1993 - Definition and Overview

1993 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003)

Events

January

• January 1 - Czechoslovakia divides. Establishment of independent Slovakia and Czech Republic.
• January 3 - In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
• January 5 - Washington State executes Westley Allan Dodd by hanging (the first legal hanging in America since 1965)
• January 9 – Jean-Claude Romand kills his family and tries to burn himself with his home in France
• January 18 - For the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is officially observed in all 50 United States states.
• January 19
  • IBM announces a $4.97 billion loss for 1992 which is the largest single-year corporate loss in United States history
  • Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq refuses to allow UNSCOM inspectors to use its own aircraft to fly into Iraq, and begins military operations in the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait, and the northern No-Fly Zone. US forces fire approximately 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Baghdad factories linked to Iraq's illegal nuclear weapons program. Iraq then informs UNSCOM that it will be able to resume its flights
• January 20 - Bill Clinton succeeds George H. W. Bush as President of the United States of America
• January 25
  • Catherine Callbeck becomes Premier of Prince Edward Island, becoming the first female Premier to be elected in Canada. (Rita Johnston was Canada's first female Premier)
  • A gunman kills two employees outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia
• January 26 - Václav Havel elected President of the Czech Republic

February

• February 8 - General Motors sues NBC after Dateline NBC allegedly rigged two crashes showing that some GM pickups can easily catch fire if hit in certain places. NBC settled the lawsuit the next day
• February 11 - Irina Privalova runs a world indoor record over 60 meters
• February 11 - Janet Reno is selected by President Clinton as US Attorney General.
• February 12 - Boys Robert Thompson and John Venables kill 2-year-old James Bulger
• February 23 - Gary Coleman wins a $1,280,000 lawsuit against his parents
• February 26 - World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a van bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center goes off, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand
• February 28 - Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest cult leader David Koresh on federal firearms violations. Four agents and five Davidians die in the raid and a 51-day standoff begins.

March

• March 1 - Pet Lamb releases EP Paranoid from the Neck Down
• March 4 - Authorities announce the capture of suspected World Trade Center bombing conspirator Mohammad Salameh
• March 9 - Rodney King testifies at the federal trial of four Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating King's civil rights when they beat him during an arrest
• March 11 - Janet Reno is confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn-in the next day becoming the first female Attorney General of the United States
• March 12 - Several bombs explode in Bombay, India killing about 300 and injuring hundreds more
• March 12 - North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea says that it plans to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and refuses to allow inspectors access to nuclear sites
• March 13 - The Great Blizzard of 1993 strikes the eastern U.S., bringing record snowfall and other severe weather all the way from Cuba to Québec
• March 16 - The blizzard is reported to have killed 184, including many surprised and stranded people along the Appalachian Trail
• March 20 - IRA bomb explodes in Warrington Town Centre and kills two children; Jonathan Ball and Tim Parry
• March 22 - The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips (80586) 64 bits-60 MHz-100+ MIPS.
• March 27 - Jiang Zemin becomes President of the People's Republic of China.
• March 28 - Gaullists win legislative election in France and Édouard Balladur becomes prime minister of France.
• March 31 - A bug in a program written by Richard Depew sends an article to 200 newsgroups simultaneously. The term spamming is coined by Joel Furr to describe the incident.

April

• April - The Kuwaiti government claims to uncover an Iraqi assassination plot against former US President George H. W. Bush shortly after his visit to Kuwait. Two Iraqi nationals, caught with smuggled hashish and alcohol inside Kuwait, confess to driving a car-bomb into Kuwait on behalf of the Iraq Secret Service [1] (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?020930fr_archive02)
• April 6 - Russian nuclear accident at Tomsk 7
• April 7 - Attack submarine ex-Queenfish completes being recycled
• April 10 -ANC activist Chris Hani assassinated in South Africa
• April 22 - In Washington, DC, the Holocaust Memorial Museum is dedicated
• April 22 - Murder of Stephen Lawrence, London, UK
• April 22 - Release of version 1.0 of the Mosaic web browser
• April 23 - WHO Declares tuberculosis a Global Emergency
• April 24 - Bishopsgate Bomb explodes in the City of London - 1 dead, 50 injured

May

• May 1 - Former prime minister of France Pierre Bérégovoy commits suicide
• May 1 - A suicide bomber assassinates President Premadasa of Sri Lanka
• May 24 - Eritrean independence
• May 27 - A car bomb in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence - 5 dead - Mafia suspected

June

• June 6 - Mongolia holds its first direct presidential elections
• June 8 - Assassination of Rene Bousquet, the Vichy France police chief, at his Paris home
• June 9 – Los Angeles Police Department raids the home of Hollywood Madame Heidi Fleiss
• June 9 - The Montreal Canadiens def the Los Angeles Kings 4 games to 1 in the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals.
• June 14? - Tansu Ciller becomes prime minister of Turkey
• June 18 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq refuses to allow UNSCOM weapons inspectors to install remote-controlled monitoring cameras at two missile engine test stands.
• June 22 - Japan's New Party Sakigake breaks away from the Liberal Democratic Party.
• June 23 - Lorena Bobbitt cuts off the penis of her husband John Wayne Bobbitt.
• June 25 - Kim Campbell becomes Canada's nineteenth and first female Prime Minister
• June 27 - US President Bill Clinton orders a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in the Al-Mansur District, Baghdad, in response to the attempted assassination of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush during his visit to Kuwait in mid-April

July

• July 5 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UN inspection teams leave Iraq. Iraq then agrees to UNSCOM demands and the inspection teams return
• July 12 - A magnitude 7.8 earthquake off Hokkaido, Japan launches a devastating tsunami, killing 202 on the small island of Okushiri
• July 20 - White House deputy counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr commits suicide in Virginia
• July 23 - Candelaria Massacre ? Brazilian police officers kill 8 street kids in Rio de Janeiro
• July 25 - Alain Prost, driving a Renault-powered Williams, wins his 10th and final world drivers championship by winning the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring
• July 29 - The Israeli Supreme Court acquits accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he is set free.

August

• August 4 - A federal judge sentences LAPD officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights
• August 6 - Louis Freeh is confirmed by the United States Senate to be the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
• August 9 - King Albert II of Belgium is sworn into office nine days after the death of his brother, King Baudouin
• August 21 - NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Observer orbiter three days before the spacecraft is scheduled to enter orbit around Mars

September

• September 13 - PLO leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands in Washington D.C., after signing a peace accord.
• September 29 - An earthquake centred on Killari, Maharashtra, India kills nearly 10,000 people.

October

• October 3 - Large scale battle between US forces and local militia in Mogadishu, Somalia
• October 13 - Andreas Papandreou begins his second term as Prime Minister of Greece.

November

• November 1 - The Maastricht Treaty activates, formally establishing the European Union
• November 4 - Jean Chrétien becomes Canada's twentieth Prime Minister.
• November 9 - The Stari Most bridge, or Old Bridge of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is destroyed by tank fire while fighting units of the Republika Srpska.
• November 18 - In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution.
• November 20 - Savings and Loan scandal: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
• November 24 - In the United Kingdom, 11-year olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables are convicted of the child murder of 2-year-old James Bulger of Liverpool (they were sentenced to "indefinite detention")
• November 28 - The Observer reveals a channel of communications has existed between the IRA and the British government
• November 30 - US President Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill) into law

December

• December 2 - Shuttle program: STS-61 - NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair an optical flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.
• December 2 - War on Drugs: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is gunned down in Medellín when police tries to arrest him
• December 12 - Earthquake hits Flores, Indonesia - 2200 dead
• December 15 - Downing Street Declaration - United Kingdom commits itself to the search for an answer to the problems of Northern Ireland
• December 30 - Israel and the Vatican establish diplomatic relations

unknown dates

• The second World Parliament of Religions is held in Chicago
• US President Bill Clinton sends 6 American warships to Haiti to enforce United Nations trade sanctions against the military-led regime in that country
• The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers flood large portions of the American Midwest.

Year in topic

• 1993 in film
  • February 12 - Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray
  • June 11 - Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg
  • June 18 - Last Action Hero starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Austin O'Brien
  • June 25 - Sleepless in Seattle starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan
  • August 6 - The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones
  • October 8 - Demolition Man starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, and Sandra Bullock
  • October 8 - Gettysburg starring Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee, Tom Berenger as Gen. James Longstreet, and Jeff Daniels as Col. Joshua Chamberlain
  • November 24 - Mrs. Doubtfire starring Robin Williams
  • December 22 - Philadelphia starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington
  • Schindler's List, directed by Steven Spielberg
  • The Piano
• 1993 in literature
• 1993 in music
  • February 11 - Howard Stern's radio show begins transmitting to Rochester NY
• 1993 in rail transport
  • August 27 - The Green Bay and Western and the Fox River Valley Railroad are merged into a new Wisconsin Central subsidiary, the Fox Valley and Western Railroad.
• 1993 in sports
  • January 31 - Super Bowl XXVII Dallas Cowboys (52) def. Buffalo Bills (17)
  • March 5 - Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson is banned from international competition for life after testing positive for banned substances for the second time.
  • April 1 - Defending NASCAR Winston Cup champion Alan Kulwicki is killed in a plane crash while on his way to a race in Bristol, Tennessee.
  • April 30 - During a changeover at a tennis tournament in Hamburg, Germany, Monica Seles is stabbed in the back by a deranged fan of rival Steffi Graf. Seles would not play competitively for more than two years after the incident.
  • June 7 - Croatian basketball star Drazen Petrovic, emerging as a superstar for the NBA's New Jersey Nets, is killed in an off-season auto accident in Germany.
  • Michael Jordan retires from Basketball to play minor league baseball. (He would later return to basketball in 1995.)
• 1993 in television
  • August 19 - The television sitcom, Cheers ends an 11-year run on NBC (the show debuted on September 30, 1982).
  • The Late Show with David Letterman premieres on CBS
  • Beavis and Butt-head begins airing on MTV.
• 1993 in video games and computing
  • September 23 - Sonic the Hedgehog CD is released for the Sega Mega-CD in Japan.
  • November 19 - Sonic CD is released for the Sega CD in North America.
  • December 10 - Shareware version of Doom is released for the PC.

Deaths

January

• January 6 - Dizzy Gillespie, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1917)
• January 6 - Rudolf Nureyev, Russian ballet dancer
• January 15 - Sammy Cahn, songwriter
• January 17 - Albert Hourani, historian
• January 20 - Audrey Hepburn, actress
• January 21 - Charlie Gehringer, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1903)
• January 22 - Abe Kobo, writer
• January 23 - Thomas Dorsey, gospel music singer
• January 24 - Thurgood Marshall, United States Supreme Court justice
• January 26 - Jeanne Sauvé, Governor-General of Canada
• January 27 - André the Giant, professional wrestler, actor

February

• February 5 - Joseph L. Mankiewicz, writer, producer, director
• February 5 - Tip Tipping, American movie actor, stunt (parachuting accident) (b. 1958)
• February 6 - Arthur Ashe, tennis star, social activist
• February 6 - Joseph Mankiewicz, director, producer, writer
• February 11 - Joy Garrett, actress
• February 11 - George A Stephen, inventor
• February 12 - James Bulger, murdered British toddler
• February 20 - Ferrucio Lamborghini, automobile manufacturer
• February 24 - Bobby Moore, English footballer
• February 27 - Lillian Gish, actress
• February 28 - Ruby Keeler, actress, singer, dancer

March

• March 8 - Billy Eckstine, jazz musician
• March 17 - Helen Hayes, actress
• March 24 - John Hersey, author

April

• April 1 - Alan Kulwicki, NASCAR driver (b. 1954)
• April 3 - Pinky Lee, children's television host
• April 8 - Marian Anderson, contralto (b. 1897)

May

• May 1 - Pierre Bérégovoy, Prime Minister of France
• May 8 - Avram Davidson, science fiction writer

June

• June 7 - Drazen Petrovic, basketball star, New Jersey Nets, considered by many Croatia's greatest player ever, Basketball Hall of Famer (b. 1964)
• June 13 - Deke Slayton, astronaut (b. 1924)
• June 15 - John Connally, Governor of Texas (b. 1917)
• June 24 - Archie Williams, American athlete
• June 26 - William H. Riker, political scientist
• June 28 - Boris Christoff, Bulgarian opera singer (b. 1914)
• June 29 - Héctor Lavoe, salsa music singer
• June 30 - George "Spanky" McFarland, actor

July

• July 3 - Don Drysdale, major league baseball pitcher
• July 13 - Davey Allison, NASCAR driver
• July 28 - Reggie Lewis, basketball player, Boston Celtics
• July 31 - Baudouin, king of Belgium

August

• August 6 - Tex Hughson, Major League Baseball player (b. 1916)
• August 10 - Øystein Aarseth, musician

September

• September 9 - Helen O'Connell, Big-band singer (b. 1920)
• September 11 - Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian conductor (b. 1912)
• September 22 - Maurice Abravanel, Greek-born Swiss conductor (b. 1903)
• September 27 - Jimmy Doolittle American World War II general

October

• October 11 - Jess Thomas, American tenor (b. 1927)
• October 31 - Federico Fellini, Italian film director
• October 31 - River Phoenix, actor

November

• November 12 - H. R. Haldeman, central figure in the Watergate scandal
• November 21 - Bill Bixby, television actor
• November 25 - Anthony Burgess, author

December

• December 1 - Ray Gillen, American rock singer (b. 1961)
• December 2 - Pablo Escobar, drug lord
• December 4 - Frank Zappa, American rock musician
• December 31 - Zviad Gamsakhurdia, scientist and writer, first President of the Republic of Georgia
• December 31 - Oksana Kostina, Russian gymnast.

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Russell Alan Hulse, Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr.
• Chemistry - Kary Mullis, Michael Smith
• Medicine - Richard J. Roberts, Phillip A Sharp
• Literature - Toni Morrison
• Peace - Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk

Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

• Robert Fogel, Douglas North

Alternative

• Arna Mer-Khamis / Care and Learning, ORAP (The Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress) / Sithembiso Nyoni, Vandana Shiva, Mary and Carrie Dann