Timeline 1996 July - September
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1996 Jul 1, Placido Domingo became artistic director of Washington National Opera (f.1956).
(www.dc-opera.org/aboutcompany/placidodomingo.asp)
1996 Jul 1, President Clinton declared an emergency in drought-stricken parts of the Southwest.
(AP, 7/1/97)
1996 Jul 1, Twelve members of an Arizona anti-government group, the Viper Militia, were charged with plotting to blow up government buildings. The group was infiltrated by Drew Nolan, an agent for the Federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).
(AP, 7/1/97)(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A11)
1996 Jul 1, Actress Margaux Hemingway was found dead in her Santa Monica, California, apartment; she was 41.
(AP, 7/1/01)
1996 Jul 1, The world’s first voluntary suicide law was scheduled to go into effect in Australia. The Rights of the Terminally Ill Act originated in Darwin.
(WSJ, 6/27/96, p.A18)
1996 Jul 1, Draugas, the Lithuanian daily newspaper published in Chicago, issued its first English version edition and planned a weekly English edition.
(Dr, 7/96, V1#1, p.3)
1996 Jul 1, In Bulgaria there was sharp increases in taxes, excise duties and electricity and fuel prices.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 1, In China a new regulation went into effect that called for films co-produced with foreigners to apply for approval from the State Council before filming begins.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.F3)
1996 Jul 1, In Sri Lanka Tamil Tiger separatists ambushed an army patrol and killed 29 soldiers while losing at least 35 of their own.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 1, In Uganda rebels fighting for the return of Idi Amin killed 11 people in a nightclub in Koboko.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 2, Electricity and phone service was knocked out for millions of customers from Canada to the Southwest after power lines throughout the West failed on a record-hot day.
(AP, 7/2/97)
1996 Jul 2, US federal officials announced the arrest of 12 members of a militia unit, called Viper Militia, that had planned to bomb government offices in the Phoenix area. On Dec 19 two members pleaded guilty to explosives and weapons charges. On Dec 27 three more members pleaded guilty.
(WSJ, 7/2/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/20/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 2, Seven years after they shot their parents to death in the family's Beverly Hills mansion, Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 7/2/97)
1996 Jul 2, Actor Harry Morgan (81) was charged with a misdemeanor spousal battery against his 70-year-old wife. He had played Colonel Potter in M*A*S*H.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.D4)
1996 Jul 2, Israeli planes rocketed a Palestinian guerrilla base in Lebanon. The base belonged to the Palestinian National Liberation Organization, a pro-Syrian group under Col. Abu Musa, that split from the Fatah movement of Yasser Arafat in the 1980s.
(SFC, 7/3/96, p.C3)
1996 Jul 3, Pres. Clinton signed the Church Arson Prevention Act. It created a fund to help rebuild churches that were destroyed by a recent spate of arsons.
(SFC, 6/23/99, p.A17)
1996 Jul 3, The Clinton administration awarded a $1 mil grant to the Univ. of Alabama for an experiment that would test for illicit drug use of everyone arrested in Birmingham.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, US Secret Service agents claimed to have broken up an operation by a New York couple that used monitoring equipment to steal 80,000 cellular phone numbers and id codes from motorists on an expressway that passed their apartment building.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Lockheed Martin Corp. won a $1 bil federal contract to build the next-generation space shuttle.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, A jokester lit firecrackers in a fireworks store in Scottown, Ohio. A blaze erupted and 9 people were killed and 11 injured as they stampeded out.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)(AP, 7/3/97)
1996 Jul 3, A federal agency approved the Union Pacific $5.4 bil acquisition of San Francisco based Southern Pacific Rail Corp. The merger eliminated about 3,500 jobs.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Chad’s Pres. Idriss Deby won 70% of the vote. He defeated Abdelkader Wadal Kamougue, a southern leader who led coup in 1975. The election was widely seen as flawed.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/29/01, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Russians went to the polls to re-elect Boris Yeltsin president over his Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov. Boris Yeltsin won the presidential elections with about 53.7% of the vote. Zyuganov received about 40.4%.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/97)
1996 Jul 4, President Clinton extolled the joys of democracy and asked the nation to honor America's independence by praising continued free rule in Russia as he spoke during a jamboree honoring the 200th anniversary of Youngstown, Ohio.
(AP, 7/4/97)
1996 Jul 4, Koko, the first gorilla to use sign language, turned 25 and asked for a box of scary, rubber snakes and lizards.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A24)
1996 Jul 4, The film "Independence Day," produced and co-written by David Devlin, was released. It passed $100 mil in revenue in six days beating the Jurassic Park record of 9 days.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.E4)(SFC, 7/10/96, p.E2)
1996 Jul 4, Hot Mail, a free internet E-mail service began.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotmail)
1996 Jul 4, In Burundi unidentified gunmen killed 80 people in an attack on a tea factory 15 miles northeast of Bujumbura.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, Floods and landslides in China killed at least 121 people and forced 450,000 from their homes from Zhejiang on the east coast to Guizhou in the southwest.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, China’s Pres. Jiang Zemin began a 3-day to Kazakhstan, whose population numbered about 15 million. Zemin held talks with President Nazarbayev, and met with Kazakhstan Parliament Lower House Speaker Ospanov and delivered an important speech entitled "For a Better Future of Friendship and Cooperation Between China and Central Asia". The two sides signed a joint statement, the extradition treaty, the agreement on cooperation between the People's Bank of China and the Kazakhstan National Bank, the agreement on cooperation in quality control and mutual certification of import and export commodities and other documents.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.48)(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-05/21/content_879991.htm)
1996 Jul 4, In Panama police arrested Jaime Revello, a top Colombian drug lord, and seized 4.5 tons of cocaine.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A13)
1996 Jul 4, In Sri Lanka a suicide bomber killed an army commander and 20 others when she leaped in front of a motorcade in Jaffna.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, In Switzerland the defense ministry hoped to save $476,000 a year by pensioning off 7,000 carrier pigeons.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.C1)
1996 Jul 5, An essay by SB Stewart discussed the history of Betty Crocker and showed the latest 8th Betty Crocker [General Mills advertising icon]. She was put together from the features of 75 women from around the country.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A6)
1996 Jul 5, The US government reported the nation's unemployment rate fell to a six- ear low to 5.3% in June 1996; nervous investors, fearing higher interest rates, gave the stock market its worst beating in four months, sending the Dow industrials down 114 points.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/5/97)
1996 Jul 5, An LA County woman was identified as the first person in the US to carry the rare AIDS virus strain known as Group O. She was discovered by epidemiologists several months ago. Group O is only detected in 4 of 5 cases with current testing methods. Blood supply tests will need to be changed.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A5)
1996 Jul 5, A report stated that 740 metric tons of cocaine was being produced each year in South America and that the US took in less than half.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 5, A cloned lamb, named Dolly (d.2003) after Dolly Pardon, was born in Edinburgh Scotland. The event was not announced until Feb 23, 1997 when it was made public that researchers under Dr. Ian Wilmut at Edinburgh, Scotland, created a clone lamb from adult sheep DNA. In 2001 it was reported that Dolly suffered from arthritis, a sign of premature aging.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.C1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A2)(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A2)
1996 Jul 5, The world’s 5 most expensive cities were reported to be in Asia. Tokyo and Osaka kept their No. 1 & 2 position while Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong moved into the top 5.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 5, Vival Exports from Vlora, Albania, was sending 6 tons a week of live frogs to Lyon, France. "But how long will this resource last?"
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 5, In Colombia the government released Jorge Luis Ochoa, aka The Fat Man, from prison after 5 1/2 years for drug-trafficking.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 5, In South Africa Anglo American Platinum Corp. fired an additional 7,000 striking workers. That makes the total 28,261 fired workers since the strike began Jun 25.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 5, In Tatarstan a new law was enacted that will charge $800 for insulting the president. Subsequent offenses could cost $1400. A printed insult could cost $6,000.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A16)
1996 Jul 5, In Uruguay the Fasano brothers, editor and publisher of the daily La Republica, were jailed for 15 days for printing a story that Paraguay’s president Wasmosy took payments from a hydroelectric project.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 6, President Clinton announced the biggest changes in the rules governing meat and poultry safety in 90 years.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1996 Jul 6, A Delta MD-88 jetliner's left engine blew apart during an aborted takeoff from Pensacola, Fla., sending metal pieces ripping into the cabin, killing a mother and her son.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1996 Jul 6, Steffi Graf won her seventh Wimbledon title, defeating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario 6-3, 7-5.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1996 Jul 6, The 10th Lithuanian Song and Dance Festival in the US was held in Rosemont, Ill., at the Rosemount Horizon and featured 2,000 dancers before an audience of 7,000.
(Dr, 7/96, V1#1, p.5)(SFC, 11/9/96, p.4)
1996 Jul 6, It was reported that a Brazilian fisherman, Nathon do Nascimento, choked to death when a 6-inch fish jumped out of the water and into his throat during a long yawn.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A17)
1996 Jul 7, Dutch tennis player Richard Krajicek won the Wimbledon men's title, defeating American MaliVai Washington 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1996 Jul 7, President Clinton delivered more Whitewater trial testimony before video cameras, this time testifying in the case of two Arkansas bankers accused of making political contributions with bank funds; a jury later acquitted Herby Branscum Jr., and Robert M. Hill of four counts and was deadlocked on seven other counts.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of a Big Mac in the US was $2.36. In Germany it was $3.22.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Par, p.17)
1996 Jul 7, In Ecuador lawyer Abdala Bucaram, aka El Loco, was elected president with 54% of the vote. He led the center-left Roldosista party.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 8, The Shuttle Columbia landed after a record flight of 16 days, 21 hours, 48 minutes and 30 sec.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.A2)
1996 Jul 8, Hurricane Bertha slammed into the US Virgin Islands with torrential rains and winds that gusted to 105 mph.
(WSJ, 7/9/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/8/97)
1996 Jul 8, A 1975 JetRanger Bell Helicopter crashed in Salem, Ohio and killed all 5 people onboard.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 8, In Niger the military ruler suspended the Independent National electoral commission after early results showed him losing.
(WSJ, 7/9/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.8)
1996 Jul 8, In Northern Ireland Michael McGoldrick Jr. (31), a taxi driver, was abducted and fatally shot, two days after graduating from a Belfast university. He was the first victim of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, an outlawed Protestant gang that opposed Northern Ireland's peace process.
(AP, 4/5/06)
1996 Jul 9, The National League won the All-Star game, defeating the American League 6-0 in Philadelphia.
(AP, 7/9/97)
1996 Jul 9, Former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm began a drive for the presidential nomination of Ross Perot's fledgling Reform Party.
(AP, 7/9/97)
1996 Jul 9, Attorney Melvin M. Belli (b.7/29/07), King of Torts, died at 88 in San Francisco. He authored the 5-volume work "Modern Trials," a classic on the demonstrative method of presenting evidence.
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 9, "The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation" by Sandra Mackey was reviewed and panned by Abbas Milani, author of "Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir."
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B4)
1996 Jul 9, In Chechnya the pre-election truce was shattered and the war has resumed.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 9, The Bosnian federation approved the merger of the Muslim and Croat armies. This clears the way for the US to begin training and shipping arms to Bosnian troops.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 9, Mexico City’s police chief announced that every top official in his department was replaced with military officers. The move was made to break up corruption and abuse in the old "brotherhood."
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 9, Turkey announced a 50% raise for its 1.5 million civil servants.
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 9-1996 Jul 10, In Rwanda the Tutsi dominated army carried out an operation against Hutu insurgents in Karago and Giciye villages and 62 people were killed. The area was the home of the late Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 10, Ross Perot said on CNN he would make a second run for president if nominated by the Reform Party, putting him in contention with former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm, who'd announced his candidacy the day before.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1996 Jul 10, In a tough speech to the US Congress laying out conditions for Mideast negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Syria and the Palestinians stop terrorists from attacking Israel.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1996 Jul 10, There was a report on a Federal Reserve study on interest rates that describes a new approach to monetary policy called "opportunistic disinflation." The policy says that when inflation is low, policy makers should wait for unforeseen recessions to make further progress against inflation.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A2,6)
1996 Jul 10, In the US local police in Redwood City, Ca., began testing a gunshot locator apparatus.
(SFC, 7/11/96)
1996 Jul 10, A report by TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring group reported that 20 million sea horses are caught and traded each year. China was estimated to import 20 tons each year for use in traditional medicines. Sea horse populations in the Indo-Pacific region have fallen over 50% in the last 5 years. Sea horses mate for life and if one of a couple is caught, the other refuses to breed again.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 10, The Khmer Rouge attacked a government base in southwestern Cambodia. They were also accused of killing 60 forestry workers kidnapped previously.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, A coalition of Canadian groups threatened to boycott Florida unless the US relents on the Helms-Burton law that imposed sanctions on foreign companies that trade with companies expropriated by from the US by Cuba.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 10, In Malaysia entrepreneur Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun was backing a new development to rise above the Kelang River in Kuala Lumpur. Called KL Linear City the plan called for a 24 year project that would consist of a 1.24 mile-long, 10-story, tube-like structure. It was disclosed as a footnote in Malaysia’s 75 year plan released in April.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, A US congressional committee urged the West African republic of Mauritania to free its slaves.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, In Niger Gen’l. Ibrahim Mainassara claimed electoral victory and immediately banned opposition parties and public meetings.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, In Tajikistan 50,000 people have died since fighting broke out in 1992.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 11, A report stated that Malaria infects 300 million people each year and kills 1.5 to 2.7 million. A drug, artemether, derived from a Chinese herb was appearing to be as effective as quinine.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Jul 11, An Air Force F-16 jet trying to make an emergency landing slammed into a house in Pensacola, Fla., setting the home on fire, killing a 4-year-old boy and badly burning his mother. The pilot ejected safely.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/11/97)
1996 Jul 11, The Argentine minister of justice, Rodolfo Barra, resigned his post due to his past association as a teen-ager in the 60s with the anti-Semitic group, Tacuara.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Jul 11, Two bombs ripped apart buses in Moscow and injured at least 23 people. A Chechen link was suspected but not proven.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 12, The House voted overwhelmingly to define marriage in federal law as a legal union of one man and one woman, no matter what states might say.
(AP, 7/12/97)
1996 Jul 12, Hurricane Bertha hit North Carolina's Cape Fear near Wilmington, then moved on to batter a string of coastal towns.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/12/97)
1996 Jul 12, Lee Guthrie Jr., a member of the Aryan Republican Army, was found dead of an apparent suicide in a county jail in Kentucky. The group advocated killing Jews, deporting African-Americans and setting up a Bible-based nation.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 12, John Chancellor (b.1927), news reporter, died. He had been an anchor reporter on NBC Nightly News from 1970-1982.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A5)
1996 Jul 12, Gottfried von Einem (b.1918), Swiss composer, died in Oberdurnbach.
(www.einem.org/en/komp_ll.htm)
1996 Jul 12, The EU warned that it would freeze US assets and impose visa requirements on Americans if European companies are penalized for investing in Cuba.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 12, A divorce settlement between Lady Diana Spencer and Charles, the Prince of Wales was agreed upon. Diana would be called "Her Royal Highness" and would receive about $22.5 mil plus an annual $600,000 to maintain her private office.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 12, In Libya at least 20 people were killed in Tripoli at a soccer match. Bodyguards loyal to the sons of Moammar Ghadafi fired at spectators who shouted hostile slogans. A stampede resulted.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 12, In Northern Ireland authorities relented and allowed the Orange Order to march through the village of Drumcree.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 12, Russian banks were undergoing a major shakeout. 2,132 banks were operating, a 20% decrease since 1994.
(WSJ, 7/12/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 12, In southern Sudan at least 700,000 people were facing starvation because of the Khartoum government’s refusal to allow large-scale food aid.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Jul 12, Venezuela was awarded a $1.4 billion credit from the Int’l. Monetary Fund.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13, After battering the Carolinas, the weakened remnants of Hurricane Bertha moved north, spawning tornadoes and dumping rain from Maryland to Massachusetts.
(AP, 7/13/97)
1996 Jul 13, Hollywood producer Pandro S. Berman (1905-1996) died. He produced Top Hat, Morning Glory, The Blackboard Jungle, Swing Time, The Gay Divorcee, Shall We Dance, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Gunga Din, Of Human Bondage, National Velvet, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butterfield 8, Father of the Bride and Move.
(SFC, 7/14/96, p.C8)
1996 Jul 13, Mt. Merapi volcano in Java was about to erupt.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13, Winter storms raged across South Africa and snowdrifts up to 8-feet high blocked the main road from Johannesburg to Durban.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13, Tehran, Iran, was invaded by thousands of lizards and snakes over the past three months. Military exercises nearby or rising levels of groundwater have been cited as possible reasons.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13-1996 Jul 14, In Uganda more than 90 Sudanese refugees were killed in a camp 220 miles north of Kampala. The Lord’s Resistance Army was blamed.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 14, Fire crews battled blazes covering more than 16,000 acres in California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Utah.
(AP, 7/14/97)
1996 Jul 14, In Afghanistan the new prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, closed movie theaters and banned music on TV and radio, claiming that they were repugnant to Islam.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 14, If elections are to proceed in Bosnia, Swiss foreign minister Flavio Cotti must determine that they can be free and fair by this date. He is the chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 14, In Northern Ireland, a car bomb at the Killyhevlin Hotel in the town of Enniskillen exploded and injured 17 people soon after the building was evacuated; a group calling itself "Continuity" claimed responsibility for the blast.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/14/97)
1996 Jul 15, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole picked New York congresswoman Susan Molinari to deliver the keynote address at the upcoming GOP convention.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, Arkansas Gov. Guy Tucker stepped down following a felony conviction in the Whitewater scandal. Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee became governor.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(Econ, 2/3/07, p.33)
1996 Jul 15, The stock market took a tumble. The NASDAQ index dropped 43.11 points, its 2nd largest decline since 10/19/87 when it dropped 46.12 points.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15 MSNBC, a 24-hour all-news network, made its debut on cable and the Internet.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, An Algerian court sentenced 128 Muslim militants to death in absentia for their involvement in guerilla activities. Another 67 were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 15, A Belgian plane, Lockheed C-130, crashed during landing in the Netherlands and killed 32 people.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In India 58 Hindu pilgrims died in stampedes during religious festivals at Ujjain, 465 miles south of New Delhi, and Hardwar, 125 miles north.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In Israel/Palestine 135,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and 5,000 live in Gaza. About 160,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem, captured from Jordan in 1967 and then annexed. New settlements were being planned.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 15, In Nicaragua 6 soldiers were killed and one injured in an ambush in central Matagalpa province.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 16, President Clinton told the National Governors Association he was granting states new powers to deny benefits to recipients who refuse to move from welfare to work.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1996 Jul 16, Russian President Boris Yeltsin met a day late with Vice President Al Gore, easing some of the concerns about his fragile health.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1996 Jul 16, US states were adopting laws that would allow drug users and their families to sue drug dealers.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.B1)
1996 Jul 16, Handwriting analysis tagged Newsweek columnist and CBS commentator Joe Klein as the anonymous author of Primary Colors, a satire of the 1992 Clinton campaign.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A2)
1996 Jul 16, Pres. Clinton waived for 6 months sanctions on Cuba that would have allowed US courts to sue foreign companies for the use of property confiscated by the Castro regime.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 16, An ambush in Algeria killed the former head of a militant Muslim group.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 16, Hong Kong authorities arrested a US immigration agent on charges of smuggling illegal immigrants through Central America. Jerry Wolf Stuchiner, a 19 year veteran, was found with forged Honduran passports at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport.
(SFC, 7/17/96, A7)
1996 Jul 16, Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko escaped an assassination attempt. He proceeded to the Donbass coalfields where 200,000 miners were on strike.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 17, Interior Sec. Bruce Babbitt signed an agreement to put 58 sq. miles of land in Orange county under a new Natural Community Conservation Planning program designed to protect entire ecosystems.
(SFC, 7/18/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 17, TWA flight 800 crashed off of Long Island, N.Y., shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport and 230 people died. It was a 25-year-old Paris-bound Boeing 747 whose previous flight had been from Greece. Later reports of a missile attack were tracked to a Navy P-3 Orion flying at 20,000 feet as opposed to the altitude of the Boeing at 13,600 feet. In 1997 the FBI issued a report that the disaster was caused by an explosion in the central fuel tank and was not the result of sabotage. In 2013 former investigators pushed to reopen the probe into the crash.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.A1)(SFC, 3/21/97, p.A7)(AP, 7/17/97)(SFC,11/19/97, p.A3)(SFC, 6/20/13, p.A7)
1996 Jul 17, Scientists discovered that the earth’s solid-iron core rotates 12 miles a year faster than the liquid-iron outer core. The inner core grows about an inch in radius every 50 years. A report was published in Nature.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.A1)(SFC, 7/18/96, p.A6)
1996 Jul 17, The Community of Portuguese-Speaking countries was formed. It included Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe. Leaders then held their first summit meeting.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.E6)
1996 Jul 17-Aug 30, US Special Forces trained Rwandan army soldiers in small-unit leader training, rifle marksmanship, first aid, land navigation and tactical skills.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A11)
1996 Jul 18, Recovery efforts continued off Long Island, N.Y., for the bodies of the 230 people who died in the fiery crash of TWA Flight 800; President Clinton urged Americans not to immediately assume the crash was the work of terrorists.
(AP, 7/18/97)
1996 Jul 18, In Sri Lanka 4,000 Tamil rebels overran a military base 175 miles NE of Colombo and overcame 1,200 defenders.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 19, The 26th summer Olympics opening ceremonies began in Atlanta, Georgia. The photo finish was computerized and in color for track and field events. Beach volleyball was inaugurated as an Olympic sport.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/19/97)(SFC, 8/23/04, p.C3)(NG, 8/04, Geographica)
1996 Jul 19, A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recommended, with some conditions, that the abortion-inducing drug RU-486 be approved.
(AP, 7/19/97)
1996 Jul 19, Bosnian Serb official Radovan Karadzic yielded to international pressure to give up all political power after negotiations led by US envoy Richard Holbrooke.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)(AP, 7/19/97)
1996 Jul 19, In China the Yangtze River threatened to burst its banks. Workers used 500 tons of rice in sacks to fill gaps in the banks. Millions were left homeless and 716 were reported dead.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 19, In Sri Lanka Tamil rebels sank an navy gunboat with 40 members. The Tigers claim to have killed 500 government soldiers at the Mullaitivu camp.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 20, At the Atlanta Olympics, Renata Mauer of Poland won the Games' first gold, in the 10-meter air rifle.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, In his weekly radio address, President Clinton paid tribute to America's Olympic athletes at the just-opened Atlanta games, as well as 16 high school students from Montoursville, Pa., who died in the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, A new sculpture museum was scheduled to open in Copan National Park, Honduras, with exhibits of Mayan work.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.25)
1996 Jul 20, In Spain the Basque separatist group ETA set off 3 bombs at tourist sites. One at the airport of Reus and 2 at the beach resorts of Cambrils and Salou.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.A18)
1996 Jul 20, In Uganda rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army abducted some 80 people, half of them students, 125 miles north of Kampala.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 21, There was a review of "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, a historical chronicle of the American punk-rock movement.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.B7)
1996 Jul 21, At the Atlanta Olympics, swimmer Tom Dolan gave the United States its first gold, in the 400-meter individual medley. The men's 800-meter freestyle relay team also won.
(AP, 7/21/97)
1996 Jul 21, Dozens of memorial services were held across the country to remember the 230 people killed in the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(AP, 7/21/97)
1996 Jul 21, It was reported that as many as 6,000 immigrants were naturalized as US citizens every month in SF.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.B1)
1996 Jul 21, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed 320 Tutsis, mostly women and children, at a refugee camp 45 miles north of the capital.
(WSJ, 7/22/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 21, Danish cyclist Bjarne Riis won the Tour de France. In 2007 he admitted to using performance enhancing drugs to win the race.
(WSJ, 5/26/07, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Tour_de_France)
1996 Jul 21, Thirteen pounds of explosives were hurled at the Hell’s Angel’s headquarters in Copenhagen. Their compound consists of 5 buildings surrounded by a 10-foot fence.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A13)
1996 Jul 22, Friends and families gathered on a Long Island, N.Y., beach for a tearful memorial service dedicated to the 230 victims of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(AP, 7/22/97)
1996 Jul 22, In Pakistan a bomb killed 9 at Lahore Int’l. airport in the Punjab province. It was the 13 bombing in the Punjab this year.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 23, At the Atlanta Olympics, Kerri Strug made a heroic final vault despite torn ligaments in her left ankle as the US women gymnasts clinched their first-ever Olympic team gold medal.
(AP, 7/23/01)
1996 Jul 23, The US Senate passed a welfare overhaul bill.
(AP, 7/23/01)
1996 Jul 23, In Toronto, a police officer was charged with criminal negligence in the shooting of a protester who became the first Canadian Indian in modern times killed in a land dispute with the government.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1996 Jul 23, Canadian researchers found a hormone, GLP-2, that stimulates growth of the lining of the small intestine.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.B6)
1996 Jul 23, Jessica Mitford (78), author of "The American Way of Death," died. The 1963 book was an expose of the funeral industry in the US. Her attorney husband, Robert Treuhaft, died in 2001. In 2001 Mary S. Lovell authored "The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family." In 2006 “Decca: The Letters of Jessica," edited by Peter Y. Sussman was published. In 2010 Leslie Brody authored “Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford."
(SFC, 6/30/96, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 11/12/01, p.A18)(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.M1)(SFC, 11/3/06, p.E9)(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.F7)
1996 Jul 24, Two bombs blamed on Tamil separatists ripped through a commuter train near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 64 civilians and wounding more than 400.
(WSJ, 7/25/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/24/97)
1996 Jul 24, it was reported that 3 prisoners in Turkey have died during a hunger strike by 1,900 inmates in 33 prisons. The protests were for government transfers of prisoners to remote locations and cancellation of visiting rights for political prisoners.
(WSJ, 7/25/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 25, Divers searching the wreckage of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, N.Y., recovered the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
(AP, 7/25/97)
1996 Jul 25, In Burundi the military seized power and named former president Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, as president. Hutu officials sought refuge in foreign embassies. Burundian Hutus fled to Zaire's South Kivu province, base of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy, an extremist Burundi Hutu movement backed by Zaire.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Jul 25, Mexico said it will repay $7 bil of the remaining $10.5 bil borrowed from the US Treasury, partly through a $6 bil issue of securities.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 26, Amy Van Dyken became the first American woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympics as she captured the 50-meter freestyle in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/26/97)
1996 Jul 26, President Clinton rejected a clemency plea from Jonathan Pollard, who'd spent more than 10 years in prison for spying for Israel.
(AP, 7/26/97)
1996 Jul 26, It was announced that researchers had devised a new small molecule that may be used in pill form to replace large molecules which up to now needed to be injected.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 26, Researchers announced the discovery of a gene, fosB, associated with infant care in mice.
(SFC, 7/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 26, UN sources said that 268 Hutu civilians were killed in Burundi’s Gitega province. The Tutsi army said Hutu rebels attacked a coffee factory in Giheta.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 27, The Santa Fe Opera premiered "Emmeline" by Tobias Picker. It was based on a novel by Judith Rossner.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A10)(www.current.org/prog613.html)
1996 Jul 27, American Gail Devers won the women's 100-meter dash.
(AP, 7/27/97)
1996 Jul 27, A pipe bomb was set off at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. One person, Alice Stubbs Hawthorne (44), was killed and 111 injured. Eric Rudolph was later charged with the bombing. He was arrested May 31, 2003. Rudolph later pleaded guilty to the bombing.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1,3)(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A10)(SSFC, 6/1/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/27/08)
1996 Jul 27, The cruise ship Universe Explorer caught fire in Alaska’s Inside Passage and 5 crew members were killed and 76 people injured.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 27, Lee Lescaze, journalist and editor, died of cancer. In 2007 Lynn Darling, his widow, authored “Necessary Sins," a chronicle of their life together.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.P9)(www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-797868.html)
1996 Jul 27, A ship carrying 69 people sank in the Indian Ocean off the Comoro islands near the island of Mali. 5 survivors were found.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 27, In Burundi a Tutsi-led army killed at least 30 Hutu rebels in retaliation for an attack on a coffee plantation. Independent sources said that Hutus set fire to the factory and rice plantation in Giheta to justify a retaliatory attack on villages where Hutu rebels were thought to have taken refuge. Villagers said Tutsi soldiers massacred about 1,000 Hutus as they roamed from village to village in Gitega province.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 27, In Indonesia soldiers raided the headquarters of Megawati Sukarnoputri. They arrested 176 people and riots followed with 2 dead and 26 injured.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 28, President Clinton, addressing a veterans convention in New Orleans, called on Congress to pass expanded anti-terrorism measures.
(AP, 7/28/97)
1996 Jul 28, Federal investigators reported "very good leads" in the hunt for the Olympic bomber, a day after the explosion in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/28/97)
1996 Jul 28, Roger Tory Peterson (b.1908), artist and ornithologist, died. His 1934 book, “A Field Guide to the Birds," revolutionized the study and appreciation of birds in America. In 2008 Douglas Carlson authored “Roger Tory Peterson."
(WSJ, 3/1/08, p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Tory_Peterson)
1996 Jul 28, In Kashmir, India, a guard shot at 2 people who refused to move a motor scooter and a bomb exploded that killed 6 and wounded 17 near the headquarters of a Muslim group.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 28, In the Philippines typhoon Gloria struck and killed at least 39 people on Luzon and left 16 missing.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 28, Turkey reached an agreement with prisoners to end a hunger strike after 12 inmates died. Elsewhere soldiers clashed with Kurds and 16 died along with 28 Kurdish rebels.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D4)
1996 Jul 29, At the Atlanta Olympics, Carl Lewis won the gold medal in the long jump, becoming only the fifth Olympian to win gold medals in four straight games. Michael Johnson won the 400-meter dash, Allen Johnson the 110-meter hurdles.
(AP, 7/29/97)
1996 Jul 29, China held a nuclear test explosion that it promised would be its last, just hours before international negotiators in Geneva began discussing a global ban on such testing. Beijing said it would seek some changes in the global test-ban treaty currently being fashioned by negotiators.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/29/97)
1996 Jul 29, In Kashmir, India, a grenade exploded in a Muslim shrine that killed 2 and injured some 100 people.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 30, The U.S. Olympic softball team defeated China, 3-1, to win the gold medal.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1996 Jul 30, A federal law enforcement source said security guard Richard Jewell had become a focus of the investigation into the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park. Jewell was later cleared as a suspect, and Eric Rudolph eventually pleaded guilty.
(AP, 7/30/06)
1996 Jul 30, Claudette Colbert, actress in many classic films, died in Barbados at 92.
(AP, 7/30/97)(WSJ, 7/31/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 31, After Pres. Clinton's announcement that he would sign it, 98 Democrats joined the House's Republican majority to pass a historic welfare overhaul bill. The White House won agreement with key Republican lawmakers on a package of anti-terrorism measures.
(AP, 7/31/06)
1996 Jul 31, Mahmoud Jumayal died under interrogation by the Palestinian security forces. He was the 8th in 2 years.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A8,10)
1996 Jul 31, In South Africa rush-hour crowds panicked when guards used electric prods to drive off fare-beaters. At least 15 died and 65 were injured in a stampede.
(WSJ, 8/1/96 p.A1)
1996 Jul, James Fallows, author of "Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy," was named the editor of U.S. News.
(WSJ, 9/9/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul, In Nevada Bruce Weinstein, a professional gambler, was killed in his bed. His decomposed body was found a month later in the desert. His girlfriend, Amy DeChant, was charged in the crime. She was found in Florida in 1998 hiding at the Sunnier Days nudist camp.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3,5)
1996 Jul, A 9,300 year-old skeleton was found by the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wa. It became known as the "Kennewick Man" or "Richland Man." A federal judge ruled in 1998 that scientists be allowed to examine the remains held by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Native American Indians wanted the remains buried.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.B9)(SFC, 5/29/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/14/00, p.A7)
1996 Jul, In Sydney Ivan Milat (b.1944), Australian outdoorsman, was jailed for life for murdering seven backpackers. Milat killed three Germans, two Britons and two Australians between 1989 and 1992. Their bodies were later found in shallow graves in a remote forest southwest of Sydney.
(http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Ivan-Milat)(AP, 1/27/09)
1996 Jul, In Bangladesh Grameen CyberNet went live and offered Net connections to dialup customers in Dhaka.
(Wired, 2/98, p.67)
1996 Jul, In Colombia right-wing paramilitary forces under Carlos Castanos began kidnapping the family members of left-wing guerrillas.
(SFC, 3/26/97, p.C2)
1996 Jul, In Egypt female circumcision was banned but the prohibition was not incorporated into the penal code.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Jul, In France Caroline Dickinson, a 13-year-old British girl, was raped and strangled at a youth hostel in the town of Pleine-Fougeres. In 1997 a DNA test was planned to be performed on volunteers of the 170 young men in the town who fit an age profile of the murderer.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A8)
1996 Jul, In India 21 lower-caste villagers were gunned down in Bihar by gunmen of Ranbir Sena.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A11)
1996 Jul, In Mexico the Congress passed constitutional amendments designed to control fraud and reduce the advantage of the PRI.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul, The Nicaraguan Sandinista Front’s Miami office was firebombed.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A12)
1996 Aug 1, In a political victory for President Clinton, a federal jury in Little Rock, Ark., acquitted two Arkansas bankers of misapplying bank funds and conspiracy to boost his political career; the jury deadlocked on seven other counts.
(AP, 8/1/97)
1996 Aug 1, At the Atlanta Olympics, Michael Johnson broke his world track record by more than three-tenths of a second, winning the 200 meters in 19.32 seconds.
(AP, 8/1/97)
1996 Aug 1, In Kazakhstan doctors warned of a surge in TB when 56,000 prisoners are released under a government amnesty. It was estimated that 16,500 prisoners had the disease.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 1, It was reported that 1/5 of China’s river water can no longer be used to irrigate land.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 1, In Somalia Mohamed Farrah Aidid died from wounds in a gun battle with a faction headed by his brother. General Muhammad Aideed (Mohamed Aidid) had employed a printing press to reproduce the country’s 1,000 shillings note. The value of the note fell from $.13 to $.03, or about the cost of producing an additional note. Forging stopped as the profit margin disappeared.
(www.cnn.com/WORLD/9608/02/aideed/)(Econ, 4/21/12, p.22)
1996 Aug 1, In Venezuela the tax authorities increased the general sales tax to 16.5% from 12.5%. There has been a 108% rate of inflation over the last 12 months. Transparency Int’l., a Berlin base nongovernmental anticorruption organization, rated Venezuela as the most corrupt country in the Western hemisphere.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A11)
1996 Aug 2, Wall Street investors, worried about possible interest rate increases, roared their approval after the government reported that unemployment was creeping higher, consumer spending had slipped and manufacturing may have stalled.
(AP, 8/2/97)
1996 Aug 2, In Somalia Mohamed Farrah Aidid was buried after dying from wounds received during fighting in Mogadishu. Followers named his son, Hussein, as their new leader.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 3, At the Atlanta Olympics, the U.S. men's 400-meter relay, without Carl Lewis, failed to win the gold medal, finishing behind Canada. The American women's 400 and 1,600 relay teams, and the men's 1,600, all won gold. The U.S. men's basketball team beat Yugoslavia 95-69 to win the gold.
(AP, 8/3/97)
1996 Aug 3, In Denmark a Gulfstream jet crashed and killed Copenhagen’s top military officer and 8 others as it approached a Faroe Islands airstrip.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 3-4, In Malaysia there was a nationwide power blackout that lasted 16 hours in some areas.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A5c)
1996 Aug 3-4, Sri Lanka’s military said it killed some 200 Tamil separatist rebels in a weekend battle. Rebels said 100 government soldiers were killed. Both sides denied the others claims.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 4, On the final day of the Atlanta Olympics, Josia Thugwane became the first black South African to win a gold medal as he finished first in the marathon; the U.S. women's basketball team defeated Brazil 111-87 to win the gold; David Reid won the only boxing gold medal for the United States. A three-hour closing ceremony of music, dance and light, attended by at least 80,000 people, brought the games to an official close with a final ceremony.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/4/97)
1996 Aug 4, In San Francisco the Cannabis Buyer’s Club at 1444 Market St. was raided by agents of the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement.
(SFC, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 5, In a bold bid to capture a skeptical public's attention, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole proposed a $548 billion tax cut.
(AP, 8/5/97)
1996 Aug 5, US Pres. Clinton signed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act. It held that foreign companies with investments of more than $40 million in the oil and gas sectors of these nations to be subject to US imposed sanctions.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 5, A jury in San Jose, Calif., recommended the death penalty for Richard Allen Davis, convicted of kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/5/97)
1996 Aug 5, "Divided They Fell: The Demise of the Democratic Party, 1964-1996" by Ronald Radosh was reviewed.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 5, In Chechnya rebels began a new raid and seized much of Grozny by the next day.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 6, Officials announced the Air Force had punished 16 officers in connection with the crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others the previous April.
(AP, 8/6/97)
1996 Aug 6, The US Naval Academy at Annapolis expelled 15 midshipmen, 12 men and 3 women, for drug use that included LSD and marijuana.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A3)
1996 Aug 6, GE Capital said it would purchase First Colony in an $11 billion deal, one of the biggest in the insurance industry.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Aug 6, NASA scientists presented evidence that a meteorite from Mars (ALH 84001) that was found in Antarctica in 1984 contained organic minerals such as carbonate globules, magnetite, iron sulfide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. In 2001 Imre Friedmann (1921-2007), extreme microbiologist, led a team of researchers to study the same meteorite and claimed conclusive evidence that Mars had been teeming with life 3.5 billion years ago. Researchers in 2007 said the organic material in the rock was made by chemical reactions.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A6)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.96)(Econ, 12/15/07, p.90)
1996 Aug 7, More than 6 million American Online customers worldwide were left stranded when the system crashed for almost 19 hours.
(AP, 8/7/97)
1996 Aug 7, There was a report that cervical cancer in women was linked to the human papilloma virus (HPV). There is an estimated 75 different strains of HPV and that 97% of cervical cancers were due to the virus and commonly spread by sexual intercourse.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A5)
1996 Aug 7, NASA researchers formally presented their case for the existence of life long ago on Mars. [see Aug 6]
(AP, 8/7/01)
1996 Aug 7, The presidents of Serbia and Croatia agreed to establish diplomatic relations.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A11)
1996 Aug 7, In Honduras the attorney general accused the army of spying on thousands of public officials, judges, politicians and journalists.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 7, In Russia communist leader Gennady Zyuganov was elected to lead a coalition of Communists and nationalists under the banner of the Popular Patriotic Union.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 7, In Spain flash floods at a Pyrenees mountain campsite killed at least 71 [86] people at a campground.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/7/97)
1996 Aug 8, President Clinton belittled Bob Dole's tax plan, vowing to oppose tax cuts that he said the country couldn't afford. Republican sources, meanwhile, said Dole was seriously considering Jack Kemp to be his running mate.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1996 Aug 8, Sir Neville Mott (1906-1996), who shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in physics with Philip Anderson and John van Vleck for research on the behavior of electricity in non-crystalline or so-called "disordered" materials, died in London.
(SFC, 8/11/96, p.D5)
1996 Aug 8, Medical researchers successfully cured patients with sickle-cell anemia by using a risky bone-marrow transplant technique.
(WSJ, 7/8/96,p.A1)
1996 Aug 8, In Cambodia the government announced an internal power struggle and split in the Khmer Rouge. Leng Sary, a Pol Pot chum and the Khmer Rouge foreign minister, opposed Son Sen, the minister of defense and led defections that grew to 10,000.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A13)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 4/17/98, p.A13)
1996 Aug 8, Food poisoning due to E. coli bacteria in the city of Sakai, Japan, was attributed to radish sprouts.
(WSJ, 7/8/96,p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, In Jacksonville, Fla., a jury held the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Co. liable for the lung cancer of Grady Carter and awarded damages of $750,000.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, Bob Dole telephoned Jack Kemp to ask him to be his running mate; Kemp accepted.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1996 Aug 9, Frank A. Whittle (89), inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(www.allstar.fiu.edu/aerojava/whittle.htm)
1996 Aug 9, In Burundi suspected Hutu rebels killed 22 in Cibitoke province.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, Gambia voters approved a new constitution that gave army ruler Yahya Jammeh the mandate to hold elections.
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 9, In India there was an incident of food poisoning caused by Clostridium botulinum. 106 people fell ill and 6 died after eating at a canteen in the town of Bhiwandi, 80 miles north of Bombay. Seeds from a poisonous weed also became suspect.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A20)(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, A weary-looking Boris Yeltsin was sworn into his second term as president of Russia.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1996 Aug 9, Pyotr Karpov, a Russian deputy agent in declaring whether state-owned firms should be declared bankrupt, was charged with taking bribes in 1994 in Saratov. He was arrested 2 weeks ago and sent to prison in Saratov.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Aug 10, US Sen. Bob Dole completed the Republican ticket by announcing former housing secretary Jack Kemp as his running mate.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/10/97)
1996 Aug 10, Cascading power outages hit parts of nine Western states. [3:40 p.m. PST]
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A10)(AP, 8/10/97)
1996 Aug 10, In Tijuana, Mexico, gunmen kidnapped a Japanese businessmen, Mamoru Konno of Sanyo Video, and held him for $2 mil ransom. He was found released on Aug 19 after payment of the ransom.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A10) (SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 10, In the Philippines Mount Canlaon erupted and killed 3 climbers. The mountain was one of 21 active volcanoes in the Philippines.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 11, The Reform Party opened the first part of its two-stage convention in Long Beach, Calif., with Ross Perot and Richard Lamm battling for the presidential nod.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1996 Aug 11, It was reported that a Greek Cypriot man was killed and 41 injured in a border clash, after Greek Cypriot motorcyclists defied orders to halt a rode across the line to protest Turkey’s 1974 invasion.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 11, In Indonesia Budiman Sujatmiko, leader of the unauthorized People’s Democratic Party, was one of ten people arrested. The government was considering charges of subversion.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 11, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin appointed Alexander Lebed as his pres. envoy to Chechnya.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 11, In Turkey the prime minister approved an agreement to buy $20 billion of natural gas from Iran over 22 years.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 11, Rafael Jeronym Kubelik (b.1914), conductor, died at age 82. He led the Czech Philharmonic from 1941 to 1948 and the Chicago Symphony from 1050-1953. He was then musical director at London’s Covent Garden opera house and from 1961-1979 headed the Munich orchestra of Bavarian Radio. He was the son of Czech violinist Jan Kubelik.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.C5)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9046338)
1996 Aug 12, The Republican Party opened its 36th national convention in San Diego by celebrating Bob Dole as a tested, trustworthy leader who would lower taxes and bring compassionate conservatism to the White House.
(AP, 8/12/97)
1996 Aug 12, "Inequality by Design," due out in one month, was reviewed. It was produced as a counter to the arguments of "The Bell Curve" and holds that social policies, not IQ, are the main reasons for inequality.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A2)
1996 Aug 12, Mark Gruenwald, the editor of Marvel Comics, died at 42. He requested that his ashes be mixed with ink and used to print a comic book. In 1997 his 12-comic series of 1985, "Squadron Supreme," was re-issued in one volume in a 4,000 copy printing according to his request.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A15)
1996 Aug 12, Stephen Kuttner (1907-1996), Prof. of medieval church law, died. His life study involved tracing the evolution of law from Roman to modern times.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C4)
1996 Aug 12, In Argentina economy minister Roque Fernandez announced a new round of austerity measures that included higher fuel prices and tax boosts on everything. Cash will be raised by selling commercial airports, military installations, nuclear power plants and cracking down on tax-evasion.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Aug 12, On the shores of Australia’s Cocos and North Keeling Islands thousands of thongs (flip-flops) have been washing up on the shore as discards from Indonesia.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.B1)
1996 Aug 12, Iran and Turkey agreed to connect their power networks.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Aug 12, In Somalia it was reported that 2 Ethiopian businessmen were killed in retaliation for an incursion by Ethiopia’s army.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 12, In Rwanda the Tutsi-led parliament passed a law allowing for trials of some 80,000 people on charges of genocide in the deaths of 500,000 people in 1994.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 13, At their convention in San Diego, Republicans delivered a blistering critique of President Clinton's record, portraying the Democratic incumbent as an unprincipled liberal conning voters with election-year conservatism.
(AP, 8/13/97)
1996 Aug 13, Mary Higgins Clark, suspense writer, signed a 3-book contract with Simon & Schuster for $3 mil per book.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.B2)
1996 Aug 13, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0.
(http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release33.html)
1996 Aug 13, In Belgium Marc Dutroux, on parole following rape charges, was arrested for kidnapping and the murder of 2 girls. In 2004 he was convicted of kidnapping and murder. His wife and 2 accomplices were also convicted.
(AP, 6/17/04)
1996 Aug 13, In Burundi the last 2 commercial flights left the country as the outside world tightened sanctions to punish the new military regime.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 13, In South Africa Nadthmie Edries, leader of a group called People Against Gangsterism, was charged with sedition in connection with the vigilante slaying of a drug-gang leader.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 13, In Spain at Perpignan a gang of masked men stole $800,000 in Spanish pesetas from the cargo hold of an Air France plane.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 14, The Republican National Convention in San Diego nominated Bob Dole for president and Jack Kemp for vice president in an evening that featured a talk-show-style testimonial by Elizabeth Dole, who strolled the convention floor with a wireless microphone.
(AP, 8/14/97)
1996 Aug 14, Sergiu Celibidache (84), Romanian conductor (would not use recording studio), died in France.
(www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Celibidache-Sergiu.htm)
1996 Aug 14, In Cyprus another man was killed in demonstrations when Turkish troops opened fire on Greek Cypriot demonstrators.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 14, In India police arrested a kitchen worker in a food-poisoning incident that traced to poisonous seeds.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 14, An impasse on the nuclear test ban treaty was reached when India refused to sign on the basis that there was no commitment by the 5 acknowledged nuclear powers to a timetable for disarmament.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 14, Iraq and Turkey signed an agreement to improve political and economic ties.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C3)
1996 Aug 14, In Mongolia officials sealed off parts of Ulan Bator to halt an outbreak of cholera.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 14, In Peru, 35 people were electrocuted when a stray rocket during a fireworks show knocked down a high-tension line.
(AP, 8/14/97)
1996 Aug 14, In Russian Yeltsin gave security chief Lebed the authority to control and coordinate the operations of the army, Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service and other agencies in Chechnya.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 15, Bob Dole claimed the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in San Diego, offering himself as the "bridge to a time of tranquility" and describing himself as "the most optimistic man in America." Jack Kemp became the Republican Party vice-presidential nominee.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/15/97)
1996 Aug 15, A botulism outbreak began killing birds at the Salton Sea in California. The sea is 278 feet below sea level and is now 10% more salty than the Pacific Ocean. Extensive pollution with sewage from Mexico and pesticides from farms in the Coachella valley plague the big lake.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.D8)(SFC, 9/3/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 15, Frederick Davidson, a graduate student at San Diego State University, shot and killed three engineering professors; he was later sentenced to three life terms in prison.
(AP, 8/15/97)
1996 Aug 15, In Algeria armed militants killed 17 passengers on a bus using a fake police barricade on a remote highway.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 15, In Belgium two kidnapped girls were rescued by police just days following the arrest of Marc Doutroux. [see Aug 13]
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A14)
1996 Aug 15, In Nigeria 27 of the 30 governors were sacked by Sani Abacha. The other 3 were transferred to other states.
(WSJ, 8/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 15, In South Korea some 6,000 police clashed with 7,000 students who protested for reunification with North Korea and the removal of 37,000 US troops.
(SFC, 8/16/96, p.A17)
1996 Aug 16, A jubilant Bob Dole set out from the Republican convention, promoting his tax-cut plan as a boon to working families.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1996 Aug 16, The brokerage firm E*Trade Group went public and saw its shares rise 7.1% on its first day of trading.
(WSJ, 11/13/07, p.A21)
1996 Aug 16, In Brookfield, Ill., a 3-year-old boy fell 15-feet into a concrete area of a zoo’s gorilla exhibit and was rescued by Binti-jua, a 7-year-old gorilla with her own 2-year-old on her back.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A3)(MC, 8/16/02)
1996 Aug 16, Eric Nesbitt (21), an airman at Langley AFB, was shot and killed after he was abducted and forced to withdraw money from an ATM machine by Daryl R. Atkins and another man. Atkins scored 59 on an IQ test in 1998, below the Virginia cut-off of 70 for retardation. In 2002 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. In 2004 Atkins scored 74 and faced another trial. In 2005 a jury found Atkins to be mentally competent.
(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.A9)(SFC, 8/6/05, p.A4)(www.vuac.org/capital/row.html)
1996 Aug 16, Dominican Rep. Pres. Balaguer left office. Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna (b. 1953), a 42-year-old lawyer who grew up in New York City, was the 100th president of the Dominican Republic. He replaced Joaquín Amparo Balaguer Ricardo (1906-2002), President of the Dominican Republic from 1960 to 1962, from 1966 to 1978, and again from 1986-1996.
(SFC, 11/25/96, p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Balaguer)
1996 Aug 16, In Mexico Attorney General Antonio Lozano fired 734 members of the Mexico City judicial police in an attempt to reform the drug-fighting force. Police official Jesus Carolla, was on the list, but resigned before being fired.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A14)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C3)
1996 Aug 17, The Reform Party in Valley Forge, Pa., announced Ross Perot had won its nomination to be its first-ever presidential candidate.
(SFC, 8/18/96, p.A10)(AP, 8/17/97)
1996 Aug 17, An Air Force C-130 cargo plane carrying gear for President Clinton crashed and exploded shortly after takeoff from Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming; eight crew members and a Secret Service employee were killed.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/17/97)
1996 Aug 17, In Algeria more than 100 militants shot, stabbed and hacked to death some 63 people when they attacked 2 busses after setting a fake barricade. The government denied the report.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 17, In Brussels, Belgium, police led by Marc Dutroux unearthed the remains of two 8-year-old girls kidnapped in June of 1995.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A14)
1996 Aug 17, The first French woman in space, Claudie Andre-Deshays, took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz-U rocket.
(SFC, 8/18/96, p.A2)
1996 Aug 17, It was reported that 900 million South African bees died this year. The Cape bees were introduced in the north and threw off the breeding patterns of the native bees. They were unable to endure the harsher climate and died. Fruit farmers and native plants were put into severe jeopardy.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 17, It was reported that tens of thousands of dead rats were caught in fisherman’s nets in India’s northeast Assam state. It was speculated that a rare poisonous bamboo flower was the cause.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 17, In Mexico federal prosecutor, Jesus Romero Magana (48), was killed. He was the first prosecutor to interrogate the gunman who killed Luis Colosio, the pres. candidate in 1994.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(SFC, 9/16/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 18, "Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs" by Michael Novacek was reviewed. It told of the author’s work as a fossil hunter in the Mongolian valley of Ukhaa Tolgod.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.5)
1996 Aug 18, "Where Wizards stay Up Late, The Origins of the Internet" by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon was reviewed.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.3)
1996 Aug 18, The film "The Spitfire Grill" with Ellen Burstyn was the most popular movie at the Sundance Film Festival. It was produced by a religious group, Gregory Productions, owned by the Mississippi-based Sacred Heart League.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, PM p. 2)
1996 Aug 18, On the eve of his 50th birthday, President Clinton was guest of honor at a trio of events in New York that combined celebrating with fund-raising. Ross Perot, the presidential nominee of the Reform Party, launched his campaign with a speech in which he criticized the Republican and Democratic parties as captives of special interests.
(AP, 8/18/97)
1996 Aug 18, In Pakistan 18 people were killed when 7 masked gunmen opened fire on a group of Shiite worshipers in central Punjab province. 100 were injured. The militant Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba, or Guardians of the Friends of the prophet were blamed.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 18, In South Korea police cut off food and medicine to students and raided the offices of the largest student organization.
(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 19, Ralph Nader accepted the presidential nomination of the Green Party in Los Angeles, denouncing tax breaks for corporations and calling for a "political alternative" to the two mainstream parties.
(AP, 8/19/97)
1996 Aug 19, A judge sentenced former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker to four years' probation for his Whitewater crimes.
(AP, 8/19/97)
1996 Aug 19, In Canberra, Australia, protestors stormed the parliament in opposition to changes in labor laws and proposed budget cuts to reduce the nation’s debt.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 19, In Haiti about 20 former soldiers attacked the Port-au-Prince police headquarters. One person, a shoeshine man, was killed and several injured.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 19, Jordan’s King Hussein said 2 days of rioting over higher bread prices was quelled.
(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 19, A Russian Ilyushin-76 carrying rescue flares and car wheels destined for Libya crashed at Belgrade’s airport and killed all 12 aboard.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 20, Pres. Clinton signed the federal minimum wage bill for an increase of .90 cents per hour in two steps to $5.15 per hour over 13 months. It was the first minimum-wage increase in five years. The bill included a $5,000 tax credit for the cost of adopting a child. He also signed a new retirement savings program for small-business workers.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A3)(AP, 8/20/97)
1996 Aug 20, Susan McDougal was sentenced in Little Rock, Ark., to two years in prison in a Whitewater fraud case. She served three months of that sentence, but also 18 months for contempt for refusing to answer questions about President Clinton.
(AP, 8/20/06)
1996 Aug 20, In Germany officials arrested 2 businessmen suspected of smuggling computer technology to Libya that could be used to make lethal nerve gas.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 20, In Burundi Pierre Buyoya sacked his army chief, Jean Bikomagu, who was implicated in the 1993 assassination of the first Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye. He also fired 2 more powerful military officers.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E5)
1996 Aug 20, In Haiti two conservative politicians were killed in drive-by shootings.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 21, President Clinton signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, aimed at making health insurance easier to obtain and keep.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.A3)(AP, 8/21/97)
1996 Aug 21, Today’s issue of Science reported the 1,738 gene sequence of the organism Methanococcus jannaschii that oceanographers in 1982 found in an undersea volcanic vent and later classified as Archaea, distinct from Prokarya and Eukarya.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A21)
1996 Aug 21, In Australia rescuers worked to save some 200 pilot whales on the southwestern coast near Dunsborough. Most were herded to sea but 14 died.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Aug 21, It was reported that police in Oulu, Finland have come up with a 3-foot harpoon to stop runaway drivers. The harpoon could also release tear gas if necessary.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 21, In France thousands marched in support of illegal immigrants and called for the removal of newly appointed Interior Minister Jean Louis-Debre.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E2)
1996 Aug 21, In Nepal the Communists called a general strike against the center-right government.
(WSJ, 8/22/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 21, In Vietnam, The Red River flooded to its worst level since 1971 and hundreds were forced to evacuate.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Aug 22, Pres. Clinton signed a welfare reform bill, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (welfare to work), to curtail fraud and abuse that also set new standards for disabled children and ended up eliminating many from supplemental security income. It ended guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanded work from recipients. It originated in the 1994 Republican "Contract with America." It included a ban on free federal medical care for new green-card holders during their 1st 5 years. The bill included “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families" (TANF), which replaced welfare.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A1,17)(AP, 8/22/97)(WSJ, 11/20/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 8/29/01, p.A1)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.46)
1996 Aug 22, The US Army began operating an incinerator in Utah to destroy a 14,000 ton stockpile of chemical weapons over 7 years.
(WSJ, 8/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 22, In Bahrain new environmental anti-pollution laws went into effect.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Aug 22, Neo-Nazi Gary Lauck of the US was sentenced to 4 years in prison in Germany for supplying hate literature and paraphernalia for 2 decades.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 23, President Clinton imposed limits on peddling cigarettes to children as he unveiled Food and Drug Administration regulations declaring nicotine an addictive drug. The same day, a jury in Indianapolis found cigarette companies were not responsible for the lung cancer death of a 52-year-old lawyer who began smoking at age 5.
(AP, 8/23/97)
1996 cAug 23, The Nation of Islam applied to the US Treasury Dept. for permission to accept a $1 bil donation from Col. Moammar Gadhafi that was promised to Rev. Louis Farrakhan in Jan. to help America’s black people.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 23, It was reported that British Petroleum signed a 3-year agreement with the defense ministry of Colombia for $60 mil. for a battalion of soldiers to protect expansion and construction of new drilling sites.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A20)
1996 Aug 24, Four women began two days of academic orientation at The Citadel; they were the first female cadets admitted to the South Carolina military school since Shannon Faulkner.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1996 Aug 24, Steve Fossett sailed across the Pacific Ocean and set a solo speed record of 20 days in his 60-foot 3-hulled boat, the Lakota.
(SFC, 8/25/96, p.B6)
1996 Aug 24, In Mozambique crops in the fertile districts of Manica were severely damaged by an invasion of red locusts.
(SFC, 8/24/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 24, In North Korea American Evan Carl Hunzike was arrested for spying. He entered illegally from China to get information on the domestic situation.
(SFEC, 10/7/96, A8)
1996 Aug 25, President Clinton began a whistle-stop train trip in Huntington, W.Va., that would take him to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/25/97)
1996 Aug 25, In China Dai Houying, novelist, and her niece were knifed to death in Shanghai during an apparent robbery. A former chef was later tried, convicted and sentenced to death for the murders.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.E5)(SFC, 10/19/96, A12)
1996 Aug 26, There was a review of Public Television’s new program "Adventures from the Book of Virtues" based on the anthology by William J. Bennett "The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories."
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 26, Democrats opened their 42nd national convention in Chicago.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A4)(AP, 8/26/97)
1996 Aug 26, A new fake fat, Z-trim, was announced. It was developed by a researcher of the US Dept. of Agriculture.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 26, Barbara Jewell, mother of security guard Richard Jewell, tearfully called on President Clinton to clear her son's name in connection with the Centennial Olympic Park bombing (Jewell was later cleared by the Justice Department).
(AP, 8/26/97)
1996 Aug 26, Alexander Lanusse, military president of Argentina (1971-73), died.
(http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Alejandro+Agust%edn+Lanusse)
1996 Aug 26, A Cuban court convicted fugitive U.S. financier Robert Vesco of economic crimes. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for economic crimes against the state.
(AP, 8/26/97)(SFC, 8/27/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 26, In Seoul, South Korea, former Pres. Chun Doo Hwan was sentenced to death for mutiny, treason and corruption. His successor, Roh Tae Woo, was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. Nine leading businessman were also convicted. They included Lee Kin Hee, chairman of Samsung Group, and Kim Woo Choong, chairman of Daewoo Group.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 26, In Sierra Leone rebels killed 31 villagers and 7 soldiers in the eastern village of Foindu.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)(AP, 8/26/97)
1996 Aug 26, In South Africa Eugene de Kock, former police colonel, was found guilty of 5 counts of murder. He still face 116 charges that included 3 for murder.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 27, First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed the Democratic convention in Chicago, forcefully making her husband's case for re-election while rebutting her Republican critics.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1996 Aug 27, California Gov. Pete Wilson signed an executive order aimed at halting state benefits to illegal immigrants.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1996 Aug 27, In Indianapolis 4 police officers engaged in a fight outside the city’s Circle Center mall. They were off duty and had just consumed a large amount of beer in the city’s luxury suite at a ball game. They were later tried for battery, disorderly conduct and public intoxication but the 1997 trial ended in a hung jury.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A7)
1996 Aug 27, WorldCom announced the acquisition of MFS Communications in a $12.4 billion deal. WorldCom was formerly LDDS Communications and had gone public this month.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(WSJ, 5/1/02, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, Actor Greg Morris ("Mission: Impossible") was found dead at his Las Vegas home; he was 61.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1996 Aug 27, In Bosnia the municipal elections scheduled for Sep 14 were cancelled by the American diplomat Robert Frowick due to widespread abuse of rules and regulations.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, The last Rwandan refugee camp in Burundi closed.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 27, In India plans were made to amend the 1948 electricity laws to allow private companies to enter the transmission sector and help shoulder the investment needed to satisfy demand.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 27, Seven Iraqis freed their 184 captives aboard a Sudanese airliner at the London airport and asked for political asylum.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, Israeli police tore down a youth center in Jerusalem’s Old City saying that it was illegally built with money from Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, In Norway the 29 stave churches (1100-1400AD) left were under government protection and threatened by arsonists of a Satanic movement.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Aug 27, Russian and Chechen military commanders signed the Khasavyurt Accords, an agreement for military disengagement.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)(USAT, 9/2/04, p.13A)
1996 Aug 27, South Korea was reported to be the world’s 11th largest economy and America’s 5th largest trading partner.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 27, The 450,000 strong army of Turkey was the largest in NATO and the only one that was exclusively Muslim.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 28, Democrats nominated President Clinton for a second term at their national convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1996 Aug 28, The UN introduced the first world archive of prehistoric and primitive art with more than 20,000 computerized images. The World Archive of Rock Art will be curated by the Camuno Center for Prehistoric Art based in the Alpine town of Capo di Ponte.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.B5)
1996 Aug 28, "Florence: A Portrait," a book by Michael Levey, was reviewed. It was discussed as an interpretive history of Medici patronage.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 28, The troubled 15-year marriage of Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially ended with the issuing of a divorce decree in London’s High Court. Under the terms of the divorce settlement, Diana was stripped of her ‘Royal Highness’ title.
(AP, 8/28/97)(HTNet, 8/28/99)
1996 Aug 28, China accused the US of aiding Taiwanese separatism by selling Stinger antiaircraft missiles and other weapons to the Taipei government.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 28, In China Mou Qizhong, head of the Land Economic Group, was being pressured by the government to repay up to $50 million in overdue loans. He was also the proponent for listing China’s 13,700 large state-owned enterprises on the New York Stock Exchange. However the state has a minimum 7.65% upfront payment law to take 51% control of a joint venture.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A1,4)
1996 Aug 28, In Mexico the EPR struck at government targets in 6 states and left at least 6 dead and 28 injured.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 28, In Poland Agnieszka Kotlarska, fashion model, was knifed and killed by a thief outside her home.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 28, South Africa announced an investigation into the killings that have left 25 miners dead in the recent weeks at 4 gold fields.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 29, In a rousing climax to the Democratic convention in Chicago, President Clinton appealed for a second term, declaring, "Hope is back in America." The convention also nominated Al Gore for a second term as vice president. Earlier in the day, President Clinton's chief political strategist, Dick Morris, resigned amid a scandal over his relationship with a prostitute.
(AP, 8/29/97)
1996 Aug 29, A Russian Tupelov 154 plane with 141 passengers crashed on a desolate arctic island 6 miles from Spitsbergen where they were returning to jobs in a Russian-run coal mine.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 29, Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader chose Winona LaDuke as his running mate.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A3)
1996 Aug 29, Researchers reported that gene therapy was used to halt the growth of some cancer tumors. The therapy centered on the p53 gene, which regulates the speed of cell division.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A1,15)
1996 Aug 29, Japanese authorities arrested Dr. Takeshi Abe, a hemophilia expert, who headed a government panel on AIDS in the 1980s when some 1,800 hemophiliacs were infected with AIDS after using blood-clotting agents contaminated with the AIDS virus. He had failed to recommend a heat treatment for the products more than 2 years after such treatment was approved in the US.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 29, Yasser Arafat called for a 4-hour general strike in Palestine in opposition to Israeli political actions.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 29-1996 Aug 30, In SF, Ca., dancers from the North Beach Lusty Lady Club voted on union representation with the Service Employees International Union, Local 790. The vote passed 57 to 15. The contract was ratified Apr 10, 1997.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A15)(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A17)(SFC, 4/11/97, p.A19)
1996 Aug 30, President Clinton and Vice President Gore, fresh from their renominations at the just-concluded Democratic National Convention in Chicago, set out with their wives on a bus caravan through America's heartland.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1996 Aug 30, A commercial expedition to raise part of the sunken British luxury liner Titanic ended in failure as nylon lines being used to lift a 21-ton section of the hull snapped, sending the section back to the bottom of the North Atlantic.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1996 Aug 30, The US State Dept. sent a diplomatic note to China protesting the sale of equipment for use in nuclear facilities in Pakistan.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A12)
1996 Aug 30, Dick Morris, the campaign strategist for pres. Bill Clinton, resigned due to exposure in a sex scandal.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 30, The California Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Wilson that would mandate chemical castration of child molesters.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 30, In Colombia the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARQ) guerrillas attacked the army at the Las Delicias military base in Putumayo province. They captured 60 soldiers and killed 30 others. The 12,000 FARQ have gained income by collecting commissions on coca leaf harvests.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A9)
1996 Aug 30, In Libya, Louis Farrakhan said that he could not accept a $250,000 human rights award until US courts give him permission.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 30, In Sri Lanka rebels ambushed a police patrol 115 miles east of Colombo.
(WSJ, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 31, Three adults and 4 children drowned at John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina when their car rolled into the lake by accident. They had gone to see a monument to the sons of Susan Smith, who drowned her 2 sons on Oct 25, 1994 when she let her car roll into the lake.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.D5)(AP, 8/31/97)
1996 Aug 31, New York City police found the body of 4-year-old Nadine Lockwood in her family's apartment; she'd been starved to death. The girl's mother, Carla Lockwood, was later sentenced to serve at least 15 years in prison. Nadine's father, Leroy Dickerson, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
(AP, 8/31/06)
1996 Aug 31, In Austria the country’s first gay wedding took place in the Evangelical Church in Vienna’s Simmering district.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 31, In Colombia the armed forces went on alert after a series of rebel attacks on government targets that killed about 100 people. The attacks were in response to a US government backed campaign to eradicate coca plots. A rebel column overran an army base in Las Delicias and killed 27 soldiers.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A15)(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1996 Aug 31, Over the past week torrential rains threatened Sudan and Egypt with floods. More than a million Pakistanis were displaced by fierce floods. The central Punjab Province had 4.5 million acres of crops swamped.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 31, Rival Kurdish forces under leaders Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union and Massoud Barzani of the Kurdish Democratic Party clashed. Barzani’s forces participated with Sadam Hussein’s troops in taking Irbil, a Talabani stronghold. Talabani’s forces were reportedly assisted by Iran.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 31, More than 100 members of the Iraqi National Congress in Irbil were captured by Iraqi secret police and apparently executed. The Congress was set up by the US in 1992 as an alternative to Saddam Hussein. Thousands of opposition members made it to Turkey and were flown to Guam by the US and promised asylum in the US.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, p.A13)(SFC, 10/12/97, Z1 p.5)
1996 Aug 31, Ljuba Welitsch (83), Bulgaria-born opera singer, died.
(www.ucis.pitt.edu/opera/OFB/stars/wel01.htm)
1996 Aug, The US Army began a training program for Mexican officers to develop an elite counter-narcotics unit.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A18)
1996 Aug, The main ingredient of Redux and other diet drugs was linked to a rare but deadly lung disorder.
(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.B1)
1996 Aug, Osama bin Laden signed a fatwa authorizing Muslims to attack American military personnel.
(WSJ, 10/3/01, p.A17)
1996 Aug, In Brazil Yvonne de Mello received the Int’l. Citizenship Award for her work with abandoned and runaway kids in Rio de Janeiro.
(Hem., 12/96, p.21)
1996 Aug, After the Burundi coup of Jul 25, former Tanzanian Pres. Julius Nyerere led East African leaders to impose sanctions on Burundi and force Buyoya to restore democratic rule.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug, In Bolivia a holding dam at a COMSUR owned mine burst and released 230,000 metric tons of sludge containing lead and arsenic into the Rio Pilaya which in turn feeds the Pilcomayo. Local reports called this the worst environmental disaster in Latin America of the century.
(NH, 2/97, p.6)
1996 Aug, Johnny Chung, a Democrat fund-raiser, met in China with Gen'l. Ji Shengde who directed that $300,000 be wired to Chung's bank account for use in Pres. Clinton's re-election campaign. Most of the money was spent for business and personal expenses.
(SFC, 5/12/99, p.A1,4)
1996 Aug, In Colombia journalist Richard Velez filmed soldiers beating peasants during protests in southern Caqueta province. He fled the country in 1997 in fear from death threats by the army.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D5)
1996 Aug, Walter Van Der Veer (52), an American, was arrested for promoting armed action against Cuba. He went on closed trial in 1997. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B2)(SFC,11/27/97, p.B2)
1996 Aug, Equatorial Guinea’s offshore Zafiro oil field came onstream and by the end of 1997 was producing 75,000 barrels a day. Output from Zafiro peaked in 2004.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.74)
1996 Aug, In Kenya a new rite was instituted as an alternative to female circumcision. The "ntanira na mugambo" (circumcision through words) rite included a week-long counseling program capped by a "coming of age day."
(SFC, 9/16/98, p.A23)
1996 Aug, In Costa Rica Maria Felix Bejarano escaped from the Buen Pastor prison. She gave the guards $4,700 for their kindness. This was the 7th escape of her career in which she applies for a job as a maid and then cleans out the houses in which she works.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug, In Ecuador Pres. Bucaram invited Lorena Bobbitt, famous for slashing off her American husband’s penis, to lunch at the national palace.
(SFC, 2/7/97, p.A1,19)
1996 Aug, In Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (43) became president of the PRD party.
(WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug, In Peru Demetrio Chavez Penaherrera, an imprisoned drug lord, told a court that the chief of intelligence, Vladimiro Montesinos, accepted bribes of $50,000 per month in 1991-1992.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 1, "Mountains and Rivers Without End," a 30-year work of the human event on this planet, by Gary Snyder was reviewed.
(SFC, 9/1/96, BR p.1)
1996 Sep 1, "The Middle East, A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years" by Bernard Lewis was reviewed.
(SFC, 9/1/96, BR p.8)
1996 Sep 1, "The Lost Birds of Paradise" by Eroll Fuller ($55) was reviewed.
(NH, 9/96, p.8)
1996 Sep 1, "The Cambridge Illustrated History of China" by Patricia Buckley ($39.95) Ebrey had a short review.
(NH, 9/96, p.8)
1996 Sep 1, In Ohio the record for the ‘World’s Largest Chicken Dance" was broken in Canfield with 72,000 people dancing.
(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.B1)
1996 Sep 1, A day after Iraqi forces moved into a Kurdish safe haven, U.S. officials were warning the Baghdad government that the incursion would not go unpunished. That same day, Iraq ordered its troops to withdraw from Irbil.
(AP, 9/1/97)
1996 Sep 1, In India wolves were reported to have killed 33 children in the area of Banbirpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Some reports had it that at least some of the killings were by disguised human beings.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 2, The US launched cruise missiles at selected air defense targets in Iraq to discourage Sadam Hussein’s military moves against a Kurd faction.
(SFC, 9/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 2, In Palestine stories of corruption were rife and Arafat was accused of pouring money into his 9 security forces rather than infrastructure.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 2, In the Philippines an accord was signed between pres. Ramos and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebel leader Nur Misuari to end a 24-26 year Muslim rebellion during which some 120,000 people were killed. Many Muslim rebels continued to fight.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A12)(AP, 9/2/97)(SFEM,12/21/97, p.23)
1996 Sep 2, The Ukraine government planned to introduce its new currency, the hyrvna. The old karbovanets would be swappable for only 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 3-1996 Sep 4, The United States launched 27 cruise missiles at "selected air defense targets" in Iraq as punishment for Iraq's invasion of Kurdish safe havens. Pres. Clinton extended the no-fly zone to the suburbs of Baghdad.
(AP, 9/3/97)(SFC,10/30/97, p.A12)
1996 Sep 3, In Texas Grady Alexander (80) and his wife Bessie (86) were found beaten and stabbed to death at their home in Lamar County. Larry Wooten was later convicted with DNA evidence and sentenced to death. He was executed on Oct 21, 2010.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/28vmk8u)
1996 Sep 3, Pakistan shot down 4 Indian helicopters over the last few weeks that entered its air space over the disputed Siachin Glacier. The glacier is at 22,000 feet and lies between the Karakoram and Himalayan mountain ranges.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 3, In Russia Alexander Lebed said that about 80,000 people had died in the fighting in Chechnya during the 21 months of the war.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A10)
1996 Sep 4, The Smashing Pumpkins rock group won 7 MTV music awards including Best Video for "Tonight, Tonight," and Best Alternative Music Video for "1979."
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.B4)
1996 Sep 4, Actor Jack Lemon, Singer Johnny Cash, playwright Edward Albee, saxophonist Benny Carter and ballet dancer Maria Tallchief were the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors for their life work in the performing arts.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.B2)
1996 Sep 4, Whitewater prosecutors had Susan McDougal held in contempt for refusing to tell a grand jury whether President Clinton had lied at her trial.
(AP, 9/4/97)
1996 Sep 4, Anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies of Baghdad, hours after the United States fired a new round of cruise missiles into southern Iraq and destroyed an Iraqi radar site. The US again launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraqi air defense sites. The 2nd launch was deemed a success after the first launch failed to destroy intended targets. The Tomahawks were made by Hughes Aircraft Co. and cost about $1 mil apiece. Kurdish leader Barzani wrote a latter to Sec. of State Christopher Warren and asked that the US mediate. 44 cruise missiles were launched over 2 days plus a rocket from an F-16 fighter.
(AP, 9/4/97)(SFC, 4/9/96, A1)(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A8)(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 4, In Colombia the government will require businesses with a net worth of more than 85k to buy war bonds to finance the war against leftist rebels.
(WSJ, 9/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 4, In the Congo authorities found 200 slaughtered elephants in a marsh of the National Park of Odzala.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 4, France said it will stop changing its clocks twice a year.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 4, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Palestinian leader Arafat and agreed to pursue a peace settlement.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.1)
1996 Sep 5, "Kinds of Minds" by Daniel C. Dennet ($20) and "Full House: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin" by Stephen Jay Gould ($25) were reviewed.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 5, Computer scientists found the largest known prime number while testing a Cray T94 computer system. It has 378,632 digits and can be expressed as two to the 1,257,787th power minus 1.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A6)
1996 Sep 5, Astronomers using the Hubble space telescope discovered a galaxy under construction. They say 18 gigantic star clusters were packed within a space just 2 million light years across and apparently on the verge of forming a brand new galaxy. Light from the event originated 11 billion years ago.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A3)
1996 Sep 5, Hurricane Fran hit at Cape Fear, North Carolina. It tore through the Carolinas with winds at 115-mph.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A3)(AP, 9/5/97)
1996 Sep 5, Cambodia rushed troops to aid the 1,000 or so Khmer Rouge dissidents near the village of Chup Koki. About 5,500 Khmer Rouge rebels remain loyal to Pol Pot.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 5, In Croatia a 6.0 earthquake hit the town of Ston and damaged 90% of the buildings in Dubrovnik.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 5, In France PM Alain Juppe proposed a tax cut. It would reduce the top marginal rate to 54% next year from 56.8%, and to 47% in 2000.
(WSJ, 9/66/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 5, Russian President Boris Yeltsin acknowledged he had serious health problems and would undergo heart surgery.
(AP, 9/5/97)
1996 Sep 5, In Suriname Jules Wijdenbosch, backed by former military strongman Desi Bouterse, defeated Pres. Ronald Venetiaan in a close runoff.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 5, Turkey declared a new security zone inside northern Iraq and air attacks were staged on suspected Kurdish rebel bases.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 6, Eddie Murray of the Baltimore Orioles hit his 500th career home run during a game against the Detroit Tigers, joining Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Willie Mays as the only players with at least 3,000 hits and 500 homers.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1996 Sep 6, The death toll from Hurricane Fran rose to 17 in Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1996 Sep 6, In Belarus lawmakers challenged the president and added amendments to a referendum that proposed the elimination of the presidency, popular election of local governors and tougher controls on government spending. Earlier in the week Lukashenko had tax service freeze the accounts of 5 leading independent newspapers.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 6, In Colombia rebels blew up a section of the largest oil pipeline and killed 16 police officers and soldiers.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 6, The Berggruen art collection opened in Berlin on a loan for ten years. The opening coincided with the publication of the autobiography of Heinz Berggruen: Main Path and Side Paths: Reminiscences of an art collector.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 6, The Palestinian Al Quds Univ. in Abu Dis was reopened after a 6-month closure.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 7, Isabel Correa became the 40th person known to have died in the presence of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, less than a day after police burst into a Michigan motel room, interrupting a meeting between her and Kevorkian.
(AP, 9/7/97)
1996 Sep 7, Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.
(AP, 9/7/97)
1996 Sep 7, Emergency food from the World Food Program reached Tubmanburg, Liberia, where half the 35,000 population suffered from extreme hunger.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 8, NBC's "Frasier" won its third consecutive Emmy for best TV comedy; "ER" was named best drama. In the 48th Emmy Awards the winners included Dennis Franz & Kathy Baker.
(AP, 9/8/97)(MC, 9/8/01)
1996 Sep 8, At the U.S. Open, Pete Sampras defeated Michael Chang and Steffi Graf beat Monica Seles to win the top prizes.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1996 Sep 8, Okinawans voted more than 10-to-1 in favor of a reduction of U.S. military bases on their islands, in a referendum aimed at pressuring Washington to pull out its troops.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1996 Sep 8, In Tanzania bandits ambushed, clubbed and robbed 25 tourists in the Serengeti National Park.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 9, Promising safer skies, President Clinton issued orders to tighten airport security and challenged Congress to support a $1.1 billion anti-terrorism crackdown.
(AP, 9/9/97)
1996 Sep 9, Keeping her word not to cooperate with Whitewater prosecutors, Susan McDougal was led away to jail for contempt of court, denying she was trying to protect President Clinton with her silence.
(AP, 9/9/97)
1996 Sep 9, Boston investor Thomas H. Lee donated $22 mil to Harvard Univ.
(WSJ, 9/10/96, p.A6)
1996 Sep 9, Bill Monroe (b.1911), Blue Grass pioneer, died 4 days shy of his 85th b-day. His blues style was much influenced by the thumb-style blues guitar picking of a black musician named Arnold Schultz. In 2000 Richard D. Smith authored the biography "Can’t You Hear me Callin’."
(WSJ, 9/16/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 7/28/00, p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Monroe)
1996 Sep 9, An Australian livestock official reported that the burning ship, Uniceb, with 70,000 sheep had probably sunk. It had been bound for Jordan when the crew abandoned it after it caught fire on Sep 2.
(SFC, 9/10/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 10, Ross Perot picked economist Pat Choate, a Washington economist and author, to share the Reform Party presidential ticket.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/10/97)
1996 Sep 10, The US Senate dealt a double defeat to gay-rights activists, voting to reject same-sex marriage in federal law (Defense of Marriage Act - DOMA) by a vote of 85-14. It also rejected (50-49) a separate bill that would have barred job discrimination against gays.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/10/97)
1996 Sep 10, The US 1997 defense bill was passed and allotted the 1.5 million members of the military a 3% pay raise. to begin Jan 1.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 10, The UN General Assembly voted to endorse a nuclear test ban treaty. India refused to sign and prevented the treaty from taking effect. India, Bhutan and Libya voted against the treaty. Cuba, Lebanon, Syria, Tanzania and Mauritius abstained.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 10, Humberto de la Calle, vice-president of Colombia, resigned as a protest to the presidency of Ernesto Samper.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 10, Typhoon Sally hit Guangdong province in southern China and killed more than 130 people.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 10, Saddam Hussein announced the lifting of all travel restrictions to or within the Kurdish zone.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 10, Hurricane Hortense pounded Puerto Rico, causing at least 21 deaths and destroying thousands of homes.
(AP, 9/10/97)
1996 Sep 11, Two top officials with the Health and Human Services Department resigned over President Clinton's signing of the Republican welfare overhaul bill. (Another official had resigned the month before).
(AP, 9/11/97)
1996 Sep 11, There was a review of "Big Band Renaissance: The Evolution of the Jazz Orchestra," compiled by Bill Kirchner and released by The Smithsonian Institution.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A20)
1996 Sep 11, The Union Pacific merger with Southern Pacific took effect, forming the largest railroad in the US.
(www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/uprr-chr.shtml)
1996 Sep 11, Grasshoppers plagued North Dakota. The insects were a problem in Wyoming, Montana and Nebraska. Another dry summer and it was predicted that they would spread to Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A2)
1996 Sep 11, Hurricane Hortense left 14 dead in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It then hit the Turks and Caicos Islands with 90 mph winds.
(FB, 9/12/96, p.A7)
1996 Sep 11, In Bangladesh Shanti Bahini guerrillas killed 30 Bengali-speaking settlers in the southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts.
(SFC, 9/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 11, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed Catholic archbishop Joachim Ruhunu and six others.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 12, Last-minute intervention by Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole led to Senate postponement of action on a treaty designed to eliminate chemical weapons. President Clinton said the agreement was threatened by "a bitter partisan debate."
(AP, 9/12/97)
1996 Sep 12, The first African-American civil War memorial was dedicated in Washington DC.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Sep 12, Israel lost 12 commandos in southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)
1996 Sep 12, The Turkish government agreed to allow some 2,500 Iraqi Kurds, former US employees and their families, to enter Turkey and be evacuated to the US.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 12, In Colombia government officials promised to halt forcible destruction of small coca plantations for the time being in order to end protests.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 12, In Taiwan a five-year-old girl's remains were found in a drain outside a toilet at the Air Force Command headquarters in Taipei. In 1997 Taiwanese soldier Chiang Kuo-ching was found guilty of rape and murder and executed by firing squad. A task force found that Chiang had masturbated in the toilet and some drops of his semen fell onto the tissue. He had been tortured into confessing, but was not the murderer. Chiang Kuo-ching was posthumously acquitted by a military court in September, 2011, followed by a ruling that his family be paid Tw$131.85 million ($4.4 million) in compensation. A court in November launched legal action to bar former minister Chen Chao-min and seven other ex-military officers involved in the case from transferring their assets.
(AFP, 11/29/11)
1996 Sep 13, The stock market hit a new record of 5,838.52 on the Dow.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 13, Gillette unveiled an agreement to buy Duracell in a $7.3 billion stock deal.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Sep 13, Hurricane Hortense headed north with winds at 140 mph.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 13, Subaru Takahashi (14) in his boat "Advantage" became the youngest person to complete a solo sail voyage across the Pacific Ocean. He did the 6000 mile journey in 54 days.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1,7)
1996 Sep 13, Rap star Tupac Shakur (b.1971) died of gun shot wounds in Las Vegas after he was wounded Sep 7 in a drive-by shooting as he was leaving a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas. He had just finished filming "Gang Related" later retitled "Criminal Intent." He was buried at Stone Mountain, Georgia.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/13/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur)
1996 Sep 13, In Mexico Juan Francisco Ealy, editor of El Universal, was arrested on allegations of tax fraud. His paper had recently begun strong criticism of the Zedillo government.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 14, There was a rumor published that was gleaned from the Internet that "friendly fire" caused the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A4)
1996 Sep 14, Tara Dawn Holland of Overland Park, Kansas, won the Miss America beauty pageant.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A6)(AP, 9/14/97)
1996 Sep 14, Juliet Prowse (b.1936), actress and dancer (Mona McCluskey), died.
(www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0187948.html)
1996 Sep 14, Bosnians went to the polls in their first national elections since the three-and-a-half civil war that ravaged the Balkan republic.
(AP, 9/14/97)
1996 Sep 14, In Cambodia King Norodom Sihanouk granted amnesty to Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge rebel leader.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 15, Defense Secretary William Perry was making the rounds among American allies in the Persian Gulf region, seeking additional support for the U.S. stance against Iraq. Bahrain agreed to play host to 26 American F-16 jet fighters.
(AP, 9/15/97)
1996 Sep 15, In Germany it was reported that rival Vietnamese gangs were battling a vicious turf war for trading untaxed cigarettes smuggled in by organized crime. The country was trying to coax Vietnam to accept the return of thousands of men in exchange for aid and future credits.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 15, In Guatemala crime boss Alfredo Moreno, a former army intelligence officer, was arrested on charges of an enormous smuggling operation.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 15, In Italy Umberto Bossi, populist politician and leader of the Northern League, planned to declare the independence of the Federal Republic of Padania.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A6)
1996 Sep 15, In Italy Lorenzo Necci, head of the state-run railroad, was arrested for corruption, embezzlement, abuse of office, falsification of balance sheets and fraud.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 15, In Mexico Federal police officer Ernesto Ibarra Santes (50) was gunned down in Mexico City. He was in charge of drug trafficking in Baha California del Norte, the center of operations for the narcotics cartel of the Arellano Felix brothers. He had only taken the position on Aug 16.
(SFC, 9/16/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 15, In North Korea the Rajin-Sonbong Free Economic and Trade Zone, a 288 sq. ml. area with a local population of 140,000, was being established behind barbed wire in the northeast corner.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A15)
1996 Sep 15, In Singapore all 120,000 Internet subscribers will have to go through proxy servers which will screen them from dozens of sites that contain nudity and sexual topics.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.B2)
1996 Sep 16, President Clinton claimed the endorsement of the nation's largest police organization, the Fraternal Order of Police, in his bid for re-election.
(AP, 9/16/97)
1996 Sep 16, Chicago and Paris signed a sister-city pact.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A17)
1996 Sep 16, Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off more than six weeks late on a mission to pick up NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid, aloft since last March, from the Russian space station Mir.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A4)(AP, 9/16/97)
1996 Sep 16, Former US national security adviser McGeorge Bundy died in Boston at age 77.
(AP, 9/16/97)
1996 Sep 16, Kuwait agreed to allow the US to send 3,300 troops to its soil over the confrontation with Iraq.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 17, A nonpartisan commission recommended that Ross Perot be denied a spot in presidential debates, saying he had no realistic shot at winning the White House; Perot vowed to sue.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 Sep 17, The Clinton Administration and 15 timber companies struck a deal to protect old-growth forest in Oregon and Washington. The companies will log substitute groves less critical to fish and wildlife.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A2)
1996 Sep 17, Spiro Agnew (b. Nov 9, 1918), former governor of Maryland and US vice president (1969-1973), died in Berlin, Md., at age 77.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 Sep 17, In Montserrat the Soufriere Hills volcano erupted for 48 minutes.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, T11)
1996 Sep 17, In Bosnia Alija Izetbegovic led the polls to become chairman of the new 3-member presidency. Serbian nationalist Momcilo Krajisnik and Croat nationalist Kresimir Zubak won their respective regions.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 17, In Mexico Razhy Gonzalez, editor of the small Contrapunto weekly, was abducted in Oaxaca.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 18, "The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant" was reviewed.
(WSJ, 9/18/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 18, Pres. Clinton signed an executive order to transform 1.7 million acres of Utah land into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A3)(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.T5)
1996 Sep 18, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole fell off a stage during a campaign rally in Chico, Calif., after a railing gave way; he was not seriously hurt.
(AP, 9/18/97)
1996 Sep 18, The O.J. Simpson civil trial opened in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 9/18/97)
1996 Sep 18, The Food and Drug Administration declared the French abortion pill RU-486 safe and effective, but withheld final approval until later. The pill would be taken with the drug misoprostol, which was already approved for other purposes.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/18/97)
1996 Sep 18, In France Maurice Papon, a member of the Vichy government of WW II, was declared eligible for trial for his role in arresting and deporting 1,690 Jews during WW II.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 18, In Guatemala 2 generals and 16 officials were fired in a probe of black-market corruption.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 18, A North Korean submarine went aground off the coast of South Korea. The bodies of 11 crewmen were found dead nearby. Another 8-9 men were still at large. Seven more were found the next day and shot to death.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 9/20/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 18, Photos taken of Mars that indicated a huge dust storm near the north pole that was active for months.
(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Sep 19, American astronaut Shannon Lucid, on board the Russian Mir space station since March, eagerly greeted the crew of Atlantis hours after their arrival and docking.
(AP, 9/19/97)
1996 Sep 19, IBM announced it would extend health benefits to the partners of its homosexual employees.
(AP, 9/19/97)
1996 Sep 19, The Arctic Council was founded to promote joint scientific research and to study pollution, conservation and mapping. The Ottawa Declaration named eight members of the Arctic Council: Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the United States, Sweden and Finland. The first step towards the formation of the Council occurred in 1991 when eight Arctic countries signed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS).
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.61)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Council)
1996 Sep 19, Guatemala’s government and leftist guerillas under Ricardo Arnoldo Ramirez signed a peace accord that called for a 33% troop and budget reduction from 43,000 by 1999. Otto Perez Molina negotiated the accords for the government.
(SFC, 9/20/96, p.A15)(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A22)(Econ, 1/21/12, p.42)
1996 Sep 19, In Nigeria it was reported that police clashed with demonstrators last week and 10 people were killed in the city of Kaduna. The crowd was protesting the arrest of their spiritual leader on charges of broadcasting material that could incite unrest.
(WSJ, 9/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 20, President Clinton announced his signing of a bill outlawing homosexual marriages, but said it should not be used as an excuse for discrimination, violence or intimidation against gays and lesbians. The actual signing came a little after midnight. The Defense of Marriage Act provided that no state has an obligation to recognize gay marriages contracted in another state.
(AP, 9/20/97)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.32)
1996 Sep 20, Paul Weston, bandleader, died at 84.
(www.spaceagepop.com/weston.htm)
1996 Sep 20, Paul Erdos, Hungarian-born mathematician, died. He founded the field of discreet mathematics and had more than 1500 papers to his name. He lived devoted to his subject and had no home or job. In 1998 2 biographies were published: Paul Hoffman authored "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers," and Bruce Schechter "My Brain Is Open."
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.B2)(WSJ, 9/15/98, p.A20)
1996 Sep 20, In Colombia leftist guerrillas unleashed a wave of bombings that included 4 against banks and electricity lines in Cartagena. 18 coal trucks were torched in northern Cesar province and a truck with 31 tons of ammonium nitrate, base material for explosives, was hijacked.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 20, In Colombia more than 8 lbs. of heroin were found on Pres. Samper’s presidential jet as it was preparing for a flight to New York. Eleven Air Force personnel were later arrested.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A12)
1996 Sep 20, In Estonia Pres. Lennart Meri was re-elected to a second term in the largely ceremonial post.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 20, Murtazza Bhutto, brother of Benazir Bhutto, and 6 followers were killed in a clash with police in Karachi, Pakistan. He led the Shaheed Bhutto faction of the Pakistan People's Party.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 21, John F. Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette in a secret ceremony on Cumberland Island, Ga.
(AP, 9/21/97)
1996 Sep 21, The board of all-male Virginia Military Institute voted to admit women.
(AP, 9/21/97)
1996 Sep 21, President Clinton and Republican rival Bob Dole agreed to face off in two debates without Ross Perot.
(AP, 9/21/97)
1996 Sep 21, In Brazil the first magazine dedicated to blacks, Raca Brasil, sold out 200,000 copies in 5 days.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 21, Thai Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa resigned after 14 months in offices under charges of corruption and ineptitude.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 22, Reform Party nominee Ross Perot denounced the decision to exclude him from the presidential debates, telling NBC that Bob Dole had "poisoned the attitude" of millions of independent voters that Republicans desperately needed to win.
(AP, 9/22/97)
1996 Sep 22, Actress Dorothy Lamour died at her North Hollywood home at age 81.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A6)(AP, 9/22/97)
1996 Sep 22, In Afghanistan the Taliban guerrillas swept through 3 south-eastern provinces over the last 2 weeks and now control about 2/3 of the country.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A9)
1996 Sep 22, In Australia Bob Dent became the first person to kill himself legally under the world’s only voluntary euthanasia law.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 22, In Greece the governing socialists won the elections and gave Prime Minister Simitas about 162 of 300 deputies in the Parliament.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A9)
1996 Sep 22, Mexico’s Civic Alliance began asking questions of accountability of the leadership. Pres. Zedillo claims to make $8,000 a month, but he has a secret fund of $86 million approved by Congress.
(SFC, 9/22/96, Par p.30)
1996 Sep 22, In South Korea the captain of the North Korean submarine, recently grounded, was tracked down and killed. Another infiltrator and 2 South Korean soldiers were also killed in 2 clashes.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A10)
1996 Sep 22, In Sri Lanka the military said it killed or wounded 200 Tamil rebels with a loss of 30 government troops.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 23, Ross Perot sued the bipartisan commission that voted to keep him out of the presidential debates, arguing that excluding him would deepen public cynicism and cause his campaign "incalculable damage."
(AP, 9/23/97)
1996 Sep 23, California governor Wilson signed a bill to open the sale of electricity to the free market and became the first US state to do so. A 20% drop in rates by 2003 was guaranteed.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 23, Space shuttle Atlantis left Russia's orbiting Mir station with astronaut Shannon Lucid, who ended her six-month visit with tender good-byes to her Russian colleagues.
(AP, 9/23/97)
1996 Sep 23, In Armenia Pres. Levon Ter-Petrossian claimed victory in elections as did his opponent former Prime Minister Vazgen Manukian. The next day the Pres. claimed victory with 52% and the PM claimed fraud with 41%. Int’l. observers claimed serious irregularities.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 9/25/96, p.A1)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 23, The European Union awarded the Aristeion Prize for literature to Salmon Rushdie for "The Moor’s Last Sigh" and to Christoph Ransmayr for "Morbus Kitahara." A prize for translation went to Thorkild Bjoernvig for his translation of poetry by German poet Rainier Marie Rilke.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.E3)
1996 Sep 23, In Jiangsu Province, China, the American Dream Park was scheduled to open. It is a 70-acre-mini Disneyland and admission will cost 100 yuan, about 2 weeks wages for the average Chinese worker.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 23, In England police killed one man and seized 10 tons of explosives during raids of suspected IRA hideouts.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 23, Ethiopian forces exchanged fire with Somali militiamen.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 23, Iran expected delivery of its 3rd Russian-made submarine within 6 months, as part of its navy buildup in the Persian Gulf.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 23, In Mexico financing was expected to enable the start of the $551 million channel project, a 272-mile Tamaulipas Intracoastal Waterway on the east coast to link Mexico to US cargo channels.
(WSJ, 9/23/96, p.A17)
1996 Sep 23, In Pakistan gunmen attacked a Sunni Muslim mosque and killed 16 and wounded 45 people. The attack followed the killing of a Shiite leader the night before in Bahawalpur.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A12)
1996 Sep 23, In Singapore the government announced that there will be enough bomb shelters for everyone. All new dwellings will be required to have bomb shelters with concrete walls and a steel door.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 23, In South Africa 2 days of ethnic fighting among gold miners at Buffeslfontein left 18 people dead.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 24, The United States, represented by President Clinton, and the world's other major nuclear powers signed a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.
(AP, 9/24/97)
1996 Sep 24, Robert Chaegon Kim, US Navy analyst, was arrested for passing US secrets to South Korea.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A3)
1996 Sep 24, In Guatemala the government fired 12 National police officers including 5 regional chiefs implicated in a corruption scandal.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 24, In the Philippines about 3,000 slum dwellers marched to the Presidential Palace in Manila to denounce the demolition of their homes. Wrecking crews have destroyed about 3,000 shanties with 13,000 more scheduled for destruction before the Asia Pacific Economic Conference on Nov 24.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 24, In Russia Pavel Sudoplatov, Stalin’s spy chief who stole atomic secrets and plotted the killing of Trotsky, died.
(WSJ, 9/27/96, p.B1)
1996 Sep 24, Taiwan police shut down 188 sex parlors in the last 7 days and pledged to close the remaining 103 by the end of the day.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 25, NATO generals were ordered to prepare plans for an extension of allied military force in Bosnia beyond the Dec. 20 deadline.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 25, In Afghanistan rebel forces moved into Kabul. A 100 fighters were killed on both sides.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 25, In Colombia rebels attacked an oil pipeline in Arauca province and pumping of 220,000 barrels a day was suspended.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 25, Violence began in Jerusalem when Israelis opened a tunnel along the west wall of the old city in opposition to Palestinian sentiments. Seven Arabs were killed. Resulting riots left 69 Palestinians dead along with 16 Israelis.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A10)(AP, 9/25/97)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.48)
1996 Sep 25, In the Netherlands a DC-3 aircraft went into the North Sea near Den Helder and killed all 32 people on board.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 25, In Sri Lanka the military said it killed or wounded 500 Tamil rebels with a loss of 58 government troops and 115 wounded since Sunday when their offensive began near Kilinochchi.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 25, Turkey said its troops killed 47 Kurdish rebels in the eastern provinces.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 26, President Clinton signed a bill ensuring two-day hospital stays for new mothers and their babies.
(AP, 9/26/97)
1996 Sep 26, ValuJet received federal permission to fly again three months after it was grounded following a deadly crash.
(AP, 9/26/97)
1996 Sep 26, Richard Allen Davis, the killer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, was formally sentenced to death in San Jose, Calif. It was his criminal record which resulted in California's "Three strike law" for repeat offenders. He is currently on death row in San Quentin State Prison, California.
(AP, 9/26/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Allen_Davis)
1996 Sep 26, Astronaut Shannon Lucid returned to Earth in the shuttle Atlantis after 188 days aboard the Russian Mir space station, the longest time for any American man or woman.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A20)(AP, 9/26/97)
1996 Sep 26, Patricia Billings, amateur sculptor and med tech, demonstrated her fire-proof material GeoBond. It was made of gypsum, cement, and a secret off-the-shelf ingredient that in combination would not burn even under flames over 2,000 degrees.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 26, The New England Journal of Medicine reported new research that would provide a simple test for mad cow disease based on a protein specific to the disease.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 26, A total lunar eclipse, the last before the year 2000, was scheduled.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A18)
1996 Sep 26, The US announced the return to Haiti of documents confiscated 2 years ago from the Haitian army and pro-military party.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 26, Former Pres. Najibullah (1986-1990) and his brother, former security chief Shahpur Ahmedzi, were executed and hung when the Taliban fighters moved into Kabul. They had been in hiding since being overthrown 4 years ago. Officials hoped that the former king, Zahir Shah, would return to lead the country.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 26, In Armenia tanks were called in after 59 people were injured in protests over the re-election of the president.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 26, In Italy the foreign minister announced that the country would no longer make land mines that are used against people.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 27, Texan Charles Hurwitz of Maxxam Inc. agreed to exchange his hold on the Headwaters forest in California in exchange for cash, land or other government assets.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 27, John G. Bennett Jr., head of the defunct Foundation for New Era Philanthropy since 1989, was indicted on 82 counts of fraud, money laundering, tax crimes and false statements. He was allegedly responsible for bilking charities of $135 million in a scheme that collapsed in 1995. In 1997 he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He helped to reduce losses from 100 to 20 million.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A3)(SFC, 3/27/97, p.A3)(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A2)
1996 Sep 27, US Defense Sec. William Perry said the 3 Baltic nations would not be among the first new NATO members drawn from Eastern Europe.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 27, The Taliban militia, a band of former seminary students, forced President Burhanuddin Rabbani and his government out of Kabul.
{Afghan}
(AP, 9/27/97)(www.afghan-web.com/history/)
1996 Sep 27, In Gambia Yahya Jammeh defeated 3 civilian rivals in national elections. Observers said that the elections were severely flawed. Jammeh’s government had outlawed opposition parties, muzzled the press, forbade meetings between rival candidates and foreign diplomats, and used soldiers to attack opposition rallies.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 27, In Milan, Italy, 50,000 metal workers marched on strike.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 27, In Japan the Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto dissolved the parliament and set new elections for Oct. 20.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 27, In Mexico PRI deputies presented a final report on government corruption and voted to end the commission of corruption. A separate government panel said $1.34 billion was missing from the 1990 privatization of Telefonos de Mexico.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 27, Rwandan Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana (73) was charged with ordering the slaughter of hundreds of Tutsis in Kibuye in 1994. It was charged that he had arranged that they seek refuge in his Seventh Day Adventist Church, whereupon he called in Hutus to kill them.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 28, Landmark legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants in the United States won House passage as part of a giant federal spending bill.
(AP, 9/28/97)
1996 Sep 28, With the United States abstaining, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution indirectly calling on Israel to close an archaeological tunnel in Jerusalem that had touched off fighting between Israelis and Palestinians.
(AP, 9/28/97)
1996 Sep 29, The organization that supervised Bosnia's first postwar elections officially certified the results -- with victories by nationalist parties and the country's Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic.
(AP, 9/29/97)
1996 Sep 30, With just hours to spare before the start of the fiscal year, the Senate passed and President Clinton signed a $389 billion spending bill.
(AP, 9/30/97)
1996 Sep 30, In South Korea another infiltrator was killed. That brought the total to 22 agents killed since the grounding of the N. Korean submarine.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 30, In India the capital city of Tamil Nadu changed its name from Madras to Chennai.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 30, In Sri Lanka government troops seized a guerrilla stronghold and climaxed an 8-day battle that left 900 dead.
(WSJ, 9/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 30, In Vanuatu the parliament passed a vote of no confidence in prime Minister Maxime Carlot.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep, The $4 mil Hollywood Entertainment Museum was planned to open.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B4)
1996 Sep, The Meyer-Womble telescope on Mt. Evans was scheduled to open. It was donated by Eric Meyer (40), a Chicago-based anesthesiologist, who designed the telescope and donated nearly one million to build it and then gave it to Denver Univ.
(SFC, 9/3/96, p.C1)
1996 Sep, In Brazil the world premiere of George Coates multimedia work "20/20 Blake" was held at the Sao Paulo Int’l. Theater Festival.
(SFC, 1/21/96, p.B1)
1996 Sep, In China peasants revolted in Qidong in Hunan province after they discovered that city authorities kept secret for 6 months a directive from Beijing to end excessive taxes.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep, In El Salvador the Goods for Guns project began and in 2 weeks collected 1,262 weapons and 14,580 units of ammunition.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, C12)
1996 Sep, Iran delivered at least $500,000 to Bosnian Pres. Alija Izetbegovic for his campaign.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep, In South Africa the government disclosed that it was sending $18 million worth of arms to Rwanda.
(SFC, 11/8/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep, Sir Lanka soldiers and police raped and strangled an 18-year-old student and murdered 3 others near Chemmanihi. In 1998 4 soldiers were convicted and sentenced to death for the killings.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A11)
1996 Fall, In Brazil the EMB-145, a 50-seat twin-engine jet, was brought out by aircraft maker Embraer SA.
(WSJ, 3/21/97, p.A16)
1996 Sep-Oct, The size of the ozone hole over Antarctica surpassed 8.5 million square miles.
(SFC, 11/28/96, p.B4)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to 1996 October
Return to home
1996 Jul 1, Placido Domingo became artistic director of Washington National Opera (f.1956).
(www.dc-opera.org/aboutcompany/placidodomingo.asp)
1996 Jul 1, President Clinton declared an emergency in drought-stricken parts of the Southwest.
(AP, 7/1/97)
1996 Jul 1, Twelve members of an Arizona anti-government group, the Viper Militia, were charged with plotting to blow up government buildings. The group was infiltrated by Drew Nolan, an agent for the Federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).
(AP, 7/1/97)(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A11)
1996 Jul 1, Actress Margaux Hemingway was found dead in her Santa Monica, California, apartment; she was 41.
(AP, 7/1/01)
1996 Jul 1, The world’s first voluntary suicide law was scheduled to go into effect in Australia. The Rights of the Terminally Ill Act originated in Darwin.
(WSJ, 6/27/96, p.A18)
1996 Jul 1, Draugas, the Lithuanian daily newspaper published in Chicago, issued its first English version edition and planned a weekly English edition.
(Dr, 7/96, V1#1, p.3)
1996 Jul 1, In Bulgaria there was sharp increases in taxes, excise duties and electricity and fuel prices.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 1, In China a new regulation went into effect that called for films co-produced with foreigners to apply for approval from the State Council before filming begins.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.F3)
1996 Jul 1, In Sri Lanka Tamil Tiger separatists ambushed an army patrol and killed 29 soldiers while losing at least 35 of their own.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 1, In Uganda rebels fighting for the return of Idi Amin killed 11 people in a nightclub in Koboko.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 2, Electricity and phone service was knocked out for millions of customers from Canada to the Southwest after power lines throughout the West failed on a record-hot day.
(AP, 7/2/97)
1996 Jul 2, US federal officials announced the arrest of 12 members of a militia unit, called Viper Militia, that had planned to bomb government offices in the Phoenix area. On Dec 19 two members pleaded guilty to explosives and weapons charges. On Dec 27 three more members pleaded guilty.
(WSJ, 7/2/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/20/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 2, Seven years after they shot their parents to death in the family's Beverly Hills mansion, Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 7/2/97)
1996 Jul 2, Actor Harry Morgan (81) was charged with a misdemeanor spousal battery against his 70-year-old wife. He had played Colonel Potter in M*A*S*H.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.D4)
1996 Jul 2, Israeli planes rocketed a Palestinian guerrilla base in Lebanon. The base belonged to the Palestinian National Liberation Organization, a pro-Syrian group under Col. Abu Musa, that split from the Fatah movement of Yasser Arafat in the 1980s.
(SFC, 7/3/96, p.C3)
1996 Jul 3, Pres. Clinton signed the Church Arson Prevention Act. It created a fund to help rebuild churches that were destroyed by a recent spate of arsons.
(SFC, 6/23/99, p.A17)
1996 Jul 3, The Clinton administration awarded a $1 mil grant to the Univ. of Alabama for an experiment that would test for illicit drug use of everyone arrested in Birmingham.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, US Secret Service agents claimed to have broken up an operation by a New York couple that used monitoring equipment to steal 80,000 cellular phone numbers and id codes from motorists on an expressway that passed their apartment building.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Lockheed Martin Corp. won a $1 bil federal contract to build the next-generation space shuttle.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, A jokester lit firecrackers in a fireworks store in Scottown, Ohio. A blaze erupted and 9 people were killed and 11 injured as they stampeded out.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)(AP, 7/3/97)
1996 Jul 3, A federal agency approved the Union Pacific $5.4 bil acquisition of San Francisco based Southern Pacific Rail Corp. The merger eliminated about 3,500 jobs.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Chad’s Pres. Idriss Deby won 70% of the vote. He defeated Abdelkader Wadal Kamougue, a southern leader who led coup in 1975. The election was widely seen as flawed.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/29/01, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Russians went to the polls to re-elect Boris Yeltsin president over his Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov. Boris Yeltsin won the presidential elections with about 53.7% of the vote. Zyuganov received about 40.4%.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/97)
1996 Jul 4, President Clinton extolled the joys of democracy and asked the nation to honor America's independence by praising continued free rule in Russia as he spoke during a jamboree honoring the 200th anniversary of Youngstown, Ohio.
(AP, 7/4/97)
1996 Jul 4, Koko, the first gorilla to use sign language, turned 25 and asked for a box of scary, rubber snakes and lizards.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A24)
1996 Jul 4, The film "Independence Day," produced and co-written by David Devlin, was released. It passed $100 mil in revenue in six days beating the Jurassic Park record of 9 days.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.E4)(SFC, 7/10/96, p.E2)
1996 Jul 4, Hot Mail, a free internet E-mail service began.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotmail)
1996 Jul 4, In Burundi unidentified gunmen killed 80 people in an attack on a tea factory 15 miles northeast of Bujumbura.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, Floods and landslides in China killed at least 121 people and forced 450,000 from their homes from Zhejiang on the east coast to Guizhou in the southwest.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, China’s Pres. Jiang Zemin began a 3-day to Kazakhstan, whose population numbered about 15 million. Zemin held talks with President Nazarbayev, and met with Kazakhstan Parliament Lower House Speaker Ospanov and delivered an important speech entitled "For a Better Future of Friendship and Cooperation Between China and Central Asia". The two sides signed a joint statement, the extradition treaty, the agreement on cooperation between the People's Bank of China and the Kazakhstan National Bank, the agreement on cooperation in quality control and mutual certification of import and export commodities and other documents.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.48)(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-05/21/content_879991.htm)
1996 Jul 4, In Panama police arrested Jaime Revello, a top Colombian drug lord, and seized 4.5 tons of cocaine.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A13)
1996 Jul 4, In Sri Lanka a suicide bomber killed an army commander and 20 others when she leaped in front of a motorcade in Jaffna.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, In Switzerland the defense ministry hoped to save $476,000 a year by pensioning off 7,000 carrier pigeons.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.C1)
1996 Jul 5, An essay by SB Stewart discussed the history of Betty Crocker and showed the latest 8th Betty Crocker [General Mills advertising icon]. She was put together from the features of 75 women from around the country.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A6)
1996 Jul 5, The US government reported the nation's unemployment rate fell to a six- ear low to 5.3% in June 1996; nervous investors, fearing higher interest rates, gave the stock market its worst beating in four months, sending the Dow industrials down 114 points.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/5/97)
1996 Jul 5, An LA County woman was identified as the first person in the US to carry the rare AIDS virus strain known as Group O. She was discovered by epidemiologists several months ago. Group O is only detected in 4 of 5 cases with current testing methods. Blood supply tests will need to be changed.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A5)
1996 Jul 5, A report stated that 740 metric tons of cocaine was being produced each year in South America and that the US took in less than half.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 5, A cloned lamb, named Dolly (d.2003) after Dolly Pardon, was born in Edinburgh Scotland. The event was not announced until Feb 23, 1997 when it was made public that researchers under Dr. Ian Wilmut at Edinburgh, Scotland, created a clone lamb from adult sheep DNA. In 2001 it was reported that Dolly suffered from arthritis, a sign of premature aging.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.C1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A2)(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A2)
1996 Jul 5, The world’s 5 most expensive cities were reported to be in Asia. Tokyo and Osaka kept their No. 1 & 2 position while Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong moved into the top 5.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 5, Vival Exports from Vlora, Albania, was sending 6 tons a week of live frogs to Lyon, France. "But how long will this resource last?"
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 5, In Colombia the government released Jorge Luis Ochoa, aka The Fat Man, from prison after 5 1/2 years for drug-trafficking.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 5, In South Africa Anglo American Platinum Corp. fired an additional 7,000 striking workers. That makes the total 28,261 fired workers since the strike began Jun 25.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 5, In Tatarstan a new law was enacted that will charge $800 for insulting the president. Subsequent offenses could cost $1400. A printed insult could cost $6,000.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A16)
1996 Jul 5, In Uruguay the Fasano brothers, editor and publisher of the daily La Republica, were jailed for 15 days for printing a story that Paraguay’s president Wasmosy took payments from a hydroelectric project.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 6, President Clinton announced the biggest changes in the rules governing meat and poultry safety in 90 years.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1996 Jul 6, A Delta MD-88 jetliner's left engine blew apart during an aborted takeoff from Pensacola, Fla., sending metal pieces ripping into the cabin, killing a mother and her son.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1996 Jul 6, Steffi Graf won her seventh Wimbledon title, defeating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario 6-3, 7-5.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1996 Jul 6, The 10th Lithuanian Song and Dance Festival in the US was held in Rosemont, Ill., at the Rosemount Horizon and featured 2,000 dancers before an audience of 7,000.
(Dr, 7/96, V1#1, p.5)(SFC, 11/9/96, p.4)
1996 Jul 6, It was reported that a Brazilian fisherman, Nathon do Nascimento, choked to death when a 6-inch fish jumped out of the water and into his throat during a long yawn.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A17)
1996 Jul 7, Dutch tennis player Richard Krajicek won the Wimbledon men's title, defeating American MaliVai Washington 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1996 Jul 7, President Clinton delivered more Whitewater trial testimony before video cameras, this time testifying in the case of two Arkansas bankers accused of making political contributions with bank funds; a jury later acquitted Herby Branscum Jr., and Robert M. Hill of four counts and was deadlocked on seven other counts.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of a Big Mac in the US was $2.36. In Germany it was $3.22.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Par, p.17)
1996 Jul 7, In Ecuador lawyer Abdala Bucaram, aka El Loco, was elected president with 54% of the vote. He led the center-left Roldosista party.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 8, The Shuttle Columbia landed after a record flight of 16 days, 21 hours, 48 minutes and 30 sec.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.A2)
1996 Jul 8, Hurricane Bertha slammed into the US Virgin Islands with torrential rains and winds that gusted to 105 mph.
(WSJ, 7/9/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/8/97)
1996 Jul 8, A 1975 JetRanger Bell Helicopter crashed in Salem, Ohio and killed all 5 people onboard.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 8, In Niger the military ruler suspended the Independent National electoral commission after early results showed him losing.
(WSJ, 7/9/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.8)
1996 Jul 8, In Northern Ireland Michael McGoldrick Jr. (31), a taxi driver, was abducted and fatally shot, two days after graduating from a Belfast university. He was the first victim of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, an outlawed Protestant gang that opposed Northern Ireland's peace process.
(AP, 4/5/06)
1996 Jul 9, The National League won the All-Star game, defeating the American League 6-0 in Philadelphia.
(AP, 7/9/97)
1996 Jul 9, Former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm began a drive for the presidential nomination of Ross Perot's fledgling Reform Party.
(AP, 7/9/97)
1996 Jul 9, Attorney Melvin M. Belli (b.7/29/07), King of Torts, died at 88 in San Francisco. He authored the 5-volume work "Modern Trials," a classic on the demonstrative method of presenting evidence.
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 9, "The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation" by Sandra Mackey was reviewed and panned by Abbas Milani, author of "Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir."
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B4)
1996 Jul 9, In Chechnya the pre-election truce was shattered and the war has resumed.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 9, The Bosnian federation approved the merger of the Muslim and Croat armies. This clears the way for the US to begin training and shipping arms to Bosnian troops.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 9, Mexico City’s police chief announced that every top official in his department was replaced with military officers. The move was made to break up corruption and abuse in the old "brotherhood."
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 9, Turkey announced a 50% raise for its 1.5 million civil servants.
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 9-1996 Jul 10, In Rwanda the Tutsi dominated army carried out an operation against Hutu insurgents in Karago and Giciye villages and 62 people were killed. The area was the home of the late Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 10, Ross Perot said on CNN he would make a second run for president if nominated by the Reform Party, putting him in contention with former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm, who'd announced his candidacy the day before.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1996 Jul 10, In a tough speech to the US Congress laying out conditions for Mideast negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Syria and the Palestinians stop terrorists from attacking Israel.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1996 Jul 10, There was a report on a Federal Reserve study on interest rates that describes a new approach to monetary policy called "opportunistic disinflation." The policy says that when inflation is low, policy makers should wait for unforeseen recessions to make further progress against inflation.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A2,6)
1996 Jul 10, In the US local police in Redwood City, Ca., began testing a gunshot locator apparatus.
(SFC, 7/11/96)
1996 Jul 10, A report by TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring group reported that 20 million sea horses are caught and traded each year. China was estimated to import 20 tons each year for use in traditional medicines. Sea horse populations in the Indo-Pacific region have fallen over 50% in the last 5 years. Sea horses mate for life and if one of a couple is caught, the other refuses to breed again.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 10, The Khmer Rouge attacked a government base in southwestern Cambodia. They were also accused of killing 60 forestry workers kidnapped previously.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, A coalition of Canadian groups threatened to boycott Florida unless the US relents on the Helms-Burton law that imposed sanctions on foreign companies that trade with companies expropriated by from the US by Cuba.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 10, In Malaysia entrepreneur Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun was backing a new development to rise above the Kelang River in Kuala Lumpur. Called KL Linear City the plan called for a 24 year project that would consist of a 1.24 mile-long, 10-story, tube-like structure. It was disclosed as a footnote in Malaysia’s 75 year plan released in April.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, A US congressional committee urged the West African republic of Mauritania to free its slaves.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, In Niger Gen’l. Ibrahim Mainassara claimed electoral victory and immediately banned opposition parties and public meetings.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 10, In Tajikistan 50,000 people have died since fighting broke out in 1992.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 11, A report stated that Malaria infects 300 million people each year and kills 1.5 to 2.7 million. A drug, artemether, derived from a Chinese herb was appearing to be as effective as quinine.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Jul 11, An Air Force F-16 jet trying to make an emergency landing slammed into a house in Pensacola, Fla., setting the home on fire, killing a 4-year-old boy and badly burning his mother. The pilot ejected safely.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/11/97)
1996 Jul 11, The Argentine minister of justice, Rodolfo Barra, resigned his post due to his past association as a teen-ager in the 60s with the anti-Semitic group, Tacuara.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Jul 11, Two bombs ripped apart buses in Moscow and injured at least 23 people. A Chechen link was suspected but not proven.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 12, The House voted overwhelmingly to define marriage in federal law as a legal union of one man and one woman, no matter what states might say.
(AP, 7/12/97)
1996 Jul 12, Hurricane Bertha hit North Carolina's Cape Fear near Wilmington, then moved on to batter a string of coastal towns.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/12/97)
1996 Jul 12, Lee Guthrie Jr., a member of the Aryan Republican Army, was found dead of an apparent suicide in a county jail in Kentucky. The group advocated killing Jews, deporting African-Americans and setting up a Bible-based nation.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 12, John Chancellor (b.1927), news reporter, died. He had been an anchor reporter on NBC Nightly News from 1970-1982.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A5)
1996 Jul 12, Gottfried von Einem (b.1918), Swiss composer, died in Oberdurnbach.
(www.einem.org/en/komp_ll.htm)
1996 Jul 12, The EU warned that it would freeze US assets and impose visa requirements on Americans if European companies are penalized for investing in Cuba.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A9)
1996 Jul 12, A divorce settlement between Lady Diana Spencer and Charles, the Prince of Wales was agreed upon. Diana would be called "Her Royal Highness" and would receive about $22.5 mil plus an annual $600,000 to maintain her private office.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 12, In Libya at least 20 people were killed in Tripoli at a soccer match. Bodyguards loyal to the sons of Moammar Ghadafi fired at spectators who shouted hostile slogans. A stampede resulted.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 12, In Northern Ireland authorities relented and allowed the Orange Order to march through the village of Drumcree.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 12, Russian banks were undergoing a major shakeout. 2,132 banks were operating, a 20% decrease since 1994.
(WSJ, 7/12/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 12, In southern Sudan at least 700,000 people were facing starvation because of the Khartoum government’s refusal to allow large-scale food aid.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Jul 12, Venezuela was awarded a $1.4 billion credit from the Int’l. Monetary Fund.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13, After battering the Carolinas, the weakened remnants of Hurricane Bertha moved north, spawning tornadoes and dumping rain from Maryland to Massachusetts.
(AP, 7/13/97)
1996 Jul 13, Hollywood producer Pandro S. Berman (1905-1996) died. He produced Top Hat, Morning Glory, The Blackboard Jungle, Swing Time, The Gay Divorcee, Shall We Dance, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Gunga Din, Of Human Bondage, National Velvet, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butterfield 8, Father of the Bride and Move.
(SFC, 7/14/96, p.C8)
1996 Jul 13, Mt. Merapi volcano in Java was about to erupt.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13, Winter storms raged across South Africa and snowdrifts up to 8-feet high blocked the main road from Johannesburg to Durban.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13, Tehran, Iran, was invaded by thousands of lizards and snakes over the past three months. Military exercises nearby or rising levels of groundwater have been cited as possible reasons.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 13-1996 Jul 14, In Uganda more than 90 Sudanese refugees were killed in a camp 220 miles north of Kampala. The Lord’s Resistance Army was blamed.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 14, Fire crews battled blazes covering more than 16,000 acres in California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Utah.
(AP, 7/14/97)
1996 Jul 14, In Afghanistan the new prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, closed movie theaters and banned music on TV and radio, claiming that they were repugnant to Islam.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 14, If elections are to proceed in Bosnia, Swiss foreign minister Flavio Cotti must determine that they can be free and fair by this date. He is the chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 14, In Northern Ireland, a car bomb at the Killyhevlin Hotel in the town of Enniskillen exploded and injured 17 people soon after the building was evacuated; a group calling itself "Continuity" claimed responsibility for the blast.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/14/97)
1996 Jul 15, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole picked New York congresswoman Susan Molinari to deliver the keynote address at the upcoming GOP convention.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, Arkansas Gov. Guy Tucker stepped down following a felony conviction in the Whitewater scandal. Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee became governor.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(Econ, 2/3/07, p.33)
1996 Jul 15, The stock market took a tumble. The NASDAQ index dropped 43.11 points, its 2nd largest decline since 10/19/87 when it dropped 46.12 points.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15 MSNBC, a 24-hour all-news network, made its debut on cable and the Internet.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, An Algerian court sentenced 128 Muslim militants to death in absentia for their involvement in guerilla activities. Another 67 were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 15, A Belgian plane, Lockheed C-130, crashed during landing in the Netherlands and killed 32 people.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In India 58 Hindu pilgrims died in stampedes during religious festivals at Ujjain, 465 miles south of New Delhi, and Hardwar, 125 miles north.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In Israel/Palestine 135,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and 5,000 live in Gaza. About 160,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem, captured from Jordan in 1967 and then annexed. New settlements were being planned.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 15, In Nicaragua 6 soldiers were killed and one injured in an ambush in central Matagalpa province.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 16, President Clinton told the National Governors Association he was granting states new powers to deny benefits to recipients who refuse to move from welfare to work.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1996 Jul 16, Russian President Boris Yeltsin met a day late with Vice President Al Gore, easing some of the concerns about his fragile health.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1996 Jul 16, US states were adopting laws that would allow drug users and their families to sue drug dealers.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.B1)
1996 Jul 16, Handwriting analysis tagged Newsweek columnist and CBS commentator Joe Klein as the anonymous author of Primary Colors, a satire of the 1992 Clinton campaign.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A2)
1996 Jul 16, Pres. Clinton waived for 6 months sanctions on Cuba that would have allowed US courts to sue foreign companies for the use of property confiscated by the Castro regime.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 16, An ambush in Algeria killed the former head of a militant Muslim group.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 16, Hong Kong authorities arrested a US immigration agent on charges of smuggling illegal immigrants through Central America. Jerry Wolf Stuchiner, a 19 year veteran, was found with forged Honduran passports at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport.
(SFC, 7/17/96, A7)
1996 Jul 16, Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko escaped an assassination attempt. He proceeded to the Donbass coalfields where 200,000 miners were on strike.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 17, Interior Sec. Bruce Babbitt signed an agreement to put 58 sq. miles of land in Orange county under a new Natural Community Conservation Planning program designed to protect entire ecosystems.
(SFC, 7/18/96, p.A4)
1996 Jul 17, TWA flight 800 crashed off of Long Island, N.Y., shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport and 230 people died. It was a 25-year-old Paris-bound Boeing 747 whose previous flight had been from Greece. Later reports of a missile attack were tracked to a Navy P-3 Orion flying at 20,000 feet as opposed to the altitude of the Boeing at 13,600 feet. In 1997 the FBI issued a report that the disaster was caused by an explosion in the central fuel tank and was not the result of sabotage. In 2013 former investigators pushed to reopen the probe into the crash.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.A1)(SFC, 3/21/97, p.A7)(AP, 7/17/97)(SFC,11/19/97, p.A3)(SFC, 6/20/13, p.A7)
1996 Jul 17, Scientists discovered that the earth’s solid-iron core rotates 12 miles a year faster than the liquid-iron outer core. The inner core grows about an inch in radius every 50 years. A report was published in Nature.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.A1)(SFC, 7/18/96, p.A6)
1996 Jul 17, The Community of Portuguese-Speaking countries was formed. It included Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe. Leaders then held their first summit meeting.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.E6)
1996 Jul 17-Aug 30, US Special Forces trained Rwandan army soldiers in small-unit leader training, rifle marksmanship, first aid, land navigation and tactical skills.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A11)
1996 Jul 18, Recovery efforts continued off Long Island, N.Y., for the bodies of the 230 people who died in the fiery crash of TWA Flight 800; President Clinton urged Americans not to immediately assume the crash was the work of terrorists.
(AP, 7/18/97)
1996 Jul 18, In Sri Lanka 4,000 Tamil rebels overran a military base 175 miles NE of Colombo and overcame 1,200 defenders.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 19, The 26th summer Olympics opening ceremonies began in Atlanta, Georgia. The photo finish was computerized and in color for track and field events. Beach volleyball was inaugurated as an Olympic sport.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/19/97)(SFC, 8/23/04, p.C3)(NG, 8/04, Geographica)
1996 Jul 19, A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recommended, with some conditions, that the abortion-inducing drug RU-486 be approved.
(AP, 7/19/97)
1996 Jul 19, Bosnian Serb official Radovan Karadzic yielded to international pressure to give up all political power after negotiations led by US envoy Richard Holbrooke.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)(AP, 7/19/97)
1996 Jul 19, In China the Yangtze River threatened to burst its banks. Workers used 500 tons of rice in sacks to fill gaps in the banks. Millions were left homeless and 716 were reported dead.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 19, In Sri Lanka Tamil rebels sank an navy gunboat with 40 members. The Tigers claim to have killed 500 government soldiers at the Mullaitivu camp.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 20, At the Atlanta Olympics, Renata Mauer of Poland won the Games' first gold, in the 10-meter air rifle.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, In his weekly radio address, President Clinton paid tribute to America's Olympic athletes at the just-opened Atlanta games, as well as 16 high school students from Montoursville, Pa., who died in the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, A new sculpture museum was scheduled to open in Copan National Park, Honduras, with exhibits of Mayan work.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.25)
1996 Jul 20, In Spain the Basque separatist group ETA set off 3 bombs at tourist sites. One at the airport of Reus and 2 at the beach resorts of Cambrils and Salou.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.A18)
1996 Jul 20, In Uganda rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army abducted some 80 people, half of them students, 125 miles north of Kampala.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 21, There was a review of "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, a historical chronicle of the American punk-rock movement.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.B7)
1996 Jul 21, At the Atlanta Olympics, swimmer Tom Dolan gave the United States its first gold, in the 400-meter individual medley. The men's 800-meter freestyle relay team also won.
(AP, 7/21/97)
1996 Jul 21, Dozens of memorial services were held across the country to remember the 230 people killed in the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(AP, 7/21/97)
1996 Jul 21, It was reported that as many as 6,000 immigrants were naturalized as US citizens every month in SF.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.B1)
1996 Jul 21, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed 320 Tutsis, mostly women and children, at a refugee camp 45 miles north of the capital.
(WSJ, 7/22/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 21, Danish cyclist Bjarne Riis won the Tour de France. In 2007 he admitted to using performance enhancing drugs to win the race.
(WSJ, 5/26/07, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Tour_de_France)
1996 Jul 21, Thirteen pounds of explosives were hurled at the Hell’s Angel’s headquarters in Copenhagen. Their compound consists of 5 buildings surrounded by a 10-foot fence.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A13)
1996 Jul 22, Friends and families gathered on a Long Island, N.Y., beach for a tearful memorial service dedicated to the 230 victims of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(AP, 7/22/97)
1996 Jul 22, In Pakistan a bomb killed 9 at Lahore Int’l. airport in the Punjab province. It was the 13 bombing in the Punjab this year.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 23, At the Atlanta Olympics, Kerri Strug made a heroic final vault despite torn ligaments in her left ankle as the US women gymnasts clinched their first-ever Olympic team gold medal.
(AP, 7/23/01)
1996 Jul 23, The US Senate passed a welfare overhaul bill.
(AP, 7/23/01)
1996 Jul 23, In Toronto, a police officer was charged with criminal negligence in the shooting of a protester who became the first Canadian Indian in modern times killed in a land dispute with the government.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1996 Jul 23, Canadian researchers found a hormone, GLP-2, that stimulates growth of the lining of the small intestine.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.B6)
1996 Jul 23, Jessica Mitford (78), author of "The American Way of Death," died. The 1963 book was an expose of the funeral industry in the US. Her attorney husband, Robert Treuhaft, died in 2001. In 2001 Mary S. Lovell authored "The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family." In 2006 “Decca: The Letters of Jessica," edited by Peter Y. Sussman was published. In 2010 Leslie Brody authored “Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford."
(SFC, 6/30/96, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 11/12/01, p.A18)(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.M1)(SFC, 11/3/06, p.E9)(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.F7)
1996 Jul 24, Two bombs blamed on Tamil separatists ripped through a commuter train near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 64 civilians and wounding more than 400.
(WSJ, 7/25/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/24/97)
1996 Jul 24, it was reported that 3 prisoners in Turkey have died during a hunger strike by 1,900 inmates in 33 prisons. The protests were for government transfers of prisoners to remote locations and cancellation of visiting rights for political prisoners.
(WSJ, 7/25/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 25, Divers searching the wreckage of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, N.Y., recovered the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
(AP, 7/25/97)
1996 Jul 25, In Burundi the military seized power and named former president Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, as president. Hutu officials sought refuge in foreign embassies. Burundian Hutus fled to Zaire's South Kivu province, base of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy, an extremist Burundi Hutu movement backed by Zaire.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Jul 25, Mexico said it will repay $7 bil of the remaining $10.5 bil borrowed from the US Treasury, partly through a $6 bil issue of securities.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 26, Amy Van Dyken became the first American woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympics as she captured the 50-meter freestyle in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/26/97)
1996 Jul 26, President Clinton rejected a clemency plea from Jonathan Pollard, who'd spent more than 10 years in prison for spying for Israel.
(AP, 7/26/97)
1996 Jul 26, It was announced that researchers had devised a new small molecule that may be used in pill form to replace large molecules which up to now needed to be injected.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 26, Researchers announced the discovery of a gene, fosB, associated with infant care in mice.
(SFC, 7/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 26, UN sources said that 268 Hutu civilians were killed in Burundi’s Gitega province. The Tutsi army said Hutu rebels attacked a coffee factory in Giheta.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 27, The Santa Fe Opera premiered "Emmeline" by Tobias Picker. It was based on a novel by Judith Rossner.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A10)(www.current.org/prog613.html)
1996 Jul 27, American Gail Devers won the women's 100-meter dash.
(AP, 7/27/97)
1996 Jul 27, A pipe bomb was set off at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. One person, Alice Stubbs Hawthorne (44), was killed and 111 injured. Eric Rudolph was later charged with the bombing. He was arrested May 31, 2003. Rudolph later pleaded guilty to the bombing.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1,3)(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A10)(SSFC, 6/1/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/27/08)
1996 Jul 27, The cruise ship Universe Explorer caught fire in Alaska’s Inside Passage and 5 crew members were killed and 76 people injured.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 27, Lee Lescaze, journalist and editor, died of cancer. In 2007 Lynn Darling, his widow, authored “Necessary Sins," a chronicle of their life together.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.P9)(www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-797868.html)
1996 Jul 27, A ship carrying 69 people sank in the Indian Ocean off the Comoro islands near the island of Mali. 5 survivors were found.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 27, In Burundi a Tutsi-led army killed at least 30 Hutu rebels in retaliation for an attack on a coffee plantation. Independent sources said that Hutus set fire to the factory and rice plantation in Giheta to justify a retaliatory attack on villages where Hutu rebels were thought to have taken refuge. Villagers said Tutsi soldiers massacred about 1,000 Hutus as they roamed from village to village in Gitega province.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 27, In Indonesia soldiers raided the headquarters of Megawati Sukarnoputri. They arrested 176 people and riots followed with 2 dead and 26 injured.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 28, President Clinton, addressing a veterans convention in New Orleans, called on Congress to pass expanded anti-terrorism measures.
(AP, 7/28/97)
1996 Jul 28, Federal investigators reported "very good leads" in the hunt for the Olympic bomber, a day after the explosion in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/28/97)
1996 Jul 28, Roger Tory Peterson (b.1908), artist and ornithologist, died. His 1934 book, “A Field Guide to the Birds," revolutionized the study and appreciation of birds in America. In 2008 Douglas Carlson authored “Roger Tory Peterson."
(WSJ, 3/1/08, p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Tory_Peterson)
1996 Jul 28, In Kashmir, India, a guard shot at 2 people who refused to move a motor scooter and a bomb exploded that killed 6 and wounded 17 near the headquarters of a Muslim group.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 28, In the Philippines typhoon Gloria struck and killed at least 39 people on Luzon and left 16 missing.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 28, Turkey reached an agreement with prisoners to end a hunger strike after 12 inmates died. Elsewhere soldiers clashed with Kurds and 16 died along with 28 Kurdish rebels.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D4)
1996 Jul 29, At the Atlanta Olympics, Carl Lewis won the gold medal in the long jump, becoming only the fifth Olympian to win gold medals in four straight games. Michael Johnson won the 400-meter dash, Allen Johnson the 110-meter hurdles.
(AP, 7/29/97)
1996 Jul 29, China held a nuclear test explosion that it promised would be its last, just hours before international negotiators in Geneva began discussing a global ban on such testing. Beijing said it would seek some changes in the global test-ban treaty currently being fashioned by negotiators.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/29/97)
1996 Jul 29, In Kashmir, India, a grenade exploded in a Muslim shrine that killed 2 and injured some 100 people.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 30, The U.S. Olympic softball team defeated China, 3-1, to win the gold medal.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1996 Jul 30, A federal law enforcement source said security guard Richard Jewell had become a focus of the investigation into the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park. Jewell was later cleared as a suspect, and Eric Rudolph eventually pleaded guilty.
(AP, 7/30/06)
1996 Jul 30, Claudette Colbert, actress in many classic films, died in Barbados at 92.
(AP, 7/30/97)(WSJ, 7/31/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 31, After Pres. Clinton's announcement that he would sign it, 98 Democrats joined the House's Republican majority to pass a historic welfare overhaul bill. The White House won agreement with key Republican lawmakers on a package of anti-terrorism measures.
(AP, 7/31/06)
1996 Jul 31, Mahmoud Jumayal died under interrogation by the Palestinian security forces. He was the 8th in 2 years.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A8,10)
1996 Jul 31, In South Africa rush-hour crowds panicked when guards used electric prods to drive off fare-beaters. At least 15 died and 65 were injured in a stampede.
(WSJ, 8/1/96 p.A1)
1996 Jul, James Fallows, author of "Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy," was named the editor of U.S. News.
(WSJ, 9/9/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul, In Nevada Bruce Weinstein, a professional gambler, was killed in his bed. His decomposed body was found a month later in the desert. His girlfriend, Amy DeChant, was charged in the crime. She was found in Florida in 1998 hiding at the Sunnier Days nudist camp.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3,5)
1996 Jul, A 9,300 year-old skeleton was found by the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wa. It became known as the "Kennewick Man" or "Richland Man." A federal judge ruled in 1998 that scientists be allowed to examine the remains held by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Native American Indians wanted the remains buried.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.B9)(SFC, 5/29/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/14/00, p.A7)
1996 Jul, In Sydney Ivan Milat (b.1944), Australian outdoorsman, was jailed for life for murdering seven backpackers. Milat killed three Germans, two Britons and two Australians between 1989 and 1992. Their bodies were later found in shallow graves in a remote forest southwest of Sydney.
(http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Ivan-Milat)(AP, 1/27/09)
1996 Jul, In Bangladesh Grameen CyberNet went live and offered Net connections to dialup customers in Dhaka.
(Wired, 2/98, p.67)
1996 Jul, In Colombia right-wing paramilitary forces under Carlos Castanos began kidnapping the family members of left-wing guerrillas.
(SFC, 3/26/97, p.C2)
1996 Jul, In Egypt female circumcision was banned but the prohibition was not incorporated into the penal code.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Jul, In France Caroline Dickinson, a 13-year-old British girl, was raped and strangled at a youth hostel in the town of Pleine-Fougeres. In 1997 a DNA test was planned to be performed on volunteers of the 170 young men in the town who fit an age profile of the murderer.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A8)
1996 Jul, In India 21 lower-caste villagers were gunned down in Bihar by gunmen of Ranbir Sena.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A11)
1996 Jul, In Mexico the Congress passed constitutional amendments designed to control fraud and reduce the advantage of the PRI.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul, The Nicaraguan Sandinista Front’s Miami office was firebombed.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A12)
1996 Aug 1, In a political victory for President Clinton, a federal jury in Little Rock, Ark., acquitted two Arkansas bankers of misapplying bank funds and conspiracy to boost his political career; the jury deadlocked on seven other counts.
(AP, 8/1/97)
1996 Aug 1, At the Atlanta Olympics, Michael Johnson broke his world track record by more than three-tenths of a second, winning the 200 meters in 19.32 seconds.
(AP, 8/1/97)
1996 Aug 1, In Kazakhstan doctors warned of a surge in TB when 56,000 prisoners are released under a government amnesty. It was estimated that 16,500 prisoners had the disease.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 1, It was reported that 1/5 of China’s river water can no longer be used to irrigate land.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 1, In Somalia Mohamed Farrah Aidid died from wounds in a gun battle with a faction headed by his brother. General Muhammad Aideed (Mohamed Aidid) had employed a printing press to reproduce the country’s 1,000 shillings note. The value of the note fell from $.13 to $.03, or about the cost of producing an additional note. Forging stopped as the profit margin disappeared.
(www.cnn.com/WORLD/9608/02/aideed/)(Econ, 4/21/12, p.22)
1996 Aug 1, In Venezuela the tax authorities increased the general sales tax to 16.5% from 12.5%. There has been a 108% rate of inflation over the last 12 months. Transparency Int’l., a Berlin base nongovernmental anticorruption organization, rated Venezuela as the most corrupt country in the Western hemisphere.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A11)
1996 Aug 2, Wall Street investors, worried about possible interest rate increases, roared their approval after the government reported that unemployment was creeping higher, consumer spending had slipped and manufacturing may have stalled.
(AP, 8/2/97)
1996 Aug 2, In Somalia Mohamed Farrah Aidid was buried after dying from wounds received during fighting in Mogadishu. Followers named his son, Hussein, as their new leader.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 3, At the Atlanta Olympics, the U.S. men's 400-meter relay, without Carl Lewis, failed to win the gold medal, finishing behind Canada. The American women's 400 and 1,600 relay teams, and the men's 1,600, all won gold. The U.S. men's basketball team beat Yugoslavia 95-69 to win the gold.
(AP, 8/3/97)
1996 Aug 3, In Denmark a Gulfstream jet crashed and killed Copenhagen’s top military officer and 8 others as it approached a Faroe Islands airstrip.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 3-4, In Malaysia there was a nationwide power blackout that lasted 16 hours in some areas.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A5c)
1996 Aug 3-4, Sri Lanka’s military said it killed some 200 Tamil separatist rebels in a weekend battle. Rebels said 100 government soldiers were killed. Both sides denied the others claims.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 4, On the final day of the Atlanta Olympics, Josia Thugwane became the first black South African to win a gold medal as he finished first in the marathon; the U.S. women's basketball team defeated Brazil 111-87 to win the gold; David Reid won the only boxing gold medal for the United States. A three-hour closing ceremony of music, dance and light, attended by at least 80,000 people, brought the games to an official close with a final ceremony.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/4/97)
1996 Aug 4, In San Francisco the Cannabis Buyer’s Club at 1444 Market St. was raided by agents of the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement.
(SFC, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 5, In a bold bid to capture a skeptical public's attention, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole proposed a $548 billion tax cut.
(AP, 8/5/97)
1996 Aug 5, US Pres. Clinton signed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act. It held that foreign companies with investments of more than $40 million in the oil and gas sectors of these nations to be subject to US imposed sanctions.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 5, A jury in San Jose, Calif., recommended the death penalty for Richard Allen Davis, convicted of kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/5/97)
1996 Aug 5, "Divided They Fell: The Demise of the Democratic Party, 1964-1996" by Ronald Radosh was reviewed.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 5, In Chechnya rebels began a new raid and seized much of Grozny by the next day.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 6, Officials announced the Air Force had punished 16 officers in connection with the crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others the previous April.
(AP, 8/6/97)
1996 Aug 6, The US Naval Academy at Annapolis expelled 15 midshipmen, 12 men and 3 women, for drug use that included LSD and marijuana.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A3)
1996 Aug 6, GE Capital said it would purchase First Colony in an $11 billion deal, one of the biggest in the insurance industry.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Aug 6, NASA scientists presented evidence that a meteorite from Mars (ALH 84001) that was found in Antarctica in 1984 contained organic minerals such as carbonate globules, magnetite, iron sulfide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. In 2001 Imre Friedmann (1921-2007), extreme microbiologist, led a team of researchers to study the same meteorite and claimed conclusive evidence that Mars had been teeming with life 3.5 billion years ago. Researchers in 2007 said the organic material in the rock was made by chemical reactions.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A6)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.96)(Econ, 12/15/07, p.90)
1996 Aug 7, More than 6 million American Online customers worldwide were left stranded when the system crashed for almost 19 hours.
(AP, 8/7/97)
1996 Aug 7, There was a report that cervical cancer in women was linked to the human papilloma virus (HPV). There is an estimated 75 different strains of HPV and that 97% of cervical cancers were due to the virus and commonly spread by sexual intercourse.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A5)
1996 Aug 7, NASA researchers formally presented their case for the existence of life long ago on Mars. [see Aug 6]
(AP, 8/7/01)
1996 Aug 7, The presidents of Serbia and Croatia agreed to establish diplomatic relations.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A11)
1996 Aug 7, In Honduras the attorney general accused the army of spying on thousands of public officials, judges, politicians and journalists.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 7, In Russia communist leader Gennady Zyuganov was elected to lead a coalition of Communists and nationalists under the banner of the Popular Patriotic Union.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 7, In Spain flash floods at a Pyrenees mountain campsite killed at least 71 [86] people at a campground.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/7/97)
1996 Aug 8, President Clinton belittled Bob Dole's tax plan, vowing to oppose tax cuts that he said the country couldn't afford. Republican sources, meanwhile, said Dole was seriously considering Jack Kemp to be his running mate.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1996 Aug 8, Sir Neville Mott (1906-1996), who shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in physics with Philip Anderson and John van Vleck for research on the behavior of electricity in non-crystalline or so-called "disordered" materials, died in London.
(SFC, 8/11/96, p.D5)
1996 Aug 8, Medical researchers successfully cured patients with sickle-cell anemia by using a risky bone-marrow transplant technique.
(WSJ, 7/8/96,p.A1)
1996 Aug 8, In Cambodia the government announced an internal power struggle and split in the Khmer Rouge. Leng Sary, a Pol Pot chum and the Khmer Rouge foreign minister, opposed Son Sen, the minister of defense and led defections that grew to 10,000.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A13)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 4/17/98, p.A13)
1996 Aug 8, Food poisoning due to E. coli bacteria in the city of Sakai, Japan, was attributed to radish sprouts.
(WSJ, 7/8/96,p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, In Jacksonville, Fla., a jury held the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Co. liable for the lung cancer of Grady Carter and awarded damages of $750,000.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, Bob Dole telephoned Jack Kemp to ask him to be his running mate; Kemp accepted.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1996 Aug 9, Frank A. Whittle (89), inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(www.allstar.fiu.edu/aerojava/whittle.htm)
1996 Aug 9, In Burundi suspected Hutu rebels killed 22 in Cibitoke province.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, Gambia voters approved a new constitution that gave army ruler Yahya Jammeh the mandate to hold elections.
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 9, In India there was an incident of food poisoning caused by Clostridium botulinum. 106 people fell ill and 6 died after eating at a canteen in the town of Bhiwandi, 80 miles north of Bombay. Seeds from a poisonous weed also became suspect.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A20)(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, A weary-looking Boris Yeltsin was sworn into his second term as president of Russia.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1996 Aug 9, Pyotr Karpov, a Russian deputy agent in declaring whether state-owned firms should be declared bankrupt, was charged with taking bribes in 1994 in Saratov. He was arrested 2 weeks ago and sent to prison in Saratov.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Aug 10, US Sen. Bob Dole completed the Republican ticket by announcing former housing secretary Jack Kemp as his running mate.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/10/97)
1996 Aug 10, Cascading power outages hit parts of nine Western states. [3:40 p.m. PST]
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A10)(AP, 8/10/97)
1996 Aug 10, In Tijuana, Mexico, gunmen kidnapped a Japanese businessmen, Mamoru Konno of Sanyo Video, and held him for $2 mil ransom. He was found released on Aug 19 after payment of the ransom.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A10) (SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 10, In the Philippines Mount Canlaon erupted and killed 3 climbers. The mountain was one of 21 active volcanoes in the Philippines.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 11, The Reform Party opened the first part of its two-stage convention in Long Beach, Calif., with Ross Perot and Richard Lamm battling for the presidential nod.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1996 Aug 11, It was reported that a Greek Cypriot man was killed and 41 injured in a border clash, after Greek Cypriot motorcyclists defied orders to halt a rode across the line to protest Turkey’s 1974 invasion.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 11, In Indonesia Budiman Sujatmiko, leader of the unauthorized People’s Democratic Party, was one of ten people arrested. The government was considering charges of subversion.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 11, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin appointed Alexander Lebed as his pres. envoy to Chechnya.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 11, In Turkey the prime minister approved an agreement to buy $20 billion of natural gas from Iran over 22 years.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 11, Rafael Jeronym Kubelik (b.1914), conductor, died at age 82. He led the Czech Philharmonic from 1941 to 1948 and the Chicago Symphony from 1050-1953. He was then musical director at London’s Covent Garden opera house and from 1961-1979 headed the Munich orchestra of Bavarian Radio. He was the son of Czech violinist Jan Kubelik.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.C5)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9046338)
1996 Aug 12, The Republican Party opened its 36th national convention in San Diego by celebrating Bob Dole as a tested, trustworthy leader who would lower taxes and bring compassionate conservatism to the White House.
(AP, 8/12/97)
1996 Aug 12, "Inequality by Design," due out in one month, was reviewed. It was produced as a counter to the arguments of "The Bell Curve" and holds that social policies, not IQ, are the main reasons for inequality.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A2)
1996 Aug 12, Mark Gruenwald, the editor of Marvel Comics, died at 42. He requested that his ashes be mixed with ink and used to print a comic book. In 1997 his 12-comic series of 1985, "Squadron Supreme," was re-issued in one volume in a 4,000 copy printing according to his request.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A15)
1996 Aug 12, Stephen Kuttner (1907-1996), Prof. of medieval church law, died. His life study involved tracing the evolution of law from Roman to modern times.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C4)
1996 Aug 12, In Argentina economy minister Roque Fernandez announced a new round of austerity measures that included higher fuel prices and tax boosts on everything. Cash will be raised by selling commercial airports, military installations, nuclear power plants and cracking down on tax-evasion.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Aug 12, On the shores of Australia’s Cocos and North Keeling Islands thousands of thongs (flip-flops) have been washing up on the shore as discards from Indonesia.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.B1)
1996 Aug 12, Iran and Turkey agreed to connect their power networks.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Aug 12, In Somalia it was reported that 2 Ethiopian businessmen were killed in retaliation for an incursion by Ethiopia’s army.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 12, In Rwanda the Tutsi-led parliament passed a law allowing for trials of some 80,000 people on charges of genocide in the deaths of 500,000 people in 1994.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 13, At their convention in San Diego, Republicans delivered a blistering critique of President Clinton's record, portraying the Democratic incumbent as an unprincipled liberal conning voters with election-year conservatism.
(AP, 8/13/97)
1996 Aug 13, Mary Higgins Clark, suspense writer, signed a 3-book contract with Simon & Schuster for $3 mil per book.
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.B2)
1996 Aug 13, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0.
(http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release33.html)
1996 Aug 13, In Belgium Marc Dutroux, on parole following rape charges, was arrested for kidnapping and the murder of 2 girls. In 2004 he was convicted of kidnapping and murder. His wife and 2 accomplices were also convicted.
(AP, 6/17/04)
1996 Aug 13, In Burundi the last 2 commercial flights left the country as the outside world tightened sanctions to punish the new military regime.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 13, In South Africa Nadthmie Edries, leader of a group called People Against Gangsterism, was charged with sedition in connection with the vigilante slaying of a drug-gang leader.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 13, In Spain at Perpignan a gang of masked men stole $800,000 in Spanish pesetas from the cargo hold of an Air France plane.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 14, The Republican National Convention in San Diego nominated Bob Dole for president and Jack Kemp for vice president in an evening that featured a talk-show-style testimonial by Elizabeth Dole, who strolled the convention floor with a wireless microphone.
(AP, 8/14/97)
1996 Aug 14, Sergiu Celibidache (84), Romanian conductor (would not use recording studio), died in France.
(www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Celibidache-Sergiu.htm)
1996 Aug 14, In Cyprus another man was killed in demonstrations when Turkish troops opened fire on Greek Cypriot demonstrators.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 14, In India police arrested a kitchen worker in a food-poisoning incident that traced to poisonous seeds.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 14, An impasse on the nuclear test ban treaty was reached when India refused to sign on the basis that there was no commitment by the 5 acknowledged nuclear powers to a timetable for disarmament.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 14, Iraq and Turkey signed an agreement to improve political and economic ties.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C3)
1996 Aug 14, In Mongolia officials sealed off parts of Ulan Bator to halt an outbreak of cholera.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 14, In Peru, 35 people were electrocuted when a stray rocket during a fireworks show knocked down a high-tension line.
(AP, 8/14/97)
1996 Aug 14, In Russian Yeltsin gave security chief Lebed the authority to control and coordinate the operations of the army, Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service and other agencies in Chechnya.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 15, Bob Dole claimed the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in San Diego, offering himself as the "bridge to a time of tranquility" and describing himself as "the most optimistic man in America." Jack Kemp became the Republican Party vice-presidential nominee.
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/15/97)
1996 Aug 15, A botulism outbreak began killing birds at the Salton Sea in California. The sea is 278 feet below sea level and is now 10% more salty than the Pacific Ocean. Extensive pollution with sewage from Mexico and pesticides from farms in the Coachella valley plague the big lake.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.D8)(SFC, 9/3/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 15, Frederick Davidson, a graduate student at San Diego State University, shot and killed three engineering professors; he was later sentenced to three life terms in prison.
(AP, 8/15/97)
1996 Aug 15, In Algeria armed militants killed 17 passengers on a bus using a fake police barricade on a remote highway.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 15, In Belgium two kidnapped girls were rescued by police just days following the arrest of Marc Doutroux. [see Aug 13]
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A14)
1996 Aug 15, In Nigeria 27 of the 30 governors were sacked by Sani Abacha. The other 3 were transferred to other states.
(WSJ, 8/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 15, In South Korea some 6,000 police clashed with 7,000 students who protested for reunification with North Korea and the removal of 37,000 US troops.
(SFC, 8/16/96, p.A17)
1996 Aug 16, A jubilant Bob Dole set out from the Republican convention, promoting his tax-cut plan as a boon to working families.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1996 Aug 16, The brokerage firm E*Trade Group went public and saw its shares rise 7.1% on its first day of trading.
(WSJ, 11/13/07, p.A21)
1996 Aug 16, In Brookfield, Ill., a 3-year-old boy fell 15-feet into a concrete area of a zoo’s gorilla exhibit and was rescued by Binti-jua, a 7-year-old gorilla with her own 2-year-old on her back.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A3)(MC, 8/16/02)
1996 Aug 16, Eric Nesbitt (21), an airman at Langley AFB, was shot and killed after he was abducted and forced to withdraw money from an ATM machine by Daryl R. Atkins and another man. Atkins scored 59 on an IQ test in 1998, below the Virginia cut-off of 70 for retardation. In 2002 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. In 2004 Atkins scored 74 and faced another trial. In 2005 a jury found Atkins to be mentally competent.
(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.A9)(SFC, 8/6/05, p.A4)(www.vuac.org/capital/row.html)
1996 Aug 16, Dominican Rep. Pres. Balaguer left office. Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna (b. 1953), a 42-year-old lawyer who grew up in New York City, was the 100th president of the Dominican Republic. He replaced Joaquín Amparo Balaguer Ricardo (1906-2002), President of the Dominican Republic from 1960 to 1962, from 1966 to 1978, and again from 1986-1996.
(SFC, 11/25/96, p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Balaguer)
1996 Aug 16, In Mexico Attorney General Antonio Lozano fired 734 members of the Mexico City judicial police in an attempt to reform the drug-fighting force. Police official Jesus Carolla, was on the list, but resigned before being fired.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A14)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C3)
1996 Aug 17, The Reform Party in Valley Forge, Pa., announced Ross Perot had won its nomination to be its first-ever presidential candidate.
(SFC, 8/18/96, p.A10)(AP, 8/17/97)
1996 Aug 17, An Air Force C-130 cargo plane carrying gear for President Clinton crashed and exploded shortly after takeoff from Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming; eight crew members and a Secret Service employee were killed.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/17/97)
1996 Aug 17, In Algeria more than 100 militants shot, stabbed and hacked to death some 63 people when they attacked 2 busses after setting a fake barricade. The government denied the report.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 17, In Brussels, Belgium, police led by Marc Dutroux unearthed the remains of two 8-year-old girls kidnapped in June of 1995.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A14)
1996 Aug 17, The first French woman in space, Claudie Andre-Deshays, took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz-U rocket.
(SFC, 8/18/96, p.A2)
1996 Aug 17, It was reported that 900 million South African bees died this year. The Cape bees were introduced in the north and threw off the breeding patterns of the native bees. They were unable to endure the harsher climate and died. Fruit farmers and native plants were put into severe jeopardy.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 17, It was reported that tens of thousands of dead rats were caught in fisherman’s nets in India’s northeast Assam state. It was speculated that a rare poisonous bamboo flower was the cause.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 17, In Mexico federal prosecutor, Jesus Romero Magana (48), was killed. He was the first prosecutor to interrogate the gunman who killed Luis Colosio, the pres. candidate in 1994.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(SFC, 9/16/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 18, "Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs" by Michael Novacek was reviewed. It told of the author’s work as a fossil hunter in the Mongolian valley of Ukhaa Tolgod.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.5)
1996 Aug 18, "Where Wizards stay Up Late, The Origins of the Internet" by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon was reviewed.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.3)
1996 Aug 18, The film "The Spitfire Grill" with Ellen Burstyn was the most popular movie at the Sundance Film Festival. It was produced by a religious group, Gregory Productions, owned by the Mississippi-based Sacred Heart League.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, PM p. 2)
1996 Aug 18, On the eve of his 50th birthday, President Clinton was guest of honor at a trio of events in New York that combined celebrating with fund-raising. Ross Perot, the presidential nominee of the Reform Party, launched his campaign with a speech in which he criticized the Republican and Democratic parties as captives of special interests.
(AP, 8/18/97)
1996 Aug 18, In Pakistan 18 people were killed when 7 masked gunmen opened fire on a group of Shiite worshipers in central Punjab province. 100 were injured. The militant Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba, or Guardians of the Friends of the prophet were blamed.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 18, In South Korea police cut off food and medicine to students and raided the offices of the largest student organization.
(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 19, Ralph Nader accepted the presidential nomination of the Green Party in Los Angeles, denouncing tax breaks for corporations and calling for a "political alternative" to the two mainstream parties.
(AP, 8/19/97)
1996 Aug 19, A judge sentenced former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker to four years' probation for his Whitewater crimes.
(AP, 8/19/97)
1996 Aug 19, In Canberra, Australia, protestors stormed the parliament in opposition to changes in labor laws and proposed budget cuts to reduce the nation’s debt.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 19, In Haiti about 20 former soldiers attacked the Port-au-Prince police headquarters. One person, a shoeshine man, was killed and several injured.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 19, Jordan’s King Hussein said 2 days of rioting over higher bread prices was quelled.
(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 19, A Russian Ilyushin-76 carrying rescue flares and car wheels destined for Libya crashed at Belgrade’s airport and killed all 12 aboard.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 20, Pres. Clinton signed the federal minimum wage bill for an increase of .90 cents per hour in two steps to $5.15 per hour over 13 months. It was the first minimum-wage increase in five years. The bill included a $5,000 tax credit for the cost of adopting a child. He also signed a new retirement savings program for small-business workers.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A3)(AP, 8/20/97)
1996 Aug 20, Susan McDougal was sentenced in Little Rock, Ark., to two years in prison in a Whitewater fraud case. She served three months of that sentence, but also 18 months for contempt for refusing to answer questions about President Clinton.
(AP, 8/20/06)
1996 Aug 20, In Germany officials arrested 2 businessmen suspected of smuggling computer technology to Libya that could be used to make lethal nerve gas.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 20, In Burundi Pierre Buyoya sacked his army chief, Jean Bikomagu, who was implicated in the 1993 assassination of the first Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye. He also fired 2 more powerful military officers.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E5)
1996 Aug 20, In Haiti two conservative politicians were killed in drive-by shootings.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 21, President Clinton signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, aimed at making health insurance easier to obtain and keep.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.A3)(AP, 8/21/97)
1996 Aug 21, Today’s issue of Science reported the 1,738 gene sequence of the organism Methanococcus jannaschii that oceanographers in 1982 found in an undersea volcanic vent and later classified as Archaea, distinct from Prokarya and Eukarya.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A21)
1996 Aug 21, In Australia rescuers worked to save some 200 pilot whales on the southwestern coast near Dunsborough. Most were herded to sea but 14 died.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Aug 21, It was reported that police in Oulu, Finland have come up with a 3-foot harpoon to stop runaway drivers. The harpoon could also release tear gas if necessary.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 21, In France thousands marched in support of illegal immigrants and called for the removal of newly appointed Interior Minister Jean Louis-Debre.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E2)
1996 Aug 21, In Nepal the Communists called a general strike against the center-right government.
(WSJ, 8/22/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 21, In Vietnam, The Red River flooded to its worst level since 1971 and hundreds were forced to evacuate.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Aug 22, Pres. Clinton signed a welfare reform bill, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (welfare to work), to curtail fraud and abuse that also set new standards for disabled children and ended up eliminating many from supplemental security income. It ended guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanded work from recipients. It originated in the 1994 Republican "Contract with America." It included a ban on free federal medical care for new green-card holders during their 1st 5 years. The bill included “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families" (TANF), which replaced welfare.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A1,17)(AP, 8/22/97)(WSJ, 11/20/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 8/29/01, p.A1)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.46)
1996 Aug 22, The US Army began operating an incinerator in Utah to destroy a 14,000 ton stockpile of chemical weapons over 7 years.
(WSJ, 8/23/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 22, In Bahrain new environmental anti-pollution laws went into effect.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Aug 22, Neo-Nazi Gary Lauck of the US was sentenced to 4 years in prison in Germany for supplying hate literature and paraphernalia for 2 decades.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 23, President Clinton imposed limits on peddling cigarettes to children as he unveiled Food and Drug Administration regulations declaring nicotine an addictive drug. The same day, a jury in Indianapolis found cigarette companies were not responsible for the lung cancer death of a 52-year-old lawyer who began smoking at age 5.
(AP, 8/23/97)
1996 cAug 23, The Nation of Islam applied to the US Treasury Dept. for permission to accept a $1 bil donation from Col. Moammar Gadhafi that was promised to Rev. Louis Farrakhan in Jan. to help America’s black people.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 23, It was reported that British Petroleum signed a 3-year agreement with the defense ministry of Colombia for $60 mil. for a battalion of soldiers to protect expansion and construction of new drilling sites.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A20)
1996 Aug 24, Four women began two days of academic orientation at The Citadel; they were the first female cadets admitted to the South Carolina military school since Shannon Faulkner.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1996 Aug 24, Steve Fossett sailed across the Pacific Ocean and set a solo speed record of 20 days in his 60-foot 3-hulled boat, the Lakota.
(SFC, 8/25/96, p.B6)
1996 Aug 24, In Mozambique crops in the fertile districts of Manica were severely damaged by an invasion of red locusts.
(SFC, 8/24/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 24, In North Korea American Evan Carl Hunzike was arrested for spying. He entered illegally from China to get information on the domestic situation.
(SFEC, 10/7/96, A8)
1996 Aug 25, President Clinton began a whistle-stop train trip in Huntington, W.Va., that would take him to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/25/97)
1996 Aug 25, In China Dai Houying, novelist, and her niece were knifed to death in Shanghai during an apparent robbery. A former chef was later tried, convicted and sentenced to death for the murders.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.E5)(SFC, 10/19/96, A12)
1996 Aug 26, There was a review of Public Television’s new program "Adventures from the Book of Virtues" based on the anthology by William J. Bennett "The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories."
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 26, Democrats opened their 42nd national convention in Chicago.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A4)(AP, 8/26/97)
1996 Aug 26, A new fake fat, Z-trim, was announced. It was developed by a researcher of the US Dept. of Agriculture.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 26, Barbara Jewell, mother of security guard Richard Jewell, tearfully called on President Clinton to clear her son's name in connection with the Centennial Olympic Park bombing (Jewell was later cleared by the Justice Department).
(AP, 8/26/97)
1996 Aug 26, Alexander Lanusse, military president of Argentina (1971-73), died.
(http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Alejandro+Agust%edn+Lanusse)
1996 Aug 26, A Cuban court convicted fugitive U.S. financier Robert Vesco of economic crimes. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for economic crimes against the state.
(AP, 8/26/97)(SFC, 8/27/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 26, In Seoul, South Korea, former Pres. Chun Doo Hwan was sentenced to death for mutiny, treason and corruption. His successor, Roh Tae Woo, was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. Nine leading businessman were also convicted. They included Lee Kin Hee, chairman of Samsung Group, and Kim Woo Choong, chairman of Daewoo Group.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 26, In Sierra Leone rebels killed 31 villagers and 7 soldiers in the eastern village of Foindu.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)(AP, 8/26/97)
1996 Aug 26, In South Africa Eugene de Kock, former police colonel, was found guilty of 5 counts of murder. He still face 116 charges that included 3 for murder.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 27, First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed the Democratic convention in Chicago, forcefully making her husband's case for re-election while rebutting her Republican critics.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1996 Aug 27, California Gov. Pete Wilson signed an executive order aimed at halting state benefits to illegal immigrants.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1996 Aug 27, In Indianapolis 4 police officers engaged in a fight outside the city’s Circle Center mall. They were off duty and had just consumed a large amount of beer in the city’s luxury suite at a ball game. They were later tried for battery, disorderly conduct and public intoxication but the 1997 trial ended in a hung jury.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A7)
1996 Aug 27, WorldCom announced the acquisition of MFS Communications in a $12.4 billion deal. WorldCom was formerly LDDS Communications and had gone public this month.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(WSJ, 5/1/02, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, Actor Greg Morris ("Mission: Impossible") was found dead at his Las Vegas home; he was 61.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1996 Aug 27, In Bosnia the municipal elections scheduled for Sep 14 were cancelled by the American diplomat Robert Frowick due to widespread abuse of rules and regulations.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, The last Rwandan refugee camp in Burundi closed.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 27, In India plans were made to amend the 1948 electricity laws to allow private companies to enter the transmission sector and help shoulder the investment needed to satisfy demand.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 27, Seven Iraqis freed their 184 captives aboard a Sudanese airliner at the London airport and asked for political asylum.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, Israeli police tore down a youth center in Jerusalem’s Old City saying that it was illegally built with money from Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 27, In Norway the 29 stave churches (1100-1400AD) left were under government protection and threatened by arsonists of a Satanic movement.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Aug 27, Russian and Chechen military commanders signed the Khasavyurt Accords, an agreement for military disengagement.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)(USAT, 9/2/04, p.13A)
1996 Aug 27, South Korea was reported to be the world’s 11th largest economy and America’s 5th largest trading partner.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 27, The 450,000 strong army of Turkey was the largest in NATO and the only one that was exclusively Muslim.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 28, Democrats nominated President Clinton for a second term at their national convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1996 Aug 28, The UN introduced the first world archive of prehistoric and primitive art with more than 20,000 computerized images. The World Archive of Rock Art will be curated by the Camuno Center for Prehistoric Art based in the Alpine town of Capo di Ponte.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.B5)
1996 Aug 28, "Florence: A Portrait," a book by Michael Levey, was reviewed. It was discussed as an interpretive history of Medici patronage.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 28, The troubled 15-year marriage of Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially ended with the issuing of a divorce decree in London’s High Court. Under the terms of the divorce settlement, Diana was stripped of her ‘Royal Highness’ title.
(AP, 8/28/97)(HTNet, 8/28/99)
1996 Aug 28, China accused the US of aiding Taiwanese separatism by selling Stinger antiaircraft missiles and other weapons to the Taipei government.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 28, In China Mou Qizhong, head of the Land Economic Group, was being pressured by the government to repay up to $50 million in overdue loans. He was also the proponent for listing China’s 13,700 large state-owned enterprises on the New York Stock Exchange. However the state has a minimum 7.65% upfront payment law to take 51% control of a joint venture.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A1,4)
1996 Aug 28, In Mexico the EPR struck at government targets in 6 states and left at least 6 dead and 28 injured.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 28, In Poland Agnieszka Kotlarska, fashion model, was knifed and killed by a thief outside her home.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 28, South Africa announced an investigation into the killings that have left 25 miners dead in the recent weeks at 4 gold fields.
(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 29, In a rousing climax to the Democratic convention in Chicago, President Clinton appealed for a second term, declaring, "Hope is back in America." The convention also nominated Al Gore for a second term as vice president. Earlier in the day, President Clinton's chief political strategist, Dick Morris, resigned amid a scandal over his relationship with a prostitute.
(AP, 8/29/97)
1996 Aug 29, A Russian Tupelov 154 plane with 141 passengers crashed on a desolate arctic island 6 miles from Spitsbergen where they were returning to jobs in a Russian-run coal mine.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 29, Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader chose Winona LaDuke as his running mate.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A3)
1996 Aug 29, Researchers reported that gene therapy was used to halt the growth of some cancer tumors. The therapy centered on the p53 gene, which regulates the speed of cell division.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A1,15)
1996 Aug 29, Japanese authorities arrested Dr. Takeshi Abe, a hemophilia expert, who headed a government panel on AIDS in the 1980s when some 1,800 hemophiliacs were infected with AIDS after using blood-clotting agents contaminated with the AIDS virus. He had failed to recommend a heat treatment for the products more than 2 years after such treatment was approved in the US.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 29, Yasser Arafat called for a 4-hour general strike in Palestine in opposition to Israeli political actions.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 29-1996 Aug 30, In SF, Ca., dancers from the North Beach Lusty Lady Club voted on union representation with the Service Employees International Union, Local 790. The vote passed 57 to 15. The contract was ratified Apr 10, 1997.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A15)(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A17)(SFC, 4/11/97, p.A19)
1996 Aug 30, President Clinton and Vice President Gore, fresh from their renominations at the just-concluded Democratic National Convention in Chicago, set out with their wives on a bus caravan through America's heartland.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1996 Aug 30, A commercial expedition to raise part of the sunken British luxury liner Titanic ended in failure as nylon lines being used to lift a 21-ton section of the hull snapped, sending the section back to the bottom of the North Atlantic.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1996 Aug 30, The US State Dept. sent a diplomatic note to China protesting the sale of equipment for use in nuclear facilities in Pakistan.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A12)
1996 Aug 30, Dick Morris, the campaign strategist for pres. Bill Clinton, resigned due to exposure in a sex scandal.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 30, The California Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Wilson that would mandate chemical castration of child molesters.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 30, In Colombia the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARQ) guerrillas attacked the army at the Las Delicias military base in Putumayo province. They captured 60 soldiers and killed 30 others. The 12,000 FARQ have gained income by collecting commissions on coca leaf harvests.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A9)
1996 Aug 30, In Libya, Louis Farrakhan said that he could not accept a $250,000 human rights award until US courts give him permission.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 30, In Sri Lanka rebels ambushed a police patrol 115 miles east of Colombo.
(WSJ, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 31, Three adults and 4 children drowned at John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina when their car rolled into the lake by accident. They had gone to see a monument to the sons of Susan Smith, who drowned her 2 sons on Oct 25, 1994 when she let her car roll into the lake.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.D5)(AP, 8/31/97)
1996 Aug 31, New York City police found the body of 4-year-old Nadine Lockwood in her family's apartment; she'd been starved to death. The girl's mother, Carla Lockwood, was later sentenced to serve at least 15 years in prison. Nadine's father, Leroy Dickerson, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
(AP, 8/31/06)
1996 Aug 31, In Austria the country’s first gay wedding took place in the Evangelical Church in Vienna’s Simmering district.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 31, In Colombia the armed forces went on alert after a series of rebel attacks on government targets that killed about 100 people. The attacks were in response to a US government backed campaign to eradicate coca plots. A rebel column overran an army base in Las Delicias and killed 27 soldiers.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A15)(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1996 Aug 31, Over the past week torrential rains threatened Sudan and Egypt with floods. More than a million Pakistanis were displaced by fierce floods. The central Punjab Province had 4.5 million acres of crops swamped.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Aug 31, Rival Kurdish forces under leaders Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union and Massoud Barzani of the Kurdish Democratic Party clashed. Barzani’s forces participated with Sadam Hussein’s troops in taking Irbil, a Talabani stronghold. Talabani’s forces were reportedly assisted by Iran.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 31, More than 100 members of the Iraqi National Congress in Irbil were captured by Iraqi secret police and apparently executed. The Congress was set up by the US in 1992 as an alternative to Saddam Hussein. Thousands of opposition members made it to Turkey and were flown to Guam by the US and promised asylum in the US.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, p.A13)(SFC, 10/12/97, Z1 p.5)
1996 Aug 31, Ljuba Welitsch (83), Bulgaria-born opera singer, died.
(www.ucis.pitt.edu/opera/OFB/stars/wel01.htm)
1996 Aug, The US Army began a training program for Mexican officers to develop an elite counter-narcotics unit.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A18)
1996 Aug, The main ingredient of Redux and other diet drugs was linked to a rare but deadly lung disorder.
(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.B1)
1996 Aug, Osama bin Laden signed a fatwa authorizing Muslims to attack American military personnel.
(WSJ, 10/3/01, p.A17)
1996 Aug, In Brazil Yvonne de Mello received the Int’l. Citizenship Award for her work with abandoned and runaway kids in Rio de Janeiro.
(Hem., 12/96, p.21)
1996 Aug, After the Burundi coup of Jul 25, former Tanzanian Pres. Julius Nyerere led East African leaders to impose sanctions on Burundi and force Buyoya to restore democratic rule.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug, In Bolivia a holding dam at a COMSUR owned mine burst and released 230,000 metric tons of sludge containing lead and arsenic into the Rio Pilaya which in turn feeds the Pilcomayo. Local reports called this the worst environmental disaster in Latin America of the century.
(NH, 2/97, p.6)
1996 Aug, Johnny Chung, a Democrat fund-raiser, met in China with Gen'l. Ji Shengde who directed that $300,000 be wired to Chung's bank account for use in Pres. Clinton's re-election campaign. Most of the money was spent for business and personal expenses.
(SFC, 5/12/99, p.A1,4)
1996 Aug, In Colombia journalist Richard Velez filmed soldiers beating peasants during protests in southern Caqueta province. He fled the country in 1997 in fear from death threats by the army.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D5)
1996 Aug, Walter Van Der Veer (52), an American, was arrested for promoting armed action against Cuba. He went on closed trial in 1997. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B2)(SFC,11/27/97, p.B2)
1996 Aug, Equatorial Guinea’s offshore Zafiro oil field came onstream and by the end of 1997 was producing 75,000 barrels a day. Output from Zafiro peaked in 2004.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.74)
1996 Aug, In Kenya a new rite was instituted as an alternative to female circumcision. The "ntanira na mugambo" (circumcision through words) rite included a week-long counseling program capped by a "coming of age day."
(SFC, 9/16/98, p.A23)
1996 Aug, In Costa Rica Maria Felix Bejarano escaped from the Buen Pastor prison. She gave the guards $4,700 for their kindness. This was the 7th escape of her career in which she applies for a job as a maid and then cleans out the houses in which she works.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug, In Ecuador Pres. Bucaram invited Lorena Bobbitt, famous for slashing off her American husband’s penis, to lunch at the national palace.
(SFC, 2/7/97, p.A1,19)
1996 Aug, In Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (43) became president of the PRD party.
(WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug, In Peru Demetrio Chavez Penaherrera, an imprisoned drug lord, told a court that the chief of intelligence, Vladimiro Montesinos, accepted bribes of $50,000 per month in 1991-1992.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 1, "Mountains and Rivers Without End," a 30-year work of the human event on this planet, by Gary Snyder was reviewed.
(SFC, 9/1/96, BR p.1)
1996 Sep 1, "The Middle East, A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years" by Bernard Lewis was reviewed.
(SFC, 9/1/96, BR p.8)
1996 Sep 1, "The Lost Birds of Paradise" by Eroll Fuller ($55) was reviewed.
(NH, 9/96, p.8)
1996 Sep 1, "The Cambridge Illustrated History of China" by Patricia Buckley ($39.95) Ebrey had a short review.
(NH, 9/96, p.8)
1996 Sep 1, In Ohio the record for the ‘World’s Largest Chicken Dance" was broken in Canfield with 72,000 people dancing.
(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.B1)
1996 Sep 1, A day after Iraqi forces moved into a Kurdish safe haven, U.S. officials were warning the Baghdad government that the incursion would not go unpunished. That same day, Iraq ordered its troops to withdraw from Irbil.
(AP, 9/1/97)
1996 Sep 1, In India wolves were reported to have killed 33 children in the area of Banbirpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Some reports had it that at least some of the killings were by disguised human beings.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 2, The US launched cruise missiles at selected air defense targets in Iraq to discourage Sadam Hussein’s military moves against a Kurd faction.
(SFC, 9/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 2, In Palestine stories of corruption were rife and Arafat was accused of pouring money into his 9 security forces rather than infrastructure.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 2, In the Philippines an accord was signed between pres. Ramos and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebel leader Nur Misuari to end a 24-26 year Muslim rebellion during which some 120,000 people were killed. Many Muslim rebels continued to fight.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A12)(AP, 9/2/97)(SFEM,12/21/97, p.23)
1996 Sep 2, The Ukraine government planned to introduce its new currency, the hyrvna. The old karbovanets would be swappable for only 2 weeks.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 3-1996 Sep 4, The United States launched 27 cruise missiles at "selected air defense targets" in Iraq as punishment for Iraq's invasion of Kurdish safe havens. Pres. Clinton extended the no-fly zone to the suburbs of Baghdad.
(AP, 9/3/97)(SFC,10/30/97, p.A12)
1996 Sep 3, In Texas Grady Alexander (80) and his wife Bessie (86) were found beaten and stabbed to death at their home in Lamar County. Larry Wooten was later convicted with DNA evidence and sentenced to death. He was executed on Oct 21, 2010.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/28vmk8u)
1996 Sep 3, Pakistan shot down 4 Indian helicopters over the last few weeks that entered its air space over the disputed Siachin Glacier. The glacier is at 22,000 feet and lies between the Karakoram and Himalayan mountain ranges.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 3, In Russia Alexander Lebed said that about 80,000 people had died in the fighting in Chechnya during the 21 months of the war.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A10)
1996 Sep 4, The Smashing Pumpkins rock group won 7 MTV music awards including Best Video for "Tonight, Tonight," and Best Alternative Music Video for "1979."
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.B4)
1996 Sep 4, Actor Jack Lemon, Singer Johnny Cash, playwright Edward Albee, saxophonist Benny Carter and ballet dancer Maria Tallchief were the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors for their life work in the performing arts.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.B2)
1996 Sep 4, Whitewater prosecutors had Susan McDougal held in contempt for refusing to tell a grand jury whether President Clinton had lied at her trial.
(AP, 9/4/97)
1996 Sep 4, Anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies of Baghdad, hours after the United States fired a new round of cruise missiles into southern Iraq and destroyed an Iraqi radar site. The US again launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraqi air defense sites. The 2nd launch was deemed a success after the first launch failed to destroy intended targets. The Tomahawks were made by Hughes Aircraft Co. and cost about $1 mil apiece. Kurdish leader Barzani wrote a latter to Sec. of State Christopher Warren and asked that the US mediate. 44 cruise missiles were launched over 2 days plus a rocket from an F-16 fighter.
(AP, 9/4/97)(SFC, 4/9/96, A1)(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A8)(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 4, In Colombia the government will require businesses with a net worth of more than 85k to buy war bonds to finance the war against leftist rebels.
(WSJ, 9/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 4, In the Congo authorities found 200 slaughtered elephants in a marsh of the National Park of Odzala.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 4, France said it will stop changing its clocks twice a year.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 4, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Palestinian leader Arafat and agreed to pursue a peace settlement.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.1)
1996 Sep 5, "Kinds of Minds" by Daniel C. Dennet ($20) and "Full House: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin" by Stephen Jay Gould ($25) were reviewed.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 5, Computer scientists found the largest known prime number while testing a Cray T94 computer system. It has 378,632 digits and can be expressed as two to the 1,257,787th power minus 1.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A6)
1996 Sep 5, Astronomers using the Hubble space telescope discovered a galaxy under construction. They say 18 gigantic star clusters were packed within a space just 2 million light years across and apparently on the verge of forming a brand new galaxy. Light from the event originated 11 billion years ago.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A3)
1996 Sep 5, Hurricane Fran hit at Cape Fear, North Carolina. It tore through the Carolinas with winds at 115-mph.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A3)(AP, 9/5/97)
1996 Sep 5, Cambodia rushed troops to aid the 1,000 or so Khmer Rouge dissidents near the village of Chup Koki. About 5,500 Khmer Rouge rebels remain loyal to Pol Pot.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 5, In Croatia a 6.0 earthquake hit the town of Ston and damaged 90% of the buildings in Dubrovnik.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 5, In France PM Alain Juppe proposed a tax cut. It would reduce the top marginal rate to 54% next year from 56.8%, and to 47% in 2000.
(WSJ, 9/66/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 5, Russian President Boris Yeltsin acknowledged he had serious health problems and would undergo heart surgery.
(AP, 9/5/97)
1996 Sep 5, In Suriname Jules Wijdenbosch, backed by former military strongman Desi Bouterse, defeated Pres. Ronald Venetiaan in a close runoff.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 5, Turkey declared a new security zone inside northern Iraq and air attacks were staged on suspected Kurdish rebel bases.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 6, Eddie Murray of the Baltimore Orioles hit his 500th career home run during a game against the Detroit Tigers, joining Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Willie Mays as the only players with at least 3,000 hits and 500 homers.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1996 Sep 6, The death toll from Hurricane Fran rose to 17 in Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1996 Sep 6, In Belarus lawmakers challenged the president and added amendments to a referendum that proposed the elimination of the presidency, popular election of local governors and tougher controls on government spending. Earlier in the week Lukashenko had tax service freeze the accounts of 5 leading independent newspapers.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 6, In Colombia rebels blew up a section of the largest oil pipeline and killed 16 police officers and soldiers.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 6, The Berggruen art collection opened in Berlin on a loan for ten years. The opening coincided with the publication of the autobiography of Heinz Berggruen: Main Path and Side Paths: Reminiscences of an art collector.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 6, The Palestinian Al Quds Univ. in Abu Dis was reopened after a 6-month closure.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 7, Isabel Correa became the 40th person known to have died in the presence of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, less than a day after police burst into a Michigan motel room, interrupting a meeting between her and Kevorkian.
(AP, 9/7/97)
1996 Sep 7, Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.
(AP, 9/7/97)
1996 Sep 7, Emergency food from the World Food Program reached Tubmanburg, Liberia, where half the 35,000 population suffered from extreme hunger.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 8, NBC's "Frasier" won its third consecutive Emmy for best TV comedy; "ER" was named best drama. In the 48th Emmy Awards the winners included Dennis Franz & Kathy Baker.
(AP, 9/8/97)(MC, 9/8/01)
1996 Sep 8, At the U.S. Open, Pete Sampras defeated Michael Chang and Steffi Graf beat Monica Seles to win the top prizes.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1996 Sep 8, Okinawans voted more than 10-to-1 in favor of a reduction of U.S. military bases on their islands, in a referendum aimed at pressuring Washington to pull out its troops.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1996 Sep 8, In Tanzania bandits ambushed, clubbed and robbed 25 tourists in the Serengeti National Park.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 9, Promising safer skies, President Clinton issued orders to tighten airport security and challenged Congress to support a $1.1 billion anti-terrorism crackdown.
(AP, 9/9/97)
1996 Sep 9, Keeping her word not to cooperate with Whitewater prosecutors, Susan McDougal was led away to jail for contempt of court, denying she was trying to protect President Clinton with her silence.
(AP, 9/9/97)
1996 Sep 9, Boston investor Thomas H. Lee donated $22 mil to Harvard Univ.
(WSJ, 9/10/96, p.A6)
1996 Sep 9, Bill Monroe (b.1911), Blue Grass pioneer, died 4 days shy of his 85th b-day. His blues style was much influenced by the thumb-style blues guitar picking of a black musician named Arnold Schultz. In 2000 Richard D. Smith authored the biography "Can’t You Hear me Callin’."
(WSJ, 9/16/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 7/28/00, p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Monroe)
1996 Sep 9, An Australian livestock official reported that the burning ship, Uniceb, with 70,000 sheep had probably sunk. It had been bound for Jordan when the crew abandoned it after it caught fire on Sep 2.
(SFC, 9/10/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 10, Ross Perot picked economist Pat Choate, a Washington economist and author, to share the Reform Party presidential ticket.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/10/97)
1996 Sep 10, The US Senate dealt a double defeat to gay-rights activists, voting to reject same-sex marriage in federal law (Defense of Marriage Act - DOMA) by a vote of 85-14. It also rejected (50-49) a separate bill that would have barred job discrimination against gays.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/10/97)
1996 Sep 10, The US 1997 defense bill was passed and allotted the 1.5 million members of the military a 3% pay raise. to begin Jan 1.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 10, The UN General Assembly voted to endorse a nuclear test ban treaty. India refused to sign and prevented the treaty from taking effect. India, Bhutan and Libya voted against the treaty. Cuba, Lebanon, Syria, Tanzania and Mauritius abstained.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 10, Humberto de la Calle, vice-president of Colombia, resigned as a protest to the presidency of Ernesto Samper.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 10, Typhoon Sally hit Guangdong province in southern China and killed more than 130 people.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A9)(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 10, Saddam Hussein announced the lifting of all travel restrictions to or within the Kurdish zone.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 10, Hurricane Hortense pounded Puerto Rico, causing at least 21 deaths and destroying thousands of homes.
(AP, 9/10/97)
1996 Sep 11, Two top officials with the Health and Human Services Department resigned over President Clinton's signing of the Republican welfare overhaul bill. (Another official had resigned the month before).
(AP, 9/11/97)
1996 Sep 11, There was a review of "Big Band Renaissance: The Evolution of the Jazz Orchestra," compiled by Bill Kirchner and released by The Smithsonian Institution.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A20)
1996 Sep 11, The Union Pacific merger with Southern Pacific took effect, forming the largest railroad in the US.
(www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/uprr-chr.shtml)
1996 Sep 11, Grasshoppers plagued North Dakota. The insects were a problem in Wyoming, Montana and Nebraska. Another dry summer and it was predicted that they would spread to Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A2)
1996 Sep 11, Hurricane Hortense left 14 dead in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It then hit the Turks and Caicos Islands with 90 mph winds.
(FB, 9/12/96, p.A7)
1996 Sep 11, In Bangladesh Shanti Bahini guerrillas killed 30 Bengali-speaking settlers in the southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts.
(SFC, 9/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 11, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed Catholic archbishop Joachim Ruhunu and six others.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 12, Last-minute intervention by Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole led to Senate postponement of action on a treaty designed to eliminate chemical weapons. President Clinton said the agreement was threatened by "a bitter partisan debate."
(AP, 9/12/97)
1996 Sep 12, The first African-American civil War memorial was dedicated in Washington DC.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Sep 12, Israel lost 12 commandos in southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)
1996 Sep 12, The Turkish government agreed to allow some 2,500 Iraqi Kurds, former US employees and their families, to enter Turkey and be evacuated to the US.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 12, In Colombia government officials promised to halt forcible destruction of small coca plantations for the time being in order to end protests.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 12, In Taiwan a five-year-old girl's remains were found in a drain outside a toilet at the Air Force Command headquarters in Taipei. In 1997 Taiwanese soldier Chiang Kuo-ching was found guilty of rape and murder and executed by firing squad. A task force found that Chiang had masturbated in the toilet and some drops of his semen fell onto the tissue. He had been tortured into confessing, but was not the murderer. Chiang Kuo-ching was posthumously acquitted by a military court in September, 2011, followed by a ruling that his family be paid Tw$131.85 million ($4.4 million) in compensation. A court in November launched legal action to bar former minister Chen Chao-min and seven other ex-military officers involved in the case from transferring their assets.
(AFP, 11/29/11)
1996 Sep 13, The stock market hit a new record of 5,838.52 on the Dow.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 13, Gillette unveiled an agreement to buy Duracell in a $7.3 billion stock deal.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Sep 13, Hurricane Hortense headed north with winds at 140 mph.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 13, Subaru Takahashi (14) in his boat "Advantage" became the youngest person to complete a solo sail voyage across the Pacific Ocean. He did the 6000 mile journey in 54 days.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1,7)
1996 Sep 13, Rap star Tupac Shakur (b.1971) died of gun shot wounds in Las Vegas after he was wounded Sep 7 in a drive-by shooting as he was leaving a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas. He had just finished filming "Gang Related" later retitled "Criminal Intent." He was buried at Stone Mountain, Georgia.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/13/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur)
1996 Sep 13, In Mexico Juan Francisco Ealy, editor of El Universal, was arrested on allegations of tax fraud. His paper had recently begun strong criticism of the Zedillo government.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 14, There was a rumor published that was gleaned from the Internet that "friendly fire" caused the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A4)
1996 Sep 14, Tara Dawn Holland of Overland Park, Kansas, won the Miss America beauty pageant.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A6)(AP, 9/14/97)
1996 Sep 14, Juliet Prowse (b.1936), actress and dancer (Mona McCluskey), died.
(www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0187948.html)
1996 Sep 14, Bosnians went to the polls in their first national elections since the three-and-a-half civil war that ravaged the Balkan republic.
(AP, 9/14/97)
1996 Sep 14, In Cambodia King Norodom Sihanouk granted amnesty to Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge rebel leader.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 15, Defense Secretary William Perry was making the rounds among American allies in the Persian Gulf region, seeking additional support for the U.S. stance against Iraq. Bahrain agreed to play host to 26 American F-16 jet fighters.
(AP, 9/15/97)
1996 Sep 15, In Germany it was reported that rival Vietnamese gangs were battling a vicious turf war for trading untaxed cigarettes smuggled in by organized crime. The country was trying to coax Vietnam to accept the return of thousands of men in exchange for aid and future credits.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 15, In Guatemala crime boss Alfredo Moreno, a former army intelligence officer, was arrested on charges of an enormous smuggling operation.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 15, In Italy Umberto Bossi, populist politician and leader of the Northern League, planned to declare the independence of the Federal Republic of Padania.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A6)
1996 Sep 15, In Italy Lorenzo Necci, head of the state-run railroad, was arrested for corruption, embezzlement, abuse of office, falsification of balance sheets and fraud.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 15, In Mexico Federal police officer Ernesto Ibarra Santes (50) was gunned down in Mexico City. He was in charge of drug trafficking in Baha California del Norte, the center of operations for the narcotics cartel of the Arellano Felix brothers. He had only taken the position on Aug 16.
(SFC, 9/16/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 15, In North Korea the Rajin-Sonbong Free Economic and Trade Zone, a 288 sq. ml. area with a local population of 140,000, was being established behind barbed wire in the northeast corner.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A15)
1996 Sep 15, In Singapore all 120,000 Internet subscribers will have to go through proxy servers which will screen them from dozens of sites that contain nudity and sexual topics.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.B2)
1996 Sep 16, President Clinton claimed the endorsement of the nation's largest police organization, the Fraternal Order of Police, in his bid for re-election.
(AP, 9/16/97)
1996 Sep 16, Chicago and Paris signed a sister-city pact.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A17)
1996 Sep 16, Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off more than six weeks late on a mission to pick up NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid, aloft since last March, from the Russian space station Mir.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A4)(AP, 9/16/97)
1996 Sep 16, Former US national security adviser McGeorge Bundy died in Boston at age 77.
(AP, 9/16/97)
1996 Sep 16, Kuwait agreed to allow the US to send 3,300 troops to its soil over the confrontation with Iraq.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 17, A nonpartisan commission recommended that Ross Perot be denied a spot in presidential debates, saying he had no realistic shot at winning the White House; Perot vowed to sue.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 Sep 17, The Clinton Administration and 15 timber companies struck a deal to protect old-growth forest in Oregon and Washington. The companies will log substitute groves less critical to fish and wildlife.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A2)
1996 Sep 17, Spiro Agnew (b. Nov 9, 1918), former governor of Maryland and US vice president (1969-1973), died in Berlin, Md., at age 77.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 Sep 17, In Montserrat the Soufriere Hills volcano erupted for 48 minutes.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, T11)
1996 Sep 17, In Bosnia Alija Izetbegovic led the polls to become chairman of the new 3-member presidency. Serbian nationalist Momcilo Krajisnik and Croat nationalist Kresimir Zubak won their respective regions.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 17, In Mexico Razhy Gonzalez, editor of the small Contrapunto weekly, was abducted in Oaxaca.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 18, "The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant" was reviewed.
(WSJ, 9/18/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 18, Pres. Clinton signed an executive order to transform 1.7 million acres of Utah land into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A3)(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.T5)
1996 Sep 18, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole fell off a stage during a campaign rally in Chico, Calif., after a railing gave way; he was not seriously hurt.
(AP, 9/18/97)
1996 Sep 18, The O.J. Simpson civil trial opened in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 9/18/97)
1996 Sep 18, The Food and Drug Administration declared the French abortion pill RU-486 safe and effective, but withheld final approval until later. The pill would be taken with the drug misoprostol, which was already approved for other purposes.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/18/97)
1996 Sep 18, In France Maurice Papon, a member of the Vichy government of WW II, was declared eligible for trial for his role in arresting and deporting 1,690 Jews during WW II.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 18, In Guatemala 2 generals and 16 officials were fired in a probe of black-market corruption.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 18, A North Korean submarine went aground off the coast of South Korea. The bodies of 11 crewmen were found dead nearby. Another 8-9 men were still at large. Seven more were found the next day and shot to death.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 9/20/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 18, Photos taken of Mars that indicated a huge dust storm near the north pole that was active for months.
(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A4)
1996 Sep 19, American astronaut Shannon Lucid, on board the Russian Mir space station since March, eagerly greeted the crew of Atlantis hours after their arrival and docking.
(AP, 9/19/97)
1996 Sep 19, IBM announced it would extend health benefits to the partners of its homosexual employees.
(AP, 9/19/97)
1996 Sep 19, The Arctic Council was founded to promote joint scientific research and to study pollution, conservation and mapping. The Ottawa Declaration named eight members of the Arctic Council: Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the United States, Sweden and Finland. The first step towards the formation of the Council occurred in 1991 when eight Arctic countries signed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS).
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.61)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Council)
1996 Sep 19, Guatemala’s government and leftist guerillas under Ricardo Arnoldo Ramirez signed a peace accord that called for a 33% troop and budget reduction from 43,000 by 1999. Otto Perez Molina negotiated the accords for the government.
(SFC, 9/20/96, p.A15)(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A22)(Econ, 1/21/12, p.42)
1996 Sep 19, In Nigeria it was reported that police clashed with demonstrators last week and 10 people were killed in the city of Kaduna. The crowd was protesting the arrest of their spiritual leader on charges of broadcasting material that could incite unrest.
(WSJ, 9/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 20, President Clinton announced his signing of a bill outlawing homosexual marriages, but said it should not be used as an excuse for discrimination, violence or intimidation against gays and lesbians. The actual signing came a little after midnight. The Defense of Marriage Act provided that no state has an obligation to recognize gay marriages contracted in another state.
(AP, 9/20/97)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.32)
1996 Sep 20, Paul Weston, bandleader, died at 84.
(www.spaceagepop.com/weston.htm)
1996 Sep 20, Paul Erdos, Hungarian-born mathematician, died. He founded the field of discreet mathematics and had more than 1500 papers to his name. He lived devoted to his subject and had no home or job. In 1998 2 biographies were published: Paul Hoffman authored "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers," and Bruce Schechter "My Brain Is Open."
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.B2)(WSJ, 9/15/98, p.A20)
1996 Sep 20, In Colombia leftist guerrillas unleashed a wave of bombings that included 4 against banks and electricity lines in Cartagena. 18 coal trucks were torched in northern Cesar province and a truck with 31 tons of ammonium nitrate, base material for explosives, was hijacked.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 20, In Colombia more than 8 lbs. of heroin were found on Pres. Samper’s presidential jet as it was preparing for a flight to New York. Eleven Air Force personnel were later arrested.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A12)
1996 Sep 20, In Estonia Pres. Lennart Meri was re-elected to a second term in the largely ceremonial post.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 20, Murtazza Bhutto, brother of Benazir Bhutto, and 6 followers were killed in a clash with police in Karachi, Pakistan. He led the Shaheed Bhutto faction of the Pakistan People's Party.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 21, John F. Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette in a secret ceremony on Cumberland Island, Ga.
(AP, 9/21/97)
1996 Sep 21, The board of all-male Virginia Military Institute voted to admit women.
(AP, 9/21/97)
1996 Sep 21, President Clinton and Republican rival Bob Dole agreed to face off in two debates without Ross Perot.
(AP, 9/21/97)
1996 Sep 21, In Brazil the first magazine dedicated to blacks, Raca Brasil, sold out 200,000 copies in 5 days.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 21, Thai Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa resigned after 14 months in offices under charges of corruption and ineptitude.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 22, Reform Party nominee Ross Perot denounced the decision to exclude him from the presidential debates, telling NBC that Bob Dole had "poisoned the attitude" of millions of independent voters that Republicans desperately needed to win.
(AP, 9/22/97)
1996 Sep 22, Actress Dorothy Lamour died at her North Hollywood home at age 81.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A6)(AP, 9/22/97)
1996 Sep 22, In Afghanistan the Taliban guerrillas swept through 3 south-eastern provinces over the last 2 weeks and now control about 2/3 of the country.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A9)
1996 Sep 22, In Australia Bob Dent became the first person to kill himself legally under the world’s only voluntary euthanasia law.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 22, In Greece the governing socialists won the elections and gave Prime Minister Simitas about 162 of 300 deputies in the Parliament.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A9)
1996 Sep 22, Mexico’s Civic Alliance began asking questions of accountability of the leadership. Pres. Zedillo claims to make $8,000 a month, but he has a secret fund of $86 million approved by Congress.
(SFC, 9/22/96, Par p.30)
1996 Sep 22, In South Korea the captain of the North Korean submarine, recently grounded, was tracked down and killed. Another infiltrator and 2 South Korean soldiers were also killed in 2 clashes.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A10)
1996 Sep 22, In Sri Lanka the military said it killed or wounded 200 Tamil rebels with a loss of 30 government troops.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 23, Ross Perot sued the bipartisan commission that voted to keep him out of the presidential debates, arguing that excluding him would deepen public cynicism and cause his campaign "incalculable damage."
(AP, 9/23/97)
1996 Sep 23, California governor Wilson signed a bill to open the sale of electricity to the free market and became the first US state to do so. A 20% drop in rates by 2003 was guaranteed.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 23, Space shuttle Atlantis left Russia's orbiting Mir station with astronaut Shannon Lucid, who ended her six-month visit with tender good-byes to her Russian colleagues.
(AP, 9/23/97)
1996 Sep 23, In Armenia Pres. Levon Ter-Petrossian claimed victory in elections as did his opponent former Prime Minister Vazgen Manukian. The next day the Pres. claimed victory with 52% and the PM claimed fraud with 41%. Int’l. observers claimed serious irregularities.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 9/25/96, p.A1)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 23, The European Union awarded the Aristeion Prize for literature to Salmon Rushdie for "The Moor’s Last Sigh" and to Christoph Ransmayr for "Morbus Kitahara." A prize for translation went to Thorkild Bjoernvig for his translation of poetry by German poet Rainier Marie Rilke.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.E3)
1996 Sep 23, In Jiangsu Province, China, the American Dream Park was scheduled to open. It is a 70-acre-mini Disneyland and admission will cost 100 yuan, about 2 weeks wages for the average Chinese worker.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 23, In England police killed one man and seized 10 tons of explosives during raids of suspected IRA hideouts.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 23, Ethiopian forces exchanged fire with Somali militiamen.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 23, Iran expected delivery of its 3rd Russian-made submarine within 6 months, as part of its navy buildup in the Persian Gulf.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 23, In Mexico financing was expected to enable the start of the $551 million channel project, a 272-mile Tamaulipas Intracoastal Waterway on the east coast to link Mexico to US cargo channels.
(WSJ, 9/23/96, p.A17)
1996 Sep 23, In Pakistan gunmen attacked a Sunni Muslim mosque and killed 16 and wounded 45 people. The attack followed the killing of a Shiite leader the night before in Bahawalpur.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A12)
1996 Sep 23, In Singapore the government announced that there will be enough bomb shelters for everyone. All new dwellings will be required to have bomb shelters with concrete walls and a steel door.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 23, In South Africa 2 days of ethnic fighting among gold miners at Buffeslfontein left 18 people dead.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 24, The United States, represented by President Clinton, and the world's other major nuclear powers signed a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.
(AP, 9/24/97)
1996 Sep 24, Robert Chaegon Kim, US Navy analyst, was arrested for passing US secrets to South Korea.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A3)
1996 Sep 24, In Guatemala the government fired 12 National police officers including 5 regional chiefs implicated in a corruption scandal.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 24, In the Philippines about 3,000 slum dwellers marched to the Presidential Palace in Manila to denounce the demolition of their homes. Wrecking crews have destroyed about 3,000 shanties with 13,000 more scheduled for destruction before the Asia Pacific Economic Conference on Nov 24.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 24, In Russia Pavel Sudoplatov, Stalin’s spy chief who stole atomic secrets and plotted the killing of Trotsky, died.
(WSJ, 9/27/96, p.B1)
1996 Sep 24, Taiwan police shut down 188 sex parlors in the last 7 days and pledged to close the remaining 103 by the end of the day.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 25, NATO generals were ordered to prepare plans for an extension of allied military force in Bosnia beyond the Dec. 20 deadline.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 25, In Afghanistan rebel forces moved into Kabul. A 100 fighters were killed on both sides.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 25, In Colombia rebels attacked an oil pipeline in Arauca province and pumping of 220,000 barrels a day was suspended.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 25, Violence began in Jerusalem when Israelis opened a tunnel along the west wall of the old city in opposition to Palestinian sentiments. Seven Arabs were killed. Resulting riots left 69 Palestinians dead along with 16 Israelis.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A10)(AP, 9/25/97)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.48)
1996 Sep 25, In the Netherlands a DC-3 aircraft went into the North Sea near Den Helder and killed all 32 people on board.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 25, In Sri Lanka the military said it killed or wounded 500 Tamil rebels with a loss of 58 government troops and 115 wounded since Sunday when their offensive began near Kilinochchi.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 25, Turkey said its troops killed 47 Kurdish rebels in the eastern provinces.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 26, President Clinton signed a bill ensuring two-day hospital stays for new mothers and their babies.
(AP, 9/26/97)
1996 Sep 26, ValuJet received federal permission to fly again three months after it was grounded following a deadly crash.
(AP, 9/26/97)
1996 Sep 26, Richard Allen Davis, the killer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, was formally sentenced to death in San Jose, Calif. It was his criminal record which resulted in California's "Three strike law" for repeat offenders. He is currently on death row in San Quentin State Prison, California.
(AP, 9/26/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Allen_Davis)
1996 Sep 26, Astronaut Shannon Lucid returned to Earth in the shuttle Atlantis after 188 days aboard the Russian Mir space station, the longest time for any American man or woman.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A20)(AP, 9/26/97)
1996 Sep 26, Patricia Billings, amateur sculptor and med tech, demonstrated her fire-proof material GeoBond. It was made of gypsum, cement, and a secret off-the-shelf ingredient that in combination would not burn even under flames over 2,000 degrees.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 26, The New England Journal of Medicine reported new research that would provide a simple test for mad cow disease based on a protein specific to the disease.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 26, A total lunar eclipse, the last before the year 2000, was scheduled.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A18)
1996 Sep 26, The US announced the return to Haiti of documents confiscated 2 years ago from the Haitian army and pro-military party.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 26, Former Pres. Najibullah (1986-1990) and his brother, former security chief Shahpur Ahmedzi, were executed and hung when the Taliban fighters moved into Kabul. They had been in hiding since being overthrown 4 years ago. Officials hoped that the former king, Zahir Shah, would return to lead the country.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 26, In Armenia tanks were called in after 59 people were injured in protests over the re-election of the president.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 26, In Italy the foreign minister announced that the country would no longer make land mines that are used against people.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep 27, Texan Charles Hurwitz of Maxxam Inc. agreed to exchange his hold on the Headwaters forest in California in exchange for cash, land or other government assets.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 27, John G. Bennett Jr., head of the defunct Foundation for New Era Philanthropy since 1989, was indicted on 82 counts of fraud, money laundering, tax crimes and false statements. He was allegedly responsible for bilking charities of $135 million in a scheme that collapsed in 1995. In 1997 he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He helped to reduce losses from 100 to 20 million.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A3)(SFC, 3/27/97, p.A3)(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A2)
1996 Sep 27, US Defense Sec. William Perry said the 3 Baltic nations would not be among the first new NATO members drawn from Eastern Europe.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 27, The Taliban militia, a band of former seminary students, forced President Burhanuddin Rabbani and his government out of Kabul.
{Afghan}
(AP, 9/27/97)(www.afghan-web.com/history/)
1996 Sep 27, In Gambia Yahya Jammeh defeated 3 civilian rivals in national elections. Observers said that the elections were severely flawed. Jammeh’s government had outlawed opposition parties, muzzled the press, forbade meetings between rival candidates and foreign diplomats, and used soldiers to attack opposition rallies.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 27, In Milan, Italy, 50,000 metal workers marched on strike.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 27, In Japan the Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto dissolved the parliament and set new elections for Oct. 20.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 27, In Mexico PRI deputies presented a final report on government corruption and voted to end the commission of corruption. A separate government panel said $1.34 billion was missing from the 1990 privatization of Telefonos de Mexico.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 27, Rwandan Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana (73) was charged with ordering the slaughter of hundreds of Tutsis in Kibuye in 1994. It was charged that he had arranged that they seek refuge in his Seventh Day Adventist Church, whereupon he called in Hutus to kill them.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 28, Landmark legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants in the United States won House passage as part of a giant federal spending bill.
(AP, 9/28/97)
1996 Sep 28, With the United States abstaining, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution indirectly calling on Israel to close an archaeological tunnel in Jerusalem that had touched off fighting between Israelis and Palestinians.
(AP, 9/28/97)
1996 Sep 29, The organization that supervised Bosnia's first postwar elections officially certified the results -- with victories by nationalist parties and the country's Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic.
(AP, 9/29/97)
1996 Sep 30, With just hours to spare before the start of the fiscal year, the Senate passed and President Clinton signed a $389 billion spending bill.
(AP, 9/30/97)
1996 Sep 30, In South Korea another infiltrator was killed. That brought the total to 22 agents killed since the grounding of the N. Korean submarine.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 30, In India the capital city of Tamil Nadu changed its name from Madras to Chennai.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 30, In Sri Lanka government troops seized a guerrilla stronghold and climaxed an 8-day battle that left 900 dead.
(WSJ, 9/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 30, In Vanuatu the parliament passed a vote of no confidence in prime Minister Maxime Carlot.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A14)
1996 Sep, The $4 mil Hollywood Entertainment Museum was planned to open.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B4)
1996 Sep, The Meyer-Womble telescope on Mt. Evans was scheduled to open. It was donated by Eric Meyer (40), a Chicago-based anesthesiologist, who designed the telescope and donated nearly one million to build it and then gave it to Denver Univ.
(SFC, 9/3/96, p.C1)
1996 Sep, In Brazil the world premiere of George Coates multimedia work "20/20 Blake" was held at the Sao Paulo Int’l. Theater Festival.
(SFC, 1/21/96, p.B1)
1996 Sep, In China peasants revolted in Qidong in Hunan province after they discovered that city authorities kept secret for 6 months a directive from Beijing to end excessive taxes.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep, In El Salvador the Goods for Guns project began and in 2 weeks collected 1,262 weapons and 14,580 units of ammunition.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, C12)
1996 Sep, Iran delivered at least $500,000 to Bosnian Pres. Alija Izetbegovic for his campaign.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep, In South Africa the government disclosed that it was sending $18 million worth of arms to Rwanda.
(SFC, 11/8/96, p.A16)
1996 Sep, Sir Lanka soldiers and police raped and strangled an 18-year-old student and murdered 3 others near Chemmanihi. In 1998 4 soldiers were convicted and sentenced to death for the killings.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A11)
1996 Fall, In Brazil the EMB-145, a 50-seat twin-engine jet, was brought out by aircraft maker Embraer SA.
(WSJ, 3/21/97, p.A16)
1996 Sep-Oct, The size of the ozone hole over Antarctica surpassed 8.5 million square miles.
(SFC, 11/28/96, p.B4)
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