1994 Dec 2, The government agreed not to seek a recall of allegedly
fire-prone General Motors pickup trucks; in return, GM agreed to spend
more than $51 million on safety and research.
(AP, 12/2/99)
1994 Dec 2, Reputed "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss was convicted
in Los Angeles of three counts of pandering.
(AP, 12/2/99)
1994 Dec 3, Elizabeth Glaser, who became an AIDS activist after
she and her two children were infected with HIV via a blood transfusion,
died in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 47.
(AP, 12/3/99)
1994 Dec 3, Rebel Serbs in Bosnia failed to keep a pledge to
release hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers, some already held for more than
a week.
(AP, 12/3/99)
1994 Dec 4, Bosnian Serbs released 53 of some 400 U.N. peacekeepers
held as insurance against further NATO airstrikes.
(AP, 12/4/99)
1994 Dec 5, President Clinton, on a whirlwind visit to the Conference
on Security and Cooperation in Budapest, Hungary, urged European leaders
to "prevent future Bosnias."
(AP, 12/5/99)
1994 Dec 5, Newt Gingrich was elected the first Republican speaker
of the House in four decades.
(AP, 12/5/97)
1994 Dec 6, Former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell
pleaded guilty to defrauding his former law partners and clients of nearly
$400,000.
(AP, 12/6/99)
1994 Dec 6, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen announced his resignation.
(AP, 12/6/99)
1994 Dec 6, The Maltese Falcon film statuette was auctioned for
$398,590.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1994 Dec 6, Orange County, Calif., filed for bankruptcy protection
due to investment losses of about $2 billion. Orange County, Ca., filed
bankruptcy after losing nearly $1.7 billion on risky investments [derivatives].
In 1997 a former ass’t. treasurer, Matthew Raabe, was sentenced to 3 years
in prison for diverting $88.5 million in public funds to conceal investment
schemes that led to the nation’s biggest municipal bankruptcy.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, zone 1 p.1)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A7)(AP, 12/6/99)
1994 Dec 7, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, meeting with U.S. Secretary
of State Warren Christopher in Gaza City, pledged to protect Israelis from
militant extremists.
(AP, 12/7/99)
1994 Dec 8, In Los Angeles, 12 alternate jurors were chosen for
the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
(AP, 12/8/99)
1994 Dec 8, Bosnian Serbs released dozens of hostage peacekeepers,
but continued to detain about 300 others.
(AP, 12/8/99)
1994 Dec 8, Antonio Carlos Jobim (67), Brazil composer (Girl
From Ipanema), died.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1994 Dec 9, President Clinton fired Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders
after learning she'd told a conference that masturbation should be discussed
in school as a part of human sexuality.
(AP, 12/9/99)
1994 Dec 9, It was recommended to buy global resource stocks
such as Dutch Royal Petroleum, British Petroleum or South African Mining
shares.
(WSJ, 12/9/94, p.R-14)
1994 Dec 9, Representatives of the Irish Republican Army and
the British government opened peace talks in Northern Ireland.
(AP, 12/9/99)
1994 Dec 10, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin received
the Nobel Peace Prize, pledging to pursue their mission of healing the
anguished Middle East.
(AP, 12/10/99)
1994 Dec 10, Advertising executive Thomas Mosser was killed by
a mail bomb attributed to the Unabomber at his home in North Caldwell N.J.
(SFC, 4/4/96, p.A16)(SFEC,11/9/97, Z1 p.5)
1994 Dec 11, Leaders of 34 Western Hemisphere nations signed a
free-trade declaration in Miami.
(AP, 12/11/99)
1994 Dec 11, A Philippine Airlines flight from Manila to Tokyo
was bombed. A Japanese passenger was killed and 10 people were injured.
Later US prosecutors accused Ramzi Ahmed Yousef of placing the bomb and
of masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Yousef denied
placing the airline bomb because he was imprisoned at the time.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A4)
1994 Dec 11, Thousands of Russian troops backed by armored columns
and jets rolled into breakaway republic of Chechnya in a bid to restore
Moscow's control over the region. Russia under Yeltsin sent in troops to
put down the Chechnya rebellion but met strong resistance and suffered
heavy casualties. There was no attempt by Pres. Yeltsin to legitimize the
military action in parliament.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B1)(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A12)(SFC,
9/9/98, p.A10) (AP, 12/11/99)
1994 Dec 12, IBM stopped shipments of personal computers with
Intel's flawed Pentium chip, saying the processor's problems were worse
than earlier believed.
(AP, 12/12/99)
1994 Dec 12, The Brazilian Supreme Court acquitted former President
Fernando Collor de Mello of the corruption charges that had forced him
to resign in 1992.
(AP, 12/12/99)
1994 Dec 13, An American Eagle commuter plane carrying 20 people
crashed short of Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina,
killing 15.
(AP, 12/13/98)
1994 Dec 14, A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction
blocking almost all of Proposition 187's bans affecting illegal immigrants
in California.
(AP, 12/14/99)
1994 Dec 14, Former Arkansas Governor Orval E. Faubus, died at
age 84. His refusal to let nine black students into Little Rock's Central
High School in 1957 forced President Eisenhower to send in federal troops.
(AP, 12/14/99)
1994 Dec 14, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic asked former
U.S. President Jimmy Carter to mediate a lasting peace in Bosnia.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1994 Dec 15, President Clinton, in a 12-minute prime-time address,
presented a package of tax cuts for middle-income families raising children,
and outlined deep reductions in government programs to help pay for them.
(AP, 12/15/99)
1994 Dec 16, White House and Republicans traded barbs over whose
tax plan was fairer to the middle class, a day after President Clinton
presented a package of proposed tax cuts.
(AP, 12/16/99)
1994 Dec 16, White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers announced
she was leaving her job at the end of the year.
(AP, 12/16/99)
1994 Dec 17, Six shots were fired at the White House by an unidentified
gunman.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1994 Dec 17, In Bahrain Hani al-Wasti (25) and Hani Khamees
(26) were the first of more than 40 people killed in the political upheaval
among the Shiites.
(AP, 12/17/02)
1994 Dec 17, North Korea shot down a U.S. Army helicopter which
had strayed north of the demilitarized zone -- the co-pilot, Chief Warrant
Officer David Hilemon, was killed; the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Bobby
Hall, was captured and held for nearly two weeks.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1994 Dec 18, Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina
on a private mission to seek an end to 32 months of war.
(AP, 12/18/99)
1994 Dec 18, Socialist Party (ex-communist) won a Bulgaria parliamentary
lection.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1994 Dec 19, Former President Jimmy Carter, on a peace mission
to Bosnia-Herzegovina, met with Bosnian Serb leaders, who offered a four-month
cease-fire.
(AP, 12/18/99)
1994 Dec 19, CNN publicly acknowledged it had disobeyed a judge's
order in broadcasting former Panamanian military ruler Manuel Noriega's
prison telephone conversations.
(AP, 12/18/99)
1994 Dec 20, Former President Jimmy Carter succeeded in getting
Bosnia's warring factions to agree to a temporary cease-fire.
(AP, 12/20/99)
1994 Dec 20, Marcelino Corniel, a homeless man, was shot and
mortally wounded by White House security officers as he brandished a knife
near the executive mansion.
(AP, 12/20/99)
1994 Dec 20, Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk died in Athens,
Ga., at age 85.
(AP, 12/20/99)
1994 Dec 21, A firebomb on the #4 train at Fulton St. New York
City subway injured 48 people; unemployed computer programmer Edward Leary
was later convicted of attempted murder.
(AP, 12/21/99)(MC, 12/21/01)
1994 Dec 21, Dean Rusk (85), US Sect. of State, died.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1994 Dec 22, House Democrats chastised Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich
for accepting a $4.5 million book advance from Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
(AP, 12/22/99)
1994 Dec 22, North Korea handed over the body of American pilot
David Hilemon, killed when his helicopter was shot down over the communist
country three days earlier.
(AP, 12/22/99)
1994 Dec 23, US Professional baseball owners imposed a salary
cap fiercely opposed by players.
(AP, 12/23/99)
1994 Dec 23, John Connolly, FBI agent, came to the Winter Hill
gang’s headquarters in a Boston liquor store and warned Kevin Weeks of
pending FBI arrests for mobsters James Bulger, Stephen Flemmi and Francis
Salemme. Connolly was convicted for corruption in 2002 and sentenced to
121 months.
(SFC, 5/29/02, p.A3)(SFC, 9/17/02, p.A5)
1994 Dec 23, Bosnian Serbs and the Muslim-led government agreed
to a week-long truce beginning the next day as they worked on details of
a four-month cease-fire.
(AP, 12/23/99)
1994 Dec 24, British playwright John Osborne died at age 65.
(AP, 12/24/99)
1994 Dec 25, Pope John Paul II, in his traditional "Urbi et Orbi"
message, bemoaned "selfishness and violence" around the world.
(AP, 12/25/99)
1994 Dec 25, A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on
a bus in Jerusalem and wounded 12 Israelis. Hamas took responsibility.
(WSJ, 3/6/96, p. A-15)(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A8)(AP, 12/25/99)
1994 Dec 28, President Clinton nominated Dan Glickman as agriculture
secretary, succeeding Mike Espy.
(AP, 12/28/99)
1994 Dec 28, CIA Director R. James Woolsey resigned, ending a
tenure shadowed by the Aldrich Ames spy scandal.
(AP, 12/28/99)
1994 Dec 29, U.S. officials confirmed the release in North Korea
of Army helicopter pilot Bobby Hall, 12 days after he was captured in a
shootdown in which co-pilot David Hilemon was killed.
(AP, 12/29/99)
1994 Dec 29, B737-400 flew into a mountain at Edremit East Turkey
and 54 people were killed.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1994 Dec 30, John Salvi opened fire at two abortion clinics in
suburban Boston and killed 2 clinic receptionists, Lee Ann Nichols and
Shannon Lowney. He committed suicide in prison on Nov 29, 1996. His conviction
was voided in 1997 because he died before his appeal was heard.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A1,15)(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A3)(AP, 12/30/99)
1994 Dec 31, Bosnian government officials and Bosnian Serb leaders
signed a U.N.-brokered cease-fire agreement.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1994 Dec 31, Russian ground forces launched a ferocious assault
on the Chechen capital of Grozny.
(AP, 12/31/99)
1994 Dec, In Menlo Park, Ca., Ernesto Anguiano, 23, cut open the
chest of his 3-year old cousin and tore the boy’s heart out. He then attempted
to burn the body in a fireplace and attempted to murder the 50-year-old
mother when she found him and tried to stop him. Anguiano later testified
that he thought the young boy was "becoming evil."
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A16)
1994 Dec, Sun Microsystems first gave out the source code for
new software to a handful of outsiders under the name Oak, later renamed
to JAVA.
(SFEM, 12/8/96, p.44)
1994 Dec, Semiconductor leaders agreed to convert to a 12-inch
wafer for chip production in Tokyo.
(SFE, 10/1/95, p.D-5)
1994 Dec, In Bulgaria elections gave Premier Zhan Videnov’s Socialist
government a parliamentary majority.
(SFC, 6/6/96, p.C5)
1994 Dec, In Russia Bulat Okudzhava (d.1997 at 74), dissident
poet and singer, won the Russian Booker literary prize.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.C2)
1994 Dec, Russia under Yeltsin sent in troops to put down the
Chechnya rebellion but met strong resistance and suffered heavy casualties.
There was no attempt by Pres. Yeltsin to legitimize the military action
in parliament.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B1)(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A12)(SFC,
9/9/98, p.A10)
1994 Dec, Greek Archbishop Iakovos convened a meeting for the
North American branches of Eastern Orthodoxy. It was recommended that all
Orthodox churches in North America be placed under one administrative umbrella
while maintaining ties to their separate mother churches.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.B7)
1994 Dec, In Japan Ichiro Ozawa helped form the new opposition
Shinshinto, New Freedom Party, through an alliance of nine small parties
opposed to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, LDP.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.A12)
1994 Dec, In Mexico new owners of Radio 13 in Mexico City switched
to an all-talk format. By 1997 there were 7 AM stations on an all-talk
format.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A14)
1994 Nelson Shanks, American painter, painted portraits of Princess
Di and Lady Thatcher.
(WSJ, 5/7/96, p.A-16)
1994 Jerome Witkins began his painting "Her Argument With Nature."
It was completed in 1995 and was an allegory of ambivalence about procreation
and hailed as one of the great American paintings of the decade.
(SFC, 1/18/96, p.D4)
1994 Historian Stephen Ambrose authored "D-Day." The book became
the basis for the film "Saving Private Ryan.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.F1)
1994 John Berendt published "Midnight in the Garden of Good and
Evil," his personal impressions on the city of Savannah, Ga., which became
a best-seller.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T8)(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.T11)
1994 Louis de Berniere authored "Corelli’s Mandolin." It was made
into a film in 2001 titled "Captain Corelli’s Mandolin" with Nicolas Cage
and Penelope Cruz.
(WSJ, 10/28/98, p.A20)(SFC, 8/17/01, p.C3)
1994 Harold Bloom published "The Western Canon," a defense of
the great books that were under attack due to the current "political correctness."
(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.W8)
1994 Prof. Melvin Bradley (d.2203 at 83) authored his 2-volume
"The Missouri Mule: His Origin and Times."
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.A16)
1994 Bill Bryson authored "Made in America: An Informal History
of the English Language in the United States."
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.28)
1994 "Rhinestone Cowboy" by Glenn Campbell was published.
(SFC, 8/28/96, E10)
1994 Bert Cardullo wrote "Film Chronicle: Critical Dispatches
From a Forward Observer (1987-1992)."
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.14)
1994 Prof. Scott M. Cutlip (d.2000 at 85) authored "The Unseen
Power," a history of the public relations profession in America.
(SFC, 8/22/00, p.A19)
1994 Rosie Daley published "In the Kitchen with Rosie Daley,"
the highest selling nonfiction, hardback of the year.
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R12)
1994 John Denver (d.1997 at 53) wrote his autobiography "Take
me Home."
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A10)
1994 J.P. Donleavy authored "The History of the Gingerbread Man,"
a memoir on the composition of his first novel.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, BR p.9)
1994 Neil Gabler wrote the biography "Winchell," an account of
Walter Winchell, the New York Daily Mirror columnist. Rose Bigman (d.1997
at 87) was Winchell’s "girl Friday" and spent 7-days-a-week working for
him for 3 decades.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A18)
1994 Jostein Gaarder, Norwegian novelist, had his work "Sophie’s
World, A Novel About the History of Philosophy," published.
(SFC, 6/16/96, BR p.3)
1994 Tom Gehrels edited "Hazards Due to Comets and Asteroids."
(NH, 9/97, p.86)
1994 John Grisham published "The Chamber," the highest selling
fiction hardback of the year.
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R12)
1994 Paul R. Gross and Norman Leavitt wrote "Higher Superstition,"
an analysis of the growing antagonism to science by some left-wing intellectuals.
(PacDis, Winter ’97, p.34)
1994 Sheldon Harris (d.2002) wrote "Factories of Death: Japanese
Biological Warfare, 1932-1945, and the American Cover-Up." It was about
Japanese medical units in Manchuria that engaged in horrific warfare experiments
on humans.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.C4)(SFC, 9/9/02, p.A22)
1994 Philip J. Haythornthwaite published his "Invincible Generals."
(WSJ, 1/6/95, A-10)
1994 John Helyar wrote "Lords of the Realm," a book that traces
baseball’s labor problems from their inception to the unsettled present.
Together with "Creating the National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself,
1903-1953," by Edward White, the sport is fully covered.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.A8)
1994 Anders Isaksson wrote "Always More, Never Enough," a critique
of the welfare system in Sweden.
(WSJ, 9/25/96, p.A1)
1994 Oleg Kalugin, the KGB’s former chief of counterintelligence,
published his memoir: "The First Chief Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence
and Espionage Against the West." Russia convicted Kalugin of treason in
absentia in 2002.
(WSJ, 11/21/96, p.B12)(SFC, 6/27/02, p.A14)
1994 Ormonde de Kay (d.1998 at 74) authored "From the Age That
Is Past," a history of the Harvard Club of NYC.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A22)
1994 James Kelman won the Booker Prize for his novel "How Late
It Was, How Late." He was the first Scot to be awarded the prize.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.C17)
1994 Adam Kufeld, photographer, had his book "Cuba" published
by Norton.
(SFEM,11/16/97, p.28)
1994 Deborah Lipstadt authored "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing
Assault on Truth and Memory."
(SFC, 4/12/00, p.A16)
1994 Noel Malcolm published "Bosnia: A Short History."
(WSJ, 5/5/98, p.A20)
1994 Robert T. Michael and others published the report "Sex in
America: A Definitive Survey."
(WSJ, 4/17/98, p.W13)
1994 James Michener wrote "Recessional."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1994 Craig Packer wrote "Into Africa." It won the 1995 John Burroughs
Medal Award for nature writing.
(NH, 6/96, p.4)
1994 "The Great German Rieslings" by Stuart Pigott was published.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1,4)
1994 Steven Pinker published "The Language Instinct." In 1999
he published "Words and Rules."
(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 12/20/99, p.A24)
1994 Richard Preston wrote "The Hot Zone," a bestseller book about
the deadly Ebola virus.
(SFEC,11/9/97, BR p.3)
1994 "The Rivals" by Arthur J. Quinn was published. It narrated
the struggles in SF and California on the eve of the Civil War.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A20)
1994 "A New World: An Epic of Colonial America from the Founding
of Jamestown to the Fall of Quebec" by Arthur J. Quinn (d.1997) was published.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A20)
1994 Frank Ragano (d.1998 at 75), a lawyer who represented many
Mafia figures, published "Mob Lawyer." It was co-written with Selwyn Raab
of the new York Times.
(SFC, 5/16/98, p.A21)
1994 David Remick won a Pulitzer Prize for his work "Lenin’s Tomb."
(SFEC, 11/15/98, BR p.3)
1994 "My Life" by Burt Reynolds was published.
(SFC, 8/28/96, E10)
1994 R.J. Rummel wrote "Death by Government."
(WSJ, 12/31/96, p.5)
1994 "Cambodian Culture Since 1975: Homeland and Exile," by Sam-Ang
Sam was published. It included information on Cambodian music.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1994 Dr. Laura Schlessinger, radio show host and physiologist,
published "Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives."
(SFEC, 9/28/97, Z1 p.3)
1994 "Greatness: Who Makes History and Why" by Dean Keith Simonton
was published.
(SFC, 6/16/96, PM p.4)
1994 Pavel Sudoplatov, Russian spy, wrote "Special Tasks: The
memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster." He asserted in the
book that during the development of the atomic bomb lead US scientists
passed secrets to Soviet agents to help the USSR defeat Hitler and spread
nuclear knowledge to promote world peace. He said Oppenheimer, Bohr, Fermi
and Szilard had helped pass secrets.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A21)
1994 Allen M. Young wrote "The Chocolate Tree," a comprehensive
book on cacao.
(NH, 5/97, p.54)
1994 Don Novello, aka Guido Sardducci-- Vatican correspondent,
wrote the book, lyrics and musical ideas for "Full Moon Over Tutti," a
children’s musical.
(SFC, 9/2/97, p.E1)
1994 The ballet "Mango" by Fredric Myrow (e.1998 at 59) premiered
at the Los Angeles John Anson Ford theater. It was choreographed by Naomi
Goldberg.
(SFC, 1/18/99, p.A21)
1994 Mark Morris choreographed the dance piece "Lucky Charms,"
set to Jacques Ibert’s "Divertissement."
(SFEC,10/26/97, DB p.11)
1994 Stephen Sondheim wrote the score for "Passion."
(SFEC, 5/31/98, BR p.1)
1994 Gross film revenues for the year were $5,396 million with
1,291 million admissions and average ticket price of $4.18.
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)(SFC, 7/12/96, p.D11)
1994 The TV documentary "Baseball" was made by Ken Burns.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T4)
1994 The opera "The Dangerous Liaisons" by Conrad Susa and Philip
Littell was made. It was based on the Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 1782 novel
"Les Liaison Dangereuses."
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A20)
1994 Ron Carter, bass player, recorded his album "Ron Carter Meets
Bach".
(WSJ, 2/26/97, p.A16)
1994 Toshiko Akiyoshi, jazz pianist and composer, recorded solo
"Live at Maybeck Hall."
(SFEM, 10/5/97, p.16)
1994 "Blood on the Fields," a 3-hr oratorio about slavery composed
by Wynton Marsalis, premiered. A recording was released in 1995 and in
1997 it won a Pulitzer Prize, after some changes in order to qualify.
(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A21)
1994 Joni Mitchell released her CD "Turbulent Indigo."
(SFEM, 11/1/98, p.6)
1994 Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock reunited to record the Grammy
winning album "A Tribute to Miles."
(SFEC, 8/31/97, DB p.35)
1994 The Dave Matthews Band made its major-label debut with "Under
the Table and Dreaming," which sold more than 3 million copies.
(SFC, 7/14/96, DB p.38)
1994 Yanni, the Greek showman of New Age music, produced his album
and show: "Yanni: Live at the Acropolis." It sold more than 7 million copies.
(WSJ, 3/20/97, p.B1)
1994 In Cactus Springs, Nv., a small shrine to the Egyptian goddess
Sekhmet was built. It was care for by Patricia Pearlman, a Crone Witch
from New Jersey.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A3)
1994 Scott Thompson, aka Carrot Top, was named the Stand-up Comedian
of the Year.
(SFC, 7/14/96, DB p.51)
1994 Nauticus, the National Maritime Center in Norfolk, Virginia
opened.
(Hem., Oct. '95, p.84)
1994 The Andy Warhol Museum opened in Pittsburgh.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T11)
1994 Dr. William Howell Masters and Virginia Johnson Masters (Masters
and Johnson) closed their sex research institute in St. Louis. The couple
had divorced in 1992 after 35 years together.
(SFEC,11/30/97, Par p.2)
1994 Victoria’s Secrets introduced the Miracle Bra, a bottom padded
push up bra designed by Linda Wachner of Warnaco.
(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.A1)
1994 The Baseball World Series was cancelled due to a player strike.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A28)
1994 The Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars, expansion
football teams, began playing. They benefited from a newly established
salary cap.
(WSJ, 1/10/97, p.A1)
1994 In Super Bowl XXVIII Dallas played against Buffalo.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.E1)
1994 Painter Dorothea Tanning established the Tanning Prize for
poetry with a $2 million endowment. The first winner was W.S. Merwin.
(SFEC,11/10/97, p.E3)
1994 Jerome H. Lemelson, inventor, and his wife Dorothy established
the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for innovation that strengthens the economy.
(WSJ, 4/12/96, p.B-5)
1994 Arthur Fleming (1905-1996) was awarded the Presidential Medal
of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. He had served as Sec.
of Health, Education and Welfare (1958-19610, head of the US Commission
on Aging (1973-1978) and chaired the US Commission on Civil Rights (1974-1982).
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A26)
1994 US Prof. Stanton L. Catlin (d.1997 at 82) shared a Grammy
Award for the book "Mexico: Its Culture Life in Music and Art," that was
accompanied by a Columbia Records Legacy Collection on Mexican music.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.A21)
1994 Feminist poet Adrienne Rich won the $374,000 MacArthur Foundation
"genius" award.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A10)
1994 John Forbes Nash Jr. (66) won the Nobel Prize for Economic
Science based on his work in game theory which proved that there is always
one set of strategies in which no player can improve his situation by switching
to a different strategy. Nash spent many years debilitated by paranoid
schizophrenia. In 1998 Sylvia Nasar published Nash’s biography: "A Beautiful
Mind." In 2001 a film opened based on the book.
(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.W9)(NW, 1/14/02, p.68)
1994 Kenzabuto Oe, Japanese novelist, won the Nobel prize for
literature. His work included "A Personal Matter" (1964) and "An Echo of
Heaven."
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.9)
1994 Alfred G. Gilman and Martin Rodbell of the US won the Nobel
Prize in medicine for their discovery of G-proteins and how cells confuse
messages and foster diseases.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A9)
1994 Andre Weil (d.1998 at 92), mathematician, won the Kyoto Prize
in Basic Science from the Inamori Foundation of Kyoto, Japan. His Weil
conjectures provided the principles for modern algebraic geometry.
(SFC, 8/12/98, p.C4)
1994 The Mercosur Customs Union was created among Argentina, Brazil,
Paraguay, and Uruguay.
(WSJ, 12/20/95, p.A-10)
1994 A G-7 summit was held in Naples.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.A12)
1994 Pres. Clinton presided over the first Summit of the Americas
held in Miami.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A1)
1994 US Pres. Clinton assigned Richard Holbrooke, ambassador in
Germany, to be in charge of European Affairs at the State Dept. This meant
that he was to handle affairs concerning Bosnia.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.9)
1994 Pres. Clinton signed the General Aviation Revitalization
Act, which gave aircraft manufacturers broad immunity from liability suits.
Cessna resumed production of single-engine planes, which had stopped in
1983.
(WSJ, 4/30/01, p.A1)
1994 Webster L. Hubbell, a player in the Whitewater-Madison land
deal with Pres. Clinton, resigned from the Justice Dept. and launched a
private consulting practice in Washington. He received substantial aide
from important public and private figures. He had been appointed by Bill
Clinton as chief justice of Arkansas when Clinton was governor. He was
later sentenced to prison for bilking his partners in the Little Rock law
firm where he worked with Hillary Clinton. Ind. Council Kenneth Starr asserted
that Hubbell accepted thousands of dollars in bogus consulting fees, and
that the payments were hush money to keep him talking about financial deals
in Arkansas.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A12)(SFC, 1/27/99, p.A3)
1994 US interest rates were raised under Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.
(WSJ, 12/26/97, p.A1)
1994 The US government passed a Violence Against Women Act. The
first lawsuit under the act was reinstated in 1997 in a case where a Virginia
Tech student claimed to have been raped by two football players.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 12/24/97, p.A1)
1994 Congress passed the Desert Protection Bill and Joshua Tree
National Monument gained an additional 234,000 acres and was granted national
park status. Pres. Clinton signed the act which preserved much of the Mohave
as wilderness and added to Death Valley National Park. In 1999 Francis
Millspaugh Wheat (d.2000 at 79) authored "California Desert Miracle," which
chronicled the 27-year fight to preserve the Mohave Desert.
(Sp., 5/96, p.127)(SFC, 7/26/00, p.A21)
1994 Congress passed a law barring the use of taxpayer money for
international expositions.
(WSJ, 4/25/00, p.A24)
1994 Congress marked Jan 19, Martin Luther King Day, as a national
day of service.
(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A3)
1994 The Brady Law went into effect. It amended a 1968 law that
prohibited felons from buying guns and imposed a 5-day waiting period for
handgun purchases to allow for a criminal record check.
(SFC, 12/4/96, p.A5)
1994 The 1990 theft of art work from the Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum in Boston led Sen. Edward Kennedy to sponsor the museum theft provision
of the 1994 Omnibus Crime Act.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A8)
1994 The US federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act forbade states
to sell the addresses, phone numbers and other motorist information collected
for driver licenses.
(SFC, 11/11/99, p.A7)
1994 Trieu Viet Le and 5 other men staged an armed robbery for
microchips of the Cyrix Corp. in Richardson, Texas. Le was indicted in
1999.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A20)
1994 The Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy contracted with the
US Energy Dept. to improve security at nuclear facilities. $10 mil was
allocated the first year, but by 1998 the Americans spent $150 million
and the total was expected to reach $1 billion by completion in 2002.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A5)
1994 Congress banned assault weapons and prohibited the importation
of AK-47s. The TEC-DC9, made by Navegar, was changed and renamed the AB-10.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.A11)
1994 The "nanny tax" was simplified on the 1040 income tax form
and required reporting wages of household employees in excess of $1,100.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.A3)
1994 Former singer Sonny Bono was elected to US Congress as a
Republican from Palm Springs, where he served as mayor from 1988-1992.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A11)
1994 The California Desert Protection Act set aside 7 million
acres of wilderness, mostly in the Mojave Desert.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A17)
1994 California passed its "three strikes" sentencing law. A 2nd
felony can be punished with a double sentence. A 3rd felony may lead to
25 years in prison.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.E2)
1994 The California State Water Resources Board ordered that diversions
from Mono Lake be reduced.
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.39)
1994 A federal jury in Hawaii awarded 9,539 victims and heirs
$1.2 billion in "exemplary damages" against the estate of former Philippine
Pres. Ferdinand Marcos. In 1995 the same jury awarded the plaintiffs $766
million for injury compensation. In 1996 an appeals court in San Francisco
upheld the verdict. In 1999 a $150 million settlement was reached with
the funds to come from Marcos funds in Swiss banks.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C4)(SFC, 2/25/99, p.A12)
1994 Lt. Gen’l. Panjaitan of Indonesia was ordered by a US District
court in Boston to pay $14 million in damages to the mother of a 20-year-old
New Zealand man who was among those killed in the Nov 1991 massacre in
Dili, East Timor. Panjaitan was in Boston for studies but never appeared
in court.
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.B7)
1994 Rena Weeks won a $3.5 million sexual harassment suit against
the world’s largest law firm, Baker & McKenzie, of Palo Alto, Ca. She
had worked there for 3 months in 1991.
(SFC, 8/27/98, p.C16)
1994 In Hudson, New Hampshire, a raid on an armored car left 2
men dead. Five men were caught after an 18 month search and in 1997 were
convicted of 55 crimes in 4 states.
(SFC,12/23/97, p.A3)
1994 The gas chamber was last used in North Carolina.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A2)
1994 Memorabilia dealer Bruce McNall pleaded guilty to fraud and
was sent away to prison. He serve 4 of 6 years. In 2003 he and Michael
D'Antonio authored "Fun While it Lasted."
(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.W14)
1994 Alcoa provided its extra strong "C405" alloy, pioneered for
use in the Boeing 777 airplane, to the baseball industry for bat manufacture.
(WSJ, 4/30/96, p.A-1)
1994 Gordon Bethune took over as CEO of Continental Airlines.
He turned the company around with a policy of rewarding workers. In 1998
Scott Huler published "From Worst to First," the story of the turnaround.
(WSJ, 7/2/98, p.A20)
1994 Del Monte entered into an ill-fated agreement to sell the
company for $1 billion to an investment group led by Mexican banker Carlos
Cabal Peniche, who was later charged with fraud by the Mexican government.
(SFC, 3/1/97, p.B1)
1994 DuPont quit the production of Freon.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R46)
1994 Houston based Enron Development Corp. was called in to help
develop the Bolivian side of the Bolivia-Brazil natural gas pipeline.
(WSJ, 2/14/97, p.A8)
1994 Hallmark Entertainment, a unit of Hallmark Cards Inc., acquired
the TV production business of Robert Halmi, a Hungarian born TV producer.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.A1)
1994 Hearst opened the Hearst New Media Center in NYC to orient
employees and create digital products and services. Hearst also acquired
Associated Publ. Co., a publisher of "yellow pages" directories in Texas.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1994 Thomas Kinkade, the "Painter of Light," took his company,
Media Arts Group, public.
(NW, 5/13/02, p.48)
1994 McDonald’s opened its first Egypt restaurant in Cairo. The
company also passed the 99 billion burger mark this year.
(WSJ, 4/10/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 11/13/98, p.B1)
1994 PacTel Corp., a cellular spin-off from Pacific Telesis, changed
its name to AirTouch.
(Wired, 6/97, p.97)
1994 Quintiles, a medical contract research organization, went
public. It was founded by Prof. Dennis Gillings of the Univ. of North Carolina.
(WSJ, 4/11/03, p.A2)
1994 Wal-Mart stopped selling handguns in its stores after being
sued by the family of a man who was shot in a Texas courthouse by an assailant
who had allegedly bought the gun a Wal-Mart.
(SFC, 9/10/96, p.A3)
1994 The Big Three auto makers netted a combined $13.92 billion
on record revenues of $335.6 billion.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1994 In America 80 million prescriptions were written for drugs
that act as calcium channel blockers (CCBs). They were used to treat high
blood pressure, angina, cardiac arrhythmias and migraine headaches.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A12)
1994 Polly C.E. Matzinger, immunologist, began challenging the
self/nonself concept of immune activation and proposed the "danger" theory
where the immune system lies quietly on guard until it receives a signal
that tissues somewhere in the body are dying unnatural deaths.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.B-5)
1994 The breast cancer gene, BRCA1, was discovered. Its presence
boosted the likelihood of developing the disease to 87%.
(SFC, 6/26/96, p.A7)
1994 Researcher Janet Daling and a team at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center found a 50% increase in the risk of breast cancer
for women who’s had abortions.
(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A12)
1994 At the Mayo Clinic the first successful heart-lung transplant
was performed.
(SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.5)
1994 Richard Lipton, Princeton computer scientist, published a
paper on molecular computing titled: "Speeding to Computation via Molecular
Biology."
(Wired, 8/95, p.166)
1994 Marvin Minsky wrote in a Scientific American article that:
"In the end we will find ways to replace every part of the body and brain
and thus repair all the defects and injuries that make our lives so brief."
(Hem., 2/96, p.95)
1994 Lou Montulli, computer programmer at Netscape, invented "cookies"
to help enable purchasing products from a Web site.
(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.B1)
1994 Scientists discovered the special light effect they called
an elf that is created in the ionosphere by an electromagnetic pulse created
above a thunderstorm that makes nitrogen molecules glow momentarily red.
(SFC, 12/16/96, p.B1)
1994 Fresh water fish from Japan, known as Medaka, became the
first vertebrate creatures to successfully mate in space.
(SFC, 9/15/00, p.A12)
1994 The Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy (SagDEG) was recognized
by astronomers as a galaxy flying through the Milky Way.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A2)
1994 Yale Univ. lost a $20 million Bass grant, given in 1991,
when alumnus Lee Bass took back the money after he saw no effort on the
part of the Univ. to set up a Western Civilization studies program under
Prof. Donald Kagan. The governing board of the Univ. ordered a review of
the affair that was completed in a year. The Cabranes-Schacht report was
never made public.
(WSJ, 6/21/96, p.A14)
1994 Nearly 1.2 million American marriages were dissolved by the
courts, triple the 1960 figure.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A2)
1994 Texas executed 14 inmates.
(SFC,12/26/97, p.A17)
1994 In northern California a treatment plant was built near Iron
Mountain by Rhone Poulenc under orders by the EPA to remove up to 80% of
the copper, zinc, cadmium and acids in runoff water.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A13)
1994 In the US New Orleans was the murder capital with 425 homicides.
(SFC, 6/16/96, Zone 1 p.1)
1994 In this year US consumers spent about the same amount on
PCs as on TVs (US$8.07 billion on PCs vs. $8.4 billion on TVs).
(Wired, 8/95, p.178)
1994 The Los Angeles Water Dept. stopped diverting water from
Mono Lake on an order from the California Water Resources Control board.
The lake was down 40 feet from 1940 when diversion began.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.52)
1994 The mitten crab was first discovered in the San Francisco
Bay.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.6)
1994 In Chicago two boys aged 10 and 11 dropped 5-year-old Eric
Morse 14 floors to his death in a housing project after he refused to steal
candy for them.
(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A3)
1994 A California Air National Guard Learjet plowed into a Fresno,
Calif., apartment complex. The 2-member crew was killed and 18 were injured
on the ground.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A11)
1994 A collision between a jet fighter and a troop transport killed
24 soldiers at Pope Air Force Base.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A3)
1994 An Air Morocco regional jet crashed and killed all 51 onboard.
It was suspected that the pilot steered the plane into the ground.
(WSJ, 3/10/98, p.A1)
1994 In the Bosporus an oil tanker collided with another vessel
and 28 seamen died. A 15,000-ton oil spillage also resulted that burst
into a spectacular fire.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A23)
1994 John Salvi shot and killed two receptionists at abortion
clinics in Boston. He was convicted on two accounts of first-degree murder
in Mar. 1996.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-1)
1994 Lindsay Anderson, British theater and film director, died.
In 2000 his friend Gavin Lambert authored "Mainly About Lindsay Anderson."
(SFEC, 10/8/00, BR p.6)
1994 Ken Cory, California jewelry designer, died.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, DB p.27)
1994 Edward J. DeBartolo Sr., shopping mall magnate, died. Edward
Jr. and his sister Denise DeBartolo York took over key executive positions
in the family holdings.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A15)
1994 Ralph Ellison, author of the classic novel "Invisible Man,"
died.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, BR p.2)
1994 Erik Erikson, psychologist, died. He and his wife Joan (d.1997)
developed the theory that one’s sense of identity progresses through 8
distinct life cycles marked by the resolution of successive emotional conflicts.
Joan developed a 9th stage described in her book "Life Cycle Completed."
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A19)
1994 M.F.K. Fisher, food writer, died in Glen Ellen, Ca. Her books
included "As They Were" (1982), "Dubious Honors" (1988), and "Long
Ago in France" (1991). Her books were reprinted by North Point Press publisher
Jack Shoemaker. In 1997 Shoemaker’s new press, Counter Point, published
"A Welcoming Life: The M.F.K. Fisher Scrapbook."
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.D5)
1994 Ed Kienholz, LA-Idaho-Berlin-based anarchist artist, died.
Comments on his work range from "salutary statements about the morally
diseased condition of the US and the democratic-capitalistic West" to "simplistic
socio-political cartooning.
(WSJ, 10/22/96, p.A20)
1994 Carmen McRae, Jazz vocalist, died at the age of 74. Says
Dick Katz in liner notes to a collection of the young McRae: "Carmen
has musical ears so good she could hear paint dry."
(WSJ, 9/27/95, p.A-16)
1994 Dick O’Kane, WW II submarine skipper, died at age 83. In
2001 William Tuohy authored "The Bravest Man," a biography of O’Kane.
(WSJ, 12/31/01, p.A7)
1994 Linus Pauling, scientist and 1962 Nobel Peace Prize winner,
died. In 1995 Barbara Marinacci edited "Linus Pauling in His Own Words,"
and in 1998 published "Linus Pauling on Peace."
(SFC, 9/16/98, p.E1)
1994 Joey Stefano, a gay porn star, died of a drug overdose at
age 26. In 2000 the film "Homme Fatale: The Joey Stefano Story" was directed
by Hodgson.
(SFC, 3/29/00, p.E3)
1994 In Albania former president Ramiz Alia, successor of Stalinist
dictator Enver Hoxha, was sentenced to 9 years in prison for abuse of power.
He was later freed on amnesty and then re-arrested on new charges. He fled
the country in Mar, 1997.
(SFC,10/21/97, p.A13)
1994 In Angola the Lusaka agreement halted the civil war between
Unita and the government that had run for 2 decades. The accord called
for UNITA to disband its 70,000 man army and hand control of almost half
the country to the government.
(WSJ, 10/1/97, p.A16)(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A12)
1994 In Antigua Lester Bird was elected after his father, Prime
Minister Vere Bird, retired.
(SFC, 3/11/99, p.A11)
1994 In Australia the Labor government passed native title laws.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.C9)
1994 In Argentina the main postal office was privatized. A proposed
split for control was made between Alfredo Yabran and Domingo Cavallo.
Economy Minister Cavallo refused to grant the concession to Yabran.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A7)
1994 In Argentina Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo accused Alfredo
Yabran, a courier company magnate, of heading an organized crime ring.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A13)
1994 In Armenia Pres. Levon Ter-Petrossian outlawed the Dashnaksitun
political party.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.C1)
1994 In Belarus Pres. Lukashenko was elected over Prime Minister
Viacheslav Kebich.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A14)
1994 Belgium abolished conscription. [see Mar 1, 1995]
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A15)
1994 Seven Rwandan refugee camps were created in Burundi and held
some 250,000 people.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1994 In Brazil Rev. Edward Dougherty, a priest from New Orleans,
became the country’s first Catholic television preacher.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B14)
1994 In Brazil an investor group led by Banco Bozano, Simonsen
SA, bought the aircraft maker Embraer SA from the government.
(WSJ, 3/21/97, p.A17)
1994 Arms exports from Bulgaria generated about $250 mil., a three-fold
increase over a year earlier.
(WSJ, 7/24/95, p.A-7c)
1994 In Canada an Ontario judge ruled that lap dancing was not
indecent under standards previously set by the Supreme Court. The ruling
was overturned in 1997.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E3)
1994 In Chile the giant state-owned copper company, Codelco, lost
more than $200 million in dealings with the London Metal Exchange at the
hands of rogue trader Juan Pablo Davila.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A6)
1994 In Chile former East German leader Erich Honecker died.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A17)
1994 China’s foreign minister, Qian Qichen, and US Sec. of State
Warren Christopher, agreed to halt sales of M-11 and other missiles to
Pakistan.
(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A4)
1994 In China the guided-missile destroyer ship Harbin was built
with weapons and engineering systems made in 40 countries.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A3)
1994 The Internet was introduced to China.
(Wired, 2/99, p.127)
1994 Harry Wu, Chinese human rights activist and writer, published
his "Bitter Winds: A Memoir of My Years in China’s Gulags," with Carolyn
Wakeman.
(SFC, 5/19/96, Zone 1, p.3)
1994 The World Journal, a Chinese-language newspaper based in
New York reported that blood products in China were contaminated with the
AIDS virus.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A14)
1994 In China the Maternal Infant Health Care Law was passed.
It guaranteed pediatric health care to poor women and stipulated that couples
be informed of any genetic problems. It also directed doctors to take steps
to prevent childbearing in the event of detected problems.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A25)
1994 China started a national campaign to fortify all salt with
iodine. Some 2,500 salt police enforced the state monopoly.
(SFC, 11/15/02, p.J4)
1994 China pegged the yuan, also known as the renminbi (people's
money), at about 8.28 to the US dollar.
(SFC, 7/5/03, p.B1)
1994 In the Dominican Republic journalist Narciso Gonzalez disappeared
outside air force headquarters. he had accused Balaguer of fraud in the
elections.
(SFC, 11/25/96, p.A9)
1994 In Cairo a conference on population called on improving the
lot of women so that they would have fewer children.
(SFC, 6/30/99, p.A12)
1994 In El Salvador there were 7,673 people murdered in this year
according to the attorney general’s office.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B5)
1994 The government of Egypt decreed that schoolgirls may not
wear the full length veil, niqab, that covers everything but the eyes.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p. C2)
1994 In Egypt Nobel author Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed in the neck
by a 21-year-old assailant. The wound resulted in the paralysis of his
writing hand.
(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A16)
1994 In Egypt police Gen’l. Raouf Khairat was killed. Four people
were sentenced to death in 1997 for crimes including the murder which they
denied.
(SFC, 9/16/97, p.A12)
1994 In Estonia Pres. Meri bypassed lawmakers when he signed a
deal on the withdrawal of Russian troops.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1994 Meles Zenawi was the 39 year old president of Ethiopia and
its 53 million people.
(CNT, Nov,1994, p.245)
1994 In France the Cartier Foundation building at 261 Boulevard
Raspail was opened. It was designed by Jean Nouvel with 7 floors above
ground and 8 below.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, p.T7)
1994 In France Baron Edmond Adolphe Maurice Jules Jacques de Rothschild
(d.1997 at 71) was named an officer in the Legion of Honor.
(SFC,11/4/97, p.A19)
1994 Three French explorers discovered the stone-age Chauvet Cave
with paintings that dated back more than 30,000 years. In 1996 they published
"Chauvet Cave: The Discovery of the World’s Oldest Paintings."
(NH, 7/96, p.73)
1994 France was the No. 1 supplier of arms to the developing world.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A10)
1994 French legislator Yann Piat of the UDF was shot to death
in her car by 2 men on motorcycle. A 1997 book, "The Yann Piat Case" by
Andre Rougeot and jean-Michel Verne," says that she was killed by the French
secret service to keep her from revealing a plot to sell military land
to the Mafia. The book was suspended after its first printing sold out.
Many believe the tale to be disinformation.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)
1994 In Hungary paprika stocks were adulterated with minium, a
red oxide of lead, and many people were stricken lead poisoning. Once lead
enters the biosphere, it is retained and recycled indefinitely. Lead atoms
combine with cysteine’s sulfur atoms and disrupt the disulfide bridges
of proteins. Thus many enzymes will malfunction.
(NH, 7/96, p.52,53)
1994 In Iran a 2-hr pre-nuptial class was made mandatory for all
couples planning marriage.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.D2)
1994 In Iraq Khidhir Abdul Abas Hamza, a scientist who helped
train younger scientists in the nation’s atomic weapons program, fled the
country. In 1998 he publicly described a 3-decade effort by Iraq to build
a nuclear bomb.
(SFC, 8/15/98, p.A13)
1994 Iraqi engineers worked to build the Mother of Battles River.
It helped divert water from the Euphrates that would otherwise flow into
the al Hammar marsh, a refuge for Hussein opponents. The marshes were later
drained and pesticides used to kill the fish and wildlife. The 200,000
"ma’dan" (marsh Arabs) were attacked and forced away.
(WSJ, 1/15/03, p.A6)(SFC, 4/7/03, p.A10)
1994 In Ireland the case against Rev. Brendan Smyth (d.1997 at
70) led to the collapse of the government of Prime Minister Albert Reynolds.
The attorney general had delayed processing requests from British authorities
for the extradition of Smyth, who was charged for 74 instances of sexual
abuse of 20 young people over 36 years. He was sentenced in 1997 to 12
years in Curragh Prison.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A24)
1994 The Israelis abducted Mustafa Dirani, the leader of a Lebanese
Shiite group, from his Lebanese home.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.A14)
1994 Israel established the elite squad, Egoz (walnut in Hebrew),
to track Shiite guerrillas in southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C5)
1994 In Japan Tomiicchi Murayama of the Social Democrats became
the head of the government coalition.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A26)
1994 Aoyama, a Japanese-born North Korean engineer, began spying
for Japan. In 1997 as an industrial spy in Beijing he confirmed that North
Korea had developed a nuclear bomb.
(SFC, 11/28/02, p.F5)
1994 Japan posted a record trade surplus of $120.9 billion.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1994 The Mekong River was spanned for the first time with a bridge
between Laos and Thailand.
(SFC, 5/14/97, p.A22)
1994 In Lesotho Letsie backed a palace coup to reinstate his father
as king. He ousted the first government to be elected in a multiparty vote
and temporarily assumed the throne.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.14A)
1994 In Liberia ULIMO split into two factions: ULIMO-K and ULIMO-J.
ULIMO-K was composed of members of the Mandingo ethnic group. ULIMO-J was
made up of ethnic Krahn led by Roosevelt Johnson.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)
1994 In Liberia Charles Taylor enlisted Joshua Milton Blahyi,
aka Gen’l. Butt Naked, into his force. After the fighting Gen’. Naked resumed
his birth name and turned into an evangelical preacher.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A10)
1994 In Madagascar Pres. Albert Zafy and Prime Minister Francisque
Ravony balked at an economic overhaul ordered by the Int’l. Monetary Fund
and World Bank.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1994 The North-South Expressway of Malaysia was completed. It
spans the western side of the Malay Peninsula from Singapore to the Thailand
frontier for 520 miles.
(Hem., 1/96, p.97)
1994 Late, Mexican banker Carlos Cabal Peniche after being accused
of an elaborate self-lending scheme involving hundreds of million of dollars
through his two banks, Banco Union SA and Banca Cremi SA, fled the country.
He was also a large investor in southeastern Mexico and maintained a banana
plantation in Tabasco.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A12)
1994 In Chiapas, Mexico, Maya farmers organized into the Zapatista
National Liberation Army.
(SFC, 5/19/96, T-10)
1994 In Mexico the government started peace negotiations with
the Zapatistas.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.C2)
1994 Alfredo Harp Helu, president of Banamex, was kidnapped. He
was ransomed after 3 months for $30 mil. Angel Losada Moreno, head of Mexico’s
largest supermarket chain, was also kidnapped and ransomed for a rumored
similar amount. In 1996 authorities claimed to have recovered nearly $10
mil of the Helu ransom.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1994 In Mexico the cellular license owned by Carlos Hank Rhon
and BellSouth was sold to Grupo Iusacell , owned by the Peralta family,
for over $100 million.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A6)
1994 Rigoberto Gaxiola Medina of Mexico was indicted on marijuana
trafficking charges by a federal grand jury in Detroit. Some 183 million
dollars were identified in his banking accounts but by Jan 23, 1997 only
16.7 million was seized by Mexican officials. The family had large legitimate
holdings in Sonora.
(WSJ, 4/1/97, p.A15)
1994 In Mozambique in the first multi-party elections, overseen
by 7,000 UN troops, voters chose Joaquim Alberto Chissano, head of Frelima,
the formerly Marxist ruling party, as president over Afonso Dhlakama of
Renamo. Frelimo was based in the southern port city of Maputo, while Renamo
was based in the northern city of Beira.
(WSJ, 3/21/96, p.A-11)(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A10)
1994 In Namibian elections SWAPO won over 72% of the vote.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.20A)
1994 In Nigeria Moshood Abiola was imprisoned by Sani Abacha on
charges of treason for declaring himself president.
(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C2)(SFEC, 7/19/98, p.A20)
1994 Nigerian opposition leader Anthony Enahoro was detained for
several months after the military crushed a pro-democracy strike.
(SFC, 5/14/96, A-10)
1994 An accord called the Agreed Framework was made in which North
Korea pledged to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for billions
in Western aid.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A8)(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A28)
1994 Palau became an independent nation.
(WSJ, 7/31/97, p.A1)
1994 In Panama Ernesto Perez Balladares campaigned for the presidency
at the head of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and was elected
. He was later accused of accepting $51,000 in drug money in the campaign.
(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A10)
1994 Palestinian leader Arafat promised to turn the Gaza Strip
and West Bank into a new Singapore.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A12)
1994 Lori Helene Berenson, an American, arrived in Peru from El
Salvador where she had worked as the personal secretary to Leonel Gonzalez,
top commander of the FMLN guerrillas.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A7)
1994 In the Philippines the death penalty was restored.
(SFC, 1/19/99, p.A7)
1994 Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia after living in
the US. He had completed a 10-volume novel-cycle about the Russian Revolution
called "The Red Wheel." The 2nd volume, "November 1916," was to be published
in 1999. In Russia he wrote his political analysis "Russia in Collapse."
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W15)
1994 In Russia Yeltsin promoted Anatoly Chubais to First Deputy
Prime Minister.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A10)
1994 In Russia Nikolai Yegerov (d.1997 at 45) was appointed prime
minister in charge of nationalities and regional policy and a promotion
put him in charge of the Chechnya region. His policy endorsed sending troops
to crush the rebellion there. He was removed as nationalities minister
in 1995.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.B8)
1994 Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrote his memoirs: "The View
From the Kremlin."
(WSJ, 5/30/96, p.A6)
1994 The Russian Army general staff signed a deal with Orthodox
Church leaders to start putting chaplains in army units.
(WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A8)
1994 In Russia the single independent newspaper of Kalmykia, Sovyetskaya
Kalmykia, was shut down
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A12)
1994 In Saudi Arabia Osama Bin Laden, the scion of a wealthy Saudi
family, was stripped of his Saudi citizenship. He has financed a host of
hard-line groups from Egypt to Algeria. His fortune was estimated at $250
mil.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A10,12)
1994 In Saudi Arabia Safar al-Hawaly and Salman al-Awdeh, religious
militants and critics of the government, were jailed.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C3)
1994 In South Africa King Goodwill Zwelithini broke with Inkatha
leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and tension between the Zulu royal family and
Inkatha has since escalated.
(SFC, 4/28/96, A-13)
1994 Osama bin Laden arrived in Sudan from Afghanistan. He used
his own money to finance road construction projects in the desert north
of Khartoum.
(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.A15)
1994 Sudan’s government began funding the (LTA) Lord’s Resistance
Army in retaliation for Uganda’s support of the southern-based rebel Sudan
People’s Liberation Army.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A12)
1994 In Sweden a ferry boat sank and killed nearly 1,000 people.
(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.A26)
1994 In Sweden an army lieutenant went berserk and killed several
people.
(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.A26)
1994 A controversial 3-year experimental heroin distribution program
was begun. The program led to a huge drop in crime and survived a ballot
challenge in 1997.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A14)
1994 The Pak Mun Dam along the Mun River in Thailand was completed.
It is a 56 foot high, 984 foot long wall of concrete and severely impacted
fish life on the river.
(WSJ, 3/12/96, p. A-15)
1994 In Togo legislative elections were marked by army violence
and intimidation.
(WSJ, 12/10/96, p.A22)
1994 In Turkey the $32 billion GAP hydroelectric project opened
its Ataturk Dam. The project planned 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants
on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
(SFC, 7/13/98, p.A6)
1994 A referendum was passed to extend the rule of Niyazov, who
had renamed himself Turkmenbashi (Chieftain of the Turkmen), to 2002.
(SFC, 8/13/98, p.A10)
1994 In Abu Dhabi, UAR, 13 former BCCI officials were tried and
12 were convicted and sentenced to jail and terms with civil damages to
$9 billion.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A9B)
1994 In Venezuela a riot and fire at the Sabaneta Prison in Maracaibo
left 108 inmates dead.
(SFC, 10/24/96, p.C4)
1994 In Vietnam worker strikes were made legal.
(SFC, 6/23/97, p.A10)
1994 In Yemen a civil war broke out in Mukalla, capital of the
country’s oil producing province.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A1)
1994 Zimbabwe restored power to local chiefs due to the corruption
and inefficiency of appointed officials.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.C16)
1994-1995 In Argentina it was alleged that IBM offered government officials
up to $21 million to win a contract with the Banco de la Nacion.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A24)
1994-1995 Depleted uranium shells were used by NATO forces against Bosnian
Serb positions around Serayevo.
(WSJ, 1/11/00, p.A14)
1994-1996 Russia’s Defense Minister, Pavel Grachev, approved the transfer
of more than $1 billion worth of weaponry to Armenia.
(WSJ, 5/14/97, p.A22)
1994-1996 Philip Gourevitch in 1998 published "We Wish to Inform You
That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families." The book covered the
Rwanda Civil War of this period along with background information.
(WSJ, 9/22/98, p.A20)
1994-1998 59 bald eagles were found dead at DeGray Lake and Lake Hamilton
in Arkansas. Their deaths were associated with dead coots and followed
10-20 days after heavy rains. Runoff containing hazardous materials was
suspected.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A14)
1994-1998 At least 18 Palestinians died while under detention by the
Palestinian Authority.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A8)