Timeline 1996 April - June
Return to home
1996 Apr 1, In
a case that sparked an uproar reminiscent of the Rodney King case,
two Riverside County, California, a news helicopter videotaped
sheriff’s deputies repeatedly clubbing a Mexican man and woman after
a 70-mile highway chase involving a pickup truck suspected of
sneaking across the border.
(AP, 4/1/01)(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 1, The Mare Island
Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, Ca., was decommissioned.
(SFC, 3/10/08, p.A16)
1996 Apr 1, In Spokane, Wa., a
US Bank branch was robbed and bombed. In 1997 three members of an
anti-government militia were convicted for this and another robbery
and 3 bombings.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.C3)
1996 Apr 1, The average price
for a home in the US was $141,000 in the first quarter of this year.
(SFC, 6/30/96, p.E3)
1996 Apr 1, FBI officials in
Jordan, Montana, continued to guard a stronghold of Freemen, an
anti-government group that does not recognize the legitimacy of US
laws.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-12)
1996 Apr 1, Baseball umpire
John McSherry died after collapsing during a season opener between
the Cincinnati Reds and Montreal Expos.
(AP, 4/1/97)
1996 Apr 1, Muslim and Croat
officials signed an accord to jointly collect customs duties and
agreed on a flag.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 2, A federal appeals
court rejected New York state laws banning doctor-assisted suicide,
saying it would be discriminatory to let people disconnect life
support systems while refusing to let others end their lives with
medication.
(AP, 4/2/01)
1996 Apr 2, In Colombia
architect Juan Carlos Gaviria, brother of former pres. Cesar Gaviria
was kidnapped by a group called Dignity for Colombia.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1996 Apr 2, If the Indian Hindu
Nationalist Party wins elections, it will move toward testing a
nuclear bomb.
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 2, N. Korea appealed
for food. $2 million in aid was lost last month when a ship sank off
Taiwan.
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 2, More than 100
Haitians died when a ferry sank.
(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 3, Much of North
America was treated to a total lunar eclipse.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.62)
1996 Apr 3, FBI agents arrested
a suspect thought to be the Unabomber. Theodore John Kaczynski was
arrested near Lincoln, Montana, on a tip from his brother. His mail
bombs had killed 3 and injured 23 over the last 17 years. An
original draft of his manifesto "Industrial Society and Its Future"
was found some days later.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-1)(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-1)(AP,
4/3/97)
1996 Apr 3, A US Air Force
jetliner crashed near Dubrovnik, Croatia, and 35 people on board
were killed including Ron Brown, Sec. of Commerce. Brown had been
leading a delegation of business executives to the former Yugoslavia
to explore business opportunities that might help rebuild the
war-torn region.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-1)(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.A-1)(AP,
4/3/97)
1996 Apr 3, Carl Stokes died of
cancer AT 68. He was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1967, the first
black mayor of a major US city. He had been on medical leave from
his post since 1994 as ambassador to the Seychelles.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-1)(AP, 4/3/97)
1996 Apr 4, President Clinton
signed legislation severing the link between crop prices and
government subsidies.
(AP, 4/4/97)
1996 Apr 4, The former general
manager of Daiwa Bank's New York branch pleaded guilty to aiding a
$1.1 billion cover-up.
(AP, 4/4/97)
1996 Apr 4, US intelligence
indicated that Libya was building a chemical weapons plant at
Tarhunah, 40 miles southeast of Tripoli. The plant was reportedly
designed to replace a plant at Rabta, 55 miles SW of Tripoli, where
Libya insists that only pharmaceuticals are produced.
(SFC, 4/4/96, p.A-3)
1996 Apr 4, X-rays were found
coming from the Hyakutake comet by a teams of US and German
scientists.
(SFC, 4/4/96, p.A-10)
1996 Apr 4, In Afghanistan
Mohammed Omar unsealed a shrine in Kandahar that held a cloak
believed to have belonged to the prophet Mohammed. He placed the
cloak over his shoulders and declared himself the commander of the
faithful and leader of all Islam.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A16)
1996 Apr 4, Beijing announced
that it would prosecute 18 former officials for embezzling more than
2.2 billion. The scandal is tied to last year’s firing of Beijing’s
Communist boss.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-1)
1996 Apr 4, The Red Cross said
more than 55,000 people have been driven from their homes in Burundi
by ethnic fighting that intensified last month. More than 100,000
have been killed since 1993 in the conflict between majority Hutus
and minority Tutsis.
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 4, In the capital city
of Antananarivo, Madagascar, thousands of people demonstrated
against the president amid calls for a military coup.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-9)
1996 Apr 4, The average
negotiated wage in Mexico has been 19%, far below the inflation rate
of 27-30% forecast by independent economists. The government just
raised the minimum wage 12% but also implemented a 27% raise in the
cost of tortillas.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-10)
1996 Apr 5, Accompanied by six
children who survived the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton
bowed his head in silent prayer at the site where 168 people were
killed almost a year earlier.
(AP, 4/5/01)
1996 Apr 5, Francis Wood,
administrator of the China dept. of the British Library questioned
the authenticity of Marco Polo’s travels in a study titled: "Did
Marco Polo Go to China?"
(SFC, 4/6/96, p.D-2)
1996 Apr 5, Heavy fighting in
Mogadishu, Somalia left 75 people dead, after peace talks broke down
between clan leaders Mohamed Farak Aidid and his former backer,
Osman Hassan Ali Ato.
(SFC, 4/6/96, p.D-2)
1996 Apr 6, A sorrowful
President Clinton was on hand at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to
greet the arrival of 33 flag-draped caskets carrying the remains of
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and other victims of a plane crash in
Croatia.
(AP, 4/6/97)
1996 Apr 6, US INS (Immigration
and Naturalization Service) agents pursued a stolen camper with more
than 20 suspected illegal immigrants when it plunged off a mountain
road in Temecula, Ca. and 8 people were killed.
(SFC, 4/14/96, p.C-5)(AP, 4/6/97)
1996 Apr 6, Actress Greer
Garson died in Dallas at age 92.
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-5)(AP, 4/6/97)
1996 Apr 6, Cilipi Airport
maintenance chief, Niko Junic, committed suicide at his home in
Dubrovnik, Croatia.
(SFC, 4/8/96, p.A-8)
1996 Apr 6, Fighting and
looting began in Monrovia, Liberia, and a six year civil war resumed
between rival ethnic groups. Supporters of Roosevelt Johnson faced
off against the ruling council of state, which sacked Johnson
as rural development minister and ordered his arrest for murder.
Johnson accused Charles Taylor of violating the Abuja accord of
August, which set up a transitional government.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/18/96, p.a-12)
1996 Apr 7, Monica Lewinsky
informed pres. Clinton that she was to be transferred from the White
House. He promised to bring her back following the elections and
they had another sexual encounter.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A13)
1996 Apr 7, Celebrating Easter
Mass under a glorious spring sky, Pope John Paul II appealed for
support for the "artisans" of peace in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and
the Holy Land.
(AP, 4/7/97)
1996 Apr 8, Eve Ramsey, the
pivotal character of the on-line soap opera "The East Village," was
born from the creative team at Marinex Multimedia Corp.
(WSJ, 6/26/97, p.A16)
1996 Apr 8, Stock prices
plunged on Wall Street amid concerns over stronger-than-expected
employment data. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 88.51 to end
at 5,594.37.
(AP, 4/8/97)
1996 Apr 9,
In a dramatic shift of purse-string power, President Clinton signed
a line-item veto bill into law. However, the U.S. Supreme Court
struck down the veto as unconstitutional in 1998.
(WSJ, 4/10/96, p.A-1)(AP, 4/9/02)
1996 Apr 9, Former
representative Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), the once-powerful House
Ways and Means chairman, pleaded guilty to two mail fraud charges in
a deal that brought with it a 17-month prison term. He was to pay
his own way at an average rate of $21,352/year. Rostenkowski served
15 months, and was pardoned by President Clinton in 2000.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A4)(AP, 4/9/06)
1996 Apr 9, Sandy Becker (74),
NYC Kiddie TV Show host (Sandy Becker Show), died.
(www.inthe90s.com/generated/obit1996.shtml)
1996 Apr 9, Yugoslavia and
Macedonia established diplomatic relations.
(WSJ, 4/9/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 9, Turkish troops
killed 90 Kurdish rebels in a 3-day offensive. 27 of its own
soldiers died. Rebels had declared a cease-fire in Nov., but the
government refused to abide.
(WSJ, 4/9/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 10, President Clinton
vetoed a bill that would have outlawed a technique used to end
pregnancies in their late stages.
(AP, 4/10/97)
1996 Apr 10, It was reported
that Pres. Mohhamed Ibrahim Egal was the leader of the Pennsylvania
size region of Somalia called Somaliland. The five year old state
had a flag, army, police and currency, but did not have
international recognition.
(SFC, 4/10/96, A-5)
1996 Apr 10, In Mexico a
protest group of about 500 peasants was fired on by police with one
killed and dozens wounded. They were headed to the annual Zapata
commemoration in Tlaltizapan, the site of Zapata’s headquarters.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-10)
1996 Apr 11, The Shell Oil Mars
platform was to be towed to the Gulf of Mexico. Its construction
began in Italy in Oct, 1993 and it will stand over 320 stories from
ocean floor to the top of the rigging. Its cost was $650 mil. and it
weighs 73 mil. lbs. Another $450 mil. will be spent to drill 26
wells and will begin pumping oil this summer at a rate of 100,000
barrels a day. The oil deposits lie as much as 14,000 feet under the
ocean floor, which is another half-mile below the surface.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-6)
1996 Apr 11, The St. Charles
Baptist Church in Paintcourtville, La., burned down. Arson was
suspected and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Apr 11, Chlorine spilled
from a train and caused the people of Alberton, Montana, to flee for
a day.
(SFC, 4/28/96, B-9)
1996 Apr 11, Jessica Dubroff
(7) was killed with her father and flight instructor when their
Cessna Cardinal 177B crashed during bad weather in Cheyenne,
Wyoming. She was attempting to become the youngest person to fly
across the US.
(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-1,11)(AP, 4/11/97)
1996 Apr 11, Daniel Wolf (80),
journalist, died. In 1955 he launched The Village Voice with
novelist Norman Mailer and Ed Fancher, a truck
driver-turned-psychologist.
(www.utne.com/pub/1999_77/)
1996 Apr 11, Israeli aircraft
attacked a Hezbollah command center in Beirut in retaliation for
recent rocket attacks on northern Israel.
(WSJ, 4/12/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 12, The artwork of
Masamune Shirow was featured in the Japanese animation epic "Ghost
in the Shell." It was set in a futuristic Tokyo of 2029.
(SFC, 4/12/96, p.D-3)
1996 Apr 12, President Clinton
named U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor to succeed the late
Ron Brown as commerce secretary.
(AP, 4/12/97)
1996 Apr 12, Historian Stanley
I. Kutler of the Univ. of Wisconsin won the release of the Nixon
White House tapes. The first 200 of 3000 hours that document the
Watergate cover-up will be released by November. He started his suit
in 1992.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-2)
1996 Apr 12, Poland’s
government agreed to grant pensions to former presidents Lech
Walesa, Wojciech Jaruzelski, and the last pre-Communist pres.
Ryszard Kaszorowski. The net pension will be about $1600 a month.
Legislators later approved $800 per month.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-9)(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.A1)
1996 Apr 12, Pres. Fernando
Henrique Cardoso signed a decree allowing up to 18,000 inmates of
Brazil’s prisons to go free.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-9)
1996 Apr 12, A judge in Toluca,
Mexico ordered that Raul Salinas de Gortari stand trial on charges
of hiding millions of dollars in unexplained income during his
career as administrator of food-subsidy programs in the 1980s.
(WSJ, 4/15/96, p.A-15)
1996 Apr 13, President Clinton
used his weekly radio address to call on Congress to pass an
anti-terrorist bill that had languished for a year despite a promise
of quick action after the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 4/13/97)
1996 Apr 13, The Rosemary
Baptist Church in Barnwell, S.C., burned down. Arson was suspected
and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Apr 13, James "Jimmy the
Gent" Burke (64), criminal, died in prison in NY state.
(www.answers.com/topic/jimmy-conway)
1996 Apr 13, Larry Wayne
Shoemaker, a white supremacist, shot 11 people and killed one before
committing suicide inside an abandoned restaurant in Jackson, Miss.
He left behind neo-Nazi notes.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A1)
1996 Apr 13-14, Representatives
of 55 nations met in Brussels and pledged to raise $1.2 billion for
the reconstruction of Bosnia. Serbs refused to attend as part of a
delegation with Muslims and Croats.
(WSJ, 4/16/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 13, The annual
Canadian seal hunt in Newfoundland went out of control and some
16,500 seals were slaughtered instead of the 8,000 quota.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-15)
1996 Apr 13, The US agreed to
close the Futenma Air Station at Okinawa, Japan. The 1200 acre base
is surrounded by the densely populated city of Ginowan.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-8)
1996 Apr 13, In Lebanon
Hezbollah (Hizbullah) leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah warned of
retaliation following an Israeli aircraft attack.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-8)(Econ, 3/12/05, p.47)
1996 Apr 13, George Mackay
Brown (b.1921), Scottish poet and novelist, died in his hometown of
Stromness, on the Orkney Mainland. In 2006 Maggie Ferguson authored
“George Mackay Brown: The Life.”
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.81)(http://tinyurl.com/fdgky)
1996 Apr 14, "A History of
Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area" by Susan Stryker and
Jim Van Buskirk was reviewed.
(SFC, 4/14/96, BR, p.1)
1996 Apr 14, The Islamic Year
of 1403 began.
(SFC, 4/15/96,A-10)
1996 Apr 14, A tornado struck
in Arkansas and killed 7 and injured 30 in the Ozarks.
(WSJ, 4/16/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 14, Israel's
four-day-old military campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas
continued, with aircraft bombarding guerrilla strongholds in Beirut
and southern Lebanon, provoking guerrilla vows to turn northern
Israel into a "fiery hell."
(AP, 4/14/97)
1996 Apr 15, President Clinton
began a weeklong, round-the-world trip, heading for a three-day
visit to Japan after a brief stopover in Cheju, South Korea.
(SFC, 4/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Apr 15, Funeral services
were held in Pescadero, Calif., for Jessica Dubroff, the 7-year-old
girl who died trying to become the youngest person to fly across
America.
(SFC, 4/15/96)
1996 Apr 15, Stavros Spyros
Niarchos (86), Greek ship owner, died.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-ni.htm)
1996 Apr 15, Tens of thousands
of striking Venezuelan teachers defied a government order to go back
to their classrooms. The month-old stoppage has kept more than 6
million children out of school.
(SFC, 4/15/96, p.A-9)
1996 Apr 16, President Clinton
and his wife, Hillary, arrived in Japan for a three-day visit after
a brief stopover in South Korea.
(AP, 4/16/97)
1996 Apr 16, Oprah Winfrey
hosted her evening show and included a segment on mad cow disease. A
group of Texas cattle ranchers later sued her for her comments. The
case was initially a test of the state’s 1995 "veggie libel" law
that protected perishable food products from false and defamatory
statements, but was ruled to proceed as a common-law business
defamation case. Texas jury selection in the trial of Oprah began
Jan 20 and she was acquitted by the jury on Feb 26, 1998.
(SFC, 1/21/98,
p.A3)(www.cnn.com/US/9802/26/oprah.verdict/)
1996 Apr 16, Britain's Prince
Andrew and his wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York, announced they were
in the process of getting a divorce.
(AP, 4/16/97)
1996 Apr 16, Guerillas attacked
a military convoy in Colombia. They killed 31 soldiers and wounded
18 near the border of Ecuador outside the town of Puerres. The
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest and oldest rebel
group (12,000 men) having fought for 34 years, were believed to be
responsible.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)
1996 Apr 16, Khmer Rouge
guerillas attacked a group of tourists near Kompot, 85 miles
southwest of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Reports have it that they killed
and wounded a number of people and kidnapped about 20.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-10)
1996 Apr 16, Moscow said 70 of
its soldiers were killed in a rebel ambush in Chechnya.
(WSJ, 4/19/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 16, In Trinidad an
American was shot and killed in the Toco area of Port of Spain.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-9)
1996 Apr 16, Anatoly Onoprienko
was arrested in western Ukraine. He later admitted to the murder of
some 52 people in a serial killing spree from 1989 to 1996 that
first came to attention in 1995. He went on trial in 1998. In 1999
the former sailor was sentenced to death.
(www.thecrimeweb.com/anatolyonoprienko.html)(WSJ,
11/24/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.A1)
1996 Apr 17, Seeking to calm
Pacific security jitters, President Clinton and Japanese Prime
Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto signed a joint declaration establishing
new U.S.-Japan ties for a "stable and prosperous" Asia.
(AP, 4/17/97)
1996 Apr 17, A jury in Los
Angeles opted to spare Erik and Lyle Menendez the death penalty,
recommending that the brothers instead serve life in prison without
parole for gunning down their wealthy parents.
(AP, 4/17/97)
1996 Apr 17, Brazilian police
killed 23 (19) workers who demanded land and injured 50 during a
protest that blocked an Amazon highway in Eldorado dos Carajas. The
governor of the Para state blamed Colonel Mario Pantoja and
suspended him pending an inquiry. Local landowners reportedly paid
Col. Pantoja $85,000 to eliminate 10 leaders of the Landless Rural
Worker's Movement. Over 150 policemen were charged with murder.
Trials of the policemen began in 1999. 2 officers were convicted of
murder. 124 police officers were acquitted in 2002.
(WSJ, 4/19/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 6/26/96, p.A8)(SFC,
7/31/97, p.A10)(SFC, 8/17/99, p.A8)(SFC, 8/20/99, p.D2)(AP, 6/13/02)
1996 Apr 17, In [El Giza]
Cairo, Egypt, suspected Muslim militants attacked a group of Greek
tourists in front of the Europa hotel near the pyramids. 18 people
were killed and 14 wounded.
(SFC, 4/18/96, p.A-1)(AP, 4/18/97)(SFC,11/19/97,
p.C2)
1996 Apr 18, President
Clinton addressed the Japanese Parliament, hailing security ties
between the two countries as the cornerstone of stability in Asia.
Congress passed and sent to President Clinton long-awaited
legislation giving federal law officers new powers to use against
terrorism.
(AP, 4/18/97)
1996 Apr 18, The US government
will deliver $368 million in military equipment to Pakistan that was
paid for in the 1980’s. Pakistan will also get $120 mil in cash that
it paid for weapons and spare parts that were never manufactured.
(SFC, 4/18/96, p.A-8)
1996 Apr 18, Pres. Yeltsin of
Russia denied that there was a war in Chechnya while Russian TV
showed Chechen rebels attacking a Russian military convoy. 26
soldiers were killed and 51 were wounded.
(SFC, 4/18/96, p.a-14)
1996 Apr 18, A base manned by
Fijian UN troops in Lebanon was shelled by Israel and led to 75
(revised to 91) civilian deaths. A later UN investigation found the
remains of 15 Israeli shells that indicated a targeted assault.
Israel called the attack an "unfortunate mistake."
(WSJ, 4/19/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/7/96, p.A-8)(AP,
4/18/97)
1996 Apr 18, A base at Qana,
Lebanon, manned by Fijian UNIFIL troops was shelled by Israel and
led to 75 (revised to 106) civilian deaths. A later UN investigation
found the remains of 15 Israeli shells that indicated a targeted
assault. Israel called the attack an "unfortunate mistake."
(WSJ, 4/19/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/7/96, p.A-8)(AP,
4/18/97)(AP, 7/26/06)
1996 Apr 18, Piet Hein (80),
Danish architect, poet, mathematician, inventor, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Hein_(Denmark))
1996 Apr 19, On the first
anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, hundreds of mourners
paused for 168 seconds of silence at the site where the federal
building once stood.
(AP, 4/19/97)
1996 Apr 19, President Clinton,
visiting Russia, paid tribute to the hundreds of thousands of
Russians who died in the Nazi siege of Leningrad -- and to the
victims of the Oklahoma bombing as well.
(AP, 4/19/97)
1996 Apr 20, Russia and the
leaders of the world's seven richest democracies agreed in Moscow to
end nuclear tests by the fall and pledged new steps to keep nuclear
materials out of the wrong hands.
(AP, 4/20/97)
1996 Apr 21, President Clinton
and Boris Yeltsin traded warm compliments and played down nagging
differences, insisting their election-year summit in Moscow was not
being influenced by presidential politics.
(AP, 4/21/97)
1996 Apr 21, Odds maker Jimmy
"The Greek" Snyder died at age 76.
(AP, 4/21/97)
1996 Apr 22, Earth Day. The
Goldman Environmental Foundation of San Francisco presented annual
awards of $75,000 each to grass-roots eco-environ-mentalists on each
of the inhabited continents as selected by a panel of experts from
30 countries. Winners for 1996 were Albena Simeonova, founder of
Green Parliament in Bulgaria; Amooti Ndyakira, for journalism on
endangered gorilla habitats in Uganda; Edwin Bustillos, defender of
native lands and culture in Mexico, Mahesh Chandar Mehta, for
crusading against air and water pollution in India; Bill Ballantine,
for promoting marine reserves in New Zealand, Marina Silva, for
fighting deforestation in Brazil.
(USAT, 4/22/96, p.4-D)
1996 Apr 22, Pres. Clinton
endorsed a plan to expand the Point Reyes National Seashore by
38,000 acres. The Dept. of the Interior was to buy easements from
local farmers and to begin purchasing the 564-acre Giacomini dairy
ranch.
(SFC, 5/31/96, E1)
1996 Apr 22, Planet Hollywood,
a restaurant chain with backing by movie stars, went public on
Nasdaq and its stock reached $32.13. In 1998 the stock was down to
$3.93.
(WSJ, 10/7/98, p.A1)
1996 Apr 22, Homemaker-humorist
Erma Bombeck died in San Francisco at age 69.
(AP, 4/22/97)
1996 Apr 22, After 11 days of
focusing on Hezbollah guerrillas, Israeli warplanes turned to a new
target in Lebanon, attacking the heavily fortified base of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
(AP, 4/22/97)
1996 Apr 22, In Paraguay
General Lino Oviedo was fired for insubordination by Pres. Juan
Carlos Wasmosy. Oviedo defied the orders of Wasmosy to abandon his
command.
(SFC, 4/24/96, p.A10)(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A28)
1996 Apr 23, A Bronx
civil-court jury ordered Bernhard Goetz to pay $43 million to
paralyzed Darrell Cabey, one of four young men he shot on a subway
car in 1984.
(AP, 4/23/97)
1996 Apr 23, A three-night
auction of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' possessions began at
Sotheby's in New York City with a bidding frenzy. The 4-day auction
took in $34.5 million.
(AP, 4/23/97)(MC, 4/23/02)
1996 Apr 23, In Germany the
Federal Security Council decided to allow German firms to co-produce
weapons abroad even if they did not know who would end up using
them.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Apr 23, Pamela Lyndon
Travers (96), Australia born writer (Mary Poppins), died in London.
(www.maryborough.qld.gov.au/index.aspx?page=678&mid=1)
1996 Apr 24, Negotiators for
Congress and the White House agreed on a permanent budget for fiscal
year 1996.
(AP, 4/24/97)
1996 Apr 24, An article focused
on the "Xanadu Concept" of Theodor Holm Nelson: a universal
electronic library and publishing system that would link every book,
movie, poem, song and software program ever written.
(WSJ, 5/30/96, p.A15)
1996 Apr 24, In India Mahendra
Das snuck up behind Hara Kunta as the rival official in the local
transporter's union sipped tea at a shop in a busy market in Assam's
capital, Gauhati. With a swing of his machete, Das decapitated
Kunta. Then he carried the bloody head by the hair to a nearby
police station screaming, "I have killed him." Courts ruled that the
public nature of the killing warranted the death penalty. In 2011
Das (45) waited as officials searched for a hangman.
(AP, 6/1/11)
1996 Apr 24, The Palestine
National Council voted to revoke articles that contradict the 1993
accords between Israel and PLO, specifically the parts that called
for an armed struggle to destroy Israel.
(WSJ, 4/25/96, p.A-1)(AP, 4/24/97)
1996 Apr 24, Sierra Leone
reached a truce with rebels after a five-year war and will seek a
permanent peace accord. The truce came after Ivory Coast talks
between the new civilian president and the rebel leader.
(WSJ, 4/24/96, A-1)
1996 Apr 25, US Sec. of State
Warren Christopher helped produce a cease-fire between Israel and
the Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon. In the “April Understanding”
Israel, Lebanon, France, Syria and the US agreed that Lebanese and
Israeli civilians would not be targeted in Hezbollah’s drive to end
Israel’s occupation.
(WSJ, 5/6/96, p.A-13)(SFC, 7/31/06, p.A7)
1996 Apr 25, Ford Motor Co.
announced a recall of about 8 million cars, minivans and pickups
because of an ignition switch fire hazard.
(AP, 4/25/97)
1996 Apr 25, Top Chechen
officials confirmed that their leader, Dzhokar Dudayev, was killed
in a Russian air strike. He was succeeded Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.
(WSJ, 4/25/96, p.A-1)(USAT, 9/2/04, p.13A)
1996 Apr 25, A day after the
PLO annulled clauses calling for Israel's destruction, the governing
Labor Party abandoned its long-standing opposition to a Palestinian
state.
(AP, 4/25/97)
1996 Apr 25, Princess
Nonhlanhla Zulu disappeared during a gang attack on a royal
residence in KwaMashu black township near Durban, South Africa.
(SFC, 4/28/96, A-13)
1996 Apr 26, The Effingham
Baptist Church in Effingham, S.C., burned down. Arson was suspected
and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Apr 26, The Shanghai Five
grouping was created with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening
Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai. Boris Yeltsin and the
presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan visited Shanghai
and signed a treaty with Pres. Jiang Zemin at the Jin Jiang Hotel
that demarcated their borders with China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation)(WSJ,
3/5/97, p.A16)
1996 Apr 26, After 16 days of
bloodshed, Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas pledged to end the worst
fighting in the Mideast in three years, agreeing to a US-brokered
truce.
(AP, 4/26/01)
1996 Apr 26, The UN called for
sanctions against Sudan.
(WSJ, 5/21/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 27, William Egan Colby
(76), CIA Director, disappeared while canoeing near his waterfront
home in southern Maryland. His body was found 8 days later. In 2003
John Prados authored "Lost Crusador," a biography of Colby.
(WSJ, 6/5/03,
p.D8)(www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wcolby.htm)
1996 Apr 27, In Lebanon tens of
thousands of refugees streamed home to southern Lebanon after a
U.S.-brokered cease-fire silenced the guns in the 16-day
Israel-Hezbollah war. The World Bank, which had committed $300
million to rebuilding Lebanon, will consider if more money is needed
after the Israeli blitz.
(SFC, 5/4/96, P.A-8)(AP, 4/27/97)
1996 Apr 27, The southern
Iranian town of Baft, 350 miles Southeast of Tehran, was
invaded by millions of cockroaches, locusts, and grasshoppers.
(SFC, 4/27/96, p.A-7)
1996 Apr 27, As many as 590
million voters will participate in elections for three days of
balloting held over nearly two weeks in India. It will determine the
pace of reforms and serve as a referendum on the recent corruption
scandals.
(WSJ, 4/16/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 28, President Clinton
gave 4 1/2 hours of videotaped testimony as a defense witness in the
criminal trial of his former Whitewater business partners.
(AP, 4/28/97)
1996 Apr 28, A lone gunman,
Martin Bryant, 28, killed 35 tourists visiting a colonial prison on
the Australian island of Tasmania; he was captured by police after a
12-hour standoff. He was later sentenced to 35 life terms in prison.
(WSJ, 4/29/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 4/30/96, p. A-8)(SFC,
11/22/96, p.A22)(AP, 4/28/97)
1996 Apr 28, In Pakistan a bomb
killed 40 people aboard a bus traveling home for a Muslim festival
in a town southeast of Lahore. They were going home to celebrate the
most sacred holiday in Islam, Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-9)
1996 Apr 28, In Taegu, South
Korea, a gas line exploded in the middle of an intersection crowded
with morning traffic, killing 101 people.
(AP, 4/28/01)
1996 Apr 29, "Rent" opened at
Nederlander Theater in NYC.
(www.broadway.com/_grp/groups_show.aspx?SI=1257)
1996 Apr 29, Opening ceremonies
were held for The Stratosphere Tower of Robert Stupak in Las Vegas.
The structure rises 1,149 feet. The last 149 feet consist of a
needle perched atop a swollen bulb.
(SFC, 5/26/96, T-3)
1996 Apr 29, Former CIA
Director William Colby was missing and presumed drowned after an
apparent boating accident in Maryland; his body was later recovered.
(AP, 4/29/98)
1996 Apr 30, In Fort Myers,
Florida, members of a teen militia called the Lords of Chaos slew
high-school band director Mark Schwebes. They had begun a crime
spree on Apr 13 with acts of arson and vandalism. Arrested were
Kevin Foster,18, Derek Shields, 18, Peter Magnotti, 17, Christopher
Black, 18, Christopher Burnett, 17, and Thomas Tarrone, 16.
1996 Apr 30, President Clinton
and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres signed an accord in
Washington extending U.S. help to Israel in countering terrorism.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1996 Apr 30, In Mexico five
climbers were burned to death by a blast from Popocatepetl volcano.
(SFEC, 11/29/98, p.A27)
1996 Apr, President Clinton
signed a farm law that scheduled a seven-year phaseout of subsidies.
The US government ended its price guarantees for farmers in what
supporters called the Freedom to Farm law. The law also eliminated
government controls on what crops farmers could grow and how many
acres they could plant. Farmers in 1999 rallied in the Capital to
protest the law.
(WSJ, 6/16/97, p.1)(SFC, 9/14/99,
p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/lyhv3)
1996 Apr, Mark Jimenez,
Philippine computer businessman residing in Florida, warned the
Clinton administration of an impending military coup in Paraguay.
(WSJ, 2/20/97, p.A1)
1996 Apr, Nevada’s governor
designated a 98-mile stretch of Route 375 the Extraterrestrial
Highway.
(USAT, 6/28/96, p.7D)
1996 Apr, Former representative
Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) was sentenced to serve 17 in prison for
mail fraud. He was to pay his own way at an average rate of
$21,352/year.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A4)
1996 Apr, The US Equal
Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) filed a class-action suit
against Mitsubishi Motors in Normal, Ill., in a case of
sexual-harassment.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Apr, John That Luong and
others were indicted on charges of smuggling illegal immigrants to
the US. In 1998 the charges were extending to include heroin
trafficking and armed robberies of microchips in California,
Minnesota and Oregon and racketeering that spread from San Diego to
Massachusetts under an organization called "The Company."
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.C10)
1996 Apr, The diet drug, Redux,
was approved for use.
(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.B1)
1996 Apr (late), A dispute over
pay caused some 400 soldiers to mutiny and rampage over the capital
city of Bangui in the Central African Republic.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-8)
1996 Apr, The Red Cross said
more than 55,000 people have been driven from their homes by ethnic
fighting that intensified last month. More than 100,000 have been
killed since 1993 in the conflict between majority Hutus and
minority Tutsis. The fighting occurred in the capital city of
Bujumbura. 235 civilians died when the Burundi army attacked
villages at Buhoro
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-8)(SFC,
5/13/96, p.C-12)
1996 Apr, The EU decided to
allow Monsanto to begin selling genetically modified soybeans in
Europe.
(WSJ, 11/30/99, p.A1)
1996 Apr, French Pres. Jacques
Chirac announced that the draft would be phased out over the next 5
years. The army would be shrunk from 500,000 to 350,000.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A15)
1996 Apr, Takafumi Horie (23),
a student at the Univ. of Tokyo, set up Livin’ on the Edge Inc., a
Web-site design company. In 2000 the company was listed on the Tokyo
Stock Exchange and in 2004 the name was changed to Livedoor, after
an Internet service provider that it took over in 2002.
(WSJ, 2/3/06, p.A1)
1996 Apr, Russia’s richest men
gathered in Moscow and drafted a letter asking Yeltsin and Zyuganov
to reach a compromise. It was a veiled subtext calling for elections
to be postponed and for Yeltsin to share power with the Communists.
(WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Apr, Pres. Pasteur
Bizimingu of Rwanda laid the first brick of a memorial to genocide
victims in Kigali. About 55,000 war-scarred children were still
searching for parents that most would never find. A couple hundred
children mostly between 14 and 17 have been imprisoned for genocide.
(SFC, 6/3/96, p.A12)
1996 May 1, PLO leader Yasser
Arafat received a statesman's welcome at the White House, where he
met with President Clinton for 45 minutes, then lashed out at Israel
for keeping its borders closed to Palestinian workers.
(AP, 5/1/97)
1996 May 1, Cubans began paying
income taxes for the first time in decades.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-9)
1996 May 2, By a 97-3 vote, the
Senate passed an immigration bill to tighten border controls, make
it tougher for illegal immigrants to get U.S. jobs and curtail legal
immigrants' access to social services. The immigration reform act
included an INS program called the Basic Pilot which helps companies
verify the green-card and SS numbers of new employees.
(AP, 5/2/97)(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A1)
1996 May 2, John Dylan Katz
(16) was beaten up and put into a coma in Windsor, California. He
was apparently wearing the colors of a rival gang. Arrested for the
assault were Dominque Marie Gaitan (22), and 3 17-year-old youths
including a girl. A 5th suspect was being sought. Sonoma County
teenagers Jose Juan Madrid (17) was sentenced to 12 years in prison
and Thomas Galvan Jr. (15) got 10 years.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-13)(SFC, 4/1/99, p.C4)
1996 May 2, Some 20,00 workers
marched in Asuncion, Paraguay, demanding improved wages and working
conditions. Police broke up groups of strikers and detained 16 union
leaders.
(SFC, 5/3/96, A-18)
1996 May 3,
Gregory Clepper was charged with killing 12 women on the South side
of Chicago in a string of slayings that began in 1991.
(SFC, 5/3/96, A-10)
1996 May 3, Jack Weston (71),
actor (Ishtar, Rad, Cuba), died of lymphoma.
(http://entertainment.msn.com/celebs/celeb.aspx?c=223731)
1996 May 3, Keith Daniel
Williams (48) of Lodi, California, was executed for the 1978 murders
of 2 people following a dispute over a $1500 used car.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A16)(SFC, 12/13/05, p.A13)
1996 May 3, A weak compromise
treaty was passed in Geneva that aimed to phase out non-detectable
plastic mines, and introduced rules to limit the lifespan of
anti-personnel mines planted outside marked fields to 3 months. The
new treaty will go into effect once it is signed by 20 countries and
revised an outdated 1980 weapons protocol signed by 57 nations. It
has few enforcement provisions. The international conference in
Geneva ended 30 months of arduous negotiations over whether to ban
land mines with a weak compromise treaty giving countries nine years
to switch to detectable, self-destructive devices.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-1)(AP, 5/3/97)
1996 May 3,
Chandraswami, aka Nemi Chand Jain, faith healer and psychic admired
by Elizabeth Taylor, was held by police in New Delhi on charges of
swindling $100,000 from a London businessman.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 3, A
preliminary UN report says that Israel fired knowingly on a southern
Lebanon UN compound on April 18 after pro-Iranian guerrillas sought
refuge in the area.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)
1996 May 3,
In Burundi a handwritten account reached the capital that described
the massacre of 375 people at the Kivyuka village market by
government soldiers angry over recent rebel attacks on local power
line towers. An army spokesman denied the charges.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-8)
1996 May 3, A
6.4 earthquake struck Inner Mongolia in northern China. At least 14
people were killed and 266 injured.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)
1996 May 3, A Sudanese airliner
on a domestic flight crashed in bad weather and killed all 50 [53]
onboard. It was an Antonov 24 airplane and had tried to land outside
of Khartoum in an area cleared for a new airport because sand
covered the runways at Khartoum.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-14)
1996 May 4, Grindstone won the
Kentucky Derby, giving trainer D. Wayne Lukas a sixth straight
victory in a Triple Crown race. Grindstone was injured ahead of the
Preakness and retired.
(AP, 5/4/97)(SFC, 5/4/09, p.D6)
1996 May 4, Nigerian and
Cameroon forces clashed over the Bakassi region on the fishing and
oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.
(SFC, 5/7/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 5, In Alaska at the
Nenana Ice Classic, 12 winners guessed the movement of ice on the
Tanana River at 12:32 p.m. and split the $300,000 jackpot.
(WSJ, 5/7/96, p.A-16)
1996 May 5, The FBI released
preliminary figures showing that serious crimes reported to police
fell for the fourth straight year in 1995.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1996 May 5, The body of former
CIA director William E. Colby was found on a riverbank near his
southern Maryland vacation home, eight days after he'd disappeared.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1996 May 5, Israel and the
Palestinians began the final stage of their peace talks in Taba,
Egypt.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1996 May 6, Walter Petryshyn, a
Rutgers Univ. mathematics professor, author of "Generalized
Topological Degree and Semilinear Equations," smashed his wife’s
skull with 30 blows from a claw hammer in North Brunswick, New
Jersey. He had become depressed and paranoid over an error in his
book.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 6, All the nearly
16,000 public companies nationwide were required to file their
financial reports electronically with the SEC. All info will go into
EDGAR, the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval
system. The home page of the SEC is: http://www.sec.gov.
(SJBJ, 5/13/96, p. 7)
1996 May 7, Tax Freedom Day,
the day on which the average American has earned enough to pay
federal, state and local taxes.
(WSJ, 5/8/96, p.A-12)
1996 May 7, The first
international war crimes proceeding since Nuremberg opened at The
Hague in the Netherlands, with a Serbian police officer, Dusan
Tadic, facing trial on murder-torture charges. Tadic was convicted
of crimes against humanity but acquitted of murder on May 7, 1997.
In Jul, 1997 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 5/7/97)(SFC, 5/8/97, p.C2)(SFC, 7/15/97,
p.A12)
1996 May 7, In San Diego, Ca.,
Alzheimer’s researcher, Tsunao Saitoh and his daughter, 13-year-old
Loullie, were shot and killed. In 1993 he identified a protein that
is deposited in plaques that form in the brains of Alzheimer's
patients. In 1995 he learned that the protein was controlled by
chromosome 4 and was searching for its exact location when he was
killed.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A17)
1996 May 7, Guatemala’s leftist
guerrillas and the government signed a key accord in negotiations to
end 35 years of civil war. A Land Fund that would help poor peasant
farmers acquire arable land was agreed upon.
(SFC, 5/7/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 7, Indian supporters
of the Zapatista rebels occupied two radio stations in Chiapas and
demanded the release of Javier Elloriaga, a TV journalist who was
sentenced to 13 years in prison last week on charges of being a
Zapatista commander. Sub-commander Marcos later signed his
communiqués "speedy Gonzalez."
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-19)(SFEC, 7/20/98, p.A10)
1996 May 7, Peace talks for
Sierra Leone opened in the Ivory Coast to resolve a civil war that
has killed 10,000 people since 1991.
(WSJ, 5/7/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 8, US postal
inspectors wrapped up a two-year sting operation in 36 states
against the nation's biggest child pornography ring.
(AP, 5/8/97)
1996 May 8, Julie Andrews
declined her Tony Award nomination after her show,
"Victor/Victoria," was snubbed for best musical.
(AP, 5/8/97)
1996 May 8, South Africa
approved a National Constitution that guaranteed equal rights for
all races. Zulu nationalists and white extremists boycotted the
parliament vote and the entire process. The Constitution contained a
clause that prevented discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-19)(WSJ, 5/9/96, p.A-1)(SFEC,
9/6/98, p.A22)
1996 May 8, In Pakistan a bomb
killed at least 6 and injured 38 aboard a bus in Punjab province.
(WSJ, 5/9/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 8, In Mexico a
government task force in the state of Sinaloa issued a report on the
mysterious chupacabras or "goat-sucker." An unknown creature has
been killing goats and leaving fang marks. The report said: There is
no goat sucker, but pollution is now so bad that it is driving
animals mad, giving them the behavioral trappings of crazed alien
creatures."
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 9, In dramatic video
testimony to a hushed courtroom in Little Rock, Ark., President
Clinton insisted he had nothing to do with a $300,000 loan at the
heart of the criminal case against his former Whitewater partners.
(AP, 5/9/97)
1996 May 9, In India the
Congress Party conceded to electoral losses.
(WSJ, 5/9/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 9, In South Africa the
National Party withdrew from a national-unity government with Pres.
Mandela’s African National Congress.
(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 9, In Germany the
parliament cleared the way for a high-speed, magnetically levitated
train system to link Berlin and Hamburg. The project is estimated to
cost $3.7 billion and is to be completed in 2005.
(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-6)
1996 May 9, Bacterial
meningitis has infected more than 100,000 people in West Africa over
the last 3 months and more than 10,000 have died. The epidemic has
been most intense in the region just south of the Sahara known as
the Sahel. The 1996 epidemic resulted in some 20,000 deaths. The
"meningitis belt" swept from Senegal to Ethiopia about every 10
years.
(SFC, 5/9/96, p.C-5)(WSJ, 3/17/03, p.B4)
1996 May 10, Two US Marine
helicopters collided and killed 14 servicemen in a piney swamp at
Camp LeJeune, N.C. during a U.S.-British training exercise. An AH-1
Cobra attack helicopter collided with a CH-46 Sea Knight troop
copter.
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-1)(AP, 5/10/97)
1996 May 10, A plane crashed
and killed 16 people in the rugged mountains of northwestern Mexico.
The twin-turboprop De Haviland Twin Otter DHC-6 was flying from
Durango and crashed in Santa Maria de Otaes, a small mining town.
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 10, Riots broke out in
Hong Kong where more than 18,000 Vietnamese have been held in what
amounts to prison camps. The government is in the process of
returning them to Viet Nam from whence they fled as boat people.
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 10, A blizzard
suddenly erupted on Mt. Everest and led to the death of 8 climbers
descending from 29,028 foot summit. Jon Krakauer, journalist, was on
the expedition and in 1997 published "Into Thin Air," an account of
the ordeal. The climbers were part of an IMAX film expedition.
(SFC, 5/15/96, A-10)(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A16)(WSJ,
6/4/01, p.A20)
1996 May 11, A ValuJet DC-9
with 110 people onboard caught fire shortly after takeoff crashed in
the Florida Everglades shortly after takeoff from Miami Int’l.
airport. In 1999 Florida brought murder charges against Sabre-Tech,
a Miami repair facility, that had loaded hazardous oxygen generators
onto the plane. In 1999 SabreTech Maintenance Co. was convicted for
mishandling oxygen canisters that were blamed for the crash. In 2000
a $11 million penalty was ordered against SabreTech. In 2001 8 0f 9
convictions against Sabre-Tech were overturned by a federal appeals
court.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-1)(AP, 5/11/97)(SFC, 7/14/99,
p.A1)(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A3) (SFC, 8/15/00, p.3)(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C2)
1996 May 11, In Pomona,
California, police officer Daniel Fraembs was shot and killed on
South Humane Way.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.C-7)
1996 May 11, Mountain climber
Beck Weathers went unconscious atop Mt. Everest and was given
up by rescuers. He awoke and managed to climb down to base
camp.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A3)
1996 May 12, Authorities in
Florida called off the search for possible survivors from the crash
of ValuJet Flight 592, a day after the jetliner nose-dived into the
Everglades with 110 people on board.
(AP, 5/12/97)
1996 May 12, The house in which
Margaret Mitchell wrote "Gone With the Wind" in Atlanta, Georgia,
and purchased by Daimler-Benz for $4.5 mil, burned down while under
re-construction for the summer Olympics.
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A4)
1996 May 12, The Canadian
province of Ontario announced a 15% tax cut last week under Premier
Mike Harris, who was elected last June on promises to cut the budget
deficit and taxes. His cuts have led to tuition increases, expected
hospital closures or consolidations, and the marked elimination of
10,000 government jobs.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 13, Recovery workers
in the Florida Everglades retrieved the flight data recorder from
ValuJet Flight 592.
(AP, 5/13/97)
1996 May 13,The Supreme Court
unanimously struck down Rhode Island's ban on ads that list or refer
to liquor prices, saying the law violated free-speech rights.
(AP, 5/13/97)
1996 May 13, Bopp van Dessel,
Shell’s former head of environmental studies reported in a taped
interview that the company broke its own rules and inter-national
standards in Nigeria and caused widespread pollution. He resigned
from his post in protest in late 1994.
(SFC, 5/13/96, p.C-12)
1996 May 13, The US winter
wheat harvest was expected to be 12% smaller than last year, making
it the smallest since 1978.
(WSJ, 5/13/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 13, A severe storm in
north Bangladesh killed at least 447 and injured more than 50,000 in
the district of Tangail. Winds had surged to 125 mph. A tornado
killed more than 600 people in Bangladesh.
(SFC, 5/15/96, A-8)(AP, 5/13/97)
1996 May 13, In Belgrade
thousands of workers took to the streets demanding jobs and back pay
and chanted support for the Central Bank governor, who is at odds
with the government leadership. IMF funds are on delay because
Milosevic wants the IMF to recognize Serbia as the sole successor of
the old federation.
(SFC, 5/14/96, A-8)
1996 May 13, Britain’s last
Polaris submarine, the HMS Repulse, came home for good. The Polaris
subs have been replaced by the US Trident nuclear subs.
(SFC, 5/14/96, A-9)
1996 May 13, David Boim (17),
an American, was standing at a bus stop in the West Bank with fellow
yeshiva students when two Palestinian terrorists drove by in a car,
shot him in the head, and killed him. In 2004 a US court awarded his
parents $156 million against US-based Muslim activists. In 2007 a
federal appeals court overturned the judgement.
(www.danielpipes.org/article/334)(SFC, 12/29/07,
p.A3)
1996 May 13, In Turkey torture
rehabilitation centers set up by the country’s Human Rights
Foundation were declared illegal by the government.
(SFC, 5/14/96, A-10)
1996 May 14, The Mt. Pleasant
Baptist Church in Tigrett, Tenn., burned down. Arson was suspected
and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 May 14, A jury in Pontiac,
Mich., acquitted Dr. Jack Kevorkian of assisted-suicide charges, his
third legal victory in two years. The judge dismissed murder charges
in the same case.
(AP, 5/14/97)(SFC, 4/14/99, p.A3)
1996 May 14, The US Energy
Dept. announced that it would import 20 tons of nuclear waste from
research reactors in 41 nations to prevent the weapons grade
material from being used for bombs.
(WSJ, 5/14/96, p.A-1)
1996 cMay 14, The Voice of
America turned on its newest radio transmitter in Kuwait. It was 12
times more powerful than any broadcast station in the US and was
directed at Iraq and Iran.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. A-18)
1996 May 14, In France Renault
outlined a plan to become majority owned by private investors after
more than 5 decades of state control.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 May 14, Leftist and
regional Indian political parties formed a powerful coalition and
settled on H.D. Deve Gowda, chief minister of the southern state of
Karnataka, as the candidate for prime minister.
(SFC, 5/15/96, A-10)
1996 May 14, Turkmenistan and
Iran opened a rail link.
(WSJ, 5/14/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 15, Republican
presidential candidate Bob Dole announced he was leaving he Senate
after 27 years to challenge President Clinton full time.
(AP, 5/15/97)
1996 May 15, Bishop Fabian
Bruskewitz of the Lincoln, Nebraska, diocese in a March diocesan
newspaper ordered Catholics to quit 12 proscribed groups or face
excommunication. The groups include: Planned Parenthood, Call to
Action, Catholics for a Free Choice, The Hemlock Society, and
Masonic organizations such as the Rainbow Girls and others.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-3)
1996 May 15, An asteroid about
a third of a mile across was detected and enroute to miss Earth by
only 279,000 miles on 5/19/96. Timothy Spar and Carl Hergenrother
discovered the asteroid and named it 1996 JA-1. It was traveling at
10 miles per second on a 4-year orbit around the sun.
(SFC, 5/19/96, p.A-2)
1996 May 15, In India the BJP
parliamentary leader, A.B. Vajpayee, was named prime minister. Pres.
Shankar Dayal Sharma asked the new prime minister to form a
coalition government by May 31. The BJP wants to build a nuclear
bomb and revoke the autonomy of the disputed territory of Kashmir,
India’s only Muslim-majority state.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 15, Serb. Pres.
Slobodan Milosevic voted to sack the rump Yugoslavia’s central bank
governor, Dragoslav Avramovic.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 15, The UN closed its
offices in Western Sahara due to a deadlock over election
registration. 4/5 of Western Sahara is under Moroccan
administration. The Polisario Front claims that Morocco is packing
the electoral rolls with supporters having only tenuous links with
the territory. Polisario has declared an independent republic and
said this is recognized by more than 70 countries.
(SFC, 5/15/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 16, The US Treasury
Dept. announced planned to issue a new type of government bond that
would protect investors from inflation and help government finance
the national debt. The new bond would offer returns that would rise
and fall in line with inflation.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 16, The US government
announced a plan to pay debt-strapped home-owners up to 30% of their
monthly mortgage payments thus easing the pressure on the country’s
bleeding banks.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-15)
1996 May 16, GM was expected to
pick Thailand over the Philippines for a $1 billion vehicle assembly
plant.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 16, US Navy Admiral
Jeremy "Mike" Boorda (57), the nation’s top Navy officer, died from
a self-inflicted gunshot wound after some of his military awards
were called into question. Boorda committed suicide shortly before
answering questions from Newsweek Magazine about his right to wear
certain combat pins.
(SFC, 11/25/96, p.A3)(AP, 5/16/97)
1996 May 16, Michael Lyons, (8)
of Yuba City, Ca., was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered.
Robert Rhoades (45) was arrested the next day near the boy’s body.
In 1998 Rhoades was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death.
In 2007 Rhoades faced another trial for the 1984 rape and murder of
Julie Connell (18) in Hayward, Ca.
(http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~archives/ABOLISH/may98/0531.html)(SFC,
3/12/07, p.B3)
1996 May 16, French unions
scheduled a series of strikes to protest Prime Minister Juppe’s
plans to eliminate thousands of civil service jobs.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 16, Indonesian
commandos rescued 9 hostages, members of a scientific team,
seized by separatists in Irian Jaya 4 months ago. 2 Indonesian
hostages were hacked to death during the raid.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-16)
1996 May 16, Romano Prodi was
named head of the center-left Olive Branch alliance that won April
elections. PM Prodi led Italy’s 55th postwar government with the
leftists in power for the first time in 50 years.
(WSJ, 5/17/96, p.A-1)(Econ, 11/26/05, Survey
p.10)
1996 May 16, Chevron said it
spilled as much as 17,000 gallons of oil into Pearl Harbor after a
pipeline sprang a leak.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-4)
1996 May 16, The US federal
government set aside 3.9 million acres of land in California, Oregon
and Washington state for the endangered marbled murrelet.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-14)
1996 May 16, UN and Iraqi
officials reached a tentative agreement to resume oil sales of $4
billion a year to buy food and medicine. The oil for food program
mandated that 13% of the UN resources go to northern Kurdish areas.
In 2004 it was reported that illicit trade agreements with neighbors
netted Iraq nearly $11 billion between 1990 and 2003. In 2004 the
estimate for illicit trade was raised to $21.3 billion. In 2008
Michael Soussan authored “Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash
Course in International Diplomacy,” in which he tells of his 3-year
close-up experience in the UN’s Oil for Food program beginning in
1997.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-9)(SFC, 9/3/01, p.A9)(SFC,
10/9/04, p.A15)(SFC, 11/16/04, p.A9)(WSJ, 11/14/08, p.A15)
1996 May 16, In Iraq a team of
Iranian agents were captured in Baghdad. They were on a mission to
assassinate Iranian guerilla leader Massoud Rajavi. Hassan Nedham
al-Malki, spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran,
said the team was armed with rocket launchers and a mortar an had
infiltrated through the marshes of southern Iraq.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-16)
1996 May 16, Sylvestre
Ntibantunganya, Burundi’s Hutu president, has called his army
"paralyzed and useless" and given it a week to stop ethnic violence
between Tutsi armed forces and Hutu rebels.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 17, D. Pipes reviewed
"The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years" by
Bernard Lewis.
(WSJ, 5/17/96,p.A-12)
1996 May 17, President Clinton
signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex
offenders move in. (Megan's Law, as it's known, is named for Megan
Kanka, a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was raped and slain in
1994.)
(AP, 5/17/97)
1996 May 17, Scott Brayton,
race car driver, was killed during a practice run for the US Indy
500 race. He was the 40th driver to die during practice,
qualifications or the race. 66 people in all have died in accidents
related to the race.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.B-1)
1996 May 17, Conservative
Social Democrats were sworn in as the British colony’s new
government. The new chief minister is Peter Caruana.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 17, Israeli troops
shot and arrested Hassan Salameh. He was accused of organizing 3
bombings this year that killed 43 and wounded 91. His family lives
in the Gaza Strip and claimed to have no idea of their sons
activities.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-11)
1996 May 17, Hutu gunmen
attacked 800 Zairian Tutsis who had taken refuge in a church. The
killed at least 12 and left 130 missing. Hutu refugees from Rwanda
have been conducting a campaign to drive out other ethnic groups in
eastern Zaire.
(WSJ, 5/17/96,p.A-1)
1996 May 17, This week huge
swarms of locusts swept through the Zimbabwe capital, Harare
(formerly called Salisbury). The insects had come up from
Mozambique.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-9)
1996 May 18, Louis Quatorze won
the Preakness.
(AP, 5/18/97)
1996 May 18, President Clinton,
seeking to deflect Republican criticism that he was weak on welfare
reform, endorsed Wisconsin's welfare-to-work plan in his Saturday
radio address.
(AP, 5/18/97)
1996 May 18, During the week a
series of eruption from the Montserrat volcano in the Soufriere
Hills sent a plume of ash and rock soaring 3,000 feet.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-9)
1996 May 18, India’s new
defense minister, Pramod Mahajan, said that military spending would
be increased and that India’s 350,000 member force in the Kashmir,
bogged down by Muslim insurgency, would be given "proper powers."
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-9)
1996 May 18, Sergeo Moreno
Perez, regional head of the Attorney General’s office in Baja was
found shot with his son on the outskirts of Mexico City.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-9)
1996 May 18, A 40 year
agreement was signed between Royal Dutch/Shell and Perupetro, Peru’s
state oil company. Royal Dutch will spend $2.7 bil to develop a
natural gas field.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.D-6)
1996 May 18, Biljana Plavsic
(66), vice president of the Bosnian Serbs’ self-proclaimed republic,
was chosen by Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to be his
representative to the international community.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-12)
1996 May 19, The Endeavour
Shuttle rocketed into orbit with six astronauts. One task was to
deploy an experimental antennae that would inflate and swell to the
size of a tennis court.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-2)
1996 May 19, In an astronomical
near hit, a large asteroid approached Earth within 279,000 miles, a
distance just greater than the moon, in a surprise to astronomers
who discovered it in midweek.
(SFC, 5/19/96, p.A-2)
1996 May 19, French troops
moved into Bangui of the Central African Republic to help quell an
army uprising and protect French citizens.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-9)
1996 May 20, The song Blue
composed by Bill Mack in 1963 for Patsy Cline was finally recorded
by 14-year-old LeAnn Rimes.
(WSJ, 8/29/96, p.B1)
1996 May 20, The Supreme Court
struck down, 6-3, a Colorado constitutional amendment banning laws
that protect homosexuals from discrimination. In another decision,
the court curtailed, 5-4, huge jury awards aimed at punishing or
deterring misconduct.
(WSJ, 5/21/96, p.A-1)(AP, 5/20/97)
1996 May 20, The US paid North
Korea $2 million to help recover the remains of US soldiers killed
during the Korean War.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-11)
1996 May 20, John Pertwee (76),
English actor (Dr Who), died.
(http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0675727/)
1996 May 20, Iraq and the UN
reached an agreement for oil sales in exchange for use of the
revenue in humanitarian aid.
(WSJ, 5/21/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 20, Dr. Eyyad Sarraj,
a Palestinian human rights advocate, was arrested after accusing the
Palestinian Authority of dictatorial rule and torturing prisoners in
the Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-9)
1996 May 20, In Malaysia timber
exports have reached $1.5 billion from the state of Sarawak in
north-central Borneo Island. The lives of the local Penans and other
forest peoples have been forever fractured. Half of Sarawak is zoned
for logging, 8% is to be permanently protected, and 42% is to be
stripped away for development.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-8)
1996 May 20, Public workers in
many cities of Germany staged warning strikes against the
governments proposed decrease in public spending.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 20, Giovanni Brusca
(36), believed by many to be the leader of the Italian Mafia, was
arrested in Sicily. He is charged with masterminding the murder of
Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three bodyguards in 1992 and of
leading teams that damaged the Uffizi museum in Florence with car
bombs in 1993.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-11)(SFC, 8/24/96, p.A12)
1996 May 20, Two French
soldiers were shot and wounded as they assisted French citizens to
evacuate from Bangui in the Central African Republic. Its the second
uprising by the army in two months and seven people have been killed
since fighting started.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-11)
1996 May 21, The US Congress
listed the California red-legged frog as an endangered species. The
year long moratorium blocking new listings by the Fish and Wildlife
Service ended last month.
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 21, The Alabama Dept.
of Corrections decided to stop chaining prisoners together after one
year due to security problems.
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A1,9)
1996 May 21, Al "Lash" LaRue, a
bullwhipping star of low-budget 1940s Westerns, died at 78. He had
performed in touring shows and attempted suicide in 1958. He was
arrested for possession of marijuana in the 1970s as a traveling
evangelist.
(SFC, 5/31/96, p.E2)
1996 May 21, Mary Perot Nichols
(79), journalist, died.
(www.upenn.edu/almanac/v42/n33/deaths.html)
1996 May 21, Bangladesh Pres.
Abdur Rahman Biswas accused the army chief. Lt. General Abu Saleh
Mohammad Nasim of ordering troops to march against the government.
There has been 2 presidents assassinated, 3 military coups, and 18
coup attempts since independence in 1971.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 21, A Tanzanian
ferry sank on Lake Victoria and at least 615 people, many of whom
were students, were killed. Pres. Mkapa called the sinking a
national disaster. The ferry, MV Bukoba with capacity for 441, was
traveling from Bukoba to Mwanza. 563 of the 663 aboard were presumed
dead.
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A8)(WSJ,
5/23/96, p.A-1)(AP, 5/21/97)
1996 May 21, The government of
Zambia adopted new constitutional amendments to prevent Kenneth
Kaunda from running for president. The amendments require that
candidates be at least second-generation Zambians. Kaunda is the son
of immigrants from Malawi.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)
1996 May 21, A bombing in New
Delhi, India, killed 25 people. Kashmiri separatists claimed
responsibility.
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 22, President Clinton
counterattacked against Republican criticism of his foreign policy
during a commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New
London, Conn.; the president then traveled to New York where he was
cheered by sailors from four nations aboard the USS Intrepid.
(AP, 5/22/97)
1996 May 22, Oklahoma, Texas
and Kansas suffered through a serious drought. Farmers have been
forced to abandon 11 million acres of winter wheat, half of the
Southern Plains’s harvest potential.
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 22, In Brazil a
consortium led by Houston Industries, AES Corp., and Electricite de
France purchased control of the state owned electrical utility Light
Servicos de Eletricidade SA for 1.7 bil. Light served 3 million
customers in and around Rio and was snapped up for $2.2 billion.
Service following the divestment was dismal.
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-16)(WSJ, 4/27/98, p.A1)
1996 May 22, The Burmese
military regime has jailed 71 supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi in a
bid to block a pro-democracy meeting. General Maung Aye, commander
and deputy chairman of the military regime warned that the
government will annihilate anyone who disturbs peace and
tranquility.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.C-1)
1996 May 22, China planned to
spend $10.78 billion on its telecommunications industry this year.
24,800 miles of optical cable were scheduled for install.
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-16)
1996 May 22, Iraq reached an
agreement with the UN to sell $2 billion in oil for 180 days to buy
food and medicine.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)
1996 May 22, Amnesty
International reported that Iraqi doctors were forced to cut off the
ears of alleged deserters and that Kenyan doctors were pressured to
ignore evidence of torture.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)
1996 May 23, The US House
approved, by a vote of 281-144, election-year legislation to raise
the minimum wage by 90 cents an hour.
(AP, 5/23/97)
1996 May 23, The Mt. Tabor
Baptist Church in Cerro Gordo, N.C., burned down. Arson was
suspected and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 May 23, In San Francisco
the Joe Goode Performance Group celebrated its 10th anniversary with
the opening of "The Maverick Strain," a spoken word and dance
performance that explores the renegade impulse in American culture.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.B1)
1996 May 23, Federal agents in
the Bay Area and Sacramento, Ca., began arresting agents of China’s
two main government-owned arms companies on suspicion of smuggling
2,000 illegal automatic assault weapons into the US. The smugglers
are representatives of China Northern Industrial Corp. (Norinco) and
Poly Technologies. Norinco reports to the State Council headed by
Premier Li Peng. Poly Tech operates under the Chinese army General
Staff, which reports to Chinese Pres. Jiang Zemin.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A1)(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)
1996 May 23, In Utah Ryan Tait
Eslinger, a paranoid schizophrenic, committed suicide with a gun
purchased at Kmart. His parents sued Kmart and were awarded $1.5
million in 2001.
(SFC, 9/14/01, p.A25)
1996 May 23, The Armed Islamic
Group said that it had killed 7 French Trappist monks who were
kidnapped two months ago from the Notre Dame de l’Atlas monastery at
Tibhirine near Medea on Mar 27. Only their decapitated heads were
found. In 2002 John W. Kister authored "The Monks of Tibhirine." In
2010 this story was covered in the French film “Of Gods and Men.”
(SFC, 5/24/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 2/19/02, p.A24)(Econ,
2/19/11, p.95)
1996 May 23, In Bangladesh as
many as 77 people were feared drowned in a sunken ferry after a
collision on the Jamuna River. More than 50 ferries have sunk since
1981 killing more than 1,000 people.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A11)
1996 May 23, In Mexico a
teacher’s march turned into a bloody confrontation with police and
40 teachers were injured. Pres. Zedillo later fired Police Chief
David Garay for his heavy-handed action.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A12)
1996 May 23, A North Korean
pilot flew his unarmed Mig-19 jet to South Korea. Capt. Lee Chul Soo
(30) was the first pilot to defect since 1983.
(SFC, 5/24/96, p.A12)
1996 May 24, President Clinton
underwent his annual physical at Bethesda Naval Medical Center,
where he had a precancerous lesion removed from his nose. On the
plus side, his weight was the same as the year before -- 216 -- and
his cholesterol count had improved from 203 to 191.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1996 May 24, The Pleasant Hill
Baptist Church in Lumberton, N.C., burned down. Arson was suspected
and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 May 24, International
Paper was removed as a component of the Dow Jones.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R46)
1996 May 24, A fire destroyed a
$5 mil. cooling tower at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in
Athens, Ala. At least three fires have occurred here since 1975. The
towers are used on hot days to cool water returned to the Tennessee
River.
(SFC, 5/234/96, p.A4)
1996 May 24, Alexandras
Lileikis (89) was stripped of his US citizenship for his role in
turning over Jews to the Germans in Lithuania from 1941-1944. In his
1949 application for citizenship he said that he only performed
administrative duties. 15 more cases are pending in federal courts
and 300 other cases are under investigation.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A2)
1996 May 24, Roger Truitt,
president of Atlantic Richfield Co. was pictured in negotiations
with Burmese General Khin Nyunt, head of the secret police.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A12)
1996 May 24, Chechen leader
Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin have agreed to
hold peace talks.
(SFC, 5/234/96, p.A14)
1996 May 24, In Paris a meeting
of 21 donor countries agreed to a $49 bil emergency bailout fund to
deal with future Mexican economic crises.
(SFC, 5/24/96, p.A14)
1996 May 24, In Turkey Prime
Minister Tansu Ciller said that her True path Party is pulling out
of the ruling coalition. This will give the pro-Islamic Welfare
Party another shot at power.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A11)
1996 May 24, Sheik Hamed Bitawi
said that Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin might issue a call to end
terrorist attacks against Israel. The leadership of Hamas would like
to move to a position as a democratic alternative to Arafat’s PLO.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A12)
1996 May 25 President Clinton,
honoring the men and women who died in military service, used his
weekly radio address to defend America's global military role,
saying it "is making our people safer and the world more secure."
(AP, 5/25/97)
1996 May 25, In the US Pastors
for Peace called off a hunger strike after reaching a deal with the
Treasury Dept over 395 impounded old computers that were destined
for medical clinics in Cuba. The computers were given over to the
General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church.
The board agreed not to ship the computers without a license, and
that if no license could be issued to donate the computers for
charitable purposes in the US.
(SFC, 5/26/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 25, Laurence Marks
(67), journalist, died.
(http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Obituary/1996/literature.html)
1996 May 25, Peter F. Ostwald,
psychiatry professor and writer, died. He published a biography of
Robert Schumann: "Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius"
(1993), he translated Schumann’s diaries (1993), and wrote: "Vaslav
Nijinsky: A Leap into Madness" (1991).
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A16)
1996 May 25, Bernard Charles
Sendall (83), deputy director general of Britain’s Independent
Television Authority (ITA), died.
(http://tinyurl.com/b7c2u)(SC, 5/25/02)
1996 May 25, In Bulgaria King
Simeon returned to his homeland. He may run for president but must
get waived constitutional requirement that candidates must have been
residents for the previous 5 years. He was forced into exile by the
communist rulers at age 9.
(SFC, 5/26/96, p.C-11)
1996 May 25, In China 2 mining
disasters killed nearly 80 people. In Hunan province a coal
explosion killed 46 with 38 missing. In Gansu province flooding in a
lead and zinc mine killed 33.
(SFC, 5/26/96, p.A-2)
1996 May 25, Renzo De Felice
(67), scholar and historian of Italy’s Fascist period, died in Rome.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A15)
1996 May 25, Drought has hit
Russia’s southern Stavropol region since March and forced farmers to
halt planting of crops.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A5)
1996 May 25, In Indonesia’s
southern Sumatran province of Lampung, villagers were being harassed
by herds of marauding elephants. The elephants had been driven from
their usual habitats by deforestation. Two people were trampled and
8,00 villagers in the Perwakilan Suwoh subdistrict have been
attacked.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A5)
1996 May 26, Buddy Lazier won
the Indianapolis 500.
(AP, 5/26/97)
1996 May 26, A police sergeant
searching the murky waters where ValuJet Flight 592 crashed into the
Florida Everglades, killing all 110 people aboard, found the crucial
cockpit voice recorder.
(AP, 5/26/97)
1996 May 26, This marked the
end of an exhibit of animal sculpture by Lu Huan, Chinese master
sculptor, poet, painter and calligrapher. He preferred to sculpt
small animals on pyrophyllite, an aluminum silicate, with varied
color layers to contrast the animal from the stone. His studio was
in Alameda, Ca.
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.44-45)
1996 May 27, An oil spill in
Galveston Bay stretched for 5 miles after a barge broke up that was
carrying 700,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil. The barge was owned by
Buffalo Marine Services Inc. Two months ago another Buffalo owned
barge broke up and spilled nearly 200,000 gallons that drifted 50
miles into the Gulf of Mexico.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A2)
1996 May 27, George S. Boolos,
Prof. of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, died at age 55. He was
president of the Association for Symbolic Knowledge and was known as
one of the originators of provability logic, the study of the logic
of statements and what can and cannot be proved within mathematical
systems. He was also an authority on the work of 19th cent. German
mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frege, regarded as the founder
of modern logic.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A16)
1996 May 27, David Malouf,
Australian writer, won the $151,000 Int'l. IMPAC Dublin Literary
Award for his novel "Remembering Babylon."
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.B5)
1996 May 27, In Albania
opposition parties accused the ruling democrats of election
irregularities and pulled out of the parliamentary voting process.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A7)
1996 May 27, Chechen leader
Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev and Russian leader Boris Yeltsin in their
first meeting agreed to a peace accord and prime minister Victor
Chernomyrdin signed the agreement with Yanderbiyev.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A1)(AP, 5/27/97)
1996 May 27, In Liberia the
military militias completed their withdrawal from Monrovia.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A8)
1996 May 27, In Syria the
latest of a series of explosions left a small crater outside the
walls of the Old City of Damascus.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C3)
1996 May 28, A US jury
convicted the former business partners of Pres. Clinton in the
Whitewater Case. James and Susan McDougal, and Jim Guy Tucker,
governor of Arkansas. Tucker was charged with creating a sham
bankruptcy to avoid paying taxes on profits from a sold cable TV
company in which he was a partner. Tucker resigned after the
verdict. He briefly reversed his decision, but finally stepped down
in July. In 1998 Tucker pleaded guilty to a felony charge of fraud
and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors of independent council
Kenneth Starr.
(SFC, 5/29/96, A1)(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(SFC,
2/21/98, p.A3)
1996 May 28, Jazz pianist and
composer Jimmy Rowles died at age 77.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A16)
1996 May 28, Eugenia Price,
American writer, died at age 79. She wrote historical novels for
women and her books were translated into 18 languages. Her "Beauty
for Ashes" made the NYT Best Seller List in 1995.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A16)
1996 May 28, Sali Berisha,
Pres. of Albania, banned an opposition rally. Many who defied the
ban were seriously beaten. Berisha was supported by Washington for
discouraging the Albanian majority in Kosovo from demanding autonomy
from Yugoslavia. He also allowed American military planes to access
Albanian air bases.
(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A7)
1996 May 28, The Hindu
nationalist government collapsed. An alliance of 13 parties was
named to replace it. H.D. Deve Gowda, leader of the left-of-center
United Front, was chosen as the next prime minister by ceremonial
president, Shankar Dayal Sharma. He had 2 weeks to form a new
government.
(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A7)
1996 May 28, In Indonesia Pres.
Suharto banned women from participating in beauty contests abroad.
(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A8)
1996 May 28, Sudan asked Muslim
militants to leave in an attempt to end UN diplomatic sanctions. The
UN imposed sanctions to force the turn over of three suspects in the
1995 assassination attempt on Egypt’s Pres. Mubarek.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. A-18)
1996 May 28, Ukraine’s
president fired his prime minister in a dispute over economic
reforms.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. A-18)
1996 May 29, The United Farm
Workers signed a contract with a major lettuce producer. A minimum
of 6.62/hr will be paid rising to 7.23/hr in 5 years.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.C1)
1996 May 29, The Endeavor space
shuttle landed after a 10-day mission. It went be overhauled for a
space-station assembly mission in 1997.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A5)
1996 May 29, Jeremy Sinden
(45), actor (Chariots of Fire, Ascendancy, Harem), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1996 May 29, A 15-year-old
Honduran girl spoke of sweatshop conditions under South Korean
owners in the production of clothing for the Kathie Lee Gifford line
for Wal-Mart. The National Labor Committee accused marketers such as
Eddie Bauer, J. Crew, and K-Mart of selling clothes made by underage
Honduran workers.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A5)
1996 May 29, Chechen rebel
commander Aslan Maskhadov sent a radio message to his forces to
refrain from attacks on Russian soldiers. A power sharing plan
defines Chechnya as a sovereign state within the Russian Federation,
giving it control over its finances and resources.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A8)
1996 May 29, Israelis voted for
the first time to choose a prime minister directly. The Nat’l.
Religious Party went from 6 to 10 seats in parliament, the Shas, a
strictly Orthodox party of Sephardic Jews, also went from 6 to 10
seats. The United Torah Judaism, an ardently Orthodox party of
Ashkenazi Jews retained its 4 seats. Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud party
leader, won the Prime Ministership over Prime Minister Shimon Peres
in a very close election.
(WSJ, 5/24/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A8)(AP,
5/29/01)
1996 May 29, Hundreds of Tutsis
crossed into Rwanda fleeing the fighting in Zaire. Thousands of
displaced Tutsis are behind them in the Masisi and Rutshuru regions
of northeastern Zaire.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A9)
1996 May 29, In Papua New
Guinea the 500 Bahinemo people and the several hundred Bitara people
were faced with the decision over whether to allow logging in their
2,300 sq. mls of primeval woodland.
(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A8)
1996 May 29, The army chief of
Sri Lanka offered a general amnesty to more than 20,000 deserters
and announced plans to recruit another 10,000 soldiers. He wants to
bolster the army of 100,000 to finish the 12-year war with Tamil
separatists.
(WSJ, 5/30/96, p.A1)
1996 May 30, The House called
off a contempt-of-Congress vote after President Clinton's aides
turned over 1,000 pages of papers and a long-sought list of
documents in the travel office firings.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1996 May 30, Veterinary
researchers have found a way to transplant testicular stem cells
from one animal to another and even from species to species.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A3)
1996 May 30, Britain's Prince
Andrew and the former Sarah Ferguson were granted an uncontested
decree ending their 10-year marriage.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, Par p.C2)(AP, 5/30/97)
1996 May 30, Suspected Hutu
rebels of the Council for the Defense of Democracy killed at least
61 and wounded 25 Tutsis in eastern Burundi.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)
1996 May 30, Voters in Northern
Ireland selected 110 members for a forum on negotiations to
determine its future status. Protestants want their British ties and
majority position secured. Catholic leaders want linkage with the
Irish Republic where they form the overwhelming majority.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A15)
1996 May 30, UN officials
confirmed the statement of Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic that
Bosnian Serbs were expelling Muslims from the Teslic area in central
Bosnia.
(SFC, 5/31/96, E1)
1996 May 30, Venezuela’s former
Pres. Carlos Andres Perez was convicted on corruption charges. He
was sentenced to prison for 28-months and fined for misappropriation
of $17 million from a secret security spending fund.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A12)
1996 May 31, California state
authorities officially advised the 900 residents of Chualar in
Monterey County, Ca., not to use tap water due to the accumulation
of nitrates from agricultural fertilizers and pesticides.
(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A1,6)
1996 May 31, Timothy Leary died
at 75 of prostate cancer. Some of his ashes were launched into space
with those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (d.1991) and 28
others. Leary was a big promoter of LSD, lysergic acid diethylamide.
He began using the drug while at Harvard with Richard Alpert, aka
Baba Ram Dass. He was arrested in 1969 for marijuana possession and
sentenced to 10 years, but escaped from captivity. In 1973 he was
caught in Afghanistan and returned to prison from which he was
paroled in 1976. In 2006 Robert Greenfield authored “Timothy Leary:
A Biography.”
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A1,7)(SSFC, 7/9/06, p.M3)
1996 May 31, Israeli warplanes
attacked a Hezbollah base in eastern Lebanon in retaliation for an
ambush that killed four Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)
1996 May 31, Benjamin Netanyahu
claimed victory in Israel's election for prime minister, defeating
incumbent Shimon Peres by nine-tenths of 1 percent.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1996 May 31, Tens of thousands
of teachers marched in Mexico City for a pay raise and to protest
the police crack-down on a previous march last week. Most teacher
salaries are about $400 per month.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A12)
1996 May 31, The Finnish food
company Raisio Group has invented a new product that blocks the
body’s absorption of cholesterol. The new "pharmafood" is called
benecol and based on a plant extract known as beta sitostanol, a
plant sterol extracted from Nordic pine trees.
(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.B3C)
1996 May 31, The Ex-Im Bank
said that it would not finance companies bidding on China’s massive
$24 billion Three Gorges Dam project on the Yangtze River due to
human rights and environmental issues.
(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.A1)
1996 May, The US government
released a draft proposal on computer security that was dubbed
Clipper III.
(Wired, 9/96, p.226)
1996 May, Uniroyal Chemical
Corp. agreed to be acquired by Crompton & Knowles Corp., a
specialty chemical maker based in Stamford, Conn.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, R45)
1996 May, Eddie Antar, founder
of Crazy Eddie, pleaded guilty on felony charges of falsifying
corporate records to inflate profits and manipulate stock price.
` (WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A1,8)
1996 May, Scientists detected
powerful bursts of gamma rays suspected to be from a super massive
black hole at the heart of the Markarian 421 elliptical galaxy. The
distance to the galaxy is 400 Million light years and it is far
larger than the Milky Way.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A10)
1996 May, Osama bin Laden was
driven out of Sudan under pressure from the Clinton administration.
His horse, “Swift Like the Wind,” was left behind. He had lived
there for some years running a construction company and allegedly
recruiting and training terrorists. Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a Saudi
Arabian-backed jihadist leader, invited bin Laden back to
Afghanistan and bin Laden returned.
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.A2)(SFC, 12/17/04, p.W4)(Econ,
9/17/05, p.40)(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A4)
1996 May, In Bolivia the
Inti-Raymi SA unit of Battle Mountain Gold of Houston accounts for
10% of the country’s annual export. It churns out more gold in its
open pit mine with 318 workers than the rest of Bolivia’s 20,000
small stakeholders.
(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-9)
1996 May, In Canada forms for
the national census went out. It is held every five years and this
year’s form included questions on housework, child and elder care
for the first time.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A5c)
1996 May, In Colombia Attorney
Gen’l. Orlando Vasquez Velasquez was arrested on charges of
accepting drug payments.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A12)
1996 May, In Denmark Motorcycle
gangs have waged a 2-year feud. Four people have been slain and 20
wounded in rivalry between local chapters and supporters of Hells
Angels and the Bandidos.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A11)
1996 May, The Hong Kong listed
Millennium Group, partly owned by the Tanuwidjaja family of
Indonesia, bought 25% of World Wide Golden Leaf, a tobacco company
owned by Ted Sioeng.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A22)
1996 May, Iraqi officials and
UN experts began dismantling a major biological weapons factory near
Baghdad.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C16)
1996 May, In Iraq Mohammed
Madhlum Dulaimi, an air force general accused of plotting to kill
Sadam Hussein, was executed. Members of the 1 million-member Dulaimi
clan led riots against security forces after the execution.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A11)
1996 May, In Nicaragua a
Fishing Defense Plan was created after pirates attacked 23 fishing
boats in coastal waters.
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.A26)
1996 May, In Romania Ilie
Alexandru, aka the J.R. of Romania, opened his copy of the Southfork
Ranch of the TV "Dallas" series in Slobozia as part of his Hermes
Vacation park.
(SFC, 6/16/96, Z1 p.5)
1996 Summer, The Santa Fe Opera
premiered "Emmeline" by Tobias Picker. It was based on a novel by
Judith Rossner.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 1, An estimated
200,000 participants, most of them schoolchildren, gathered at the
Lincoln Memorial to protest government cuts for social and
educational programs.
(AP, 6/1/97)
1996 Jun 1, A nine-dish array
of radio telescopes was dedicated in Shasta Ct., Ca. at Berkeley’s
Hat Creek Observatory. It has already detected large organic
molecules, including a hint of the amino acid glycene, in gas clouds
near the center of the Earth’s Milky Way galaxy.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A9)
1996 Jun 1, The bodies of
Julianne Williams (24) and Laura Winans (26) were found in
Shenandoah National Park, Va., a week after they were last seen
alive. Their hands were bound and their throats were slashed. Darrel
David Rice was indicted for the murders along with hate charges on
Apr 10, 2002.
(SFC, 4/11/02, p.A15)
1996 Jun 1, In Singapore the
government passed a Maintenance of Parents Law.
(WSJ, 9/17/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 1-30, The 7th annual
National Accordion Awareness month.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.B8)
1996 Jun 2, "Rent," "Bring in
'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk" and "The King and I" dominated the
1996 Tony Awards, each winning four prizes.
(AP, 6/2/97)
1996 Jun 2, Fire-fighters began
battling a blaze in Alaska that spread to 64 sq. mls after five days
50 miles from Anchorage.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A3)
1996 Jun 2, In the Czech
Republic the center-right coalition of premier Vaclav Klaus lost its
majority in parliamentary elections.
(SFC, 6/3/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 2, Sergio Palacios
Cruz and another contra rebel were killed near the village of Zapote
Dudu by the Nicaraguan army.
(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)
1996 Jun 2, Separatists in
northern Italy celebrated their growing campaign to split off from
the south on the 50th anniversary of the Italian republic. Umberto
Bossi is the head of the Northern League and founder of the
self-declared Republic of Padania. At a rally in Pontida, near
Milan, ministers in Bossi’s "government" swore allegiance to
Padania, a name derived from the valley of the Po. Their proposed
republic includes everything from Florence to the Alps.
(SFC, 6/3/96, p.A12)(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 2, In Bangkok,
Thailand, voters elected Pichit Rattakul, an independent
environmentalist, as mayor. The city is one of the most polluted in
the world.
(SFC, 6/3/96, p.A11)
1996 Jun 2, A list of the
countries that are considered the most corrupt by international
business people had the following top ten: Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya,
Bangladesh, China, Cameroon, Venezuela, Russia, India and Indonesia.
The top ten least corrupt were New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden,
Finland, Canada, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, the Netherlands and
Australia. The US was judged 15th least corrupt, worse than Israel
but better than Austria.
(SFC, 6/3/96, p.A11)
1996 Jun 3, The FBI pulled the
plug on electricity at the Freemen ranch in Montana in an attempt to
persuade the occupants to negotiate an end to the 71-day-old
standoff.
(AP, 6/3/97)
1996 Jun 3, During joint war
games in the Pacific, a Japanese destroyer mistakenly shot down an
American attack plane; two Navy aviators ejected safely.
(AP, 6/3/97)
1996 Jun 3, The Rising Star
Baptist Church in Greensboro, Ala., burned down. Arson was suspected
and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 3, In the Ukraine a
hepatitis epidemic has hospitalized nearly 3,000 residents of
Sevastopol so far this year. Also all nuclear weapons have been
transferred to Russia for dismantling. The US paid $267 mil for the
removal.
(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. B6D)(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. A1)
1996 Jun 3, In Chad Pres.
Idriss Deby led 15 candidates in the upcoming first multiparty
elections.
(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. A1)
1996 Jun 3, A recent
announcement was made that Hughes Electronics will take over the
Indianapolis Naval Air Warfare Center. The NAWC made the bombsights
that helped win WW II.
(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. A14)
1996 Jun 3, The government of
Bahrain said that 29 militants confessed last month to be trained by
Iran to topple the ruling Al Khalifa family and install a Shiite
Muslim government.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A11)
1996 Jun 3, Turkish soldiers
shot and killed a Greek Cypriot soldier in the no-man’s zone of
Cyprus.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A11)
1996 Jun 4, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin, campaigning for re-election, indulged in a bit of
onstage boogie at a pop concert for young voters.
(AP, 6/4/97)
1996 Jun 4, US and French
officials signed a secret agreement to share nuclear weapons
information and facilitate joint work between scientists.
(SFC, 6/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 4, The Organization of
American States criticized the US over the extension of the economic
embargo against Cuba with 32 co-sponsors. The US was the sole
dissenter.
(SFC, 6/6/96, C2)
1996 Jun 4, NATO foreign
ministers approved plans to shift focus toward intervention in small
regional conflicts and away from containing Russia, its primary
focus for 47 years.
(WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 4, In Burundi three
Swiss Red Cross workers were ambushed and killed while delivering
supplies near the village of Mugina. The Tutsi-dominated Uprona
Party denied any role and said the killings were the work of gangs
of the Coalition for the Defense of Democracy, the main Hutu rebel
group.
(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)(SFC, 6/6/96,
p.C3)
1996 Jun 4, The European Space
Agency Ariane 5 rocket was destroyed when it went off course during
take-off from Kourou, French Guiana. The $7 billion rocket had taken
10 years to develop and was to be capable of carrying 7.6 tons into
orbit.
(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)
1996 Jun 4, A report on China
focused on tens of millions of people suffering from iodine
deficiency. The effects of the deficiency has led to stunted lives
and intellects. Where goiter and cretinism are not visibly apparent,
chronic mental and physical fatigue and some degree of mental
impairment was widespread.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A13)
1996 Jun 4, In Nigeria Kudirat
Abiola, wife of imprisoned opposition leader Moshood Abiola, was
shot and killed by 6 gunmen near her home in Lagos. In 2011 Maj.
Hamza Al-Mustapha, right-hand man of dictator Sani Abacha, faced
trial for ordering a security agent to kill Kudirat. Al-Mustapha
denied taking part in her machine-gun killing, saying he was
tortured into a false confession.
(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C2)(AP, 8/9/11)
1996 Jun 5, Joseph Waldholtz,
the ex-husband of U.S. Rep. Enid Greene, R-Utah, pleaded guilty to
providing his wife false information for her taxes and to falsifying
spending reports from her congressional campaign.
(AP, 6/5/97)
1996 Jun 5, 2001 A Medicare
report predicted that the federal health system for the elderly
would be bankrupt by the year 2001.
(WSJ, 6/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 5, P. Terzian
reviewed: "Ain’t You Glad You Joined the Republicans," by John C.
Batchelor. The book is an anecdotal history of the Republican Party.
(WSJ, 6/5/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 5, Anglican Church
leaders chose Rev. Njongonkulu Ndungane to succeed Desmond Tutu as
the archbishop for southern Africa.
(SFC, 6/6/96, C3)
1996 Jun 5, The European
Commission decided to ease the ban on British exports over mad cow
disease.
(SFC, 6/6/96, C1)
1996 Jun 5, On World
Environment Day 210,000 hectares on the Masoala Peninsula of
Madagascar were proclaimed a national park, the 6th on the island.
(SFC, 6/23/96, zone 1 p.5)
1996 Jun 6, The Senate narrowly
rejected a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution as outgoing
Majority Leader Bob Dole and the Democrats clashed over deficit
reduction.
(AP, 6/6/97)
1996 Jun 6, A family of four
became the first persons to leave the Freemen ranch in Montana since
April, 2 children, their mother and common-law husband.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A10)(AP, 6/6/97)
1996 Jun 6, San Francisco
became the first city in the nation to sue the tobacco industry.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 6, John A MacLachlan
of Tulane Univ. led a study that showed that when pesticides are
combined, their potency may be increased a 1,000 times. The study
was to be published in the journal Science.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 6, Central Banks in
Britain, France and Denmark trimmed key interest rates.
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A11)
1996 Jun 6, The UN appealed for
contributions to N. Korea because of torrential rains that that have
wiped out crops and left half-a-million people homeless.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A15)
1996 Jun 6, The military regime
of Burma banned the weekly meetings at the house of Aung San Suu
Kyi.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A15)
1996 Jun 6, China agreed
conditionally to a ban on the use of nuclear explosions for civilian
projects.
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 6, Cuba announced
plans to create free trade zones on the island.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A15)
1996 Jun 6, More than 70
Eritreans, Ethiopians, and Sudanese were killed when their ship
caught fire near Dahlak Island off the Red Sea coast trying to slip
into Saudi Arabia from Eritrea. 33 survived and were admitted to
hospitals in Massawa.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 6, Yeltsin ordered the
Russian Central Bank to transfer $1 billion to the federal budget to
fulfill campaign promises to teachers, doctors, and the military.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 7, The Clinton White
House acknowledged it had obtained the FBI files of House Speaker
Newt Gingrich's press secretary, former Bush chief of staff James A.
Baker III and other appointees from Republican administrations,
calling it "an innocent bureaucratic mistake." Lawyers for Craig
Livingstone, in charge of White House security, had just issued a
statement that the reason for the episode was an outdated Secret
Service list.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A14)(AP, 6/7/97)
1996 Jun 7, The
Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church sanctuary in Charlotte, N.C.,
burned down. Arson was suspected and investigations by the FBI and
ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 7, Max Factor,
hairstylist, died at age 91. He started the Max Factor makeup
company that was bought out by Proctor and Gamble in 1991. In March
‘96, the Max Factor Museum of Beauty in Hollywood shut down.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A17)(www.deadoraliveinfo.com)
1996 Jun 7, David Rothenberg
met with his jailed father, Charles. The father had set David ablaze
with kerosene in 1983.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A17)
1996 Jun 7, IRA men killed one
police officer and wounded another in a robbery attempt in Adare,
western Ireland. Detective sergeant Jerry McCabe was killed with 15
bullets from a Kalashnikov. In 1999 Pearse McCauley and Kevin Walsh
were sentenced to 14 years in prison , Jeremiah Sheehy to 12 years,
and Michael O’Neill to 11 years. O’Neill was released in 2007.
Sheehy was released in 2008.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A8)(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A11)(AP,
5/15/07)(AP, 2/4/08)
1996 Jun 7, Choi Jong, a South
Korean adventurer, completed a walking trip across the Sahara Desert
after nearly 7 months. He climbed Mt. Everest in the 80’s and went
to the North Pole in 1991.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 7, In Mali the
administration of Pres. Alpha Oumar Konare was privatizing and
encouraging investment, foreign and domestic. The leading radio
station in the capital, Bamako, was owned by Modibo Diallo.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 7, In Cambodia it was
reported that Pol Pot was gravely ill or possibly dead. Pol Pot died
1998.
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A11)(SFC, 4/16/98, p.A1)
1996 Jun 7, There was a bomb
attack on the Moscow vice mayoral candidate. Valery Shantsev,
running mate of Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and supporter of Yeltsin, was
wounded and severely burned.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 7, Turkey’s Pres.
Suleyman Demirel again asked Islamist leader Necmettin Erbakan to
form a new coalition government.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A11)
1996 Jun 8, Editor's Note won
the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 6/8/97)
1996 Jun 8, Declaring racial
hostility was behind recent church fires in the South, President
Clinton said in his weekly radio address he would devote whatever
resources were needed to "smother the fires of hatred."
(AP, 6/8/97)
1996 Jun 8, Australian
swimmer Susie Maroney began to swim the 110 miles across the Florida
Straits to Key West from Havana, Cuba.
(SFC, 6/9/96, p.A-5)
1996 Jun 8, China set off an
underground nuclear test blast. The Australian Seismological Center
reported a nuclear test by China having a body wave magnitude of
5.7, a middle range explosion, in the Lop Nor area of Xinjiang
Province. This was the 44th test since 1964.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A11)(AP, 6/8/06)
1996 Jun 8, General Enrique
Salgado assumed Mexico City’s top police job and indicated that he
would appoint military officers to key public security posts. He
also said that he will stress citizen participation in forming
policy.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C16)
1996 Jun 9, White House Chief
of Staff Leon Panetta, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," said it
was wrong for an investigator to have obtained secret FBI files on
341 people, including prominent Republicans. President Clinton
agreed with Panetta that an apology was called for.
(AP, 6/9/97)
1996 Jun 9, The latest US
unemployment rate was 5.6%.
(SFC, 6/9/96, Par, p.9)
1996 Jun 9, Australian swimmer
Susie Maroney was pulled from the water about ten miles from the
Florida Keys, but officially in US waters.
(SFC, 6/10/96, p.A2)
1996 Jun 9, The court of Abu
Dhabi, UAR, acquitted 2 officials in the BCCI scandal but upheld
sentences against 8 and said they must pay $8.3 million in addition
to the original $9 billion in civil damages.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A9B)
1996 Jun 9, Police in southern
Guangdong Province in China have shut down production lines at 2
factories since May 30 that were making and processing video disks.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C2)
1996 Jun 9, Croatian police
announced the arrest of a Bosnian Croat, Zlatko Aleksovski, charged
with murder and mistreatment of Muslim prisoners. He is one of six
men charged with killing Muslims in the central Lasva Valley 3 years
ago.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C16)
1996 Jun 9, In Russia a rebel
spokesman said that the two sides have agreed on the withdrawal of
Russian troops from Chechnya by the end of August.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C2)
1996 Jun 9, An article
described the pulsar B1257+12, 1,300 light-years away, measured by
Alex Wolszczam. Measurements indicate a planetary system nearby.
Other stars with planets include 51 Pegasi, 70 Virginis, 47 Ursae
Majoris and 55 Cancri. It was later proposed that the evidence for
the planets was caused by energy waves circling their home star.
(SFC, 6/9/96, Par p.10-13)(SFC, 2/27/97, p.A6)
1996 Jun 10, The film “The
Rock,” starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, opened and took in
$25.1 million nationally.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.E1)
1996 Jun 10, The Colorado
Avalanche defeated the Florida Panthers 1-0 in triple overtime to
win the Stanley Cup in a four-game sweep.
(AP, 6/10/97)
1996 Jun 10, Rupinol,
(Rohypnol), also known as Rufi, is a drug that causes amnesia when
mixed with alcohol and is gaining popularity among young people. It
is sold over the counter in Mexico and other countries outside the
US.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C4)(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 10, US scientists led
by David M. Mehringer reported that evidence of ascetic acid
(vinegar) had been found in a cloud of gas named Sagittarius B2
North, some 25,000 light years from Earth.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A4)
1996 Jun 10, Intel released its
200 Mhz Pentium chip.
(www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickreffam.htm)
1996 Jun 10, Iran offered to
mediate between Bahrain and its Shiite opposition and denied any
involvement in the recent plot to topple the government of Bahrain.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 10, In Italy the
center-left government announced a new privatization calendar that
included the sale of stakes in insurance, banking, and oil
companies.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A9B)
1996 Jun 10, In Malaysia Irene
Fernandez, head of the human rights group Tenaganita, went on trial
for her 1995 published report on prison conditions of immigrant
inmates. 71 deaths have been caused by alleged abuse. She was
charged under a 1986 law that banned the publication of "malicious
allegations" against the government. Seven years later, she was
sentenced to one year in prison but appealed. In 2008 she was
acquitted.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A15)(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A8)(AP,
11/24/08)
1996 Jun 10, A report on Mexico
estimated that 800,000 children under 14 worked in different sectors
of the economy. The Mexican constitution and federal labor law
prohibits the employment of children under 14. Based on a 1990
census, the Sec. of Public Education estimated that 2.5 million
children between 6 & 14 do not attend school.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C3)
1996 Jun 10, Hezbollah
guerrillas killed 5 Israeli soldiers and wounded 6 in a dawn ambush
in south Lebanon.
(SFC, 6/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 10, Arafat’s
government detained Eyad Sarraj, head of the Independent Commission
for Citizen’s Rights. Sarraj says the Palestinian Authority is
corrupt.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun10, In Pakistan three
bombings killed 6 and injured 48 in Punjab Province.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 10, Yemeni troops put
down antigovernment protests in Mukalla, also the site of a 1994
civil war. Court charges that police raped a group of women appeared
to trigger the protests.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 10, In Spain the new
center-right government introduced sweeping economic measures. Taxes
were eased on small and mid-size companies, savings and job creation
were encouraged, the powerful professional guilds were weakened and
various markets liberalized, and double taxation for large foreign
companies was eliminated.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A9A)
1996 Jun 11, Closing a
congressional career that had lasted 3 1/2 decades, Bob Dole said
goodbye to the Senate to begin in earnest his campaign for the
presidency.
(AP, 6/11/97)
1996 Jun 11, Five American
Indian leaders sued the federal government after it was learned that
the Bureau of Indian Affairs could not account for about 15% of an
estimated $450 million held for some 300,000 Indians.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 11, A trade pact
between the European Union and Algeria was passed along with an
agreement to provide $3.6 million to help pay for elections in
Bosnia.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A15)
1996 Jun 11, Formosa Plastic
Group of Taiwan led by Y.C. Wang was planning to build 6 thermal
power plants in the coastal province of Fujian in China for an
investment of $3.8 bil.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 11, A rusty Russian
freighter carrying hundreds of Liberian refugees remained at sea
after Ghana refused to let it dock.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 11, A Chilean-based
fruit company signed a letter of intent to purchase Fresh Del Monte
Produce NV for $534 mil. A subsidiary of United Trading Company
Desarollo & Comercio SA of Santiago signed the letter. Mr.
Cabal, a banker accused in a massive self-lending scheme who fled
Mexico in 1994, remains a minority shareholder through a Netherlands
Antilles fund called Trumpet Vine where he and the state-owned
development bank, Nacional Financiera SA, placed an 8.5% equity
stake in 1992.
(WSJ, 6/12/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 11, S. Korea pledged
$3 mil in aid to N. Korea.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 11, A convoy of
Chechen rebel leaders was blasted by remote control bombs while
returning after negotiations with Russian counterparts.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 11, Lightning struck a
tank and started a blaze of 3 million gallons of gas at a Shell Oil
storage facility in Woodbridge, N.J.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A3)
1996 Jun 11, Federal agents
arrested 3 leaders and 15 members of the Genovese organized crime
family in New York.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A3)
1996 Jun 11, Scientists
reported the discovery of a new planet near the star Lalande 21185,
the 4th closest star to Earth, 8.1 light-years away. The nearest is
Proxima Centauri at 4.2 light-years. Analysis of the data indicates
that the planet is about the size of Jupiter and revolves around its
star every 30-35 years.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A3)
1996 Jun 11, A bomb ripped
through a Moscow subway and killed 12 people.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 11, Vietnam’s Deputy
Foreign Minister Le Mai (1940-1996) died. He was a junior member of
the team that negotiated US withdrawal in 1973 and chief architect
of the recent campaign for diplomatic relations with the
US.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.A25)
1996 Jun 12, Trent Lott of
Mississippi was chosen as Senate majority leader after Bob Dole
stepped down to run for president.
(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 12, A panel of federal
judges in Philadelphia blocked a law against indecency on the
Internet, saying the 1996 Communications Decency Act would infringe
adults' free-speech rights.
(AP, 6/12/97)
1996 Jun 12, The Mohave Desert
town of Hinkley, Ca., won a $333 million settlement from PG&E
for the leakage of high concentrations of chromium 6 from storage
tanks into the groundwater. The film “Erin Brockovich” (2000) was
based on the case.” In 2008 PG&E paid $20 million to settle the
last in a series of suits related to groundwater in Hinkley.
(SFC, 10/29/00,
p.A5)(www.salon.com/ent/feature/2000/04/14/sharp/print.html)(SFC,
4/4/08, p.B14)
1996 Jun 12, Nation of Islam
leader Louis Farrakhan said he has sent a team to Cuba to study the
country’s health and education systems. He praised the Castro regime
for the virtual elimination of illiteracy.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 12, In Spokane, Wa., a
US Bank branch was robbed a 2nd time and a Planned Parenthood office
was bombed. In 1997 three members of an anti-government militia were
convicted for the robberies and 3 bombings.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.C3)
1996 Jun 12, Ashley Taylor, the
lone minor (16) at the Freeman Ranch, left the compound.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.A4)
1996 Jun 12, Chechnya’s
pro-Moscow government refused to postpone elections for the local
parliament as called for in the recent peace talks.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C2)
1996 Jun 12, In Colombia the
lower house of Congress voted to absolve Pres. Ernesto Samper of
charges that his campaign was financed by drug traffickers.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1996 Jun 12, The Election
Commission of Bangladesh announced that the liberal Awami League of
Hasina Wajed won 126 seats, the centrist National Party 103 seats,
and the Jatiya Party 28.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C1)
1996 Jun 12, In Palestine, Eyad
Sarraj smuggled out a message from a Gaza City jail that said he was
being beaten and framed on drug charges.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1996 Jun 12, In Spain Judge
Jose Jimenez Alfaro lost most of his right hand when a letter bomb
exploded at his courthouse in Madrid. He had sent policemen to jail
for Spain’s "dirty war" war on Basque rebels in the 1980s.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1996 Jun 12, The UN passed
Resolution 1060, the 1st of many condemnations of Iraq's denial of
access to UN weapons’ inspectors.
(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1996 Jun 13, Bill Clinton, in a
speech endorsing a national effort against teen pregnancy, said:
"The other thing we have to do is to take seriously the role in this
problem of...older men who prey on underage women...There are
consequences to decisions and...one way or the other, people always
wind up being held accountable." [see Nov 15, 1995]
(www.zpub.com/un/billc-4.html)
1996 Jun 13, The US Supreme
Court ruled against racial gerrymandering. It was a reminder that
states cannot use race as the main factor in redistricting. The
ruling struck down four black and Hispanic districts in North
Carolina and Texas. The Supreme Court placed greater limits on
congressional districts intentionally drawn to get more minorities
elected to Congress.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A3)(AP, 6/13/97)
1996 Jun 13, The 81-day-old
Freemen standoff ended as 16 remaining members of the
anti-government group surrendered to the FBI and left their Montana
ranch. Five Freemen were found guilty in 1998 for various crimes
linked to armed robbery and possession of firearms. Four militants
were convicted in 1998 for plotting to defraud banks. Jurors
deadlocked on six defendants.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/13/97)(SFC, 4/1/98,
p.A2)(WSJ, 7/9/98, p.A1)
1996 Jun 13, Arizona Governor
Fife Symington was indicted on charges of making false statement to
financial institutions and using his office to free himself from a
$10 mil loan guarantee.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A3)
1996 Jun 13, A federal grand
jury indicted Sun-Diamond Growers of California on charges of
illegal gifts to former agricultural Secretary Mike Espy and
improper campaign contributions to Espy’s brother Henry. The giant
agricultural cooperative and its officers have contributed more than
$200,000 to California Gov. Wilson’s state and federal campaigns
since 1989. Richard Douglas, former VP of Sun-Diamond Growers was
convicted in 1997 of offering gratuities to Michael Espy in 1993 but
was acquitted of making illegal contributions to Espy’s brother.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A8)(SFC, 6/16/96,
p.B2)(SFC,11/26/97, p.A7)(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A1)
1996 Jun 13, The First
Missionary Baptist Church in Enid, Oklahoma was burned in what
appeared to be another race-related attack.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A3)
1996 Jun 13, In Austria about
$150 billion is deposited in 26 million numbered accounts in the
country of 7.5 million people. Many of the accounts are attributed
to new Russian immigrants and gangs. The state prosecutor, Wolfgang
Mekis, was put behind bars for trying to extort $600,000 from
Valentina Hummelbrunner, the onetime receptionist of former Soviet
Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C2)
1996 Jun 13, A Washington Times
report said that Chinese M-11 missiles have been deployed in
Pakistan in the last few months.
(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A1,4)
1996 Jun 13, A new report in
Nature announced that guinea pigs are on a distant branch from
rodents and deserve a class of their own.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Jun 13, A Burundi army
report claimed that 50 Hutu rebels were killed in an attack on a
training camp.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A16)
1996 Jun 13, Guatemala ratified
a UN pact on tribal peoples. The pact calls for respect of its
indigenous people, the Mayans, and consultation with them on
decisions affecting their economic and social development.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A16)
1996 Jun 13, An Indonesian
DC-10 skidded of a runway at the Fukuoka airport in Japan and burst
into flames. 3 people were killed, but 270 others were able to flee
the burning jet.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1996 Jun 13, In Indonesia the
Supreme Court restored a ban on the magazine Tempo for publishing
stories critical of the government.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A17)
1996 Jun 13, A report from
Kuching, Malaysia, told of Borneo’s 2nd high tech plant being cut
out of the tropical rain forest.
(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A6)
1996 Jun 14, The FBI disclosed
the White House had obtained bureau background reports on at least
408 people without justification.
(AP, 6/14/97)
1996 Jun 14, Money Magazine
ranked Madison, Wis., as the best place to live among the nation’s
300 metropolitan areas.
(SFC, 6/16/96, p.B10)
1996 Jun 14, A new medium
priced home in the US was priced at $135,800.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.B10)
1996 Jun 14, Two teams of
scientists announced the discovery of the human gene on chromosome 9
that may cause basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p.A2)
1996 Jun 14, In Belarus Victor
Gonchar, Lukashenko’s most active critic in parliament, was fired
upon by police.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 14, Leaders of Serbia,
Croatia and Bosnia signed an agreement to reduce arsenals of heavy
weapons.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 14, In Bulgaria
legislation was passed to give joint ventures at least 50% foreign
owned a five year tax holiday, and required that half of the
forgiven tax sums be invested in the same businesses.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 14, In Malaysia issues
that had blocked the building of the $6.02 billion Bakun
hydroelectric dam in Sarawak state on Borneo were resolved.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 14, Sumitomo Corp.
announced that it had lost $1.8 billion over the last ten years in
unauthorized trades done by head copper trader Yasuo Hamanaka. World
copper markets were thrown into turmoil following disclosure by
Sumitomo Corp. that a rogue trader had hidden multibillion-dollar
losses.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/14/97)
1996 Jun 15, The US Postal
Service began printing a breast cancer awareness stamp.
(SFC, 6/16/96, p.B1)
1996 Jun 15, Mary Ashley
(1931-1996), video and performance artist, died in San Francisco.
She helped found the ONCE Group in Ann Arbor, Mich., and had been
involved in the "correspondence art" movement and the Fluxus group
of artists.
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A4)
1996 Jun 15, A truck bomb blew
up in a retail district of Manchester, England, injuring more than
200 people at the Arndale Center mall in an attack claimed by the
Irish Republican Army.
(SFC, 6/16/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/15/97)
1996 Jun 15, Ella Fitzgerald
(78), jazz singer -the "first lady of song," died in Beverly Hills,
Calif.
(SFC, 6/16/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/15/97)
1996 Jun 15, UN weapons
inspectors gave up after a 5-day standoff with Iraqi authorities
over inspection of 4 sites for documents and other material relating
to weapons of mass destruction.
(SFC, 6/16/96, p.A11)
1996 Jun 15, In Yemen heavy
floods hit the country and more than 65 people were believed dead
and hundreds made homeless.
(SFC, 6/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 16, The Chicago Bulls
won the NBA championship, beating the Seattle SuperSonics in game
six, 87-to-75.
(AP, 6/16/01)
1996 Jun 16, Sportscaster Mel
Allen died in Greenwich, Connecticut, at age 83.
(AP, 6/16/01)
1996 Jun 16, In Afghanistan a
bomb exploded in a Jalalabad market and killed 4 people and wounded
more than 20.
(SFC, 6/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 16, Croats in Mostar
named Pero Markovic as the new president of Herzeg-Bosnia.
(SFC, 6/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 16, Members of a
Muslim party beat former Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic during a
northern Bosnia political rally. Leaders of Serbia, Croatia and
Bosnia signed an agreement to reduce arsenals of heavy weapons.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 16, In India monsoon
rainstorms battered southern India for 3 days and killed at least 85
people with 250 missing.
(SFC, 6/16/96, p.A11)
1996 Jun 16, IRA guerrillas
were caught making dozens of new bombs when police raided an arms
factory west of Dublin. Prime Minister John Burton made the
announcement ten days later.
(SFC, 6/26/96, p.A9)
1996 Jun 16, Russian voters
went to the polls in their first independent presidential election;
the result was a runoff between President Boris and Communist
challenger Gennady Zyuganov. Yeltsin won the July runoff.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A8)(AP, 6/16/01)
1996 Jun 16, In Zambia 15
soccer fans were crushed to death and 52 injured during a stampede
after Zambia beat Sudan.
(SFC, 6/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 17, ValuJet Airlines
suspended its flight schedule indefinitely after a federal
inspection found "several serious deficiencies" in the discount
carrier's operations. ValuJet resumed limited operations 15 weeks
later.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/17/97)
1996 Jun 17, Fires burned down
five more Southern churches.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 17, The John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation presented its annual "genius"
awards to 21 people selected by an anonymous team of talent scouts.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A2)
1996 Jun 17, In Liberia health
workers have dug up an additional 150 bodies, many of them headless,
along the beach at Mamba Point. Exhumations started 2 weeks ago and
about 500 bodies have been found and reburied.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A9)
1996 Jun 17, The US said it
will slap sanctions on $2 billion of Chinese goods if action is not
taken by the government against the manufacture of pirate compact
disks, videos and software.
(WSJ, 6/6/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 17, A World Health
Organization study said that more than 8 million babies die each
year worldwide before reaching their first birthday.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 17, The UN sponsored
Conference on Disarmament agreed to admit 23 new members, among them
Iraq, Syria, Israel, North Korea and South Africa.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 17, In New Zealand
Mount Ruapehu erupted.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A6)
1996 Jun 17, Sri Lankan troops
killed 15 Tamil Tiger rebels in the northern Jaffna peninsula.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 18, In California
Richard Allen Davis was convicted in San Jose, Calif., on all
charges in the 1993 kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas of
Petaluma.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A10)(AP, 6/18/97)
1996 Jun 18, Federal
prosecutors in California charged Theodor J. Kaczynski, the UNABOM
suspect, in four of the Unabomber attacks He was indicted by a
federal grand jury for two killings in Sacramento.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A10)(AP, 6/18/97)
1996 Jun 18, Two Army transport
helicopters collided and crashed during training exercises near Fort
Campbell, Ky., killing six and injuring 33.
(AP, 6/18/97)
1996 Jun 18, Heriberto Seda, a
28-year-old recluse obsessed with guns and the Bible, shot his
teenage sister in New York City. He later admitted to being the
Zodiac killer, guilty of murders from 1990. He was convicted Jun 24,
1998, and was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.C12)(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A3)(SFC,
7/23/98, p.A3)
1996 Jun 18, Bosnian Serb women
held 2 diplomats hostage and demanded action on 1400 Bosnian Serbs
who are either missing or held by Muslims and Croats.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 18, Netanyahu was
inaugurated as Israeli Prime Minister.
(www.jafi.org.il/education/jafi75/timeline8g.html)
1996 Jun 18, Boris Yeltsin
named Gen’l. Alexander Lebed to head the Security Council. Lebed had
won 14.7% of the vote in Sunday’s election. Yeltsin also fired his
defense chief, Grachev.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 19, Chief executives
from seven states, police, state attorneys general and members of
Congress met with President Clinton at the White House to discuss
ways of stopping the recent torching of black churches.
(AP, 6/19/97)
1996 Jun 19, New York City
police announced that a shooting suspect in custody had been linked
to the "Zodiac" shootings that terrorized New Yorkers in the early
1990's.
(AP, 6/19/97)
1996 Jun 19, In Angola a new
national army began to be formed.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 19, A new mandated
manpower list revealed that the Honduran army is comprised of 12,115
troops, including 12 generals and 2,013 officers. Soldiers in
Honduras are not allowed to vote.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.A9)
1996 Jun 19, The European Union
approved a British plan for wiping out "mad cow" disease.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 19, In Malaysia a
court order stopped work on the $5.4 billion Bakun Dam due to
violation of environmental laws.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 19, Mexico will repay
$4.7 billion of the $10.5 billion in US Treasury borrowings from
last year.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 19, A pending
application for membership in the International Air Transport
Association by North Korea could be accepted as early as next month.
(WSJ, 6/18/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 19, Boris Fyodorov,
former leader of Russia’s National Sports Fund, was shot and stabbed
on a Moscow street. He had been arrested on drug charges last month.
He was also chairman of the National Credit Bank, which used tax
breaks that cost the government $2 billion, to import cigarettes and
liquor. The Sports Fund has ordered an audit.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 20, The Clinton
administration announced it would veto the re-election of U.N.
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
(AP, 6/20/97)
1996 Jun 20, Westinghouse
Electric agreed to buy Infinity Broadcasting for $3.9 billion.
(AP, 6/20/97)
1996 Jun 20, Scientists
announced the identification of the co-factor involved in human AIDS
viral reproduction. Chemokin receptor-5, CKR5, is the name of the
HIV co-factor.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.A3)
1996 Jun 20, The recent issue
of Nature reported that fossil bones from 130-120 million ago were
found in a jungle streambed in northeastern Thailand of a 21 foot
tyrannosaur. It was named Siamotyrannus isanensis. The finding added
to evidence that tyrannosaurs evolved in Asia.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.C12)
1996 Jun 20, In 1996 there were
allegations of kickbacks from a 1988 European Airbus jets sale to
Canada. Swiss Bank records were sought in a corruption probe. Former
Prime Minister Mulroney filed suit for being named in the scandal.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 20, "Revolt Against
Modernity: Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and the search for a
Postliberal Order" by Ted v. McAllister was reviewed by Robert
Devigne. It discusses the modern political thinking wherein the
search for knowledge is directed by humanity to master its
environment.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 20, In Albania a court
convicted 3 top ex-Communist officials for deporting more than 70
dissidents when they headed regional Communist administrations. The
European Parliament urged Albania to hold another vote due to
balloting irregularities in the May 26 and Jun 2 elections.
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A14)(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A13)
1996 Jun 20, China was to
announce the convertibility of its currency, the yuan, for trade,
services, debt payment and profit repatriation by foreign companies.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 20, In Indonesia
fighting broke out when the army backed dissidents who wanted to
oust Megawati Sukarnoputri as leader of the opposition Indonesian
Democratic Party. Party members fought with troops in Jakarta in
support of Megawati who is seen as a threat to Pres. Suharto.
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 20, Yeltsin fired 3
aides. Alexander Korzhakov, head of his personal security force;
Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets; and Mikhail Barshukov, head of
a KGB successor agency.
(WSJ, 6/21/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 20, In northern
Nicaragua mediators began negotiations for the release of a group of
about 30 election workers recently kidnapped by 15 re-armed contras
and taken to Honduras.
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 21, Pentagon officials
said American troops destroyed an Iraqi ammunition depot in March
1991 that may have contained chemical weapons.
(AP, 6/21/06)
1996 Jun 21, The $46 million
Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art opened.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.D1)
1996 Jun 21, Good reviews for
the new animated Disney release of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 21, European leaders
agreed to gradually lift a global ban on British beef exports
imposed nearly three months earlier following a scare over "mad cow"
disease.
(AP, 6/21/97)
1996 Jun 21, In Cambodia Khmer
Rouge guerrillas held dozens of sawmill workers for ransom and
killed 14 of them with axes.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 21, In Nicaragua 33
election workers were released after being held for 2 days by
re-armed contras in Honduras.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A13)
1996 Jun 22, US Pres. Clinton
endorsed a national registry to track sexual predators as they cross
state lines.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 22, At their first
summit in six years, Arab leaders meeting in Cairo, Egypt, urged
Israel to prove its commitment to peace by resuming negotiations
without delay.
(AP, 6/22/97)
1996 Jun 22, It was reported
that scientists from Britain and Russia had discovered a freshwater,
underground lake beneath an Antarctic glacier about the size of lake
Ontario. The lake was believed to be a million years old.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A6)
1996 Jun 23, Congressional
Democrats unveiled a "families first" legislative package aimed at
winning middle-class voters and retaking Capitol Hill.
(AP, 6/23/97)
1996 Jun 23, The US defense
budget has dropped to $265 billion. The Russian defense budget has
dropped to $63 billion.
(SFC, 6/23/96, zone 1 p.6)
1996 Jun 23, Two newly
discovered planets were announced. One, 4 times the size of Jupiter,
revolves around the star Tau Bootes in the constellation Bootes in
3.3 days. The other, about 60% the mass of Jupiter, revolves around
Upsilon Andromedae every 4.6 days.
(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A18)
1996 Jun 23, Andreas
Papandreou, Greek Socialist Party founder and statesmen, died. In
1998 his son wrote his autobiographical novel "A Crowded Heart."
(USAT, 6/25/96, p.10A)(SFEC, 7/26/98, BR p.3)
1996 Jun 23, In the Philippines
a peace agreement was reached with Muslim rebels. Opponents fear
being under the administration of former rebels.
(SFC, 7/3/96, p.C3)
1996 Jun 24, A jury in
Philadelphia awarded $1.5 mil to the survivors of the MOVE cult
members for the May 13, 1985, fire that killed 11 people and was
begun from a bomb dropped by police on their rooftop.
(USAT, 6/25/96, p.3A)(AP, 6/24/97)
1996 Jun 24, The US Post Office
issued its James Dean stamp for its "Legends of Hollywood" series.
(USAT, 6/25/96, p.1D)
1996 Jun 24, In Israel
Netanyahu’s government approved another Jewish neighborhood in East
Jerusalem.
(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 24, In Panama a
coalition of human rights groups called for early elections saying
that the president and his party have lost authority to rule.
Attorney General Jose Antonio Sossa said that the law for punishing
individuals who accept drug money in political campaigns was not yet
in effect when drug money went to Pres. Balladares.
(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 25, At least 19
Americans were killed at a US base near Dhahran. Another 105
suffered serious injuries from a truck bomb estimated at 5,000
pounds at the Khobar Towers apartment complex adjacent to King Abdul
Aziz Air Base. About 5,000 US troops served in Saudi Arabia. US,
French and British aircraft resumed flying 100 missions per day over
southern Iraq from Saudi Arabia. In 1997 intelligence information
tied a senior Iranian intelligence officer to Hani Abd Rahim Sayegh,
a man who fled Saudi Arabia shortly after the bombing. In 1999 the
US threatened was set to deport Hani al-Sayegh to Saudi Arabia.
Sayegh feared torture and asked for US asylum. Sayegh was deported
Oct 10. In 2000 Ahmad Behbahani told a 60 Minutes journalist from a
refugee camp in Turkey that he proposed the Pan Am operation and
coordinated the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.
In 2001 13 Saudis and one Lebanese man were indicted for the bombing
that killed 19 American airmen and wounded nearly 400 others. In
2006 a US judge ruled that Iran financed the bombing and owes
families of those killed $254 million.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A22)(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.A14)(WSJ,
10/5/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/12/99, p.C16)(SFC, 6/5/00, p.A9)(SFC,
6/22/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/23/06, p.A1)
1996 Jun 25, Later reports said
that Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi billionaire, bankrolled the
bombing of the US base that killed 19 US servicemen. He was an
advocate of strict Islamic rule and had said that he would campaign
to overthrow the Saudi royal family. He had lived in the Sudan for 5
1/2 years and recently moved to Afghanistan and was accepted by the
Taliban. In 1998 a senior Saudi official absolved Iran of any
involvement in the bombing. In 2000 it was reported that the Bin
Laden family firm was awarded the contract to rebuild the Khobar
Towers.
(SFC, 3/7/97, p.A17)(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A12)(SFC,
11/18/00, p.A12)
1996 Jun 25, A report stated
that China had declared that foreign movies on TV can’t run for more
than 36 minutes between 6 and 10 p.m.
(WSJ, 6/25/96, p.A11)
1996 Jun 25, Yeltsin fired 7
top generals and ordered a pullout from Chechnya.
(WSJ, 6/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 26, President
Clinton and leaders of the world's other industrial powers gathered
in Lyon, France, for their annual economic summit.
(AP, 6/26/97)
1996 Jun 26, The Supreme Court
ordered the Virginia Military Academy to admit women or forgo state
support.
(AP, 6/26/97)
1996 Jun 26, Former White House
counsel Bernard Nussbaum took the blame for the FBI files
controversy; White House security chief Craig Livingstone resigned.
(AP, 6/26/97)
1996 Jun 26, The US Supreme
court gave political parties a free speech right to spend more money
for candidate promotion. The vote struck down a limit on party
spending enacted after Watergate in 1974.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A3)
1996 Jun 26, The US Senate
Science, Technology and Space subcommittee sent a live audio feed
over the Internet for the first time. The proceedings were on
on-line commerce and encryption software.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A3)
1996 Jun 26, The $1.6 billion
Galileo spacecraft was expected to fly to within 527 miles of
Ganymede, the largest moon of Jupiter. It was scheduled to
photograph Jupiter and four of its 16 moons.
(USAT, 6/25/96, p.3A)
1996 Jun 26, J. Lee Rankin,
solicitor general under Pres. Eisenhower, died. He presided over the
Brown vs. Board of Education case and served as chief council to the
Warren Commission.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.B6)
1996 Jun 26, In Afghanistan
guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, head of Hezbi-Islami, having
been eliminated as a military power, signed a peace pact with
Rabbani, and returned to Kabul to rule as prime minister. Hekmatyar
was a member of the dominant Pashtun group, unlike Rabanni and
military commander Ahmad Shah Massoud who belong to the Tajik ethnic
group. The Taliban militia launched an assault that killed 54 and
wounded 118 people.
(WSJ, 6/27/96, p.A1)(SFC, 9/23/96,
A12)(www.afghan-web.com/history/)
1996 Jun 26, In London a
running battle erupted after Germany defeated England on penalties
in the European soccer championships. 70 people were injured and 200
were arrested.
(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 26, Earl Spencer,
brother of Princess Diana, sold four of his titles to help finance
the family’s country estate. He sold the title "Lordship of
Wimbledon" for $336,450. It had been in the family since 1744. Other
titles for sale included The Manors of Upper Bodington, Newland
Squillers and Theddingworth.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.F3)
1996 Jun 26, In Dublin,
Ireland, reporter Veronica Guerin, who covered the city’s crime
world, was shot and killed at a traffic light ambush by 2 men on
motorcycle. In Nov, 1998, Paul "Hippo" Ward (34) was convicted for
the murder and sentenced to life in prison. John Gilligan and Brian
Meehan also faced murder charges. Meehan (34), king of the Dublin
cannabis dealers, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in
1999. Meehan received an additional 47 years for drug dealing and
weapons possession.
(USAT, 6/27/96, p.10A)(SFC, 11/28/98, p.A12)(SFC,
7/30/99, p.D3)
1996 Jun 26, At least 30
children died of acute kidney failure after taking contaminated
liquid acetaminophen made by a company in Haiti. Another 38 were
being treated for acute kidney failure. Glycerin from China was
contaminated with diethylene glycol as it was shipped to Haiti. It
was then used in children's medication that killed 86 people from
1995-1996.
(SFC, 6/26/96, p.A9)(AP, 10/27/06)
1996 Jun 26, In Libya some 1270
inmates were killed at Tripoli's Abu Salim prison after protesting
conditions there. They included more than 200 guards. Libyan
enforcer Abdullah Sanussi ordered Gen. Mansur Dao to carry out the
execution. Libya opened an investigation in 2009 into the incident.
The killings took place amid confrontation between the government
and rebels from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an Islamist
militant group which first announced its existence in 1995. In 2011
revolutionaries found their mass grave after getting information
from captured regime officials and witnesses. The body count was put
at 1700.
(www.hrw.org/en/node/87096/section/9)(Econ,
3/5/11, p.50)(AFP, 9/26/11)(Econ, 9/17/11, p.46)
1996 Jun 26, Palestinian
guerrillas ambushed Israeli soldiers in the Jordan Valley. They
killed 3 and wounded 2.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 27, President Clinton
and other Group of Seven leaders meeting in Lyon, France, pledged
solidarity against terrorism following a truck bombing in Saudi
Arabia that killed 19 Americans.
(AP, 6/27/97)
1996 Jun 27, A Dallas police
officer was charged with trying to hire a hit man to kill football
star Michael Irvin; Johnnie Hernandez later pleaded guilty to
solicitation of capital murder. He was sentenced to serve two
concurrent six-year prison terms, and was paroled in 1998.
(AP, 6/27/06)
1996 Jun 27, The GM North
Tarrytown Assembly Plant in NY produced its last minivan prior to
closure for the remaining 2,100 workers.
(WSJ, 6/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 27, A team of
scientists using the Hubble space telescope believe that they have
identified galaxies that were formed 14-7.5 Billion years ago. The
images, called the Hubble Deep Field, were made in Dec. and released
in Jan.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 27, Anne Marie Fahey
(30), the secretary of Gov. Thomas Carper, disappeared from
Wilmington after dining at a Philadelphia restaurant with Thomas
Capano. Capano, a prominent lawyer who had dated Fahey, was later
accused of her murder based on testimony from his two brothers, who
had helped him dispose the body. In 1998 Capano admitted that he
disposed Fahey’s body but insisted that her death was an accident.
In 1998 Capano testified that Fahey was shot accidentally by former
mistress Deborah MacIntyre, who denied the charge. Capano was
convicted by a jury on Jan 17, 1999. On Mar 16, 1999, Capano was
sentenced to death.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A4)(SFEC, 10/5/98, p.A5)(SFC,
10/27/98, p.A2)(SFC, 12/22/98, p.A2)(SFC, 1/18/99, p.A2)(SFC,
3/17/99, p.A2)
1996 Jun 27, Albert R. "Cubby"
Broccoli (87), film producer, died. Together with Harry Saltzman,
Broccoli produced the James Bond series of films. His forbears in
Italy invented the broccoli vegetable by crossing Italian rabe with
cauliflower.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.B6)(MC, 6/27/02)
1996 Jun 27, Mollie Beattie
(1947-1996), head of the US Fish and Wildlife Service from 1993,
died.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.B6)
1996 Jun 27, A report from
London said that the British Library had acquired Buddhist texts
that date back as early as the 2nd cent AD. The texts were believed
to be part of the canon of the Sarvastivadin sect, which dominated
Gandhara, now north Pakistan and east Afghanistan.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 27, Gay marriages were
legalized in Iceland.
(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 27, A report from the
World Health Organization said that South Africa has the worst
tuberculosis problem in the world and that drug-resistant forms
(XDR-TB) of the disease were spreading rapidly.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A12)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.58)
1996 Jun 27, In Turkey
thousands of troops poured into northern Iraq and killed dozens of
separatist Kurds.
(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 27, Ugandans voted for
a new parliament. 814 candidates ran as individuals.
(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 28, The Citadel voted
to admit women, ending a 153-year-old men-only policy at the South
Carolina military school.
(AP, 6/28/97)
1996 Jun 28, General Motors
planned to build cars in Silesia, Poland, after the approved
creation of a special enterprise zone and a ten-year tax holiday.
(WSJ, 6/28/96, p.A6)
1996 Jun 28, In the US a
federal advisory panel concluded that high doses of standard birth
control pills were safe and effective when used as "morning after"
pills following unprotected sex.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A9)
1996 Jun 28, The 20th Century
Fund reported that the American intelligence agencies spend $26
billion a year on machines and less than $3 billion on people to
analyze the information collected by the machines.
(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 28, A fire in a
Portland suburb apartment building killed 8 people. A 12-year-old
boy initially hailed as a hero for alerting people to the fire later
admitted that he had set the fire.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A7)
1996 Jun 28, Russian troops
began to pull out from Chechnya.
(SFC, 6/29/96, p.A13)
1996 Jun 28, In France
immigrants began a hunger strike at St. Bernard’s Church in Paris in
protest to new hard-line immigration policies.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A3)
1996 Jun 28, The UN Security
Council voted to extend the peacekeeper force in Haiti for 5 more
months.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 28, Pres. Askar Akayev
of Kyrgyzstan hoped to develop the Kumtor gold fields with the help
of Cameco, a Canadian mining firm out of Saskatchewan.
(WSJ, 6/28/96, p.A6)
1996 Jun 28, In Mexico a new
guerrilla group, The People’s Revolutionary Army (EPR), disrupted a
political meeting in the state of Guerrero.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 28, In Turkey
Necmettin Erbakan became the country's 1st Islamic prime minister.
His conservative Islamic Welfare Party would have to put together a
new coalition government. Erbakan formed a coalition government and
served as prime minister until resigning a year later after mounting
pressure by secularist military.
(WP. 6/29/96, p.A1)(AP, 11/4/02)
1996 Jun 28, In the Ukraine
Pres. Leonid Kuchma pushed through parliament, called the Rada, a
new constitution. It established a clear right to own private
property, and Ukrainian as the only state language.
(WP. 6/29/96, p.A20)
1996 Jun 28, Vietnam’s PM Vo
Van Kiet, Party General Secretary Do Muoi and President Le Duc Anh
were expected to stay put amidst rumors of leadership changes.
(WSJ, 6/28/96, p.A6)
1996 Jun 29, U.S. allies backed
President Clinton's demand that Bosnian Serb leaders indicted for
war crimes be forced "out of power and out of influence."
(AP, 6/29/97)
1996 Jun 29, "Unlimited Access:
an FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House" by Gary W. Aldrich was
recently published.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 29, The Biograph
Theater in Washington DC closed after 29 years of classic film
repertoire. It lost its lease and the space was scheduled to be
turned into a CVS drugstore.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.F1)
1996 Jun 29, New York
businessman B. Thomas Golisano was considering seeking the
presidential nomination of Ross Perot’s new Reform Party. Also
considering were Ross Perot and Colorado governor Richard D. Lamm.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 29, Dr. Oliver Howe
Lowry (b.1911), molecular biologist, died. He found a way to prepare
single nerve cells for study, invented a micro-balance and wrote an
early paper on the measurement of protein frequently cited in
scientific literature.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A20)
1996 Jun 29, A Hutu rebel group
in Rwanda, People in Arms for the Liberation of Rwanda (PALIR), has
offered a $1,000 bounty for the head of every American killed in
Rwanda. A $1,500 bounty was offered for US Ambassador Robert
Gribbin. The group was unheard of until earlier this month.
(SFC, 6/30/96, B7)
1996 Jun 29, In Colombia masked
gunmen killed at least 16 people in Medellin. The criminal gang
called Los Victorinos feuding with leftist urban militias was
suspected.
(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 30, President Clinton
paid tribute to the 19 killed and hundreds wounded in the truck bomb
attack in Saudi Arabia as he attended memorial services at Eglin Air
Force Base and Patrick Air Force Base in Florida.
(AP, 6/30/97)
1996 Jun 30, Forbes Magazine
ranked Bill Gates the richest man in the world with a fortune valued
at $18 bil. Warren Buffet, Omaha investor came in second with $15.3
bil. Of the 447 billionaires counted by Forbes, 123 were Asian.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A2)
1996 Jun 30, Bosnian Serb
leader Radovan Karadzic responded to international pressure to step
aside by handing his powers to an equally nationalist deputy.
(AP, 6/30/97)
1996 Jun 30, In Iceland Olafur
Ragnar Grimsson, a left-wing career politician, claimed victory in
presidential elections.
(SFC, 6/30/96, B7)
1996 Jun 30, The Irish
Republican Army confirmed that it had fired mortar bombs at a
British army base in the German town of Osnabrueck.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 30, In Turkey a young
Kurdish rebel disguised as a pregnant woman blew herself up in the
midst of a military ceremony and killed 9 soldiers.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 30, In Sao Tome and
Principe, a 2-island African nation, voters went 41% for incumbent
Miguel Trovoada and 39% for former Marxist ruler Manuel Pinto da
Costa. A runoff was scheduled for Jul 21.
(SFC, 7/3/96, p.C3)
1996 Jun, In San Francisco 55
representatives of the world’s religions met for talks on organizing
a United Religions.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, Z1 p.3)
1996 Jun, Massachusetts passed
a first-in-the-nation law to stop doing business with companies that
operate in Burma.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun, It was reported that
Seagram Co. had begun running TV ads and would later run radio ads.
Liquor makers had agreed voluntarily to stop advertising on radio in
1936. TV advertising was halted in 1948.
(SFC, 10/19/96, D1)
1996 Jun, Millions of mayflies
invaded Toledo, Ohio, and caused a massive power blackout when they
smothered an electrical generation plant.
(SFC, 6/29/96, p.C1)
1996 Jun, The Warner Bros.
Museum in Burbank, Ca., opened.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B4)
1996 Jun, Steve Allen was
awarded a lifetime achievement award "for cultivating the public
appreciation of critical thinking and science" by the Committee for
the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.B3)
1996 Jun, Ken Wise of the Univ.
of Michigan was awarded the Discover Magazine’s Award for
Technological Innovation with his development of neural probes so
tiny that they could stimulate or record signals from single nerve
cells in the brain.
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.19)
1996 Jun, Canada’s unemployment
rate jumped to 10%.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.A4)
1996 Jun, In Beijing 4 young
residents published "China Can Say No." It was very nationalistic
and soon became a best seller with a strident anti-American stance.
(WSJ, 9/19/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun, In mid 1996 Gen'l. Ji
Shengde, chief of Chinese military intelligence, ordered $300,000 to
be deposited in his bank account to subsidize secret contributions
to help re-elect Pres. Clinton. This information was later told to
US federal investigators by Democratic donor Johnny Chung.
(SFC, 4/17/99, p.A4)
1996 Jun, In India torrential
rains flooded 400 villages in the state of Rajasthan. Up to 500
people have died in the monsoon season.
(SFC, 6/29/96, p.C1)
1996 Jun, In Iraq there was a
coup attempt against Pres. Saddam Hussein. This coincided with the
placement of 9 covert CIA operators on a weapons inspection team
seeking to examine compounds maintained by the Republican Guards.
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.A9)
1996 Jun, In Israel Netanyahu
promised the Orthodox that his government would pass legislation
affirming that only Orthodox rabbis can perform conversions in
Israel.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C2)
1996 Jun, Yaron Ungar, an
American citizen, and his Israeli wife, Efrat, were killed as they
drove home from a wedding in Israel. In 2003 a US federal judge
ruled the Palestinian militant group Hamas must pay more than $116
million for murdering two Jewish settlers near the West Bank seven
years ago. The lawsuit was filed in 2000 by David Strachman, a
Providence attorney designated by an Israeli court to manage their
estate.
(AP, 7/3/03)
1996 Jun, In Japan the Diet
gave approval to set up a government council to formulate a proposal
for a new location for the nation’s capital.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.B12)
1996 Jun, In Lithuania a free
trade agreement was signed with Poland. An agreement was already
completed with Slovenia and talks were to begin soon with Hungary.
(DrEE, 9/21/96, p.1)
1996 Jun, In Mexico near Alamos
in southern Sonora state the 225,000-acre Sierra de Alamos-Rio
Cuchujaqui Flora and Fauna Protected Area was established.
(NH, 4/97, p.38)
1996 cJun, In Northern Ireland
Billy Wright, while in prison, was expelled from the Ulster
Volunteer Force for refusing to recognize a cease fire. He formed
the Loyalist Volunteer Force which went on to kill 3 Catholics in
1997.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A10)
1996 Jun, The Vietnamese trade
deficit for the first half of the year was projected to total $1.77
bil.
(WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A18)
1996 Jun-Jul, In Kazakhstan
swarms of locusts threatened 2 million acres of farmland in the
Atyrauz and Kokchetav regions and along the Caspian Sea.
(SFC, 6/29/96, p.C1)
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