01|A scientific expedition sets sail for the deep trenches off New Zealand's South Island in search of a giant squid believed to measure 18 metres in length and weigh up to 2 metric tons. Although scientists have studied corpses of these largest aquatic invertebrates, there is no recorded sighting of a live one|
01|Five people are crushed to death and 44 injured in a crowded mosque in Kermanshah, Iran. Worshippers had gathered for prayers marking the end of a day-long fast.|
01|The son of President Joao Bernardo Vieira of the West African republic of Guinea Bissau is reported as one of 20 people killed when an aeroplane crashes in Senegal. Most of the dead are French tourists.|
02|The funeral of Crown Prince Asfa Wossen Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, son of the late Emperor Haile Selassie, regarded as a god by the Rastafarians, takes place in Addis Ababa. The gathering of many members of the exiled royal family revives interest in the possibility of the creation of a constitutional monarchy. The dead prince's son and heir Zera-Yakob, who would become the 227th king, speaks of the royal family "carrying on the symbolism which unifies Ethiopia" - a country which has 286 languages and 76 nationalities.|
02|Some 56 bombs explode in banks and government buildings all over Corsica in a wave of protest conducted by the Corsican National Liberation Front--Historic Branch, which seeks the island's independence from France.|
03|In the general election, Pakistan votes overwhelmingly for the Muslim League party led by Mian Mohammed Nawaz Sharif. The Muslim League wins 127 seats; the Pakistan People's Party, led by ousted prime minister Benazir Bhutto, wins only 15 seats, and the Movement for Justice Party, launched by former cricket captain Imran Khan in an attempt to fight corruption, wins no seats at all.|
03|Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, 83, whose best known work is Closely Observed Trains, falls to his death from the fifth floor of a Prague hospital. He had apparently been trying to feed birds.|
04|In Germany, work begins on the new chancellery in Berlin, which will be the official residence of the chancellor once the German government returns there in 1999. Berlin was the official capital of Germany until the country was divided in 1945 after the end of World War II, and the capital of East Berlin until reunification in 1990. It then officially became the capital of the united Germany again, but the seat of government remained in Bonn. About 200 billion deutschmarks (U.S. $120 billion) will be spent on refurbishing Berlin over the next three years.|
04|Australian Prime Minister John Howard, known to be a supporter of the monarchy, announces that a "people's convention" to discuss constitutional change will take place at the end of the year. The convention may decide to call for a referendum on the issue of Australia's becoming a republic. This could mean that an Australian president would replace Queen Elizabeth II as head of state by the year 2001.|
04|The worst military accident in Israeli history kills all 72 people aboard two helicopters which collide in mid-air. The helicopters were on their way to an operation against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon when they were caught in stormy weather.|
05|Former footballer and movie star O. J. Simpson is found liable for the deaths of his late wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. Simpson had been acquitted of their murders in a criminal trial in 1995. The verdict came at the end of the civil trial brought by the families of the two victims. Simpson is ordered to pay U.S.$8.5 million in compensatory damages, plus $25 million in punitive damages to the estates of Brown and Goldman.|
05|The three largest banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a U.S. $70 million Holocaust memorial fund. Succumbing to international pressure, largely from Jewish groups who claim that billions of dollars worth of "Nazi gold", stolen from victims of the holocaust, is still hidden in Swiss bank accounts, the banks say that creation of the fund is a gesture of good will.|
06|Rioting in eight Coloured townships in South Africa kills at least four people, including two children. The riots, ostensibly protesting against rent and local service charges, also reflect the Coloureds' (people of mixed race) dissatisfaction with their continuing lowly status in post-apartheid South Africa.|
06|Theological experts investigating reports that a statue of the Madonna in the port of Civitavecchia, Italy, wept blood conclude that the event was "supernatural".|
07|The director and 11 managers of one of Albania's collapsed investment funds are arrested on charges of fraud. Earlier in the week thousands of people demonstrate in the port of Vlora after the company announces it does not have the money to pay investors. Three people are killed in the rioting.|
07|Sikhs win a landslide victory in elections in the Indian state of Punjab in the first peaceful election after years of violence. The Sikh Akali Dal party takes 74 seats out of 119.|
08|Six people die and five others are seriously wounded when a gunman opens fire in a ski resort in New Zealand. The dead include the gunman's parents, other relatives, and a young woman who was walking along the road when the gunman started shooting at traffic from a bus stop.|
08|The World Boxing Council's heavyweight championship fight between Lennox Lewis and Oliver McCall in Las Vegas, U.S.A., comes to a bizarre end in the fifth round after McCall bursts into tears and refuses to continue fighting. McCall's purse of over U.S. $3 million is withheld pending an inquiry. The boxer has a history of drug abuse and it is thought that he may not have been sufficiently mentally or physically fit to fight.|
08|The 18th-century costume drama Ridicule wins the award for Best French Film and Denmark's Breaking the Waves the award for Best Foreign Film at the 22nd annual Cesar awards ceremony, the French equivalent of the Oscars.|
09|The Roman Catholic Church in Poland announces the start of beatification proceedings for Jerzy Popielusko, a pro-Solidarity priest murdered by communist security police in 1984. Beatification, which would endow Popielusko with the title "blessed", is the first step along the road to creating a saint.|
09|The Bolivian government declares a state of emergency after tens of thousands of people are forced to leave their homes as a result of heavy rains.|
10|Pro-independence riots in the province of Xinjiang in western China may have left 300 people dead. The violence is said to be the worst since the Communist takeover in 1949.|
10|One person is killed and 40 others wounded when Croats fire on Muslims visiting a cemetery in Mostar, a divided city in Bosnia-Herzegovina.|
11|The space shuttle Discovery lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, U.S.A., on a 10-day mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, in orbit round the earth. The servicing will include the installation of new equipment which will enable the telescope to study supermassive black holes.|
11|The World Wide Fund for Nature agrees to contribute U.S.$350,000 toward conservation projects in the diamond-producing Yakutia region of Russia. The Russians will use the money to protect Arctic lakes and forests in a quarter of the region.|
11|A tropical storm bringing heavy rain to northwestern Madagascar kills at least 34 people and causes severe damage to crops. A further 500 people are missing.|
12|Former Speaker of Congress Fabian Alarcon becomes president of Ecuador, succeeding Rosalia Arteaga, who had been in office three days. Former Vice-President Arteaga was appointed interim president following the ousting of President Abdala Bucaram last week. Bucaram, known as El Loco (the madman), was deemed "mentally incompetent" by Congress after only six months in office.|
12|Debbie Rowe, wife of pop singer Michael Jackson, gives birth to the singer's first child, a boy, to be named Michael Jackson Junior.|
12|A rare photographic print by the American artist and photographer Man Ray is discovered in an attic where it has been overlooked for 25 years. It will be auctioned at Sotheby's in London in May and is expected to fetch at least 30,000 pounds Sterling.|
13|Former Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia is accused of war crimes, along with over 5,000 former members of his deposed military government. Mengistu was not present in court--he is in exile in Zimbabwe.|
13|Hong Kong, which ceases to be under British rule at midnight on June 30, 1997, announces that Britons will need work permits in order to work in Hong Kong in future.|
13|A North Korean politician trying to defect to South Korea causes a diplomatic crisis between the two nations and China. According to a letter published in a South Korean newspaper, Hwang Jang-yop, 73, one of those responsible for devising the policy of self-sufficiency by which North Korea is governed, is disillusioned with Communism and has sought refuge in the South Korean embassy in Beijing. North Korean officials claim he has been kidnapped. At the request of South Korea, Chinese security forces have sealed off the embassy.|
14|The London newspaper the Daily Mail publishes a photograph of five white men whom it accuses of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence four years ago. After various attempts to bring criminal and civil prosecutions have failed, an inquest jury has decided that Lawrence had been "unlawfully killed in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths. "Some people hail the Mail's action as a courageous piece of journalism, but others suggest the paper has interfered with the course of justice and could face a charge of contempt of court.|
14|On the eighth anniversary of the imposing of a fatwa (sentence of death for blasphemy against Islam) on the writer Salman Rushdie, a semi-official body in Iran raises the reward for his execution from U.S. S2 million to $2.5 million.|
15|Zoran Djindijc, one of the Serbian opposition leaders, tells protesters in the capital, Belgrade, that demonstrations are to be suspended for three weeks in order to give the government time to take action on demands for liberalizing the state-run media. The announcement comes after 88 consecutive days of protest and rioting in Serbian cities.|
15|British Telecom, the principal telecommunications company in the United Kingdom, announces that it is to abandon its listening service for emergency messages in Morse code. Morse code has been in use for over 150 years, and was the dominant form of communication for much of that time, but its main surviving use--for shipping communications--has been superseded by satellites.|
16|Scientists at Stanford University, California, U.S.A., warn that an "underwater mountain" with a volume of 1,800 cubic kilometres is creeping across the floor of the Pacific Ocean toward Japan. It could cause an undersea earthquake which would result in a tsunami (a huge ocean wave) with the power to devastate anything in its path less than 300 metres above sea level.|
16|French intellectuals and celebrities--including the actresses Jeanne Moreau and Catherine Deneuve--protest against a government proposal likely to become law within a week. The law would tighten regulations against illegal immigration in such a way that its opponents fear it would have a similar effect to the laws about the registration of Jews in Nazi Germany, turning the French into a nation of informers.|
17|Hungary and Romania, neighbours in Eastern Europe who have not always been on friendly terms, set up a joint military unit and sign an accord on military secrets. Observers believe the agreement will enhance both countries' chances of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the international defence organization to which many members of the former Soviet bloc aspire, when it increases its membership in July.|
17|An international sea-drilling expedition announces the discovery of "proof positive" that an asteroid crashing into Earth destroyed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The evidence lies in layers of debris the team has found in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.|
18|The England cricket team achieves a historic test victory over New Zealand by scoring 307 for 6 in the last innings of the match. Only once before has an England team scored over 300 in the fourth innings--and that was against Australia in 1928/1929.|
18|Even before it starts, controversy surrounds the trial of Timothy McVeigh, one of two men accused of planting the bomb that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City, U.S.A., in 1995. McVeigh's lawyer wants the evidence of six prosecution witnesses to be banned because he alleges that they were influenced by seeing a film of McVeigh being jeered by crowds when he was under arrest.|
19|Deng Xiaoping, paramount leader of China and the last survivor of the revolutionaries who formed the Communist state in 1949, dies at the age of 92. He had been leader of his country since shortly after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and was responsible for the recent rapid modernization of the Chinese economy.|
19|The trial begins in Tanzania of four prominent Rwandans--former government ministers, army officers, and the former director of a Rwandan radio station which incited racial hatred--accused of genocide. One of them, Colonel Theorneste Bagosora, is accused of directing events in the first few days of a mass slaughter in which about 800,000 people died.|
20|Actress Elizabeth Taylor, 64, undergoes surgery to remove a brain tumour. The tumour is said to be benign and the operation "went as planned."|
20|The Algerian Jihad Islamic Front claims responsibility for the assassination of Abdelhaq Benhamouda, friend and adviser to President Liamine Zerouac and a known opponent of Algeria's Islamic opposition.|
21|Zoran Djindijc, leader of Serbia's Democratic Party, is elected mayor of the capital, Belgrade. He is the first non-Socialist mayor of the city for 50 years.|
21|In California, U.S.A., Cheryl Fillippini, a 50-year-old woman who already has seven children and six grandchildren, gives birth to quadruplets after receiving fertility treatment.|
21|The world's oldest person, Jeanne Calment of Arles, France, celebrates her 122nd birthday.|
22|French President Jacques Chirac visits Rumania. He is the first major Western leader to do so for six years. Chirac is known to support Rumania's application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).|
22|A ceremony to mark the opening of part of a new motorway in Cyprus is disrupted by demonstrators protesting against the continuing presence of British military bases on the island.|
23|One person is killed and at least nine others injured when a Palestinian who has been in the U.S.A. only two months opens fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in New York. Ali Hassan Abu Kamal, who is said to be distressed over the recent loss of his life savings, then turns his gun on himself and is critically wounded.|
23|Scientists at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, Scotland, announce that they have cloned a sheep, using a single cell to produce an adult animal with exactly the same genes as its "mother". The experiment, intended to help studies of genetics, ageing and the development of cancers, provokes widespread horror at the prospect of similar cloning being applied to humans.|
23|Three people are killed and about 100 injured when a 36-storey building in Bangkok, Thailand, goes up in flames. The fire was apparently caused by two explosions.|
24|Thousands of students take to the streets in Nairobi, Kenya, protesting against the death of student activist Solomon Muruli. Muruli's badly burned body was found in a university residence on Sunday shortly after an explosion was heard, and the demonstrators believe the Kenyan authorities are to blame.|
24|The United States is on "red alert" because the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) fears a repeat of the bombing that killed 169 people in Oklahoma in 1995. The alert began after a witness saw a large quantity of fertilizer and diesel being loaded into a van in Fort Worth, Texas. These were the ingredients used in the Oklahoma bomb.|
25|Andrei Sinyavsky, the first Russian novelist to be tried for writing "anti-Soviet" works, dies in Paris at the age of 71. In the 1960's and 1970's he served seven years' hard labour for publishing novels satirizing the Soviet regime.|
25|Kim Young-sam, president of South Korea, apologizes for the financial scandal involving the Hambo Steel Company, and banishes his son Hyun-chui from public life because of his involvement in the affair.|
26|Two senior members of the tribunal investigating allegations of genocide in Rwanda are dismissed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan because of their mismanagement of the investigation.|
26|A further potential source of tension between Israelis and Palestinians emerges when the Israeli government approves the building of a new Jewish neighbourhood in a part of East Jerusalem captured from the Arabs during the 1967 war. The housing will encroach on existing Palestinian settlements. While it is acknowledged that the project will alleviate a housing shortage, some observers see it as a calculated government gesture intended to show that Jerusalem is first and foremost the Jewish capital.|
27|Diane Blood, a British widow who has been fighting for two years for the right to be inseminated by her dead husband's sperm, wins her case in the Court of Appeal. She will now be permitted to take the sperm to a clinic in Belgium, which has agreed to inseminate her. The case arose because Mrs Blood did not have her husband's written consent to the procedure--the sperm was taken from him while he lay dying in a coma brought on by meningitis.|
27|The United Kingdom's ruling Conservative Party suffers a humiliating defeat at a by-election in the former Conservative stronghold of South Wirral. A 17 per cent swing away from the government sees a Labour member returned with a comfortable majority of almost 8,000.|
28|Anthropologists working in Siberia discover evidence of human habitation dating back at least 250,000 years. This means that humans had the ability to survive in bitterly cold conditions--which would have entailed making fires and having effective shelters and clothing--much longer ago than was realized. The previously held view was that Siberia had been inhabited for only 30,000 years.|
28|Archaeologists announce that the United Kingdom's most famous ancient monument, Stonehenge, might have been built by the French. Such features as the alignment of the stones and the horseshoe shape are unique in the United Kingdom but bear strong resemblance to similar structures built in France, and particularly in Brittany, about the same time.|
28|A massive earthquake devastates parts of Pakistan, killing at least 50 people. Whole villages and large parts of the town of Quetta are flattened. Another quake on the same day kills at least 100 in Iran.|
