Tutsi in Rwanda, most Hutu refugees refuse to return home.|
