Timeline 1996 July - September
Return to home
1996 Jul 1,
Placido Domingo became artistic director of Washington National
Opera (f.1956).
(www.dc-opera.org/aboutcompany/placidodomingo.asp)
1996 Jul 1, President Clinton
declared an emergency in drought-stricken parts of the Southwest.
(AP, 7/1/97)
1996 Jul 1, Twelve members of
an Arizona anti-government group, the Viper Militia, were charged
with plotting to blow up government buildings. The group was
infiltrated by Drew Nolan, an agent for the Federal Bureau of
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).
(AP, 7/1/97)(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A11)
1996 Jul 1, Actress Margaux
Hemingway was found dead in her Santa Monica, California, apartment;
she was 41.
(AP, 7/1/01)
1996 Jul 1, The world’s first
voluntary suicide law was scheduled to go into effect in Australia.
The Rights of the Terminally Ill Act originated in Darwin.
(WSJ, 6/27/96, p.A18)
1996 Jul 1, Draugas, the
Lithuanian daily newspaper published in Chicago, issued its first
English version edition and planned a weekly English edition.
(Dr, 7/96, V1#1, p.3)
1996 Jul 1, In Bulgaria there
was sharp increases in taxes, excise duties and electricity and fuel
prices.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 1, In China a new
regulation went into effect that called for films co-produced with
foreigners to apply for approval from the State Council before
filming begins.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.F3)
1996 Jul 1, In Sri Lanka Tamil
Tiger separatists ambushed an army patrol and killed 29 soldiers
while losing at least 35 of their own.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 1, In Uganda rebels
fighting for the return of Idi Amin killed 11 people in a nightclub
in Koboko.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 2, Electricity and
phone service was knocked out for millions of customers from Canada
to the Southwest after power lines throughout the West failed on a
record-hot day.
(AP, 7/2/97)
1996 Jul 2, US federal
officials announced the arrest of 12 members of a militia unit,
called Viper Militia, that had planned to bomb government offices in
the Phoenix area. On Dec 19 two members pleaded guilty to explosives
and weapons charges. On Dec 27 three more members pleaded guilty.
(WSJ, 7/2/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/20/96, p.A1)(SFC,
12/28/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 2, Seven years after
they shot their parents to death in the family's Beverly Hills
mansion, Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison
without parole.
(AP, 7/2/97)
1996 Jul 2, Actor Harry Morgan
(81) was charged with a misdemeanor spousal battery against his
70-year-old wife. He had played Colonel Potter in M*A*S*H.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.D4)
1996 Jul 2, Israeli planes
rocketed a Palestinian guerrilla base in Lebanon. The base belonged
to the Palestinian National Liberation Organization, a pro-Syrian
group under Col. Abu Musa, that split from the Fatah movement of
Yasser Arafat in the 1980s.
(SFC, 7/3/96, p.C3)
1996 Jul 3, Pres. Clinton
signed the Church Arson Prevention Act. It created a fund to help
rebuild churches that were destroyed by a recent spate of arsons.
(SFC, 6/23/99, p.A17)
1996 Jul 3, The Clinton
administration awarded a $1 mil grant to the Univ. of Alabama for an
experiment that would test for illicit drug use of everyone arrested
in Birmingham.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, US Secret Service
agents claimed to have broken up an operation by a New York couple
that used monitoring equipment to steal 80,000 cellular phone
numbers and id codes from motorists on an expressway that passed
their apartment building.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Lockheed Martin
Corp. won a $1 bil federal contract to build the next-generation
space shuttle.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, A jokester lit
firecrackers in a fireworks store in Scottown, Ohio. A blaze erupted
and 9 people were killed and 11 injured as they stampeded out.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)(AP, 7/3/97)
1996 Jul 3, A federal agency
approved the Union Pacific $5.4 bil acquisition of San Francisco
based Southern Pacific Rail Corp. The merger eliminated about 3,500
jobs.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Chad’s Pres. Idriss
Deby won 70% of the vote. He defeated Abdelkader Wadal Kamougue, a
southern leader who led coup in 1975. The election was widely seen
as flawed.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/29/01, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Russians went to
the polls to re-elect Boris Yeltsin president over his Communist
challenger, Gennady Zyuganov. Boris Yeltsin won the presidential
elections with about 53.7% of the vote. Zyuganov received about
40.4%.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/97)
1996 Jul 4, President Clinton
extolled the joys of democracy and asked the nation to honor
America's independence by praising continued free rule in Russia as
he spoke during a jamboree honoring the 200th anniversary of
Youngstown, Ohio.
(AP, 7/4/97)
1996 Jul 4, Koko, the first
gorilla to use sign language, turned 25 and asked for a box of
scary, rubber snakes and lizards.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A24)
1996 Jul 4, The film
"Independence Day," produced and co-written by David Devlin, was
released. It passed $100 mil in revenue in six days beating the
Jurassic Park record of 9 days.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.E4)(SFC, 7/10/96, p.E2)
1996 Jul 4, Hot Mail, a free
internet E-mail service began.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotmail)
1996 Jul 4, In Burundi
unidentified gunmen killed 80 people in an attack on a tea factory
15 miles northeast of Bujumbura.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, Floods and
landslides in China killed at least 121 people and forced 450,000
from their homes from Zhejiang on the east coast to Guizhou in the
southwest.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, China’s Pres. Jiang
Zemin began a 3-day to Kazakhstan, whose population numbered about
15 million. Zemin held talks with President Nazarbayev, and met with
Kazakhstan Parliament Lower House Speaker Ospanov and delivered an
important speech entitled "For a Better Future of Friendship and
Cooperation Between China and Central Asia". The two sides signed a
joint statement, the extradition treaty, the agreement on
cooperation between the People's Bank of China and the Kazakhstan
National Bank, the agreement on cooperation in quality control and
mutual certification of import and export commodities and other
documents.
(Econ, 1/30/10,
p.48)(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-05/21/content_879991.htm)
1996 Jul 4, In Panama police
arrested Jaime Revello, a top Colombian drug lord, and seized 4.5
tons of cocaine.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A13)
1996 Jul 4, In Sri Lanka a
suicide bomber killed an army commander and 20 others when she
leaped in front of a motorcade in Jaffna.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, In Switzerland the
defense ministry hoped to save $476,000 a year by pensioning off
7,000 carrier pigeons.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.C1)
1996 Jul 5, An essay by SB
Stewart discussed the history of Betty Crocker and showed the latest
8th Betty Crocker [General Mills advertising icon]. She was put
together from the features of 75 women from around the country.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A6)
1996 Jul 5, The US government
reported the nation's unemployment rate fell to a six- ear low to
5.3% in June 1996; nervous investors, fearing higher interest rates,
gave the stock market its worst beating in four months, sending the
Dow industrials down 114 points.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/5/97)
1996 Jul 5, An LA County woman
was identified as the first person in the US to carry the rare AIDS
virus strain known as Group O. She was discovered by epidemiologists
several months ago. Group O is only detected in 4 of 5 cases with
current testing methods. Blood supply tests will need to be changed.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A5)
1996 Jul 5, A report stated
that 740 metric tons of cocaine was being produced each year in
South America and that the US took in less than half.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 5, A cloned lamb,
named Dolly (d.2003) after Dolly Pardon, was born in Edinburgh
Scotland. The event was not announced until Feb 23, 1997 when it was
made public that researchers under Dr. Ian Wilmut at Edinburgh,
Scotland, created a clone lamb from adult sheep DNA. In 2001 it was
reported that Dolly suffered from arthritis, a sign of premature
aging.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.C1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A2)(SFC,
2/15/03, p.A2)
1996 Jul 5, The world’s 5 most
expensive cities were reported to be in Asia. Tokyo and Osaka kept
their No. 1 & 2 position while Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong
moved into the top 5.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 5, Vival Exports from
Vlora, Albania, was sending 6 tons a week of live frogs to Lyon,
France. "But how long will this resource last?"
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 5, In Colombia the
government released Jorge Luis Ochoa, aka The Fat Man, from prison
after 5 1/2 years for drug-trafficking.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 5, In South Africa
Anglo American Platinum Corp. fired an additional 7,000 striking
workers. That makes the total 28,261 fired workers since the strike
began Jun 25.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 5, In Tatarstan a new
law was enacted that will charge $800 for insulting the president.
Subsequent offenses could cost $1400. A printed insult could cost
$6,000.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A16)
1996 Jul 5, In Uruguay the
Fasano brothers, editor and publisher of the daily La Republica,
were jailed for 15 days for printing a story that Paraguay’s
president Wasmosy took payments from a hydroelectric project.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 6, President Clinton
announced the biggest changes in the rules governing meat and
poultry safety in 90 years.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1996 Jul 6, A Delta MD-88
jetliner's left engine blew apart during an aborted takeoff from
Pensacola, Fla., sending metal pieces ripping into the cabin,
killing a mother and her son.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1996 Jul 6, Steffi Graf won her
seventh Wimbledon title, defeating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario 6-3, 7-5.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1996 Jul 6, The 10th Lithuanian
Song and Dance Festival in the US was held in Rosemont, Ill., at the
Rosemount Horizon and featured 2,000 dancers before an audience of
7,000.
(Dr, 7/96, V1#1, p.5)(SFC, 11/9/96, p.4)
1996 Jul 6, It was reported
that a Brazilian fisherman, Nathon do Nascimento, choked to death
when a 6-inch fish jumped out of the water and into his throat
during a long yawn.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A17)
1996 Jul 7, Dutch tennis player
Richard Krajicek won the Wimbledon men's title, defeating American
MaliVai Washington 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1996 Jul 7, President Clinton
delivered more Whitewater trial testimony before video cameras, this
time testifying in the case of two Arkansas bankers accused of
making political contributions with bank funds; a jury later
acquitted Herby Branscum Jr., and Robert M. Hill of four counts and
was deadlocked on seven other counts.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of
a Big Mac in the US was $2.36. In Germany it was $3.22.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Par, p.17)
1996 Jul 7, In Ecuador lawyer
Abdala Bucaram, aka El Loco, was elected president with 54% of the
vote. He led the center-left Roldosista party.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 8, The Shuttle
Columbia landed after a record flight of 16 days, 21 hours, 48
minutes and 30 sec.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.A2)
1996 Jul 8, Hurricane Bertha
slammed into the US Virgin Islands with torrential rains and winds
that gusted to 105 mph.
(WSJ, 7/9/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/8/97)
1996 Jul 8, A 1975 JetRanger
Bell Helicopter crashed in Salem, Ohio and killed all 5 people
onboard.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 8, In Niger the
military ruler suspended the Independent National electoral
commission after early results showed him losing.
(WSJ, 7/9/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.8)
1996 Jul 8, In Northern Ireland
Michael McGoldrick Jr. (31), a taxi driver, was abducted and fatally
shot, two days after graduating from a Belfast university. He was
the first victim of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, an outlawed
Protestant gang that opposed Northern Ireland's peace process.
(AP, 4/5/06)
1996 Jul 9, The National League
won the All-Star game, defeating the American League 6-0 in
Philadelphia.
(AP, 7/9/97)
1996 Jul 9, Former Colorado
Gov. Richard Lamm began a drive for the presidential nomination of
Ross Perot's fledgling Reform Party.
(AP, 7/9/97)
1996 Jul 9, Attorney Melvin M.
Belli (b.7/29/07), King of Torts, died at 88 in San Francisco. He
authored the 5-volume work "Modern Trials," a classic on the
demonstrative method of presenting evidence.
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 9, "The Iranians:
Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation" by Sandra Mackey was
reviewed and panned by Abbas Milani, author of "Tales of Two Cities:
A Persian Memoir."
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B4)
1996 Jul 9, In Chechnya the
pre-election truce was shattered and the war has resumed.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 9, The Bosnian
federation approved the merger of the Muslim and Croat armies. This
clears the way for the US to begin training and shipping arms to
Bosnian troops.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 9, Mexico City’s
police chief announced that every top official in his department was
replaced with military officers. The move was made to break up
corruption and abuse in the old "brotherhood."
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 9, Turkey announced a
50% raise for its 1.5 million civil servants.
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 9-1996 Jul 10, In
Rwanda the Tutsi dominated army carried out an operation against
Hutu insurgents in Karago and Giciye villages and 62 people were
killed. The area was the home of the late Hutu president Juvenal
Habyarimana.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 10, Ross Perot said on
CNN he would make a second run for president if nominated by the
Reform Party, putting him in contention with former Colorado Gov.
Richard Lamm, who'd announced his candidacy the day before.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1996 Jul 10, In a tough speech
to the US Congress laying out conditions for Mideast negotiations,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Syria and
the Palestinians stop terrorists from attacking Israel.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1996 Jul 10, There was a report
on a Federal Reserve study on interest rates that describes a new
approach to monetary policy called "opportunistic disinflation." The
policy says that when inflation is low, policy makers should wait
for unforeseen recessions to make further progress against
inflation.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A2,6)
1996 Jul 10, In the US local
police in Redwood City, Ca., began testing a gunshot locator
apparatus.
(SFC, 7/11/96)
1996 Jul 10, A report by
TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring group reported that 20
million sea horses are caught and traded each year. China was
estimated to import 20 tons each year for use in traditional
medicines. Sea horse populations in the Indo-Pacific region have
fallen over 50% in the last 5 years. Sea horses mate for life and if
one of a couple is caught, the other refuses to breed again.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 10, The Khmer Rouge
attacked a government base in southwestern Cambodia. They were also
accused of killing 60 forestry workers kidnapped previously.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, A coalition of
Canadian groups threatened to boycott Florida unless the US relents
on the Helms-Burton law that imposed sanctions on foreign companies
that trade with companies expropriated by from the US by Cuba.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 10, In Malaysia
entrepreneur Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun was backing a new
development to rise above the Kelang River in Kuala Lumpur. Called
KL Linear City the plan called for a 24 year project that would
consist of a 1.24 mile-long, 10-story, tube-like structure. It was
disclosed as a footnote in Malaysia’s 75 year plan released in
April.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, A US congressional
committee urged the West African republic of Mauritania to free its
slaves.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, In Niger Gen’l.
Ibrahim Mainassara claimed electoral victory and immediately banned
opposition parties and public meetings.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, In Tajikistan
50,000 people have died since fighting broke out in 1992.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 11, A report stated
that Malaria infects 300 million people each year and kills 1.5 to
2.7 million. A drug, artemether, derived from a Chinese herb was
appearing to be as effective as quinine.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Jul 11, An Air Force F-16
jet trying to make an emergency landing slammed into a house in
Pensacola, Fla., setting the home on fire, killing a 4-year-old boy
and badly burning his mother. The pilot ejected safely.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/11/97)
1996 Jul 11, The Argentine
minister of justice, Rodolfo Barra, resigned his post due to his
past association as a teen-ager in the 60s with the anti-Semitic
group, Tacuara.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Jul 11, Two bombs ripped
apart buses in Moscow and injured at least 23 people. A Chechen link
was suspected but not proven.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 12, The House voted
overwhelmingly to define marriage in federal law as a legal union of
one man and one woman, no matter what states might say.
(AP, 7/12/97)
1996 Jul 12,
Hurricane Bertha hit North Carolina's Cape Fear near Wilmington,
then moved on to batter a string of coastal towns.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/12/97)
1996 Jul 12, Lee Guthrie Jr., a
member of the Aryan Republican Army, was found dead of an apparent
suicide in a county jail in Kentucky. The group advocated killing
Jews, deporting African-Americans and setting up a Bible-based
nation.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 12, John Chancellor
(b.1927), news reporter, died. He had been an anchor reporter on NBC
Nightly News from 1970-1982.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A5)
1996 Jul 12, Gottfried von
Einem (b.1918), Swiss composer, died in Oberdurnbach.
(www.einem.org/en/komp_ll.htm)
1996 Jul 12, The EU warned that
it would freeze US assets and impose visa requirements on Americans
if European companies are penalized for investing in Cuba.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 12, A divorce
settlement between Lady Diana Spencer and Charles, the Prince of
Wales was agreed upon. Diana would be called "Her Royal Highness"
and would receive about $22.5 mil plus an annual $600,000 to
maintain her private office.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 12, In Libya at least
20 people were killed in Tripoli at a soccer match. Bodyguards loyal
to the sons of Moammar Ghadafi fired at spectators who shouted
hostile slogans. A stampede resulted.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 12, In Northern
Ireland authorities relented and allowed the Orange Order to march
through the village of Drumcree.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 12, Russian banks were
undergoing a major shakeout. 2,132 banks were operating, a 20%
decrease since 1994.
(WSJ, 7/12/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 12, In southern Sudan
at least 700,000 people were facing starvation because of the
Khartoum government’s refusal to allow large-scale food aid.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Jul 12, Venezuela was
awarded a $1.4 billion credit from the Int’l. Monetary Fund.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13, After battering
the Carolinas, the weakened remnants of Hurricane Bertha moved
north, spawning tornadoes and dumping rain from Maryland to
Massachusetts.
(AP, 7/13/97)
1996 Jul 13, Hollywood producer
Pandro S. Berman (1905-1996) died. He produced Top Hat, Morning
Glory, The Blackboard Jungle, Swing Time, The Gay Divorcee, Shall We
Dance, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Gunga Din, Of Human Bondage,
National Velvet, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butterfield 8, Father of the
Bride and Move.
(SFC, 7/14/96, p.C8)
1996 Jul 13, Mt. Merapi volcano
in Java was about to erupt.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13, Winter storms
raged across South Africa and snowdrifts up to 8-feet high blocked
the main road from Johannesburg to Durban.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13, Tehran, Iran, was
invaded by thousands of lizards and snakes over the past three
months. Military exercises nearby or rising levels of groundwater
have been cited as possible reasons.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13-1996 Jul 14, In
Uganda more than 90 Sudanese refugees were killed in a camp 220
miles north of Kampala. The Lord’s Resistance Army was blamed.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 14, Fire crews battled
blazes covering more than 16,000 acres in California, Colorado,
Idaho, Oregon and Utah.
(AP, 7/14/97)
1996 Jul 14, In Afghanistan the
new prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, closed movie theaters and
banned music on TV and radio, claiming that they were repugnant to
Islam.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 14, If elections are
to proceed in Bosnia, Swiss foreign minister Flavio Cotti must
determine that they can be free and fair by this date. He is the
chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 14, In Northern
Ireland, a car bomb at the Killyhevlin Hotel in the town of
Enniskillen exploded and injured 17 people soon after the building
was evacuated; a group calling itself "Continuity" claimed
responsibility for the blast.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/14/97)
1996 Jul 15, Republican
presidential candidate Bob Dole picked New York congresswoman Susan
Molinari to deliver the keynote address at the upcoming GOP
convention.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, Arkansas Gov. Guy
Tucker stepped down following a felony conviction in the Whitewater
scandal. Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee became governor.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(Econ, 2/3/07, p.33)
1996 Jul 15, The stock market
took a tumble. The NASDAQ index dropped 43.11 points, its 2nd
largest decline since 10/19/87 when it dropped 46.12 points.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15 MSNBC, a 24-hour
all-news network, made its debut on cable and the Internet.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, An Algerian court
sentenced 128 Muslim militants to death in absentia for their
involvement in guerilla activities. Another 67 were sentenced in
absentia to life imprisonment.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 15, A Belgian plane,
Lockheed C-130, crashed during landing in the Netherlands and killed
32 people.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In India 58 Hindu
pilgrims died in stampedes during religious festivals at Ujjain, 465
miles south of New Delhi, and Hardwar, 125 miles north.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In
Israel/Palestine 135,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and
5,000 live in Gaza. About 160,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem,
captured from Jordan in 1967 and then annexed. New settlements were
being planned.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 15, In Nicaragua 6
soldiers were killed and one injured in an ambush in central
Matagalpa province.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 16, President Clinton
told the National Governors Association he was granting states new
powers to deny benefits to recipients who refuse to move from
welfare to work.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1996 Jul 16, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin met a day late with Vice President Al Gore, easing
some of the concerns about his fragile health.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1996 Jul 16, US states were
adopting laws that would allow drug users and their families to sue
drug dealers.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.B1)
1996 Jul 16, Handwriting
analysis tagged Newsweek columnist and CBS commentator Joe Klein as
the anonymous author of Primary Colors, a satire of the 1992 Clinton
campaign.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A2)
1996 Jul 16, Pres. Clinton
waived for 6 months sanctions on Cuba that would have allowed US
courts to sue foreign companies for the use of property confiscated
by the Castro regime.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 16, An ambush in
Algeria killed the former head of a militant Muslim group.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 16, Hong Kong
authorities arrested a US immigration agent on charges of smuggling
illegal immigrants through Central America. Jerry Wolf Stuchiner, a
19 year veteran, was found with forged Honduran passports at Hong
Kong’s Kai Tak Airport.
(SFC, 7/17/96, A7)
1996 Jul 16, Ukrainian Prime
Minister Pavlo Lazarenko escaped an assassination attempt. He
proceeded to the Donbass coalfields where 200,000 miners were on
strike.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 17, Interior Sec.
Bruce Babbitt signed an agreement to put 58 sq. miles of land in
Orange county under a new Natural Community Conservation Planning
program designed to protect entire ecosystems.
(SFC, 7/18/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 17, TWA flight 800
crashed off of Long Island, N.Y., shortly after leaving John F.
Kennedy International Airport and 230 people died. It was a
25-year-old Paris-bound Boeing 747 whose previous flight had been
from Greece. Later reports of a missile attack were tracked to a
Navy P-3 Orion flying at 20,000 feet as opposed to the altitude of
the Boeing at 13,600 feet. In 1997 the FBI issued a report that the
disaster was caused by an explosion in the central fuel tank and was
not the result of sabotage.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.A1)(SFC, 3/21/97, p.A7)(AP,
7/17/97)(SFC,11/19/97, p.A3)
1996 Jul 17, Scientists
discovered that the earth’s solid-iron core rotates 12 miles a year
faster than the liquid-iron outer core. The inner core grows about
an inch in radius every 50 years. A report was published in Nature.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.A1)(SFC, 7/18/96, p.A6)
1996 Jul 17, The Community of
Portuguese-Speaking countries was formed. It included Portugal,
Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Sao Tome
and Principe. Leaders then held their first summit meeting.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.E6)
1996 Jul 17-Aug 30, US Special
Forces trained Rwandan army soldiers in small-unit leader training,
rifle marksmanship, first aid, land navigation and tactical skills.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A11)
1996 Jul 18, Recovery efforts
continued off Long Island, N.Y., for the bodies of the 230 people
who died in the fiery crash of TWA Flight 800; President Clinton
urged Americans not to immediately assume the crash was the work of
terrorists.
(AP, 7/18/97)
1996 Jul 18, In Sri Lanka 4,000
Tamil rebels overran a military base 175 miles NE of Colombo and
overcame 1,200 defenders.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 19, The 26th
summer Olympics opening ceremonies began in Atlanta, Georgia. The
photo finish was computerized and in color for track and field
events. Beach volleyball was inaugurated as an Olympic sport.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/19/97)(SFC, 8/23/04,
p.C3)(NG, 8/04, Geographica)
1996 Jul 19, A Food and Drug
Administration advisory committee recommended, with some conditions,
that the abortion-inducing drug RU-486 be approved.
(AP, 7/19/97)
1996 Jul 19, Bosnian Serb
official Radovan Karadzic yielded to international pressure to give
up all political power after negotiations led by US envoy Richard
Holbrooke.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)(AP, 7/19/97)
1996 Jul 19, In China the
Yangtze River threatened to burst its banks. Workers used 500 tons
of rice in sacks to fill gaps in the banks. Millions were left
homeless and 716 were reported dead.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 19, In Sri Lanka Tamil
rebels sank an navy gunboat with 40 members. The Tigers claim to
have killed 500 government soldiers at the Mullaitivu camp.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 20, At the Atlanta
Olympics, Renata Mauer of Poland won the Games' first gold, in the
10-meter air rifle.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, In his weekly
radio address, President Clinton paid tribute to America's Olympic
athletes at the just-opened Atlanta games, as well as 16 high school
students from Montoursville, Pa., who died in the crash of TWA
Flight 800.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, A new sculpture
museum was scheduled to open in Copan National Park, Honduras, with
exhibits of Mayan work.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.25)
1996 Jul 20, In Spain the
Basque separatist group ETA set off 3 bombs at tourist sites. One at
the airport of Reus and 2 at the beach resorts of Cambrils and
Salou.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.A18)
1996 Jul 20, In Uganda rebels
of the Lord’s Resistance Army abducted some 80 people, half of them
students, 125 miles north of Kampala.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 21, There was a review
of "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, a historical
chronicle of the American punk-rock movement.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.B7)
1996 Jul 21, At the Atlanta
Olympics, swimmer Tom Dolan gave the United States its first gold,
in the 400-meter individual medley. The men's 800-meter freestyle
relay team also won.
(AP, 7/21/97)
1996 Jul 21, Dozens of memorial
services were held across the country to remember the 230 people
killed in the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(AP, 7/21/97)
1996 Jul 21, It was reported
that as many as 6,000 immigrants were naturalized as US citizens
every month in SF.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.B1)
1996 Jul 21, In Burundi Hutu
rebels killed 320 Tutsis, mostly women and children, at a refugee
camp 45 miles north of the capital.
(WSJ, 7/22/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 21, Danish cyclist
Bjarne Riis won the Tour de France. In 2007 he admitted to using
performance enhancing drugs to win the race.
(WSJ, 5/26/07,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Tour_de_France)
1996 Jul 21, Thirteen pounds of
explosives were hurled at the Hell’s Angel’s headquarters in
Copenhagen. Their compound consists of 5 buildings surrounded by a
10-foot fence.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A13)
1996 Jul 22, Friends and
families gathered on a Long Island, N.Y., beach for a tearful
memorial service dedicated to the 230 victims of the crash of TWA
Flight 800.
(AP, 7/22/97)
1996 Jul 22, In Pakistan a bomb
killed 9 at Lahore Int’l. airport in the Punjab province. It was the
13 bombing in the Punjab this year.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 23, At the Atlanta
Olympics, Kerri Strug made a heroic final vault despite torn
ligaments in her left ankle as the US women gymnasts clinched their
first-ever Olympic team gold medal.
(AP, 7/23/01)
1996 Jul 23, The US Senate
passed a welfare overhaul bill.
(AP, 7/23/01)
1996 Jul 23, In Toronto, a
police officer was charged with criminal negligence in the shooting
of a protester who became the first Canadian Indian in modern times
killed in a land dispute with the government.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1996 Jul 23, Canadian
researchers found a hormone, GLP-2, that stimulates growth of the
lining of the small intestine.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.B6)
1996 Jul 23, Jessica Mitford
(78), author of "The American Way of Death," died. The 1963 book was
an expose of the funeral industry in the US. Her attorney husband,
Robert Treuhaft, died in 2001. In 2001 Mary S. Lovell authored "The
Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family." In 2006 “Decca: The
Letters of Jessica,” edited by Peter Y. Sussman was published. In
2010 Leslie Brody authored “Irrepressible: The Life and Times of
Jessica Mitford.”
(SFC, 6/30/96, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 11/12/01,
p.A18)(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.M1)(SFC, 11/3/06, p.E9)(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.F7)
1996 Jul 24, Two bombs blamed
on Tamil separatists ripped through a commuter train near Colombo,
Sri Lanka, killing 64 civilians and wounding more than 400.
(WSJ, 7/25/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/24/97)
1996 Jul 24, it was reported
that 3 prisoners in Turkey have died during a hunger strike by 1,900
inmates in 33 prisons. The protests were for government transfers of
prisoners to remote locations and cancellation of visiting rights
for political prisoners.
(WSJ, 7/25/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 25, Divers searching
the wreckage of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, N.Y., recovered the
flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
(AP, 7/25/97)
1996 Jul 25, In Burundi the
military seized power and named former president Pierre Buyoya, a
Tutsi, as president. Hutu officials sought refuge in foreign
embassies. Burundian Hutus fled to Zaire's South Kivu province, base
of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy, an extremist
Burundi Hutu movement backed by Zaire.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Jul 25, Mexico said it
will repay $7 bil of the remaining $10.5 bil borrowed from the US
Treasury, partly through a $6 bil issue of securities.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 26, Amy Van Dyken
became the first American woman to win four gold medals at a single
Olympics as she captured the 50-meter freestyle in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/26/97)
1996 Jul 26, President Clinton
rejected a clemency plea from Jonathan Pollard, who'd spent more
than 10 years in prison for spying for Israel.
(AP, 7/26/97)
1996 Jul 26, It was announced
that researchers had devised a new small molecule that may be used
in pill form to replace large molecules which up to now needed to be
injected.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 26, Researchers
announced the discovery of a gene, fosB, associated with infant care
in mice.
(SFC, 7/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 26, UN sources said
that 268 Hutu civilians were killed in Burundi’s Gitega province.
The Tutsi army said Hutu rebels attacked a coffee factory in Giheta.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 27, The Santa Fe Opera
premiered "Emmeline" by Tobias Picker. It was based on a novel by
Judith Rossner.
(WSJ, 8/15/96,
p.A10)(www.current.org/prog613.html)
1996 Jul 27, American Gail
Devers won the women's 100-meter dash.
(AP, 7/27/97)
1996 Jul 27, A pipe bomb was
set off at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. One person, Alice
Stubbs Hawthorne (44), was killed and 111 injured. Eric Rudolph was
later charged with the bombing. He was arrested May 31, 2003.
Rudolph later pleaded guilty to the bombing.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1,3)(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A10)(SSFC,
6/1/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/27/08)
1996 Jul 27, The cruise ship
Universe Explorer caught fire in Alaska’s Inside Passage and 5 crew
members were killed and 76 people injured.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 27, Lee Lescaze,
journalist and editor, died of cancer. In 2007 Lynn Darling, his
widow, authored “Necessary Sins,” a chronicle of their life
together.
(WSJ, 6/2/07,
p.P9)(www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-797868.html)
1996 Jul 27, A ship carrying 69
people sank in the Indian Ocean off the Comoro islands near the
island of Mali. 5 survivors were found.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 27, In Burundi a
Tutsi-led army killed at least 30 Hutu rebels in retaliation for an
attack on a coffee plantation. Independent sources said that Hutus
set fire to the factory and rice plantation in Giheta to justify a
retaliatory attack on villages where Hutu rebels were thought to
have taken refuge. Villagers said Tutsi soldiers massacred about
1,000 Hutus as they roamed from village to village in Gitega
province.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 27, In Indonesia
soldiers raided the headquarters of Megawati Sukarnoputri. They
arrested 176 people and riots followed with 2 dead and 26 injured.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 28, President Clinton,
addressing a veterans convention in New Orleans, called on Congress
to pass expanded anti-terrorism measures.
(AP, 7/28/97)
1996 Jul 28, Federal
investigators reported "very good leads" in the hunt for the Olympic
bomber, a day after the explosion in Centennial Olympic Park in
Atlanta.
(AP, 7/28/97)
1996 Jul 28, Roger Tory
Peterson (b.1908), artist and ornithologist, died. His 1934 book, “A
Field Guide to the Birds,” revolutionized the study and appreciation
of birds in America. In 2008 Douglas Carlson authored “Roger Tory
Peterson.”
(WSJ, 3/1/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Tory_Peterson)
1996 Jul 28, In Kashmir, India,
a guard shot at 2 people who refused to move a motor scooter and a
bomb exploded that killed 6 and wounded 17 near the headquarters of
a Muslim group.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 28, In the Philippines
typhoon Gloria struck and killed at least 39 people on Luzon and
left 16 missing.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 28, Turkey reached an
agreement with prisoners to end a hunger strike after 12 inmates
died. Elsewhere soldiers clashed with Kurds and 16 died along with
28 Kurdish rebels.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D4)
1996 Jul 29, At the Atlanta
Olympics, Carl Lewis won the gold medal in the long jump, becoming
only the fifth Olympian to win gold medals in four straight games.
Michael Johnson won the 400-meter dash, Allen Johnson the 110-meter
hurdles.
(AP, 7/29/97)
1996 Jul 29, China held a
nuclear test explosion that it promised would be its last, just
hours before international negotiators in Geneva began discussing a
global ban on such testing. Beijing said it would seek some changes
in the global test-ban treaty currently being fashioned by
negotiators.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/29/97)
1996 Jul 29, In Kashmir,
India, a grenade exploded in a Muslim shrine that killed 2 and
injured some 100 people.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 30, The U.S. Olympic
softball team defeated China, 3-1, to win the gold medal.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1996 Jul 30, A federal law
enforcement source said security guard Richard Jewell had become a
focus of the investigation into the bombing at Centennial Olympic
Park. Jewell was later cleared as a suspect, and Eric Rudolph
eventually pleaded guilty.
(AP, 7/30/06)
1996 Jul 30, Claudette Colbert,
actress in many classic films, died in Barbados at 92.
(AP, 7/30/97)(WSJ, 7/31/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 31, After Pres.
Clinton's announcement that he would sign it, 98 Democrats joined
the House's Republican majority to pass a historic welfare overhaul
bill. The White House won agreement with key Republican lawmakers on
a package of anti-terrorism measures.
(AP, 7/31/06)
1996 Jul 31, Mahmoud Jumayal
died under interrogation by the Palestinian security forces. He was
the 8th in 2 years.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A8,10)
1996 Jul 31, In South Africa
rush-hour crowds panicked when guards used electric prods to drive
off fare-beaters. At least 15 died and 65 were injured in a
stampede.
(WSJ, 8/1/96 p.A1)
1996 Jul, James Fallows, author
of "Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy,"
was named the editor of U.S. News.
(WSJ, 9/9/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul, In Nevada Bruce
Weinstein, a professional gambler, was killed in his bed. His
decomposed body was found a month later in the desert. His
girlfriend, Amy DeChant, was charged in the crime. She was found in
Florida in 1998 hiding at the Sunnier Days nudist camp.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3,5)
1996 Jul, A 9,300 year-old
skeleton was found by the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wa. It became
known as the "Kennewick Man" or "Richland Man." A federal judge
ruled in 1998 that scientists be allowed to examine the remains held
by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Native American Indians wanted
the remains buried.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.B9)(SFC, 5/29/98, p.A3)(SFC,
1/14/00, p.A7)
1996 Jul, In Sydney Ivan Milat
(b.1944), Australian outdoorsman, was jailed for life for murdering
seven backpackers. Milat killed three Germans, two Britons and two
Australians between 1989 and 1992. Their bodies were later found in
shallow graves in a remote forest southwest of Sydney.
(http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Ivan-Milat)(AP, 1/27/09)
1996 Jul, In Bangladesh Grameen
CyberNet went live and offered Net connections to dialup customers
in Dhaka.
(Wired, 2/98, p.67)
1996 Jul, In Colombia
right-wing paramilitary forces under Carlos Castanos began
kidnapping the family members of left-wing guerrillas.
(SFC, 3/26/97, p.C2)
1996 Jul, In Egypt female
circumcision was banned but the prohibition was not incorporated
into the penal code.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Jul, In France Caroline
Dickinson, a 13-year-old British girl, was raped and strangled at a
youth hostel in the town of Pleine-Fougeres. In 1997 a DNA test was
planned to be performed on volunteers of the 170 young men in the
town who fit an age profile of the murderer.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A8)
1996 Jul, In India 21
lower-caste villagers were gunned down in Bihar by gunmen of Ranbir
Sena.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A11)
1996 Jul, In Mexico the
Congress passed constitutional amendments designed to control fraud
and reduce the advantage of the PRI.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul, The Nicaraguan
Sandinista Front’s Miami office was firebombed.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A12)
1996 Aug 1, In a political
victory for President Clinton, a federal jury in Little Rock, Ark.,
acquitted two Arkansas bankers of misapplying bank funds and
conspiracy to boost his political career; the jury deadlocked on
seven other counts.
(AP, 8/1/97)
1996 Aug 1, At the Atlanta
Olympics, Michael Johnson broke his world track record by more than
three-tenths of a second, winning the 200 meters in 19.32 seconds.
(AP, 8/1/97)
1996 Aug 1, In Kazakhstan
doctors warned of a surge in TB when 56,000 prisoners are released
under a government amnesty. It was estimated that 16,500 prisoners
had the disease.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 1, It was reported
that 1/5 of China’s river water can no longer be used to irrigate
land.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 1, In Somalia Mohamed
Farrah Aidid died from wounds in a gun battle with a faction headed
by his brother.
(www.cnn.com/WORLD/9608/02/aideed/)
1996 Aug 1, In Venezuela the
tax authorities increased the general sales tax to 16.5% from 12.5%.
There has been a 108% rate of inflation over the last 12 months.
Transparency Int’l., a Berlin base nongovernmental anticorruption
organization, rated Venezuela as the most corrupt country in the
Western hemisphere.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A11)
1996 Aug 2, Wall Street
investors, worried about possible interest rate increases, roared
their approval after the government reported that unemployment was
creeping higher, consumer spending had slipped and manufacturing may
have stalled.
(AP, 8/2/97)
1996 Aug 2, In Somalia Mohamed
Farrah Aidid was buried after dying from wounds received during
fighting in Mogadishu. Followers named his son, Hussein, as their
new leader.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 3, At the Atlanta
Olympics, the U.S. men's 400-meter relay, without Carl Lewis, failed
to win the gold medal, finishing behind Canada. The American women's
400 and 1,600 relay teams, and the men's 1,600, all won gold. The
U.S. men's basketball team beat Yugoslavia 95-69 to win the gold.
(AP, 8/3/97)
1996 Aug 3, In Denmark a
Gulfstream jet crashed and killed Copenhagen’s top military officer
and 8 others as it approached a Faroe Islands airstrip.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 3-4, In Malaysia there
was a nationwide power blackout that lasted 16 hours in some areas.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A5c)
1996 Aug 3-4, Sri Lanka’s
military said it killed some 200 Tamil separatist rebels in a
weekend battle. Rebels said 100 government soldiers were killed.
Both sides denied the others claims.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 4, On the final day of
the Atlanta Olympics, Josia Thugwane became the first black South
African to win a gold medal as he finished first in the marathon;
the U.S. women's basketball team defeated Brazil 111-87 to win the
gold; David Reid won the only boxing gold medal for the United
States. A three-hour closing ceremony of music, dance and light,
attended by at least 80,000 people, brought the games to an official
close with a final ceremony.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/4/97)
1996 Aug 4, In San Francisco
the Cannabis Buyer’s Club at 1444 Market St. was raided by agents of
the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement.
(SFC, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 5, In a bold bid to
capture a skeptical public's attention, Republican presidential
candidate Bob Dole proposed a $548 billion tax cut.
(AP, 8/5/97)
1996 Aug 5, US Pres. Clinton
signed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act. It held that foreign
companies with investments of more than $40 million in the oil and
gas sectors of these nations to be subject to US imposed sanctions.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 5, A jury in San Jose,
Calif., recommended the death penalty for Richard Allen Davis,
convicted of kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/5/97)
1996 Aug 5, "Divided They Fell:
The Demise of the Democratic Party, 1964-1996" by Ronald Radosh was
reviewed.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 5, In Chechnya rebels
began a new raid and seized much of Grozny by the next day.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 6, Officials announced
the Air Force had punished 16 officers in connection with the crash
that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others the previous
April.
(AP, 8/6/97)
1996 Aug 6, The US Naval
Academy at Annapolis expelled 15 midshipmen, 12 men and 3 women, for
drug use that included LSD and marijuana.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A3)
1996 Aug 6, GE Capital said it
would purchase First Colony in an $11 billion deal, one of the
biggest in the insurance industry.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Aug 6, NASA scientists
presented evidence that a meteorite from Mars (ALH 84001) that was
found in Antarctica in 1984 contained organic minerals such as
carbonate globules, magnetite, iron sulfide and polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons. In 2001 Imre Friedmann (1921-2007), extreme
microbiologist, led a team of researchers to study the same
meteorite and claimed conclusive evidence that Mars had been teeming
with life 3.5 billion years ago. Researchers in 2007 said the
organic material in the rock was made by chemical reactions.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A6)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.96)(Econ,
12/15/07, p.90)
1996 Aug 7, More than 6 million
American Online customers worldwide were left stranded when the
system crashed for almost 19 hours.
(AP, 8/7/97)
1996 Aug 7, There was a report
that cervical cancer in women was linked to the human papilloma
virus (HPV). There is an estimated 75 different strains of HPV and
that 97% of cervical cancers were due to the virus and commonly
spread by sexual intercourse.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A5)
1996 Aug 7, NASA researchers
formally presented their case for the existence of life long ago on
Mars. [see Aug 6]
(AP, 8/7/01)
1996 Aug 7, The presidents of
Serbia and Croatia agreed to establish diplomatic relations.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A11)
1996 Aug 7, In Honduras the
attorney general accused the army of spying on thousands of public
officials, judges, politicians and journalists.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 7, In Russia communist
leader Gennady Zyuganov was elected to lead a coalition of
Communists and nationalists under the banner of the Popular
Patriotic Union.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 7, In Spain flash
floods at a Pyrenees mountain campsite killed at least 71 [86]
people at a campground.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/7/97)
1996 Aug 8, President Clinton
belittled Bob Dole's tax plan, vowing to oppose tax cuts that he
said the country couldn't afford. Republican sources, meanwhile,
said Dole was seriously considering Jack Kemp to be his running
mate.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1996 Aug 8, Sir Neville Mott
(1906-1996), who shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in physics with Philip
Anderson and John van Vleck for research on the behavior of
electricity in non-crystalline or so-called "disordered" materials,
died in London.
(SFC, 8/11/96, p.D5)
1996 Aug 8, Medical researchers
successfully cured patients with sickle-cell anemia by using a risky
bone-marrow transplant technique.
(WSJ, 7/8/96,p.A1)
1996 Aug 8, In Cambodia the
government announced an internal power struggle and split in the
Khmer Rouge. Leng Sary, a Pol Pot chum and the Khmer Rouge foreign
minister, opposed Son Sen, the minister of defense and led
defections that grew to 10,000.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A13)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ,
4/17/98, p.A13)
1996 Aug 8, Food poisoning due
to E. coli bacteria in the city of Sakai, Japan, was attributed to
radish sprouts.
(WSJ, 7/8/96,p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, In Jacksonville,
Fla., a jury held the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Co. liable for
the lung cancer of Grady Carter and awarded damages of $750,000.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, Bob Dole telephoned
Jack Kemp to ask him to be his running mate; Kemp accepted.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1996 Aug 9, Frank A. Whittle
(89), inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(www.allstar.fiu.edu/aerojava/whittle.htm)
1996 Aug 9, In Burundi
suspected Hutu rebels killed 22 in Cibitoke province.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, Gambia voters
approved a new constitution that gave army ruler Yahya Jammeh the
mandate to hold elections.
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 9, In India there was
an incident of food poisoning caused by Clostridium botulinum. 106
people fell ill and 6 died after eating at a canteen in the
town of Bhiwandi, 80 miles north of Bombay. Seeds from a poisonous
weed also became suspect.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A20)(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, A weary-looking
Boris Yeltsin was sworn into his second term as president of Russia.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1996 Aug 9, Pyotr Karpov, a
Russian deputy agent in declaring whether state-owned firms should
be declared bankrupt, was charged with taking bribes in 1994 in
Saratov. He was arrested 2 weeks ago and sent to prison in Saratov.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Aug 10, US Sen. Bob Dole
completed the Republican ticket by announcing former housing
secretary Jack Kemp as his running mate.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/10/97)
1996 Aug 10, Cascading power
outages hit parts of nine Western states. [3:40 p.m. PST]
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A10)(AP, 8/10/97)
1996 Aug 10, In Tijuana,
Mexico, gunmen kidnapped a Japanese businessmen, Mamoru Konno of
Sanyo Video, and held him for $2 mil ransom. He was found released
on Aug 19 after payment of the ransom.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A10) (SFC,
8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 10, In the Philippines
Mount Canlaon erupted and killed 3 climbers. The mountain was one of
21 active volcanoes in the Philippines.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 11, The Reform Party
opened the first part of its two-stage convention in Long Beach,
Calif., with Ross Perot and Richard Lamm battling for the
presidential nod.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1996 Aug 11, It was reported
that a Greek Cypriot man was killed and 41 injured in a border
clash, after Greek Cypriot motorcyclists defied orders to halt a
rode across the line to protest Turkey’s 1974 invasion.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 11, In Indonesia
Budiman Sujatmiko, leader of the unauthorized People’s Democratic
Party, was one of ten people arrested. The government was
considering charges of subversion.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 11, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin appointed Alexander Lebed as his pres. envoy to Chechnya.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 11, In Turkey the
prime minister approved an agreement to buy $20 billion of natural
gas from Iran over 22 years.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 11, Rafael Jeronym
Kubelik (b.1914), conductor, died at age 82. He led the Czech
Philharmonic from 1941 to 1948 and the Chicago Symphony from
1050-1953. He was then musical director at London’s Covent Garden
opera house and from 1961-1979 headed the Munich orchestra of
Bavarian Radio. He was the son of Czech violinist Jan Kubelik.
(SFC, 8/12/96,
p.C5)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9046338)
1996 Aug 12, The Republican
Party opened its 36th national convention in San Diego by
celebrating Bob Dole as a tested, trustworthy leader who would lower
taxes and bring compassionate conservatism to the White House.
(AP, 8/12/97)
1996 Aug 12, "Inequality by
Design," due out in one month, was reviewed. It was produced as a
counter to the arguments of "The Bell Curve" and holds that social
policies, not IQ, are the main reasons for inequality.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A2)
1996 Aug 12, Mark Gruenwald,
the editor of Marvel Comics, died at 42. He requested that his ashes
be mixed with ink and used to print a comic book. In 1997 his
12-comic series of 1985, "Squadron Supreme," was re-issued in one
volume in a 4,000 copy printing according to his request.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A15)
1996 Aug 12, Stephen Kuttner
(1907-1996), Prof. of medieval church law, died. His life study
involved tracing the evolution of law from Roman to modern times.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C4)
1996 Aug 12, In Argentina
economy minister Roque Fernandez announced a new round of austerity
measures that included higher fuel prices and tax boosts on
everything. Cash will be raised by selling commercial airports,
military installations, nuclear power plants and cracking down on
tax-evasion.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Aug 12, On the shores of
Australia’s Cocos and North Keeling Islands thousands of thongs
(flip-flops) have been washing up on the shore as discards from
Indonesia.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.B1)
1996 Aug 12, Iran and Turkey
agreed to connect their power networks.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Aug 12, In Somalia it was
reported that 2 Ethiopian businessmen were killed in retaliation for
an incursion by Ethiopia’s army.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 12, In Rwanda the
Tutsi-led parliament passed a law allowing for trials of some 80,000
people on charges of genocide in the deaths of 500,000 people in
1994.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 13, At their
convention in San Diego, Republicans delivered a blistering critique
of President Clinton's record, portraying the Democratic incumbent
as an unprincipled liberal conning voters with election-year
conservatism.
(AP, 8/13/97)
1996 Aug 13, Mary Higgins
Clark, suspense writer, signed a 3-book contract with Simon &
Schuster for $3 mil per book.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.B2)
1996 Aug 13, Microsoft released
Internet Explorer 3.0.
(http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release33.html)
1996 Aug 13, In Belgium Marc
Dutroux, on parole following rape charges, was arrested for
kidnapping and the murder of 2 girls. In 2004 he was convicted of
kidnapping and murder. His wife and 2 accomplices were also
convicted.
(AP, 6/17/04)
1996 Aug 13, In Burundi the
last 2 commercial flights left the country as the outside world
tightened sanctions to punish the new military regime.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 13, In South Africa
Nadthmie Edries, leader of a group called People Against
Gangsterism, was charged with sedition in connection with the
vigilante slaying of a drug-gang leader.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 13, In Spain at
Perpignan a gang of masked men stole $800,000 in Spanish pesetas
from the cargo hold of an Air France plane.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 14, The Republican
National Convention in San Diego nominated Bob Dole for president
and Jack Kemp for vice president in an evening that featured a
talk-show-style testimonial by Elizabeth Dole, who strolled the
convention floor with a wireless microphone.
(AP, 8/14/97)
1996 Aug 14, Sergiu Celibidache
(84), Romanian conductor (would not use recording studio), died in
France.
(www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Celibidache-Sergiu.htm)
1996 Aug 14, In Cyprus another
man was killed in demonstrations when Turkish troops opened fire on
Greek Cypriot demonstrators.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 14, In India police
arrested a kitchen worker in a food-poisoning incident that traced
to poisonous seeds.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 14, An impasse on the
nuclear test ban treaty was reached when India refused to sign on
the basis that there was no commitment by the 5 acknowledged nuclear
powers to a timetable for disarmament.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 14, Iraq and Turkey
signed an agreement to improve political and economic ties.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C3)
1996 Aug 14, In Mongolia
officials sealed off parts of Ulan Bator to halt an outbreak of
cholera.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 14, In Peru, 35 people
were electrocuted when a stray rocket during a fireworks show
knocked down a high-tension line.
(AP, 8/14/97)
1996 Aug 14, In Russian Yeltsin
gave security chief Lebed the authority to control and coordinate
the operations of the army, Interior Ministry, Federal Security
Service and other agencies in Chechnya.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 15, Bob Dole claimed
the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in
San Diego, offering himself as the "bridge to a time of tranquility"
and describing himself as "the most optimistic man in America." Jack
Kemp became the Republican Party vice-presidential nominee.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/15/97)
1996 Aug 15, A botulism
outbreak began killing birds at the Salton Sea in California. The
sea is 278 feet below sea level and is now 10% more salty than the
Pacific Ocean. Extensive pollution with sewage from Mexico and
pesticides from farms in the Coachella valley plague the big lake.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.D8)(SFC, 9/3/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 15, Frederick
Davidson, a graduate student at San Diego State University, shot and
killed three engineering professors; he was later sentenced to three
life terms in prison.
(AP, 8/15/97)
1996 Aug 15, In Algeria armed
militants killed 17 passengers on a bus using a fake police
barricade on a remote highway.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 15, In Belgium two
kidnapped girls were rescued by police just days following the
arrest of Marc Doutroux. [see Aug 13]
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A14)
1996 Aug 15, In Nigeria 27 of
the 30 governors were sacked by Sani Abacha. The other 3 were
transferred to other states.
(WSJ, 8/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 15, In South Korea
some 6,000 police clashed with 7,000 students who protested for
reunification with North Korea and the removal of 37,000 US troops.
(SFC, 8/16/96, p.A17)
1996 Aug 16, A jubilant Bob
Dole set out from the Republican convention, promoting his tax-cut
plan as a boon to working families.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1996 Aug 16, The brokerage firm
E*Trade Group went public and saw its shares rise 7.1% on its first
day of trading.
(WSJ, 11/13/07, p.A21)
1996 Aug 16, In Brookfield,
Ill., a 3-year-old boy fell 15-feet into a concrete area of a zoo’s
gorilla exhibit and was rescued by Binti-jua, a 7-year-old gorilla
with her own 2-year-old on her back.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A3)(MC, 8/16/02)
1996 Aug 16, Eric Nesbitt (21),
an airman at Langley AFB, was shot and killed after he was abducted
and forced to withdraw money from an ATM machine by Daryl R. Atkins
and another man. Atkins scored 59 on an IQ test in 1998, below the
Virginia cut-off of 70 for retardation. In 2002 the US Supreme Court
ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded.
In 2004 Atkins scored 74 and faced another trial. In 2005 a jury
found Atkins to be mentally competent.
(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.A9)(SFC, 8/6/05,
p.A4)(www.vuac.org/capital/row.html)
1996 Aug 16, Dominican Rep.
Pres. Balaguer left office. Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna
(b. 1953), a 42-year-old lawyer who grew up in New York City, was
the 100th president of the Dominican Republic. He replaced
Joaquín Amparo Balaguer Ricardo (1906-2002), President of the
Dominican Republic from 1960 to 1962, from 1966 to 1978, and again
from 1986-1996.
(SFC, 11/25/96,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Balaguer)
1996 Aug 16, In Mexico Attorney
General Antonio Lozano fired 734 members of the Mexico City judicial
police in an attempt to reform the drug-fighting force. Police
official Jesus Carolla, was on the list, but resigned before being
fired.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A14)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C3)
1996 Aug 17, The Reform Party
in Valley Forge, Pa., announced Ross Perot had won its nomination to
be its first-ever presidential candidate.
(SFC, 8/18/96, p.A10)(AP, 8/17/97)
1996 Aug 17, An Air Force C-130
cargo plane carrying gear for President Clinton crashed and exploded
shortly after takeoff from Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming; eight
crew members and a Secret Service employee were killed.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/17/97)
1996 Aug 17, In Algeria more
than 100 militants shot, stabbed and hacked to death some 63 people
when they attacked 2 busses after setting a fake barricade. The
government denied the report.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 17, In Brussels,
Belgium, police led by Marc Dutroux unearthed the remains of two
8-year-old girls kidnapped in June of 1995.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A14)
1996 Aug 17, The first French
woman in space, Claudie Andre-Deshays, took off from the Baikonur
cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz-U rocket.
(SFC, 8/18/96, p.A2)
1996 Aug 17, It was reported
that 900 million South African bees died this year. The Cape bees
were introduced in the north and threw off the breeding patterns of
the native bees. They were unable to endure the harsher climate and
died. Fruit farmers and native plants were put into severe jeopardy.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 17, It was reported
that tens of thousands of dead rats were caught in fisherman’s nets
in India’s northeast Assam state. It was speculated that a rare
poisonous bamboo flower was the cause.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 17, In Mexico federal
prosecutor, Jesus Romero Magana (48), was killed. He was the first
prosecutor to interrogate the gunman who killed Luis Colosio, the
pres. candidate in 1994.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(SFC,
9/16/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 18, "Dinosaurs of the
Flaming Cliffs" by Michael Novacek was reviewed. It told of the
author’s work as a fossil hunter in the Mongolian valley of Ukhaa
Tolgod.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.5)
1996 Aug 18, "Where Wizards
stay Up Late, The Origins of the Internet" by Katie Hafner and
Matthew Lyon was reviewed.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.3)
1996 Aug 18, The film "The
Spitfire Grill" with Ellen Burstyn was the most popular movie at the
Sundance Film Festival. It was produced by a religious group,
Gregory Productions, owned by the Mississippi-based Sacred Heart
League.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, PM p. 2)
1996 Aug 18, On the eve of his
50th birthday, President Clinton was guest of honor at a trio of
events in New York that combined celebrating with fund-raising. Ross
Perot, the presidential nominee of the Reform Party, launched his
campaign with a speech in which he criticized the Republican and
Democratic parties as captives of special interests.
(AP, 8/18/97)
1996 Aug 18, In Pakistan 18
people were killed when 7 masked gunmen opened fire on a group of
Shiite worshipers in central Punjab province. 100 were injured. The
militant Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba, or Guardians of the Friends of
the prophet were blamed.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 18, In South Korea
police cut off food and medicine to students and raided the offices
of the largest student organization.
(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 19, Ralph Nader
accepted the presidential nomination of the Green Party in Los
Angeles, denouncing tax breaks for corporations and calling for a
"political alternative" to the two mainstream parties.
(AP, 8/19/97)
1996 Aug 19, A judge sentenced
former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker to four years' probation for his
Whitewater crimes.
(AP, 8/19/97)
1996 Aug 19, In Canberra,
Australia, protestors stormed the parliament in opposition to
changes in labor laws and proposed budget cuts to reduce the
nation’s debt.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 19, In Haiti about 20
former soldiers attacked the Port-au-Prince police headquarters. One
person, a shoeshine man, was killed and several injured.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 19, Jordan’s King
Hussein said 2 days of rioting over higher bread prices was quelled.
(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 19, A Russian
Ilyushin-76 carrying rescue flares and car wheels destined for Libya
crashed at Belgrade’s airport and killed all 12 aboard.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 20, Pres. Clinton
signed the federal minimum wage bill for an increase of .90 cents
per hour in two steps to $5.15 per hour over 13 months. It was the
first minimum-wage increase in five years. The bill included a
$5,000 tax credit for the cost of adopting a child. He also signed a
new retirement savings program for small-business workers.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A3)(AP,
8/20/97)
1996 Aug 20, Susan McDougal was
sentenced in Little Rock, Ark., to two years in prison in a
Whitewater fraud case. She served three months of that sentence, but
also 18 months for contempt for refusing to answer questions about
President Clinton.
(AP, 8/20/06)
1996 Aug 20, In Germany
officials arrested 2 businessmen suspected of smuggling computer
technology to Libya that could be used to make lethal nerve gas.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 20, In Burundi Pierre
Buyoya sacked his army chief, Jean Bikomagu, who was implicated in
the 1993 assassination of the first Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye.
He also fired 2 more powerful military officers.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)(SFC,
8/22/96, p.E5)
1996 Aug 20, In Haiti two
conservative politicians were killed in drive-by shootings.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 21, President Clinton
signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of
1996, aimed at making health insurance easier to obtain and keep.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.A3)(AP, 8/21/97)
1996 Aug 21, Today’s issue of
Science reported the 1,738 gene sequence of the organism
Methanococcus jannaschii that oceanographers in 1982 found in an
undersea volcanic vent and later classified as Archaea, distinct
from Prokarya and Eukarya.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A21)
1996 Aug 21, In Australia
rescuers worked to save some 200 pilot whales on the southwestern
coast near Dunsborough. Most were herded to sea but 14 died.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Aug 21, It was reported
that police in Oulu, Finland have come up with a 3-foot harpoon to
stop runaway drivers. The harpoon could also release tear gas if
necessary.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 21, In France
thousands marched in support of illegal immigrants and called for
the removal of newly appointed Interior Minister Jean Louis-Debre.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E2)
1996 Aug 21, In Nepal the
Communists called a general strike against the center-right
government.
(WSJ, 8/22/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 21, In Vietnam, The
Red River flooded to its worst level since 1971 and hundreds
were forced to evacuate.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Aug 22, Pres. Clinton
signed a welfare reform bill, the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act (welfare to work), to curtail fraud
and abuse that also set new standards for disabled children and
ended up eliminating many from supplemental security income. It
ended guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanded work from
recipients. It originated in the 1994 Republican "Contract with
America." It included a ban on free federal medical care for new
green-card holders during their 1st 5 years. The bill included
“Temporary Assistance for Needy Families” (TANF), which replaced
welfare.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A1,17)(AP, 8/22/97)(WSJ,
11/20/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 8/29/01, p.A1)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.46)
1996 Aug 22, The US Army began
operating an incinerator in Utah to destroy a 14,000 ton stockpile
of chemical weapons over 7 years.
(WSJ, 8/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 22, In Bahrain new
environmental anti-pollution laws went into effect.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Aug 22, Neo-Nazi Gary
Lauck of the US was sentenced to 4 years in prison in Germany for
supplying hate literature and paraphernalia for 2 decades.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 23, President Clinton
imposed limits on peddling cigarettes to children as he unveiled
Food and Drug Administration regulations declaring nicotine an
addictive drug. The same day, a jury in Indianapolis found cigarette
companies were not responsible for the lung cancer death of a
52-year-old lawyer who began smoking at age 5.
(AP, 8/23/97)
1996 cAug 23, The Nation of
Islam applied to the US Treasury Dept. for permission to accept a $1
bil donation from Col. Moammar Gadhafi that was promised to Rev.
Louis Farrakhan in Jan. to help America’s black people.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 23, It was reported
that British Petroleum signed a 3-year agreement with the defense
ministry of Colombia for $60 mil. for a battalion of soldiers to
protect expansion and construction of new drilling sites.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A20)
1996 Aug 24, Four women began
two days of academic orientation at The Citadel; they were the first
female cadets admitted to the South Carolina military school since
Shannon Faulkner.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1996 Aug 24, Steve Fossett
sailed across the Pacific Ocean and set a solo speed record of 20
days in his 60-foot 3-hulled boat, the Lakota.
(SFC, 8/25/96, p.B6)
1996 Aug 24, In Mozambique
crops in the fertile districts of Manica were severely damaged by an
invasion of red locusts.
(SFC, 8/24/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 24, In North Korea
American Evan Carl Hunzike was arrested for spying. He entered
illegally from China to get information on the domestic situation.
(SFEC, 10/7/96, A8)
1996 Aug 25, President Clinton
began a whistle-stop train trip in Huntington, W.Va., that would
take him to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/25/97)
1996 Aug 25, In China Dai
Houying, novelist, and her niece were knifed to death in Shanghai
during an apparent robbery. A former chef was later tried,
convicted and sentenced to death for the murders.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.E5)(SFC, 10/19/96, A12)
1996 Aug 26, There was a review
of Public Television’s new program "Adventures from the Book of
Virtues" based on the anthology by William J. Bennett "The Book of
Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories."
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 26, Democrats opened
their 42nd national convention in Chicago.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A4)(AP, 8/26/97)
1996 Aug 26, A new fake fat,
Z-trim, was announced. It was developed by a researcher of the US
Dept. of Agriculture.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 26, Barbara Jewell,
mother of security guard Richard Jewell, tearfully called on
President Clinton to clear her son's name in connection with the
Centennial Olympic Park bombing (Jewell was later cleared by the
Justice Department).
(AP, 8/26/97)
1996 Aug 26, Alexander Lanusse,
military president of Argentina (1971-73), died.
(http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Alejandro+Agust%edn+Lanusse)
1996 Aug 26, A Cuban court
convicted fugitive U.S. financier Robert Vesco of economic crimes.
He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for economic crimes against
the state.
(AP, 8/26/97)(SFC, 8/27/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 26, In Seoul, South
Korea, former Pres. Chun Doo Hwan was sentenced to death for mutiny,
treason and corruption. His successor, Roh Tae Woo, was sentenced to
22 1/2 years in prison. Nine leading businessman were also
convicted. They included Lee Kin Hee, chairman of Samsung Group, and
Kim Woo Choong, chairman of Daewoo Group.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 26, In Sierra Leone
rebels killed 31 villagers and 7 soldiers in the eastern village of
Foindu.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)(AP, 8/26/97)
1996 Aug 26, In South Africa
Eugene de Kock, former police colonel, was found guilty of 5 counts
of murder. He still face 116 charges that included 3 for murder.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 27, First lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton addressed the Democratic convention in Chicago,
forcefully making her husband's case for re-election while rebutting
her Republican critics.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1996 Aug 27, California Gov.
Pete Wilson signed an executive order aimed at halting state
benefits to illegal immigrants.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1996 Aug 27, In Indianapolis 4
police officers engaged in a fight outside the city’s Circle Center
mall. They were off duty and had just consumed a large amount of
beer in the city’s luxury suite at a ball game. They were later
tried for battery, disorderly conduct and public intoxication but
the 1997 trial ended in a hung jury.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A7)
1996 Aug 27, WorldCom announced
the acquisition of MFS Communications in a $12.4 billion deal.
WorldCom was formerly LDDS Communications and had gone public this
month.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(WSJ, 5/1/02, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, Actor Greg Morris
("Mission: Impossible") was found dead at his Las Vegas home; he was
61.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1996 Aug 27, In Bosnia the
municipal elections scheduled for Sep 14 were cancelled by the
American diplomat Robert Frowick due to widespread abuse of rules
and regulations.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, The last Rwandan
refugee camp in Burundi closed.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 27, In India plans
were made to amend the 1948 electricity laws to allow private
companies to enter the transmission sector and help shoulder the
investment needed to satisfy demand.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 27, Seven Iraqis freed
their 184 captives aboard a Sudanese airliner at the London airport
and asked for political asylum.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, Israeli police
tore down a youth center in Jerusalem’s Old City saying that it was
illegally built with money from Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, In Norway the 29
stave churches (1100-1400AD) left were under government protection
and threatened by arsonists of a Satanic movement.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Aug 27, Russian and
Chechen military commanders signed the Khasavyurt Accords, an
agreement for military disengagement.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)(USAT, 9/2/04, p.13A)
1996 Aug 27, South Korea was
reported to be the world’s 11th largest economy and America’s 5th
largest trading partner.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 27, The 450,000 strong
army of Turkey was the largest in NATO and the only one that was
exclusively Muslim.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 28, Democrats
nominated President Clinton for a second term at their national
convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1996 Aug 28, The UN introduced
the first world archive of prehistoric and primitive art with more
than 20,000 computerized images. The World Archive of Rock Art will
be curated by the Camuno Center for Prehistoric Art based in the
Alpine town of Capo di Ponte.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.B5)
1996 Aug 28, "Florence: A
Portrait," a book by Michael Levey, was reviewed. It was discussed
as an interpretive history of Medici patronage.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 28, The troubled
15-year marriage of Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana
officially ended with the issuing of a divorce decree in London’s
High Court. Under the terms of the divorce settlement, Diana was
stripped of her ‘Royal Highness’ title.
(AP, 8/28/97)(HTNet, 8/28/99)
1996 Aug 28, China accused the
US of aiding Taiwanese separatism by selling Stinger antiaircraft
missiles and other weapons to the Taipei government.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 28, In China Mou
Qizhong, head of the Land Economic Group, was being pressured by the
government to repay up to $50 million in overdue loans. He was also
the proponent for listing China’s 13,700 large state-owned
enterprises on the New York Stock Exchange. However the state has a
minimum 7.65% upfront payment law to take 51% control of a joint
venture.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A1,4)
1996 Aug 28, In Mexico the EPR
struck at government targets in 6 states and left at least 6 dead
and 28 injured.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 28, In Poland
Agnieszka Kotlarska, fashion model, was knifed and killed by a thief
outside her home.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 28, South Africa
announced an investigation into the killings that have left 25
miners dead in the recent weeks at 4 gold fields.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 29, In a rousing
climax to the Democratic convention in Chicago, President Clinton
appealed for a second term, declaring, "Hope is back in America."
The convention also nominated Al Gore for a second term as vice
president. Earlier in the day, President Clinton's chief political
strategist, Dick Morris, resigned amid a scandal over his
relationship with a prostitute.
(AP, 8/29/97)
1996 Aug 29, A Russian Tupelov
154 plane with 141 passengers crashed on a desolate arctic island 6
miles from Spitsbergen where they were returning to jobs in a
Russian-run coal mine.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 29, Green Party
presidential candidate Ralph Nader chose Winona LaDuke as his
running mate.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A3)
1996 Aug 29, Researchers
reported that gene therapy was used to halt the growth of some
cancer tumors. The therapy centered on the p53 gene, which regulates
the speed of cell division.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A1,15)
1996 Aug 29, Japanese
authorities arrested Dr. Takeshi Abe, a hemophilia expert, who
headed a government panel on AIDS in the 1980s when some 1,800
hemophiliacs were infected with AIDS after using blood-clotting
agents contaminated with the AIDS virus. He had failed to recommend
a heat treatment for the products more than 2 years after such
treatment was approved in the US.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 29, Yasser Arafat
called for a 4-hour general strike in Palestine in opposition to
Israeli political actions.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 29-1996 Aug 30, In SF,
Ca., dancers from the North Beach Lusty Lady Club voted on union
representation with the Service Employees International Union, Local
790. The vote passed 57 to 15. The contract was ratified Apr 10,
1997.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A15)(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A17)(SFC,
4/11/97, p.A19)
1996 Aug 30, President Clinton
and Vice President Gore, fresh from their renominations at the
just-concluded Democratic National Convention in Chicago, set out
with their wives on a bus caravan through America's heartland.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1996 Aug 30, A commercial
expedition to raise part of the sunken British luxury liner Titanic
ended in failure as nylon lines being used to lift a 21-ton section
of the hull snapped, sending the section back to the bottom of the
North Atlantic.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1996 Aug 30, The US State Dept.
sent a diplomatic note to China protesting the sale of equipment for
use in nuclear facilities in Pakistan.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A12)
1996 Aug 30, Dick Morris, the
campaign strategist for pres. Bill Clinton, resigned due to exposure
in a sex scandal.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 30, The California
Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Wilson that would mandate chemical
castration of child molesters.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 30, In Colombia the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARQ) guerrillas attacked
the army at the Las Delicias military base in Putumayo province.
They captured 60 soldiers and killed 30 others. The 12,000 FARQ have
gained income by collecting commissions on coca leaf harvests.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A9)
1996 Aug 30, In Libya, Louis
Farrakhan said that he could not accept a $250,000 human rights
award until US courts give him permission.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 30, In Sri Lanka
rebels ambushed a police patrol 115 miles east of Colombo.
(WSJ, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 31, Three adults and 4
children drowned at John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina when
their car rolled into the lake by accident. They had gone to see a
monument to the sons of Susan Smith, who drowned her 2 sons on Oct
25, 1994 when she let her car roll into the lake.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.D5)(AP, 8/31/97)
1996 Aug 31, New York City
police found the body of 4-year-old Nadine Lockwood in her family's
apartment; she'd been starved to death. The girl's mother, Carla
Lockwood, was later sentenced to serve at least 15 years in prison.
Nadine's father, Leroy Dickerson, was sentenced to 25 years to life
in prison.
(AP, 8/31/06)
1996 Aug 31, In Austria the
country’s first gay wedding took place in the Evangelical Church in
Vienna’s Simmering district.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 31, In Colombia the
armed forces went on alert after a series of rebel attacks on
government targets that killed about 100 people. The attacks were in
response to a US government backed campaign to eradicate coca plots.
A rebel column overran an army base in Las Delicias and killed 27
soldiers.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A15)(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1996 Aug 31, Over the past week
torrential rains threatened Sudan and Egypt with floods. More than a
million Pakistanis were displaced by fierce floods. The central
Punjab Province had 4.5 million acres of crops swamped.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 31, Rival Kurdish
forces under leaders Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union and
Massoud Barzani of the Kurdish Democratic Party clashed. Barzani’s
forces participated with Sadam Hussein’s troops in taking Irbil, a
Talabani stronghold. Talabani’s forces were reportedly assisted by
Iran.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 31, More than 100
members of the Iraqi National Congress in Irbil were captured by
Iraqi secret police and apparently executed. The Congress was set up
by the US in 1992 as an alternative to Saddam Hussein. Thousands of
opposition members made it to Turkey and were flown to Guam by the
US and promised asylum in the US.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, p.A13)(SFC, 10/12/97, Z1 p.5)
1996 Aug 31, Ljuba Welitsch
(83), Bulgaria-born opera singer, died.
(www.ucis.pitt.edu/opera/OFB/stars/wel01.htm)
1996 Aug, The US Army began a
training program for Mexican officers to develop an elite
counter-narcotics unit.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A18)
1996 Aug, The main ingredient
of Redux and other diet drugs was linked to a rare but deadly lung
disorder.
(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.B1)
1996 Aug, Osama bin Laden
signed a fatwa authorizing Muslims to attack American military
personnel.
(WSJ, 10/3/01, p.A17)
1996 Aug, In Brazil Yvonne de
Mello received the Int’l. Citizenship Award for her work with
abandoned and runaway kids in Rio de Janeiro.
(Hem., 12/96, p.21)
1996 Aug, After the Burundi
coup of Jul 25, former Tanzanian Pres. Julius Nyerere led East
African leaders to impose sanctions on Burundi and force Buyoya to
restore democratic rule.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug, In Bolivia a holding
dam at a COMSUR owned mine burst and released 230,000 metric tons of
sludge containing lead and arsenic into the Rio Pilaya which in turn
feeds the Pilcomayo. Local reports called this the worst
environmental disaster in Latin America of the century.
(NH, 2/97, p.6)
1996 Aug, Johnny Chung, a
Democrat fund-raiser, met in China with Gen'l. Ji Shengde who
directed that $300,000 be wired to Chung's bank account for use in
Pres. Clinton's re-election campaign. Most of the money was spent
for business and personal expenses.
(SFC, 5/12/99, p.A1,4)
1996 Aug, In Colombia
journalist Richard Velez filmed soldiers beating peasants during
protests in southern Caqueta province. He fled the country in 1997
in fear from death threats by the army.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D5)
1996 Aug, Walter Van Der Veer
(52), an American, was arrested for promoting armed action against
Cuba. He went on closed trial in 1997. He was convicted and
sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B2)(SFC,11/27/97, p.B2)
1996 Aug, In Kenya a new rite
was instituted as an alternative to female circumcision. The
"ntanira na mugambo" (circumcision through words) rite included a
week-long counseling program capped by a "coming of age day."
(SFC, 9/16/98, p.A23)
1996 Aug, In Costa Rica Maria
Felix Bejarano escaped from the Buen Pastor prison. She gave the
guards $4,700 for their kindness. This was the 7th escape of her
career in which she applies for a job as a maid and then cleans out
the houses in which she works.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug, In Ecuador Pres.
Bucaram invited Lorena Bobbitt, famous for slashing off her American
husband’s penis, to lunch at the national palace.
(SFC, 2/7/97, p.A1,19)
1996 Aug, In Mexico Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador (43) became president of the PRD party.
(WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug, In Peru Demetrio
Chavez Penaherrera, an imprisoned drug lord, told a court that the
chief of intelligence, Vladimiro Montesinos, accepted bribes of
$50,000 per month in 1991-1992.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 1, "Mountains and
Rivers Without End," a 30-year work of the human event on this
planet, by Gary Snyder was reviewed.
(SFC, 9/1/96, BR p.1)
1996 Sep 1, "The Middle East, A
Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years" by Bernard Lewis was
reviewed.
(SFC, 9/1/96, BR p.8)
1996 Sep 1, "The Lost Birds of
Paradise" by Eroll Fuller ($55) was reviewed.
(NH, 9/96, p.8)
1996 Sep 1, "The Cambridge
Illustrated History of China" by Patricia Buckley ($39.95) Ebrey had
a short review.
(NH, 9/96, p.8)
1996 Sep 1, In Ohio the record
for the ‘World’s Largest Chicken Dance" was broken in Canfield with
72,000 people dancing.
(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.B1)
1996 Sep 1, A day after Iraqi
forces moved into a Kurdish safe haven, U.S. officials were warning
the Baghdad government that the incursion would not go unpunished.
That same day, Iraq ordered its troops to withdraw from Irbil.
(AP, 9/1/97)
1996 Sep 1, In India wolves
were reported to have killed 33 children in the area of Banbirpur in
the state of Uttar Pradesh. Some reports had it that at least some
of the killings were by disguised human beings.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 2, The US launched
cruise missiles at selected air defense targets in Iraq to
discourage Sadam Hussein’s military moves against a Kurd faction.
(SFC, 9/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 2, In Palestine
stories of corruption were rife and Arafat was accused of pouring
money into his 9 security forces rather than infrastructure.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 2, In the Philippines
an accord was signed between pres. Ramos and Moro National
Liberation Front (MNLF) rebel leader Nur Misuari to end a 24-26 year
Muslim rebellion during which some 120,000 people were killed. Many
Muslim rebels continued to fight.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A9)(SFC,
9/2/96, p.A12)(AP, 9/2/97)(SFEM,12/21/97, p.23)
1996 Sep 2, The Ukraine
government planned to introduce its new currency, the hyrvna. The
old karbovanets would be swappable for only 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 3-1996 Sep 4, The
United States launched 27 cruise missiles at "selected air defense
targets" in Iraq as punishment for Iraq's invasion of Kurdish safe
havens. Pres. Clinton extended the no-fly zone to the suburbs of
Baghdad.
(AP, 9/3/97)(SFC,10/30/97, p.A12)
1996 Sep 3, In Texas Grady
Alexander (80) and his wife Bessie (86) were found beaten and
stabbed to death at their home in Lamar County. Larry Wooten was
later convicted with DNA evidence and sentenced to death. He was
executed on Oct 21, 2010.
(SFC, 10/22/10,
p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/28vmk8u)
1996 Sep 3, Pakistan shot down
4 Indian helicopters over the last few weeks that entered its air
space over the disputed Siachin Glacier. The glacier is at 22,000
feet and lies between the Karakoram and Himalayan mountain ranges.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 3, In Russia Alexander
Lebed said that about 80,000 people had died in the fighting in
Chechnya during the 21 months of the war.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A10)
1996 Sep 4, The Smashing
Pumpkins rock group won 7 MTV music awards including Best Video for
"Tonight, Tonight," and Best Alternative Music Video for "1979."
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.B4)
1996 Sep 4, Actor Jack Lemon,
Singer Johnny Cash, playwright Edward Albee, saxophonist Benny
Carter and ballet dancer Maria Tallchief were the recipients of the
Kennedy Center Honors for their life work in the performing arts.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.B2)
1996 Sep 4, Whitewater
prosecutors had Susan McDougal held in contempt for refusing to tell
a grand jury whether President Clinton had lied at her trial.
(AP, 9/4/97)
1996 Sep 4, Anti-aircraft fire
lit up the skies of Baghdad, hours after the United States fired a
new round of cruise missiles into southern Iraq and destroyed an
Iraqi radar site. The US again launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at
Iraqi air defense sites. The 2nd launch was deemed a success after
the first launch failed to destroy intended targets. The Tomahawks
were made by Hughes Aircraft Co. and cost about $1 mil apiece.
Kurdish leader Barzani wrote a latter to Sec. of State Christopher
Warren and asked that the US mediate. 44 cruise missiles were
launched over 2 days plus a rocket from an F-16 fighter.
(AP, 9/4/97)(SFC, 4/9/96, A1)(SFC, 9/5/96,
p.A8)(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 4, In Colombia the
government will require businesses with a net worth of more than 85k
to buy war bonds to finance the war against leftist rebels.
(WSJ, 9/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 4, In the Congo
authorities found 200 slaughtered elephants in a marsh of the
National Park of Odzala.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 4, France said it will
stop changing its clocks twice a year.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 4, Israeli Prime
Minister Netanyahu met with Palestinian leader Arafat and agreed to
pursue a peace settlement.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.1)
1996 Sep 5, "Kinds of Minds" by
Daniel C. Dennet ($20) and "Full House: The Spread of Excellence
From Plato to Darwin" by Stephen Jay Gould ($25) were reviewed.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 5, Computer scientists
found the largest known prime number while testing a Cray T94
computer system. It has 378,632 digits and can be expressed as two
to the 1,257,787th power minus 1.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A6)
1996 Sep 5, Astronomers using
the Hubble space telescope discovered a galaxy under construction.
They say 18 gigantic star clusters were packed within a space just 2
million light years across and apparently on the verge of forming a
brand new galaxy. Light from the event originated 11 billion years
ago.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A3)
1996 Sep 5, Hurricane Fran hit
at Cape Fear, North Carolina. It tore through the Carolinas with
winds at 115-mph.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A3)(AP, 9/5/97)
1996 Sep 5, Cambodia rushed
troops to aid the 1,000 or so Khmer Rouge dissidents near the
village of Chup Koki. About 5,500 Khmer Rouge rebels remain loyal to
Pol Pot.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 5, In Croatia a 6.0
earthquake hit the town of Ston and damaged 90% of the buildings in
Dubrovnik.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 5, In France PM Alain
Juppe proposed a tax cut. It would reduce the top marginal rate to
54% next year from 56.8%, and to 47% in 2000.
(WSJ, 9/66/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 5, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin acknowledged he had serious health problems and would
undergo heart surgery.
(AP, 9/5/97)
1996 Sep 5, In Suriname Jules
Wijdenbosch, backed by former military strongman Desi Bouterse,
defeated Pres. Ronald Venetiaan in a close runoff.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 5, Turkey declared a
new security zone inside northern Iraq and air attacks were staged
on suspected Kurdish rebel bases.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 6, Eddie Murray of the
Baltimore Orioles hit his 500th career home run during a game
against the Detroit Tigers, joining Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and
Willie Mays as the only players with at least 3,000 hits and 500
homers.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1996 Sep 6, The death toll from
Hurricane Fran rose to 17 in Virginia, West Virginia and the
Carolinas.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1996 Sep 6, In Belarus
lawmakers challenged the president and added amendments to a
referendum that proposed the elimination of the presidency, popular
election of local governors and tougher controls on government
spending. Earlier in the week Lukashenko had tax service freeze the
accounts of 5 leading independent newspapers.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 6, In Colombia rebels
blew up a section of the largest oil pipeline and killed 16 police
officers and soldiers.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 6, The Berggruen art
collection opened in Berlin on a loan for ten years. The opening
coincided with the publication of the autobiography of Heinz
Berggruen: Main Path and Side Paths: Reminiscences of an art
collector.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 6, The Palestinian Al
Quds Univ. in Abu Dis was reopened after a 6-month closure.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 7, Isabel Correa
became the 40th person known to have died in the presence of Dr.
Jack Kevorkian, less than a day after police burst into a Michigan
motel room, interrupting a meeting between her and Kevorkian.
(AP, 9/7/97)
1996 Sep 7, Rapper Tupac Shakur
was shot on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.
(AP, 9/7/97)
1996 Sep 7, Emergency food from
the World Food Program reached Tubmanburg, Liberia, where half the
35,000 population suffered from extreme hunger.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 8, NBC's "Frasier" won
its third consecutive Emmy for best TV comedy; "ER" was named best
drama. In the 48th Emmy Awards the winners included Dennis Franz
& Kathy Baker.
(AP, 9/8/97)(MC, 9/8/01)
1996 Sep 8, At the U.S. Open,
Pete Sampras defeated Michael Chang and Steffi Graf beat Monica
Seles to win the top prizes.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1996 Sep 8, Okinawans voted
more than 10-to-1 in favor of a reduction of U.S. military bases on
their islands, in a referendum aimed at pressuring Washington to
pull out its troops.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1996 Sep 8, In Tanzania bandits
ambushed, clubbed and robbed 25 tourists in the Serengeti National
Park.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 9, Promising safer
skies, President Clinton issued orders to tighten airport security
and challenged Congress to support a $1.1 billion anti-terrorism
crackdown.
(AP, 9/9/97)
1996 Sep 9, Keeping her word
not to cooperate with Whitewater prosecutors, Susan McDougal was led
away to jail for contempt of court, denying she was trying to
protect President Clinton with her silence.
(AP, 9/9/97)
1996 Sep 9, Boston investor
Thomas H. Lee donated $22 mil to Harvard Univ.
(WSJ, 9/10/96, p.A6)
1996 Sep 9, Bill Monroe
(b.1911), Blue Grass pioneer, died 4 days shy of his 85th b-day. His
blues style was much influenced by the thumb-style blues guitar
picking of a black musician named Arnold Schultz. In 2000 Richard D.
Smith authored the biography "Can’t You Hear me Callin’."
(WSJ, 9/16/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 7/28/00,
p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Monroe)
1996 Sep 9, An Australian
livestock official reported that the burning ship, Uniceb, with
70,000 sheep had probably sunk. It had been bound for Jordan when
the crew abandoned it after it caught fire on Sep 2.
(SFC, 9/10/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 10, Ross Perot picked
economist Pat Choate, a Washington economist and author, to share
the Reform Party presidential ticket.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/10/97)
1996 Sep 10, The US Senate
dealt a double defeat to gay-rights activists, voting to reject
same-sex marriage in federal law (Defense of Marriage Act - DOMA) by
a vote of 85-14. It also rejected (50-49) a separate bill that would
have barred job discrimination against gays.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/10/97)
1996 Sep 10, The US 1997
defense bill was passed and allotted the 1.5 million members of the
military a 3% pay raise. to begin Jan 1.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 10, The UN General
Assembly voted to endorse a nuclear test ban treaty. India refused
to sign and prevented the treaty from taking effect. India, Bhutan
and Libya voted against the treaty. Cuba, Lebanon, Syria, Tanzania
and Mauritius abstained.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 10, Humberto de la
Calle, vice-president of Colombia, resigned as a protest to the
presidency of Ernesto Samper.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 10, Typhoon Sally hit
Guangdong province in southern China and killed more than 130
people.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 10, Saddam Hussein
announced the lifting of all travel restrictions to or within the
Kurdish zone.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 10, Hurricane Hortense
pounded Puerto Rico, causing at least 21 deaths and destroying
thousands of homes.
(AP, 9/10/97)
1996 Sep 11, Two top officials
with the Health and Human Services Department resigned over
President Clinton's signing of the Republican welfare overhaul bill.
(Another official had resigned the month before).
(AP, 9/11/97)
1996 Sep 11, There was a review
of "Big Band Renaissance: The Evolution of the Jazz Orchestra,"
compiled by Bill Kirchner and released by The Smithsonian
Institution.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A20)
1996 Sep 11, The Union Pacific
merger with Southern Pacific took effect, forming the largest
railroad in the US.
(www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/uprr-chr.shtml)
1996 Sep 11, Grasshoppers
plagued North Dakota. The insects were a problem in Wyoming, Montana
and Nebraska. Another dry summer and it was predicted that they
would spread to Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A2)
1996 Sep 11, Hurricane Hortense
left 14 dead in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It then hit
the Turks and Caicos Islands with 90 mph winds.
(FB, 9/12/96, p.A7)
1996 Sep 11, In Bangladesh
Shanti Bahini guerrillas killed 30 Bengali-speaking settlers in the
southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts.
(SFC, 9/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 11, In Burundi Hutu
rebels killed Catholic archbishop Joachim Ruhunu and six others.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 12, Last-minute
intervention by Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole led to
Senate postponement of action on a treaty designed to eliminate
chemical weapons. President Clinton said the agreement was
threatened by "a bitter partisan debate."
(AP, 9/12/97)
1996 Sep 12, The first
African-American civil War memorial was dedicated in Washington DC.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Sep 12, Israel lost 12
commandos in southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)
1996 Sep 12, The Turkish
government agreed to allow some 2,500 Iraqi Kurds, former US
employees and their families, to enter Turkey and be evacuated to
the US.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 12, In Colombia
government officials promised to halt forcible destruction of small
coca plantations for the time being in order to end protests.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 12, In Taiwan a
five-year-old girl's remains were found in a drain outside a toilet
at the Air Force Command headquarters in Taipei. In 1997 Taiwanese
soldier Chiang Kuo-ching was found guilty of rape and murder and
executed by firing squad. A task force found that Chiang had
masturbated in the toilet and some drops of his semen fell onto the
tissue. He had been tortured into confessing, but was not the
murderer. Chiang Kuo-ching was posthumously acquitted by a military
court in September, 2011, followed by a ruling that his family be
paid Tw$131.85 million ($4.4 million) in compensation. A court in
November launched legal action to bar former minister Chen Chao-min
and seven other ex-military officers involved in the case from
transferring their assets.
(AFP, 11/29/11)
1996 Sep 13, The stock market
hit a new record of 5,838.52 on the Dow.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 13, Gillette unveiled
an agreement to buy Duracell in a $7.3 billion stock deal.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Sep 13, Hurricane Hortense
headed north with winds at 140 mph.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 13, Subaru Takahashi
(14) in his boat "Advantage" became the youngest person to complete
a solo sail voyage across the Pacific Ocean. He did the 6000 mile
journey in 54 days.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1,7)
1996 Sep 13, Rap star Tupac
Shakur (b.1971) died of gun shot wounds in Las Vegas after he was
wounded Sep 7 in a drive-by shooting as he was leaving a Mike Tyson
fight in Las Vegas. He had just finished filming "Gang Related"
later retitled "Criminal Intent." He was buried at Stone Mountain,
Georgia.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1)(AP,
9/13/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur)
1996 Sep 13, In Mexico Juan
Francisco Ealy, editor of El Universal, was arrested on allegations
of tax fraud. His paper had recently begun strong criticism of the
Zedillo government.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 14, There was a rumor
published that was gleaned from the Internet that "friendly fire"
caused the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A4)
1996 Sep 14, Tara Dawn Holland
of Overland Park, Kansas, won the Miss America beauty pageant.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A6)(AP, 9/14/97)
1996 Sep 14, Juliet Prowse
(b.1936), actress and dancer (Mona McCluskey), died.
(www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0187948.html)
1996 Sep 14, Bosnians went to
the polls in their first national elections since the
three-and-a-half civil war that ravaged the Balkan republic.
(AP, 9/14/97)
1996 Sep 14, In Cambodia King
Norodom Sihanouk granted amnesty to Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge rebel
leader.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 15, Defense Secretary
William Perry was making the rounds among American allies in the
Persian Gulf region, seeking additional support for the U.S. stance
against Iraq. Bahrain agreed to play host to 26 American F-16 jet
fighters.
(AP, 9/15/97)
1996 Sep 15, In Germany it was
reported that rival Vietnamese gangs were battling a vicious turf
war for trading untaxed cigarettes smuggled in by organized crime.
The country was trying to coax Vietnam to accept the return of
thousands of men in exchange for aid and future credits.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 15, In Guatemala
crime boss Alfredo Moreno, a former army intelligence officer, was
arrested on charges of an enormous smuggling operation.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 15, In Italy Umberto
Bossi, populist politician and leader of the Northern League,
planned to declare the independence of the Federal Republic of
Padania.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A6)
1996 Sep 15, In Italy Lorenzo
Necci, head of the state-run railroad, was arrested for corruption,
embezzlement, abuse of office, falsification of balance sheets and
fraud.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 15, In Mexico Federal
police officer Ernesto Ibarra Santes (50) was gunned down in Mexico
City. He was in charge of drug trafficking in Baha California del
Norte, the center of operations for the narcotics cartel of the
Arellano Felix brothers. He had only taken the position on Aug 16.
(SFC, 9/16/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 15, In North Korea the
Rajin-Sonbong Free Economic and Trade Zone, a 288 sq. ml. area with
a local population of 140,000, was being established behind barbed
wire in the northeast corner.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A15)
1996 Sep 15, In Singapore all
120,000 Internet subscribers will have to go through proxy servers
which will screen them from dozens of sites that contain nudity and
sexual topics.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.B2)
1996 Sep 16, President Clinton
claimed the endorsement of the nation's largest police organization,
the Fraternal Order of Police, in his bid for re-election.
(AP, 9/16/97)
1996 Sep 16, Chicago and Paris
signed a sister-city pact.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A17)
1996 Sep 16, Space shuttle
Atlantis blasted off more than six weeks late on a mission to pick
up NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid, aloft since last March, from the
Russian space station Mir.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A4)(AP,
9/16/97)
1996 Sep 16, Former US national
security adviser McGeorge Bundy died in Boston at age 77.
(AP, 9/16/97)
1996 Sep 16, Kuwait agreed to
allow the US to send 3,300 troops to its soil over the confrontation
with Iraq.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 17, A nonpartisan
commission recommended that Ross Perot be denied a spot in
presidential debates, saying he had no realistic shot at winning the
White House; Perot vowed to sue.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 Sep 17, The Clinton
Administration and 15 timber companies struck a deal to protect
old-growth forest in Oregon and Washington. The companies will log
substitute groves less critical to fish and wildlife.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A2)
1996 Sep 17, Spiro Agnew (b.
Nov 9, 1918), former governor of Maryland and US vice president
(1969-1973), died in Berlin, Md., at age 77.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 Sep 17, In Montserrat the
Soufriere Hills volcano erupted for 48 minutes.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, T11)
1996 Sep 17, In Bosnia Alija
Izetbegovic led the polls to become chairman of the new 3-member
presidency. Serbian nationalist Momcilo Krajisnik and Croat
nationalist Kresimir Zubak won their respective regions.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 17, In Mexico Razhy
Gonzalez, editor of the small Contrapunto weekly, was abducted in
Oaxaca.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 18, "The Collected
Stories of Mavis Gallant" was reviewed.
(WSJ, 9/18/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 18, Pres. Clinton
signed an executive order to transform 1.7 million acres of Utah
land into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A3)(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.T5)
1996 Sep 18, Republican
presidential nominee Bob Dole fell off a stage during a campaign
rally in Chico, Calif., after a railing gave way; he was not
seriously hurt.
(AP, 9/18/97)
1996 Sep 18, The O.J. Simpson
civil trial opened in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 9/18/97)
1996 Sep 18, The Food and Drug
Administration declared the French abortion pill RU-486 safe and
effective, but withheld final approval until later. The pill would
be taken with the drug misoprostol, which was already approved for
other purposes.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/18/97)
1996 Sep 18, In France Maurice
Papon, a member of the Vichy government of WW II, was declared
eligible for trial for his role in arresting and deporting 1,690
Jews during WW II.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 18, In Guatemala 2
generals and 16 officials were fired in a probe of black-market
corruption.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 18, A North Korean
submarine went aground off the coast of South Korea. The bodies of
11 crewmen were found dead nearby. Another 8-9 men were still at
large. Seven more were found the next day and shot to death.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 9/20/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 18, Photos taken of
Mars that indicated a huge dust storm near the north pole that was
active for months.
(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Sep 19, American astronaut
Shannon Lucid, on board the Russian Mir space station since March,
eagerly greeted the crew of Atlantis hours after their arrival and
docking.
(AP, 9/19/97)
1996 Sep 19, IBM announced it
would extend health benefits to the partners of its homosexual
employees.
(AP, 9/19/97)
1996 Sep 19, Guatemala’s
government and leftist guerillas under Ricardo Arnoldo Ramirez
signed a peace accord that called for a 33% troop and budget
reduction from 43,000 by 1999. Otto Perez Molina negotiated the
accords for the government.
(SFC, 9/20/96, p.A15)(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A22)(Econ,
1/21/12, p.42)
1996 Sep 19, In Nigeria it was
reported that police clashed with demonstrators last week and 10
people were killed in the city of Kaduna. The crowd was protesting
the arrest of their spiritual leader on charges of broadcasting
material that could incite unrest.
(WSJ, 9/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 20, President Clinton
announced his signing of a bill outlawing homosexual marriages, but
said it should not be used as an excuse for discrimination, violence
or intimidation against gays and lesbians. The actual signing came a
little after midnight. The Defense of Marriage Act provided that no
state has an obligation to recognize gay marriages contracted in
another state.
(AP, 9/20/97)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.32)
1996 Sep 20, Paul Weston,
bandleader, died at 84.
(www.spaceagepop.com/weston.htm)
1996 Sep 20, Paul Erdos,
Hungarian-born mathematician, died. He founded the field of discreet
mathematics and had more than 1500 papers to his name. He lived
devoted to his subject and had no home or job. In 1998 2 biographies
were published: Paul Hoffman authored "The Man Who Loved Only
Numbers," and Bruce Schechter "My Brain Is Open."
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.B2)(WSJ, 9/15/98, p.A20)
1996 Sep 20, In Colombia
leftist guerrillas unleashed a wave of bombings that included 4
against banks and electricity lines in Cartagena. 18 coal trucks
were torched in northern Cesar province and a truck with 31 tons of
ammonium nitrate, base material for explosives, was hijacked.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 20, In Colombia more
than 8 lbs. of heroin were found on Pres. Samper’s presidential jet
as it was preparing for a flight to New York. Eleven Air Force
personnel were later arrested.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A12)
1996 Sep 20, In Estonia Pres.
Lennart Meri was re-elected to a second term in the largely
ceremonial post.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 20, Murtazza Bhutto,
brother of Benazir Bhutto, and 6 followers were killed in a clash
with police in Karachi, Pakistan. He led the Shaheed Bhutto faction
of the Pakistan People's Party.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 21, John F. Kennedy
Jr. married Carolyn Bessette in a secret ceremony on Cumberland
Island, Ga.
(AP, 9/21/97)
1996 Sep 21, The board of
all-male Virginia Military Institute voted to admit women.
(AP, 9/21/97)
1996 Sep 21, President Clinton
and Republican rival Bob Dole agreed to face off in two debates
without Ross Perot.
(AP, 9/21/97)
1996 Sep 21, In Brazil the
first magazine dedicated to blacks, Raca Brasil, sold out 200,000
copies in 5 days.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 21, Thai Prime
Minister Banharn Silpa-archa resigned after 14 months in offices
under charges of corruption and ineptitude.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 22, Reform Party
nominee Ross Perot denounced the decision to exclude him from the
presidential debates, telling NBC that Bob Dole had "poisoned the
attitude" of millions of independent voters that Republicans
desperately needed to win.
(AP, 9/22/97)
1996 Sep 22, Actress Dorothy
Lamour died at her North Hollywood home at age 81.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A6)(AP, 9/22/97)
1996 Sep 22, In Afghanistan the
Taliban guerrillas swept through 3 south-eastern provinces over the
last 2 weeks and now control about 2/3 of the country.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A9)
1996 Sep 22, In Australia Bob
Dent became the first person to kill himself legally under the
world’s only voluntary euthanasia law.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 22, In Greece the
governing socialists won the elections and gave Prime Minister
Simitas about 162 of 300 deputies in the Parliament.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A9)
1996 Sep 22, Mexico’s Civic
Alliance began asking questions of accountability of the leadership.
Pres. Zedillo claims to make $8,000 a month, but he has a secret
fund of $86 million approved by Congress.
(SFC, 9/22/96, Par p.30)
1996 Sep 22, In South Korea the
captain of the North Korean submarine, recently grounded, was
tracked down and killed. Another infiltrator and 2 South Korean
soldiers were also killed in 2 clashes.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A10)
1996 Sep 22, In Sri Lanka the
military said it killed or wounded 200 Tamil rebels with a loss of
30 government troops.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 23, Ross Perot sued
the bipartisan commission that voted to keep him out of the
presidential debates, arguing that excluding him would deepen public
cynicism and cause his campaign "incalculable damage."
(AP, 9/23/97)
1996 Sep 23, California
governor Wilson signed a bill to open the sale of electricity to the
free market and became the first US state to do so. A 20% drop in
rates by 2003 was guaranteed.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 23, Space shuttle
Atlantis left Russia's orbiting Mir station with astronaut Shannon
Lucid, who ended her six-month visit with tender good-byes to her
Russian colleagues.
(AP, 9/23/97)
1996 Sep 23, In Armenia Pres.
Levon Ter-Petrossian claimed victory in elections as did his
opponent former Prime Minister Vazgen Manukian. The next day the
Pres. claimed victory with 52% and the PM claimed fraud with 41%.
Int’l. observers claimed serious irregularities.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 9/25/96, p.A1)(SFC,
9/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 23, The European Union
awarded the Aristeion Prize for literature to Salmon Rushdie for
"The Moor’s Last Sigh" and to Christoph Ransmayr for "Morbus
Kitahara." A prize for translation went to Thorkild Bjoernvig for
his translation of poetry by German poet Rainier Marie Rilke.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.E3)
1996 Sep 23, In Jiangsu
Province, China, the American Dream Park was scheduled to open. It
is a 70-acre-mini Disneyland and admission will cost 100 yuan, about
2 weeks wages for the average Chinese worker.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 23, In England police
killed one man and seized 10 tons of explosives during raids of
suspected IRA hideouts.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 23, Ethiopian forces
exchanged fire with Somali militiamen.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 23, Iran expected
delivery of its 3rd Russian-made submarine within 6 months, as part
of its navy buildup in the Persian Gulf.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 23, In Mexico
financing was expected to enable the start of the $551 million
channel project, a 272-mile Tamaulipas Intracoastal Waterway on the
east coast to link Mexico to US cargo channels.
(WSJ, 9/23/96, p.A17)
1996 Sep 23, In Pakistan gunmen
attacked a Sunni Muslim mosque and killed 16 and wounded 45 people.
The attack followed the killing of a Shiite leader the night before
in Bahawalpur.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A12)
1996 Sep 23, In Singapore the
government announced that there will be enough bomb shelters for
everyone. All new dwellings will be required to have bomb shelters
with concrete walls and a steel door.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 23, In South Africa 2
days of ethnic fighting among gold miners at Buffeslfontein left 18
people dead.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 24, The United States,
represented by President Clinton, and the world's other major
nuclear powers signed a treaty to end all testing and development of
nuclear weapons.
(AP, 9/24/97)
1996 Sep 24, Robert Chaegon
Kim, US Navy analyst, was arrested for passing US secrets to South
Korea.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A3)
1996 Sep 24, In Guatemala the
government fired 12 National police officers including 5 regional
chiefs implicated in a corruption scandal.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 24, In the Philippines
about 3,000 slum dwellers marched to the Presidential Palace in
Manila to denounce the demolition of their homes. Wrecking crews
have destroyed about 3,000 shanties with 13,000 more scheduled for
destruction before the Asia Pacific Economic Conference on Nov 24.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 24, In Russia Pavel
Sudoplatov, Stalin’s spy chief who stole atomic secrets and plotted
the killing of Trotsky, died.
(WSJ, 9/27/96, p.B1)
1996 Sep 24, Taiwan police shut
down 188 sex parlors in the last 7 days and pledged to close the
remaining 103 by the end of the day.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 25, NATO generals were
ordered to prepare plans for an extension of allied military force
in Bosnia beyond the Dec. 20 deadline.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 25, In Afghanistan
rebel forces moved into Kabul. A 100 fighters were killed on both
sides.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 25, In Colombia rebels
attacked an oil pipeline in Arauca province and pumping of 220,000
barrels a day was suspended.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 25, Violence began in
Jerusalem when Israelis opened a tunnel along the west wall of the
old city in opposition to Palestinian sentiments. Seven Arabs were
killed. Resulting riots left 69 Palestinians dead along with 16
Israelis.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A10)(AP, 9/25/97)(Econ, 2/17/07,
p.48)
1996 Sep 25, In the Netherlands
a DC-3 aircraft went into the North Sea near Den Helder and killed
all 32 people on board.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 25, In Sri Lanka the
military said it killed or wounded 500 Tamil rebels with a loss of
58 government troops and 115 wounded since Sunday when their
offensive began near Kilinochchi.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 25, Turkey said its
troops killed 47 Kurdish rebels in the eastern provinces.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 26, President Clinton
signed a bill ensuring two-day hospital stays for new mothers and
their babies.
(AP, 9/26/97)
1996 Sep 26, ValuJet received
federal permission to fly again three months after it was grounded
following a deadly crash.
(AP, 9/26/97)
1996 Sep 26, Richard Allen
Davis, the killer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, was formally sentenced
to death in San Jose, Calif. It was his criminal record which
resulted in California's "Three strike law” for repeat offenders. He
is currently on death row in San Quentin State Prison, California.
(AP,
9/26/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Allen_Davis)
1996 Sep 26, Astronaut Shannon
Lucid returned to Earth in the shuttle Atlantis after 188 days
aboard the Russian Mir space station, the longest time for any
American man or woman.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A20)(AP,
9/26/97)
1996 Sep 26, Patricia Billings,
amateur sculptor and med tech, demonstrated her fire-proof material
GeoBond. It was made of gypsum, cement, and a secret off-the-shelf
ingredient that in combination would not burn even under flames over
2,000 degrees.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 26, The New England
Journal of Medicine reported new research that would provide a
simple test for mad cow disease based on a protein specific to the
disease.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 26, A total lunar
eclipse, the last before the year 2000, was scheduled.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A18)
1996 Sep 26, The US announced
the return to Haiti of documents confiscated 2 years ago from the
Haitian army and pro-military party.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 26, Former Pres.
Najibullah (1986-1990) and his brother, former security chief
Shahpur Ahmedzi, were executed and hung when the Taliban fighters
moved into Kabul. They had been in hiding since being overthrown 4
years ago. Officials hoped that the former king, Zahir Shah, would
return to lead the country.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 26, In Armenia tanks
were called in after 59 people were injured in protests over the
re-election of the president.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 26, In Italy the
foreign minister announced that the country would no longer make
land mines that are used against people.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 27, Texan Charles
Hurwitz of Maxxam Inc. agreed to exchange his hold on the Headwaters
forest in California in exchange for cash, land or other government
assets.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 27, John G. Bennett
Jr., head of the defunct Foundation for New Era Philanthropy since
1989, was indicted on 82 counts of fraud, money laundering, tax
crimes and false statements. He was allegedly responsible for
bilking charities of $135 million in a scheme that collapsed in
1995. In 1997 he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He helped to
reduce losses from 100 to 20 million.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A3)(SFC, 3/27/97, p.A3)(SFC,
9/23/97, p.A2)
1996 Sep 27, US Defense Sec.
William Perry said the 3 Baltic nations would not be among the first
new NATO members drawn from Eastern Europe.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 27, The Taliban
militia, a band of former seminary students, forced President
Burhanuddin Rabbani and his government out of Kabul.
{Afghan}
(AP, 9/27/97)(www.afghan-web.com/history/)
1996 Sep 27, In Gambia Yahya
Jammeh defeated 3 civilian rivals in national elections. Observers
said that the elections were severely flawed. Jammeh’s government
had outlawed opposition parties, muzzled the press, forbade meetings
between rival candidates and foreign diplomats, and used soldiers to
attack opposition rallies.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 27, In Milan, Italy,
50,000 metal workers marched on strike.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 27, In Japan the Prime
Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto dissolved the parliament and set new
elections for Oct. 20.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 27, In Mexico PRI
deputies presented a final report on government corruption and voted
to end the commission of corruption. A separate government panel
said $1.34 billion was missing from the 1990 privatization of
Telefonos de Mexico.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 27, Rwandan Pastor
Elizaphan Ntakirutimana (73) was charged with ordering the slaughter
of hundreds of Tutsis in Kibuye in 1994. It was charged that he had
arranged that they seek refuge in his Seventh Day Adventist Church,
whereupon he called in Hutus to kill them.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 28, Landmark
legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants in the United States
won House passage as part of a giant federal spending bill.
(AP, 9/28/97)
1996 Sep 28, With the United
States abstaining, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution
indirectly calling on Israel to close an archaeological tunnel in
Jerusalem that had touched off fighting between Israelis and
Palestinians.
(AP, 9/28/97)
1996 Sep 29, The organization
that supervised Bosnia's first postwar elections officially
certified the results -- with victories by nationalist parties and
the country's Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic.
(AP, 9/29/97)
1996 Sep 30, With just hours to
spare before the start of the fiscal year, the Senate passed and
President Clinton signed a $389 billion spending bill.
(AP, 9/30/97)
1996 Sep 30, In South Korea
another infiltrator was killed. That brought the total to 22 agents
killed since the grounding of the N. Korean submarine.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 30, In India the
capital city of Tamil Nadu changed its name from Madras to Chennai.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 30, In Sri Lanka
government troops seized a guerrilla stronghold and climaxed an
8-day battle that left 900 dead.
(WSJ, 9/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 30, In Vanuatu the
parliament passed a vote of no confidence in prime Minister Maxime
Carlot.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep, The $4 mil Hollywood
Entertainment Museum was planned to open.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B4)
1996 Sep, The Meyer-Womble
telescope on Mt. Evans was scheduled to open. It was donated by Eric
Meyer (40), a Chicago-based anesthesiologist, who designed the
telescope and donated nearly one million to build it and then gave
it to Denver Univ.
(SFC, 9/3/96, p.C1)
1996 Sep, In Brazil the world
premiere of George Coates multimedia work "20/20 Blake" was held at
the Sao Paulo Int’l. Theater Festival.
(SFC, 1/21/96, p.B1)
1996 Sep, In China peasants
revolted in Qidong in Hunan province after they discovered that city
authorities kept secret for 6 months a directive from Beijing to end
excessive taxes.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep, In El Salvador the
Goods for Guns project began and in 2 weeks collected 1,262 weapons
and 14,580 units of ammunition.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, C12)
1996 Sep, Iran delivered at
least $500,000 to Bosnian Pres. Alija Izetbegovic for his campaign.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep, In South Africa the
government disclosed that it was sending $18 million worth of arms
to Rwanda.
(SFC, 11/8/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep, Sir Lanka soldiers
and police raped and strangled an 18-year-old student and murdered 3
others near Chemmanihi. In 1998 4 soldiers were convicted and
sentenced to death for the killings.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A11)
1996 Fall, In Brazil the
EMB-145, a 50-seat twin-engine jet, was brought out by aircraft
maker Embraer SA.
(WSJ, 3/21/97, p.A16)
1996 Sep-Oct, The size of the
ozone hole over Antarctica surpassed 8.5 million square miles.
(SFC, 11/28/96, p.B4)
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