Timeline 1996 October - December
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1996 Oct 1, A
federal grand jury indicted Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski in
1994 mail bomb slaying of an ad executive. He was later sentenced to
4 life terms plus 30 years.
(AP, 10/1/06)
1996 Oct 1, The first phase of
a US minimum wage 50-cent increase to $4.75 took effect. Phase 2 to
$5.15 was scheduled for Sep 1, 1997.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A4)(AP, 10/1/97)
1996 Oct 1, NASA began turning
over day-to-day shuttle operations to private industry.
(AP, 10/1/97)
1996 Oct 1, In Haiti it was
confirmed that a plot to undermine the government was squelched. The
Committee of Soldiers’ Demands, representing former soldiers, had
plotted to destabilize the government. More US trained
Haitian-American police officers and money from the IMF was expected
before the expiration of the current UN mandate.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A7)
1996 Oct 1, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met
at the White House.
(AP, 10/1/97)
1996 Oct 2, Mark Fuhrman was
given three years' probation and fined $200 after pleading no
contest to perjury for denying at O.J. Simpson's criminal trial that
he had used a certain racial slur in the past decade.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1996 Oct 2, The US Army
prepared to shift 5,000 troops to Bosnia from Germany for 6-months
to protect troops slated to leave.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 2, The EU said that it
will challenge the US Helms-Burton law in a new court of world
trade.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 2, The US meeting
between Benjamin Netanyahu, Yasser Arafat and King Hussein ended
with no specific issues resolved in the recent Middle East flare-up
between Palestinians and Jews.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 2, In Bulgaria former
PM Andrei Lukanov was assassinated. It was said that he had new
proofs of corruption in the highest power circles. In 2003 5 men
were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without chance of
parole.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 11/28/03)
1996 Oct 2, Mexican and US
authorities captured 5 alleged hit men of the Arellan Felix brothers
drug cartel in a series of raids in Mexico and California.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 2, The AeroPeru flight
603, a Boeing 757, crashed shortly after takeoff into the Pacific
and all 61 passengers and nine crew members were killed. The pilot
claimed loss of navigational equipment just before the crash. It was
later reported that a maintenance worker failed to remove tape from
sensors after polishing the aircraft. A judge ordered Aeroperu and
the worker to pay $29 million to families of the 70 dead.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A8)(AP, 10/2/97)(WSJ, 1/22/98,
p.A1)
1996 Oct 3, A report found 25%
of all 4,025 known species of mammals to be at risk of extinction.
This included nearly half of all monkeys and apes.
(SFC, 10/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 3, Wislawa Szymborska,
Polish poet, won the Nobel Prize for poetry. Her work included the
translated collection: "View With a Grain of Sand," her debut
collection "That’s Why We Are Alive" (1952), Salt (1962), "The
People on the Bridge" (1986), and "The End and the Beginning"
(1993).
(AP, 10/3/97)(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A7)
1996 Oct 4, A judge in
Philadelphia issued an injunction preventing major-league baseball
umpires from striking for the remainder of the postseason over an
incident in which Roberto Alomar of the Baltimore Orioles spat on
umpire John Hirschbeck.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1996 Oct 4, The Dow Jones hit a
record 5,992.86 on reports of weak employment.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 4, In New Zealand the
government agreed to settle the biggest land claim ever filed by
indigenous Maoris. The Ngai Tahu people would receive land and cash
worth $117 million and regain some fishing rights. The Maoris number
about 12% of the country’s 3.6 million people.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 5, Already under fire
for his drug policies, President Clinton revealed that a secret FBI
memorandum said the government's anti-drug strategy "had never been
properly organized." Clinton argued that the problems predated his
administration.
(AP, 10/5/97)
1996 Oct 5, Irving Fatt,
professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley, died. His work was centered
on the flow of fluids through small pores and played an essential
role in the development of soft and gas permeable contact lenses.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.C2)
1996 Oct 5, A bomb exploded in
the mayoral offices of French Prime Minister Alain Juppe. There were
no casualties. A Corsican separatist group later claimed
responsibility.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, A12)(SFEC, 10/8/96, A10)
1996 Oct 5, In Guatemala an
ongoing program to de-activate some 200,000 citizen soldiers
included ceremonious weapons returns.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, A14)
1996 Oct 5, It was reported
that the a new Hawaiian island, Loiihi, was rising 17 miles
southeast of the big island of Hawaii. Its summit was 3,000 feet
below the surface and its base was 15,000 feet below that. It was
estimated to break surface in about 50,000 years.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.A9)
1996 Oct 6, President Clinton
and Bob Dole clashed vigorously over taxes, trustworthiness and
spending priorities in a prime-time debate in Hartford, Conn.
(AP, 10/6/97)
1996 Oct 6, An explosion at the
Copenhagen headquarters of the Hells Angels killed 2 and injured 16.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, A9)
1996 Oct 6, In Kazakhstan it
was reported that the first Chevron gas station opened. The country
has 24 billion metric tons of reserves.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, B8)
1996 Oct 6, Turkey’s prime
minister urged Libya’s Moammar Khadafy to sign a document to
denounce Kurdish rebel terrorism but instead Khadafy condemned
Turkish repression of the Kurds. A trade deal hung in suspension.
(SFEC, 10/7/96, A9)
1996 Oct 6, The Czech film
"Kolya," directed by Jan Sverak, won the grand prize at the Tokyo
Int’l. film festival. A special jury prize went to the Polish film
"In Full Gallop" by Krzysztof Zanussi and the Spanish film
"Libertarias" by Vicente Aranda.
(SFEC, 10/7/96, D3)
1996 Oct 6, In St. Vincent
Jerome "Jolly" Joseph, a taxi boat driver in Bequia, was killed. An
American couple, James and Penny Fletcher from West Virginia, were
accused of the murder. They were later acquitted.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.C1)(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A8)
1996 Oct 7, Rupert Murdoch’s
News Corp launched the Fox News Channel. It was set up by Roger
Ailes, a former media adviser to three Republican presidents, to
appeal to conservative viewers. TCI became one of the 1st cable
operators to carry it.
(WSJ, 3/3/05, p.A10)(Econ, 7/9/11, SR
p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Fox_News)
1996 Oct 7, The Nobel Prize in
Medicine was won by Australian Peter C. Doherty and Rolf M.
Zinkernagel from Switzerland for their work on how the immune system
recognizes infected cells.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A9)
1996 Oct 7, A fire was reported
in Monterey County, Ca. It burned 25,000 acres and was later found
to have been started by Jeffrey Alan Avila (35) in order to get some
money by leasing fire-fighting equipment to the US Forest Service.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A13)
1996 Oct 7, The effects of a
Canadian Auto Workers strike against General Motors spread across
the border as 1,850 workers were laid off at two U.S. parts plants.
(AP, 10/7/97)
1996 Oct 7, In Colombia
authorities announced the use of Imazapyr, an all-weather herbicide,
to help eradicate illicit drug crops.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A10)
1996 Oct 7, In Croatia a
spokesman for the UN transitional authority in Eastern Slavonia said
200 bodies were unearthed near Vukovar from the 1991 Serb
occupation.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A10)
1996 Oct 7, In Lisburn,
Northern Ireland, the Irish Republican Army detonated two car bombs
inside the British army's headquarters, wounding 31 people. Two
bombs of 500 and 1000 pounds exploded near Thiepval Barracks and
near the base hospital.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A8)(AP, 10/7/97)
1996 Oct 7, Ethnic Tutsi rebels
slaughtered 34 patients in eastern Zaire. The government has given
the 200,000 Tutsis a week to leave Zaire. The Tutsi Banyamulenge
arrived into Zaire some 200 years ago.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 8, In Japan it was
reported that a man’s haircut costs $48.65.
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A17)
1996 Oct 8, Pope John Paul II
underwent a successful operation to remove his inflamed appendix.
(AP, 10/8/97)
1996 Oct 8, The Nobel Prize in
economics was won by British professor James Mirlees of Cambridge
and American economist William Vickrey (1914-1996) at Columbia Univ.
for their studies on asymmetric information which helps to explain
decision making based on varying kinds and amounts of data. The
82-year-old Vickrey died just three days later.
(SFEC, 10/9/96, p.A8)(AP, 10/8/97)
1996 Oct 8, A Russian Antonov
124 cargo plane crashed in San Francisco al Campo in northwestern
Italy. At least 2 crew members and 2 villagers were killed.
(SFEC, 10/9/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 9, In the opening game
of the American League Championship series, 12-year-old Jeffrey
Maier turned a probable fly out into a game-tying home run by
reaching over the right-field wall at Yankee Stadium and sweeping
the ball into the stands with his baseball glove. The Yankees won,
5-to-4 in 11 innings.
(AP, 10/9/97)
1996 Oct 9, Vice President Al
Gore and Jack Kemp debated in St. Petersburg, Fla.
(AP, 10/9/97)
1996 Oct 9, The Nobel Prize in
Physics went to three Americans: David Lee, Douglas Osheroff and
Robert Richardson for their work on liquid helium-3, which they
found forms a superfluid at very cold temperatures.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A15)(AP, 10/9/97)
1996 Oct 9, The Nobel Prize in
Chemistry went to two Americans and a Briton: Robert F. Curl,
Richard E. Smalley (b.1943) and Harold W. Kroto for their discovery
of hollow molecules of carbon called fullerenes or buckyballs first
proposed in 1985. The 60 carbon atom is called a
buckminsterfullerene.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A15)(AP, 10/9/97)
1996 Oct 9, In Colombia a
heroin processing complex of four labs near Santander de Quilichao
in Cauca province was destroyed.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A14)
1996 Oct 9, A 6.8 earthquake,
centered off of Cyprus killed 2 and injured 21.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A12)
1996 Oct 9, In Mexico police
found a human skull and bones on a ranch owned by Raul Salinas.
Police were led to the site by Francisca Zetina, aka "La Paca" a
self proclaimed witch. They suspected that it was Manuel Munoz
Rocha, a federal congressman who disappeared after the 9/28/94
slaying of Ruiz Massieu. Prosecutors say that Salinas and Rocha
conspired to kill Massieu. An official autopsy showed that the found
body had undergone a previous autopsy. Later examination found that
the body was not that of Munoz Rocha but of Zetina’s father-in-law
(d.1993).
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A12)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A11)(SFC,
12/3/96,p.A12)(SFC, 2/1/97, p.A12)
1996 Oct 9, A center-right
coalition of the National, United New Zealand, the Christian
Coalition and Act New Zealand was facing a center-left coalition of
the Labor, Alliance, and New Zealand First parties for the coming
elections.
(WSJ, 10/9/96, p.A16)
1996 Oct 10, President Clinton
joined Vice President Gore in Knoxville, Tenn., where the president
moved to broaden the sweep of the Internet at 100 universities,
national labs and other federal institutions. Republican
presidential nominee Bob Dole hosted a rally in Cincinnati that
featured his running mate, Jack Kemp, and retired General Colin
Powell.
(AP, 10/10/97)
1996 Oct 10, In Afghanistan
three military commanders formed a pact against the Taliban. Gen’l.
Rashid Dostum, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Karim Khalily held 10
northern provinces against 19 held by the Taliban.
(SFC, 10/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Oct 10, In Bolivia the
government reached an agreement with landowners and Indian leaders
on a land reform bill. Large landowners received a 50% tax reduction
in return for their support. More than 20,000 Indians had staged
daily protests over the last 2 weeks. Under the law land could only
revert to the state if its owners failed to pay the land tax.
(SFC, 10/11/96, p.A17)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.41)
1996 Oct 10, In India today the
reborn [from Tibet] Drepung Loseling Monastery in Karnataka state
houses about 2,500 Buddhist monks.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.E1)
1996 Oct 10, It was reported
that Mexico has the highest rate of deforestation in the world with
2.5 million acres of forest and jungle felled each year.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A12)
1996 Oct 10, Armed men killed
50-60 civilians in eastern Zaire in the village of Bambu in the
Masisi region. The Banyamulenge immigrated to eastern Zaire from
Rwanda decades ago.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 11, In Operation
Global Sea US officials arrested 34 members of a drug trafficking
network operated primarily by Nigerian women. Jumoke Kafayat
Majekodunmi, aka Kafi, used a women’s clothing store in Chicago as
the center of operations.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A3)
1996 Oct 11, US FBI agents
arrested 7 in West Virginia for plotting to bomb the national
fingerprinting records facility in Charleston.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 11, The Nobel Peace
Prize was awarded to Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes
Belo of East Timor and Jose Ramos-Horta, in exile in Australia, for
their work to end oppression and violence in East Timor.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A1)(AP, 10/11/97)
1996 Oct 11, Time Warner
completed its $7.6 billion acquisition of Turner Broadcasting.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Oct 11, In Angola the UN
extended the 7,200 peacekeeping mission for 2 months. The Security
Council threatened sanctions against UNITA which has delayed
integrating 26,000 fighters into the national army and interfered
with UN activities.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 11, In China seven
people were executed for selling women. An additional 54 were given
suspended death sentences. 334 women were rescued from being sold
into marriage or prostitution where the going rate was $240-$360.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 11, Wang Dan,
prominent student leader of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in
1989, was charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government. He
has been in detention for the last 17 months.
(SFEC, 10/13/96, p.A18)
1996 Oct 11, In Germany the
parliament voted to reduce the 656 seats of the Bundestag, lower
house, to 598 seats after elections in 2002.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 11, Zapatista
Commander Ramona, a 4 foot 4 inch Tzotzil Indian, arrived in Mexico
City to plead the rebel cause.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 11, In South Africa
former defense minister Magnus Malan and other members of the
military hierarchy were acquitted of charges in the massacre of 13
people in 1987. Judge Hugo said that evidence showed that Inkatha’s
leader, Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, had in 1996 secretly
requested assistance from apartheid leaders for a paramilitary force
against political rivals but that the prosecution had not shown
sufficient evidence against the defendants.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 12, President Clinton
signed into law the Water Resources Development Act, which
authorized federal water projects across the country.
(AP, 10/12/97)
1996 Oct 12, Thousands of
Hispanic Americans marched in Washington to push for simplified
citizenship procedures and a seven-dollar minimum wage.
(AP, 10/12/97)
1996 Oct 12, Followers of Sri
Chimnoy, dedicated to int'l. peace and freedom through physical
fitness, hung a brass plaque with a free verse poem in an alcove the
lobby of the Statue of Liberty.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A6)
1996 Oct 12, In Ecuador Pres.
Abdala Bucaram released his debut Rock ‘n’ Roll CD this week: "A
Madman in Love."
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 12, In New Zealand
elections voters delivered a split verdict on conservative rule.
Jenny Shipley was made prime minister and ruled for 2 years.
(SFEC, 10/13/96, p.A16)(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A21)
1996 Oct 12, Theodore Miriung,
head of the Bougainville Transitional Government of Papua, New
Guinea, was assassinated.
(SFC, 10/16/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 13, The Yankees won
the American League pennant, defeating the Baltimore Orioles.
(AP, 10/13/97)
1996 Oct 13, House Speaker Newt
Gingrich, appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," called on Congress to
investigate campaign contributions made to President Clinton's
re-election campaign by the Lippo Group, an Indonesian banking
conglomerate.
(AP, 10/13/97)
1996 Oct 13, In Austria the
far-right Freedom party of Joerg Haider received 27.6% of the vote.
The Conservative People’s Party led by Foreign Minister Wolfgang
Schuessel won with 29.6%, while the Social Democrats got 29.1%.
(SFC, 10/14/96, p.A12)
1996 Oct 13, In Iraq the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) regained Sulaymaniyah, its former
headquarters.
(SFC, 10/14/96, p.A12)
1996 Oct 14, Pop singer Madonna
gave birth to a daughter, Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon.
(AP, 10/14/97)
1996 Oct 14, The Dow Jones
industrial average closed above 6,000 for the first time, ending the
day at 6,010.
(WSJ, 12/16/96, p.C1)(AP, 10/14/97)
1996 Oct 14, In the US the
Archer Daniels Midland Co. agreed to pay an anti-trust fine of $100
million and plead guilty to two charges of price fixing on lysine
and citric acid.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A3)(AP, 10/14/97)
1996 Oct 14, In Bolivia
bilateral agreements with the US held that 12,000 to 19,000 acres of
coca production be eradicated. Failure to do so would cause a
suspension of foreign aid and approval of funds from agencies such
as the World Bank.
(SFC, 10/14/96, p.A13)
1996 Oct 15, CSX Corp.
announced plans to buy Conrail Inc. for $8.4 billion to create the
nation's third-largest railroad.
(AP, 10/15/97)
1996 Oct 16, The "Day of
Atonement" rally, a one year commemoration of the million-man-march,
was led by Louis Farrakhan near the UN in New York and about 25
thousand attended.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A3)
1996 Oct 16, Republican Bob
Dole challenged President Clinton's ethics and honesty in their
final debate.
(AP, 10/16/97)
1996 Oct 16, CSX agreed to buy
Conrail in a $8.1 billion railroad deal.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Oct 16, In Australia it
was reported that fossilized footprints of a stegosaurus dinosaur
were discovered stolen last week from Aboriginal grounds near
Broome.
(SFC, 10/16/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 16, In Australia the
Senate called for self-determination in East Timor and supported
independence from Jakarta. The government had earlier recognized the
incorporation of East Timor into Indonesia.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Oct 16, The Council of
Europe, a promoter of democracy and human rights admitted Croatia as
its 40th member.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Oct 16, In Egypt two
girls, 4 & 3, died from bleeding after being circumcised at
their homes by a government doctor.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Oct 16, Soccer fans at a
World Cup qualifying match trying to squeeze into Mateo Flores
National Stadium in Guatemala City stampeded, killing [83] 84
people. 180 were injured.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A1)(AP, 10/16/97)
1996 Oct 16, In Somalia an
agreement was reached by faction leaders Hussein Aidid, Ali
Mahdi Mohamed and Ali Hassan Osman Atto, to implement a peace
accord.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Oct 17, The Atlanta Braves
won the National League Championship Series, beating the St. Louis
Cardinals.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1996 Oct 17, In Leland, Miss.
Aaron White, a black TV repairman received a gunshot wound to the
head and was killed. It was claimed that a white police narcotics
officer shot Mr. White, while the police claimed that Mr. White shot
himself. On Oct 31 angry citizens rioted after marching on the local
police dept. when local officials agreed to only speak with the
march organizers.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A17)
1996 Oct 17, Berthold
Goldschmidt, German-born Jewish composer and conductor, died at 93
in England.
(www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/030115-NL-goldschmidt.html)
1996 Oct 17, In France a
one-day strike was held by about 1.6 million public employees, a
third of the total public service sector. French unemployment stood
at 12.5%.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A14)
1996 Oct 17, In Russia Pres.
Boris Yeltsin dismissed Alexander Lebed from his post as national
security chief, one day after the former general was accused by a
rival of building his own rogue army.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A1)(AP, 10/17/97)
1996 Oct 17, In Slovakia some
10,000 people demonstrated against Culture Minister Ivan Hudec for
firing National Theater director Dusan Jamrich. Slovak artists claim
that the government is increasingly authoritarian.
(SFC, 10/18/96, C6)
1996 Oct 18, New findings were
published in the journal Science that linked mutations in lung
cancer to cigarette smoke. An ingredient in the smoke was found to
damage the gene p53, vital to the suppression of runaway growth that
leads to tumors.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A3)
1996 Oct 18, Researchers at
Onyx Pharmaceuticals reported that they had genetically altered a
common adenovirus to selectively attack and kill tumor cells.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A1)
1996 Oct 18, Democratic Party
fund-raiser John Huang was relieved of his duties following days of
attacks by the Republicans over what they called improper and
possibly illegal contributions.
(AP, 10/18/97)
1996 Oct 18, In Cambodia the
king granted amnesty to all prison inmates except those convicted of
serious crimes and judged to be too dangerous. He also proposed
tearing down the country’s dilapidated prisons which house about
2,000 people, many held without trial. Leng Sary was granted amnesty
and formed a political party. His followers maintained rule over
Pailin under nominal government control.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A11)
1996 Oct 18, In Colombia the
Supreme Court ordered the dismissal of Attorney Gen’l. Orlando
Vasquez Velasquez, who had been arrested on charges of accepting
drug payments. He was also cited for obstruction of justice and
abuse of power.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A12)
1996 Oct 19, President Clinton
said in his radio address that states would lose a percentage of
federal highway aid if they did not bar young people from drinking
and driving.
(AP, 10/19/97)
1996 Oct 19, In the Republican
radio address, Bob Dole claimed credit for putting Democrats on the
defensive over their acceptance of foreign political contributions.
(AP, 10/19/97)
1996 Oct 19, In Guatemala
Rafael Augusto Valdizon, rebel commander, was captured in connection
with the September kidnapping of 86-year-old Olga Novella, wife of a
cement company owner. He negotiated his freedom in exchange for her
release. She was released and he disappeared.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.A8)(SFC, 10/31/96, p.A12)
1996 Oct 19, In Russia Boris
Yeltsin appointed Ivan Rybkin as Sec. of The National Security
Council.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, A15)
1996 Oct 20, The Atlanta Braves
defeated the New York Yankees 12-1 in game one of the World Series.
(AP, 10/20/97)
1996 Oct 20, "Summer &
Smoke" closed at Criterion Theater in NYC.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1996 Oct 20, In Colombia
fighting in 3 provinces over the weekend left 24 soldiers and
leftist rebels dead.
(SFC, 10/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 20, Some 300 Congolese
Hutu peasants were bludgeoned to death by Rwandan troops in
Musekera. Details were not made public until 2010 by the local
Observation Center for Human Rights and Social Assistance.
(AP, 10/10/10)
1996 Oct 20, In Japan the
Liberal Democratic Party under Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto won
a plurality in the lower house. The vote marked a setback to
reformers.
(WSJ, 10/21/96, p.A16)(USAT, 8/29/97, p.8A)(AP,
10/20/97)
1996 Oct 20, In Nicaragua
elections were scheduled and former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega
trailed by 5 points against Arnoldo Aleman, former mayor of Managua.
(WSJ, 10/9/96, p.A15)
1996 Oct 20, In northern Sierra
Leone rebels killed 36 people including 6 patients at the Masanga
hospital.
(SFC, 10/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 21, The Atlanta Braves
took a two-games-to-none lead in the World Series, defeating the New
York Yankees 4-0.
(AP, 10/21/97)
1996 Oct 21, President
Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military
survived its first Supreme Court test.
(AP, 10/21/97)
1996 Oct 21, UN Security
Council elections for the 5 non-permanent seats were won by Japan,
Kenya, Sweden, Costa Rica and Portugal for a 2-year period. Ten of
the seats are temporary and five are chosen annually.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)
1996 Oct 21, In Albania the
ruling Democratic Party claimed a landslide victory in local
elections.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)
1996 Oct 21, In Algeria the
Mayor of Algiers, Ali Boucetta, was killed by a stray bullet in
fighting between security forces and rebels in Algiers.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)
1996 Oct 21, An American crop
duster flew over Cuba on its way to Bogota, Colombia. In 1997 Cuba
claimed before the UN that the plane dusted Cuban fields with a
biological pest, thrips palmi.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A4)
1996 Oct 21, In Murambi
village, Burundi, some 300 (258-435) Hutu refugees returned from
Zaire and were killed as they sought refuge in a village church.
(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A8)(SFC, 12/12/96, p.C2)
1996 Oct 21, Arnoldo Aleman
claimed victory over Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua's presidential
election.
(AP, 10/21/97)
1996 Oct 21, About 225,000 Hutu
refugees fled camps in eastern Zaire. The governor of the area has
given the 300,000 Banyamulenge Tutsis as week to leave. Zaire has
camps holding about 1.5 million Hutu refugees, most of them from
Rwanda.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)
1996 Oct 21, In Zimbabwe some
11,000 nurses went on strike for higher wages, allowances and better
working conditions.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A16)
1996 Oct 21-22, Firestorms
covered 35,000 acres in Malibu and San Diego County and destroyed
more than 60 homes. Another fire in the Los Padres National Forest
was reported 60% contained.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 22, The New York
Yankees won their first game of the World Series, defeating the
Atlanta Braves 5-2 in game three.
(AP, 10/22/97)
1996 Oct 22, General Motors
settled a three-week strike with its workers in Canada, resolving a
walkout that had idled more than 46,000 workers across North
America.
(AP, 10/22/97)
1996 Oct 22, Floodwaters in
Portland, Maine, ruptured a pipeline and left some 120,000 people
without drinking water. At least 7 people died in the weekend storm
that dumped as much as 18 inches in some places.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A3)
1996 Oct 22, In Algeria a new
constitution was drafted that would ban Islamic militants from
seeking power. It was to be put up for referendum on Nov. 28.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 22, In Bosnia
municipal elections were postponed till the spring because Bosnian
Serbs clung to their decision to boycott the vote.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 22, In Canada the
Godfrey-Milliken bill was introduced in response to the US
Helms-Burton bill. It said that 3 million Canadian descendants of
80,000 uprooted loyalists from the time of the American Revolution
have a right to compensation for their confiscated property.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 22, In Quito, Ecuador,
thirty-four people were killed when a flaming Boeing 707 cargo jet
plane sliced through dozens of homes minutes after takeoff from
Ecuador's Manta airport. It struck the bell tower of the La Dolorosa
Church and burst into flames [and 25 people were killed].
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A10)(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)(AP,
10/22/97)
1996 Oct 22, In Japan
prosecutors arrested Yasuo Hamanaka, the former Sumitomo copper
trader accused of racking up $2.6 billion in losses.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)
1996 Oct 22, In Nicaragua the
final vote showed Aleman led Ortega 51 to 37.7%.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A8)(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A12)
1996 Oct 22, In Venezuela at
least 30 prison inmates died after a fire was started apparently
caused by tear gas canisters fired by guards. The fire was set by
incendiary devices fired by national guardsmen. 25 guards were
assigned to watch over 1,700 inmates at the La Planta prison
designed for 1,000.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A10)(SFC, 10/24/96, p.C4)
1996 Oct 23, The New York
Yankees tied the World Series at two games apiece, defeating the
Atlanta Braves, 8-6.
(AP, 10/23/97)
1996 Oct 23, Republican
presidential nominee Bob Dole tried to persuade Ross Perot to quit
the race and endorse the GOP ticket, but Perot refused.
(AP, 10/23/97)
1996 Oct 23, The civil trial of
O.J. Simpson opened in Santa Monica, Calif. Simpson was later found
liable in the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald
Goldman.
(AP, 10/23/97)
1996 Oct 23, In Norway Gro
Harlem Brundtland announced her resignation as prime minister.
Thoerbjorn Jagland, leader of the Labor Party, was expected to
replace her.
(SFC, 10/24/96, p.C3)
1996 Oct 24, The New York
Yankees took the lead in the World Series, defeating the Atlanta
Braves 1-0 in game five.
(AP, 10/24/97)
1996 Oct 24, In St. Petersburg,
Fla., a riot ensued when a white police officer fatally shot a black
man during a traffic stop. Some 200 people raged over a 25 sq. block
area where at least 17 fires were set.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A3)
1996 Oct 24, Norfolk Southern
launched a $9.1 billion offer for Conrail in opposition to the
friendly bid by CSX.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Oct 24, Hyman Minsky
(b.1919), American economist, died. He argued that the financial
system played a bog role in exaggerating the economic cycle, one
that was understated by conventional theory. His books included “Can
"It" Happen Again? Essays on instability and finance,” (1982).
(http://record.wustl.edu/archive/1996/10-31-96/8447.html)(Econ,
4/4/09, p.77)
1996 Oct 24, In China the
Foreign Ministry acknowledged that some samples of serum albumin
were contaminated with the AIDS virus. Authorities said that 4,305
people in China had HIV. They acknowledged that the number could be
as high as 100,000.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A14)
1996 Oct 24, In Cuba a UN
report said Hurricane Lili destroyed 5,460 homes and damaged over
78,000. The Clinton administration waived a ban on air service and
approved a charter flight for relief aid.
(SFC, 10/24/96, p.D5)
1996 Oct 24, The EU awarded the
1996 Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought to Chinese dissident Wei
Jingsheng.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A17)
1996 Oct 24, Arthur Axmann
(83), head of Hitler Youth (1940-45), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Axmann)
1996 Oct 24, Polish lawmakers
relaxed the controversial abortion law and allowed women to
terminate pregnancies until the 12th week for financial or emotional
reasons. The law was signed on Nov 20.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A15)(SFC, 11/21/96, p.C6)
1996 Oct 24, Yeltsin of Russia
and Kuchma of the Ukraine agreed to divide the Black Sea Fleet.
(WSJ, 10/25/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 25, The opera
Florencia en el Amazonas premiered in Houston. It was composed by
Daniel Catan of Mexico with libretto by Marcela Fuentes-Berain.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 25, Federal Judge
Richard Matsch granted Oklahoma City bombing defendants Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols separate trials rather than let one man
drag the other down in the same trial.
(AP, 10/25/97)
1996 Oct 25, In Canada
protestors opposed to spending cuts in Toronto shut down the mass
transit system. Ontario Premier Mike Harris planned to cut the
provincial budget by 20% in order to wipe out the deficit by the
turn of the century.
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 25, The UN announced
an emergency food airlift to eastern Zaire to help 300,000 Hutu
refugees fleeing violence.
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 25, The US held back
$100 million in arms until Bosnia cuts its ties to Iran. M-60 tanks,
M-111 armored personnel carriers and 50,000 small arms, ammunition
and supplies were part of the deal.
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 26, In the US baseball
World Series the NY Yankees won their first World Series since 1978,
defeating the Atlanta Braves 3-2 in game six.
(WSJ, 10/28/96, p.A1)(AP, 10/26/97)
1996 Oct 26, Federal
prosecutors cleared Richard Jewell as a suspect in the Olympic park
bombing, ending a three-month ordeal for the former security guard.
(AP, 10/26/97)
1996 Oct 27, U.S. envoy Dennis
Ross shuttled between Jerusalem and the Palestinians' Gaza Strip
headquarters, trying to finesse a deal to start an overdue Israeli
withdrawal from Hebron.
(AP, 10/27/97)
1996 Oct 27, In South Carolina
Joshua Grant Kennedy, a Ku Klux Klan member, fired 11 times into a
crowd of black teenagers outside a nightclub and wounded three
teens. Kennedy was sentenced to 26 years in prison in 1998.
(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A3)
1996 Oct 27, In Bulgaria the
anti-Communist opposition candidate, Petar Stoyanov, led the
elections against Ivan Marazov with 44% vs. 27%.
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 27, In Cambodia the
king reversed his decision for amnesty after students issued a
warning of increased national insecurity.
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 27, In Egypt a
12-story apartment building collapsed in Heliopolis, a suburb of
Cairo and at least 2 people were killed. The death toll reached 50
and many were still missing. The owner had illegally added the last
5 levels.
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A9)(SFC, 10/30/96, p.A8)(SFC,
11/2/96, p.C1)
1996 Oct 27, In Malta the
opposition socialist leader, Alfred Sant, won elections that could
return his Labor Party back to power after 16 years. His party has
opposed the push to join the European Union. He was sworn in as
prime minister by Pres. Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, a former minister of the
defeated Nationalist Party.
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A10)(SFC, 10/29/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 27, In Mexico the EPR
announced the end of a cease-fire with the federal government.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A9)
1996 Oct 28, Richard Jewell,
cleared of committing the Olympic park bombing, held a news
conference in Atlanta in which he thanked his mother for standing by
him and lashed out at reporters and investigators who had depicted
him as the bomber.
(AP, 10/28/97)
1996 Oct 28, Comedian Morey
Amsterdam died in Los Angeles at age 81.
(AP, 10/28/97)
1996 Oct 29, Graham Swift won
the Booker Prize for his comic novel "Last Orders."
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.E7)
1996 Oct 29, Hundreds of
thousands of New York Yankees fans participated in an enormous
blue-and-white ticker-tape Par for the World Series champions.
(AP, 10/29/97)
1996 Oct 29, In Alameda, Ca.,
Manuel Garcia (59) was found dead of trauma and stab wounds. 12 days
later Diane Ely (54) was found beaten and stabbed to death in
Alameda. In 2011 police with DNA evidence charged Eugene Albert
Protsman (56), a convicted killer already serving a life sentence,
with the murders.
(SFC, 9/28/11, p.C2)
1996 Oct 29, In Colombia
Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, Cali drug cartel chief, agreed to pay a
$105 million fine and plead guilty to crimes that included illicit
enrichment.
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 29, In San Francisco
the first Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize was awarded. The $30,000
prize, split between the author and publisher for promotion, went to
Alan Brown, author of "Audrey Hepburn’s Neck." The prize was
intended to nurture understanding and cooperation among the
countries and peoples of the Pacific Rim.
(SFC, 10/31/96, p.E6)
1996 Oct 29, James Edward Day
(1914-1996), retired US postmaster general, died. He launched the
ZIP Code system.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 29, In Turkey a
Kurdish separatist suicide team of 2 killed themselves, 3 policemen
and a civilian in the town of Sivas.
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 30, After a four-hour
trial, a Chinese court sentenced pro-democracy activist Wang Dan to
11 years in prison for "conspiring to subvert the Chinese
government." Wang was freed in April 1998 and sent into exile in the
United States.
(AP, 10/30/901)
1996 Oct 30, Rwandan commandos
crossed into eastern Zaire to aid the Tutsi rebels there. Zaire had
about 50,000 troops, but they were poorly trained, poorly armed,
poorly led and notoriously poorly disciplined. Rwanda had about
54,000 soldiers in a well-disciplined army.
(SFC, 10/31/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 30, The Vatican said
eastern Zaire’s Archbishop was killed, the 2nd in 2 months.
(WSJ, 10/31/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 30, In Switzerland the
government announced that it would join NATO’s Partnership for Peace
program to promote European security.
(SFC, 10/31/96, p.A12)
1996 Oct 30, In Zimbabwe the
government fired some 11,000 nurses who defied an order to end a
strike.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A21)
1996 Oct 31, In Pontiac, Mich.,
Dr. Jack Kevorkian was charged with assisting three suicides since
June 1996. He was later acquitted.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1996 Oct 31, In Pontiac, Mich.,
Jenny Jones testified at the trial of one of her talk show guests,
Jonathan Schmitz, who was accused of killing another guest, Scott
Amedure in March, 1995.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1996 Oct 31, A grand jury
indicted a number of corrupt officials in Kansas City, Missouri. As
members of the Port Authority charged with assigning licenses to
riverboat gambling establishments, they accepted a $250,000 bribe in
1993 from Hilton Hotels Corp. Named in the indictments were Michelle
Lathan, Elbert Anderson (chmn. of the Port Authority), James Ramsey,
and a family friend of Anderson's, Charles Maurice Herron.
(SFC, 12/2/96,
p.A10)(www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/1996/08/26/story2.html)
1996 Oct 31, In Brazil a
Dutch-made Fokker-100, TAM Regional Airlines Flight 402, crashed
after take-off from Sao Paulo into the streets of Vila Santa
Catarina. All 96 people on board and three on the ground were
killed.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)(AP, 10/31/97)
1996 Oct 31, An outbreak of the
Ebola virus killed at least 17 people. It was the 4th outbreak
in Africa since 1995.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A21)(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T5)
1996 Oct, The Federal Hourly
Minimum Wage was set at $4.75 an hour.
(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)
1996 Oct, In California Robert
Gremminger (54), a former San Jose fireman, shot and killed Anthony
Gilbert (30) at the Great Mall of the Bay in Milpitas. Gremminger
had interceded in a suspected shoplifting incident and retrieved a
gun from his car. He claimed to have shot when Gilbert tried to run
him and a security guard down. In 1998 Gremminger was sentenced to 9
years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A15)
1996 Oct, Argentine director
Juan Carlos Desanzo produced his film "Eva Peron."
(Hem., 1/97, p.106)
1996 Oct, In Australia the
rabbit calcivirus was released. It quickly cut the rabbit population
and forced eagles to concentrate on road kill. Increased incidents
of vehicle collisions with eagles was reported.
(SFC, 1/18/96, p.A16)
1996 Oct, In Cambodia Mr.
Robert Prins, president of Iowa Wesleyan College, bestowed an
honorary law degree to Hun Sen and his chief of cabinet Sok An at
the behest of Mr. Ted Sioeng, Indonesian businessman.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A22)
1996 Oct, In the Dominican
Republic Pres. Fernandez forced 24 army generals into retirement.
(SFC, 11/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Oct, In Indonesia Guruh
Sukarno Putra, son of Indonesia’s first president, released the
album "NTXTC," short for "Anti-Ecstasy." It was intended as a
statement against use of the ecstasy drug that sells for up to $45 a
pop across the country.
(WSJ, 1/29/97, p.A9)
1996 Oct, In Sudan a peace
agreement was established between Pres. Omar Hassan al-Bashir and 6
minor rebel factions, Kerubino [Kuayin] Kwanying Bol, a founding
members of the rebels, was promoted to major general in the Sudanese
army and attacked Bahr el Ghazal. Farming in this province of the
Dinka tribe was disrupted and led to famine. Rebel leader John
Garang refused to go along. Bol was a liberation army commander who
switched allegiance to the government’s side and then turned on the
civilian population in his home territory.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A17)(SFC, 7/29/98, p.A8)
1996 Oct, In Uganda the LRA
abducted 139 girls from a Catholic school run by Italian nuns. One
nun managed to plead for the release of 109 girls but the rebels
kept 30, ignoring pleas from Pope John Paul II and other world
leaders.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A10)
1996 Oct, The Vietnamese
government introduced the death penalty for corruption cases that
involved serious losses to the state.
(SFC, 2/1/97, p.A13)
1996 Nov 1, Accused of peddling
access to the Oval Office, President Clinton demanded an end to what
he called the "escalating arms race" for political money. Bob Dole
countered with his own solutions to "a growing scandal" of
Democratic financial sins.
(AP, 11/1/97)
1996 Nov 1, In Burma the
government program to attract visitors "Visit Myanmar Year" began
with tighter security measures.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T5)
1996 Nov 1, In the Dominican
Republic Pres. Fernandez fired his commander-in-chief Lt. Gen’l.
Juan Bautista Rojas Tobar after he was accused of involvement in the
1994 slaying of Narciso Gonzalez.
(SFC, 11/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Nov 1, In Germany a new
law governing store hours will take effect. Bakeries will be allowed
to sell fresh bread on Sunday mornings, though other stores must
remain closed.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 1, In Guatemala a
Brazilian-made turboprop crashed near Flores in Peten province and
14 people enroute to the Mayan site of Tikal were killed.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.C1)
1996 Nov 1, In Israel Nahum
Kurman, the security chief of a Jewish settlement, was charged for
killing 11-year-old Palestinian, Hilmi Shousha. Kurman claimed the
boy fell and banged his head. He was sentenced in 2001 to 6 months
of community service and a $17,000 fine.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.C1)(SFC, 1/24/01, p.A13)
1996 Nov 1, Five police
officers were slain in southern Mexico and another outside Mexico
City. The EPR claimed responsibility.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A9)
1996 Nov 1, Norway announced a
$24 million donation to educate girls in 19 African countries. The
gift went to UNICEF’s African Education for All program.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.C1)
1996 Nov 2, A tentative labor
contract was reached between General Motors and the United Auto
Workers, averting a national strike.
(AP, 11/2/97)
1996 Nov 2, Some 160,000 Beja
people faced famine in northern Sudan because of a 2-year draught in
the region.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A18)
1996 Nov 3, US businessman,
Paul Tatum, was assassinated on the steps of a Moscow subway station
in what his relatives suspect was a contract slaying by the Russian
mafia. He was in a long-running fight to gain control of the
Radisson-Slavyanskaya hotel.
(WSJ, 11/4/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A8)(AP,
11/3/97)
1996 Nov 3, In Bulgaria in
presidential elections Petar Stoyanov, 44, won with 61.9% of the
vote.
(SFC, 11/4/96, p.A11)
1996 Nov 3, Jean-Bedel Bokassa
(75), former self-proclaimed emperor (1967-1979) of the Central
African Republic, died. He was called "the Ogre of Berengo."
(SFC, 11/4/96, p.A22)(MC, 11/3/01)(SSFC, 5/4/03,
p.M2)
1996 Nov 3, In Romania the
opposition party won parliamentary elections ending control by
ex-Communists.
(WSJ, 11/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 3, In Turkey Abdulah
Catli, a convicted heroin smuggler and terror suspect; Husseyin
Kocadag, a security official and deputy police chief in Istanbul;
and Gonca Us, a gangster mistress, were killed in a car crash in
Susurluk. Sedat Bucak, member of parliament and head of a Kurdish
clan that received funds for providing guards to fight separatist
Kurds, was injured in the same vehicle. The event came to be known
as the Susurluk scandal.
(SFC, 12/10/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A16)
1996 Nov 4, On the last day of
campaigning before Election Day, President Clinton appealed for a
second term by taking credit for a revived economy, while Republican
Bob Dole warned of mounting Clinton ethical questions.
(AP, 11/4/97)
1996 Nov 4, In South Korea the
president announced a new anti-corruption drive after his defense
minister, sacked last week, was arrested for taking bribes.
(WSJ, 11/5/96, p.A18)
1996 Nov 4, In Pakistan Pres.
Farooq Leghari dismissed Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Until new
elections are held civilian administrators will run the show.
(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A9)
1996 Nov 5, Pres. William
Jefferson Clinton was re-elected in the US but voters kept
Congress in Republican control. He won about 50% of the popular vote
and 375 electoral votes. Republican candidate Bob Dole got 43% and
135 electoral votes. Clinton won Ohio by 6 percentage points.
(SFC, 11/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 11/5/97)(Econ, 8/2/08,
p.31)
1996 Nov 5, In California
elections Prop. 215, an initiative to make marijuana legal for
medical used, was passed. Psychiatrist Tod Mikuriya (1933-2007) was
the architect of Prop. 215. A measure to end public sector
affirmative action was also passed. Prop 218, the right to vote on
taxes act, also passed with a 56% approval. Prop. 204 bond funds
were approved [for ecological restoration of the Bay Area and
Sacramento-San Joaquin River deltas]. Prop 208, a campaign spending
limit measure, was approved but later struck down by a federal
judge. Arcata soon established a photo ID program to verify medical
use.
(SFC, 11/6/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/20/96, p.A1)(SFC,
2/3/98, p.A13)(SFC, 5/22/07, p.B5)
1996 Nov 5, Mississippi Gov.
Kirk Fordice was seriously injured when his car rolled off an
interstate.
(AP, 11/5/97)
1996 Nov 5, Eddie Harris
(1934-1996), tenor saxophonist, died. His recordings included
"Freedom Jazz Dance" the "Theme for Exodus" and "Compared to What."
(SFC, 11/8/96, p.A25)
1996 Nov 5, Pres. Boris Yeltsin
had successful heart bypass surgery. Five clogged arteries were
circumvented.
(SFC, 11/6/96, p.A21)(AP, 11/5/97)
1996 Nov 5, In Turkey
government officials announced that a gas pipeline would begin to be
built in March to carry gas from Iran to Turkey.
(SFC, 11/6/96, p.A25)
1996 Nov 5, Zairians in
Kinshasa defied a ban on demonstrations and called for the
government to resign.
(WSJ, 11/6/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 6, Andrea Barrett won
the National Book Award for fiction for her book: "Ship Fever and
Other Stories," a blend of science and history. Victor Martinez won
in the category of Young People’s Literature for his novel "Parrot
in the Oven: Mi Vida."
(SFC, 11/7/96, p.E4)(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 6, A day after being
re-elected, President Clinton threw a party on the White House lawn;
that same day, he received resignations from secretaries of state,
defense, energy and commerce.
(AP, 11/6/97)
1996 Nov 6, Chevron Corp.
agreed to pay more than $8 million to 777 women in a suit that
alleged discrimination in pay, promotions and assignments.
(SFC, 11/7/96, p.a1)
1996 Nov 6, NASA’s $215 million
Mars Global Surveyor was delayed for launch. It was supposed to
arrive at Mars in Sep, 1997.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A6)(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A4)(SFC,
11/7/96, p.B1)
1996 Nov 6, Mario Savio
(b.1942), founder of the 1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement, died.
In 2009 Robert Cohen authored “Freedom’s Orator: Mario Savio and the
Radical Legacy of the 1960s.”
(SSFC, 10/10/04, p.18)(SFC, 9/23/09, p.E2)
1996 Nov 6, In China Chen
Ziming, political dissident, was released on a medical parole from a
13-year sentence that began in 1989.
(SFC, 11/7/96, p.a12)
1996 Nov 6-1996 Nov 7, In India
cyclone 07B killed some 2000 in Andhra Pradesh state. Damage was
estimated at $1.5 billion.
(WSJ, 11/8/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/12/96,
p.A11)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1996 Nov 6, In Japan the
Parliament re-elected Ryutaro Hashimoto as prime minister.
(SFC, 11/7/96, p.a13)
1996 Nov 7, The U.S. liquor
industry voted to drop its decades-old voluntary ban on broadcast
advertising.
(AP, 11/7/97)
1996 Nov 7, Michael Norton,
chief of Kona Kai Farms in Berkeley, was indicted on charges of
money laundering and wire fraud in connection with selling cheaper
coffee as Hawaiian Kona Coffee.
(SFC, 11/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 7, CSX raised its bid
to $8.4 billion for Conrail. Norfolk Southern then raised its bid to
$10 billion.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Nov 7, Merck researchers
announced a new class of antibiotics that attack bacteria that have
grown resistant to current drugs.
(WSJ, 11/8/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 7, NASA's Mars Global
Surveyor blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a mission to map
the surface of the Red Planet.
(AP, 11/7/97)
1996 Nov 7, In Albania former
Communist secret policemen were blamed for a bomb that injured a top
judge and his daughter. The attack came after an appeals court
upheld prison sentences against 9 officials of the former Communist
regime.
(WSJ, 11/7/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 7, In Belarus pres.
Lukashenko will call a national referendum to obtain power to
disband the legislature and extend his term of office from 5 to 7
years. His new constitution extended his office by 10 years, allowed
him to appoint judges, boards and deputies, and would ban private
property in the country.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A14)
1996 Nov 7, In Mexico police
and army units arrested 14 men as suspected leftist guerrillas in
Oaxaca. In Chiapas state 27 members of humanitarian groups working
with rebel villages received death threats.
(SFC, 11/8/96, p.A18)
1996 Nov 7, In Nigeria Flight
086, a Boeing 727 belonging to the Aviation Development Corp.,
crashed near Epe east of Lagos and 141 [142] people died.
(SFC, 11/8/96, p.A18)(AP, 11/7/97)
1996 Nov 7, Thousands of
Communists marched through Moscow to mark the 79th anniversary of
the Bolshevik revolution.
(AP, 11/7/97)
1996 Nov 7, In Turkmenistan the
president opened a human rights agency. Some 17 government hotels
stand empty on the edge of the desert. The average wage was $16 per
month and the president’s son was rumored to have lost $12.5 million
in one night of gambling in Spain.
(SFC, 11/8/96, p.A14)
1996 Nov 8, Three days after
his re-election, President Clinton said at a news conference that
there always are "a lot of hard feelings" after elections, but he
urged Republicans to put aside politically charged investigations
and work with him to balance the budget and enact campaign finance
reform.
(AP, 11/8/97)
1996 Nov 8, Cheyenne Pyle, the
youngest heart transplant patient (90 mins old), was born in Miami
and flown to California for surgery. The infant did not survive.
(http://tinyurl.com/86zgh)
1996 Nov 8, In Colorado Anna
Gimmestad (16 months) died after drinking a bottle of Odwalla apple
juice contaminated with E. coli. An epidemic broke out in Oct. due
to the tainted juices. In 1998 Odwalla paid a government fine of 1.5
million.
(SFC, 7/24/98, p.A17)
1996 Nov 8, Bosnian Serb Pres.
Biljana Plavsic announced that he had dismissed General Ratko
Mladic.
(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 8, Pres. Mobutu Sese
Seko of Zaire was recuperating from prostate cancer surgery at the
Villa del Mare on the French Mediterranean. Recent Swiss reports put
his holdings in Swiss banks at $4 billion.
(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 9, Evander Holyfield
upset Mike Tyson to win the WBA heavyweight title in an 11-round
fight in Las Vegas.
(AP, 11/9/97)
1996 Nov 9, President Clinton
used his weekly radio address to condemn the decision of the
nation's distillers to end their voluntary ban on airing hard-liquor
ads, calling it "simply irresponsible."
(AP, 11/9/97)
1996 Nov 10, In Miami the
Carnival Destiny from Carnival Cruise Lines will debut. The ship at
102,000 tons will be the largest ever made. It will be able to carry
3,350 passengers.
(SFC, 9/22/96, p.T3)
1996 Nov 10, Major Gen. Pero
Colic, the Bosnian Serbs' new military commander, was sworn in, just
a day after Gen. Ratko Mladic, a war crimes suspect, was dismissed.
(AP, 11/10/97)
1996 Nov 10, China announced a
ban on selected US goods in response to a US cut in import quotas of
textiles.
(SFC, 11/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Nov 10, In Chiapas,
Mexico, police and federal soldiers killed 3 protestors during a
clash over corn prices.
(SFC, 11/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Nov 10, A bomb ripped
through a crowd of mourners in a Moscow cemetery, killing 14 people
and wounding nearly 50. Authorities later charged the head of an
Afghan war veterans fund with masterminding the bombing, saying the
target was a rival veterans group.
(AP, 11/10/97)
1996 Nov 11, The Army reported
getting nearly 2,000 calls to a hot line set up after revelations of
a sex scandal at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Meanwhile,
a Pentagon official said the Army was ready to take action in
another case of alleged sexual misconduct at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
(AP, 11/11/97)
1996 Nov 11, John Plummer,
Vietnam era helicopter pilot, met with Phan Thi Kim at the Vietnam
Memorial in Washington in reconciliation. Phan Thi Kim had suffered
severe napalm burns after a napalm bombing of her village in Jun
1972.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A3)(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.A1,12)
1996 Nov 11, An explosion
occurred at the Texaco oil refinery near Los Angeles harbor. No
injuries were reported.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Nov 11, In the Czech
Republic Stanislav Devaty, chief of the secret service, resigned
after being accused of spying on government officials. He denied the
charges.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 11, Gen’l. Roberto
Letona, the Guatemalan military attaché in Washington, was
ordered home after being linked to the Moreno smuggling operation
that cheated the government out of some $2.7 billion in taxes and
duties over 15 years.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 11, In Guatemala Pres.
Alvaro Arzu and the rebel alliance separately announced a peace
agreement to be signed Dec 29.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A13)
1996 Nov 11, Poland’s return to
independence after WW I was celebrated and hundreds of skinheads and
right-wing activists staged demonstrations against Jews and
foreigners.
(SFC, 11/13/96, p.C2)
1996 Nov 11, In Russia a bomb
was set off in a Moscow cemetery and 12 were killed. It came during
a memorial service for Colonel Mikhail Likhodey, chairman of the
Afghan War Invalids Fund, who was killed by a bomb in 1994.
(SFC, 11/11/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Nov 12, In Pontiac, Mich.,
Jonathan Schmitz, a guest on "The Jenny Jones Show," was convicted
of second-degree murder for shooting Scott Amedure, a gay man who'd
revealed a crush on Schmitz during a taping of the program. Schmitz
was later convicted and sentenced to up to 50 years in prison but
the conviction was thrown out due to a jury dispute and the trial
was reset for Aug, 1999.
(AP, 11/12/97)(WSJ, 5/10/99, p.B8)
1996 Nov 12, Albert Dunlap (aka
"Chain-Saw Al") announced the cut of 6,000 employees (50%) from
Sunbeam Corp. as part of a corporate restructure. Sunbeam later
overstated earnings and nearly collapsed after a series of
accounting scandals under Dunlap, who paid $15 million to settle a
shareholder suit.
(WSJ, 11/13/96, p.B1)(WSJ, 7/10/02, p.A8)
1996 Nov 12, Near New Delhi,
India, a Saudi Arabian Boeing 747 with 312 passengers crashed into a
Kazak Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 with 39 people in midair. It marked
the worst midair collision in aviation history and the 3rd deadliest
air crash. Investigators later claimed the Ilyushin II-76 failed to
maintain its assigned altitude. All 349 passengers and crew were
killed.
(SFC, 11/13/96, p.A1)(SFC, 5/14/97, p.A12)(AP,
11/12/97)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1996 Nov 12, Canada agreed to
lead a multinational force to aid the refugees in Zaire.
(WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 12, In Croatia a
building in Mostar, renovated under contract with the European
Union, was taken over and adopted as the High Court of the Croatian
Republic of Herceg-Bosna. It was supposed to have been Mostar’s City
Hall under joint administration by Croats and Muslims.
(SFC, 12/4/96, p.C3)
1996 Nov 12, A Middle East
economic summit began in Cairo, Egypt.
(SFC, 11/13/96, p.C2)
1996 Nov 12, A 6.4 earthquake
hit the country centered in the Pacific Ocean about 83 miles west of
Nazca, 235 miles southeast of Lima. About 17 people were killed and
some 1500 injured in the 7.7 earthquake.
(SFC, 11/13/96, p.A10)(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
1996 Nov 13, An all-white jury
in Pittsburgh acquitted a suburban police officer, John Vojtas, in
the death of black motorist Jonny Gammage in a verdict that angered
black activists.
(AP, 11/13/97)
1996 Nov 13, Sgt. Loren B.
Taylor, a drill sergeant who'd had sex with three women recruits at
Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., was given five months in prison and a
bad-conduct discharge in the first sentencing of the burgeoning Army
sex scandal.
(AP, 11/13/97)
1996 Nov 13, A grand jury in
St. Petersburg, Fla., declined to indict a white policeman, Jim
Knight, who had shot black motorist TyRon Lewis to death the
previous month; the decision prompted angry mobs to return to the
streets.
(SFC, 11/14/96, p.A3)(AP, 11/13/97)
1996 Nov 13, In Algeria
militants slit the throats of 12 people outside Blida, 30 miles
south of Algiers. Ten of the victims were of the same family.
(SFC, 11/14/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 14, The first General
Motors electric automobile, the EV1, was produced in Lansing, Mich.
Its range was estimated at 70-90 miles before recharge.
(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 14, Cardinal Joseph
Bernardin, the senior Roman Catholic prelate in the United States
and leader of Chicago's 2.3 million Catholics, died at his home at
age 68, surrounded by family and friends.
(SFC, 11/15/96, p.C7)(AP, 11/14/97)
1996 Nov 14, In Algeria
militants slit the throats of 18 more people. 11 in Ain-Dema and 7
in Douar Zemala.
(SFC, 11/15/96, p.A18)
1996 Nov 14, In Guatemala
villagers in Momostenango broke into the town jail where 4 men were
jailed on charges of assault and robbery of bus passengers. They
were beat, doused with gasoline and burned to death. It was later
learned that the victims were 2 artists, a dentist, and a minister
from a neighboring state hunting rabbits.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.T9)(SFC, 12/3/96, p.E1)
1996 Nov 14, In Mexico PRI
deputies approved the rewritten "all-party accords" that had been
initially designed to stem their power.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A11)
1996 Nov 14, Armed men
surrounded the Mugunga refugee camp in eastern Zaire and began
shooting indiscriminately at its inhabitants as they huddled for
safety or tried to flee. Hundreds of men, women and children died
over a three-day period, according to eyewitnesses and forensic
evidence later gathered from mass graves.
(AP, 10/1/10)
1996 Nov 15, Singer Michael
Jackson married the woman carrying his baby -- his plastic surgeon's
nurse, Debbie Rowe -- in a ceremony in Sydney, Australia. Their
first child was born Feb 13, 1997 and named Prince. A girl named
Paris was born Apr 3, 1998. Rowe filed for divorce in 1999.
(SFC, 4/4/98, p.A7)(AP, 11/15/01)
1996 Nov 15, Texaco Corp.
agreed to pay [$176.1] $176.9 million dollars to settle a
two-year-old race discrimination suit. Executive Richard Lundwall
had taped himself along with others that belittled African Americans
and scoffed at a lawsuit that accused Texaco of racial bias.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A11)(AP, 11/15/97)(SFC,
4/23/98, p.A9)
1996 Nov 15, Miami black
commissioner, Miller Dawkins, pleaded guilty to bribery, corruption
and conspiracy in attempting to shake down Unisys Corp. for
$200,000. The case was opened under the FBI Operation Greenpalm.
Also indicted was Cesar Odio, former city manager, who tried to skim
funds from a city insurance contract. It was also uncovered
that the city was $68 million in the red. Odio pleaded guilty in
1997.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A6)(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A3)
1996 Nov 15, In San Francisco a
Vietnamese gang leader, Cuong Tran, and his lawyer, Dennis Natali,
were shot to death in separate incidents. Tran had been cooperating
with federal investigators. A 17-year-old was charged with the
slaying. Police contended that Man Leung Yu gave the orders for the
killing. In 1997 it was reported that Natali collected money
extorted from massage parlors.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A1)(SFC, 1/10/96, p.A23)(SFC,
8/28/97, p.A1)
1996 Nov 15, Former State
Department official Alger Hiss, who fell from grace in a Communist
spy scandal, died in New York four days after his 92nd birthday. In
1999 his son published "The View From Alger's Window," a personal
remembrance of his father. In 2004 G. Edward White authored "Alger
Hiss's Looking-Glass Wars."
(AP, 11/15/97)(WSJ, 6/24/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 3/19/04,
p.W12)
1996 Nov 15, In the Philippines
tropical storm Ernie ravaged 14 provinces and killed 16 people.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.E4)
1996 Nov 16, President Clinton
spent the first full day of a shortened vacation in Hawaii that
preceded a trip to Australia, Thailand and the Philippines.
(AP, 11/1697)
1996 Nov 16-1996 Nov 17, The
Russian Mars 96 probe was launched on a Proton rocket. The upper
stage rocket failed and the probe crashed into the South Pacific.
(SFC, 11/19/96, p.B1)(AP, 11/17/01)
1996 Nov 16, In Russia an
explosion at a military housing project in Kaspiysk in the Dagestan
Republic killed 56.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.A15)(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 16, Into Rwanda
thousands of refugees went home from Zaire in a column that
stretched 28 miles.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 17, "Present Laughter"
opened at Walter Kerr Theater NYC.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0571)
1996 Nov 17, The World Food
Summit concluded a five-day meeting in Rome, with delegates
promising a wide-ranging effort to ease hunger around the globe.
(AP, 11/17/97)
1996 Nov 17, In Romania
centrist reformer Emil Constantinescu defeated the incumbent Ion
Iliescu in presidential elections.
(SFC, 11/18/96, p.A11)
1996 Nov 18, Harold James
Nicholson, former CIA station chief, was arrested for espionage. He
was said to have started passing information to Russia from Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, in June of 1994 and collected [more than $120,000]
as much as $180,000. Nicholson later pleaded guilty to espionage and
was sentenced to 23 1/2 years in prison. He was spared a life
sentence for cooperating with investigators.
(SFC, 11/19/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/22/96, p.A20)(AP,
11/18/97)
1996 Nov 18, In Belarus Prime
Minister Mikhail Chigir resigned and 75 of 199 lawmakers signed
petitions to impeach president Lukashenko.
(SFC, 11/19/96, p.A13)
1996 Nov 18, In Moldova Pres.
Mircea Snegur and Parliament Speaker Petru Lucinschi went into 2nd
round elections. Voters seemed to seek a diminished relationship
with Russia and closer ties with Romania.
(SFC, 11/19/96, p.A14)
1996 Nov 18, Rwandan troops
descended on the Chimanga refugee camp in eastern Zaire (later
CongoDRC) and opened fire killing some 500 refugees.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.51)(http://tinyurl.com/29j5mmv)
1996 Nov 18, In Thailand
Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, former defense minister, led the New
Aspiration Party to victory in elections and recruited 5 other
parties to form a coalition government.
(SFC, 11/19/96, p.A15)
1996 Nov 19, The US voted alone
against the other 14 members of the UN Security Council against the
re-election of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.C2s)(AP, 11/19/97)
1996 Nov 19, Robert Citron,
former treasurer of Orange County, was sentenced to a year in jail
and fined $100,000.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Nov 19, A federal judge
ruled in favor of CSX in its acquisition of Conrail.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Nov 19, The space shuttle
Columbia lifted off with the oldest crew member to date, 61-year-old
Story Musgrave.
(AP, 11/19/97)
1996 Nov 19, Fourteen people
were killed when a commuter plane collided with a private plane at
Baldwin Municipal Airport in Quincy, Ill.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.A4)(AP, 11/19/97)
1996 Nov 19, In Bosnia the
Muslim-Croat government fired Deputy Defense Minister Hasan Cengic.
His ties to Iran interfered with a $100 million US disbursement of
arms. He was replaced by an executive order of Kresimir Zubak,
president of the Muslim-Croat federation.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.C6)
1996 Nov 19, Two Israeli border
policemen were arrested after a videotape showed them beating and
kicking Palestinian laborers.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.C2)
1996 Nov 19, In Romania Victor
Ciorbea, mayor of Bucharest, was named by the Peasant Party the next
prime minister.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.C4)
1996 Nov 19, In Yugoslavia the
Zajedno (Together) opposition coalition claimed victory in 44
municipalities across Serbia.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.C2)
1996 Nov 20, US House
Republicans chose Newt Gingrich to be speaker for a second term.
(AP, 11/20/97)
1996 Nov 20, San Francisco
began posting signs along its waterfront to warn fisherman of health
hazards from fish caught in the Bay.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.A22)
1996 Nov 20, In Zagreb,
Croatia, thousands protested the government’s attempt to close the
independent Radio 101.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.C6)
1996 Nov 20, In Hong Kong a
fire raged in the 16-story Garley Building and 39 people died.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.C3)(SFC, 11/22/96, p.A22)(AP,
11/20/97)
1996 Nov 20, In Zambia
Frederick Chiluba and his Movement for Multiparty Democracy won
re-election. Former pres. Kaunda and his United National Independent
Party boycotted because he was declared ineligible to run.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.C3)
1996 Nov 20-1996 Nov 25, In the
Philippines the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
Forum (APEC) was to be held in Manila. APEC has 18 member countries
and its goal is to remove all trade barriers by 2020.
(SFC, 11/18/96, p.A12)(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A8)
1996 Nov 21, In the northwest
US heavy storms left at least 8 dead.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.A7)
1996 Nov 21, Thirty-three
people were killed, and more than 100 injured, when an explosion
blamed on leaking gas ripped through a six-story building in San
Juan, Puerto Rico.
(AP, 11/21/97)
1996 Nov 21, From Turkey Yasar
Kemal, author, sought asylum in Sweden. He had been convicted by a
Turkish court of defending Kurd’s rights.
(SFC, 11/22/96, p.A22)
1996 Nov 22, O.J. Simpson took
the stand as a hostile witness in the wrongful death lawsuit filed
against him, saying it was "absolutely not true" that he killed
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
1996 Nov 22, Martin Bryant, who
gunned down 35 people on Apr 28 at Port Arthur, Australia, was
sentenced to life behind bars with no chance for parole.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1996 Nov 22, In France truckers
continued their Operation Escargot strike for higher pay and earlier
retirement for a 5th day.
(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A10)
1996 Nov 23, Following a
four-day visit to Australia, President Clinton arrived in the
Philippines for a summit of Asian-Pacific leaders.
(AP, 11/23/97)
1996 Nov 23, Forty-four (32)
people were injured when an Amtrak train derailed on a Secaucus,
N.J., bridge.
(AP, 11/23/97)(SFC, 3/19/01, p.A11)
1996 Nov 23, An Ethiopian
Boeing 767 airliner crashed into the Indian ocean near Grand Comore
Island. It had been hijacked after takeoff from Addis Ababa and ran
out of fuel under hijacker demands to fly to Australia. 125 of 175
people died. The plane was destined for the Ivory Coast with stops
along the way.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, p.A1,10)(SFC, 11/26/96,
p.B3)(AP, 11/23/97)
1996 Nov 23, In India amidst
protests outside, Irene Skliva of Greece won the Miss World crown.
Police arrested some 1,650 over 2 days.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, p.A2)
1996 Nov 23, In Libya a member
of the Fighting Islamic Group, Abdullah Guryou, hurled a grenade at
Moammar Khadafy in the desert town of Brak. Khadafy was not hurt.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A17)
1996 Nov 23, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin ordered all troops withdrawn from Chechnya by Jan 27, when
elections would be held.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, p.A14)
1996 Nov 24, On the eve of an
Asia-Pacific trade conference in the Philippines, President Clinton
met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Both sides signaled their
troubled relations were on the mend, and agreed to exchange
presidential visits over the next two years.
(AP, 11/24/97)
1996 Nov 24, In Argentina
evangelist Sun Myung Moon began a new Spanish newspaper for all of
Latin America with the assistance of former US president George
Bush. Bush was reportedly paid $100,000. They then traveled to
Uruguay to inaugurate a seminary to train 4,200 Japanese women to
spread the word of his Church across Latin America.
(SFC, 11/25/96, p.B1)(WSJ, 11/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 24, In Belarus
parliament set its own date for a vote to approve the abolishment of
the office of the president. Lukashenko has the backing of the
security apparatus which numbers about 150,000 in the pop. of 10
mil.
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A17)
1996 Nov 24, In Serbia a court
controlled by Pres. Milosevic annulled the electoral victory of the
opposition. The opposition had one 67 of 110 seats of the Belgrade
City Council. The court annulled 52 of the oppositions seats.
(SFC, 11/25/96, p.A8)
1996 Nov 25, President Clinton
won a victory on the trade front by getting Pacific Rim leaders
meeting in the Philippines to accept the year 2000 as a deadline for
cutting tariffs on information technology.
(AP, 11/25/97)
1996 Nov 25, Testifying for a
second day at a civil trial, O.J. Simpson again denied killing
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, but couldn't explain how
blood believed to be the victims' got into his Bronco, or how he
suffered hand cuts.
(AP, 11/25/97)
1996 Nov 25, In Florida Rodrick
Justin Ferrell (16) of Murray, Ky., killed Richard Wendorf and Naoma
Queen in Eustis. He thought himself a vampire and burned the letter
"V" into Wendorf’s body. He and 4 friends were arrested 3 days later
in Baton Rouge. He was sentenced to death in 1998.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A6)
1996 Nov 25, In Belarus Pres.
Lukashenko claimed victory in a referendum that proposed restarting
his 5-year term with broad new powers. It extended his term to 2001,
granted him immunity from prosecution, gave him control of key
political positions from judgeships to Parliament seats and the
authority to declare a state of emergency at will. Russia said that
all nuclear warheads from Belarus had been returned.
(SFC, 11/26/96, p.B2)(WSJ, 12/3/96, p.A18)(WSJ,
11/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 25, In Iraq the
government agreed to implement the UN conditions set for a $2
billion oil-for-food sale.
(SFC, 11/26/96, p.B3)
1996 Nov 25, In Belgrade,
Serbia, 100,000 demonstrators protested the nullification of
municipal election results.
(SFC, 11/26/96, p.B2)
1996 Nov 26, Fees to national
parks and wilderness areas in the US were increased.
(SFC, 11/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 26, The Sands Hotel in
Las Vegas was blown up to make room for a new Sheldon Adelson 6,000
room Venetian theme resort.
(SFC, 11/27/96, p.D2)
1996 Nov 26, Major-league
baseball owners reversed course, approving the same collective
bargaining agreement they had rejected just three weeks earlier.
(AP, 11/26/97)
1996 Nov 26, President Clinton
ended his 12-day Pacific trip with a stopover in Thailand.
(AP, 11/26/97)
1996 Nov 26, O.J. Simpson
finished three days of testimony at a civil trial in Santa Monica,
Calif.
(AP, 11/26/97)
1996 Nov 26-1996 Nov 27, Mayor
Giuliani closed the streets of NYC to all but emergency traffic
after a snow storm dropped 20 inches.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.28)
1996 Nov 26, Separatists in
Nagorno-Karabakh elected their first president, Robert Kocharian,
despite opposition from Azerbaijan.
(SFC, 11/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Nov 26, In Belarus
supporters of President Alexander Lukashenko broke away from
Parliament, setting up their own assembly.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1996 Nov 26, In Peru Gen’l
Rodolfo Robles was arrested at the request of the Supreme Military
Justice Council for insubordination. [see 1992]
(SFC, 11/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Nov 27, A federal judge
blocked enforcement of a California initiative to dismantle
affirmative action, saying civil rights groups had a "strong
probability" of proving it unconstitutional.
(AP, 11/27/97)
1996 Nov 27, Evan C. Hunziker,
an American jailed by North Korea on spy charges, was set free,
ending a three-month ordeal.
(AP, 11/27/97)
1996 Nov 27, In Bosnia Gen’l.
Ratko Mladic agreed to resign. He passed authority to his deputy
Gen’l. Manojlo Milovanovich.
(SFC, 11/28/96, p.B7)
1996 Nov 27, A Russian military
cargo plane, an Ilyushin-76, crashed in central Siberia and 23 were
killed.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.B6)
1996 Nov 27, Turkish troops
killed 27 Kurdish rebels and lost 6 soldiers in fighting over the
past 2 days.
(SFC, 11/28/96, p.B6)
1996 Nov 28, Defense Secretary
William Perry joined U.S. soldiers in the mud and freezing rain of
Bosnia-Herzegovina to deliver a Thanksgiving message of discipline
and patience for their still-unfinished peacekeeping mission.
(AP, 11/28/97)
1996 Nov 28, A stuck hatch on
the space shuttle Columbia prevented two astronauts from going on a
spacewalk. A second planned spacewalk also had to be canceled;
engineers later discovered a loose screw had jammed the hatch
mechanism.
(AP, 11/28/97)
1996 Nov 28, Chinese Pres.
Jiang Zemin made a 3-day visit to India, the first ever.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.B8)
1996 Nov 28, In Greece farmers
began a crippling blockade of roads and railways to back their
demands for better price supports, cheaper fuel, debt rescheduling,
and lower taxes on agricultural equipment.
(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 28, In Lebanon
demonstrations against Prime Minister Hariri’s handling of the
economy were broken up with tanks and troops in Beirut.
(WSJ, 11/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 29, John C. Salvi III,
serving a life sentence for fatally shooting two receptionists at an
abortion clinic, hanged himself in his Massachusetts prison cell.
(AP, 11/29/97)
1996 Nov 29, A U.N. court
sentenced Bosnian Serb army soldier Drazen Erdemovic to 10 years in
prison for his role in the massacre of 1,200 Muslims -- the first
international war crimes sentence since World War II.
(AP, 11/29/97)
1996 Nov 29, A Canadian-led
int’l. force won approval to provide humanitarian aid. The force
would be based in Uganda.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 29, In France truckers
signed agreements to end a 12-day strike. The government agreed to
allow early retirement at age 55 with boosts in sick pay. An issue
of work hours was still pending.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A14)
1996 Nov 29, In Serbia the
opposition coalition Zajedno (Together) continued protests in
Belgrade against Slobodan Milosevic.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 30, Novelty singer
Tiny Tim (71), best remembered for his '60s rendition of "Tiptoe
Thru' the Tulips," died in Minneapolis.
(AP, 11/30/97)(MC, 11/30/01)
1996 Nov 30, The current UN
mandate in Haiti expired. It was extended one year.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A7)(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A20)
1996 Nov 30, In Serbia some
150,000 people filled the streets of Belgrade to protest against
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.A1)(AP, 11/30/97)
1996 Nov 30, In Sierra Leone
Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and rebel leader Foday Sankoh signed a
peace accord. Nearly 1 million displaced people have settled in
camps around the capital, Freetown.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A13)
1996 Nov 30, It was reported
that in the Tororo district of southeastern Uganda, Okecho killed a
male baboon for damaging his maize and banana plantations. Some 30
baboons mourned the death of their comrade and carried him off. The
baboons later returned and killed Okecho and pulled out his heart.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A10)
1996 Nov 30, In Zaire a volcano
erupted near the Rwanda-Uganda border.
(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov, A US industry team,
Boeing, Lockheed Martin and TRW, won a $1.1 billion contract for the
initial weapon work for a Boeing 747 to be equipped with lasers that
could zap enemy missiles before their warhead was deployed.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A6)
1996 Nov, Roisin McAliskey, the
daughter of Bernadette Devlin, was arrested for the IRA mortar
attack on the British base at Osnabrueck, Germany.
(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A9)
1996 Nov, Canada revised rules
on overseas sales of ecologically sensitive technology to enable the
sale of two 700-megawat Candu 6, nuclear reactors to China.
The $3 billion project will be built in Qinshan and financed by a
$1.1 billion loan from Ottawa.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A11)
1996 Nov, In Cambodia the IMF
canceled a $20 million loan because of the government’s failure to
halt illegal logging and channel timber revenue into its budget.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A10)
1996 Nov, Cambodian leader Hun
Sen and businessman Theng Bunma attended the wedding of Indonesian
businessman Ted Sioeng’s daughter Laureen and Subandi Tanuwidjaja in
Hong Kong.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A22)
1996 Nov, The Canadian firm
Hurricane Hydrocarbons Ltd. (later known as PetroKazakhstan Inc. of
Calgary) won the bidding in the Kazakhstan’s first oilfield
privatization. For $120 million it acquired a field producing 50,000
barrels a day with reserves of 340 million barrels. The deal was
accompanied by an array of social obligations. It later faced
problems with the Kazakh government over fuel pricing and
environmental rules.
(WSJ, 11/18/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A11)
1996 Nov, China formed a
Selection Committee to choose the first post-colonial chief
executive and provisional legislature in Hong Kong.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1996 Nov, From Dili, Indonesia,
Jose Ramos Horta in 1997 presented video images taken at time of
torture of East Timorese youths to the United Nations Human Rights
Committee.
(SFC, 4/8/97, p.A9)
1996 Nov, In Mexico a new
insurgency group called ERIP (Revolutionary Army of Popular
Insurgence) was reported in the mountains of the Papalopan region of
Oaxaca.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.T9)
1996 Nov, The independent Arab
Al-Jazeera TV news network began operating as the 1st all-news
Arabic satellite channel from Doha, Qatar. It was financed by Sheik
Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, emir of Qatar. In 2002 Mohammed
El-Nawawy and Adel Iskandar authored "Al-Jazeera: How the Free Arab
News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East."
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A21)(SSFC, 5/19/02, p.M1)(SSFC,
8/18/02, p.D1)(WSJ, 4/30/04, p.A4)
1996 Dec 1, The Arab League
held an emergency meeting in Cairo, after which it warned Israel
that peace efforts would be endangered if Israel insisted on
expanding Jewish settlements.
(AP, 12/1/97)
1996 Dec 1, In the Central
African Republic army factions in Bangui began fighting. Rebel
troops of the Yakoma tribe seized key points.
(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 2, Arizona financier
Charles Keating Jr., a central figure in the most notorious
savings-and-loan debacle of the 1980s, won a new federal trial
because jurors had learned of his prior fraud conviction in state
court before convicting him of fraud and racketeering. Keating
negotiated a plea settlement in 1999 with no additional prison time
and no admittance of swindling elderly investors. Charges against
his son were also dropped.
(AP, 12/2/97)(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A3)
1996 Dec 2, Scientists
disclosed that a suspected pond of ice was found in a deep crater of
the moon. Astronomers of Cornell Univ. in 1997 wrote that they saw
no evidence for ice on the moon.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.A2)(WSJ, 6/1/97, p.A1)
1996 Dec 2, In Corsica four
main separatist groups vied for power, the strongest of which was
the FLNC (Corsican National Liberation Front), whose Cuncolta
political arm was led by Francois Santoni. In the capital of
Ajaccio, the French prefect was Claude Erignac.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.A15)
1996 Dec 2, In France the
Roussel Uclaf SA, a pharmaceutical firm mostly owned by Hoechst of
Germany, agreed to reduce the workweek for 7,000 domestic employees
to 35 from 38 hours without pay cuts. Employees will also get less
in profit sharing but more vacation.
(WSJ, 12/3/96, p.A17)
1996 Dec 2, India and China
agreed to troop withdrawals along their 2,500 mile border, and
pledged not to use military force against one another.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 2, In India a bomb on
a train near Chandigarh in the Punjab region killed 12 and injured
37.
(WSJ, 12/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 2, In Mexico Pres.
Ernesto Zedillo fired Attorney Gen’l. Antonio Lozano Gracia, the
only non-PRI cabinet member. He was succeeded by Jorge Madrazo
Cuellar, the head of the human-rights commission.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 2, In Moldova Petru
Lucinschi, a top Communist official in Soviet days, beat incumbent
Mircea Snegur 53% to 47%.
(WSJ, 12/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 2, In Pakistan Imran
Khan, former cricket player, led the Movement for Justice Party and
planned to run for prime minister.
(WSJ, 12/2/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 3, In Hawaii Judge
Kevin Chang ruled that the state had to issue marriage licenses to
same-sex couples (allow gay marriages), prompting an appeal.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.A3)(AP, 12/3/97)
1996 Dec 3, The Justice
Department barred 16 Japanese army veterans suspected of World War
II atrocities from entering the United States.
(AP, 12/3/97)
1996 Dec 3, In Burma riot
police dispersed hundreds of student demonstrators and detained
dozens outside Rangoon at the Schwedagon Pagoda.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 3, In France a bomb
exploded in the Paris subway at the Port-Royal station. Two (4)
people were killed and dozens injured. It appeared to be the work of
Algerian extremists.
(WSJ, 12/4/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/3/97)
1996 Dec 3, In Mexico Fernando
Balderas, lawyer-journalist, and his wife Yolanda Figueroa and 3
children were beaten to death. The couple had reported exposes on
drugs and corruption in the government. Balderas published the
magazine Fourth Power. Alejandro Perez, the family chauffeur, later
confessed to participating in the killings with 2 others because
Balderas had raped the gardener’s wife and attempted to rape his
wife. Balderas had helped his wife write "The Boss of the Gulf,"
about drug cartel leader Juan Garcia Abrego.
(SFC, 12/7/96, p.A10)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B4)
1996 Dec 3, In Belgrade,
Serbia, Milosevic gagged the independent radio stations, Radio B-92
and Boom 93. Protests continued.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C2)
1996 Dec 4, Judge Kevin Chang
put a stay on the order that Hawaii allow gay marriages pending a
ruling by the state Supreme Court.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.A3)
1996 Dec 4, The Mars Pathfinder
[delayed from Dec 2] was launched from Cape Canaveral on a 310
million-mile odyssey to explore the planet's surface. It had a
remote-controlled 22-pound, 6-wheel, roving vehicle to sample
Martian soil and rock and send data back beginning on Jul 4, 1997.
(SFC, 8/8/96,p.A6)(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A4)(SFC,
12/4/96, p.A4)(AP, 12/4/97)
1996 Dec 4, In South Africa a
new constitution was given final approval. It would go into full
effect in 1999.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C2)
1996 Dec 4, In Tajikistan
government troops repulsed an attack by Islamic rebels. Pres.
Emomali Rakhmonov was to meet with the Muslim opposition. Russia had
25,000 troops guarding the 900-mile border with Afghanistan where
the rebels had bases.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C5)
1996 Dec 4, In Zaire government
troops went on a rampage of looting and raping in Kisangani. Rebels
announced the capture of Kindu 250 miles south of Kisangani.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C5)
1996 Dec 5, President Clinton
announced the foreign policy team for his second term, including
Madeleine Albright as the first female secretary of state, Sen.
William Cohen of Maine, a Republican, as defense secretary and
Anthony Lake as CIA director.
(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/5/97)
1996 Dec 5, Alan Greenspan
warned that investors could be succumbing to "irrational
exuberance." Nasdaq closed at 1300.12.
(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.A1)
1996 Dec 5, An African Summit
opened in Burkina Faso. New candidates for the position of UN
Secretary-general were to be considered.
(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 5, In Colombia Isidro
Gil, a union leader at a Carepa Coca-Cola bottling plant, was killed
at work. It was later alleged that the plant manager hired
right-wing paramilitary to help wipe out union activity. In 2002 the
labor union filed suit against Coca-Cola in Miami.
(SFC, 6/6/02, p.A11)
1996 Dec 5, In Iran the
Parliament passed legislation that banned the use of foreign words
and names in the country. Only Farsi language names would be
allowed.
(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 5, In Serbia Milosevic
allowed the radio stations to resume broadcasting. The disputed
elections were to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
(SFC, 12/6/96, p.B2)
1996 Dec 6, Stock markets
around the world plunged after comments by Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan were taken to mean that U.S. stock prices were too
high.
(AP, 12/6/06)
1996 Dec 6, Pete Rozelle,
former NFL football commissioner, died in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.,
at age 70.
(SFC, 12/7/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/97)
1996 Dec 6, In Algeria in the
last 2 days 29 civilians have had their throats slit by rebels.
(SFC, 12/7/96, p.A10)
1996 Dec 6, In France the
National Assembly approved tax breaks for Corsica.
(SFC, 12/7/96, p.A10)
1996 Dec 7, The space shuttle
Columbia landed at the Kennedy Space Center, ending a nearly 18-day
mission marred by a jammed hatch that prevented two planned
spacewalks.
(AP, 12/7/97)
1996 Dec 8, The Serbian Supreme
Court ruled against opposition parties who said Slobodan Milosevic
had robbed them of an election victory in Belgrade.
(AP, 12/8/97)
1996 Dec 8, In the Central
African Republic the government and army mutineers agreed to a
15-day truce. The rebel ranks were dominated by the southern Bayas.
(SFC, 12/9/96, p.A22)
1996 Dec 8, In Ghana Rawlings
defeated John Kufuor and his Great Alliance Party in elections 57%
to 40%.
(WSJ, 12/12/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 8, In Zaire rebels
surrounded Bunia, the last government held town in eastern Zaire.
Government troops were looting and targeting Greek merchants and
members of the Nande ethnic group.
(SFC, 12/9/96, p.A18)
1996 Dec 9, More than four
months after the Olympic Games bombing, the FBI posted a $500,000
reward. Richard Jewell, the security guard who was wrongfully
accused of planting a bomb during the Olympics, and his lawyers
negotiated a $500,000 settlement from NBC. NBC settled to avert a
defamation suit.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A1)(AP, 12/9/97)
1996 Dec 9, Archaeologist and
anthropologist Mary Leakey died in Nairobi, Kenya at age 83.
(SFC, 12/10/96, p.A6)(AP, 12/9/97)
1996 Dec 9, UN chief
Boutros-Ghali gave Iraq the go-ahead to resume oil exports for the
first time since 1990 to buy food and medicine. Two billion of oil
sales will be allowed every 6 months to buy food, medicine and other
necessities. In 1999 Ghali published "Unvanquished: A US-UN Saga.
(WSJ, 12/9/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/9/97)(SFEC, 8/8/99,
BR p.5)
1996 Dec 9-1996 Dec 10, David
Coffin Jr., heir to a Connecticut family that founded the Dexter
Corp., was killed. In 2005 Scott Winfield Davis (40), was arrested
in Palo Alto, Ca., for the Atlanta shooting death of David Coffin
Jr. Initial charges against Davis were dropped in 1998 due to
insufficient evidence.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.B3)
1996 Dec 10, Roman Catholic
Bishop Filipe Ximenes Belo and exiled activist Jose Ramos Horta,
opponents of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor, accepted the
Nobel Peace Prize.
(AP, 12/10/97)
1996 Dec 10, On International
Human Rights Day, President Clinton urged the Senate to embrace a
17-year-old treaty barring abuses against women.
(AP, 12/10/97)
1996 Dec 10, In Armenia the
Supreme Court sentenced 3 members of the outlawed Dashnaksitun
political party to death on terrorism charges.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 10, The French African
aid budget was more than $3 billion, nearly 4 times that of the US
aid to Africa. French troops were garrisoned in Cameroon, the CAR,
Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Gabon and Senegal.
(WSJ, 12/10/96, p.A22)
1996 Dec 10, In Gabon Pres.
Bongo was believed to be among the world’s richest individuals.
(WSJ, 12/10/96, p.A22)
1996 Dec 10, NATO took formal
steps to expand and reassured Russia that it had no plans to move
nuclear weapons into the territory of new members.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 10, In South Africa
Pres. Nelson Mandela signed the finished constitution, largely the
work of Albie Sachs.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, z1 p.7)
1996 Dec 10, In South Africa a
policeman convicted of 11 murders in a botched 1988 assassination
attempt and serving a 30-year sentence was freed from prison by the
amnesty panel.
(WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 10, The US refused to
provide aid to Togo because of endemic corruption and repression but
France has resumed a major aid program.
(WSJ, 12/10/96, p.A22)
1996 Dec 10, In Turkey the
military purged 70 officers and non-commissioned in a continuing
effort to purge Muslim fundamentalists from its ranks.
(WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 11, William McNeill,
American historian, won the Erasmus Prize and $172,000. The prize is
awarded to people or institutions that have made an exceptionally
important contribution to European culture, society or social
science.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.C10)
1996 Dec 11, In Hong Kong a
China-organized panel of 400 business leaders approved shipping
tycoon Tung Chee-hwa as the chief executive of the semi-autonomous
government when China recovers sovereignty on Jul 1, 1997.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.C3)(AP, 12/11/97)
1996 Dec 11, A mother and son
were killed and 5 others wounded when Palestinian militants raked a
settler’s car with gunfire in the West Bank. The Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Damascus based faction that
opposed the PLO’s peace with Israel was blamed. It was the 28th
anniversary of the PFLP.
(SFC, 12/12/96, p.C2)
1996 Dec 11, In Russia union
leaders decided to end the coal miners’ strike. Up to 400,000 miners
had taken part.
(WSJ, 12/12/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 11, In Rwanda the
government published a list of 1,946 suspects ineligible for any
punishment less than the firing squad for the 1994 genocide.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.C2)
1996 Dec 12, Jonas Mekas,
president of the Anthology Film Archives, received a special
citation from the New York Film Critics’ Circle for his longtime
contributions of independent film.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.C8)
1996 Dec 12, Hollywood power
broker Michael Ovitz resigned as Walt Disney Company's No. 2
executive.
(AP, 12/12/97)
1996 Dec 12, Scientists
announced that the Jovian moon, Ganymede, possesses a strong
magnetic field due to a molten core. Its outer layer solid ice was
said to measure some 500 miles thickness.
(SFC, 12/12/96, p.A2)
1996 Dec 12, In Indonesia
Muchtar Pakpahan, leader of the independent labor union, went on
trial with members of the leftist political party in connection with
the July riots.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B4)
1996 Dec 12, An accord to
abolish tariffs on high tech goods was reached in Singapore at the
WTO meeting. The Information Technology Agreement to abolish import
duties on high-tech equipment would be in effect from Jul 1, 1997 to
Jan 1, 2000.
(WSJ, 12/13/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/14/96,
p.D1)
1996 Dec 12, In Iraq Uday
Hussein, eldest son of Sadam, was wounded in a car ambush by
assailants with machine guns and grenades. The Mohammed Madhlum
Dulaimi Group claimed responsibility.
(WSJ, 12/13/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A11)
1996 Dec 13, Pres. Clinton
nominated Bill Daley, a Chicago attorney, as commerce secretary, and
Bill Richardson as US ambassador to the UN.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/13/97)
1996 Dec 13, The U.N. Security
Council chose Kofi Annan of Ghana to become the world body's seventh
secretary-general.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/13/97)
1996 Dec 13, Trade ministers
from 28 countries meeting in Singapore endorsed a U.S.-crafted trade
pact to abolish import duties on computers, software and other
high-tech products.
(AP, 12/13/97)
1996 Dec 13, In Russia a new
statue of Peter the Great, meant to honor the navy that he built,
was made by Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli and erected on the
Moscow River. The artist was a close friend of Moscow Mayor Yuri
Luzhkov.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A10)(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A8)
1996 Dec 13, In Serbia the
demonstrations spread to 10 cities.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Dec 14, Teamsters
President Ron Carey won election to a second term. Later, the
results were overturned, and Carey was barred from a rerun vote by a
court-appointed monitor who ruled that Carey had used union money
for his campaign.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1996 Dec 14, In New Orleans,
the 700-foot freighter, Bright Field, lost power on the Mississippi
River, went out of control and slammed into a riverfront structure
and then hit a crowded mall. No one was killed.
(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/14/97)
1996 Dec 14, Rwandan refugees,
who previously refused to return home, began re-entering Rwanda
after 2 1/2 years in Tanzania.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1996 Dec 15, The Tyco Toys
Tickle Me Elmo stuffed animal that giggles and says "that tickles"
when squeezed retailed for $30 and was flying out of stores. It was
based on a character from the children’s TV show Sesame Street.
(WSJ, 12/16/96, p.B1)(WSJ, 9/15/06, p.B1)
1996 Dec 15, Boeing Co.
announced plans to pay $13.3 billion to acquire rival aircraft
manufacturer McDonnell Douglas Corp.
(WSJ, 12/16/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/15/97)
1996 Dec 15, In Mexico Humberto
Roque Villanueva was sworn in as the new head of the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A25)
1996 Dec 16, The US Supreme
Court ruled that states must let parents appeal orders terminating
such rights even when they cannot afford court fees.
(AP, 12/16/97)
1996 Dec 16, Intel announced
the world’s fastest computer capable of 1 trillion operations per
second.
(SFC, 12/17/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 16, The US, EU and
other countries agreed to a package of economic and military
assistance to Lebanon worth $2.2 billion. The US said that its aid
would increase to more than $20 million next year.
(SFC, 12/17/96, p.B3)
1996 Dec 16, Former South
Korean President Chun Doo-hwan, condemned to death for a 1979 coup
and a deadly military crackdown the next year, had his death
sentence commuted to life by an appellate court.
(SFC, 12/16/96, p.A16)(AP, 12/16/97)
1996 Dec 16, In Serbia
Milosevic granted opponents the original election results in Nis and
a recount in Smederovska Palanka, 2 of the 15 cities where election
results had been annulled.
(SFC, 12/17/96, p.B2)
1996 Dec 17, Kofi Annan of
Ghana was elected by acclamation as the 7th Secretary-General of the
UN. His 5-year term will start Jan 1.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C2)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 17, Six Red Cross
workers were slain in their sleep and a 7th was wounded by as many
as 15 attackers in Chechnya. The Red Cross immediately suspended all
operations in Chechnya.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 17, The Chinese stock
market continued to tumble and authorities deployed plainclothes
police to keep order among angry investors outside security
brokerage houses in the major cities. The drop started when the
official People’s Daily newspaper warned that the stock market was
overvalued.
(WSJ, 12/18/96, p.A16)
1996 Dec 17, Sun Yaoting
(b.1902), China’s last known eunuch, died.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B6)
1996 Dec 17, In Peru guerrillas
took over a party at the house of the Japanese ambassador in Lima.
They identified themselves as members of the Tupac Amaru guerrilla
movement and demanded the release of imprisoned guerrillas. Nestor
Cerpa Cartolini was later identified as the leader of the 20 or so
guerrillas. Cerpa’s common-law wife, Nancy Gilvonio, was one of the
imprisoned guerrillas whom he demanded be released. Pres. Fujimori’s
brother was one of the hostages. All but 72 hostages were later
released; the siege ended April 22, 1997, with a commando raid that
resulted in the deaths of all the rebels, two commandos and one
hostage.
(SFC,12/25/96,p.A12)(SFC,1/7/97,p.A10)(SFC,1/17/96, p.A12)(AP,
12/17/97)
1996 Dec 17, The Russian Booker
Prize for literature, inaugurated in 1992, was awarded to Andrei
Sergeyev for his book "Stamp Album."
(www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/1996/12/17/004.html)
1996 Dec 17, In Russia an AN-12
military transport crashed and killed all 17 people onboard shortly
after takeoff from St. Petersburg. Colonel General Sergei Seleznyov,
commander of the Leningrad military district, was among the dead.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 17, In Somalia militia
fighters of Ali Mahdi Mohamed attacked the headquarters of Hussein
Aidid in the 5th consecutive day of fighting that brought the number
of dead up to 135.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 17, In Zaire Mobutu
Sese Seko stage a triumphal home.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C2)
1996 Dec 18, Earl Edwin Pitts,
a senior US FBI agent, was arrested on espionage charges. He was
most active as a Russian spy from 1987-1992. Pitts was sentenced in
June 1997 to 27 years in prison after admitting that he'd conspired
and attempted to commit espionage.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/18/97)
1996 Dec 18, Aides to President
Clinton disclosed that Asian-American businessman Charles Yah Lin
Trie, who delivered $460,000 in questionable donations to the
Clintons' legal defense fund, had been to the White House at least
23 times since 1993.
(AP, 12/18/97)
1996 Dec 18, TV industry execs
agreed to adopt a ratings system.
(http://tinyurl.com/bee8z)
1996 Dec 18, Irving Caesar
(b.1895), songwriter, died in NYC.
(www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Irving_Caesar)
1996 Dec 18, Arthur Jacobs
(b.1922), English musicologist, died.
(http://library.wustl.edu/~music/necro/necro-j.html)
1996 Dec 18, In Kenya police
killed 2 students who were protesting the killing of another student
on the previous day.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.C4)
1996 Dec 18, Palestinian police
arrested 3 members of a militant group that killed 2 Jewish settlers
on Dec 11.
(WSJ, 12/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 19, The television
industry unveiled a plan to rate programs using tags such as "TV-G,"
"TV-Y" and "TV-M."
(AP, 12/19/97)
1996 Dec 19, The school board
of Oakland, Calif., voted to recognize Black English, also known as
"ebonics," in a decision that set off a firestorm of controversy.
The board later reversed its stance.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/30/96, p.A17)(SFC,
1/1/97, p.A24)(AP, 12/19/97)
1996 Dec 19, The Pentagon chose
Lawrence Livermore National Labs. for a $1.1 billion super-laser
project. Known as the National Ignition Facility, its goal will be
to ignite a self-sustaining fusion reaction in a controlled lab
setting.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.E1)
1996 Dec 19, Marcello
Mastroianni (72), Italian actor, died in Paris. He appeared in 171
films and had just finished shooting "Journey to the Beginning of
the World. In 1999 the documentary film "Marcello Mastroianni: I
Remember" was directed by Anna Maria Tato.
(WSJ, 12/20/96, p.A1)(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A9)(AP,
12/19/97)(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.AA24)
1996 Dec 19, In Indonesia a new
city was approved in Jonggol, 25 miles southeast of Jakarta. Pres.
Suharto’s son, Bambang Trihatmodjo, was in charge of the consortium
overseeing the project.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A6)
1996 Dec 19, In Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto’s husband, the former investment minister, was
released from jail, and shortly after charged with the murder of
Bhutto’s brother.
(WSJ, 12/20/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 19, Yuli Khariton
(92), the Soviet nuclear scientist who helped develop the Soviet
atomic bomb, died.
(WSJ, 12/20/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 20, President Clinton
selected Federico Pena as energy secretary, Rodney Slater as
transportation secretary, Andrew Cuomo as housing secretary and
Alexis Herman as labor secretary.
1996 Dec 20, A judge in Orange
County, Calif., gave O.J. Simpson full custody of his young
children.
(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Simpson/Simpsonchron.html)
1996 Dec 20, Carl Sagan,
astronomer and writer, died in Seattle at age 62. One of his final
books was "The Demon Haunted World." In 1999 Keay Davidson authored
"Carl Sagan: A Life."
(SFC, 12/21/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/20/97)(SFEM,
8/22/99, p.17)
1996 Dec 20, In Tajikistan
lieutenants of Rizvan "Rambo" Sadirov kidnapped 23 people including
8 UN observers. They demanded that a safe corridor be created for
the return of Sadirov and his fighters from Afghanistan.
(SFC, 12/21/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 21, After two years of
denials, House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted violating House ethics
rules.
(AP, 12/21/97)
1996 Dec 21, Dr. David Ho, AIDS
researcher, was named ‘Man of the Year" by Time Magazine.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, p.A2)(AP, 12/21/97)
1996 Dec 21, China’s rulers
named 60 pro-Beijing stalwarts to a new interim legislature of Hong
Kong to replace the panel elected in 1995.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)
1996 Dec 22, Eight workers were
killed in an explosion at the Wyman Gordon Forgings
metal-fabricating plant in northwest Houston. They had been doing
maintenance on 9-story pressurized tanks.
(SFC, 12/24/96, p.A3)(AP, 12/22/97)
1996 Dec 22, Peruvian
guerrillas holding more than 360 hostages at the Japanese
ambassador's residence in Lima released 225 hostages but still held
140 of their captives.
(SFC, 12/24/96, p.A7)(AP, 12/22/97)
1996 Dec 23, President Clinton
expressed gratitude to the nation's armed forces as he visited
Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1996 Dec 23, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin returned to his office at the Kremlin after a
six-month bout with a heart ailment.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1996 Dec 23, In Zaire a crises
government was established under Prime Minister Leon Kengo wa Dondo.
Gen’l. Likulia Bolongop was named the new defense minister.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Dec 24, In Bogota,
Colombia, at least 37 people were killed. Mayor Antanas Mockus
blamed the violence on alcohol consumption.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B4)
1996 Dec 24, In Frankfurt,
Germany, a women blew herself up and 2 others were killed at
Lutheran Church Singlingen South.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B3)
1996 Dec 24, In India a British
made Avro Air Force plane crashed in Andhra Pradesh and killed all
22 onboard.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 24, In Peru the
Uruguay ambassador was released after his country freed 2 rebels
jailed there. Six ambassadors were left among the remaining 105
hostages.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 24, In Rwanda 2,000
returning Hutu refugees were arrested for participating in the 1994
genocide. They joined 85,000 already held in prisons intended for no
more than 20,000.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A11)
1996 Dec 24, The streets of
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, turned violent as demonstrators traded blows
with supporters of President Slobodan Milosevic and then were
clubbed by riot police as protests continued for the 35th day.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/24/97)
1996 Dec 24, Singapore PM Goh
Chok Tong said that districts that elect opposition candidates on
Jan 2, would see public-housing improvement funds cut.
(WSJ, 12/24/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/31/96, p.1)
(AP, 10/19/05)
1996 Dec 24, In Worcester,
South Africa, 2 pipe bombs killed 1 adult and 2 children in shopping
areas. The Boer Attack Troop claimed responsibility. in 1997 Jan van
der Westhuizen (44), Clifton Barnard (41) and Abraham Myburgh (24)
were convicted and given sentences of life in prison for the bombing
that killed 4 people.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A10)(SFC, 1/6/97,
p.A9)(SFC,10/24/97, p.D6)
1996 Dec 24, In South Korea 6
Chinese sailors were sentenced to death for murder during a mutiny
Aug 2 on their fishing vessel when their captain and 10 mates were
killed.
(WSJ, 12/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 25, Croatian Serbs
attacked Croats who had been bused in to their former hometown in
Eastern Slavonia for Christmas services.
(WSJ, 12/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 25, In Gabon officials
said that Pres. Bongo’s ruling party swept 47 of 55 parliamentary
seats in elections last week.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B4)
1996 Dec 25, In Malaysia
tropical storm Greg killed at least 163 people in the northern
Borneo state of Sabah.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/30/96, p.A8)
1996 Dec 25, Some 280 migrants
form India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were suspected of having drowned
in the Mediterranean while being transshipped in the Malta-Sicily
channel.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A13)
1996 Dec 25, Peruvians held
candles high and prayed outside the Japanese ambassador's residence,
where leftist rebels freed one hostage for health reasons, but
continued to hold more than 100 others.
(AP, 12/25/97)
1996 Dec 25, In Serbia Pres.
Milosevic banned street demonstrations.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 26, In Boulder,
Colorado, 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled
in the basement of her family home 8 hours after the mother
discovered a ransom note demanding $118,000. In 1999 Lawrence
Schiller authored A grand jury in 1999 completed its work and cited
insufficient evidence to file charges." Perfect Murder, Perfect
Town: JonBenet and the City of Boulder."
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A3)(AP, 12/26/97)(SFEC, 4/18/99,
BR p.6)(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A3)
1996 Dec 26, In Algiers a car
bomb exploded in a crowded suburb. At least 10 were killed and 86
injured.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.B3)
1996 Dec 26, In Belarus a
$3.5-4 billion nuclear power plant was planned to be built over the
next 3 years.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A4)
1996 Dec 26, In Burma two bombs
exploded in Rangoon during an exhibit of a tooth believed to have
belonged to Buddha. The military regime blamed student and ethnic
Karen insurgents based in eastern Burma. Five people were killed.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 26, In Indonesia
Muslims rioted in Tasikmalaya in western Java after police tortured
3 Muslim teachers accused of assaulting a policeman’s son.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 26, In Israel a top
army official said that the focus of military training in 1997 will
be to prepare for a possible war with Syria.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 26, In Japan former
Prime Minister Tsutoma Hata took 12 members of the opposition party
Shinshinto (New Frontier Party) with him to form the new Sun Party.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.B3)
1996 Dec 26, Honda Motor Co.
announced the first human-shaped robot that can move independently
and do basic tasks. It stood 6 feet and weighed 462 lbs. and took 10
years of engineering.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B10)
1996 Dec 26, In Mexico the
Dept. of Commerce announced a 15% price hike in the cost of
tortillas and pasteurized milk.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.B3)
1996 Dec 26, In Serbia riot
police cleared tens of thousands off the streets of central Belgrade
but allowed a smaller protest of 15,000 at the pedestrian Square of
the Republic. Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church,
said the street violence of the previous day was caused by the
authorities. Montenegro threatened to print its own money to counter
the inflated dinars of the Milosevic regime.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 26, In South Korea
tens of thousands of workers went on strike to protest a new labor
bill that gave employers the right to lay off workers and allowed
flexible working hours. A spy bill also passed to crack down on
dissent.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B9)
1996 Dec 27, Officials of NBC
and Panasonic activated the new 891 sq. foot Astrovision screen near
the base of One Times Square, New York.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A6)
1996 Dec 27, Officials in Las
Vegas announced that the 12-story, 900-room, 10-year-old Hacienda
Hotel would be blown up on New Year’s Eve. A new 4,000 room resort
owned by Circus Circus would replace it.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A6)
1996 Dec 27, In South Bend,
Ind., Annie Fulford was shot and killed during a drug-related
robbery. Her boyfriend, Leif O’Connell, began a rampage and after 2
months began drive-by shootings of black men that left 1 dead and
five injured. He and accomplice, Jerred Kahlenbeck, faced murder and
attempted murder charges.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A2)
1996 Dec 27, In France the
foreign ministry said that it would no longer participate in the
Operation Provide Comfort after the end of the year. The operation
was a multi-national air reconnaissance effort to safeguard Kurdish
civilians in northern Iraq.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 27, In Peru Pres.
Fujimori declared a 60-day state of emergency.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 27, Russia and China
agreed to remove troops along their border and to build a nuclear
power plant in eastern China’s Jiangsu province with a $2.5 billion
loan from Russia.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12,13)
1996 Dec 27, Some 300 people
were trapped in the Roksky Pass tunnel in the Caucasus between North
Ossetia and the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia. Also
Alexander Lebed announced the new Russian Popular Republican Party.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12,13)
1996 Dec 27, In Rwanda the
first trial was held in connection with the 1994 genocide. Deo
Bizimana was accused of killing 20 people and ordering the massacre
of thousands of others.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 27, In Tibet Ngawang
Choepel, a musician on a Fullbright scholarship, was sentenced to 18
years in prison for espionage. He had arrived as a Chinese citizen
in 1995 to make a documentary on folk music and dance.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 27, The Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), led by former Spanish
Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, recognized the Yugoslavia opposition
victories in the Nov 17 local elections.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 27, In Belgrade,
Yugoslavia, about 60,000 opposition supporters defied riot police
and rallied in celebration of an international report backing their
triumph over Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in recent local
elections.
(AP, 12/27/97)
1996 Dec 28, Leftist rebels in
Peru released 20 more hostages, including two ambassadors, from
Japan's embassy residence, following the first face-to-face talks
between guerrillas and the government's negotiator.
(SFC, 12/29/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/28/97)
1996 Dec 29, In Egypt the
government arrested 240 linked to the outlawed Islamic group the
"Kotbioun," a violent branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(SFC, 12/30/96, p.A8)
1996 Dec 29, In Guatemala City
the Accord on the Firm and Lasting Peace was signed at the National
Palace ending 36 years of civil conflict during which some 200,000
people died or disappeared. One rebel unit in Quezaltenango, the
Organization of the People in Arms, refused to take part. The accord
included provisions for education in 23 regional languages with
Spanish. The peace accord mandated a report by a UN "Historical
Clarification Commission." The report was completed and made public
in 1999. In 2000 Susanne Jonas authored "Of Centaurs and Doves:
Guatemala’s Peace Process."
(WSJ,12/13/96,p.A15)(SFC, 12/30/96, p.A7)(SFC,
5/27/97, p.A12)(AP, 12/29/97) (SFC, 2/26/99, p.A17)(SFEC, 3/7/99,
p.A22)(SFEM, 6/13/99, p.33)(SFEC, 8/20/00, BR p.12)
1996 Dec 29, N. Korea
apologized to S. Korea for sending a spy submarine into South Korean
waters in Sep. submarine incident.
(WSJ, 12/30/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/29/97)
1996 Dec 30, The Clinton
administration said that doctors who prescribe marijuana could be
excluded from Medicare and Medicaid programs and lose the right to
prescribe drugs. Voters in California and Arizona had approved
measures for medical use of marijuana.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 30, Lew Ayres (88),
screen actor (Salem's Lot, State Fair), died.
(www.classicimages.com/1997/february/lewayres.html)
1996 Dec 30, In Eritrea it was
reported that five Belgians were killed on an outing near Filfil
along with their native driver.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A11)
1996 Dec 30, In India a bomb
exploded on the Brahmputra Express train out of Gauhati in the state
of Assam. About three dozen people were killed. Bodo insurgents were
suspected.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A10)(AP, 12/30/97)
1996 Dec 30, From Turkey a raid
by 5,000 troops into Iraq left 72 Kurdish guerrillas and 2 Turkish
soldiers dead.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.1)
1996 Dec 31, In China former
student leader Li Hai was sentenced to 9 years in prison on charges
of prying into state secrets.
(SFC, 1/1/97, p.C2)
1996 Dec 31, Leftist rebels in
Peru released two diplomats, leaving 81 hostages in the besieged
Japanese embassy residence in Lima.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1996 Dec 31, In Syria a New
Year’s Eve bomb on a bus killed 9 and injured 44.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A17)
1996 Dec, CIA Director John
Deutch stepped down as the top spy and was succeeded by George
Tenet. An investigation soon began over classified materials on
Deutch's personal computer.
(SFC, 4/12/99, p.A4)(SFC, 2/1/00, p.A3)
1996 Dec, The US raised the
amount of revenue banks could derive from securities operations to
25% from 10%.
(WSJ, 4/10/98, p.A6)
1996 Dec, Apple Comp. hired
co-founder Steve Jobs as a consultant and purchased his NeXt
Software Inc. for $430 million.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1996 Dec, In Albania the first
anti-government protests due to the collapse of investment funds
were staged in Skanderbeg Square in Tirana.
(SFC, 3/17/97, p.D2)
1996 Dec, In Algeria
authorities shut down the newspaper La Nation run by Salima Ghezali.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C2)
1996 Dec, The Lisbon Summit of
Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe chose
Azerbaijan’s argument for territorial integrity over Armenia’s
argument for self-determination in Nagorno-Karabakh.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A18)
1996 Dec, Britain and Australia
announced that they would also withdraw from the UN Industrial
Development Organization (UNIDO).
(SFC, 2/17/96, p.A14)
1996 Dec, In Burma the
universities were closed.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A11)
1996 Dec, In Colombia the
defense minister offered a $1 million reward for the capture of
Carlos Castanos, leader of a right-wing paramilitary group.
(SFC, 3/26/97, p.C2)
1996 Dec, Wim Duisenberg of the
Netherlands was approved to run the European Monetary Institute in
Frankfurt, Germany.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.D6)
1996 Dec, In Russia Alexander
Nikitin, former Russian Navy captain, was released by the FSB from
jail after 10 months for his 2 chapters in the book: "The Russian
Northern Fleet: Sources of Radioactive Contamination."
(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A12)
1996 Dec, In Saudi Arabia
Yvonne Gilford (55), an Australian nurse, was stabbed and bludgeoned
to death at the King Fahd Military Medical Center in Dammam. Two
other nurses, Deborah Parry (38) and Lucille McLaughlan (30) were
accused of the murder. Their sentences were commuted and the accused
nurses were released May 20, 1998. McLaughlan faced charges in
Scotland of stealing $2,800 from a dying AIDS patient in 1996 before
leaving for Saudi Arabia.
(SFC, 9/26/97, p.A14)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.A19)
1996 Dec, In Saudi Arabia
Abdul-Karim Naqshabandi, a foreign worker, was executed after
refusing to falsely testify against another employer. His employer,
a nephew of the king, demanded his death on false charges of
witchcraft.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A15)
1996 Dec, Femmes Africa
Solidarite (FAS), founded by Bineta Diop (46) of Senegal, gained
official recognition as an international NGO.
(AP, 5/16/11)
1996 Dec, In Transdniestria Mr.
Igor Smirnov was re-elected as president in elections viewed as a
charade.
(WSJ, 7/8/97, p.A1,8)
1996 Dec-Jan, In Zaire hundreds
of Hutu refugees were killed by rebels as they headed back home on
the road from Hombo to Walikale.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A12)
1996 William Bailey made his
color aquatint "Umbria Verde" at Crown Point Press.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, DB p.37)
1996 Robert Rauschenberg
painted "Cloister (Arcadian Retreat)."
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.E3)
1996 Frank Stella painted
"Karpathenburg I, II, III."
(SFC, 3/5/96, p.E1)
1996 Sarah Kane (d.1999 at 28)
wrote her play "Phaedra's Love." In the play a character's genitals
are cooked on a griddle. Other plays included "Blasted," "Cleansed"
and "Crave."
(SFC, 2/25/99, p.C2)
1996 Stephen Ambrose authored
"Undaunted Courage," an account of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
(WSJ, 8/20/01, p.A8)
1996 "Reel Justice - The
Courtroom Goes to the Movies" was written by Michael Asimov and Paul
Bergman.
(SFEC, 10/13/96, zone 1 p.4)
1996 "Plants, People, and
Culture: The Science of Ethnobotony" was published by Michael J.
Balick and Paul Alan Cox.
(NH, 7/96, p.6)
1996 Whitney Balliet, jazz
critic for the New Yorker magazine, authored “American Musicians
II,” an expanded version of his work from a decade earlier.
(WSJ, 9/27/08, p.W10)
1996 David Bankier (1947-2010),
prominent Israeli Holocaust scholar, authored "The Germans and the
Final Solution: Public Opinion Under Nazism."
(AP, 2/28/10)
1996 William Bennett, John
DiIulio and John Walters authored “Body Count,” a look at urban
violence.
(Econ, 11/19/11, p.92)
1996 "This Business Has Legs"
by Peter Bieler was published. He tells of how he transformed an
exercise device into a patented fad called ThighMaster and grossed
$100 million.
(SFC, 7/17/96, p.E7)
1996 Dr. Michael J. Behe
authored "Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to
Evolution." He argued that various biochemical structures could not
have been built in a stepwise Darwinian fashion.
(SSFC, 4/8/01, p.A6)
1996 Peter L. Bernstein wrote
"Against the Gods, The Remarkable Story of Risk."
(WSJ, 10/21/96, p.A18)
1996 Edmund Carpenter published
the book: "Patterns that Connect, Social Symbolism in Ancient and
Tribal Art" that distilled the work of fellow art historian, Carl
Schuster (1904-1969) who was responsible for a 12-volume series of
research on patterns in art objects.
(SFEC, 11/3/96, BR p.7)
1996 Manuel Castells began his
three-volume study: "The Information Age." The 3-volume work was
completed in 1998. The work established him as the "Philosopher of
the Web."
(WSJ, 10/1/98, p.B1)
1996 Robert Cowley and Geoffrey
Parker edited "The Reader’s Companion to Military History." The
encyclopedia runs alphabetically and chronologically from biblical
times to the current Balkan turmoil.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, Par p.13)
1996 Jimmy Carter published his
book "Living Faith."
(SFEC, 1/12/97, zone 3 p.3)
1996 French author Andre
Comte-Sponville authored "A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues."
The English translation was published in 2001.
(WSJ, 9/5/01, p.A24)
1996 Richard Dawkins wrote
"Climbing Mount Improbable," an examination and explanation of
Darwin’s theory of evolution.
(SFC, 11/26/96, p.D4)
1996 "Max Weber: Politics and
the Spirit of Tragedy" by John Patrick Diggins was published. Max
Weber (1864-1920), German sociologist, drew strong connection
between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism. He wrote The
Protestant and the Spirit of Capitalism. "He was the first
sociologist to grasp that the universe has no true meaning."
(V.D.-H.K.p.167)
1996 Stuart Ewen authored “PR!
A Social History of Spin.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Ewen)
1996 Marion Fasel and Penny
Prodow wrote "Diamonds: A Century of Spectacular Jewels."
(SFEM, 1/26/97, p.50)
1996 Robert Gates (b.1943),
former director of the CIA (1991-1993), authored his autobiography
“From the Shadows.”
(Econ, 8/8/09,
p.29)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates)
1996 William Gibson’s novel
"Idoru" was published. It was set in about 2036 and envisioned many
abandoned Web sites.
(WSJ, 3/11/97, p.B1)
1996 Hannah Green’s (1927-1996)
novel "The Dead of the House" was re-issued. Her latest book:
"Golden Spark, Little Saint: My Book of the Hours of Saint Foy" was
scheduled for publication in 1997.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A22)
1996 Mikhail Gorbachev wrote
his Memoirs.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, BR p.7)
1996 Robert Gottlieb edited
“Reading Jazz,” an anthology of writing on jazz.
(WSJ, 9/27/08, p.W10)
1996 John Grisham published
"The Runaway Jury," the highest selling, fiction hardback of the
year (2.7 mil copies).
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R22)
1996 Andy Grove, head of Intel
Corp., authored "Only the Paranoid Survive."
(www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew-Grove/dp/0385482582)
1996 "The Grove Dictionary of
Art" in 34 volumes was published by Grove’s Dictionaries Inc. The
set was priced at $8,800. A Grove web site in 1999 linked images
directly to Museum web sites.
(WSJ, 10/10/96, p.A18)(WSJ, 2/12/99, p.W9)
1996 David H. Hackworth
(1931-2005), Vietnam war veteran, and Tom Mathews authored
“Hazardous Duty: America's Most Decorated Living Soldier Reports
from the Front and Tells It the Way It Is.”
(SFC, 5/7/05, p.B5)
1996 Dr. Robert G. Heath
(d.1999 at 84 published "Exploring the Mind-Brain Relationship."
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A26)
1996 John Horgan authored "The
End of Science," in which he claimed that all major scientific
discoveries had been made.
(SFEC, 8/6/00, BR p.12)
1996 Samuel Huntington, a
Harvard professor, authored his best-selling book: "The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order."
(WSJ, 11/7/96, p.A18)(Econ, 10/24/09, SR p.10)
1996 Douglas H. Irwin,
Dartmouth Professor, published "An Intellectual History of Free
Trade."
(WSJ, 7/12/99, p.A28)
1996 Kennell Jackson
(1941-2005), Stanford Univ. history professor, authored “America Is
Me: The Most Asked and Least Understood Questions About Black
American History.”
(SFC, 11/29/05, p.B7)
1996 Donald Johanson and Blake
Edwards wrote "From Lucy to Language."
(NH, 4/97, p.69)
1996 Donald Kagan wrote "On the
Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace."
(WSJ, 10/28/97, p.A22)
1996 Caroline Knapp (1960-2002)
authored her memoir "Drinking: A Love Story."
(SFC, 6/10/02, p.B6)
1996 "Women of the Beat
Generation" was written by Brenda Knight.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.C6)
1996 Joseph LeDoux, professor
of neuroscience ay NYU, authored “The Emotional Brain: The
Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life.”
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.83)
1996 The "Manual of the Perfect
Latin American Idiot" by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Carlos Alberto
Montaner (Cuban novelist) and Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza was published
and became a best seller in Latin America. Chapter 3 was dedicated
to explaining the importance of Uruguayan Marxist Eduardo Galeano’s
book “Open Veins of Latin America” (1971).
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A9)(WSJ, 4/27/09, p.A13)
1996 "Some Remarkable Men:
Further Memoirs" by James Lord was published. It included
observations on Harold Acton (model for Anthony Blanche in Evelyn
Waugh’s "Brideshead Revisited"), the painter Balthus (Balthazar
Klossowski), Jean Genet, Picasso, Lady Cunard, and the Giacometti
brothers.
(WSJ, 9/30/96, p.A14)
1996 Alberto Manguel wrote "A
History of Reading."
(SFEC, 11/10/96, Par p.13)
1996 Mirjana Markovic in Serbia
published her book: "Between East and South," based on her newspaper
columns.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.A23)
1996 James McBride authored
“The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother.
(SFC, 2/13/08, p.E5)
1996 The memoir "Angela's
Ashes" by Frank McCourt (1931-2009) was elected the number-one
nonfiction book by Time and Newsweek.
(WSJ, 9/17/99, p.W11)
1996 James Michener wrote "This
Noble Land: My Vision of America."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1996 Jack Miles published "God:
A Biography."
(SFEC, 1/10/99, BR p.9)
1996 "Volkswagen and Its
Workers in the Third Reich" was written by Hans Mommsen and Manfred
Grieger. It was sponsored by VW under a $2.2 mil grant.
(WSJ, 11/7/96, p.A1)
1996 Patrick O’Brian published
his 18th volume of the Aubrey-Maturin series of historical novels of
seafaring voyages and extended naval battles of the Napoleonic wars.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, BR p.6)
1996 Marjorie Perloff wrote
"Wittgenstein’s Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the
Ordinary." Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote his "Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus" while serving in the Austrian army during WW
I.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, BR p.4)
1996 Durga Pokhrel, ex-patriot
Nepalese journalist, authored “Shadow Over Shangri-La: A Woman’s
Quest for Freedom.”
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.M3)
1996 Jack Allen Powell, a
Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control agent, authored "A Dying Art," a
history of moonshine production in Appalachia.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A12)
1996 John Shelton Reed
published "1,001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South."
(WSJ, 11/16/98, p.A12)
1996 Elliot Richardson
(d.1999), former US Attorney General under Pres. Nixon, authored
"Reflections of a Radical Moderate."
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A25)
1996 "Spirit of the Rainforest:
A Yanamama Shaman’s Story" by Mark A. Ritchie was published.
(NH, 3/97, p.67)
1996 The book "Dark Sun: The
Making of the Hydrogen Bomb" by Mr. Rhodes, was reviewed in the
Washington state Tri-City Herald.
(Tri-City Herald, 3/3/96)
1996 Wijnand van der Sanden,
curator of the Drents Museum in Holland, authored "Through Nature to
Eternity: The Bog Bodies of Northwest Europe."
(AM, 7/97, p.62)
1996 Margaret Sanders (d.2001
at 91), the daughter of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Col. Harland
Sanders, authored "The Colonel’s Secret: Eleven Herbs and a Spicy
Daughter."
(SFC, 10/15/01, p.E4)
1996 Sapphire (b.1950),
American performance poet born as Ramona Lofton, authored her
best-selling novel “Push.” In 2009 it was released in the US as a
film directed by Lee Daniels.
(Econ, 11/21/09,
p.87)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precious_%28film%29)
1996 "Inside the Wigwam" by R.
Craig Sautter and Edward M Burke was published. It was a guide
through the fact and folklore of Chicago convention history.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A12)
1996 Richard Schickel wrote:
"Clint Eastwood: A Biography."
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.E1,3)
1996 Dennis Schatzman (d.1997
at 47), author and journalist, wrote "The Simpson Trial in Black and
White."
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A21)
1996 Wole Soyinka published in
exile "The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the
Nigerian Crises."
(SFC, 3/13/97, p.A12)
1996 Harlan Ullman and James
Wade Jr. published "Shock and Awe," a military strategy for "rapid
dominance."
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.W11)
1996 Laura Volkerding
(1940-1996) published "Solomon’s Temple." It was a photographic
study of the workshops of the Compagnons de Devoir, a centuries old
organization of craftspeople devoted to the upkeep and repair of
historical monuments.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A19)
1996 Frans de Waal authored
"The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and other Animals."
(MT, Fall 02, p.33)
1996 Oprah Winfrey wrote "Make
the Connection," the highest selling nonfiction hardback of the year
(2.3 mil copies). She co-wrote the book with Bob Greene.
(SFC,10/26/97, Par p.12)(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R22)
1996 Carl Woideck published
"Charlie Parker--His Music and Life."
(MT, Spg. ‘97, p.11)
1996 Richard W. Wrangham and
Dale Peterson wrote "Demonic Males: Apes and the Origin of Human
Violence."
(NH, 11/96, p.12)
1996 Fred Allen Wolf wrote "How
Quantum Physics Proves the Existence of the Soul."
(KQED, radio interview,11/25/96)
1996 Robert Zubrin authored
“The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We
Must.”
(WSJ, 12/22/08, p.A17)
1996 An article featured a
selection of the 100 most memorable movie lines.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, DB, p.55)
1996 The show "Bring in Da’
Noise, Bring in Da’ Funk" starred tap dancer Savion Glover (22).
(WSJ, 6/2/98, p.A20)
1996 A theater production of
"Ragtime" based on the 1975 E.L. Doctorow novel opened in Toronto.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.E4)
1996 The Fox TV show "Profit"
was about a junior VP of acquisitions who was also a psychopath.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.E5)
1996 The TV show "EZ Streets"
was a drama set in the decaying heart of a Rust Belt city. It lasted
one season.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.E5)
1996 The opera "Emmeline" by
Tobias Picker had its premiere in Santa Fe.
(WSJ, 4/23/98, p.A16)
1996 "Appalachia Waltz" by Mark
O’Connor, fiddle, and Edgar Meyer, bassist, and Yo-Yo Ma, cellist,
went to the top of the classical charts.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.E1)
1996 Benoit Jutras, French
Canadian composer, wrote the music for the new Cirque du Soleil
production: "Quidam."
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.E1)
1996 CD Bayaka: The
Extraordinary Music of the BaBezele Pygmies was produced. It
featured an hour of yodels and songs... with the delicate tone
of the mondume. It was made with a 96-page booklet.
(Hem, 4/96, p.144)
1996 Cowboy Mouth, a New
Orleans band, released "Are You With me."
(SFEC, 1/10/99, DB p.17)
1996 The group Los Del Rio made
a hit with "Macarena."
(SFC, 11/30/02, p.D1)
1996 "Smokey Joe’s Cafe" won
the Grammy Award for Best Musical.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, DB p.60)
1996 The ballet "The
Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude" by William Forsyth was first
performed in Europe. The American premier was in SF in 1998.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB p.33)
1996 A planned community was
built by Disney in Celebration, Fla. In 1999 Douglas Frantz and
Catherine Collins authored "Celebration U.S.A." and Andrew Ross
authored "The Celebration Chronicles."
(SFC, 11/4/98, Z1 p.4)(WSJ, 8/23/99, p.A13)
1996 In Las Vegas the Monte
Carlo and Stratosphere casino-hotels were completed.
(WSJ, 1/21/97, p.A18)
1996 The Lucy-Desi Museum in
Jamestown, N.Y. opened.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T8)
1996 A Kalispel Tribe casino
plan was approved on a site off its reservation in metropolitan
Spokane, Wa. by Interior Sec. Bruce Babbitt.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A11)
1996 The Methodist Church (8.5
million members) ruled that ceremonies for homosexual unions were
not to be conducted by its ministers.
(SFC, 1/16/99, p.B1)
1996 Stuart Levy founded
Tokyopop. It became the largest publisher of English-language manga
in the world. The serialized stories were illustrated in the same
Japanese artistic tradition that produced anime.
(SFC, 1/6/06, p.E1)
1996 The American Dialect
Society voted "Soccer mom" as word of the year. It beat out "alpha
geek."
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A2)
1996 Lillian Disney donated
$100,000 to the Nez Perce Indians to buy some ancient tribal
artifacts. She had been raised in Lapwai on their reservation.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.C16)
1996 The Kiriyama Prize was
established to recognize outstanding books about the Pacific Rim and
South Asia that encourage greater mutual understanding of and among
the peoples and nations of this vast and culturally diverse region.
(www.kiriyamaprize.org/)
1996 The Pulitzer Prize for
fiction went to Richard Ford for "Independence Day." It was a sequel
to "The Sportswriter."
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A13)
1996 The Broadway Tony Award
for best play went to Terrence McNally for his work: "Master Class,"
a play about the soprano Maria Callas.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.E1)
1996 Chicago’s Museum of
Contemporary Art opened on Chicago Ave. It was designed by Josef
Paul Kleihues (d.2004), German-born architect. The Kleihues theory
of “poetic rationalism” described a style that sought to reinvent
the way cities were designed and enrich the functionalist trend of
late-modern architecture.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.B7)
1996 The Neon Museum was
established in Las Vegas.
(Sm, 3/06, p.26)
1996 Binney & Smith Inc.
established the Crayola Factory Museum in Easton, Pa.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A1)
1996 Peter Wright (1917-2007),
founder of started Wright’s Keystone Helicopter Corp. (1953), served
as the founding chairman of the American Helicopter Museum in West
Chester, Pa.
(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.A6)
1996 Rev. Billy Graham was
awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, Z1 p.3)
1996 In Super Bowl XXX Dallas
played against Pittsburgh.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.E1)
1996 The US fiscal deficit for
this year was estimated to be $117 billion.
(WSJ, 8/1/96 p.A1)
1996 The US was ousted from its
seat on the UN budget committee because of unpaid dues.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A14)
1996 The US passed the
Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. It restricted the
role of federal judges in reviewing state cases.
(SFC, 4/19/00, p.A1)
1996 The US Congress forced
people who renounced citizenship to continue paying income tax for
an extra ten years.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.89)
1996 Congress tightened rules
on the distribution of pathogens following a frightening record by
the American Type Culture Collection of Manassas, Va., of selling
dangerous germs.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.A6)
1996 Bruce Babbitt, US Sec. of
the Interior, called for another survey of land that might qualify
for wilderness protection, which yielded another 2.6 million acres
in Utah.
(Econ, 8/23/03, p.26)
1996 The US Border Patrol had
less than 6,000 officers. In 2008 it was projected to soon pass
18,000. From 2000-2008 over 1,000 died trying to illegally cross the
southwest desert border.
(Econ, 10/4/08, p.25)
1996 Sam Brownback of Kansas
won a US Senate seat by campaigning on the 3Rs: reduce the size of
government, reform Congress, and return to traditional values.
(Econ, 3/11/06, p.30)
1996 Barack Obama (b.1961) was
elected to the Illinois senate representing the 13th District of
Chicago’s South Side.
(WSJ, 2/11/08,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama)
1996 Cecil Underwood
(1922-2008), was elected governor of West Virginia a 2nd time
becoming the state’s oldest governor.
(SFC, 11/25/08, p.B4)
1996 Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, an
al-Qaida insider, defected to the US and began to describe the
extent of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist plans.
(SSFC, 9/30/01, p.A14)
1996 The CIA obtained an
al-Qaida training manual that suggested a 10-position leadership
structure for members held in prison. In 2006 a report was made
public that said prisoners at Guantanamo followed this structure.
(SFC, 7/20/06, p.A12)
1996 The Iran-Libya Sanctions
Act (ILSA) barred US and foreign investments of more than $40
million in the development of Iran’s energy sector.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.D8)
1996 The US barred contacts
with Colombian Gen’l. Hernando Camilo Zuniga, commander of the armed
forces, because of suspected ties to drug traffickers.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A12)
1996 The 1996 US Economic
Espionage Act was passed.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A9)
1996 In Nebraska Bishop Fabian
Bruskewitz ruled that membership in Call To Action and 10 other
organizations was "perilous to the Catholic faith and most often is
totally incompatible with the Catholic faith." Other groups cited
include the abortion-rights groups Planned Parenthood and Catholics
for a Free Choice, the Hemlock Society, which supports
physician-assisted suicide, and several Masonic organizations. In
2006 a Vatican official upheld the mass excommunication in the
Lincoln Diocese.
(AP, 12/9/06)
1996 A 1988 lawsuit
resulted in an "accommodation agreement" which would give 75-year
leases to the Big Mountain Dineh (Navaho) if they acknowledged Hopi
authority. A Mar 31, 1997, deadline was set.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, z1 p.4)
1996 Thanong Siriprechapong, a
former member of the Thai parliament, was arrested for smuggling 49
tons of hashish into the US. The case was later hampered due to a
kickback made by a key informant to US Customs agent, Frank
Gervacio, in Aug, 1992.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A18)
1996 US Congress passed a law
requiring that disease causing organisms be registered with the CDC
when being shipped and received. This was the result of a 1995 case
where plague bacteria was sent through the mail. Mandatory criminal
penalties were set for anyone trying to acquire any biological agent
under false pretenses.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A8,9)
1996 Congress passed a bill
that limited commemorative coins issued by the US Mint to 2 per year
and stipulated that the Mint must break even before sponsoring
groups get any money generated.
(WSJ, 4/8/98, p.A1)
1996 US Congress named the
842-square mile Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen Bank National Marine
Sanctuary after Massachusetts Representative Gerry E. Studds
(d.2006) in recognition of his work protecting the marine
environment.
(AP, 10/14/06)
1996 The US passed anti-child
pornography legislation.
(WSJ, 4/17/02, p.A1)
1996 The US banned leaded
gasoline.
(SSFC, 1/1/06, p.A20)
1996 Sarah Palin (b.1964) was
elected mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and served for 2 terms until 2002
when term limits forced her from office.
(SFC, 8/30/08, p.A6)
1996 In western North Carolina
the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation acquired a few hundred acres
of ancestral pasture bordering the Tuckasegee River that contained
the Kituwha Mound. Legend held that this was the site where God had
given the Cherokee their laws and their first fire.
(Arch, 9/02, p.70)
1996 In Tennessee Unit 1 of the
Watts Bar nuclear power plant came on line after 23 years of
construction and a cost of $6.9 billion.
(SFC, 5/5/07, p.A6)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.71)
1996 In Tennessee the US Dept.
of Energy began converting the K-25 building at Oak Ridge, which
anchored the world’s first full-scale uranium enrichment factory,
into an industrial park. By 2008 it was estimated that K-25 would be
leveled by late 2010, and the rest of the site finished by 2016 at a
cost of $3 billion.
(WSJ, 6/2/08, p.A2)
1996 George Soros (financier),
Peter Lewis (chairman of Progressive Insurance) and John Sperling
(founder of Apollo Group) decided on a joint effort via the ballot
box to reign in the drug war with an emphasis on treatment programs
rather than harsh penalties.
(WSJ, 5/30/01, p.A1)
1996 AT&T spun off several
divisions to form Lucent Corp. In 2004 Lisa Endlich authored
“Optical Illusions: Lucent and the Crash of Telecom.”
(WSJ, 3/29/04, p.A9)(WSJ, 10/5/04, p.D8)
1996 The Walt Disney Co.
acquired a controlling stake in the Los Angeles Angels baseball
team.
(WSJ, 8/29/02, p.A1)
1996 Levi Strauss & Co.
went private again after the company bought nearly 1/3 of its stock
for $4.3 billion.
(SFC, 4/29/03, B1)
1996 David Warthen and venture
capitalist Garrett Gruener (42) co-founded Ask Jeeves Inc., a
company devoted to scouring the Net for data based on simple
questions. www.ask.com
(WSJ, 4/8/99, p.B9)(SFC, 9/12/03, p.A10)
1996 UC Berkeley professor Eric
Brewer and graduate student Paul Gauthier founded Inktomi Corp. to
provide software for Internet Service Providers. Their software was
incorporated in the widely-used HotBot search engine, which
displaced AltaVista as the leading web-crawler-based search engine.
(SFC, 2/2/08,
p.C1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inktomi)
1996 Brewster Kahle founded the
non-profit Internet Archive. With a former colleague he also
co-founded a firm called Alexa, to track and analyze the paths
people follow as they move around the Web. In 1999 Amazon bought
Alexa for an estimated $250 million.
(Econ, 3/7/09, p.34)
1996 Milton Garland (d.2000 at
age 104) was named "Mr. Refrigeration" by the American Society of
Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.
(SFC, 8/5/00, p.A21)
1996 Microsoft launched
Expedia, an online travel assistance site. It was later sold to
Barry Diller, who spun it off from his InterActive Corp. (IAC) in
2005 as a separate company.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.66)
1996 Eliezer Yudkowsky (16) set
up the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI). He
and a group of followers, dubbed transhumanists, believed that a
kind of artificial intelligence, a super intelligence, will emerge
over the next 25 years. "The Singularity is the technological
creation of smarter than human intelligence."
(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.A1)
1996 The US net debtor position
rose 27% to 871 billion.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A5)
1996 The World Equity Benchmark
Shares, known as WEBS, were launched by Morgan Stanley & Co.
They tracked the Morgan Stanley Capital Int’l. (MSCI) indexes of 17
countries. They traded for $10-20 per share.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.B1)
1996 The documentary film
“Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam” by Nick Broomfield was about the
leader of the LA call-girl ring.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, DB p.47)
1996 The LA Museum of
Contemporary Art (MOCA) received a $5 million donation by music
producer David Geffen.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.E4)
1996 David Rumsey founded
Cartography Associates in San Francisco, California. It promotes the
distribution of digital facsimiles both in print and electronic
media. Specializing in both primary source documents and
cutting-edge technology, Cartography Associates develops tools that
integrate cataloging with visual images on the Internet. In 1995,
Rumsey began the task of making his collection public by building
the online David Rumsey Historical Map Collection,
www.davidrumsey.com.
(www.davidrumsey.com/about/david-rumsey)
1996 California enacted class
size restrictions and lowered to 20 the number of students in
kindergarten to the 3rd grade.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)
1996 California voters approved
an open primary that allowed voting for any party regardless of
party affiliation.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)
1996 California started using
its own unique fuel blends to combat air pollution. No other state
adopted the standards. A premium for the special blends resulted and
became larger as the number of state refineries shrunk.
(SFC, 9/24/09, p.A12)
1996 Columbus Financial and
Mustang Development Corp. of Beverly Hills, Ca., were charged with
fraud for allegedly swindling 9,000 elderly investors of $140
million by selling them fake oil well investments.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A14)
1996 LA police officers, Rafael
Perez and Nino Durden, shot Xavier Francisco Ovando and left him for
dead with a planted gun. Ovando was sentenced to 23 years in prison
and served 2 ½ years before his conviction was overturned. In
2000 Ovando was awarded $15 million for police misconduct.
(SFC, 11/22/00, p.A13)
1996 David Coulter was named
CEO of Bank of America. The bank closed 120 branches in the
California and eliminated 3,700 jobs.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.B4)
1996 Calif. State Univ. at
Fresno put riding on the women's athletic roster to comply with
Title IX. 50 women signed up in the 1st month.
(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A24)
1996 California almond growers
advertised that they would pay $34 per colony for beekeepers to
bring in honeybees. A shortage was caused by parasitic mites, Varroa
jacobsoni and Acarapis woodi.
(NH, 5/97, p.34)
1996 Dr. Robert Steinberg
(d.2008 at 61) and John Scharffenberger opened their Scharffen
Berger chocolate business in South San Francisco. They sold the
business to Hershey in 2005.
(SFC, 9/23/08, p.B5)
1996 In California a
63-year-old woman, Arceli Keh, gave birth to a healthy baby girl
after taking fertility drugs. She became the oldest known woman to
give birth.
(SFC, 4/24/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.A14)
1996 California Fish and Game
officials closed fishing for white, pink and green abalone. A year
later a moratorium on commercial and sport catches for all abalone
species south of SF was imposed due to dwindling numbers from excess
harvesting.
(SFEC, 7/2/00, p.C7)
1996 A West Coast power
blackout affected 4 million people.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A7)
1996 California’s population
grew to 32.6 million.
(SFC, 5/6/97, p.A18)
1996 In Glendale, Ca., Jorjik
Avanesian, a recent émigré from Iran, set a fire that
killed his wife 6 and children. He was convicted of 1st degree
murder in 1999.
(SFC, 7/1/99, p.A21)
1996 In San Diego County
Elizabeth Carroll (53) was stabbed 61 times during a robbery by
Jarred Viktor and his girlfriend Danielle Barcheers (15). Barcheers
became the youngest girl ever convicted as an adult and was
sentenced to 25 years.
(SFEC, 5/7/00, p.C6)
1996 The Ackerson fire in
Yosemite, Ca., consumed over 59,000 acres.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, Z1 p.4)
1996 Chevron Corp. began
selling little plastic cars as part of a marketing campaign. The
cars became collectible items and 17 models were available in 1999.
(WSJ, 9/8/99, p.B1)
1996 General Motors sold its
stake in the car rental firm Avis.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.60)
1996 GM introduced its OnStar
system as a quick way to summon roadside assistance. In 2009 its
slowdown feature was activated for the first time to stop a stolen
GM Chevrolet Tahoe.
(Econ, 11/21/09, p.81)
1996 Louis Vuitton Moet
Hennessy purchased Duty Free Shopper (DFS), founded in the 1960s by
Chuck Feeney (b.1931) and partners. In the 1980s Feeney had put most
of his one-third share and other assets into charitable trusts in
Bermuda operating as Atlantic Philanthropies. Feeney scheduled the
foundation to go out of business by 2016. In 2007 Connor O’Clery
authored “The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made
And Gave Away a Fortune.
(WSJ, 9/26/07, p.D13)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.99)
1996 Sears, Roebuck & Co.
acquired Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) for 415 million.
(SFC, 5/10/05, p.D1)
1996 Dr. Stuart Meloy found
that an electro-stimulator, designed by Medtronic to interrupt pain
signals, induced orgasms in women when applied to a certain point in
mid spine.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.A3)
1996 Super Mario 64 showed the
capabilities of the new Nintendo 64 computer game machine.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E3)
1996 The $1.6 billion FLAG
project (Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe) was completed for
transmission of data from Europe to the Far East. Neil Tagare pushed
the project with financial assistance from Nynex.
(SFC, 3/15/99, p.B7)
1996 Scientists discovered
bacteria living in a tank of nuclear waste. The bacteria, later
called extremophiles, had adapted to 15 times the dose that would
kill a human being.
(WSJ, 11/16/04, p.A1)
1996 A major US survey found
that one in five dairy herds suffered from a disease caused by
Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP). Infection was
able to develop into Johne’s, an incurable wasting disease.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.42)
1996 Peter Diamandis, space
enthusiast, invented the $10 million Ansari X Prize to encourage the
development of space tourism. The winner was required to make the
1st private launch of 3-people to an altitude of 62.5 miles twice in
2 weeks. Burt Rutan claimed the prize on Oct 4, 2004. A single pilot
was accompanied by the weight of 2 others to meet the 3-person
requirement.
(SFC, 4/19/03, p.A2)(WSJ, 6/14/04, p.B1)(Econ,
10/8/05, p.89)
1996 Americans legally bet some
$586.5 billion.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A20)
1996 The Sapling Foundation, a
private, non-profit foundation, was founded by Chris Anderson. Its
mission is to offer help where it is most needed by leveraging the
power of ideas, technology, media and markets. In 2001 it acquired
the TED conference.
(SSFC, 2/07/04, p.A1)
1996 The US put Belize,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Panama, Vanuatu, and
Venezuela under embargo for beastliness to dolphins and whales.
(Econ, 10/21/06, p.70)
1996 David Nam broke into the
Philadelphia house of Anthony Schroeder (75) to rob him and killed
the retired police officer when he resisted with his own gun. Nam
was arrested in 1997 but fled to South Korea in 1998 while under
house arrest. In 2008 Nam was arrested by police in South Korea.
(AP, 3/19/08)
1996 In a Dallas suburb 14
teenagers and young adults died after using a potent "uncut" Mexican
heroin.
(SFC, 6/2/98, p.A6)
1996 Worldwide executions for
the year hit a record high of 4,200. China led with 3,500 executions
and was followed by Ukraine, Russia and Iran. In the US 45 prisoners
were executed.
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A11)(SFC,12/15/97, p.A1)
1996 Carter Burden, publisher
and arts benefactor, died. The Burden collection of American
literature included over 30,000 works of literature.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.E7)
1996 Sergiu Celibidache
(b.1912), Romanian conductor, died. In 2001 Deutsche Grammophon
released a box set of his selected performances.
(WSJ, 4/24/01, p.A22)
1996 Leonor Fini (b.1908),
Argentine-born artist, died. She was brought up in Italy and worked
mostly in Paris. Her work explored the female psyche.
(SFC, 12/22/01, p.D12)
1996 David Flavin (b.1933),
artist, died.
(SFC, 11/8/03, p.D10)
1996 Wolfgang Koeppen (b.1906),
German writer, died. His novels included "Pigeons on the Grass"
(1951), "The Hothouse" (1953) and "Death in Rome" (1954).
(WSJ, 6/29/01, p. W12)
1996 James Rouse (b.1914),
visionary urban developer and shopping mall pioneer, died. In 2004
Joshua Olsen authored “Better Places, Better Lives,” a biography of
Rouse. Nicholas Dagen Bloom authored the more critical work
“Merchant of Illusion.”
(WSJ, 8/19/04, p.D8)
1996 Steve Tesich, novelist and
screenwriter, died. He did the screenplay for the 1979 film
"Breaking Away." His novel "Karoo" was published in 1998.
(WSJ, 4/7/98, p.A16)
1996 The IMF and the World Bank
launched the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative to try to
ensure that no poor country faced a debt burden it could not manage.
(Econ, 6/24/06, p.51)
1996 Andorra was still
technically at war with Germany for not having signed the Peace at
Westphalia in 1648. Its population stood at about 65,000.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-14)
1996 In Argentina Maria
Lamadrid founded “Africa Lives,” a black rights group based in
Buenos Aires.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A21)
1996 In Argentina Oscar
Camilion stepped down as defense minister for his roll in the
1991-1995 arms shipments to Ecuador and Croatia.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A24)
1996 It was reported that
hantavirus in Argentina had caused the death of 12 people this year.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A27)
1996 Belarus Pres. Lukashenko
held a referendum on capital punishment and 80% of voters supported
it. Executions were done Soviet-style, with a bullet in the back of
the head.
(AP, 10/13/09)
1996 Vesna, a Belarus human
rights group, began providing legal assistance to thousands of
Belarusians who were fined, arrested or imprisoned for criticizing
President Alexander Lukashenko's authoritarian policies.
(AP, 8/5/11)
1996 Rebecca Middleton (17) of
Ontario, Canada, died after being raped, tortured and stabbed on a
beach in Bermuda. A suspect, Kirk Orlando Mundy, was allowed to
strike a plea bargain deal with police in which he admitted to being
an accessory after the fact and was sentenced to five years. The
case against the other suspect, Justis Raham Smith, collapsed after
a judge in Bermuda said there was insufficient evidence.
(Reuters, 4/1/06)
1996 A Black Sea Action Plan
was signed by all six coastal nations: Turkey, Georgia, Russia,
Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. It was to improve sewage control,
develop conservation strategies and study a possible special
environmental fund.
(SFEC,12/797, p.A22)
1996 Bolivia joined Mercosur,
the Southern Cone Common Market, as an associated member.
(WSJ, 2/14/97, p.A9)
1996 Bolivia passed a
hydrocarbons law that paved the way for privatizations.
(Econ, 9/13/03, p.34)
1996 In Bolivia dinosaur
footprints were discovered on the wall of a limestone quarry near
the town of Sucre.
(SFEC, 8/2/98, p.A18)
1996 Official figures showed
that 40% of all Brazilian married women of reproductive age were
sterilized.
(WSJ, 6/13/03, p.A1)
1996 In Brazil a moratorium on
new concessions for logging mahogany and virola wood was enacted.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A10)
1996 The BBC teamed Jennifer
Paterson (d.1999 at 71) with Dickson Wright for a cooking program
that became the popular "Two Fat Ladies."
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C5)
1996 John Galliano, British
designer, became chief designer for Dior. In 1999 he introduced the
saddle bag handbag.
(WSJ, 1/20/03, p.B1)
1996 Britain banned exports of
meat and bone meal due to possible risks of "mad-cow" disease.
(WSJ, 1/23/00, p.A1)1996
The BBC teamed Jennifer Paterson (d.1999 at 71)
with Dickson Wright for a cooking program that became the popular
"Two Fat Ladies."
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C5)
1996 Britain banned exports of
meat and bone meal due to possible risks of "mad-cow" disease.
(WSJ, 1/23/00, p.A1)
1996 The BBC launched a project
to compile data about Britain and recorded the results on
laserdiscs. A 2.5 year effort to transfer the data to updated
technology was completed in 2005 and made available at
www.domesday1986.com.
(Econ, 9/17/05, TQp.12)
1996 The British Commission for
Racial Equality found that the Household Cavalry, the 4-centuries
old monarch’s personal guard, was guilty of institutionalized
racism.
(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A13)
1996 Bernard Ecclestone
(b.1930), a former motorcycle mechanic, paid himself a salary of $80
million. Know as the ‘Ringmaster" he was the foremost figure in the
Formula One car racing scene.
(WSJ, 12/3/98,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Ecclestone)
1996 Michael Lynch, British
software entrepreneur, founded Autonomy as a kind of Google for
corporate data.
(Econ, 2/28/09, p.70)
1996 In Bulgaria GDP fell 10%
and foreign debt went up to more than $9 billion, equal to the size
of the economy. Wages have fallen to $20 per month from 120.
(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A1)
1996 In Cambodia Ta Mok ousted
Pol Pot from power and kept him under house arrest until his death
in 1998.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A20)
1996 In Canada Inco Corp.
acquired the nickel deposits at Voisey Bay in Labrador from Diamond
Fields Resources Inc. for $3.2 billion in cash and stock. At this
time nickel was trading at $3.70 per pound.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.B4)
1996 In Chile bicyclists formed
“Furiosos Cuiclistas” (raging cyclists) patterned after a SF group,
founded in 1992, to promote bicycling as a form of nonpolluting
transportation.
(SSFC, 11/14/04, p.A16)
1996 China ratified the 1982 UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea, giving territorial waters of 12
nautical miles and economic zones of 200 nautical miles.
(WSJ, 3/11/09, p.A8)
1996 China set up the
Preparatory Committee to replace the PWC and oversee the transition
of Hong Kong in line with the Basic Law and decisions of China’s
parliament.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1996 China Minsheng Bank was
cobbled together by 59 investors, including Liu Yonghao, a pig-feed
seller turned billionaire. It was China’s first bank with primarily
private owners. By 2009 the bank was China’s 7th largest.
(Econ, 11/14/09, p.84)
1996 The World Bank proposed to
move 58,000 poor Chinese farmers from the eastern half of Qinghai
300 miles west to an area of Tibet called Dulan. The $81 million
project faced heavy opposition prior to a Bank vote in 1999.
(SFC, 6/18/99, p.D2)
1996 China’s Huangshan Tourism
Development Co. was formed to manage the 72 peaks of the
60-square-mile Huangshan national scenic area.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.A17)
1996 Wal-Mart first entered
China through a joint-venture agreement. By 2011 Walmart had 338
shops in 124 Chinese cities with 90,000 employees.
(www.wal-martchina.com/english/walmart/history.htm)(Econ, 5/21/11,
p.69)
1996 In Apartado, Colombia,
death squad members chopped off the head of a primary school student
in front of his class mates. They thus came to be called
"mocha-cabezas" or head-hackers.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A14)
1996 A Danish government
admitted in a report that the United States had stored nuclear
weapons in Greenland during the Cold War, although Denmark had
banned nuclear weapons from its soil in 1957.
(AP, 10/29/10)
1996 The Argentine oil firm
Compania General de Combustibles (CGC) received a contract to drill
for oil in Sarayaca, Ecuador, home to some 2,000 Quichua Indians.
Natives fended off oil drilling well into 2004.
(SFC, 8/13/04, p.W1)
1996 In Egypt Mustafa Mashour
(d.2002 at 81) took over leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood. He
had spent 20 years in jail.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A23)
1996 In Egypt Abu al-Ila Madi
founded the Al-Wasat Al-Jadid (the New Center) party. It was a split
off from the conservative Muslim Brotherhood and sought to create a
political movement promoting a tolerant version of Islam with
liberal tendencies.
(AP, 2/19/11)
1996 In El Salvador there were
6,792 people murdered in this year according to the attorney
general’s office.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B5)
1996 In France the Francis
Poulenc Museum of Sacred Art opened in Rocamadour. It featured a
collection religious objects spanning 8 centuries.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T11)
1996 The French firm Ecco
merged with Adia of Switzerland to form Adecco. The merger made
Adecco the world’s largest employment firm ahead of Manpower.
(Econ, 1/6/07, p.57)
1996 In Germany Thorsten Becker
published "Schones Deutschland," based on the idea of a redivided
Germany.
(Hem., 3/97, p.119)
1996 In Germany Chancellor
Helmut Kohl published "Ich wolte Deutschlands Einheit" (I Wanted
Germany’s Unity).
1996 Germany’s federal
government first sold a chunk of Deutsche Telekom, with shares
valued at the D-mark equivalent of €14.57.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.72)
1996 In Germany
low-tetrahydrocannabinol hemp was made legal and quickly became a
fast-growing cash crop. A young Berlin brewer began to add its
flowering buds to his beer in violation of the 1516 Reinheitsgebot
law on beer ingredients.
(WSJ, 5/27/98, p.A1)
1996 German-speaking countries
approved a reform of German spelling (orthography).
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.45)
1996 Guatemala enacted a
General Telecommunications Law that changed a state ownership and
allocated radio spectrum from the bottom up. This allowed for a
large increase in phone penetration.
(WSJ, 12/27/02, p.A11)
1996 The New York based Kroll
Associates reported that 900 kidnappings took place in Guatemala in
this year.
(SFC,11/21/97, p.A15)
1996 In Guinea soldiers angry
over low pay bombard the presidential palace for several days while
Conte was holed up inside. He emerged unscathed, offered raises to
his attackers and later named a prime minister for the first time.
(AP, 9/29/09)
1996 Sidya Toure, Guinea’s
reformist prime minister, complained shortly after taking office
that 50,000 civil servants in the country were consuming 51% of the
nation’s wealth.
(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.8)
1996 Guyana’s population was
about 780,000.
(WSJ, 9/25/96, p.A18)
1996 In Haiti the Aristide
Foundation was founded to low-cost loans and assistance to the
Haitian people.
(SFC, 3/9/99, p.A12)
1996 In Honduras some 4,000
Garifuna (black Afro-Caribs) marched on Tegucigalpa to demand
property rights.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.T11)
1996 India outlawed sex
determination tests to reduce gender-based abortions.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.J1)
1996 In Indonesia
Freeport-McMoran pledged to spend 1% of its Irian Jaya revenue,
about $15 million a year, on local development.
(WSJ, 9/29/98, p.A10)
1996 On Iraq a UNICEF report
estimated that 4,500 children under age 5 were dying each month due
to lack of food and medicine.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.C12)
1996 In Israel Ariel Sharon was
named the infrastructure minister in the Netanyahu government.
(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A8)
1996 Japan introduced a new tax
on alcohol.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.43)
1996 Katsuhiko Kawasaki began
running the investigation division of the Tokyo Public Prosecutor's
Office.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1996 The Penndel Co. of Tokyo
introduced its Milky Gel Roller. The gelly pen became a huge fad
among kids by 1999 for its ability to write on skin and be easily
rubbed off.
(WSJ, 6/15/99, p.A1)
1996 Knife crimes by juveniles
increased by 30% to 431.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A12)
1996 In Laos the town of Luang
Prabang with its dozens of temples was declared a World Heritage
Site.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.T5)
1996 In Lesotho Moshoeshoe II,
king of Lesotho, was killed in an automobile accident.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.14A)
1996 Macedonia opened a stock
exchange.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1996 Abdullah Sungkar (1999)
and Abu Bakar Baasyir, self-exiled Indonesian clerics, together with
Riduan Isamuddin, established Jemaah Islamiyah in Malaysia.
(WSJ, 1/15/03, p.A1)
1996 In Mali “the Flame of
Peace” ceremony, in which thousands of weapons were incinerated,
marked a reconciliation between the Touareg nomads and the
government. The annual “Festival in the Desert” music festival grew
as an outshoot of this. It took place near Essakane, an oasis some
40 miles north-west of Timbuktu.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.58)
1996 The population of
Mauritius was about 1.2 million people.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A8)
1996 Morocco’s government began
a series of reforms.
(SFCM, 3/27/05, p.13)
1996 Fokker went
bankrupt. The last new Fokker-50 was delivered to Ethiopian Airlines
in May, 1997. Stork, another Dutch company, bought a large part of
Fokker's assets, and continued to be a main provider of parts and
service for Fokker planes.
(AP, 2/10/04)
1996 New Zealand adopted a
mixed member proportional (MMP) political system. As of 2008 no
party won an absolute majority since the adoption of MMP.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.51)
1996 In Nigeria Pfizer Inc.
tested an unapproved drug on children for an often deadly strain of
meningitis. In 2006 Nigerian medical experts concluded that Pfizer
violated international law and was never authorized by the Nigerian
government to give the unproven drug Trovan to nearly 100 children
and infants at a field hospital in Kano, where they were being
treated.
(Reuters,
5/6/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trovafloxacin)
1996 A North Korean defector in
1997 claimed that the government had banned abortions and was
encouraging women to bear children to increase the population in
order to maintain the army.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A13)
1996 The basic law of Oman was
adopted stipulating that the ruling family meets in the case of a
vacuum in power to choose a successor to the sultan within three
days.
(AFP, 1/30/11)
1996 The population of Oman was
about 2 million.
(NG, 5/95, p.120)
1996 The Palestinians summoned
Moroccan and Egyptian engineers and began constructing a 3-km. long
runway for an Int’l. Airport at the village of Raffiach, whose
residents were ordered to leave by the Palestinian Authority.
(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A14)
1996 The population of Panama
was about 2.5 million.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A8)
1996 A plot to bomb the US
Embassy in Asuncion, Paraguay, was broken up. It was planned by
Marwan al Safadi, a Lebanese national, in revenge for the arrest of
Omar Abdel Rahman.
(WSJ, 11/16/01, p.A10)
1996 Argentina, Brazil and the
US acted to forestall a coup in Paraguay.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.35)
1996 Rwanda’s Paul Kagame
dressed up an invasion of Zaire as an indigenous revolt and
installed Laurent Kabila at its helm. Zimbabwe paid $5 million to
help finance the Kabila regime in Congo.
(WSJ, 10/8/98, p.A1)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.38)
1996 Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd
(73) ceded power to his half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, who is
considered to be more of a traditionalist.
(WSJ, 1/2/96, p. A-1)
1996 The Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) began launching attacks against police stations. The KLA was
led by Hashim Thaci and his lieutenants Azem Syla and Xhavit Halati.
(SFC,12/10/97, p.C4)(SFC, 6/25/99, p.A10)
1996 In St. Kitts the
government of Denzil Douglas began extradition charges against
Charles "Little Nut" Miller, who was wanted in Florida for
conspiring to smuggle cocaine.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A21)
1996 In South Africa a census
was conducted in all 11 of the official languages. It revealed that
over half the population did not have running water in their homes.
(SFC, 10/21/98, p.C2)
1996 In South Africa the
vigilante group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs publicly
lynched gang boss Rashaad Staggie.
(SFC, 8/29/98, p.A12)
1996 The South Africa Council
for Scientific and Industrial Research patented the active chemical
of hoodia, called P57, and licensed development rights to a British
firm. They did not acknowledge the San Bushmen who used the cactus
to raise energy and fight hunger. In 2003 an agreement was reached
to pay the San 6% of the royalties. Some 100,000 San lived in South
Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.D5)
1996 The South Africa mining
firm Gencor acquired Billiton. In 2001 a merger with BHP created the
BHP-Billiton Group, the world’s largest mining company.
(WSJ, 11/18/05,
p.A8)(www.mineweb.net/sections/mining_finance/490641.htm)
1996 Sbu Ndebele, premier of
KwaZulu-Natal, set up the Vukuzhake program to boost jobs and
promote a policy of “black economic empowerment” in poor
communities. In 2009 Ndebele was appointed to be South Africa’s
transport minister.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.49)
1996 Spain's Magic Box Int'l.
introduced Crazy Bones to Europe, popcorn-size plastic figures for
kids to use in their own games. They reached the US market in 1997
and by 1999 were a major craze.
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.B1)
1996 The Ashifa plant in
Khartoum opened as a 50-50 venture between Bashir Hassan Bashir and
a shipping company called Baaboud Trading and Shipping Agencies. The
plant supplied malaria tablets and veterinary medicine for cattle.
It was sold in 1998 to Salaheldin Idris.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A9)
1996 In Sudan’s Abyei region
the Heglig oil field was first developed and operated by the Greater
Nile Petroleum Operating Company. Sudan held a majority stake, with
shares owned by companies from China, Malaysia and India.
(AP, 7/22/09)
1996 The Red Cross suspended
field work in Sudan after 2 members of its staff were seized briefly
by a splinter rebel group.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.D3)
1996 The US embassy in Khartoum
was abandoned.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A1)
1996 Karl Muller, Swiss
engineer, invented a new type of shoe designed to re-create the
positive effects of walking barefoot. The shoes were named MBTs
(Masai Barefoot Technology) after the African Masai tribe.
(SSFC, 11/25/07,
p.F3)(www.sunsetbirkenstock.com/shop/mbt.php)
1996 Syria acquired new
chemical weapons technology from Russia.
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.A11)
1996 In Tajikistan some 50,000
people had died since fighting broke out in 1992.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Thanong Siriprechapong, a
former member of the Thai parliament, was arrested for smuggling 49
tons of hashish into the US. The case was later hampered due to a
kickback made by a key informant to US Customs agent, Frank
Gervacio, in Aug, 1992.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A18)
1996 In Thailand Salang Bunnag
directed a hostage rescue operation that freed all the captives from
a drug gang. Bunnag was later accused of ordering the summary
execution of the 6 kidnappers while they were in custody.
(SFC, 8/27/01, p.A9)
1996 The population of Tunisia
was about 9 million.
(SFC, 5/6/96, p.A-1,4)
1996 The Ankarapithecus skull
was found in the Turkish desert. It dated to about 10 million years
ago. The remains show many similarities to Sivapithecus from South
Asia, and have sometimes been included in that genus.
(http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/apes/ankarapithecus/ankarapithecus_overview.html)
1996 Uganda abolished fees for
primary education and enrollment almost doubled in a year.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.76)
1996 The United Arab Emirates,
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan recognized the Taliban after they seized
the Afghan capital Kabul. All three countries cut ties with the
Taliban after it sheltered al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden following
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
(AP, 2/24/06)
1996 UNAIDS, a joint United
Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, was created to deal with the new
HIV/AIDS disease.
(www.un.org/ga/aids/ungassfactsheets/html/fsunaids_en.htm)
1996 It was reported that
deaths in Vietnam from land mines, unexploded bombs and artillery
shells totaled 38,248 in the 1st 23 years following the end of the
war.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, p.A12)
1996-1997 In California Curtis DeBord and Peter
Tran smuggled some $5 million worth of arms and weapons parts from
Vietnam to the US over an 18 month period. They were associates of
Hammond Ku who was convicted of illegally importing munitions.
(SFC, 11/18/98, p.A20)
1996-1997 In Colombia warlord Salvatore Mancuso
oversaw 2 massacres that killed 19 farmers in Antioquia province. In
2006 Colombia’s government said it will pay $1.4 million to
relatives of the 19 farmers, honoring a ruling by the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights.
(AP, 7/28/06)
1996-1998 A 1998 Amnesty Int’l. report accused the
Burmese army in the torture and killings of hundreds of ethnic Shan
villagers in the Shan state during this period.
(SFC, 4/15/98, p.C14)
1996-1998 In Japan an incipient economic recovery
during this period turned into a fresh recession.
(Econ, 10/8/05, Survey p.3)
1996-2001 In 2002 the Thailand-based Shan Human
Rights Foundation filed a report that Burma government military
forces raped at least 625 girls and women in Shan state over this
period in an effort to bring the area under control.
(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A16)
1996-2004 During this period prison inmates in the
USA rose by 25%.
(Econ, 9/3/05, p.58)
1996-2006 In Alaska per-capita federal spending
rose from 38% above the national average to 71% above. Much of this
was later attributed to Sen. Ted Stevens, who had begun representing
Alaska in 1968.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.34)
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