1994: Encyclopedia - 1994

1994

1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family.

1994 - Events

• January 1 - North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect
• January 1 - Zapatista Army of National Liberation begins war in Chiapas, Mexico
• January 1 - Bantustans join South Africa
• January 6 - Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an assailant under orders from figure skating rival Tonya Harding.
• January 8 - Valeri Polyakov began his 437.7 day orbit, eventually setting the world record for days spent in orbit.
• January 11 - Irish government announces the end of a 15-year broadcasting ban on the IRA and its political arm Sinn Fein
• January 14 - U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin accords which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles to targets and also provide for the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal in Ukraine.
• January 17 - 1994 Northridge Earthquake, magnitude 6.7, hits the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles at 4:31 am.
• January 20 - In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet to attend The Citadel but soon drops out.
• January 26 - A man fires two blank shots at Charles, Prince of Wales in Sydney, Australia.
• January 28 - The first trial of accused murderer Lyle Menendez ends in a mistrial. He and his brother Erik are later found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
• January 31 - German luxury car manufacturer BMW announces the purchase of Rover from British Aerospace

1994 - February

• February 1 - In Portland, Oregon, Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly pleads guilty for his role in attacking figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. He accepts a plea bargain admitting to racketeering charges in exchange for testimony against Harding.
• February 3 - William J. Perry was sworn in as the 19th Secretary of Defense of United States
• February 5 - Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers
• February 6 - Serb mortar shell kills 68 civilians and wounds about 200 in a Sarajevo marketplace
• February 9 - Peace plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina announced (so called Vance-Owen peace plan)
• February 12 - Edvard Munch's painting, "The Scream," is stolen in Oslo. It is recovered on May 7
• February 22 - Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged with spying for the Soviet Union by the United States Department of Justice. Ames would later be convicted to life imprisonment and his wife would receive 5 years in prison
• February 24 - In Gloucester, local police begins excavations at 25 Cromwell Street the home of Frederick West suspected of multiple murders. On February 28, he and his wife are arrested
• February 25 - Kahanist Baruch Goldstein opens fire inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank. He kills 29 Muslims before worshippers beat him to death
• February 27 - Australian Federal Sports & Environment Minister Ros Kelly resigns over "The Sports Rorts Affair", where it was alleged that she apportioned money for community sporting projects in a pork barreling fashion.
• February 28 - US F-16 pilots shoot down four Serbian fighter aircraft over Bosnia for violation of the Operation Deny Flight and its no-fly zone

1994 - March

• March 1 - A lone terrorist kills Ari Halberstam on an attack on 14 Jewish students on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. [1]
• March 1 - South Africa cedes Walvis Bay to Namibia.
• March 1 - Mary Ellen Withrow begins term of office as Treasurer of the United States, serving under President Bill Clinton.
• March 4 - Four terrorists are convicted for their roles in the World Trade Center bombing which killed six and injured more than a thousand.
• March 6 - Referendum in Moldova results in the electorate voting against possible reunification with Romania.
• March 7 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
• March 12 - A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell, previously touted as 'proof' of the Loch Ness monster, is confirmed to be a hoax.
• March 12 - The Church of England ordains its first female priests.
• March 16 - In Portland, Oregon Tonya Harding pleads guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for trying to cover-up an attack on figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. She is fined $100,000 and banned from the sport.
• March 23 - At an election rally in Tijuana, Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is assassinated. Mario Aburto Martinez is arrested for the crime and confesses on the same day.
• March 27 - A tornado outbreak occurs in Southeastern United States. One tornado hits the United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama killing 22. This outbreak is the biggest tornado event of 1994.
• March 28 - In South Africa, Zulus and African National Congress supporters battle in central Johannesburg killing 18.
• March 31 - The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull (see Human evolution).

1994 - April

• April 6 - Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and president of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira died when a missile shoots down their jet near Kigali, Rwanda. This is taken as a pretext to begin the Rwandan Genocide
• April 7 - The Rwandan Genocide begins in Kigali, Rwanda.
• April 8 - Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, is found dead in Seattle, Washington. He had committed suicide three days earlier.
• April 16 - Voters in Finland decide to join the European Union in a referendum.
• April 20 - Paul Touvier is found guilty of ordering the execution of 7 Jews when he was serving in the Vichy France Milice
• April 21 - Red Cross estimates that hundreds of thousands of Tutsi have been killed in Rwanda
• April 22 - Former American President Richard Nixon dies.
• April 25 - End of term for Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Yusuff Izzudin Shah Ghafarullahu-lahu as 9th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
• April 26 - Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan becomes the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
• April 26 - South Africa holds its first fully multiracial elections.
• April 30 - Formula One driver Roland Ratzenberger of Austria, age 32, dies in a high-speed, single-car crash in the practise session for the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy

1994 - May

• May 1 - Formula One driver Ayrton Senna of Brazil, age 34, is killed in a high-speed, single-car accident during the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy
• May 6 - The Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers over seven years to complete, opens between England and France. Passengers can now travel between the two countries in 35 minutes.
• May 9 - Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president
• May 10 - Illinois executes serial killer John Wayne Gacy by lethal injection for the murder of 33 young men and boys
• May 10 - An annular eclipse of the sun is visible across much of North America.
• May 10 - Punk rock band Weezer releases their eponymous debut that goes on to sell more than 3 million copies.
• May 12 - Hockey becomes Canada's official winter sport.
• May 31- Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have dinner at the Granita restaurant in Islington and allegedly make a deal on who will become the leader of the Labour Party, and ultimately, the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1994 - June

• June - Iraq disarmament crisis: UN weapons inspectors Ritter and Smidovitch learn, through Israeli intelligence reports, that Qusay Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son, is the key player in efforts by the Iraqi government to hide the country's alleged illegal weapons
• June 6-8 - Ceasefire negotiations for the Yugoslav War begin in Geneva - they agree to one-month cessation of hostilities (which does not last more than a few days)
• June 12 - Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California. O. J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in a civil suit.
• June 14 - Hacker Kevin Poulsen pleads guilty to seven counts of mail fraud, wire and computer fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.
• June 14 - The New York Rangers defeat the Vancouver Canucks 4 games to 3 in the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals.
• June 15 - As of 2004 the third highest grossing animated film of all-time, The Lion King, opens in theatres nationwide.
• June 15 - Israel and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations
• June 17 - NFL star OJ Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings flee from police in his white Ford Bronco. The low speed chase, which unfolds live on television, ends up at Simpson's mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, where he then surrendered to police.

1994 - July

• July - The planet Jupiter is hit by twenty one large fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 over the course of six days.
• July 2 - Assassination of Colombian soccer player Andrés Escobar in Bogotá
• July 7 - Aden is occupied by troops from North Yemen.
• July 17 - Brazil defeats Italy 3-2 on penalties to win the Football World Cup 1994, after the game ended 0-0 after extra time.
• July 18 - In Buenos Aires, an explosion destroys a building housing several Jewish organizations killing ninety six and injuring many more. On 9 November 2005 Alberto Nisman Arentino prosecutor identified Hezbollah militant Ibrahim Berro responsible.
• July 25 - Israel and Jordan sign the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace which formally ends the state of war that has existed between the nations since 1948.
• July 25 - Phone Numbers through Australia start changing to eight digits (Mona Vale, Sydney 1st to change)

1994 - August

• August - 'Wollemia nobilis', a "fossil tree" discovered by bushwalker David Noble only 150 km from the largest city in Australia.
• August 1 - Fire destroys Norwich Central Library in the UK, including most of its historical records
• August 12 - Woodstock '94 begins. It is the 25 year anniversary of woodstock in 1969.
• August 14 - End of Woodstock '94.
• August 31 - the Irish Republican Army announces a "complete cessation of military operations" from midnight.

1994 - September

• September 3 - Cold War: Russia and the People's Republic of China agree to de-target their nuclear weapons against each other.
• September 4 - Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan opens. All international services are transferred from Itami to Kansai.
• September 5 - New South Wales State MP for Cabramatta John Newman is shot outside his home (Australia's first political assassination since 1977)
• September 8 - A Boeing 737 carrying USAir Flight 427 with 132 people on board, crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport. There are no survivors
• September 13 - President Bill Clinton signs the Assault Weapons Ban, which bans the use of these weapons for a period of 10 years.
• September 28 - The car ferry MS Estonia sinks in Baltic Sea, killing 852.
• September 28 - Jose Francisco Ruiz Massier, Mexican politician, assassinated on the orders of the president's brother
• September-October - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to stop cooperating with UNSCOM inspectors and begins to once again deploy troops near its border with Kuwait. In response, the U.S. begins to deploy troops to Kuwait.

1994 - October

• October 5 - UNESCO inaugurates World Teachers’ Day to celebrate and commemorate the signing of the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers on October 5, 1966.
• October 8 - Iraq disarmament crisis: President of the UN Security Council says that Iraq must withdraw its troops from the Kuwait border and immediately cooperate with weapons inspectors
• October 12 - NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere either October 13 or October 14)
• October 15 - After three years of exile in the US, Haiti's president Aristide returns to his country.
• October 15 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Following threats by the U.N. Security Council and the U.S., Iraq withdraws troops from its border with Kuwait.
• October 26 - Jordan and Israel sign a peace treaty.
• October 29 - Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House (Duran was later convicted of trying to kill US President Bill Clinton).
• October 31 - An American Eagle ATR-72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 64 passengers.
• October 31 - HRH The Duke of Edinburgh attends a ceremony in Israel where his late mother, HSH Princess Alice of Battenberg is honoured as "Righteous among the Nations" for sheltering Jewish families from the Nazis in Athens, during World War II.

1994 - November

• November 4 - Sydney's third runway opens ensuring protests about noise levels.
• November 5 - A letter by former US President Ronald Reagan is released that announces he has Alzheimer's disease
• November 8 - Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich leads the United States Republican Party in taking control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections, the first time in 40 years the Republicans secured control of both houses of U.S. Congress.
• November 13 - Voters in Sweden decide to join the European Union in a referendum.
• November 13 - The first passengers travel through the Channel Tunnel.
• November 16 - Federal judge issues a temporary restraining order that prohibits the State of California from implementing Proposition 187, that would have denied most public services to illegal aliens.
• November 20 - The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war (in 1995 localized fighting resumed).
• November 25 - Sony founder Akio Morita announces he will be stepping down as the company's CEO
• November 28 - Voters in Norway reject European Union membership (see Norwegian EU referendum, 1994)
• November 28 - In Portage, Wisconsin, USA, convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is clubbed to death by another inmate in the Columbia Correctional Institute gymnasium.
• November 29 - Two-year murder trial of 14 south Vietnamese accused of murder of 24 north Vietnamese ends in Hong Kong - all defendants are acquitted.
• November 30 - Famous hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur survives five bullets in an apparent robbery attempt outside a New York music studio.

1994 - December

• December 2 - Australian government agrees to pay reparations to indigenous Australians who were displaced during the nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s.
• December 11 - Boris Yeltsin orders troops into Chechnya.
• December 11 - A small bomb explodes on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. The bombing was a field test done by Ramzi Yousef to test explosives that would have been used in Project Bojinka, a terrorist attack plan that would be exposed after an apartment fire.
• December 19 - A planned exchange rate correction of the Mexican Peso to the US Dollar, becomes a massive financial meltdown in Mexico, unleashing the 'Tequila' effect on global financial markets. This will prompt a US$ 50,000 million 'bailout' by the Clinton administration.
• December 19 - The Whitewater Scandal investigation begins.
• December 19 - Civil unions between homosexuals are made legal in Sweden.
• December 26 - French anti-terrorist police storms a hijacked jet at Marseille and kill four Islamist terrorists.
• December 29 - Robert Schumann becomes the youngest person to visit the south pole.

1994 - Births

• January 30 - Dylan Cash, American actor
• February 23 - Dakota Fanning, American actress
• May 4 - Alexander Gould, American voice actor
• August 9 - Forrest Landis, American actor

1994 - Deaths

1994 - January

• January 1 - Arthur Espie Porritt, New Zealand politician and athlete (b. 1900)
• January 5 - Thomas P. 'Tip' O'Neill, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (b. 1912)
• January 9 - Johnny Temple, baseball player (b. 1927)
• January 15 - Harry Nilsson, American musician (b. 1941)
• January 17 - Helen Stephens, American runner (b. 1918)
• January 22 - Telly Savalas, American actor (b. 1924)
• January 23 - Brian Redhead, British journalist and broadcaster (b. 1929)
• January 25 - Stephen Cole Kleene, American mathematician (b. 1909)
• January 27 - Claude Akins, American actor (b. 1914)
• January 30 - Pierre Boulle, French author (b. 1912)

1994 - February-April

• February 6 - Jack Kirby, American comic book writer and illustrator (b. 1917)
• February 7 - Witold Lutosławski, Polish composer (b. 1913)
• February 9 - Howard Martin Temin, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1934)
• February 11 - Sorrell Booke, American actor (b. 1930)
• February 11 - William Conrad, American actor (b. 1920)
• February 11 - Neil Bonnett, American race car driver (b. 1946)
• February 14 - Andrei Chikatilo, Russian serial killer (executed) (b. 1936)
• February 17 - Randy Shilts, American author and activist (b. 1951)
• February 22 - Papa John Creech, American fiddler
• February 24 - Jean Sablon, French singer (b. 1906)
• February 24 - Dinah Shore, American actress, singer (b. 1916)
• February 25 - Baruch Goldstein, American-born mass killer (b. 1956)
• February 25 - Jersey Joe Walcott, American boxer (b. 1914)
• February 26 - Bill Hicks, American comedian (b. 1961)
• March 4 - John Candy, Canadian comedian and actor (b. 1950)
• March 22 - Walter Lantz, American cartoonist (b. 1899)
• March 23 - Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexican politician (b. 1950)
• March 28 - Eugene Ionesco, Romanian-born playwright (b. 1909)
• March 29 - Bill Travers, English actor and co-founder of the Born Free Foundation (b. 1922)
• April 1 - Léon Degrelle, Belgian Nazi (b. 1906)
• April 2 - Betty Furness, American actress, author, and consumer advocate (b. 1916)
• April 5 - Kurt Cobain, American musician (Nirvana) (suicide) (b. 1967)
• April 7 - Albert Guðmundsson, Icelandic professional football player and politician (b. 1923)
• April 7 - Golo Mann, German historian (b. 1909)
• April 10 - Sam B. Hall, American politician (b. 1924)
• April 16 - Ralph Ellison, American writer (b. 1914)
• April 17 - Roger Wolcott Sperry, American neurobiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1913)
• April 22 - Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States (b. 1913)
• April 30 - Roland Ratzenberger, Austrian race car driver (b. 1960)

1994 - May-October

• May 1 - Ayrton Senna, Brazilian race car driver (b. 1960)
• May 7- Clement Greenberg, American art critic (b. 1909)
• May 8 - George Peppard, American actor (b. 1928)
• May 10 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (executed) (b. 1942)
• May 12 - John Smith, Scottish politician (b. 1938)
• May 15 - Gilbert Roland, Mexican-born actor (b. 1905)
• May 19 - Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, First Lady of the United States (b. 1929)
• May 21 - Johan Hendrik Weidner, Belgian World War II resistance fighter (b. 1912)
• May 29 - Erich Honecker, leader of East Germany (b. 1912)
• June 9 - Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
• June 12 - Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe
• June 15 - Kristen Pfaff, rock bassist (Hole) (b. 1967)
• June 29 - Kurt Eichhorn, German conductor (b. 1908)
• July 8 - Kim Il Sung, President of North Korea (b. 1912)
• July 11 - Gary Kildall, American computer inventor (b. 1942)
• July 14 - César Tovar, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player (b. 1940)
• July 29 - Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, British chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)
• August 13 - Elias Canetti, Bulgarian-born writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
• August 18 - Richard Laurence Millington Synge, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1914)
• August 19 - Linus Pauling, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Peace (b. 1901)
• September 6 - Nicky Hopkins, British musician (b. 1944)
• September 11 - Jessica Tandy, English actress (b. 1909)
• September 12 - Boris Yegorov, cosmonaut (b. 1937)
• September 30 - Andre Michael Lwoff, French microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1902)
• October 7 - Niels Kaj Jerne, English immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1911)
• October 14 - Emil Gilels, Russian pianist (b. 1916)
• October 19 - Martha Raye, American actress (b. 1916)
• October 20 - Burt Lancaster, American actor (b. 1913)
• October 21 - Benoît Régent, French actor (b. 1953)

1994 - November-December

• November 12 - Wilma Rudolph, American athlete (b. 1940)
• November 13 - Motoo Kimura, Japanese population geneticist (b. 1924)
• November 14 - Tom Villard, American actor (b. 1953)
• November 16 - Doris Speed, English actress (b. 1899)
• November 16 - Dino Valente, American musician (b. 1943)
• November 28 - Jeffrey Dahmer, American serial killer (murdered) (b. 1960)
• December 12 - Stuart Roosa, astronaut (b. 1933)
• December 23 - Sebastian Shaw (actor), English actor (b. 1905)
• December 8 - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Brazilian composer (b. 1927)
• December 24 - John Boswell, American historian (b. 1947)

1994 - Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Bertram N. Brockhouse, Clifford Glenwood Shull
• Chemistry - George Andrew Olah
• Medicine - Alfred G. Gilman, Martin Rodbell
• Literature - Kenzaburo Oe
• Peace - Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin
• Economics - Reinhard Selten, John Forbes Nash, John Harsanyi

1994 - Fields Medalists

• Efim Isakovich Zelmanov, Pierre-Louis Lions, Jean Bourgain, Jean-Christophe Yoccoz

1994 - Templeton Prize

• Michael Novak

1994 - Right Livelihood Award

• Astrid Lindgren, SERVOL (Service Volunteered for All), Dr. H. Sudarshan / VGKK (Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra) and Ken Saro-Wiwa / MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People)

Category: 1994

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "1994", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994, used and available under the GNU Free Documentation License.