Timeline 1997 E September-October
Return to home
1997 Sep 1, The
32nd annual Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, led by Jerry Lewis, ended with
a record $50.5 million pledged.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.E5)
1997 Sep 1, The 2nd phase of the
US minimum wage raise to $5.15 per hour went into effect.
(SFC, 9/1/97,
p.A3)(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)
1997 Sep 1, Scientists announced
in the Physics Review Letters that evidence was found for an exotic
meson subatomic particle. It is supposed to be composed of an unusual
quark combination and only exists for a trillionth of a trillionth of a
second. The experiment supports the current standard model of physics
in which 3 quarks make a proton or a neutron and 2 quarks can combine
to make a meson.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 1, In Bosnia several
hundred Bosnian Serbs attacked some 300 armed US troops in an effort to
take back a key TV transmitter that was seized by the Americans last
week. The melee was a standoff.
(SFC, 9/2/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 1, As Britain continued
to mourn the untimely death of Princess Diana, came word from a source
in the Paris prosecutor's office that Diana's driver, Henri Paul, was
legally intoxicated at the time of the crash.
(AP, 9/1/02)
1997 Sep 1, In Switzerland robbers
made off with $37 million in cash from a Zurich post office. By Sep 8
Swiss and Italian police had detained 13 suspects. A total of 19 people
in five countries were arrested in connection with the case.
(WSJ, 9/2/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A11)(AP, 9/1/07)
1997 Sep 2, It was reported that
52,000 books, fiction and non-fiction, would be published this year in
the US.
(WSJ, 9/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 2, US troops in Bosnia
relinquished control of the TV transmitter in exchange for agreements
to permit opposition voices on the air and an end to inflammatory
rhetoric.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 2, The US demanded
exemptions to a proposed global ban on land mines at an int'l. meeting
in Oslo, Norway. The exemptions were for mines on the Korean peninsula
and for certain types of mines.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 2, The US stock market
made a record 257 point gain.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.B1)
1997 Sep 2, In Miami Beach,
Florida US postal worker, Jesus Antonio Tamayo (64) shot and critically
injured his former wife, Manuela Acosta (62) and a friend and then
killed himself.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 2, Rudolf Bing (95),
opera manager (NY Met Opera), died.
(www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0761029.html)
1997 Sep 2, Viktor E. Frankl (b.
1905), psychotherapist, died in Vienna at age 92. He was the author in
the 1960s of "Man’s Search for Meaning." He developed logotherapy, a
theory whose primary belief is that man’s primary motivational force is
his search for meaning. His teachings are called the 3rd Vienna School
of Psychotherapy after Freud and Adler. He held that one can discover
the meaning of life in 3 different ways: "by creating a work or doing a
deed; by experiencing something or encountering someone; and by the
attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering." Frankl's autobiography,
"Reflections," was translated by Joseph Fabry (d.1999 at 89) and his
wife.
(WSJ, 9/4/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.C4)(SFC, 5/12/99,
p.C6)
1997 Sep 2, Ethnic Armenians in
Nagorno-Karabakh elected Arkady Gukasian as president with an 89% vote.
Azerbaijan called the vote invalid.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C3)
1997 Sep 2, In London, a grieving
human tide engulfed St. James's Palace, where Princess Diana's body lay
in a chapel closed to the public, as the British monarchy and
government prepared for her funeral. The White House announced that
first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton would attend on behalf of the United
States.
(AP, 9/2/98)
1997 Sep 2, In Russia Space Agency
officials blamed the cosmonauts for the Jun 25 crash on the Mir space
station. Later ground controllers were also held partly responsible.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C3)(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 3, The U.S. Senate voted
to ban most federal financing for abortions provided by the
managed-care industry.
(AP, 9/3/98)
1997 Sep 3, Arizona Gov. Fife
Symington, the great-grandson of steel baron Henry Clay Frick, was
found guilty by a jury on 7 counts of lying to get millions in loans to
shore up his collapsing real estate empire. He was later sentenced to 2
1/2 years in prison, charged a fine of $60,000, and ordered to serve 5
years of probation. Symington's conviction was overturned in 1999; he
was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001 as prosecutors again
pursued the case.
(WSJ, 9/4/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A3)(SFC, 2/3/98,
p.A2)(AP, 9/3/02)
1997 Sep 3, Belarus tax officials
emptied the bank account of the Soros foundation and forced the it to
close down.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 3, It was reported that
Catania, Sicily, (pop. 378,000) has some 100 gangland killings per year.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 3, In Cambodia a
Vietnam Airlines, Tupelov 134, Soviet jet crashed on approach to
Phnom Penh airport and killed 65 people. One child, 1-year-old
Chanayuth Nim-Anong, survived. A 2nd child about 4 also survived.
(WSJ, 9/3/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/5/97,
p.A12)
1997 Sep 3, In Colombia workers
joined protests across the country to protest government privatization
plans, for better wages, respect for human rights and an end to the
guerrilla war.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 4, A trio of Buddhist
nuns acknowledged in Senate testimony that their temple outside Los
Angeles illegally reimbursed donors after a fund-raiser attended by
Vice President Al Gore and later destroyed or altered records to avoid
embarrassment.
(AP, 9/4/98)
1997 Sep 4, It was reported that
scientists have pinpointed the gene, Torsin 1, responsible for
dystonia, a condition marked by uncontrolled movements.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A6)
1997 Sep 4, In Algeria 22 people
were killed in El Arbi. Their throats were slit and bodies burned.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 4, In Cuba an explosion
shook 3 tourist hotels and one Italian tourist was killed. Raul Ernesto
Cruz Leon (25) of Salvador was arrested and accused of carrying out a
half-dozen hotel attacks. He worked for Luis Posada Carriles, who was
supported by the Cuban-American National Foundation. Cruz was sentenced
to death in 1999.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A21)(WSJ,
3/24/99, p.A1)
1997 Sep 4, In Israel a triple
suicide bombing in a mall in the heart of Jerusalem claimed the lives
of seven people, including the three assailants.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/4/98)
1997 Sep 4, From Kenya it was
reported that the unemployment rate was 35%.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 4, In Lebanon at least 12
Israeli commandos were killed in a botched raid deep inside Lebanese
territory. Itamar Ilya, a commando, was killed with 11 other soldiers
in Southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 6/26/98, p.A16)
1997 Sep 4, In Turkey 33 people
were killed when 2 buses collided near Ankara. Turkey has the highest
incidence of road traffic deaths with 2,713 killed in the first 7
months of this year.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 5, In Arizona Sec. of
State Jane Dee Hull assumed the role of governor, the 3rd current
female governor in the US after Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey
and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A5)
1997 Sep 5, The new Kansas City
Jazz Museum opened next to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 5, Leon Edel (b.1907),
American scholar and biographer, died. His work included a 5-volume
biography of Henry James (1843-1916), for which he received the 1963
Pulitzer Prize.
(WSJ, 6/17/08,
p.A21)(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Edel-Jos.html)
1997 Sep 5, In Argentina a group
headed by Sociedad Macri SA took over the postal service with an offer
to pay the state about $102 million annually for 20 years.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A15)
1997 Sep 5, In England funeral
services for Princess Diana were held in London. Britain's Queen
Elizabeth II broke the royal reticence over Princess Diana's death,
delivering a televised address in which she called her former
daughter-in-law "a remarkable person." The 1973 song “Candle in the
Wind,” an ode to Marilyn Monroe on the album “Goodbye Yellow Brick
Road” by Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin, was adopted for the
funeral.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/24/97, p.E1)(AP, 9/5/07)
1997 Sep 5, Hungarian-born
conductor Sir George Solti (b.1912) died at age 84 in France. He was
made a Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1972 for his
contributions to British music.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A3)(AP, 9/5/98)
1997 Sep 5, Athens, Greece, won
the competition to host the 2004 Summer Olympics.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A16)
1997 Sep 5, In India Mother Teresa
(b.1910), the Calcutta nun who worked on behalf of the destitute, died
of heart failure in Calcutta. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II broke the
royal reticence over Princess Diana's death, calling her "a remarkable
person" in a televised address. In 2003 Albania declared 2004 to be
"Mother Teresa Year" and set aside Oct. 19 as a national holiday in her
honor. "It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you
... yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer
him your hand."
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/5/98)(AP, 9/12/03)
1997 Sep 5, In Israel Prime
Minister Netanyahu announced that the Oslo peace process was being
frozen.
(SFC, 9/6/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 5, Eleven Israeli
soldiers were killed during a commando raid into Lebanon.
(AP, 9/5/98)
1997 Sep 6, The USS Hopper, the
354th ship in the modern naval fleet, was commissioned. The high-tech
destroyer is the 2nd warship to be named after a woman. Grace Hooper
(d.1992) was a computer programmer for the Navy until she retired in
1986 at age 79. She coined the term "debugging" when she pulled a moth
from her computer.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.B1,3)
1997 Sep 6, In Albania the
Socialist government dismissed 17 generals.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A16)
1997 Sep 6, In Algeria at least 87
people were killed and 100 injured by about 50 attackers in the town of
Beni Messous.
(SFEC, 9/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 6, Britain bade farewell
to Princess Diana with a funeral service at Westminster Abbey.
(AP, 9/6/98)
1997 Sep 6, Weeping masses
gathered in Calcutta, India, to pay homage to Mother Teresa, who had
died the day before at age 87.
(AP, 9/6/98)
1997 Sep 7, The US F-22 Raptor
stealth fighter took its first flight from Dobbins Air Reserve Base
north of Atlanta, Ga. The plane was estimated to cost $100 million.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 7, This was the scheduled
date for Israel’s departure from the West Bank, except for Jewish
settlements and certain military locations according to a peace accord
negotiated between Arafat and Rabin on Sep 24, 1995.
(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A10)
1997 Sep 7, Mobuto Sese Seko (66),
former dictator of Zaire, later Congo, died of prostate cancer in exile
in Rabat, Morocco. Mobutu began his career in the Belgian Congolese
army, rising to the highest rank available to Africans, sergeant-major.
However, after leaving the army in 1956, he began to be involved with
the independence movement, representing the nationalists at some
negotiations. Five years after independence, in 1965, Mobutu, then
commander in chief of the army, exploited a power struggle in the young
government by assuming the presidency in a coup. Mobutu managed to stay
in power over the following decades despite uprisings, coup attempts
and Angola-backed rebels. In the early 1970s, he began to Africanize
names in the country, most notably changing the name of the country
from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Republic of Zaire and
his own name from Joseph-Désiré Mobutu to Mobutu Sese
Seko Koko Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (which means "The all-powerful warrior
who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from
conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake"). The end of the Cold
War meant that, in 1991, Mobutu could no longer hold the same
dictatorial control he had held over the country nor keep his party,
the MPR, as the only legal political entity. With the beginnings of a
multiparty system and a lack of Western finance, Mobutu released
control of the government to the rebel leader Laurent Kabila in May
1997. Kabila‘s rebels—backed by Rwanda and Uganda—had been gaining
ground over the past seven months. Mobutu died in exile several months
later. In 2001 Michela Wrong authored ""In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz:
Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo."
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)(AP, 9/7/98)(HNQ, 2/15/01)(WSJ,
4/27/01, p.W10)
1997 Sep 7, In the disputed
Kashmir region Indian and Pakistani gunners exchanged artillery fire
and 14 villagers on the Pakistani side were reported killed and 5 were
reported killed on the Indian side.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A16)
1997 Sep 8, The TV series “Ally
McBeal” starred Calista Flockhart as a working girl who was part
successful attorney and part angst-ridden woman. The show continued to
2002.
(LSA, Spring, 2009,
p.45)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0118254/)
1997 Sep 8, Lawyers in the Paula
Jones case against Pres. Clinton decided to quit the suit after Jones
refused to accept a financial settlement.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 8, Monday commuters in
and around San Francisco faced huge traffic jams a day after workers
for the Bay Area's commuter rail system went on strike. An agreement
ending the walkout was reached five days later.
(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, Forbes Mag. listed
Steven Spielberg as the best paid figure, $313 Mil, in the
entertainment business in 1997.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.E2)
1997 Sep 8, It was announced the
America Online Inc. (AOL) would take over Compuserve in a 3-way deal
that involved WorldCom.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A3)(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, John Liebeskind (62)
died in LA. He was a leading researcher in the study of pain and found
that the brain controls pain by creating a chemical now known as an
endorphin.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 8, In France a passenger
train collided with a gasoline truck in Perigord town and killed at
least 12 people and injured 39.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, From Guatemala it was
reported that a new rebel group emerged in the Chajul region calling
itself the Guerrilla Command Force ‘97.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 8, In Haiti the ferry,
Pride of Gonave, sank in the Saint Marc Channel off Montrouis. The
60-foot vessel was chartered for only 80 passengers. The recovered
bodies numbered 170. A Haitian ferry, the Pride of Gonave, capsized,
killing about three-quarters of the 200 people aboard.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A10)(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A10)(WSJ,
9/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, In Japan Prime
Minister Hashimoto won re-election as head of the Liberal Democrats.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, In Liberia some
200,000 refugees from Sierra Leone had spilled over from escalating
violence.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, In Mexico the Fox and
Jaguar SWAT police in Mexico City engaged in a gun fight with a
neighborhood gang. One young man and one police officer died. Police
seized 6 youths and 3 were found dead the next day with gunshot wounds
to the head. Three more were found dead on Sep 29. On Oct 3 nineteen
members of the police force were arraigned for the executions. Three
ranking officers were later arrested due to contradictory and
misleading statements.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A8)(SFC,11/19/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 9, Actor Burgess Meredith
died in Malibu, Calif., at age 89. He had played the Penguin on TV’s
Batman and numerous films in a 60 year film career. He was born Nov 16,
1907 in Cleveland.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A18)(AP, 9/9/98)
1997 Sep 9, Richie Ashburn, Hall
of Fame baseball player (Phillies, Mets), died at 70.
(www.baseball-reference.com/a/ashburi01.shtml)
1997 Sep 9, Sinn Fein, the IRA's
political ally, accepted the Mitchell Principles and formally renounced
violence as it took its place in talks on Northern Ireland's future.
(AP, 9/9/98)(MC, 9/9/01)
1997 Sep 9, In China former
Beijing mayor Chen Xitong was handed over to prosecutors on charges of
corruption in a scandal with the loss of as much as $2.2 billion in
public funds.
(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A9)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.49)
1997 Sep 10, Former Agriculture
Secretary Mike Espy pleaded innocent to charges of accepting $35,000 in
sports tickets, travel and lodging from companies regulated by the
Agriculture Department. He was later acquitted.
(AP, 9/10/98)
1997 Sep 10, Discovery Comm.
Bought a 70% stake in the Travel Channel from Paxson Comm. for $20
million. Paxson had acquired the Travel Channel in June from Clear
Channel Comm.
(www.backchannelmedia.com/articles/41-42-new-era-demands-new.html)
1997 Sep 10, The $250 million Mars
Global Surveyor successfully went into orbit around Mars for its 2 year
mapping mission.
(USAT, 8/29/97, p.12A)(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A4)
1997 Sep 10, The ashes of Eliot
Ness, FBI agent, were laid to rest in Cleveland.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.11B)
1997 Sep 10, In LA 11 people were
killed in a fiery car crash after a day of selling corn.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.11B)
1997 Sep 10, In Cuba a former
Salvadoran soldier was arrested and confessed to carrying out a series
of bomb attacks. A statement said that Raul Ernesto Cruz was paid
$4,500 for each bomb he planted and that he had been trained in El
Salvador.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 11, In Manhattan Elie
Wiesel helped dedicate the new Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery
Park, designed by Kevin Roche. It was dubbed a Living memorial to the
Holocaust.
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 11, The US Army issued a
searing indictment of itself, asserting that "sexual harassment exists
throughout the Army, crossing gender, rank and racial lines."
(AP, 9/11/98)
1997 Sep 11, In Kenya the
Parliament approved some constitutional reforms but opponents charged
the measures were only meant to diffuse protests. Detention without
trial was ended and greater media access to the opposition was to be
established.
(WSJ, 9/12/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 11, In Scotland voters
went to the polls on a referendum for a separate Scottish Parliament
after 290 years of union with England. They approved the referendum by
a 63% vote.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A10)(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A12)(AP,
9/11/98)
1997 Sep 12, Pres. Clinton named
Dr. David Satcher, 56, as the new surgeon general.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 12, With little to show
after three days of shuttle diplomacy, US Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright declared she wouldn't return to the Mideast until Israeli and
Palestinian leaders made the "hard decisions" necessary to restart
peace talks.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1997 Sep 12, US Senate Foreign
Relations Chairman Jesse Helms, exercising iron control, prevented any
committee hearing on William Weld's nomination to be ambassador to
Mexico.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1997 Sep 12, Edwin Lawrence
Njuguna of Kenya was stabbed to death in Napa, Calif., after being
dragged with two friends from a car by skinheads.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 12, It was reported that
Comoros government troops under Pres. Mohamed Taki were routed on
Anjouan and half of a force of 300 were killed or captured by people
who demanded to be French again.
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 12, In southeast Congo a
plane crashed enroute to a religious meeting. All 20 aboard were killed.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 12, The Chinese Communist
Party Congress opened under Pres. Jiang Zemin and embraced a program of
bold economic reform. The event was held every 5 years. Jiang Zemin was
expected to stay as general-secretary. The positions of Li Peng and
Qiao Shi were in question. Jiang issued a call to use layoffs,
bankruptcies, shareholding and other capitalist policies to attack the
nation’s industrial ills.
(SFC, 8/28/97, p.C2)(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A8)(SFC,
9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 12, In Mexico a crowd of
tens of thousands rallied in the central square of Mexico City in
support of the Zapatista movement.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 13, Katherine Shindle of
Illinois was crowned Miss America in Atlantic City, N.J.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 13, It was reported that
a monster hurricane named Linda was moving up the Pacific coast.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 13, Victor Szebehely, a
theorist of celestial mechanics, died in Texas. He wrote or edited some
18 books including: "Theory of Orbit," and "Adventures in Celestial
Mechanics."
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A23)
1997 Sep 13, In Algeria security
forces killed 8 suspected Muslim militants in a rocket attack on a
mosque in a suburb of the capital. Earlier a Muslim cleric was
assassinated by suspected militants in Constantine.
(WSJ, 9/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 13, In Bosnia municipal
elections were held under NATO escort. There was a high voter turnout.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A22)(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 13, A German military
transport, a Soviet-made Tupelov-154 jet, was reported crashed with 24
people off the coast of Angola. A midair collision with a USAF C-141
Starlifter cargo plane from Namibia was reported and the total dead
reached 32. Poor communications and faulty regional traffic control
were cited as the cause. On Mar 31, 1988 the German government reported
that the German crew was at fault for flying in airspace reserved for
westbound traffic.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A1)(SFC,12/16/97, p.B1)(WSJ,
3/31/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.A5)
1997 Sep 13, Funeral services were
held in Calcutta, India, for Nobel peace laureate Mother Teresa.
(AP, 9/13/98)
1997 Sep 13, In Lebanon six
soldiers were killed in a rocket attack by Israeli helicopters.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A22)
1997 Sep 13, In Mexico City a
national Zapatista civilian movement was inaugurated.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 13, From New Zealand it
was reported that the government approved the release of the rabbit
calcivirus to eradicate the rabbit pest problem.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 13, In the Philippines
the Mount Pinukis volcano, 120 miles east of Zamboanga City, erupted
after being dormant since 1985.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 14, At the 49th Annual
Primetime Emmy Awards, "Law and Order" won best drama series while
"Frasier" won best comedy series.
(AP, 9/14/02)
1997 Sep 14, An Air Force F-117A
Stealth fighter broke apart in midair at a Baltimore County air show.
The pilot ejected safely but about a dozen people on the ground were
slightly injured.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 14, Overcoming fears of
violence, Bosnians flooded polling stations to vote in local elections.
(AP, 9/14/02)
1997 Sep 14, In India at least 77
people were killed when a train plunged from a bridge near Champa town
in the east of Madhya Pradesh state. Another 234 were injured.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A11)
1997 Sep 14, Two Israeli soldiers
were killed in a Hezbollah attack in southern Lebanon.
(WSJ, 9/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 14, Israel announced that
it will return half of the $67 million in Palestinian tax revenues as a
"goodwill gesture."
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 14, It was reported that
Norway is the world’s 2nd largest oil exporter and that the government
sets aside nearly $8.3 billion into a fund for the future.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 15, Former Massachusetts
Gov. William Weld gave up his battle to be U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
(AP, 9/15/98)
1997 Sep 15, Two of the nation's
most popular diet drugs -- dexfenfluramine and fenfluramine -- were
pulled off the market because of new evidence they could seriously
damage patients' hearts.
(AP, 9/15/98)
1997 Sep 15, A Marine F/Aa-18
Hornet fighter jet crashed in North Carolina’s Pamlico sound and its 2
pilots were killed.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 15, From Afghanistan it
was reported that the Taliban has prohibited the cultivation of opium
poppies. Some 200,000 families produced a record 2,800 tons of opium in
1997, a 25% increase over 1996.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 15, In Algeria 7 people
were killed in Saida by masked assailants and four people had their
throats cut in Medea.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 15, In India at the port
city of Visakhapatnam a fire raged at the Hindustan Petroleum Corp. and
37 were reported dead.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 15, The IRA allied Sinn
Fein party entered Northern Ireland's peace talks for the first time.
All party talks for peace were to begin in Belfast.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)(AP, 9/15/98)
1997 Sep 15, In North Korea it was
reported that about 15% of people in the towns and villages of the
country may be dying of starvation and famine-related diseases in a
survey conducted by Korean-American organizations.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 15, In Norway Prime
Minister Thorbjoern Jagland said he would step down after support in
national elections reached only about 35%.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 15, In Oman a US Navy
F/A-18 crashed and the pilot was killed.
(WSJ, 9/16/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 15, From Thailand it was
reported that layoffs, salary cuts and downsizing was spreading across
the economy under an expensive foreign debt load and a 40% fall in the
value of the baht.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 16, US Attorney General
Janet Reno named Charles La Bella the Justice Department's new lead
prosecutor in the campaign fund-raising investigation.
(AP, 9/16/98)
1997 Sep 16, Two Air national
Guard F-16 fighters collided off Atlantic City, N.J. All the crew
members survived.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 16, In Egypt a
state-owned farm-truck carrying up to 120 boys and girls overturned and
killed 29 of them. 23 children from Sa el-Hagar were killed.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.C4)(SFC, 10/1/98, p.A14)
1997 Sep 17, Pres. Clinton
rejected a proposed tobacco deal and planned to outline his own policy.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 17, Pres. Clinton
announced that the US would not sign the int’l. treaty banning
anti-personnel land mines after 89 nations rejected US demands to water
down the accord. 89 nations endorsed the pact.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, The US House of
Representatives voted themselves a $3,000 pay increase, the equivalent
of a 2.3% raise on $133,600. It was termed a cost-of-living increase
and was opposed by the Senate.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 17, Montana passed a new
law, effective Dec 17, that makes the entire state an offshore banking
center, allowing foreign interests to anonymously stash their cash.
Depositors could not be US citizens and a minimum of $200,000 was
required.
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A18)
1997 Sep 17, Dr. Sam Sheppard's
body (subject of the TV show "The Fugitive") was exhumed in Cleveland,
Ohio, for DNA test.
(www.courttv.com/archive/trials/sheppard/timeline_ctv.html)
1997 Sep 17, Bernard Richard
Skelton (Red Skelton, b.1913), comic clown and actor, died at age 84 in
Rancho Mirage, Calif. He made his debut on radio and Broadway in 1937
and appeared in 43 films. In 1979 Arthur Marx wrote his biography.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.C2)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, From Indonesia it was
reported that government spending was slashed and projects for power
plants and roads were put on hold in order to keep the economy on an
even keel.
(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A17)
1997 Sep 17, The German Red Cross
estimated that the famine in North Korea might be killing 10,000
children every month.
(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 17, In Macedonia the
mayor of Gostevar, Rufi Osmani, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on
charges of inciting ethnic hatred in the July riots.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)
1998 Sep 17, In Ensenada, Mexico,
20 people were shot and 18 were killed by gunmen. The victims included
8 children. Fermin Castro (38), aka "The Ice Man," was the principal
target and leader of one of 6 gangs linked to the Arellano Felix drug
cartel. Castro, a native Pai Pai Indian, was tortured before being shot
and was in a coma. In Dec. Tijuana police arrested Hector Flores
Esquivias and Cruz Medina Perez, the wife of gang leader Martinez
Gonzalez.
(WSJ, 9/18/98, p.A1)(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A1)(SFC,
10/17/98, p.A12)(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A13)
1997 Sep 17, A U.N. helicopter
slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain in central Bosnia and burst into
flames, killing German diplomat Gerd Wagner, five Americans and six
others.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, In Vietnam Tran Duc
Luong (60) was nominated to be the country’s president. Vice Prime
Minister Phan Van Khai (64) was nominated to be the new prime minister.
A week later Luong was elected by the National Assembly and Khai was
confirmed as premier.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A11)(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 18, Coopers & Lybrand
and Price Waterhouse agreed to merge to create the world's biggest
accounting firm.
(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 18, Media mogul Ted
Turner pledged to give the United Nations $1 billion over the next ten
years.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 18, In Albania a
Socialist lawmaker shot and wounded a rival from the opposition
Democrats inside the parliament building.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 18, In Bosnia a car bomb
in Mostar injured about 50 people and destroyed 56, apartments, 9
businesses and 44 cars.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 18, In Egypt two gunmen
killed 10 people in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in front of the Egyptian
Museum. Of the dead were nine German tourists and a bus driver and a
dozen more were wounded as the tour bus was set afire. Saber and
Mahmoud Abu el-Ulla, a former inmate of a mental hospital and his
brother, were caught, convicted and sentenced to death.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A12)(SFC,10/31/97, p.D3)(AP,
9/18/98)
1997 Sep 18, In Norway an
explosion at a Russian-operated coal mine in the Svalbard islands
killed 23 Russian and Ukrainian workers.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 18, In Wales voters
narrowly approved a referendum for partial self-government with 50.3%
of the vote in which only 50% of the voters took part.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/18/98)
1997 Sep 19, The crime drama "L.A.
Confidential" opened. It was directed by Curtis Hanson. Los Angeles and
New York film critics later voted it the best film of the year. Kim
Bassinger won the Golden Globes award for best supporting actress.
(SSFC, 9/1/02, Par p.14)(AP, 9/19/07)
1997 Sep 19, It was reported that
the US trade deficit rose to $10.3 billion in July, a 25% jump over
June.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 19, A US Air Force B-1
bomber crashed on a training mission in Montana and all 4 crew members
were killed.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 19, Alfredo Enrique Tello
Jr. (19) was found charred and dismembered in an Aspen Hill, Md.,
garage. One suspected killer, Samuel Sheinbein (17), fled to Israel. A
2nd suspect, Aaron B. Needle (17), was held in jail. In Oct. the
attorney general decided to return Sheinbein to the US. The two young
men were indicted on murder and conspiracy charges. Needle committed
suicide by hanging in 1998. In 1999 the Israeli Supreme Court held that
Sheinbein could not be extradited. Sheinbein agreed to plead guilty to
murder and received a prison sentence of 24 years with possible parole
after 16.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/20/97,
p.A1)(SFC,10/31/97, p.A3)(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A18)(SFC, 2/25/99,
p.A12)(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A10)
1997 Sep 19, In his first public
comments since the death of Princess Diana, Princes Charles told the
British people he would always feel the loss of his former wife, and
thanked them for their support.
1997 Sep 19, In England a
passenger train collided with a freight train in west London and 6
people were killed and 170 injured.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A10)(AP, 9/19/98)
1997 Sep 20, President Clinton's
attorneys insisted no laws were broken as it was disclosed that
Attorney General Janet Reno had taken a first step toward seeking a
special prosecutor to investigate the president's 1996 fund-raising
activities.
(AP, 9/20/98)
1997 Sep 20, Nicholas Traina (19),
the son of novelist Danielle Steel, died in SF of a drug overdose.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 20, Jimmy Witherspoon
(b.8/23/23 in Gurdon, Ark.), blues singer, died at age 74 in LA.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1997 Sep 20, In Niger it was
reported that about 71,000 villagers were threatened by famine in the
southwestern areas around Oualam.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Sep 20, In the Philippines
Pres. Ramos announced that he would not run for re-election. A mass
protest was staged the next day anyway to prevent a change in the
constitution that would allow a 2nd term.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 21, Saying their
persistent demands for a special investigation had been vindicated,
senior Republicans insisted Attorney General Janet Reno seek
appointment of an independent counsel to look into White House
fund-raising activities, a day after the Justice Department revealed it
had begun a preliminary review.
(AP, 9/21/98)
1997 Sep 21, American billionaire
George Soros, vilified by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad as
the cause of the national financial crises, defended himself and called
his accuser "a menace to his own country."
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 21, In Algeria an armed
group killed 53 people in Beni-Slimane and then mutilated and burned
the bodies.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A9)
1997 Sep 21, From Chile it was
reported that the hantavirus had caused the death of 13 people in
recent months.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A27)
1997 Sep 21, From Poland election
results indicated that Solidarity won 189 of the 460 seats of the
parliament with about 34% of the vote.
(WSJ, 9/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 22, Elton John released
his Diana tribute "Candle in the Wind 1997."
(www.vex.net/~paulmac/elton/ej1997.html)
1997 Sep 22, President Clinton,
addressing the United Nations, told world leaders to "end all nuclear
tests for all time" as he sent the long-delayed global test-ban treaty
to the Senate.
(AP, 9/22/98)
1997 Sep 22, Sportscaster Marv
Albert went on trial in Arlington, Va., on charges of sodomy and
assault. Albert later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, received
no jail time and later had his record cleared.
(AP, 9/22/02)
1997 Sep 22, In the farming
village of Roby, Illinois, a standoff between police and Shirley Allen
(51) began that turned into a 5-week police siege. Her brother
initially showed up with a court order for a psychiatric exam and she
refused to comply. She was finally captured after being shot with
rubber bullets. Shirley Ann Allen was apprehended when she stepped out
onto her porch on October 30, 1997. Illinois State Police officers
fired several large rubber bullets at her from a grenade launcher,
striking her several times. Apparently not seriously injured, Allen was
taken to St. Johns Hospital in Springfield, Illinois for her
"evaluation." Ending on Thursday, October 30, 1997 a 39-day police
siege, the longest in Illinois history. According to Illinois State
Police Director Terry Gainer between $750,000 and $1,000,000 of
taxpayer money was spent during the stand-off. After six weeks in a
mental hospital, Allen was released when doctors said she posed no
danger to herself or others.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/31/97,
p.A3)(www.outlawslegal.com/friendly/shirley.htm)
1997 Sep 22, It was reported that
IBM has developed a new copper chip that will be smaller and up to 40%
more powerful than previous chips.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 22, It was reported that
scientists had developed a new technology that takes the flicker out of
starlight using "adaptive optics."
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A5)
1997 Sep 22, Shoichi Yokoi
(b.1915), Japanese WW II fighter who only surrendered in 1972, died.
For 28 years he had hid in an underground jungle cave on Guam, fearing
to come out of hiding even after finding leaflets declaring that World
War II had ended.
(www.wanpela.com/holdouts/profiles/yokoi.html)
1997 Sep 22, In Serbia the
Socialist Party of Slobodan Milosevic claimed victory in the elections.
Many of his opponents boycotted the elections which they said were
rigged. Zoran Lilic was expected to take the presidency. A majority was
not won and a runoff election was scheduled for Oct 5.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A8)(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 23, The White House
awarded the $10,000 National Heritage Fellows awards to a dozen
Americans that included Chinese singer Hua Wenyi, and Ali Akbar Khan,
composer of North Indian music.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A17)
1997 Sep 23, The Gilmore Artist
Award, a $300,000 prize given every 4 years to a classical pianist, was
awarded to Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes at the Irving S. Gilmore
Int’l. Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, Mich.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.E5)
1997 Sep 23, The US Senate Finance
Committee opened hearings into reports of alleged abuses by the
Internal Revenue Service.
(AP, 9/23/98)
1997 Sep 23, Kevin (18) and Tilmon
Golphin (19) of Virginia shot and killed Patrol Troopers Ed Lowry and
David Hathcock on I-95 in North Carolina after they were pulled over in
a stolen car. The 2 brothers were sentenced to death May 13, 1998.
(SFC, 5/14/98, p.A6)
1997 Sep 23, In Algeria the
government reported that 85 people were killed, while eyewitnesses
counted more than 200 bodies in the Bentalha neighborhood of the Baraki
suburb of Algiers. Armed men raided an Algerian village, killing at
least 200 people in one of the worst massacres since Algeria's Islamic
insurgency began.
(AP, 9/23/98)(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 24, Garth Brooks was
named best entertainer by Country Music Association.
(AP, 9/24/98)
1997 Sep 24, President Clinton
urged the annual convention of the AFL-CIO not to try to punish
Democratic lawmakers who stood with him on his request for stronger
authority to negotiate new free-trade treaties.
(AP, 9/24/98)
1997 Sep 24, Travelers Group
announced the acquisition of Salomon Brothers for $9 billion in stock.
(Econ, 10/14/06,
p.89)(www.businessweek.com/1997/40/b3547006.htm)
1997 Sep 24, The Islamic Salvation
Army (AIS) declared a truce and blamed recent killings on a splinter
fundamentalist group, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
(WSJ, 9/25/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 24, It was reported that
drought has destroyed crops across the Indonesian archipelago and could
force up to 1 million villagers into a famine diet. Forest and scrub
fires continued to burn out of control. 750,000 acres of bush land had
burned. It was the worst drought in 50 years.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A11)(SFC,
7/6/98, p.A8)
1997 Sep 24, In the Republic of
the Congo it was reported that the Cobras, the private militia of
former military dictator Gen’l. Denis Sassou-Nguesso, had taken control
of more than three-quarters of the country.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 25, The NBC prime-time
drama "ER" did its season premiere live for the Eastern United States,
then repeated the performance live for the West Coast.
(AP, 9/25/98)
1997 Sep 25, President Clinton
pulled open the door of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., as he
welcomed nine blacks who had faced hate-filled mobs 40 years earlier.
(AP, 9/25/98)
1997 Sep 25, Sportscaster Marv
Albert ended his trial in Arlington, Va., by pleading guilty to assault
and battery charges; within hours, NBC fired him. The network later
rehired him.
(AP, 9/25/07)
1997 Sep 25, In the town of Scotia
in Humboldt County, Ca., 7 protestors settled in the company office of
Pacific Lumber. Sheriff’s deputies applied pepper spray directly to the
eyes of the protestors using cotton swabs and Q-tips.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.A15)
1997 Sep 25, In California it was
reported that traces of toxaphene, banned in 1982, were found in at
least one bird in a southern Tulare County canal where some 1600
western grebes and millions of fish were found dead.
(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A13)
1997 Sep 25, The space
shuttle Atlantis was launched. Astronaut David Wolf scheduled to
replace Michael Foale on the Mir space station.
(www.cnn.com/TECH/9709/25/shuttle.mir/)(SFC,
9/27/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 25, A British jet car,
Thrust SSC, driven by Andy Green of the Royal Air Force set a land
speed record of 714.144 mph. [see Oct 13]
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A1,7)
1997 Sep 25, From Brazil it was
reported that local transsexuals could get a free sex-change operation
under new rules that classified the surgery as experimental.
(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 25, Iraq demanded that
Turkey pull back some 15,000 troops who crossed its border in pursuit
of Kurdistan Workers Party guerrillas.
(WSJ, 9/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 25, In Jordan Khalid
Mashaal, the political leader of Hamas, was chemically attacked by two
men with forged Canadian passports in Amman. Hamas accused the men of
being Israeli Mossad agents. Jordan's King Hussein intervened, forcing
Israel to send the antidote that saved the Hamas leader's life and
release the group's jailed founder in exchange for the freedom of its
captured agents.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B4)(SFC,
10/12/97, p.A17)(AP, 9/25/04)
1997 Sep 26, Gap Inc. dressed the
NY stock exchange in khakis fashion, the first casual dress day in
exchange history.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.C1)
1997 Sep 26, US and Russia signed
a package of arms control agreements that extended parts of START II to
2007. Systems were still required to be disabled by 2003. Other accords
modified the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 with Belarus,
Kazakstan, the Ukraine and Russia to allow flexibility for the
development of short range systems.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 26, In Algeria militants
attacked the village of El Hadj and killed 15 people.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 26, In Bosnia political
broadcasts began in Banja Luka under an agreement by rival factions to
share the airwaves on alternate days.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A26)
1997 Sep 26, A German court
convicted Nikola Jorgic, a Bosnian Serb, for leading a death squad that
killed 22 Muslims in Grapska during the war.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 26, An Indonesian Garuda
Air A-300 crashed while approaching Medan Airport in north Sumatra and
all 234 passengers were killed. Low visibility from the areas fires
were thought to have contributed the tragedy.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/26/98)
1997 Sep 26, In Italy Bob Dylan
performed at a religious congress in Bologna before a crowd 200,000 and
Pope John Paul II.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 26, Two earthquakes hit
central Italy east of Umbria and at least 11 people were killed. The
basilica of Assisi, St. Mary of the Angels, built on the site where St.
Francis died, was severely damaged. 4 people were killed while
assessing damage from the first quake. An estimated 100,000 buildings
in the Umbria and Marche regions were damaged.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.A18)
1997 Sep 26, In Sicily a court
convicted 24 mobsters for the 1992 bombing of the top anti-mafia
prosecutor. Salvatore "Toto" Riina, the reputed "boss of bosses" was
among those convicted for having plotted the assassination of Giovanni
Falcone.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 27, The space shuttle
Atlantis, docked with the problem-plagued Russian Mir station to drop
off American David Wolf and pick up Michael Foale.
(AP, 9/27/98)
1997 Sep 27, In Algeria witnesses
said armed men killed 11 female teachers at Ain Adden School in Sfisef
while shouting "Blood, blood, blood, destruction, destruction,
destruction," the rallying cry of the Armed Islamic Group.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 27, In Indonesia two
cargo ships collided in the strait of Malacca and at least 28 crew
members were missing. Smog from fires impacted visibility.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A21)
1997 Sep 27, In Hong Kong
lawmakers approved an election law that reduced the number of people
who could vote and increased the power of big business.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 27, In North Korea Kim
Jong Il ordered the establishment of the "9-27" camps for orphaned and
homeless children to "normalize" the country.
(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A10)
1997 Sep 27, In Thailand the
parliament passed a constitution intended to fight government
corruption and rejected a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister
Chavilit.
(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 28, Mark McGwire of the
St. Louis Cardinals hit his 58th home run on the final day of the
regular season as his team beat the Chicago Cubs, 2-1.
(AP, 9/28/98)
1997 Sep 28, Newscaster David
Brinkley, 74, retired after 54 years in broadcasting.
(http://tinyurl.com/7dxec)
1997 Sep 28, In California a
wildfire killed livestock and forced the evacuation of some 1500 people
in Yuba County. Scores of homes were burned.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 28, From LA it was
reported that Cirildo Chacarito, a 52-year-old Mexican Indian
tribesman, won a 100-mile endurance run along mountain trails in 19 1/2
hours.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A23)
1997 Sep 28, In Indonesia an
earthquake measuring 6.0 hit Sulawesi island and at least 7 people were
killed.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A21)
1997 Sep 28, Swiss voters
overwhelmingly endorsed their government's liberal drug policies,
including the controversial state distribution of heroin to hardened
addicts.
(AP, 9/28/98)
1997 Sep 29, Maxine Hong Kingston,
American writer, was scheduled to receive a National Humanities Medal
from Pres. Clinton. Her best known is: "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a
Girlhood Among Ghosts."
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.D7)
1997 Sep 29, Oklahoma City bombing
defendant Terry Nichols went on trial in the same courtroom in Denver
where Timothy McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to die. Nichols was
later convicted of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy, but
acquitted of murder and weapons-related counts; he was sentenced to
life in prison.
(AP, 9/29/98)
1997 Sep 29, A 10,000 gallon oil
spill occurred off the coast of Santa Barbara from an undersea pipeline
to an offshore oil platform.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 29, Roy Lichtenstein (b.
10/28/23), American pop artist, died at 73 in New York.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A7)
1997 Sep 29, In Algeria some 15
armed attackers killed 52 members of one extended family in Chebil and
kidnapped 5 young women.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 29, In Chile a fire
killed 30 children in a home for retarded children in northern Santiago.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A13)
1997 Sep 29, The French oil
company Total signed a $2 billion contract to explore for gas in Iran
despite warnings from the Clinton administration.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 29, Iranian warplanes
bombed anti-Tehran rebel bases inside Iraq.
(WSJ, 9/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 29, It was reported that
Jordan shut down 13 weekly newspapers for allegedly failing to maintain
assets and cash to $430,000.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 29, It was reported that
Swiss voters backed the continuation of a 3-year experiment in more
lenient drug laws that included free heroin to hard-core addicts to cut
crime.
(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 29, Turkish planes
attacked Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq and drove the
guerrillas toward the Iran border.
(WSJ, 9/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 30, The Rolling Stones
album "Bridges to Babylon" was scheduled for release.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, DB p.35)
1997 Sep 30, Hooters agreed to pay
$2 million in discrimination suits.
(http://www.spcnetwork.com/mii/1997/971004.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/7n8v9)
1997 Sep 30, In Waterbury, Conn.,
Todd Joseph Rizzo (18), recently discharged from the Marines,
bludgeoned to death Stanley Edwards IV (13) to see what it felt like to
kill. In 1999, a jury sentenced him to die. In 2003, the state Supreme
Court overturned that sentence because Judge William Holden had not
properly instructed the jury.
(SFC, 10/3/97,
p.A6)(www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1407662/posts)
1997 Sep 30, In Louisiana the
Flamingo riverboat casino closed. It was the last riverboat casino in
downtown New Orleans and the 4th to open and close in the last 4 years.
One floating casino was left on Lake Pontchartrain.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A4)
1997 Sep 30, In an unprecedented
act of repentance, France's Roman Catholic Church apologized for its
silence during the systematic persecution and deportation of Jews by
the pro-Nazi Vichy regime.
(AP, 9/30/98)
1997 Sep 30, In Serbia Zoran
Djindjic, mayor of Belgrade, was ousted in a coup by nationalist
extremists and some former allies. The city assembly voted to oust
Djindjic and the TV editors. Some 20,000 demonstrators protested in
downtown Belgrade. Senior editors of Studio B television, the only
opposition to Milosevic’s state television, were also ousted.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 30, On St. Kitts island
Leyoca Browne (20) and her mother, Violet (36), were murdered by Bertil
Fox, a former Mr. Universe bodybuilder. He was found guilty and
sentenced to death on 5/23/98.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.A8)
1997 Sep 30, In Thailand the
cabinet officially scrapped the $3.2 billion rail and road system under
construction by Hopewell Holdings. The Bangkok Elevated Rail and
Transport System known as Berts was one fifth built and several years
behind schedule.
(WSJ, 10/1/97, p.A18)
1997 Sep, "The Riverside Records
Story, " a 4 CD label overview on Fantasy Records was released along
with "Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years," a 3 CD collection on
Clint Eastwood’s Malpaso Records label.
(SFEM, 10/5/97, p.29)
1997 Sep, The US released
the one ounce Platinum Eagle coin with $100 face value. The coin was
valued around $390.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.C1)
1997 Sep, Steve Jobs was named
interim CEO of Apple Corp. Jobs dropped the term interim in 2000.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.80)
1997 Sep, In Tyrone, Pa., Devon
Capital Management under John Gardner Black was shut down by the SEC.
Mr. Black was charged with fraud after losing millions in high-risk
bonds and derivatives and then trying to cover up the losses. Some $70
million was lost from the investments of 64 cash-strapped school
districts in the state.
(WSJ, 12/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep, In Dallas, Texas, the
Walt Whitman Community School began classes as the nation’s first
private high school for gay students.
(SFC, 5/11/98, p.A3)
1997 Sep, MIT student Scott
Krueger fell into a coma and died following a drinking binge at the Phi
Gamma Delta fraternity. In 1998 the fraternity was charged with
homicide.
(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A3)
1997 Sep, Isaiah Berlin (b.1909)
died. He had just published "The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and
Their History." It was his 11th book and was unified by the theme of
the impact of belief and loss of belief that events obey discoverable
laws. "Most of life transpires at deeper strata, within a complicated
network of relationships involving every form of human intercourse,
more and more insusceptible to tidy classification, more and more
opaque to the theorist’s vision." In 1998 his collection of essays "The
Proper Study of Mankind" was published. In 2002 his 1952 BBC lectures
were published under the title: "Freedom and its Betrayal." It was a
portrait of 6 thinkers: Helvetius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simon
and Maistre as "enemies of human liberty."
(SFEC, 5/25/97, BR p.9)(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A16)(WSJ,
9/3/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/20/02, p.A20)
1997 Sep, Adolfo Scilingo, a
former Argentine navy officer, had his face slashed by unknown
assailants in a Buenos Aires street. He and Horatio Verbitsky wrote "El
Vuelo," (The Flight), a best -seller about the death flights during the
"dirty war."
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)
1997 Sep, In England a 13-foot
high painting titled "Myra" by Marcus Harvey was displayed at the Royal
Academy of Arts show "Sensation." It was created from children’s
handprints and based on a mug shot of Myra convicted of murdering
children in 1966. It was part of a show from the collection of Charles
Saatchi of the "Brit Art gang." The show was deemed by many as very
offensive.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.E5)
1997 Sep, In India 30 people
organizing lower-caste villagers were killed by a rival group.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep, In Iraq some military
intelligence officials were caught plotting a coup against Saddam
Hussein and at least half a dozen officers were executed.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)
1997 Sep, In Chiapas, Mexico,
gunmen demanded a "war tax" of $1.25 from villagers every couple weeks
and threatened them if they refused. It was reported that the PRI had
distributed guns to allies in villages around Puebla.
(SFC,12/30/97, p.B1)
1997 Sep, In Poland Col. Ryszard
Kuklinski was cleared of spy charges after a military court ruled that
he acted in Poland’s best interests. He had served as a US CIA spy and
reported on activities from 1972-1981.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A10)
1997 Sep, In Sri Lanka Tamil
guerrillas sank a ship in the Trincomalee area. By 1999 leakage of the
700 tons of oil in the ship was threatening the coastline.
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.A6)
1997 Sep, In Sudan Gen. Omar
Bashir accepted a 3-year-old proposal to hold direct negotiations with
the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 1, The US Senate approved
a $3,100 cost-of-living congressional pay raise, the first in 5 years,
in a 55-45 vote. The inflation related adjustment was instituted in
1993 but denied until this year.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 1, US FBI Director Louis
J. Freeh warned that Russian organized crime networks were growing and
that they posed a menace to US national security. Russian crime
syndicates were described to be forging ties with the Italian mafia and
the Colombian drug cartels.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A3)
1997 Oct 1, Paula Jones announced
a new legal team from Texas to pursue her suit against Pres. Clinton.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A3)
1997 Oct 1, The Center for
Nonverbal Studies (CNS), a private, nonprofit research center located
in Spokane, Washington, began operations. The Center's mission is to
advance the study of human communication in all its forms apart from
language. The Center's goal is to promote the scientific study of
nonverbal communication, which includes body movement, gesture, facial
expression, adornment and fashion, architecture, mass media, and
consumer-product design.
(http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/index.htm)
1997 Oct 1, WorldCom Inc. bid $30
million to take over MCI Communications.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 1, In Pearl, Mississippi,
Luke Woodham (16) stabbed his mother Mary (50) to death and went to
school and killed his former girlfriend and another student and wounded
7 others. Later Grant Boyette (18) was identified as the leader of the
Kroth cult, a Satanist group with a plan of destruction and
killing. Woodham was found guilty in 1998 of killing 2 classmates and
was sentenced to 2 life sentences plus 20 years. He was also found
guilty in the murder of his mother in a separate trial and the sentence
was raised to 3 life sentences plus 140 years.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A3)(SFC, 10/15/97, p.A6)(SFC,
6/2/98, p.A3)(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A3)(AP, 10/1/07)
1997 Oct 1, Asian currencies dived
in foreign exchange markets in part because of comments by Malaysian
Prime Minister Mahathir: "I would like to suggest that we do away with
trade in currency as a commodity."
(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 1, From Angola it was
reported that Unita was demobilizing its soldiers and getting the UN to
return them to Unita-held territory, where they could again be
mobilized.
(WSJ, 10/1/97, p.A16)
1997 Oct 1, In Bosnia NATO seized
4 key Bosnian Serb television transmitters.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 1, Congo’s Pres. Kabila
ordered troops into the Congo Republic after 2 days of cross border
shelling that killed as many as 31 in Kinshasa.
(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 1, Israel freed Sheik
Ahmed Yassin (61), the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas. The ill
Yassin was taken to Jordan and hospitalized. As part of the deal an
antidote for the chemical used on last week’s Meshaal attack was
demanded by Jordan and Israel requested the release of the Meshaal
attackers. This secured the release of two Mossad agents arrested in
Jordan following a botched assassination attempt against Hamas
political leader Khalid Mashaal.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)(AP, 10/1/98)
1997 Oct 1, In Serbia It was
reported that Albanian students in Kosovo planned to demonstrate in the
streets for equal access to the university on par with the Serb
students at Pristina. Some 20,000 students protested and were attacked
by Serb police. At least 30 students were injured. 500 students were
attacked by Serbian police.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/2/97,
p.A12)(SFC,12/10/97, p.C2)
1997 Oct 1, In Belgrade, Serbia,
riot police attacked thousands of marchers who protested the firing of
mayor Djindjic and the removal of editors of the independent TV station.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 1, In Sri Lanka a
government clash with Tamil Tigers left at least 70 combatants dead in
Puliyankulam.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A3)
1997 Oct 1, The UN withdrew its
human rights investigators from Congo pending a clarification by the
Kabila government on its policy.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 2, President Clinton
proposed sending inspectors to farms around the world to ensure that
foreign-grown fruits and vegetables are safe for American consumers.
The president also said he would ask Congress to empower the Food and
Drug Administration to ban produce from countries whose safety
precautions do not meet American standards.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1997 Oct 2, A Navy F-14 Tomcat
fighter jet crashed off the coast of N. Carolina. One crew member was
rescued but the pilot was still missing.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 2, In California some 200
police, FBI, IRS and DEA agents swept over 18 homes and business in
Oakland, Hayward and San Leandro and seized 73 kilograms of cocaine
valued at $70 million. Some 22 people were arrested in the drug and
smuggling ring culminating a 3-month investigation.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A19)
1997 Oct 2, In Algeria attackers
killed 20 members of a wedding party in Blida.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A22)
1997 Oct 2, In Azerbaijan a
helicopter with 20 passengers crashed near an offshore oil platform and
no survivors were found.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 2, In Brazil thousands
turned out to greet Pope John Paul II for the start of his 4-day visit.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B2)
1997 Oct 2, The EU formally set up
a common foreign and security policy in the Amsterdam Treaty. It set to
adopt key asylum and immigration measures within five years of the
treaty's entry into force, expected in 1999. A protocol to the 1997
Treaty of Amsterdam reclassified animals as sentient beings.
(Econ, 8/26/06,
p.42)(http://hrw.org/worldreport/Helsinki-28.htm)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.88)
1997 Oct 3, Attorney General Janet
Reno said Justice Department investigators had no evidence President
Clinton violated the law with White House coffees and overnight stays
for big contributors. However, Reno did extend a probe of Vice
President Al Gore's telephone fund-raising.
(AP, 10/3/98)
1997 Oct 3, US Defense Sec.
William Cohen ordered the Nimitz Carrier Battle Group to the Persian
Gulf as a warning to Iran and Iraq to stop incursions into the
US-enforced "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct 3, In Humboldt County,
Ca., 2 protestors attached themselves to bulldozers of the Pacific
Lumber Company. Sheriff’s deputies applied pepper spray directly to the
eyes of the protestors using cotton swabs and Q-tips.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 3, In Idaho the US Forest
Service arranged a land swap with the Riley Creek Lumber Co. to
preserve an ancient cedar grove at Upper Priest Lake. Riley Creek paid
less than $2 million in 1992 for the grove and obtained $8.7 million
worth of federal land in exchange.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.A3)
1997 Oct 3, Alfred Leslie Rowse,
British historian, died at 93.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9064257)
1997 Oct 3, In Algeria armed men
killed 38 people at the village of Mahelma. Throats of the victims were
slit, heads were cut off and houses were set on fire. In Blida 10
people were killed and 20 wounded by assailants with homemade rockets
and bombs. Another group of attackers killed 75 others including 34
children. In the village of Ouled Benaissa armed men killed 37 people
including 22 children.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A10)(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A22)
1997 Oct 3, From Brazil it was
reported that tuberculosis has killed at least 27 members of the
Guarani-Kaiowa tribe in the past 15 months.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B5)
1997 Oct 3, In Colombia a
paramilitary group hired to protect a cocaine shipment killed 11
judicial officials near the town of San Carlos de Guaroa.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 3, UN officials reported
that Congo has ordered int’l. refugee agencies to leave part of eastern
Congo and was expelling Rwandans who have fled there to escape fighting
in Rwanda.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 3, In Japan an
experimental magnetically levitated train, the MLX01, set a world speed
record when it reached 279.6 mph on a test track.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.B8)
1997 Oct 3, Turkish jets bombed
escape routes used by Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. Over the last 13
days the army reported 415 rebels dead vs. 6 of its own soldiers.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 4, Some 500,000 people
gathered in Washington DC for the Promise Keepers’ "Sacred Assembly of
Men." It was one of the largest religious gatherings in U.S. history.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A1)(AP, 10/4/98)
1997 Oct 4, US Federal officials
arrested Theresa Marie Squillacote, a former Pentagon lawyer, her
husband Kurt Alan Stand, and James Michael Clark for espionage that
began with the recruitment of Stand in 1972 by the East Germans. He
pleaded guilty to spying for East Germany in 1998.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A14)(WSJ, 6/3/98, p.A1)
1997 Oct 4, The Chicago Field
Museum of Natural History paid $8,362,500 for the T rex skull from S.
Dakota at a Sotheby’s auction in New York.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 4, From Bosnia it was
reported that an Egyptian ship loaded with Soviet-made T-55 tanks was
sitting at anchor in the Croatian port of Ploce. The shipment was
registered with officials of the foreign peace force. An error on the
manifest said the tanks were intended for the Bosnian Army.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct 4, From Brazil it was
reported that fires in the Amazon had increased 28% over the past year
and that clouds of smoke were thicker and covered more area than those
due to the burning forests of Indonesia.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 4, In Colombia rebels of
the Revolutionary Armed Forces killed 17 policemen near San Juan de
Arama. The rebels were staging a growing campaign to disrupt municipal
elections. They had already killed 26 candidates and forced more than
1,500 to withdraw.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 4, It was reported that
France banned 20% of all cars from the streets of Paris for one day
last week due to smog.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 4, It was reported that
Greenpeace had found crabs contaminated with twice Europe’s allowed
radiation level near the La Hague nuclear waste reprocessing plant near
Cherbourg in northwestern France.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 4, In Spain Princess
Christina Federica de Borbon y Grecia (32) married Inaki Urdangarin
(29), a Basque professional handball team player.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 5, The White House
released videotapes of President Clinton greeting supporters at 44
coffee klatches. Republicans claimed the tapes as proof that Clinton
had raised campaign donations at the White House in violation of the
law.
(AP, 10/5/98)
1997 Oct 5, David Scott Ghantt
(27) disappeared with $15-17 million in a Loomis, Fargo & Co. van
in Charlotte, N.C. 21 people, later charged in the heist, purchased
over 1000 items with the money. In 1999 an auction was held to dispose
of the property with the proceeds going to insurer Lloyds of London.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A7)(SFEC, 2/21/99, p.A2)
1997 Oct 5, In Algeria armed men
attacked a school bus near Blida. The driver attempted to run their
roadblock but crashed and 16 children were killed by the attackers.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 5, In Montenegro Momir
Bulatovic, a Milosevic ally, led pro-Westerner challenger Milo
Djukanovic but did not receive a 50% majority due to other candidates.
A runoff was scheduled for Oct 19.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 5, In Serbia a runoff
election was held with Zoran Lilic of the Socialist Party facing
Vojislav Seselj of the Radical Party for control of the 25-seat
parliament. Seselj defeated Lilic but the turnout was less than 50% and
a new election was scheduled in 2 months.
(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 6, In a blow to both
Democrats and Republicans, President Clinton used his line-item veto to
kill 38 military construction projects that Congress had added to a
spending bill that cost $287 million.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A3)(AP, 10/6/98)
1997 Oct 6, The space shuttle
Atlantis returned to Earth, bringing home American astronaut Michael
Foale after more than four tumultuous months aboard Mir.
(AP, 10/6/98)
1997 Oct 6, Dr. Stanley B.
Prusiner, a neurologist from UC San Francisco, won the Nobel Prize for
his discovery of the new class of proteins called prions described as
"an entirely new genre of disease-causing agents." [see 1982] In 1998
researchers at UCSF developed a sensitive technique for rapid detection
of the infectious proteins.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A7)(AP, 10/6/98)
1997 Oct 6, In Magnum, N.C., 5
migrant workers were shot to death by their housemates Jose Luis Cruz
Osorio (28) and his brother Alonso Cruz Osorio (18). A 6th man was also
shot but escaped and identified the attackers. In 2003 suspects Alonso
Cruz Osorio and Jose Luis Cruz Osorio were arrested in the town of
Acolman, Mexico.
(SFC, 10/7/97,
p.A7)(www.mayhem.net/Crime/morg9710.html)(AP, 10/23/03)
1997 Oct 6, Nine Bosnian Croats
surrendered to the int’l. war crimes tribunal in the Hague. Dario
Kordic joined the group when the US promised a speedy trial to
volunteer suspects. Kordic was the leader of the Bosnian branch of
Franjo Tudjman’s Croatian Democratic Union political party, and was
charged with commanding troops who rampaged through 14 towns in the
Lasva Valley torturing and killing hundreds of Muslims and burning
their homes.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 6, In Vitrolles, France,
the cafe Sous-marin was shut down for criticism of the National Front,
a far-right party in control of the town.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 6, In Kenya the
government refused to legalize the Safina (Swahili for ark) Party led
by Richard Leakey.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A18)
1997 Oct 6, Workers at the Han
Young de Mexico factory in Tijuana voted to be represented by an
independent union, the Metal, Steel and Allied workers Union of the
Authenticated labor Front (FAT). It was the first time that an existing
company-dominated union was ousted in the maquiladora industry. After
weeks the results were still not formalized and 4 workers who voted for
the union were fired. On Nov 10 the Tijuana Labor Board invalidated the
vote claiming the union was not nationally registered. [see Dec 14]
(SFC, 10/8/97, p.A8)(SFC,10/30/97,
p.A14)(SFC,11/15/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 6, In Palestine Sheik
Ahmed Yassin (61), the quadriplegic spiritual leader of Hamas, returned
to the Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A14)
1997 Oct 7, Sen. Fred Thompson,
R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
investigating fund-raising abuses, accused the White House of "a clear
pattern of delay, foot-dragging, concealing." Former White House deputy
chief of staff Harold Ickes defended using the White House to raise
Democratic money, telling the committee, "We played by the rules."
(AP, 10/7/98)
1997 Oct 7, PepsiCo Inc. spun off
its restaurant businesses that included Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC.
The new company under David Novak was called Tricon until 2000, when it
changed its name to Yum! Brands. By the end of 2004 growth and
expansion in China produced sales of $9 billion. In 2007 Novak with
John Boswell authored “The Education of an Accidental CEO.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.B2)(Econ, 8/27/05,
p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yum!_Brands)(WSJ, 10/24/07, p.D10)
1997 Oct 7, In Colombia leftist
guerrillas killed three villagers near San Jose de Apartado, a pilot
peace community that had declared neutrality in the civil conflicts.
(SFC, 10/8/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 7, From Mexico it was
reported that at least 100 people were reported as disappeared in the
state of Chihuahua, mostly around Ciudad Juarez, the base for Mexico’s
largest drug cartel.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 7, In Spain a former
naval officer from Argentina, Adolfo Scilingo, testified that as many
as 1,500 Argentine naval officials had participated in death flights,
during the 1976-1984 "Dirty War," where people were hurled into the
ocean.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D2)
1997 Oct 8, The US House of
Representatives opened its own set of hearings on campaign fund-raising
abuses.
(AP, 10/8/98)
1997 Oct 8, Scientists reported
the Mars Pathfinder had yielded what could be the strongest evidence
yet that Mars might once have been hospitable to life.
(AP, 10/8/98)
1997 Oct 8, Gueorgui Makharadze, a
diplomat from the Republic of Georgia, pleaded guilty in Washington to
charges stemming from a car crash that killed Maryland teen-ager
Jovianne Waltrick. Makharadze was sentenced to seven years in prison;
he initially served his term in a US prison, but was later transferred
to Georgia, where he was paroled in 2002.
(AP, 10/8/07)
1997 Oct 8, A jury in South
Carolina ordered Chrysler Corp. to pay $262.5 mil to the parents
of a 6-year-old boy killed in a 1994 accident due to a defective rear
latch. $250 mil was for punitive damages.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.A6)
1997 Oct 8, A single-engine
Cessna-208 was lost in Colorado with 8 employees of the federal Bureau
of Reclamation. The plane was found in the Uncompahgre Plateau and all
nine passengers were killed.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.A5)(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A2)
1997 Oct 8, In Belarus Pavel
Sheremet, the TV journalist held for illegally crossing into Lithuania,
was released after a 2-month detention. He still faced charges and was
not allowed to leave the capital.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.C3)
1997 Oct 8, The trial of Maurice
Papon opened in Bordeaux after a court rejected his appeal. During the
trial the judge called 4 historians to explain the background to the
jury. These included Robert O. Paxton, who in 2004 authored The Anatomy
of Fascism.”
(AP, 9/18/02)(Econ, 3/13/04, p.85)
1997 Oct 8, In France a 36-hour
rail strike disrupted travelers.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 8, In Lebanon two Israeli
soldiers were killed in an ambush. The total for the year thus reached
37.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D2)
1997 Oct 8, In North Korea Kim
Jong Il, "Dear Leader," assumed the country’s top leadership post.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.C2)
1997 Oct 8, It was reported that
at least 420 people in western New Guinea had died over the last 23
months from starvation and illness due to the prolonged drought.
(SFC, 10/8/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 8, The UN imposed
sanctions on Sierra Leone to pressure for the restoration of civilian
government.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.C3)
1997 Oct 9, Dario Fo (71), an
Italian playwright and performer, received the Nobel Prize in
literature. The leftist playwright had been prosecuted by Italy,
denounced by Roman Catholic Church leaders and barred from the United
States. His work included: "Archangels Don’t Play Pinball" (1960),
"Mistero Biffo," (Comic Mystery) written in 1969, and "Accidental Death
of an Anarchist" (1970), "We Can’t Pay, We Don’t Pay" (1974) and
"Orgasmo Adulto Escapes From the Zoo."
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/10/97, p.A20)(SFEC,
8/23/98, DB p.13)(AP, 10/9/98)
1997 Oct 9, Bosnian Muslims won
the municipal elections in Srebrenica when refugee voters returned to
outnumber Serbs who had moved in following mass executions in 1995.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D5)
1997 Oct 9, In Italy Premier
Romano Prodi resigned after his Marxist allies refused to accept
welfare cuts. The 17-month old government was the first
leftist-dominated and 55th government since WW II. Pres. Oscar Luigi
Scalfaro asked Prodi to stay on as caretaker while a new government is
formed.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D3)
1997 Oct 9, In Mexico Hurricane
Pauline swept through Acapulco and left at least 124 dead. Confirmed
deaths reached 149 with 132 from Acapulco. Hurricane Pauline claimed
more than 230 lives.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.A1)(SFC, 10/11/97,
p.A1)(SFC,10/15/97, p.C3)(AP, 10/9/98)
1997 Oct 9, From the Republic of
Congo the UN reported that both sides have signed a cease-fire pact.
Gen’l. Sassou Nguesse signed the document that his opponents, Pres.
Pascal Lissouba and prime minister Bernard Kolelas, agreed to sign last
month.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D5)
1997 Oct 9, In Russia Moscow
police arrested Gennady Konyakhin, mayor of Leninsk-Kuznetsky in
Siberia, on charges of siphoning cash from the public coffers.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D5)
1997 Oct 10, The Nobel Peace Prize
was awarded to Jody Williams and the Int’l. Campaign to Ban Land Mines
(ICBL). There were an estimated 100 million anti-personnel mines buried
around the world that killed or wounded some 26,000 people each year.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A9)(AP, 10/10/98)
1997 Oct 10, Bob Dylan was awarded
the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. It consisted of a silver medallion
and a cash stipend.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.E3)
1997 Oct 10, Defying the
Republican Congress a second time, President Clinton vetoed a ban on
certain late-term abortion procedures.
(AP, 10/10/98)
1997 Oct 10, An Argentine DC-9
with 75 people crashed in Uruguay. All 74 were killed when the plane
crashed during a torrential rainstorm.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.A16)
1997 Oct 10, Bosnian Serb
nationalists won a narrow victory in the Sept. Brcko municipal
elections. A Muslim party coalition won 14 of 24 seats in Mostar. An
int’l. supervisor, US diplomat Robert Farrand, issued an order that the
municipal administration in Brcko must reflect the prewar multiethnic
composition, and that this would extend to the police and the judiciary.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 10, In Cuba Fidel Castro
was re-elected president at the close of the 5th national congress. His
brother Raul was re-elected as 2nd in command.
(SFC, 10/12/97, p.A19)
1997 Oct 10, In France Prime
Minister Lionel Jospin proposed a law to cut the workweek to 35 hours
from 39 as a means to create jobs by Jan 1, 2000.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 10, In North Korea Kim
Jong Il was scheduled to be formally named as the general secretary of
the Workers Party.
(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 10, In Kenya riot police
beat up opposition members of parliament while Pres. Moi gave a speech
on "Moi Day," marking 19 years in power.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 10, In South Koreas the
ruling party accused Kim Dae Jung, the leading opposition contender, of
taking $15 million in bribes from some top businesses. The ruling party
was trailing badly in the polls.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 10, In Spain Adolfo
Scilingo of Argentina was jailed after appearing to voluntarily testify
on his crimes. He admitted to hurling 30 prisoners from airplanes
during the "dirty war."
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)
1997 Oct 11, In Australia a
photograph titled "Piss Christ" at the National Gallery of Victoria in
Melbourne by Andres Serrano (47) was damaged when an attacker wrenched
it from the wall. The photograph depicted Jesus immersed in urine. The
next day an 18-year-old attacked the work with a hammer while a
companion diverted attention by pulling other pieces off the wall.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.B5)
1997 Oct 11, Authorities reported
no survivors from the overnight crash of an Argentine jetliner in
Uruguay, which killed all 74 people on board.
(AP, 10/11/98)
1997 Oct 12, Pres. Clinton met
Pres. Rafael Caldera of Venezuela on the first stop of his trip to
South America. It was reported that Venezuela handles some 100 metric
tons of cocaine and 10 metric tons of heroin from Colombia to the US.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A14) (HN, 10/12/98)
1997 Oct 12, In SF a rock concert
organized by Chet Helms was planned in Golden Gate Park to commemorate
the 30-year anniversary of the "Be-In." [see 1/14/67] An estimated
10,000 people gathered for the concert.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A20)(SFC, 10/13/97, p.E1)
1997 Oct 12, John Denver (53),
singer and songwriter, died after his Long-EZ aircraft crashed into the
ocean near Monterey, Ca. He was born as Henry John Deutschendorf Jr.
and came to prominence as a member of the Chad Mitchell Trio. He wrote
the song "Leavin’ on a Jet Plane," that became a hit for Peter, Paul
and Mary.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A1)(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A1,13)
1997 Oct 12, In Bosnia elections
were scheduled by Pres. Plavsic.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 12, In Jerusalem an Arab
toddler received the heart of a Jewish boy killed in an bicycle-auto
accident.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 12, In the Republic of
Congo Angolan troops backed the rebels in an offensive around southern
cities. Rebels surrounded Brazzaville and Gen’l. Jean-Marie Tiaffou
urged government troops to surrender. There were reports that Angola’s
UNITA rebels were backing Pres. Lissouba.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 13, Gary Lee Davis
(b.1944) was executed by lethal injection in Colorado’s first execution
since capital punishment was legalized in 1978. He had exhausted
all appeals and was denied clemency by Gov. Roy Romer for the 1986
abduction, rape and murder of Virginia May (32).
(SFC, 10/13/97,
p.A7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Lee_Davis)
1997 Oct 13, It was reported that
the California State Fish and Game Dept. planned to use the piscicide
Nusyn-Noxfish, which contains rotenone, to destroy all the fish in Lake
Davis in Plumas County in order to rid the lake of the non-indigenous
pike. The people of the county protested the use of the poison in
particular because of the dispersant, trichloroethylene (TCE), used to
make rotenone mix with water. The lake was dosed Oct 15 and 7
protestors were arrested. In 1998 trace amounts of piperonyl butoxide
(POB) were still present the planting of new fish was delayed. In 1998
the state agreed to pay $9 million to settle claims from the poisoning
which devastated tourism. In 1999 2 northern pike were fished from the
lake as well as catfish that had apparently survived the poisoning.
From 2000-2007 some 60,500 pike were caught in the lake. In 2007
wildlife officials planned a new attempt to wipe out the pike.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A1,17)(SFC,10/16/97, p.A1)(SFC,
5/1/98, p.A21)(SFC, 8/20/98, p.A30)(SFC, 5/28/99, p.A21)(SFC, 1/24/07,
p.B3)
1997 Oct 13, The Cassini
spacecraft was scheduled to be launched aboard a Titan rocket from Cape
Canaveral for a trip to end in 2004 at Saturn. It will carry the
Huygens probe to be deployed on the Saturn moon Titan. It was postponed
(SFEC, 10/5/97, Z1 p.1)
1997 Oct 13, A British jet car,
Thrust SSC, driven by Andy Green of the Royal Air Force set a land
speed record of 764.168 mph in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. The record
was not recorded as official because turn around time went over an hour
due to braking problems. Green officially broke the record two days
later.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A1,7)(AP, 10/13/98)
1997 Oct 13, In Quebec, Canada, a
bus with 48 senior citizens overturned into a ravine near St.
Joseph-de-la-Rive and 43 were killed.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A12)(AP, 10/13/98)
1997 Oct 13, In Italy the
Communist Refounding Party reopened talks that were expected to restore
Prodi to power and leave his budget intact.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 13, In Kenya teachers
ended a 12-day strike after the government agreed to a 200% raise.
Their salaries had averaged $35 per month.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 13, In South Korea Kim
Hyun Chul (37), son of Pres. Kim Young Sam, was sentenced to 3 years in
prison for bribery and tax evasion that amounted to about $2.1 million,
an amount for which he was also fined.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 13, Swiss bank officials
said that 4,000 more unclaimed accounts from the Holocaust era were
found containing about $4 million.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 13, In Vietnam journalist
Nguyen Hoang Linh of the business newspaper Enterprise, was arrested on
charges of revealing state secrets. He had been investigating
government corruption.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 14, The Booker Prize for
literature went to Indian writer Arundhati Roy for her book: "The God
of Small Things."
(SFC,10/15/97, p.D4)
1997 Oct 14, The nominal world
premiere of the symphonic poem "Standing Stone" by Paul McCartney was
performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and chorus at Royal Albert
Hall.
(WSJ, 11/18/97, p.A20)
1997 Oct 14, The Florida Marlins
won the National League championship, defeating the Atlanta Braves 7-4
in game six.
(AP, 10/14/98)
1997 Oct 14, Ray Fred Smith (78)
and Perry L. Adkinson (68) were awarded the World Food Prize for their
work on integrated pest management (IPM).
(SFC, 10/15/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 14, Myron Scholes of
Stanford, and Robert Merton of Harvard won the Nobel Prize in Economics
for their work on valuing stock options and other investments.
(SFC, 10/15/97, p.A1)(AP, 10/14/98)
1997 Oct 14, Pres. Clinton met
with Brazil’s Pres. Cardoso. They signed an agreement for a partnership
to improve education cooperation and a $10 million US contribution to
improve conservation in the Amazon.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C4)
1997 Oct 14, The US Supreme Court
rejected the appeals of those who sought to block the Oregon voter
approved law on assisted suicide.
(SFC, 10/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 14, Harold Robbins,
novelist, died at age 81 in Palm Springs, Calif. He wrote "adventure"
and "desperation" novels that included: "Never Love a Stranger,"
"Carpetbaggers," Dreams Die First," "Spellbinder," "Never Leave Me,"
"The Raiders," and "The Betsy."
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C4)(AP, 10/14/98)
1997 Oct 14, In Algeria 54 people
were massacred near the main oil and gas center. Four leading human
rights organizations called on world leaders to take steps to halt the
crises in Algeria.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C2)
1997 Oct 14, In Chile an
earthquake that measured 6.8 left 8 dead and 100 injured.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C3)(WSJ, 10/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 14, In the Republic of
Congo Pres. Lissouba fled the presidential palace in Brazzaville.
Premier Bernard Kolelas fled the Republic of Congo when militia
fighters loyal to Sassou-Nguesso toppled President Pascal Lissouba.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A13)(AP, 10/14/05)
1997 Oct 14, Aydin Dikmen (60),
Turkish art dealer, was arrested in Germany for selling antiquities
plundered from Cyprus since 1974.
(http://turkeyhumanrights.fw.bz/religion/TurkThief.htm)(AM, 11/04, p.13)
1997 Oct 14, In Rwanda assailants
killed 37 people and wounded 14 in the Mutura commune northwest of
Kigali.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A14)
1997 Oct 14, In Spain a separatist
guerrilla group killed a policeman while trying to bomb the new
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Jose Maria Aguirre was killed when he
helped foil the ETA attack. One of three gunmen, Kepa Arronnategui, was
captured.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A14)(SFC,10/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 14, On St. Kitts
legislators from Nevis voted to withdraw from the federation with St.
Kitts.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C3)
1997 Oct 15, The Cleveland Indians
won the American League championship, defeating the Baltimore Orioles
1-0 in game six.
(AP, 10/15/98)
1997 Oct 15, The Nobel Prize in
Physics was awarded to Steven Chu of Stanford, William D. Phillips of
the Nat’l. Institute of Standards and Technology, and Claude
Cohen-Tannoudji of the France. Their work centered on slowing the speed
of gaseous atoms using lasers. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded
to Paul D. Boyer of UCLA, John E. Walker of Britain, and Jens C. Skou
of Denmark for work on how ATP works to store energy in living cells.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A1,15)(AP, 10/15/98)
1997 Oct 15, The US CIA disclosed
that its annual budget for spy services totaled $26.6 billion.
(WSJ, 10/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 15, The US set a deadline
for three Japanese shipping companies to pay some $4 million in fines.
The fines were imposed based on discriminatory Japanese harbor
policies. The deadline was missed and the US threatened to block
Japanese shipping from US ports. An agreement was later reached. The
problem was with the Japan Harbor Transportation Association (JHTA),
which was said to have ties with the Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate. A
settlement was approved on Oct 27.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A1)(WSJ,
10/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 15, Former Illinois rep
Dan Rostenkowski was released from custody for mail fraud.
(www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0842480.html)
1997 Oct 15, A British jet-powered
car driven by pilot Andy Green broke the land speed record with an
average run of 763.035 mph at Gerlach, Nevada. The Thrust SSC was
powered by two 110,000-horse-power Rolls-Royce Spey 205 engines. The
vehicle was 54 feet long, 12 feet wide, and weighed 10.2 tons.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A3)(AP, 10/15/98)
1997 Oct 15, NASA's
plutonium-powered Cassini spacecraft rocketed flawlessly toward Saturn.
The $3.3 billion Cassini-Huygens Mission was scheduled to arrive on
July 1, 2004.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A3)(AP, 10/15/98)(SSFC, 6/27/04,
p.A1)
1997 Oct 15, The CD-ROM computer
game "Riven," a sequel to "Myst," was scheduled for release.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E3)(SFEC, 8/10/97, DB p.33)
1997 Oct 15, In Brazil Pres.
Clinton spoke on free trade at the Mangueira school, a multi-use
training facility for some 2,000 children sponsored by Xerox Corp.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 15, Regarding Burma it
was reported that only 2 of the 31 in the elite Junta have university
degrees and that Chinese business people had virtually taken over in
Mandalay, which had been the heart of Burmese culture.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C2)
1997 Oct 15, In the Republic of
the Congo rebel forces loyal to the former Marxist dictator Denis
Sassou-Nguesso, backed by as many as 1000 troops from Angola, gained
full control of Brazzaville, the capital and Pointe Noire, the 2nd
largest city.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A13)(SFC,12/12/97, p.B4)
1997 Oct 15, In Sri Lanka 18
people were killed in a series of bomb blasts in downtown Colombo and
some 110 were injured. The blasts occurred at the 39-story World Trade
Center. 15-20 youths were said to have taken part in the attack. The
Liberation Tigers were reported to be led by Velupillai Prabhakaran,
the son of a fisherman.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C4)(SFC,10/17/97, p.A12)(SFC,
1/26/98, p.A9)
1997 Oct 16, Pres. Clinton
designated Argentina a "non-NATO ally" during a speech in Buenos Aires.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)
1997 Oct 16, US doctors reported
that a Georgia woman (39) was first to give birth using a frozen egg in
the US. The egg was supplied by a woman (29) and had been frozen
for 25 months before it was thawed and fertilized.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A3)(AP, 10/16/98)
1997 Oct 16, In Humboldt County,
Ca., 4 protestors staged a sit-in in the office of Republican
Representative Frank Riggs in Eureka. Sheriff’s deputies applied pepper
spray directly to the eyes of the protestors using cotton swabs and
Q-tips.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 16, James A. Michener,
American novelist, died at 90 in Texas. He wrote some 47 books that
began with "Tales of the South Pacific" in 1947.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A1,17)(AP, 10/16/98)
1997 Oct 16, It was reported that
the US Agency for Int’l. Development donated $1 million to Bosnian Serb
Pres. Biljana Plavsic for reconstruction in Banja Luka.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A14)
1997 Oct 16, Bosnian Serb
hard-liners launched a guerrilla-style TV broadcast and attacked the
West’s efforts to silence them.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.D2)
1997 Oct 17, The new $180 million
New Jersey Performing Arts Center opened in Newark.
(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A20)
1997 Oct 17, The US Army used a
Miracl (medium infra-red advanced chemical laser developed by TRW)
laser beam to hit the MISTI-3 satellite in orbit. The laser test was
prohibited by Congress in 1985, but the ban expired in 1995. The test
failed to be recorded by sensors on the satellite.
(SFC,10/21/97, p.A2)(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 17, Tosco Corp. asked the
California Air Resources Board to move away from the use of MTBE as a
gasoline fuel additive due to possible contamination of ground water.
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 17, The remains of
revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967) were laid to rest in
his adopted Cuba in Santa Clara, 30 years after his execution in
Bolivia.
(SFC,10/18/97, p.A10)(AP, 10/17/98)
1997 Oct 18, The Florida Marlins
beat the Cleveland Indians 7-4 in game one of the World Series.
(AP, 10/18/98)
1997 Oct 18, A $21.5 million
memorial to honor the military service of US women was dedicated at
entrance to Arlington National Cemetery.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A3)(AP, 10/18/98)
1997 Oct 18, In California a
10-day strike continued at the Foster Farms chicken slaughterhouse in
Livingston. The plant was the largest in the world and some 2,000
workers refused to accept a pay hike with doubled health insurance
costs.
(SFC,10/18/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 18, Roberto C. Goizueta,
CEO of Coca-Cola since 1981, died at age 65. Under his direction Coke’s
value increased from $5 billion to $150 billion. He was replaced by
Douglas Ivester.
(SFEC,10/19/97, p.C11)(AP, 10/18/98)(Econ, 5/8/04,
p.59)
1997 Oct 18, Broadcast journalist
Nancy Dickerson died in New York at age 70.
(AP, 10/18/98)
1997 Oct 18, From Bangladesh it
was reported that a tornado during the week killed 22 people and
injured more than 400 at the site of an annual congregation of Biswa
Ijtema, the 2nd largest Muslim gathering after the Hajj pilgrimage in
Saudi Arabia.
(SFC,10/18/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 18, In Israel storms left
five people dead. It struck during the 8-day Sukkot festival and many
people were out in nature reserves and national parks.
(SFEC,10/19/97, p.A26)
1997 Oct 18, From Russia it was
reported that the new 500,000-ruble note has a picture of a 15th
century monastery depicted at a time when the site was used as the
Soviet Union’s first real labor camp.
(SFC,10/18/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 19, The Cleveland Indians
defeated the Florida Marlins 6-1 in game two of the World Series,
evening the series at one game apiece.
(AP, 10/19/98)
1997 Oct 19, Special U.S. envoy
Dennis Ross arrived in Israel for another round of meetings in an
effort to push the Mideast peace process forward.
(AP, 10/19/98)
1997 Oct 19, Hungarian-born George
Soros, American financier and philanthropist, said he would spend some
$500 million over 3 years in Russia to improve health care, expand
educational opportunities, and help retrain the military for civilian
jobs.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct 19, It was reported that
British scientists had created a frog embryo without a due by
manipulating genes. It was believed that the technique could be adopted
to grow human organs.
(SFEC,10/19/97, p.A3)
1997 Oct 19, In Colombia leftist
rebels killed Pablo Antonio Hernandez, a mayoral candidate in Saravena
and wounded another in Yumbo.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 19, In Germany Gunter
Grass presented the peace prize of the German book-publishing industry
to Yasar Kemal, a Turkish author. Grass criticized his compatriots as
"closet racists."
(SFC,10/21/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 19, In Montenegro Milo
Djukanovic beat pro-Milosevic incumbent Momir Bulatovic for the
presidency.
(SFC,10/21/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 19, In Palestine Sheik
Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, announced a halt in attacks against
Israel.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct 19, In Spain Pilar Miro,
film director, died in Madrid at age 57. Her films included
"Beltenebros," "Gary Cooper Is in Heaven," "Bird of Happiness," "The
Dog in the Manger," and the 1979 expose "The Cuenca Crime."
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Oct 19, From Russia it was
reported that Aman Tuleyev was elected as Communist governor of
Kemerova, also known as Kuzbass, a region in western Siberia.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 19, In Sierra Leone at
least 70 people fleeing air raids in Freetown were killed when their
truck overturned. Nigerian jets were bombing the city and at least
10,000 people had already fled.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 19, In Bilbao, Spain, the
new Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was scheduled to open. The 256,000 sq. ft.
titanium, limestone and glass structure was designed by American
architect Frank Gehry and funded entirely by the Basque regional
government under the direction of Thomas Krens, director of the
Guggenheim.
(WSJ, 7/2/96, p.A12)(USAT, 10/8/97, p.1D)(WSJ,
10/16/97, p.A20)
1997 Oct 19, In Sri Lanka Navy
gunboats attacked a convoy of rebel boats and more than 100 Tamil
insurgents were claimed to have been killed.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 20, The US government
alleged that Microsoft’s bundling of its browser into the operating
system violated a 1995 consent decree.
(WSJ, 11/25/98, p.B1)(MC, 10/20/01)
1997 Oct 20, It was reported that
a British firm has proposed a rail tunnel to link Britain and Ireland.
The 56-mile tunnel was estimated to cost $22.6 billion.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 20, Harold Albert,
British writer, died. He created the character of Helen Cathcart as the
writer of royal biographies between 1962 and 1988 that included: "Her
Majesty, the Queen Herself," and "Charles: Man of Destiny."
(SFC,11/5/97, p.E3)
1997 Oct 20, In Burundi soldiers
of the Tutsi army packed 40 civilians into a rural school in the region
of Kibezi and tossed a grenade inside. All were killed. Major Andre
Nijongabo, an army commander, defended the incident claiming that the
dead were "genocidal terrorists." Hutu rebels had burned 18 schools a
week ago.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 20, Typhoon Ivan with 93
mph winds plowed into the northeastern Philippines.
(SFC,10/21/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 20, Because of the need
for spacesuits, Mir cosmonauts performed history's first "internal
spacewalk" to restore power to the damaged Spektr module of the space
station.
(AP, 10/20/98)
1997 Oct 21, The Florida Marlins
beat the Cleveland Indians 14-11 in game three of the World Series.
(AP, 10/21/98)
1997 Oct 21, Reversing months of
strong opposition, the Clinton administration endorsed a revised
Republican bill to restructure the Internal Revenue Service and shift
the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the government in contested
court cases.
(AP, 10/21/98)
1997 Oct 21, It was reported that
the US Energy Dept. and the Arthur D. Little company had developed a
new fuel system for cars that uses fuel cell technology first developed
by NASA. Electricity would be produced by extracting hydrogen from
gasoline and combining it with oxygen.
(SFC,10/21/97, p.A2)
1997 Oct 21, Pictures of the
Antennae galaxies, two intermeshed colliding galaxies, taken by the
Hubble Space Telescope in 1996, were revealed to the public for the
first time.
(SFC,10/22/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 22, The Cleveland Indians
tied the World Series at two games apiece as they beat the Florida
Marlins, 10-3, in game four.
(AP, 10/22/98)
1997 Oct 22, President Clinton
presented a modest strategy to combat global warming by gradually
reducing greenhouse gases over the next two decades.
(AP, 10/22/98)
1997 Oct 22, In Detroit the Gem
Theater / 20th Century Club, a 2,750 ton building, was moved 5 blocks
through downtown to make room for a new ballpark. It set a new record
as the heaviest building moved.
(SFC,10/23/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 22, Larry Flynt sold
Hustler in a non-zoned area of Cincinnati despite a revamped city
ordinance designed to keep stores selling adult materials out of
downtown.
(www.citybeat.com/archives/1998/issue406/coverarticle1.html)
1997 Oct 22, Compaq testified that
Microsoft had threatened to break a Windows 95 agreement if they
showcased a Netscape icon.
(www.macobserver.com/archive/1997/october.shtml)
1997 Oct 22, For the first time,
U.S. inspectors discovered E. coli bacteria in imported Canadian beef,
halting shipments of 34,000 pounds.
(AP, 10/22/98)
1997 Oct 22, Two US Air Force jets
collided over Edwards Air Force Base in Ca. and two men in one of the
planes, a T-38 trainer, were killed. The other jet, an F-16, managed to
land safely. It was later determined that one pilot had attempted to
avoid hitting birds.
(WSJ, 10/23/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A9)
1997 Oct 22, In Chechnya relief
workers Istvan Olah and Gabor Dunajsky of Hungary were captured and
held as hostages. They were released in July, 1998.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A10)
1997 Oct 22-28, Fidel Castro was
hospitalized for hypertensive encephalopathy.
(SFEC, 7/20/98, p.A9)
1997 Oct 23, The Florida Marlins
beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-7, in game five of the World Series.
(AP, 10/23/02)
1997 Oct 23, British au pair
Louise Woodward, charged with murdering a baby in her care, testified
at her trial in Cambridge, Mass., that she'd never hurt 8-month-old
Matthew Eappen, saying, "I love kids."
(AP, 10/23/02)
1997 Oct 23, The stock market
dropped 186.88 points in a ripple effect from an overnight drop in the
Hong Kong market.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 23, A psychologist at UC
Berkeley, S. Marc Breedlove, found that sexual activity among rats
reduced the size of neurons at the base of the spinal cord. Smaller
neurons are more active and fire more frequently and may have become
"primed for more action."
(SFC,10/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 23, AIDS researchers
reported a new chemokine molecule that blocks HIV from infecting cells.
(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 23, The International
Whaling Commission opened the way for an American Indian tribe, the
Makah, to resume traditional whale hunts for the first time in seven
decades.
(AP, 10/23/02)
1997 Oct 23, Algeria held local
elections. The government claimed a 66% turnout. The winners will
choose 2/3 of the members of the upper house of parliament. Pres.
Zeroual will choose the other third. Opposition parties charged that
the turnout was greatly inflated and that some poll watchers were
roughed up and stopped from observing the tally.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.D2,4)(SFC,10/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 23, In Colombia 2
observers from the Organization of American States were kidnapped by
rebels and on candidate of the upcoming elections was killed. Rebels
detonated some 20 bombs across the country and 2 policemen were killed
as they tried to defuse car bombs.
(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.A1)(SFC,10/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 23, The UN threatened a
trade ban against Iraq unless Iraq cooperates with weapons inspectors.
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 24, The "Green and Blue"
ballet by Bill T. Jones had its US premiere in Berkeley’s Zellerbach
Hall by the Lyon Opera Ballet of France.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.D3)
1997 Oct 24, Setting the stage for
an upcoming summit, President Clinton rejected calls for a
confrontational approach to China, arguing that isolating the Chinese
would be "potentially dangerous."
(AP, 10/24/98)
1997 Oct 24, In Arlington, Va.,
former NBC sportscaster Marv Albert was spared a jail sentence after a
grudging courtroom apology to the woman he'd bitten during a sexual
romp.
(AP, 10/24/98)
1997 Oct 24, The US stock market
Dow Jones average dropped 132.36 points following the 187 point drop on
Oct 23.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 24, The US Lunar
Prospector was scheduled to take off and circle the moon for a year to
look for minerals, ice, and to map the surface.
(USAT, 8/29/97, p.12A)
1997 Oct 24, In Philadelphia a
firebomb killed a grandmother, her daughter and three children in a
blighted neighborhood of crack houses.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A4)
1997 Oct 24, A UN director said
that the Taliban of Afghanistan has agreed to enforce a ban on poppy
production.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 24, In Bolivia the first
McDonald’s restaurant opened in La Paz.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.D2)
1997 Oct 24, Zoran Todorovic (aka
"Rifle Butt"), top manager of Beopetrol and general secretary of the
Yugoslav United Left party (JUL), was shot dead. He was a close
confidante of Mirjana Markovic.
(SFC,10/25/97, p.A10)(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.A23)
1997 Oct 24, The Swiss government
announced plans to sell up to half of its gold reserves. The
announcement sent gold prices to a 12-year low.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.D1)
1997 Oct 25, The Cleveland Indians
avoided elimination in the World Series by defeating the Florida
Marlins, 4-1, in game six.
(AP, 10/25/98)
1997 Oct 25, The Million Woman
March was in Philadelphia to revitalize black families and communities
drew an estimated 300,00 to one million people.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.A3)(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A1)(AP,
10/25/98)
1997 Oct 25, A blizzard hit the
western Plains and dropped up to 3 feet of snow. Colorado Gov. Roy
Romer declared a state of emergency.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A4)
1997 Oct 25, Congo’s Pres. Kabila
and the US ambassador to the UN announced an agreement for a UN
investigation into alleged massacres by Kabila’s army.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A22)
1997 Oct 25, Israeli soldiers
fired tear gas and rubber bullets at stone-throwing Palestinians who
were marching for the release of Palestinian prisoners. Some 3,000
Palestinian political prisoners were being held by Israel and a third
have never been tried.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A24)
1997 Oct 25, In Norway it was
reported that a new 8-mile tunnel outside of Oslo was draining water
from nearby lakes at the rate of 10,000 gallons a minute. The sealing
compound Rhoca-Gil was supposed to stop the leaks, but its use in
Sweden had already caused water to be contaminated with acrylamide, an
agent that causes nerve damage. In Sweden construction of a
controversial tunnel was halted when water draining from the tunnel was
found to be contaminated by the sealing compound, Rhoca-Gil.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 25, In Northern Ireland a
small bomb exploded under the car seat of Glen Greer (28) in Belfast
and killed him as the car burst into flames. It was the first political
killing in three months.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A20)
1997 Oct 25, In the Republic of
Congo Gen. Dennis Sassou-Nguesso was sworn in as president.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A22)
1997 Oct 25, In Sri Lanka
government troops seized 965 ethnic Tamils for questioning over an
earlier truck bombing. Rebels in the northeast attacked a military post
that left 6 soldiers and three rebels dead.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A21)
1997 Oct 26, The Florida Marlins
became the youngest franchise to win the World Series with a 3-2
victory in the eleventh inning over the Cleveland Indians in the
seventh and final game.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.E1)(AP, 10/26/98)
1997 Oct 26, It was reported that
some 50 Southern California doctors and about a dozen laser surgery
centers were under investigation for insurance fraud for serving mostly
Southeast Asian and Latino women seeking beauty makeovers under false
claims.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.D5)
1997 Oct 26, In California it was
reported that hundreds of shorebirds washed up dead along the 25-mile
stretch of Monterey Bay beaches. A non-toxic refined-sardine oil had
been spilled into the bay and stuck the birds feathers together. The
source of the oil was not yet determined.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.D2)
1997 Oct 26, In congressional
elections in Argentina the opposition coalition led the Peronists 46%
to 36%. The opposition Alliance, led by Fernandez Maijide, was composed
of the centrist Civic Radical Union and the left-leaning Frepaso
coalition.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.A8)(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct 26, In China the third
Shanghai International Film Festival opened. 350 films from 40
countries were to be shown over 10 days.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.D3)
1997 Oct 26, Chinese leader Jiang
Zemin arrived in Honolulu en route to a White House summit with
President Clinton.
(AP, 10/26/98)
1997 Oct 26, China began blocking
the Yellow River for the $4.17 billion Xiaolangdi Dam project.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 26, In Colombia municipal
elections were scheduled. Leftist guerrilla had forced nearly 2,000
candidates to withdraw from the elections. Rebels enforced an election
boycott in about 40% of the country, but affected only a small portion
of the population.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.)(SFC,10/24/97,
p.A10)(SFC,10/27/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct 26, In Egypt Pres.
Mubarek opened the new Peace Canal to carry Nile water to the Sinai
Peninsula. The irrigation of 620,000 acres of desert was planned to
support 1.5 million residents.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.A9)(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 26, From Indonesia it was
reported that 120 orangutans on Borneo were killed or tortured by
villagers after they were forced out of their habitats by wildfires.
The island was home to some 20,000 orangutans.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 26, In Italy the Northern
League party of Umberto Bossi held a symbolic election to choose a
"parliament" for independent Padania.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 27, The Dow Jones
industrial average tumbled 554.26 points, 7.18%, to 7161 forcing
the stock market to shut down for the first time since the 1981
assassination attempt on President Reagan.
(WSJ, 10/28/97, p.A1)(AP, 10/27/98)
1997 Oct 27, US released a
redesigned $50 bill.
(www.treas.gov/press/releases/rr2010.htm)
1997 Oct 27, Authorities in
Chautauqua County, N.Y., said Nushawn Williams (20), an HIV-positive
man who allegedly traded drugs for sex with young women and teens, had
infected a number of them with the AIDS virus. Later 48 partners were
identified and 13 women and girls tested positive.
(SFC, 8/20/98, p.A5)(AP, 10/27/98)
1997 Oct 27, Intel Corp bought the
chip manufacturing operations of Digital Equipment for $700 million.
(www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/CN102797.HTM)
1997 Oct 27, Microsoft argued it
should be "free from government interference."
(www.courttv.com/archive/trials/microsoft/legaldocs/memorandum2.html)
1997 Oct 27, Researchers from the
Univ. of Mich. reported that they found a hormone to stimulate the
growth of the myelin sheath that surrounds nerves.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A2)
1997 Oct 27, In Algeria some
15,000 supporters of the Socialist Forces Front marched to protest
fraud in the elections.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 27, Britain concluded a
54-nation Commonwealth meeting.
(WSJ, 10/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 27, British Defense Sec.
George Robertson announced that women soldiers would be allowed to
serve as engineers and gunners under battle conditions.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 27, In Canada teachers in
Ontario walked out in protest against budget cuts.
(WSJ, 10/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 27, In the Comoros the
island of Anjouan held a referendum to re-unite with France and voters
overwhelmingly approved the measure. France refused to accept the
results.
(SFC,10/28/97,
p.A10)(www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107423.html)
1997 Oct 27, In Zambia there was a
coup attempt by against Pres. Frederick Chiluba.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 28, The NBA announced
that two women were selected to serve as referees. This was the first
time that women would work as officials in any all-male American
professional sport.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 28, A day after plunging
554 points, the stock market roared back, posting a 337-point recovery,
with more than one billion shares traded. The 4.71% point gain was the
largest ever.
(WSJ, 10/29/97, p.A1)(AP, 10/28/98)
1997 Oct 28, In England the
Financial Services Authority (FSA) came into being for the oversight of
financial institutions.
(Econ, 10/20/07, SR p.31)(http://tinyurl.com/2ryrgx)
1997 Oct 28, In South Africa the
First National Branch in Pretoria was robbed of $2,500. Mzwakhe Mbuli,
a renowned "people's poet," and 2 suspects were arrested shortly after
the robbery. Mbuli was convicted in 1999, but claimed that he was
framed due to his knowledge of government officials involved in drug
smuggling. He was given a 13-year jail term.
(SFC, 3/30/99, p.F3)(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D3)
1997 Oct 29, Pres. Clinton and
China’s Pres. Jiang Zemin engaged in high level talks and publicly
disagreed on Chinese human rights policies, but agreed to end the
diplomatic chill between their countries. Business deals included an
accord to let Westinghouse and other firms develop nuclear power in
China and a $3 billion order from Boeing.
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/30/97, p.A1)(AP,
10/29/98)
1997 Oct 29, The UN put new
sanctions on the Angola UNITA rebels under Jonas Savimbi for not
adhering to the 1994 Lusaka Protocol.
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 29, Anton LaVey (67),
founder of the Church of Satan, died in SF. His daughter, Karla LaVey,
and companion, Blanche Barton, promised to carry on his work.
(SFC,11/8/97, p.A22)
1997 Oct 29, Yaka the killer whale
died at Marine World / Africa USA in Vallejo at the age of 32 after
performing for 27 years. The body was stripped and rendered and the
bones were buried without a permit at the Coyote Point Museum in San
Mateo.
(SFC,11/15/97, p.A18)
1997 Oct 29, From Brazil it was
reported that at least 10% of the 2 million square-mile Amazon basin
was destroyed by fire.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 29, In the Comoros
Islands leaders on Anjouan announced an independent government.
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 29, Iraq barred US
personnel from being included in UN inspection teams of weapons
programs, a move that outraged chief weapons inspector Richard Butler
and prompted him to suspend inspections.
(WSJ, 10/30/97, p.A1)(AP, 10/29/98)
1997 Oct 29, Swiss banks released
findings of an additional $12.4 million in unclaimed funds from WW II.
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 30, A jury in Cambridge,
Mass., convicted British au pair Louise Woodward of second-degree
murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. The judge, Hiller B.
Zobel, later reduced the verdict to manslaughter and set Woodward free.
(AP, 10/30/98)
1997 Oct 30, Confronting some of
his harshest critics, Chinese President Jiang Zemin defended his
country's human rights record before members of Congress. He also
promised the US to cut its average tariff to 10% by 2005.
(WSJ, 10/31/97, p.A20) (AP, 10/30/98)
1997 Oct 30, In Livermore, CA., a
shutdown began of the "plutonium building" at the National Laboratory
due to safety violations.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.D7)
1997 Oct 30, Movie director Samuel
Fuller died in Hollywood at age 86.
(AP, 10/30/98)
1997 Oct 30, In Algeria some
30,000 marched in Algiers in protest over the elections and called for
the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.D2)
1997 Oct 30, In Ireland Mary
McAleese, a lawyer and academic from Belfast, was elected as president
to succeed Mary Robinson.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.D3)
1997 Oct 31, The US announced a
plan to increase spending over the next decade to $1 billion per
year to clear the world of land mines that threaten civilian
populations by 2010.
(SFC,11/1/97, p.A3)
1997 Oct 31, Chinese President
Jiang Zemin rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange to open the
day's trading.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1997 Oct 31, British au pair
Louise Woodward received a mandatory life sentence, a day after a jury
in Cambridge, Mass., convicted her of second-degree murder in the death
of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. The verdict was later reduced to
manslaughter, and Woodward was set free.
(AP, 10/31/98)
1997 Oct 31, The FBI began an
investigation into the use of pepper spray by law authorities in
Humboldt County, California, after a video tape showed the spray
applied directly to the eyes of protestors.
(SFC,11/1/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 31, Indonesia was awarded
a $23 billion economic rescue package by the Int’l. Monetary Fund.
Japan and Singapore promised an additional 5 million each and the US
promised an additional $3 billion in loans to be used in case the $23
billion was insufficient to stabilize the situation.
(SFC,11/1/97, p.D1)(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A18)
1997 Oct 31, Letsie III (34) was
crowned king of Lesotho, a figurehead position.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.14A)(SFC, 9/22/98, p.A7)
1997 Oct 31, Jerzy Buzek (57), a
chemical engineering professor, became PM of Poland and served until
Oct 19, 2001.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Buzek)
1997 Oct 31, Russia’s lower house
ratified a global ban on chemical weapons. After the Duma it goes to
the Federation Council for approval. The upper house approved the ban
Nov 5.
(SFC,11/1/97, p.A8)(SFC,11/6/97, p.C3)
1997 Oct, The US purchased 21
MiG-29 aircraft from Moldova for $40-50 million, in order to keep the
planes out of the hands of Iran. In 2005 Moldova arrested Valeriu
Pasat, former defense minister (1997-1999), on suspicion of pocketing
$10 million during the sale of 21 MiG-29 fighter jets.
(SFC,11/5/97, p.A5)(WSJ, 3/14/05, p.A1)
1997 Oct, The US Treasury issued
its newly redesigned $50 bill. It incorporated a larger picture of
Ulysses S. Grant and numerous security features that included: a
vertical polymer thread, a watermark visible on both sides,
color-shifting ink, an 11 digit serial number, concentric fine lines,
micro printing and a new Federal Reserve seal.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.C1)
1997 Oct, Red ants, Solenopsis
invicta, were found near Lost Hills in Kern County, Ca. They apparently
came from Texas in beehives shipped in for pollinating almond blossoms.
More ants were found in Fresno county in 1998.
(SFC, 8/6/93, p.A4)
1997 Oct, The US EPA ordered Rhone
Poulenc to build a $21 million dam and pond on a metal-rich creek near
Iron Mountain in northern California to reduce mine pollution runoff
into the Sacramento River to 5%.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct, In Nevada a US district
court convicted Jose B. Uribe for attempting to swap world famous
paintings for 110 pounds of cocaine. At least some of the paintings,
that included work by Matisse, Renoir and Dali, were said to be owned
by entertainer Wayne Newton. Newton, embroiled in a bankruptcy suit,
initially denied ownership but later changed his mind and claimed
ownership.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A2)
1997 Oct, In Argentina Alberto
Pedroncini filed a suit on behalf of relatives of 13 "disappeared"
people. He argued that the government pardons of military officials
were illegal because forced kidnapping is an ongoing offense since the
victims have never been found.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A14)
1997 Oct, China signed the UN
Int’l. Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights during pres.
Zemin’s visit to the US.
(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A10)
1997 Oct, In Colombia paramilitary
gunmen killed 6 people in Miraflores.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)
1997 Oct, Paramilitary gunmen
under Salvatore Mancuso killed 15 people at El Aro in Antioquia
department.
(Econ, 1/20/07,
p.50)(www.cipcol.org/archives/000396.htm)
1997 Oct, The Estonian
Philharmonic and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra toured the US and performed
music by composer Arvo Pärt.
(WSJ, 10/14/97, p.A20)
1997 Oct, In Paraguay Lino Oviedo,
a retired army gen’l., accused Pres. Wasmosy of corruption. Wasmosy
ordered his arrest, but Oviedo went into hiding for 44 days. He turned
himself in on Dec 12, and was expected to serve a 30-day sentence.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A14)
1997 Oct, In Sweden construction
of a controversial tunnel was halted when water draining from the
tunnel was found to be contaminated by the sealing compound, Rhoca-Gil,
which contained acrylamide, an agent known to cause nerve damage.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A11)
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