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1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1994th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 994th year of the , the 94th year of the , and the 5th year of the decade.
1994Template:SHORTDESC:1994
The year 1994 was designated as the "International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations.
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The Irish government announces the end of a 15-year broadcasting ban on the Provisional Irish Republican Army and its political arm Sinn Féin.
The Superhighway Summit is held at UCLA's Royce Hall. It is the first conference to discuss the growing information superhighway and is presided over by U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
January 14 – U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin accords, which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles toward each country's targets, and also provide for the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal in Ukraine.
January 15 – The SS American Star breaks tow in the Atlantic Ocean and is beached at Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands a few days later.
January 17 – The 6.5–6.7 Mw Northridge earthquake shakes the Greater Los Angeles Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving 57 people dead and more than 8,700 injured.
January 19 – Record cold temperatures hit the eastern United States. The coldest temperature ever measured in Indiana state history, −36 °F (−38 °C), is recorded in New Whiteland, Indiana.
January 20 – In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet to attend The Citadel, but soon drops out.
January 21 – Lorena Bobbitt is found not guilty by reason of insanity on charges of mutilating her husband John.
January 25 – U.S. President Bill Clinton delivers his first State of the Union address, calling for health care reform, a ban on assault weapons, and welfare reform.
January 26 – A man fires 2 blank shots at Charles, Prince of Wales in Sydney, Australia.
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.
Punk rock band Green Day releases their album Dookie, which will eventually sell over 20 million copies worldwide.
In the aftermath of the Chadian–Libyan conflict, the International Court of Justicerules that the Aouzou Strip belongs to the Republic of Chad.
(136617) 1994 CC is discovered.
February 4 – The Federal Open Market Committee raises the Fed Funds target rate for the first time since May 1989. The rate is raised by 25 basis points to 3¼ percent.[1]
February 5 – Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
February 6 – Markale massacres: a Bosnian Serb Armymortar shell kills 68 civilians and wounds about 200 in a Sarajevo marketplace.
February 19 – Three gunmen hijack a school bus with 74 children and 8 teachers in Peshawar, Pakistan.
February 21 – Revealing of the first photo of Pluto and its moon Charon taken from the Hubble Space Telescope.
February 24 – In Gloucester, local police begin excavations at 25 Cromwell Street, the home of Fred West, a suspect in multiple murders. On February 28, he and his wife are arrested.
February 25 – Israeli KahanistBaruch Goldstein opens fire inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank; he kills 29 Muslims before worshippers beat him to death.
Walvis Bay is handed over to Namibia by South Africa.
A lone terrorist kills Ari Halberstam during an attack on 14 Jewish students on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.[3]
Mary Ellen Withrow begins her term of office as Treasurer of the United States, serving under President Bill Clinton.
March 6 – A referendum in Moldova results in the electorate voting against possible reunification with Romania.
March 7 – Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
March 8 – Nine Inch Nails' second studio album, The Downward Spiral, is released to critical acclaim.
Apple Computer, Inc. releases the Power Macintosh, the first Macintosh computers to use the new PowerPC microprocessors.
The Linux kernel version 1.0.0 is released after over two years of development.
March 15 – U.S. troops are withdrawn from Somalia.
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 20 – Italian journalist Ilaria Alpi and TV cameraman Miran Hrovatin are assassinated in Somalia.
March 21 – The 66th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama Schindler's List wins seven Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director (Spielberg).
TV tycoon Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing coalition wins the Italian general election.
The biggest tornado outbreak in 1994 occurs in the southeastern United States; one tornado kills 22 people at the Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama.
March 28 – Shell House massacre: Inkatha Freedom Party and ANC supporters battle in central Johannesburg, South Africa.
March 31 – The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull.
Nelson Mandela casts his vote in the 1994 South African general election
April 2 – The National Convention of New Sudan of the SPLA/M opens in Chukudum.
April 5 – Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana, commits suicide at age 27 at his home in Seattle. His body was found three days later.
April 6 – Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira die when a missile shoots down their jet near Kigali, Rwanda. This is taken as a pretext to begin the Rwandan genocide.
Paul Touvier is found guilty of ordering the execution of 7 Jews when he served in the Vichy France Milice.
South Africa adopts a new national flag, replacing the "Oranje, Blanje, Blou" flag adopted in 1928 that was used during apartheid.
April 21 – The Red Cross estimates that hundreds of thousands of Tutsi have been killed in Rwanda.
April 22 – Richard Nixon dies in New York City, nearly 20 years after he resigned in 1974. His funeral is the first funeral of a U.S. President since the death of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973.
Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Yusuff Izzudin Shah Ghafarullahu-lahu ends his term as the 9th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
The largest high school arson ever in the United States is started at Burnsville High School, in Burnsville, Minnesota, resulting in over 15 million dollars in damages. The same arsonist also goes on to set arsons at Edina High School and Minnetonka High School.
Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan, becomes the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
China Airlines Flight 140, an Airbus A300, crashes while landing at Nagoya, Japan, killing 264 people.
April 27 – South Africa holds its first fully multiracial elections, marking the final end of the last vestiges of apartheid. Nelson Mandela wins the elections and is sworn in as the first democratically elected president the following month.
April 29 – Commodore International declares bankruptcy.
May[]
May 1 – Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Sennais killed in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy.
May 5 – The Bishkek Protocol between Armenia and Azerbaijan is signed in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, effectively freezing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
May 6 – The Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers more than seven years to complete, opens between England and France, enabling passengers to travel between the two countries in 35 minutes.
May 17 – Malawi holds its first multiparty elections.
May 18 – The Flavr Savr, a genetically modified tomato, is deemed safe for consumption by the FDA, becoming the first commercially grown genetically engineered food to be granted a license for human consumption.
May 20 – After a funeral in Cluny Parish Church, Edinburgh attended by 900 people and after which 3,000 people lined the streets, John Smith is buried in a private family funeral on the island of Iona, at the sacred burial ground of Reilig Odhráin, which contains the graves of several Scottish kings as well as monarchs of Ireland, Norway and France.[2]
May 21 – Italian former minister and Christian Democrat leader Giulio Andreotti is accused of Mafia allegiance by the court of Palermo.
May 22 – Pope John Paul II issues the Apostolic LetterOrdinatio sacerdotalis from the Vatican, expounding the Catholic Church's position requiring "the reservation of priestly ordination to men alone".
June 1 – The Republic of South Africa rejoins the Commonwealth of Nations after the first democratic election; South Africa had departed the then-British Commonwealth in 1961.
June 6–June 8 – Ceasefire negotiations for the Yugoslav War begin in Geneva; they agree to a one-month cessation of hostilities (which does not last more than a few days).
June 12 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman are murdered outside the Simpson home in Los Angeles. O. J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in a civil suit.
Hacker Kevin Poulsen pleads guilty to 7 counts of mail fraud, wire and computer fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.
The New York Rangers win the Stanley Cup, in 7 games over the Vancouver Canucks. It was New York's first Stanley Cup since 1940. Riots erupt in Vancouver in response to the victory causing $1.1 million Canadian dollars in damage.
NFL star O. J. Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings flee from police in a white Ford Bronco. The low-speed chase ends at Simpson's Brentwood, Los Angeles mansion, where he surrenders.
June 20 – Dean Mellberg, an ex-U.S. Air Force member, enters the hospital at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington, shoots and kills 5 people, and wounds 19.[6]
NASA's Space Station Processing Facility, a new state-of-the-art manufacturing building for the International Space Station, officially opens at Kennedy Space Center.
The International Olympic Committee celebrates its first centennial.
June 24 – U.S. Air Force pilot Bud Holland crashes a B-52 at Fairchild Air Force Base, as a result of pilot error. It's unclear whether the event of 4 days previous (above) was a contributing factor.
June 25 – Cold War: the last Russian troops leave Germany.
June 26 – Microsoft announces it will no longer sell or support the MS-DOSoperating system separately from Microsoft Windows.
June 28 – Members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult execute the first sarin gas attack at Matsumoto, Japan, killing eight and injuring 200.
June 30 – An Airbus A330 crashes during a test flight near Toulouse, France, where Airbus is based, killing the seven-person crew. The test was meant to simulate an engine failure at low speed with maximum angle of climb.
July 6 – Fourteen firefighters die in the South Canyon wildfire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado. The event inspires the 1999 book Fire on the Mountain.
July 7 – 1994 civil war in Yemen: Aden is occupied by troops from North Yemen.
July 8 – North Korean President Kim Il-sung dies, but officially continues to hold office.
July 12 – The Allied occupation of Berlin ends with a casing of the colors ceremony attended by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
July 16–22 – Fragments of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 impact the planet Jupiter.
July 17 – Brazil wins the 1994 FIFA World Cup, defeating Italy 3–2 in a penalty shootout in the final (full-time 0–0).
AMIA bombing: In Buenos Aires, a terrorist attack destroys a building housing several Jewish organizations, killing 85 and injuring many more.
Rwandan Patriotic Front troops capture Gisenyi, forcing the interim government into Zaire and ending the Rwandan genocide.
July 19 – Four 26-pound ceiling tiles fall from the roof of the Kingdome in Seattle, just hours before a scheduled Seattle Mariners game.
July 20 – Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9's Fragment Q1 hits Jupiter.
July 25 – Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration as a preliminary to signature on October 25 of the Israel–Jordan peace treaty, which formally ends the state of war that has existed between the nations since 1948.
Fire destroys the Norwich Central Library in the United Kingdom, including most of its historical records.
The University of London founds the School of Advanced Study, a group of postgraduate research institutes.
August 5 – Groups of protesters spread from Havana, Cuba's Castillo de la Punta ("Point Castle"), creating the first protests against Fidel Castro's government since 1959.
August 11 – The formation of Hurricane John which would go one to become the longest-lasting tropical cyclone recorded worldwide. It would dissipate on September 13th, lasting a little over 31 days.
1994 Mascara earthquake. A 5.8 earthquake lefts 171 dead in Algeria.
Irish mobster Martin Cahill is assassinated in Dublin.
August 20 – In Honolulu, Hawaii, during a circus international performance, an elephant named Tyke crushes her trainer Allen Campbell to death before hundreds of horrified spectators, at the Neal Blaisdell Arena.
August 23 – Eugene Bullard is posthumously commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, 33 years after his death, and 77 years to the day after his rejection for U.S. military service in 1917.
The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army announces a "complete cessation of military operations" as part of the Northern Ireland peace process. This would temporarily end in 1996 with the Docklands bombing in England before a definite ceasefire in 1997. In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was signed and the IRA decommissioned their weapons in 2005
The Russian Army leaves Estonia and Latvia, ending the last traces of Eastern Europe's Soviet occupation.[3]
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, in Australia's first political assassination since 1977.
September 8 – USAir Flight 427, a Boeing 737 with 132 people on board, crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport killing all on board.
September 10 – Wollemia nobilis (the 'Wollemi Pine'), previously known only from fossils, is discovered living in remote rainforest gorges in the Wollemi National Park of New South Wales by canyoner David Noble, 150 km from Australia's largest city.[8]
September 13 – President Bill Clinton signs the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which bans the manufacture of new firearms with certain features for a period of 10 years.
September 14 – The 1994 World Series is officially cancelled due to the ongoing work stoppage. It is the first time a World Series will not be played since 1904.
U.S. troops stage a bloodless invasion of Haiti to restore the legitimately elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power.
Andrew Wiles proves Fermat's Last Theorem, solving the 357-year-old mathematical theorem first proposed by Pierre de Fermat in 1637. He would publish it in 1995.
The car ferryMS Estonia sinks in the Baltic Sea, killing 852 people.
José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, Mexican politician, is assassinated on orders of Raúl Salinas de Gortari.
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.
In Slovakia, populist leader Vladimír Mečiar wins the general election.
Palau gains independence from the United Nations Trusteeship Council.
The World Wide Web Consortium is founded by Tim Berners-Lee, becoming the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web.
October 4 – In Switzerland, 23 members of the Order of the Solar Temple cult are found dead, a day after 25 of their fellow cultists are similarly discovered in Morin-Heights, Quebec.
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 7 - Ingvar Carlsson returns as Prime Minister of Sweden .
October 8 – Iraq disarmament crisis: The President of the United Nations 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).
After three years of U.S. exile, Haiti's president Aristide returns to his country.
Iraq disarmament crisis: following threats by the U.N. Security Council and the U.S., Iraq withdraws troops from its border with Kuwait.
October 29 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House; he is later convicted of trying to assassinate President Bill Clinton.
American Eagle Flight 4184 ATR 72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing all 68 people on board.
The Duke of Edinburgh attends a ceremony in Israel, where his late mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg (Princess Andrew of Greece), is honoured as "Righteous Among the Nations" for sheltering Jewish families from the Nazis in Athens, during World War II.
A French magazine publishes photo of President François Mitterrand's secret daughter.
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is enacted in the UK. The whole of Part V, which covers collective trespass and nuisance on land, includes sections against raves, including the "succession of repetitive beats" definition.
San Francisco: The first conference devoted entirely to the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web opens. Featured speakers include Marc Andreessen of Netscape, Mark Graham of Pandora Systems, and Ken McCarthy of E-Media.
Sydney's third runway opens, ensuring protests about noise levels.
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 secure control of both houses of Congress. George W. Bush is elected Governor of Texas.
Hurricane Gordon hits Central America, Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, Haiti and the Southeastern United States, causing $594 million in damages and 1,152 fatalities.
November 11 – Duy Tan University, Vietnam's University, was established.
Voters in Sweden decide to join the European Union in a referendum.
The first passengers travel through the Channel Tunnel.
Dale Earnhardt wins his 7th and final NASCAR championship.
November 15 – 1994 Nepalese general election — The CPN (UML) is an elected with a minority government, becoming the first democratically elected Communist party in Asia.
November 16 – A federal judge issues a temporary restraining order, prohibiting the State of California from implementing Proposition 187, that would have denied most public services to illegal aliens.
November 19 – Malawi recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
November 20 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol.
November 27 – According to Chinese government official confirmed report, a Fuxin Yiyuan dance hall caught fire in Liaoning Province, China, killing 233 persons, another 71 persons were rescued.[citation needed]
The Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro catches fire in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia with nearly a thousand passengers and crew aboard. After unsuccessful attempts by the crew to extinguish the fire, the vessel is evacuated and sinks two days later. During the evacuation, two die and eight are wounded.
The National Football League announces that the Jacksonville Jaguars will become the league's 30th franchise.
December[]
December 1 – Ernesto Zedillo takes office as President of Mexico.
December 2 – The Australian government agrees to pay reparations to indigenous Australians who were displaced during the nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s.
Sony releases the PlayStation video game system in Japan; it will sell over 100 million units worldwide by the time it is discontinued in 2006.
Taiwan holds its first full local elections: James Soong is elected as the first and only directly elected Governor of Taiwan; Chen Shui-bian becomes the first direct elected Mayor of Taipei; Wu Den-yih becomes the first directly elected Mayor of Kaohsiung.
Russian president Boris Yeltsin orders troops into Chechnya.
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.
The trial of former President Mengistu begins in Ethiopia.
Fred West, 53, a builder living in Gloucester, UK, is remanded in custody, charged with murdering 12 people (including two of his own daughters) whose bodies are mostly found buried at his house in Cromwell Street. His wife Rosemary West, 41, is charged with 10 murders.
A Learjet piloted by Richard Anderson and Brad Sexton misses an elementary school and crashes into an apartment complex in Fresno, California, killing both pilots and injuring several apartment residents.
A runaway Santa Fe freight train rear ends a Union Pacific train at the bottom of Cajon Pass, California.
British Home Secretary Michael Howard announces that Myra Hindley will serve a whole life tariff for the Moors murders of the 1960s.
Construction commences on the Three Gorges Dam, at Sandouping, China.File:Netscape-1.0N.png
The Netscape Navigator web browser as it first appeared in December 1994
December 15 – The initial release of Netscape Navigator, a web browser that will control the majority of the usage share for web browsers for the rest of the 1990s.
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 prompts a US$50 billion "bailout" by the Clinton administration.
Civil unions between same-sex couples are legalized in Sweden.
This prompts a US$50 billion "bailout" by the Clinton Administration.
The Whitewater scandal investigation begins in Washington, D.C.
December 26 – French anti-terrorist police storm a hijacked jet at Marseille and kill 4 Islamist terrorists.
December 31 – This date is skipped by the Phoenix Islands to switch from the UTC−11time zone to UTC+13, and by the Line Islands to switch from UTC−10 to UTC+14. The latter becomes the earliest time zone in the world, one full day ahead of Hawaii.
Date unknown[]
Tropical Storm Alberto and Hurricane Gordon cause very damaging floods, intense winds and extensive problems directly over the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean islands. The death tolls are unusually severe and damages are extreme in both tropical storms.
Fundación Arco Iris – a Catholic NGO is founded in Bolivia.[5]
Pyroclastic flows – clouds of scalding gas, pumice, and ash – rapidly descend an erupting Mount Merapi volcano in central Java, causing sixty deaths.
Online serviceAmerica Online offers gateway to World Wide Web for the first time. This marked the beginning of easy accessibility of the Web to the average person in the U.S.
The population of Nigeria exceeds 100 million, making it the first African state to have a population above 100 million.
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences – Reinhard Selten, John Forbes Nash Jr., John Harsanyi
Templeton Prize[]
Michael Novak
Fields Medal[]
Efim Zelmanov, Pierre-Louis Lions, Jean Bourgain, Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
Right Livelihood Award[]
Astrid Lindgren, SERVOL (Service Volunteered for All), H. Sudarshan / VGKK (Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra), Ken Saro-Wiwa / MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People)
