Timeline 1997 July - September
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1997 Jul 1, Nevada Athletic Commission suspended Mike Tyson for biting Holyfield.
(www.lasvegassun.com/sports/boxing/htfight/)
1997 Jul 1, Film star Robert Mitchum died at 79 (b.1917) in Santa Barbara County, Calif.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/1/98)
1997 Jul 1, Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony. Britain relinquished Hong Kong as a colonial territory, and China became master. Many rights were guaranteed for 50 years under a Sino-British treaty. Tung Chee Hwa (b.1937) began serving as the first chief executive of Hong Kong.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tung_Chee-hwa)(WSJ, 11/14/94, p.A9)(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A9)(AP, 7/1/98)
1997 Jul 1, Two Israeli soldiers were injured by a pipe bomb and 15 Palestinians were wounded by rubber bullets in Hebron in disturbances after an Israeli women, Tatiana Susskin (25), distributed leaflets with the Prophet Mohammed depicted as a pig stomping on the Koran.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A8)(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 1, In the UK a new handgun law took effect as a result of the 1996 massacre at the school in Dunblane, Scotland.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.A13)
1997 Jul 1, In Russia the grave site of 9,000 victims in the Karelia Forest at Medvezhyegorsk was opened. In Oct-Nov, 1937, a 3-man panel under Stalin, the "Osobaya Troika," signed death sentences that were sent to thousands of gulags across Russia and led to the massacre. A monument was planned.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 1, Thailand let its currency, the baht, float and it devalued about 20%. This event marked the beginning of the Asian economic crises. In 1999 Thailand sought to extradite Rakesh Saxena, a currency trader, from Canada for his role in an alleged fraud that drained over $2 billion from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce, which led to the devaluation of the baht. Pin Chakkaphak was blamed for the collapse of the currency and fled Asia. He was ordered back from Britain in 2001 to face accounting and theft charges. In 2009 Saxena (57) arrived in Thailand after his extradition from Canada to face charges he embezzled $88 million from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce, which collapsed in 1995. Saxena was also implicated in backing the attempted 1997 coup in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.D4)(WSJ, 7/21/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.D1)(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A1)(SFC, 3/9/01, p.A16)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.80)(AP, 10/30/09)(Econ, 11/7/09, p.42)
1997 Jul 2, The US began a round of underground nuclear weapons-related tests in Nevada.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 2, A federal judge in New York ruled that the military policy, "don’t ask, don’t tell," is unconstitutional and only serves to cater to the biases of many heterosexuals.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 2, A Montana court voided a 24-year-old ban on homosexual sex, concluding that the government has no business meddling in the sexual activity of consenting adults.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 2, Two Union Pacific trains collided 5 miles north of Rossville, Kan., when an engineer overshot a siding a struck an oncoming train 6 cars behind the locomotive; the engineer died in the wreck.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 2, Severe thunder storms tore through Michigan’s lower peninsula and killed at least 7 people.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 2, Actor James Stewart (b.1908), died in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 89.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/2/98)
1997 Jul 2, US Aid to Honduras had dropped this year to $28 million from a high of $229 million in 1985. The country had the highest AIDS rate in Central America.
(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 2, In Japan the Panamanian registered Diamond Grace oil tanker ran aground in Tokyo Bay and spilled nearly 2 million gallons of oil. The amount spilled was revised to 390,000 gallons.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A9)(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 2, A Canadian commission, established to review the actions of peace-keeping troops in Somalia between 1992-93, concluded that the troops were unprepared and victimized by commanders who ignored problems that escalated to torture and the killing of a Somali teenager.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Jul 2, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin fired justice minister Valentin Kovalyov due to the sex scandal of Jun 22.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.C3)
1997 Jul 3, In his first formal response to Paula Jones' charges of sexual harassment, President Clinton denied all allegations in her lawsuit and asked a judge to dismiss the case.
(AP, 7/3/02)
1997 Jul 3, Mississippi became the 1st state to settle its tobacco suit, less than one week before the 1st scheduled trial.
(http://tinyurl.com/amlhg)
1997 Jul 3, Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation's biggest defense contractor, announced its purchase of Northrop Grumman Corp. for $11.2 billion [$7.9 billion]. However, the merger fell apart over antitrust concerns.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/02)
1997 Jul 3, The Rainbow Family, founded in 1971, began their 25th gathering in Ochoco National Forest in Oregon. 20-30,000 were expected to participate.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 3, Daisy Mascada (18) cut off the penis of Julio Luna with a 10-inch knife in Seaside, Ca. She was sentenced to 7 years in prison and later pleaded that she had been kidnapped, battered and abused.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A22)
1997 Jul 3, Blues guitarist Johnny Copeland (b.1937), the "Texas Twister," died. His 1985 "Showdown" album with Albert Collins (d.1993) and Robert Cray won a Grammy for best traditional blues recording.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.C3)
1997 Jul 3, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (Lionsgate) was formed in Vancouver, BC. Its headquarters were later moved to Santa Monica, Ca.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_Gate_Entertainment)(Econ, 1/25/14, p.57)
1997 Jul 4, Ritt Goldstein, a businessman from Danbury, Conn., arrived in Sweden and sought political asylum. He claimed to be persecuted in the US for his crusade for civilian oversight of the police.
(SFC, 10/14/98, p.A10)
1997 Jul 4, Bikers returned to Hollister, Ca., for a 50-year anniversary and began an annual motorcycle tradition. [see Jul 4, 1947]
(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A18)
1997 Jul 4, The Mars Pathfinder landed and began to broadcast pictures of the red rocky landscape. The landing site was later named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 4, TV journalist and "On the Road" reporter Charles Kuralt (b.1934) died at 62 from lupus. His mistress of 29 years later sought to inherit his 90 acre Montana fishing retreat.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A5)(SFC, 2/18/00, p.A2)
1997 Jul 4, It was reported that Australia had sold 167 tons of gold over the last 6 months in order to put the money into more productive assets.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.C1)
1997 Jul 4, In Cambodia troops of prince Ranariddh laid down their arms and some 140 were taken prisoner by troops of 2nd Prime Minister Hun Sen. Ranariddh was on a trip to France and Hun Sen claimed that illegal negotiations were taking place with Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 4, In Guatemala Pres. Alvaro Arzu fired 2 top military officials, after they had helped negotiate a peace treaty. They were known as moderates and the hard-liner Gen’l. Hector Barrios took over as the new defense chief.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 4, The Hong Kong Philharmonic premiered of the "Symphony 1997 (Heaven Earth Mankind)" by the composer Tan Dun. The piece was commissioned by China to mark the reunification of Hong Kong and China.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 4, In Mexico it was reported that Amado Carillo Fuentes (41), Mexico’s reputed top drug trafficker, died following extensive plastic surgery. His operations were centered in Juarez, across the border from El Paso. He was called "Lord of the Skies" for using passenger jets to bring in cocaine from Colombia. It was later reported that his death was an inside job arranged because a massive manhunt for him had become a liability to his cartel’s business.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.B4)(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A10)(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A9)
1997 Jul 4, In Russia the parliament passed a law to reassert state control over weapons exports.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.C2)
1997 Jul 5, It was reported that as many as 100 paintings and drawings by Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) may be fakes.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 5, From Columbus, Ohio, The United Church of Christ decided to unite with 3 other protestant denominations that include the Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Church of America, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.B10)
1997 Jul 5, Sixteen-year-old Martina Hingis became the youngest Wimbledon singles champion this century as she beat Jana Novotna in the women's finals. (Charlotte "Lottie" Dod won in 1887 at age 15.)
(AP, 7/5/98)
1997 Jul 5, NASA scientists brainstormed to fix problems that left Mars Pathfinder's robot rover stuck aboard the lander.
(AP, 7/5/98)
1997 Jul 5, An editorial stated that Governor Fob James had declared Alabama to be a rights-free zone. In a letter to a federal judge Gov. James stated that the Constitution’s Bill of Rights does not apply to the states.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A16)
1997 Jul 5, Cambodia's Second Prime Minister Hun Sen launched a bloody coup that toppled First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh. The heavy fighting in Phnom Penh indicated the collapse of the fragile coalition.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.A3)(AP, 7/5/98)
1997 Jul 5, From Taiwan it was reported that the ruling party and the opposition pro-independence party had joined behind a plan to change the constitution and scrap the provincial government, a vestige of an old arrangement that considered Taiwan a part of China.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.C2)
1997 Jul 5, In Tokyo top electronics manufacturers agreed on standards for a new computer disk. The new magneto-optical disk will battle against the DVD-RAM disks as the preferred data storage format. Both disks will feature read and rewrite capabilities.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.D6)
1997 Jul 6, Pete Sampras won his fourth Wimbledon title as he defeated Cedric Pioline of France.
(AP, 7/6/98)
1997 Jul 6, The rover Sojourner rolled down a ramp from the Mars Pathfinder lander and began mankind’s first mobile exploration of Mars. The first rock targeted for examination was named "Barnacle Bill."
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A1) (AP, 7/6/98)
1997 Jul 6, In Washington DC Mary Mahoney (25), Emory Evans (25) and Aaron Goodrich (18) were murdered in an apparent botched robbery at Starbucks coffee shop in the Georgetown neighborhood. In 1999 Carl Derek Havord Cooper (29) was charged with the murders.
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A3)
1997 Jul 6, In Albania three people died as the 2nd round of elections were completed. The Socialist gained 12 more seats versus 5 more for the Democrats.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 6, In Cambodia Hun Sen declared victory while Prince Ranariddh planned from France to carry out a resistance effort.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 6, In Mexico City Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, leader of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, declared victory in the race for mayor. The PRI lost its majority in the lower house of Congress. The four opposition parties banded together in a coalition to inaugurate the new Congress on Aug 30.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A14)(AP, 7/6/98)
1997 Jul 6, In Portadown, Northern Ireland, British troops cleared the streets to allow the Orange Order to march through the Catholic enclave along Garvaghy Road amidst scattered violence.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 7, Montgomery Wards, the nation’s largest privately owned retailer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
(SFC, 7/8/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 7, It was reported that toxic waste was being used across the country in fertilizers with no regulation. Substances being recycled in fertilizer included low level radioactive waste from a uranium processing plant in Gore, Okla.; lead-laced waste from a pulp mill in Camas, Wash.; and toxic byproducts from steel-making in Moxee City, Wash.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A2)
1997 Jul 7, In California it was reported that the state’s million plus cows were churning out $3 billion worth of milk and leaking harmful nitrates into the ground water of the Central Valley. Years ago the Chino basin was forced to write off vast quantities of tainted ground water due to dairies.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 7, Three days after landing on Mars, the Pathfinder spacecraft yielded what scientists said was unmistakable photographic evidence that colossal floods scoured the Red Planet's now-barren landscape more than a billion years ago.
(AP, 7/7/98)
1997 Jul 7, In Chile the government agreed to back the 670,000 acre nature preserve of Doug Tompkins, founder of the Esprit clothing chain.
(SFC, 7/8/97, p.A7)
1997 Jul 7, In Kenya 9 people died during protests for constitutional reform.
(SFC, 7/8/97, p.A8)(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 8, The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee opened politically charged hearings into fund-raising abuses, with chairman Fred Thompson accusing China of trying to influence the 1996 U.S. elections.
(AP, 7/8/98)
1997 Jul 8, The Mayo Clinic and the government warned the diet-drug combination known as "fen-phen" could cause serious heart and lung damage. The drugs were withdrawn in September. In 2000 a federal judge approved a $3.75 billion national settlement of health claims due to use of the drugs.
(AP, 7/8/98)(SFC, 8/29/00, p.A4)
1997 Jul 8, Michelle Moore-Bosko (18) of Pittsburgh, who had recently moved to Norfolk, Va., and secretly married her longtime boyfriend, William Bosko, was found raped and killed. 4 sailors, who became known as the Norfolk Four, were later convicted for her rape and murder. In 2009 Danial Williams (37), Derek Tice (39) and Joseph Dick (33) were pardoned, culminating a four-year campaign for clemency based on the sailors' claims that they were coerced into falsely admitting their involvement, that the details they provided were wrong and that there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime. A fourth sailor, Eric Wilson (33), served more than eight years in prison and has been released. A fifth man, Omar Ballard, was also convicted in the crime, and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, 59 of which were suspended. He is the only man whose DNA matched that found at the scene. His confession stated that he committed the crime by himself.
(SFC, 8/7/09, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Norfolk_Four)
1997 Jul 8, A US Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed at Fort Bragg, NC, and killed 8 soldiers.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 8, NATO issued formal membership invitations to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/8/98)
1997 Jul 8, In Cambodia Interior Minister Ho Sok was seized and executed by forces loyal to Hun Sen. Some 30 soldiers loyal to Ranariddh were captured and tortured by Regiment 911 at Kambol.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A6)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 8, In Dagestan a bomb blew up on a bus carrying Russian border police and 9 officers were killed. Sporadic violence continued along with kidnappings.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 8, In India a bomb exploded on a passenger train in the Punjab at Bhatinda and killed 36 people and wounded 70.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 8, In Northern Ireland masked members of the IRA boarded, cleared and set fire to a Dublin to Belfast train.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A6)
1997 Jul 8, A report on Transdniestria, between Moldova and the Ukraine, described it as a haven for arms smugglers, money launderers and outlaws on the lam.
(WSJ, 7/8/97, p.A1,8)
1997 Jul 9, Boxer Mike Tyson was banned from the ring and fined $3 million for biting opponent Evander Holyfield's ears.
(AP, 7/9/98)
1992 Jul 9, Poet Adrienne Rich rejected the US government National Medal for the Arts award due to radical disparities of wealth and power in America.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 9, Louise Woodward failed to respond to a wrongful death suit filed by the parents of Matthew Eappen, the baby she was convicted of killing, and this allowed a federal court to automatically rule against her.
(www.courttv.com/trials/woodward/070998.html)
1997 Jul 9, In Hawaii medical, insurance and pension benefits began to be allowed to any 2 adults who could not legally marry under a law enacted to ward off homosexual marriages.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 9, Leaders of 16 NATO nations met with 25 other countries in an unprecedented security summit in Madrid, Spain.
(AP, 7/9/98)
1997 Jul 9, In Algeria Adbelkader Hachani, Muslim fundamentalist leader, was freed hours after a court sentenced him to 5 years in prison. He had been held without trial since 1991 when the military voided a vote that his group was set to win.
(WSJ, 7/10/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 9, In Cambodia some 30 opposition officials were arrested in Pray Veng Province, 13 in Battambang, and 20 in Kompong Speu. Prince Ranariddh was in consultation with the United Nations for support.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.E3)
1997 Jul 9, Cypriot Pres. Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash were scheduled to meet in a 4-day session in New York to resolve their disputes.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 9, In India half of the Asian elephant population of 60,000 lived in an area of just 168,000 sq. miles.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A7)
1997 Jul 9, In Kenya armed police shut down the Univ. of Nairobi and clubbed students who demanded free and fair elections.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.C2)
1997 Jul 9, From Thailand it was reported that elephants were dying around pineapple orchards, possibly from chemical poisoning. Only some 500 elephants remained in the country.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A7)
1997 Jul 9, In Venezuela a 6.7 earthquake hit the northeast coastal region and killed at least 59 people including 27 students trapped inside a collapsed school building.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.E3)(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 10, President Clinton, visiting Poland, told a Warsaw square filled with cheering Poles that "never again will your fate be decided by others." He announced a successful drive to bring Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO by 1999.
(AP, 7/10/98)
1997 Jul 10, RJR Nabisco Holdings said it would phase out the Joe Camel cartoon character used for advertising their cigarettes.
(WSJ, 7/11/97, p.B1)
1997 Jul 10, The DNA from the arm bone of Neanderthal man found in 1856 was found to represent a separate human species. Scientists in London said DNA from a Neanderthal skeleton supported a theory that all humanity descended from an "African Eve" 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/10/98)
1997 Jul 10, Walter Korn (b.1908), Czech-born chess authority, died. His books included "The Art of Chess Competition."
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A18)
1997 Jul 10, In Operation Tango NATO forces captured Milan Kovacevic, a physician who was the 2nd ranking officer in the Prijedor City Hall during the war. An attempt to capture Simo Drljaca, a leader of local "ethnic cleansing" led to a shootout and his death. Kovacevic died in 1998 while jailed in the Hague.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 8/3/98, p.A1)
1997 Jul 10, In Britain thousands of rural people showed up at Hyde Park to defend the sport of fox and deer hunting. A bill to ban the hunting of foxes, deer, hares and mink with dogs was being considered.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 10, ASEAN foreign ministers voted to suspend Cambodia’s pending membership. The US announced a 3/4 reduction of staff and some aid. More than 50 people were dead after 2 days of fighting.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 10, In the Central African Republic Pres. Patasse reconciled with 300 mutinous soldiers.
(WSJ, 7/11/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 10, Paramilitary police suppressed protests in Mianyang city in Sichuan province where more than 100,000 unemployed textile workers demanded government assistance and accused local officials of stealing their unemployment funds.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 10, In Northern Ireland the Orange Order canceled plans to march through Catholic neighborhoods in 2 main cities over the weekend.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 10, A mudslide in Izumi on Kyushu island, Japan, killed 21 people and injured 14.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.C1)
1997 Jul 10, In Papua New Guinea Gen’l. Jerry Singirok, leader of the March revolt against prime minister Chan, was decommissioned. Elections were completed and a new government was to be announced at the end of the month.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 10, Torrential rains in Poland and the Czech Republic killed at least 39 people and forced thousands from their homes.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 10, In Switzerland a 3 year pilot heroin distribution program was declared a success.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 11, President Clinton was cheered by tens of thousands of people in Bucharest, Romania, where he raised hopes for NATO membership.
(AP, 7/11/98)
1997 Jul 11, Uwatec Corp. was sold to Johnson Worldwide Assoc. (later Johnson Outdoors Inc.) for $33.5 million. A defect in the Aladin Air X Nitrox, an underwater diving computer, was not disclosed. Injuries and lawsuits followed and the product was pulled Feb 5, 2003.
(SSFC, 5/25/03, p.A18)
1997 Jul 11, A Cuban An-24 passenger plane with 44 people plunged into the sea after take-off from Santiago de Cuba enroute to Havana.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 11, In India a riot broke out in Bombay after a garland of shoes - a grave insult - was draped over a bust of Babasaheb Ambedkar, a political leader from Hinduism’s lowest caste. Police killed ten people including two children on their way to school.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.C1)
1997 Jul 11, In Thailand a kitchen fire went out of control at the 450-room Royal Jomtien Hotel in Pattaya and killed 91 people with 64 injured.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 7/11/97, p.A12)(AP, 7/11/07)
1997 Jul 12, In Copenhagen, the last stop of an eight-day European tour, President Clinton said political divisions in Europe were closing.
(AP, 7/12/98)
1997 Jul 12, In Berlin, Germany, several hundreds of thousands gathered for the annual Love Parade, a big party for fans of the electronic dance music known as techno.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.D8)
1997 Jul 12, ETA kidnapped small town politician Miguel Angel Blanco and demanded that the group's prisoners be brought to Basque jails. Blanco was found mortally dead shortly after a deadline. His slaying triggered widespread demonstrations in Spain.
(AP, 7/12/98)(AP, 3/22/06)
1997 Jul 13, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright returned to her Jewish roots in the Czech Republic, finding names of family members killed by the Nazis inscribed on a Prague synagogue wall. News reports the previous February revealed that Albright, who'd been raised a Roman Catholic, had Jewish relatives, many of whom died in the Holocaust.
(AP, 7/13/98)
1997 Jul 13, In Poland floods threatened the isle of Ostrow Tumski on the Oder River in the heart of Wroclaw, whose buildings date back to the 13th century. A 100-year flood swept through the Sudety Mountains.
(SFC, 7/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 8/2/98, p.T8)
1997 Jul 13, In San Sebastian, Spain, Miguel Angel Blanco (29), a Basque town councilor and low-ranking member of the Popular Party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, died of head wounds from the ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom, a Basque separatist group. Almost 800 people have died since the ETA began fighting in 1968.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 14, O.J. Simpson's California mansion was auctioned off for $2.6 million.
(AP, 7/14/98)
1997 Jul 14, The international war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb, to 20 years in prison for turning on his Muslim and Croat neighbors in a deadly campaign of terror and torture.
(AP, 7/14/98)
1997 Jul 14, In Algeria a bomb exploded in an Algiers market filled with women and children and killed 21 people and wounded 40. Weekend massacres left 40 villagers dead.
(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 14, In Bangladesh monsoon flooding killed at least 64 people in the last week.
(WSJ, 7/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 14, In El Salvador regulators seized Financiera Insepro which collapsed and left more than 1000 account holders demanding justice. The $15 million bank failure led to a call for US investigators and 5 prominent business leaders were jailed.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A18)
1997 Jul 14, A footbridge over the Yarkon River collapsed while being crossed by the Australian delegation to the 15th Maccabiah games. Two died immediately in the accident and 2 died later from complications possibly caused by the pollution in the river. The games are held every 4 years for Jewish athletes. The bridge was thrown up in less than a month with no blueprint or foundation. 5 Israelis were convicted in 2000 for criminal negligence. 4 officials were sentenced to prison terms from 6-21 months.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A6)(SFC, 4/18/00, p.A10)(SFC, 6/6/00, p.A16)
1997 Jul 14, In Kenya thousands of students fought riot police in Nairobi and demanded constitutional reforms. Nairobi Univ. and Jomo Kenyatta Univ. were closed indefinitely.
(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 14, In Rwanda weekend clashes between the army and Hutu rebels left more than 170 people dead.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 14, In Spain more than 2 million people took to the streets across Spain to mourn the death of Miguel Angel Blanco and to condemn the Basque separatist guerrillas who killed him.
(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 15, Marine biologists diving from the Johnson Sea Link in the Gulf of Mexico discovered what appeared to be a new species of worm of the family polychaetes. The worms lived on top of frozen mounds of gas hydrates.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 15, Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer, was shot to death outside his home in Miami Beach, Fla. Police searched for Andrew Philip Cunanan, 27, of San Diego as the primary suspect. Suspected serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan, was found dead eight days later. In 1999 Maureen Orth authored "Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History."
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/98)(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.D9)
1997 Jul 15, In Algeria Abassi Madani, former leader of the Islamic Salvation Front, was released after serving 5 years of a 12 year sentence.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.C12)
1997 Jul 15, In Algeria a court condemned 24 Muslim militants to death for their involvement in guerrilla activities.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 15-1997 Jul 20, In Colombia a right-wing death squad under Carlos Castano killed at least 49 suspected guerrilla sympathizers in Mapiripan, Meta province. In 1998 2 army sergeants, Juan Carlos Gamarra and Jose Miller Urena, were linked to the massacre. In 2001 Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui was given a 40-month sentence for failing to defend the town. In 2009 a court convicted Uscategui of murder and sentenced him to 40 years in prison for his role in the notorious massacre.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A11)(SFC, 2/14/01, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/coyuh)(AP, 11/26/09)
1997 Jul 15, The Czech trade deficit was labeled as the largest in the world relative to its economy.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 15, In Liberia pres. candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (58), a banker and UN official, led a women’s solidarity march. She had recently emerged as the leading rival of warlord Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A9)(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 15, In Northern Ireland pro-British militants shot and killed Bernadette Martin while she slept beside her Protestant boyfriend.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 15, In Serbia Slobodan Milosevic was elected president of the Yugoslav federation in a vote that opposition parties said was illegal.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.C12)
1997 Jul 15, Eastern Slavonia was scheduled to be handed over to Croatian authorities. It had been seized by the Serbs in 1991. [see Jan 15, 1998]
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.C1)
1997 Jul 16, Hundreds of FBI agents, some handing out photos in gay bars and hotels, blanketed south Florida in the continuing hunt for alleged prostitute-turned-serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan, who was suspected of killing designer Gianni Versace.
(AP, 7/16/98)
1997 Jul 16, Jerold Mackenzie was awarded $26.6M for being fired from Miller Brewing in 1993 for sexual harassment for relaying a Seinfeld episode to a co-worker. Higher courts later threw the entire award out. In 2003 Mackenzie accepted an out-of-court settlement for $625,000.
(MC, 7/16/02)(http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun03/146469.asp)
1997 Jul 16, In Recife, Brazil, the 18,000 man police force went on strike. The crime and murder rate immediately surged and some 3,000 soldiers were called to try to maintain order.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 16, In Cambodia Hun Sen named a new co-premier, Ung Huot, the foreign minister and a member of Ranariddh’s Funcinpec Party. Exiled legislators said was the appointment was illegal.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 16, In Cuba Vladimiro Roca, Martha Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne, and Rene Gomez Manzano were detained for issuing a document "La Patria es de Todos," criticizing the political system. They were scheduled for a trial on charges of sedition in 1999. The Prosecution recommended a 6 year sentence for Roca and 5 year sentences for the others after the 4 rejected a government offer to go into exile. Roca was sentenced to 5 years, Manzano and Bonne to 4 years, and Roque to 3 ½ years.
(USAT, 10/9/98, p.13A)(SFC, 2/27/99, p.A17)(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A10)(SFC, 3/16/99, p.A8)
1997 Jul 16, In Mexico Benjamin Flores Gonzalez (29), a newspaper editor of La Prensa, was gunned down in San Luis Colorado across the border from Yuma, Ariz.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 17, President Clinton nominated Army Gen. Henry Shelton to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
(AP, 7/17/98)
1997 Jul 17, Woolworth Corp. announced that it would close more than 400 of its five-and-dime retail stores, ending 117 years in business.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/17/98)
1997 Jul 17, The Columbia space shuttle and it crew of 7 returned after a 16-day mission. On the Mir space station, the 3-man crew struggled to stabilize a free-spin after a cable to a key computer system was mistakenly pulled.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A1,9)(AP, 7/17/98)
1997 Jul 17, Disney sub-contractor H.H. Cutler announced that it would terminate its business in Haiti due to slumping sales of children’s clothes. Some 2,300 jobs would be lost. Int’l. activists had criticized the operations for wages as low as $.28 per hour. The unemployment rate was at 80%.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 17, Dr. Robert C. Weaver (b.1907), the first African American to serve on a president’s cabinet, died in NYC. He was the administrator of the federal Housing and Home Finance Agency, the predecessor to HUD, under President John F. Kennedy. He was named national chairman of the NAACP in 1960 and in 1962 he was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Medal. Weaver wrote more than 175 articles and four books on housing and urban issues. [see Jan 18,1966]
(http://search.eb.com/Blackhistory/article.do?nKeyValue=76375)
1997 Jul 17, In India K.R. Narayannan, a member of the Dalits, was elected president by the national and state legislatures. The Dalits, or "oppressed people," were according to Hinduism the lowest class of people, a fifth class below the 4 main castes. He will replace Pres. Shanker Dayal Sharma whose 5-year term expires Jul 25.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 17, In Peru thousands of demonstrators protested against Pres. Fujimori chanting "Down with the dictatorship." Three cabinet ministers had also resigned in the last 24 hours. Pres. Fujimori named 5 new ministers including 2 generals and sparked concern that he was moving even closer to the armed forces.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A10)(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 17, In Russia Boris Yeltsin signed decrees to cut the size of the armed forces by one-third and installed plans to boost tax collection.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 17, In the Ukraine the parliament confirmed Valery Pustovitenko as prime minister. He was an ally of Pres. Kuchma and vowed to work with lawmakers.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 18, Representative George Miller of Martinez, Ca., demanded a full accounting by the federal EPA concerning inspections of the Central Valley dairies, where dairy waste was threatening underground water supplies.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A1,13)
1997 Jul 18, Federal agents in California arrested eight seafood importers accused of smuggling contaminated seafood by bribing customs brokers and FDA inspectors.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A15,18)
1997 Jul 18, German businessman Thomas Kramer was slapped with a record $323,000 penalty by the Federal Election Commission for making illegal U.S. political contributions.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1997 Jul 18, All key systems on the Russian space station Mir returned to near-normal, about 24 hours after the already disabled spacecraft had lost power.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1997 Jul 18, Sir James Goldsmith (b.2/26/33), British-French financier and corporate raider, died in Spain at age 64.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.B6)
1997 Jul 18, In Cambodia Prince Ranariddh called off armed resistance and proposed a caretaker government and new elections.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 18, In Mexico police arrested Rolando Arroyo Palacios, aka "Long Hair," in San Luis Rio Colorado for the murder of journalist Flores Gonzalez. He had been supposedly hired by Ismael Guttierrez, brother of Jaime Gonzalez Guttierrez, who was arrested last month.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 18, In Northern Ireland the Sinn Fein party urged its allies in the IRA to call a cease fire.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 18, In the Philippines the government signed a general cease-fire with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country's 2nd largest Muslim rebel group.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 18, In Sierra Leone leaders of the ruling junta pledged to implement an immediate cease fire and to restore constitutional government.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 19, Eleven armored carriers from NATO gathered in a show of force near the home of ousted Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, Bosnia's No. 1 war crimes suspect.
(HN, 7/19/98)
1997 Jul 19, In Bosnia the Serb Democratic Party expelled Pres. Biljana Plavsic after she threatened to arrest Karadzic and his allies for rampant corruption.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 19, In Cambodia Hun Sen rejected a peace plan proposed by the 7-nation ASEAN group.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jul 19, In Indonesia a court sentenced 16 people to jail terms of 2-7 months for the May rioting that left 123 dead on Borneo.
(WSJ, 7/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 19, The Irish Republican Army declared a new cease-fire and opened the way for supporters to join peace talks with Northern Ireland's pro-British Protestants.
(HN, 7/19/98)
1997 Jul 19, From Slovakia it was reported that Bratislava had become a narcotics depot and crossroad of the Balkan drug route from Turkey and Central Asia.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 20, Seven people were arrested after New York City police found scores of deaf Mexicans kept in slave-like conditions and forced to peddle trinkets for the smugglers who had brought them to the United States.
(AP, 7/20/98)
1997 Jul 20, From Qatar it was reported that as many as 30% of Qatari women work. Some 6,000 graduated each year from the Univ. of Qatar.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 20, Palestinian security forces arrested 4 Palestinian police officers who were accused of planning to attack Jewish settlers. Israel had arrested 4 Palestinian policemen a week earlier for planned attacks at the settlement of Har Bracha.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 20, Turkish troops killed 50 Kurdish guerrillas in the southeast. That raised the weekly total to 84.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 21, The General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Philadelphia voted to require all Episcopal dioceses to ordain women.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A2)
1997 Jul 21, The U.S.S. Constitution, aka Old Ironsides, which defended the United States during the War of 1812, set sail with 216 crew members under its own power for first time in 116 years, leaving its temporary anchorage at Marblehead, Mass., for a one-hour voyage marking its 200th anniversary. The actual anniversary was the following October. It was built in 1797 and was never defeated in 42 battles.
(HT, 3/97, p.34)(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/21/98)
1997 Jul 21, In Canada fishermen released the Malaspina ferry, a blocked Alaska-bound ship at Prince Rupert. They were protesting US fishing of sockeye salmon heading for spawning in British Columbia.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 21, Singapore began observing Racial Harmony Day in commemoration of a deadly communal riot in 1964.
(Econ, 12/17/16, p.36)
1997 Jul 22, In San Francisco, Ca., the .38 acres of the Mt. Davidson cross was auctioned off for $26,000 to a group of Armenian organizations who proposed to dedicate it as a memorial to Armenians massacred during WW I. The sale was approved in a US Court of Appeals in 2001.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A18)(SFC, 9/6/01, p.A1)
1997 Jul 22, In Michigan some 2,800 UAW workers went on strike at a GM plant in Warren.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 22, Algerian troops killed 140 of 180 radical Islamist guerrillas in the Attatba area of Blida province in an offensive that began 10 days ago.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 22, In Austria a campaign was started to rename all public places named after poet Ottokar Kernstock, the man who wrote the words of the "Swastika Song," the election theme of Adolph Hitler’s Nazis.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 22, In Britain the labor party proposed a somewhat independent assembly for Wales.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 22, From Colombia it was reported that 30,000 violent deaths per year occurred and marked the country as the world’s most violent.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 22, In Egypt six police officers were killed in an ambush by militants near Minya.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A13)
1997 Jul 22, More than 2,000 people gathered in Milan, Italy, for a memorial Mass for slain fashion designer Gianni Versace; the mourners included Princess Diana and singer-songwriter Elton John.
(AP, 7/22/98)
1997 Jul 22, In Liberia results from the election showed Charles Taylor in the lead with about 75 of the vote.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 22, In South Africa 5 killings in Magoda, Kwa Zulu / Natal Province, were suspected of being caused an unknown "third force," a presumed right-wing group dedicated to fomenting black-on-black violence.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A7)
1997 Jul 23, The US and Venezuela signed an agreement to allow authorities of both countries to board boats of each others flags if suspected of carrying drugs.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 23, The search for Andrew Cunanan, the suspected killer of designer Gianni Versace and others, ended as police found his body on a houseboat in Miami Beach, Fla., an apparent suicide.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/23/98)
1997 Jul 23, The ASEAN trade bloc admitted Laos and Burma but barred Cambodia.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 23, In Britain the government announced that tuition fees would be imposed for the first time on all college students.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 23, In Cuba Elio Reve Matos, salsa musician, died in a road accident. He developed the rhythm known as "charangon," a combination of salsa styles that included "changui" and "son."
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A24)
1997 Jul 23, In Serbia Slobodan Milosevic was sworn in as president of Yugoslavia and crowds reacted by throwing shoes at his motorcade, symbolizing the young people who have left Serbia due to his regime.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 23, Swiss banks published a list of 2,000 WW II-era dormant accounts that included assets of holocaust victims.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 24, Pres. Clinton held a White House symposium on global warming.
(WSJ, 7/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 24, A Dallas jury awarded $120 million in damages against the local Roman Catholic diocese that ignored evidence that the priest, Rudolph Kos, sexually abused a number of altar boys from 1977-1992. Kos was suspended in 1992. Kos pleaded guilty to 3 sex abuse charges in 1998.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A1)(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A3)
1997 Jul 24, William J. Brennan (91), retired Supreme Court Justice (1956-1990), died in Arlington, Va.
(AP, 7/24/98)(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/90/)
1997 Jul 24, In Albania a 5-month long curfew was lifted and Rexhep Mejdani, the secretary-general of the Socialist Party and former physics professor, was elected President by the Parliament. Since Jan. some 1,800 killings had occurred.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 24, From Algeria it was reported that security forces killed Antar Zouabri (26), the chief of the Armed Islamic Group.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 24, Britain proposed to the Scots the power to legislate, tax and speak for themselves in the European Union.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 25, US immigration agents rounded up 17 deaf Mexicans in Sanford, North Carolina. This followed the revelation of 50 deaf Mexicans held in servitude in NYC and forced to sell trinkets on the streets. In Dec. Adriana Paoletti Lemus (29), also deaf and one of two alleged ringleaders, pleaded guilty.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A5)
1997 Jul 25, Autumn Jackson, the young woman who claimed to be Bill Cosby's out-of-wedlock daughter, was convicted by a federal jury in New York of trying to extort $40 million from the entertainer.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/25/98)
1997 Jul 25, In San Francisco some 5,000 bikers defied the city-approved route for the Critical Mass bike ride and struck out on their own. Some 250 were arrested for traffic violations. Numerous incidents of confrontations between bikers, police and commuters were reported.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 25, An FDA drug panel endorsed Rituximab, a drug designed to treat B-cell lymphoma. It was made by Genentech and IDEC Pharmaceuticals. In November Genentech and Idec (later Biogen Idec), received FDA approval for Rituxan for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A1)(www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/53059.php)
1997 Jul 25, In Elk Creek, Virginia, Louis Ceparano and Emmett Cressell Jr. doused Garnett Paul "G.P." Johnson with gasoline, set him on fire and cut off his head. They were both indicted for murder and robbery. Ceparano pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison in 1998. Cressell (38) was convicted of 1st degree murder in 1998 and sentenced to life in prison in 1999.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/24/97, p.A4)(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A3)(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A2)(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A4)
1997 Jul 25, Ben Hogan (b.1912 in Dublin, Tx.), golf legend, died in Fort Worth, Texas, at 84. A 1996 biography by Curt Sampson was titled: "Hogan."
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.B1)(AP, 7/25/98)
1997 Jul 25, In Afghanistan police units of the Pashtun ethnic group raided minority neighborhoods as opposition forces gathered 12 miles outside Kabul.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 25, In Albania the new Socialist led government was sworn in while a gang battle in Berat left 10 people dead.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 25, In the Congo soldiers fired into a crowd of protestors in Kinshasa and killed at least 3 people. The protest was against Kabila’s ban on political activity.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 25, In India Kocheril Raman Narayannan (1920-2005) was sworn in as president, becoming the first member of the "untouchable" Dalits caste to do so.
(AP, 7/25/98)(SFC, 11/10/05, p.B8)
1997 Jul 25, In Ireland Rev. Brendan Smyth (71) was sentenced to 12 years in prison for 74 instances of sexual abuse of 20 young people over 36 years.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 25, Thousands of German soldiers fought to contain the rain-gorged Oder River.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 26, Pres. Clinton visited Lake Tahoe and announced that the Forest Service would allot 350 acres to the Washoe Indian tribe for a cultural center and give tribal members access to the edge of Lake Tahoe. He also made an executive order for $50 million over 2 years and 25 initiatives to improve the water quality of Lake Tahoe. He brought with him $26 million worth of natural gas postal trucks and sewage pipes to help preserve the lake.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A1,14)(AP, 7/26/98)
1997 Jul 26, In Belgium at the Ostend Air Show a Jordanian aerobatics airplane crashed and killed 9 people.
(WSJ, 7/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 26, In Cambodia Communist guerrillas announced that Pol Pot was sentenced to life imprisonment and Nate Thayer, a US reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Review, claimed to have seen Pol Pot and prepared a report for the Review.
(WSJ, 7/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 26, From Egypt it was reported that a cease-fire had been proclaimed by 6 imprisoned leaders of the Gamaa al Islamiya. The government dismissed the cease-fire as empty talk.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A13)
1997 Jul 27, United Auto Workers approved a deal to end a six-day strike at a General Motors parts plant that forced four assembly plant shutdowns and threatened GM's entire North American production.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A3)(AP, 7/27/98)
1997 Jul 27, In Belarus some 5-7 thousand marchers rallied to condemn Pres. Lukashenko. within hours activists were detained by the government.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 27, In San Sebastian, Spain, some 30,000 marched in support of the ETA separatist movement.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 27, Mohammed Mahdi al-Jawahri, classical Arab poet, died in Syria. He was the most famous poet of Iraq from whence he fled in 1979. His work included "Between Passion and Feeling" (1928) and "Al Jawahri’s Divan" (1935).
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)
1997 Jul 28, The Clinton administration and congressional leaders reached a tentative agreement on balancing the budget by 2002 while slashing taxes for millions of families, students and investors.
1997 Jul 28, A flash flood hit Fort Collins, Colo., following torrential rains. At least 5 people were killed and 40 or more injured.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A6)(AP, 7/28/98)
1997 Jul 28, In Santiago, Chile, nearly a million children stayed home when the government closed schools for 2 days due to high smog levels.
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 29, Members of US Congress from both parties embraced compromise legislation designed to balance the budget while cutting taxes.
(AP, 7/29/98)
1997 Jul 29, Once a worldwide symbol of industrial pollution, Minamata Bay, Japan, was declared free of mercury 40 years after contaminated food fish were blamed for birth defects and deaths.
(AP, 7/29/98)
1997 Jul 29, In Russia the deputy head of a construction firm in Moscow and the head of a shipping firm in St. Petersburg were killed as well as 2 aides in apparent contract shootings.
(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 29, In Ankara, Turkey, some 15,000 people protested government plans to curb Muslim schools. At least 13 protestors were injured and 3 officers were suspended by Prime Minister Yilmaz.
(WSJ, 7/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 30, The US lifted a 12-year ban on US citizens visits to Lebanon.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 30, Eighteen people, including two Americans, were killed in a landslide that swept one ski lodge onto another at the Thredbo Alpine Village in southeast Australia.
(AP, 7/30/98)
1997 Jul 30, In Algeria it was reported that Muslim militants massacred over 80 villagers in recent attacks in apparent retaliation to a government offensive. 40 villagers were killed at Metmata village in Ain Defla province.
(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1997 Jul 30, Two men bombed Jerusalem's most crowded outdoor market, killing themselves and 16 others. Following the suicide bombing in Israel that killed 15 people, 79 Palestinians were arrested.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A8)(AP, 7/30/98)
1997 Jul 30, In Sierra Leone Major Johnny Komora announced that elections for civilian rule would be held in Nov of 2001.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.A16)
1997 Jul 31, In New York City, police seized five bombs believed bound for terrorist attacks on city subways. 2 potential suicide bombers were shot and wounded in an explosives laden Brooklyn apartment. Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer (23) and Lafi Khalil (22) were recovering from wounds. In 1998 Khalil was acquitted and Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer was convicted of plotting to bomb a subway station. Mezer was sentenced to life in prison in 1999.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.A1)(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 7/24/98, p.A1)(HN, 7/31/98)(SFC, 3/2/99, p.A3)
1997 Jul 31, Bao Dai (85), former emperor of Annam [now Vietnam] and chief of state of French Indochina, died in France.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)(MC, 7/31/02)
1997 Jul 31, Nigeria was named the most corrupt country in the world by business people in a report released by the German-based Transparency Int’l. Denmark was named the least corrupt.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.B3)
1997 Jul, A coalition of Catholic bishops, Southern Baptist leaders and other conservative evangelicals issued a statement entitled: "We Hold These Truths: A Statement of Christian Conscience and Citizenship." The coalition condemned legalized abortion and agreed that women should be barred from serving as Catholic priests or evangelical pastors.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul, Gregory Taylor (30) was arrested while trying to get into the kitchen of St. Joseph's Church in downtown Los Angeles. He told officers that he was hungry. Taylor was sentenced in 1997 to 25 years to life under California's three-strikes law. He was released in 2010 following the work of law student Reiko Rogozen, who started working on the case in January, 2010, as part of Stanford Law School's Three-Strikes Project.
(AP, 8/17/10)
1997 Jul, In Massachusetts AT&T agreed to pay Wellesley Congregational Church $2,500 per month for a decade for the right to install wireless transmission equipment in the church steeple. An annual $6,000 bonus was included plus costs for rebuilding the steeple. Rev. Lee Woofenden of the New Jerusalem Church in Bridgewater also made a deal and stated: "Doing business in this world is part of religion."
(WSJ, 12/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul, Tyco Corp. under CEO Dennis Kozlowski merged with ADT Ltd., a Bermuda corporation, and began relocating employees to headquarters in Boca Raton, Flo.
(WSJ, 4/5/04, p.A8)
1997 Jul, The "phen-fen" diet drugs (e.g. Redux) were linked to heart valve disease. Redux, marketed by Wyeth, was withdrawn in Sep. Wyeth was a division of American Home Products. AHP also made Pondimin, a version of fenfluramine, the fen of the combination. In 2001 A Texas woman was awarded a $56.6 million settlement against AHP.
(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.B1)(WSJ, 9/30/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/9/01, p.B7)
1997 Jul, The FDA allowed Duract, an analgesic made by Wyeth, to hit the market. The drug was pulled after 11 months following 4 deaths and 8 cases requiring liver transplants.
(WSJ, 9/30/98, p.A1)
1997 Jul, Vincent "Chin" Gigante (69), boss of the Genovese crime family, was convicted of murder conspiracy and racketeering in New York City. In Dec. he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
(SFC,12/19/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul, Apple released its newest Mac operating system, OS 8.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1997 Jul, In Chechnya Camilla Carr and Jon James, British charity workers for a Quaker relief organization, were taken hostage. The were released Sep 20, 1998.
(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A13)
1997 Jul, In Colombia paramilitaries threatened a delegation of UN and Colombian judicial officials investigating the exodus of peasants from Riosucio.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A14)
1997 Jul, The Colombian government passed a law that made it illegal to sell more than $170,000 worth of contraband. The annual contraband trade was estimated to be $3 billion.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A9)
1997 Jul, The EU's Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) was first outlined by a resolution and two council regulations. The vade mecum, first published in May 2013, is a manual prepared by DG ECFIN presenting the procedures and methodologies for implementing the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), the rule-based framework for fiscal policy in the European Union.
(https://tinyurl.com/ya7rqpm3)(Econ, 3/26/05, p.55)(Econ., 10/31/20, p.64)
1997 Jul, In Macedonia three ethnic Albanians were shot to death during riots after police removed an Albanian flag from the town hall.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul, In Namibia armed police were sent to break up a meeting between elders of the Himba tribe and their lawyers. They were discussing a challenge a government proposed dam proposal.
(SFC,11/19/97, p.C3)
1997 Jul, In the Philippines a $1.1 billion bailout package was arranged. The government was obliged to raise interest rates and run a budget surplus.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A7)
1997 Jul, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin formally reinstated the Don Cossack regiments into Russia’s armed forces.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul, In South Africa Max, a 400-pound gorilla, beat up a fleeing armed robber, a former police officer, who tried to hide in his cage at the Johannesburg Zoo. Max survived 3 gunshots.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.D2)
1997 Jul, In South Korea the book "18 Reasons Why South Korea Will Die Before It Catches Up With Japan" by Japanese writer Tadashi Momose became an instant best seller.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A19)
1997 Jul, In South Korea the Kia Group, a conglomerate with 28 subsidiaries, went bankrupt with $10.7 billion in debts. A government rescue plan in October put 30% into government hands.
(SFC,11/15/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul, Taiwan’s prime minister launched a 5-year plan to crack down on betel-nut chewing.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 1, Pres. Clinton announced that the 1978 ban on sales of high-performance aircraft and other advanced weapons to Latin America would be lifted.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A8)(AP, 8/1/98)
1997 Aug 1, The National Cancer Institute reported that fallout from 1950s nuclear bomb tests had exposed millions of children across the country to radioactive iodine.
(AP, 8/1/98)
1997 Aug 1, In Algeria 38 villagers at Sidi el Madani in Blida province were killed.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A19)
1997 Aug 1, In Bangladesh at least 150 fishermen were missing in the Bay of Bengal after a storm sank their boats.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.A16)
1997 Aug 1, Israel withheld $25 million in tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority, which made the Authority unable to meet its payroll.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 1, In Palestine 16 of Arafat’s 18 Cabinet members offered their resignations in response to allegations of widespread corruption.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 1, In Russia Svyatoslav Richter, concert pianist, died at 82 in Moscow. He was known for his brilliant technique in numerous styles.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)
1997 Aug 1, A UN report from this day was made public in 2000 and cited Tutsi informants claiming that they helped to shoot down the airplane carrying Rwandan Pres. Juvanal Habyarimana on Apr 6, 1994.
(SFC, 3/2/00, p.A14)
1997 Aug 2, Two fires in San Diego burned out of control and destroyed 11 homes, 30 cars, 15 other structures and caused the crash of an air tanker dousing the flames.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.B5)
1997 Aug 2, William Burroughs (1914-1997), writer, the godfather of the beat generation, died of a heart attack at his home in Lawrence, Ka. His work included "Naked Lunch" (1959), which was originally banned and published in the US in 1962. He also wrote the books "Junkie" and "Queer."
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.E5)(AP, 8/2/98)(SFC, 8/31/04, p.E7)
1997 Aug 2, Typhoon Victor struck Hong Kong and one person was killed. The typhoon battered the surrounding Guangdong province and at least 65 people were killed.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A18)(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 2, Charles Taylor was sworn in as president of Liberia.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 2, In Nigeria Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (b.1938), pop superstar, died of AIDS. He was a saxophone player who fused rock with African rhythms into a blend known as "Afrobeat." His albums included: "Zombie," "Army Arrangement," and "Vagabond in Power." He recorded more than 50 albums in the 1970s and 1980s and his 27 wives mourned his death. In 2003 Michael Veal authored "Fela: the Life and Times of an African Lion."
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/27/04, p.E6)
1997 Aug 3, The US Court of Appeals issued a reprieve for Thomas Thompson, accused of the 1981 murder of Ginger Fleischli, less than 36 hours before his scheduled death. California filed an appeal with the US Supreme Court. He was executed Jul 14, 1998.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/db9ve)
1997 Aug 3, UPS went out on strike.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 3, Anjouan Island unilaterally declared independence from Comoros. It complained that it was not receiving a fair share of export revenues mainly from the sale of ylang-ylang flowers, used to make perfume.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A18)(www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107423.html)
1997 Aug 3, On Feb 8, 2011, Otto Rene Rodriguez (52) told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview that he received powerful C-4 explosives and $2,000 in cash directly from Luis Posada Carriles to carry out an Aug 3, 1997, bombing at Havana's Melia Cohiba hotel. He was captured trying to enter the country on a subsequent trip with 1.5 kilos (3.3 pounds) of C-4 that Posada had given him.
(AP, 2/9/11)
1997 Aug 3, Iran's new president, moderate Muslim cleric Mohammad Khatami, took office with a message of peace to the world. In a reference to the United States, he said his country opposed the "high-handedness of certain big countries."
(AP, 8/3/98)
1997 Aug 3, In South Africa a Greyhound bus crashed near Trompsburg and left 4 people dead.
(Eyewitness, Brett Moses)
1997 Aug 4, US Teamsters under Ron Carey (1935-2008) went on a 15-day strike against United Parcel Service after talks broke down with nation's largest package delivery service.
(AP, 8/4/98)(SFC, 12/13/08, p.B5)
1997 Aug 4, From Bosnia it was reported that Croats near Jajce had driven out hundreds of Muslims who had recently returned to their homes.
(WSJ, 8/4/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 4, In Cuba a small explosion damaged a lobby in a Havana hotel. US-based groups were blamed for this and a pair of bombings from 3 weeks ago. Otto Rene Rodriguez Lerena confessed to the explosion at the Melia Cohiba Hotel, which caused no injuries and little damage. He was sentenced to death in 1999.
(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/2/99, p.D2)
1997 Aug 4, In France the world’s oldest person, Jeanne Calment (b.1875), died in Arles at the record age of 122. The title was passed on to Christien Mortensen of San Rafael, Ca., (115). It was later found that Marie-Louise Febronie Meilleur of Ontario was to turn 117 in August.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment)(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A18)(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A20)
1997 Aug 4, From Mexico it was reported that the Lacandon Jungle rain forest was 40% destroyed from its original 4 million acres. Poor peasants were clearing the jungle by fire to provide for agricultural needs.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 4, In Mexico gunmen killed 6 people in the Max Fim restaurant in Ciudad Juarez.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 4, In Montserrat superheated rock from the Soufriere Hills volcano flowed into the abandoned capital of Plymouth.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 4, Russia announced that it would redenominate the ruble at the beginning of 1998. Three zeroes would be taken off the bills with current inflation at about 12%.
(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 4, In Sri Lanka weekend fighting reportedly left 200 Tamil Tigers and 67 government troops dead. The rebel bodies were severely disfigured.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 4, In Turkey 76 military officers and nco’s were dismissed in a continuing effort to root out Islamic activism in the ranks.
(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 5, President Clinton signed the budget-balancing and tax-cutting bills into law, calling the legislation "a true milestone for our nation."
(AP, 8/5/98)
1997 Aug 5, Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of world trade center bombing, went on trial.
(www.fas.org/irp/news/1997/#aug)
1997 Aug 5, It was reported that a Yale Univ. research team led by Sidney Altman discovered a way to turn off genes that make bacteria resistant to antibiotic drugs. Human testing was thought to be 5 years away.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 5, In Bolivia the Congress elected former dictator Hugo Banzer as president. He pledged economic reforms and steps to cut poverty.
(WSJ, 8/6/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 5, In Croatia Pres. Tudjman took an oath of office for his 2nd 5-year term.
(WSJ, 8/6/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 5, North Korea agreed to hold talks with South Korea in New York beginning on this day.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 5, From Russia’s cosmodrome in Kazakstan a Mir repair mission was launched with a 2-man replacement crew. The smooth launch was upstaged by another breakdown aboard the aging space station, this time involving oxygen generators.
(WSJ, 8/6/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/5/98)
1997 Aug 6, The Dow Jones reached an all-time high at 8,259.31.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 6, Ending years of impassioned rivalry, Apple Computer and Microsoft agreed to share technology in a deal giving Microsoft a stake in Apple's survival. Microsoft announced that it would buy $150 million in non-voting Apple stock.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/6/98)
1997 Aug 6, The tobacco industry was forced to release documents that indicated efforts to quash safety research and revealed steps taken for protection against lawsuits.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 6, It was reported that residents of 47 states faced warnings not to eat certain types of freshwater fish due to pollution. The EPA said that some 2,200 fish consumption advisories were in effect in the US and that 15% of the nation’s lakes and 5% of the rivers were covered by the advisory.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 6, It was reported that MWC480 is a young star in the constellation Taurus, 450 Light years distant, with a gas-rich disk that looked like a "construction zone" for new planets.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A11)
1997 Aug 6, It was reported that scientists had created the genetic blueprint for Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium responsible for stomach ulcers.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A11)
1997 Aug 6, Korean Air Flight 801 from Seoul, a Boeing 747-300 jumbo jet, crashed into a hillside a short distance from Guam’s Agana International Airport killing 228 with 26 survivors. A programming glitch in the ground radar system was later identified as a contributing factor but not the cause.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_801)(WSJ, 4/8/99, p.A1)(AP, 8/6/98)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1997 Aug 7, It was reported that US retail space and semiconductor manufacturing capacity far exceeded demand. A downturn in the economy was said to have already begun.
(WSJ, 8/7/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 7, The space shuttle Discovery was launched with a crew of six. A satellite was dropped off to study the Earth’s ozone layer.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 7, A Russian capsule on a fix-it mission docked gingerly with the crippled Mir space station, bringing a new crew to salvage the orbiting outpost.
(AP, 8/7/98)
1997 Aug 7, A DC-8 cargo plane crashed on take-off at Miami Int’l. Airport. Four people were killed on the denim filled 29-year-old plane bound for the Dominican Republic.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 7, The US State Dept. expressed concern over reports of Chinese nuclear-capable M-11 missiles sold to Pakistan.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug 7, In Argentina Pres. Eduardo Frei of Chile and Argentine Pres. Carlos Menem opened a $325 million pipeline for natural gas from Argentina to Santiago.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug 7, From China it was reported that Zhu Qihua planned to move the Big Green Mountain by Lanzhou, a railroad hub, in order to clear the air of heavy smog.
(WSJ, 8/7/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 7, In Mexico Jose Paoletti Moreda and his son Renato were arrested on charges of leading an operation that smuggled deaf people into the US and forced them to work under virtual slavery conditions. Another couple was arrested with ten deaf smuggled immigrants in Dallas on Aug 15.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A2)
1997 Aug 7, In Romania Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea announced the closure of 17 factories at the urging of the IMF. 30,000 jobs would be lost and the following day thousands protested the closing of the essentially bankrupt companies.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 7, In Switzerland the measures to freeze the assets of deposed Zairean Pres. Mobuto Sese Seko were declared legal.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug 8, US Sec. of State Madeleine Albright announced that the bulk of US aid to Cambodia would be suspended.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 8, The Teamsters and United Parcel Service completed a second day of federally mediated talks, with neither side reporting progress toward ending a strike.
(AP, 8/8/98)
1997 Aug 8, It was reported that researchers have discovered how the defective gene in Huntington’s disease causes the disorder. A genetic "stutter" inserts from 30 to 150 copies of the amino acid glutamine into key proteins and alters their properties.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 8, In Ddjelfa, Algeria, a bomb in a baby bassinet killed 9 people. In the village of Zeboudja insurgents slit the throats of 21 people and 20 others were shot and wounded.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 8, Gen’l. Eric Shinseki, the American in charge of NATO forces in Bosnia, announced a plan to force all paramilitary troops to disband or face arrest.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 8, In Colombia Senator Jorge Cristo and a bodyguard were killed in Cucuta. Police said leftist guerrillas were responsible.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 8, The resumption of limited oil sales by Iraq was cleared by the UN Security Council. The UN plan allows the sale of $2 billion in crude oil every 6 months.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 8, Fighting broke out on the Israel-Lebanon border when guerrillas fired rockets into northern Israel and Israeli warplanes struck back. 13 people have died since Aug 4 when Israeli commandos set off bombs behind the front line killing 3 guerrilla field commanders and 2 fighters.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 8, In Kenya a nationwide strike was called and declared illegal by the government. In Nairobi a crowd of some 2,000 gathered and killed Gilbert Simiyu, a plainclothes police officer. The strike turned into a riot with looting.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 8, The largest int’l. military exercise in Latvia’s history took place over 5 days at the Adazi training center organized by the Northwest Europe Command. Troops from 15 countries were to participate.
(BN, 6/97)
1997 Aug 8, In Peru at least 20 bus passengers were killed in a crash in the province of Cuzco. Some 80 people have died in 4 bus crashes in the last week.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 8, On St. Vincent James and Penny Fletcher were acquitted of the murder of Jerome Joseph after 9 months of incarceration.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 9, In NYC police officer Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima in the bathroom of the 70th precinct in Brooklyn. [see Aug 13] In 1999 Volpe was sentenced to 30 years in prison and ordered to pay $277,495 in restitution. In 2001 a tentative settlement awarded Abner Louima $9 million.
(SFC, 5/26/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/23/01, p.A4)
1997 Aug 9, An Amtrak train derailed on a bridge near Kingman, Arizona, and 183 of 350 passengers were injured. A flash flood had undermined supports for a small bridge.
(WSJ, 8/11/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/9/07)
1997 Aug 9, In Brazil Herbert Jose de Souza, sociologist, died at age 60 of AIDS that he acquired as a hemophiliac from contaminated blood. He spent his life fighting inequality, hunger and police brutality.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 9, It was reported that 800,000 children of North Korea were in immediate danger of dying from malnutrition. UNICEF was appealing for a $14.3 million emergency fund for supplies such as high-energy milk.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 9, In Indonesia huge fires in tropical forests and plantations on Sumatra and Borneo and Java were blamed on slash-and-burn farming techniques. Fires originally set by developers to clear forest for palm plantations in Borneo and Sumatra ran out of control and darkened skies across much of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The World Bank estimated that 8% of total global emission of greenhouse gases for the year were due to the fires.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A11)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.74)
1997 Aug 10, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in an attempt to restart the Mideast peace process.
(AP, 8/10/98)
1997 Aug 10, In Nashville a riot erupted when a police officer killed a black murder suspect.
(WSJ, 8/11/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 10, It was reported that the gasoline additive MTBE, methyl tert-butyl ether, was leaking into ground water in California and elsewhere in the US. Some 1,000 wells in California tested above the state’s action level. The additive leaks from gasoline stations and dissolves in water and seeps into aquifers. In 1995 the EPA reported that it caused cancer in laboratory animals.
(SFEC, 8/10/97, p.A1,14)
1997 Aug 10, Peter Braestrup, founder of the Wilson Quarterly, died in Maine at age 68.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A17)
1997 Aug 10, In Colombia police arrested drug trafficker Waldo Simeon Vargas, alias "The Minister." He was a former associate of Pablo Escobar and created his own organization after the Cali chiefs were arrested in 1995.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 10, In the 6th World Championship in Athletics in Athens (Aug 1-Aug 10), the American 4x400m team beat the British quartet by just 0.18 seconds in the final. Antonio Pettigrew ran the anchor leg for the US team that won, but subsequently admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs. In 2010 the BBC, citing UK Athletics (UKA) and the International Association of Athletics' Federations (IAAF), said the British quartet of Roger Black, Jamie Baulch, Iwan Thomas and Mark Richardson, would be promoted to gold.
(AFP, 1/7/10)(http://www2.iaaf.org/Results/Past/WCH97/data/M/4X4/Rf.html)
1997 Aug 10, In Peru a snowstorm trapped some 40 vehicles on the Andes highway between Abancay and Puquio and left 6 people dead in their vehicles.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 10, In Uganda the state-owned Sunday Vision reported that its Chinese-built arms factory would stop producing land mines and grenades. The Ugandan army would be supplied but the products would not be exported. Dry-cells would be produced to replace the land mines and grenades.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 10, In Taiwan a 19-seat Formosa Airlines Dornier 228 crashed on the island of Matsu and killed all 16 onboard.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/11/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 11, Pres. Clinton made the first use of the historic line-item veto approved by Congress. He removed 3 narrow provisions in the new budget legislation in spending and tax bills. The Supreme Court later struck down the line-item veto as unconstitutional.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/11/05)
1997 Aug 11, US federal officials arrested 29 people in a drug sweep in New York, Michigan and New Mexico. The arrests were linked to Mexico’s Juarez cartel.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 11, It was reported that the US Energy Dept. was short of tritium for nuclear weapons and would borrow space from a civilian power plant for its production.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 11, Steelhead trout of the west coast was added to the federal list of imperiled species.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 11, The Environmental Working Group claimed that high levels of the weed killer atrazine were found in 245 Midwest communities. The chemical is used to spray corn and kill weeds.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 11, In Hawaii lava from Kilauea Volcano began to flow over the walls of a 700-year-old temple believed to have been used for human sacrifice.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 11, In Colombia leftist guerrillas killed at least 9 people in 2 separate incident.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 11, In Honduras some 700 inmates escaped from prisons at Santa Barbara and Trujillo after rioting prisoners set fire to facilities and burned them to the ground.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 11, From Israel it was reported that mobsters were in control of gambling, prostitution and money laundering rings in the resort city of Netanya. Seven gang killings in the last 18 months were reported and protection money was demanded from stall holders and shop owners.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A6)
1997 Aug 11, It was reported that Sri Lanka was getting desperate for recruits and that more than 12,000 soldiers had deserted the army in recent months. Women were being recruited and it was noted that half of the Tamil rebel attack forces were composed of women. The government military service was comprised of some 114,000 vs. about 5,000 Tamil fighters.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A7)
1997 Aug 11, Int’l. donors offered Thailand a $16-17 bil loan package.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A8)(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A7)
1997 Aug 12, Steel workers in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania ended a 10-month strike at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. with a new contract. It was the longest strike by a major steel company.
(SFC, 8/13/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/12/98)
1997 Aug 12, Two New York City police officers were placed in desk jobs as authorities investigated the charges of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who accused police of sodomizing him after his arrest in a nightclub fight. Louima's subsequent civil suit against the city resulted in a settlement of $8.75 million on July 30, 2001, the largest police brutality settlement in NYC history. After legal fees, Louima collected approximately $5.8 million.
(AP, 8/12/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima)
1997 Aug 12, A hamburger recall issued to cover some 1.2 million pounds. The Hudson Foods Inc., of Rogers, Ark., issued the recall due to E. coli poisonings in Colorado. [see 8/21]
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 12, In Arizona a flash flood from a storm 15 miles away killed ten hikers in the Lower Antelope Canyon near Lake Powell. The group leader of the Trek-America outfit, that catered mostly to Europeans, was the only survivor.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A2)(AP, 8/12/98)
1997 Aug 12, It was reported that the World Bank joined the IMF in withholding credit from Kenya due to government corruption.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 12, It was reported that Laos was promoting the development of the $1.44 billion Nam Theun Two Dam. It would alter 2 major tributaries of the Mekong River and flood an area the size of Singapore. The World Bank contributed $130 million to the project, which was expected to begin generating power in 2009. Environmentalists feared severe impact to the Nakai Plateau and some 120,000 people downstream as one river dries up and another swells.
(WSJ, 8/12/97, p.A1)(SFC, 12/17/07, p.A15)
1997 Aug 12, From Lithuania it was reported that the country has become a favorite transit point for smugglers. Cigarettes, alcohol, home appliances, oil, amber, gas, cars and illegal narcotics were crossing the borders.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 13, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross wrapped up a four-day mission to the Middle East, during which he'd persuaded the Palestinians to resume security cooperation with Israel.
(AP, 8/13/98)
1997 Aug 13, In Detroit, Mich., Yolanda Bellamy was slain with 2 young sons, a niece and a nephew. A suspect was later arrested and jumped from a 5th floor police station window. He was critically injured.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 13, A NYC police officer of the 70th precinct in Flatbush was arrested for sexually assaulting a Haitian immigrant who was arrested in a nightclub fight. Officer Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima with a toilet plunger and then forced the handle into Louima’s mouth. Volpe’s partner, Thomas Bruder, was ordered off active duty and Mayor Giuliani ordered a shakeup and investigation. Officer Charles Schwartz was later arrested for his participation. Two more officers, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder, were later arrested for beating Louima after his arrest. In 1998 federal civil rights charges were filed against the involved officers. Officer Volpe was jailed in 1999 after he pleaded guilty that he had sodomized Abner Louima. In 1999 Officer Schwarz was found guilty of holding Louima down. Officers Bruder, Wiese and Bellomo were acquitted. In 2000 officers Bruder, Schwartz and Wiese were convicted of covering up the assault on Louima. Schwartz was sentenced to 15 years and 8 months in prison and ordered to pay $277,495 in restitution. Bruder and Wiese were sentenced to 5 years each. In 2002 a federal appeals court overturned the convictions against Schwarz, Wiese and Bruder.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A5)(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A4)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A5)(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A3)(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A6)(SFC, 5/26/99, p.A1)(SFC, 6/9/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/7/00, p.A3)(SFC, 6/28/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A3)
1997 Aug 13, In India the Supreme Court ordered the government to come up with legislation to protect women from sexual harassment in the workplace.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 13, In Tehran, Iran, Ali Reza Khoshruy Kuran Kordiyeh ("the vampire") was flogged and hung for the rape, murder and burning of 9 women in a crime spree that began in March.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 13, From Panama it was reported that Pres. Balladares has given journalist Gustavo Gorriti until the end of the month to leave Panama. Mr. Gorriti had published investigative articles detailing the financial dealings of the president’s election campaign, his allies and gentlemen of questionable character.
(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 13, In Russia the book "Boris Yeltsin: From Dawn to Sunset" by former bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov went on sale.
(SFC, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 13, From Russia it was reported that a helicopter accidentally had dropped a 2.3 ton lead box containing strontium 90 into 66 feet of water off Sakhalin Island.
(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 14, An unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was formally sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 8/14/98)
1997 Aug 14, In Argentina public sector and opposition unions called for a 24-hour strike to protest the nation’s 16.1% unemployment rate and proposed labor reforms.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 14, From Canada it was reported that Ontario planned to close down 7 of 19 nuclear power plants for repairs. Inadequate maintenance practices and management problems were charged in an internal document and, Allan Kupcis, the CEO had resigned.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 14, Congo announced a $2.5 billion project to build roads and that it would seek EU financing.
(WSJ, 8/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 14, In Kenya 6 officers and 7 civilians were killed in Mombasa when assailants burned down a police station.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A17)
1997 Aug 14, Russian cosmonauts Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin made it safely home to Earth after a luckless six-month mission aboard the Mir space station.
(AP, 8/14/98)
1997 Aug 14, In Turkey the parliament approved an amnesty program for some 89 journalists imprisoned for their news coverage. Pres. Demirel signed the measure.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 14, In Yemen ten Italian tourists were reported kidnapped in 2 separate incidents.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A17)
1997 Aug 15, The US government expanded its recall of ground beef sold under the Hudson brand name to 1.1 million pounds because of new evidence of possible contamination by E. coli bacteria.
(AP, 8/15/98)
1997 Aug 15, The US Justice Department decided not to prosecute senior FBI officials in connection with an alleged cover-up that followed the deadly 1992 Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho.
(AP, 8/15/98)
1997 Aug 15, In Louisiana a self-defense law, passed in June, that permits motorists to use deadly force in a car-jacking incident took effect.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 15, Beginning today couples seeking marriage in Louisiana were given the choice between a traditional or a covenant marriage. The covenant marriage, designed to make divorce much more difficult, required counseling and a 2-year cooling off period.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A6)(Econ, 2/12/05, p.31)
1997 Aug 15, The Dow Jones dropped 247 points in its 2nd biggest point loss session ending at 7,694.66.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 15, Researchers from the Univ. of New Hampshire reported that the spanking of children causes long-term behavioral problems.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 15, Scientists at Geron corp. reported that an "immortality gene" had been cloned. The key gene carries the code for a key section of the enzyme telomerase, that rebuilds the telomere of DNA. It could lead to new cancer-prevention drugs and even be used to slow the process of aging.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A1,17)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.D1)
1997 Aug 15, From Argentina it was reported that the country would issue bonds to pay indemnities to the relatives and descendants of the 1970s "dirty war." As many as 30,000 people disappeared and about 8,000 families have applied for payments authorized at $224,000 per victim.
(WSJ, 8/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 15, In Bosnia the high court ruled that Pres. Biljana Plavsic had no right to disband the Parliament. Plavsic announced the formation of a new political party, the Serb National Union.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 15, In Colombia ten woodcutters were killed by a gang of hooded gunmen near the town of Retiro in Antioquia province.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 15, From Egypt it was reported that a nurse in Alexandria, Aida Nur el-Din, had killed at least 18 patients so that she would not be disturbed at night.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 15, In Mexico the Saba family’s 22% stake in Television Azteca SA was sold through an IPO. The family led by Isaac Saba Raffoul was reputed to have a cash equivalent of a billion dollars with the sale.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 16, Thousands of Elvis Presley fans thronged Graceland on the 20th anniversary of his death.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1997 Aug 16, It was reported that the US led the world in arms sales last year with 35.5% of all orders. Britain ranked 2nd with 15.1% and Russia 3rd with 14.5%.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 16, In Mexico Alejandro Ortiz Martinez, brother of the finance minister Guillermo Ortiz, was shot and killed by three gunmen in Mexico City.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.A21)
1997 Aug 16, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the most popular singer in Pakistan, died in a London hospital. He was considered one of the world’s greatest singers of Sufi devotional music in a style called qawwali, where long performances built up emotion and complexity to the backdrop of stringed instruments and the harmonium.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.D8)
1997 Aug 16, Scientists reported that an underground seismic event occurred in Russia. Inquiries were being made about nuclear testing. Russian scientists claimed a magnitude-2 earthquake near the Novaya Zemlya test range triggered the event.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A18)(WSJ, 9/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 16, Two cosmonauts just returned from Mir (Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin) rejected criticism that they were to blame for troubles aboard the aging, problem-plagued space station.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1997 Aug 17, President Clinton urged both sides in the United Parcel Service strike to "redouble their efforts" to reach a deal, but hours later, negotiators recessed their intensive talks.
(AP, 8/17/98)
1997 Aug 18, The Lutheran Church approved a Formula of Agreement document that called for closer cooperation with the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ and the Reformed Church in America. A separate document called the Concordat of Agreement for closer ties with the Episcopal Church was 6 votes short of a required majority.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 18, UPS management agreed to a tentative contract with the striking Teamsters Union to end a 15-day-old strike. New full-time jobs and pay raises were part of the settlement.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/18/98)
1997 Aug 18, In Virginia the VMI class of 2001 included 30 women among the 460 freshman students. Beth Ann Hogan became the first coed in the Virginia Military Institute's 158-year history.
(SFC, 8/18/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/18/98)
1997 Aug 18, Burnum Burnum (b.1936 as Henry James Penrith), Australian Aboriginal activist, died at age 61. He had been a member of the "stolen generation," Aborigine children taken from their families into government welfare.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A20)
1997 Aug 18, Militiamen under the South Lebanon Army, a key ally of Israel, shelled the port city of Sidon and killed at least 6 people while injuring over 3 dozen. In apparent retaliation northern Israel was hit by dozens of Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 18, Typhoon Winnie swept over Taiwan and left 24 people dead.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 18, In Tajikistan government forces killed 50 mutinous troops in a battle over a bridge on the Vakhsh River.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 19, Missouri and Oklahoma withdrew inmates from a private Texas prison after the release of a video tape that showed guards using dogs and stun guns on prisoners made to crawl during a drug raid.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 19, A New Hampshire man, Carl Drega (67) of Colebrook, killed 2 state troopers, Scott Philips (32) and Les Lord (45), a local judge and a newspaper editor in Colebrook. The shooting spree ended with his death near the Canadian border in Vermont. The issue was believed to be a grudge over a tax case.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)(SFC,11/3/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/19/98)(SFEC, 10/18/98, Par p.9)
1997 Aug 19, In Cambodia 35,000 people fled across the border to Thailand to escape fighting between forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh and troops of coup leader Hun Sen.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 19, In Honduras lawmakers voted to name Archbishop Oscar Andres Rodriguez to oversee the creation of a new civilian police force.
(SFC, 8/21/97, p.A13)
1997 Aug 19, In Kenya some 300 kiosks were burned in Malindi.
(SFC, 8/21/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 19, In North Korea groundbreaking ceremonies were held for 2 nuclear power plants to be built by a US led Int’l. consortium.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 19, In Sri Lanka government jets hit rebel positions and some 20,000 government troops met guerrillas en route to Puliyankulam where 7 soldiers and more than 50 rebels were reported killed.
(SFC, 8/20/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 20, United Parcel Service drivers put away picket signs, put on brown shirts and shorts, and called on customers again as the delivery giant began to sluggishly recover from its costly strike.
(AP, 8/20/07)
1997 Aug 20, NATO troops in Bosnia seized truckloads of weapons from police stations in Banja Luka. They moved to force out officers loyal to Karadzic.
(WSJ, 8/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 20, Israeli jets struck deep in Lebanon and bombed a guerrilla base and a power plant supplying electricity to Sidon.
(WSJ, 8/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 20, In Jamaica prison guards walked off their jobs after a commissioner suggested that guards and prisoners use condoms to prevent AIDS. Anti-gay violence broke out and within a week 16 inmates were killed and 20 injured at Kingston’s Gen’l. Penitentiary and St. Catherine District Prison.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A4)
1997 Aug 20, In Kenya police arrested 2 KANU politicians for instigating violence along the coastal region. Karisa Maitha and Omar Masumbuko lent credence that KANU officials were attempting to divert attention from the reformist movement.
(SFC, 8/21/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 20, Palestinian Pres. Arafat met with Islamic militant groups including Hamas and called for Palestinian unity against Israeli demands.
(WSJ, 8/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 21, A hamburger recall was extended to cover some 25 million pounds. The Hudson Foods Inc., of Rogers, Ark., closed its Nebraska beef-processing facility under a "non-negotiable" recommendation by Agricultural Sec. Dan Glickman due to E. coli poisonings in Colorado.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/21/98)
1997 Aug 21, The CEO of Philip Morris Cos. said that cigarettes "might have" killed 100,000 Americans. It was the first acknowledgement by the company of a possible link between smoking and death.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 21, In Afghanistan leaders of the alliance fighting the Taliban army were killed in an air crash aboard an Antonov 32 about 90 miles NW of Kabul.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 21, From Bosnia Judge Jovo Rosic reported that he was beaten up and ordered to vote against Pres. Plavsic last week.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 21, In France Pope John Paul II began a visit to Paris with an outdoor encounter with 500,000 young people from around the world.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 21, In North Korea a tidal wave from a passing typhoon struck and destroyed some 700,000 tons of corn and left 28,000 people homeless.
(WSJ, 9/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 21, Palestinians began an embargo of Israeli goods.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 21, In Russia Yuri Nikulin (b.1921), a cherished comic actor, died.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A24)
1997 Aug 21, From Russia the Kremlin demanded the release of journalists of ORT TV. They were jailed in Belarus for allegedly trying to cross the border illegally into Lithuania. The journalists had made negative reports on Pres. Lukashenko.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 22, A US federal judge rejected Pres. Clinton’s request to dismiss the sexual harassment suit of Paula Jones. The trial was scheduled to start May 27, 1998.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 22, A federal official threw out the contentious Teamsters election because of alleged campaign fund-raising abuses, forcing union President Ron Carey into another race against James P. Hoffa.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/22/98)
1997 Aug 22, A $64.8 million 890- lb. Lewis satellite was launched by NASA on a hoped-for 5-year mission. It went into an uncontrolled spin on Aug 22 and was expected to fall and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in Sep.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 22, It was reported that Ethiopia has completed work on more than 200 dams that use 624 million cubic yards of Nile water per year.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 22, In Kenya armed marauders attacked a church filled with some 2,500 refugees and killed 2 refugees and wounded a police guard in Linkoni.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 22, On Montserrat voluntary evacuation of the islanders was begun. Two-thirds of the 12,000 inhabitants fled the island. It was expected that much of the island would not be habitable for 20 years after the eruptions ceased.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 22, In Rwanda at least 120 people were killed at the Mudende camp near Mutura. The slain were thought to have been Tutsis and were killed by "infiltrators," rival rebel Hutus.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 23, In his weekly radio address, President Clinton said he would ask Congress to renew his authority for speedy negotiation of trade agreements, saying the "fast track" approach would make U.S. companies more competitive worldwide.
(AP, 8/23/98)
1997 Aug 23, In Iran Pres. Khatami appointed the first woman vice-president and ended an 18-year ban on commercial flights to Saudi Arabia.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 24, Officer Jeremy Charron, 24, was shot and killed Gordon Perry (22) and Kevin Paul (18) in Epsom, New Hampshire. Both captured suspects were on probation. Paul later received a 16- to 50-year prison sentence. Perry was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.A8)(www.odmp.org/officer/14959-patrolman-jeremy-t.-charron)
1997 Aug 24, In Cambodia troops of Hun Sen overran O’Smach, the last frontier town held by forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 24, In France Pope John Paul II offered tough challenges and affectionate encouragement to more than 1 million faithful attending Mass during closing World Youth Day ceremonies in Paris.
(AP, 8/24/98)
1997 Aug 24, In Honduras a power outage at a state-run hospital resulted in the death of 14 patients. The Sunday blackout was not reported until Monday.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 24, In Zambia former pres. Kaunda accused Pres. Frederick Chiluba of trying to kill him after he was wounded by riot police during a protest rally.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.B5A)
1997 Aug 25, It was reported that the number of US mutual funds today has climbed to 2,855 funds controlling $2.13 trillion, as opposed to 1987 when there were 812 mutual funds with $241.9 billion in assets.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 25, The tobacco industry agreed to an $11.3 billion settlement with the state of Florida to settle a smoking-related lawsuit.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/25/98)
1997 Aug 25, Dow Corning Corp. offered $2.4 billion to settle claims from more than 200,000 women with illnesses related to silicone breast implants.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/25/98)
1997 Aug 25, It was reported that the US government would pay 1,000 teaching hospitals not to train doctors in specialties where there is a glut.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 25, Prof. William Ferris, a scholar at the Univ. of Mississippi, was selected by Pres. Clinton to head the National Endowment for the Humanities.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A4)
1997 Aug 25, NASA sent a Delta rocket aloft with the Ace solar observatory, Advanced Composition Explorer. The 5-year $110 million project will go into orbit at a point 1 million miles from Earth and 92 million miles from the Sun where the gravity of Earth and Sun balance.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A2)
1997 Aug 25, Germany convicted 3 politicians from the defunct East German era on charges related to shootings of would-be escapees. Egon Krenz, the last leader of the East German Communist Party, was convicted along with Politburo members Guenther Kleiber and Guenther Schabowski. The conviction was upheld in 1999.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A8)(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A14)
1997 Aug 25, From South Korea it was reported that Samsung was proceeding with plans to manufacture automobiles. Korea’s 5 auto manufacturers will increase capacity to 6 million units a year.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 26, It was announced that researchers at Johns Hopkins had found a gene that causes colon cancer in some people of Jewish ancestry.
(WSJ, 8/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 26, In Colombia Mayor Mauricio Guzman of Cali was arrested for allegedly accepting money from a drug cartel.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 26, It was reported that China executed at least 4,367 people in 1996.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 26, It was reported that Israel planned to proceed with the building of a dam on the Yarmuk River. The territory is claimed by Syria.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 26, Two defectors and their families from North Korea were accepted by the US. One was Chang Sung Gil, the ambassador to Egypt, the other was his brother Chang Sung Ho, a commercial councilor at the North Korean mission in Paris. High level arms talks were immediately terminated.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 26, Former South African President F.W. de Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to end apartheid, announced his retirement from politics and his leading role in the National Party which had created the practice of apartheid.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C2)(AP, 8/26/98)
1997 Aug 27, Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy was charged with seeking and accepting more than $35,000 dollars in trips, sports tickets and favors from companies that did business with his agency. A jury found Espy innocent in 1998 of taking illegal gifts, but eight others pleaded guilty or were convicted of various charges; President Clinton later issued seven pardons and a commutation.
(AP, 8/27/02)
1997 Aug 27, There was a report on the US nuclear arsenal broken down to the number of nuclear weapons in each state. New Mexico was 1st with 2,850, Georgia 2nd with 2,000, and Washington State 3rd with 1,600. The total stockpile was totaled at 12,500 warheads, of which 8,750 were described as "operational."
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A6)
1997 Aug 27, A secret CIA report acknowledged that the CIA knew of human rights abuses by the Honduran military in the 1980s. It was declassified in 1998.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A3)
1997 Aug 27, It was announced that the diet drugs, Redux and Pondimin, caused brain damage in animals at doses similar to those taken by humans.
(WSJ, 8/27/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 27, Brandon Tartikoff (48), TV exec (NBC), died in Los Angeles.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0850748/)
1997 Aug 27, From India it was reported that at least 945 people had died since June due to torrential monsoon rains.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 27, It was reported that a 3-part expose in the Israeli Maariv newspaper alleged that gameshow host Dudu Topaz was involved in rigging the winners in the Mar 30 show "First in Comedy."
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E7)(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 27 Israel lifted a month-long blockade of Bethlehem imposed after a suicide bombing July 30 that killed 16 people.
{Israel}
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E7)(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/27/98)
1997 Aug 27, It was announced that South Korea had a $22 billion trade deficit in 1996 and that the purchase of foreign goods was being actively discouraged.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 27, The annual Burning Man Festival began near Gerlach, Nevada, on a private ranch on the Hualapai Playa, a prehistoric lakebed. Some 20,000 people came to the instantly created "Black Rock City" for the torching of the 50-foot effigy.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A1, 15)
1997 Aug 28, After nearly a year of legal challenges, California's affirmative action ban, Proposition 209, became law. In SF some 4,000 people marched with Jesse Jackson across the Golden Gate Bridge to protest Prop. 209, in what was dubbed the "March to Save the Dream."
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/28/98)
1997 Aug 28, The UN imposed air and travel sanctions on the UNITA movement in Angola to deter Jonas Savimbi from increasing tensions.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A16)
1997 Aug 28, In Algeria a 2nd bomb this week killed 8 people in the Casbah.
(USAT, 8/29/97, p.8A)
1997 Aug 28, US troops clashed with Bosnian Serbs in Brcko. NATO forces rescued some 50 besieged UN police monitors as crowds, opposed to Pres. Plavsic, demanded the expulsion of Western peacekeepers. U.S. troops fired tear gas and warning shots to fend off rock-hurling Serb mobs. The attempt by US-led NATO forces to install Plavsic forces in police stations in 3 cities failed.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)(AP, 8/28/98)
1997 Aug 28, Four Israeli soldiers were killed in a fire caused by strafing from Israeli helicopters in southern Lebanon in a battle where 4 Amal guerrillas were also killed.
(WSJ, 8/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 28, In Mexico the government’s National Human Rights Commission recommended that the Durango State Attorney Gen’l. Francisco Arroyo be fired for negligence. This was in response to the suicide 2 months ago of 16-year-old Yessica Diaz Cazares who had been gang raped some 5 months ago. Yessica had spent 3 months recounting her story to officials under threats from her attackers and pressure from authorities to drop the charges.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 28, Pres. Yeltsin set the draft Russian military budget at $14 million, up from $11.9 million. He also fired the head of the defense council and his culture minister.
(WSJ, 8/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 28, In Sri Lanka Pres. Kumaratunga pushed parliament to enact constitutional changes to address Tamil grievances.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A16)
1997 Aug 28, Taiwan’s Pres. Lee Teng-hui selected Vincent Siew (58) to replace Lien Chen as premier.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A18)
1997 Aug 28, In Venezuela 29 prison inmates died after a dominant prison gang fell on a group of newcomers at the El Dorado Jail in Bolivar state.
(WSJ, 8/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 29, In NYC some 7,000 protestors marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest police brutality and the assault on Abner Louima.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 29, In Algeria some 300 villagers of Rais were slain by hooded men armed with axes in an Algerian farm village in the worst carnage since an Islamic insurgency began. In addition 20 young women were abducted.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A10)(AP, 8/29/98)
1997 Aug 29, In Britain the government formally invited Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, to peace talks next month in Northern Ireland.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 29, In Japan the Supreme Court upheld the government’s right to control the nation’s textbooks but not to tamper with the truth. Japan's Supreme Court ruled that the country's Education Ministry broke the law by removing mention of a Japanese World War II atrocity from historian Saburo Ienaga's high school textbook. Novelist Ryotaro Shiba was quoted: "A country whose textbooks lie... will inevitably collapse."
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A12)(AP, 8/29/98)
1997 Aug 29, In Kenya thousands fled from the Indian Ocean coast in fear of ethnic violence and attacks from government security forces.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 30, Philip Noel Johnson, an armored car driver believed to have stolen $22 million, was arrested at the Texas border. Johnson later pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping, money laundering and interfering with interstate commerce. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Johnson (33) a former armored car driver for Loomis, Fargo & Co., was accused of raiding the vault of the company's Jacksonville, Fla., office on March 29. The heist was one of the biggest in U.S. history.
(AP, 8/30/02)
1997 Aug. 30, Americans and others in the Western Hemisphere learned of the deaths of Princess Diana, her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, in a car crash in Paris. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived. (Because of the time difference, it was the morning of Aug. 31 in Paris when Diana was pronounced dead.) [see Aug 31]
(AP, 8/30/98)
1997 Aug 31, In Phoenix, Az., bounty hunters in search of a bail jumper killed a couple that apparently knew nothing about the sought bail jumper. Chris Foote (23) and Spring Wright (20) were killed by 5 bounty hunters. Matthew Brackney (20), his father David Brackney (45) and Michael Martin Sanders (40) were in custody and 2 others were sought by authorities. Arizona laws allow bounty hunters to break down doors and use guns to bring bail jumpers back to jail without a court order, warrant or license. There were an estimated 2,000 bounty hunters nationwide. Brian Jay Robbins and Ronald Eugene Timms were arrested on Sep 3. On October 30, 1998 Michael Martin Sanders was judged guilty of murder, and nine other felonies including burglary, aggravated assault and unlawful imprisonment. Co-defendant Ronald Timms pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and testified against Sanders, saying the men planned to break into Foote's home because they mistakenly believed there would be a large amount of drugs and cash there. The rest were charged with second degree murder and various counts of felonious assault.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.A3)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/lp6bs)
1997 Aug 31, Prince Charles brought Princess Diana home for the last time, escorting the body of his former wife to a Britain that was shocked, grief-stricken and angered by her death in a Paris traffic accident. Princess Diana (36) and Egyptian billionaire Dodi al-Fayed (42) were killed along with the car’s driver in a car crash in Paris while trying to evade paparazzi photographers. A bodyguard was severely injured but expected to survive. It was later learned that the driver had 3 times the legal alcohol limit and was driving at about 110 mph.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/2/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/31/98)
1997 Aug 31, In Peru 2 small planes collided at the Nazca archeological site and 12 people were killed.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 31, Vitaly Schmidt (47), Russian oil tycoon, died in Moscow. Much of his fortune came from a group of small offshore energy companies he oversaw on behalf of himself and a few fellow executives of OAO Lukoil.
(WSJ, 12/6/06, p.A1)
1997 Aug, Newsweek reported Linda Tripp, a White House secretary, was told by Kathleen Willey, that Pres. Clinton had made an aggressive sexual pass at Willey.
(WSJ, 2/18/98, p.A24)
1997 A North American ban on cattle feed that included bovine brain and spinal tissue went into effect to prevent the spread of mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
(SFC, 12/30/03, p.A1)
1997 Aug, In Arizona two jurors in the Symington trial received telephoned death threats and offers of bribes.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug, Harry Stonecipher, CEO of McDonnell Douglas, negotiated a merger with Boeing.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A1)
1997 Aug, The US population was 267.8 million people.
(WSJ, 10/22/97, p.A20)
1997 Aug, Argentine beef was allowed to be imported fresh to the US market.
(WSJ, 5/26/98, p.B1)
1997 Aug, In Chad a plague of locusts began to spread across the southwest with as many as 200 locusts per square yard.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A21)
1997 Aug, Chen Xiaotang, son of former Beijing mayor Chen Xitong, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for economic crimes.
(SFC, 9/10/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug, In Colombia a group of 30 intellectuals issued a plea for UN mediation over the violence in the countryside.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A14)
1997 Aug, In Cyprus UN talks between Turkish and Greek Cypriot officials broke down when the EU reaffirmed that it would begin membership talks with the Greek-led Cypriot government. Lower level talks continued.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A22)
1997 Aug, Ethiopian officials set up an administration in the contested region known as Bada, that triggered skirmishes with Eritrea.
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A14)
1997 Aug, In India A.R. Rahman launched his first non-movie album "Vande Mataram" (Salute to the Motherland) to coincide with the 50-year anniversary of independence from Britain. He was the first Indian artist signed by Sony Records.
(SFEC,12/14/97, DB p.63)
1997 Aug, In Indonesia a $43 billion economic bailout package obliged the government to run a budget surplus, close insolvent banks, end nepotism and raise interest rates.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A7)
1997 Aug, Kenyan police with US investigators raided the home of Wadih el-Hage and seized his papers and computer. Hage was arrested a year later for his ties to Osama bin Laden and terrorist conspiracy.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.A21)
1997 Aug, In Russia Mikhail Manevich, deputy governor of the of St. Petersburg region and privatization chief, was shot and killed. In 1998 4 suspects were arrested in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
(SFC, 7/22/98, p.A12)
1997 Aug, In Zimbabwe on Heroes Day Pres. Mugabe was shouted down by his own former guerrillas who were angered that pensions to disabled veterans were frozen and over allegations that $36 million had gone to the ruling party elite.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.A12)
1997 Sep 1, The 32nd annual Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, led by Jerry Lewis, ended with a record $50.5 million pledged.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.E5)
1997 Sep 1, The 2nd phase of the US minimum wage raise to $5.15 per hour went into effect.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A3)(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)
1997 Sep 1, Scientists announced in the Physics Review Letters that evidence was found for an exotic meson subatomic particle. It is supposed to be composed of an unusual quark combination and only exists for a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. The experiment supports the current standard model of physics in which 3 quarks make a proton or a neutron and 2 quarks can combine to make a meson.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 1, In Bosnia several hundred Bosnian Serbs attacked some 300 armed US troops in an effort to take back a key TV transmitter that was seized by the Americans last week. The melee was a standoff.
(SFC, 9/2/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 1, As Britain continued to mourn the untimely death of Princess Diana, came word from a source in the Paris prosecutor's office that Diana's driver, Henri Paul, was legally intoxicated at the time of the crash.
(AP, 9/1/02)
1997 Sep 1, In Switzerland robbers made off with $37 million in cash from a Zurich post office. By Sep 8 Swiss and Italian police had detained 13 suspects. A total of 19 people in five countries were arrested in connection with the case.
(WSJ, 9/2/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A11)(AP, 9/1/07)
1997 Sep 2, It was reported that 52,000 books, fiction and non-fiction, would be published this year in the US.
(WSJ, 9/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 2, US troops in Bosnia relinquished control of the TV transmitter in exchange for agreements to permit opposition voices on the air and an end to inflammatory rhetoric.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 2, The US demanded exemptions to a proposed global ban on land mines at an int'l. meeting in Oslo, Norway. The exemptions were for mines on the Korean peninsula and for certain types of mines.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 2, The US stock market made a record 257 point gain.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.B1)
1997 Sep 2, In Miami Beach, Florida US postal worker, Jesus Antonio Tamayo (64) shot and critically injured his former wife, Manuela Acosta (62) and a friend and then killed himself.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 2, Rudolf Bing (95), opera manager (NY Met Opera), died.
(www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0761029.html)
1997 Sep 2, Viktor E. Frankl (b. 1905), psychotherapist, died in Vienna at age 92. He was the author in the 1960s of "Man’s Search for Meaning." He developed logotherapy, a theory whose primary belief is that man’s primary motivational force is his search for meaning. His teachings are called the 3rd Vienna School of Psychotherapy after Freud and Adler. He held that one can discover the meaning of life in 3 different ways: "by creating a work or doing a deed; by experiencing something or encountering someone; and by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering." Frankl's autobiography, "Reflections," was translated by Joseph Fabry (d.1999 at 89) and his wife.
(WSJ, 9/4/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.C4)(SFC, 5/12/99, p.C6)
1997 Sep 2, Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh elected Arkady Gukasian as president with an 89% vote. Azerbaijan called the vote invalid.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C3)
1997 Sep 2, In London, a grieving human tide engulfed St. James's Palace, where Princess Diana's body lay in a chapel closed to the public, as the British monarchy and government prepared for her funeral. The White House announced that first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton would attend on behalf of the United States.
(AP, 9/2/98)
1997 Sep 2, In Russia Space Agency officials blamed the cosmonauts for the Jun 25 crash on the Mir space station. Later ground controllers were also held partly responsible.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C3)(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 3, The U.S. Senate voted to ban most federal financing for abortions provided by the managed-care industry.
(AP, 9/3/98)
1997 Sep 3, Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, the great-grandson of steel baron Henry Clay Frick, was found guilty by a jury on 7 counts of lying to get millions in loans to shore up his collapsing real estate empire. He was later sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, charged a fine of $60,000, and ordered to serve 5 years of probation. Symington's conviction was overturned in 1999; he was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001 as prosecutors again pursued the case.
(WSJ, 9/4/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A3)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A2)(AP, 9/3/02)
1997 Sep 3, Belarus tax officials emptied the bank account of the Soros foundation and forced it to close down.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 3, It was reported that Catania, Sicily, (pop. 378,000) has some 100 gangland killings per year.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 3, In Cambodia a Vietnam Airlines, Tupelov 134, Soviet jet crashed on approach to Phnom Penh airport and killed 65 people. One child, 1-year-old Chanayuth Nim-Anong, survived. A 2nd child about 4 also survived.
(WSJ, 9/3/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 3, In Colombia workers joined protests across the country to protest government privatization plans, for better wages, respect for human rights and an end to the guerrilla war.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 4, A trio of Buddhist nuns acknowledged in Senate testimony that their temple outside Los Angeles illegally reimbursed donors after a fund-raiser attended by Vice President Al Gore and later destroyed or altered records to avoid embarrassment.
(AP, 9/4/98)
1997 Sep 4, It was reported that scientists have pinpointed the gene, Torsin 1, responsible for dystonia, a condition marked by uncontrolled movements.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A6)
1997 Sep 4, In Algeria 22 people were killed in El Arbi. Their throats were slit and bodies burned.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 4, In Cuba an explosion shook 3 tourist hotels and one Italian tourist was killed. Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon (25) of Salvador was arrested and accused of carrying out a half-dozen hotel attacks. He worked for Luis Posada Carriles, who was supported by the Cuban-American National Foundation. Cruz was sentenced to death in 1999. In 2010 Cuba's Supreme Court commuted the death sentence ruling that he should serve 30 years in prison instead. Francisco Chavez Abarca of El Salvador was later arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison for planting some of the bombs.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A21)(WSJ, 3/24/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/3/10)(SFC, 5/24/11, p.A2)
1997 Sep 4, In Israel a triple suicide bombing in a mall in the heart of Jerusalem claimed the lives of seven people, including the three assailants.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/4/98)
1997 Sep 4, From Kenya it was reported that the unemployment rate was 35%.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 4, In Turkey 33 people were killed when 2 buses collided near Ankara. Turkey has the highest incidence of road traffic deaths with 2,713 killed in the first 7 months of this year.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 5, In Arizona Sec. of State Jane Dee Hull assumed the role of governor, the 3rd current female governor in the US after Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A5)
1997 Sep 5, The new Kansas City Jazz Museum opened next to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 5, Leon Edel (b.1907), American scholar and biographer, died. His work included a 5-volume biography of Henry James (1843-1916), for which he received the 1963 Pulitzer Prize.
(WSJ, 6/17/08, p.A21)(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Edel-Jos.html)
1997 Sep 5, In Argentina a group headed by Sociedad Macri SA took over the postal service with an offer to pay the state about $102 million annually for 20 years.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A15)
1997 Sep 5, In England funeral services for Princess Diana were held in London. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II broke the royal reticence over Princess Diana's death, delivering a televised address in which she called her former daughter-in-law "a remarkable person." The 1973 song “Candle in the Wind," an ode to Marilyn Monroe on the album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin, was adopted for the funeral.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/24/97, p.E1)(AP, 9/5/07)
1997 Sep 5, Hungarian-born conductor Sir George Solti (b.1912) died at age 84 in France. He was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1972 for his contributions to British music.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A3)(AP, 9/5/98)
1997 Sep 5, Athens, Greece, won the competition to host the 2004 Summer Olympics.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A16)
1997 Sep 5, In India Mother Teresa (b.1910), the Calcutta nun who worked on behalf of the destitute, died of heart failure in Calcutta. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II broke the royal reticence over Princess Diana's death, calling her "a remarkable person" in a televised address. In 1996 a US Congress joint resolution declared her an honorary US citizen. In 2003 Albania declared 2004 to be "Mother Teresa Year" and set aside Oct. 19 as a national holiday in her honor. "It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you ... yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand."
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/5/98)(AP, 9/12/03)(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A4)
1997 Sep 5, Israel’s PM Netanyahu announced that the Oslo peace process was being frozen.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 5, In Lebanon at least 12 Israeli commandos were killed in a botched raid deep inside Lebanese territory. Itamar Ilya, a commando, was killed with 11 other soldiers in Southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 6/26/98, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/64nx84f)
1997 Sep 6, The USS Hopper, the 354th ship in the modern naval fleet, was commissioned. The high-tech destroyer is the 2nd warship to be named after a woman. Grace Hooper (d.1992) was a computer programmer for the Navy until she retired in 1986 at age 79. She coined the term "debugging" when she pulled a moth from her computer.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.B1,3)
1997 Sep 6, In Albania the Socialist government dismissed 17 generals.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A16)
1997 Sep 6, In Algeria at least 87 people were killed and 100 injured by about 50 attackers in the town of Beni Messous.
(SFEC, 9/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 6, Britain bade farewell to Princess Diana with a funeral service at Westminster Abbey.
(AP, 9/6/98)
1997 Sep 6, Weeping masses gathered in Calcutta, India, to pay homage to Mother Teresa, who had died the day before at age 87.
(AP, 9/6/98)
1997 Sep 7, The US F-22 Raptor stealth fighter took its first flight from Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Atlanta, Ga. The plane was estimated to cost $100 million.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 7, This was the scheduled date for Israel’s departure from the West Bank, except for Jewish settlements and certain military locations according to a peace accord negotiated between Arafat and Rabin on Sep 24, 1995.
(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A10)
1997 Sep 7, Mobuto Sese Seko (66), former dictator of Zaire, later Congo, died of prostate cancer in exile in Rabat, Morocco. Mobutu began his career in the Belgian Congolese army, rising to the highest rank available to Africans, sergeant-major. However, after leaving the army in 1956, he began to be involved with the independence movement, representing the nationalists at some negotiations. Five years after independence, in 1965, Mobutu, then commander in chief of the army, exploited a power struggle in the young government by assuming the presidency in a coup. Mobutu managed to stay in power over the following decades despite uprisings, coup attempts and Angola-backed rebels. In the early 1970s, he began to Africanize names in the country, most notably changing the name of the country from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Republic of Zaire and his own name from Joseph-Désiré Mobutu to Mobutu Sese Seko Koko Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (which means "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake"). The end of the Cold War meant that, in 1991, Mobutu could no longer hold the same dictatorial control he had held over the country nor keep his party, the MPR, as the only legal political entity. With the beginnings of a multiparty system and a lack of Western finance, Mobutu released control of the government to the rebel leader Laurent Kabila in May 1997. Kabila‘s rebels—backed by Rwanda and Uganda—had been gaining ground over the past seven months. Mobutu died in exile several months later. In 2001 Michela Wrong authored ""In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo."
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)(AP, 9/7/98)(HNQ, 2/15/01)(WSJ, 4/27/01, p.W10)
1997 Sep 7, In the disputed Kashmir region Indian and Pakistani gunners exchanged artillery fire and 14 villagers on the Pakistani side were reported killed and 5 were reported killed on the Indian side.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A16)
1997 Sep 8, The TV series “Ally McBeal" starred Calista Flockhart as a working girl who was part successful attorney and part angst-ridden woman. The show continued to 2002.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.45)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0118254/)
1997 Sep 8, Lawyers in the Paula Jones case against Pres. Clinton decided to quit the suit after Jones refused to accept a financial settlement.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 8, Monday commuters in and around San Francisco faced huge traffic jams a day after workers for the Bay Area's commuter rail system went on strike. An agreement ending the walkout was reached five days later.
(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, Forbes Mag. listed Steven Spielberg as the best paid figure, $313 Mil, in the entertainment business in 1997.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.E2)
1997 Sep 8, It was announced the America Online Inc. (AOL) would take over Compuserve in a 3-way deal that involved WorldCom.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A3)(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, John Liebeskind (62) died in LA. He was a leading researcher in the study of pain and found that the brain controls pain by creating a chemical now known as an endorphin.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 8, In France a passenger train collided with a gasoline truck in Perigord town and killed at least 12 people and injured 39.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, From Guatemala it was reported that a new rebel group emerged in the Chajul region calling itself the Guerrilla Command Force ‘97.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 8, In Haiti the ferry, Pride of Gonave, sank in the Saint Marc Channel off Montrouis. The 60-foot vessel was chartered for only 80 passengers. The recovered bodies numbered 170. A Haitian ferry, the Pride of Gonave, capsized, killing about three-quarters of the 200 people aboard.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A10)(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, In Japan Prime Minister Hashimoto won re-election as head of the Liberal Democrats.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, In Liberia some 200,000 refugees from Sierra Leone had spilled over from escalating violence.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, In Mexico the Fox and Jaguar SWAT police in Mexico City engaged in a gun fight with a neighborhood gang. One young man and one police officer died. Police seized 6 youths and 3 were found dead the next day with gunshot wounds to the head. Three more were found dead on Sep 29. On Oct 3 nineteen members of the police force were arraigned for the executions. Three ranking officers were later arrested due to contradictory and misleading statements.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A8)(SFC,11/19/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 9, Actor Burgess Meredith died in Malibu, Calif., at age 89. He had played the Penguin on TV’s Batman and numerous films in a 60 year film career. He was born Nov 16, 1907 in Cleveland.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A18)(AP, 9/9/98)
1997 Sep 9, Richie Ashburn, Hall of Fame baseball player (Phillies, Mets), died at 70.
(www.baseball-reference.com/a/ashburi01.shtml)
1997 Sep 9, Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, accepted the Mitchell Principles and formally renounced violence as it took its place in talks on Northern Ireland's future.
(AP, 9/9/98)(MC, 9/9/01)
1997 Sep 9, In China former Beijing mayor Chen Xitong was handed over to prosecutors on charges of corruption in a scandal with the loss of as much as $2.2 billion in public funds.
(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A9)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.49)
1997 Sep 10, Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy pleaded innocent to charges of accepting $35,000 in sports tickets, travel and lodging from companies regulated by the Agriculture Department. He was later acquitted.
(AP, 9/10/98)
1997 Sep 10, Discovery Comm. Bought a 70% stake in the Travel Channel from Paxson Comm. for $20 million. Paxson had acquired the Travel Channel in June from Clear Channel Comm.
(www.backchannelmedia.com/articles/41-42-new-era-demands-new.html)
1997 Sep 10, The $250 million Mars Global Surveyor successfully went into orbit around Mars for its 2 year mapping mission.
(USAT, 8/29/97, p.12A)(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A4)
1997 Sep 10, The ashes of Eliot Ness, FBI agent, were laid to rest in Cleveland.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.11B)
1997 Sep 10, In LA 11 people were killed in a fiery car crash after a day of selling corn.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.11B)
1997 Sep 10, In Cuba a former Salvadoran soldier was arrested and confessed to carrying out a series of bomb attacks. A statement said that Raul Ernesto Cruz was paid $4,500 for each bomb he planted and that he had been trained in El Salvador.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 11, In Manhattan Elie Wiesel helped dedicate the new Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park, designed by Kevin Roche. It was dubbed a Living memorial to the Holocaust.
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 11, The US Army issued a searing indictment of itself, asserting that "sexual harassment exists throughout the Army, crossing gender, rank and racial lines."
(AP, 9/11/98)
1997 Sep 11, In Kenya the Parliament approved some constitutional reforms but opponents charged the measures were only meant to diffuse protests. Detention without trial was ended and greater media access to the opposition was to be established.
(WSJ, 9/12/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 11, In Scotland voters went to the polls on a referendum for a separate Scottish Parliament. In a two-part referendum, 74.3% of Scots voted for a 129-member parliament to administer many aspects of Scottish life. 63.5% said 'yes' to giving it modest tax changing powers. The parliament controls schools, the health service, environmental affairs and farm support programs.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A10)(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A12)(Reuters, 2/16/12)
1997 Sep 12, Pres. Clinton named Dr. David Satcher, 56, as the new surgeon general.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 12, With little to show after three days of shuttle diplomacy, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared she wouldn't return to the Mideast until Israeli and Palestinian leaders made the "hard decisions" necessary to restart peace talks.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1997 Sep 12, US Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms, exercising iron control, prevented any committee hearing on William Weld's nomination to be ambassador to Mexico.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1997 Sep 12, Edwin Lawrence Njuguna of Kenya was stabbed to death in Napa, Calif., after being dragged with two friends from a car by skinheads.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 12, It was reported that Comoros government troops under Pres. Mohamed Taki were routed on Anjouan and half of a force of 300 were killed or captured by people who demanded to be French again.
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 12, In southeast Congo a plane crashed enroute to a religious meeting. All 20 aboard were killed.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 12, The Chinese Communist Party Congress opened under Pres. Jiang Zemin and embraced a program of bold economic reform. The event was held every 5 years. Jiang Zemin was expected to stay as general-secretary. The positions of Li Peng and Qiao Shi were in question. Jiang issued a call to use layoffs, bankruptcies, shareholding and other capitalist policies to attack the nation’s industrial ills.
(SFC, 8/28/97, p.C2)(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A8)(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 12, In Mexico a crowd of tens of thousands rallied in the central square of Mexico City in support of the Zapatista movement.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 13, Katherine Shindle of Illinois was crowned Miss America in Atlantic City, N.J.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 13, It was reported that a monster hurricane named Linda was moving up the Pacific coast.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 13, Victor Szebehely, a theorist of celestial mechanics, died in Texas. He wrote or edited some 18 books including: "Theory of Orbit," and "Adventures in Celestial Mechanics."
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A23)
1997 Sep 13, In Algeria security forces killed 8 suspected Muslim militants in a rocket attack on a mosque in a suburb of the capital. Earlier a Muslim cleric was assassinated by suspected militants in Constantine.
(WSJ, 9/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 13, In Bosnia municipal elections were held under NATO escort. There was a high voter turnout.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A22)(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 13, A German military transport, a Soviet-made Tupelov-154 jet, was reported crashed with 24 people off the coast of Angola. A midair collision with a USAF C-141 Starlifter cargo plane from Namibia was reported and the total dead reached 32. Poor communications and faulty regional traffic control were cited as the cause. On Mar 31, 1988 the German government reported that the German crew was at fault for flying in airspace reserved for westbound traffic.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A1)(SFC,12/16/97, p.B1)(WSJ, 3/31/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.A5)
1997 Sep 13, Funeral services were held in Calcutta, India, for Nobel peace laureate Mother Teresa.
(AP, 9/13/98)
1997 Sep 13, In Lebanon six soldiers were killed in a rocket attack by Israeli helicopters.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A22)
1997 Sep 13, In Mexico City a national Zapatista civilian movement was inaugurated.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 13, From New Zealand it was reported that the government approved the release of the rabbit calcivirus to eradicate the rabbit pest problem.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 13, In the Philippines the Mount Pinukis volcano, 120 miles east of Zamboanga City, erupted after being dormant since 1985.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 14, At the 49th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, "Law and Order" won best drama series while "Frasier" won best comedy series.
(AP, 9/14/02)
1997 Sep 14, An Air Force F-117A Stealth fighter broke apart in midair at a Baltimore County air show. The pilot ejected safely but about a dozen people on the ground were slightly injured.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 14, Overcoming fears of violence, Bosnians flooded polling stations to vote in local elections.
(AP, 9/14/02)
1997 Sep 14, In India at least 77 people were killed when a train plunged from a bridge near Champa town in the east of Madhya Pradesh state. Another 234 were injured.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A11)
1997 Sep 14, Two Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah attack in southern Lebanon.
(WSJ, 9/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 14, Israel announced that it will return half of the $67 million in Palestinian tax revenues as a "goodwill gesture."
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 14, It was reported that Norway is the world’s 2nd largest oil exporter and that the government sets aside nearly $8.3 billion into a fund for the future.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 15, Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld gave up his battle to be U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
(AP, 9/15/98)
1997 Sep 15, Two of the nation's most popular diet drugs -- dexfenfluramine and fenfluramine -- were pulled off the market because of new evidence they could seriously damage patients' hearts.
(AP, 9/15/98)
1997 Sep 15, A Marine F/Aa-18 Hornet fighter jet crashed in North Carolina’s Pamlico sound and its 2 pilots were killed.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 15, From Afghanistan it was reported that the Taliban has prohibited the cultivation of opium poppies. Some 200,000 families produced a record 2,800 tons of opium in 1997, a 25% increase over 1996.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 15, In Algeria 7 people were killed in Saida by masked assailants and four people had their throats cut in Medea.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 15, In India at the port city of Visakhapatnam a fire raged at the Hindustan Petroleum Corp. and 37 were reported dead.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 15, The IRA allied Sinn Fein party entered Northern Ireland's peace talks for the first time. All party talks for peace were to begin in Belfast.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)(AP, 9/15/98)
1997 Sep 15, In North Korea it was reported that about 15% of people in the towns and villages of the country may be dying of starvation and famine-related diseases in a survey conducted by Korean-American organizations.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 15, In Norway Prime Minister Thorbjoern Jagland said he would step down after support in national elections reached only about 35%.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 15, In Oman a US Navy F/A-18 crashed and the pilot was killed.
(WSJ, 9/16/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 15, From Thailand it was reported that layoffs, salary cuts and downsizing was spreading across the economy under an expensive foreign debt load and a 40% fall in the value of the baht.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 16, US Attorney General Janet Reno named Charles La Bella the Justice Department's new lead prosecutor in the campaign fund-raising investigation.
(AP, 9/16/98)
1997 Sep 16, Two Air national Guard F-16 fighters collided off Atlantic City, N.J. All the crew members survived.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 16, In Egypt a state-owned farm-truck carrying up to 120 boys and girls overturned and killed 29 of them. 23 children from Sa el-Hagar were killed.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.C4)(SFC, 10/1/98, p.A14)
1997 Sep 17, Pres. Clinton rejected a proposed tobacco deal and planned to outline his own policy.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 17, Pres. Clinton announced that the US would not sign the int’l. treaty banning anti-personnel land mines after 89 nations rejected US demands to water down the accord. 89 nations endorsed the pact.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, The US House of Representatives voted themselves a $3,000 pay increase, the equivalent of a 2.3% raise on $133,600. It was termed a cost-of-living increase and was opposed by the Senate.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 17, Montana passed a new law, effective Dec 17, that makes the entire state an offshore banking center, allowing foreign interests to anonymously stash their cash. Depositors could not be US citizens and a minimum of $200,000 was required.
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A18)
1997 Sep 17, Dr. Sam Sheppard's body (subject of the TV show "The Fugitive") was exhumed in Cleveland, Ohio, for DNA test.
(www.courttv.com/archive/trials/sheppard/timeline_ctv.html)
1997 Sep 17, Bernard Richard Skelton (Red Skelton, b.1913), comic clown and actor, died at age 84 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He made his debut on radio and Broadway in 1937 and appeared in 43 films. In 1979 Arthur Marx wrote his biography.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.C2)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, From Indonesia it was reported that government spending was slashed and projects for power plants and roads were put on hold in order to keep the economy on an even keel.
(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A17)
1997 Sep 17, The German Red Cross estimated that the famine in North Korea might be killing 10,000 children every month.
(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 17, In Macedonia the mayor of Gostevar, Rufi Osmani, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges of inciting ethnic hatred in the July riots.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)
1998 Sep 17, In Ensenada, Mexico, 20 people were shot and 18 were killed by gunmen. The victims included 8 children. Fermin Castro (38), aka "The Ice Man," was the principal target and leader of one of 6 gangs linked to the Arellano Felix drug cartel. Castro, a native Pai Pai Indian, was tortured before being shot and was in a coma. In Dec. Tijuana police arrested Hector Flores Esquivias and Cruz Medina Perez, the wife of gang leader Martinez Gonzalez.
(WSJ, 9/18/98, p.A1)(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A1)(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A12)(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A13)
1997 Sep 17, A U.N. helicopter slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain in central Bosnia and burst into flames, killing German diplomat Gerd Wagner, five Americans and six others.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, In Vietnam Tran Duc Luong (60) was nominated to be the country’s president. Vice Prime Minister Phan Van Khai (64) was nominated to be the new prime minister. A week later Luong was elected by the National Assembly and Khai was confirmed as premier.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 18, Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse agreed to merge to create the world's biggest accounting firm.
(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 18, Media mogul Ted Turner pledged to give the United Nations $1 billion over the next ten years.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 18, In Colorado Sabrina (31) Bebb-Jones was reported missing by employees of the Hotel Melrose in Grand Junction. Her husband, Marcus Bebb-Jones, a professional gambler, was later accused of dumping her on a mountain pass in northwestern Colorado. Her skull was found and positively identified in 2004. He returned to his native England, where he was arrested in 2009.
(AP, 4/12/10)(http://tinyurl.com/y9wqjtr)
1997 Sep 18, In Albania a Socialist lawmaker shot and wounded a rival from the opposition Democrats inside the parliament building.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 18, In Bosnia a car bomb in Mostar injured about 50 people and destroyed 56, apartments, 9 businesses and 44 cars.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 18, In Egypt two gunmen killed 10 people in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in front of the Egyptian Museum. Of the dead were nine German tourists and a bus driver and a dozen more were wounded as the tour bus was set afire. Saber and Mahmoud Abu el-Ulla, a former inmate of a mental hospital and his brother, were caught, convicted and sentenced to death.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A12)(SFC,10/31/97, p.D3)(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 18, In Norway an explosion at a Russian-operated coal mine in the Svalbard islands killed 23 Russian and Ukrainian workers.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 18, In Wales voters narrowly approved a referendum for partial self-government with 50.3% of the vote in which only 50% of the voters took part.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 19, The crime drama "L.A. Confidential" opened. It was directed by Curtis Hanson. Los Angeles and New York film critics later voted it the best film of the year. Kim Bassinger won the Golden Globes award for best supporting actress.
(SSFC, 9/1/02, Par p.14)(AP, 9/19/07)
1997 Sep 19, It was reported that the US trade deficit rose to $10.3 billion in July, a 25% jump over June.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 19, A US Air Force B-1 bomber crashed on a training mission in Montana and all 4 crew members were killed.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 19, Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr. (19) was found charred and dismembered in an Aspen Hill, Md., garage. One suspected killer, Samuel Sheinbein (17), fled to Israel. A 2nd suspect, Aaron B. Needle (17), was held in jail. In Oct. the attorney general decided to return Sheinbein to the US. The two young men were indicted on murder and conspiracy charges. Needle committed suicide by hanging in 1998. In 1999 the Israeli Supreme Court held that Sheinbein could not be extradited. Sheinbein agreed to plead guilty to murder and received a prison sentence of 24 years with possible parole after 16.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/20/97, p.A1)(SFC,10/31/97, p.A3)(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A18)(SFC, 2/25/99, p.A12)(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A10)
1997 Sep 19, In his first public comments since the death of Princess Diana, Princes Charles told the British people he would always feel the loss of his former wife, and thanked them for their support.
1997 Sep 19, In England a passenger train collided with a freight train in west London and 6 people were killed and 170 injured.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A10)(AP, 9/19/98)
1997 Sep 20, President Clinton's attorneys insisted no laws were broken as it was disclosed that Attorney General Janet Reno had taken a first step toward seeking a special prosecutor to investigate the president's 1996 fund-raising activities.
(AP, 9/20/98)
1997 Sep 20, Nicholas Traina (19), the son of novelist Danielle Steel, died in SF of a drug overdose.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 20, Jimmy Witherspoon (b.8/23/23 in Gurdon, Ark.), blues singer, died at age 74 in LA.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1997 Sep 20, In Niger it was reported that about 71,000 villagers were threatened by famine in the southwestern areas around Oualam.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Sep 20, In the Philippines Pres. Ramos announced that he would not run for re-election. A mass protest was staged the next day anyway to prevent a change in the constitution that would allow a 2nd term.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 21, Saying their persistent demands for a special investigation had been vindicated, senior Republicans insisted Attorney General Janet Reno seek appointment of an independent counsel to look into White House fund-raising activities, a day after the Justice Department revealed it had begun a preliminary review.
(AP, 9/21/98)
1997 Sep 21, American billionaire George Soros, vilified by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad as the cause of the national financial crises, defended himself and called his accuser "a menace to his own country."
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 21, In Algeria an armed group killed 53 people in Beni-Slimane and then mutilated and burned the bodies.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A9)
1997 Sep 21, From Chile it was reported that the hantavirus had caused the death of 13 people in recent months.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A27)
1997 Sep 21, From Poland election results indicated that Solidarity won 189 of the 460 seats of the parliament with about 34% of the vote.
(WSJ, 9/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 22, Elton John released his Diana tribute "Candle in the Wind 1997."
(www.vex.net/~paulmac/elton/ej1997.html)
1997 Sep 22, President Clinton, addressing the United Nations, told world leaders to "end all nuclear tests for all time" as he sent the long-delayed global test-ban treaty to the Senate.
(AP, 9/22/98)
1997 Sep 22, Sportscaster Marv Albert went on trial in Arlington, Va., on charges of sodomy and assault. Albert later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, received no jail time and later had his record cleared.
(AP, 9/22/02)
1997 Sep 22, In the farming village of Roby, Illinois, a standoff between police and Shirley Allen (51) began that turned into a 5-week police siege. Her brother initially showed up with a court order for a psychiatric exam and she refused to comply. She was finally captured after being shot with rubber bullets. Shirley Ann Allen was apprehended when she stepped out onto her porch on October 30, 1997. Illinois State Police officers fired several large rubber bullets at her from a grenade launcher, striking her several times. Apparently not seriously injured, Allen was taken to St. Johns Hospital in Springfield, Illinois for her "evaluation." Ending on Thursday, October 30, 1997 a 39-day police siege, the longest in Illinois history. According to Illinois State Police Director Terry Gainer between $750,000 and $1,000,000 of taxpayer money was spent during the stand-off. After six weeks in a mental hospital, Allen was released when doctors said she posed no danger to herself or others.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/31/97, p.A3)(www.outlawslegal.com/friendly/shirley.htm)
1997 Sep 22, It was reported that IBM has developed a new copper chip that will be smaller and up to 40% more powerful than previous chips.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 22, It was reported that scientists had developed a new technology that takes the flicker out of starlight using "adaptive optics."
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A5)
1997 Sep 22, Shoichi Yokoi (b.1915), Japanese WW II fighter who only surrendered in 1972, died. For 28 years he had hid in an underground jungle cave on Guam, fearing to come out of hiding even after finding leaflets declaring that World War II had ended.
(www.wanpela.com/holdouts/profiles/yokoi.html)
1997 Sep 22, In Serbia the Socialist Party of Slobodan Milosevic claimed victory in the elections. Many of his opponents boycotted the elections which they said were rigged. Zoran Lilic was expected to take the presidency. A majority was not won and a runoff election was scheduled for Oct 5.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A8)(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 23, The White House awarded the $10,000 National Heritage Fellows awards to a dozen Americans that included Chinese singer Hua Wenyi, and Ali Akbar Khan, composer of North Indian music.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A17)
1997 Sep 23, The Gilmore Artist Award, a $300,000 prize given every 4 years to a classical pianist, was awarded to Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes at the Irving S. Gilmore Int’l. Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, Mich.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.E5)
1997 Sep 23, The US Senate Finance Committee opened hearings into reports of alleged abuses by the Internal Revenue Service.
(AP, 9/23/98)
1997 Sep 23, Kevin (18) and Tilmon Golphin (19) of Virginia shot and killed Patrol Troopers Ed Lowry and David Hathcock on I-95 in North Carolina after they were pulled over in a stolen car. The 2 brothers were sentenced to death May 13, 1998.
(SFC, 5/14/98, p.A6)
1997 Sep 23, In Algeria the government reported that 85 people were killed, while eyewitnesses counted more than 200 bodies in the Bentalha neighborhood of the Baraki suburb of Algiers. Armed men raided an Algerian village, killing at least 200 people in one of the worst massacres since Algeria's Islamic insurgency began.
(AP, 9/23/98)(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 24, Garth Brooks was named best entertainer by Country Music Association.
(AP, 9/24/98)
1997 Sep 24, President Clinton urged the annual convention of the AFL-CIO not to try to punish Democratic lawmakers who stood with him on his request for stronger authority to negotiate new free-trade treaties.
(AP, 9/24/98)
1997 Sep 24, Travelers Group announced the acquisition of Salomon Brothers for $9 billion in stock.
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.89)(www.businessweek.com/1997/40/b3547006.htm)
1997 Sep 24, The Islamic Salvation Army (AIS) declared a truce and blamed recent killings on a splinter fundamentalist group, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 24, It was reported that drought has destroyed crops across the Indonesian archipelago and could force up to 1 million villagers into a famine diet. Forest and scrub fires continued to burn out of control. 750,000 acres of bush land had burned. It was the worst drought in 50 years.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A11)(SFC, 7/6/98, p.A8)
1997 Sep 24, In the Republic of the Congo it was reported that the Cobras, the private militia of former military dictator Gen’l. Denis Sassou-Nguesso, had taken control of more than three-quarters of the country.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 25, The NBC prime-time drama "ER" did its season premiere live for the Eastern United States, then repeated the performance live for the West Coast.
(AP, 9/25/98)
1997 Sep 25, President Clinton pulled open the door of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., as he welcomed nine blacks who had faced hate-filled mobs 40 years earlier.
(AP, 9/25/98)
1997 Sep 25, Sportscaster Marv Albert ended his trial in Arlington, Va., by pleading guilty to assault and battery charges; within hours, NBC fired him. The network later rehired him.
(AP, 9/25/07)
1997 Sep 25, In the town of Scotia in Humboldt County, Ca., 7 protestors settled in the company office of Pacific Lumber. Sheriff’s deputies applied pepper spray directly to the eyes of the protestors using cotton swabs and Q-tips.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.A15)
1997 Sep 25, In California it was reported that traces of toxaphene, banned in 1982, were found in at least one bird in a southern Tulare County canal where some 1600 western grebes and millions of fish were found dead.
(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A13)
1997 Sep 25, The space shuttle Atlantis was launched. Astronaut David Wolf scheduled to replace Michael Foale on the Mir space station.
(www.cnn.com/TECH/9709/25/shuttle.mir/)(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 25, A British jet car, Thrust SSC, driven by Andy Green of the Royal Air Force set a land speed record of 714.144 mph. [see Oct 13]
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A1,7)
1997 Sep 25, From Brazil it was reported that local transsexuals could get a free sex-change operation under new rules that classified the surgery as experimental.
(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 25, Iraq demanded that Turkey pull back some 15,000 troops who crossed its border in pursuit of Kurdistan Workers Party guerrillas.
(WSJ, 9/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 25, In Jordan Khalid Mashaal, the political leader of Hamas, was chemically attacked by two men with forged Canadian passports in Amman. Hamas accused the men of being Israeli Mossad agents. Jordan's King Hussein intervened, forcing Israel to send the antidote that saved the Hamas leader's life and release the group's jailed founder in exchange for the freedom of its captured agents.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B4)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.A17)(AP, 9/25/04)
1997 Sep 26, Gap Inc. dressed the NY stock exchange in khakis fashion, the first casual dress day in exchange history.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.C1)
1997 Sep 26, US and Russia signed a package of arms control agreements that extended parts of START II to 2007. Systems were still required to be disabled by 2003. Other accords modified the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 with Belarus, Kazakstan, the Ukraine and Russia to allow flexibility for the development of short range systems.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 26, In Algeria militants attacked the village of El Hadj and killed 15 people.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 26, In Bosnia political broadcasts began in Banja Luka under an agreement by rival factions to share the airwaves on alternate days.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A26)
1997 Sep 26, A German court convicted Nikola Jorgic, a Bosnian Serb, for leading a death squad that killed 22 Muslims in Grapska during the war.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 26, An Indonesian Garuda Air A-300 crashed while approaching Medan Airport in north Sumatra and all 234 passengers were killed. Low visibility from the areas fires were thought to have contributed the tragedy.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/26/98)
1997 Sep 26, In Italy Bob Dylan performed at a religious congress in Bologna before a crowd 200,000 and Pope John Paul II.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 26, Two earthquakes hit central Italy east of Umbria and at least 11 people were killed. The basilica of Assisi, St. Mary of the Angels, built on the site where St. Francis died, was severely damaged. 4 people were killed while assessing damage from the first quake. An estimated 100,000 buildings in the Umbria and Marche regions were damaged.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.A18)
1997 Sep 26, In Sicily a court convicted 24 mobsters for the 1992 bombing of the top anti-mafia prosecutor. Salvatore "Toto" Riina, the reputed "boss of bosses" was among those convicted for having plotted the assassination of Giovanni Falcone.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 27, The space shuttle Atlantis, docked with the problem-plagued Russian Mir station to drop off American David Wolf and pick up Michael Foale.
(AP, 9/27/98)
1997 Sep 27, In Algeria witnesses said armed men killed 11 female teachers at Ain Adden School in Sfisef while shouting "Blood, blood, blood, destruction, destruction, destruction," the rallying cry of the Armed Islamic Group.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 27, In Indonesia two cargo ships collided in the strait of Malacca and at least 28 crew members were missing. Smog from fires impacted visibility.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A21)
1997 Sep 27, In Hong Kong lawmakers approved an election law that reduced the number of people who could vote and increased the power of big business.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 27, In North Korea Kim Jong Il ordered the establishment of the "9-27" camps for orphaned and homeless children to "normalize" the country.
(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A10)
1997 Sep 27, In Thailand the parliament passed a constitution intended to fight government corruption and rejected a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Chavilit.
(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 28, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hit his 58th home run on the final day of the regular season as his team beat the Chicago Cubs, 2-1.
(AP, 9/28/98)
1997 Sep 28, Newscaster David Brinkley, 74, retired after 54 years in broadcasting.
(http://tinyurl.com/7dxec)
1997 Sep 28, In California a wildfire killed livestock and forced the evacuation of some 1500 people in Yuba County. Scores of homes were burned.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 28, From LA it was reported that Cirildo Chacarito, a 52-year-old Mexican Indian tribesman, won a 100-mile endurance run along mountain trails in 19 1/2 hours.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A23)
1997 Sep 28, In Indonesia an earthquake measuring 6.0 hit Sulawesi island and at least 7 people were killed.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A21)
1997 Sep 28, Swiss voters overwhelmingly endorsed their government's liberal drug policies, including the controversial state distribution of heroin to hardened addicts.
(AP, 9/28/98)
1997 Sep 29, Maxine Hong Kingston, American writer, was scheduled to receive a National Humanities Medal from Pres. Clinton. Her best known is: "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts."
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.D7)
1997 Sep 29, Oklahoma City bombing defendant Terry Nichols went on trial in the same courtroom in Denver where Timothy McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to die. Nichols was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy, but acquitted of murder and weapons-related counts; he was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 9/29/98)
1997 Sep 29, A 10,000 gallon oil spill occurred off the coast of Santa Barbara from an undersea pipeline to an offshore oil platform.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 29, Roy Lichtenstein (b. 10/28/23), American pop artist, died at age 73 in New York.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 29, In Algeria some 15 armed attackers killed 52 members of one extended family in Chebil and kidnapped 5 young women.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 29, In Chile a fire killed 30 children in a home for retarded children in northern Santiago.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A13)
1997 Sep 29, The French oil company Total signed a $2 billion contract to explore for gas in Iran despite warnings from the Clinton administration.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 29, Iranian warplanes bombed anti-Tehran rebel bases inside Iraq.
(WSJ, 9/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 29, It was reported that Jordan shut down 13 weekly newspapers for allegedly failing to maintain assets and cash to $430,000.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 29, It was reported that Swiss voters backed the continuation of a 3-year experiment in more lenient drug laws that included free heroin to hard-core addicts to cut crime.
(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 29, Turkish planes attacked Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq and drove the guerrillas toward the Iran border.
(WSJ, 9/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 30, The Rolling Stones album "Bridges to Babylon" was scheduled for release.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, DB p.35)
1997 Sep 30, Hooters agreed to pay $2 million in discrimination suits.
(www.spcnetwork.com/mii/1997/971004.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/7n8v9)
1997 Sep 30, In Waterbury, Conn., Todd Joseph Rizzo (18), recently discharged from the Marines, bludgeoned to death Stanley Edwards IV (13) to see what it felt like to kill. In 1999, a jury sentenced him to die. In 2003, the state Supreme Court overturned that sentence because Judge William Holden had not properly instructed the jury.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A6)(www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1407662/posts)
1997 Sep 30, In Louisiana the Flamingo riverboat casino closed. It was the last riverboat casino in downtown New Orleans and the 4th to open and close in the last 4 years. One floating casino was left on Lake Pontchartrain.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A4)
1997 Sep 30, In an unprecedented act of repentance, France's Roman Catholic Church apologized for its silence during the systematic persecution and deportation of Jews by the pro-Nazi Vichy regime.
(AP, 9/30/98)
1997 Sep 30, In Serbia Zoran Djindjic, mayor of Belgrade, was ousted in a coup by nationalist extremists and some former allies. The city assembly voted to oust Djindjic and the TV editors. Some 20,000 demonstrators protested in downtown Belgrade. Senior editors of Studio B television, the only opposition to Milosevic’s state television, were also ousted.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 30, On St. Kitts island Leyoca Browne (20) and her mother, Violet (36), were murdered by Bertil Fox, a former Mr. Universe bodybuilder. He was found guilty and sentenced to death on 5/23/98.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.A8)
1997 Sep 30, In Thailand the cabinet officially scrapped the $3.2 billion rail and road system under construction by Hopewell Holdings. The Bangkok Elevated Rail and Transport System known as Berts was one fifth built and several years behind schedule.
(WSJ, 10/1/97, p.A18)
1997 Sep, "The Riverside Records Story, " a 4 CD label overview on Fantasy Records was released along with "Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years," a 3 CD collection on Clint Eastwood’s Malpaso Records label.
(SFEM, 10/5/97, p.29)
1997 Sep, The US released the one ounce Platinum Eagle coin with $100 face value. The coin was valued around $390.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.C1)
1997 Sep, Steve Jobs was named interim CEO of Apple Corp. Jobs dropped the term interim in 2000.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.80)
1997 Sep, In Tyrone, Pa., Devon Capital Management under John Gardner Black was shut down by the SEC. Mr. Black was charged with fraud after losing millions in high-risk bonds and derivatives and then trying to cover up the losses. Some $70 million was lost from the investments of 64 cash-strapped school districts in the state.
(WSJ, 12/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep, In Dallas, Texas, the Walt Whitman Community School began classes as the nation’s first private high school for gay students.
(SFC, 5/11/98, p.A3)
1997 Sep, MIT student Scott Krueger fell into a coma and died following a drinking binge at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. In 1998 the fraternity was charged with homicide.
(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A3)
1997 Sep, Isaiah Berlin (b.1909) died. He had just published "The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History." It was his 11th book and was unified by the theme of the impact of belief and loss of belief that events obey discoverable laws. "Most of life transpires at deeper strata, within a complicated network of relationships involving every form of human intercourse, more and more insusceptible to tidy classification, more and more opaque to the theorist’s vision." In 1998 his collection of essays "The Proper Study of Mankind" was published. In 2002 his 1952 BBC lectures were published under the title: "Freedom and its Betrayal." It was a portrait of 6 thinkers: Helvetius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simon and Maistre as "enemies of human liberty."
(SFEC, 5/25/97, BR p.9)(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/20/02, p.A20)
1997 Sep, Adolfo Scilingo, a former Argentine navy officer, had his face slashed by unknown assailants in a Buenos Aires street. He and Horatio Verbitsky wrote "El Vuelo," (The Flight), a best -seller about the death flights during the "dirty war."
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)
1997 Sep, In England a 13-foot high painting titled "Myra" by Marcus Harvey was displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts show "Sensation." It was created from children’s handprints and based on a mug shot of Myra convicted of murdering children in 1966. It was part of a show from the collection of Charles Saatchi of the "Brit Art gang." The show was deemed by many as very offensive.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.E5)
1997 Sep, In India 30 people organizing lower-caste villagers were killed by a rival group.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep, In Iraq some military intelligence officials were caught plotting a coup against Saddam Hussein and at least half a dozen officers were executed.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)
1997 Sep, In Chiapas, Mexico, gunmen demanded a "war tax" of $1.25 from villagers every couple weeks and threatened them if they refused. It was reported that the PRI had distributed guns to allies in villages around Puebla.
(SFC,12/30/97, p.B1)
1997 Sep, In Poland Col. Ryszard Kuklinski was cleared of spy charges after a military court ruled that he acted in Poland’s best interests. He had served as a US CIA spy and reported on activities from 1972-1981.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A10)
1997 Sep, In Sri Lanka Tamil guerrillas sank a ship in the Trincomalee area. By 1999 leakage of the 700 tons of oil in the ship was threatening the coastline.
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.A6)
1997 Sep, In Sudan Gen. Omar Bashir accepted a 3-year-old proposal to hold direct negotiations with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A12)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
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Return to home
1997 Jul 1, Nevada Athletic Commission suspended Mike Tyson for biting Holyfield.
(www.lasvegassun.com/sports/boxing/htfight/)
1997 Jul 1, Film star Robert Mitchum died at 79 (b.1917) in Santa Barbara County, Calif.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/1/98)
1997 Jul 1, Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony. Britain relinquished Hong Kong as a colonial territory, and China became master. Many rights were guaranteed for 50 years under a Sino-British treaty. Tung Chee Hwa (b.1937) began serving as the first chief executive of Hong Kong.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tung_Chee-hwa)(WSJ, 11/14/94, p.A9)(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A9)(AP, 7/1/98)
1997 Jul 1, Two Israeli soldiers were injured by a pipe bomb and 15 Palestinians were wounded by rubber bullets in Hebron in disturbances after an Israeli women, Tatiana Susskin (25), distributed leaflets with the Prophet Mohammed depicted as a pig stomping on the Koran.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A8)(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 1, In the UK a new handgun law took effect as a result of the 1996 massacre at the school in Dunblane, Scotland.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.A13)
1997 Jul 1, In Russia the grave site of 9,000 victims in the Karelia Forest at Medvezhyegorsk was opened. In Oct-Nov, 1937, a 3-man panel under Stalin, the "Osobaya Troika," signed death sentences that were sent to thousands of gulags across Russia and led to the massacre. A monument was planned.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 1, Thailand let its currency, the baht, float and it devalued about 20%. This event marked the beginning of the Asian economic crises. In 1999 Thailand sought to extradite Rakesh Saxena, a currency trader, from Canada for his role in an alleged fraud that drained over $2 billion from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce, which led to the devaluation of the baht. Pin Chakkaphak was blamed for the collapse of the currency and fled Asia. He was ordered back from Britain in 2001 to face accounting and theft charges. In 2009 Saxena (57) arrived in Thailand after his extradition from Canada to face charges he embezzled $88 million from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce, which collapsed in 1995. Saxena was also implicated in backing the attempted 1997 coup in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.D4)(WSJ, 7/21/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.D1)(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A1)(SFC, 3/9/01, p.A16)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.80)(AP, 10/30/09)(Econ, 11/7/09, p.42)
1997 Jul 2, The US began a round of underground nuclear weapons-related tests in Nevada.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 2, A federal judge in New York ruled that the military policy, "don’t ask, don’t tell," is unconstitutional and only serves to cater to the biases of many heterosexuals.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 2, A Montana court voided a 24-year-old ban on homosexual sex, concluding that the government has no business meddling in the sexual activity of consenting adults.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 2, Two Union Pacific trains collided 5 miles north of Rossville, Kan., when an engineer overshot a siding a struck an oncoming train 6 cars behind the locomotive; the engineer died in the wreck.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 2, Severe thunder storms tore through Michigan’s lower peninsula and killed at least 7 people.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 2, Actor James Stewart (b.1908), died in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 89.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/2/98)
1997 Jul 2, US Aid to Honduras had dropped this year to $28 million from a high of $229 million in 1985. The country had the highest AIDS rate in Central America.
(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 2, In Japan the Panamanian registered Diamond Grace oil tanker ran aground in Tokyo Bay and spilled nearly 2 million gallons of oil. The amount spilled was revised to 390,000 gallons.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A9)(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 2, A Canadian commission, established to review the actions of peace-keeping troops in Somalia between 1992-93, concluded that the troops were unprepared and victimized by commanders who ignored problems that escalated to torture and the killing of a Somali teenager.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Jul 2, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin fired justice minister Valentin Kovalyov due to the sex scandal of Jun 22.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.C3)
1997 Jul 3, In his first formal response to Paula Jones' charges of sexual harassment, President Clinton denied all allegations in her lawsuit and asked a judge to dismiss the case.
(AP, 7/3/02)
1997 Jul 3, Mississippi became the 1st state to settle its tobacco suit, less than one week before the 1st scheduled trial.
(http://tinyurl.com/amlhg)
1997 Jul 3, Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation's biggest defense contractor, announced its purchase of Northrop Grumman Corp. for $11.2 billion [$7.9 billion]. However, the merger fell apart over antitrust concerns.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/02)
1997 Jul 3, The Rainbow Family, founded in 1971, began their 25th gathering in Ochoco National Forest in Oregon. 20-30,000 were expected to participate.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 3, Daisy Mascada (18) cut off the penis of Julio Luna with a 10-inch knife in Seaside, Ca. She was sentenced to 7 years in prison and later pleaded that she had been kidnapped, battered and abused.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A22)
1997 Jul 3, Blues guitarist Johnny Copeland (b.1937), the "Texas Twister," died. His 1985 "Showdown" album with Albert Collins (d.1993) and Robert Cray won a Grammy for best traditional blues recording.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.C3)
1997 Jul 3, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (Lionsgate) was formed in Vancouver, BC. Its headquarters were later moved to Santa Monica, Ca.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_Gate_Entertainment)(Econ, 1/25/14, p.57)
1997 Jul 4, Ritt Goldstein, a businessman from Danbury, Conn., arrived in Sweden and sought political asylum. He claimed to be persecuted in the US for his crusade for civilian oversight of the police.
(SFC, 10/14/98, p.A10)
1997 Jul 4, Bikers returned to Hollister, Ca., for a 50-year anniversary and began an annual motorcycle tradition. [see Jul 4, 1947]
(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A18)
1997 Jul 4, The Mars Pathfinder landed and began to broadcast pictures of the red rocky landscape. The landing site was later named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 4, TV journalist and "On the Road" reporter Charles Kuralt (b.1934) died at 62 from lupus. His mistress of 29 years later sought to inherit his 90 acre Montana fishing retreat.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A5)(SFC, 2/18/00, p.A2)
1997 Jul 4, It was reported that Australia had sold 167 tons of gold over the last 6 months in order to put the money into more productive assets.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.C1)
1997 Jul 4, In Cambodia troops of prince Ranariddh laid down their arms and some 140 were taken prisoner by troops of 2nd Prime Minister Hun Sen. Ranariddh was on a trip to France and Hun Sen claimed that illegal negotiations were taking place with Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 4, In Guatemala Pres. Alvaro Arzu fired 2 top military officials, after they had helped negotiate a peace treaty. They were known as moderates and the hard-liner Gen’l. Hector Barrios took over as the new defense chief.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 4, The Hong Kong Philharmonic premiered of the "Symphony 1997 (Heaven Earth Mankind)" by the composer Tan Dun. The piece was commissioned by China to mark the reunification of Hong Kong and China.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 4, In Mexico it was reported that Amado Carillo Fuentes (41), Mexico’s reputed top drug trafficker, died following extensive plastic surgery. His operations were centered in Juarez, across the border from El Paso. He was called "Lord of the Skies" for using passenger jets to bring in cocaine from Colombia. It was later reported that his death was an inside job arranged because a massive manhunt for him had become a liability to his cartel’s business.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.B4)(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A10)(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A9)
1997 Jul 4, In Russia the parliament passed a law to reassert state control over weapons exports.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.C2)
1997 Jul 5, It was reported that as many as 100 paintings and drawings by Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) may be fakes.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 5, From Columbus, Ohio, The United Church of Christ decided to unite with 3 other protestant denominations that include the Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Church of America, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.B10)
1997 Jul 5, Sixteen-year-old Martina Hingis became the youngest Wimbledon singles champion this century as she beat Jana Novotna in the women's finals. (Charlotte "Lottie" Dod won in 1887 at age 15.)
(AP, 7/5/98)
1997 Jul 5, NASA scientists brainstormed to fix problems that left Mars Pathfinder's robot rover stuck aboard the lander.
(AP, 7/5/98)
1997 Jul 5, An editorial stated that Governor Fob James had declared Alabama to be a rights-free zone. In a letter to a federal judge Gov. James stated that the Constitution’s Bill of Rights does not apply to the states.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A16)
1997 Jul 5, Cambodia's Second Prime Minister Hun Sen launched a bloody coup that toppled First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh. The heavy fighting in Phnom Penh indicated the collapse of the fragile coalition.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.A3)(AP, 7/5/98)
1997 Jul 5, From Taiwan it was reported that the ruling party and the opposition pro-independence party had joined behind a plan to change the constitution and scrap the provincial government, a vestige of an old arrangement that considered Taiwan a part of China.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.C2)
1997 Jul 5, In Tokyo top electronics manufacturers agreed on standards for a new computer disk. The new magneto-optical disk will battle against the DVD-RAM disks as the preferred data storage format. Both disks will feature read and rewrite capabilities.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.D6)
1997 Jul 6, Pete Sampras won his fourth Wimbledon title as he defeated Cedric Pioline of France.
(AP, 7/6/98)
1997 Jul 6, The rover Sojourner rolled down a ramp from the Mars Pathfinder lander and began mankind’s first mobile exploration of Mars. The first rock targeted for examination was named "Barnacle Bill."
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A1) (AP, 7/6/98)
1997 Jul 6, In Washington DC Mary Mahoney (25), Emory Evans (25) and Aaron Goodrich (18) were murdered in an apparent botched robbery at Starbucks coffee shop in the Georgetown neighborhood. In 1999 Carl Derek Havord Cooper (29) was charged with the murders.
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A3)
1997 Jul 6, In Albania three people died as the 2nd round of elections were completed. The Socialist gained 12 more seats versus 5 more for the Democrats.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 6, In Cambodia Hun Sen declared victory while Prince Ranariddh planned from France to carry out a resistance effort.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 6, In Mexico City Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, leader of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, declared victory in the race for mayor. The PRI lost its majority in the lower house of Congress. The four opposition parties banded together in a coalition to inaugurate the new Congress on Aug 30.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A14)(AP, 7/6/98)
1997 Jul 6, In Portadown, Northern Ireland, British troops cleared the streets to allow the Orange Order to march through the Catholic enclave along Garvaghy Road amidst scattered violence.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 7, Montgomery Wards, the nation’s largest privately owned retailer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
(SFC, 7/8/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 7, It was reported that toxic waste was being used across the country in fertilizers with no regulation. Substances being recycled in fertilizer included low level radioactive waste from a uranium processing plant in Gore, Okla.; lead-laced waste from a pulp mill in Camas, Wash.; and toxic byproducts from steel-making in Moxee City, Wash.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A2)
1997 Jul 7, In California it was reported that the state’s million plus cows were churning out $3 billion worth of milk and leaking harmful nitrates into the ground water of the Central Valley. Years ago the Chino basin was forced to write off vast quantities of tainted ground water due to dairies.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 7, Three days after landing on Mars, the Pathfinder spacecraft yielded what scientists said was unmistakable photographic evidence that colossal floods scoured the Red Planet's now-barren landscape more than a billion years ago.
(AP, 7/7/98)
1997 Jul 7, In Chile the government agreed to back the 670,000 acre nature preserve of Doug Tompkins, founder of the Esprit clothing chain.
(SFC, 7/8/97, p.A7)
1997 Jul 7, In Kenya 9 people died during protests for constitutional reform.
(SFC, 7/8/97, p.A8)(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 8, The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee opened politically charged hearings into fund-raising abuses, with chairman Fred Thompson accusing China of trying to influence the 1996 U.S. elections.
(AP, 7/8/98)
1997 Jul 8, The Mayo Clinic and the government warned the diet-drug combination known as "fen-phen" could cause serious heart and lung damage. The drugs were withdrawn in September. In 2000 a federal judge approved a $3.75 billion national settlement of health claims due to use of the drugs.
(AP, 7/8/98)(SFC, 8/29/00, p.A4)
1997 Jul 8, Michelle Moore-Bosko (18) of Pittsburgh, who had recently moved to Norfolk, Va., and secretly married her longtime boyfriend, William Bosko, was found raped and killed. 4 sailors, who became known as the Norfolk Four, were later convicted for her rape and murder. In 2009 Danial Williams (37), Derek Tice (39) and Joseph Dick (33) were pardoned, culminating a four-year campaign for clemency based on the sailors' claims that they were coerced into falsely admitting their involvement, that the details they provided were wrong and that there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime. A fourth sailor, Eric Wilson (33), served more than eight years in prison and has been released. A fifth man, Omar Ballard, was also convicted in the crime, and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, 59 of which were suspended. He is the only man whose DNA matched that found at the scene. His confession stated that he committed the crime by himself.
(SFC, 8/7/09, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Norfolk_Four)
1997 Jul 8, A US Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed at Fort Bragg, NC, and killed 8 soldiers.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 8, NATO issued formal membership invitations to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/8/98)
1997 Jul 8, In Cambodia Interior Minister Ho Sok was seized and executed by forces loyal to Hun Sen. Some 30 soldiers loyal to Ranariddh were captured and tortured by Regiment 911 at Kambol.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A6)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 8, In Dagestan a bomb blew up on a bus carrying Russian border police and 9 officers were killed. Sporadic violence continued along with kidnappings.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 8, In India a bomb exploded on a passenger train in the Punjab at Bhatinda and killed 36 people and wounded 70.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 8, In Northern Ireland masked members of the IRA boarded, cleared and set fire to a Dublin to Belfast train.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A6)
1997 Jul 8, A report on Transdniestria, between Moldova and the Ukraine, described it as a haven for arms smugglers, money launderers and outlaws on the lam.
(WSJ, 7/8/97, p.A1,8)
1997 Jul 9, Boxer Mike Tyson was banned from the ring and fined $3 million for biting opponent Evander Holyfield's ears.
(AP, 7/9/98)
1992 Jul 9, Poet Adrienne Rich rejected the US government National Medal for the Arts award due to radical disparities of wealth and power in America.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 9, Louise Woodward failed to respond to a wrongful death suit filed by the parents of Matthew Eappen, the baby she was convicted of killing, and this allowed a federal court to automatically rule against her.
(www.courttv.com/trials/woodward/070998.html)
1997 Jul 9, In Hawaii medical, insurance and pension benefits began to be allowed to any 2 adults who could not legally marry under a law enacted to ward off homosexual marriages.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 9, Leaders of 16 NATO nations met with 25 other countries in an unprecedented security summit in Madrid, Spain.
(AP, 7/9/98)
1997 Jul 9, In Algeria Adbelkader Hachani, Muslim fundamentalist leader, was freed hours after a court sentenced him to 5 years in prison. He had been held without trial since 1991 when the military voided a vote that his group was set to win.
(WSJ, 7/10/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 9, In Cambodia some 30 opposition officials were arrested in Pray Veng Province, 13 in Battambang, and 20 in Kompong Speu. Prince Ranariddh was in consultation with the United Nations for support.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.E3)
1997 Jul 9, Cypriot Pres. Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash were scheduled to meet in a 4-day session in New York to resolve their disputes.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 9, In India half of the Asian elephant population of 60,000 lived in an area of just 168,000 sq. miles.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A7)
1997 Jul 9, In Kenya armed police shut down the Univ. of Nairobi and clubbed students who demanded free and fair elections.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.C2)
1997 Jul 9, From Thailand it was reported that elephants were dying around pineapple orchards, possibly from chemical poisoning. Only some 500 elephants remained in the country.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A7)
1997 Jul 9, In Venezuela a 6.7 earthquake hit the northeast coastal region and killed at least 59 people including 27 students trapped inside a collapsed school building.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.E3)(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 10, President Clinton, visiting Poland, told a Warsaw square filled with cheering Poles that "never again will your fate be decided by others." He announced a successful drive to bring Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO by 1999.
(AP, 7/10/98)
1997 Jul 10, RJR Nabisco Holdings said it would phase out the Joe Camel cartoon character used for advertising their cigarettes.
(WSJ, 7/11/97, p.B1)
1997 Jul 10, The DNA from the arm bone of Neanderthal man found in 1856 was found to represent a separate human species. Scientists in London said DNA from a Neanderthal skeleton supported a theory that all humanity descended from an "African Eve" 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/10/98)
1997 Jul 10, Walter Korn (b.1908), Czech-born chess authority, died. His books included "The Art of Chess Competition."
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A18)
1997 Jul 10, In Operation Tango NATO forces captured Milan Kovacevic, a physician who was the 2nd ranking officer in the Prijedor City Hall during the war. An attempt to capture Simo Drljaca, a leader of local "ethnic cleansing" led to a shootout and his death. Kovacevic died in 1998 while jailed in the Hague.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 8/3/98, p.A1)
1997 Jul 10, In Britain thousands of rural people showed up at Hyde Park to defend the sport of fox and deer hunting. A bill to ban the hunting of foxes, deer, hares and mink with dogs was being considered.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 10, ASEAN foreign ministers voted to suspend Cambodia’s pending membership. The US announced a 3/4 reduction of staff and some aid. More than 50 people were dead after 2 days of fighting.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 10, In the Central African Republic Pres. Patasse reconciled with 300 mutinous soldiers.
(WSJ, 7/11/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 10, Paramilitary police suppressed protests in Mianyang city in Sichuan province where more than 100,000 unemployed textile workers demanded government assistance and accused local officials of stealing their unemployment funds.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 10, In Northern Ireland the Orange Order canceled plans to march through Catholic neighborhoods in 2 main cities over the weekend.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 10, A mudslide in Izumi on Kyushu island, Japan, killed 21 people and injured 14.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.C1)
1997 Jul 10, In Papua New Guinea Gen’l. Jerry Singirok, leader of the March revolt against prime minister Chan, was decommissioned. Elections were completed and a new government was to be announced at the end of the month.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 10, Torrential rains in Poland and the Czech Republic killed at least 39 people and forced thousands from their homes.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 10, In Switzerland a 3 year pilot heroin distribution program was declared a success.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 11, President Clinton was cheered by tens of thousands of people in Bucharest, Romania, where he raised hopes for NATO membership.
(AP, 7/11/98)
1997 Jul 11, Uwatec Corp. was sold to Johnson Worldwide Assoc. (later Johnson Outdoors Inc.) for $33.5 million. A defect in the Aladin Air X Nitrox, an underwater diving computer, was not disclosed. Injuries and lawsuits followed and the product was pulled Feb 5, 2003.
(SSFC, 5/25/03, p.A18)
1997 Jul 11, A Cuban An-24 passenger plane with 44 people plunged into the sea after take-off from Santiago de Cuba enroute to Havana.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 11, In India a riot broke out in Bombay after a garland of shoes - a grave insult - was draped over a bust of Babasaheb Ambedkar, a political leader from Hinduism’s lowest caste. Police killed ten people including two children on their way to school.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.C1)
1997 Jul 11, In Thailand a kitchen fire went out of control at the 450-room Royal Jomtien Hotel in Pattaya and killed 91 people with 64 injured.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 7/11/97, p.A12)(AP, 7/11/07)
1997 Jul 12, In Copenhagen, the last stop of an eight-day European tour, President Clinton said political divisions in Europe were closing.
(AP, 7/12/98)
1997 Jul 12, In Berlin, Germany, several hundreds of thousands gathered for the annual Love Parade, a big party for fans of the electronic dance music known as techno.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.D8)
1997 Jul 12, ETA kidnapped small town politician Miguel Angel Blanco and demanded that the group's prisoners be brought to Basque jails. Blanco was found mortally dead shortly after a deadline. His slaying triggered widespread demonstrations in Spain.
(AP, 7/12/98)(AP, 3/22/06)
1997 Jul 13, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright returned to her Jewish roots in the Czech Republic, finding names of family members killed by the Nazis inscribed on a Prague synagogue wall. News reports the previous February revealed that Albright, who'd been raised a Roman Catholic, had Jewish relatives, many of whom died in the Holocaust.
(AP, 7/13/98)
1997 Jul 13, In Poland floods threatened the isle of Ostrow Tumski on the Oder River in the heart of Wroclaw, whose buildings date back to the 13th century. A 100-year flood swept through the Sudety Mountains.
(SFC, 7/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 8/2/98, p.T8)
1997 Jul 13, In San Sebastian, Spain, Miguel Angel Blanco (29), a Basque town councilor and low-ranking member of the Popular Party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, died of head wounds from the ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom, a Basque separatist group. Almost 800 people have died since the ETA began fighting in 1968.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 14, O.J. Simpson's California mansion was auctioned off for $2.6 million.
(AP, 7/14/98)
1997 Jul 14, The international war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb, to 20 years in prison for turning on his Muslim and Croat neighbors in a deadly campaign of terror and torture.
(AP, 7/14/98)
1997 Jul 14, In Algeria a bomb exploded in an Algiers market filled with women and children and killed 21 people and wounded 40. Weekend massacres left 40 villagers dead.
(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 14, In Bangladesh monsoon flooding killed at least 64 people in the last week.
(WSJ, 7/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 14, In El Salvador regulators seized Financiera Insepro which collapsed and left more than 1000 account holders demanding justice. The $15 million bank failure led to a call for US investigators and 5 prominent business leaders were jailed.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A18)
1997 Jul 14, A footbridge over the Yarkon River collapsed while being crossed by the Australian delegation to the 15th Maccabiah games. Two died immediately in the accident and 2 died later from complications possibly caused by the pollution in the river. The games are held every 4 years for Jewish athletes. The bridge was thrown up in less than a month with no blueprint or foundation. 5 Israelis were convicted in 2000 for criminal negligence. 4 officials were sentenced to prison terms from 6-21 months.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A6)(SFC, 4/18/00, p.A10)(SFC, 6/6/00, p.A16)
1997 Jul 14, In Kenya thousands of students fought riot police in Nairobi and demanded constitutional reforms. Nairobi Univ. and Jomo Kenyatta Univ. were closed indefinitely.
(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 14, In Rwanda weekend clashes between the army and Hutu rebels left more than 170 people dead.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 14, In Spain more than 2 million people took to the streets across Spain to mourn the death of Miguel Angel Blanco and to condemn the Basque separatist guerrillas who killed him.
(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 15, Marine biologists diving from the Johnson Sea Link in the Gulf of Mexico discovered what appeared to be a new species of worm of the family polychaetes. The worms lived on top of frozen mounds of gas hydrates.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 15, Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer, was shot to death outside his home in Miami Beach, Fla. Police searched for Andrew Philip Cunanan, 27, of San Diego as the primary suspect. Suspected serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan, was found dead eight days later. In 1999 Maureen Orth authored "Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History."
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/98)(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.D9)
1997 Jul 15, In Algeria Abassi Madani, former leader of the Islamic Salvation Front, was released after serving 5 years of a 12 year sentence.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.C12)
1997 Jul 15, In Algeria a court condemned 24 Muslim militants to death for their involvement in guerrilla activities.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 15-1997 Jul 20, In Colombia a right-wing death squad under Carlos Castano killed at least 49 suspected guerrilla sympathizers in Mapiripan, Meta province. In 1998 2 army sergeants, Juan Carlos Gamarra and Jose Miller Urena, were linked to the massacre. In 2001 Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui was given a 40-month sentence for failing to defend the town. In 2009 a court convicted Uscategui of murder and sentenced him to 40 years in prison for his role in the notorious massacre.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A11)(SFC, 2/14/01, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/coyuh)(AP, 11/26/09)
1997 Jul 15, The Czech trade deficit was labeled as the largest in the world relative to its economy.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 15, In Liberia pres. candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (58), a banker and UN official, led a women’s solidarity march. She had recently emerged as the leading rival of warlord Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A9)(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 15, In Northern Ireland pro-British militants shot and killed Bernadette Martin while she slept beside her Protestant boyfriend.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 15, In Serbia Slobodan Milosevic was elected president of the Yugoslav federation in a vote that opposition parties said was illegal.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.C12)
1997 Jul 15, Eastern Slavonia was scheduled to be handed over to Croatian authorities. It had been seized by the Serbs in 1991. [see Jan 15, 1998]
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.C1)
1997 Jul 16, Hundreds of FBI agents, some handing out photos in gay bars and hotels, blanketed south Florida in the continuing hunt for alleged prostitute-turned-serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan, who was suspected of killing designer Gianni Versace.
(AP, 7/16/98)
1997 Jul 16, Jerold Mackenzie was awarded $26.6M for being fired from Miller Brewing in 1993 for sexual harassment for relaying a Seinfeld episode to a co-worker. Higher courts later threw the entire award out. In 2003 Mackenzie accepted an out-of-court settlement for $625,000.
(MC, 7/16/02)(http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun03/146469.asp)
1997 Jul 16, In Recife, Brazil, the 18,000 man police force went on strike. The crime and murder rate immediately surged and some 3,000 soldiers were called to try to maintain order.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 16, In Cambodia Hun Sen named a new co-premier, Ung Huot, the foreign minister and a member of Ranariddh’s Funcinpec Party. Exiled legislators said was the appointment was illegal.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 16, In Cuba Vladimiro Roca, Martha Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne, and Rene Gomez Manzano were detained for issuing a document "La Patria es de Todos," criticizing the political system. They were scheduled for a trial on charges of sedition in 1999. The Prosecution recommended a 6 year sentence for Roca and 5 year sentences for the others after the 4 rejected a government offer to go into exile. Roca was sentenced to 5 years, Manzano and Bonne to 4 years, and Roque to 3 ½ years.
(USAT, 10/9/98, p.13A)(SFC, 2/27/99, p.A17)(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A10)(SFC, 3/16/99, p.A8)
1997 Jul 16, In Mexico Benjamin Flores Gonzalez (29), a newspaper editor of La Prensa, was gunned down in San Luis Colorado across the border from Yuma, Ariz.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 17, President Clinton nominated Army Gen. Henry Shelton to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
(AP, 7/17/98)
1997 Jul 17, Woolworth Corp. announced that it would close more than 400 of its five-and-dime retail stores, ending 117 years in business.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/17/98)
1997 Jul 17, The Columbia space shuttle and it crew of 7 returned after a 16-day mission. On the Mir space station, the 3-man crew struggled to stabilize a free-spin after a cable to a key computer system was mistakenly pulled.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A1,9)(AP, 7/17/98)
1997 Jul 17, Disney sub-contractor H.H. Cutler announced that it would terminate its business in Haiti due to slumping sales of children’s clothes. Some 2,300 jobs would be lost. Int’l. activists had criticized the operations for wages as low as $.28 per hour. The unemployment rate was at 80%.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 17, Dr. Robert C. Weaver (b.1907), the first African American to serve on a president’s cabinet, died in NYC. He was the administrator of the federal Housing and Home Finance Agency, the predecessor to HUD, under President John F. Kennedy. He was named national chairman of the NAACP in 1960 and in 1962 he was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Medal. Weaver wrote more than 175 articles and four books on housing and urban issues. [see Jan 18,1966]
(http://search.eb.com/Blackhistory/article.do?nKeyValue=76375)
1997 Jul 17, In India K.R. Narayannan, a member of the Dalits, was elected president by the national and state legislatures. The Dalits, or "oppressed people," were according to Hinduism the lowest class of people, a fifth class below the 4 main castes. He will replace Pres. Shanker Dayal Sharma whose 5-year term expires Jul 25.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 17, In Peru thousands of demonstrators protested against Pres. Fujimori chanting "Down with the dictatorship." Three cabinet ministers had also resigned in the last 24 hours. Pres. Fujimori named 5 new ministers including 2 generals and sparked concern that he was moving even closer to the armed forces.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A10)(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 17, In Russia Boris Yeltsin signed decrees to cut the size of the armed forces by one-third and installed plans to boost tax collection.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 17, In the Ukraine the parliament confirmed Valery Pustovitenko as prime minister. He was an ally of Pres. Kuchma and vowed to work with lawmakers.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 18, Representative George Miller of Martinez, Ca., demanded a full accounting by the federal EPA concerning inspections of the Central Valley dairies, where dairy waste was threatening underground water supplies.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A1,13)
1997 Jul 18, Federal agents in California arrested eight seafood importers accused of smuggling contaminated seafood by bribing customs brokers and FDA inspectors.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A15,18)
1997 Jul 18, German businessman Thomas Kramer was slapped with a record $323,000 penalty by the Federal Election Commission for making illegal U.S. political contributions.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1997 Jul 18, All key systems on the Russian space station Mir returned to near-normal, about 24 hours after the already disabled spacecraft had lost power.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1997 Jul 18, Sir James Goldsmith (b.2/26/33), British-French financier and corporate raider, died in Spain at age 64.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.B6)
1997 Jul 18, In Cambodia Prince Ranariddh called off armed resistance and proposed a caretaker government and new elections.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 18, In Mexico police arrested Rolando Arroyo Palacios, aka "Long Hair," in San Luis Rio Colorado for the murder of journalist Flores Gonzalez. He had been supposedly hired by Ismael Guttierrez, brother of Jaime Gonzalez Guttierrez, who was arrested last month.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 18, In Northern Ireland the Sinn Fein party urged its allies in the IRA to call a cease fire.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 18, In the Philippines the government signed a general cease-fire with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country's 2nd largest Muslim rebel group.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 18, In Sierra Leone leaders of the ruling junta pledged to implement an immediate cease fire and to restore constitutional government.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 19, Eleven armored carriers from NATO gathered in a show of force near the home of ousted Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, Bosnia's No. 1 war crimes suspect.
(HN, 7/19/98)
1997 Jul 19, In Bosnia the Serb Democratic Party expelled Pres. Biljana Plavsic after she threatened to arrest Karadzic and his allies for rampant corruption.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 19, In Cambodia Hun Sen rejected a peace plan proposed by the 7-nation ASEAN group.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jul 19, In Indonesia a court sentenced 16 people to jail terms of 2-7 months for the May rioting that left 123 dead on Borneo.
(WSJ, 7/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 19, The Irish Republican Army declared a new cease-fire and opened the way for supporters to join peace talks with Northern Ireland's pro-British Protestants.
(HN, 7/19/98)
1997 Jul 19, From Slovakia it was reported that Bratislava had become a narcotics depot and crossroad of the Balkan drug route from Turkey and Central Asia.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 20, Seven people were arrested after New York City police found scores of deaf Mexicans kept in slave-like conditions and forced to peddle trinkets for the smugglers who had brought them to the United States.
(AP, 7/20/98)
1997 Jul 20, From Qatar it was reported that as many as 30% of Qatari women work. Some 6,000 graduated each year from the Univ. of Qatar.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 20, Palestinian security forces arrested 4 Palestinian police officers who were accused of planning to attack Jewish settlers. Israel had arrested 4 Palestinian policemen a week earlier for planned attacks at the settlement of Har Bracha.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 20, Turkish troops killed 50 Kurdish guerrillas in the southeast. That raised the weekly total to 84.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 21, The General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Philadelphia voted to require all Episcopal dioceses to ordain women.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A2)
1997 Jul 21, The U.S.S. Constitution, aka Old Ironsides, which defended the United States during the War of 1812, set sail with 216 crew members under its own power for first time in 116 years, leaving its temporary anchorage at Marblehead, Mass., for a one-hour voyage marking its 200th anniversary. The actual anniversary was the following October. It was built in 1797 and was never defeated in 42 battles.
(HT, 3/97, p.34)(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/21/98)
1997 Jul 21, In Canada fishermen released the Malaspina ferry, a blocked Alaska-bound ship at Prince Rupert. They were protesting US fishing of sockeye salmon heading for spawning in British Columbia.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 21, Singapore began observing Racial Harmony Day in commemoration of a deadly communal riot in 1964.
(Econ, 12/17/16, p.36)
1997 Jul 22, In San Francisco, Ca., the .38 acres of the Mt. Davidson cross was auctioned off for $26,000 to a group of Armenian organizations who proposed to dedicate it as a memorial to Armenians massacred during WW I. The sale was approved in a US Court of Appeals in 2001.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A18)(SFC, 9/6/01, p.A1)
1997 Jul 22, In Michigan some 2,800 UAW workers went on strike at a GM plant in Warren.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 22, Algerian troops killed 140 of 180 radical Islamist guerrillas in the Attatba area of Blida province in an offensive that began 10 days ago.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 22, In Austria a campaign was started to rename all public places named after poet Ottokar Kernstock, the man who wrote the words of the "Swastika Song," the election theme of Adolph Hitler’s Nazis.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 22, In Britain the labor party proposed a somewhat independent assembly for Wales.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 22, From Colombia it was reported that 30,000 violent deaths per year occurred and marked the country as the world’s most violent.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 22, In Egypt six police officers were killed in an ambush by militants near Minya.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A13)
1997 Jul 22, More than 2,000 people gathered in Milan, Italy, for a memorial Mass for slain fashion designer Gianni Versace; the mourners included Princess Diana and singer-songwriter Elton John.
(AP, 7/22/98)
1997 Jul 22, In Liberia results from the election showed Charles Taylor in the lead with about 75 of the vote.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 22, In South Africa 5 killings in Magoda, Kwa Zulu / Natal Province, were suspected of being caused an unknown "third force," a presumed right-wing group dedicated to fomenting black-on-black violence.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A7)
1997 Jul 23, The US and Venezuela signed an agreement to allow authorities of both countries to board boats of each others flags if suspected of carrying drugs.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 23, The search for Andrew Cunanan, the suspected killer of designer Gianni Versace and others, ended as police found his body on a houseboat in Miami Beach, Fla., an apparent suicide.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/23/98)
1997 Jul 23, The ASEAN trade bloc admitted Laos and Burma but barred Cambodia.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 23, In Britain the government announced that tuition fees would be imposed for the first time on all college students.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 23, In Cuba Elio Reve Matos, salsa musician, died in a road accident. He developed the rhythm known as "charangon," a combination of salsa styles that included "changui" and "son."
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A24)
1997 Jul 23, In Serbia Slobodan Milosevic was sworn in as president of Yugoslavia and crowds reacted by throwing shoes at his motorcade, symbolizing the young people who have left Serbia due to his regime.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 23, Swiss banks published a list of 2,000 WW II-era dormant accounts that included assets of holocaust victims.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 24, Pres. Clinton held a White House symposium on global warming.
(WSJ, 7/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 24, A Dallas jury awarded $120 million in damages against the local Roman Catholic diocese that ignored evidence that the priest, Rudolph Kos, sexually abused a number of altar boys from 1977-1992. Kos was suspended in 1992. Kos pleaded guilty to 3 sex abuse charges in 1998.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A1)(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A3)
1997 Jul 24, William J. Brennan (91), retired Supreme Court Justice (1956-1990), died in Arlington, Va.
(AP, 7/24/98)(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/90/)
1997 Jul 24, In Albania a 5-month long curfew was lifted and Rexhep Mejdani, the secretary-general of the Socialist Party and former physics professor, was elected President by the Parliament. Since Jan. some 1,800 killings had occurred.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 24, From Algeria it was reported that security forces killed Antar Zouabri (26), the chief of the Armed Islamic Group.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 24, Britain proposed to the Scots the power to legislate, tax and speak for themselves in the European Union.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 25, US immigration agents rounded up 17 deaf Mexicans in Sanford, North Carolina. This followed the revelation of 50 deaf Mexicans held in servitude in NYC and forced to sell trinkets on the streets. In Dec. Adriana Paoletti Lemus (29), also deaf and one of two alleged ringleaders, pleaded guilty.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A5)
1997 Jul 25, Autumn Jackson, the young woman who claimed to be Bill Cosby's out-of-wedlock daughter, was convicted by a federal jury in New York of trying to extort $40 million from the entertainer.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/25/98)
1997 Jul 25, In San Francisco some 5,000 bikers defied the city-approved route for the Critical Mass bike ride and struck out on their own. Some 250 were arrested for traffic violations. Numerous incidents of confrontations between bikers, police and commuters were reported.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 25, An FDA drug panel endorsed Rituximab, a drug designed to treat B-cell lymphoma. It was made by Genentech and IDEC Pharmaceuticals. In November Genentech and Idec (later Biogen Idec), received FDA approval for Rituxan for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A1)(www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/53059.php)
1997 Jul 25, In Elk Creek, Virginia, Louis Ceparano and Emmett Cressell Jr. doused Garnett Paul "G.P." Johnson with gasoline, set him on fire and cut off his head. They were both indicted for murder and robbery. Ceparano pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison in 1998. Cressell (38) was convicted of 1st degree murder in 1998 and sentenced to life in prison in 1999.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/24/97, p.A4)(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A3)(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A2)(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A4)
1997 Jul 25, Ben Hogan (b.1912 in Dublin, Tx.), golf legend, died in Fort Worth, Texas, at 84. A 1996 biography by Curt Sampson was titled: "Hogan."
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.B1)(AP, 7/25/98)
1997 Jul 25, In Afghanistan police units of the Pashtun ethnic group raided minority neighborhoods as opposition forces gathered 12 miles outside Kabul.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 25, In Albania the new Socialist led government was sworn in while a gang battle in Berat left 10 people dead.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 25, In the Congo soldiers fired into a crowd of protestors in Kinshasa and killed at least 3 people. The protest was against Kabila’s ban on political activity.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 25, In India Kocheril Raman Narayannan (1920-2005) was sworn in as president, becoming the first member of the "untouchable" Dalits caste to do so.
(AP, 7/25/98)(SFC, 11/10/05, p.B8)
1997 Jul 25, In Ireland Rev. Brendan Smyth (71) was sentenced to 12 years in prison for 74 instances of sexual abuse of 20 young people over 36 years.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 25, Thousands of German soldiers fought to contain the rain-gorged Oder River.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 26, Pres. Clinton visited Lake Tahoe and announced that the Forest Service would allot 350 acres to the Washoe Indian tribe for a cultural center and give tribal members access to the edge of Lake Tahoe. He also made an executive order for $50 million over 2 years and 25 initiatives to improve the water quality of Lake Tahoe. He brought with him $26 million worth of natural gas postal trucks and sewage pipes to help preserve the lake.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A1,14)(AP, 7/26/98)
1997 Jul 26, In Belgium at the Ostend Air Show a Jordanian aerobatics airplane crashed and killed 9 people.
(WSJ, 7/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 26, In Cambodia Communist guerrillas announced that Pol Pot was sentenced to life imprisonment and Nate Thayer, a US reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Review, claimed to have seen Pol Pot and prepared a report for the Review.
(WSJ, 7/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 26, From Egypt it was reported that a cease-fire had been proclaimed by 6 imprisoned leaders of the Gamaa al Islamiya. The government dismissed the cease-fire as empty talk.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A13)
1997 Jul 27, United Auto Workers approved a deal to end a six-day strike at a General Motors parts plant that forced four assembly plant shutdowns and threatened GM's entire North American production.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A3)(AP, 7/27/98)
1997 Jul 27, In Belarus some 5-7 thousand marchers rallied to condemn Pres. Lukashenko. within hours activists were detained by the government.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 27, In San Sebastian, Spain, some 30,000 marched in support of the ETA separatist movement.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 27, Mohammed Mahdi al-Jawahri, classical Arab poet, died in Syria. He was the most famous poet of Iraq from whence he fled in 1979. His work included "Between Passion and Feeling" (1928) and "Al Jawahri’s Divan" (1935).
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)
1997 Jul 28, The Clinton administration and congressional leaders reached a tentative agreement on balancing the budget by 2002 while slashing taxes for millions of families, students and investors.
1997 Jul 28, A flash flood hit Fort Collins, Colo., following torrential rains. At least 5 people were killed and 40 or more injured.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A6)(AP, 7/28/98)
1997 Jul 28, In Santiago, Chile, nearly a million children stayed home when the government closed schools for 2 days due to high smog levels.
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 29, Members of US Congress from both parties embraced compromise legislation designed to balance the budget while cutting taxes.
(AP, 7/29/98)
1997 Jul 29, Once a worldwide symbol of industrial pollution, Minamata Bay, Japan, was declared free of mercury 40 years after contaminated food fish were blamed for birth defects and deaths.
(AP, 7/29/98)
1997 Jul 29, In Russia the deputy head of a construction firm in Moscow and the head of a shipping firm in St. Petersburg were killed as well as 2 aides in apparent contract shootings.
(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 29, In Ankara, Turkey, some 15,000 people protested government plans to curb Muslim schools. At least 13 protestors were injured and 3 officers were suspended by Prime Minister Yilmaz.
(WSJ, 7/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 30, The US lifted a 12-year ban on US citizens visits to Lebanon.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 30, Eighteen people, including two Americans, were killed in a landslide that swept one ski lodge onto another at the Thredbo Alpine Village in southeast Australia.
(AP, 7/30/98)
1997 Jul 30, In Algeria it was reported that Muslim militants massacred over 80 villagers in recent attacks in apparent retaliation to a government offensive. 40 villagers were killed at Metmata village in Ain Defla province.
(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1997 Jul 30, Two men bombed Jerusalem's most crowded outdoor market, killing themselves and 16 others. Following the suicide bombing in Israel that killed 15 people, 79 Palestinians were arrested.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A8)(AP, 7/30/98)
1997 Jul 30, In Sierra Leone Major Johnny Komora announced that elections for civilian rule would be held in Nov of 2001.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.A16)
1997 Jul 31, In New York City, police seized five bombs believed bound for terrorist attacks on city subways. 2 potential suicide bombers were shot and wounded in an explosives laden Brooklyn apartment. Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer (23) and Lafi Khalil (22) were recovering from wounds. In 1998 Khalil was acquitted and Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer was convicted of plotting to bomb a subway station. Mezer was sentenced to life in prison in 1999.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.A1)(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 7/24/98, p.A1)(HN, 7/31/98)(SFC, 3/2/99, p.A3)
1997 Jul 31, Bao Dai (85), former emperor of Annam [now Vietnam] and chief of state of French Indochina, died in France.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)(MC, 7/31/02)
1997 Jul 31, Nigeria was named the most corrupt country in the world by business people in a report released by the German-based Transparency Int’l. Denmark was named the least corrupt.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.B3)
1997 Jul, A coalition of Catholic bishops, Southern Baptist leaders and other conservative evangelicals issued a statement entitled: "We Hold These Truths: A Statement of Christian Conscience and Citizenship." The coalition condemned legalized abortion and agreed that women should be barred from serving as Catholic priests or evangelical pastors.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul, Gregory Taylor (30) was arrested while trying to get into the kitchen of St. Joseph's Church in downtown Los Angeles. He told officers that he was hungry. Taylor was sentenced in 1997 to 25 years to life under California's three-strikes law. He was released in 2010 following the work of law student Reiko Rogozen, who started working on the case in January, 2010, as part of Stanford Law School's Three-Strikes Project.
(AP, 8/17/10)
1997 Jul, In Massachusetts AT&T agreed to pay Wellesley Congregational Church $2,500 per month for a decade for the right to install wireless transmission equipment in the church steeple. An annual $6,000 bonus was included plus costs for rebuilding the steeple. Rev. Lee Woofenden of the New Jerusalem Church in Bridgewater also made a deal and stated: "Doing business in this world is part of religion."
(WSJ, 12/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul, Tyco Corp. under CEO Dennis Kozlowski merged with ADT Ltd., a Bermuda corporation, and began relocating employees to headquarters in Boca Raton, Flo.
(WSJ, 4/5/04, p.A8)
1997 Jul, The "phen-fen" diet drugs (e.g. Redux) were linked to heart valve disease. Redux, marketed by Wyeth, was withdrawn in Sep. Wyeth was a division of American Home Products. AHP also made Pondimin, a version of fenfluramine, the fen of the combination. In 2001 A Texas woman was awarded a $56.6 million settlement against AHP.
(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.B1)(WSJ, 9/30/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/9/01, p.B7)
1997 Jul, The FDA allowed Duract, an analgesic made by Wyeth, to hit the market. The drug was pulled after 11 months following 4 deaths and 8 cases requiring liver transplants.
(WSJ, 9/30/98, p.A1)
1997 Jul, Vincent "Chin" Gigante (69), boss of the Genovese crime family, was convicted of murder conspiracy and racketeering in New York City. In Dec. he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
(SFC,12/19/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul, Apple released its newest Mac operating system, OS 8.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1997 Jul, In Chechnya Camilla Carr and Jon James, British charity workers for a Quaker relief organization, were taken hostage. The were released Sep 20, 1998.
(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A13)
1997 Jul, In Colombia paramilitaries threatened a delegation of UN and Colombian judicial officials investigating the exodus of peasants from Riosucio.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A14)
1997 Jul, The Colombian government passed a law that made it illegal to sell more than $170,000 worth of contraband. The annual contraband trade was estimated to be $3 billion.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A9)
1997 Jul, The EU's Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) was first outlined by a resolution and two council regulations. The vade mecum, first published in May 2013, is a manual prepared by DG ECFIN presenting the procedures and methodologies for implementing the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), the rule-based framework for fiscal policy in the European Union.
(https://tinyurl.com/ya7rqpm3)(Econ, 3/26/05, p.55)(Econ., 10/31/20, p.64)
1997 Jul, In Macedonia three ethnic Albanians were shot to death during riots after police removed an Albanian flag from the town hall.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul, In Namibia armed police were sent to break up a meeting between elders of the Himba tribe and their lawyers. They were discussing a challenge a government proposed dam proposal.
(SFC,11/19/97, p.C3)
1997 Jul, In the Philippines a $1.1 billion bailout package was arranged. The government was obliged to raise interest rates and run a budget surplus.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A7)
1997 Jul, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin formally reinstated the Don Cossack regiments into Russia’s armed forces.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul, In South Africa Max, a 400-pound gorilla, beat up a fleeing armed robber, a former police officer, who tried to hide in his cage at the Johannesburg Zoo. Max survived 3 gunshots.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.D2)
1997 Jul, In South Korea the book "18 Reasons Why South Korea Will Die Before It Catches Up With Japan" by Japanese writer Tadashi Momose became an instant best seller.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A19)
1997 Jul, In South Korea the Kia Group, a conglomerate with 28 subsidiaries, went bankrupt with $10.7 billion in debts. A government rescue plan in October put 30% into government hands.
(SFC,11/15/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul, Taiwan’s prime minister launched a 5-year plan to crack down on betel-nut chewing.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 1, Pres. Clinton announced that the 1978 ban on sales of high-performance aircraft and other advanced weapons to Latin America would be lifted.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A8)(AP, 8/1/98)
1997 Aug 1, The National Cancer Institute reported that fallout from 1950s nuclear bomb tests had exposed millions of children across the country to radioactive iodine.
(AP, 8/1/98)
1997 Aug 1, In Algeria 38 villagers at Sidi el Madani in Blida province were killed.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A19)
1997 Aug 1, In Bangladesh at least 150 fishermen were missing in the Bay of Bengal after a storm sank their boats.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.A16)
1997 Aug 1, Israel withheld $25 million in tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority, which made the Authority unable to meet its payroll.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 1, In Palestine 16 of Arafat’s 18 Cabinet members offered their resignations in response to allegations of widespread corruption.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 1, In Russia Svyatoslav Richter, concert pianist, died at 82 in Moscow. He was known for his brilliant technique in numerous styles.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)
1997 Aug 1, A UN report from this day was made public in 2000 and cited Tutsi informants claiming that they helped to shoot down the airplane carrying Rwandan Pres. Juvanal Habyarimana on Apr 6, 1994.
(SFC, 3/2/00, p.A14)
1997 Aug 2, Two fires in San Diego burned out of control and destroyed 11 homes, 30 cars, 15 other structures and caused the crash of an air tanker dousing the flames.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.B5)
1997 Aug 2, William Burroughs (1914-1997), writer, the godfather of the beat generation, died of a heart attack at his home in Lawrence, Ka. His work included "Naked Lunch" (1959), which was originally banned and published in the US in 1962. He also wrote the books "Junkie" and "Queer."
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.E5)(AP, 8/2/98)(SFC, 8/31/04, p.E7)
1997 Aug 2, Typhoon Victor struck Hong Kong and one person was killed. The typhoon battered the surrounding Guangdong province and at least 65 people were killed.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A18)(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 2, Charles Taylor was sworn in as president of Liberia.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 2, In Nigeria Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (b.1938), pop superstar, died of AIDS. He was a saxophone player who fused rock with African rhythms into a blend known as "Afrobeat." His albums included: "Zombie," "Army Arrangement," and "Vagabond in Power." He recorded more than 50 albums in the 1970s and 1980s and his 27 wives mourned his death. In 2003 Michael Veal authored "Fela: the Life and Times of an African Lion."
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/27/04, p.E6)
1997 Aug 3, The US Court of Appeals issued a reprieve for Thomas Thompson, accused of the 1981 murder of Ginger Fleischli, less than 36 hours before his scheduled death. California filed an appeal with the US Supreme Court. He was executed Jul 14, 1998.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/db9ve)
1997 Aug 3, UPS went out on strike.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 3, Anjouan Island unilaterally declared independence from Comoros. It complained that it was not receiving a fair share of export revenues mainly from the sale of ylang-ylang flowers, used to make perfume.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A18)(www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107423.html)
1997 Aug 3, On Feb 8, 2011, Otto Rene Rodriguez (52) told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview that he received powerful C-4 explosives and $2,000 in cash directly from Luis Posada Carriles to carry out an Aug 3, 1997, bombing at Havana's Melia Cohiba hotel. He was captured trying to enter the country on a subsequent trip with 1.5 kilos (3.3 pounds) of C-4 that Posada had given him.
(AP, 2/9/11)
1997 Aug 3, Iran's new president, moderate Muslim cleric Mohammad Khatami, took office with a message of peace to the world. In a reference to the United States, he said his country opposed the "high-handedness of certain big countries."
(AP, 8/3/98)
1997 Aug 3, In South Africa a Greyhound bus crashed near Trompsburg and left 4 people dead.
(Eyewitness, Brett Moses)
1997 Aug 4, US Teamsters under Ron Carey (1935-2008) went on a 15-day strike against United Parcel Service after talks broke down with nation's largest package delivery service.
(AP, 8/4/98)(SFC, 12/13/08, p.B5)
1997 Aug 4, From Bosnia it was reported that Croats near Jajce had driven out hundreds of Muslims who had recently returned to their homes.
(WSJ, 8/4/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 4, In Cuba a small explosion damaged a lobby in a Havana hotel. US-based groups were blamed for this and a pair of bombings from 3 weeks ago. Otto Rene Rodriguez Lerena confessed to the explosion at the Melia Cohiba Hotel, which caused no injuries and little damage. He was sentenced to death in 1999.
(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/2/99, p.D2)
1997 Aug 4, In France the world’s oldest person, Jeanne Calment (b.1875), died in Arles at the record age of 122. The title was passed on to Christien Mortensen of San Rafael, Ca., (115). It was later found that Marie-Louise Febronie Meilleur of Ontario was to turn 117 in August.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment)(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A18)(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A20)
1997 Aug 4, From Mexico it was reported that the Lacandon Jungle rain forest was 40% destroyed from its original 4 million acres. Poor peasants were clearing the jungle by fire to provide for agricultural needs.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 4, In Mexico gunmen killed 6 people in the Max Fim restaurant in Ciudad Juarez.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 4, In Montserrat superheated rock from the Soufriere Hills volcano flowed into the abandoned capital of Plymouth.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 4, Russia announced that it would redenominate the ruble at the beginning of 1998. Three zeroes would be taken off the bills with current inflation at about 12%.
(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 4, In Sri Lanka weekend fighting reportedly left 200 Tamil Tigers and 67 government troops dead. The rebel bodies were severely disfigured.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 4, In Turkey 76 military officers and nco’s were dismissed in a continuing effort to root out Islamic activism in the ranks.
(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 5, President Clinton signed the budget-balancing and tax-cutting bills into law, calling the legislation "a true milestone for our nation."
(AP, 8/5/98)
1997 Aug 5, Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of world trade center bombing, went on trial.
(www.fas.org/irp/news/1997/#aug)
1997 Aug 5, It was reported that a Yale Univ. research team led by Sidney Altman discovered a way to turn off genes that make bacteria resistant to antibiotic drugs. Human testing was thought to be 5 years away.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 5, In Bolivia the Congress elected former dictator Hugo Banzer as president. He pledged economic reforms and steps to cut poverty.
(WSJ, 8/6/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 5, In Croatia Pres. Tudjman took an oath of office for his 2nd 5-year term.
(WSJ, 8/6/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 5, North Korea agreed to hold talks with South Korea in New York beginning on this day.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 5, From Russia’s cosmodrome in Kazakstan a Mir repair mission was launched with a 2-man replacement crew. The smooth launch was upstaged by another breakdown aboard the aging space station, this time involving oxygen generators.
(WSJ, 8/6/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/5/98)
1997 Aug 6, The Dow Jones reached an all-time high at 8,259.31.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 6, Ending years of impassioned rivalry, Apple Computer and Microsoft agreed to share technology in a deal giving Microsoft a stake in Apple's survival. Microsoft announced that it would buy $150 million in non-voting Apple stock.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/6/98)
1997 Aug 6, The tobacco industry was forced to release documents that indicated efforts to quash safety research and revealed steps taken for protection against lawsuits.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 6, It was reported that residents of 47 states faced warnings not to eat certain types of freshwater fish due to pollution. The EPA said that some 2,200 fish consumption advisories were in effect in the US and that 15% of the nation’s lakes and 5% of the rivers were covered by the advisory.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 6, It was reported that MWC480 is a young star in the constellation Taurus, 450 Light years distant, with a gas-rich disk that looked like a "construction zone" for new planets.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A11)
1997 Aug 6, It was reported that scientists had created the genetic blueprint for Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium responsible for stomach ulcers.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A11)
1997 Aug 6, Korean Air Flight 801 from Seoul, a Boeing 747-300 jumbo jet, crashed into a hillside a short distance from Guam’s Agana International Airport killing 228 with 26 survivors. A programming glitch in the ground radar system was later identified as a contributing factor but not the cause.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_801)(WSJ, 4/8/99, p.A1)(AP, 8/6/98)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1997 Aug 7, It was reported that US retail space and semiconductor manufacturing capacity far exceeded demand. A downturn in the economy was said to have already begun.
(WSJ, 8/7/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 7, The space shuttle Discovery was launched with a crew of six. A satellite was dropped off to study the Earth’s ozone layer.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 7, A Russian capsule on a fix-it mission docked gingerly with the crippled Mir space station, bringing a new crew to salvage the orbiting outpost.
(AP, 8/7/98)
1997 Aug 7, A DC-8 cargo plane crashed on take-off at Miami Int’l. Airport. Four people were killed on the denim filled 29-year-old plane bound for the Dominican Republic.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 7, The US State Dept. expressed concern over reports of Chinese nuclear-capable M-11 missiles sold to Pakistan.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug 7, In Argentina Pres. Eduardo Frei of Chile and Argentine Pres. Carlos Menem opened a $325 million pipeline for natural gas from Argentina to Santiago.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug 7, From China it was reported that Zhu Qihua planned to move the Big Green Mountain by Lanzhou, a railroad hub, in order to clear the air of heavy smog.
(WSJ, 8/7/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 7, In Mexico Jose Paoletti Moreda and his son Renato were arrested on charges of leading an operation that smuggled deaf people into the US and forced them to work under virtual slavery conditions. Another couple was arrested with ten deaf smuggled immigrants in Dallas on Aug 15.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A2)
1997 Aug 7, In Romania Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea announced the closure of 17 factories at the urging of the IMF. 30,000 jobs would be lost and the following day thousands protested the closing of the essentially bankrupt companies.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 7, In Switzerland the measures to freeze the assets of deposed Zairean Pres. Mobuto Sese Seko were declared legal.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug 8, US Sec. of State Madeleine Albright announced that the bulk of US aid to Cambodia would be suspended.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 8, The Teamsters and United Parcel Service completed a second day of federally mediated talks, with neither side reporting progress toward ending a strike.
(AP, 8/8/98)
1997 Aug 8, It was reported that researchers have discovered how the defective gene in Huntington’s disease causes the disorder. A genetic "stutter" inserts from 30 to 150 copies of the amino acid glutamine into key proteins and alters their properties.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 8, In Ddjelfa, Algeria, a bomb in a baby bassinet killed 9 people. In the village of Zeboudja insurgents slit the throats of 21 people and 20 others were shot and wounded.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 8, Gen’l. Eric Shinseki, the American in charge of NATO forces in Bosnia, announced a plan to force all paramilitary troops to disband or face arrest.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 8, In Colombia Senator Jorge Cristo and a bodyguard were killed in Cucuta. Police said leftist guerrillas were responsible.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 8, The resumption of limited oil sales by Iraq was cleared by the UN Security Council. The UN plan allows the sale of $2 billion in crude oil every 6 months.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 8, Fighting broke out on the Israel-Lebanon border when guerrillas fired rockets into northern Israel and Israeli warplanes struck back. 13 people have died since Aug 4 when Israeli commandos set off bombs behind the front line killing 3 guerrilla field commanders and 2 fighters.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 8, In Kenya a nationwide strike was called and declared illegal by the government. In Nairobi a crowd of some 2,000 gathered and killed Gilbert Simiyu, a plainclothes police officer. The strike turned into a riot with looting.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 8, The largest int’l. military exercise in Latvia’s history took place over 5 days at the Adazi training center organized by the Northwest Europe Command. Troops from 15 countries were to participate.
(BN, 6/97)
1997 Aug 8, In Peru at least 20 bus passengers were killed in a crash in the province of Cuzco. Some 80 people have died in 4 bus crashes in the last week.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 8, On St. Vincent James and Penny Fletcher were acquitted of the murder of Jerome Joseph after 9 months of incarceration.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 9, In NYC police officer Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima in the bathroom of the 70th precinct in Brooklyn. [see Aug 13] In 1999 Volpe was sentenced to 30 years in prison and ordered to pay $277,495 in restitution. In 2001 a tentative settlement awarded Abner Louima $9 million.
(SFC, 5/26/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/23/01, p.A4)
1997 Aug 9, An Amtrak train derailed on a bridge near Kingman, Arizona, and 183 of 350 passengers were injured. A flash flood had undermined supports for a small bridge.
(WSJ, 8/11/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/9/07)
1997 Aug 9, In Brazil Herbert Jose de Souza, sociologist, died at age 60 of AIDS that he acquired as a hemophiliac from contaminated blood. He spent his life fighting inequality, hunger and police brutality.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 9, It was reported that 800,000 children of North Korea were in immediate danger of dying from malnutrition. UNICEF was appealing for a $14.3 million emergency fund for supplies such as high-energy milk.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 9, In Indonesia huge fires in tropical forests and plantations on Sumatra and Borneo and Java were blamed on slash-and-burn farming techniques. Fires originally set by developers to clear forest for palm plantations in Borneo and Sumatra ran out of control and darkened skies across much of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The World Bank estimated that 8% of total global emission of greenhouse gases for the year were due to the fires.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A11)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.74)
1997 Aug 10, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in an attempt to restart the Mideast peace process.
(AP, 8/10/98)
1997 Aug 10, In Nashville a riot erupted when a police officer killed a black murder suspect.
(WSJ, 8/11/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 10, It was reported that the gasoline additive MTBE, methyl tert-butyl ether, was leaking into ground water in California and elsewhere in the US. Some 1,000 wells in California tested above the state’s action level. The additive leaks from gasoline stations and dissolves in water and seeps into aquifers. In 1995 the EPA reported that it caused cancer in laboratory animals.
(SFEC, 8/10/97, p.A1,14)
1997 Aug 10, Peter Braestrup, founder of the Wilson Quarterly, died in Maine at age 68.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A17)
1997 Aug 10, In Colombia police arrested drug trafficker Waldo Simeon Vargas, alias "The Minister." He was a former associate of Pablo Escobar and created his own organization after the Cali chiefs were arrested in 1995.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 10, In the 6th World Championship in Athletics in Athens (Aug 1-Aug 10), the American 4x400m team beat the British quartet by just 0.18 seconds in the final. Antonio Pettigrew ran the anchor leg for the US team that won, but subsequently admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs. In 2010 the BBC, citing UK Athletics (UKA) and the International Association of Athletics' Federations (IAAF), said the British quartet of Roger Black, Jamie Baulch, Iwan Thomas and Mark Richardson, would be promoted to gold.
(AFP, 1/7/10)(http://www2.iaaf.org/Results/Past/WCH97/data/M/4X4/Rf.html)
1997 Aug 10, In Peru a snowstorm trapped some 40 vehicles on the Andes highway between Abancay and Puquio and left 6 people dead in their vehicles.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 10, In Uganda the state-owned Sunday Vision reported that its Chinese-built arms factory would stop producing land mines and grenades. The Ugandan army would be supplied but the products would not be exported. Dry-cells would be produced to replace the land mines and grenades.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 10, In Taiwan a 19-seat Formosa Airlines Dornier 228 crashed on the island of Matsu and killed all 16 onboard.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/11/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 11, Pres. Clinton made the first use of the historic line-item veto approved by Congress. He removed 3 narrow provisions in the new budget legislation in spending and tax bills. The Supreme Court later struck down the line-item veto as unconstitutional.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/11/05)
1997 Aug 11, US federal officials arrested 29 people in a drug sweep in New York, Michigan and New Mexico. The arrests were linked to Mexico’s Juarez cartel.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 11, It was reported that the US Energy Dept. was short of tritium for nuclear weapons and would borrow space from a civilian power plant for its production.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 11, Steelhead trout of the west coast was added to the federal list of imperiled species.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 11, The Environmental Working Group claimed that high levels of the weed killer atrazine were found in 245 Midwest communities. The chemical is used to spray corn and kill weeds.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 11, In Hawaii lava from Kilauea Volcano began to flow over the walls of a 700-year-old temple believed to have been used for human sacrifice.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 11, In Colombia leftist guerrillas killed at least 9 people in 2 separate incident.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 11, In Honduras some 700 inmates escaped from prisons at Santa Barbara and Trujillo after rioting prisoners set fire to facilities and burned them to the ground.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 11, From Israel it was reported that mobsters were in control of gambling, prostitution and money laundering rings in the resort city of Netanya. Seven gang killings in the last 18 months were reported and protection money was demanded from stall holders and shop owners.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A6)
1997 Aug 11, It was reported that Sri Lanka was getting desperate for recruits and that more than 12,000 soldiers had deserted the army in recent months. Women were being recruited and it was noted that half of the Tamil rebel attack forces were composed of women. The government military service was comprised of some 114,000 vs. about 5,000 Tamil fighters.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A7)
1997 Aug 11, Int’l. donors offered Thailand a $16-17 bil loan package.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A8)(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A7)
1997 Aug 12, Steel workers in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania ended a 10-month strike at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. with a new contract. It was the longest strike by a major steel company.
(SFC, 8/13/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/12/98)
1997 Aug 12, Two New York City police officers were placed in desk jobs as authorities investigated the charges of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who accused police of sodomizing him after his arrest in a nightclub fight. Louima's subsequent civil suit against the city resulted in a settlement of $8.75 million on July 30, 2001, the largest police brutality settlement in NYC history. After legal fees, Louima collected approximately $5.8 million.
(AP, 8/12/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima)
1997 Aug 12, A hamburger recall issued to cover some 1.2 million pounds. The Hudson Foods Inc., of Rogers, Ark., issued the recall due to E. coli poisonings in Colorado. [see 8/21]
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 12, In Arizona a flash flood from a storm 15 miles away killed ten hikers in the Lower Antelope Canyon near Lake Powell. The group leader of the Trek-America outfit, that catered mostly to Europeans, was the only survivor.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A2)(AP, 8/12/98)
1997 Aug 12, It was reported that the World Bank joined the IMF in withholding credit from Kenya due to government corruption.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 12, It was reported that Laos was promoting the development of the $1.44 billion Nam Theun Two Dam. It would alter 2 major tributaries of the Mekong River and flood an area the size of Singapore. The World Bank contributed $130 million to the project, which was expected to begin generating power in 2009. Environmentalists feared severe impact to the Nakai Plateau and some 120,000 people downstream as one river dries up and another swells.
(WSJ, 8/12/97, p.A1)(SFC, 12/17/07, p.A15)
1997 Aug 12, From Lithuania it was reported that the country has become a favorite transit point for smugglers. Cigarettes, alcohol, home appliances, oil, amber, gas, cars and illegal narcotics were crossing the borders.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 13, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross wrapped up a four-day mission to the Middle East, during which he'd persuaded the Palestinians to resume security cooperation with Israel.
(AP, 8/13/98)
1997 Aug 13, In Detroit, Mich., Yolanda Bellamy was slain with 2 young sons, a niece and a nephew. A suspect was later arrested and jumped from a 5th floor police station window. He was critically injured.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 13, A NYC police officer of the 70th precinct in Flatbush was arrested for sexually assaulting a Haitian immigrant who was arrested in a nightclub fight. Officer Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima with a toilet plunger and then forced the handle into Louima’s mouth. Volpe’s partner, Thomas Bruder, was ordered off active duty and Mayor Giuliani ordered a shakeup and investigation. Officer Charles Schwartz was later arrested for his participation. Two more officers, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder, were later arrested for beating Louima after his arrest. In 1998 federal civil rights charges were filed against the involved officers. Officer Volpe was jailed in 1999 after he pleaded guilty that he had sodomized Abner Louima. In 1999 Officer Schwarz was found guilty of holding Louima down. Officers Bruder, Wiese and Bellomo were acquitted. In 2000 officers Bruder, Schwartz and Wiese were convicted of covering up the assault on Louima. Schwartz was sentenced to 15 years and 8 months in prison and ordered to pay $277,495 in restitution. Bruder and Wiese were sentenced to 5 years each. In 2002 a federal appeals court overturned the convictions against Schwarz, Wiese and Bruder.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A5)(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A4)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A5)(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A3)(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A6)(SFC, 5/26/99, p.A1)(SFC, 6/9/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/7/00, p.A3)(SFC, 6/28/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A3)
1997 Aug 13, In India the Supreme Court ordered the government to come up with legislation to protect women from sexual harassment in the workplace.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 13, In Tehran, Iran, Ali Reza Khoshruy Kuran Kordiyeh ("the vampire") was flogged and hung for the rape, murder and burning of 9 women in a crime spree that began in March.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 13, From Panama it was reported that Pres. Balladares has given journalist Gustavo Gorriti until the end of the month to leave Panama. Mr. Gorriti had published investigative articles detailing the financial dealings of the president’s election campaign, his allies and gentlemen of questionable character.
(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 13, In Russia the book "Boris Yeltsin: From Dawn to Sunset" by former bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov went on sale.
(SFC, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 13, From Russia it was reported that a helicopter accidentally had dropped a 2.3 ton lead box containing strontium 90 into 66 feet of water off Sakhalin Island.
(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 14, An unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was formally sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 8/14/98)
1997 Aug 14, In Argentina public sector and opposition unions called for a 24-hour strike to protest the nation’s 16.1% unemployment rate and proposed labor reforms.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 14, From Canada it was reported that Ontario planned to close down 7 of 19 nuclear power plants for repairs. Inadequate maintenance practices and management problems were charged in an internal document and, Allan Kupcis, the CEO had resigned.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 14, Congo announced a $2.5 billion project to build roads and that it would seek EU financing.
(WSJ, 8/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 14, In Kenya 6 officers and 7 civilians were killed in Mombasa when assailants burned down a police station.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A17)
1997 Aug 14, Russian cosmonauts Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin made it safely home to Earth after a luckless six-month mission aboard the Mir space station.
(AP, 8/14/98)
1997 Aug 14, In Turkey the parliament approved an amnesty program for some 89 journalists imprisoned for their news coverage. Pres. Demirel signed the measure.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 14, In Yemen ten Italian tourists were reported kidnapped in 2 separate incidents.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A17)
1997 Aug 15, The US government expanded its recall of ground beef sold under the Hudson brand name to 1.1 million pounds because of new evidence of possible contamination by E. coli bacteria.
(AP, 8/15/98)
1997 Aug 15, The US Justice Department decided not to prosecute senior FBI officials in connection with an alleged cover-up that followed the deadly 1992 Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho.
(AP, 8/15/98)
1997 Aug 15, In Louisiana a self-defense law, passed in June, that permits motorists to use deadly force in a car-jacking incident took effect.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 15, Beginning today couples seeking marriage in Louisiana were given the choice between a traditional or a covenant marriage. The covenant marriage, designed to make divorce much more difficult, required counseling and a 2-year cooling off period.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A6)(Econ, 2/12/05, p.31)
1997 Aug 15, The Dow Jones dropped 247 points in its 2nd biggest point loss session ending at 7,694.66.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 15, Researchers from the Univ. of New Hampshire reported that the spanking of children causes long-term behavioral problems.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 15, Scientists at Geron corp. reported that an "immortality gene" had been cloned. The key gene carries the code for a key section of the enzyme telomerase, that rebuilds the telomere of DNA. It could lead to new cancer-prevention drugs and even be used to slow the process of aging.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A1,17)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.D1)
1997 Aug 15, From Argentina it was reported that the country would issue bonds to pay indemnities to the relatives and descendants of the 1970s "dirty war." As many as 30,000 people disappeared and about 8,000 families have applied for payments authorized at $224,000 per victim.
(WSJ, 8/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 15, In Bosnia the high court ruled that Pres. Biljana Plavsic had no right to disband the Parliament. Plavsic announced the formation of a new political party, the Serb National Union.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 15, In Colombia ten woodcutters were killed by a gang of hooded gunmen near the town of Retiro in Antioquia province.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 15, From Egypt it was reported that a nurse in Alexandria, Aida Nur el-Din, had killed at least 18 patients so that she would not be disturbed at night.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 15, In Mexico the Saba family’s 22% stake in Television Azteca SA was sold through an IPO. The family led by Isaac Saba Raffoul was reputed to have a cash equivalent of a billion dollars with the sale.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 16, Thousands of Elvis Presley fans thronged Graceland on the 20th anniversary of his death.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1997 Aug 16, It was reported that the US led the world in arms sales last year with 35.5% of all orders. Britain ranked 2nd with 15.1% and Russia 3rd with 14.5%.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 16, In Mexico Alejandro Ortiz Martinez, brother of the finance minister Guillermo Ortiz, was shot and killed by three gunmen in Mexico City.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.A21)
1997 Aug 16, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the most popular singer in Pakistan, died in a London hospital. He was considered one of the world’s greatest singers of Sufi devotional music in a style called qawwali, where long performances built up emotion and complexity to the backdrop of stringed instruments and the harmonium.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.D8)
1997 Aug 16, Scientists reported that an underground seismic event occurred in Russia. Inquiries were being made about nuclear testing. Russian scientists claimed a magnitude-2 earthquake near the Novaya Zemlya test range triggered the event.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A18)(WSJ, 9/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 16, Two cosmonauts just returned from Mir (Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin) rejected criticism that they were to blame for troubles aboard the aging, problem-plagued space station.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1997 Aug 17, President Clinton urged both sides in the United Parcel Service strike to "redouble their efforts" to reach a deal, but hours later, negotiators recessed their intensive talks.
(AP, 8/17/98)
1997 Aug 18, The Lutheran Church approved a Formula of Agreement document that called for closer cooperation with the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ and the Reformed Church in America. A separate document called the Concordat of Agreement for closer ties with the Episcopal Church was 6 votes short of a required majority.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 18, UPS management agreed to a tentative contract with the striking Teamsters Union to end a 15-day-old strike. New full-time jobs and pay raises were part of the settlement.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/18/98)
1997 Aug 18, In Virginia the VMI class of 2001 included 30 women among the 460 freshman students. Beth Ann Hogan became the first coed in the Virginia Military Institute's 158-year history.
(SFC, 8/18/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/18/98)
1997 Aug 18, Burnum Burnum (b.1936 as Henry James Penrith), Australian Aboriginal activist, died at age 61. He had been a member of the "stolen generation," Aborigine children taken from their families into government welfare.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A20)
1997 Aug 18, Militiamen under the South Lebanon Army, a key ally of Israel, shelled the port city of Sidon and killed at least 6 people while injuring over 3 dozen. In apparent retaliation northern Israel was hit by dozens of Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 18, Typhoon Winnie swept over Taiwan and left 24 people dead.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 18, In Tajikistan government forces killed 50 mutinous troops in a battle over a bridge on the Vakhsh River.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 19, Missouri and Oklahoma withdrew inmates from a private Texas prison after the release of a video tape that showed guards using dogs and stun guns on prisoners made to crawl during a drug raid.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 19, A New Hampshire man, Carl Drega (67) of Colebrook, killed 2 state troopers, Scott Philips (32) and Les Lord (45), a local judge and a newspaper editor in Colebrook. The shooting spree ended with his death near the Canadian border in Vermont. The issue was believed to be a grudge over a tax case.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)(SFC,11/3/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/19/98)(SFEC, 10/18/98, Par p.9)
1997 Aug 19, In Cambodia 35,000 people fled across the border to Thailand to escape fighting between forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh and troops of coup leader Hun Sen.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 19, In Honduras lawmakers voted to name Archbishop Oscar Andres Rodriguez to oversee the creation of a new civilian police force.
(SFC, 8/21/97, p.A13)
1997 Aug 19, In Kenya some 300 kiosks were burned in Malindi.
(SFC, 8/21/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 19, In North Korea groundbreaking ceremonies were held for 2 nuclear power plants to be built by a US led Int’l. consortium.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 19, In Sri Lanka government jets hit rebel positions and some 20,000 government troops met guerrillas en route to Puliyankulam where 7 soldiers and more than 50 rebels were reported killed.
(SFC, 8/20/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 20, United Parcel Service drivers put away picket signs, put on brown shirts and shorts, and called on customers again as the delivery giant began to sluggishly recover from its costly strike.
(AP, 8/20/07)
1997 Aug 20, NATO troops in Bosnia seized truckloads of weapons from police stations in Banja Luka. They moved to force out officers loyal to Karadzic.
(WSJ, 8/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 20, Israeli jets struck deep in Lebanon and bombed a guerrilla base and a power plant supplying electricity to Sidon.
(WSJ, 8/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 20, In Jamaica prison guards walked off their jobs after a commissioner suggested that guards and prisoners use condoms to prevent AIDS. Anti-gay violence broke out and within a week 16 inmates were killed and 20 injured at Kingston’s Gen’l. Penitentiary and St. Catherine District Prison.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A4)
1997 Aug 20, In Kenya police arrested 2 KANU politicians for instigating violence along the coastal region. Karisa Maitha and Omar Masumbuko lent credence that KANU officials were attempting to divert attention from the reformist movement.
(SFC, 8/21/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 20, Palestinian Pres. Arafat met with Islamic militant groups including Hamas and called for Palestinian unity against Israeli demands.
(WSJ, 8/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 21, A hamburger recall was extended to cover some 25 million pounds. The Hudson Foods Inc., of Rogers, Ark., closed its Nebraska beef-processing facility under a "non-negotiable" recommendation by Agricultural Sec. Dan Glickman due to E. coli poisonings in Colorado.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/21/98)
1997 Aug 21, The CEO of Philip Morris Cos. said that cigarettes "might have" killed 100,000 Americans. It was the first acknowledgement by the company of a possible link between smoking and death.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 21, In Afghanistan leaders of the alliance fighting the Taliban army were killed in an air crash aboard an Antonov 32 about 90 miles NW of Kabul.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 21, From Bosnia Judge Jovo Rosic reported that he was beaten up and ordered to vote against Pres. Plavsic last week.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 21, In France Pope John Paul II began a visit to Paris with an outdoor encounter with 500,000 young people from around the world.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 21, In North Korea a tidal wave from a passing typhoon struck and destroyed some 700,000 tons of corn and left 28,000 people homeless.
(WSJ, 9/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 21, Palestinians began an embargo of Israeli goods.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 21, In Russia Yuri Nikulin (b.1921), a cherished comic actor, died.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A24)
1997 Aug 21, From Russia the Kremlin demanded the release of journalists of ORT TV. They were jailed in Belarus for allegedly trying to cross the border illegally into Lithuania. The journalists had made negative reports on Pres. Lukashenko.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 22, A US federal judge rejected Pres. Clinton’s request to dismiss the sexual harassment suit of Paula Jones. The trial was scheduled to start May 27, 1998.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 22, A federal official threw out the contentious Teamsters election because of alleged campaign fund-raising abuses, forcing union President Ron Carey into another race against James P. Hoffa.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/22/98)
1997 Aug 22, A $64.8 million 890- lb. Lewis satellite was launched by NASA on a hoped-for 5-year mission. It went into an uncontrolled spin on Aug 22 and was expected to fall and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in Sep.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 22, It was reported that Ethiopia has completed work on more than 200 dams that use 624 million cubic yards of Nile water per year.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 22, In Kenya armed marauders attacked a church filled with some 2,500 refugees and killed 2 refugees and wounded a police guard in Linkoni.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 22, On Montserrat voluntary evacuation of the islanders was begun. Two-thirds of the 12,000 inhabitants fled the island. It was expected that much of the island would not be habitable for 20 years after the eruptions ceased.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 22, In Rwanda at least 120 people were killed at the Mudende camp near Mutura. The slain were thought to have been Tutsis and were killed by "infiltrators," rival rebel Hutus.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 23, In his weekly radio address, President Clinton said he would ask Congress to renew his authority for speedy negotiation of trade agreements, saying the "fast track" approach would make U.S. companies more competitive worldwide.
(AP, 8/23/98)
1997 Aug 23, In Iran Pres. Khatami appointed the first woman vice-president and ended an 18-year ban on commercial flights to Saudi Arabia.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 24, Officer Jeremy Charron, 24, was shot and killed Gordon Perry (22) and Kevin Paul (18) in Epsom, New Hampshire. Both captured suspects were on probation. Paul later received a 16- to 50-year prison sentence. Perry was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.A8)(www.odmp.org/officer/14959-patrolman-jeremy-t.-charron)
1997 Aug 24, In Cambodia troops of Hun Sen overran O’Smach, the last frontier town held by forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 24, In France Pope John Paul II offered tough challenges and affectionate encouragement to more than 1 million faithful attending Mass during closing World Youth Day ceremonies in Paris.
(AP, 8/24/98)
1997 Aug 24, In Honduras a power outage at a state-run hospital resulted in the death of 14 patients. The Sunday blackout was not reported until Monday.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 24, In Zambia former pres. Kaunda accused Pres. Frederick Chiluba of trying to kill him after he was wounded by riot police during a protest rally.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.B5A)
1997 Aug 25, It was reported that the number of US mutual funds today has climbed to 2,855 funds controlling $2.13 trillion, as opposed to 1987 when there were 812 mutual funds with $241.9 billion in assets.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 25, The tobacco industry agreed to an $11.3 billion settlement with the state of Florida to settle a smoking-related lawsuit.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/25/98)
1997 Aug 25, Dow Corning Corp. offered $2.4 billion to settle claims from more than 200,000 women with illnesses related to silicone breast implants.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/25/98)
1997 Aug 25, It was reported that the US government would pay 1,000 teaching hospitals not to train doctors in specialties where there is a glut.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 25, Prof. William Ferris, a scholar at the Univ. of Mississippi, was selected by Pres. Clinton to head the National Endowment for the Humanities.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A4)
1997 Aug 25, NASA sent a Delta rocket aloft with the Ace solar observatory, Advanced Composition Explorer. The 5-year $110 million project will go into orbit at a point 1 million miles from Earth and 92 million miles from the Sun where the gravity of Earth and Sun balance.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A2)
1997 Aug 25, Germany convicted 3 politicians from the defunct East German era on charges related to shootings of would-be escapees. Egon Krenz, the last leader of the East German Communist Party, was convicted along with Politburo members Guenther Kleiber and Guenther Schabowski. The conviction was upheld in 1999.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A8)(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A14)
1997 Aug 25, From South Korea it was reported that Samsung was proceeding with plans to manufacture automobiles. Korea’s 5 auto manufacturers will increase capacity to 6 million units a year.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 26, It was announced that researchers at Johns Hopkins had found a gene that causes colon cancer in some people of Jewish ancestry.
(WSJ, 8/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 26, In Colombia Mayor Mauricio Guzman of Cali was arrested for allegedly accepting money from a drug cartel.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 26, It was reported that China executed at least 4,367 people in 1996.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 26, It was reported that Israel planned to proceed with the building of a dam on the Yarmuk River. The territory is claimed by Syria.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 26, Two defectors and their families from North Korea were accepted by the US. One was Chang Sung Gil, the ambassador to Egypt, the other was his brother Chang Sung Ho, a commercial councilor at the North Korean mission in Paris. High level arms talks were immediately terminated.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 26, Former South African President F.W. de Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to end apartheid, announced his retirement from politics and his leading role in the National Party which had created the practice of apartheid.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C2)(AP, 8/26/98)
1997 Aug 27, Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy was charged with seeking and accepting more than $35,000 dollars in trips, sports tickets and favors from companies that did business with his agency. A jury found Espy innocent in 1998 of taking illegal gifts, but eight others pleaded guilty or were convicted of various charges; President Clinton later issued seven pardons and a commutation.
(AP, 8/27/02)
1997 Aug 27, There was a report on the US nuclear arsenal broken down to the number of nuclear weapons in each state. New Mexico was 1st with 2,850, Georgia 2nd with 2,000, and Washington State 3rd with 1,600. The total stockpile was totaled at 12,500 warheads, of which 8,750 were described as "operational."
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A6)
1997 Aug 27, A secret CIA report acknowledged that the CIA knew of human rights abuses by the Honduran military in the 1980s. It was declassified in 1998.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A3)
1997 Aug 27, It was announced that the diet drugs, Redux and Pondimin, caused brain damage in animals at doses similar to those taken by humans.
(WSJ, 8/27/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 27, Brandon Tartikoff (48), TV exec (NBC), died in Los Angeles.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0850748/)
1997 Aug 27, From India it was reported that at least 945 people had died since June due to torrential monsoon rains.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 27, It was reported that a 3-part expose in the Israeli Maariv newspaper alleged that gameshow host Dudu Topaz was involved in rigging the winners in the Mar 30 show "First in Comedy."
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E7)(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 27 Israel lifted a month-long blockade of Bethlehem imposed after a suicide bombing July 30 that killed 16 people.
{Israel}
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E7)(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/27/98)
1997 Aug 27, It was announced that South Korea had a $22 billion trade deficit in 1996 and that the purchase of foreign goods was being actively discouraged.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 27, The annual Burning Man Festival began near Gerlach, Nevada, on a private ranch on the Hualapai Playa, a prehistoric lakebed. Some 20,000 people came to the instantly created "Black Rock City" for the torching of the 50-foot effigy.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A1, 15)
1997 Aug 28, After nearly a year of legal challenges, California's affirmative action ban, Proposition 209, became law. In SF some 4,000 people marched with Jesse Jackson across the Golden Gate Bridge to protest Prop. 209, in what was dubbed the "March to Save the Dream."
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/28/98)
1997 Aug 28, The UN imposed air and travel sanctions on the UNITA movement in Angola to deter Jonas Savimbi from increasing tensions.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A16)
1997 Aug 28, In Algeria a 2nd bomb this week killed 8 people in the Casbah.
(USAT, 8/29/97, p.8A)
1997 Aug 28, US troops clashed with Bosnian Serbs in Brcko. NATO forces rescued some 50 besieged UN police monitors as crowds, opposed to Pres. Plavsic, demanded the expulsion of Western peacekeepers. U.S. troops fired tear gas and warning shots to fend off rock-hurling Serb mobs. The attempt by US-led NATO forces to install Plavsic forces in police stations in 3 cities failed.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)(AP, 8/28/98)
1997 Aug 28, Four Israeli soldiers were killed in a fire caused by strafing from Israeli helicopters in southern Lebanon in a battle where 4 Amal guerrillas were also killed.
(WSJ, 8/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 28, In Mexico the government’s National Human Rights Commission recommended that the Durango State Attorney Gen’l. Francisco Arroyo be fired for negligence. This was in response to the suicide 2 months ago of 16-year-old Yessica Diaz Cazares who had been gang raped some 5 months ago. Yessica had spent 3 months recounting her story to officials under threats from her attackers and pressure from authorities to drop the charges.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 28, Pres. Yeltsin set the draft Russian military budget at $14 million, up from $11.9 million. He also fired the head of the defense council and his culture minister.
(WSJ, 8/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 28, In Sri Lanka Pres. Kumaratunga pushed parliament to enact constitutional changes to address Tamil grievances.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A16)
1997 Aug 28, Taiwan’s Pres. Lee Teng-hui selected Vincent Siew (58) to replace Lien Chen as premier.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A18)
1997 Aug 28, In Venezuela 29 prison inmates died after a dominant prison gang fell on a group of newcomers at the El Dorado Jail in Bolivar state.
(WSJ, 8/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 29, In NYC some 7,000 protestors marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest police brutality and the assault on Abner Louima.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 29, In Algeria some 300 villagers of Rais were slain by hooded men armed with axes in an Algerian farm village in the worst carnage since an Islamic insurgency began. In addition 20 young women were abducted.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A10)(AP, 8/29/98)
1997 Aug 29, In Britain the government formally invited Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, to peace talks next month in Northern Ireland.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 29, In Japan the Supreme Court upheld the government’s right to control the nation’s textbooks but not to tamper with the truth. Japan's Supreme Court ruled that the country's Education Ministry broke the law by removing mention of a Japanese World War II atrocity from historian Saburo Ienaga's high school textbook. Novelist Ryotaro Shiba was quoted: "A country whose textbooks lie... will inevitably collapse."
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A12)(AP, 8/29/98)
1997 Aug 29, In Kenya thousands fled from the Indian Ocean coast in fear of ethnic violence and attacks from government security forces.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 30, Philip Noel Johnson, an armored car driver believed to have stolen $22 million, was arrested at the Texas border. Johnson later pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping, money laundering and interfering with interstate commerce. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Johnson (33) a former armored car driver for Loomis, Fargo & Co., was accused of raiding the vault of the company's Jacksonville, Fla., office on March 29. The heist was one of the biggest in U.S. history.
(AP, 8/30/02)
1997 Aug. 30, Americans and others in the Western Hemisphere learned of the deaths of Princess Diana, her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, in a car crash in Paris. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived. (Because of the time difference, it was the morning of Aug. 31 in Paris when Diana was pronounced dead.) [see Aug 31]
(AP, 8/30/98)
1997 Aug 31, In Phoenix, Az., bounty hunters in search of a bail jumper killed a couple that apparently knew nothing about the sought bail jumper. Chris Foote (23) and Spring Wright (20) were killed by 5 bounty hunters. Matthew Brackney (20), his father David Brackney (45) and Michael Martin Sanders (40) were in custody and 2 others were sought by authorities. Arizona laws allow bounty hunters to break down doors and use guns to bring bail jumpers back to jail without a court order, warrant or license. There were an estimated 2,000 bounty hunters nationwide. Brian Jay Robbins and Ronald Eugene Timms were arrested on Sep 3. On October 30, 1998 Michael Martin Sanders was judged guilty of murder, and nine other felonies including burglary, aggravated assault and unlawful imprisonment. Co-defendant Ronald Timms pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and testified against Sanders, saying the men planned to break into Foote's home because they mistakenly believed there would be a large amount of drugs and cash there. The rest were charged with second degree murder and various counts of felonious assault.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.A3)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/lp6bs)
1997 Aug 31, Prince Charles brought Princess Diana home for the last time, escorting the body of his former wife to a Britain that was shocked, grief-stricken and angered by her death in a Paris traffic accident. Princess Diana (36) and Egyptian billionaire Dodi al-Fayed (42) were killed along with the car’s driver in a car crash in Paris while trying to evade paparazzi photographers. A bodyguard was severely injured but expected to survive. It was later learned that the driver had 3 times the legal alcohol limit and was driving at about 110 mph.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/2/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/31/98)
1997 Aug 31, In Peru 2 small planes collided at the Nazca archeological site and 12 people were killed.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 31, Vitaly Schmidt (47), Russian oil tycoon, died in Moscow. Much of his fortune came from a group of small offshore energy companies he oversaw on behalf of himself and a few fellow executives of OAO Lukoil.
(WSJ, 12/6/06, p.A1)
1997 Aug, Newsweek reported Linda Tripp, a White House secretary, was told by Kathleen Willey, that Pres. Clinton had made an aggressive sexual pass at Willey.
(WSJ, 2/18/98, p.A24)
1997 A North American ban on cattle feed that included bovine brain and spinal tissue went into effect to prevent the spread of mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
(SFC, 12/30/03, p.A1)
1997 Aug, In Arizona two jurors in the Symington trial received telephoned death threats and offers of bribes.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug, Harry Stonecipher, CEO of McDonnell Douglas, negotiated a merger with Boeing.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A1)
1997 Aug, The US population was 267.8 million people.
(WSJ, 10/22/97, p.A20)
1997 Aug, Argentine beef was allowed to be imported fresh to the US market.
(WSJ, 5/26/98, p.B1)
1997 Aug, In Chad a plague of locusts began to spread across the southwest with as many as 200 locusts per square yard.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A21)
1997 Aug, Chen Xiaotang, son of former Beijing mayor Chen Xitong, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for economic crimes.
(SFC, 9/10/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug, In Colombia a group of 30 intellectuals issued a plea for UN mediation over the violence in the countryside.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A14)
1997 Aug, In Cyprus UN talks between Turkish and Greek Cypriot officials broke down when the EU reaffirmed that it would begin membership talks with the Greek-led Cypriot government. Lower level talks continued.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A22)
1997 Aug, Ethiopian officials set up an administration in the contested region known as Bada, that triggered skirmishes with Eritrea.
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A14)
1997 Aug, In India A.R. Rahman launched his first non-movie album "Vande Mataram" (Salute to the Motherland) to coincide with the 50-year anniversary of independence from Britain. He was the first Indian artist signed by Sony Records.
(SFEC,12/14/97, DB p.63)
1997 Aug, In Indonesia a $43 billion economic bailout package obliged the government to run a budget surplus, close insolvent banks, end nepotism and raise interest rates.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A7)
1997 Aug, Kenyan police with US investigators raided the home of Wadih el-Hage and seized his papers and computer. Hage was arrested a year later for his ties to Osama bin Laden and terrorist conspiracy.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.A21)
1997 Aug, In Russia Mikhail Manevich, deputy governor of the of St. Petersburg region and privatization chief, was shot and killed. In 1998 4 suspects were arrested in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
(SFC, 7/22/98, p.A12)
1997 Aug, In Zimbabwe on Heroes Day Pres. Mugabe was shouted down by his own former guerrillas who were angered that pensions to disabled veterans were frozen and over allegations that $36 million had gone to the ruling party elite.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.A12)
1997 Sep 1, The 32nd annual Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, led by Jerry Lewis, ended with a record $50.5 million pledged.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.E5)
1997 Sep 1, The 2nd phase of the US minimum wage raise to $5.15 per hour went into effect.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A3)(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)
1997 Sep 1, Scientists announced in the Physics Review Letters that evidence was found for an exotic meson subatomic particle. It is supposed to be composed of an unusual quark combination and only exists for a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. The experiment supports the current standard model of physics in which 3 quarks make a proton or a neutron and 2 quarks can combine to make a meson.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 1, In Bosnia several hundred Bosnian Serbs attacked some 300 armed US troops in an effort to take back a key TV transmitter that was seized by the Americans last week. The melee was a standoff.
(SFC, 9/2/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 1, As Britain continued to mourn the untimely death of Princess Diana, came word from a source in the Paris prosecutor's office that Diana's driver, Henri Paul, was legally intoxicated at the time of the crash.
(AP, 9/1/02)
1997 Sep 1, In Switzerland robbers made off with $37 million in cash from a Zurich post office. By Sep 8 Swiss and Italian police had detained 13 suspects. A total of 19 people in five countries were arrested in connection with the case.
(WSJ, 9/2/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A11)(AP, 9/1/07)
1997 Sep 2, It was reported that 52,000 books, fiction and non-fiction, would be published this year in the US.
(WSJ, 9/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 2, US troops in Bosnia relinquished control of the TV transmitter in exchange for agreements to permit opposition voices on the air and an end to inflammatory rhetoric.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 2, The US demanded exemptions to a proposed global ban on land mines at an int'l. meeting in Oslo, Norway. The exemptions were for mines on the Korean peninsula and for certain types of mines.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 2, The US stock market made a record 257 point gain.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.B1)
1997 Sep 2, In Miami Beach, Florida US postal worker, Jesus Antonio Tamayo (64) shot and critically injured his former wife, Manuela Acosta (62) and a friend and then killed himself.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 2, Rudolf Bing (95), opera manager (NY Met Opera), died.
(www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0761029.html)
1997 Sep 2, Viktor E. Frankl (b. 1905), psychotherapist, died in Vienna at age 92. He was the author in the 1960s of "Man’s Search for Meaning." He developed logotherapy, a theory whose primary belief is that man’s primary motivational force is his search for meaning. His teachings are called the 3rd Vienna School of Psychotherapy after Freud and Adler. He held that one can discover the meaning of life in 3 different ways: "by creating a work or doing a deed; by experiencing something or encountering someone; and by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering." Frankl's autobiography, "Reflections," was translated by Joseph Fabry (d.1999 at 89) and his wife.
(WSJ, 9/4/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.C4)(SFC, 5/12/99, p.C6)
1997 Sep 2, Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh elected Arkady Gukasian as president with an 89% vote. Azerbaijan called the vote invalid.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C3)
1997 Sep 2, In London, a grieving human tide engulfed St. James's Palace, where Princess Diana's body lay in a chapel closed to the public, as the British monarchy and government prepared for her funeral. The White House announced that first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton would attend on behalf of the United States.
(AP, 9/2/98)
1997 Sep 2, In Russia Space Agency officials blamed the cosmonauts for the Jun 25 crash on the Mir space station. Later ground controllers were also held partly responsible.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C3)(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 3, The U.S. Senate voted to ban most federal financing for abortions provided by the managed-care industry.
(AP, 9/3/98)
1997 Sep 3, Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, the great-grandson of steel baron Henry Clay Frick, was found guilty by a jury on 7 counts of lying to get millions in loans to shore up his collapsing real estate empire. He was later sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, charged a fine of $60,000, and ordered to serve 5 years of probation. Symington's conviction was overturned in 1999; he was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001 as prosecutors again pursued the case.
(WSJ, 9/4/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A3)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A2)(AP, 9/3/02)
1997 Sep 3, Belarus tax officials emptied the bank account of the Soros foundation and forced it to close down.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 3, It was reported that Catania, Sicily, (pop. 378,000) has some 100 gangland killings per year.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 3, In Cambodia a Vietnam Airlines, Tupelov 134, Soviet jet crashed on approach to Phnom Penh airport and killed 65 people. One child, 1-year-old Chanayuth Nim-Anong, survived. A 2nd child about 4 also survived.
(WSJ, 9/3/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 3, In Colombia workers joined protests across the country to protest government privatization plans, for better wages, respect for human rights and an end to the guerrilla war.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 4, A trio of Buddhist nuns acknowledged in Senate testimony that their temple outside Los Angeles illegally reimbursed donors after a fund-raiser attended by Vice President Al Gore and later destroyed or altered records to avoid embarrassment.
(AP, 9/4/98)
1997 Sep 4, It was reported that scientists have pinpointed the gene, Torsin 1, responsible for dystonia, a condition marked by uncontrolled movements.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A6)
1997 Sep 4, In Algeria 22 people were killed in El Arbi. Their throats were slit and bodies burned.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 4, In Cuba an explosion shook 3 tourist hotels and one Italian tourist was killed. Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon (25) of Salvador was arrested and accused of carrying out a half-dozen hotel attacks. He worked for Luis Posada Carriles, who was supported by the Cuban-American National Foundation. Cruz was sentenced to death in 1999. In 2010 Cuba's Supreme Court commuted the death sentence ruling that he should serve 30 years in prison instead. Francisco Chavez Abarca of El Salvador was later arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison for planting some of the bombs.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A21)(WSJ, 3/24/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/3/10)(SFC, 5/24/11, p.A2)
1997 Sep 4, In Israel a triple suicide bombing in a mall in the heart of Jerusalem claimed the lives of seven people, including the three assailants.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/4/98)
1997 Sep 4, From Kenya it was reported that the unemployment rate was 35%.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 4, In Turkey 33 people were killed when 2 buses collided near Ankara. Turkey has the highest incidence of road traffic deaths with 2,713 killed in the first 7 months of this year.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 5, In Arizona Sec. of State Jane Dee Hull assumed the role of governor, the 3rd current female governor in the US after Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A5)
1997 Sep 5, The new Kansas City Jazz Museum opened next to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 5, Leon Edel (b.1907), American scholar and biographer, died. His work included a 5-volume biography of Henry James (1843-1916), for which he received the 1963 Pulitzer Prize.
(WSJ, 6/17/08, p.A21)(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Edel-Jos.html)
1997 Sep 5, In Argentina a group headed by Sociedad Macri SA took over the postal service with an offer to pay the state about $102 million annually for 20 years.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A15)
1997 Sep 5, In England funeral services for Princess Diana were held in London. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II broke the royal reticence over Princess Diana's death, delivering a televised address in which she called her former daughter-in-law "a remarkable person." The 1973 song “Candle in the Wind," an ode to Marilyn Monroe on the album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin, was adopted for the funeral.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/24/97, p.E1)(AP, 9/5/07)
1997 Sep 5, Hungarian-born conductor Sir George Solti (b.1912) died at age 84 in France. He was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1972 for his contributions to British music.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A3)(AP, 9/5/98)
1997 Sep 5, Athens, Greece, won the competition to host the 2004 Summer Olympics.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A16)
1997 Sep 5, In India Mother Teresa (b.1910), the Calcutta nun who worked on behalf of the destitute, died of heart failure in Calcutta. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II broke the royal reticence over Princess Diana's death, calling her "a remarkable person" in a televised address. In 1996 a US Congress joint resolution declared her an honorary US citizen. In 2003 Albania declared 2004 to be "Mother Teresa Year" and set aside Oct. 19 as a national holiday in her honor. "It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you ... yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand."
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/5/98)(AP, 9/12/03)(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A4)
1997 Sep 5, Israel’s PM Netanyahu announced that the Oslo peace process was being frozen.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 5, In Lebanon at least 12 Israeli commandos were killed in a botched raid deep inside Lebanese territory. Itamar Ilya, a commando, was killed with 11 other soldiers in Southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 6/26/98, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/64nx84f)
1997 Sep 6, The USS Hopper, the 354th ship in the modern naval fleet, was commissioned. The high-tech destroyer is the 2nd warship to be named after a woman. Grace Hooper (d.1992) was a computer programmer for the Navy until she retired in 1986 at age 79. She coined the term "debugging" when she pulled a moth from her computer.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.B1,3)
1997 Sep 6, In Albania the Socialist government dismissed 17 generals.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A16)
1997 Sep 6, In Algeria at least 87 people were killed and 100 injured by about 50 attackers in the town of Beni Messous.
(SFEC, 9/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 6, Britain bade farewell to Princess Diana with a funeral service at Westminster Abbey.
(AP, 9/6/98)
1997 Sep 6, Weeping masses gathered in Calcutta, India, to pay homage to Mother Teresa, who had died the day before at age 87.
(AP, 9/6/98)
1997 Sep 7, The US F-22 Raptor stealth fighter took its first flight from Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Atlanta, Ga. The plane was estimated to cost $100 million.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 7, This was the scheduled date for Israel’s departure from the West Bank, except for Jewish settlements and certain military locations according to a peace accord negotiated between Arafat and Rabin on Sep 24, 1995.
(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A10)
1997 Sep 7, Mobuto Sese Seko (66), former dictator of Zaire, later Congo, died of prostate cancer in exile in Rabat, Morocco. Mobutu began his career in the Belgian Congolese army, rising to the highest rank available to Africans, sergeant-major. However, after leaving the army in 1956, he began to be involved with the independence movement, representing the nationalists at some negotiations. Five years after independence, in 1965, Mobutu, then commander in chief of the army, exploited a power struggle in the young government by assuming the presidency in a coup. Mobutu managed to stay in power over the following decades despite uprisings, coup attempts and Angola-backed rebels. In the early 1970s, he began to Africanize names in the country, most notably changing the name of the country from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Republic of Zaire and his own name from Joseph-Désiré Mobutu to Mobutu Sese Seko Koko Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (which means "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake"). The end of the Cold War meant that, in 1991, Mobutu could no longer hold the same dictatorial control he had held over the country nor keep his party, the MPR, as the only legal political entity. With the beginnings of a multiparty system and a lack of Western finance, Mobutu released control of the government to the rebel leader Laurent Kabila in May 1997. Kabila‘s rebels—backed by Rwanda and Uganda—had been gaining ground over the past seven months. Mobutu died in exile several months later. In 2001 Michela Wrong authored ""In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo."
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)(AP, 9/7/98)(HNQ, 2/15/01)(WSJ, 4/27/01, p.W10)
1997 Sep 7, In the disputed Kashmir region Indian and Pakistani gunners exchanged artillery fire and 14 villagers on the Pakistani side were reported killed and 5 were reported killed on the Indian side.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A16)
1997 Sep 8, The TV series “Ally McBeal" starred Calista Flockhart as a working girl who was part successful attorney and part angst-ridden woman. The show continued to 2002.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.45)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0118254/)
1997 Sep 8, Lawyers in the Paula Jones case against Pres. Clinton decided to quit the suit after Jones refused to accept a financial settlement.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 8, Monday commuters in and around San Francisco faced huge traffic jams a day after workers for the Bay Area's commuter rail system went on strike. An agreement ending the walkout was reached five days later.
(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, Forbes Mag. listed Steven Spielberg as the best paid figure, $313 Mil, in the entertainment business in 1997.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.E2)
1997 Sep 8, It was announced the America Online Inc. (AOL) would take over Compuserve in a 3-way deal that involved WorldCom.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A3)(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, John Liebeskind (62) died in LA. He was a leading researcher in the study of pain and found that the brain controls pain by creating a chemical now known as an endorphin.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 8, In France a passenger train collided with a gasoline truck in Perigord town and killed at least 12 people and injured 39.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, From Guatemala it was reported that a new rebel group emerged in the Chajul region calling itself the Guerrilla Command Force ‘97.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 8, In Haiti the ferry, Pride of Gonave, sank in the Saint Marc Channel off Montrouis. The 60-foot vessel was chartered for only 80 passengers. The recovered bodies numbered 170. A Haitian ferry, the Pride of Gonave, capsized, killing about three-quarters of the 200 people aboard.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A10)(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, In Japan Prime Minister Hashimoto won re-election as head of the Liberal Democrats.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, In Liberia some 200,000 refugees from Sierra Leone had spilled over from escalating violence.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, In Mexico the Fox and Jaguar SWAT police in Mexico City engaged in a gun fight with a neighborhood gang. One young man and one police officer died. Police seized 6 youths and 3 were found dead the next day with gunshot wounds to the head. Three more were found dead on Sep 29. On Oct 3 nineteen members of the police force were arraigned for the executions. Three ranking officers were later arrested due to contradictory and misleading statements.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A8)(SFC,11/19/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 9, Actor Burgess Meredith died in Malibu, Calif., at age 89. He had played the Penguin on TV’s Batman and numerous films in a 60 year film career. He was born Nov 16, 1907 in Cleveland.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A18)(AP, 9/9/98)
1997 Sep 9, Richie Ashburn, Hall of Fame baseball player (Phillies, Mets), died at 70.
(www.baseball-reference.com/a/ashburi01.shtml)
1997 Sep 9, Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, accepted the Mitchell Principles and formally renounced violence as it took its place in talks on Northern Ireland's future.
(AP, 9/9/98)(MC, 9/9/01)
1997 Sep 9, In China former Beijing mayor Chen Xitong was handed over to prosecutors on charges of corruption in a scandal with the loss of as much as $2.2 billion in public funds.
(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A9)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.49)
1997 Sep 10, Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy pleaded innocent to charges of accepting $35,000 in sports tickets, travel and lodging from companies regulated by the Agriculture Department. He was later acquitted.
(AP, 9/10/98)
1997 Sep 10, Discovery Comm. Bought a 70% stake in the Travel Channel from Paxson Comm. for $20 million. Paxson had acquired the Travel Channel in June from Clear Channel Comm.
(www.backchannelmedia.com/articles/41-42-new-era-demands-new.html)
1997 Sep 10, The $250 million Mars Global Surveyor successfully went into orbit around Mars for its 2 year mapping mission.
(USAT, 8/29/97, p.12A)(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A4)
1997 Sep 10, The ashes of Eliot Ness, FBI agent, were laid to rest in Cleveland.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.11B)
1997 Sep 10, In LA 11 people were killed in a fiery car crash after a day of selling corn.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.11B)
1997 Sep 10, In Cuba a former Salvadoran soldier was arrested and confessed to carrying out a series of bomb attacks. A statement said that Raul Ernesto Cruz was paid $4,500 for each bomb he planted and that he had been trained in El Salvador.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 11, In Manhattan Elie Wiesel helped dedicate the new Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park, designed by Kevin Roche. It was dubbed a Living memorial to the Holocaust.
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 11, The US Army issued a searing indictment of itself, asserting that "sexual harassment exists throughout the Army, crossing gender, rank and racial lines."
(AP, 9/11/98)
1997 Sep 11, In Kenya the Parliament approved some constitutional reforms but opponents charged the measures were only meant to diffuse protests. Detention without trial was ended and greater media access to the opposition was to be established.
(WSJ, 9/12/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 11, In Scotland voters went to the polls on a referendum for a separate Scottish Parliament. In a two-part referendum, 74.3% of Scots voted for a 129-member parliament to administer many aspects of Scottish life. 63.5% said 'yes' to giving it modest tax changing powers. The parliament controls schools, the health service, environmental affairs and farm support programs.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A10)(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A12)(Reuters, 2/16/12)
1997 Sep 12, Pres. Clinton named Dr. David Satcher, 56, as the new surgeon general.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 12, With little to show after three days of shuttle diplomacy, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared she wouldn't return to the Mideast until Israeli and Palestinian leaders made the "hard decisions" necessary to restart peace talks.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1997 Sep 12, US Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms, exercising iron control, prevented any committee hearing on William Weld's nomination to be ambassador to Mexico.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1997 Sep 12, Edwin Lawrence Njuguna of Kenya was stabbed to death in Napa, Calif., after being dragged with two friends from a car by skinheads.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 12, It was reported that Comoros government troops under Pres. Mohamed Taki were routed on Anjouan and half of a force of 300 were killed or captured by people who demanded to be French again.
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 12, In southeast Congo a plane crashed enroute to a religious meeting. All 20 aboard were killed.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 12, The Chinese Communist Party Congress opened under Pres. Jiang Zemin and embraced a program of bold economic reform. The event was held every 5 years. Jiang Zemin was expected to stay as general-secretary. The positions of Li Peng and Qiao Shi were in question. Jiang issued a call to use layoffs, bankruptcies, shareholding and other capitalist policies to attack the nation’s industrial ills.
(SFC, 8/28/97, p.C2)(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A8)(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 12, In Mexico a crowd of tens of thousands rallied in the central square of Mexico City in support of the Zapatista movement.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 13, Katherine Shindle of Illinois was crowned Miss America in Atlantic City, N.J.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 13, It was reported that a monster hurricane named Linda was moving up the Pacific coast.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 13, Victor Szebehely, a theorist of celestial mechanics, died in Texas. He wrote or edited some 18 books including: "Theory of Orbit," and "Adventures in Celestial Mechanics."
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A23)
1997 Sep 13, In Algeria security forces killed 8 suspected Muslim militants in a rocket attack on a mosque in a suburb of the capital. Earlier a Muslim cleric was assassinated by suspected militants in Constantine.
(WSJ, 9/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 13, In Bosnia municipal elections were held under NATO escort. There was a high voter turnout.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A22)(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 13, A German military transport, a Soviet-made Tupelov-154 jet, was reported crashed with 24 people off the coast of Angola. A midair collision with a USAF C-141 Starlifter cargo plane from Namibia was reported and the total dead reached 32. Poor communications and faulty regional traffic control were cited as the cause. On Mar 31, 1988 the German government reported that the German crew was at fault for flying in airspace reserved for westbound traffic.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A1)(SFC,12/16/97, p.B1)(WSJ, 3/31/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.A5)
1997 Sep 13, Funeral services were held in Calcutta, India, for Nobel peace laureate Mother Teresa.
(AP, 9/13/98)
1997 Sep 13, In Lebanon six soldiers were killed in a rocket attack by Israeli helicopters.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A22)
1997 Sep 13, In Mexico City a national Zapatista civilian movement was inaugurated.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 13, From New Zealand it was reported that the government approved the release of the rabbit calcivirus to eradicate the rabbit pest problem.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 13, In the Philippines the Mount Pinukis volcano, 120 miles east of Zamboanga City, erupted after being dormant since 1985.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 14, At the 49th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, "Law and Order" won best drama series while "Frasier" won best comedy series.
(AP, 9/14/02)
1997 Sep 14, An Air Force F-117A Stealth fighter broke apart in midair at a Baltimore County air show. The pilot ejected safely but about a dozen people on the ground were slightly injured.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 14, Overcoming fears of violence, Bosnians flooded polling stations to vote in local elections.
(AP, 9/14/02)
1997 Sep 14, In India at least 77 people were killed when a train plunged from a bridge near Champa town in the east of Madhya Pradesh state. Another 234 were injured.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A11)
1997 Sep 14, Two Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah attack in southern Lebanon.
(WSJ, 9/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 14, Israel announced that it will return half of the $67 million in Palestinian tax revenues as a "goodwill gesture."
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 14, It was reported that Norway is the world’s 2nd largest oil exporter and that the government sets aside nearly $8.3 billion into a fund for the future.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 15, Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld gave up his battle to be U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
(AP, 9/15/98)
1997 Sep 15, Two of the nation's most popular diet drugs -- dexfenfluramine and fenfluramine -- were pulled off the market because of new evidence they could seriously damage patients' hearts.
(AP, 9/15/98)
1997 Sep 15, A Marine F/Aa-18 Hornet fighter jet crashed in North Carolina’s Pamlico sound and its 2 pilots were killed.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 15, From Afghanistan it was reported that the Taliban has prohibited the cultivation of opium poppies. Some 200,000 families produced a record 2,800 tons of opium in 1997, a 25% increase over 1996.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 15, In Algeria 7 people were killed in Saida by masked assailants and four people had their throats cut in Medea.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 15, In India at the port city of Visakhapatnam a fire raged at the Hindustan Petroleum Corp. and 37 were reported dead.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 15, The IRA allied Sinn Fein party entered Northern Ireland's peace talks for the first time. All party talks for peace were to begin in Belfast.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)(AP, 9/15/98)
1997 Sep 15, In North Korea it was reported that about 15% of people in the towns and villages of the country may be dying of starvation and famine-related diseases in a survey conducted by Korean-American organizations.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 15, In Norway Prime Minister Thorbjoern Jagland said he would step down after support in national elections reached only about 35%.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 15, In Oman a US Navy F/A-18 crashed and the pilot was killed.
(WSJ, 9/16/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 15, From Thailand it was reported that layoffs, salary cuts and downsizing was spreading across the economy under an expensive foreign debt load and a 40% fall in the value of the baht.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 16, US Attorney General Janet Reno named Charles La Bella the Justice Department's new lead prosecutor in the campaign fund-raising investigation.
(AP, 9/16/98)
1997 Sep 16, Two Air national Guard F-16 fighters collided off Atlantic City, N.J. All the crew members survived.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 16, In Egypt a state-owned farm-truck carrying up to 120 boys and girls overturned and killed 29 of them. 23 children from Sa el-Hagar were killed.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.C4)(SFC, 10/1/98, p.A14)
1997 Sep 17, Pres. Clinton rejected a proposed tobacco deal and planned to outline his own policy.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 17, Pres. Clinton announced that the US would not sign the int’l. treaty banning anti-personnel land mines after 89 nations rejected US demands to water down the accord. 89 nations endorsed the pact.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, The US House of Representatives voted themselves a $3,000 pay increase, the equivalent of a 2.3% raise on $133,600. It was termed a cost-of-living increase and was opposed by the Senate.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 17, Montana passed a new law, effective Dec 17, that makes the entire state an offshore banking center, allowing foreign interests to anonymously stash their cash. Depositors could not be US citizens and a minimum of $200,000 was required.
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A18)
1997 Sep 17, Dr. Sam Sheppard's body (subject of the TV show "The Fugitive") was exhumed in Cleveland, Ohio, for DNA test.
(www.courttv.com/archive/trials/sheppard/timeline_ctv.html)
1997 Sep 17, Bernard Richard Skelton (Red Skelton, b.1913), comic clown and actor, died at age 84 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He made his debut on radio and Broadway in 1937 and appeared in 43 films. In 1979 Arthur Marx wrote his biography.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.C2)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, From Indonesia it was reported that government spending was slashed and projects for power plants and roads were put on hold in order to keep the economy on an even keel.
(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A17)
1997 Sep 17, The German Red Cross estimated that the famine in North Korea might be killing 10,000 children every month.
(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 17, In Macedonia the mayor of Gostevar, Rufi Osmani, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges of inciting ethnic hatred in the July riots.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)
1998 Sep 17, In Ensenada, Mexico, 20 people were shot and 18 were killed by gunmen. The victims included 8 children. Fermin Castro (38), aka "The Ice Man," was the principal target and leader of one of 6 gangs linked to the Arellano Felix drug cartel. Castro, a native Pai Pai Indian, was tortured before being shot and was in a coma. In Dec. Tijuana police arrested Hector Flores Esquivias and Cruz Medina Perez, the wife of gang leader Martinez Gonzalez.
(WSJ, 9/18/98, p.A1)(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A1)(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A12)(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A13)
1997 Sep 17, A U.N. helicopter slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain in central Bosnia and burst into flames, killing German diplomat Gerd Wagner, five Americans and six others.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, In Vietnam Tran Duc Luong (60) was nominated to be the country’s president. Vice Prime Minister Phan Van Khai (64) was nominated to be the new prime minister. A week later Luong was elected by the National Assembly and Khai was confirmed as premier.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 18, Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse agreed to merge to create the world's biggest accounting firm.
(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 18, Media mogul Ted Turner pledged to give the United Nations $1 billion over the next ten years.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 18, In Colorado Sabrina (31) Bebb-Jones was reported missing by employees of the Hotel Melrose in Grand Junction. Her husband, Marcus Bebb-Jones, a professional gambler, was later accused of dumping her on a mountain pass in northwestern Colorado. Her skull was found and positively identified in 2004. He returned to his native England, where he was arrested in 2009.
(AP, 4/12/10)(http://tinyurl.com/y9wqjtr)
1997 Sep 18, In Albania a Socialist lawmaker shot and wounded a rival from the opposition Democrats inside the parliament building.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 18, In Bosnia a car bomb in Mostar injured about 50 people and destroyed 56, apartments, 9 businesses and 44 cars.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 18, In Egypt two gunmen killed 10 people in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in front of the Egyptian Museum. Of the dead were nine German tourists and a bus driver and a dozen more were wounded as the tour bus was set afire. Saber and Mahmoud Abu el-Ulla, a former inmate of a mental hospital and his brother, were caught, convicted and sentenced to death.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A12)(SFC,10/31/97, p.D3)(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 18, In Norway an explosion at a Russian-operated coal mine in the Svalbard islands killed 23 Russian and Ukrainian workers.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 18, In Wales voters narrowly approved a referendum for partial self-government with 50.3% of the vote in which only 50% of the voters took part.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 19, The crime drama "L.A. Confidential" opened. It was directed by Curtis Hanson. Los Angeles and New York film critics later voted it the best film of the year. Kim Bassinger won the Golden Globes award for best supporting actress.
(SSFC, 9/1/02, Par p.14)(AP, 9/19/07)
1997 Sep 19, It was reported that the US trade deficit rose to $10.3 billion in July, a 25% jump over June.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 19, A US Air Force B-1 bomber crashed on a training mission in Montana and all 4 crew members were killed.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 19, Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr. (19) was found charred and dismembered in an Aspen Hill, Md., garage. One suspected killer, Samuel Sheinbein (17), fled to Israel. A 2nd suspect, Aaron B. Needle (17), was held in jail. In Oct. the attorney general decided to return Sheinbein to the US. The two young men were indicted on murder and conspiracy charges. Needle committed suicide by hanging in 1998. In 1999 the Israeli Supreme Court held that Sheinbein could not be extradited. Sheinbein agreed to plead guilty to murder and received a prison sentence of 24 years with possible parole after 16.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/20/97, p.A1)(SFC,10/31/97, p.A3)(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A18)(SFC, 2/25/99, p.A12)(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A10)
1997 Sep 19, In his first public comments since the death of Princess Diana, Princes Charles told the British people he would always feel the loss of his former wife, and thanked them for their support.
1997 Sep 19, In England a passenger train collided with a freight train in west London and 6 people were killed and 170 injured.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A10)(AP, 9/19/98)
1997 Sep 20, President Clinton's attorneys insisted no laws were broken as it was disclosed that Attorney General Janet Reno had taken a first step toward seeking a special prosecutor to investigate the president's 1996 fund-raising activities.
(AP, 9/20/98)
1997 Sep 20, Nicholas Traina (19), the son of novelist Danielle Steel, died in SF of a drug overdose.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 20, Jimmy Witherspoon (b.8/23/23 in Gurdon, Ark.), blues singer, died at age 74 in LA.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1997 Sep 20, In Niger it was reported that about 71,000 villagers were threatened by famine in the southwestern areas around Oualam.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Sep 20, In the Philippines Pres. Ramos announced that he would not run for re-election. A mass protest was staged the next day anyway to prevent a change in the constitution that would allow a 2nd term.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 21, Saying their persistent demands for a special investigation had been vindicated, senior Republicans insisted Attorney General Janet Reno seek appointment of an independent counsel to look into White House fund-raising activities, a day after the Justice Department revealed it had begun a preliminary review.
(AP, 9/21/98)
1997 Sep 21, American billionaire George Soros, vilified by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad as the cause of the national financial crises, defended himself and called his accuser "a menace to his own country."
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 21, In Algeria an armed group killed 53 people in Beni-Slimane and then mutilated and burned the bodies.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A9)
1997 Sep 21, From Chile it was reported that the hantavirus had caused the death of 13 people in recent months.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A27)
1997 Sep 21, From Poland election results indicated that Solidarity won 189 of the 460 seats of the parliament with about 34% of the vote.
(WSJ, 9/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 22, Elton John released his Diana tribute "Candle in the Wind 1997."
(www.vex.net/~paulmac/elton/ej1997.html)
1997 Sep 22, President Clinton, addressing the United Nations, told world leaders to "end all nuclear tests for all time" as he sent the long-delayed global test-ban treaty to the Senate.
(AP, 9/22/98)
1997 Sep 22, Sportscaster Marv Albert went on trial in Arlington, Va., on charges of sodomy and assault. Albert later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, received no jail time and later had his record cleared.
(AP, 9/22/02)
1997 Sep 22, In the farming village of Roby, Illinois, a standoff between police and Shirley Allen (51) began that turned into a 5-week police siege. Her brother initially showed up with a court order for a psychiatric exam and she refused to comply. She was finally captured after being shot with rubber bullets. Shirley Ann Allen was apprehended when she stepped out onto her porch on October 30, 1997. Illinois State Police officers fired several large rubber bullets at her from a grenade launcher, striking her several times. Apparently not seriously injured, Allen was taken to St. Johns Hospital in Springfield, Illinois for her "evaluation." Ending on Thursday, October 30, 1997 a 39-day police siege, the longest in Illinois history. According to Illinois State Police Director Terry Gainer between $750,000 and $1,000,000 of taxpayer money was spent during the stand-off. After six weeks in a mental hospital, Allen was released when doctors said she posed no danger to herself or others.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/31/97, p.A3)(www.outlawslegal.com/friendly/shirley.htm)
1997 Sep 22, It was reported that IBM has developed a new copper chip that will be smaller and up to 40% more powerful than previous chips.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 22, It was reported that scientists had developed a new technology that takes the flicker out of starlight using "adaptive optics."
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A5)
1997 Sep 22, Shoichi Yokoi (b.1915), Japanese WW II fighter who only surrendered in 1972, died. For 28 years he had hid in an underground jungle cave on Guam, fearing to come out of hiding even after finding leaflets declaring that World War II had ended.
(www.wanpela.com/holdouts/profiles/yokoi.html)
1997 Sep 22, In Serbia the Socialist Party of Slobodan Milosevic claimed victory in the elections. Many of his opponents boycotted the elections which they said were rigged. Zoran Lilic was expected to take the presidency. A majority was not won and a runoff election was scheduled for Oct 5.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A8)(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 23, The White House awarded the $10,000 National Heritage Fellows awards to a dozen Americans that included Chinese singer Hua Wenyi, and Ali Akbar Khan, composer of North Indian music.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A17)
1997 Sep 23, The Gilmore Artist Award, a $300,000 prize given every 4 years to a classical pianist, was awarded to Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes at the Irving S. Gilmore Int’l. Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, Mich.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.E5)
1997 Sep 23, The US Senate Finance Committee opened hearings into reports of alleged abuses by the Internal Revenue Service.
(AP, 9/23/98)
1997 Sep 23, Kevin (18) and Tilmon Golphin (19) of Virginia shot and killed Patrol Troopers Ed Lowry and David Hathcock on I-95 in North Carolina after they were pulled over in a stolen car. The 2 brothers were sentenced to death May 13, 1998.
(SFC, 5/14/98, p.A6)
1997 Sep 23, In Algeria the government reported that 85 people were killed, while eyewitnesses counted more than 200 bodies in the Bentalha neighborhood of the Baraki suburb of Algiers. Armed men raided an Algerian village, killing at least 200 people in one of the worst massacres since Algeria's Islamic insurgency began.
(AP, 9/23/98)(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 24, Garth Brooks was named best entertainer by Country Music Association.
(AP, 9/24/98)
1997 Sep 24, President Clinton urged the annual convention of the AFL-CIO not to try to punish Democratic lawmakers who stood with him on his request for stronger authority to negotiate new free-trade treaties.
(AP, 9/24/98)
1997 Sep 24, Travelers Group announced the acquisition of Salomon Brothers for $9 billion in stock.
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.89)(www.businessweek.com/1997/40/b3547006.htm)
1997 Sep 24, The Islamic Salvation Army (AIS) declared a truce and blamed recent killings on a splinter fundamentalist group, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 24, It was reported that drought has destroyed crops across the Indonesian archipelago and could force up to 1 million villagers into a famine diet. Forest and scrub fires continued to burn out of control. 750,000 acres of bush land had burned. It was the worst drought in 50 years.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A11)(SFC, 7/6/98, p.A8)
1997 Sep 24, In the Republic of the Congo it was reported that the Cobras, the private militia of former military dictator Gen’l. Denis Sassou-Nguesso, had taken control of more than three-quarters of the country.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 25, The NBC prime-time drama "ER" did its season premiere live for the Eastern United States, then repeated the performance live for the West Coast.
(AP, 9/25/98)
1997 Sep 25, President Clinton pulled open the door of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., as he welcomed nine blacks who had faced hate-filled mobs 40 years earlier.
(AP, 9/25/98)
1997 Sep 25, Sportscaster Marv Albert ended his trial in Arlington, Va., by pleading guilty to assault and battery charges; within hours, NBC fired him. The network later rehired him.
(AP, 9/25/07)
1997 Sep 25, In the town of Scotia in Humboldt County, Ca., 7 protestors settled in the company office of Pacific Lumber. Sheriff’s deputies applied pepper spray directly to the eyes of the protestors using cotton swabs and Q-tips.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.A15)
1997 Sep 25, In California it was reported that traces of toxaphene, banned in 1982, were found in at least one bird in a southern Tulare County canal where some 1600 western grebes and millions of fish were found dead.
(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A13)
1997 Sep 25, The space shuttle Atlantis was launched. Astronaut David Wolf scheduled to replace Michael Foale on the Mir space station.
(www.cnn.com/TECH/9709/25/shuttle.mir/)(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 25, A British jet car, Thrust SSC, driven by Andy Green of the Royal Air Force set a land speed record of 714.144 mph. [see Oct 13]
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A1,7)
1997 Sep 25, From Brazil it was reported that local transsexuals could get a free sex-change operation under new rules that classified the surgery as experimental.
(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 25, Iraq demanded that Turkey pull back some 15,000 troops who crossed its border in pursuit of Kurdistan Workers Party guerrillas.
(WSJ, 9/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 25, In Jordan Khalid Mashaal, the political leader of Hamas, was chemically attacked by two men with forged Canadian passports in Amman. Hamas accused the men of being Israeli Mossad agents. Jordan's King Hussein intervened, forcing Israel to send the antidote that saved the Hamas leader's life and release the group's jailed founder in exchange for the freedom of its captured agents.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B4)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.A17)(AP, 9/25/04)
1997 Sep 26, Gap Inc. dressed the NY stock exchange in khakis fashion, the first casual dress day in exchange history.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.C1)
1997 Sep 26, US and Russia signed a package of arms control agreements that extended parts of START II to 2007. Systems were still required to be disabled by 2003. Other accords modified the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 with Belarus, Kazakstan, the Ukraine and Russia to allow flexibility for the development of short range systems.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 26, In Algeria militants attacked the village of El Hadj and killed 15 people.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 26, In Bosnia political broadcasts began in Banja Luka under an agreement by rival factions to share the airwaves on alternate days.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A26)
1997 Sep 26, A German court convicted Nikola Jorgic, a Bosnian Serb, for leading a death squad that killed 22 Muslims in Grapska during the war.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 26, An Indonesian Garuda Air A-300 crashed while approaching Medan Airport in north Sumatra and all 234 passengers were killed. Low visibility from the areas fires were thought to have contributed the tragedy.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/26/98)
1997 Sep 26, In Italy Bob Dylan performed at a religious congress in Bologna before a crowd 200,000 and Pope John Paul II.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 26, Two earthquakes hit central Italy east of Umbria and at least 11 people were killed. The basilica of Assisi, St. Mary of the Angels, built on the site where St. Francis died, was severely damaged. 4 people were killed while assessing damage from the first quake. An estimated 100,000 buildings in the Umbria and Marche regions were damaged.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.A18)
1997 Sep 26, In Sicily a court convicted 24 mobsters for the 1992 bombing of the top anti-mafia prosecutor. Salvatore "Toto" Riina, the reputed "boss of bosses" was among those convicted for having plotted the assassination of Giovanni Falcone.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 27, The space shuttle Atlantis, docked with the problem-plagued Russian Mir station to drop off American David Wolf and pick up Michael Foale.
(AP, 9/27/98)
1997 Sep 27, In Algeria witnesses said armed men killed 11 female teachers at Ain Adden School in Sfisef while shouting "Blood, blood, blood, destruction, destruction, destruction," the rallying cry of the Armed Islamic Group.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 27, In Indonesia two cargo ships collided in the strait of Malacca and at least 28 crew members were missing. Smog from fires impacted visibility.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A21)
1997 Sep 27, In Hong Kong lawmakers approved an election law that reduced the number of people who could vote and increased the power of big business.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 27, In North Korea Kim Jong Il ordered the establishment of the "9-27" camps for orphaned and homeless children to "normalize" the country.
(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A10)
1997 Sep 27, In Thailand the parliament passed a constitution intended to fight government corruption and rejected a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Chavilit.
(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 28, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hit his 58th home run on the final day of the regular season as his team beat the Chicago Cubs, 2-1.
(AP, 9/28/98)
1997 Sep 28, Newscaster David Brinkley, 74, retired after 54 years in broadcasting.
(http://tinyurl.com/7dxec)
1997 Sep 28, In California a wildfire killed livestock and forced the evacuation of some 1500 people in Yuba County. Scores of homes were burned.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 28, From LA it was reported that Cirildo Chacarito, a 52-year-old Mexican Indian tribesman, won a 100-mile endurance run along mountain trails in 19 1/2 hours.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A23)
1997 Sep 28, In Indonesia an earthquake measuring 6.0 hit Sulawesi island and at least 7 people were killed.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A21)
1997 Sep 28, Swiss voters overwhelmingly endorsed their government's liberal drug policies, including the controversial state distribution of heroin to hardened addicts.
(AP, 9/28/98)
1997 Sep 29, Maxine Hong Kingston, American writer, was scheduled to receive a National Humanities Medal from Pres. Clinton. Her best known is: "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts."
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.D7)
1997 Sep 29, Oklahoma City bombing defendant Terry Nichols went on trial in the same courtroom in Denver where Timothy McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to die. Nichols was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy, but acquitted of murder and weapons-related counts; he was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 9/29/98)
1997 Sep 29, A 10,000 gallon oil spill occurred off the coast of Santa Barbara from an undersea pipeline to an offshore oil platform.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 29, Roy Lichtenstein (b. 10/28/23), American pop artist, died at age 73 in New York.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 29, In Algeria some 15 armed attackers killed 52 members of one extended family in Chebil and kidnapped 5 young women.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 29, In Chile a fire killed 30 children in a home for retarded children in northern Santiago.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A13)
1997 Sep 29, The French oil company Total signed a $2 billion contract to explore for gas in Iran despite warnings from the Clinton administration.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 29, Iranian warplanes bombed anti-Tehran rebel bases inside Iraq.
(WSJ, 9/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 29, It was reported that Jordan shut down 13 weekly newspapers for allegedly failing to maintain assets and cash to $430,000.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 29, It was reported that Swiss voters backed the continuation of a 3-year experiment in more lenient drug laws that included free heroin to hard-core addicts to cut crime.
(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 29, Turkish planes attacked Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq and drove the guerrillas toward the Iran border.
(WSJ, 9/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 30, The Rolling Stones album "Bridges to Babylon" was scheduled for release.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, DB p.35)
1997 Sep 30, Hooters agreed to pay $2 million in discrimination suits.
(www.spcnetwork.com/mii/1997/971004.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/7n8v9)
1997 Sep 30, In Waterbury, Conn., Todd Joseph Rizzo (18), recently discharged from the Marines, bludgeoned to death Stanley Edwards IV (13) to see what it felt like to kill. In 1999, a jury sentenced him to die. In 2003, the state Supreme Court overturned that sentence because Judge William Holden had not properly instructed the jury.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A6)(www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1407662/posts)
1997 Sep 30, In Louisiana the Flamingo riverboat casino closed. It was the last riverboat casino in downtown New Orleans and the 4th to open and close in the last 4 years. One floating casino was left on Lake Pontchartrain.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A4)
1997 Sep 30, In an unprecedented act of repentance, France's Roman Catholic Church apologized for its silence during the systematic persecution and deportation of Jews by the pro-Nazi Vichy regime.
(AP, 9/30/98)
1997 Sep 30, In Serbia Zoran Djindjic, mayor of Belgrade, was ousted in a coup by nationalist extremists and some former allies. The city assembly voted to oust Djindjic and the TV editors. Some 20,000 demonstrators protested in downtown Belgrade. Senior editors of Studio B television, the only opposition to Milosevic’s state television, were also ousted.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 30, On St. Kitts island Leyoca Browne (20) and her mother, Violet (36), were murdered by Bertil Fox, a former Mr. Universe bodybuilder. He was found guilty and sentenced to death on 5/23/98.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.A8)
1997 Sep 30, In Thailand the cabinet officially scrapped the $3.2 billion rail and road system under construction by Hopewell Holdings. The Bangkok Elevated Rail and Transport System known as Berts was one fifth built and several years behind schedule.
(WSJ, 10/1/97, p.A18)
1997 Sep, "The Riverside Records Story, " a 4 CD label overview on Fantasy Records was released along with "Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years," a 3 CD collection on Clint Eastwood’s Malpaso Records label.
(SFEM, 10/5/97, p.29)
1997 Sep, The US released the one ounce Platinum Eagle coin with $100 face value. The coin was valued around $390.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.C1)
1997 Sep, Steve Jobs was named interim CEO of Apple Corp. Jobs dropped the term interim in 2000.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.80)
1997 Sep, In Tyrone, Pa., Devon Capital Management under John Gardner Black was shut down by the SEC. Mr. Black was charged with fraud after losing millions in high-risk bonds and derivatives and then trying to cover up the losses. Some $70 million was lost from the investments of 64 cash-strapped school districts in the state.
(WSJ, 12/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep, In Dallas, Texas, the Walt Whitman Community School began classes as the nation’s first private high school for gay students.
(SFC, 5/11/98, p.A3)
1997 Sep, MIT student Scott Krueger fell into a coma and died following a drinking binge at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. In 1998 the fraternity was charged with homicide.
(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A3)
1997 Sep, Isaiah Berlin (b.1909) died. He had just published "The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History." It was his 11th book and was unified by the theme of the impact of belief and loss of belief that events obey discoverable laws. "Most of life transpires at deeper strata, within a complicated network of relationships involving every form of human intercourse, more and more insusceptible to tidy classification, more and more opaque to the theorist’s vision." In 1998 his collection of essays "The Proper Study of Mankind" was published. In 2002 his 1952 BBC lectures were published under the title: "Freedom and its Betrayal." It was a portrait of 6 thinkers: Helvetius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simon and Maistre as "enemies of human liberty."
(SFEC, 5/25/97, BR p.9)(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/20/02, p.A20)
1997 Sep, Adolfo Scilingo, a former Argentine navy officer, had his face slashed by unknown assailants in a Buenos Aires street. He and Horatio Verbitsky wrote "El Vuelo," (The Flight), a best -seller about the death flights during the "dirty war."
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)
1997 Sep, In England a 13-foot high painting titled "Myra" by Marcus Harvey was displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts show "Sensation." It was created from children’s handprints and based on a mug shot of Myra convicted of murdering children in 1966. It was part of a show from the collection of Charles Saatchi of the "Brit Art gang." The show was deemed by many as very offensive.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.E5)
1997 Sep, In India 30 people organizing lower-caste villagers were killed by a rival group.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep, In Iraq some military intelligence officials were caught plotting a coup against Saddam Hussein and at least half a dozen officers were executed.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)
1997 Sep, In Chiapas, Mexico, gunmen demanded a "war tax" of $1.25 from villagers every couple weeks and threatened them if they refused. It was reported that the PRI had distributed guns to allies in villages around Puebla.
(SFC,12/30/97, p.B1)
1997 Sep, In Poland Col. Ryszard Kuklinski was cleared of spy charges after a military court ruled that he acted in Poland’s best interests. He had served as a US CIA spy and reported on activities from 1972-1981.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A10)
1997 Sep, In Sri Lanka Tamil guerrillas sank a ship in the Trincomalee area. By 1999 leakage of the 700 tons of oil in the ship was threatening the coastline.
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.A6)
1997 Sep, In Sudan Gen. Omar Bashir accepted a 3-year-old proposal to hold direct negotiations with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A12)
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