Timeline 1996 January to March
Return to home
1996 Jan 1, In
the US it became illegal to manufacture or import freon, a refrigerant
for car air-conditioners, due to its effect on the ozone.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A2)
1996 Jan 1, Bayer Corp. added
Betty Rubble to its mix of Flintstone vitamins.
(http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/tvbarn/message/127)
1996 Jan 1, Retired US Admiral
Arleigh Burke, remembered for his World War II heroics, died at
Bethesda Naval Hospital at age 94.
(AP, 1/1/01)
1996 Jan 1, Arthur Rudolph (89),
German-US rocket Engineer, died. His final years were marked by his
forced return to his native Germany from the US because of his earlier
involvement with the slave labor that powered the Third Reich's V1
& V2 rocket programs.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rudolph)
1996 Jan 1, Some 100,000
Bangladeshi women rallied to protest Islamic clerics’ attacks on female
education and employment.
(AP, 1/1/01)
1996 Jan 1, A 7.0 earthquake
struck offshore near the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi. Seismologist in
Japan and Hong Kong measured it at 7.7. A tidal wave killed eight after
the quake.
(WSJ, 1/2/96, p. A-1)(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 1, Two buses collided in
northern Mexico, killing 25 people.
(AP, 1/1/01)
1996 Jan 2, Former Interior
Secretary James Watt pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of
attempting to sway a grand jury investigating 1980s influence-peddling
at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Watt was later
fined and sentenced to five years’ probation.
(AP, 1/2/01)
1996 Jan 2, AT&T announced it
would eliminate 40,000 jobs, mostly through layoffs.
(AP, 1/2/01)
1996 Jan 2, A strong earthquake
struck Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. The Chinese measured it at 7.2 on
the Richter scale. It was followed by the eruption of a volcano.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 3, As a partial
government shutdown spilled into its record 19th day, stubborn House
Republicans rebuffed a Senate bill that would have immediately returned
idled federal workers to their jobs.
(AP, 1/3/01)
1996 Jan 3, US House speaker Newt
Gingrich hired Christina Jeffrey to the post of historian for the House
of Representatives.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. A-18)
1996 Jan 4, Bowing to pressure
from NATO and the United States, Bosnian Serbs freed 16 civilians who
had entered Serb-held territory after NATO forces had declared roads in
Bosnia open to all.
(AP, 1/4/01)
1996 Jan 4, The Boeing Sikorsky
Comanche helicopter was unveiled.
(NPub, 2002, p.26)
1996 Jan 4, Ramon Vinay (83),
operatic tenor, baritone, died.
(www.grandi-tenori.com/tenors/vinay.php)
1996 Jan 5, An end to a
three-week-old partial US government shutdown was in sight as the House
acted to restore the jobs and wages of hundreds of thousands of federal
workers.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1996 Jan 5, Lawyers for Hillary
Rodham Clinton released sought-after billing records that were
discovered the day before in a White House office.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1996 Jan 5, US retailers posted
their worst holiday sales since 1990.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Jan 5, Lincoln Kirstein
(b.1906), American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural
figure in New York City, died. In 1946 Balanchine and Kirstein founded
the Ballet Society, renamed the New York City Ballet in 1948. Together
they made this one of the most innovative dance companies in the world.
His books included the 1932 novel “Flesh Is Heir,” a historical
romance. In 2007 Martin Duberman authored “The Worlds of Lincoln
Kirstein.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Kirstein)(WSJ,
2/17/07, p.P18)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M3)
1996 Jan 5, Japanese Prime
Minister Tomiichi Murayama resigned.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1996 Jan 6, President Clinton,
bowing to months of Republican demands, offered a seven-year
balanced-budget plan using Congressional Budget Office figures.
(AP, 1/6/01)
1996 Jan 6, Republican candidates
kicked off the 1996 presidential campaign year by shadowboxing with
absent front-runner Bob Dole at a televised debate in Columbia, South
Carolina.
(AP, 1/6/01)
1996 Jan 6, In Iraq Saddam Hussein
decreed economic austerity measures to cope with soaring inflation and
widespread shortages caused by UN sanctions.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)
1996 Jan 6, In Gaza Yehiyeh
Ayyash, a Hamas bomb-maker known as "the engineer" was assassinated by
an explosives-rigged cellular phone. The operation was attributed to
Israel.
(SFC, 4/2/98, p.A12)(SFC, 3/23/04, p.A11)
1996 Jan 7, "Crazy After You"
closed at Shubert Theater, NYC, after 1622 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/show.asp?ID=2807)
1996 Jan 7, Pres. Clinton and
Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, engaged in a 5th sexual
encounter at the White House.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A13)
1996 Jan 7, Republicans rejected
President Clinton’s budget plan and warned they would close government
programs they didn’t like if there were no agreement on a budget plan
in the next few weeks.
(AP, 1/7/01)
1996 Jan 7, A major blizzard, one
of the worst in the century, paralyzed the Eastern United States. More
than 100 deaths were later blamed on the severe weather.
{WeatherUS, usa}
(WSJ, 1/8/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(AP, 1/7/01)
1996 Jan 8, Federal employees who
had been out of work for weeks while the government was shut down began
returning to their jobs; however, along the East Coast, many government
workers were idled by a huge blizzard that had paralyzed the nation’s
capital and caused at least 50 deaths.
(AP, 1/8/01)(MC, 1/8/02)
1996 Jan 8, In a low turnout for
presidential elections in Guatemala, Alvaro Arzu, a conservative former
foreign minister, beat Alfonso Portillo, backed by ex-dictator, Efrain
Rios Montt, by less than 3 %.
(WSJ, 1/8/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 8, Francois Mitterand,
79, Socialist ex-minister (1981-1995) died. He had been in office for
14 years and helped to make France an engine of European unity and
changed the face of Paris with his grand projects.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1)(MC, 1/8/02)
1996 Jan 8, Japan's Trade
Minister Hashimoto was endorsed by the ruling coalition to become prime
minister.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 8, A Russian-made
Antonov-32 skidded into a crowded marketplace shortly after take-off in
Kinshasa in Zaire (Congo) and killed at least 350 people. The
twin-turboprop was owned by African Air and was overweight when it took
off. At least 470 people were injured.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)(WSJ,
11/13/01, p.A14)
1996 Jan 9, President Clinton and
Republican congressional leaders broke off budget talks. President
Clinton vetoed a Republican welfare overhaul bill.
(AP, 1/9/01)
1996 Jan 9, US House Speaker fired
Christina Jeffery as historian for the House under political pressure
based on knowingly false allegations of anti-Semitism by Rep. Charles
Schumer (D., N.Y.).
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. A-18)
1996 Jan 9, Felix Gonzalez-Torres
(b.1957), Cuban-born artist, died in Miami of AIDS related
complications. He was known for his quiet, minimal installations and
sculptures.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lix_Gonz%C3%A1lez-Torres)
1996 Jan 9, Chechen rebels under
Salman Raduyev seized a hospital in the southern Russian city of
Kizlyar and took up to three-thousand hostages. The rebels released all
but about 160 hostages the next day, using the remaining captives as a
shield against Russian troops. At least 40 people were killed.
(WSJ, 1/10/96, p. A-12)(SFC, 7/17/99, p.A14)(WSJ,
3/13/00, p.A1)(AP, 1/9/01)
1996 Jan 10, Chechen rebels seized
as many as 3,000 hostages in the Russian Republic of Dagestan.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Jan 10, Russian troops
allowed a convoy of Chechen rebels and 160 hostages to head for
Chechnya, then surrounded them in the village of Pervomayskaya. After a
five-day standoff, Russian troops launched a massive military assault
that resulted in the deaths of most of the rebels and some of the
hostages.
(AP, 1/10/01)
1996 Jan 11, Addressing pointed
questions about the first lady, President Clinton offered a rousing
defense of his wife, Hillary, during a news conference.
(AP, 1/11/01)
1996 Jan 11, The space shuttle
"Endeavour" blasted off on a nine-day mission.
(AP, 1/11/01)
1996 Jan 11, The Little Mt. Zion
Baptist Church in Green Co., Ala., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jan 11, The Mt. Zoar Baptist
Church in Green Co., Ala., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jan 11, Ryutaro Hashimoto was
chosen the new prime minister of Japan.
(AP, 1/11/01)
1996 Jan 11, Funeral services were
held for former French president Francois Mitterrand.
(AP, 1/11/01)
1996 Jan 11, In Peru Lori Berenson
was sentenced to life in prison. In 2000 a military tribunal overturned
the life sentence and opened the way for a civilian trial.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10) (WSJ, 8/28/00, p.A1)
1996 Jan 12, Chechen fighters
holding more than 100 hostages in the Russian village of Pervomayskaya
freed about a dozen of their captives and pledged to release the rest
if four top Russian officials took their place.
(AP, 1/12/01)
1996 Jan 13, President Clinton
paid a front-line visit to American forces in Bosnia, praising the
troops as "warriors for peace."
(AP, 1/13/01)
1996 Jan 13, Nine Republican
presidential hopefuls debated in Des Moines, Iowa, where front-runner
Bob Dole and flat-tax champion Steve Forbes found themselves facing
repeated, bristling criticism.
(AP, 1/13/01)
1996 Jan 14, The Pittsburgh
Steelers defeated the Indianapolis Colts, 20-to-16, to win the AFC
championship. The Dallas Cowboys beat the Green Bay Packers, 38-to-27,
to win the NFC championship.
(AP, 1/14/01)
1996 Jan 14, Eric Briault (84),
English educationalist, died.
(http://tinyurl.com/7jbmj)
1996 Jan 14, Several thousand
government, Serb and Croat troops withdrew from their front-line
trenches and bunkers across central and northeastern Bosnia, beating a
deadline to create buffer zones.
(AP, 1/14/01)
1996 Jan 15, In San Jose, Ca.,
Romel Reid, was arrested and later indicted on 23 accounts of
rape.
(SFC, 5/31/96, p.E2)
1996 Jan 15, Juan Garcia Abrego, a
top drug suspect, was arrested and deported to the US for trial. He
allegedly headed a syndicate with links to cocaine operations in
Colombia. Horacio Brunt, Mexican policeman, collared Juan Garcia
Abrego, a Mexican drug kingpin. He was sentenced to 11 life terms in
1997.
(WSJ, 1/16/96, p. A-1)(WSJ, 4/12/96, p.A-1)(SFC,
2/1/97, p.A3)
1996 Jan 15, Ailing Greek Premier
Andreas Papandreou resigned.
(AP, 1/15/01)
1996 Jan 15, Risking the lives of
more than 100 hostages in an effort to wipe out their Chechen rebel
captors, the Russian military hurled rockets and shells at the tiny
village of Pervomayskaya.
(AP, 1/15/01)
1996 Jan 16, Chechens hijacked a
ferry with 165 passengers and crew from the Turkish port of Trabzon
bound for the Russian city of Sochi. Gunmen in Trabzon, Turkey,
hijacked a Black Sea ferry with more than 200 people on board, and
demanded that Russian troops stop fighting Chechen rebels in
Pervomayskaya. The hostages were released three days later after the
Russian troops stormed Pervomaiskoye.
(WSJ, 1/17/96, p.A-1)(AP, 1/16/01)
1996 Jan 17, Sheik Omar
Abdel-Rahman and nine followers were handed long prison sentences for
plotting to blow up New York-area landmarks.
(AP, 1/17/01)
1996 Jan 17, Former US
Representative Barbara Jordan died in Austin, Texas, at age 59.
(AP, 1/17/01)
1996 Jan 17, In Spain ETA abducted
a prison officer and held him for 532 days.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1996 Jan 17, Russian forces
unleashed a scorching barrage of rockets on Chechen rebels in
Pervomayskaya.
(AP, 1/17/01)
1996 Jan 18, Lisa Marie
Presley-Jackson filed for divorce from Michael Jackson.
(AP, 1/18/98)
1996 Jan 18, Minnesota Fats (82),
born as Rudolf Wanderone Jr., billiard hustler, died.
(www.egyptianaaa.org/SI-MinnesotaFats.htm)
1996 Jan 18, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin announced that 82 hostages were freed when his forces
wiped out Chechen fighters in Pervomayskaya, ending a weeklong
standoff; however, he said 18 other hostages were missing.
(AP, 1/18/01)
1996 Jan 19, The Bosnian peace
agreement suffered its first setback as a planned nationwide prisoner
release fell far short of its goal.
(AP, 1/19/01)
1996 Jan 19, A ferry sank in a
storm off Sumatra, Indonesia, killing about 340 people.
(AP, 2/3/06)
1996 Jan 20, The space shuttle
"Endeavour" landed after a nine-day mission that included snaring a
Japanese satellite.
(AP, 1/20/01)
1996 Jan 20, US Ambassador Swanee
Hunt gave the Austrian government a list of sites where weapons were
stockpiled by the US in the 1950s as a precaution against a Soviet
takeover.
(FB, 9/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Jan 20, Yasser Arafat was
elected president in the first Palestinian elections. Hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians turned out to vote in the festive first
election, solidly endorsing Arafat and his peace policies.
(WSJ, 12/27/95, p. A-1)(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A6)(AP,
1/20/01)
1996 Jan 21, At the 53rd annual
Golden Globes, "Sense and Sensibility" won best dramatic picture;
"Babe" won best comedy; best dramatic acting awards went to Nicolas
Cage for "Leaving Las Vegas" and Sharon Stone for "Casino," while
awards for acting in a comedy or musical went to Nicole Kidman for "To
Die For" and John Travolta for "Get Shorty."
(AP, 1/21/01)
1996 Jan 21, Jonathon Larson
(d.1/25/96), composer of Rent, began complaining of chest pains.
Doctors at the emergency room of Cabrini Hosp. said he probably had
food poisoning and pumped his stomach before sending him home. An X-ray
was taken but it was read by a doctor of osteopathic medicine.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.E4)
1996 Jan 22, Clinton declared
Pennsylvania a disaster area after floods on the Susquehanna and other
rivers killed 8 and forced a 100,000 people to leave their homes.
(WSJ, 1/22/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 22, The White House
announced that First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had been subpoenaed by
the Whitewater special prosecutor to testify before a grand jury
investigating the mysterious discovery of her law firm billing records
in the White House residence.
(AP, 1/22/01)
1996 Jan 22, O.J. Simpson
testified for the first time since the killings of his ex-wife Nicole
and her friend, Ronald Goldman, as he gave a videotaped deposition for
a wrongful death lawsuit.
(AP, 1/22/01)
1996 Jan 23, Delivering his State
of the Union address to a skeptical Republican Congress, President
Clinton traced the themes of his re-election campaign and confronted
GOP lawmakers on the budget, demanding they "never—ever" shut down the
government again.
(AP, 1/23/01)
1996 Jan 23, The US Army disclosed
that it had 30,000 tons of chemical weapons stored in Utah, Alabama,
Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Colorado and Oregon.
(WSJ, 1/23/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 23, Sandra Jensen became
the first person with Down syndrome to receive a new heart and Lungs.
The surgery was done at Stanford Univ.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A19)
1996 Jan 23, Marvin and Kay
Lichtman were murdered and their 22-room mansion was burned during a
robbery in the wealthy Illinois suburb of Barrington Hills. In 2005
Peter Hommerson, a fugitive charged with killing a wealthy Illinois
couple, was captured at a Mexican resort after tourists recognized him
from a crime watch television program.
(AP, 8/13/05)
1996 Jan 23, France acknowledged
that its nuclear testing had caused leaks of radioactive materials in
the South Pacific.
(WSJ, 1/25/96, A-1)
1996 Jan 24, The FDA approved a
fat substitute to be marketed by Proctor and Gamble under the name
Olestra. It is know to cause abdominal cramps but not to a medically
significant degree.
(WSJ, 1/25/96, A-1)(AP, 1/24/01)
1996 Jan 24, Specialist Michael
New was discharged from the US Army after a court-martial jury
convicted him for refusing to wear a UN beret for a peacekeeping
mission in the former Yugoslavia.
(AP, 1/24/01)
1996 Jan 24, Jonathon Larson,
composer of Rent, was taken to St. Vincent’s hospital emergency room in
NYC and discharged with a diagnosis of a probable virus.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.E4)
1996 Jan 25, With Republicans
bruised by two government shutdowns, the US House overwhelmingly
approved legislation to keep federal agencies running through March
15th, 1996.
(AP, 1/25/01)
1996 Jan 25, Charles Rothenberg
was arrested in the shooting of a 47-year-old man and charged with
attempted murder. He had set fire to his 6-year-old son in 1983 in
southern California and served 7 years in prison.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A17)
1996 Jan 25, Wells Fargo won the
battle to acquire First Interstate of Los Angeles in a $11.6 billion
pact.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A10)
1996 Jan 25, Jonathon Larson (35),
composer of Rent, died of an aortic aneurysm.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.E4)
1996 Jan 26, First lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton testified before a grand jury connected to the
Whitewater probe.
(AP, 1/26/01)
1996 Jan 26, Hours before a
midnight deadline, a confrontation-weary US Congress voted to avert a
third federal shutdown and finance dozens of agencies for seven more
weeks.
(AP, 1/26/01)
1996 Jan 26, Olympic wrestler Dave
Schultz was fatally shot at the suburban Philadelphia estate of John E.
du Pont; du Pont surrendered 48 hours later. Du Pont was later
convicted of third-degree murder but mentally ill; he's serving a 13-
to 30-year sentence.
(AP, 1/26/06)
1996 Jan 26, In Utah John Albert
Taylor (b.~1960) was executed by firing squad. He had been sentenced to
death for the 1988 rape and strangulation of 11-year-old Charla King
and had then chosen the firing squad as the method of execution.
(SFC, 4/24/10,
p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Albert_Taylor)
1996 Jan 26, The Council of Europe
voted to accept Russia. Russia became a member on Feb 28.
(WSJ, 1/26/96,
A-1)(www.coe.int/T/E/Com/About_Coe/Member_states/e_ru.asp#TopOfPage)
1996 Jan 26 Yeltsin appointed
Vladimir Kadannikov to oversee national economic policy. Mr. Kadannikov
was general-director of the debt-ridden Volzhsky Auto Works.
(WSJ, 1/26/96, A-6)
1996 Jan 27, A man invaded a
convent in Waterville, Maine, stabbing and beating four nuns, killing
two of them with two others injured, including one left in a coma. Mark
Bechard was later found not criminally responsible because of mental
illness. Bechard, a mentally ill man who dreamed of becoming a Catholic
priest burst through the doors of the chapel of Servants of the Blessed
Sacrament, went on a rampage, stabbing and stomping elderly nuns.
(AP, 1/27/01)(AP, 1/26/06)
1996 Jan 27, France detonated its
sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb. In 1998 the Int’l. Atomic Energy
Agency confirmed that the test sites in the South Pacific would be
contaminated for centuries. Plutonium particles were scattered in the
sediment of the lagoons at Mururoa and Fangatouga.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-16)(SFC, 6/27/98, p.A7)
1996 Jan 27, Germany commemorated
the 1st Holocaust Remembrance Day.
(http://tinyurl.com/a6sfj)
1996 Jan 27, In Niger coup
leaders named the armed forces chief president after seizing power. Ten
people died, political parties were outlawed and the constitution was
suspended. Gen’l. Ibrahim Bare Mainassara seized power.
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. A-1)(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.8)
1996 Jan 28, In Super Bowl XXX the
Dallas Cowboys captured their third Super Bowl victory in four years,
beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-to-17.
(AP, 1/28/01)
1996 Jan 28, In California Gunner
Lindberg, head of the supremacist gang Insane Criminal Posse, murdered
Thien Minh Ly (24) at Tustin high school. It was a racially motivated
attack where he stabbed Ly 50 times, slashed his throat and pounded his
head. Lindberg was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to death.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A20)
1996 Jan 28, Joseph Brodsky
(b.1940), Russian-born poet, died at age 55. He was a winner of the
Nobel Prize in 1987. In 2000 his "Collected Poems in English" was
published.
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. A-1)(SFEC, 10/8/00, BR p.5)
1996 Jan 29, The FDA was about to
approve Redux, a drug to help reduce obesity. It was to be marketed by
American Home Products. It is chemically known as dexfenfluramine, a
close cousin of Prozax. This class of drugs raise the levels of
serotonin in the brain, which provides a feeling of fullness and
satisfaction.
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. C-1)
1996 Jan 29, A Navy F-14 fighter
jet crashed in Nashville, Tennessee, demolishing three houses and
killing five people.
(AP, 1/29/01)
1996 Jan 29, French President
Jacques Chirac ordered an early end to underground nuclear tests in the
South Pacific.
(AP, 1/29/01)
1996 Jan 29, In Venice, Italy, the
204-year-old La Felice opera house burned down. It was scheduled to be
reconstructed and finished by Sep 27, 1999. It was later determined by
experts to have been caused by arson. In 2003 Italy's top criminal
court upheld convictions on arson charges for Enrico Carella and fellow
electrician Massimiliano Marchetti, sentencing them to seven and six
years in jail respectively. In 2005 John Berendt authored “The City of
Falling Angels,” which centered on the burning of La Fenice. In 2007
Carella was arrested in Mexico.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.D3)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.E4)(AP,
1/29/01)(WSJ, 9/24/05, p.P12)(AP, 3/3/07)
1996 Jan 30, In an election billed
as an early barometer for the national political season, Ron Wyden won
a close race to become Oregon’s first Democratic US senator in 30
years, replacing Bob Packwood.
(AP, 1/30/01)
1996 Jan 30, The FDA licensed
indinavir, viracept, Abbott Lab’s ritonavir (trade name Norvir) and
saquinavir based on short term clinical data between 1995-1997. The new
protease-blocking drugs were effective in combating AIDS especially
when used in combination with current medicines. The drugs were later
found to cause metabolism problems related to fats.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-16)(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A7)(WSJ,
1/3/06, p.A10)
1996 Jan 30, Iran tested a Chinese
missile designed to attack ships by flying under their radar and could
be fired from boats with a range of miles.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-12)
1996 Jan 31, The last Cubans held
in refugee camps at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base boarded a plane for
Florida.
(AP, 1/31/01)
1996 Jan 31, Japanese astronomer,
Hyakutake, first sighted the comet that now bears his name. It came to
within ten-million miles of the Earth on its closest approach on Mar
26. Later analysis showed that the comet contained about 50 million
tons of frozen ethane or about 1% of its total mass.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.62)(SFC, 5/31/96, A4)
1996 Jan 31, In Sri Lanka an
explosive-packed truck crashed into the Central Bank in Colombo and
killed at least 55 and injured at least 1400 people. The Tamil Tigers
rebel group were blamed. They had been fighting for independence for 12
years. A Tiger suicide bomber blew up the Central Bank and killed
almost 100 people. The bombing killed 88 and injured 1,400. After 73
people were killed in the Central Bank bombing the US declared the
Tamil Tigers a terrorist organization.
(WSJ, 2/1/96, p.A-1) (SFC, 7/24/96,
p.A9)(SFC,10/15/97, p.C4)(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A10)
1996 Jan, Scientists reported in
Nature that analysis of protein sequences of rabbit DNA indicate that
the order Lagomorpha (rabbits, hares and allies) are more closely
related to primates than other groups of mammals.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.46)
1996 Jan, Three large medical
purchasing groups merged to form Premiere Inc., and controlled the
buying of supplies for about one-third of the nation’s hospitals.
(SFC, 4/15/98, p.A9)
1996 Jan, Duane Hanson, sculptor,
died at age 70. He lived and worked mainly in Davie, Florida, and used
common people as his subjects.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A21)
1996 Jan, In Varginha, Brazil, a
trio of women claimed to have seen an alien being with oily, brown skin
and rubbery limbs. It also had 3 rounded protrusions from an oversized
head and was said to smell very bad.
(WSJ, 6/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Jan, Khun Sa, a Burma opium
warlord in command of some 15,000 Shan troops, surrendered to the
government. He agreed to disband his private army, give up the drug
trade and submit to a form of house arrest in exchange for protection
and freedom to pursue business opportunities.
(SFC, 4/15/98, p.C14)(SFC, 8/8/98, p.A14)
1996 Jan, Lu Maw, Par Par Lay and
Lu Zaw performed as the Moustache Brothers in a skit outside the home
of Aung San Suu Kyi. They satirized Burma’s ruling SLORC and were
charged with "disrupting the stability of the Union." A 2-month public,
but juryless trial followed and they were sentenced to prison. They
were released in July 2001.
(WSJ, 7/10/02, p.D8)
1996 Jan, In Egypt Pres. Hosni
Mubarek brought in a new economic team and named Kamal el-Ganzouri as
Prime Minister. Ganzouri pushed legislation to allow foreigners to buy
Egyptian property and businesses and other changes.
(WSJ, 4/10/97, p.A12)
1996 Jan, In Germany the service
time for a draftee in the Bundeswehr was reduced from 12 months to ten,
and the size of the army was planned to shrink to 340,000.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A15)
1996 Jan, Louis Farrakhan visited
Libya and received a promise of $1 billion from Col. Moammar Khadafy.
His tour also included stops in Iran, Nigeria and the Sudan.
(SFC, 8/27/96, p.A3)
1996 Jan, In Mexico the FAC-NLN
was founded as a nationwide leftist coalition.
(SFC, 12/10/96, p.A13)
1996 Jan, In Peru Alberto Andrade,
a wealthy leather-goods maker, was elected mayor of Lima. He moved his
family downtown and began efforts to revitalize the city.
(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.B8)
1996 Jan, In Russia Yeltsin let go
of Anatoly Chubais as First Deputy Prime Minister under pressure from
his hard-line critics.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Jan, Sierra Leone Military
ruler Valentine Strasser was ousted in a bloodless coup by Brig. Julius
Maada Bio, who immediately suspended elections set for next month.
(WSJ, 1/17/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 7/25/02, p.A16)
1996 Jan, In Turkey police clubbed
people with wooden batons until they broke in a sports complex.
Reporter Metin Goktepe was killed. 11 officers were charged in the
reporter’s murder but none were in custody. A court ordered 5 policemen
to be taken into custody in 1997. The 5 failed to appear in court. In
1998 5 policemen were jailed for 7 1/2 years for the killing.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A12)(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A12)(SFC,
7/25/97, p.A11)(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A16)
1996 Jan, A report stated that
Ukrainian men have one of the highest infertility rates in the world,
ever since the Chernobyl disaster 10 years ago. Nearly one of five
Ukrainian babies dies shortly after birth, and there have been more
deaths than births since 1990.
(G&M, 1/31/96, p.A-24)
1996 Jan-Apr, 24 Church fires were
reported to the US Justice Dept. and 17 of them involved largely
African American congregations.
(SFC, 5/22/96, A-3)
1996 Feb 1, Both houses of
Congress voted overwhelmingly to rewrite the 61-year-old Communications
Act, freeing the exploding television, telephone and home computer
industries to jump into each other’s fields.
(AP, 2/1/01)
1996 Feb 1, Astronomers at the
Keck Observatory in Hawaii detected a faint galaxy 14 billion
light-years away in the constellation Virgo with a red shift of 4.38.
(G&M, 2/1/96, p.A-2)
1996 Feb 1, The Cypress Grove
Baptist Church, St. Paul’s Free Baptist Church, and Thomas Chapel
Benevolent Society Church in East Baton Rouge Parish, La., burned down.
The Sweet Home Baptist Church in Baker, La., burned down. Arson was
suspected and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Feb 2, Barry Loukaitis (14)
turned his guns loose on fellow 9th graders at Frontier Middle School
in Seattle.
(SFEC, 6/14/98, p.A1)
1996 Feb 2, A deep freeze
continued in the Plains, the Midwest and much of the South, breaking
temperature records that had stood for a century.
(AP, 2/2/06)
1996 Feb 2, Gene Kelly (83),
dancer actor and choreographer, famous for his part in the musical
Singin' in the Rain, died of complications from strokes at his home in
Beverly Hills, Ca.
(WSJ, 2/5/96, p.A-1)(AP, 2/2/08)
1996 Feb 3, Sergeant First Class
Donald A. Dugan, 38, became the first US soldier killed while on duty
in Bosnia when a piece of ammunition exploded in his hands.
(AP, 2/3/01)
1996 Feb 3, Actress Audrey Meadows
died in Los Angeles at the age of 71.
(AP, 2/3/01)
1996 Feb 3, A 7.0 earthquake hit
Lijiang region of Yunnan province in China. Some 231 people were killed
and 14,000 injured.
(WSJ, 2/5/96, p.A-1)(NH, 4/97, p.44)
1996 Feb 4, Pres. Clinton and
Monica had their 6th sexual encounter at the White House.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A13)
1996 Feb 4, Secretary of State
Warren Christopher concluded a three-nation visit to the Balkans as he
met in Belgrade with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 2/4/01)
1996 Feb 4, Twenty-four people
were killed when a Colombian cargo plane in Paraguay caught fire
shortly after takeoff and crashed into a suburban neighborhood.
(AP, 2/4/01)
1996 Feb 5, John C. Salvi the
Third went on trial in Dedham, Massachusetts, in the shooting deaths of
two receptionists at abortion clinics. Salvi was later convicted and
sentenced to two life terms; he was found dead in his cell in November
1996, an apparent suicide.
(AP, 2/5/01)
1996 Feb 5, Actress Elizabeth
Taylor filed for divorce from Larry Fortensky, her seventh husband.
(AP, 2/5/01)
1996 Feb 5, Gianandrea Gavazzeni
(86), conductor, died.
(http://tinyurl.com/9jr6h)
1996 Feb 6, Patrick Buchanan won
the Louisiana Republican caucus, upsetting Phil Gramm.
(AP, 2/6/01)
1996 Feb 6, A Turkish-owned Boeing
757 jetliner crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Puerto
Plata shortly after takeoff from the Dominican Republic, killing 189
people, mostly German tourists.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)(AP,
2/6/01)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1996 Feb 7, During a Central
America tour, Pope John Paul the Second received a warm welcome in
Nicaragua, his first visit there since 1983.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1996 Feb 7, Tamil rebels attacked
Sri Lankan troops in the eastern part of the island nation. They killed
11 and lost 15 of their own fighters. The Columbo suicide bombing of
last week killed 83.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 8, NFL and Cleveland
allowed Art Modell to move his NFL franchise to Baltimore but he had to
leave the Browns' name behind.
(http://tinyurl.com/bo3v9)
1996 Feb 8, In a ceremony at the
Library of Congress, President Clinton signed legislation revamping the
telecommunications industry, saying it would "bring the future to our
doorstep."
(AP, 2/8/01)
1996 Feb 8, Rivers overflowed in
northern Oregon in the worst flooding in 30 years.
(WSJ, 2/9/96, p.A1)
1996 Feb 8, John Peter Barlow,
Internet activist, issued the “Declaration of the Independence of
Cyberspace” from Davos, Switzerland.
(Econ, 12/8/07,
p.14)(http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html)
1996 Feb 9, Pres. Clinton signed
the new telecommunications bill into law. It included a subsidy
program, "E-Rate," to provide schools with a connection to the
Internet. Phone companies in 1998 began charging their long-distance
customers a surcharge to cover the subsidies. It also included a ban on
Internet smut that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1999.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(WSJ, 4/20/99, A1)
1996 Feb 9, In Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, a former member of the city’s beach detail shot and killed
five former co-workers before killing himself.
(AP, 2/9/01)
1996 Feb 9, A collision of
rush-hour commuter trains in Secaucus, New Jersey, claimed the lives of
both engineers and a passenger.
(AP, 2/9/01)
1996 Feb 9, Leo Jenkins was
executed under a new Texas law that allowed the family of his victims
to witness his execution. A film was made of the execution for HBO
titled: "A Kill for a Kill."
(WSJ, 1/6/97, p.A10)
1996 Feb 9, The Irish Republican
Army ended its cease-fire with a massive blast that killed two people
in London's East End and injured nearly a 100 people. The bomb was a
500 pound device hidden in a rebuilt truck.
(WSJ, 2/12/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 2/14/96, p.A-10)(AP,
2/9/01)
1996 Feb 9, Adolf Galland (83),
German general (Luftwaffe Ace), died.
(http://tinyurl.com/9wm96)
1996 Feb 10, President Clinton
signed a $265 billion defense bill, but said he would battle for repeal
of a section forcing the discharge of service members with the AIDS
virus.
(AP, 2/10/01)
1996 Feb 10, World chess champion
Garry Kasparov lost the first game of a match in Philadelphia against
an I-B-M computer dubbed "Deep Blue."
(AP, 2/10/01)
1996 Feb 10, In Algeria two
car bombs killed 17 and wounded 93 in the capital.
(WSJ, 2/12/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 10, A slab of
mountainside crushed a highway tunnel on the Japanese island of
Hokkaido, killing 20 people.
(AP, 2/10/01)
1996 Feb 11, A day after losing to
an IBM computer dubbed "Deep Blue," world chess champion Garry Kasparov
rebounded to defeat the machine and even their six-game series in
Philadelphia at one victory apiece.
(AP, 2/11/01)
1996 Feb 11, Tamil politicians in
Sri Lanka charged that government troops killed 24 civilians in the
eastern district of Trincomalee.
(WSJ, 2/12/96, p.A-13)
1996 Feb 12, Bob Dole eked out a
victory in Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses, while Pat Buchanan
came in a surprisingly strong second.
(AP, 2/12/01)
1996 Feb 13, The rock musical
"Rent," by Jonathan Larson, opened off-Broadway and won a Pulitzer
prize two months later.
(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-1,7)(AP, 2/13/98)
1996 Feb 13, In the continuing
drama of man versus machine, world chess champion Garry Kasparov asked
for a draw in his third game against the IBM supercomputer named "Deep
Blue," leaving the six-game match in Philadelphia tied at one and
a-half games each.
(AP, 2/13/01)
1996 Feb 13, Martin Balsam
(b.1914), actor, died in Italy. His many films included “A Thousand
Clowns” (1965).
(www.nndb.com/people/111/000063919/)
1996 Feb 14, Texas Senator Phil
Gramm bowed out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination
following his poor showings in the Louisiana and Iowa caucuses.
(AP, 2/14/01)
1996 Feb 14, In Michigan the
newspapers unions in Detroit offered to return to work (on strike since
July 1995). The newspapers accepted the offer 5 days later but vowed to
retain some 1200 replacement workers. A 1997 ruling ordered as many as
1,100 former strikers reinstated.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A4)
1996 Feb 14, Eva Hart (90),
Titanic survivor, died.
(www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/biography/441/)
1996 Feb 14, In China a failed
Loral Intelsat satellite launch caused a rocket to hit a village near
the Xichang Space Center in southwest Sichuan province and killed six
people. US intelligence estimated the death toll at 200. The rocket was
a new-generation Long March 3B. The satellite was intended for TV shows
in Latin America for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
(WSJ, 2/16/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 3/4/96, p. A-6)(SFC,
6/15/98, p.A5)
1996 Feb 14, In Sri Lanka a Tiger
arms ship was sunk of the northeastern coast.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1996 Feb 15, A US federal judge
temporarily blocked the Communications Decency Act, saying the
government had to explain what material it considered indecent before
it could enforce the law, designed to protect children from sexually
explicit material on computer networks.
(AP, 2/15/01)
1996 Feb 15, In the Toronto Globe
and Star there was a report by Peter Whelan that "pesticides sprayed on
fields in Argentina were killing tens of thousands of wintering
Swainson’s hawks that nest on the Canadian prairies and the adjacent US
Great Plains."
(NH, 10/96, p.51)
1996 Feb 15, The Sea Empress
grounded off of Wales and spilled 18 million gallons (72,000 tons) of
oil.
(SFC, 11/20/02,
p.A14)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/55393.stm)
1996 Feb 15, Russian President
Boris N. Yeltsin announced he would run for re-election.
(AP, 2/15/01)
1996 Feb 16, World chess champion
Garry Kasparov won for the second time against IBM supercomputer "Deep
Blue" in the fifth game of their match in Philadelphia (Kasparov had
drawn twice and lost once).
(AP, 2/16/01)
1996 Feb 16, In Vista, San Diego
County Joshua Jenkins, 15, stabbed his parents and grandparents to
death. The next day he axed his sister. In 1997 he was sentenced to 116
years in prison.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A22)
1996 Feb 16, A commuter train
slammed into Amtrak’s Capital Limited an Silver Spring, Md., and killed
11 people. It was later claimed that a new warning system was partly to
blame.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.B1)(AP, 2/16/01)
1996 Feb 16, Former California
Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown (b.1905) died in Beverly Hills, California,
at age 90. In 2005 Ethan Rarick authored “California Rising: The Life
and Times of Pat Brown.”
(SFC, 9/23/00, p.A19)(AP, 2/16/01)
1996 Feb 16, Violence in
Bangladesh kept the election turnout to about 15%. Opposition leaders
filed no candidates and claimed that the results showed that Prime
Minister Zia had lost authority to rule.
(WSJ, 2/16/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 16, Green groups
threatened to boycott gas pumps that were not labeled "MMT-free." They
claimed that the manganese based fuel additive poses health risks. The
accusation was denied by the Ethyl Corp.
(WSJ, 2/16/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 17, World chess champion
Garry Kasparov beat IBM supercomputer "Deep Blue," winning a six-game
match in Philadelphia. Kasparov had lost the first game, won the
second, fifth and sixth games and earned draws in the third and fourth.
(AP, 2/17/01)
1996 Feb 17, The NEAR-Shoemaker
space craft was launched. The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous craft was
scheduled to reach the Eros asteroid in 4 years. NASA planned to land
the craft on Eros, a 22 by 8 mile rock, in Feb 2001.
(SFC, 9/22/00, p.A7)
1996 Feb 17, A powerful 7.5
earthquake and subsequent tidal waves hit eastern Indonesia in the
region of Irian Jaya and killed at least 62 people. Tidal waves killed
more than 100 people in Indonesia.
(WSJ, 2/20/96, p.A-1)(AP, 2/17/01)
1996 Feb 18, A member of the Irish
Republican Army blew himself up and wounded nine other people when the
briefcase bomb he was carrying detonated accidentally on a
double-decker bus in London’s West End. It was the third IRA bombing in
10 days.
(WSJ, 2/20/96, p.A-1)(AP, 2/18/01)
1996 Feb 19, Pres. Clinton told
Monica Lewinsky that their relationship must end. It was later resumed.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A13)
1996 Feb 19, Republican
presidential hopefuls argued taxes, trade and negative ads in a final
burst of contentious campaigning on the eve of New Hampshire’s leadoff
primary, with Bob Dole the principal target.
(AP, 2/19/01)
1996 Feb 19, Baseball showman
Charlie O. Finley died in Chicago at age 77.
(AP, 2/19/01)
1996 Feb 20, Republican Pat
Buchanon won the New Hampshire primary over Bob Dole, Lamar Alexander
and Steve Forbes 30.8 to 29.7 to 25.6 to 13.8%.
(AP, 2/20/01)(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A19)
1996 Feb 20, Gangsta rapper Snoop
Doggy Dogg and his former bodyguard were acquitted of murder in the
1993 shooting death of an alleged gang member.
(AP, 2/20/01)
1996 Feb 20, Kweisi Mfume began
his job as President and CEO of the NAACP.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, Z1 p.3)
1996 Feb 20, Senior Iraqi defector
Al-Majid returned home after spending 6 months in Jordan. He was soon
arrested and executed by government troops.
(WSJ, 2/21/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(SFEC,
3/7/99, p.A18)
1996 Feb 21, The Space Telescope
Science Institute announced that photographs from the Hubble Space
Telescope confirmed the existence of a "black hole" equal to the mass
of two billion suns in a galaxy some 30 million light-years away.
(AP, 2/21/01)
1996 Feb 21, The Glorious Church
of God in Christ in Richmond, Va., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Feb 21, Morton Gould (82),
composer, died in Florida.
(www.spaceagepop.com/gould.htm)
1996 Feb 22, President Clinton
announced he would nominate Alan Greenspan to a third term as chairman
of the Federal Reserve.
(AP, 2/22/01)
1996 Feb 22, The space shuttle
"Columbia" blasted into orbit on a mission to unreel a satellite on the
end of a 12.8-mile cord.
(AP, 2/22/01)
1996 Feb 22, An oil tanker was
freed that ran aground last week after 19 million gallons were spilled
off the coast of Wales.
(WSJ, 2/22/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 22, A freight train
derailed in the Colorado Rockies and killed two crew members. Two cars
holding 27,000 gallons of sulfuric acid had broken open and some
spilled down the mountain and onto a highway near Leadville.
(WSJ, 2/22/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 22, An F-14 crashed in
the Persian Gulf. It was the 3rd this month and the 32nd since 1991.
The navy says that record is not alarmingly high but ordered the entire
fleet grounded for 72 hours to check for any common threads.
(WSJ, 2/23/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 22, Russia and the head
of the International Monetary Fund reached a deal for a loan of more
than ten billion dollars to back up free-market reforms.
(AP, 2/22/01)
1996 Feb 23, FBI agents arrested
Robert Lipka, a former army clerk at the National Security Agency, for
espionage in the late 1960s.
(WSJ, 11/21/96, p.A1)
1996 Feb 23, Juan Pablo Roque,
Cuban defector and author of "The Deserter," vanished from Miami and
returned to Cuba. In 1999 his wife sued the Cuban government for sexual
battery.
(SFEC, 8/15/99, p.A5)
1996 Feb 23, Dutch tourist Tosca
Dieperink, 39, was killed in a holdup at a Miami service station. Two
men later pleaded guilty to the slaying and were sentenced to prison.
(AP, 2/23/01)
1996 Feb 23, William George Bonin
(49), known as the "Freeway Killer," was executed for the robbery,
torture, rape and strangulation of 14 Southern California boys.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A16)(SFEC, 2/7/99, p.A1)(SFC,
3/13/00, p.A8)
1996 Feb 23, Chechen rebels blew
up a big gas pipeline in southern Chechnya. Russia was bringing in
troops ahead of today’s anniversary of mass deportations of Chechens to
Central Asia in World War II.
(WSJ, 2/22/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 23, Two Iraqi defectors
were killed in Baghdad, reportedly by members of their own clan who
accused them of betraying Saddam Hussein by fleeing to Jordan. The
Iraqi News Agency reported that Lieutenant General Hussein Kamel
al-Majid and his brother Saddam Kamel al-Majid, a pair of defectors who
were also the sons-in-law of Saddam Hussein, were killed by clan
members after returning to their homeland.
(WSJ, 2/26/96, p.A-1)(AP, 2/23/01)
1996 Feb 24, Steve Forbes won the
Delaware presidential primary.
(AP, 2/24/01)
1996 Feb 24, Cuban war planes shot
down two unarmed private planes flown by a refugee group in Florida.
Cuba claimed the planes violated its airspace. 4 men were killed
including 3 US citizens. In 2001 Gerardo Hernandez (36) was convicted
of conspiracy in the deaths of the aviators. Antonio Guerrero (43),
convicted for spying while working a Navy base in Florida, was
sentenced to life in prison on Dec 27. In 2009 Guerrero’s sentence was
reduced to 20 years.
(WSJ, 2/23/96, p.A-1)(SFC,12/18/97, p.A6)(AP,
2/24/98)(WSJ, 12/13/01, p.A1)(SFC, 10/14/09, p.A4)
1996 Feb 25, A 12-mile tether
connecting a half-ton satellite to the space shuttle "Columbia" broke
loose as it was almost completely unreeled.
(AP, 2/25/01)
1996 Feb 25, In Hanford, Ca.,
Tracy Rene Conrad (11), went to the Galik home to play with the sons of
Duane Galik Sr. Her body was found a month later stuffed in a pottery
kiln and sexually abused. Duane Galik Sr. went on trial for the murder
in 1997.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A18)
1996 Feb 25, Cambodian Dr. Haing
S. Ngor (55), academy award winner for the 1984 film "The Killing
Fields," was shot and killed in front of his home in Los Angeles. In
1998 three Chinatown gang members, Oriental Lazy Boyz gang, were
convicted by separate juries in the murder. Jason Chan (20) was
sentenced to life without parole. Tak Sun Tan (21) was sentenced 56
years to life. Indra Lim was sentenced to 26 years to life. In 2004 a
judge ruled to overturn the convictions. In 2005 a federal appeals
court reinstated the convictions.
(WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 7/7/96, p.B12)(SFC,
4/1/98, p.C2)(SFC, 4/17/98, p.A6)(SFC, 5/20/98, p.A3)(SFC, 7/8/05, p.B2)
1996 Feb 25, In separate attacks 2
Palestinian suicide bombers blew up a bus in Jerusalem and a soldiers
hitchhiking post in the coastal city of Ashkelon. 23 Israelis were
killed, as well as 2 Americans and a Palestinian. More than 80 people
were wounded. Hamas took responsibility.
(WSJ, 3/6/96, p. A-15)(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A8)
1996 Feb 26, President Clinton
moved to step up economic sanctions on Cuba in response to Cuba’s
downing of two unarmed airplanes belonging to the Cuban-American exile
group Brothers to the Rescue.
(AP, 2/26/01)
1996 Feb 26, A car bomb in Albania
killed 5 people and wounded 30 outside a supermarket in the center of
Tirana. Two former senior officials of the disbanded Communist era
secret police were arrested shortly after the blast.
(WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 26, In Israel an Arab
American drove a rental car into a Jerusalem bus stop and killed one
Israeli while wounded 23. The driver appeared to be acting on his own
but Hamas took responsibility.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A8)
1996 Feb 27, Bob Dole won the
North Dakota and South Dakota primaries, while Steve Forbes captured
Arizona’s winner-take-all primary.
(AP, 2/27/01)
1996 Feb 27, It was reported that
element 112, aka unumbium, was first made in Darmstadt, Germany, in an
experiment led by Peter Armbruster.
(Econ, 5/5/07,
p.100)(http://newton.ex.ac.uk/aip/physnews.260.html)
1996 Feb 27, A Sudanese military
plane crashed 25 miles south of Khartoum and killed 91 people on board.
The plane was a US made C-130.
(WSJ, 2/28/96, p.A-1)
1996 Feb 28, Alanis Morissette’s
"Jagged Little Pill" won best rock album and album of the year at the
Grammy Awards; Seal’s "Kiss from a Rose" won for record and song of the
year.
(AP, 2/28/01)
1996 Feb 28, President Clinton and
the Congress agreed on a sanctions bill aimed at driving foreign
investors from Cuba.
(AP, 2/28/01)
1996 Feb 28, The New Liberty
Baptist Church in Tyler, Ala., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Feb 28, Britain’s Princess
Diana agreed to divorce Prince Charles.
(AP, 2/28/01)
1996 Feb 28, Russia joined the
Council of Europe and halted capital punishment. The Russian Federation
had applied to join the Council of Europe on 7 May 1992.
(SFC, 11/10/09, p.A2)(http://www.ena.lu/)
1996 Feb 29, Mar 2, A Boeing 737
of the Peruvian domestic Fawcett airlines crashed in the southern Andes
and killed 123 people.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)
1996 Feb, The film
"Trainspotting," directed by Danny Boyle, was released in Great
Britain. It was a movie about junkies in Scotland.
(SFC, 7/17/96, p.E1)
1996 Feb, Gilbert Amelio took over
as chairman and CEO of Apple Corp. Markkula became vice-chairman and
Michael Spindler left the company.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1996 Feb, Kevin Mitnick,
33-year-old computer wizard, was arrested in Raleigh, N.C. with the
help of computer security expert Tsutomu Shimomura. Mitnick was accused
of breaking into the systems of software companies and attacking the
computers of Internet service providers (ISPs). In 1999 he admitted
breaking in to computer systems at Sun Microsystems and Motorola where
he stole software and installed programs that caused millions of
dollars in damage. He was ordered to pay token restitution of $4,125
and was prohibited from any access to computers and the Internet for 3
years following his release.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A3)(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A3)
1996 Feb, In Florida Augusto
Falcon and Salvador Magluta were tried and acquitted on charges of
cocaine trafficking. In 1998 the foreman of the jury, Miguel Moya, was
arraigned for accepting $500,000 in bribes.
(SFC, 8/19/98, p.A11)
1996 Feb, early, The Disney
Institute was opened in Orlando, Florida. It offered an new world of
learning vacations priced at $429 for a three night per person package.
Construction alone cost $35 mil.
(SFC, 5/26/96, T-10)
1996 Feb, NASA launched a
spacecraft to study the asteroid 433 Eros. Project Near Earth Asteroid
Rendezvous (NEAR) was part of the Discovery program.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A2)
1996 Feb, In Bangladesh the term
of government of Khaleda Zia expired.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Feb, The Gaza Strip, sealed
off by Israel for 333 days due to Palestinian attacks, was re-opened.
The closure drove up adult unemployment and forced many children to
seek work.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A10)
1996 Feb, A military cooperation
agreement was signed between Israel and Turkey. The agreement allows
for joint military training, exchanges between military academies and
participation of observers in each other’s exercises.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-10)
1996 Feb, In Libya a plan to kill
Moammar Khadafy failed and several bystanders were killed. In 1998
David Shayler, a former member of the British intelligence services,
revealed the information in France while fighting extradition to
Britain. The British foreign secretary denied the attack. Shayler
returned to London in 2000 to face charges.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A9)(SFC, 8/22/00, p.A10)
1996 Feb, In Mexico in San Andres
Larrainzar in Chiapas the government signed a partial peace accord on
indigenous rights with the Zapatistas.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.C2)
1996 Feb, Morocco and Spain have
begun preliminary plans on a 25-mile tunnel under the Strait of
Gibraltar.
(WSJ, 2/7/96, p.A-10)
1996 Feb, A Maoist insurgency
began central and midwestern in Nepal. The Communist Party of Nepal
launched its "people's war" to surround cities and seize power.
Kathmandu communists Baburam Battarai and Pushpa Kamal Dahal preached
their Maoist proposal initially among the majority Magars, an ethnic
group of sheepherders and marijuana growers.
(SFC, 9/16/00, p.A12)(SSFC, 6/9/01, p.D3)(SSFC,
4/10/05, p.C6)
1996 Feb, Archeologists in Nepal
believed that they had discovered the birth place of Siddartha, who in
the 6th century BC became the monk Buddha.
(WSJ, 2/6/96, p.A-11)
1996 Feb, The Financial Action
Task Force cited the Seychelles Islands as: "a serious threat to the
world’s financial systems." The Islands had passed an Economic
Development Act that provided investors immunity for investing $10
million in "approved" Seychelles investments. The immunity was waived
only in cases of drug trafficking or violent crime.
(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-12)
1996 Feb, Yeltsin announced that
the war in Chechnya was a mistake and began negotiations with rebels.
Russian forces withdrew and Chechnya descended into lawlessness.
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.A11)
1996 Feb, Alexander Nikitin, a
former naval officer, was arrested on charges of providing secret
information to Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group. He had written
a report for Bellona on pollution by the Russian Northern Fleet. His
trial began in 1998. Nikitin was acquitted Dec 29, 1999. The Supreme
Court upheld the acquittal in 2000.
(SFC, 10/21/98, p.A12)(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A16)(SFC,
9/14/00, p.C2)
1996 Feb, In South Africa
Afrikaner men attacked 300 black students protesting outside a primary
school in rural Trompsburg for admittance. The men chased away the
youths while police watched. Three girls were severely injured and the
angry students went on a rampage. Afterwards white parents pulled their
kids out of the school rather than integrate it.
(SFC, 6/29/96, p.A12)
1996 Mar 1, Lenny Wilkens,
winningest coach in NBA, coached his 1,000th victory.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1996 Mar 1, President Clinton
slapped economic sanctions on Colombia, concluding that Colombian
authorities had not fully cooperated with the US war on drugs.
(AP, 3/1/01)
1996 Mar 1, The US Food and Drug
Administration approved a powerful new AIDS drug, saying ritonavir
could prolong slightly the lives of severely ill patients.
(AP, 3/1/01)
1996 Mar 1, In the US the new
toll-free 888 area code was introduced.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1996 Mar 1, Plans were approved
allowing traffic cameras at High Harrington and Shap, England.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1996 Mar 1, The first Asia-Europe
meeting (ASEM) opened in Bangkok, Thailand, with 25 countries and the
EU Commission participating.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.63)(http://tinyurl.com/25mhkw7)
1996 Mar 2, Senate Majority Leader
Bob Dole reignited his presidential campaign with an overwhelming
victory in the South Carolina Republican primary.
(AP, 3/2/01)
1996 Mar 2, In Australia the first
conservative government in 13 years was elected in a landslide victory.
John Howard with a pro-business coalition defeated the reformist labor
party of Paul Keating.
(WSJ, 3/4/96, p. A-1)(SFC, 11/27/98, p.A16)
1996 Mar 2, Jacobo Majluta (61),
President of Dominican Republic (1982), died.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1996 Mar 3, In the US the 26th
Easter Seal Telethon was held.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1996 Mar 3, Israel declared
all-out war on the militant group Hamas after a bus bomb in Jerusalem
killed 19 people, including the bomber, the third such suicide attack
in eight days.
(WSJ, 3/4/96, p. A-1)(AP, 3/3/01)
1996 Mar 3, Marguerite Duras,
French writer, died at age 81 in Paris. She was very prolific and was
best known for her novel “The Lover.” In 2008 her Wartime Writings:
1943-1949,” translated by Linda Coverdale, was published.
(WSJ, 3/4/96, p. A-1)(SSFC, 3/30/08, Books p.1)
1996 Mar 4, Jury selection began
in Little Rock, Ark., in the trial of President Clinton's Whitewater
partners, James and Susan McDougal, and the man who succeeded him as
Arkansas governor, Jim Guy Tucker. James McDougal and Tucker were later
convicted of fraud and conspiracy; Susan McDougal was convicted of
fraud.
(AP, 3/4/06)
1996 Mar 4, Comedian Minnie Pearl
died in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 83.
(AP, 3/4/01)
1996 Mar 4, In Spain the
conservative Popular Party under Jose Maria Aznar won general elections
over PM Felipe Gonzalez and ended 13 years of Socialist rule. The
national government created an Environment Ministry. Previously the
environment was the responsibility of the Public Works Ministry.
(WSJ, 3/4/96, p. A-1)(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A17)
1996 Mar 4, A suicide bomber blew
himself up outside a Tel Aviv shopping center, killing 13 people in the
fourth deadly attack in nine days.
(WSJ, 3/5/96, p. A-1)(AP, 3/4/01)
1996 Mar 5, Senate Majority Leader
Bob Dole swept the "Junior Tuesday" primaries.
(AP, 3/5/01)
1996 Mar 5, Representative Enid
Greene Waldholtz (Republican, Utah), tangled in a financial mess that
she blamed on her estranged husband, announced she would not seek a
second term.
(AP, 3/5/01)
1996 Mar 5, The St. Paul AME
Church in Hatley, Miss., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Mar 5, The Sri Lankan army
raised flags over Jaffna town marking the end of a 7 week campaign to
capture the Tamil rebel stronghold.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1996 Mar 6, A federal appeals
court struck down Washington state’s ban on doctor-assisted suicide.
(AP, 3/6/01)
1996 Mar 6, Lamar Alexander and
Dick Lugar announced they were dropping out of the race for the US
Republican presidential nomination.
(AP, 3/6/01)
1996 Mar 6, Reports said that at
least 10,000 Chechens have fled to this neighboring republic [Dagestan]
of the Russian Union.
(WSJ, 3/6/96, p. A-1)
1996 Mar 7, Bob Dole handily won
the New York Republican primary.
(AP, 3/7/01)
1996 Mar 7, Three US servicemen
were convicted in the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl and sentenced
by a Japanese court to six and a-half to seven years in prison.
(AP, 3/7/01)
1996 Mar 7, The Hubble Space
Telescope photographed the 1st surface photos of Pluto.
(http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1996/09/)
1996 Mar 8, Wall Street plummeted
in a major selloff triggered by seemingly good economic news, a drop in
the nation’s unemployment rate and the biggest jobs gain in more than a
decade. Investors apparently worried that a stronger economy would mean
no more interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
(AP, 3/8/01)
1996 Mar 8, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was
acquitted of assisted suicide for helping two suffering patients kill
themselves.
(AP, 3/8/01)
1996 Mar 8, In Zurich Ciba-Geigy
and Sandoz planned merger valued at $30 billion.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Mar 9, The space shuttle
"Columbia" landed safely a day late at the Kennedy Space Center, ending
a 16-day mission.
(AP, 3/9/01)
1996 Mar 9, George Burns,
comedian, husband to the late Gracie Allen, died at the age of 100 in
Beverly Hills, Calif.
(WSJ, 3/11/96, p. A-1)(AP, 3/9/98)
1996 Mar 10, Secretary of State
Warren Christopher, accusing China of "reckless" provocations against
Taiwan, said on NBC that US warships would move closer to Taiwan.
(AP, 3/10/01)
1996 Mar 10, Birdwatchers noted
the "act of raptor love" between two red-tailed hawks on the Hotel
Carlyle at 2:30 p.m. in New York City. It lasted a full five seconds.
(WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)
1996 Mar 10, In Denmark Bandido
motorcycle gang leader Uffe Larson was shot to death in Copenhagen.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A13)
1996 Mar 10, Hezbollah guerrillas
launched a wave of bomb and rocket attacks on Israeli troops in south
Lebanon.
(AP, 3/10/01)
1996 Mar 11, On Wall Street, the
Dow Jones industrial average rose 110.55 to end the day at 5581
following a 171.24-point plunge the Friday before.
(AP, 3/11/01)
1996 Mar 11, Charles William
Oatley (92), electrical engineer, died. He perfected the scanning
electron microscope.
(www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2002/mar11.htm)
1996 Mar 12, Pres. Clinton signed
the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, better known as the
Helms-Burton Act. It shut off visas to executives and shareholders of
firms doing business in Cuba on property confiscated from Americans.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E4)(http://tinyurl.com/lgpgt)
1996 Mar 12, US Republican Bob
Dole swept the seven "Super Tuesday" primaries, gaining a virtual lock
on the GOP presidential nomination.
(AP, 3/12/01)
1996 Mar 12, Rioting forced the
closure of a US copper mine (82% owned by Freeport-McMoRan Copper &
Gold) in Trimika, Indonesia. At least three people were killed and
dozens injured as the army restored order.
(WSJ, 3/14/96, p.A-15)
1996 Mar 13, World leaders,
including President Clinton, held a summit in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt,
where they vowed unequivocal support for the Mideast peace process.
(AP, 3/13/97)
1996 Mar 13, Liggett, the nation's
fifth-largest tobacco company, made history by settling a private
class-action lawsuit alleging cigarette makers manipulated nicotine to
hook smokers. Liggett became the first tobacco company to acknowledge
that cigarettes are addictive and cause cancer. In 1997 Bennet LeBow,
owner of Liggett, revealed that Philip Morris had agreed to pay $10
million per year in legal fees while he kept silent.
(AP, 3/15/97)(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A2)
1996 Mar 13, Thomas Hamilton (43)
killed 16 kindergarten children, a teacher and himself in a classroom
in Dunblane, Scotland.
{Scotland, Murder}
(WSJ, 3/14/96, p.A-1)(AP, 3/13/01)
1996 Mar 14, The US approved arms
and equipment for Bosnia. It was the same day that the UN embargo on
small arms for the region was lifted. In the following weeks M-16
rifles, machine guns, field phone systems, and military radio equipment
arrived in Bosnia.
(SFC, 5/24/96, p.A12)
1996 Mar 14, During a visit to
Israel, President Clinton pledged $100 million to the fight against
terrorism.
(AP, 3/14/97)
1996 Mar 14, Steve Forbes dropped
his quest for the Republican presidential nomination after spending $30
million of his own money.
(AP, 3/14/97)
1996 Mar 15, The Liggett Group
agreed to repay more than ten million dollars in Medicaid bills for
treatment of smokers, settling lawsuits with five states. The
settlement came two days after Liggett, the nation’s fifth-largest
tobacco company, made history by settling a private class-action
lawsuit alleging cigarette makers manipulated nicotine to hook smokers.
(AP, 3/15/01)
1996 Mar 15, Helen Chadwick (42),
British artist, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Chadwick)
1996 Mar 16, In his weekly radio
address, President Clinton accused the Republican-controlled House of
bowing to "the back-alley whispers of the gun lobby" by gutting
anti-terrorism legislation he'd submitted in response to the Oklahoma
City bombing.
(AP, 3/16/97)
1996 Mar 16, For the first time,
ordinary citizens were allowed inside the central archives of the
former East German secret police, the hated Stasi security agency.
(AP, 3/16/97)
1996 Mar 17, The $16 mil Museum of
Television and Radio was christened in Beverly Hills.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B4)
1996 Mar 17, In Dunblane,
Scotland, Queen Elizabeth the Second came with flowers and sympathy, as
residents paused in silence to mourn 16 murdered children and their
teacher.
(AP, 3/17/01)
1996 Mar 18, Rejecting an insanity
defense, a jury in Dedham, Mass., convicted John C. Salvi III of
murdering two women in a pair of attacks at two Boston-area abortion
clinics in December 1994. Salvi later committed suicide in his cell.
(AP, 3/18/01)
1996 Mar 18, Jacquetta Hawkes
(85), British archaeologist, died.
(www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba14/ba14obit.html)
1996 Mar 18, Some 2,000 Chinese
made assault guns were illegally shipped through the port of Oakland in
the US.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)
1996 Mar 18, Odysseus Elytis,
Greek poet and Nobel Prize winner (1979), died in Athens at age 84.
(WSJ, 3/19/96,
p.A-1)(http://dpsinfo.com/dps/mnames.html)
1996 Mar 19, President Clinton
rolled out a $1.64 trillion election-year budget, promising it would
invigorate the economy, erase federal deficits and cut taxes.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1996 Mar 19, Senate Majority
Leader Bob Dole wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination with
solid primary victories in four Midwestern states.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1996 Mar 19, William Hutchinson
Murray (83), Scottish mountaineer, author, died.
(www.dunoon-observer.co.uk/archive/arcoct2018.html)
1996 Mar 19, A fire at a Quezon
City nightclub in the Philippines killed at least 149 young people
celebrating the end of their school year.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 19, In El Salvador an
Emergency Anti-Crime Law was approved by President Armando Calderon.
Its language called for all Salvadorans charged with crimes abroad to
be locked up and re-educated.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-18)
1996 Mar 19, Nelson Mandela
divorced Winnie Mandela after 38 years of marriage.
(http://africanhistory.about.com/od/march/a/td0319.htm)
1996 Mar 19, Riots in Indonesia
killed five people during demonstrations protesting the death of a
jailed rebel leader.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 20, A jury in Los Angeles
convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez of first-degree murder in the shotgun
slayings of their millionaire parents.
(AP, 3/20/97)
1996 Mar 20, The Mt. Zion Baptist
Church in Ruleville, Miss., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Mar 20, The British
government said that a rare brain disease that had killed 10 people was
probably linked to so-called "mad cow disease."
(AP, 3/20/97)
1996 Mar 21, The US decided to
proceed with plans to deliver weapons to the Islamabad government in
Pakistan. $368 mil has already been paid for a naval Orion aircraft and
two types of missiles.
(WSJ, 3/21/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 21, General Motors and
the United Auto Workers reached a settlement in a 17-day brake-factory
strike that idled more than 177,000 employees and brought the world's
top automaker to a near standstill.
(AP, 3/21/97)
1996 Mar 21, In Israel a suicide
bomber killed himself and 3 Israeli women in Tel Aviv.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A8)
1996 Mar 22, Shannon Lucid,
astronaut, went into space on the shuttle Atlantis. She transferred to
the Russian Mir space station and broke the US space endurance record
of 115 days on 7/15/96.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A7)(AP, 3/22/97)
1996 Mar 23, Taiwan held its first
direct presidential elections; incumbent Lee Teng-hui was the landslide
victor.
(AP, 3/23/97)
1996 Mar 24, NASA astronaut
Shannon Lucid transferred from the space shuttle Atlantis to the
Russian space station Mir, beginning a five-month stay.
(AP, 3/23/97)
1996 Mar 24, Stargazers across the
country scanned the skies in hopes of seeing Hyakutake, the brightest
comet to pass by the Earth in two decades.
(AP, 3/23/97)
1996 Mar 25, "Braveheart" won
Academy Awards for best picture and best director Mel Gibson; Nicolas
Cage won best actor for "Leaving Las Vegas," Susan Sarandon best
actress for "Dead Man Walking."
(AP, 3/25/97)
1996 Mar 25, The redesigned $100
bill went into circulation.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1996 Mar 25, First Lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton, accompanied by her daughter, Chelsea, visited U.S.
troops in Bosnia.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1996 Mar 25, A group of 18 people
including 3 children, who call themselves the Freeman, shut themselves
up on a 960 acre farm near Jordan, Montana. Many of them are wanted on
state and federal charges that include writing bad checks and
threatening a federal judge. Ongoing negotiations have proved fruitless
and the FBI ordered in 3 armored vehicles and a helicopter. The
standoff by the anti-government Freemen lasted 81 days.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A3)(AP, 3/25/01)
1996 Mar 25, China halted its
18-day intimidating naval exercises around Taiwan led by the new
guided-missile destroyer Harbin.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A3)
1996 Mar 25, France, Britain and
the US signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons from the South Pacific.
(WSJ, 3/25/96, p.A-15)
1996 Mar 25, In Germany Jan
Philipp Reemtsma was attacked, beaten and abducted as he entered his
office in Hamburg. For 33 days he was chained to a cellar wall with a
ransom set at 30 million marks ($17.6 million). In 1999 he published
"In the Cellar," a chronicle of his captivity.
(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.W11)
1996 Mar 26, The closest approach
of the Hyakutake comet, first sighted Jan 31. It was to come within
ten-million miles of the Earth.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.62)
1996 Mar 26, Edmund Muskie, former
senator from Maine, secretary of state and Democratic pres. candidate
in 1972, died after a heart attack two days shy of his 82nd birthday.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-1)(AP, 3/26/97)
1996 Mar 26 David Packard,
co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co., died. In a 1988 letter to his
children he declared that the David & Lucille Packard Foundation’s
highest priority must be to reduce world-wide population growth.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 3/6/98)
1996 Mar 26, Amid public fears of
mad cow disease, British farmers demanded their government order the
destruction of old cattle, but Prime Minister John Major refused, and
blamed the crisis on his political opponents.
(AP, 3/26/97)
1996 Mar 26, In Cambodia the Khmer
Rouge kidnapped Christopher Howes (37), a mine-clearing expert from
Bristol, England, and Huon Huot, his interpreter. In November Howes’
employer paid $120,000 for his release. The two men were killed shortly
after their abduction. Their remains were found in 1998. In 2008 a
Cambodian court sentenced four former Khmer Rouge rebels each to up to
20 years in prison for their involvement in the murders.
(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A11)(SFC, 4/13/98,
p.A14)(http://tinyurl.com/7s7x4)(AP, 10/14/08)
1996 Mar 27, The Gay’s Hill
Baptist Church in Millen, Ga., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Mar 27, Bangladesh passed a
constitutional amendment setting up a process for calling new
elections. Prime Minister Zia may resign soon.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 27, In Algeria the
Armed Islamic Group kidnapped seven French monks from the Notre Dame
del’Atlas monastery near Medea.
(SFC, 5/24/96, p.A14)
1996 Mar 27, The European Union
imposed a global ban on British beef and beef products due to concerns
over mad cow disease.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A17)
1996 Mar 27, An Israeli court
convicted Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's confessed assassin of murder,
then sentenced former law student Yigal Amir to life in prison.
(AP, 3/27/97)
1996 Mar 27, The UN Security
Council (Resolution 1051) established an export-import monitoring
system for Iraq and demanded full cooperation.
(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1996 Mar 28, The US Congress
passed the line-item veto, giving the president power to cut government
spending by scrapping specific programs.
(AP, 3/28/97)
1996 Mar 28, The space shuttle
Atlantis astronauts said goodbye to the crew of Russia's space station
Mir and then flew away, leaving Shannon Lucid behind for a five-month
stay in orbit.
(AP, 3/28/97)
1996 Mar 28, Col. Gadhafi of Libya
sent troops to put down unrest in northeastern Libya after a 400
prisoners, many including dissidents and Islamic militants, escaped
from prison last week.
(WSJ, 3/28/96,p.A-1)
1996 Mar 29 Congress passed, and
President Clinton quickly signed, a 12th stopgap spending bill to avert
a partial federal shutdown.
(AP, 3/28/97)
1996 Mar 29, The US and Mexico
unveiled a cross-border air pollution control zone to promote joint
efforts in parts of Texas, New Mexico and Ciudad Juarez.
(WSJ, 3/29/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 29, An earthquake in
central Ecuador killed 29 people.
(SFC, 4/6/96, p.A-13)
1996 Mar 30, In the NCAA
basketball finals, Kentucky beat Syracuse, 76-67.
(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A-20)
1996 Mar 30 The space shuttle
Atlantis narrowly avoided having to make an emergency landing when its
cargo-bay doors wouldn't open at first to release built-up heat.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1996 Mar 30, The El Bethal Church
in Satartia, Miss., burned down. Arson was suspected and investigations
by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Mar 30, Funeral services were
held in Bethesda, Maryland, for former senator and secretary of state
Edmund Muskie.
(AP, 3/30/01)
1996 Mar 30, Hezbollah guerillas
fired 30 Katyusha rockets across the Lebanon border into northern
Israel. Israel responded by shelling 15 Shiite Muslim villages. Israel
contended that responsibility for the attacks lies with Lebanon and
Syria, which occupies Lebanon with 35,000 troops and exercises dominion
over government decisions.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 4/14/96, p.A-10)
1996 Mar 30, Tamil rebels mounted
suicide attacks on a naval convoy and killed a crew of ten. 35 rebels
were killed and six of their vessels were sunk off the island nation’s
northeast coast.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 30, The Olympic torch was
lit in Greece and began its journey to the games in Atlanta, USA. The
games will run 17 days from 7/19-8/4.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 31, Pres. Clinton and
Monica Lewinsky resumed their sexual relationship.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A13)
1996 Mar 31 Russian President
Boris Yeltsin announced a halt to combat operations in Chechnya,
limited troop withdrawals and a willingness to hold indirect talks with
the rebels' leader.
(AP, 3/31/97)
1996 Mar, The US House voted to
repeal the ban on assault weapons. House members voting for the defeat
were strongly supported by gun-rights PACS.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, z1 p.8)
1996 Mar, The US Senate defeated a
plan to increase tobacco taxes, whose revenue was targeted for a health
care program and a program to tobacco help farmers convert to new
crops. Senators voting for the defeat were strongly supported by the
tobacco-industry PACS.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, z1 p.8)
1996 Mar, The US Senate defeated a
measure to allow environmental challenges to timber salvage operators.
Senators voting for the defeat were strongly supported by the timber
industry.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, z1 p.8)
1996 Mar, The Max Factor Museum of
Beauty in Hollywood shut down.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A17)
1996 Mar, In Connecticut Northeast
Utilities closed its Millstone nuclear power plant under pressure from
the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission due to safety problems.
(WSJ, 3/12/98, p.A1)
1996 Mar, A new US toll-free
exchange number, 888, was launched. By 1998 it was almost exhausted and
another number, 877, was issued.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.D1)
1996 Mar, In Bangladesh Prime
Minister Zia resigned but enacted a constitutional amendment that all
future elections be held under caretaker governments. Power was passed
to former chief justice Mohammed Habibur Rahman. Ultimate power rested
with Pres. Abdur Rahman Biswas.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Mar, British Prime Minister
John Major visited Hong Kong and said that Britain will fight for the
1984 treaty to be respected by China.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1996 Mar, In Haiti more than 100
people were drowned when a ferry sank off the southwest peninsula.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A10)
1996 Mar, Jaleel Andrabi, a
Kashmiri human rights lawyer, disappeared in Srinagar at the height of
an anti-India uprising. His body was recovered 19 days later in a local
river. He had been shot in the head and his eyes gouged out. Avtar
Singh, a major in the Indian army, fled the country after he was
accused of killing Andrabi. India called for Singh’s extradition after
his location was discovered following his Feb 21, 2011, arrest in
California in a domestic violence case.
(AP, 3/1/11)
1996 Mar, In Mexico Gov. Ruben
Figueroa of Guerrero stepped down after the Supreme Court began an
investigation over the June-’95 killing of peasants.
(SFC, 6/15/96, p.C12)
1996 Mar, The Nicaraguan
government granted a 30-year, 153,000 acre concession to the Korean
company, Kum-Kyung, for a $20 mil. logging investment. The area
overlaps the land of 364 families of Awas Tingni Indians. The Sumos
Indians assembled a team of lawyers and fought the concession to the
Supreme Court. They then brought a complaint before the Organization of
American States for violations to fundamental Indian rights.
(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Mar, In the Philippines an
estimated 3 million tons of tailings leaked from a drainage tunnel of
the Marcopper Mining corp. and smothered the Boac River on the island
province of Marinduque.
(SFC, 6/2/96, p.A-12)
1996 Mar, In Thailand authorities
arrested 3 N. Korean diplomats and Yoshimi Tanaka for supplying
counterfeit US $100 bills. The bills were very high quality and called
"Super K" notes. The arrest opened up the possibility for the first
case of state-sponsored counterfeiting since WW II.
(SFC, 6/16/96, p.A10)
1996 Mar, In Russia Anatoly
Chubais unofficially took over Yeltsin’s re-election campaign from
First Deputy Oleg Soskovets.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Mar, In Vietnam the first new
bowling alley opened in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in District
10.
(WSJ, 8/29/96, p.A8)
1996 Spring, Ground has been
broken for the Laser Interferometer Gravita-tional-Wave Observatory
(LIGO) near Richland, Wa. Gravitational waves come from bulk motions of
matter and LIGO should open our eyes to such tumultuous events in the
universe as the gravitational collapse of a star into a black hole,
debris and neutron stars tumbling into black holes, and neutron stars
being born by supernova explosions.
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.38-40)
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