Timeline 1991 July-Dec
Return to home
1991 Jul 1,
President Bush nominated federal appeals court judge Clarence Thomas to
the US Supreme Court, beginning a confirmation process marked by
allegations of sexual harassment.
(AP, 71/6/01)
1991 Jul 1, Actor Michael Landon
died in Malibu, California, at age 54.
(AP, 7/1/01)
1991 Jul 2, Actress Lee Remick
(55) died in Los Angeles of cancer.
(AP, 7/2/01)(SC, 7/2/02)
1991 Jul 2, A European
Community-brokered truce between Yugoslavia and the breakaway republic
of Slovenia was shattered as the federal army battled Slovene militias.
(AP, 7/2/01)
1991 Jul 2, The first national
conference of the ANC, since the organization was banned in 1960, began
in Durban, South Africa. Oliver Tambo, whose health was suffering,
handed over the presidency of the ANC to Nelson Mandela and assumed the
largely honorary post of national chairperson. Walter Sisulu was
elected deputy president.
(www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/tambo.html)(http://tinyurl.com/z63lx)
1991 Jul 3, Former corporate
enemies Apple Computer and IBM publicly joined forces in a broad pact
to swap technologies and develop new machines. Plans eventually led to
the PowerPC processors.
(AP, 7/3/01)(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1991 Jul 3, A Fort Worth, Texas,
police officer was videotaped beating a handcuffed prisoner in his
patrol car. The officer was suspended, but later reinstated after a
grand jury refused to indict him.
(AP, 7/3/01)
1991 Jul 4, Americans celebrated
Independence Day, with the Persian Gulf War adding to emotions.
President Bush and his wife, Barbara, attended festivities in
Marshfield, Missouri, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, before returning to
Washington DC for the annual fireworks display.
(AP, 7/4/01)
1991 Jul 5, A worldwide financial
scandal erupted as regulators in eight countries shut down the Bank of
Credit and Commerce International, charging it with fraud, drug money
laundering and illegal infiltration into the U.S. banking system. BCCI,
headquartered in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, failed. It was
chartered in Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands and had offices in 70
countries. The ruling family of Abu Dhabi was the major investor and
faced huge liability claims from depositors around the world. In 1997 a
British court convicted Pakistani shipping tycoon, Abbas Gokal
-chairman of the defunct Gulf Group, of a 1.2 billion fraud that led to
the collapse. Larry Gurwin later co-authored "False Profits: The Inside
Story of BCCI, The World’s Most Corrupt empire."
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A9B)(WSJ, 4/4/97, p.A1)(AP,
7/5/97)(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.A2)(WSJ, 5/1/02, p.AD7)
1991 Jul 6, President Bush sent a
personal message to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, urging a
stronger effort to conclude arms control talks.
(AP, 7/6/01)
1991 Jul 6, Steffi Graf won the
women’s singles title at Wimbledon, defeating Gabriela Sabatini 6-4,
3-6, 8-6.
(AP, 7/6/01)
1991 Jul 7, Responding to
President Bush’s call for stepped-up efforts on arms control talks,
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev told the White House he was
sending Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh and other officials for
talks with Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third.
(AP, 7/6/01)
1991 Jul 7, Michael Stich defeated
Boris Becker, 6-4, 7-6, 6-4, to win the men’s singles title at
Wimbledon.
(AP, 7/7/01)
1991 Jul 8, Reversing earlier
denials, Iraq disclosed for the first time that it was carrying out a
nuclear weapons program, including the production of enriched uranium.
(AP, 7/8/01)
1991 Jul 9, The American League
defeated the National League, 4-to-2, in the All-Star Game in Toronto.
(AP, 7/8/01)
1991 Jul 9, Former CIA officer
Alan D. Fiers pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges in the
Iran-Contra affair.
(AP, 7/8/01)
1991 Jul 9, The International
Olympic Committee readmitted South Africa.
(AP, 7/9/97)
1991 Jul 10, President Bush lifted
economic sanctions against South Africa, citing its "profound
transformation" toward racial equality.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1991 Jul 10, President Bush
announced he was appointing Alan Greenspan to a second term as Federal
Reserve chairman.
(AP, 7/10/01)
1991 Jul 10, Boris N. Yeltsin took
the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian
republic.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1991 Jul 11, A solar eclipse cast
a blanket of darkness stretching nine-thousand miles from Hawaii to
South America, lasting nearly seven minutes in some places.
(AP, 7/11/01)
1991 Jul 11, A Nigerian Airlines
jet carrying Muslim pilgrims crashed at the Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, int'l
airport, killing all 261 people on board. The plane was a
Canadian-chartered DC-8.
(AP, 7/11/97)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1991 Jul 12, A Japanese professor
who had translated Salman Rushdie’s "The Satanic Verses" was found
stabbed to death, nine days after the novel’s Italian translator was
attacked in Milan.
(AP, 7/12/01)
1991 Jul 13, Soviet and American
negotiators meeting in Washington wrangled over a treaty to reduce
long-range nuclear missiles.
(AP, 7/13/01)
1991 Jul 14, American and Soviet
negotiators in Washington continued work on trying to complete a treaty
slashing long-range nuclear arsenals.
(AP, 7/14/01)
1991 Jul 14, In California a
Southern Pacific tanker car derailed near Dunsmuir and spilled 18,000
gallons of pesticides (19k gallons of metam sodium) into the Sacramento
River. This killed every living thing in the river for 40 miles
downstream including 250,000 trout.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.T7)(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A22)
1991 Jul 14, Leaders of the Group
of Seven nations began gathering in London for their annual economic
summit.
(AP, 7/14/01)
1991 Jul 15, Group of Seven
leaders opened their 17th annual economic summit in London, plunging
into debate over aid to the Soviet Union.
(AP, 7/15/01)
1991 Jul 15, Actor and game-show
host Bernard Whalen Convy (57) died in Los Angeles, Ca., of a brain
tumor. Early in his career, Convy was a member of a singing trio named
the Cheers. Their “Black Denim Trousers” was a top-ten hit (1955). He
was born July 23, 1933 in St. Louis, Missouri.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0176622/)
1991 Jul 16, Leaders of the Group
of Seven nations holding their economic summit in London issued a
communique calling for a "new spirit of cooperation" in the
international community.
(AP, 7/16/01)
1991 Jul 16, Robert Motherwell
(b.1915), US painter (Elegies to Spanish Rep), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Motherwell)
1991 Jul 16, Frank Rizzo (70),
(Mayor-D-Phila, 1972-80), died of a heart attack.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Rizzo)
1991 Jul 17, The US Senate voted
53-to-45 to give itself a $23,200 pay raise while at the same time
banning outside speaking fees.
(AP, 7/17/01)
1991 Jul 17, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev made a personal appeal for Western aid at the
conclusion of the Group of Seven economic summit in London.
(AP, 7/17/01)
1991 Jul 18, Socialist Party
leader Andre Cools was murdered. Cools had worked for more regional
autonomy for Wallonia, the French-speaking southern half of Belgium,
and the Dutch-speaking Flanders. The murder was believed to be done by
hit men after Cools threatened to reveal certain underworld activities.
6 men were convicted for the murder in 2004.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A11)(AP, 1/7/04)
1991 Jul 18, Shiite Muslim
kidnappers in Lebanon demanded the release of two Lebanese brothers
being held in Germany, warning there could be "grave consequences."
(AP, 7/18/01)
1991 Jul 19, President Bush toured
the Souda Bay US naval base during a visit to Greece.
(AP, 7/19/01)
1991 Jul 19, Boxer Mike Tyson had
sex with Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant. On
September 9, 1991, an Indiana Grand Jury voted to indict Tyson on three
counts, including one for the rape of Washington. Tyson was
convicted on February 10, 1992 and was imprisoned.
(www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/tysonrec.htm)
1991 Jul 19, The South African
government acknowledged that it had been giving money to the Inkatha
Freedom Party, the main rival of the African National Congress.
(AP, 7/19/01)
1991 Jul 20,
President Bush, visiting Turkey, was cheered by thousands of people in
Ankara.
(AP, 7/20/01)
1991 Jul 20, Lebanon joined Syria
in agreeing to participate in Mideast peace talks with Israel.
(AP, 7/20/01)
1991 Jul 20, Russian President
Boris N. Yeltsin banned political activity in government offices and
republic-run businesses, effectively curtailing the influence of the
Communist Party.
(AP, 7/20/01)
1991 Jul 21, US Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third met with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir, trying to persuade the Israelis to agree to the talks.
(AP, 7/21/01)
1991 Jul 21, Jordan became the
fourth Arab country to sign on to a US-backed Middle East peace
conference.
(AP, 7/21/01)
1991 Jul 22, President Bush
returned from a nine-day trip that included the Group of Seven summit
in London.
(AP, 7/22/01)
1991 Jul 22, Police in Milwaukee
arrested serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer. He was murdered while in
prison in 1994.
(AP, 7/22/97)(SFC, 5/29/96, A4)
1991 Jul 22, Desiree Washington, a
Miss Black America contestant, charged she'd been raped by boxer Mike
Tyson in an Indianapolis hotel room 3 days earlier. Tyson was later
convicted of rape and served three years in prison.
(AP,
7/22/97)(http://boxing.about.com/od/records/a/tyson_timeline_2.htm)
1991 Jul 23, The US Senate voted
to impose a long list of strict new conditions on renewal of China’s
normal trade status in 1992; however, the 55-to-44 vote fell short of
the two-thirds majority later needed to override President Bush’s veto.
(AP, 7/23/01)
1991 Jul 23, The draft of a new
platform for Soviet Communist Party was published, calling for private
property, economic integration into world market and freedom of
religion.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1991 Jul 24, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced a final agreement on a treaty designed
to preserve the Soviet federation while giving more power to the
republics.
(AP, 7/24/01)
1991 Jul 24, Isaac Bashevis
Singer (87), Nobel Prize-winning author (1978), died in Miami. In 2006
Florence Noiville authored “Isaac B. Singer: A Life.”
(AP, 7/24/01)(SSFC, 10/8/06, p.G6)
1991 Jul 25, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev urged Communist leaders at a Central Committee
meeting to reject "outdated ideological dogmas" and embrace a market
economy.
(AP, 7/25/01)
1991 Jul 25, A deadline for Iraq
to provide full details of its weapons of mass destruction passed, with
US officials indicating military action was not imminent.
(AP, 7/25/01)
1991 Jul 26, US Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third addressed Mongolia’s first legislature chosen
in multiparty elections, applauding the rise of democracy and promising
millions of dollars in aid.
(AP, 7/26/01)
1991 Jul 26, Paul Reubens (Pee Wee
Herman) was arrested in Florida for exposing himself at an adult movie
theater.
(http://crime.about.com/library/blreubenspaul.htm)
1991 Jul 27, Fighting escalated in
the breakaway republic of Croatia, as a Yugoslav air force jet fired on
Croatian forces and ground fighting erupted into clashes with federal
tanks and troops.
(AP, 7/27/01)
1991 Jul 28, Dennis Martinez
pitched the 15th perfect game in major-league baseball history as the
Montreal Expos beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-to-0.
(AP, 7/28/01)
1991 Jul 28, Miguel Indurain of
Spain won the Tour de France bicycle race.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1991 Jul 28, President Bush warned
Iraq it would be making "an enormous mistake" if it failed to disclose
its nuclear weapons program to United Nations inspectors.
(AP, 7/28/01)
1991 Jul 29, President Bush
arrived in Moscow for a superpower summit with Soviet President Mikhail
S. Gorbachev that included the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty.
(AP, 7/29/01)
1991 Jul 30, President Bush and
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev began their face-to-face meetings
in Moscow.
(AP, 7/30/01)
1991 Jul 31, A volleyball court
was installed at People’s Park in Berkeley at a cost of over $1 million
due to the ensuing 12 days of rioting and arrests. The city established
a five year lease with the Univ. to manage the 2.3 acre park.
(SFC, 1/4/97, p.A17)(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.B3)
1991 Jul 31, President Bush and
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed START I, the Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow. The agreement included the
deactivation and removal by May, 1995, of 150 Minuteman II missiles in
Missouri. The treaty was set to expire in Dec, 2009.
(AP, 7/31/01)(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 12/1/07,
p.A8)(Econ, 3/14/09, p.64)
1991 Jul 31, The US Senate voted
to allow women to fly combat aircraft.
(http://library.osu.edu/sites/archives/glenn/collection/senate/speeches3.htm)
1991 Jul 31, Seven people were
killed when an Amtrak passenger train derailed near Camden, South
Carolina.
(AP, 7/31/01)
1991 Jul 31, Seven people were
killed when a bus carrying Girl Scouts crashed in Palm Springs,
California.
(AP, 7/31/01)
1991 Jul, China opened a second
stock exchange in Shenzhen.
(Hem., 1/95, p. 28)
1991 Aug 1, President Bush,
visiting the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, urged Soviet republics to show
restraint in their demands for more autonomy.
(AP, 8/1/01)
1991 Aug 1, Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir accepted a US formula for Middle East peace talks with
the Arabs.
(AP, 8/1/01)
1991 Aug 2, President Bush told a
news conference only poor health would prevent his running for
re-election.
(AP, 8/2/01)
1991 Aug 2, US Secretary of State
James A. Baker III met in Jerusalem with a group of Palestinians, but
failed to line up their immediate support for a Middle East peace
conference.
(AP, 8/2/01)
1991 Aug 2, Blaine Harden of the
Washington Post wrote that the Serbian aim "is obviously ethnic
cleansing of the critical areas that are to be annexed to Serbia."
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1991 Aug 3, The Pan Am games
opened in Havana.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1991 Aug 3, US Secretary of State
James A. Baker III met with King Hassan the Second of Morocco. Baker
asked the monarch for his help in gaining Palestinian participation in
a Middle East peace conference.
(AP, 8/3/01)
1991 Aug 4, The Greek luxury liner
"Oceanos" sank in heavy seas off South Africa’s southeast coast; all
402 passengers and 179 crew members survived.
(AP, 8/4/01)
1991 Aug 4, Israeli Cabinet
members overwhelmingly backed a Middle East peace conference under
conditions set by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
(AP, 8/4/01)
1991 Aug 5, US Democratic
congressional leaders formally launched an investigation into whether
the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign had secretly conspired with Iran to delay
release of American hostages until after the presidential election. A
task force later concluded there was "no credible evidence" of such a
deal.
(AP, 8/5/01)
1991 Aug 5, The Yugoslav army
called off its intervention to Slovenia’s independence.
(SFC, 5/26/96, T-5)
1991 Aug 6, The US Justice
Department joined forces with the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue
in fighting a federal judge’s order to keep two abortion clinics in
Wichita, Kansas, open.
(AP, 8/6/01)
1991 Aug 6, Harry Reasoner (68),
TV newsman, died in Norwalk, Connecticut.
(AP, 8/6/01)
1991 Aug 7, The five permanent
members of the UN Security Council agreed to authorize Iraq to sell as
much as $1.6 billion in oil over six months to pay for food,
humanitarian supplies and war reparations; however, Baghdad rejected
the resolution.
(AP, 8/7/01)
1991 Aug 8, James B. Irwin
(b.1930), Col USAF, astronaut (Apollo 15), died. He was the 8th person
to walk on the moon.
(www.astronautix.com/astros/irwin.htm)
1991 Aug 8, Lebanese kidnappers
freed British TV producer John McCarthy, held hostage for more than
five years; however, a rival group abducted Frenchman Jerome Leyraud,
threatening to kill him if any more hostages were released Leyraud was
freed three days later.
(AP, 8/8/01)
1991 Aug 8, The slain bodies of
former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar and his chief of staff
were found in Bakhtiar’s residence outside Paris.
(AP, 8/8/01)
1991 Aug 8, The 2,120-foot 8-inch
Radio One tower in Poland fell down.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_radio_mast)
1991 Aug 9, In South Africa,
hundreds of police battled neo-Nazis as pro-apartheid extremists tried
to stop a speech by President F.W. de Klerk.
(AP, 8/9/01)
1991 Aug 10, The Revolutionary
Justice Organization, one of the groups holding hostages in Lebanon,
announced it would release an American within 72 hours. The next day,
Edward Tracy was freed.
(AP, 8/10/01)
1991 Aug 10, Nine Buddhists were
found slain at their temple outside Phoenix, Arizona. Two teen-agers
were later arrested; one pleaded guilty to murder, the other was
convicted of murder.
(AP, 8/10/01)
1991 Aug 11, Shiite Muslim
kidnappers in Lebanon released two Western captives: Edward Tracy, an
American held nearly five years, and Jerome Leyraud, a Frenchman who
had been abducted by a rival group three days earlier.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1991 Aug 11, The space shuttle
"Atlantis" returned safely from a nine-day journey.
(AP, 8/11/01)
1991 Aug 12, The National Baseball
Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, began hosting a two-day reunion
of former Negro League players.
(AP, 8/12/01)
1991 Aug 12, A letter from
Lebanese kidnappers was made public; it offered to trade the release of
Western hostages for the freedom of "all detainees" worldwide.
(AP, 8/12/01)
1991 Aug 13, VP Dan Quayle made a
speech attacking lawyers.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1991-8/1991-08-13-CBS-4.html)
1991 Aug 13, Clark Clifford
resigned as chairman of First American Bankshares Incorporated, a bank
holding company the government said had been illegally acquired by the
Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Clifford and law partner
Robert Altman were indicted in 1992 on charges of lying to regulators
and receiving bribes from BCCI; Altman was acquitted at trial, and
remaining charges against both men were dropped.
(AP, 8/13/01)
1991 Aug 13, Jack Ryan (b.1926),
designer and inventor (Barbie Doll, Hot Wheels), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(designer))
1991 Aug 14, President Bush
expressed "100 percent" support for United Nations efforts to mediate a
settlement to the Middle East hostage crisis.
(AP, 8/14/01)
1991 Aug 14, Freed American
hostage Edward Tracy returned to the United States, arriving in Boston,
where he was reunited with his sister, Maria Lambert.
(AP, 8/14/01)
1991 Aug 15, Some 750,000 attended
Paul Simon's free concert in Central Park. The event was recorded and
became available on video.
(http://tinyurl.com/rdhv8)
1991 Aug 15, The UN Security
Council, by a vote of 13-to-one, authorized Iraq to export
one-point-six billion dollars’ worth of oil in a tightly controlled
sale to pay for desperately needed food and medicine.
(AP, 8/15/01)
1991 Aug 16, Pope John Paul the
Second began the first-ever papal visit to Hungary.
(AP, 8/16/01)
1991 Aug 16, In Moscow, Alexander
Yakovlev, a top adviser to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev,
resigned from the Communist Party, warning that hard-liners were
plotting "a party and state coup."
(AP, 8/16/01)
1991 Aug 17, Iraq said it would
"play host" to all foreign citizens in the country who were from
"aggressive nations," and place them in military and civilian targets
until the threat of war was over.
(AP, 8/17/01)
1991 Aug 18, Warren Buffett
stepped in as interim chairman of Salomon Brothers in the wake of its
Treasury securities violations.
(http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Warren-Buffett-Salomon.html)
1991 Aug 18, Soviet hard-liners
(State Emergency Committee), led in part by PM Valentin Pavlov,
launched a coup aimed at toppling President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who
was vacationing in the Crimea. They were unhappy with the drift toward
the collapse of the USSR. Gorbachev and members of his family remained
effectively imprisoned until the coup collapsed three days later.
(AP, 8/18/97)(HN, 8/18/98)(AP, 4/1/03)
1991 Aug 19, Yankel Rosenbaum
(29), an Australian Hasidic scholar, was killed in rioting that erupted
in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn following the traffic death of
a black child. Earlier in the day Gavin Cato (7) had been hit and
killed by a car in a Rabbi’s motorcade. On Oct 29, 1992, a New York
City jury acquitted 17-year-old Lemrick Nelson of Rosenbaum’s murder.
In February 1997, a jury convicted Nelson and Charles Price of
violating Rosenbaum's civil rights. In 1998 Lemrick Nelson Jr. was
sentenced to 19 and 1/2 years in prison. In 1998 the city settled a
suit for $1.35 million brought by Jews who accused City Hall of
insufficient protection during the riots. In 2002 Lemrick Nelson and
Charles Price had their verdicts thrown out and a new trial scheduled.
In 2005 NYC agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle a suit brought by the
Rosenbaum family.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A2)(SFC, 4/3/98, p.A2)(SFC, 1/8/02,
p.A3)(SSFC, 6/19/05, p.A3)
1991 Aug 19, A putsch began in
Moscow. Soviet hard-liners, Janajev and the KGB, removed Soviet
President Mikhail S. Gorbachev from power. In defiance Russian
federation Pres. Boris N. Yeltsin called for a general strike. The coup
collapsed two days later.
(DrEE, 1/4/97, p.4)(AP, 8/19/04)
1991 Aug 20, More than 100,000
people rallied outside the Russian Parliament building as protests
against the Soviet coup increased. President Bush said he would never
deal with the coup leaders.
(AP, 8/20/01)
1991 Aug 21, The hard-line coup
against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of
a popular uprising led by Russian federation President Boris N.
Yeltsin. The coup failed in part when General Alexander Lebed refused
to move troops to surround Yeltsin’s Moscow stronghold.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A15)(AP, 8/21/97)
1991 Aug 21, Boris Yeltsin assured
the Foreign Ministers of NATO, who were convened in Brussels, that the
coup attempt was failing.
(DrEE, 1/4/97, p.4)
1991 Aug 22, The Supreme Court of
Canada struck down the so-called rape shield law, which said the
previous sexual conduct of a rape victim could not be used in court.
(AP, 8/22/01)
1991 Aug 22, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev returned to Moscow following the collapse of the
hard-liners' coup. Later that day, he purged his government of the men
who'd tried to oust him.
(AP, 8/22/01)
1991 Aug 23, In the wake of a
failed coup by hard-liners in the Soviet Union, President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin acted to strip the
Communist Party of its power and take control of the army and the KGB.
(AP, 8/23/01)
1991 Aug 24, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party,
culminating a stunning Kremlin shakeup that followed the failed coup by
hard-liners. In Moscow, thousands of people held a martyrs' funeral for
three men killed fighting the coup.
(AP, 8/24/01)
1991 Aug 24, Ukraine declared
independence from USSR.
(www.users.bigpond.com/kyroks/ukrhist10.html)
1991 Aug 24, Bernard Castro
(b.1904), Sicilian-born inventor of the convertible couch, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Castro)
1991 Aug 25, Thousands of abortion
foes rallied at a stadium in Wichita, Kan., where six weeks of
anti-abortion protests led by Operation Rescue resulted in more than
2,600 arrests.
(AP, 8/24/01)
1991 Aug 25, In the 43rd Emmy
Awards: LA Law, Cheers, Kirstie Alley and Patricia Wettig won.
(http://tinyurl.com/euw2z)
1991 Aug 25, White-Russia
(Belarus) declared it's independence.
(www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107325.html)
1991 Aug 26, In an address to the
Supreme Soviet, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev promised national
elections in a last-ditch effort to preserve his government, but
leaders of Soviet republics told him the hour of central power had
passed.
(AP, 8/24/01)
1991 Aug 27, The first flight of
the YF23 V-22 Osprey tiltrotor took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)
1991 Aug 27, Moldova (Moldavia)
declared independence from USSR.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova)
1991 Aug 28, In NYC 5 subway
riders were killed after subway motorman Robert Ray fell asleep drunk
while in control of a train. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1992
and sentenced to 15 years. He was set free in 2001 for good behavior.
(http://tinyurl.com/bk4uq)
1991 Aug 28, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev ordered a shake-up of the KGB and sacked his
cabinet in the wake of the failed coup by hard-liners.
(AP, 8/28/01)
1991 Aug 29, In a stunning blow to
the Soviet Communist Party, the Supreme Soviet legislature voted to
suspend the activities of the organization and freeze its bank accounts
because of the party's role in the failed coup.
(AP, 8/29/01)
1991 Aug 29, Libero Grassi,
Italian underwear manufacturer, anti mafia, was gunned down in Palermo.
(www.bestofsicily.com/mag/art105.htm)
1991 Aug 30, At the World Track
and Field Championships in Tokyo, Mike Powell jumped 29 feet, 4 and 1/2
inches for a new world record.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A6)
1991 Aug 30, Azerbaijan declared
its independence, joining the stampede of republics seeking to secede
from the Soviet Union.
(AP, 8/29/01)
1991 Aug 31, In Washington
D.C., hundreds of thousands of union members marched in a "Solidarity
Day" protest.
(AP, 8/31/01)
1991 Aug 31, Uzbekistan and
Kirghizia declared their independence, raising to 10 the number of
republics seeking to secede from the Soviet Union.
(AP, 8/31/01)
1991 Aug, The IRS issued a set of
proposed pension regulations that included sentences to protect
companies changing their pension plans to a new cash-balance system.
(WSJ, 12/28/99, p.A1)
1991 Aug, The US Senate voted to
lift a 43-year-old law that banned military women from flying combat
missions.
(SFC, 12/19/98, p.A5)
1991 Aug, James Gossling developed
his new computer language called Oak. It was to be the progenitor of
the new Java software for the Internet by Sun Microsystems.
(Wired, Dec. '95, p.238)
1991 Aug, Alex Hardy fell asleep
in his Chevy Blazer while driving drunk in Alabama. He later changed
his story and claimed that his accident was caused by a fractured axle
and faulty door. He sued GM in Lowndes County and was awarded $50
million in actual damages and $100 million in punitive damages.
(USAT, 6/27/96, p.13A)
1991 Aug, American soldiers
detected mustard agent from their Fox mobile chemical-detection
laboratory in a large metal tank in Kuwait that was probably left
behind by retreating Iraqi forces.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.A1)
1991 Aug, Albania’s People's
Assembly passed a law allowing private ownership, foreign investment
and private employment of workers. Some 18,000 Albanians crossed the
Adriatic to seek asylum in Italy, but most were returned.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1991 Aug, Serbian tanks and
aircraft drove refugees from 3 Croatian towns.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1991 Sep 1, The Burning Man
Festival came to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada from Baker’s Beach in
San Francisco.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A15)
1991 Sep 1, Yugoslavia's
presidency and the country's feuding republics accepted a European
Community plan designed to stop months of fierce fighting among Croats,
Serbs and the army.
(AP, 9/1/01)
1991 Sep 2, President Bush
formally recognized the independence of the Baltic states of Lithuania,
Latvia and Estonia.
(AP, 9/2/01)
1991 Sep 2, In Moscow, the Soviet
Congress of People's Deputies opened its first session since the failed
coup, taking up proposals aimed at drastically restructuring the
country.
(AP, 9/2/01)
1991 Sep 3, Twenty-five people
were killed when fire broke out at the Imperial Food Products
chicken-processing plant in Hamlet, N.C.
(AP, 9/3/01)
1991 Sep 3, Frank Capra (94),
Academy Award-winning director, died in La Quinta, Calif. His 1971
autobiography was titled “The Name Above the Title.”
(AP, 9/3/01)(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P8)
1991 Sep 4, South African
President F.W. de Klerk proposed a new constitution that would allow
blacks to vote and govern; the African National Congress rejected the
plan, charging it was designed to maintain white privileges.
(AP, 9/4/01)
1991 Sep 5, Jury selection began
in Miami in the drug and racketeering trial of former Panamanian ruler
Manuel Noriega.
(AP, 9/5/01)
1991 Sep 5, In Moscow, Soviet
lawmakers approved the creation of an interim government to usher in a
new confederation.
(AP, 9/5/01)
1991 Sep 6, In the Soviet Union,
the State Council, a new executive body composed of President Mikhail
S. Gorbachev and republic leaders, recognized the independence of the
Baltic states of Estonia Latvia, and Lithuania. All three were admitted
into the UN later this month.
(AP,
9/6/01)(http://countrystudies.us/lithuania/25.htm)
1991 Sep 6, Dzhokhar Dudayev, a
retired Soviet air force general, led an ouster of Chechnya’s
government. He was then elected president and declared independence.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)
1991 Sep 7, Monica Seles won the
U.S. Open in New York, defeating Martina Navratilova 7-6, 6-1.
(AP, 9/7/01)
1991 Sep 7, The European Community
opened a peace conference in the Netherlands aimed at bringing peace to
Yugoslavia.
(AP, 9/7/01)
1991 Sep 8, Stefan Edberg won the
U.S. Open in New York, defeating Jim Courier in straight sets, 6-2,
6-4, 6-0.
(AP, 9/8/01)
1991 Sep 8, A 55 ton concrete beam
fell in Montreal's Olympic Stadium.
(http://experts.about.com/e/s/st/Stade_Olympique.htm)
1991 Sep 8, More than 40 people
were reported killed in factional fighting around Johannesburg, South
Africa.
(AP, 9/8/01)
1991 Sep 9, Boxer Mike Tyson was
indicted in Indianapolis on a charge of raping Desiree Washington, a
beauty pageant contestant. Tyson was later convicted.
(AP, 9/9/01)
1991 Sep 10, The Senate Judiciary
Committee opened hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
(AP, 9/10/01)
1991 Sep 11, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced the Kremlin would withdraw thousands of
troops from Cuba, a move bitterly denounced by the Havana government.
(AP, 9/11/01)
1991 Sep 11, In the Middle East
hopes grew for the release of Western hostages in Lebanon after Israel
freed 51 prisoners.
(AP, 9/11/01)
1991 Sep 12, Saying Middle East
peace negotiations might be in jeopardy, President Bush told reporters
he would use his veto authority, if necessary, to delay action on
Israel's call for $10 billion in housing loan guarantees.
(AP, 9/12/01)
1991 Sep 12, The space shuttle
Discovery blasted off on a mission to deploy an observatory designed to
study the Earth's ozone layer.
(AP, 9/12/01)
1991 Sep 13, President Bush, who
had suffered an irregular heartbeat because of a thyroid condition, was
pronounced in "incredible physical condition" after a checkup by his
doctors.
(AP, 9/13/01)
1991 Sep 13, Virginia Gov. L.
Douglas Wilder declared his candidacy for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(AP, 9/13/01)
1991 Sep 13, A 55 ton concrete
beam fell in Montreal's Olympic Stadium.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1991 Sep 14, US Secretary of State
James A. Baker III met with leaders of the Baltic nations, which had
declared independence from the Soviet Union.
(AP, 9/14/01)
1991 Sep 14, Carolyn Suzanne Sapp
of Hawaii was crowned "Miss America."
(AP, 9/14/01)
1991 Sep 14, The government of
South Africa, the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom
Party signed a national peace pact.
(AP, 9/14/01)
1991 Sep 15, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin
entered the Democratic presidential race, promising to "take back
government from the privileged few."
(AP, 9/15/01)
1991 Sep 15, Andre Baruch
(b.1908), radio and TV announcer, died at 83.
(www.findagrave.com/)
1991 Sep 16, A federal judge in
Washington dismissed all Iran-Contra charges against Oliver North.
(AP, 9/16/01)
1991 Sep 16, Confirmation hearings
began on the nomination of Robert Gates to head the CIA.
(AP, 9/16/01)
1991 Sep 16, Supreme Court nominee
Clarence Thomas concluded five days of testimony at his confirmation
hearing.
(AP, 9/16/01)
1991 Sep 17, The first flight of
the McDonnell Douglas C-17 military cargo transport took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)
1991 Sep 17, The U.N. General
Assembly opened its 46th session, welcoming new members Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, North and South Korea, the Marshall Islands and
Micronesia.
(AP, 9/17/01)
1991 Sep 18, Saying he was "pretty
fed up," President Bush said he would send warplanes to escort U.N.
helicopters searching for hidden Iraqi weapons if Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein continued to impede weapons inspectors.
(AP, 9/18/01)
1991 Sep 18, The Upper Atmosphere
Research Satellite was deployed from the space shuttle Discovery. It
measured the ozone hole for the next decade. Operations of the
satellite ceased in 2001 due to NASA economics. The space shuttle
Discovery landed in California, ending a five-day mission.
(SFC, 8/24/01, p.A13)(AP, 9/18/01)
1991 Sep 19, German hikers Erica
and Helmut Simon found a well-preserved prehistoric corpse (c3300BCE),
later named Otzi (Frozen Fritz), in a glacier on the Hauslabjoch Pass,
about 100 yards from Austria in northern Italy. It was kept at the
Univ. of Innsbruck for study. In 1998 analysis indicated that the Ice
Man had internal parasites and carried the woody fruit of a tree fungus
as a remedy. Tattoos on the body were also found to be placed over
areas of active arthritis. A flint arrow was also found in his back.
(SFC, 4/27/96, p.A-5)(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A4)(SFEC,
5/7/00, p.T4)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A1)
1991 Sep 19, Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir accused the United States of tilting toward the
Arabs in its eagerness to organize a Mideast peace conference.
(AP, 9/19/01)
1991 Sep 19, UN Resolution 712
allowed a partial lifting of the embargo against Iraq for humanitarian
purposes.
(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1991 Sep 20, On Capitol Hill, the
Senate concluded hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
(AP, 9/20/01)
1991 Sep 20, U.N. weapons
inspectors left Bahrain for Iraq to renew their search for Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 9/20/01)
1991 Sep 21, An 18-hour hostage
drama ended in Sandy, Utah, as Richard L. Worthington, who had killed a
nurse and seized control of a hospital maternity ward, finally freed
his nine captives, including a baby who was born during the siege.
Worthington committed suicide in prison in 1994.
(AP, 9/21/01)
1991 Sep 21, Yugoslav army tanks
and artillery began an invasion of eastern Croatia. The Croats said
that some 600 soldiers and 1200 civilians perished in the 3-month
bombardment of Vukovar by rebel Serbs.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)
1991 Sep 22, California’s
Huntington Library said it would make microfilm copies of the Dead Sea
Scrolls available to the public.
(www.huntington.org/LibraryDiv/DeadSeaScrolls.html)
1991 Sep 22, The London newspaper
The Mail published an interview with former intelligence agent John
Cairncross, who admitted being the "fifth man" in the Soviet Union's
notorious British spy ring.
(AP, 9/22/01)
1991 Sep 23, President Bush
addressed the United Nations, urging the world body to rescind its
resolution equating Zionism with racism.
(AP, 9/23/01)
1991 Sep 23, UN weapons inspectors
in Baghdad discovered documents detailing Iraq's secret nuclear weapons
program and said Iraq was close to building a bomb. This triggered a
standoff with Iraqi authorities.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(AP, 9/23/01)
1991 Sep 24, Children's author
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, died in La Jolla,
Calif., at age 87. In 2002 Springfield, Mass., his childhood home,
opened a $6.2 million sculpture garden in his memory.
(AP, 9/24/97)(SFC, 5/27/02, p.A2)
1991 Sep 24, Kidnappers in Lebanon
freed British hostage Jack Mann after holding him captive for more than
two years.
(AP, 9/24/97)
1991 Sep 24, In Romania some 5,000
coal miners led by Miron Cozma rampaged through Bucharest leaving 3
dead and nearly 300 injured. This prompted the resignation of Prime
Minister Petre Roman.
(SFC, 2/15/99, p.A8)
1991 Sep 25, A national commission
faulted the US government for a lack of leadership in the fight against
AIDS.
(AP, 9/20/01)
1991 Sep 25, The UN Security
Council unanimously passed Resolution 713 that imposed a worldwide arms
embargo against Yugoslavia and all its warring factions.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A10)(AP,
9/20/01)
1991 Sep 25, Nazi war criminal
Klaus Barbie died in Lyon, France, at age 77.
(AP, 9/20/01)
1991 Sep 26, AIDS patient Kimberly
Bergalis pleaded with Congress to enact mandatory AIDS testing for
health care workers.
(AP, 9/26/01)
1991 Sep 26, In Oracle, Arizona, 4
men and 4 women began a two-year self-sufficiency stay inside a $150
million, sealed-off structure on 3.15 acres known as Biosphere 2.
(AP, 9/26/97)(Wired, 2/98, p.172)(SSFC, 2/20/05,
p.F5)
1991 Sep 27, President Bush
announced in a nationally broadcast address that he was eliminating all
U.S. battlefield nuclear weapons, and called on the Soviet Union to
match the gesture.
(AP, 9/27/01)
1991 Sep 27, The US Senate
Judiciary Committee deadlocked, 7-7, on the nomination of Clarence
Thomas to the US Supreme Court.
(AP, 9/27/01)
1991 Sep 27, Oona Chaplin
(b.1926), daughter of Eugene O'Neill and wife of Charlie Chaplin, died
in Switzerland at age 66.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0152253/)
1991 Sep 28, The quotable former
District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry was sentenced to six months in
prison for possession of crack (a crystalline form of cocaine).
(http://tinyurl.com/ky3hv)
1991 Sep 28, Jazz great Miles
Davis died in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 65.
(AP, 9/28/01)
1991 Sep 28, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev praised President Bush's pledge to drastically
reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and promised to "reciprocate."
(AP, 9/28/01)
1991 Sep 28, U.N. weapons
inspectors ended a five-day standoff with Iraq over documents relating
to Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 9/28/01)
1991 Sep 29, California Gov. Pete
Wilson vetoed a bill outlawing job discrimination against homosexuals,
saying it could have led to unjustified lawsuits.
(AP, 9/29/01)
1991 Sep 30, In Haiti the military
under Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the
country's first freely elected president. He was later returned to
power. The Prime Minister, Rene Preval, managed to escape to the French
embassy hidden in the trunk of a car.
(WSJ, 12/14/95, p.A-10)(AP, 9/30/01)(ST, 3/2/04,
p.A1)
1991 Sep, A scandal arose from the
US Navy Tailhook convention in Las Vegas. Navy officers were accused of
sexually assaulting female officers. The incident was documented by
Gregory Vistica in his book "Fall from Glory, the Men Who Sank the US
Navy." Paula Coughlin, a Navy lieutenant, pressed the initial charges
and more than 80 women made similar claims.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A19)(WSJ, 10/14/96, p.A14)(SFC,
5/3/97, p.A6)
1991 Sep, The Croat militia unit
Autumn Rains arrived in Gospic. When front-line fighting ended early
this month, the unit turned its attention to the 9,000 Serbs who lived
in the area. Miro Bajramovic in 1997 admitted that the unit tortured
prisoners and he killed 72 people. He said that he acted on the orders
of interior minister Ivan Vekic.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A10,12)
1991 Sep, A referendum was held in
Kosova. Over 90 percent of voters voted for independence.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1991 Sep, A group of young,
radical Muslims seizes a government building in the Fergana Valley town
of Namangan in eastern Uzbekistan, demanding establishment of an
Islamic state. The group's leaders, Juma Namangani and Tahir Yuldash,
later set up an Islamic party Adolat, or Justice, and then the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan, which grows into a terrorist group with links
to al-Qaida.
(AP, 3/30/04)
1991 Oct 1, President Bush
strongly condemned the military coup in Haiti, suspending U.S. economic
and military aid and demanding the immediate return to power of
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
(AP, 10/1/01)
1991 Oct 2, Ousted Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide asked the Organization of American
States in Washington to send a delegation to his homeland to demand
that the newly installed military junta surrender power immediately.
(AP, 10/2/01)
1991 Oct 3, Arkansas Gov. Bill
Clinton entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
(AP, 10/3/01)
1991 Oct 3, South African author
Nadine Gordimer was named winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.3)(AP, 10/3/01)
1991 Oct 4, Pres. Bush signed
Executive Order 12775 which prohibited certain transactions with
respect to Haiti.
(www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1991.html#12775)
1991 Oct 4, Leonard C. Odell died
at age 83. He and his older brother Allan (d.1994) wrote some 7,000
Burma Shave poems beginning in 1925 in rural Minnesota. The Burma-Shave
phenomenon faded in 1963, when Phillip Morris bought Burma-Vita and the
signs began to come down.
(http://tinyurl.com/f4s8h)(www.two-lane.com/burmashave.html)
1991 Oct 4, In Madrid, Spain, 26
nations, including the United States, signed the Antarctic Treaty,
which imposed a 50-year ban on oil exploration and mining in Antarctica.
(AP, 10/4/01)
1991 Oct 4, Carl Bildt (b.1949),
leader of the Moderates, began serving PM of Sweden and continued to
Oct 7, 1994. His center-right government was blighted by a deep
recession followed by a huge row over whether to build the Oresund
Bridge to Denmark.
(SFC, 9/20/98, p.A12)(Econ, 9/23/06,
p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Bildt)
1991 Oct 5, The San Jose Sharks
opened local play at the Cow Palace in Daly City while they awaited the
building of an arena in San Jose, Ca.
(SFC, 2/28/08,
p.A11)(www.sportsecyclopedia.com/nhl/sanjose/sharks.html)
1991 Oct 5, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced sweeping cuts in nuclear weapons in
response to President Bush's arms reduction initiative.
(AP, 10/5/01)
1991 Oct 6, Reports surfaced that
a former personal assistant to Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas,
University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill, had accused Thomas of
sexually harassing her from 1981-1983.
(AP, 10/6/01)
1991 Oct 6, Cable News Network
obtained and aired a videotape made in Beirut, Lebanon, of American
hostage Terry Anderson, who quoted his captors as saying they would
have "very good news."
(AP, 10/6/01)
1991 Oct 7, Former assistant
secretary of state Elliott Abrams pleaded guilty to withholding
information from Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal.
(www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/summpros.htm)
1991 Oct 7, University of Oklahoma
law professor Anita Hill publicly accused Supreme Court nominee
Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments in her
presence when she worked for him, and urged the U.S. Senate to
investigate her claims. Thomas denied Hill's allegations.
(AP, 10/7/01)
1991 Oct 7, Leo Durocher, baseball
coach and manager (Dodgers, Giants), died at 86.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9031586/Leo-Durocher)
1991 Oct 8, The U.S. Senate
postponed its vote on Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court nomination to
investigate allegations that he'd sexually harassed a former aide,
Anita Hill.
(AP, 10/8/01)
1991 Oct 8, A federal judge in
Anchorage, Alaska, approved a five-billion-dollar settlement against
Exxon for the Valdez oil spill.
(www.explorenorth.com/library/weekly/aa032499.htm)
1991 Oct 8, Slovenia and Croatia
began operating independently from Yugoslavia. Slovenia took over its
own borders and began printing its own money.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Croatia)(http://tinyurl.com/p5rhu)(SFC,
5/26/96, T-5)
1991 Oct 9, President Bush
declared "total confidence" in his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court,
Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexual harassment by former aide
Anita Hill.
(AP, 10/9/01)
1991 Oct 10, The US Senate
Judiciary Committee prepared to re-open the confirmation hearing of
Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, accused of sexual harassment by
former aide Anita Hill.
(AP, 10/10/01)
1991 Oct 11, Televangelist Jimmy
Swaggart was seen hustling a prostitute.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1991 Oct 11, Testifying before the
Senate Judiciary Committee, law professor Anita Hill accused Supreme
Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her; Thomas
reappeared before the panel to denounce the proceedings as a "high-tech
lynching."
(HN, 10/11/98)(AP, 10/11/01)
1991 Oct 11, Comedian Redd Foxx
died in Los Angeles at age 68.
(AP, 10/11/01)
1991 Oct 12, Testifying for a
second day on sexual harassment charges leveled by law professor Anita
Hill, Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas told the Senate Judiciary
Committee he'd "rather die than withdraw," and repeated his denial of
Hill's allegations.
(AP, 10/12/01)
1991 Oct 13, The Minnesota Twins
won the American League pennant, defeating the Toronto Blue Jays 8-5 at
SkyDome.
(AP, 10/13/01)
1991 Oct 13, The US Senate
Judiciary Committee heard conflicting testimony from friends and
associates of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, the
University of Oklahoma law professor who'd accused Thomas of sexually
harassing her.
(AP, 10/13/01)
1991 Oct 14, Burmese opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for
her non-violent promotion of democracy. Her award was accepted by her
husband, Michael Aris (d.1999 at 53) and their sons. A collection of
her writings is titled "Freedom From Fear."
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.C-1)(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.D6)(AP,
10/14/01)
1991 Oct 15, Despite sexual
harassment allegations by Anita Hill, the Senate narrowly confirmed the
nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, 52 to 48. Jane
Mayer and Jill Abramson later published "Strange Justice," which was
made into a 1999 Showtime TV movie.
(AP, 10/15/97)(WSJ, 8/23/99, p.A13)
1991 Oct 16, In Killeen, Texas,
George Jo Hennard (35) crashed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria
and opened fire, killing 23 people before taking his own life. Another
20 people were wounded.
(AP, 10/16/97)(SFC, 4/17/07, p.A8)
1991 Oct 17, The Atlanta Braves
won their first National League pennant, defeating the Pittsburgh
Pirates 4-to-0 in game seven of their playoff series.
(AP, 10/17/01)
1991 Oct 17, Tennessee Ernie Ford
(b.1919), country singer (16 Tons), died in Reston, Va.
(AP, 10/17/01)(www.ernieford.com/Bio.htm)
1991 Oct 18, Confirmed Supreme
Court nominee Clarence Thomas swore to uphold the Constitution during
an oath-taking ceremony at the White House.
(AP, 10/18/01)
1991 Oct 19, In Louisiana former
Gov. Edwin Edwards and former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke won runoff
slots in the state's gubernatorial primary.
(AP, 10/19/01)
1991 Oct 20, A major fire burned
over 3,400 homes in the Oakland Hills in Oakland, Ca. and killed 25
people.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, p.C4)(SFC, 12/23/99, p.C9)
1991 Oct 21, American hostage
Jesse Turner was freed by his kidnappers in Lebanon after nearly five
years in captivity.
(AP, 10/21/01)
1991 Oct 21, Former California
Governor Jerry Brown announced his presidential candidacy.
(AP, 10/21/01)
1991 Oct 21, Steamboat Geyser
erupted in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park. The next eruption did
not occur until 2000.
(SFC, 5/6/00, p.B8)
1991 Oct 21-1991 Oct 22, The
European Community and the European Free Trade Association concluded a
landmark accord to create a free trade zone of 19 nations by 1993.
(AP,
10/22/01)(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1991/index_en.htm)
1991 Oct 22, General Motors
announced a 9 month loss of $2.2 billion.
(www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi?askmonth=10&askday=22)
1991 Oct 23, Clarence Thomas was
sworn in as US Supreme Court Justice.
(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/106/)
1991 Oct 23, Dr. Jack Kevorkian
attended the suicide machine assisted deaths of 2 women in Michigan.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kevorkian/chronology.html)
1991 Oct 23, Cambodia's warring
factions and representatives of 18 other nations signed a peace treaty
in Paris. All the factions signed The Paris Peace Agreements with the
UN to provide peacekeeping and elections. Khmer Rouge Pres. Khieu
Samphan and commander Son Sen soon returned to Phnom Penh for the first
time since 1979, then fled the same day as mobs tried to lynch Khieu
Samphan.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)(AP,
10/23/01)
1991 Oct 24, President Bush used a
speech in Washington to blast Congress as a "privileged class of
rulers."
(AP, 10/24/01)
1991 Oct 24, Gene Rodenberry (70),
the creator of Star Trek, died in Santa Monica, Calif. He stipulated in
his will that anybody included who challenged his will would be
disinherited. His daughter Dawn challenged and lost the $500,000 left
to her.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.F3)(AP, 10/24/01)
1991 Oct 25, Rock-and-roll
impresario Bill Graham was killed in a helicopter crash in Sonoma
County, Calif. Also killed were his girlfriend, Melissa Gold, and
pilot, Steve Kahn. A memorial concert in GG Park drew some 300,000
people with music by the Grateful Dead; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young;
John Fogerty; Bobby McFerrin; and Robin Williams.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A15)(AP, 10/25/01)
1991 Oct 25, Israel named a
hard-line delegation to the Middle East peace conference.
(AP, 10/25/01)
1991 Oct 26, Former Washington,
D.C., Mayor Marion Barry arrived at a federal correctional institution
in Petersburg, Va., to begin serving a six-month sentence for cocaine
possession.
(AP, 10/26/01)
1991 Oct 27, The Minnesota Twins
won the World Series, beating the Atlanta Braves 1-0 in the bottom of
the 10th inning in the seventh and deciding game.
(AP, 10/27/01)
1991 Oct 28, Two days before the
start of a Middle East peace conference in Madrid, Spain, President
George H.W. Bush sought to lower expectations for a dramatic
breakthrough, saying there was a "long, long way to go."
(AP, 10/28/01)
1991 Oct 28, The Andrea Gail, a
72-foot swordfish boat from Gloucester, Mass., disappeared off the
coast of Nova Scotia. Six fishermen were lost. In 1997 Sebastian Junger
authored "The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea." A
film version followed in 2000.
(SFC, 6/21/08, p.A3)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0177971/)
1991 Oct 29, President Bush
imposed trade sanctions against Haiti to pressure its new leaders to
restore ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. Bush ordered
home all nonessential US government employees and their dependents.
(AP,
10/29/01)(www.hrw.org/reports/1992/WR92/AMW2.htm)
1991 Oct 29, On the eve of a
historic Middle East peace conference in Spain, President Bush and
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met at the Soviet Embassy in
Madrid and expressed hope for a positive outcome.
(AP, 10/29/01)
1991 Oct 30, The Middle East peace
conference in Madrid, Spain, opened with addresses to the delegates by
President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The
Madrid Two conference was organized by the US.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/19/01, p.A14)(AP,
10/30/01)
1991 Oct 30, BET Holdings Inc.,
became the first African-American company listed on the New York Stock
Exchange.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1991 Oct 31, Theatrical producer
Joseph Papp died in New York at age 70.
(AP, 10/31/01)
1991 Oct 31, On the second day of
the Middle East peace conference in Madrid, Spain, Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Arab delegates clashed bitterly over land
issues.
(AP, 10/31/01)
1991 Oct, In Bulgaria the UDF won
a modest majority in parliament in the fall, but its government was
ousted in a no-confidence vote after 11 months in power.
(SFC, 5/2/97,
p.A14)(www.atlapedia.com/online/countries/bulgaria.htm)
1991 Oct, Early this month Serbs
opened bombardment of the Croatian port of Dubrovnik. At least 43
civilians were killed in the attack.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B1)
1991 Oct, In Croatia during the
siege of Vukovar the Yugoslavian army and Serbian paramilitary troops
killed and buried as many as 1000 Croatian soldiers and civilians. The
bodies began to be uncovered in Apr 1998. Some 250 men were taken from
a hospital in Vukovar and massacred under the direction of Zeljko
Raznatovic, aka Arkan.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.A12)(SFEC, 1/16/00, p.A16)
1991 Oct, A US inspection team
which had returned to the site of Kamisiyah, Iraq, filed a report that
quoted Iraqi officials as suggesting that the detonated bunker had
contained chemical agents.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A15)
1991 Oct-1993, From Oct. of
‘91-1993 Pfiesteria piscicida dinoflagellates were linked to major fish
kills that occurred in the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers (North Carolina),
which empty into the Albemarle-Pamlico Sound, the second largest
estuary on the US mainland. The microbe continued to plague the
Chesapeake Bay region into 1997.
(Nat. Hist. 3/96, p.18)(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A6)
1991 Oct, In Chechnya Communist
ruler Doku Zavgayev was overthrown and Gen’l. Dudayev won a disputed
local election and declared independence.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A12)
1991 Oct, Vil S. Mirzayanov, a
veteran of the Soviet chemical weapons program, went public with
disclosures that a binary chemical weapon was under development.
(SFC, 9/5/98, p.A12)
1991 Nov 1, Clarence Thomas took
his place as the newest justice on the US Supreme Court.
(AP, 11/1/97)
1991 Nov 1, The 3-day session of
the Middle East peace conference recessed in Madrid, Spain. The
conference led to Israeli deals with Jordan and the Palestinians and
established the principle of land for peace.
(AP,
11/1/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Conference_of_1991)(Econ,
5/24/08, p.68)
1991 Nov 2, Rev. Jesse Jackson,
who had run for the presidency in 1984 and 1988, announced he would not
be a candidate in 1992.
(HN, 11/2/01)
1991 Nov 2, Chechnya proclaimed
independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.A11)
1991 Nov 3, Israeli and
Palestinian representatives held their first-ever face-to-face talks in
Madrid, Spain.
(AP, 11/3/01)
1991 Nov 3, Hooded men with
automatic weapons with silencers burst into the inner patio of a
downtown Lima tenement and killed 15 people at a barbecue, including an
8-year-old boy. The Colina death squad run by Vladimiro Montesinos was
suspected. In 2001 the attorney general asked Congress to pursue
homicide charges against former Pres. Fujimori for the murders. In 2008
two survivors of the attack testified at the murder trial of former
President Alberto Fujimori.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.A16)(AP, 1/4/08)
1991 Nov 3, Syria opened its first
one-on-one meeting with Israel in 43 years.
(AP, 11/3/01)
1991 Nov 4, Ronald Reagan opened
his presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif., with a dedication
ceremony attended by President Bush and former presidents Jimmy Carter,
Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon - the first-ever gathering of five U.S.
chief executives.
(AP, 11/4/01)
1991 Nov 5, The Senate confirmed
Robert M. Gates as CIA director.
(AP, 11/5/01)
1991 Nov 5, Robert Maxwell (68),
media tycoon, was found floating dead near his yacht off the Canary
Islands. He was born in Czechoslovakia as Jan Hoch (Abraham Leib) and
lost his whole family in the Holocaust. He escaped at 16 through the
French Underground and got out of a British prison camp by volunteering
for the British army, who changed his name to Robert Maxwell. He
founded the Pergamon Press and went on to build a media empire. He
served in Parliament from 1964-1970. In the 1970s Israel recruited him
as a spy. He covertly sold Israeli computer software to the governments
of Russia, China, India and Egypt that contained secret trapdoors.
After his death he was found to have misappropriated hundreds of
millions of dollars from company pensions funds. In 2003 Gordon Thomas
and Martin Dillon authored Robert Maxwell, Israel’s Superspy: The Life
and Murder of a Media Mogul." In 2006 London police said Maxwell was
being investigated at the time of his death for allegedly committing a
war crime as a British soldier by killing an unarmed German civilian
during World War II.
(Wired, 2/99, p.86)(AP, 11/5/01)(SSFC, 2/2/03,
p.M4)(AP, 3/10/06)
1991 Nov 5, Fred MacMurray (83),
film star and actor father of Mike, Robbie and Chip in the TV series
"My Three Sons, died.
(AP, 11/5/01)(USAT, 9/20/02, p.1D)
1991 Nov 5, Nearly 7,000 people
were killed in floods in the Philippines.
(AP, 11/5/01)
1991 Nov 6, Keck II became the
biggest telescope in use at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1991 Nov 6, Actress Gene Tierney
died in Houston at age 70.
(AP, 11/6/01)
1991 Nov 6, Kuwait celebrated the
dousing of the last oil fires ignited by Iraq during the Persian Gulf
War. Iraqi forces had blown up an estimated 732 Kuwaiti oil wells.
(AP, 11/6/01)(WSJ, 1/21/02, p.B1)
1991 Nov 6, Russian president
Yeltsin outlawed Communist Party.
(http://s99.middlebury.edu/EC230A/Supplements/Chrons/Blasi.html)
1991 Nov 6, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin fired Ivan Silayev as prime minister. Yeltsin served as acting
prime minister until Yegor Gaidar was appointed in Jun 1992.
(SFC, 5/13/99, p.A19)
1991 Nov 7, Basketball star Magic
Johnson stunned the country as he announced that he had tested positive
for the AIDS virus, and was retiring.
(AP, 11/7/01)
1991 Nov 7, Pro- and
anti-Communist rallies took place in Moscow on the 74th anniversary of
the Bolshevik Revolution.
(AP, 11/7/01)
1991 Nov 8, The European Community
and Canada imposed economic sanctions on Yugoslavia in an attempt to
stop the Balkan civil war.
(AP, 11/8/01)
1991 Nov 9, President Bush
returned from a four-day European trip that included a NATO summit.
(AP, 11/9/01)
1991 Nov 9, Police in Hong Kong
forcibly repatriated 59 Vietnamese boat people, carrying them onto a
transport plane.
(AP, 11/9/01)
1991 Nov 9, Singer-actor Yves
Montand died near Paris at age 70. His body was exhumed in 1998 for DNA
tests in a paternity suit filed by Aurore Drossard (22).
(SFC, 3/13/98, p.A17)(AP, 11/9/01)
1991 Nov 10, Publishing magnate
Robert Maxwell was buried in Israel, five days after his body was
recovered off the Canary Islands.
(AP, 11/10/01)
1991 Nov 11, The United States
stationed its first diplomat in Cambodia in 16 years to help the
war-shocked nation arrange democratic elections.
(AP, 11/11/01)
1991 Nov 12, Robert Gates was
sworn in as CIA director.
(AP, 11/12/01)
1991 Nov 12, Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev told a news conference he'd been warned by President
George H.W. Bush and other U.S. officials that a revolt was brewing
before hard-liners staged their coup, but that he had discounted their
information.
(AP, 11/12/01)
1991 Nov 12, Indonesian troops
under Lt. Gen’l. Sintong Panjaitan killed numerous people in the Santa
Cruz Cemetery of Dili, East Timor. The massacre of over 270 civilians,
gathered at the funeral of a young man killed 2 weeks earlier, by
Indonesian troops was witnessed by reporter Allan Nairn. Nairn was
arrested, beaten and banned from the country.
(SFC,11/26/97, p.C2)(SFC, 3/17/98, p.B10)(SFC,
6/19/98, p.B7)
1991 Nov 13, The US House of
Representatives approved a Senate-passed bill guaranteeing many workers
up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family emergencies.
(AP, 11/13/01)
1991 Nov 14, U.S. and British
authorities announced indictments against two Libyan intelligence
officials in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
(AP, 11/14/01)
1991 Nov 14, Tony Richardson (63),
British director (Tom Jones), died of AIDS.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0724798/)
1991 Nov 14, Cambodian Prince
Norodom Sihanouk returned to his homeland after 13 years of exile.
(AP, 11/14/01)
1991 Nov 15, The 28-foot-tall
"Free Stamp" by Claes Oldenburg was inaugurated in a small park in the
heart of Cleveland.
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.80)
1991 Nov 15, A federal appeals
panel threw out former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter's
felony convictions in the Iran-Contra affair, saying his immunized
testimony to Congress was improperly used against him.
(AP, 11/15/01)
1991 Nov 16, Former Louisiana Gov.
Edwin Edwards won a landslide victory in his bid to return to office,
defeating state representative David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader.
(AP, 11/16/01)
1991 Nov 17, Secretary of State
James A. Baker III concluded a three-day visit to China, touting an
arms control agreement and progress on human rights and trade as "clear
gains," but acknowledging that the gains fell short of U.S. goals.
(AP, 11/17/01)
1991 Nov 18, Vukovar, capital of
eastern Slavonia, fell to the Serbs. They removed some 260 wounded
Croat patients, hospital staff and political activists sheltered in the
Vukovar hospital and took them to the village of Ovcara where most were
shot and buried. On Mar 26, 1996 Slavko Dokmanovic, the Serb mayor of
Vukovar, was indicted for his role in the incident. Investigators began
uncovering bodies from the mass grave in Sep, 1996. In Oct, 1996, a
mass grave of about 100 bodies was uncovered. When Serbs captured
eastern Slavonia most of its 68,000 Croat residents were displaced to
other parts of Croatia. In 1998 Dokmanovic hanged himself in jail at
the Hague. In 1998 the book "The Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar" was
published with photographs by Gilles Peress and text by Eric Stover. In
1999 Vukovar returned to Croatian control.
(SFC, 9/12/96, p.A13)(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A14)(SFC,
4/11/97, p.A12)(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)(SFC, 6/30/98, p.A8)(SFEC,
12/20/98, BR p.6)(Econ, 11/29/03, p.47)
1991 Nov 18, France deported
Marlon Brando's daughter Cheyenne (21) to Tahiti to face charges of
acting as an accomplice in the killing of her lover last year.
(http://tinyurl.com/p9yhg)
1991 Nov 18, Shiite Muslim
kidnappers in Lebanon freed Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite and
Thomas Sutherland, the American dean of agriculture at the American
University of Beirut.
(AP, 11/18/01)
1991 Nov 19, The U.S. House of
Representatives sustained President Bush's veto of a bill that would
have lifted his ban on federally financed abortion counseling.
(AP, 11/19/01)
1991 Nov 20, California Democrat
Alan Cranston accepted a Senate reprimand for his dealings with former
savings-and-loan chief Charles H. Keating Jr., but then denied he was
guilty of many of the allegations, prompting an angry rebuttal by New
Hampshire Republican Warren B. Rudman.
(AP, 11/20/01)
1991 Nov 20, Mile Mrksic, Miroslav
Radic, and Veselin Sljivan-Canin, officers in the Yugoslav National
Army, ordered the Serb army and military police to withdraw from the
hospital at Vukovar. The paramilitary forces then took 194 Croat men in
small groups to an area nearby and shot them. Radic surrendered to
Serbian authorities in 2003. Mrksic and Sljivancanin were convicted by
a UN tribunal in 2007. Radic was acquitted.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A15)(SFC, 4/22/03, A7)(AP,
9/27/07)(WSJ, 9/28/07, p.A1)
1991 Nov 21, President Bush signed
a civil rights bill, then sought to calm a storm of controversy by
withdrawing a tentative order to end government hiring preferences for
blacks and women.
(AP, 11/21/01)
1991 Nov 21, The UN Security
Council chose Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt to succeed Javier Perez de
Cuellar of Peru as the new Secretary-General.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A13)(AP, 11/21/97)
1991 Nov 22, In an attempt to
break a deadlock, the Bush administration proposed that Middle East
peace talks resume in Washington, D.C.
(AP, 11/22/01)
1991 Nov 23, The bodies of 35
drowned Haitian refugees were recovered off the coast of eastern Cuba.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1991 Nov 23, Yugoslavia's rival
leaders agreed to a new cease-fire, the 14th of the Balkan civil war.
(AP, 11/23/01)
1991 Nov 23, Klaus Kinski (65),
German actor (Android, Nosferatu, Little Drummer Girl), died in
California.
(http://www.filmbug.com/db/1457)
1991 Nov 24, The space shuttle
Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral with six astronauts and a
military satellite.
(AP, 11/24/01)
1991 Nov 24, Freddie Mercury (45),
Zanzibar-born rock singer, died in London of pneumonia brought on by
AIDS. Mercury and the rock group Queen made the 1975 hit "Bohemian
Rhapsody."
(AP, 11/24/01)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.A2)
1991 Nov 25, President George H.W.
Bush threatened to veto anti-crime legislation heading for a final vote
in Congress, accusing Democrats of producing a bill that would actually
weaken law enforcement.
(AP, 11/25/01)
1991 Nov 25, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev suffered a setback in his bid to hold the Soviet
Union together when leaders of seven republics refused to endorse a
treaty creating a new political union.
(AP, 11/25/01)
1991 Nov 26, The Stars and Stripes
were lowered for the last time at Clark Air Base in the Philippines as
the United States abandoned one of its oldest and largest overseas
installations, which was damaged by a volcano.
(AP, 11/26/01)
1991 Nov 26, Condoms were handed
out to thousands of NYC High School students.
(www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3573/is_199611/ai_n8414037)
1991 Nov 26, UNICEF said fighting
and crop failures in southern Sudan had forced an unprecedented exodus
of 200,000 people.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1991 Nov 27, Israel signaled its
anger with what it regarded as the high-handedness of the United States
by rejecting an invitation to attend Mideast peace talks in Washington
on Dec. 4.
(AP, 11/27/01)
1991 Nov 27, The UN Security
Council unanimously adopted a resolution paving the way for the
establishment of a UN peacekeeping operation in war-ravaged Yugoslavia.
(AP, 11/27/01)
1991 Nov 28, Ryan Thomas (10),
hero, AIDS victim who won a federal court battle to stay in
kindergarten class, died.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-te.htm)
1991 Nov 28, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev expressed unhappiness over reports that the United
States might move toward diplomatic recognition of Ukraine after the
republic's upcoming independence referendum.
(AP, 11/28/01)
1991 Nov 29, Seventeen people were
killed in a 164-vehicle pileup during a dust storm on Interstate 5 near
Coalinga, Calif. Over 250 vehicles were involved and over 100 were
injured.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A23)(AP, 11/29/01)(MC, 11/29/01)
1991 Nov 29, Actor Ralph Bellamy
died in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 87.
(AP, 11/29/01)
1991 Nov 30, Boris Yeltsin's
Russian Federation agreed to bail out Mikhail S. Gorbachev's central
Soviet government from a budget crisis that threatened to cut off the
salaries of millions of workers and paralyze the country.
(AP, 11/30/01)
1991 Nov, Michigan suspended the
medical license of Dr. Kevorkian.
(SFC, 4/14/99, p.A3)
1991 Nov, In Nicaragua Norwin
Meneses was arrested in Managua with 1,500 pounds of cocaine, some of
it packed in cars headed for the US.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A1,10)
1991 Dec 1, Kidnappers in Lebanon
pledged to release American hostage Joseph Cicippio within 48 hours.
(AP, 12/1/01)
1991 Dec 1, The space shuttle
Atlantis safely returned from a shortened military mission.
(AP, 12/1/01)
1991 Dec 1, In Paraguay the
Colorado party won parliamentary elections.
(www.atlapedia.com/online/countries/paraguay.htm)
1991 Dec 1, Ukrainians voted
overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.
(WP 6/29/96, p.A20)(AP, 12/1/97)
1991 Dec 2, American hostage
Joseph Cicippio, held captive in Lebanon for more than five years, was
released.
(AP, 12/2/97)
1991 Dec 2, Testimony began in
West Palm Beach, Fla., in the trial of William Kennedy Smith, accused
of raping Patricia Bowman at his family's estate.
(AP, 12/2/01)
1991 Dec 3, Embattled US White
House chief of staff John H. Sununu resigned; he was succeeded by
Samuel K. Skinner.
(AP, 12/3/01)
1991 Dec 3, Radicals in Lebanon
released American hostage Alann Steen, who had been held captive nearly
five years.
(AP, 12/3/97)
1991 Dec 4, The Judds’ final
concert took place in Nashville.
(www.wynonna.com/?em653=22855_0__0_~0_-1_3_2006_0_0&content=judds)
1991 Dec 4, Charles Keating,
Arizona land developer and chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan
Association, was convicted on 17 counts of securities fraud in state
court. Keating was one of the most controversial figures in the savings
and loan scandals of the late 1980s. Keating's sales personnel
persuaded depositors to put their money into high-risk junk bonds.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A3)(MC, 12/4/01)
1991 Dec 4, Patricia Bowman
testified at William Kennedy Smith's trial in West Palm Beach, Fla.,
that Smith had raped her the previous Easter weekend.
(AP, 12/4/01)
1991 Dec 4, Pan American World
Airways ceased operations. Pan Am’s records went to the Univ. of
Florida and artifacts went to the Historical Museum of South Florida.
However, a new, smaller version of Pan Am was later formed.
(AP, 12/4/01)(SSFC, 11/4/07, p.A9)
1991 Dec 4, Associated Press
correspondent Terry Anderson, the longest held of Western hostages in
Lebanon, was released after nearly seven years in captivity. The last
American hostages in Lebanon were released.
(TMC, 1994, p.1991)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A3)(AP,
12/4/97)(HN, 12/4/01)
1991 Dec 5, Samuel K. Skinner was
named White House chief of staff by President Bush, succeeding John H.
Sununu.
(AP, 12/5/01)
1991 Dec 5, Richard Speck, who
murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966 died of a heart attack
in prison a day short of his 50th birthday.
(USA Today, 5/14/96, p.3A)(AP, 7/14/97)(AP, 12/5/97)
1991 Dec 6, Sen. Edward Kennedy,
D-Mass., testifying at the trial of his nephew, William Kennedy Smith,
denied hearing screams the night Patricia Bowman said she was raped by
Smith at the Kennedy estate in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(AP, 12/6/01)
1991 Dec 6, Gen. Pavle Strugar led
the Yugoslav attack on Dubrovnik. At least 43 civilians were killed in
the attack. Serbs had opened bombardment of the Croatian port of
Dubrovnik in early October. In 2001 Strugar (68) turned himself into
the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. In 2005 Strugar was convicted of
two counts of willful destruction of Dubrovnik and attacking civilians.
In 2008 appeals judges added two more convictions for unjustified
devastation of the town and attacking civilian sites. They also cut his
original sentence from eight years to seven and a half years because of
his deteriorating health.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B1)(AP,
7/17/08)
1991 Dec 7, Fifty years after
Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a visibly moved President Bush
led the nation in services commemorating the anniversary.
(AP, 12/7/01)
1991 Dec 8, AIDS patient Kimberly
Bergalis, who had contracted the disease from her dentist, died in Fort
Pierce, Fla., at age 23.
(AP, 12/8/97)
1991 Dec 8, Russia, Byelorussia
and Ukraine declared the Soviet national government dead, forging a new
alliance to be known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. Boris
Yeltsin, Ukrainian Pres. Leonid Kravchuk, and Belarus Pres. Stanislav
Shuskevich met in a hunting lodge to proclaim the Soviet Union null and
void and to form a loose Commonwealth of Independent States.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A10)(AP, 12/8/01)
1991 Dec 9, European Community
leaders meeting in the Dutch city of Maastricht tentatively agreed to
begin using a single currency by 1999.
(AP, 12/9/01)
1991 Dec 9, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev challenged Boris Yeltsin's declaration that the
Soviet Union was dead, branding a new Slavic commonwealth "illegal and
dangerous."
(AP, 12/9/01)
1991 Dec 10, William Kennedy
Smith, accused of raping Patricia Bowman, proclaimed his innocence
during his trial in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(AP, 12/10/01)
1991 Dec 11, A jury in West Palm
Beach, Fla., acquitted William Kennedy Smith of sexual assault and
battery, rejecting the allegations of Patricia Bowman.
(AP, 12/11/97)
1991 Dec 11, European Community
leaders meeting in the Dutch city of Maastricht hammered out a
compromise for a loose federation of their countries. The Maastricht
treaty was signed on February 7, 1992, and entered into force on
November 1, 1993. It set entry terms for joining a European monetary
union.
(WSJ, 11/18/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/3/97, p.A1)(AP,
12/11/01)
1991 Dec 12, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin won landslide approval in the Russian legislature for his
new commonwealth, while Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev edged
closer to resigning, saying, "The main work of my life is done."
(AP, 12/12/01)
1991 Dec 13, Five Central Asian
republics of the Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) agreed to join the new Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) being organized by Russian President Boris
Yeltsin.
(AP,
12/13/01)(www.therussiasite.org/legal/laws/CISagreement.html)
1991 Dec 13, Iran’s Pres. Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani visited Sudan with some 157 officials. He signed
agreements to train Sudan’s Popular Defense Forces, a version of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards, and agreed to pay China $300 million for weapons
ordered for Sudan.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.50)(http://tinyurl.com/d6ruxp)
1991 Dec 13, North Korea and South
Korea signed a non-aggression agreement aimed at eventual
reconciliation.
(AP, 12/13/01)
1991 Dec 14, President Bush and
Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, meeting at Camp David,
Md., renewed their commitment to conclude quickly the North American
Free Trade Agreement.
(AP, 12/14/01)
1991 Dec 14-1991 Dec 15, At least
464 people were left dead or missing when an Egyptian-registered ferry
sank in the Red Sea near the port of Safaga after coral reef tore a
hole in a ferry's side.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A8)(AP, 2/3/06)
1991 Dec 14, Former East German
leader Erich Honecker, facing extradition to Germany and trial on
manslaughter charges, was offered asylum in North Korea.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1991 Dec 15, Six Democratic
presidential hopefuls criticized President Bush's handling of the
economy during a debate on NBC TV.
(AP, 12/15/01)
1991 Dec 15, Russian Foreign
Minister Andrei Kozyrev asked U.S. Secretary of State James Baker for
formal U.S. recognition of the various Soviet republics that had
declared independence.
(AP, 12/15/01)
1991 Dec 16, The U.N. General
Assembly rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism by
a vote of 111-25.
(AP, 12/16/97)
1991 Dec 17, In an about-face the
US White House used the word "recession" to characterize the state of
the economy, although spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the
administration did not believe there was a recession in a technical
sense.
(AP, 12/17/01)
1991 Dec 17, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev agreed to
dissolve the Soviet Union by the new year.
(AP, 12/17/01)
1991 Dec 18, General Motors
announced it would close 21 North American plants over the next four
years and slash tens of thousands of jobs in a sweeping restructuring
of the world's largest company.
(AP, 12/18/01)
1991 Dec 19, The failed Bank of
Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) agreed to settle federal
racketeering charges by forfeiting all its U.S. assets.
(AP, 12/19/01)
1991 Dec 19, Patricia Bowman, who
had accused William Kennedy Smith of raping her, told ABC's "Prime Time
Live" she was shocked by his acquittal.
(AP, 12/19/01)
1991 Dec 19, Donna Ann Morrow (37)
was murdered in Menlo Park, Ca., following an argument with her
husband, Joseph Morrow, who fled the country. Her body was found in
2003 in the Santa Cruz Mountains on property that had been owned by
Joseph Morrow. Police tracked Morrow to Manila, where he was arrested
in Jan, 2003. Morrow’s trial began in 2006. In 2007 Morrow (59) agreed
to be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A14)(SFC, 1/6/06, p.B5)(SFC,
3/7/06, p.B1)(SFC, 9/12/07, p.B4)
1991 Dec 19, Rebel Serbs declared
independence in the Krajina region, which was almost a third of
Croatia. The Republic of Serbian Krajina lasted 4 years with the
hilltop fortress of Knin as the capital.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A15)(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)(WSJ,
4/22/99, A12)
1991 Dec 20, New York Gov. Mario
Cuomo announced he would not be a candidate for the Democratic
presidential nomination, saying his first responsibility was to deal
with his state's budget problems.
(AP, 12/20/01)
1991 Dec 20, Robert Bardo, the
obsessed fan who had stalked actress Rebecca Schaeffer before killing
her, was sentenced in Los Angeles to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 12/20/01)
1991 Dec 21, Cable TV and sports
magnate Ted Turner married actress Jane Fonda near Capps, Fla. They
divorced in May 2001.
(AP, 12/21/01)
1991 Dec 21, El Sayyid Nosair was
acquitted in New York of killing Jewish extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Nosair was later convicted in a federal trial.
(AP, 12/21/01)
1991 Dec 21, In Bosnia-Herzegovina
a Serb minority held an unofficial referendum opposing separation from
Yugoslavia. Local Serb leaders proclaimed a new republic separate from
Bosnia.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)
1991 Dec 21, Eleven of the 12
former Soviet republics proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of
Independent States and the death of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics.
(AP, 12/21/01)
1991 Dec 22, The body of Lt. Col.
William R. Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his captors, was
found dumped along a highway in Lebanon.
(AP, 12/22/97)
1991 Dec 23, President George H.W.
Bush spoke by telephone with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, after
which a senior Bush administration official said the United States
would extend diplomatic recognition to the Russian republic.
(AP, 12/23/01)
1991 Dec 24, Walter Hudson (46), a
1,025 lb. man, died.
(www.inthe90s.com/generated/obit1991.shtml)(http://tinyurl.com/e1fj)
1991 Dec 24, A day before
resigning, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev briefed Russian
President Boris Yeltsin on nuclear weapons-firing procedures. Gorbachev
also held a farewell meeting with staff members.
(AP, 12/24/01)
1991 Dec 25, William High Nelson
Jr., the son of singer Willie Nelson, committed suicide.
(SSFC, 1/15/06, Par p.2)
1991 Dec 25, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on television to announce his resignation as
the eighth and final leader of a Communist superpower that had already
gone out of existence. He was ousted as Soviet leader Boris Yeltsin
established his position. This effectively ended the cold war. In 2002
Derek Leebaert authored "A Fifty-Year Wound," a history of the cold war.
(TMC, 1994, p.1991)(SFC, 12/3/97, p.C6)(AP,
12/25/97)(WSJ, 4/16/02, p.D7)
1991 Dec 26, President Bush
nominated businesswoman Barbara Franklin to be commerce secretary.
(AP, 12/26/01)
1991 Dec 26, On Wall Street, the
Dow Jones industrial average rose to a then-record high of 3082.96.
(AP, 12/26/01)
1991 Dec 26, Jack Ruby's gun sold
for $220,000 in auction.
(http://tinyurl.com/s3gun)
1991 Dec 26, Sikh separatists
killed about 50 train passengers in Punab, most of them Hindus.
(AP, 12/26/01)
1991 Dec 26, The Republic of
Tatarstan declared entry into the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS).
(www.kcn.ru/tat_en/politics/dfa/sover/sover.htm)
1991 Dec 27, The United States and
the Philippines announced that the United States would abandon the
Subic Bay naval base by the end of 1992.
(AP, 12/27/01)
1991 Dec 27, Muslim
fundamentalists in Algeria won a major victory in free legislative
elections; however, the military ended up canceling the election
results.
(AP, 12/27/01)
1991 Dec 28, Nine people died in a
crush to get into a basketball game at City College in New York. The
game was promoted by rapper Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs. Combs later
testified that security at the Nat Holman facility was supposed to be
provided by NYCC.
(AP, 12/28/97)(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A3)
1991 Dec 28, A 6x8 inch wooden
picture of Irene, the Icon of the Greek Orthodox church, was returned,
stripped of its jewels, to NYC after being stolen on Dec 23.
(www.skepticfiles.org/skep2/iconstol.htm)
1991 Dec 28, In Colombia Henry
Rojas (36), a correspondent for the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo, was
killed in the northeastern city of Arauca after reporting on alleged
corruption in the mayor's office and military. Wilson Daza, the soldier
who fatally shot Rojas, later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20
years in prison in 1995. In 2009 Colombia’s high court ruled that the
government is to blame for Rojas’ shooting and ordered it to pay
damages to his family.
(AP,
3/26/09)(www.cidh.oas.org/countryrep/Colombia93eng/chap.9.htm)
1991 Dec 28, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin ordered state land privatized as he pushed ahead with his
reforms.
(AP, 12/28/01)
1991 Dec 29, A Boeing 747-200F of
China Airlines crashed into a mountain at Taipei and 5 people were
killed.
(www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/aircraft_detail.cgi?aircraft=Boeing+747)
1991 Dec 29, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia would create its own army; in a
separate year-end address, he also congratulated his countrymen for
avoiding the kind of violence seen in Yugoslavia.
(AP, 12/29/01)
1991 Dec 30, The remains of two
American hostages slain in Lebanon, William Buckley and Marine Col.
William R. Higgins, arrived in the United States for burial.
(AP, 12/30/01)
1991 Dec 30, Leaders of the
Commonwealth of Independent States (Russia et al) agreed to establish
unified command over nuclear weapons, while allowing member states to
form their own armies.
(AP, 12/30/01)
1991 Dec 31, President Bush
arrived in Australia as part of a 12-day Pacific trip.
(AP, 12/31/01)
1991 Dec 31, Representatives of
the government of El Salvador and rebels reached agreement at the
United Nations on a peace accord aimed at ending 12 years of civil war.
(AP, 12/31/01)
1991 Dec 31, This was the last day
of existence for the USSR.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec01/russia_coup.html)
1991 Dec, Shalanda Burt (19) shot
her boyfriend James Fairley in Bradenton, Florida. She was three months
pregnant at the time. A week after she delivered their first baby,
James raped her and ripped her stitches. Facing 25 years, she was told
by a female public defender to take a plea bargain and 17 years in
prison.
(www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977464-5,00.html)
1991 Dec, In Albania the
Democratic Party withdrew ministers after accusing communists of
blocking reform. Alia set up a new government headed by Vilson Ahmeti
and set March 1992 for new elections.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1991 Dec, Germany gave diplomatic
recognition to Slovenia and Croatia. The EU said it would recognize
Croatia and Slovenia as independent states.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/6/00, p.A19)
1991 Dec, Hungarian officials
discovered 11 tons of rocket launchers and automatic weapons being
loaded on trucks headed for Croatia in violation of a UN arms embargo.
They had been labeled as Chilean humanitarian aid for Sri Lanka. In
Chile Col. Gerardo Huber, who directed purchases at the army's weapons
manufacturer, turned up dead shortly after testifying in a military
investigation. His head had been blown apart by a blast from a machine
gun. In 2009 former Chilean Army Gen. Guillermo Letelier and Air Force
Gen. Vicente Rodriguez were sentenced to prison for shipping arms to
Croatia at the time of its battle for independence from Yugoslavia. 11
people were sentenced by a military court in June, 2009, for their
roles in the deal. In October, 2009, retired Gen. Victor Lizarraga and
retired Col. Manuel Provis got 10 and eight years, respectively, for
conspiracy and homicide. Gen. Carlos Krum and Col. Julio Munoz, also
both retired, got nearly 2 years for conspiracy and murder,
respectively. The identity of the gunman in Huber's murder remained
unknown.
(AP, 6/10/09)(AP, 10/5/09)
1991 Dec, Some remains of Russia’s
Czar Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra, and their five children,
executed in 1918, were exhumed from a mine shaft in Yekaterinburg. The
remains were identified using DNA analysis in 1992, but the skeletons
of 2 children remained unaccounted for.
(http://radio.cbc.ca/news/czar/)
1991 Dec, Islam Karimov, a former
Uzbekistan Communist Party boss, was elected president.
(SFC, 11/3/00, p.D2)(AP, 3/30/04)
1991 Walter Annenberg, media
baron, donated art valued at $1 billion to the NYC Metropolitan Museum
of Art.
(WSJ, 1/20/04, p.A1)
1991 Magdalena Abakanowicz made
her sculpture: "Bronze Crowd," 36 headless, hollow, life-size men in a
double file.
(WSJ, 1/9/97,
p.A8)(www.abakanowicz.art.pl/bibliog.html)
1991 Christo created his
"Umbrellas" sculpture that lasted 3 weeks. 1,760 yellow umbrellas were
unfurled north of Los Angeles and another 1,340 blue ones in Ibaraki,
Japan.
(SFC, 3/2/97, p.E4)(SSFC, 2/13/05, p.A10)
1991 Pham Dai, a Vietnamese artist
from Hue, produced an ink painting: "Flocks of Wicked Birds." He adopts
the pictorial language of surrealism in depicting crazed raptors as
figures for human evil.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.E3)
1991 Jean Howard, Hollywood
photographer and former Ziegfeld girl, published her photography book
"Travels with Cole Porter."
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.D6)
1991 Dorothy Bryant wrote her play
"Dear Master." It was done as an "epistolary dialogue between novelists
George Sand and Gustave Flaubert.
(SFEM, 1/12/97, DB p.13)
1991 Arthur Miller wrote his play
"The Last Yankee" and "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan."
(WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A17)(WSJ, 11/18/98, p.A20)
1991 Neil Simon won a Pulitzer for
his play "Lost in Yonkers."
(SFC, 10/11/96, p.C5)
1991 M.A. Cluver wrote his book on
the "Fossils of the Karoo," publ. by the South African Museum.
(Nat. Hist., 3/96, p.60)
1991 Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel wrote
"The Ends of Human Life," a work on euthanasia.
(WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A18)
1991 John Arthur Maynard authored
"Venice West, The Beat Generation in Southern California."
(SFC, 4/13/02, p.A21)
1991 Rev. Pat Robertson wrote his
best-seller "The New World Order."
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A4)
1991 "See How They Run" by Gil
Troy was published. It was a study of political campaigns for the White
House.
(Hem, 8/96, p.86)
1991 Diane Ackerman published her
personal experiences with bats, alligator, whales and penguins, while
accompanied by a world expert on each animal: "The Moon by Whale Light."
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.78)
1991 Gordon Bell, architect of
DEC’s VAX minicomputer, authored "High Tech Ventures: The Guide to
Entrepreneurial Success."
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.B3)
1991 Burnett Bolloten wrote "The
Spanish Civil War."
(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A22)
1991 Clark Clifford, presidential
counselor, published his memoir: "Counsel to the President."
(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.A2)
1991 Graef Crystal authored “In
Search of Excess: The Overcompensation of American Executives.”
(Econ, 1/20/07, SR p.14)
1991 Carol Field wrote her
cookbook "Celebrating Italy" and was awarded the Barbi Colombini Prize
by the Italian government.
(SFC, 7/2/97, Z1 p.1)
1991 William Jordon published his
collection of 14 essays: "Divorce Among the Gulls."
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.77)
1991 "Dead Certainties" by Simon
Schama was published. "It was an exercise in the new historicism."
(WSJ, 7/31/96, p.A13)
1991 Julia Alvarez, native of the
Dominican Republic, wrote her novel "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their
Accents."
(SFC, 2/5/97, p.E1)
1991 Jung Chang (b.1952) authored
her family portrait “Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China,” which soon
became an international best seller.
(Econ, 2/21/09,
p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Swans)
1991 Catherine Cookson, English
writer, published her novel "The Wingless Bird." It was the
intersecting stories of 3 families on 3 levels of English society
beginning in 1913. It was adopted for TV in 1998.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20)
1991 Douglas Coupland authored his
novel "Generation X," a portrayal of people born to the baby boomer
generation.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.4)
1991 Leonard H. Goldenson (d.1999
at 94), chief executive of ABC from 1953-1986, authored his
autobiography: "Beating the Odds."
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.B3)
1991 The Katherine Hepburn book:
"Me: Stories of My Life" was the top selling non-fiction, hard-cover
book of the year (800k copies).
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R6)
1991 Sheila Isenberg authored
“Women Who Love Men Who Kill.”
(SFC, 9/28/09, p.C4)
1991 Daniel T.
Jones, Daniel Roos and James P. Womack of MIT authored “The Machine
That Change the World: The Story of Lean Production,” an account of the
Toyota Production System (TPS).
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.65)
1991 Jonathan Kozol authored “The
Shame of the Nation,” in which he criticizes public education in the US.
(WSJ, 9/29/05, p.D10)
1991 Christopher Lasch (1932-1994)
authored “The True and Only Heaven,” in which he pushed the
conventional concepts of left and right.
(WSJ, 4/28/09,
p.A11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lasch)
1991 Richard Layard, Stephen
Nickell and Richard Jackman co-authored “Unemployment.”
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.34)
1991 James Michener wrote "The
Novel" and "The World Is My Home."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1991 Peter Matthiessen’s novel "At
Play in the Fields of the Lord" was made into a film. His work includes
the celebrated novel "Far Tortuga."
(SFEC,12/797, p.B11)
1991 Terence McKenna (d.2000 at
53) authored "Food of the Gods," in which he proclaimed that
prehistoric humans developed language, religion and advanced
civilization only after finding and ingesting psychedelic drugs.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.C2)
1991 Daniel Quinn wrote "Ishmael,"
the story of a telepathic conversation between a wise gorilla and an
idealistic writer. He won the $500,000 Turner Tomorrow Fellowship prize
for fiction that produces creative and possible solutions to global
problems.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, BR p.5)
1991 The novel "Scarlet" by
Alexander Ripley (d.2004) was the best-selling hardcover book of the
year (2.1 mil copies). It was an official sequel to "Gone With the
Wind."
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R6)(SFC, 1/26/04, p.B4)
1991 Wes Roberts wrote his
bestseller "Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun."
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1991 Rebecca Rothenberg (d.1998 at
50, researcher and musician, published her mystery novel "The Bulrush
Murders."
(SFC, 4/18/98, p.A20)
1991 Witold Rybcynski authored
“Waiting for the Weekend,” a book on leisure.
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.80)
1991 Nawal El Saadawi (b.1931),
Egyptian feminist writer, authored "Daughter of Isis," a detailed
account of her childhood. She left Egypt in 1993 and returned in 1996.
In 2002 she authored "Walking Through Fire," a continuation of her
memoir.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.M2)
1991 Dr. Junichi Saga authored
"Confessions of a Yakuza." It was based on the testimony of Eiji
Ijichi, a retired Japanese gangster. In 2003 it was noted that Bob
Dylan used lines from the book in his 2001 album "Love and Theft."
(WSJ, 7/8/03, p.A1)
1991 Jose Saramago (75) authored
"The Gospel According to Jesus Christ."
(SFC, 10/9/98, p.A2)
1991 Lynn Schurnberger authored
"Let There Be Clothes," a historical look at clothing.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R40)
1991 Charles Scribner published
"In the Company of Writers."
(WSJ, 6/18/99, p.W13)
1991 Richard Tarnas authored “The
Passion of the Western Mind,” a survey of the Western world view.
(WSJ, 1/21/06, p.P11)
1991 Henny Youngman (d.1998 at
92), comedian, wrote his autobiography "Take My Life, Please!"
(SFC, 2/25/98, p.C2)
1991 "The Hard Nut" ballet was
created for the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels on a subplot of
the E.T.A. Hoffman tale of the "Nutcracker." The score is completely
faithful to Tchaikovsky.
(SFC, 12/16/96, p.D1)
1991 The opera "The Ghosts of
Versailles" by John Corigliano premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in
NYC.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.C7)
1991 The opera "Atlas" by Meredith
Monk premiered at the Houston Grand Opera.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.C7)
1991 Paul McCartney composed his
classical work "Liverpool Oratorio." McCartney did not read or write
music.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.E5)
1991 Luke Cresswell and Steve
McNicholas introduced their dance and rhythm ensemble show at the
Scotland Edinburgh Festival.
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.27)
1991 The Broadway musical "Black
and Blue featured rhythm and blues singer LaVern Baker (d.1997).
(SFC, 3/12/97, p.A19)
1991 PBS broadcast the film
"Absolutely Positive," the story of Doris Butler (1953-1996) and her
son Jared (1988-1992) who were both infected with AIDS.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E5)
1991 The song "Come to My Garden"
from the musical "The Secret Garden" was composed by Norman & Simon.
1991 "El Dorado" by John Adams had
its world premier by the San Francisco Symphony conducted by the
composer.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, DB p.54)
1991 Composer John Corigliano
composed his "Symphony No. 1," a memorial to the victims of AIDS.
(WSJ, 9/24/97, p.A20)
1991 Perry Farrell, lead singer of
Jane's Addiction, started the alternative-rock extravaganza called
Lollapalooza.
(SFC, 8/21/03, p.E1)(SFC,11/20/97, p.D1)
1991 The song "Unforgettable" by
Irving Gordon was the song of the year. The album of the year was
"Unforgettable" by Natalie Cole.
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R6)
1991 The "Hyperstring Trilogy" by
Tod Machover was premiered by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A9)
1991 The rock group Talking Heads
disbanded. The group had formed in 1974 in NYC. The band comprised
David Byrne (b.1952), Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison,
but auxiliary musicians frequently made appearances in concert and on
the group's albums.
(WSJ, 1/30/08,
p.D9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_Heads)
1991 The Tommy Castro Band was
formed led by blues singer-guitarist Tommy Castro.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, DB p.13)
1991 The Eroica Trio won the
Walter F. Naumburg Chamber Music competition.
(WSJ, 8/18/98, p.A20)
1991 The American punk group
Nirvana released its “Nevermind” album.
(WSJ, 12/21/04, p.D8)
1991 Joni Mitchell released her CD
"Night Ride Home."
(SFEM, 11/1/98, p.6)
1991 Pearl Jam released the
multi-platinum "Ten" on Epic Records.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.E6)
1991 Ivo Papasov, Balkan
accordionist, recorded "Balkanology," a collection of Balkan folk music.
(BAAC, 1/97, p.7)
1991 Mel Powell received a
Pulitzer Prize for composition. He had become a leading figure in
electronic and serial music following his WW II days with the Glenn
Miller Army Band.
(WSJ, 10/24/96, p.A16)
1991 The Righteous Brothers earned
a Grammy nomination for "Unchained Melody."
(SFEC, 10/5/97, DB p.74)
1991 George Tsontakis composed his
"Ghost Variations."
(WSJ, 7/2/98, p.A20)
1991 A new downtown building for
the Seattle Art Museum, designed by Robert Venturi, was completed for
$62 million. In 2004 it began an addition in partnership with
Washington Mutual.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.D8)(WSJ, 1/18/07, p.D10)
1991 The American Institute of
Architects selected Chicago as number one in architectural quality and
innovation.
(Hem. 7/96, p.13)
1991 Bartholomew I was enthroned
as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the ancient of Orthodox
Christianity. He presided as the "first among equals" over the 15
patriarchs of the 300 million Christian Orthodox Church.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.B7)(SFC, 8/13/97, p.A3)
1991 John Detwiler, brokerage
executive, founded Computers for Schools in San Diego.
(SFC, 11/14/96, p.B1)
1991 Edward Leonard and the
Trappist monks at Holy Cross Abbey in the Blue Ridge Mountains founded
The Electronic Scriptorium, a business to convert library catalogs to a
digital format.
(Wired, 8/96, p.96)
1991 The Int’l. Campaign to Ban
Land Mines (ICBL) was formed by Jody Williams and fellow activists
during a Thanksgiving dinner in Washington. The organization won
the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A9)
1991 The US scattered some 118,000
land mines in Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War.
(WSJ, 1/19/02, p.A1)
1991 Cash Money Records was
founded by Ronald "Slim" and Bryan "Baby" Williams. The rap label
signed a $30 million deal with Universal in 1998.
(SFC, 12/10/99, p.AA2)
1991 Jim Boggio (d.1996) and
Clifton Buck-Kaufman co-founded the Cotati Accordion Festival in
northern California.
(www.accordions.com/index/squ/squ_96_11_15.shtml#jim)
1991 John and Brenda Stephenson
founded Santa Cruz Biotechnology. The operation engaged in raising
goats antibody production.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A15)
1991 Jimmy Carter founded the
Atlanta project to attack social problems associated with poverty.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, zone 3 p.3)
1991 The organization Brothers to
the Rescue was founded in Florida to conduct search and rescue missions
for Cubans fleeing Cuba in the Florida Straits.
(WSJ, 3/26/96, p.A-18)
1991 The US RVing Women
organization, based in Apache Junction, Az., was founded as a support
group for women travelers touring the country on their own.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.B6)
1991 Visionaire, a fashion and art
magazine, was founded.
(WSJ, 6/26/98, p.W12)
1991 Wisconsin introduced wild
turkeys in Marathon County and sold licenses to hunt them. The birds
took a taste to the local ginseng crops and wrought havoc. In the early
1900s 4 Fromm brothers had begun cultivating Ginseng in Wisconsin and
it became much appreciated by Chinese users. In the 1990s Canada,
having acquired Wisconsin ginseng seeds, began competing and sold seeds
to China causing ginseng prices to plummet to about $15 per pound.
(WSJ, 3/8/06, p.A1)
1991 Memorabilia dealer Bruce
McNall and hockey star Wayne Gretzky spent $451,000 on a circa 1910
baseball card of the Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Honus Wagner.
(WSJ, 12/9/94, p.R-8)
1991 Basketball star Magic Johnson
announced that he was HIV-positive. He left the Lakers Basketball team
and his $3.5 mil salary and founded the Magic Johnson Foundation to
help fight AIDS.
(SFC, 6/30/96, PM, p.2)
1991 The Kentucky Derby was won by
Strike the Gold.
(WSJ, 5/5/97, p.A16)
1991 The Nobel Prize in economics
was awarded to Ronald H. Coase of Britain for "the discovery and
clarification of the significance of transaction costs and property
rights for the institutional structure and functioning of the economy."
Coase noted that the cost of gathering information determines the size
of organizations.
(WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-1)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A2)(SSFC,
1/11/04, p.D1)
1991 Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann
of Germany won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveries
concerning single ion channels that shed light on mechanisms underlying
several diseases, including diabetes and cystic fibrosis.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A9)
1991 The JCET program (Joint
Combined Exchange and Training) was established under a law that
bypassed State Department policy in which military aid is restricted to
foreign units charged with human rights abuses. This resulted in US
Special Forces assignments for training exercises in Indonesia and
Colombia.
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.B2,10)
1991 Al Gore as US Senator held
hearings that led to the passage of the National High-Performance
Computer Technology Act. It boosted federal support of the Internet by
about $1 billion a year.
(Wired, Dec. '95, p.154)
1991 A US requirement for firms to
disclose grants of stock options gave them until early 1992 to do so,
and left open the opportunity to backdate.
(WSJ, 12/27/06, p.A6)
1991 The US Supreme Court ruled
that the New York "Son of Sam" law was unconstitutional. The "Son of
Sam" law referred to the New York serial killer David Berkowitz, who
claimed that he received telepathic messages to kill from a dog named
Sam. The law made it illegal for convicted criminals to profit from
their crimes.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A6)
1991 Elliott Abrams pleaded guilty
to 2 misdemeanor charges for keeping information from the US Congress
in the Iran-Contra affair (arms to Nicaragua).
(WSJ, 6/29/01, p. A1)
1991 Thomas Kanza, head of a
coffee trading operation in Zaire [later Congo], was convicted in
Tennessee of fraud. The operation had $57,000 of investor’s money
missing. In 1997 he was selected by Laurent Kabila as first minister of
int’l. cooperation.
(WSJ, 2/9/98, p.A1)
1991 Thomas F. Quinn, a US
convicted stock swindler, was sentenced by a French court to 4 years in
prison for an int'l. stock scam that defrauded thousands of investors
of over $500 million in the 1980s.
(WSJ, 7/13/99, p.C1,22)
1991 Lamar Alexander was appointed
by Pres. Bush as the Sec. of Education.
(WSJ, 2/15/96, p.A-16)
1991 The US Congress passed the
Nunn-Luger Act to help eliminate chemical weapons world-wide.
(WSJ, 4/30/96, p.A-14)
1991 The US government closed
Norton Air Force base in California’s San Bernadino Ct., costing the
region some 10,000 jobs.
(SSFC, 2/19/06, p.B8)
1991 US Customs intercepted a
large cocaine shipment and began investigations. It was found to be
part of a CIA operation out of Venezuela.
(WSJ, 11/22/96, p.A12)
1991 A US intelligence report said
Alvaro Uribe was a Colombian drug cartel ally. Uribe was elected
president in 2002 and in 2004 the US state report disavowed the report.
(WSJ, 8/3/04, p.A1)
1991 Melvyn R. Paisley (d.2001 at
77), a former assistant Navy Secretary, pleaded guilty to conspiracy
and bribery as part of "Operation Ill Wind," a 7 ½ year
operation which investigated corporate executives, defense consultants
and government officials.
(SFC, 12/27/01, p.A19)
1991 Paul Biddle, a Navy contract
auditor assigned to the Stanford campus, provoked a debate in Congress
over what universities could properly bill the government for research
costs. The controversy led to the resignation of Stanford Pres. Donald
Kennedy.
(SFC, 4/22/99, p.A11)
1991 Harry V. Mohney, adult
entertainment distributor, was convicted on tax evasion and profit
skimming along with 3 business associates. He served 3 years in federal
prison at Boron in the Mojave Desert. After release he continued to
expand his business.
(SFC, 8/13/97, p.A10)
1991 The US introduced the
leverage ratio in the wake of a housing-loans crises. It ensured that a
bank’s core capital is at least 3% of its balance sheet.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.87)
1991 In the US 124 FDIC-insured
banks failed this year. By the end of the year the FDIC insurance fund
was insolvent.
(WSJ, 7/21/08, p.A10)
1991 Three men challenged the
Virgil Earp law in Tombstone, Arizona, that forbade carrying guns in
the city limits.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A3)
1991 William L. Dwyer, Wash. state
federal district judge, ordered the government to stop permitting
logging on up to 60,000 acres of ancient forests a year on public land
because it endangered the habitat of the Northern spotted owl.
(SFC, 2/18/02, p.B6)
1991 In Hawaii Japanese developers
spent $104 million to develop the Koolau Golf Course on Oahu. The
investors later defaulted on their loans and the course was sold at
auction in Sep 1997 for 12 million.
(SFC, 2/17/98, p.A1)
1991 The Louisiana legislature
approved most of the state’s gambling on the basis of added jobs and
tax money.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A14)
1991 In Michigan John Engler came
into office as governor facing a $1.5 billion deficit. He enacted tax
cuts, cut 6,000 workers from public payrolls and took 75,000 employable
adults off the welfare rolls.
(WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A18)
1991 Minnesota became the first
state to pass a law allowing charter schools.
(WSJ, 12/24/96, p.A1)
1991 Paul Wellstone (d.2002),
Minnesota college professor, was elected as a US Senator over Rep. Sen.
Rudy Boschwitz. In 2001 He authored "The Conscience of a Liberal."
(WSJ, 5/15/01, p.A24)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A8)
1991 Ithaca, N.Y. established a
local currency called Ithaca Hours to promote local spending.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, Par p.17)
1991 Charles Keating, Arizona land
developer, was found guilty of fraud in state court.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A3)
1991 Stephen Blumberg was
convicted of stealing more than $10 million worth of rare books and
manuscripts from 268 libraries in the US and Canada.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.C5)
1991 Pee-wee Herman, aka Paul
Reubens, was arrested for exposing himself in an adult theater.
(SFC, 12/4/96, p.E5)
1991 Michael N. Bates (1952-1996),
Wichita correspondent for the Associated press, covered the six-week
Wichita abortion protests and the tornado devastation of Andover. While
in Oklahoma City, Bates covered the Karen Silkwood trial and the Locust
Grove Boy Scout murders.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.B2)
1991 In Montana the name of Custer
Battlefield National Monument was changed to Little Bighorn Battlefield
Monument. A $2 million memorial was dedicated Jun 25,2003.
(WSJ, 6/25/03, p.A1)
1991 Joe Massino took over as head
of the Bonanno family in NYC. In 2004 he faced trial on racketeering
charges and 7 murders.
(SFC, 5/10/04, p.A4)
1991 William H. Donaldson became
chairman of the NYSE. He ran the exchange to 1995.
(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.A6)
1991 Exxon Corp. entered into a
secret deal with seven Seattle fish processors whereby it agreed to pay
$70 mil to settle oil-spill claims from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, in
return quick settlement. However the processors had to agree to return
to Exxon most of any punitive damages that might be awarded. The secret
deal did not become public until 1996.
(WSJ, 6/12/96, p.A3)
1991 Pres. Roh Tae Woo of S. Korea
cancelled an order for F-18 jets from McDonnell Douglass in favor of
120 F-16s produced by General Dynamics. The project had been valued at
$5.2 bil.
(WSJ, 12/14/95, p.A-10)
1991 ATT bought NCR in a hostile
deal for $7.48 bil.
(WSJ, 9/21/95, p.B-2)
1991 Coca-Cola established a
corporate museum in Atlanta.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A1)
1991 Executive Life, a large
California insurer, collapsed under the stewardship of Frederick Carr.
He had invested premiums of policy holders in junk bonds, whose value
plunged as the US economy tanked. Credit Lyonnais, a French bank, made
an illegal arrangement to purchase the depressed bonds and together
with French billionaire Francois Pinault reaped a $2.54 billion profit.
In 2004 the French government pleaded guilty to fraud for its role.
(WSJ, 4/16/04, p.A1)
1991 Peter Camejo (1939-2008)
helped found the California Green Party. He later became a perennial
candidate for state and national office.
(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.B1)
1991 Industry experts in 1996
picked the 1991 Chevrolet Caprice and Caprice Classic as the number 2
worst American-made car.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1991 Mark E. Whitacre, an
executive with Archer-Daniels-Midland, began diverting millions of
dollars in company funds to personal accounts overseas. He continued
until he was fired in 1995 after helping the FBI monitor meetings that
proved industry price fixing.
(WSJ, 11/25/96, p.B7)
1991 Medarex, an American biotech
company, went public.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.84)
1991 The Hearst Corp. opened the
Hearst Service Center in Charlotte, N.C. to support all Hearst units
with data processing. Hearst also acquired a 20% interest in ESPN.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1991 Lockheed won a $9.55 billion
initial contract for a new fighter jet, the F/A-22, to replace the F-15.
(WSJ, 10/22/03, p.A1)
1991 Motorola established a
corporate museum in Schaumberg, Ill.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A1)
1991 The Southern Pacific Railroad
sold the Peninsula line to the Joint Powers Authority of the counties
of San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Mateo, for $230 million.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D1)
1991 Sony introduced the first
commercial lithium-ion batteries. They had a capacity to overheat. In
2004 the US banned them as cargo on passenger planes. In 2006 Dell and
Apple initiated recalls for laptop computers with recently
manufactured, problematic lithium-ion batteries.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.52)(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1991 NASA launched the Compton
Gamma Ray Observatory to detect gamma-ray bursts.
(NH, 6/97, p.78)
1991 The Galileo spacecraft’s
high-power antennae failed. A low-gain antennae was redefined to
maximize information from the craft.
(SFC, 11/6/96, p.B8)
1991 Miami urologist, Harold Reed
brought to the US a procedure to lengthen the penis invented by a
Chinese surgeon named Long Daochao.
(WSJ, 6/6/96, p.A1)
1991 A method to fertilize a human
egg by a single sperm was developed. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection
(ICSI) was used to help couples in where the man has a low sperm count.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, DB p.32)
1991 The president of Rochester
Inst. of Technology (RIT) resigned following a scandal over CIA
influence on research and curriculum, and his own work for the agency.
(WSJ, 10/4/02, p.A1)
1991 Yale Univ. received a $20
million Bass grant in order to set up a program for Western
Civilization studies to be directed by historian and classicist Donald
Kagan. In 1994 alumnus Less Bass took the grant back when the Univ.
derailed the program. An investigation, the Cabranes-Schacht study, was
launched to discover what happened to the Bass Grant and why. Yale
refused to disclose the contents of the report.
(WSJ, 6/21/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.A22)
1991 The Univ. of N. Carolina
erected the Kenan-Flagler Business School after having received a 10
mil donation from Frank H. Kenan (1913-1996), founder of several oil
and transportation concerns.
(NYT, 6/7/96, p.B14)
1991 Pres. James J. Duderstadt of
the Univ. of Michigan established the University's History and
Traditions Committee.
(MT, 3/96, p.14)
1991 Children born addicted to
Crack made headlines.
(TMC, 1994, p.1991)
1991 The computer game character
Sonic, the hedgehog, was introduced by Sega.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E1)
1991 Microsoft introduced its
Windows 3.1 operating system.
(WSJ, 11/16/98, p.R10)
1991 John Malone’s
Telecommunications Inc. helped rescue Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. by
investing $75 million as part of a financial restructuring.
(WSJ, 3/3/05, p.A10)
1991 Engineer Henry Nicholas
founded Broadcom in his Redondo Beach, Ca., apartment. In 1998 the
maker of chips for TV cable boxes went public. Nicholas quit the
company in Jan 2003. In 2006 he had a falling out with a former aide,
Kenji Kato, who alleged drug use and other outrageous by Mr. Nicholas.
(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.A1)
1991 Alex Wolszczan and Dale Frail
at Pennsylvania State Univ. reported evidence of 3 extra-solar planets
(exoplanets) orbiting around the spinning remains of Pulsar B1257+12.
They found the pulsar in 1990 using the Arecibo radio telescope.
(SSFC, 9/30/01, Par
p.5)(www.economicexpert.com/a/PSR:1257:plus:12.htm)
1991 Genzyme Corp. introduced a
targeted enzyme replacement therapy for Gaucher disease, a disorder
that swells internal organs and weakens bones due to lack of the
glucocerebrosidase enzyme.
(WSJ, 11/16/05,
p.A1)(www.cerezyme.com/patient/about/cz_pt_about-gaucher.asp)
1991 Princeton astrophysicist J.
Richard Gott proposed theorized that cosmic strings could warp space
time enough to create paths to the past, called closed timelike curves.
(WSJ, 11/21/03, p.B1)
1991 Carbon nanotubules, formed
from hexagonal arrays of carbon atoms, were first discovered by Sumio
Iijima of NEC Fundamental Research Labs in Tsukuba, Japan. In 2001 IBM
scientists assembled transistors using carbon nanotubules.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.B1,4)
1991 The underwater tunicate,
Diazona chinensis, was discovered near the Philippine island of
Siquijor. It proved to have great potential value in killing colon
cancer cells but could not be found again after the initial sample was
used.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A4)
1991 A man from the United Arab
Emirates found a large black rock that in 1996 was found to contain the
world’s largest emerald cluster. Bangkok geologists spent a week
removing a thick layer of black mica before finding a group of 127
medium green emeralds weighing 167 pounds.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.C1)
1991 Paleontologist Paul Sereno
led a team in the Andes that discovered a small dinosaur species called
Euraptor that turned out to be 228 million years old.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-3)
1991 The US exported at least 4.1
million pounds of pesticides that have been banned, restricted, or
voluntarily withdrawn from use domestically.
(Nat. Hist., 3/96, p.47)
1991 An estimated one billion
Atlantic menhaden fish died in the Neuse River of North Carolina and
had to be bulldozed off the beach. The culprit was later identified as
the dinoflagellate Pfiesteria piscicida.
(Nat. Hist., 3/96, p.187)
1991 A ferocious tornado swept
across Kansas.
(WSJ, 11/16/95, p.A-18)
1991 Three vast weather systems
came together off the US northeast coast in what meteorologists came to
call "the perfect storm." It later provided the backdrop for the book
"The Perfect Storm: A True Story of men Against the Sea" by Sebastian
Junger.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, BR p.5)
1991 Volcanic eruptions occurred
in the Galapagos Islands.
(SFC, 12/4/94, p. T-5)
1991 A multiple car crash caused
by a blinding dust storm killed 17 people and injured scores of others
in Fresno Ct., Ca.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A23)
1991 Elmer Bischoff (b.1916),
California artist, died. He helped found the Bay Area Figurative School
with David Park and Richard Diebenkorn.
(WSJ, 12/3/01, p.A17)
1991 Colleen Dewhurst (b.1924),
Canadian-born actress, died. Her unfinished autobiography was completed
by Tom Viola: "Colleen Dewhurst: Her Autobiography."
(SFEC, 7/20/97, BR p.1)
1991 Eva Le Gallienne (b.1899),
actress, died. She wrote the biography of actress Eleonora Duse and her
own autobiography. In 1996 Helen Sheehy wrote a new biography: Eva Le
Gallienne.
(SFC, 10/16/96, E5)
1991 Graham Greene, author, died.
His biography was later written by Norman Sherry. In 2000 Shirley
Hazzard authored "Greene On Capri: A Memoir," about Greene's life on
the Isle of Capri. In 2001 William Cash authored "The Third Woman: The
Secret Passion That Inspired the End of the Affair," an account of
Greene’s affair with Catherine Walston.
(SFEC, 3/5/00, BR p.5)(SSFC, 2/11/01, BR p.9)
1991 Latasha Harlins (15) was shot
and killed by a Korean store owner in LA over a bottle of orange juice.
(SFC, 1/1/97, p.A16)
1991 Arturo Islas,
Mexican-American writer, died. His work included the novels: "The Rain
God" and "Migrant Souls." The unfinished "La Mollie and the King of
Tears" was published in 1996.
(SFEC, 9/22/96, BR p.3)
1991 Klaus Kinski (1926-1996),
actor, died. He starred in "Aguirre: The Wrath of God," "Nosferatu" and
"Woyzeck." He wrote his memoirs in 1971 and the English translation
became available in 1996 titled "Kinski Uncut" by Klaus Kinski.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.E2)
1991 David Lean, film director,
died. His work included: Great Expectations, The Bridge on the River
Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Ryan’s Daughter, and A
Passage to India.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.E3)
1991 Robert Motherwell (b.1915),
artist, died.
(SFC, 3/30/02, p.AD1)
1991 Arthur Murray, popular
ballroom dance teacher, died at age 95.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.D8)
1991 Akram Ojjeh, Syrian-born
financier and art collector, died at age 68. He made his fortune as an
arms dealer and investments in oil, hotels, and real estate.
(WSJ, 9/3/99, p.W10)
1991 Isaac Bashevis Singer, Jewish
novelist and storyteller, died. Dvorah Telushkin later wrote: "Master
of Dreams: A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer." Janet Hadda wrote "Isaac
Bashevis Singer: A Life."
(WSJ, 12/30/97, p.A8)
1991 Harry Smith, underground film
maker and record collector, died. His 1952 collection of hillbilly,
blues, gospel and Cajun music was re-issued in 1997 as a 6 CD set by
Smithsonian/Folkways.
(WSJ, 10/4/00, p.A24)
1991 Danny Thomas (79),
Lebanese-American sitcom actor, died. He starred in "Make Room for
Daddy" and produced the "Andy Griffith Show" and the "Dick Van Dyke
Show." He was the father of actress Marlo Thomas.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A14)(SFC, 7/13/00, p.C7)
1991 Gene Roddenberry, creator of
the Star Trek TV program, died. His ashes were put into space in 1997.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A3)
1991 As Communism fell apart
thousands of Albanians fled their country. They crossed the Adriatic in
boats to seek asylum in Italy. Lawlessness and unrest gripped the
country. Half the population was unemployed.
(CO, Grolier’s Amer. Acad. Enc./ Albania)
1991 Archbishop Anastasios (61)
was sent to Albania by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople to
report on the country's religious situation.
(SSFC, 7/27/03, Par p.4)
1991 The Organization of American
States (OAS) passed Resolution 1080 which called for a convocation of
OAS members within 10 days of a coup or "self-coup."
(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A14)
1991 In Algeria the military
forced Prime Minister Mouloud Hamrouche to resign.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C2)
1991 In Algeria leaders of the
outlawed Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) were arrested and sentenced to
12 years in prison. Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj were released Jul 2,
2003.
(Econ, 7/12/03, p.40)
1991 US intelligence discovered
that Algeria possessed a nuclear research reactor at Ain Oussera, which
was surrounded by air defenses.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.56)(http://tinyurl.com/2j86s7)
1991 In Angola the Bicesse Accord
failed to resolve squabbles and ended with a resumption of war.
(WSJ, 5/31/00, p.A26)
1991 Fighting between US supported
UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), and the
Marxist MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), ended.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A12)
1991 In Angola Elisol was
established as a refuse collection company. In the 1990s it took on the
maintenance of sanitation networks.
(Econ, 1/5/08, Angola p.4)
1991 In Argentina Pres. Carlos
Menem signed an accord to open secret government files to researchers
of the Delegation of Jewish Argentine Associations (DAIA).
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12,15)
1991 In Argentina Carlos Bastos
took over as energy secretary. The first thing he did was to divide the
utilities into 3 discreet lines of business: generation, transmission
and distribution.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, p.A1)
1991 In Argentina Domingo Cavallo,
economic minister, instituted a convertibility program that required
each Argentine peso in circulation be backed by a dollar in reserves.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A8)
1991 Argentina passed legislation
that required 30% of candidates on party lists for Congress to be women.
(Econ, 12/15/07, p.44)
1991 Argentina’s overall
government spending was $47.3 billion.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A13)
1991 Armenia gained independence
and was immediately involved in a territorial dispute with Azerbaijan
over the Nagorny Karabakh region.
(CO Enc. / Armenia)(WSJ, 5/2/97, p.A15)
1991 Dame Roma Mitchell, founder
of the Australian Human Rights Commission, became governor of South
Australia state.
(SFC, 3/6/00, p.A23)
1991 In Australia a stable of
horses was infected by an RNA virus. Most of the horses died as did 2
handlers. The virus was from the class morbillivirus that causes canine
distemper and is able to hop from one species to another.
(NH, 6/96, p.16)
1991 A toxic algae bloom choked a
1,000km stretch of Australia’s Darling River.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.82)
1991 In Austria Joerg Haider
resigned as governor of Carinthia after praising Nazi Germany for
having a "proper employment policy." By 1996 he led the Freedom Party,
Europe’s strongest nationalist party.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A16)
1991 Chancellor Franz Vranitzky
admitted Austrian complicity in the Holocaust.
(SFC, 2/10/00, p.A13)(SFC, 4/24/00, p.A12)
1991 On the dissolution of the
USSR, Azerbaijan gained its independence.
(CO, Grolier’s Amer. Acad. Enc./ Azerbaijan)
1991 Belarus gained independence.
(G&M, 1/31/96, p.A-8)
1991 In Belgium the far-right
Vlaams Blok party broke into the mainstream. In 2004 it was renamed
Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest).
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.59)
1991 Radio La Colifata (Loony
Radio) began broadcasting in Buenos Aires. The weekly radio show was
broadcast from inside a psychiatric hospital.
(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A8)
1991 In Brazil Karen Worcman (29)
helped found the Museum of the Person. By 2009 it was Latin America’s
largest oral history center.
(www.archimuse.com/mw99/bios/au_3204.html)(www.museudapessoa.net)(WSJ,
3/16/09, p.A1)(www.museudapessoa.net)
1991 Arminio Fraga joined Brazil’s
central bank as head of int’l. affairs.
(WSJ, 6/2/00, p.A1)
1991 The Amazon forest lost was 3
million acres this year.
(NH, 7/98, p.35)
1991 Britain established a War
Crimes Act which permitted prosecution for crimes committed outside the
country.
(SFC, 2/11/00, p.D2)
1991 The British Communist Party
folded.
(SSFC, 8/10/03, p.M4)
1991 Britain’s Human Fertilization
and Embryology Authority (HFEA), a statutory body, was created under
the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act (1990). This was the world’s
first regulator in the new field of assisted reproduction.
(http://212.49.193.187/cps/rde/xchg/hfea/hs.xsl/272.html)
1991 Robert Runcie (d.2000),
Archbishop of Canterbury, retired as spiritual leader of the Anglicans.
He then became Lord Runcie as PM John Majors elevated him to life
peer.
(SFC, 7/13/00, p.C7)
1991 Imperial Chemical Industries
(ICI) of Britain split into two parts, ICI, a chemicals company, and
Zeneca, a bioscience and drug company.
(Hem., 1/97, p.27)
1991 Britain's Helen Sharman flew
to Russia's Mir Space Station as a tourist as part of a lottery system
called Project Juno.
(AP, 9/18/06)
1991 In Canada the province of
Ontario passed the Arbitration Act, which allowed family law disputes
to be settled by arbitration. The Act permitted religiously based as
well as secular arbitration tribunals in the province.
(Econ, 2/16/08,
p.66)(www.religioustolerance.org/shariaon.htm)
1991 A 7-member Royal commission
on Aboriginal Peoples was created after a lengthy armed standoff
between Mohawk Indians and security forces in Quebec.
(SFC, 11/22/96, p.A20)
1991 In Alberta a gas leak forced
Wiebo Ludwig to evacuate his 320-acre Trickle Creek "community." Ludwig
blamed the Alberta oil and gas industry for the death of 60 of his
livestock and a succession of human health problems. The gas wells
produced sour gas, a gas laced with the neurotoxin hydrogen sulfide.
(SFC, 2/16/99, p.C2)(SFC, 4/20/00, p.C3)
1991 Stewart Blusson, Canadian
geologist, discovered a trove of diamonds south of the Arctic Circle in
the Northwest Territories.
(WSJ, 7/5/01, p.B1)(WSJ, 10/4/06, p.B2)
1991 In Chile capital controls
were adjusted to a minimum permanence period of 3 years for foreign
money.
(WSJ, 10/1/98, p.A17)
1991 In Chile the National
Commission on Truth and Reconciliation probed the abuses of the
military regime and reported that some people arrested by the DINA were
taken to the Dignity Colony, held there and tortured by agents of the
DINA and by people of the colony. The Rettig Commission was named by
the first post-military government to investigate human rights abuses.
It was headed by a former Allende minister and counted a total of 2,279
dead and missing on both sides of the civil war.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A14)(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.A19)
1991 The Chinese film Raise the
Red Lantern was directed by Zhang Yimou. The film won an academy award
and was made into a ballet in 2001.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, DB p.58)
1991 China introduced the B-share
security market to trade stocks reserved for foreigners. In 2001 the
B-share market was legally opened to Chinese nationals.
(WSJ, 3/7/00, p.A18)
1991 Ye Xuanping, a popular leader
of China’s Guangdong Province, was moved to a sinecure in Beijing to
prevent him from expanding on a personal power base.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.37)
1991 Tsien Hsue-sen,
American-trained rocketry expert, retired in China.
(AP, 10/15/03)
1991 In Colombia economic reforms
were enacted and tariffs were lowered.
(WSJ, 12/17/96, p.A18)
1991 Colombia’s Constitution was
revised and included progressive legislation concerning Indian rights.
It also provided for 2 additional seats in Congress for Afro-Colombians
and a similar quota for Amerindians.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A8)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.34)
1991 In Colombia 17 peasants were
dragged off a bus and killed in Valle del Cauca province. In 1998 3 men
were sentenced to 30 years in prison for the killing. the massacre was
allegedly ordered by 2 military majors and their case was turned over
to a military court.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A11)
1991 Colombia’s former Pres.
Turbay saw his journalist daughter, Diana, abducted by gunmen working
for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. She was later killed during a botched
rescue attempt.
(AP, 9/14/05)
1991 In Croatia the Eastern
Slavonia region was in part occupied by Serbs who had fled or were
driven from other parts of Croatia.
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.C1)
1991 The IMF began extensive loans
to Egypt along with pressure to sell-off state owned enterprises.
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A12)
1991 In El Salvador a government
commission decided to return a swath of the Finca El Espina land to the
Duenas family and that 865 acres be turned into a reserve. The 550
families of the cooperative that acquired the land in 1980 were to be
left with 700 acres of the poorest, driest land.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.C18)
1991 Pres. Isaias Afeworki took
over the leadership of Eritrea and the People’s Front for Democracy and
Justice (PFDJ).
(SFC, 5/13/98, p.A10)
1991 In Ethiopia an armed
revolution led by the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front took over the
government from the Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam known as
the Dergue (Derg). Meles Zenawi, a former Marxist-Leninist and the
guerrilla leader of the TPLF took control of the government. The
Tigrean minority made up only 5% of the country’s population. Some 4
million Tigrayans lorded over 18 million Amharans and 20 million Oromos.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A12)(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A14)(SFC,
6/24/99, p.A14)
1991 The European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was founded to help free markets
take root in the ex-communist countries of central and eastern Europe.
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.78)
1991 The French satirical magazine
La Grosse Berthe was launched.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.76)
1991 French frigates were sold to
Taiwan. In 2004 a fake list of French public figures (including later
president Nicolas Sarkozy), who allegedly held accounts at a
Luxembourg-based clearing house (Clearstream Banking S.A.), was leaked
to a French judge. This came to be known as the 2nd Clearstream affair.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearstream)(Econ,
12/6/08, p.70)
1991 Edith Cresson became the
first female prime minister in France.
(SFC, 3/2/00, p.A11)
1991 Germany passed an ordnance
shifting responsibility for the entire life cycle of packaging to
producers.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.24)
1991 Germany adopted a renewable
energy law, which became known as EEG.
(Econ, 4/5/08, p.67)
1991 In Germany the Inter-City
Express (ICE) high-speed trains began running.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)
1991 In Germany Hasso Plattner, a
former IBM consultant, unveiled the SAP (Systems, Analysis and Program
Development) R/3 enterprise management software. The company grew
12-fold from 1990 to 15,000 employees in 1998. Plattner founded the
company with Dietmar Hopp.
(WSJ, 7/2/98, p.A1,14)
1991 The last Trabant automobile
was manufactured in East Germany.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, p.A10)
1991 In Guatemala rebel guerrillas
sacked and burned most of the productive wells of Basic Petroleum in
the northwest corner of the Peten.
(WSJ, 12/26/96, p.A1)
1991 Haitian refugees fled to the
US base at Guantanamo, Cuba. Hundreds were refused further passage to
the US, many because of HIV infection.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1991 In Visegrad, Hungary, a
declaration of co-operation was signed by Poland, Hungary, the Czech
Republic and Slovakia. The 4 became known as the Visegrad countries.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.10S)
1991 David Oddsson became prime
minister of Iceland.
(AP, 6/5/06)
1991 The film "City of Joy" was
based on a novel by Dominique Lapierre. It was about the street
children of Calcutta and Mother Teresa.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.E4)
1991 India launched economic
reforms under finance minister Manmohan Singh. Previous to this the
government controlled the market-place dictating everything from
industrial output to import levels. PM P.V. Narasimha Rao launched free
market policies. Its previous socialist-inspired "License Raj" system
dated back to British rule and required government permits for almost
every aspect of business. A flood of imported products followed.
(WSJ, 2/18/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)(WSJ,
1/27/04, p.A1)(Econ, 8/27/05, p.35)(Econ, 3/18/06, p.64)
1991 The IMF foisted tariff cuts
on India as one of the conditions attached to a $2.5 billion bailout
package. Tariffs were cut from an average of 90% this year to 30% in
1997.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.82)
1991 India’s federal government
dismissed the state government of Tamil Nadu, controlled by the Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam party, for aiding the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1991 Ratan Tata succeeded his
uncle, J.R.D. Tata, as chairman of the Tata Group’s holding company,
just as India began liberalizing its economy. Uncle Tata had started
Tata Airlines which later became India Air.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.53)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.62)
1991 In Iran Majid Majidi directed
his film “Baduk.” It was about children kidnapped by a slave trader.
(SFC, 7/9/02, p.D2)
1991 The Iranian film "The Legend
of Sigh" was directed by Tamineh Milani.
(SFEC, 11/28/99, DB p.57)
1991 Iran’s government began
fighting elements of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK).
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1991 Iran’s first nuclear reactor
was supplied by China.
(SFC, 9/18/06, p.A1)
1991 Oriana Fallaci recorded the
poignant soliloquy of Dakel Abbas (21), a drafted Iraqi soldier
recovering from wounds in Kuwait. In 2002 Fallaci authored "The Rage
and the Pride."
(WSJ, 4/3/03, p.A14)
1991 Government forces of Iraq
began battling the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1991 142 aircraft were flown to
Iran from Iraq to escape destruction at the outset of the Gulf War.
Tehran repainted the planes and used them for its own forces. In 1997
Iraq appealed to the UN for help in getting the planes back.
(WSJ, 9/23/97, p.A1)
1991 In Iraq in the first 8 months
following the war some 47,000 children under the age of 5 died from
war-related causes.
(SFEM, 2/20/99, p.7)
1991 In Mahaweel, Iraq, every day
for three weeks, Iraqi soldiers brought truckloads of rebellious Shiite
Muslims to a lonely cornfield near the ruins of Babylon. The victims
were shoved into shallow pits and shot. Bulldozers pushed the earth
over them, burying some alive. In 2003 a mass grave yielded more
than 3,100 bodies. Local Iraqis said as many as 12,000 other bodies
from the same massacre might be buried in the area.
(AP, 9/15/03)
1991 General Abdul-Qader Mohammed
Jassim al-Mifarji left Saddam Hussein’s army. In 2006 he was appointed
as Iraq’s defense minister.
(Econ, 6/17/06, p.52)
1991 The International Atomic
Energy Agency placed a seal over storage bunkers holding conventional
explosives known as HMX and RDX and PETN at the Al-Qaqaa facility south
of Baghdad as part of U.N. sanctions that ordered the dismantlement of
Iraq's nuclear program.
(AP, 10/27/04)
1991 Israel ratified the
102-nation Convention Against Torture.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.C14)
1991 The Italian Communist Party
(PCI) disbanded to form the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS),
with membership in the Socialist International. It later came to be
known as the Left Democrats (DS).
(Econ, 4/28/07,
p.62)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Communist_Party)
1991 In Italy Giulio Andreotti was
made a senator for life.
(SFEC, 10/27/99, p.A17)
1991 In Italy an anti-laundering
act put a limit of 20 million lire on all cash transactions, but no
penalties for passbooks containing sums above that amount.
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.71)
1991 Italian authorities allowed
several ships with about 25,000 Albanians into the port of Bari. When
another wave of immigrants showed up a few months later the policy was
reversed and they were sent back home.
(NG, 5/93, p.104)
1991 Ermenegildo Zegna became the
first Italian luxury company to enter the Chinese market. By 2007 it
had some 52 shops there.
(Econ, 4/14/07, p.82)
1991 Ryoei Saito of Japan
purchased 2 paintings by Van Gogh and Renoir for $185 million.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)
1991 Kazakstan established
independence.
(SFC,11/20/97, p.B2)
1991 Independent Latvia recognized
only the citizens of the pre-1940 Latvian state and their descendants.
Some 740,000 Russian-speaking residents were made aliens and barred
from voting and government sector employment.
(WSJ, 3/11/05, p.A9)
1991 In Lebanon Pres. Hrawi signed
the “Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination” with Syrian
Pres. Hafez Assad. It formalized the intervention of Syria.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.A16)(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A8)
1991 The civil war in Lebanon
ended.
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A8)
1991 RUF guerrillas including Sam
Bockerie invaded Sierra Leone from Liberia. Charles Taylor formed the
guerrillas in 1989.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A11)
1991 Macedonia gained independence
from the former Yugoslavia. Its president was Kiro Glogorov. A quarter
to a third of the population is Albanian. Its population is about 2
mil. Its capital is Skopje.
(www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mk.html)
1991 In Malaysia authorities
banned Mak Yong, a traditional form of dance theater.
(WSJ, 4/19/06, p.A1)
1991 The Mexican banks were
reprivatized.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-10)
1991 In Mexico Miguel Aleman
Velasco, billionaire from Veracruz State, sold his stake in the media
giant Televisa before entering the Senate. His eldest son Miguel Aleman
Magnani quickly purchased a new stake.
(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A18)
1991 In Mexico Telmex was
privatized and sold to Carlos Slim Helu, a stockbroker and the richest
man in Latin America. Telmex was sheltered from competition for 6 years
and in 2002 controlled 96% of local phone service.
(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/16/02, p.A1)
1991 In Mongolia the government
began to eliminate price controls and the cost of living zoomed.
(NG, 5/93, p.138)
1991 In Mongolia a group of young
foreign exchange traders gambled away half the national treasury, $82
mil.
(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A12)
1991 Khun Sa (1934-2007), Myanmar
drug warlord and head of the Shan United Army, became head of the Shan
State Restoration Council.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.106)
1991 Klaas Bruinsma, gangster and
drug baron, was gunned down near an Amsterdam hotel.
(SSFC, 10/11/03, p.A2)
1991 In Nicaragua the US based
Pennwalt Corp. shut down its chlorine plant near Lake Managua and left
60 tons of mercury in the lake.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A6)
1991 The city of Abuja, Nigeria,
officially replaced Lagos as the new capital.
(SFC, 11/23/06, p.A28)
1991 Ken Saro-Wiwa organized the
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. It demanded $10 billion
for environmental damage and royalties from the federal government and
Royal Dutch/Shell Corp., and it threatened to secede from Nigeria.
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-16)
1991 North Korea declared the
4-country armistice referee group a "non-existent organization."
(WSJ, 3/17/00, p.A1)
1991 In North Korea Kim Jong Il
(b.1942) became head of the armed forces under his ruling father, Kim
Il Sung.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.49)
1991 Norway became one of the
first countries to adopt a carbon tax in an attempt to slow global
warming.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.28)
1991 Pakistan’s government
sent troops to Karachi to quell rising violence. Since then the
MQM abandoned democracy and took to the streets in an insurrection.
(WSJ, 12/14/95, p.A-6)
1991 Palestinian terrorist Abu
Nidal recruited orchestrated the murder of Fatah leader Abu-Iyad, a
leader of the Sep 5, 1972, Munich terrorists. Nidal was outraged by
Iyad’s softening on the status of Israel.
(WSJ, 12/21/05, p.D10)
1991 Peruvians desperate for work
rushed into the taxi and bus businesses with little training after Peru
lowered used-vehicle import tariffs to ease a transport shortage.
(AP, 7/16/06)
1991 In Peru there was a cholera
epidemic.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A4)
1991 Tough environmental laws were
laid down in Poland and set to take effect in 1997.
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.B-3A)
1991 In the Republic of Congo a
national conference was convened by reform minded citizens and Denis
Sassou Nguesso was stripped of most of his power and national elections
were organized.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.D8)
1991 Agnieszka Kotlarska became
Miss Poland. She was murdered in 1996.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)
1991 In Russia the St. Petersburg
Organization of Soldier’s Mothers was founded.
(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A14)
1991 The Afghan War Invalids Fund
was founded in Russia to serve 14,000 amputees and other seriously
injured veteran of the 10-year war.
(SFC, 11/11/96, p.A13)
1991 The Soviet Union splintered
into sovereign nations.
(TMC, 1994, p.1991)
1991 Yuri Luzhkov, vice-mayor of
Moscow, issued Decision No. 285 transferring ownership of prime city
real estate to a private company called AO Orgkomitet, of which he was
president.
(WSJ, 5/20/99, p.A14)
1991 Anatoly Sobchak, a law
professor, was elected mayor of St. Petersburg. Vladimir Putin, an
agent in the KGB, was soon named as his deputy mayor.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D2)
1991 Vadim Bakatin (b.1937), head
of the Soviet KGB, presented US Ambassador Robert Strauss with
blueprints for the bugs in the US Embassy. Bakatin served as the
interior minister of the Soviet Union from 1988 to 1990. He was the
last chairman of KGB in 1991 before it ceased to exist with the
collapse of the Soviet Union. He later served as the first chairman of
Interrepublican Security Service between 1991 and 1992. In 1993 he
noted that although the myth about the KGB’s invincibility had
collapsed, the agency itself was very much alive.
(SFC, 7/8/00,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vadim_Bakatin)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.26)
1991 The Russian government,
following Soviet collapse, scrapped the national anthem, and replaced
it with an instrumental piece by 19th-century Russian composer Mikhail
Glinka.
(AP, 8/27/09)
1991 The Moscow
Radisson-Slavyanskaya hotel and the adjoining Americom Business Center
was founded by US businessman, Paul Tatum (1955-1996).
(WSJ, 11/4/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A8)(WSJ,
11/5/96, p.A19)
1991 In Saudi Arabia Khalid bin
Sultan was the commander of the Saudi military forces during the Gulf
war. He later became the principal owner of Al-Hayat, an Arabic
language daily published in London.
(SFC, 1/4/97, p.A3)
1991 In Margate, Scotland, Vicky
Hamilton (15) was last seen. In 2007 her skeleton was discovered at a
house where handyman Peter Tobin used to live. Her remains were found
during a search for another missing teenager, Dinah McNicol (18) from
the county of Essex, eastern England, who was last seen returning from
a 1991 music festival. The remains of McNicol were found a few days
after the Hamilton find. Tobin (61) was charged with the murders.
(AP, 11/16/07)(AFP, 11/17/07)
1991 In Somalia dictator Barre
fell from power and the northeast corner of the country declared itself
the independent Republic of Somaliland.
(SFC, 4/10/96, A-5)(SFEC,11/23/97, p.A25)
1991 Thousands of Bantus fled
Somalia for Kenya. In 1999 the US designated this group of people as
persecuted and eligible for resettlement in the US.
(NW, 9/2/02, p.35)
1991 South Africa signed on to the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. South Africa had secretly built
several bombs but dismantled them before signing on to the NPT.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.23)
1991 Afrikaner nationalists led by
Prof. Carel Boshoff, son-in-law of the late PM Hendrik Verwoerd,
founded the Orania enclave in the desert of South Africa with a ban on
using black laborers for menial tasks.
(SFC, 11/25/02, p.A8)
1991 Charles D. Moody, Univ. of
Michigan vice-president for minority affairs, led a delegation to
bestow an honorary doctorate to Nelson Mandela. It had been awarded in
absentia in 1990.
(MT, Fall/99, p.16)
1991 Sudanese intelligence
approached Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and invited him to move to
Khartoum, which he did.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.A20)
1991 The Sudan People’s Liberation
Army, the main rebel group, began to divide along tribal lines and now
four factions control the south.
(SFC, 4/15/96,A-8)
1991 Swiss-based Roche Corp. paid
Cetus Corp. of Emeryville, Ca., $300 million for its PCR gene
amplification business, a DNA copying method that became the foundation
for genetic diagnostics.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.A10)
1991 A dye-sensitized solar cell,
also known as Gratzel cells, was invented by Michael Gratzel and Brian
O'Regan at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne. He pioneered research on energy and electron transfer
reactions in mesoscopic-materials and their optoelectronic applications.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-sensitized_solar_cell)
1991 Tajikistan gained
independence from the Soviet Union.
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.A6)
1991 Turkmenistan gained
independence.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.A14)
1991 Turkey abolished the price
controls that propped up its state-owned tobacco company.
(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.A1)
1991 Ukraine deregulated prices.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.86)
1991 The United Nations
Compensation Commission was established after the allies’ victory in
the Gulf War to settle claims filed by individuals, corporations and
governments who suffered due to the war.
(WSJ, 8/18/97, p.A1)
1991 The UN’s health agency
destroyed nearly 200 million doses of smallpox vaccine because it
lacked the $25,000 a year for storage.
(WSJ, 11/30/01, p.A1)
1991 The UN began its Change for
Good operation to help support the Children's Fund. The program
recruited flight attendants to collect left over change in foreign
currencies from passengers returning to the US. By 2002 the program
raised some $31 million.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.C3)
1991 Vozrozhdeniye Island
(Renaissance Island) in the Aral Sea became the property of Kazakstan
and Uzbekistan.
(SFC, 3/24/03, p.A5)
1991 In Uzbekistan Birlik (Unity)
political party was set up. It was outlawed several years later along
with other opposition groups, which forced its leaders into exile. The
party's several attempts to reregister in later years have failed.
(AP, 3/15/07)
1991 In Uzbekistan Mansur Maqsudi
married Gulnora Karimova, the daughter of the president.
(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A1)
1991 Mansur Maqsudi and his
brother Fareed approached Coca Cola with an offer to bottle Coca Cola
products in Uzbekistan.
(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A6)
1991 Pope John Paul II put forth
his encyclical "Centesimus Annus," on the dignity of the human person
and the free economy in the free society.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W13)
1991 Venezuela’s Senate voted to
hold Jaime Lusinchi (b.1924), a former President (1984-1989),
"politically responsible" for multibillion-dollar fraud, though he has
never been tried on corruption charges.
(AP,
3/16/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Lusinchi)
1991 In Venezuela the Compania
Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela (CANTV) was privatized. In 2007
Pres. Chavez planned to transfer the company into state hands.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.33)
1991 In Western Sahara a
cease-fire was declared between the Polisario Front and Morocco. The 2
parties agreed on an all-or-nothing referendum to be held in 1998.
(SFC, 5/15/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A12)
1991 In Zaire Etienne Tshisekedi
was installed as prime minister after Mobutu was forced by foreign and
domestic pressure to allow multiparty politics and accept a government
formed by the opposition.
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A16)
1991 In Zaire riots by unpaid
soldiers killed hundreds of people and destroyed many businesses.
(SFC, 3/18/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A4)
1991 In Zambia Pres. Kaunda was
voted out of office. Pres. Frederick Chiluba and his Movement for
Multi-Party Democracy won.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)
1991 Xu Jianxue arrived in Zambia
and began a civil-engineering and construction firm with his 4
brothers. Some 300 Chinese lived in Zambia at this time. By 2006 the
number was estimated at 3,000.
(Econ, 10/28/06, p.53)
1991-1992 Some 350,000 Somalis died from disease,
starvation and civil war.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.A25)
1991-1993 60 Minutes was again the top ranking
network show on television for two seasons with rankings of 21.7 and
21.6%.
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)
1991-1993 In Togo a democracy movement was
suppressed, strikes ruined the economy and the infrastructure
deteriorated.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A8)
1991-1994 Bank of America extended full-service
branches into supermarkets throughout California.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.B4)
1991-1994 In Russia the life expectancy for males
fell by five years during this period. The drop was later attributed to
mass privatization.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.15)
1991-1994 Emmanuel "Toto" Constant headed the Front
for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti. He was also a paid US CIA
agent and members of FRAPH were believed responsible for many of the
3,000 political killings over this period. Louis-Jodel Chamblain
co-founded FRAPH.
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A14)(ST, 3/2/04, p.A3)
1991-1995 Argentina shipped weapons to Ecuador and
Croatia. The guns were initially shipped to Panama and Bolivia and the
Argentine government later blamed arms dealers for their diversion. In
1996 Oscar Camilion stepped down as defense minister for his roll in
the arms shipments. In 1998 Horacio Estrada, a retired navy captain,
was found shot to death. Four days earlier prosecutors had begun
questioning him about the 1991-1995 arms shipments.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A24)
1991-1995 Meles Zenawi (b.1956) served as Chairman of
the EPRDF and President of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia.
(www.brandt21forum.info/BioAfricaCom-Zenawi.htm)
1991-1995 In Kenya an estimated 1500 were killed and
300,000 forced from their homes in clashes between Pres. Daniel arap
Moi’s Kalenjin ethnic group and the Kikuyu, Luo and Luhya tribes over
this time.
(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A12)
1991-1995 In Mexico in 1998 the Publico newspaper
reported that Jalisco state officials had shifted almost $20 million
out of accounts meant for charity and that at least $7 million went
into PRI coffers during this period.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.A11)
1991-1995 Yugoslavia was put under a UN arms embargo.
(SFC, 7/2/02, p.A6)
1991-1996 Doug Tompkins, founder of Esprit Corp., has
spent over $14 million to purchase the sprawling wild lands of Pumalin,
Chile, as a nature sanctuary. His townhouse and office building are
located in the coastal city of Puerto Montt. The deal for some 700,000
acres was concluded in 2001.
(SFC, Z-1, 4/28/96, p.5)(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A10)
1991-1996 In India Jayalalitha Jayaram, a former
movie star, served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. She was voted
out of office in disgrace.
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.D2)
1991-1997 Russia went into an economic downfall
called the Great Contraction. The decline wiped out the US equivalent
of $3 trillion.
(WSJ, 1/28/98, p.A1)
1991-1998 Sadako Ogata was elected as the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In 1996 that called for
providing food and shelter for some 23 million refugees.
(Hem. 7/96, p.19)
1991-1999 Operations US Desert Fox, Desert Strike,
Northern Watch, Southern Watch, Provide Comfort and others began in
Iraq. They cost $7.8 billion and left 26 US casualties.
(WSJ, 9/22/99, p.A8)
1991-1999 UNITA rebels in Angola raised an estimated
$3-4 billion through diamond sales.
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.A13)
1991-2002 In Sierra Leone an 11-year civil war began
and by 1996 10,000 had been killed. Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United
Front began fighting the bush war. In 1998 Sankoh was charged with
treason. By 2002 some 50-200 thousand people were killed and a third of
the country’s 6 million people were forced to flee.
(WSJ, 5/7/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E2)(SFC, 9/5/98,
p.A12)(Econ, 6/2/07, p.48)
1991-2005 The US spent some $7 billion on Russian
nuclear security.
(WSJ, 9/26/05, p.A1)
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