Timeline 1997 April - June
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1997 Apr 1, The US Library of Congress began its “Today in History" web site: www.loc.gov.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, Par p.8)
1997 Apr 1, Federal authorities cautioned that thousands of schoolchildren across the nation might have been exposed to the hepatitis A virus by eating frozen strawberries imported from Mexico and processed in the U.S.
(AP, 4/1/98)
1997 Apr 1, In Russia Yeltsin signed an agreement with Belarus for limited economic, military and political integration.
(WSJ, 4/1/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 1, Grigory Chkhartishvili, Russian philologist and essayist, conceived of a project to write Russian historical detective novels. The 1st novel of his B. Akunin project was printed in 1998 and introduced Erast Fandorin, a turn of the 20th century ambassador-detective.
(WSJ, 5/30/06, p.D5)
1997 Apr 1, A bomb in Moscow destroyed the statue of Nicholas II, the city’s only monument to the last czar of Russia. It was erected in 1996 to mark the centenary of his coronation.
(WSJ, 4/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 1, In Zaire Etienne Tshisekedi was appointed prime minister. The next day he annulled the constitution, dissolved parliament and offered 6 Cabinet seats to the rebels. He planned a new transitional parliament and new multiparty elections.
(SFC, 4/4/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 2, The White House released documents showing how eager it had been to exploit the money-drawing powers of President Clinton and Vice President Gore during the 1996 campaign while coordinating with the Democratic Party's fund-raising machine.
(AP, 4/2/98)
1997 Apr 2, An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt jet with four 500- pound bombs was lost over the Colorado Rockies. It was piloted by Capt. Craig Button (32). Wreckage of the plane was found Apr 20 on the sheer face of New York Mountain [Gold Dust Peak], 15 miles from Vail. It was later suspected that he committed suicide due to a possible revelation of homosexuality. A 1998 official report cited unrequited love for a former girlfriend and his mother's Christian pacifist faith.
(SFE, 4/9/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/21/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A3)(SFC, 8/26/99, p.A3)
1997 Apr 2, Tomoyuki Tanaka (86), producer (Godzilla), died of a stroke.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1997 Apr 3, About 2,000 youngsters in California and Georgia lined up for shots to protect them against hepatitis from a contaminated shipment of frozen strawberries.
(AP, 4/3/98)
1997 Apr 3, In Tennessee 6 chained prisoners burned to death when their transport vehicle caught fire.
(WSJ, 4/4/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 4, It was reported that US psychologist Edward Larson followed a 1916 procedure by psychologist James Leuba in a random poll of selected scientists to inquire if they believed in God. Leuba had predicted that disbelief would spread as education expanded. Both polls produced similar results whereby 40% said that they believed in God.
(SFC, 4/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 4, Space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on what was supposed to have been a 16-day mission. However, a defective power generator forced the shuttle's return four days later.
(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/4/98)
1997 Apr 4, In Zaire rebel forces captured Mbuji-Mayi, capital of Eastern Kasai province and home of Zaire’s diamond industry. Departing government troops looted the city and 100 people were killed in clashes between the retreating soldiers and locals.
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 5 Allen Ginsberg (b.1926), the counterculture guru who shattered conventions as poet laureate of the Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70. His last book of poems "Death and Fame: Last Poems 1993-1997" was edited by Bob Rosenthal, Peter Hale and Bill Morgan following his death. In 2000 Bill Morgan edited "Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995." In 2001 David Carter edited "Allen Ginsberg: Spontaneous Mind, The Selected Interviews, 1958-1996." In 2006 Bill Morgan authored “I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg."
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A11)(AP, 5/5/97)(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.W6)(SFEC, 5/9/99, BR p.3)(SFEC, 3/5/00, DB p.4)(SSFC, 4/8/01, BR p.2)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M1)
1997 Apr 5, Regional police reported the arrest of 7 men in Novosibirsk, Russia, who officials said planned to smuggle 11 pounds (5.2kg) of enriched uranium to Pakistan or China. The uranium was reportedly stolen from a plant in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/29/07)(http://tinyurl.com/3cydhn)
1997 Apr 5, From Serbia it was reported the Pres. Milosevic might step down from Serbian presidency at the end of his 2 terms and try to assume the ceremonial post of president of all of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro).
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 5, In Zaire the rebels agreed to allow a UN airlift of some 80,000 Rwandan refugees back to their homeland.
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A17)
1997 Apr 6, NASA officials announced they were cutting short the 16-day mission of space shuttle Columbia by 12 days because of a deteriorating and potentially explosive power generator.
(AP, 4/6/02)
1997 Apr 6, A blizzard shut down much of the northern Plains.
(AP, 4/6/98)
1997 Apr 6, Jack Kent Cooke (84), owner of the Washington Redskins, died. Settlement of his will took 7 years and cost $64 million in professional fees.
(AP, 4/6/98)(WSJ, 7/9/04, p.A1)
1997 Apr 6, In Algeria attackers massacred 90 villagers at various sites over the last 2 days. 52 people had their throats slit near Medea by about 50 killers; 15 were killed in Amroussa and their bodies were burned with gasoline.
(SFC, 4/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 6, In Burma a bomb exploded at the Rangoon home of Lt. Gen’l. Tin Oo and killed his daughter, Cho Lei Oo (34).
(WSJ, 4/8/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/8/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 6, In Peru Leonor LaRosa revealed her torture and beatings to a television station.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 7, The Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to Steven Millhauser for "Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer," but no award was given for drama. The Times-Picayune of New Orleans won two journalism Pulitzers, including the public service prize, for a series examining how overfishing and pollution are devastating the oceans.
(AP, 4/7/97)
1997 Apr 7, In Colombia prisoners took over a 1,200 inmate facility in Bucaramanga, the 3rd prison to be seized in a week.
(WSJ, 4/8/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 7, In Zaire deserting government soldiers of the 21st Brigade donned white scarves and declared themselves on the side of the rebels as the rebels approached Lubumbashi, the capital of the copper and cobalt rich Shaba province.
(SFC, 4/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 8, The Vatican chose Archbishop Francis George of Portland, Ore., to head the Archdiocese of Chicago, succeeding the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
(AP, 4/8/98)
1997 Apr 8, Lawmakers returned from a visit to North Korea and announced that the people there were subsisting on 5 ounces of rice per day and eating grass and tree bark.
(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 8, Microsoft Corp released Internet Explorer 4.0.
(http://tinyurl.com/dax6p)
1997 Apr 8, The Columbia space shuttle landed with its mission shortened by 12 days due to a faulty fuel cell [a defective generator].
(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/8/98)
1997 Apr 8, Singer and songwriter Laura Nyro (b.1947) died in Danbury, Conn., at age 49 of ovarian cancer. In 2012 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A23)(AP, 4/8/98)(SSFC, 4/15/12, p.A9)
1997 Apr 8, In Mexico Raul Gutierrez, director of the capital’s nine prisons, resigned. More resignations in light of corruption and special privileges for imprisoned powerful drug traffickers followed.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 9, Amid privacy concerns, Social Security officials pulled the plug on an Internet site that provided records of individual earnings and retirements.
(AP, 4/9/98)
1997 Apr 9, The CIA announced that its own errors may have led to demolition of an Iraqi ammunition bunker filled with chemical weapons at Kamisiyah in 1991. The CIA apologized to Gulf War veterans for failing to do a better job in supplying information to U.S. troops who blew up an Iraqi bunker later found to contain chemical weapons.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/9/98)
1997 Apr 9, New images of Jupiter’s moon Europa confirmed the 1996 revealed surface of massive icebergs floating on an ocean more than 50 miles deep.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 9, UNICEF, the WHO, and the UN Population Fund called for a global ban on female genital mutilation.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 9, In Ecuador the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of former president Abdala Bucaram and his aide Marco Albuja on charges of misusing presidential funds.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 9, In Hong Kong the future government unveiled plans to restrict political ties with foreigners, require police approval for protests, allow political parties to be banned and prohibit political groups from forming links with foreign organizations.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 9, A war-era bomb exploded on the grounds of a school in central Vietnam and killed 7 children. A teacher and 33 other children were wounded.
(WSJ, 4/10/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 9, In Zaire Mobuto dismissed prime minister Etienne Tshisekedo and installed a military commander as prime minister.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 10, A US federal judge struck down as unconstitutional the Line-Item Veto Act, a law that lets the president strike specific items from bills passed by Congress. The president said he would appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court later set aside the judge's ruling. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the veto as unconstitutional in 1998.
(SFC, 4/11/97, p.A3)(AP, 4/10/02)
1997 Apr 10, Onetime fighter pilot and former POW Pete Peterson was confirmed by the Senate as the first postwar U.S. ambassador to Vietnam.
(AP, 4/10/98)
1997 Apr 10, Michael Dorris (52), writer, committed suicide. His books included “The Broken Cord" (1989), an account of his life raising adopted son Abel, who was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome.
(http://www.hotink.com/72997.html)
1997 Apr 11, The Air Force announced that that despite an intensive nine-day search, it couldn't find a bomb-laden A-10 warplane that had disappeared with its pilot during a training mission over Arizona. Wreckage was later found on a Colorado mountainside.
(AP, 4/11/02)
1997 Apr 11, Some 25,000 people marched in Watsonville, Ca., to support the UFW drive to organize farm workers. Their focus was to begin with the state’s $576 million strawberry industry.
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 11, In Angola a national reconciliation governing body was formed that united the MPLA under president Jose Eduardo dos Santos and UNITA under Jonas Savimbi.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 11, The EU postponed for 6 months a WTO case that charged the US with unfair trade practices.
(WSJ, 4/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 11, In India Parliament rejected Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, head of the 10-month-old coalition government by a vote of 292 to 158 in the lower house, the Lok Sabha. He was rejected after the Congress Party withdrew it support. The Congress Party, which has ruled for 45 of the 50 years since independence, complained that Gowda failed to halt gains by the BJP (Bharatriya Janata Party).
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 11, In Italy, fire damaged the 500-year-old San Giovanni Cathedral, home of the Shroud of Turin, which some consider Christ's burial cloth.
(AP, 4/11/98)
1997 Apr 11, In Serbia minister Radovan Stojicic (aka Badza or "Big Man" in Serbian) was shot and killed by a masked assailant at a Belgrade restaurant. He was the commander of Milosevic’s security police and was expected to take over the Interior Ministry.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 12, Undaunted by a cache of explosives found on his travel route, Pope John Paul II plunged into a peace mission to Sarajevo, wading into crowds and declaring, "Never again war."
(AP, 5/9/98)
1997 Apr 12, The new $38.4 million Museum of African American History was scheduled to open in Detroit at 315 E. Warren Ave. with a 16,000-sq.-foot core exhibit. The building was paid for by a city-backed bond issue but the collection was started by Dr. Charles Wright.
(Sky, 4/97, p.28)(SFEC, 2/23/97, p.T7)(WSJ, 9/30/97, p.A20)
1997 Apr 12, George Wald (80), US scientist (Nobel Prize, vitamin A in retina), died.
(http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1967/wald-bio.html)
1997 Apr 12, In Honduras Candido Amador, a Chorti tribal leader, was shot to death near the ruins of Copan after a meeting with local landowners. He had demanded that the government turn over 35,000 acres of land that was promised to the indigenous peoples in an agreement with the Spanish colonial government in the 18th century. Another leader, Ovidio Perez, was gunned down less than a month later.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A13)
1997 Apr 12, In Italy the Shroud of Turin was recovered from a fire that began in the Guarini chapel of the city’s 15th century cathedral.
(WSJ, 4/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 12, From Madagascar it was reported that a plague of locusts was poised to sweep over the 5 million acres of rich farmland in the south of the nation.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 13, Tiger Woods won golf’s Masters Tournament by 12 strokes for a record 18-under-par 270 total score. He was the youngest (21) and first black winner of the Masters.
(WSJ, 4/14/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/13/98)
1997 Apr 13, It was reported that scientists had developed memory-retentive chips that preserve data even with power shut off. The chips were expected to be available in 2 years.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.B8)
1997 Apr 13, With tanks, sharpshooters and thousands of police deployed to protect him, Pope John Paul II preached forgiveness during a mass in Sarajevo.
(AP, 4/13/98)
1997 Apr 13, In Turkey a military modernization program for $31 billion was announced to reduce dependence on Western suppliers. Turkey’s standing army numbered 639,000 men, 4,000 tanks, and 400 combat aircraft.
(WSJ, 4/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 14, In SF the winners of the 1997 Goldman Environmental Prize were: Alexander Nikitin of Russia who helped to expose the danger of radioactive fuel from Russian submarines stored in the Arctic waters; Terri Swearingen of the US for fighting against a toxic waste incinerator on the Ohio River; Samoan chieftain Fuiono Senio and ethnobotonist Paul Cox for establishing forest preserves; Juan Pablo Orrego of Chile for his battle to stop the damming of the Bio Bio River; Nick Carter of England for helping to create Africa’s inter-governmental force to fight illegal wildlife trade; and Loir Botor Dingit, Indonesian tribal chief, for struggling to protect ancestral rain forest from logging.
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 14, Clyde Barrow’s bullet-ridden shirt was auctioned off to a Nevada casino for $85,000. His largest theft was estimated at $4,000. On May 23,1934, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot some 4 dozen times by police after the pair had spent the previous 2 years killing and robbing banks in the Midwest.
(SFC, 4/3/97, p.A13)(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A13)
1997 Apr 14, A US presidential task force released guidelines for a code-of-conduct to curb sweatshop abuses amongst apparel worldwide manufacturers.
(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 14, James B. McDougal, former partner of Pres. Clinton in the White-water land venture, was sentenced to three years in prison. He was convicted on 18 accounts of conspiracy and fraud but volunteered new information for a reduced sentence.
(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 14, Some 500 black demonstrators marched in the Grays Ferry section of Philadelphia in response to a Feb 23 beating of Annette Williams, her son and nephew by a mob of white men. In March two black men shot and killed the 16-year-old son of a white police officer in a drugstore robbery.
(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 14, In Ethiopia a grenade attack wounded 33 in the largest supermarket of Addis Ababa. Two similar attacks over the weekend killed one person and injured 41 at a restaurant and hotel in the capital.
(WSJ, 4/15/97, p.A9)
1997 Apr 15, Jackie Robinson's number 42 was retired 50 years after he became the first black player in major league baseball.
(AP, 4/15/98)
1997 Apr 15, The Justice Department inspector general reported that FBI crime lab agents produced flawed scientific work or inaccurate testimony in major cases such as the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 4/15/98)
1997 Apr 15, The US military said it would allow American Indian soldiers to use peyote in their religious services.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 15, MCI put up a Web site in mid-April and held the "Great American Net Test." Participants were asked to search for answers to 5 multiple-choice trivia questions.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.D4)
1997 Apr 15, Craig Tate (51), chief technical officer for Colgate-Palmolive, was killed in a helicopter crash in New York’s East River.
(WSJ, 9/22/98, p.A1)
1997 Apr 15, In Bosnia the joint presidency agreed on a new currency, a coupon with a value equal to one German mark, or about 57 cents.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 15, China blocked a UN resolution criticizing its human-rights record for the 7th year in a row.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 15, In Saudi Arabia at least 343 Muslim pilgrims died in a fire on a plain outside the holy city of Mecca and injured 1290. The fires stemmed from cooking gas canisters. Aid workers and diplomats said the death toll was at least 500.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/15/98)(AP, 2/1/04)
1997 Apr 16, African leaders of 7 nations eased their embargo on Burundi to alleviate local suffering.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 16, Police in Israel recommended indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for breach of trust in an influence-trading scandal. Prosecutors later decided not to pursue charges against Netanyahu, citing a lack of proof.
(AP, 4/16/98)
1997 Apr 16, In Portugal gunmen burst into the Mea Culpa topless bar in Amarante and set it on fire killing 12 people.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 17, House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced he would borrow $300,000 from retired Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole to pay a sanction imposed for violation of House rules.
(AP, 4/17/98)
1997 Apr 17, The Red River in Fargo, North Dakota, was to have crested at 39.5 feet, surpassing the 1897 record. The Weather Service said that it crested on Apr 21 at 54.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A3)(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 17, In Brazil some 1500 peasants marched 750 miles to Brasilia for land reform and were joined by some 25,000 trade-union members.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 17, In Israel Chaim Herzog, former president (1983-1993), soldier, spymaster, barrister and author, died at age 78 in Tel Aviv. His books included "The War of Atonement," about the 1973 war, and "Israel’s Finest Hour," about the 1967 Six-Day war.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.E2)(AP, 4/17/98)(MC, 4/17/02)
1997 Apr 18, President Clinton held a news conference in which he warned Republicans that a balanced-budget deal may not come quickly, while reassuring nervous Democrats that he would not abandon the party's prized social programs.
(AP, 4/18/98)
1997 Apr 18, American Rivers Inc., a national conservation group, listed this year’s ten most endangered rivers. Included were the Potomac, San Joaquin, the lower Colorado and the Hudson Rivers.
(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A7)
1997 Apr 18, Scientists reported the discovery of a fusion protein that governed the ability of the HIV virus to fuse with the protective membranes of immune system cells.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.A4)
1997 Apr 18, It was reported that measurements by scientists suggest that the universe may have an "up" and a "down." "This axis of orientation is not a physical entity, but rather defines a direction of space that somehow determines how light travels through the universe." The measurements were later considered flawed because the scientists examined polarized radio waves, which oscillate in only one direction.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.A1,13)(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 19, In Newton, New Jersey, Giorgio Gallara, a Pizza shop owner, and employee Jeremy Giordano, were killed after being lured to an abandoned house. [see Apr 21]
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A9)
1997 Apr 19, In North Dakota the Red River overran sandbags and broke dikes in Grand Forks and floods sent nearly half of the 50,000 population into evacuation. Damages were estimated at over $1.5 billion.
(AP, 4/19/97)(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A1)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.39)
1997 Apr 19, The British drought was now two years old and London was the driest it had been in 200 years.
(SFC, 4/19/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 19, In Bulgaria the United Democratic Forces (UDF) under Ivan Kostov won elections with 52% of the vote. The former Communist’s renamed Socialist Party won 19%.
(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 19, In India Inder Kumar Gujral was chosen to lead the United Front Coalition government. The Tamil Manila Congress withdrew from the coalition.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 19, In Spain a Barcelona court found Jose Puignero, factory owner, guilty of illegally dumping chemical dyes into a river in the town of Sant Bartomeu del Grau. This was the first punishment for crimes against the environment ever handed out.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A17)
1997 Apr 20, In Atlanta, Ga., Timmie Sinclair (27) was beaten by police officers in a scene that was captured on videotape and showed excessive use of force and baton beating.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A6)
1997 Apr 20, An article in the Astrophysics Journal identified some of the missing matter (dark matter) of the universe as ionized hydrogen and helium gas spread out between the galaxies. The atoms were stripped of their electrons early in the formation of the universe.
(SFEC, 4/21/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 20, Lameck Aguta of Kenya won the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:10:34. Ethiopia’s Fatuma Roba won the women’s best time at 2:26:24.
(WSJ, 4/22/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 20, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu escaped indictment in an influence-peddling scandal, with prosecutors saying they lacked evidence.
(AP, 4/20/97)
1997 Apr 20, Hwang Jang Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean to defect, arrived in South Korea, ending a 67-day odyssey that began in China.
(AP, 4/20/97)
1997 Apr 21, Pres. Clinton approved a ban on new American investment in Burma due to human rights abuses. It also banned visas for senior Burmese government officials.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A6)(WSJ, 3/25/04, p.A15)
1997 Apr 21, Police in Franklin, N.J., arrested 2 teen-agers they say lured two pizza deliverymen on April 19 to an abandoned house before opening fire, killing both men. Thomas Koskovich and Jayson Vreeland were convicted in 1999 of murdering Jeremy Giordano and Giorgio Gallara. Thomas Koskovich and Jayson Vreeland were later convicted of murdering Jeremy Giordano and Giorgio Gallara and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 4/21/07)
1997 Apr 21, A federal court blocked Oregon’s 1994 approved law on doctor assisted suicide.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A15)
1997 Apr 21, A report on the new Digital Versatile Disks indicated a price of $19.99 for the disks and a DVD player for as low as $500.
(WSJ, 4/21/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 21, Some 12,500 workers for Goodyear Tire went on strike.
(WSJ, 4/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 21, The swollen Red River, which had flooded 75 percent of Grand Forks, N.D., reached a projected crest of 54 feet -- or 26 feet above flood stage.
(AP, 4/21/98)
1997 Apr 21, The ashes of Timothy Leary, Gene Roddenberry and 22 others were fired into space aboard a rocket that carried the first Spanish satellite, MINI-SAT-01, into orbit. This marked the beginning of the space funeral industry.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 21, In Algeria rebels butchered 93 people including 43 women and girls in the Baouch Boukhelef-Khemisti farming community.
(SFC, 4/23/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 21, In Japan drilling on the world’s longest stretch of undersea highway (about 6 miles) was completed across Tokyo Bay to link the cities of Kawasaki and Kisarazu.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 21, Andres Rodriguez (b.1923), Paraguayan president (1989-93), died.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9114869?tocId=9114869)
1997 Apr 22, President Clinton flew over the flooded town of Grand Forks, N.D.
(AP, 4/22/98)
1997 Apr 22, A jury of seven men and five women was chosen in Denver to hear the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh.
(AP, 4/22/98)
1997 Apr 22, In Peru on day 126 of the hostage crises government commandos stormed the home of the Japanese envoy in Lima and freed 71 hostages. Two soldiers, all 14 Tupac Amaru rebels and one hostage, Justice Carlos Giusti, died in the assault. Later reports indicated that some rebels were killed while trying to surrender and that their bodies may have been mutilated. The government planned to bury them in scattered unmarked graves. In 2002 forensic evidence indicated that 8 of 14 rebels were shot from behind after they surrendered at the end of the siege. A prosecutor then filed charges against 18 army officers for executing 3 rebels after they surrendered. On Oct 15, 2003, a secret military court dismissed charges against 140 commandos accused of summarily executing three leftist rebels during the 1997 hostage rescue at the Japanese ambassador's residence.
(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/97, p.A1,8)(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12)(AP, 4/22/98)(WSJ, 5/20/02, p.A1)(SFC, 6/7/02, p.A12)(AP, 11/14/03)
1997 Apr 22, Gunmen in Moscow killed the head of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation in what appeared to be a gangland slaying.
(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)
1997 Apr 22, A 6.5 earthquake hit Tobago. There were no reported injuries.
(SFC, 4/23/97, p.A4)
1997 Apr 23, Golfer Fuzzy Zoeller, again apologizing for racial comments about Masters winner Tiger Woods, withdrew from the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic.
(AP, 4/23/98)
1997 Apr 23, Doctors at the University of Southern California announced that a child was born in late 1996 to a 63-year-old woman on hormone therapy.
(AP, 4/23/98)
1997 Apr 23, The military confirmed that two pieces of wreckage found on a snowy Rocky Mountain peak were from the Air Force warplane that vanished on a training mission over Arizona.
(AP, 4/23/98)
1997 Apr 23, N. Korean defector, Hwang Jang Yop, claimed that North Korea has nuclear weapons and that the 1.2 million man army was prepared for war.
(SFC, 4/23/9, p.A4)
1997 Apr 24, The US ratified the UN Chemical Weapons ban. It came into force on April 29. The Senate voted 74-26 to approve the chemical weapons treaty, five days before the pact was to take effect. It was the 75th country to ratify the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention ban signed by 164 states. The signing obliges members to destroy all chemical weapons and production facilities by 2007.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A10)(AP, 4/24/98)(Econ, 8/31/13, p.20)
1997 Apr 24, The trial of Timothy McVeigh, prime suspect of the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, began in Denver. The prosecution and defense presented opening statements.
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/24/98)
1997 Apr 24, Scientists reported the discovery of a giant, Jupiter-like planet in the constellation Northern Crown. It appeared to be in a 40-day orbit around the star Rho Coronae Borealis about 50 light-years away.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 24, Pat Paulsen (69), comedian, died in Mexico. In 1968 on the Smothers Brothers TV show he announced that he was running for president and actually got his name on the ballot in 1972. He built the Pat Paulen Winery in Asti, Ca., and proclaimed himself mayor in 1986.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A22)(AP, 4/24/98)
1997 Apr 24, A Bosnian Serb court sentenced 3 Muslims to 20 years in prison on murder charges for killing 4 Serb civilians in Krusev Dol, near Srebrenica, in May 1996. The men claimed to have been tortured into confessing and denied the charges with scant defense representation.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 24, In Japan the lower house of parliament voted to make heart transplants possible by recognizing the concept of brain death.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 24, In Mexico forty specially trained soldiers of the Special Forces (GAFE) were assigned to the int’l. airport to question and search passengers for drugs. In 1998 they and 15 civilians were withdrawn on suspicion of drug and immigrant smuggling.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.C3)
1997 Apr 24, In Zaire rebels were accused of having killed many refugees and burying them in a mass grave. Large amounts of airlift supplies intended to return Rwandan refugees were seized by rebels.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 25, The Clinton administration extended the area over which the northwest coast silvery Coho salmon is considered a "threatened" species.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 25, The prosecution began calling witnesses in Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma City bombing trial.
(AP, 4/25/98)
1997 Apr 25, In the US a federal judge ruled that cigarettes are drug delivery systems and that the FDA has the right to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products -- but said it couldn't restrict cigarette advertising..
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/25/98)
1997 Apr 25, In Algeria a bomb killed some 21 passengers and injured 20 near Algiers.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 25, Angola was supporting Kabila’s rebels. The government of Zaire claimed that Angolan troops had invaded near Cabinda.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 25, In China police opened fire on a crowd in Xinjiang province and killed 2 people. Protestors had tried to block the execution of 3 people convicted during the February unrest.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 25, In England the IRA set off explosions near the M6 highway and caused chaos in Britain’s morning commute.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 25, In Indonesia some 5,000 demonstrators protested wage policies at the Nike shoe factory. They said Nike was not paying a $2.50 per day minimum wage. A 10.7% wage increase was negotiated the next day.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.T7)
1997 Apr 25, In Israel soldiers found the bodies of 2 teenage girls stabbed to death in the Wadi Kelt ravine near Jerusalem.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 25, In the Philippines a fire at the New Imperial Hotel in Cotabato City killed at least 24 people and scores were injured.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 25, Russia refused to sign the chemical arms ban. They claimed insufficient funds to destroy the 40,000 tons of stored chemical weapons. The Duma did pledge intent to endorse the accord later this year.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 26, In his Saturday radio address, President Clinton prepared for the opening of a community service summit by asking Congress to pay for a literacy drive for third-graders.
(AP, 4/26/98)
1997 Apr 26, Peng Zhen (95), former Communist Party secretary and Mayor of Beijing, died.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.B8)
1997 Apr 27, President Clinton, along with former presidents George Bush and Jimmy Carter, helped polish gritty city streets in Philadelphia as they launched the Summit for America's Future, a three-day gathering on community service.
(AP, 4/27/98)
1997 Apr 27, A Texas militia group, called Republic of Texas, took 2 hostages at the Davis Mountain Resort community. They advocated independence for the state. The hostages were released later the next day in exchange for a jailed comrade, but the standoff continued. Richard McLaren and Robert Otto were later captured, convicted and sentenced to 99 and 50 years in prison. Acquittal on kidnapping charges against McLaren and Otto were handed down by an Appeals court in 1999.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A1)(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A5)
1997 Apr 27, In Hong Kong the Tsing Ma Bridge that connects the mainland part of Hong Kong with the islet of Chek Lap Kok was opened. It was hailed as the longest road-and-rail suspension bridge in the world.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 27, In Mexico two federal police agents, Roberto Espinoza and Marco Vasquez, were found shot dead with signs of torture in Mexico city. They had been investigating Amado Carrillo, Mexico’s most powerful drug lord.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 28, "Jekyll & Hyde" opened at Plymouth Theater NYC.
(www.mtishows.com/show_home.asp?id=000181)
1997 Apr 28, In Philadelphia, President Clinton and three predecessors -- George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford -- began drafting a national army of community service volunteers during the Presidents' Summit for America's Future.
(AP, 4/28/98)
1997 Apr 28, It was reported that a type of Mad Cow Disease was killing deer and elk in the Fort Collins region of Colorado and Wyoming. The "spongiform encephalopathies" riddled the brain with holes and it was wondered if the disease might be transmitted to humans as the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 28, It was reported that millions of tons of smog-causing pollution were being spewed from coal-burning power plants from Atlanta to Boston.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 28, A bomb in southern Russia killed one person and injured 17 at a train station in Pyatigorsk. It was the 2nd bombing in a week and Chechen rebels were blamed.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 28, In South Africa a newborn girl was kidnapped from a Cape Town hospital. On Feb 26, 2015, she was re-united with her parents for the first time after DNA tests confirmed she was the child kidnapped from the Groote Schuur Hospital.
(AP, 2/27/15)
1997 Apr 29, Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of raping six female trainees. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and dishonorably discharged.
(AP, 4/29/07)
1997 Apr 29, Astronaut Jerry Linenger and cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev went on the first U.S.-Russian space walk.
(AP, 4/29/98)
1997 Apr 29, It was reported that a monster fountain of antimatter was discovered erupting from the core of the Milky Way. Observations from the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory launched by NASA in 1991 made the observations since last November.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 29, Newspaper columnist Mike Royko died in Chicago at age 64.
(WSJ, 4/30/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/29/98)
1997 Apr 29, In Brazil a court injunction stopped the privatization of the Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, the huge state-owned mining company. Some 1,000 demonstrators protested the attempted privatization in downtown Rio de Janeiro.
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 29, In China at Rongjiawan in Hunan province a train crash killed at least 67 and injured 260 people.
(WSJ, 4/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 29, In Indonesia police broke up a demonstration and 5 activists were given 7-13 year prison terms on charges of subversion.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 29, The UN ban on chemical weapons went into effect. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was formed this year to enforce the Chemical Weapons convention.
(http://tinyurl.com/owskts7)(AP, 4/29/98)
1997 Apr 30, ABC aired the "coming out" of the title character in the sitcom "Ellen," played by Ellen DeGeneres.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, President Clinton reopened the newly renovated Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, The US Senate approved the nomination of Alexis Herman to be labor secretary.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, The US GAO announced that problem disbursements from May 1996 amounted to some $43 billion. Checks were cut without bookkeeping entries showing authorization.
(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A9)
1997 Apr 30, Sarah Patterson (11) was sexually assaulted and murdered with her throat slit near Fort Worth, Texas. Her brother was beaten, but survived and later testified against Bobby Wayne Woods. Woods (44) was executed on Dec 3, 2009.
(SFC, 12/4/09, p.A18)(www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/08/jan08.htm)
1997 Apr 30, A huge blast killed 22 Albanians in the village of Selize. They were stripping the bronze casings of mortar shells stored in a cave.
(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A13)
1997 Apr, The US Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act went into effect and began creating border crossing problems for Canadian business travelers.
(WSJ, 6/4/98, p.A13)
1997 Apr, In New Orleans a toddler died in a hot van while his baby sitter played video poker for hours in a cafe.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr, In Australia Pauline Hanson published her book "Pauline Hanson: The Truth." In it she warned that Australia’s president in 2050 will be "Poona Li Hung," a "lesbian of Indian and Chinese background...a part machine...produced by a joint Korean-Indian-Chinese research team."
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.E3)
1997 Apr, In Brazil 2 MST farmers (Landless Rural Worker’s Movement) were killed while tending fields on the property of the 442,000 acre Giacometti lumber company. The next day the government announced that the lumber company would turn over 38,000 acres to 6,000 families. The richest 20% of the people own 88% of the land. The poorest 40% hold only 1% of the land.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr, In Canada the Toronto Stock Exchange closed in favor of automated trading.
(WSJ, 9/15/97, p.B1)
1997 Apr, In Colombia some 10,000 inhabitants fled paramilitary violence in Riosucio.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A10)
1997 Apr, In Hong Kong shops sold out of the Tamagochi cyber pet in ten minutes on the first day of sale.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.D2)
1997 Apr, In San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Santos Padilla and his four brothers kidnapped 25-year-old Ricardo Maduro Andreu as he left his home. The kidnappers opened fire on a vehicle carrying Maduro Andreu and his bodyguard, Henry Rivas. Rivas was killed and the gang grabbed a wounded Maduro Andreu, whose lifeless body was discovered a short time later. Maduro Andreu's father, Ricardo Maduro, was elected president of Honduras in 2002. Three of the Padilla brothers were killed in May 1998 during a shootout with police in Tegucigalpa. The fourth died a year later in another gunbattle with authorities.
(AP, 6/7/06)
1997 Apr, Japan raised its national consumption tax from 3% to 5%. It was later seen as a move that wrecked economic confidence and sparked the beginning of a recession.
(WSJ, 8/13/98, p.A14)(Econ, 7/22/06, p.67)
1997 Apr, In Northern Ireland police officer Alice Collins of the Protestant-dominated Royal Ulster Constabulary was shot in the back by an IRA gunman.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr, In South Africa Eugene Terre'Blanche was convicted of attempted murder and assault in 1996 incidents. He led the radical wing of the Afrikaner nationalists that set off bombs in 1994 that killed 21. In 1997 he was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr, The Taiwanese drama film “The River" was shown at the SF Film Festival.
(SFC, 4/23/97, p.D3)
1997 Apr, In Taiwan Pai Hsiao-yen, the daughter of TV star Pai Ping-ping, was kidnapped and killed. A wave of crime in Taiwan led to mass demonstrations in July. Chen Chin-hsing was sought in this case and for the killing a plastic surgeon and 2 nurses. His wife and brother-in-law were arrested in the case.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, Par p.9)(SFC,11/19/97, p.C3)
1997 Apr – 1997 Sep, In Cuba terrorist bombings during this period were carried out by a ring of Salvadoran car thieves hired by Cuban exiles in Miami for $15,000. The money was raised by Luis Posada Carriles. Posada at first acknowledged and then denied a role in the attacks.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A14)(SFC, 5/18/05, p.A9)
1997 Apr – 1997 Nov, In Nepal an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis has claimed at least one hundred lives over this period. The flu-like disease is an inflammation of the brain and is spread by mosquitoes.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.T14)
1997 May 1, The TV show Ellen captured 42 million viewers to hear the Ellen character, played by Ellen DeGeneres, announce that she was a lesbian.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.C1)
1997 May 1, John and Patsy Ramsey, the Colorado parents of slain child beauty queen JonBenet, declared their innocence, and asked for the public's help in finding her killer.
(AP, 5/1/98)
1997 May 1, In Oakland, Ca., an armored car flipped in an accident and released some 27 bags of money claimed to be substantially less than $500,000. People in the vicinity grabbed much of the cash though some 20% was returned within 2 days. A total of $106,000 was recovered and $445,000 was still missing when an amnesty for returning cash ended on May 5.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A1)
1997 May 1, In Colorado Ron Cole was arrested by the FBI at the Aurora House of Pancakes on charges of possession of illegal firearms and bomb materials.
(Wired, 2/99, p.93)
1997 May 1, Virtual Pets began to be marketed by Tiger Electronics and Bandai Ltd. of Japan. The egg-sized gadgets played out the lives of various animals on a liquid crystal display.
(WSJ, 5/2/97, p.B1)
1997 May 1, An Int’l. committee agreed to create 7 new (WWW) World Wide Web domains. The new suffixes would be: .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info and .nom for individuals.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A1)
1997 May 1, In Belarus the government imposed a $3 million tax fine on the Soros Foundation for alleged currency exchange violations. Soros called it a blatant attempt to suppress the independent sector.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A16)
1997 May 1, Under the leadership of Tony Blair Britain’s Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition, and won the general election with a landslide victory, winning 418 seats, the most seats the party has ever held.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1997)
1997 May 1, Romania apologized for deporting tens of thousands of ethnic Germans to labor camps during Communist rule or "selling" them by demanding cash from the Bonn government for emigration permits.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A17)
1997 May 2, President Clinton and congressional Republicans came to terms on a plan to balance the budget over five years.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/2/98)
1997 May 2, A new national memorial honoring Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt was officially opened in Washington, D.C., and was dedicated by Pres. Clinton.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/2/98)
1997 May 2, In Texas Robert Scheidt surrendered to police and left behind 7 people of the Republic of Texas under the leadership of Richard McLaren. The number of separatists was reduced to 7 from an earlier estimate of 13.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)
1997 May 2, In Bulgaria the average salary was reported as $30 a month and the average pension $4 a month.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A18)
1997 May 2, Tony Blair, whose new Labor Party crushed John Major's long-reigning Conservatives, became at age 44 Britain's youngest prime minister in 185 years.
(AP, 5/2/98)
1997 May 2, In Zaire the Tenke Mining Corp. of Vancouver, Canada, signed a $250 million contract with the rebels to develop copper and cobalt deposits.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A10)
1997 May 3, California state prepared to file charges against the Bank of America for mismanaging tens of billions of dollars of municipal bond funds.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A1)
1997 May 3, The Kentucky Derby was won by Silver Charm ridden by Gary Stevens.
(WSJ, 5/5/97, p.A16)
1997 May 3, The standoff in Texas with the Republic of Texas ended. Two militia members fled into the Davis mountains while 5 surrendered peacefully.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.A1)
1997 May 3, Narciso Yepes, Spanish classical guitarist, died at age 69. His interpretation of Rodrigo’s "Concert of Aranjuez" was one of his greatest achievements. He designed a 10-string guitar suited to Baroque music.
(SFC, 5/5/97, p.A20)
1997 May 4, IBM's Deep Blue computer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, evening their six-game series at one game apiece.
(AP, 5/4/98)
1997 May 4, Pope John Paul beatified the first Gypsy Jimenez Malla, killed by Republican forces in the 1936 Spanish Civil War. Also beatified were Florentino Asensio Barroso, bishop of Barbastro, Spain, where Malla died; Enrico Rebuschini, a northern Italian priest who died in 1938; and Maria Encarnacion Rosal, a 19th century Guatemalan nun.
(SFC, 5/5/97, p.A8)(AP, 5/4/98)
1997 May 4, In Zaire more than 100 [91] Rwandan refugees died on an overcrowded train after rebel troops packed them aboard for delivery to an airstrip for flights to Rwanda. Peace talks onboard the South African naval vessel Outeniqua between Pres. Mobutu and Laurent Kabila failed to produce anticipated results.
(WSJ, 5/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/6/97, p.A10)
1997 May 5, President Clinton arrived in Mexico for his first Latin American trip while in office.
(AP, 5/5/98)
1997 May 5, A jury in Jacksonville, Fla., found R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. was not responsible for the death of lifelong smoker Jean Connor.
(AP, 5/5/98)
1997 May 5, American Airlines' pilots ratified a contract, ending nearly three years of negotiations.
(AP, 5/5/98)
1997 May 5, Police in Texas killed, Michael Matson, one of the escaped secessionists. [He was reported on TV to have fired on a police helicopter and police dogs. Richard Keyes was still being sought.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A3)
1997 May 5, In Cuba farmers in Loma del Gato founded a work cooperative named Transicion and announced that they would no longer do business with the government. The government responded with harassing tactics.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A10)
1997 May 5, In Palestine Arafat’s justice minister said he would impose the death penalty on Palestinians who sell land to Israelis to prevent Israel’s expansion.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A1)
1997 May 5, In Peru the 24 miners who dug tunnels for the commandos in Lima had still not returned home and their families feared for their lives. Two men were killed or injured in the digging operation.
(SFC, 5/6/97, p.A12)
1997 May 5, In Poland 12 people were killed in a train crash in Reptowo.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Poland_disasters_by_death_toll)
1997 May 5, In Zaire the rebels nationalized the Sizarail rail system, a consortium that belonged to South African, Belgian and Zairean interests.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A18)
1997 May 6, The New York Drama Critics’ Circle picked "How I Learned to Drive" as the best play for the ‘96-’97 season. "Violet" was selected as the best musical, and "Skylight" by David Hare was the best foreign play.
(SFC, 5/8/97, p.A20)
1997 May 6, World chess champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue computer played to a draw in game three of their six-game match.
(AP, 5/6/98)
1997 May 6, Pres. Clinton made a state visit to Mexico and spent some time meeting with the leaders of Mexico’s main opposition parties. Clinton and Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo pledged closer cooperation on immigration and drug smuggling.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.c3)(AP, 5/6/98)
1997 May 6, Sergeant Delmar Simpson received a 25 year sentence for raping 6 female trainees at the Aberdeen (Md.) Proving Ground Army base.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/6/98)
1997 May 6, A car bomb in Algiers killed 4 students and injured 25 people.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C3)
1997 May 6, British PM Tony Blair, on the first full working day of the new Labor government, gave the Bank of England the right to set interest rates. Labor had won power pledging that it would by the party of welfare reform. The party had campaigned on the anthem “Things can only get better." In October the Bank of England lost its supervisory powers over banks to the new Financial Services Authority.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.63)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.52)(Econ, 6/14/08, p.70)(Econ, 5/1/10, p.27)
1997 May 6, It was reported that Syrian missiles were tipped with VX, a lethal chemical that kills on contact with the skin. The Syrian chemical weapons program was assisted by Anatoly Kuntsevich, former head of the Russian Army’s Chemical Troops. The existing stockpile of Sarin, the nerve gas used by the terrorists in Tokyo, was hoped to be upgraded to VX.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A22)
1997 May 6, In Zaire Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko left Zaire for a 3-day visit to Gabon. He was not expected to return.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)
1997 May 7, This date was established as the cut off day for sales and exchanges in a planned US capital gains tax cut.
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.C1)
1997 May 7, The US Army accused its top enlisted man, Army Sgt. Maj. Gene McKinney, of sexual misconduct. At his court-martial, McKinney was acquitted of sexual misconduct, but found guilty of obstruction of justice.
(AP, 5/7/98)
1997 May 7, Chrysler Corp. and United Auto Workers agreed to a new contract, ending a damaging 28-day engine-plant strike.
(AP, 5/7/98)
1997 May 7, Brazil’s state mining Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), incorporated in 1942, was privatized. In 2006 it acquired Inco, a Canadian nickel producer, and became the world’s 2nd largest mining company.
(Econ, 4/14/07, SR p.9)(http://tinyurl.com/2ay9h5)
1997 May 7, Chadrel Rinpoche, a senior Tibetan monk, was sentenced to 6 years in prison for plotting to split China and leaking state secrets. He led the Beijing approved search for the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama and was suspected to have leaked the information to the Dalai Lama.
(SFC, 5/8/97, p.C3)
1997 May 8, President Clinton assured Central American leaders during a summit in Costa Rica that they need not fear mass deportations of immigrants who had sought refuge in the United States during U.S.-backed conflicts.
(AP, 5/8/98)
1997 May 8, After months of railing against US Democrats for taking foreign money, the Republican Party announced it had returned $122,400 in contributions from a Hong Kong company.
(AP, 5/8/98)
1997 May 8, In Washington DC Jacqueline Thompson (32) gave birth to sextuplets. One was stillborn. No fertility drugs were used but both she and her husband Linden had a family history of multiple births.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.A7)
1997 May 8, In Japan a law was passed to preserve the culture of the aboriginal Ainu people who have inhabited northern Japan since prehistoric times.
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.E3)
1997 May 8, In Zaire rebels were meeting increased resistance from French mercenaries and Angolan UNITA forces. A shortage of cash was also hindering their advance on Kinshasa.
(WSJ, 5/9/97, p.A1)
1997 May 9, During a visit to a rain forest in Costa Rica, President Clinton urged nations not to sacrifice their environment in pursuit of economic gain.
(AP, 5/9/98)
1997 May 9, HUD announced a suit against A. Bruce Rozet, a prominent SF property owner, for kickbacks on inflated management fees. Rozet and partner Deane Earl Ross had holdings that included 21,851 housing units that received annual federal subsidies of $71.6 million.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A3)
1997 May 9, The California state Environmental protection Agency issued a report that linked lung cancer to diesel exhaust fumes.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A17)
1997 May 9, A pesticide plant burned after an explosion in West Helena, Ark. The chemical Azinphosmethyl was not supposed to have exploded unless it was heated and decomposed. A levee was built to keep poison-laden rainwater from entering the Mississippi River. Three firefighters were killed.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1997 May 9, Australian scientists reported in the journal Radiation Research that prolonged exposure of cellular phone radiation in the 900 megahertz range increased the risk of lymphoma cancer in mice.
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.A1,11)
1997 May 9, In Hong Kong a 3-year-old boy became ill with the flu. He died May 21 and the flu was identified as subtype H5N1, a bird flu.
(SFC, 2/26/01, p.A9)
1997 May 9, In Italy 8 Venetian separatists took over the bell tower at St. Mark’s Square. They were overpowered by police after 7 1/2 hours.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A10)
1997 May 9, Marco Ferreri (b.1928), Italian film director, died. His work included "The Wheelchair" (El Cochecit 1960), "Le Lit Conjugal" (The Conjugal Bed 1963), "Dillinger Is Dead" (1969), "La Grande Bouffe" (1973), "La Derniere Femme" (1976), and "Bye Bye Monkey’ (1978).
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A20)
1997 May 9, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin approved a new security doctrine that stipulated that right to use nuclear weapons if it was attacked.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A12)
1997 May 10, President Clinton signed modest drug-fighting and trade agreements with Caribbean leaders in Barbados.
(AP, 5/10/98)
1997 May 10, Physicists at UC Berkeley first listened to the sound from superfluid helium atoms oscillating between overlapping quantum states.
(SFC, 7/31/97, p.A2)
1997 May 10, From Bolivia it was reported that more than one-fifth of the population was infected with Chagas disease. The ailment is transmitted by triatomine insects that carry the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite. T. Cruzi can enter the bloodstream through scratched skin and causes nerve damage and swelling of the heart and colon that can lead to death after years of infection.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A10)
1997 May 10, In Britain Jennifer Murray and co-pilot Quentin smith began a round-the-world helicopter trip in an effort to become the first woman to pilot the globe in a helicopter. She completed her flight on Aug 15.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A11)
1997 May 10, A 7.1 earthquake hit in northeastern Iraq centered on the town of Qaen. More than 2,400 people were reported killed. The death toll was reduced to 1,560 with 60,000 left homeless.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/12/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/14/97, p.A10)
1997 May 10, It was reported that Iceland would resume whaling. Whaling had stopped there in 1989.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1997 May 10, Lebanese of all faiths welcomed Pope John Paul II on his first visit to their country.
(AP, 5/10/98)
1997 May 10, From Niger it was reported that recent sandstorms caused the death of some 36 people when the driver of a truck lost his way.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1997 May 10, In Zaire Pres. Mobutu returned to Kinshasa from Gabon.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.A7)
1997 May 11, The IBM Deep Blue computer defeated Garry Kasparov in the 6th and deciding chess match in 19 moves that took just 88 minutes in New York.
(SFC, 5/12/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/11/98)
1997 May 11, In South Africa some 8,000 people filed for amnesty to meet the deadline of the commission for the investigation of apartheid-era crimes.
(WSJ, 5/12/97, p.A1)
1997 May 12, At the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh, star prosecution witness Michael Fortier testified that McVeigh had been bent on triggering a "general uprising in America."
(AP, 5/12/98)
1997 May 12, Susie Maroney, Australian swimmer, became the first woman to swim the 105 mile swim from Cuba to Key West, Fla., in 24 hours and 31 min. AP says 118-mile distance in 24 1/2 hours.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/12/98)
1997 May 12, Russia and Chechnya signed a peace treaty. The treaty refers to Chechnya as the "Chechen Republic of Ichkeria," and says that it is subject to international law.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A12)
1997 May 13, At the Oklahoma City bombing trial, prosecutors showed jurors the key to the Ryder truck used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, alleging Timothy McVeigh left it behind in the same alley he picked to stash his getaway car.
(AP, 5/13/98)
1997 May 13, Baseball's Exec Council suspended NY Yankee owner George Steinbrenner.
(http://tinyurl.com/bjbgt)
1997 May 13, In Burundi an outbreak of Typhus was reported. Some 20,000 cases in 3 northwest provinces were reported by March, mostly in Hutu regroupment camps set up by the Tutsi-led military.
(WSJ, 5/13/97, p.A1)
1997 May 13, In the Congo rebel troops reached Wendji and Mbandaka and proceeded to kill Hutu refugees. Estimates of deaths varied from 550-2000.
(WSJ, 6/6/97, p.A11)(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A11)
1997 May 13, From Ethiopia it was reported that 6 teenage girls had committed suicide over the last 9 months in order to avoid traditional marriages to elderly cousins as old as 80.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A13)
1997 May 13, The pension crises in Poland was described. One-fifth of the GDP was being used for pensions and the state social security office, ZUS, was feared to be facing bankruptcy without quick reforms.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A13)
1997 May 14, Jurors at the Timothy McVeigh trial in Denver saw chilling black-and-white surveillance pictures of a Ryder truck moving toward the Oklahoma City federal building minutes before a bomb blew the place apart.
(AP, 5/14/98)
1997 May 14, Negotiators agreed on a pact to create a Russia-NATO advisory council. NATO agreed not to base nuclear weapons or substantial combat forces in countries that were recently under Moscow’s control.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A1)
1997 May 14, There was an explosion at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Wash. state. Plutonium and other hazardous chemicals were released and emergency response procedures broke down almost completely.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A8)
1997 May 14, Margaret Lesher (64), inheritor of the Lesher media empire, was reported missing by her new husband, T.C. Thorstenson (39), at Bartlett Lake near Phoenix. She was found drowned.
(SFEM, 9/14/97, p.12,33)
1997 May 14, Harry Blackstone Jr. (62), magician, died of cancer.
(http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Harry_Blackstone_Jr.)
1997 May 14, In Vietnam the Supreme People’s Court sentenced 8 state police officials to death after convicting them of drug smuggling.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A13)
1997 May 14, Princess Caradja-Kretzulesco (76), descendant of Prince Dracula, died. Prior to hear death Princess Kretzulesco stepped inside the second-hand book-shop of Ottomar Berbig in Berlin to look for rare books, and ever since the two because inseparable. On her deathbed the princess rewarded Ottomar Berbig’s various services with a title: Ottomar - Prince Kretzulesco.
(http://dpsinfo.com/dps/cnames.html)(www.cesnur.org/2002/dracula/01.htm)
1997 May 15, Attorney General Janet Reno requested the death penalty for Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski. However, under an arrangement in which he admitted his guilt, Kaczynski later agreed to be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
(AP, 5/15/02)
1997 May 15, In Louisiana Hayes Williams (49) was released after 30 years from the State Penitentiary at Angola after new evidence confirmed his innocence in the 1967 murder of a white service station owner. He had filed a lawsuit against the state (Williams vs. Governor John McKeithen) that led to a 25-year overhaul of Louisiana’s prison system along with federal oversight.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A3)
1997 May 15, Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on a mission to deliver urgently needed repair equipment and a fresh American astronaut to Russia's orbiting Mir station.
(AP, 5/15/98)
1997 May 15, It was reported that scientists at Cal Tech identified the source of mysterious gamma rays as coming from behind a large intergalactic cloud some 2 billion light-years from Earth.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A6)
1997 May 15, Amazon.com, an online book seller founded by Jeff Bezos, went public at $18 per share.
(https://ir.aboutamazon.com/faqs/default.aspx)(Econ, 6/21/14, p.26)
1997 May 15, In Algeria armed men massacred 30 villagers, 17 of them children, in Chebli, 15 miles south of the capital.
(SFC, 5/16/97, p.A8)
1997 cMay 15, In the Congo in mid May Kabila’s soldiers were reported to have killed as many as 275 people in Uvira on Lake Tanganyika.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 May 15, In Hungary the government approved the payment of $553.8 million to the Roman Catholic Church for assets lost under Communist rule. Negotiations on a concordat with the Vatican were in the final stages. Physical assets would be gradually returned through 2011.
(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A14)
1997 May 15, Pres. Fidel Ramos of the Philippines visited California and planned to announce a pact with Oracle Corp. to wire the country for long-distance phone service.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A21)
1997 May 15, Saadallah Wannous, Syrian playwright, died in Damascus. His plays included "A Night Party for July 5," "Rituals of Signs and Changes," "The King Is the King," and "The Rape," an adoption of a Spanish play that was banned.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A24)
1997 May 16, Pres. Clinton spoke an apology for the government’s Tuskegee syphilis study from 1932-1972, in which 399 black men were kept untreated by government scientists in order to study the progression of the disease.
(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/16/98)
1997 May 16, The space shuttle Atlantis docked with Russia's Mir station.
(AP, 5/16/98)
1997 May 16, It was reported that researchers have found the gene that controls the sleep/wake cycles in mammals.
(USAT, 5/16/97, p.1A)
1997 May 16, Some 2,500 barrels of oil leaked near a coastal marsh in Louisiana at lake Barre in Terrebonne Parish.
(SFC, 5/20/97, p.A3)
1997 May 16, In Croatia southwest of Zagreb mobs of Croat refugees rampaged through at least 4 Serbian villages during the week and forced dozens of Serbs to flee. A campaign was growing to drive out of the country some 100,000 Serbs who have remained since the end of the Balkan war and to block returning Serbs from re-settling.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A13)
1997 May 16, The new 60-story, Commerzbank in Frankfurt, Germany, by English architect Sir Norman Foster opened.
(WSJ, 5/14/97, p.B1)
1997 May 16, From Hong Kong Fei Long (Fat Dragon) was described as a local celebrity for his articles on prostitution on Portland St., the heart of the red-light district. His columns have been compiled as the "Fat Dragon Handbook."
(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A1)
1997 May 16, In Italy Giuseppe De Santis, film director, died at 80. His films included "Bitter Rice" (1949), "Obsession," "Tragic Hunt," "Under the Olive Tree," and "Rome 11 O’Clock."
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A24)
1997 May 16, In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko ended 32 years of autocratic rule, giving control of the country to rebel forces.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/16/98)
1997 May 17, Silver Charm won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. However, he failed to win the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 5/17/98)
1997 May 17, The first flight of NASA’s subscale remotely piloted X-36 Tailless Fighter Agility Research Aircraft took place.
(www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/Photo/X-36/index.html)
1997 May 17, Russia's Mir space station received a new oxygen generator and a fresh American astronaut, courtesy of space shuttle Atlantis.
(AP, 5/17/98)
1997 May 17, From Gabon it was reported that controlled logging in the tropical forests has led to savage territorial wars among the native chimpanzees. The population was estimated to have dropped from 50,000 to 30,000.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A4)
1997 May 17, In Zaire rebel forces entered Kinshasa and Laurent Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kabila requested Swiss authorities to block Mobuto Sese Seko’s access to his Swiss villa. The house was seized and searched and documents were found that related to his wealth. The seizure was declared legal Aug 7.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)(AP, 5/17/98)
1997 May 18, "King David" opened at New Amsterdam Theater in NYC.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1997 May 18, The 50th Cannes Film Festival awarded Golden Palms to Japanese director Shohei Imamura for "The Eel" and Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami for "The Taste of Cherry."
(AP, 5/18/98)
1997 May 18, President Clinton announced creation of a research center at the National Institutes of Health devoted to the goal of developing an AIDS vaccine within the next decade, but offered no new federal spending.
(WSJ, 5/19/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/18/98)
1997 May 18-1997 May 19, In Bangladesh a cyclone pounded the country and 50,000 people were evacuated from the flat coastal region. As many as 350 people were reported killed.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A13)(SFC, 5/20/97, p.A12)(SFC, 5/21/97, p.A8)(SFC, 5/22/97, p.A3)
1997 May 18, From London it was reported that new self-cooling cans would soon hit the soft-drink market. The cans would use HFC 134a as the coolant and scientist and environmentalists feared the impact on global warming. The coolant was developed to replace CFCs and there was no int’l. control on its use.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, p.A2)
1997 May 18, In Indonesia as elections approached thousands of anti-government partisans have crowded the streets of Jakarta to reflect their disillusionment in the government.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A13)
1997 May 18, In Mongolia Natsagiin Bagabandi of the (MPRP) People’s Revolutionary Party, the former Communist Party, won elections with 60% support.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A14)
1997 May 18, In Sri Lanka security forces claimed to have killed some 250 separatist Tamil Tigers and to have captured the northern town of Nedunkeni.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A14)
1997 May 18, In Tajikistan Rakhmonov’s neo-Communist government agreed to legalize major Islamist opposition parties. Pres. Rakhmonov signed with opposition leader Sayid Abdullo Nuri.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A14)(SSFC, 9/23/01, p.A12)
1997 May 18, In Turkey on the 5th day of a military offensive, the military reported 1,081 guerillas killed as 25-50 thousand Turkish troops crossed the Iraqi border to attack rebels of the Kurdistan workers Party (PKK).
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A14)
1997 May 19, An indictment was filed against NBC sportscaster Marv Albert for biting a woman in an Arlington, Va., hotel on Feb 12 as many as 15 times and forcing her to perform oral sex. At trial, Albert ended up pleading guilty to assault and battery; he served no jail time.
(AP, 5/19/07)(www.eonline.com/News/Court/0597.albert.html)
1997 May 19, The Univ. of Calif. at Berkeley created the first professorship dedicated to the study of how knowledge is created within businesses. Japanese scholar Ikujiro Nonaka was named as head of the post with a grant from Xerox and Fuji Xerox Co.
(SFC, 5/20/97, p.C2)
1997 May 19, In China’s Inner Mongolia a gas explosion in Wuhai city killed at least 28 miners.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.C16)
1997 May 20, Marine Corporal Clemente Banuelos shot and killed the goat herder Esequiel Hernandez on the Mexican border at El Paso while on border patrol. The marine claimed self-defense after Hernandez fired 2 shots from a .22-caliber rifle. A grand jury later declined to indict Banuelos. In 1998 the US government agreed to pay the family of Hernandez $1.9 million with no admission of wrongdoing.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A8)(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A4)
1997 May 20, In Venezuela it was reported that a plan was approved to allow the country’s 4,000 jaguars to be legally hunted. Proceeds of hunting licenses would be used to move remaining jaguars to protected areas.
(SFC, 5/20/97, p.A14)
1997 May 21, Prosecutors at the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh rested their case.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1997 May 21, The space shuttle Atlantis undocked from the Russian Mir space station.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1997 May 21, In Afghanistan faction leader Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, an ethnic-Uzbek, was up against mutineers in 6 of his 8 northern provinces.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C2)(SFC, 10/10/01, p.A3)
1997 May 21, In Bulgaria Ivan Kostov was elected the new premiere by the parliament. He planned reforms for the economy, cleanup of corruption, and gaining admission to the EU and NATO.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C3)
1997 May 21, In India an earthquake killed at least 27. Its epicenter was near Jabalpur City, about 400 miles southeast of New Delhi.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C4)
1997 May 21, In Mexico a half-ton of cocaine was stolen from a police station in Sonora. Seven government employees were later charged with the theft.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.A1)
1997 May 21, The UN approved an agreement for equitable use of waters that flow through more than one country. Only China and Turkey refused to sign the key UN convention on transnational rivers.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C2)(AP, 4/16/11)
1997 May 22, The US Postal Service released a Bugs Bunny commemorative stamp, the first animated character on a US stamp.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.A3)
1997 May 22, Kelly Flinn, the US Air Force's first female bomber pilot certified for combat, accepted a general discharge, thereby avoiding court-martial on charges of lying, adultery and disobeying an order.
(AP, 5/22/98)
1997 May 22, The defense began presenting its case in the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh.
(AP, 5/22/98)
1997 May 22, The Christian Coalition began a campaign for a proposed "religious liberty" constitutional amendment.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A5)
1997 May 22, In Algeria a car bomb killed 15 people in Boufarik south of the capital.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A18)
1997 May 22, In Italy the Grand Princess was launched at the Fincantieri Monfalcone shipyard. It was the world’s largest passenger cruise ship at 109,000 gross tons and was scheduled for interior completion in the spring of 1998.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1997 May 22, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin fired defense minister Gen’l. Igor Rodionov and Viktor Samsanov, head of the general staff, for lack of military reforms.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A1)
1997 May 23, The defense at the Oklahoma City bombing trial suffered an embarrassing setback when one of its own witnesses provided testimony damaging to defendant Timothy McVeigh.
(AP, 5/23/98)
1997 May 23, The US Senate decisively approved a carefully constructed deal to balance the budget and cut taxes.
(AP, 5/23/98)
1997 May 23, In Algiers 2 car bombs exploded and killed 7 people and wounded 12 in the town of Tlemcen.
(SFC, 5/24/97, p.C1)
1997 May 23, In Indonesia thousands rampaged the streets of Jakarta after a confrontation between the rival United Development Party and the ruling Golkar Party. A 5-day cooling off period was declared. On Borneo as many as 130 people died in a shopping complex fire set by rioters during a political clash.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A10)(SFC, 5/24/97, p.A8)
1997 May 23, In Iran presidential elections put conservative speaker Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri against left-leaning cleric Mohammad Khatami (54). Former Culture Minister Mohammad Khatemi won in a landslide over hard-liners in the ruling Muslim clergy.
(WSJ, 3/20/97, p.A12)(AP, 5/23/98)(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.1)
1997 May 23, Russia and Belarus signed a union charter for economic, military and political cooperation.
(SFC, 5/24/97, p.A8)
1997 May 23, From Russia it was reported that huge forest fires near Lake Baikal had consumed more than 400,000 acres of Siberian woodland and killed 20 people over the last 2 months.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A18)
1997 May 24, Amid indications that Monica Lewinsky was indiscreet, Pres. Clinton terminated their relationship.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A13)
1997 May 24, The space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth, bringing with it NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, who had spent four months aboard the Russian Mir space station.
(AP, 5/24/98)
1997 May 24, Edward Mulhare (74), Irish-born actor (Ghost & Mrs. Muir), died of lung cancer.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0611811/)
1997 May 24, In Afghanistan forces of the Taliban swept into Mazar-E-Sharif, the last opposition stronghold.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)
1997 May 24, In the Ukraine the first McDonald’s restaurant opened.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)
1997 May 25, Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., became the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, marking 41 years and 10 months of service.
(AP, 5/25/98)
1997 May 25, In Las Vegas Jeremy Strohmeyer (20) raped and killed 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in the Primadonna Casino. Strohmeyer’s friend, David Cash, saw the initial struggle, but failed to stop it. Cash was later plagued by fellow students in Berkeley for his non-action. Strohmeyer admitted his guilt in 1998 in exchange for life in prison. He was sentenced to life in prison in Oct, 1998.
(SFC, 8/26/98, p.A14)(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A17)(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A1)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A3)
1997 May 25, In the first round of parliamentary elections, French voters gave the leftist opposition the biggest share of votes in a surprising setback for President Jacques Chirac's conservatives. The Socialist Party and allies claimed 42.8% of the popular vote in elections.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A10)(AP, 5/25/98)
1997 May 25, Muhammad Fadhel, PM of Iraq (1953-54), died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1997 May 25, The Palestinian Center for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment issued a report that claimed the government lost $326 million to corruption and mismanagement last year.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A8)
1997 May 25, Poland adopted a new constitution to replace the 1952 communist-era charter. It was committed a market economy, private ownership, personal freedoms and civilian control of the military.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A10)
1997 May 25, In Sierra Leone rebellious soldiers seized power. Pres. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah fled to Guinea. Exiled rebel leader Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary Unite Front and held in a Nigerian jail, was invited by Major Johnny Paul Koroma to join a new government. Some 15 people were killed and 40 injured in the coup.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A8)(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A12)
1997 May 26, President Clinton left for Paris to sign a new agreement between NATO and Russia.
(AP, 5/26/98)
1997 May 26, In Ferryville, Wisconsin the 8th annual Weedstock Festival, a pro-marijuana event, had 3,500 people with 60 arrests.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A3)
1997 May 26, It was reported that the Hearst Corp. planned to develop some 400 of its 83,000 acres in the California San Simeon-Cambria coastline. It was opposed by environmentalists.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A13)
1997 May 26, France's deeply unpopular prime minister, Alain Juppe, announced he would resign, a day after the country's governing center-right coalition suffered major losses in first-round parliamentary elections.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/26/98)
1997 May 26, It was reported that Galway, Ireland, had become Europe’s fastest growing city with a rate of 12.3%.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A8)
1997 May 26, In Venezuela the jaguar hunting plan was dropped.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A16)
1997 May 26, In Yemen it was announced that 21 children died after being injected with insulin rather than inoculations against fatal diseases.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A16)
1997 May 27, Arie Luyendyk won the Indianapolis 500 for the second time.
(AP, 5/27/98)
1997 May 27, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, an essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, was first presented by the author at the Linux Kongress and was published as part of a book of the same name in 1999. It was based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar)
1997 May 27, The Supreme Court ruled that Paula Jones may pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against Pres. Clinton while he is in office. The suit was based on an incident in 1991 when Clinton was governor of Arkansas.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/27/98)
1997 May 27, Marv Albert, NBC sportscaster, was arrested on charges of sexual assault [see May 19].
(www.rotten.com/library/bio/sports/marv-albert/)
1997 May 27, A tornado hit Jarrell, Texas, and left 27 people dead. It cut a swath from Austin to Waco.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/27/07)
1997 May 27, In Paris, Russian President Boris Yeltsin joined 16 NATO leaders, including President Clinton, to sign a historic agreement giving Moscow a voice in NATO affairs. Boris Yeltsin joined Bill Clinton and the leaders of the 15 other NATO member states in signing the "Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation."
(AP, 5/27/98)(www.armscontrol.org/act/1997_05/jm)
1997 May 27, In Kobe, Japan, 11-year-old Jun Hase was beheaded by a killer who left the note: "So, this is the beginning of the game. I desperately want to see people die. Nothing makes me more excited than killing." [see Jun 28]
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.C2)
1997 May 27, In Mbabane, Swaziland, health authorities were shocked by chief Jameson Ndznatabantfu Maseko who banned the use of condoms on the basis of biblical law.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A12)
1997 May 28, President Clinton paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan with a speech in the Netherlands in which he urged today's leaders to revive economies in the former Soviet bloc.
(AP, 5/28/98)
1997 May 28, In Denver, Timothy McVeigh's attorneys rested their case in the Oklahoma City bombing trial.
(AP, 5/28/98)
1997 May 28, Kurt Adler (b.1905), therapist, writer, died.
(http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/kurt-90.htm)
1997 May 28, John Sengstacke (84), publisher of the Chicago Defender, died.
(http://tinyurl.com/cgwbf)
1997 May 28, The Taliban was forced out of Mazar-e-Sharif by Uzbek forces. Many Taliban fighters were killed as they were forced out of Mazar-e-Sharif. Rashid Dostum later was reported to have witnessed the graves of some 700 Taliban fighters and another 1,300 dead at other sites. Later reports put the Taliban dead at 2-3,000. Uzbek Gen. Malik Pahlawan killed some 1,250 Taliban by leaving them in closed container trucks in the desert sun.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A10)(SFC,11/18/97, p.B2)(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A16)(NW, 8/26/02, p.26)
1997 May 28, From Burundi it was reported that the Tutsi-led army killed more than 40 Hutu rebels that included Hutu students kicked out of Bujumburu Univ. in 1995.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A10)
1997 May 28, In Piraeus, Greece, Constantine Peratikos (42), ship-owner, was killed by armed men. His family owned the Aran Shipping and Trading Co. and Pegasus Ocean Services. The left-wing November 17 group were linked to the killing.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A12)(SFC, 7/5/02, p.A9)
1997 May 28, Francisca Cervantes (b.1879), the oldest lady in Mexico, died in Chiapas at age 118.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A26)
1997 May 29, In closing arguments, Timothy McVeigh's attorney urged jurors not to be swayed by sympathy for the Oklahoma City bombing victims, after a prosecutor delivered a wrenching summation that portrayed McVeigh as a terrorist who killed children in the warped belief he was a patriot.
(AP, 5/29/98)
1997 May 29, George Fenneman (77), announcer (You Bet Your Life), died.
(www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0762997.html)
1997 May 29, In Algeria armed men attacked a home in Djebabra and slit the throats of 6 men and 2 women.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A16)
1997 May 29, In Angola troops overran the northern part of the country held by the former Unita movement.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)
1997 May 29, In China authorities executed 8 Muslim separatists in Xinjiang.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.16)
1997 May 29, In Peru the congressional majority of Pres. Fujimori fired 3 constitutional court judges who had ruled against his bid for a 3rd consecutive term.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.D1)
1997 May 29, Spanish scientists announced a new human species in 780,000 year old fossil.
(www.anomalous-images.com/news/news049.html)
1997 May 30, Child molester Jesse K. Timmendequas was convicted in Trenton, N.J., of raping and strangling a 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka. The 1994 murder inspired "Megan's Law," requiring that communities be notified when sex offenders move in. Timmendequas was later sentenced to death.
(AP, 5/30/98)
1997 May 30, Jonathan Levin, 31-year-old Bronx high-school teacher, was killed by a former student, Corey Arthur (19). Arthur and Montoun Hart had withdrawn $800 withdrawn from an ATM on Mr. Levin’s card. In 1998 Arthur was sentenced 25 years to life.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A22)(SFC, 12/11/98, p.D6)(www.cnn.com/US/9810/20/levin.trial/)
1997 May 30, Canada's 8-mile long Confederation Bridge, connecting New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island, was scheduled to be opened. It cost C$1 billion.
(WSJ, 2/14/97, p.A1)(Econ, 11/29/03, p.34)
1997 May 30, The Swiss based World Fund for Nature said that the few thousand remaining tigers in the world were dying off at a rate of one per day.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A13)
1997 May 31, Rosie Will Monroe (77), aka Rosie the Riveter, died in Indiana. During WW II she worked as a riveter at the Willow Run Aircraft Factory in Ypsilanti, Michigan, building B-29 and B-24 bombers for the Air Force. She appeared in films and poster used by the U.S. government to encourage women to go to work in support of the war effort.
(www.yvonnesplace.net/news/rosemonroe.htm)
1997 May 31, Pope John Paul II began an 11-day tour of his native Poland, his seventh visit since assuming the papacy.
(AP, 5/31/98)
1997 May 31, It was reported that more than 60 monk seals were killed from eating fish that had ingested a toxic algae off of Mauritania’s Atlantic coast. It was estimated that only some 350 of the monk seals were left worldwide.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A17)
1997 May 31, From Argentina it was reported that high joblessness (17.3%) was causing riots in various provinces outside the capital. Neuquin, Jujuy, Salta and Santa Fe had all experienced riots.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A13)
1997 May 31, The 7-member ASEAN alliance, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, met in Kuala Lumpur and agreed to allow Burma to become a member in July. Laos and Cambodia were also to be admitted. The members were Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D3)
1997 May 31, From the Philippines it was reported that torrential rains from Tropical Storm Levi killed at least 53 people.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A17)
1997 May 31, Russia and the Ukraine signed a friendship treaty. Boris Yeltsin traveled to Kiev to sign the treaty.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A8)
1997 May 31, In Spain thousands of olive oil workers protested in Madrid against the EU plan to force a cut in olive oil production and to lower subsidies.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D1)
1997 May, In California the Berkeley Regional Exchange and Development (BREAD), an alternative, local currency and barter system, was begun.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, p.C1)
1997 May, The El Nino weather pattern was noticed to have begun earlier that usual. It was later reported that trade winds on the equator had turned around as a result.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A5)
1997 May, In Afghanistan many Taliban fighters were killed as they were forced out of Mazar-e-Sharif. Rashid Dostum later was reported to have witnessed the graves of some 700 Taliban fighters and another 1,300 dead at other sites.
(SFC,11/18/97, p.B2)
1997 May, In Australia the Cadbury Schweppes company launched Yowies. They were miniature plastic bush animals covered in chocolate with names such as Boof, Rumble and Ditty that quickly became the champion in pester power.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.B1)
1997 May, In Indonesia Ahmad Suradji was arrested following the discovery of a body in a field close to this house in Lubukpakan, a village in North Sumatra province. Forty-one other corpses were later found nearby. Suradji was later convicted of murder and executed in 2008.
(AP, 7/11/08)
1997 May, In Japan Shioro Takashima, head of the Japan Harbor Transportation Association and known as "The Emperor," died. He was succeeded by Mitsuo Masunaga.
(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A13)
1997 May, In Peru a military court sentenced 4 army officers to 8 years in prison for the torture of Leonor LaRosa.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)
1997 May, Michael Jackson, pop star, returned to Poland and signed a letter of intent to build a $500 million World of Childhood amusement park under the direction of US entrepreneur Jacques Tourel.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A18)
1997 May, In Sri Lanka the government army began its "Sure of Victory" campaign and moved to open the Kandy-Jaffna Road.
(SFC, 8/8/98, p.B1)
1997 May, In Sudan in the village of Marial Bai, raiders killed 23 people and stole livestock. 67 women and children were missing and believed to have been abducted.
(SFC, 7/31/97, p.A10)
1997 May, Turkish commando units took control of the Bikhayr mountains used by Kurdish rebels as an escape route into Syria.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A10)
1997 May-Jun, Some 2,300 Rwanda civilians, mostly refugees from the former Zaire, were killed in operations by the Tutsi-led army against Hutu rebels.
(WSJ, 8/8/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 1, The "General Hospital" soap opera spin-off "Port Charles" debuted as a movie on ABC, then joined the ABC daytime lineup the following day.
(www.answers.com/topic/port-charles)
1997 Jun 1, At the Tony Awards in New York "Titanic," "Chicago" and "A Doll’s House" won 15 of the 21 awards. "Titanic" won five Tony Awards, including best musical.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.D1)(AP, 6/1/98)
1997 Jun 1, The Chicago Tribune published a column by Mary Schmich which urged the graduating class of 1997, among other things, to "wear sunscreen." The tongue-in-cheek essay ended up being wrongly attributed to author Kurt Vonnegut on the Internet.
(AP, 6/1/07)
1997 Jun 1, Betty Shabazz (61), the widow of Malcolm X, was severely burned in a fire set by her grandson (12) in her Yonkers, N.Y., apartment. She died of the burn wounds on Jun 23.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A3)(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A15)(AP, 6/1/98)
1997 Jun 1, In Bolivia, the former right-wing gen’l. and president, Hugo Banzer won the popular vote in elections with 25% [22%] but failed to get a majority. Former Pres. Jaime Paz Zamora was 2nd with 17.5%. Congress will choose from among the 2 top contenders on Aug 4.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.A6)(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.A15)
1997 Jun 1, China banned leaded gasoline in 8 of 18 districts and counties.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)
1997 Jun 1, In France the Socialists won control of the government and party leader Lionel Jospin was expected to become prime minister. New conditions for creating the new European Union and new common currency were expected. Value added taxes on common purchases were expected to be slashed; plans to privatize France Telecom were expected to be abolished and the legal workweek was expected to be reduced to 35 hours without paycuts to provide more jobs.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.A1,9)
1997 Jun 2, Timothy McVeigh was convicted on 11 counts in the Apr 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh was executed in June 2001.
(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A1)(SFC,12/24/97, p.A4)(AP, 6/2/07)
1997 Jun 2, The NASDAQ Stock Exchange began trading in 1/16th-point increments.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.C1)
1997 Jun 2, A federal election on this date was called by Prime Minister Jean Chretien. He called for a mandate to decide Canada’s priorities now that the federal deficit was tamed. Voters returned Chretien and his centrist Liberal Party to power with a slight parliamentary majority.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.10)(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 2, Conservative President Jacques Chirac of France, forced to share power with Socialists who had routed his party in national elections, handed the premiership to former opposition leader Lionel Jospin.
(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A12)(AP, 6/2/98)
1997 Jun 2, Nigerian naval vessels opened fire on Sierra Leone. Ships, planes and troops went action against the rebels in Freetown.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.A8)(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 3, The United States banned most slaughtered-animal parts from livestock feed because of concerns over "mad cow disease."
(AP, 6/3/98)
1997 Jun 3, Harvey Johnson became the first black mayor of Jackson, Miss., the state capital. He took his oath of office on Jul 7.
(SFC, 6/4/97, p.A3)(SFC, 7/8/97, p.A4)
1997 Jun 3, The "Pillar of Shame," a sculpture symbolizing oppression by Jans Galschiot of Denmark was erected in Victoria Park, Honk Kong.
(SFC, 6/4/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 3, Reinforcements from a peace-keeping force in Liberia were sent in to help Nigerian troops against the insurrectionist troops of Sierra Leone. After a bloody coup, 1,200 foreigners fled Sierra Leone aboard an American warship.
(SFC, 6/4/97, p.A10)(AP, 6/3/98)
1997 Jun 4, At the Oklahoma City bombing trial, prosecutors urged the jury to sentence Timothy McVeigh to death, calling relatives of victims to testify about agonizing losses.
(AP, 6/4/98)
1997 Jun 4, In Lubbock, Texas, Michael Rosales, a parole violator, beat and used kitchen tools to kill Mary Felder (67) during a robbery at her apartment. Rosales (35) was executed on April 16, 2009.
(SFC, 4/16/09, p.A6)(www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/release.php?id=2917)
1997 Jun 4, The 53-nation Organization of African Unity unanimously condemned the coup in Sierra Leone. The 16-member Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African states pledged not to tolerate military coups on the continent a day after it approved the use of force to restore the government of Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.C3)
1997 Jun 4, Brazil’s Senate approved a constitutional revision to allow office-holders to run for re-election. this will allow Pres. Cardoso to seek a 2nd term.
(WSJ, 6/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 4, China signed a $660 million deal to develop an Iraqi oil field.
(WSJ, 6/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 4, In France PM Lionel Jospin appointed women to 6 of 16 ministerial positions.
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.C2)
1997 Jun 4, In Germany some 600,000 chemical union workers agreed to allow wage cuts by up to 10% by financially strapped companies. Record unemployment stood at 11% and the government asked unions for some flexibility.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E2)
1997 Jun 4, In Drammen, Norway, a car bomb destroyed the headquarters of the Bandido motorcycle gang. One passerby was killed and 4 people were injured.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.A26)
1997 Jun 5, Harold J. Nicholson, the highest-ranking CIA officer ever caught spying against his own country, was sentenced to 23 1/2 years in prison for selling defense secrets to Russia after the Cold War. Officials later claimed that he and his son continued to make contact with Russian operatives. In 2009 Nicholson and his son were arraigned on charges of money laundering and acting as agents of a foreign government.
(AP, 6/5/98)(WSJ, 1/30/08, p.A3)
1997 Jun 5, The cremated remains of some 2,000 people were found in a California Discovery Bay storage facility. They were stored by a flying service that was supposed to have disposed the remains at sea or over the Sierras for mortuaries.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.A23)
1997 Jun 5, Astronomers reported a miniplanet beyond Pluto that is about 300 miles across, with a surface area about the size of Texas. Jane Luu with colleagues discovered the object named 1996TL66. It was considered an extension of the Kuiper Belt, a body of objects that circle the sun from beyond Neptune.
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 5, The New York Stock Exchange voted to report stock prices in decimals rather than fractions.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 5, Reporter J. Anthony Lukas (64), winner of 2 Pulitzer prizes, committed suicide.
(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A19)(MC, 6/5/02)
1997 Jun 5, An accord was signed to protect the 620-mile Caribbean coral reef system by Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E3)
1997 Jun 5, In Algeria parliamentary elections were scheduled. In a 65% turnout pro-government forces took the largest share of votes. Two Islamist parties picked up 1/4th of the parliament seats. Monitors were not allowed to inspect some 5,000 portable voting booths.
(SFC, 5/16/97, p.A8)(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 5, China announced that diplomat Ma Yuzhen would be its top civilian representative in Hong Kong beginning July 1. Domestic affairs will be run by Hong Kong residents but foreign affairs will be under the central government.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E2)
1997 Jun 5, In the Republic of the Congo government troops began an attack on the residence of former leader Denis Sassou-Nguesso. He was able to flee and rally his forces for a counterattack.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 5, In Spain the parliament approved a labor reform pact to reduce the 22% unemployment.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E2)
1997 Jun 5, The Taiwan film “Mahjong" by Edward Yang was an Int’l. film festival award winner.
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.E3)
1997 Jun 5, In Turkey parliamentary elections were scheduled. In a 65% turnout pro-government forces took the largest share of votes. Two Islamist parties picked up 1/4th of the parliament seats.
(SFC, 5/16/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 6, Timothy McVeigh's lawyer pleaded with a jury to spare the life of the convicted Oklahoma City bomber, holding up his dress uniform and portraying him as a model soldier deeply disturbed by his government's role in the disaster at Waco, Texas.
(AP, 6/6/98)
1997 Jun 6, Eric Lyons and Eric Gullichsen went live with an automated web site that allowed people to register Web sites with the .to domain, the country-code letters of Tonga.
(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.B21E)
1997 Jun 7, Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Silver Charm failed to win horse racing's Triple Crown, losing the Belmont Stakes to Touch Gold.
(AP, 6/7/98)
1997 Jun 7, An 18-member US presidential commission approved a report saying that cloning a human being was "morally unacceptable," but adding that research using cells of humans and animals should be allowed.
(AP, 6/7/98)
1997 Jun 7, The last US Mail special delivery letter was sent. The service cost was $9.95. It was phased out and replaced by Express Mail for $10.75.
(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A6)
1997 Jun 7, In southern India dozens died and 90 were injured in a fire during a religious festival at Thanjavur.
(WSJ, 6/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 8, Jon Nakamatsu of San Jose, Ca., won the Van Cliburn Int’l. Piano Competition in Texas.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.D1)
1997 Jun 8, Reid Shelton (71), actor (Daddy Warbucks-Annie), died of stroke.
(http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&id=1800041047&cf=gen&intl=us)
1997 Jun 8, Prime Minister John Bruton was defeated in elections. Opposition leader Bertie Ahern of Fiana Fail, a populist Dubliner, was expected to be asked to form a new government. Fiana Fail was Ireland’s largest and traditionally most anti-British party.
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A10)(SFC, 4/11/98, p.A8)(AP, 6/8/98)
1997 Jun 8, In Nigeria Amos Tutuola, folk writer, died at age 77. Born in Abeokuta his novels included "The Palmwine Drinkard" and "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts."
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.C2)
1997 Jun 8, In the Republic of Congo a private militia of 5,000 loyal to former leader Denis Sassou-Nguesso fought to gain control of Brazzaville. Soldiers loyal to Pres. Pascal Lissoubax were arming the citizens and looting homes.
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 9, US Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston gave up his fight to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his candidacy doomed by the clamor over his admission that he'd had an adulterous affair years ago.
(AP, 6/9/98)
1997 Jun 9, BankAmerica Corp. announced that it would acquire the investment banking firm Robertson Stephens & Co. for $540 million in cash.
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 9, A California state commission decided to raise the salary of Gov. Wilson to $131,040. It would make him the highest paid governor in the nation.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 9, The 1898 British lease of Hong Kong's New Territories from China for 99 years expired.
(www.info.gov.hk/yearbook/2003/english/chapter21/21_03.html)
1997 Jun 9, In Chechnya Pres. Aslan Maskhadov dissolved secular courts and left only Islamic tribunals in charge of the legal system. Islamic banks were scheduled as well as a conversion from a Latin to Arabic letters.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 9, The Chinese film "The Opium War" premiered in Beijing.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.D4)
1997 Jun 9, Danish violinist Nikolai Znaider won the Queen Elizabeth int’l. music prize.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.D4)
1997 Jun 9, In Haiti Premier Rosny Smarth resigned over differences in the legislative voting of Apr 6 that many observers say was rigged. At stake was an int’l. austerity plan supported by Smarth and opposed by Aristide.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 9, In Lebanon five Japanese Red Army guerillas went on trial on charges of passport forgery and illegal entry. The light charges prevented their extradition to Japan.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 10, In California former Black Panther Geronimo Pratt was released on bail after 27 years behind bars on what he says were trumped-up murder charges. Authorities decided against retrying him.
(AP, 6/10/02)(www.cnn.com/US/9706/10/pratt.release/)
1997 Jun 10, Pope John Paul II bade farewell to his native Poland as he ended an 11-day pilgrimage.
(AP, 6/10/98)
1997 Jun 10, The US endorsed a $13 million loan to Croatia.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C2)
1997 Jun 10, From the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands it was reported that Gov. Froilan Tenorio and Rep. Heinz Hofschneider had proposed a Parental Choice Scholarship Program that would be implemented in the fall. Every student would get a $1500 scholarship for the school of their choice.
(WSJ, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 11, Pres. Clinton announced that the US would only support Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for NATO membership for now.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jun 11, The parents of Timothy McVeigh pleaded for their son's life during the penalty phase of the Oklahoma City bombing trial.
(AP, 6/11/98)
1997 Jun 11, In Cambodia Pol Pot ordered the killing of the former Khmer Rouge defense minister Son Sen (67) and his powerful wife, Yun Yat (63), and 9 relatives.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 11, The leaders of the militias ravaging Brazzaville, Congo, called for a cease-fire, but fighting continued unabated.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1997 Jun 11, In Nepal Prakash Chandra Lohani, the foreign minister, resigned and accused the ruling coalition of Communists of cheating in last month’s elections.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jun 11, From Russia it was reported the Pres. Yeltsin planned to remove Yevgeny Nazdratenko, governor of the far-eastern Primorsky region, due to extensive crime and corruption.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C3)
1997 Jun 11, In Sri Lanka a Tamil Tiger rebel raid claimed 300 soldiers dead vs. 50 guerrillas. The government said 97 soldiers were killed at Thandikulam and Nochchimoddai.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jun 12, Baseball began interleague play, ending a 126-year tradition of separating the major leagues until the World Series.
(AP, 6/12/98)
1997 Jun 12, A US administration accord adopted a UN payment schedule. The US would pay $819 million over 3 years conditioned on a UN cut in spending, job reduction, and a lowering of US costs from 25% to 20%.
(WSJ, 6/12/97, p.1)
1997 Jun 12, The Republicans removed riders and Clinton signed the emergency aid bill for the April Red River flood victims.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 12, Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for the Apr 19, 1995 bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 12, The US Treasury Dept. unveiled its new $50 bill. It was meant to be more counterfeit-resistant and to replace the old bill design in use since 1929.
(SFC, 6/13/97, p.B2)(AP, 6/12/98)
1997 Jun 12, A new computer, speech-recognition program by dragon Systems was touted. It used a 30,000 word vocabulary and cost $695.
(WSJ, 6/12/97, p.B1)
1997 Jun 12, It was reported that a gene may be responsible for advanced social skills in girls. The results were derived from a study of Turner’s syndrome, related an abnormal x chromosome.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A7)
1997 Jun 12, Mary Robinson, Pres. of Ireland, was named the top human rights official for the United Nations.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 13, The Chicago Bulls captured their fifth professional basketball championship in seven years with a 90-86 victory over the Utah Jazz in Game 6 of the NBA finals.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.B1)(AP, 6/13/98)
1997 Jun 13, A jury voted unanimously to give Timothy McVeigh the death penalty for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 6/13/98)
1997 Jun 13, In Bangladesh a ferry on the Dhanu River northeast of Dhaka capsized in a whirlpool and at least 50 people were drowned.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, p.D3)
1997 Jun 13, The leaders of France, Germany and Canada insisted that Romania and Slovenia be allowed to join NATO next month.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 13, In India a fire in a New Delhi theater killed 60 and injured over 200 people.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 13, Under pressure it was announced that Turkey’s PM Erbakan, leader of the Welfare Party, would turn his post over to Tansu Ciller, who would lead until elections Jun 18. Turkey’s first Islamist-led government was ejected after it began investigating links between the army and organized crime.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A12)(SFC, 11/26/98, p.B2)(Econ, 3/22/08, p.61)
1997 Jun 14, President Clinton opened a year-long campaign against racism with a commencement address at the University of California at San Diego, in which he defended affirmative action and pleaded with Americans to confront deeply held prejudices.
(AP, 6/14/98)
1997 Jun 14, A 1939 comic book featuring the first appearance by Batman was auctioned off for $68,500 at Sotheby's in New York City.
(AP, 6/14/98)
1997 Jun 14, In Hong Kong the provisional legislature voted to give police broad powers to ban even peaceful demonstrations and to outlaw foreign donations to political parties.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Jun 14, From Russia it was announced that there were over 9,000 organized crime groups employing some 100,000 people.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 14, In the Ukraine it was reported that flash flooding and an underground river caused a huge sinkhole in Dnepropetrovsk that swallowed houses, schools and a 9-story apartment.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 15, In Colombia FARQ released 70 soldiers held as prisoners. FARQ regional commander Gen’l. Manuel Jose Bonett read a communiqué that set preconditions for the start of peace talks to end 30 years of civil war.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun 15, In Croatia voting irregularities occurred as Franjo Tudjman led low-turnout elections with 59%.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 15, Israel's Supreme Court rejected an appeal to charge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with fraud in an influence-peddling scandal that had threatened to topple his government.
(AP, 6/15/98)
1997 Jun 15, Kim Casali, English cartoonist, died.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1997 Jun 16, The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed above 8,000 for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.I4)
1997 Jun 16, Intel introduced its Net PC.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 16, Motorola planned a new satellite system called Celestri to deliver data and video to int’l. organizations. This system would run in addition to the iridium project (66 satellites) and M-Star (72 satellites). It will compete with Teledesic, a 288-satellite plan, and an Alcatel-Loral venture called SkyBridge with 64 satellites. Service was planned to begin in 2002.
(WSJ, 6/17/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 16, In Algeria in post-election violence more than 50 people were slain in recent days. Blame was place on the Armed Islamic Group.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.D2)
1997 Jun 16, The British government broke off contacts it had just renewed with Sinn Fein after the Irish Republican Army killed two Protestant policemen in Lurgan, Northern Ireland.
(AP, 6/16/98)
1997 Jun 16, The IRA killed 2 police officers in Lurgan, a small town in County Armagh near Belfast.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 16, Israeli soldiers wounded 38 Palestinians in the 3rd day of protests at Hebron.
(WSJ, 6/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 16, In Japan Sue Sumii died at age 95 working on the 8th volume of her novel "The River With No Bridge." It was about the plight of the burakumin (the untouchables) of Japan. She published the first volume in 1958.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 17, Mir Aimal Kasi, suspected in the shooting deaths of two CIA employees outside agency headquarters in January 1993, was brought to Fairfax, Va., to face trial after being arrested in Pakistan. He was later convicted and sentenced to death.
(AP, 6/17/98)
1997 Jun 17, In Cambodia fighting broke out in Phnom Penh between the 2 competing prime ministers. Security troops of Prince Ranariddh faced troops of the national police under Hok Lundy, a supporter of Hun Sen.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 17, The Corsican National Liberation Front announced a truce in their 22-year bombing campaign. Negotiations with France were to follow.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 17, In Japan lawmakers rewrote the definition of death to allow life-saving transplants of body parts. Brain death rather than heart death would be the new criteria and would take effect in 3 months.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun 17, In Sierra Leone Major Johnny Paul Koroma was sworn in as head of state and pledged to work to restore democracy.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 18, The Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Co., protesting what the convention called "gay-friendly" policies.
(AP, 6/18/98)
1997 Jun 18, Sirhan Sirhan failed in his 10th bid for parole in the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
(AP, 6/17/98)
1997 Jun 18, Irineo Montoya, a Mexican laborer, was executed by the state of Texas for a 1985 killing despite protests by the Mexican government.
(AP, 6/17/98)
1997 Jun 18, In Cambodia Pol Pot surrendered with 15 followers.
(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 18, In China in Yunnan province 27 drug traffickers were executed.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A22)
1997 Jun 18, It was reported that Japan was paying 5 Caribbean nations extensive aid and investment in order to gain support to block protections for endangered species. Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Dominica were all reported to have been bribed.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 19, President Clinton welcomed world leaders to Denver on the eve of an economic summit.
(AP, 6/19/98)
1997 Jun 19, McDonald's won a libel case in London against two vegetarian activists, even though the judge said he agreed with some of the defendants' sharpest criticisms of the fast-food giant.
(AP, 6/19/98)
1997 Jun 19, In Michigan three teenagers from Highland Township and Davisburg hopped a train and got off in Flint. They ran into some strangers who shot, raped and robbed them. One boy (15) was killed. Six people were later arrested.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A2)
1997 Jun 19, In New Orleans 2 men, identified as the "Assault Poetry Unit," delivered unmarked boxes of manifestos, poems and innocuous objects to 14 prominent people. The targets feared for bombs and the 2 men were arrested for terrorizing.
(SFC, 8/18/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 19, In Algeria a bomb in an Algiers movie theater killed 2 and wounded 20.
(WSJ, 6/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 19, From Cambodia the report of Pol Pot’s surrender was rescinded.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 19, China executed 38 people. In Sichuan 24 died for drug dealing and 14 were executed in Beijing.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A22)
1997 Jun 19, In Russia the legislature gave a preliminary nod to a new tax code.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A20)
1997 Jun 19, In the Ukraine Pres. Kuchma removed prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko under pressure from Western donors who saw him as an opponent to free-market policies.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A22)
1997 Jun 19, In Zimbabwe delegates to the UN Convention on Int’l. Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) approved the applications by Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana to sell an annual quota of their collective 55 tons of ivory stockpile, but only to Japan. Trade in ivory was shut down in 1989 due to extensive poaching.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A20)(SFC, 4/18/00, p.A9)
1997 Jun 20, US tobacco negotiators announced a settlement that would require cigarette companies to pay $368.5 billion over the next 25 years to compensate states for smoking-related illnesses, to finance anti-smoking programs, and to underwrite health care for millions of uninsured children in exchange for major relief from mounting lawsuits and legal bills.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A1)(AP, 6/20/98)
1997 Jun 20, The summit of industrialized nations opened in Denver, with Russia taking its place as the new eighth partner.
(AP, 6/20/98)
1997 Jun 20, A jury in Trenton, N.J., ordered the death penalty for Jesse K. Timmendequas, whose rape and strangling of his 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka, led to the creation of "Megan's Laws" requiring that communities be notified of sex offenders in their midst.
(AP, 6/20/07)
1997 Jun 20, In Cambodia government sources announced that former Khmer Rouge troops had captured Pol Pot.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 20, In Mexico authorities announced the discovery of 53 properties, 36 bank accounts and 4 aliases for Raul Salinas.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 20, In Spain former prime minister Felipe Gonzalez quit as the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party. He was succeeded by Joaquin Almunia.
(WSJ, 6/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 20, In Turkey Pres. Demirel asked Mesut Yilmaz, leader of the Motherland Party, to form a new government.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 21, The WNBA made its debut as the New York Liberty defeated the Los Angeles Sparks 67-57.
(AP, 6/21/98)
1997 Jun 21, The G-7 Summit became the G-8 with the addition of Russia at its meeting in Denver. Moscow was admitted to the Paris Club of creditors. Summit leaders meeting in Denver wrestled with a list of global challenges.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 6/23/97, p.A1)(AP, 6/21/98)
1997 Jun 21, A terrorist bomb rocked Belfast. Three people were slightly injured and pro-British loyalist forces were suspected to be responsible.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D1)
1997 Jun 21, Palestinian riots spread to Nablus on the West Bank protesting Jewish settlements.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D3)
1997 Jun 21, From Thailand it was reported that operators of illegal logging ventures in northern Thailand were feeding their elephants amphetamine-laced bananas to speed up work before the rainy season. The practice began a few years ago and 10 animals have died of overwork and exhaustion.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 22, Dr. Nancy W. Dickey was named the first female president of the American Medical Association.
(AP, 6/22/98)
1997 Jun 22, It was reported that 34 million acres of forest are lost each year around the world due to cutting and burning.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D3)
1997 Jun 22, World leaders concluded a historic summit in Denver with Russia's full participation for the first time.
(AP, 6/22/98)
1997 Jun 22, Iran and Iraq opened their border after 17 years and asked the UN for an inspection post there, giving Iraq a 4th exit point for its goods.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 22, In Russia it was reported that the newspaper Top Secret published a story that exposed Valentin Kovalev, justice minister, cavorting with nude women in a sauna in a secret Sep 1995 video. The video was shot at the nightclub hangout of the Solntsevo crime gang in Sep. 1995. The video was acquired from the vault of banker Arkady Angelevich, arrested Apr 17 on suspicion of embezzlement.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)(SFC, 6/23/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 23, The San Francisco Food Bank, the largest distributor of food for the needy in the city, opened a new storage facility on Potrero Hill with cold storage capability.
(SFC, 6/23/97, p.A13)
1997 Jun 23, Three brand new Municipal Railway cars crashed in San Francisco. Three MUNI employees were injured.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A15)
1997 Jun 23, Kristen Modafferi (18) was last seen after she finished her shift at Spinelli’s coffeehouse at the Crocker Galleria in San Francisco. She had just moved to the Bay Area from Charlotte, N.C., lived in Oakland and worked in SF. In 2015 a cadaver dog picked up a scent of human remains at her former home near Lake Merritt in Oakland.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.D1,3)(SFC, 6/26/15, p.D2)
1997 Jun 23, Two freight trains collided in Texas near San Antonio and 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A2)
1997 Jun 23, Betty Shabazz (61), the widow of Malcolm X, died in New York of burn wounds inflicted by a fire set on Jun 1 by her 12-year-old grandson. Malcolm Shabazz pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months at a Massachusetts facility specializing in young arsonists.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A3)(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A15)(AP, 6/23/02)
1997 Jun 23, From Vietnam it was reported that worker strikes were increasing in factories controlled by foreign investors. The minimum wage in shoe factories that produce Adidas, Fila, Nike and All-Star shoes was about .20 cents an hour.
(SFC, 6/23/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 24, In Freehold, N.J., 18-year-old Melissa Drexler, who gave birth during her prom, was charged with murder in the death of her baby. In 1998 she was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a plea bargain with parole possible in less than 3 years. Drexler later pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, and served three years in prison.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A3)(AP, 6/24/07)
1997 Jun 24, The Air Force released a report on the so-called "Roswell Incident," suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.
1997 Jun 24, Actor Brian Keith (75) committed suicide in his Malibu, Calif., home.
(www.franksreelreviews.com/shorttakes/briankeith/briankeith.htm)
1997 Jun 24, A federal judge in Miami gave 40,000 Nicaraguans and other immigrants a 7-month reprieve from deportation.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 24, It was reported that a defective gene that makes leptin, a hormone that helps in the body’s weight-control system, caused obesity. A 2nd gene was also identified as a weight-control agent.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun 24, In Ireland David Trible of the main Protestant party said he would accept an Anglo-Irish recommendation to set up an int’l. commission to oversee the gradual disarmament of the IRA and pro-British paramilitary gangs as wider negotiations progress.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 24, In Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu survived a no-confidence vote in parliament through some last minute deals.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 24, At the UN Pres. Abdul Gayoom of the Republic of the Maldives said that the survival of the island nation was dependent on halting the process of global warming. The 42-member Alliance of Small Island States called on the industrial nations to cut emissions 20% from 1990 levels by the year 2010.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A2)
1997 Jun 25, It was reported that a man from Rio Vista, Ca., was doing a good business selling the moon’s real estate. Dennis Hope was charging $15.99 for 1,777 acres of lunar land plus tax and shipping.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A15)
1997 Jun 25, The US Supreme Court struck down the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It said Congress had intruded on the authority of local officials. The legislation had instructed government officials to bend the rules for persons whose actions are based on their religion.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A3)(AP, 6/25/98)
1997 Jun 25, An unmanned cargo vessel crashed in the Russian Mir space station during a docking practice knocking out half of the station's power and rupturing a pressurized laboratory. The area was sealed off and the situation was considered serious for the 3 astronauts onboard. Commander Vasily Tsibliev later faced a risky repair mission and complained of heart irregularities.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A1)(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A10)(AP, 6/25/98)
1997 Jun 25, An auction of Princess Diana’s 79 cocktail and evening dresses brought in $3.26 million.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 25, Oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau (b.1910) died in Paris. In 2009 Brad Matsen authored “Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King."
(AP, 6/25/98)(Econ, 10/31/09, p.97)
1997 Jun 25, In the Republic of the Congo the truce ended in a ferocious battle for the Brazzaville airport. Former president Nguesso appeared to have begun an assault on the airport.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A7)
1997 Jun 25, In Indonesia East Timor rebel leader, Alex, died of gunshot wounds in Dili. Rebels charged that he was only slightly wounded and died under interrogation.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 25, On the island of Montserrat the Soufriere Hills volcano spewed rock and hot ash and killed 9 people while 17 were reported missing.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11,12)
1997 Jun 26, The US Supreme Court struck down a congressional attempt to keep pornography off the Internet, saying it violated the First Amendment; the court also let stand the president's line-item veto authority without addressing its constitutionality.
(AP, 6/26/98)
1997 Jun 26, The US Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill Americans had no constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide, but did nothing to bar states from legalizing the process.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A1)(AP, 6/26/98)
1997 Jun 26, It was reported that there was a sharp decline of Antarctic krill, the basic food of many fish, whales and penguins. An explosion of tiny marine animals called salps that love warmer waters was also observed.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 26, In Albania gunmen fired at the presidential motorcade of Pres. Berisha, who was on a campaign rally. Three guards were wounded. Nearly 1500 people have been killed since March when protests over the failed pyramid schemes turned into armed rebellion.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 26, After years of rejection letters, British author J.K. Rowling finally published the first volume of the Harry Potter saga. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was the first of seven novels that spawned an empire comprising eight movies, a play, theme parks in the United States and Japan, a sightseeing tour in Scotland and a permanent exhibition at London's Warner Bros Studios.
(AFP, 6/25/17)
1997 Jun 26, In the Congo soldiers seized Etienne Tshisekedi after he gave a speech accusing the Kabila regime of establishing a new dictatorship.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 26, In Ireland Bertie Ahern became the prime minister and appointed Mary Harney, leader of the right-wing Progressive Democrats, as his assistant.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 26, Turkey announced the end of the 10-week Operation Hammer, its cross-border operation against the Kurds. The Turks reported to have lost 113 men and it was estimated that 3,000 guerrillas of the PKK were killed.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A13)
1997 Jun 27, The US announced agreements with Vietnam to expand ties.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 27, The US Supreme Court threw out a key part of the Brady gun-control law, saying the federal government could not make local police decide whether people are fit to buy handguns. However, the court left intact the five-day waiting period for gun purchases.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A1)(AP, 6/27/98)
1997 Jun 27, It was reported that researchers have discovered the first defective gene that causes Parkinson’s disease. The mutated gene produces a defective version of the brain protein alpha synuclein.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.B6)
1997 Jun 27, It was reported that some 42 dead seals were washed ashore at Point Reyes National Seashore in California in a ten day window in late May and early June. Cause of death was unknown but new deaths seemed to have stopped.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A24)
1997 Jun 27, China announced that it would send 4,000 troops into Hong Kong six hours after the former colony is handed over to Chinese control.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 27, In China a major fire at a petrochemical plant outside Beijing caused many deaths and injuries. News of the fire was restricted to maintain an official tone of celebration for the Hong Kong transfer.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A13)
1997 Jun 27, In the Congo Etienne Tshisekedi was released.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 27, In Russia an explosive device was set off on a train as it approached Torbino, 140 miles southeast of St. Petersburg, and 3 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 27, A Tajikistan formal peace accord was signed in Moscow that was brokered by Russia and Iran. A power sharing arrangement was foreseen between Pres. Emomali Rakhmanov and opposition leader Said Abdullo. The opposition led by the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT) was guaranteed 30% of government positions. Up to 150,000 people had been killed in the 5-year civil war.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A11)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.D2)(Econ, 11/11/06, p.50)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.42)
1997 Jun 28, In a wild rematch, Mike Tyson was disqualified in the 3rd round in the boxing heavyweight title for biting Evander Holyfield's ear in Las Vegas. Tyson complained of head buts by Holyfield. His $30 million purse was withheld pending a hearing. Tyson was suspended and his purse withheld pending a decision on his punishment. His Nevada state boxing license was taken away and he was fined $3 million. The state license could be re-applied for in a year.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.C1)(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.A1)(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A7)(AP, 6/28/98)
1997 Jun 28, President Clinton, unable to meet his own July 4 deadline for campaign finance reform, blamed the inaction on Congress in his weekly radio address.
(AP, 6/28/98)
1997 Jun 28, Robert Schuller, TV evangelist, attacked a flight attendant.
(www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/schuller/general.htm)
1967 Jun 28, The body of Che Guevara was found in a common grave in Vallegrande, Bolivia.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 28, Japanese police announced the arrest of a 14-year-old boy for the murder and beheading of an 11-year-old on May 27. The 15-year-old boy was convicted and sentenced to a juvenile prison, where he would be treated for mental illness. He could be kept there until age 26. In 2015 the killer published a detailed memoir, which quickly became a bestseller.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.D1)(SFC,10/18/97, p.A11)(Econ, 8/1/15, p.37)
1997 Jun 29, William Hickey (68), acting teacher, actor (Prizzi's Honor), died of emphysema.
(www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0763413.html)
1997 Jun 29, In Albania the rival ex-Communists claimed to have beaten Pres. Berisha in the elections. Gunmen menaced voters, burned ballots and pressured polling officials, marring parliamentary elections meant to steer the country toward recovery after months of chaos. Socialist Party leader Fatos Nano claimed his leftist coalition had won 73 of 115 contested seats. Early returns on a referendum showed voters favoring the return of would-be-king Leka Zogu. Later results showed that the referendum was defeated by a 2:1 margin.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A1)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A10)(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A12)(AP, 6/29/98)
1997 Jun 29, In Iraq in the Asian Group 9 World Cup soccer qualifying competition the Iraqi team was beaten a 2nd time by Kazakstan. This inflamed Odai Hussein, son of Saddam and head of the Iraqi soccer federation. He had the team imprisoned and tortured. It was also reported that Odai had killed woman after an abortive attempt at having sex.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A13)
1997 Jun 30, In Hong Kong, the Union Jack was lowered for the last time over Government House as Britain prepared to hand the colony back to China after ruling it for 156 years. The 1st Battalion, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) became the last British unit to leave Hong Kong.
(AP, 6/30/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_British_Army#1990-present)
1997 Jun 30, North Korea agreed to hold talks with South Korea in NYC beginning Aug 5.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 30, This day marked the deadline on passage of a new law that withdraws recognition of non-Orthodox conversions performed in Israel. Orthodox parties threatened to withdraw from the government if the law was not passed.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D1)
1997 Jun, The Detroit Red Wings won the hockey Stanley Cup in 4 games against the Philadelphia Flyers.
(WSJ, 6/12/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun, Earth Summit Two met at the UN in New York.
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.A4)
1997 Jun, At a UN meeting Pres. Clinton announced an effort to install photovoltaic panels on 1 million rooftops in the US by 2010.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.B1)
1997 Jun, In California the Lake Tahoe Regional Planning Agency adopted a plan to ban jet skis, specifically 2-stroke engines that propel personal watercraft, effective in June 1999. The jet ski industry filed a suit against the ban in Oct.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.A18)
1997 Jun, Danny Pang (b.1966), a Taiwan born entrepreneur, was fired from a US venture capital firm for stealing $3 million from an escrow account. He later helped form the Private Equity Management Group (PEMGroup) in California to buy life insurance from the elderly collect money as they died. In 2007 the enterprise became engaged in a Ponzi scheme.
(WSJ, 4/15/09, p.A1)
1997 Jun, In Washington State voters narrowly approved a huge public subsidy for Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, for a new $425 million football stadium. Mr. Allen would pay 25% and the rest would come from taxpayers.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A22)
1997 Jun, In Albania Ali Uka, a journalist who criticized the Kosovo Liberation Army, was murdered. Uka was brutally disfigured with a bottle and a screwdriver. Hashim Thaci was his roommate at this time.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.50)
1997 Jun, In Brazil police strikes began in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais over low pay. Though the strikes were illegal they spread by July to 15 of Brazil’s 27 states.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun, In Canada the Supreme Court ruled that lap dancing violates standards of decency.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E5)
1997 Jun, In Chile storms killed at least 19 people and left 51,000 homeless.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun, Ding Lei founded NetEase, a Chinese Internet technology company providing online services centered on content, community, communications and commerce.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetEase)
1997 Jun, In El Salvador a Credi Club bank scandal involved the disappearance of $11 million in depositor’s savings.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A18)
1997 Jun, In Guatemala a feud erupted between neighboring Maya villages near Totonicapan and 10 people were massacred and 10 homes were burned down.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun, In Kenya the IMF froze $30 million in direct aid after the Moi administration dropped charges against a group of KANU businessmen accused of defrauding the state of about $500 million.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun, In Lesotho protestors in Maseru marched against the formation of a new ruling party by Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhehle.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.14A)
1997 Jun, Terms of the Baltnet Group, an Air Surveillance System for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, were established in Oslo, Norway.
(http://tinyurl.com/a6o2n)
1997 Jun, In Papua New Guinea elections the government of Sir Julius Chan was swept out of office.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1997 Jun, Papua New Guinea PM Bill Skate formed a shaky coalition government: “...if I tell my gang members to kill, they kill... there’s no other godfather. I’m the godfather..." He later claimed to be drunk using the described “Johnny Walker defense." Skate resigned in 1999 after serving 18 months as prime minister.
(WSJ, 4/14/98, p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Skate)
1997 Jun-Nov, In Kenya a cholera epidemic in Kisumu and other towns around Lake Victoria killed 200 people over this period due to contaminated drinking water. The disease peaked in January after some 3,000 deaths across East Africa.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.T14)(SFC, 1/22/98, p.E4)
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1997 Apr 1, The US Library of Congress began its “Today in History" web site: www.loc.gov.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, Par p.8)
1997 Apr 1, Federal authorities cautioned that thousands of schoolchildren across the nation might have been exposed to the hepatitis A virus by eating frozen strawberries imported from Mexico and processed in the U.S.
(AP, 4/1/98)
1997 Apr 1, In Russia Yeltsin signed an agreement with Belarus for limited economic, military and political integration.
(WSJ, 4/1/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 1, Grigory Chkhartishvili, Russian philologist and essayist, conceived of a project to write Russian historical detective novels. The 1st novel of his B. Akunin project was printed in 1998 and introduced Erast Fandorin, a turn of the 20th century ambassador-detective.
(WSJ, 5/30/06, p.D5)
1997 Apr 1, A bomb in Moscow destroyed the statue of Nicholas II, the city’s only monument to the last czar of Russia. It was erected in 1996 to mark the centenary of his coronation.
(WSJ, 4/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 1, In Zaire Etienne Tshisekedi was appointed prime minister. The next day he annulled the constitution, dissolved parliament and offered 6 Cabinet seats to the rebels. He planned a new transitional parliament and new multiparty elections.
(SFC, 4/4/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 2, The White House released documents showing how eager it had been to exploit the money-drawing powers of President Clinton and Vice President Gore during the 1996 campaign while coordinating with the Democratic Party's fund-raising machine.
(AP, 4/2/98)
1997 Apr 2, An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt jet with four 500- pound bombs was lost over the Colorado Rockies. It was piloted by Capt. Craig Button (32). Wreckage of the plane was found Apr 20 on the sheer face of New York Mountain [Gold Dust Peak], 15 miles from Vail. It was later suspected that he committed suicide due to a possible revelation of homosexuality. A 1998 official report cited unrequited love for a former girlfriend and his mother's Christian pacifist faith.
(SFE, 4/9/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/21/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A3)(SFC, 8/26/99, p.A3)
1997 Apr 2, Tomoyuki Tanaka (86), producer (Godzilla), died of a stroke.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1997 Apr 3, About 2,000 youngsters in California and Georgia lined up for shots to protect them against hepatitis from a contaminated shipment of frozen strawberries.
(AP, 4/3/98)
1997 Apr 3, In Tennessee 6 chained prisoners burned to death when their transport vehicle caught fire.
(WSJ, 4/4/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 4, It was reported that US psychologist Edward Larson followed a 1916 procedure by psychologist James Leuba in a random poll of selected scientists to inquire if they believed in God. Leuba had predicted that disbelief would spread as education expanded. Both polls produced similar results whereby 40% said that they believed in God.
(SFC, 4/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 4, Space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on what was supposed to have been a 16-day mission. However, a defective power generator forced the shuttle's return four days later.
(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/4/98)
1997 Apr 4, In Zaire rebel forces captured Mbuji-Mayi, capital of Eastern Kasai province and home of Zaire’s diamond industry. Departing government troops looted the city and 100 people were killed in clashes between the retreating soldiers and locals.
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 5 Allen Ginsberg (b.1926), the counterculture guru who shattered conventions as poet laureate of the Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70. His last book of poems "Death and Fame: Last Poems 1993-1997" was edited by Bob Rosenthal, Peter Hale and Bill Morgan following his death. In 2000 Bill Morgan edited "Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995." In 2001 David Carter edited "Allen Ginsberg: Spontaneous Mind, The Selected Interviews, 1958-1996." In 2006 Bill Morgan authored “I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg."
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A11)(AP, 5/5/97)(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.W6)(SFEC, 5/9/99, BR p.3)(SFEC, 3/5/00, DB p.4)(SSFC, 4/8/01, BR p.2)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M1)
1997 Apr 5, Regional police reported the arrest of 7 men in Novosibirsk, Russia, who officials said planned to smuggle 11 pounds (5.2kg) of enriched uranium to Pakistan or China. The uranium was reportedly stolen from a plant in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/29/07)(http://tinyurl.com/3cydhn)
1997 Apr 5, From Serbia it was reported the Pres. Milosevic might step down from Serbian presidency at the end of his 2 terms and try to assume the ceremonial post of president of all of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro).
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 5, In Zaire the rebels agreed to allow a UN airlift of some 80,000 Rwandan refugees back to their homeland.
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A17)
1997 Apr 6, NASA officials announced they were cutting short the 16-day mission of space shuttle Columbia by 12 days because of a deteriorating and potentially explosive power generator.
(AP, 4/6/02)
1997 Apr 6, A blizzard shut down much of the northern Plains.
(AP, 4/6/98)
1997 Apr 6, Jack Kent Cooke (84), owner of the Washington Redskins, died. Settlement of his will took 7 years and cost $64 million in professional fees.
(AP, 4/6/98)(WSJ, 7/9/04, p.A1)
1997 Apr 6, In Algeria attackers massacred 90 villagers at various sites over the last 2 days. 52 people had their throats slit near Medea by about 50 killers; 15 were killed in Amroussa and their bodies were burned with gasoline.
(SFC, 4/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 6, In Burma a bomb exploded at the Rangoon home of Lt. Gen’l. Tin Oo and killed his daughter, Cho Lei Oo (34).
(WSJ, 4/8/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/8/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 6, In Peru Leonor LaRosa revealed her torture and beatings to a television station.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 7, The Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to Steven Millhauser for "Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer," but no award was given for drama. The Times-Picayune of New Orleans won two journalism Pulitzers, including the public service prize, for a series examining how overfishing and pollution are devastating the oceans.
(AP, 4/7/97)
1997 Apr 7, In Colombia prisoners took over a 1,200 inmate facility in Bucaramanga, the 3rd prison to be seized in a week.
(WSJ, 4/8/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 7, In Zaire deserting government soldiers of the 21st Brigade donned white scarves and declared themselves on the side of the rebels as the rebels approached Lubumbashi, the capital of the copper and cobalt rich Shaba province.
(SFC, 4/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 8, The Vatican chose Archbishop Francis George of Portland, Ore., to head the Archdiocese of Chicago, succeeding the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
(AP, 4/8/98)
1997 Apr 8, Lawmakers returned from a visit to North Korea and announced that the people there were subsisting on 5 ounces of rice per day and eating grass and tree bark.
(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 8, Microsoft Corp released Internet Explorer 4.0.
(http://tinyurl.com/dax6p)
1997 Apr 8, The Columbia space shuttle landed with its mission shortened by 12 days due to a faulty fuel cell [a defective generator].
(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/8/98)
1997 Apr 8, Singer and songwriter Laura Nyro (b.1947) died in Danbury, Conn., at age 49 of ovarian cancer. In 2012 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A23)(AP, 4/8/98)(SSFC, 4/15/12, p.A9)
1997 Apr 8, In Mexico Raul Gutierrez, director of the capital’s nine prisons, resigned. More resignations in light of corruption and special privileges for imprisoned powerful drug traffickers followed.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 9, Amid privacy concerns, Social Security officials pulled the plug on an Internet site that provided records of individual earnings and retirements.
(AP, 4/9/98)
1997 Apr 9, The CIA announced that its own errors may have led to demolition of an Iraqi ammunition bunker filled with chemical weapons at Kamisiyah in 1991. The CIA apologized to Gulf War veterans for failing to do a better job in supplying information to U.S. troops who blew up an Iraqi bunker later found to contain chemical weapons.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/9/98)
1997 Apr 9, New images of Jupiter’s moon Europa confirmed the 1996 revealed surface of massive icebergs floating on an ocean more than 50 miles deep.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 9, UNICEF, the WHO, and the UN Population Fund called for a global ban on female genital mutilation.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 9, In Ecuador the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of former president Abdala Bucaram and his aide Marco Albuja on charges of misusing presidential funds.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 9, In Hong Kong the future government unveiled plans to restrict political ties with foreigners, require police approval for protests, allow political parties to be banned and prohibit political groups from forming links with foreign organizations.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 9, A war-era bomb exploded on the grounds of a school in central Vietnam and killed 7 children. A teacher and 33 other children were wounded.
(WSJ, 4/10/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 9, In Zaire Mobuto dismissed prime minister Etienne Tshisekedo and installed a military commander as prime minister.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 10, A US federal judge struck down as unconstitutional the Line-Item Veto Act, a law that lets the president strike specific items from bills passed by Congress. The president said he would appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court later set aside the judge's ruling. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the veto as unconstitutional in 1998.
(SFC, 4/11/97, p.A3)(AP, 4/10/02)
1997 Apr 10, Onetime fighter pilot and former POW Pete Peterson was confirmed by the Senate as the first postwar U.S. ambassador to Vietnam.
(AP, 4/10/98)
1997 Apr 10, Michael Dorris (52), writer, committed suicide. His books included “The Broken Cord" (1989), an account of his life raising adopted son Abel, who was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome.
(http://www.hotink.com/72997.html)
1997 Apr 11, The Air Force announced that that despite an intensive nine-day search, it couldn't find a bomb-laden A-10 warplane that had disappeared with its pilot during a training mission over Arizona. Wreckage was later found on a Colorado mountainside.
(AP, 4/11/02)
1997 Apr 11, Some 25,000 people marched in Watsonville, Ca., to support the UFW drive to organize farm workers. Their focus was to begin with the state’s $576 million strawberry industry.
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 11, In Angola a national reconciliation governing body was formed that united the MPLA under president Jose Eduardo dos Santos and UNITA under Jonas Savimbi.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 11, The EU postponed for 6 months a WTO case that charged the US with unfair trade practices.
(WSJ, 4/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 11, In India Parliament rejected Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, head of the 10-month-old coalition government by a vote of 292 to 158 in the lower house, the Lok Sabha. He was rejected after the Congress Party withdrew it support. The Congress Party, which has ruled for 45 of the 50 years since independence, complained that Gowda failed to halt gains by the BJP (Bharatriya Janata Party).
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 11, In Italy, fire damaged the 500-year-old San Giovanni Cathedral, home of the Shroud of Turin, which some consider Christ's burial cloth.
(AP, 4/11/98)
1997 Apr 11, In Serbia minister Radovan Stojicic (aka Badza or "Big Man" in Serbian) was shot and killed by a masked assailant at a Belgrade restaurant. He was the commander of Milosevic’s security police and was expected to take over the Interior Ministry.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 12, Undaunted by a cache of explosives found on his travel route, Pope John Paul II plunged into a peace mission to Sarajevo, wading into crowds and declaring, "Never again war."
(AP, 5/9/98)
1997 Apr 12, The new $38.4 million Museum of African American History was scheduled to open in Detroit at 315 E. Warren Ave. with a 16,000-sq.-foot core exhibit. The building was paid for by a city-backed bond issue but the collection was started by Dr. Charles Wright.
(Sky, 4/97, p.28)(SFEC, 2/23/97, p.T7)(WSJ, 9/30/97, p.A20)
1997 Apr 12, George Wald (80), US scientist (Nobel Prize, vitamin A in retina), died.
(http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1967/wald-bio.html)
1997 Apr 12, In Honduras Candido Amador, a Chorti tribal leader, was shot to death near the ruins of Copan after a meeting with local landowners. He had demanded that the government turn over 35,000 acres of land that was promised to the indigenous peoples in an agreement with the Spanish colonial government in the 18th century. Another leader, Ovidio Perez, was gunned down less than a month later.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A13)
1997 Apr 12, In Italy the Shroud of Turin was recovered from a fire that began in the Guarini chapel of the city’s 15th century cathedral.
(WSJ, 4/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 12, From Madagascar it was reported that a plague of locusts was poised to sweep over the 5 million acres of rich farmland in the south of the nation.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 13, Tiger Woods won golf’s Masters Tournament by 12 strokes for a record 18-under-par 270 total score. He was the youngest (21) and first black winner of the Masters.
(WSJ, 4/14/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/13/98)
1997 Apr 13, It was reported that scientists had developed memory-retentive chips that preserve data even with power shut off. The chips were expected to be available in 2 years.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.B8)
1997 Apr 13, With tanks, sharpshooters and thousands of police deployed to protect him, Pope John Paul II preached forgiveness during a mass in Sarajevo.
(AP, 4/13/98)
1997 Apr 13, In Turkey a military modernization program for $31 billion was announced to reduce dependence on Western suppliers. Turkey’s standing army numbered 639,000 men, 4,000 tanks, and 400 combat aircraft.
(WSJ, 4/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 14, In SF the winners of the 1997 Goldman Environmental Prize were: Alexander Nikitin of Russia who helped to expose the danger of radioactive fuel from Russian submarines stored in the Arctic waters; Terri Swearingen of the US for fighting against a toxic waste incinerator on the Ohio River; Samoan chieftain Fuiono Senio and ethnobotonist Paul Cox for establishing forest preserves; Juan Pablo Orrego of Chile for his battle to stop the damming of the Bio Bio River; Nick Carter of England for helping to create Africa’s inter-governmental force to fight illegal wildlife trade; and Loir Botor Dingit, Indonesian tribal chief, for struggling to protect ancestral rain forest from logging.
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 14, Clyde Barrow’s bullet-ridden shirt was auctioned off to a Nevada casino for $85,000. His largest theft was estimated at $4,000. On May 23,1934, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot some 4 dozen times by police after the pair had spent the previous 2 years killing and robbing banks in the Midwest.
(SFC, 4/3/97, p.A13)(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A13)
1997 Apr 14, A US presidential task force released guidelines for a code-of-conduct to curb sweatshop abuses amongst apparel worldwide manufacturers.
(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 14, James B. McDougal, former partner of Pres. Clinton in the White-water land venture, was sentenced to three years in prison. He was convicted on 18 accounts of conspiracy and fraud but volunteered new information for a reduced sentence.
(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 14, Some 500 black demonstrators marched in the Grays Ferry section of Philadelphia in response to a Feb 23 beating of Annette Williams, her son and nephew by a mob of white men. In March two black men shot and killed the 16-year-old son of a white police officer in a drugstore robbery.
(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 14, In Ethiopia a grenade attack wounded 33 in the largest supermarket of Addis Ababa. Two similar attacks over the weekend killed one person and injured 41 at a restaurant and hotel in the capital.
(WSJ, 4/15/97, p.A9)
1997 Apr 15, Jackie Robinson's number 42 was retired 50 years after he became the first black player in major league baseball.
(AP, 4/15/98)
1997 Apr 15, The Justice Department inspector general reported that FBI crime lab agents produced flawed scientific work or inaccurate testimony in major cases such as the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 4/15/98)
1997 Apr 15, The US military said it would allow American Indian soldiers to use peyote in their religious services.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 15, MCI put up a Web site in mid-April and held the "Great American Net Test." Participants were asked to search for answers to 5 multiple-choice trivia questions.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.D4)
1997 Apr 15, Craig Tate (51), chief technical officer for Colgate-Palmolive, was killed in a helicopter crash in New York’s East River.
(WSJ, 9/22/98, p.A1)
1997 Apr 15, In Bosnia the joint presidency agreed on a new currency, a coupon with a value equal to one German mark, or about 57 cents.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 15, China blocked a UN resolution criticizing its human-rights record for the 7th year in a row.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 15, In Saudi Arabia at least 343 Muslim pilgrims died in a fire on a plain outside the holy city of Mecca and injured 1290. The fires stemmed from cooking gas canisters. Aid workers and diplomats said the death toll was at least 500.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/15/98)(AP, 2/1/04)
1997 Apr 16, African leaders of 7 nations eased their embargo on Burundi to alleviate local suffering.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 16, Police in Israel recommended indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for breach of trust in an influence-trading scandal. Prosecutors later decided not to pursue charges against Netanyahu, citing a lack of proof.
(AP, 4/16/98)
1997 Apr 16, In Portugal gunmen burst into the Mea Culpa topless bar in Amarante and set it on fire killing 12 people.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 17, House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced he would borrow $300,000 from retired Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole to pay a sanction imposed for violation of House rules.
(AP, 4/17/98)
1997 Apr 17, The Red River in Fargo, North Dakota, was to have crested at 39.5 feet, surpassing the 1897 record. The Weather Service said that it crested on Apr 21 at 54.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A3)(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 17, In Brazil some 1500 peasants marched 750 miles to Brasilia for land reform and were joined by some 25,000 trade-union members.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 17, In Israel Chaim Herzog, former president (1983-1993), soldier, spymaster, barrister and author, died at age 78 in Tel Aviv. His books included "The War of Atonement," about the 1973 war, and "Israel’s Finest Hour," about the 1967 Six-Day war.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.E2)(AP, 4/17/98)(MC, 4/17/02)
1997 Apr 18, President Clinton held a news conference in which he warned Republicans that a balanced-budget deal may not come quickly, while reassuring nervous Democrats that he would not abandon the party's prized social programs.
(AP, 4/18/98)
1997 Apr 18, American Rivers Inc., a national conservation group, listed this year’s ten most endangered rivers. Included were the Potomac, San Joaquin, the lower Colorado and the Hudson Rivers.
(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A7)
1997 Apr 18, Scientists reported the discovery of a fusion protein that governed the ability of the HIV virus to fuse with the protective membranes of immune system cells.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.A4)
1997 Apr 18, It was reported that measurements by scientists suggest that the universe may have an "up" and a "down." "This axis of orientation is not a physical entity, but rather defines a direction of space that somehow determines how light travels through the universe." The measurements were later considered flawed because the scientists examined polarized radio waves, which oscillate in only one direction.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.A1,13)(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 19, In Newton, New Jersey, Giorgio Gallara, a Pizza shop owner, and employee Jeremy Giordano, were killed after being lured to an abandoned house. [see Apr 21]
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A9)
1997 Apr 19, In North Dakota the Red River overran sandbags and broke dikes in Grand Forks and floods sent nearly half of the 50,000 population into evacuation. Damages were estimated at over $1.5 billion.
(AP, 4/19/97)(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A1)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.39)
1997 Apr 19, The British drought was now two years old and London was the driest it had been in 200 years.
(SFC, 4/19/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 19, In Bulgaria the United Democratic Forces (UDF) under Ivan Kostov won elections with 52% of the vote. The former Communist’s renamed Socialist Party won 19%.
(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 19, In India Inder Kumar Gujral was chosen to lead the United Front Coalition government. The Tamil Manila Congress withdrew from the coalition.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 19, In Spain a Barcelona court found Jose Puignero, factory owner, guilty of illegally dumping chemical dyes into a river in the town of Sant Bartomeu del Grau. This was the first punishment for crimes against the environment ever handed out.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A17)
1997 Apr 20, In Atlanta, Ga., Timmie Sinclair (27) was beaten by police officers in a scene that was captured on videotape and showed excessive use of force and baton beating.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A6)
1997 Apr 20, An article in the Astrophysics Journal identified some of the missing matter (dark matter) of the universe as ionized hydrogen and helium gas spread out between the galaxies. The atoms were stripped of their electrons early in the formation of the universe.
(SFEC, 4/21/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 20, Lameck Aguta of Kenya won the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:10:34. Ethiopia’s Fatuma Roba won the women’s best time at 2:26:24.
(WSJ, 4/22/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 20, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu escaped indictment in an influence-peddling scandal, with prosecutors saying they lacked evidence.
(AP, 4/20/97)
1997 Apr 20, Hwang Jang Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean to defect, arrived in South Korea, ending a 67-day odyssey that began in China.
(AP, 4/20/97)
1997 Apr 21, Pres. Clinton approved a ban on new American investment in Burma due to human rights abuses. It also banned visas for senior Burmese government officials.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A6)(WSJ, 3/25/04, p.A15)
1997 Apr 21, Police in Franklin, N.J., arrested 2 teen-agers they say lured two pizza deliverymen on April 19 to an abandoned house before opening fire, killing both men. Thomas Koskovich and Jayson Vreeland were convicted in 1999 of murdering Jeremy Giordano and Giorgio Gallara. Thomas Koskovich and Jayson Vreeland were later convicted of murdering Jeremy Giordano and Giorgio Gallara and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 4/21/07)
1997 Apr 21, A federal court blocked Oregon’s 1994 approved law on doctor assisted suicide.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A15)
1997 Apr 21, A report on the new Digital Versatile Disks indicated a price of $19.99 for the disks and a DVD player for as low as $500.
(WSJ, 4/21/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 21, Some 12,500 workers for Goodyear Tire went on strike.
(WSJ, 4/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 21, The swollen Red River, which had flooded 75 percent of Grand Forks, N.D., reached a projected crest of 54 feet -- or 26 feet above flood stage.
(AP, 4/21/98)
1997 Apr 21, The ashes of Timothy Leary, Gene Roddenberry and 22 others were fired into space aboard a rocket that carried the first Spanish satellite, MINI-SAT-01, into orbit. This marked the beginning of the space funeral industry.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr 21, In Algeria rebels butchered 93 people including 43 women and girls in the Baouch Boukhelef-Khemisti farming community.
(SFC, 4/23/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 21, In Japan drilling on the world’s longest stretch of undersea highway (about 6 miles) was completed across Tokyo Bay to link the cities of Kawasaki and Kisarazu.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 21, Andres Rodriguez (b.1923), Paraguayan president (1989-93), died.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9114869?tocId=9114869)
1997 Apr 22, President Clinton flew over the flooded town of Grand Forks, N.D.
(AP, 4/22/98)
1997 Apr 22, A jury of seven men and five women was chosen in Denver to hear the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh.
(AP, 4/22/98)
1997 Apr 22, In Peru on day 126 of the hostage crises government commandos stormed the home of the Japanese envoy in Lima and freed 71 hostages. Two soldiers, all 14 Tupac Amaru rebels and one hostage, Justice Carlos Giusti, died in the assault. Later reports indicated that some rebels were killed while trying to surrender and that their bodies may have been mutilated. The government planned to bury them in scattered unmarked graves. In 2002 forensic evidence indicated that 8 of 14 rebels were shot from behind after they surrendered at the end of the siege. A prosecutor then filed charges against 18 army officers for executing 3 rebels after they surrendered. On Oct 15, 2003, a secret military court dismissed charges against 140 commandos accused of summarily executing three leftist rebels during the 1997 hostage rescue at the Japanese ambassador's residence.
(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/97, p.A1,8)(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12)(AP, 4/22/98)(WSJ, 5/20/02, p.A1)(SFC, 6/7/02, p.A12)(AP, 11/14/03)
1997 Apr 22, Gunmen in Moscow killed the head of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation in what appeared to be a gangland slaying.
(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)
1997 Apr 22, A 6.5 earthquake hit Tobago. There were no reported injuries.
(SFC, 4/23/97, p.A4)
1997 Apr 23, Golfer Fuzzy Zoeller, again apologizing for racial comments about Masters winner Tiger Woods, withdrew from the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic.
(AP, 4/23/98)
1997 Apr 23, Doctors at the University of Southern California announced that a child was born in late 1996 to a 63-year-old woman on hormone therapy.
(AP, 4/23/98)
1997 Apr 23, The military confirmed that two pieces of wreckage found on a snowy Rocky Mountain peak were from the Air Force warplane that vanished on a training mission over Arizona.
(AP, 4/23/98)
1997 Apr 23, N. Korean defector, Hwang Jang Yop, claimed that North Korea has nuclear weapons and that the 1.2 million man army was prepared for war.
(SFC, 4/23/9, p.A4)
1997 Apr 24, The US ratified the UN Chemical Weapons ban. It came into force on April 29. The Senate voted 74-26 to approve the chemical weapons treaty, five days before the pact was to take effect. It was the 75th country to ratify the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention ban signed by 164 states. The signing obliges members to destroy all chemical weapons and production facilities by 2007.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A10)(AP, 4/24/98)(Econ, 8/31/13, p.20)
1997 Apr 24, The trial of Timothy McVeigh, prime suspect of the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, began in Denver. The prosecution and defense presented opening statements.
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/24/98)
1997 Apr 24, Scientists reported the discovery of a giant, Jupiter-like planet in the constellation Northern Crown. It appeared to be in a 40-day orbit around the star Rho Coronae Borealis about 50 light-years away.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 24, Pat Paulsen (69), comedian, died in Mexico. In 1968 on the Smothers Brothers TV show he announced that he was running for president and actually got his name on the ballot in 1972. He built the Pat Paulen Winery in Asti, Ca., and proclaimed himself mayor in 1986.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A22)(AP, 4/24/98)
1997 Apr 24, A Bosnian Serb court sentenced 3 Muslims to 20 years in prison on murder charges for killing 4 Serb civilians in Krusev Dol, near Srebrenica, in May 1996. The men claimed to have been tortured into confessing and denied the charges with scant defense representation.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 24, In Japan the lower house of parliament voted to make heart transplants possible by recognizing the concept of brain death.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 24, In Mexico forty specially trained soldiers of the Special Forces (GAFE) were assigned to the int’l. airport to question and search passengers for drugs. In 1998 they and 15 civilians were withdrawn on suspicion of drug and immigrant smuggling.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.C3)
1997 Apr 24, In Zaire rebels were accused of having killed many refugees and burying them in a mass grave. Large amounts of airlift supplies intended to return Rwandan refugees were seized by rebels.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 25, The Clinton administration extended the area over which the northwest coast silvery Coho salmon is considered a "threatened" species.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 25, The prosecution began calling witnesses in Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma City bombing trial.
(AP, 4/25/98)
1997 Apr 25, In the US a federal judge ruled that cigarettes are drug delivery systems and that the FDA has the right to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products -- but said it couldn't restrict cigarette advertising..
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/25/98)
1997 Apr 25, In Algeria a bomb killed some 21 passengers and injured 20 near Algiers.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 25, Angola was supporting Kabila’s rebels. The government of Zaire claimed that Angolan troops had invaded near Cabinda.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 25, In China police opened fire on a crowd in Xinjiang province and killed 2 people. Protestors had tried to block the execution of 3 people convicted during the February unrest.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 25, In England the IRA set off explosions near the M6 highway and caused chaos in Britain’s morning commute.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 25, In Indonesia some 5,000 demonstrators protested wage policies at the Nike shoe factory. They said Nike was not paying a $2.50 per day minimum wage. A 10.7% wage increase was negotiated the next day.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.T7)
1997 Apr 25, In Israel soldiers found the bodies of 2 teenage girls stabbed to death in the Wadi Kelt ravine near Jerusalem.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 25, In the Philippines a fire at the New Imperial Hotel in Cotabato City killed at least 24 people and scores were injured.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 25, Russia refused to sign the chemical arms ban. They claimed insufficient funds to destroy the 40,000 tons of stored chemical weapons. The Duma did pledge intent to endorse the accord later this year.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 26, In his Saturday radio address, President Clinton prepared for the opening of a community service summit by asking Congress to pay for a literacy drive for third-graders.
(AP, 4/26/98)
1997 Apr 26, Peng Zhen (95), former Communist Party secretary and Mayor of Beijing, died.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.B8)
1997 Apr 27, President Clinton, along with former presidents George Bush and Jimmy Carter, helped polish gritty city streets in Philadelphia as they launched the Summit for America's Future, a three-day gathering on community service.
(AP, 4/27/98)
1997 Apr 27, A Texas militia group, called Republic of Texas, took 2 hostages at the Davis Mountain Resort community. They advocated independence for the state. The hostages were released later the next day in exchange for a jailed comrade, but the standoff continued. Richard McLaren and Robert Otto were later captured, convicted and sentenced to 99 and 50 years in prison. Acquittal on kidnapping charges against McLaren and Otto were handed down by an Appeals court in 1999.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A1)(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A5)
1997 Apr 27, In Hong Kong the Tsing Ma Bridge that connects the mainland part of Hong Kong with the islet of Chek Lap Kok was opened. It was hailed as the longest road-and-rail suspension bridge in the world.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 27, In Mexico two federal police agents, Roberto Espinoza and Marco Vasquez, were found shot dead with signs of torture in Mexico city. They had been investigating Amado Carrillo, Mexico’s most powerful drug lord.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 28, "Jekyll & Hyde" opened at Plymouth Theater NYC.
(www.mtishows.com/show_home.asp?id=000181)
1997 Apr 28, In Philadelphia, President Clinton and three predecessors -- George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford -- began drafting a national army of community service volunteers during the Presidents' Summit for America's Future.
(AP, 4/28/98)
1997 Apr 28, It was reported that a type of Mad Cow Disease was killing deer and elk in the Fort Collins region of Colorado and Wyoming. The "spongiform encephalopathies" riddled the brain with holes and it was wondered if the disease might be transmitted to humans as the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 28, It was reported that millions of tons of smog-causing pollution were being spewed from coal-burning power plants from Atlanta to Boston.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 28, A bomb in southern Russia killed one person and injured 17 at a train station in Pyatigorsk. It was the 2nd bombing in a week and Chechen rebels were blamed.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 28, In South Africa a newborn girl was kidnapped from a Cape Town hospital. On Feb 26, 2015, she was re-united with her parents for the first time after DNA tests confirmed she was the child kidnapped from the Groote Schuur Hospital.
(AP, 2/27/15)
1997 Apr 29, Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of raping six female trainees. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and dishonorably discharged.
(AP, 4/29/07)
1997 Apr 29, Astronaut Jerry Linenger and cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev went on the first U.S.-Russian space walk.
(AP, 4/29/98)
1997 Apr 29, It was reported that a monster fountain of antimatter was discovered erupting from the core of the Milky Way. Observations from the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory launched by NASA in 1991 made the observations since last November.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A5)
1997 Apr 29, Newspaper columnist Mike Royko died in Chicago at age 64.
(WSJ, 4/30/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/29/98)
1997 Apr 29, In Brazil a court injunction stopped the privatization of the Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, the huge state-owned mining company. Some 1,000 demonstrators protested the attempted privatization in downtown Rio de Janeiro.
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 29, In China at Rongjiawan in Hunan province a train crash killed at least 67 and injured 260 people.
(WSJ, 4/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 29, In Indonesia police broke up a demonstration and 5 activists were given 7-13 year prison terms on charges of subversion.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 29, The UN ban on chemical weapons went into effect. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was formed this year to enforce the Chemical Weapons convention.
(http://tinyurl.com/owskts7)(AP, 4/29/98)
1997 Apr 30, ABC aired the "coming out" of the title character in the sitcom "Ellen," played by Ellen DeGeneres.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, President Clinton reopened the newly renovated Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, The US Senate approved the nomination of Alexis Herman to be labor secretary.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, The US GAO announced that problem disbursements from May 1996 amounted to some $43 billion. Checks were cut without bookkeeping entries showing authorization.
(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A9)
1997 Apr 30, Sarah Patterson (11) was sexually assaulted and murdered with her throat slit near Fort Worth, Texas. Her brother was beaten, but survived and later testified against Bobby Wayne Woods. Woods (44) was executed on Dec 3, 2009.
(SFC, 12/4/09, p.A18)(www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/08/jan08.htm)
1997 Apr 30, A huge blast killed 22 Albanians in the village of Selize. They were stripping the bronze casings of mortar shells stored in a cave.
(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A13)
1997 Apr, The US Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act went into effect and began creating border crossing problems for Canadian business travelers.
(WSJ, 6/4/98, p.A13)
1997 Apr, In New Orleans a toddler died in a hot van while his baby sitter played video poker for hours in a cafe.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr, In Australia Pauline Hanson published her book "Pauline Hanson: The Truth." In it she warned that Australia’s president in 2050 will be "Poona Li Hung," a "lesbian of Indian and Chinese background...a part machine...produced by a joint Korean-Indian-Chinese research team."
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.E3)
1997 Apr, In Brazil 2 MST farmers (Landless Rural Worker’s Movement) were killed while tending fields on the property of the 442,000 acre Giacometti lumber company. The next day the government announced that the lumber company would turn over 38,000 acres to 6,000 families. The richest 20% of the people own 88% of the land. The poorest 40% hold only 1% of the land.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr, In Canada the Toronto Stock Exchange closed in favor of automated trading.
(WSJ, 9/15/97, p.B1)
1997 Apr, In Colombia some 10,000 inhabitants fled paramilitary violence in Riosucio.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A10)
1997 Apr, In Hong Kong shops sold out of the Tamagochi cyber pet in ten minutes on the first day of sale.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.D2)
1997 Apr, In San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Santos Padilla and his four brothers kidnapped 25-year-old Ricardo Maduro Andreu as he left his home. The kidnappers opened fire on a vehicle carrying Maduro Andreu and his bodyguard, Henry Rivas. Rivas was killed and the gang grabbed a wounded Maduro Andreu, whose lifeless body was discovered a short time later. Maduro Andreu's father, Ricardo Maduro, was elected president of Honduras in 2002. Three of the Padilla brothers were killed in May 1998 during a shootout with police in Tegucigalpa. The fourth died a year later in another gunbattle with authorities.
(AP, 6/7/06)
1997 Apr, Japan raised its national consumption tax from 3% to 5%. It was later seen as a move that wrecked economic confidence and sparked the beginning of a recession.
(WSJ, 8/13/98, p.A14)(Econ, 7/22/06, p.67)
1997 Apr, In Northern Ireland police officer Alice Collins of the Protestant-dominated Royal Ulster Constabulary was shot in the back by an IRA gunman.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr, In South Africa Eugene Terre'Blanche was convicted of attempted murder and assault in 1996 incidents. He led the radical wing of the Afrikaner nationalists that set off bombs in 1994 that killed 21. In 1997 he was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr, The Taiwanese drama film “The River" was shown at the SF Film Festival.
(SFC, 4/23/97, p.D3)
1997 Apr, In Taiwan Pai Hsiao-yen, the daughter of TV star Pai Ping-ping, was kidnapped and killed. A wave of crime in Taiwan led to mass demonstrations in July. Chen Chin-hsing was sought in this case and for the killing a plastic surgeon and 2 nurses. His wife and brother-in-law were arrested in the case.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, Par p.9)(SFC,11/19/97, p.C3)
1997 Apr – 1997 Sep, In Cuba terrorist bombings during this period were carried out by a ring of Salvadoran car thieves hired by Cuban exiles in Miami for $15,000. The money was raised by Luis Posada Carriles. Posada at first acknowledged and then denied a role in the attacks.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A14)(SFC, 5/18/05, p.A9)
1997 Apr – 1997 Nov, In Nepal an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis has claimed at least one hundred lives over this period. The flu-like disease is an inflammation of the brain and is spread by mosquitoes.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.T14)
1997 May 1, The TV show Ellen captured 42 million viewers to hear the Ellen character, played by Ellen DeGeneres, announce that she was a lesbian.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.C1)
1997 May 1, John and Patsy Ramsey, the Colorado parents of slain child beauty queen JonBenet, declared their innocence, and asked for the public's help in finding her killer.
(AP, 5/1/98)
1997 May 1, In Oakland, Ca., an armored car flipped in an accident and released some 27 bags of money claimed to be substantially less than $500,000. People in the vicinity grabbed much of the cash though some 20% was returned within 2 days. A total of $106,000 was recovered and $445,000 was still missing when an amnesty for returning cash ended on May 5.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A1)
1997 May 1, In Colorado Ron Cole was arrested by the FBI at the Aurora House of Pancakes on charges of possession of illegal firearms and bomb materials.
(Wired, 2/99, p.93)
1997 May 1, Virtual Pets began to be marketed by Tiger Electronics and Bandai Ltd. of Japan. The egg-sized gadgets played out the lives of various animals on a liquid crystal display.
(WSJ, 5/2/97, p.B1)
1997 May 1, An Int’l. committee agreed to create 7 new (WWW) World Wide Web domains. The new suffixes would be: .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info and .nom for individuals.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A1)
1997 May 1, In Belarus the government imposed a $3 million tax fine on the Soros Foundation for alleged currency exchange violations. Soros called it a blatant attempt to suppress the independent sector.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A16)
1997 May 1, Under the leadership of Tony Blair Britain’s Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition, and won the general election with a landslide victory, winning 418 seats, the most seats the party has ever held.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1997)
1997 May 1, Romania apologized for deporting tens of thousands of ethnic Germans to labor camps during Communist rule or "selling" them by demanding cash from the Bonn government for emigration permits.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A17)
1997 May 2, President Clinton and congressional Republicans came to terms on a plan to balance the budget over five years.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/2/98)
1997 May 2, A new national memorial honoring Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt was officially opened in Washington, D.C., and was dedicated by Pres. Clinton.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/2/98)
1997 May 2, In Texas Robert Scheidt surrendered to police and left behind 7 people of the Republic of Texas under the leadership of Richard McLaren. The number of separatists was reduced to 7 from an earlier estimate of 13.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)
1997 May 2, In Bulgaria the average salary was reported as $30 a month and the average pension $4 a month.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A18)
1997 May 2, Tony Blair, whose new Labor Party crushed John Major's long-reigning Conservatives, became at age 44 Britain's youngest prime minister in 185 years.
(AP, 5/2/98)
1997 May 2, In Zaire the Tenke Mining Corp. of Vancouver, Canada, signed a $250 million contract with the rebels to develop copper and cobalt deposits.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A10)
1997 May 3, California state prepared to file charges against the Bank of America for mismanaging tens of billions of dollars of municipal bond funds.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A1)
1997 May 3, The Kentucky Derby was won by Silver Charm ridden by Gary Stevens.
(WSJ, 5/5/97, p.A16)
1997 May 3, The standoff in Texas with the Republic of Texas ended. Two militia members fled into the Davis mountains while 5 surrendered peacefully.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.A1)
1997 May 3, Narciso Yepes, Spanish classical guitarist, died at age 69. His interpretation of Rodrigo’s "Concert of Aranjuez" was one of his greatest achievements. He designed a 10-string guitar suited to Baroque music.
(SFC, 5/5/97, p.A20)
1997 May 4, IBM's Deep Blue computer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, evening their six-game series at one game apiece.
(AP, 5/4/98)
1997 May 4, Pope John Paul beatified the first Gypsy Jimenez Malla, killed by Republican forces in the 1936 Spanish Civil War. Also beatified were Florentino Asensio Barroso, bishop of Barbastro, Spain, where Malla died; Enrico Rebuschini, a northern Italian priest who died in 1938; and Maria Encarnacion Rosal, a 19th century Guatemalan nun.
(SFC, 5/5/97, p.A8)(AP, 5/4/98)
1997 May 4, In Zaire more than 100 [91] Rwandan refugees died on an overcrowded train after rebel troops packed them aboard for delivery to an airstrip for flights to Rwanda. Peace talks onboard the South African naval vessel Outeniqua between Pres. Mobutu and Laurent Kabila failed to produce anticipated results.
(WSJ, 5/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/6/97, p.A10)
1997 May 5, President Clinton arrived in Mexico for his first Latin American trip while in office.
(AP, 5/5/98)
1997 May 5, A jury in Jacksonville, Fla., found R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. was not responsible for the death of lifelong smoker Jean Connor.
(AP, 5/5/98)
1997 May 5, American Airlines' pilots ratified a contract, ending nearly three years of negotiations.
(AP, 5/5/98)
1997 May 5, Police in Texas killed, Michael Matson, one of the escaped secessionists. [He was reported on TV to have fired on a police helicopter and police dogs. Richard Keyes was still being sought.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A3)
1997 May 5, In Cuba farmers in Loma del Gato founded a work cooperative named Transicion and announced that they would no longer do business with the government. The government responded with harassing tactics.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A10)
1997 May 5, In Palestine Arafat’s justice minister said he would impose the death penalty on Palestinians who sell land to Israelis to prevent Israel’s expansion.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A1)
1997 May 5, In Peru the 24 miners who dug tunnels for the commandos in Lima had still not returned home and their families feared for their lives. Two men were killed or injured in the digging operation.
(SFC, 5/6/97, p.A12)
1997 May 5, In Poland 12 people were killed in a train crash in Reptowo.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Poland_disasters_by_death_toll)
1997 May 5, In Zaire the rebels nationalized the Sizarail rail system, a consortium that belonged to South African, Belgian and Zairean interests.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A18)
1997 May 6, The New York Drama Critics’ Circle picked "How I Learned to Drive" as the best play for the ‘96-’97 season. "Violet" was selected as the best musical, and "Skylight" by David Hare was the best foreign play.
(SFC, 5/8/97, p.A20)
1997 May 6, World chess champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue computer played to a draw in game three of their six-game match.
(AP, 5/6/98)
1997 May 6, Pres. Clinton made a state visit to Mexico and spent some time meeting with the leaders of Mexico’s main opposition parties. Clinton and Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo pledged closer cooperation on immigration and drug smuggling.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.c3)(AP, 5/6/98)
1997 May 6, Sergeant Delmar Simpson received a 25 year sentence for raping 6 female trainees at the Aberdeen (Md.) Proving Ground Army base.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/6/98)
1997 May 6, A car bomb in Algiers killed 4 students and injured 25 people.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C3)
1997 May 6, British PM Tony Blair, on the first full working day of the new Labor government, gave the Bank of England the right to set interest rates. Labor had won power pledging that it would by the party of welfare reform. The party had campaigned on the anthem “Things can only get better." In October the Bank of England lost its supervisory powers over banks to the new Financial Services Authority.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.63)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.52)(Econ, 6/14/08, p.70)(Econ, 5/1/10, p.27)
1997 May 6, It was reported that Syrian missiles were tipped with VX, a lethal chemical that kills on contact with the skin. The Syrian chemical weapons program was assisted by Anatoly Kuntsevich, former head of the Russian Army’s Chemical Troops. The existing stockpile of Sarin, the nerve gas used by the terrorists in Tokyo, was hoped to be upgraded to VX.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A22)
1997 May 6, In Zaire Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko left Zaire for a 3-day visit to Gabon. He was not expected to return.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)
1997 May 7, This date was established as the cut off day for sales and exchanges in a planned US capital gains tax cut.
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.C1)
1997 May 7, The US Army accused its top enlisted man, Army Sgt. Maj. Gene McKinney, of sexual misconduct. At his court-martial, McKinney was acquitted of sexual misconduct, but found guilty of obstruction of justice.
(AP, 5/7/98)
1997 May 7, Chrysler Corp. and United Auto Workers agreed to a new contract, ending a damaging 28-day engine-plant strike.
(AP, 5/7/98)
1997 May 7, Brazil’s state mining Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), incorporated in 1942, was privatized. In 2006 it acquired Inco, a Canadian nickel producer, and became the world’s 2nd largest mining company.
(Econ, 4/14/07, SR p.9)(http://tinyurl.com/2ay9h5)
1997 May 7, Chadrel Rinpoche, a senior Tibetan monk, was sentenced to 6 years in prison for plotting to split China and leaking state secrets. He led the Beijing approved search for the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama and was suspected to have leaked the information to the Dalai Lama.
(SFC, 5/8/97, p.C3)
1997 May 8, President Clinton assured Central American leaders during a summit in Costa Rica that they need not fear mass deportations of immigrants who had sought refuge in the United States during U.S.-backed conflicts.
(AP, 5/8/98)
1997 May 8, After months of railing against US Democrats for taking foreign money, the Republican Party announced it had returned $122,400 in contributions from a Hong Kong company.
(AP, 5/8/98)
1997 May 8, In Washington DC Jacqueline Thompson (32) gave birth to sextuplets. One was stillborn. No fertility drugs were used but both she and her husband Linden had a family history of multiple births.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.A7)
1997 May 8, In Japan a law was passed to preserve the culture of the aboriginal Ainu people who have inhabited northern Japan since prehistoric times.
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.E3)
1997 May 8, In Zaire rebels were meeting increased resistance from French mercenaries and Angolan UNITA forces. A shortage of cash was also hindering their advance on Kinshasa.
(WSJ, 5/9/97, p.A1)
1997 May 9, During a visit to a rain forest in Costa Rica, President Clinton urged nations not to sacrifice their environment in pursuit of economic gain.
(AP, 5/9/98)
1997 May 9, HUD announced a suit against A. Bruce Rozet, a prominent SF property owner, for kickbacks on inflated management fees. Rozet and partner Deane Earl Ross had holdings that included 21,851 housing units that received annual federal subsidies of $71.6 million.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A3)
1997 May 9, The California state Environmental protection Agency issued a report that linked lung cancer to diesel exhaust fumes.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A17)
1997 May 9, A pesticide plant burned after an explosion in West Helena, Ark. The chemical Azinphosmethyl was not supposed to have exploded unless it was heated and decomposed. A levee was built to keep poison-laden rainwater from entering the Mississippi River. Three firefighters were killed.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1997 May 9, Australian scientists reported in the journal Radiation Research that prolonged exposure of cellular phone radiation in the 900 megahertz range increased the risk of lymphoma cancer in mice.
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.A1,11)
1997 May 9, In Hong Kong a 3-year-old boy became ill with the flu. He died May 21 and the flu was identified as subtype H5N1, a bird flu.
(SFC, 2/26/01, p.A9)
1997 May 9, In Italy 8 Venetian separatists took over the bell tower at St. Mark’s Square. They were overpowered by police after 7 1/2 hours.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A10)
1997 May 9, Marco Ferreri (b.1928), Italian film director, died. His work included "The Wheelchair" (El Cochecit 1960), "Le Lit Conjugal" (The Conjugal Bed 1963), "Dillinger Is Dead" (1969), "La Grande Bouffe" (1973), "La Derniere Femme" (1976), and "Bye Bye Monkey’ (1978).
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A20)
1997 May 9, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin approved a new security doctrine that stipulated that right to use nuclear weapons if it was attacked.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A12)
1997 May 10, President Clinton signed modest drug-fighting and trade agreements with Caribbean leaders in Barbados.
(AP, 5/10/98)
1997 May 10, Physicists at UC Berkeley first listened to the sound from superfluid helium atoms oscillating between overlapping quantum states.
(SFC, 7/31/97, p.A2)
1997 May 10, From Bolivia it was reported that more than one-fifth of the population was infected with Chagas disease. The ailment is transmitted by triatomine insects that carry the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite. T. Cruzi can enter the bloodstream through scratched skin and causes nerve damage and swelling of the heart and colon that can lead to death after years of infection.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A10)
1997 May 10, In Britain Jennifer Murray and co-pilot Quentin smith began a round-the-world helicopter trip in an effort to become the first woman to pilot the globe in a helicopter. She completed her flight on Aug 15.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A11)
1997 May 10, A 7.1 earthquake hit in northeastern Iraq centered on the town of Qaen. More than 2,400 people were reported killed. The death toll was reduced to 1,560 with 60,000 left homeless.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/12/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/14/97, p.A10)
1997 May 10, It was reported that Iceland would resume whaling. Whaling had stopped there in 1989.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1997 May 10, Lebanese of all faiths welcomed Pope John Paul II on his first visit to their country.
(AP, 5/10/98)
1997 May 10, From Niger it was reported that recent sandstorms caused the death of some 36 people when the driver of a truck lost his way.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1997 May 10, In Zaire Pres. Mobutu returned to Kinshasa from Gabon.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.A7)
1997 May 11, The IBM Deep Blue computer defeated Garry Kasparov in the 6th and deciding chess match in 19 moves that took just 88 minutes in New York.
(SFC, 5/12/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/11/98)
1997 May 11, In South Africa some 8,000 people filed for amnesty to meet the deadline of the commission for the investigation of apartheid-era crimes.
(WSJ, 5/12/97, p.A1)
1997 May 12, At the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh, star prosecution witness Michael Fortier testified that McVeigh had been bent on triggering a "general uprising in America."
(AP, 5/12/98)
1997 May 12, Susie Maroney, Australian swimmer, became the first woman to swim the 105 mile swim from Cuba to Key West, Fla., in 24 hours and 31 min. AP says 118-mile distance in 24 1/2 hours.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/12/98)
1997 May 12, Russia and Chechnya signed a peace treaty. The treaty refers to Chechnya as the "Chechen Republic of Ichkeria," and says that it is subject to international law.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A12)
1997 May 13, At the Oklahoma City bombing trial, prosecutors showed jurors the key to the Ryder truck used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, alleging Timothy McVeigh left it behind in the same alley he picked to stash his getaway car.
(AP, 5/13/98)
1997 May 13, Baseball's Exec Council suspended NY Yankee owner George Steinbrenner.
(http://tinyurl.com/bjbgt)
1997 May 13, In Burundi an outbreak of Typhus was reported. Some 20,000 cases in 3 northwest provinces were reported by March, mostly in Hutu regroupment camps set up by the Tutsi-led military.
(WSJ, 5/13/97, p.A1)
1997 May 13, In the Congo rebel troops reached Wendji and Mbandaka and proceeded to kill Hutu refugees. Estimates of deaths varied from 550-2000.
(WSJ, 6/6/97, p.A11)(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A11)
1997 May 13, From Ethiopia it was reported that 6 teenage girls had committed suicide over the last 9 months in order to avoid traditional marriages to elderly cousins as old as 80.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A13)
1997 May 13, The pension crises in Poland was described. One-fifth of the GDP was being used for pensions and the state social security office, ZUS, was feared to be facing bankruptcy without quick reforms.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A13)
1997 May 14, Jurors at the Timothy McVeigh trial in Denver saw chilling black-and-white surveillance pictures of a Ryder truck moving toward the Oklahoma City federal building minutes before a bomb blew the place apart.
(AP, 5/14/98)
1997 May 14, Negotiators agreed on a pact to create a Russia-NATO advisory council. NATO agreed not to base nuclear weapons or substantial combat forces in countries that were recently under Moscow’s control.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A1)
1997 May 14, There was an explosion at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Wash. state. Plutonium and other hazardous chemicals were released and emergency response procedures broke down almost completely.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A8)
1997 May 14, Margaret Lesher (64), inheritor of the Lesher media empire, was reported missing by her new husband, T.C. Thorstenson (39), at Bartlett Lake near Phoenix. She was found drowned.
(SFEM, 9/14/97, p.12,33)
1997 May 14, Harry Blackstone Jr. (62), magician, died of cancer.
(http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Harry_Blackstone_Jr.)
1997 May 14, In Vietnam the Supreme People’s Court sentenced 8 state police officials to death after convicting them of drug smuggling.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A13)
1997 May 14, Princess Caradja-Kretzulesco (76), descendant of Prince Dracula, died. Prior to hear death Princess Kretzulesco stepped inside the second-hand book-shop of Ottomar Berbig in Berlin to look for rare books, and ever since the two because inseparable. On her deathbed the princess rewarded Ottomar Berbig’s various services with a title: Ottomar - Prince Kretzulesco.
(http://dpsinfo.com/dps/cnames.html)(www.cesnur.org/2002/dracula/01.htm)
1997 May 15, Attorney General Janet Reno requested the death penalty for Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski. However, under an arrangement in which he admitted his guilt, Kaczynski later agreed to be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
(AP, 5/15/02)
1997 May 15, In Louisiana Hayes Williams (49) was released after 30 years from the State Penitentiary at Angola after new evidence confirmed his innocence in the 1967 murder of a white service station owner. He had filed a lawsuit against the state (Williams vs. Governor John McKeithen) that led to a 25-year overhaul of Louisiana’s prison system along with federal oversight.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A3)
1997 May 15, Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on a mission to deliver urgently needed repair equipment and a fresh American astronaut to Russia's orbiting Mir station.
(AP, 5/15/98)
1997 May 15, It was reported that scientists at Cal Tech identified the source of mysterious gamma rays as coming from behind a large intergalactic cloud some 2 billion light-years from Earth.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A6)
1997 May 15, Amazon.com, an online book seller founded by Jeff Bezos, went public at $18 per share.
(https://ir.aboutamazon.com/faqs/default.aspx)(Econ, 6/21/14, p.26)
1997 May 15, In Algeria armed men massacred 30 villagers, 17 of them children, in Chebli, 15 miles south of the capital.
(SFC, 5/16/97, p.A8)
1997 cMay 15, In the Congo in mid May Kabila’s soldiers were reported to have killed as many as 275 people in Uvira on Lake Tanganyika.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 May 15, In Hungary the government approved the payment of $553.8 million to the Roman Catholic Church for assets lost under Communist rule. Negotiations on a concordat with the Vatican were in the final stages. Physical assets would be gradually returned through 2011.
(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A14)
1997 May 15, Pres. Fidel Ramos of the Philippines visited California and planned to announce a pact with Oracle Corp. to wire the country for long-distance phone service.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A21)
1997 May 15, Saadallah Wannous, Syrian playwright, died in Damascus. His plays included "A Night Party for July 5," "Rituals of Signs and Changes," "The King Is the King," and "The Rape," an adoption of a Spanish play that was banned.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A24)
1997 May 16, Pres. Clinton spoke an apology for the government’s Tuskegee syphilis study from 1932-1972, in which 399 black men were kept untreated by government scientists in order to study the progression of the disease.
(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/16/98)
1997 May 16, The space shuttle Atlantis docked with Russia's Mir station.
(AP, 5/16/98)
1997 May 16, It was reported that researchers have found the gene that controls the sleep/wake cycles in mammals.
(USAT, 5/16/97, p.1A)
1997 May 16, Some 2,500 barrels of oil leaked near a coastal marsh in Louisiana at lake Barre in Terrebonne Parish.
(SFC, 5/20/97, p.A3)
1997 May 16, In Croatia southwest of Zagreb mobs of Croat refugees rampaged through at least 4 Serbian villages during the week and forced dozens of Serbs to flee. A campaign was growing to drive out of the country some 100,000 Serbs who have remained since the end of the Balkan war and to block returning Serbs from re-settling.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A13)
1997 May 16, The new 60-story, Commerzbank in Frankfurt, Germany, by English architect Sir Norman Foster opened.
(WSJ, 5/14/97, p.B1)
1997 May 16, From Hong Kong Fei Long (Fat Dragon) was described as a local celebrity for his articles on prostitution on Portland St., the heart of the red-light district. His columns have been compiled as the "Fat Dragon Handbook."
(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A1)
1997 May 16, In Italy Giuseppe De Santis, film director, died at 80. His films included "Bitter Rice" (1949), "Obsession," "Tragic Hunt," "Under the Olive Tree," and "Rome 11 O’Clock."
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A24)
1997 May 16, In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko ended 32 years of autocratic rule, giving control of the country to rebel forces.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/16/98)
1997 May 17, Silver Charm won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. However, he failed to win the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 5/17/98)
1997 May 17, The first flight of NASA’s subscale remotely piloted X-36 Tailless Fighter Agility Research Aircraft took place.
(www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/Photo/X-36/index.html)
1997 May 17, Russia's Mir space station received a new oxygen generator and a fresh American astronaut, courtesy of space shuttle Atlantis.
(AP, 5/17/98)
1997 May 17, From Gabon it was reported that controlled logging in the tropical forests has led to savage territorial wars among the native chimpanzees. The population was estimated to have dropped from 50,000 to 30,000.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A4)
1997 May 17, In Zaire rebel forces entered Kinshasa and Laurent Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kabila requested Swiss authorities to block Mobuto Sese Seko’s access to his Swiss villa. The house was seized and searched and documents were found that related to his wealth. The seizure was declared legal Aug 7.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)(AP, 5/17/98)
1997 May 18, "King David" opened at New Amsterdam Theater in NYC.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1997 May 18, The 50th Cannes Film Festival awarded Golden Palms to Japanese director Shohei Imamura for "The Eel" and Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami for "The Taste of Cherry."
(AP, 5/18/98)
1997 May 18, President Clinton announced creation of a research center at the National Institutes of Health devoted to the goal of developing an AIDS vaccine within the next decade, but offered no new federal spending.
(WSJ, 5/19/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/18/98)
1997 May 18-1997 May 19, In Bangladesh a cyclone pounded the country and 50,000 people were evacuated from the flat coastal region. As many as 350 people were reported killed.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A13)(SFC, 5/20/97, p.A12)(SFC, 5/21/97, p.A8)(SFC, 5/22/97, p.A3)
1997 May 18, From London it was reported that new self-cooling cans would soon hit the soft-drink market. The cans would use HFC 134a as the coolant and scientist and environmentalists feared the impact on global warming. The coolant was developed to replace CFCs and there was no int’l. control on its use.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, p.A2)
1997 May 18, In Indonesia as elections approached thousands of anti-government partisans have crowded the streets of Jakarta to reflect their disillusionment in the government.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A13)
1997 May 18, In Mongolia Natsagiin Bagabandi of the (MPRP) People’s Revolutionary Party, the former Communist Party, won elections with 60% support.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A14)
1997 May 18, In Sri Lanka security forces claimed to have killed some 250 separatist Tamil Tigers and to have captured the northern town of Nedunkeni.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A14)
1997 May 18, In Tajikistan Rakhmonov’s neo-Communist government agreed to legalize major Islamist opposition parties. Pres. Rakhmonov signed with opposition leader Sayid Abdullo Nuri.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A14)(SSFC, 9/23/01, p.A12)
1997 May 18, In Turkey on the 5th day of a military offensive, the military reported 1,081 guerillas killed as 25-50 thousand Turkish troops crossed the Iraqi border to attack rebels of the Kurdistan workers Party (PKK).
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A14)
1997 May 19, An indictment was filed against NBC sportscaster Marv Albert for biting a woman in an Arlington, Va., hotel on Feb 12 as many as 15 times and forcing her to perform oral sex. At trial, Albert ended up pleading guilty to assault and battery; he served no jail time.
(AP, 5/19/07)(www.eonline.com/News/Court/0597.albert.html)
1997 May 19, The Univ. of Calif. at Berkeley created the first professorship dedicated to the study of how knowledge is created within businesses. Japanese scholar Ikujiro Nonaka was named as head of the post with a grant from Xerox and Fuji Xerox Co.
(SFC, 5/20/97, p.C2)
1997 May 19, In China’s Inner Mongolia a gas explosion in Wuhai city killed at least 28 miners.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.C16)
1997 May 20, Marine Corporal Clemente Banuelos shot and killed the goat herder Esequiel Hernandez on the Mexican border at El Paso while on border patrol. The marine claimed self-defense after Hernandez fired 2 shots from a .22-caliber rifle. A grand jury later declined to indict Banuelos. In 1998 the US government agreed to pay the family of Hernandez $1.9 million with no admission of wrongdoing.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A8)(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A4)
1997 May 20, In Venezuela it was reported that a plan was approved to allow the country’s 4,000 jaguars to be legally hunted. Proceeds of hunting licenses would be used to move remaining jaguars to protected areas.
(SFC, 5/20/97, p.A14)
1997 May 21, Prosecutors at the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh rested their case.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1997 May 21, The space shuttle Atlantis undocked from the Russian Mir space station.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1997 May 21, In Afghanistan faction leader Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, an ethnic-Uzbek, was up against mutineers in 6 of his 8 northern provinces.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C2)(SFC, 10/10/01, p.A3)
1997 May 21, In Bulgaria Ivan Kostov was elected the new premiere by the parliament. He planned reforms for the economy, cleanup of corruption, and gaining admission to the EU and NATO.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C3)
1997 May 21, In India an earthquake killed at least 27. Its epicenter was near Jabalpur City, about 400 miles southeast of New Delhi.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C4)
1997 May 21, In Mexico a half-ton of cocaine was stolen from a police station in Sonora. Seven government employees were later charged with the theft.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.A1)
1997 May 21, The UN approved an agreement for equitable use of waters that flow through more than one country. Only China and Turkey refused to sign the key UN convention on transnational rivers.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C2)(AP, 4/16/11)
1997 May 22, The US Postal Service released a Bugs Bunny commemorative stamp, the first animated character on a US stamp.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.A3)
1997 May 22, Kelly Flinn, the US Air Force's first female bomber pilot certified for combat, accepted a general discharge, thereby avoiding court-martial on charges of lying, adultery and disobeying an order.
(AP, 5/22/98)
1997 May 22, The defense began presenting its case in the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh.
(AP, 5/22/98)
1997 May 22, The Christian Coalition began a campaign for a proposed "religious liberty" constitutional amendment.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A5)
1997 May 22, In Algeria a car bomb killed 15 people in Boufarik south of the capital.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A18)
1997 May 22, In Italy the Grand Princess was launched at the Fincantieri Monfalcone shipyard. It was the world’s largest passenger cruise ship at 109,000 gross tons and was scheduled for interior completion in the spring of 1998.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1997 May 22, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin fired defense minister Gen’l. Igor Rodionov and Viktor Samsanov, head of the general staff, for lack of military reforms.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A1)
1997 May 23, The defense at the Oklahoma City bombing trial suffered an embarrassing setback when one of its own witnesses provided testimony damaging to defendant Timothy McVeigh.
(AP, 5/23/98)
1997 May 23, The US Senate decisively approved a carefully constructed deal to balance the budget and cut taxes.
(AP, 5/23/98)
1997 May 23, In Algiers 2 car bombs exploded and killed 7 people and wounded 12 in the town of Tlemcen.
(SFC, 5/24/97, p.C1)
1997 May 23, In Indonesia thousands rampaged the streets of Jakarta after a confrontation between the rival United Development Party and the ruling Golkar Party. A 5-day cooling off period was declared. On Borneo as many as 130 people died in a shopping complex fire set by rioters during a political clash.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A10)(SFC, 5/24/97, p.A8)
1997 May 23, In Iran presidential elections put conservative speaker Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri against left-leaning cleric Mohammad Khatami (54). Former Culture Minister Mohammad Khatemi won in a landslide over hard-liners in the ruling Muslim clergy.
(WSJ, 3/20/97, p.A12)(AP, 5/23/98)(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.1)
1997 May 23, Russia and Belarus signed a union charter for economic, military and political cooperation.
(SFC, 5/24/97, p.A8)
1997 May 23, From Russia it was reported that huge forest fires near Lake Baikal had consumed more than 400,000 acres of Siberian woodland and killed 20 people over the last 2 months.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A18)
1997 May 24, Amid indications that Monica Lewinsky was indiscreet, Pres. Clinton terminated their relationship.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A13)
1997 May 24, The space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth, bringing with it NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, who had spent four months aboard the Russian Mir space station.
(AP, 5/24/98)
1997 May 24, Edward Mulhare (74), Irish-born actor (Ghost & Mrs. Muir), died of lung cancer.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0611811/)
1997 May 24, In Afghanistan forces of the Taliban swept into Mazar-E-Sharif, the last opposition stronghold.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)
1997 May 24, In the Ukraine the first McDonald’s restaurant opened.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)
1997 May 25, Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., became the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, marking 41 years and 10 months of service.
(AP, 5/25/98)
1997 May 25, In Las Vegas Jeremy Strohmeyer (20) raped and killed 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in the Primadonna Casino. Strohmeyer’s friend, David Cash, saw the initial struggle, but failed to stop it. Cash was later plagued by fellow students in Berkeley for his non-action. Strohmeyer admitted his guilt in 1998 in exchange for life in prison. He was sentenced to life in prison in Oct, 1998.
(SFC, 8/26/98, p.A14)(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A17)(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A1)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A3)
1997 May 25, In the first round of parliamentary elections, French voters gave the leftist opposition the biggest share of votes in a surprising setback for President Jacques Chirac's conservatives. The Socialist Party and allies claimed 42.8% of the popular vote in elections.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A10)(AP, 5/25/98)
1997 May 25, Muhammad Fadhel, PM of Iraq (1953-54), died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1997 May 25, The Palestinian Center for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment issued a report that claimed the government lost $326 million to corruption and mismanagement last year.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A8)
1997 May 25, Poland adopted a new constitution to replace the 1952 communist-era charter. It was committed a market economy, private ownership, personal freedoms and civilian control of the military.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A10)
1997 May 25, In Sierra Leone rebellious soldiers seized power. Pres. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah fled to Guinea. Exiled rebel leader Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary Unite Front and held in a Nigerian jail, was invited by Major Johnny Paul Koroma to join a new government. Some 15 people were killed and 40 injured in the coup.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A8)(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A12)
1997 May 26, President Clinton left for Paris to sign a new agreement between NATO and Russia.
(AP, 5/26/98)
1997 May 26, In Ferryville, Wisconsin the 8th annual Weedstock Festival, a pro-marijuana event, had 3,500 people with 60 arrests.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A3)
1997 May 26, It was reported that the Hearst Corp. planned to develop some 400 of its 83,000 acres in the California San Simeon-Cambria coastline. It was opposed by environmentalists.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A13)
1997 May 26, France's deeply unpopular prime minister, Alain Juppe, announced he would resign, a day after the country's governing center-right coalition suffered major losses in first-round parliamentary elections.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/26/98)
1997 May 26, It was reported that Galway, Ireland, had become Europe’s fastest growing city with a rate of 12.3%.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A8)
1997 May 26, In Venezuela the jaguar hunting plan was dropped.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A16)
1997 May 26, In Yemen it was announced that 21 children died after being injected with insulin rather than inoculations against fatal diseases.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A16)
1997 May 27, Arie Luyendyk won the Indianapolis 500 for the second time.
(AP, 5/27/98)
1997 May 27, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, an essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, was first presented by the author at the Linux Kongress and was published as part of a book of the same name in 1999. It was based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar)
1997 May 27, The Supreme Court ruled that Paula Jones may pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against Pres. Clinton while he is in office. The suit was based on an incident in 1991 when Clinton was governor of Arkansas.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/27/98)
1997 May 27, Marv Albert, NBC sportscaster, was arrested on charges of sexual assault [see May 19].
(www.rotten.com/library/bio/sports/marv-albert/)
1997 May 27, A tornado hit Jarrell, Texas, and left 27 people dead. It cut a swath from Austin to Waco.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/27/07)
1997 May 27, In Paris, Russian President Boris Yeltsin joined 16 NATO leaders, including President Clinton, to sign a historic agreement giving Moscow a voice in NATO affairs. Boris Yeltsin joined Bill Clinton and the leaders of the 15 other NATO member states in signing the "Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation."
(AP, 5/27/98)(www.armscontrol.org/act/1997_05/jm)
1997 May 27, In Kobe, Japan, 11-year-old Jun Hase was beheaded by a killer who left the note: "So, this is the beginning of the game. I desperately want to see people die. Nothing makes me more excited than killing." [see Jun 28]
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.C2)
1997 May 27, In Mbabane, Swaziland, health authorities were shocked by chief Jameson Ndznatabantfu Maseko who banned the use of condoms on the basis of biblical law.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A12)
1997 May 28, President Clinton paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan with a speech in the Netherlands in which he urged today's leaders to revive economies in the former Soviet bloc.
(AP, 5/28/98)
1997 May 28, In Denver, Timothy McVeigh's attorneys rested their case in the Oklahoma City bombing trial.
(AP, 5/28/98)
1997 May 28, Kurt Adler (b.1905), therapist, writer, died.
(http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/kurt-90.htm)
1997 May 28, John Sengstacke (84), publisher of the Chicago Defender, died.
(http://tinyurl.com/cgwbf)
1997 May 28, The Taliban was forced out of Mazar-e-Sharif by Uzbek forces. Many Taliban fighters were killed as they were forced out of Mazar-e-Sharif. Rashid Dostum later was reported to have witnessed the graves of some 700 Taliban fighters and another 1,300 dead at other sites. Later reports put the Taliban dead at 2-3,000. Uzbek Gen. Malik Pahlawan killed some 1,250 Taliban by leaving them in closed container trucks in the desert sun.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A10)(SFC,11/18/97, p.B2)(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A16)(NW, 8/26/02, p.26)
1997 May 28, From Burundi it was reported that the Tutsi-led army killed more than 40 Hutu rebels that included Hutu students kicked out of Bujumburu Univ. in 1995.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A10)
1997 May 28, In Piraeus, Greece, Constantine Peratikos (42), ship-owner, was killed by armed men. His family owned the Aran Shipping and Trading Co. and Pegasus Ocean Services. The left-wing November 17 group were linked to the killing.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A12)(SFC, 7/5/02, p.A9)
1997 May 28, Francisca Cervantes (b.1879), the oldest lady in Mexico, died in Chiapas at age 118.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A26)
1997 May 29, In closing arguments, Timothy McVeigh's attorney urged jurors not to be swayed by sympathy for the Oklahoma City bombing victims, after a prosecutor delivered a wrenching summation that portrayed McVeigh as a terrorist who killed children in the warped belief he was a patriot.
(AP, 5/29/98)
1997 May 29, George Fenneman (77), announcer (You Bet Your Life), died.
(www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0762997.html)
1997 May 29, In Algeria armed men attacked a home in Djebabra and slit the throats of 6 men and 2 women.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A16)
1997 May 29, In Angola troops overran the northern part of the country held by the former Unita movement.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)
1997 May 29, In China authorities executed 8 Muslim separatists in Xinjiang.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.16)
1997 May 29, In Peru the congressional majority of Pres. Fujimori fired 3 constitutional court judges who had ruled against his bid for a 3rd consecutive term.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.D1)
1997 May 29, Spanish scientists announced a new human species in 780,000 year old fossil.
(www.anomalous-images.com/news/news049.html)
1997 May 30, Child molester Jesse K. Timmendequas was convicted in Trenton, N.J., of raping and strangling a 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka. The 1994 murder inspired "Megan's Law," requiring that communities be notified when sex offenders move in. Timmendequas was later sentenced to death.
(AP, 5/30/98)
1997 May 30, Jonathan Levin, 31-year-old Bronx high-school teacher, was killed by a former student, Corey Arthur (19). Arthur and Montoun Hart had withdrawn $800 withdrawn from an ATM on Mr. Levin’s card. In 1998 Arthur was sentenced 25 years to life.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A22)(SFC, 12/11/98, p.D6)(www.cnn.com/US/9810/20/levin.trial/)
1997 May 30, Canada's 8-mile long Confederation Bridge, connecting New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island, was scheduled to be opened. It cost C$1 billion.
(WSJ, 2/14/97, p.A1)(Econ, 11/29/03, p.34)
1997 May 30, The Swiss based World Fund for Nature said that the few thousand remaining tigers in the world were dying off at a rate of one per day.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A13)
1997 May 31, Rosie Will Monroe (77), aka Rosie the Riveter, died in Indiana. During WW II she worked as a riveter at the Willow Run Aircraft Factory in Ypsilanti, Michigan, building B-29 and B-24 bombers for the Air Force. She appeared in films and poster used by the U.S. government to encourage women to go to work in support of the war effort.
(www.yvonnesplace.net/news/rosemonroe.htm)
1997 May 31, Pope John Paul II began an 11-day tour of his native Poland, his seventh visit since assuming the papacy.
(AP, 5/31/98)
1997 May 31, It was reported that more than 60 monk seals were killed from eating fish that had ingested a toxic algae off of Mauritania’s Atlantic coast. It was estimated that only some 350 of the monk seals were left worldwide.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A17)
1997 May 31, From Argentina it was reported that high joblessness (17.3%) was causing riots in various provinces outside the capital. Neuquin, Jujuy, Salta and Santa Fe had all experienced riots.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A13)
1997 May 31, The 7-member ASEAN alliance, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, met in Kuala Lumpur and agreed to allow Burma to become a member in July. Laos and Cambodia were also to be admitted. The members were Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D3)
1997 May 31, From the Philippines it was reported that torrential rains from Tropical Storm Levi killed at least 53 people.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A17)
1997 May 31, Russia and the Ukraine signed a friendship treaty. Boris Yeltsin traveled to Kiev to sign the treaty.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A8)
1997 May 31, In Spain thousands of olive oil workers protested in Madrid against the EU plan to force a cut in olive oil production and to lower subsidies.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D1)
1997 May, In California the Berkeley Regional Exchange and Development (BREAD), an alternative, local currency and barter system, was begun.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, p.C1)
1997 May, The El Nino weather pattern was noticed to have begun earlier that usual. It was later reported that trade winds on the equator had turned around as a result.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A5)
1997 May, In Afghanistan many Taliban fighters were killed as they were forced out of Mazar-e-Sharif. Rashid Dostum later was reported to have witnessed the graves of some 700 Taliban fighters and another 1,300 dead at other sites.
(SFC,11/18/97, p.B2)
1997 May, In Australia the Cadbury Schweppes company launched Yowies. They were miniature plastic bush animals covered in chocolate with names such as Boof, Rumble and Ditty that quickly became the champion in pester power.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.B1)
1997 May, In Indonesia Ahmad Suradji was arrested following the discovery of a body in a field close to this house in Lubukpakan, a village in North Sumatra province. Forty-one other corpses were later found nearby. Suradji was later convicted of murder and executed in 2008.
(AP, 7/11/08)
1997 May, In Japan Shioro Takashima, head of the Japan Harbor Transportation Association and known as "The Emperor," died. He was succeeded by Mitsuo Masunaga.
(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A13)
1997 May, In Peru a military court sentenced 4 army officers to 8 years in prison for the torture of Leonor LaRosa.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)
1997 May, Michael Jackson, pop star, returned to Poland and signed a letter of intent to build a $500 million World of Childhood amusement park under the direction of US entrepreneur Jacques Tourel.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A18)
1997 May, In Sri Lanka the government army began its "Sure of Victory" campaign and moved to open the Kandy-Jaffna Road.
(SFC, 8/8/98, p.B1)
1997 May, In Sudan in the village of Marial Bai, raiders killed 23 people and stole livestock. 67 women and children were missing and believed to have been abducted.
(SFC, 7/31/97, p.A10)
1997 May, Turkish commando units took control of the Bikhayr mountains used by Kurdish rebels as an escape route into Syria.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A10)
1997 May-Jun, Some 2,300 Rwanda civilians, mostly refugees from the former Zaire, were killed in operations by the Tutsi-led army against Hutu rebels.
(WSJ, 8/8/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 1, The "General Hospital" soap opera spin-off "Port Charles" debuted as a movie on ABC, then joined the ABC daytime lineup the following day.
(www.answers.com/topic/port-charles)
1997 Jun 1, At the Tony Awards in New York "Titanic," "Chicago" and "A Doll’s House" won 15 of the 21 awards. "Titanic" won five Tony Awards, including best musical.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.D1)(AP, 6/1/98)
1997 Jun 1, The Chicago Tribune published a column by Mary Schmich which urged the graduating class of 1997, among other things, to "wear sunscreen." The tongue-in-cheek essay ended up being wrongly attributed to author Kurt Vonnegut on the Internet.
(AP, 6/1/07)
1997 Jun 1, Betty Shabazz (61), the widow of Malcolm X, was severely burned in a fire set by her grandson (12) in her Yonkers, N.Y., apartment. She died of the burn wounds on Jun 23.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A3)(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A15)(AP, 6/1/98)
1997 Jun 1, In Bolivia, the former right-wing gen’l. and president, Hugo Banzer won the popular vote in elections with 25% [22%] but failed to get a majority. Former Pres. Jaime Paz Zamora was 2nd with 17.5%. Congress will choose from among the 2 top contenders on Aug 4.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.A6)(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.A15)
1997 Jun 1, China banned leaded gasoline in 8 of 18 districts and counties.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A17)
1997 Jun 1, In France the Socialists won control of the government and party leader Lionel Jospin was expected to become prime minister. New conditions for creating the new European Union and new common currency were expected. Value added taxes on common purchases were expected to be slashed; plans to privatize France Telecom were expected to be abolished and the legal workweek was expected to be reduced to 35 hours without paycuts to provide more jobs.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.A1,9)
1997 Jun 2, Timothy McVeigh was convicted on 11 counts in the Apr 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh was executed in June 2001.
(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A1)(SFC,12/24/97, p.A4)(AP, 6/2/07)
1997 Jun 2, The NASDAQ Stock Exchange began trading in 1/16th-point increments.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.C1)
1997 Jun 2, A federal election on this date was called by Prime Minister Jean Chretien. He called for a mandate to decide Canada’s priorities now that the federal deficit was tamed. Voters returned Chretien and his centrist Liberal Party to power with a slight parliamentary majority.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.10)(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 2, Conservative President Jacques Chirac of France, forced to share power with Socialists who had routed his party in national elections, handed the premiership to former opposition leader Lionel Jospin.
(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A12)(AP, 6/2/98)
1997 Jun 2, Nigerian naval vessels opened fire on Sierra Leone. Ships, planes and troops went action against the rebels in Freetown.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.A8)(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 3, The United States banned most slaughtered-animal parts from livestock feed because of concerns over "mad cow disease."
(AP, 6/3/98)
1997 Jun 3, Harvey Johnson became the first black mayor of Jackson, Miss., the state capital. He took his oath of office on Jul 7.
(SFC, 6/4/97, p.A3)(SFC, 7/8/97, p.A4)
1997 Jun 3, The "Pillar of Shame," a sculpture symbolizing oppression by Jans Galschiot of Denmark was erected in Victoria Park, Honk Kong.
(SFC, 6/4/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 3, Reinforcements from a peace-keeping force in Liberia were sent in to help Nigerian troops against the insurrectionist troops of Sierra Leone. After a bloody coup, 1,200 foreigners fled Sierra Leone aboard an American warship.
(SFC, 6/4/97, p.A10)(AP, 6/3/98)
1997 Jun 4, At the Oklahoma City bombing trial, prosecutors urged the jury to sentence Timothy McVeigh to death, calling relatives of victims to testify about agonizing losses.
(AP, 6/4/98)
1997 Jun 4, In Lubbock, Texas, Michael Rosales, a parole violator, beat and used kitchen tools to kill Mary Felder (67) during a robbery at her apartment. Rosales (35) was executed on April 16, 2009.
(SFC, 4/16/09, p.A6)(www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/release.php?id=2917)
1997 Jun 4, The 53-nation Organization of African Unity unanimously condemned the coup in Sierra Leone. The 16-member Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African states pledged not to tolerate military coups on the continent a day after it approved the use of force to restore the government of Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.C3)
1997 Jun 4, Brazil’s Senate approved a constitutional revision to allow office-holders to run for re-election. this will allow Pres. Cardoso to seek a 2nd term.
(WSJ, 6/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 4, China signed a $660 million deal to develop an Iraqi oil field.
(WSJ, 6/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 4, In France PM Lionel Jospin appointed women to 6 of 16 ministerial positions.
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.C2)
1997 Jun 4, In Germany some 600,000 chemical union workers agreed to allow wage cuts by up to 10% by financially strapped companies. Record unemployment stood at 11% and the government asked unions for some flexibility.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E2)
1997 Jun 4, In Drammen, Norway, a car bomb destroyed the headquarters of the Bandido motorcycle gang. One passerby was killed and 4 people were injured.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.A26)
1997 Jun 5, Harold J. Nicholson, the highest-ranking CIA officer ever caught spying against his own country, was sentenced to 23 1/2 years in prison for selling defense secrets to Russia after the Cold War. Officials later claimed that he and his son continued to make contact with Russian operatives. In 2009 Nicholson and his son were arraigned on charges of money laundering and acting as agents of a foreign government.
(AP, 6/5/98)(WSJ, 1/30/08, p.A3)
1997 Jun 5, The cremated remains of some 2,000 people were found in a California Discovery Bay storage facility. They were stored by a flying service that was supposed to have disposed the remains at sea or over the Sierras for mortuaries.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.A23)
1997 Jun 5, Astronomers reported a miniplanet beyond Pluto that is about 300 miles across, with a surface area about the size of Texas. Jane Luu with colleagues discovered the object named 1996TL66. It was considered an extension of the Kuiper Belt, a body of objects that circle the sun from beyond Neptune.
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 5, The New York Stock Exchange voted to report stock prices in decimals rather than fractions.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 5, Reporter J. Anthony Lukas (64), winner of 2 Pulitzer prizes, committed suicide.
(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A19)(MC, 6/5/02)
1997 Jun 5, An accord was signed to protect the 620-mile Caribbean coral reef system by Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E3)
1997 Jun 5, In Algeria parliamentary elections were scheduled. In a 65% turnout pro-government forces took the largest share of votes. Two Islamist parties picked up 1/4th of the parliament seats. Monitors were not allowed to inspect some 5,000 portable voting booths.
(SFC, 5/16/97, p.A8)(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 5, China announced that diplomat Ma Yuzhen would be its top civilian representative in Hong Kong beginning July 1. Domestic affairs will be run by Hong Kong residents but foreign affairs will be under the central government.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E2)
1997 Jun 5, In the Republic of the Congo government troops began an attack on the residence of former leader Denis Sassou-Nguesso. He was able to flee and rally his forces for a counterattack.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 5, In Spain the parliament approved a labor reform pact to reduce the 22% unemployment.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E2)
1997 Jun 5, The Taiwan film “Mahjong" by Edward Yang was an Int’l. film festival award winner.
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.E3)
1997 Jun 5, In Turkey parliamentary elections were scheduled. In a 65% turnout pro-government forces took the largest share of votes. Two Islamist parties picked up 1/4th of the parliament seats.
(SFC, 5/16/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 6, Timothy McVeigh's lawyer pleaded with a jury to spare the life of the convicted Oklahoma City bomber, holding up his dress uniform and portraying him as a model soldier deeply disturbed by his government's role in the disaster at Waco, Texas.
(AP, 6/6/98)
1997 Jun 6, Eric Lyons and Eric Gullichsen went live with an automated web site that allowed people to register Web sites with the .to domain, the country-code letters of Tonga.
(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.B21E)
1997 Jun 7, Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Silver Charm failed to win horse racing's Triple Crown, losing the Belmont Stakes to Touch Gold.
(AP, 6/7/98)
1997 Jun 7, An 18-member US presidential commission approved a report saying that cloning a human being was "morally unacceptable," but adding that research using cells of humans and animals should be allowed.
(AP, 6/7/98)
1997 Jun 7, The last US Mail special delivery letter was sent. The service cost was $9.95. It was phased out and replaced by Express Mail for $10.75.
(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A6)
1997 Jun 7, In southern India dozens died and 90 were injured in a fire during a religious festival at Thanjavur.
(WSJ, 6/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 8, Jon Nakamatsu of San Jose, Ca., won the Van Cliburn Int’l. Piano Competition in Texas.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.D1)
1997 Jun 8, Reid Shelton (71), actor (Daddy Warbucks-Annie), died of stroke.
(http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&id=1800041047&cf=gen&intl=us)
1997 Jun 8, Prime Minister John Bruton was defeated in elections. Opposition leader Bertie Ahern of Fiana Fail, a populist Dubliner, was expected to be asked to form a new government. Fiana Fail was Ireland’s largest and traditionally most anti-British party.
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A10)(SFC, 4/11/98, p.A8)(AP, 6/8/98)
1997 Jun 8, In Nigeria Amos Tutuola, folk writer, died at age 77. Born in Abeokuta his novels included "The Palmwine Drinkard" and "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts."
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.C2)
1997 Jun 8, In the Republic of Congo a private militia of 5,000 loyal to former leader Denis Sassou-Nguesso fought to gain control of Brazzaville. Soldiers loyal to Pres. Pascal Lissoubax were arming the citizens and looting homes.
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 9, US Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston gave up his fight to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his candidacy doomed by the clamor over his admission that he'd had an adulterous affair years ago.
(AP, 6/9/98)
1997 Jun 9, BankAmerica Corp. announced that it would acquire the investment banking firm Robertson Stephens & Co. for $540 million in cash.
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 9, A California state commission decided to raise the salary of Gov. Wilson to $131,040. It would make him the highest paid governor in the nation.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 9, The 1898 British lease of Hong Kong's New Territories from China for 99 years expired.
(www.info.gov.hk/yearbook/2003/english/chapter21/21_03.html)
1997 Jun 9, In Chechnya Pres. Aslan Maskhadov dissolved secular courts and left only Islamic tribunals in charge of the legal system. Islamic banks were scheduled as well as a conversion from a Latin to Arabic letters.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 9, The Chinese film "The Opium War" premiered in Beijing.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.D4)
1997 Jun 9, Danish violinist Nikolai Znaider won the Queen Elizabeth int’l. music prize.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.D4)
1997 Jun 9, In Haiti Premier Rosny Smarth resigned over differences in the legislative voting of Apr 6 that many observers say was rigged. At stake was an int’l. austerity plan supported by Smarth and opposed by Aristide.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 9, In Lebanon five Japanese Red Army guerillas went on trial on charges of passport forgery and illegal entry. The light charges prevented their extradition to Japan.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 10, In California former Black Panther Geronimo Pratt was released on bail after 27 years behind bars on what he says were trumped-up murder charges. Authorities decided against retrying him.
(AP, 6/10/02)(www.cnn.com/US/9706/10/pratt.release/)
1997 Jun 10, Pope John Paul II bade farewell to his native Poland as he ended an 11-day pilgrimage.
(AP, 6/10/98)
1997 Jun 10, The US endorsed a $13 million loan to Croatia.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C2)
1997 Jun 10, From the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands it was reported that Gov. Froilan Tenorio and Rep. Heinz Hofschneider had proposed a Parental Choice Scholarship Program that would be implemented in the fall. Every student would get a $1500 scholarship for the school of their choice.
(WSJ, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 11, Pres. Clinton announced that the US would only support Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for NATO membership for now.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jun 11, The parents of Timothy McVeigh pleaded for their son's life during the penalty phase of the Oklahoma City bombing trial.
(AP, 6/11/98)
1997 Jun 11, In Cambodia Pol Pot ordered the killing of the former Khmer Rouge defense minister Son Sen (67) and his powerful wife, Yun Yat (63), and 9 relatives.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 11, The leaders of the militias ravaging Brazzaville, Congo, called for a cease-fire, but fighting continued unabated.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1997 Jun 11, In Nepal Prakash Chandra Lohani, the foreign minister, resigned and accused the ruling coalition of Communists of cheating in last month’s elections.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jun 11, From Russia it was reported the Pres. Yeltsin planned to remove Yevgeny Nazdratenko, governor of the far-eastern Primorsky region, due to extensive crime and corruption.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C3)
1997 Jun 11, In Sri Lanka a Tamil Tiger rebel raid claimed 300 soldiers dead vs. 50 guerrillas. The government said 97 soldiers were killed at Thandikulam and Nochchimoddai.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jun 12, Baseball began interleague play, ending a 126-year tradition of separating the major leagues until the World Series.
(AP, 6/12/98)
1997 Jun 12, A US administration accord adopted a UN payment schedule. The US would pay $819 million over 3 years conditioned on a UN cut in spending, job reduction, and a lowering of US costs from 25% to 20%.
(WSJ, 6/12/97, p.1)
1997 Jun 12, The Republicans removed riders and Clinton signed the emergency aid bill for the April Red River flood victims.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 12, Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for the Apr 19, 1995 bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 12, The US Treasury Dept. unveiled its new $50 bill. It was meant to be more counterfeit-resistant and to replace the old bill design in use since 1929.
(SFC, 6/13/97, p.B2)(AP, 6/12/98)
1997 Jun 12, A new computer, speech-recognition program by dragon Systems was touted. It used a 30,000 word vocabulary and cost $695.
(WSJ, 6/12/97, p.B1)
1997 Jun 12, It was reported that a gene may be responsible for advanced social skills in girls. The results were derived from a study of Turner’s syndrome, related an abnormal x chromosome.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A7)
1997 Jun 12, Mary Robinson, Pres. of Ireland, was named the top human rights official for the United Nations.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 13, The Chicago Bulls captured their fifth professional basketball championship in seven years with a 90-86 victory over the Utah Jazz in Game 6 of the NBA finals.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.B1)(AP, 6/13/98)
1997 Jun 13, A jury voted unanimously to give Timothy McVeigh the death penalty for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 6/13/98)
1997 Jun 13, In Bangladesh a ferry on the Dhanu River northeast of Dhaka capsized in a whirlpool and at least 50 people were drowned.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, p.D3)
1997 Jun 13, The leaders of France, Germany and Canada insisted that Romania and Slovenia be allowed to join NATO next month.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 13, In India a fire in a New Delhi theater killed 60 and injured over 200 people.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 13, Under pressure it was announced that Turkey’s PM Erbakan, leader of the Welfare Party, would turn his post over to Tansu Ciller, who would lead until elections Jun 18. Turkey’s first Islamist-led government was ejected after it began investigating links between the army and organized crime.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A12)(SFC, 11/26/98, p.B2)(Econ, 3/22/08, p.61)
1997 Jun 14, President Clinton opened a year-long campaign against racism with a commencement address at the University of California at San Diego, in which he defended affirmative action and pleaded with Americans to confront deeply held prejudices.
(AP, 6/14/98)
1997 Jun 14, A 1939 comic book featuring the first appearance by Batman was auctioned off for $68,500 at Sotheby's in New York City.
(AP, 6/14/98)
1997 Jun 14, In Hong Kong the provisional legislature voted to give police broad powers to ban even peaceful demonstrations and to outlaw foreign donations to political parties.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Jun 14, From Russia it was announced that there were over 9,000 organized crime groups employing some 100,000 people.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 14, In the Ukraine it was reported that flash flooding and an underground river caused a huge sinkhole in Dnepropetrovsk that swallowed houses, schools and a 9-story apartment.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 15, In Colombia FARQ released 70 soldiers held as prisoners. FARQ regional commander Gen’l. Manuel Jose Bonett read a communiqué that set preconditions for the start of peace talks to end 30 years of civil war.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun 15, In Croatia voting irregularities occurred as Franjo Tudjman led low-turnout elections with 59%.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 15, Israel's Supreme Court rejected an appeal to charge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with fraud in an influence-peddling scandal that had threatened to topple his government.
(AP, 6/15/98)
1997 Jun 15, Kim Casali, English cartoonist, died.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1997 Jun 16, The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed above 8,000 for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.I4)
1997 Jun 16, Intel introduced its Net PC.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 16, Motorola planned a new satellite system called Celestri to deliver data and video to int’l. organizations. This system would run in addition to the iridium project (66 satellites) and M-Star (72 satellites). It will compete with Teledesic, a 288-satellite plan, and an Alcatel-Loral venture called SkyBridge with 64 satellites. Service was planned to begin in 2002.
(WSJ, 6/17/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 16, In Algeria in post-election violence more than 50 people were slain in recent days. Blame was place on the Armed Islamic Group.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.D2)
1997 Jun 16, The British government broke off contacts it had just renewed with Sinn Fein after the Irish Republican Army killed two Protestant policemen in Lurgan, Northern Ireland.
(AP, 6/16/98)
1997 Jun 16, The IRA killed 2 police officers in Lurgan, a small town in County Armagh near Belfast.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 16, Israeli soldiers wounded 38 Palestinians in the 3rd day of protests at Hebron.
(WSJ, 6/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 16, In Japan Sue Sumii died at age 95 working on the 8th volume of her novel "The River With No Bridge." It was about the plight of the burakumin (the untouchables) of Japan. She published the first volume in 1958.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 17, Mir Aimal Kasi, suspected in the shooting deaths of two CIA employees outside agency headquarters in January 1993, was brought to Fairfax, Va., to face trial after being arrested in Pakistan. He was later convicted and sentenced to death.
(AP, 6/17/98)
1997 Jun 17, In Cambodia fighting broke out in Phnom Penh between the 2 competing prime ministers. Security troops of Prince Ranariddh faced troops of the national police under Hok Lundy, a supporter of Hun Sen.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 17, The Corsican National Liberation Front announced a truce in their 22-year bombing campaign. Negotiations with France were to follow.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 17, In Japan lawmakers rewrote the definition of death to allow life-saving transplants of body parts. Brain death rather than heart death would be the new criteria and would take effect in 3 months.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun 17, In Sierra Leone Major Johnny Paul Koroma was sworn in as head of state and pledged to work to restore democracy.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 18, The Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Co., protesting what the convention called "gay-friendly" policies.
(AP, 6/18/98)
1997 Jun 18, Sirhan Sirhan failed in his 10th bid for parole in the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
(AP, 6/17/98)
1997 Jun 18, Irineo Montoya, a Mexican laborer, was executed by the state of Texas for a 1985 killing despite protests by the Mexican government.
(AP, 6/17/98)
1997 Jun 18, In Cambodia Pol Pot surrendered with 15 followers.
(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 18, In China in Yunnan province 27 drug traffickers were executed.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A22)
1997 Jun 18, It was reported that Japan was paying 5 Caribbean nations extensive aid and investment in order to gain support to block protections for endangered species. Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Dominica were all reported to have been bribed.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 19, President Clinton welcomed world leaders to Denver on the eve of an economic summit.
(AP, 6/19/98)
1997 Jun 19, McDonald's won a libel case in London against two vegetarian activists, even though the judge said he agreed with some of the defendants' sharpest criticisms of the fast-food giant.
(AP, 6/19/98)
1997 Jun 19, In Michigan three teenagers from Highland Township and Davisburg hopped a train and got off in Flint. They ran into some strangers who shot, raped and robbed them. One boy (15) was killed. Six people were later arrested.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A2)
1997 Jun 19, In New Orleans 2 men, identified as the "Assault Poetry Unit," delivered unmarked boxes of manifestos, poems and innocuous objects to 14 prominent people. The targets feared for bombs and the 2 men were arrested for terrorizing.
(SFC, 8/18/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 19, In Algeria a bomb in an Algiers movie theater killed 2 and wounded 20.
(WSJ, 6/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 19, From Cambodia the report of Pol Pot’s surrender was rescinded.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 19, China executed 38 people. In Sichuan 24 died for drug dealing and 14 were executed in Beijing.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A22)
1997 Jun 19, In Russia the legislature gave a preliminary nod to a new tax code.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A20)
1997 Jun 19, In the Ukraine Pres. Kuchma removed prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko under pressure from Western donors who saw him as an opponent to free-market policies.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A22)
1997 Jun 19, In Zimbabwe delegates to the UN Convention on Int’l. Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) approved the applications by Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana to sell an annual quota of their collective 55 tons of ivory stockpile, but only to Japan. Trade in ivory was shut down in 1989 due to extensive poaching.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A20)(SFC, 4/18/00, p.A9)
1997 Jun 20, US tobacco negotiators announced a settlement that would require cigarette companies to pay $368.5 billion over the next 25 years to compensate states for smoking-related illnesses, to finance anti-smoking programs, and to underwrite health care for millions of uninsured children in exchange for major relief from mounting lawsuits and legal bills.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A1)(AP, 6/20/98)
1997 Jun 20, The summit of industrialized nations opened in Denver, with Russia taking its place as the new eighth partner.
(AP, 6/20/98)
1997 Jun 20, A jury in Trenton, N.J., ordered the death penalty for Jesse K. Timmendequas, whose rape and strangling of his 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka, led to the creation of "Megan's Laws" requiring that communities be notified of sex offenders in their midst.
(AP, 6/20/07)
1997 Jun 20, In Cambodia government sources announced that former Khmer Rouge troops had captured Pol Pot.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 20, In Mexico authorities announced the discovery of 53 properties, 36 bank accounts and 4 aliases for Raul Salinas.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 20, In Spain former prime minister Felipe Gonzalez quit as the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party. He was succeeded by Joaquin Almunia.
(WSJ, 6/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 20, In Turkey Pres. Demirel asked Mesut Yilmaz, leader of the Motherland Party, to form a new government.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 21, The WNBA made its debut as the New York Liberty defeated the Los Angeles Sparks 67-57.
(AP, 6/21/98)
1997 Jun 21, The G-7 Summit became the G-8 with the addition of Russia at its meeting in Denver. Moscow was admitted to the Paris Club of creditors. Summit leaders meeting in Denver wrestled with a list of global challenges.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 6/23/97, p.A1)(AP, 6/21/98)
1997 Jun 21, A terrorist bomb rocked Belfast. Three people were slightly injured and pro-British loyalist forces were suspected to be responsible.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D1)
1997 Jun 21, Palestinian riots spread to Nablus on the West Bank protesting Jewish settlements.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D3)
1997 Jun 21, From Thailand it was reported that operators of illegal logging ventures in northern Thailand were feeding their elephants amphetamine-laced bananas to speed up work before the rainy season. The practice began a few years ago and 10 animals have died of overwork and exhaustion.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 22, Dr. Nancy W. Dickey was named the first female president of the American Medical Association.
(AP, 6/22/98)
1997 Jun 22, It was reported that 34 million acres of forest are lost each year around the world due to cutting and burning.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D3)
1997 Jun 22, World leaders concluded a historic summit in Denver with Russia's full participation for the first time.
(AP, 6/22/98)
1997 Jun 22, Iran and Iraq opened their border after 17 years and asked the UN for an inspection post there, giving Iraq a 4th exit point for its goods.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 22, In Russia it was reported that the newspaper Top Secret published a story that exposed Valentin Kovalev, justice minister, cavorting with nude women in a sauna in a secret Sep 1995 video. The video was shot at the nightclub hangout of the Solntsevo crime gang in Sep. 1995. The video was acquired from the vault of banker Arkady Angelevich, arrested Apr 17 on suspicion of embezzlement.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)(SFC, 6/23/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 23, The San Francisco Food Bank, the largest distributor of food for the needy in the city, opened a new storage facility on Potrero Hill with cold storage capability.
(SFC, 6/23/97, p.A13)
1997 Jun 23, Three brand new Municipal Railway cars crashed in San Francisco. Three MUNI employees were injured.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A15)
1997 Jun 23, Kristen Modafferi (18) was last seen after she finished her shift at Spinelli’s coffeehouse at the Crocker Galleria in San Francisco. She had just moved to the Bay Area from Charlotte, N.C., lived in Oakland and worked in SF. In 2015 a cadaver dog picked up a scent of human remains at her former home near Lake Merritt in Oakland.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.D1,3)(SFC, 6/26/15, p.D2)
1997 Jun 23, Two freight trains collided in Texas near San Antonio and 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A2)
1997 Jun 23, Betty Shabazz (61), the widow of Malcolm X, died in New York of burn wounds inflicted by a fire set on Jun 1 by her 12-year-old grandson. Malcolm Shabazz pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months at a Massachusetts facility specializing in young arsonists.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A3)(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A15)(AP, 6/23/02)
1997 Jun 23, From Vietnam it was reported that worker strikes were increasing in factories controlled by foreign investors. The minimum wage in shoe factories that produce Adidas, Fila, Nike and All-Star shoes was about .20 cents an hour.
(SFC, 6/23/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 24, In Freehold, N.J., 18-year-old Melissa Drexler, who gave birth during her prom, was charged with murder in the death of her baby. In 1998 she was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a plea bargain with parole possible in less than 3 years. Drexler later pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, and served three years in prison.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A3)(AP, 6/24/07)
1997 Jun 24, The Air Force released a report on the so-called "Roswell Incident," suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.
1997 Jun 24, Actor Brian Keith (75) committed suicide in his Malibu, Calif., home.
(www.franksreelreviews.com/shorttakes/briankeith/briankeith.htm)
1997 Jun 24, A federal judge in Miami gave 40,000 Nicaraguans and other immigrants a 7-month reprieve from deportation.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 24, It was reported that a defective gene that makes leptin, a hormone that helps in the body’s weight-control system, caused obesity. A 2nd gene was also identified as a weight-control agent.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun 24, In Ireland David Trible of the main Protestant party said he would accept an Anglo-Irish recommendation to set up an int’l. commission to oversee the gradual disarmament of the IRA and pro-British paramilitary gangs as wider negotiations progress.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 24, In Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu survived a no-confidence vote in parliament through some last minute deals.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 24, At the UN Pres. Abdul Gayoom of the Republic of the Maldives said that the survival of the island nation was dependent on halting the process of global warming. The 42-member Alliance of Small Island States called on the industrial nations to cut emissions 20% from 1990 levels by the year 2010.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A2)
1997 Jun 25, It was reported that a man from Rio Vista, Ca., was doing a good business selling the moon’s real estate. Dennis Hope was charging $15.99 for 1,777 acres of lunar land plus tax and shipping.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A15)
1997 Jun 25, The US Supreme Court struck down the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It said Congress had intruded on the authority of local officials. The legislation had instructed government officials to bend the rules for persons whose actions are based on their religion.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A3)(AP, 6/25/98)
1997 Jun 25, An unmanned cargo vessel crashed in the Russian Mir space station during a docking practice knocking out half of the station's power and rupturing a pressurized laboratory. The area was sealed off and the situation was considered serious for the 3 astronauts onboard. Commander Vasily Tsibliev later faced a risky repair mission and complained of heart irregularities.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A1)(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A10)(AP, 6/25/98)
1997 Jun 25, An auction of Princess Diana’s 79 cocktail and evening dresses brought in $3.26 million.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 25, Oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau (b.1910) died in Paris. In 2009 Brad Matsen authored “Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King."
(AP, 6/25/98)(Econ, 10/31/09, p.97)
1997 Jun 25, In the Republic of the Congo the truce ended in a ferocious battle for the Brazzaville airport. Former president Nguesso appeared to have begun an assault on the airport.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A7)
1997 Jun 25, In Indonesia East Timor rebel leader, Alex, died of gunshot wounds in Dili. Rebels charged that he was only slightly wounded and died under interrogation.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 25, On the island of Montserrat the Soufriere Hills volcano spewed rock and hot ash and killed 9 people while 17 were reported missing.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11,12)
1997 Jun 26, The US Supreme Court struck down a congressional attempt to keep pornography off the Internet, saying it violated the First Amendment; the court also let stand the president's line-item veto authority without addressing its constitutionality.
(AP, 6/26/98)
1997 Jun 26, The US Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill Americans had no constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide, but did nothing to bar states from legalizing the process.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A1)(AP, 6/26/98)
1997 Jun 26, It was reported that there was a sharp decline of Antarctic krill, the basic food of many fish, whales and penguins. An explosion of tiny marine animals called salps that love warmer waters was also observed.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 26, In Albania gunmen fired at the presidential motorcade of Pres. Berisha, who was on a campaign rally. Three guards were wounded. Nearly 1500 people have been killed since March when protests over the failed pyramid schemes turned into armed rebellion.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 26, After years of rejection letters, British author J.K. Rowling finally published the first volume of the Harry Potter saga. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was the first of seven novels that spawned an empire comprising eight movies, a play, theme parks in the United States and Japan, a sightseeing tour in Scotland and a permanent exhibition at London's Warner Bros Studios.
(AFP, 6/25/17)
1997 Jun 26, In the Congo soldiers seized Etienne Tshisekedi after he gave a speech accusing the Kabila regime of establishing a new dictatorship.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 26, In Ireland Bertie Ahern became the prime minister and appointed Mary Harney, leader of the right-wing Progressive Democrats, as his assistant.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A3)
1997 Jun 26, Turkey announced the end of the 10-week Operation Hammer, its cross-border operation against the Kurds. The Turks reported to have lost 113 men and it was estimated that 3,000 guerrillas of the PKK were killed.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A13)
1997 Jun 27, The US announced agreements with Vietnam to expand ties.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 27, The US Supreme Court threw out a key part of the Brady gun-control law, saying the federal government could not make local police decide whether people are fit to buy handguns. However, the court left intact the five-day waiting period for gun purchases.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A1)(AP, 6/27/98)
1997 Jun 27, It was reported that researchers have discovered the first defective gene that causes Parkinson’s disease. The mutated gene produces a defective version of the brain protein alpha synuclein.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.B6)
1997 Jun 27, It was reported that some 42 dead seals were washed ashore at Point Reyes National Seashore in California in a ten day window in late May and early June. Cause of death was unknown but new deaths seemed to have stopped.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A24)
1997 Jun 27, China announced that it would send 4,000 troops into Hong Kong six hours after the former colony is handed over to Chinese control.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 27, In China a major fire at a petrochemical plant outside Beijing caused many deaths and injuries. News of the fire was restricted to maintain an official tone of celebration for the Hong Kong transfer.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A13)
1997 Jun 27, In the Congo Etienne Tshisekedi was released.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 27, In Russia an explosive device was set off on a train as it approached Torbino, 140 miles southeast of St. Petersburg, and 3 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 27, A Tajikistan formal peace accord was signed in Moscow that was brokered by Russia and Iran. A power sharing arrangement was foreseen between Pres. Emomali Rakhmanov and opposition leader Said Abdullo. The opposition led by the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT) was guaranteed 30% of government positions. Up to 150,000 people had been killed in the 5-year civil war.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A11)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.D2)(Econ, 11/11/06, p.50)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.42)
1997 Jun 28, In a wild rematch, Mike Tyson was disqualified in the 3rd round in the boxing heavyweight title for biting Evander Holyfield's ear in Las Vegas. Tyson complained of head buts by Holyfield. His $30 million purse was withheld pending a hearing. Tyson was suspended and his purse withheld pending a decision on his punishment. His Nevada state boxing license was taken away and he was fined $3 million. The state license could be re-applied for in a year.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.C1)(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.A1)(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A7)(AP, 6/28/98)
1997 Jun 28, President Clinton, unable to meet his own July 4 deadline for campaign finance reform, blamed the inaction on Congress in his weekly radio address.
(AP, 6/28/98)
1997 Jun 28, Robert Schuller, TV evangelist, attacked a flight attendant.
(www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/schuller/general.htm)
1967 Jun 28, The body of Che Guevara was found in a common grave in Vallegrande, Bolivia.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun 28, Japanese police announced the arrest of a 14-year-old boy for the murder and beheading of an 11-year-old on May 27. The 15-year-old boy was convicted and sentenced to a juvenile prison, where he would be treated for mental illness. He could be kept there until age 26. In 2015 the killer published a detailed memoir, which quickly became a bestseller.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.D1)(SFC,10/18/97, p.A11)(Econ, 8/1/15, p.37)
1997 Jun 29, William Hickey (68), acting teacher, actor (Prizzi's Honor), died of emphysema.
(www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0763413.html)
1997 Jun 29, In Albania the rival ex-Communists claimed to have beaten Pres. Berisha in the elections. Gunmen menaced voters, burned ballots and pressured polling officials, marring parliamentary elections meant to steer the country toward recovery after months of chaos. Socialist Party leader Fatos Nano claimed his leftist coalition had won 73 of 115 contested seats. Early returns on a referendum showed voters favoring the return of would-be-king Leka Zogu. Later results showed that the referendum was defeated by a 2:1 margin.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A1)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A10)(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A12)(AP, 6/29/98)
1997 Jun 29, In Iraq in the Asian Group 9 World Cup soccer qualifying competition the Iraqi team was beaten a 2nd time by Kazakstan. This inflamed Odai Hussein, son of Saddam and head of the Iraqi soccer federation. He had the team imprisoned and tortured. It was also reported that Odai had killed woman after an abortive attempt at having sex.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A13)
1997 Jun 30, In Hong Kong, the Union Jack was lowered for the last time over Government House as Britain prepared to hand the colony back to China after ruling it for 156 years. The 1st Battalion, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) became the last British unit to leave Hong Kong.
(AP, 6/30/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_British_Army#1990-present)
1997 Jun 30, North Korea agreed to hold talks with South Korea in NYC beginning Aug 5.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 30, This day marked the deadline on passage of a new law that withdraws recognition of non-Orthodox conversions performed in Israel. Orthodox parties threatened to withdraw from the government if the law was not passed.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D1)
1997 Jun, The Detroit Red Wings won the hockey Stanley Cup in 4 games against the Philadelphia Flyers.
(WSJ, 6/12/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun, Earth Summit Two met at the UN in New York.
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.A4)
1997 Jun, At a UN meeting Pres. Clinton announced an effort to install photovoltaic panels on 1 million rooftops in the US by 2010.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.B1)
1997 Jun, In California the Lake Tahoe Regional Planning Agency adopted a plan to ban jet skis, specifically 2-stroke engines that propel personal watercraft, effective in June 1999. The jet ski industry filed a suit against the ban in Oct.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.A18)
1997 Jun, Danny Pang (b.1966), a Taiwan born entrepreneur, was fired from a US venture capital firm for stealing $3 million from an escrow account. He later helped form the Private Equity Management Group (PEMGroup) in California to buy life insurance from the elderly collect money as they died. In 2007 the enterprise became engaged in a Ponzi scheme.
(WSJ, 4/15/09, p.A1)
1997 Jun, In Washington State voters narrowly approved a huge public subsidy for Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, for a new $425 million football stadium. Mr. Allen would pay 25% and the rest would come from taxpayers.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A22)
1997 Jun, In Albania Ali Uka, a journalist who criticized the Kosovo Liberation Army, was murdered. Uka was brutally disfigured with a bottle and a screwdriver. Hashim Thaci was his roommate at this time.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.50)
1997 Jun, In Brazil police strikes began in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais over low pay. Though the strikes were illegal they spread by July to 15 of Brazil’s 27 states.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun, In Canada the Supreme Court ruled that lap dancing violates standards of decency.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E5)
1997 Jun, In Chile storms killed at least 19 people and left 51,000 homeless.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun, Ding Lei founded NetEase, a Chinese Internet technology company providing online services centered on content, community, communications and commerce.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetEase)
1997 Jun, In El Salvador a Credi Club bank scandal involved the disappearance of $11 million in depositor’s savings.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A18)
1997 Jun, In Guatemala a feud erupted between neighboring Maya villages near Totonicapan and 10 people were massacred and 10 homes were burned down.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun, In Kenya the IMF froze $30 million in direct aid after the Moi administration dropped charges against a group of KANU businessmen accused of defrauding the state of about $500 million.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun, In Lesotho protestors in Maseru marched against the formation of a new ruling party by Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhehle.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.14A)
1997 Jun, Terms of the Baltnet Group, an Air Surveillance System for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, were established in Oslo, Norway.
(http://tinyurl.com/a6o2n)
1997 Jun, In Papua New Guinea elections the government of Sir Julius Chan was swept out of office.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1997 Jun, Papua New Guinea PM Bill Skate formed a shaky coalition government: “...if I tell my gang members to kill, they kill... there’s no other godfather. I’m the godfather..." He later claimed to be drunk using the described “Johnny Walker defense." Skate resigned in 1999 after serving 18 months as prime minister.
(WSJ, 4/14/98, p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Skate)
1997 Jun-Nov, In Kenya a cholera epidemic in Kisumu and other towns around Lake Victoria killed 200 people over this period due to contaminated drinking water. The disease peaked in January after some 3,000 deaths across East Africa.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.T14)(SFC, 1/22/98, p.E4)
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