1995 - Definition and Overview

1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. It was the first year of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2005): http://www.unesco.org/culture/indigenous/

Events

January

• January 1 - Austria, Finland and Sweden enter the European Union
• January 1 - Fred West, accused of mass murder, hangs himself in Winson Green Prison, Birmingham
• January 1 - World Trade Organization is established to replace GATT
• January 2 - Former President of Somalia, Siyad Barre died. He had been ousted in 1991.
• January 6 to January 7 - A chemical fire occurs in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines. Policemen led by watch commander Aida Fariscal and investigators find a bomb factory and a laptop computer and disks that contain plans for Project Bojinka, a mass-terrorist attack. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, is arrested one month later
• January 9 - Valeri Poliakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station breaking a duration record
• January 17 - A magnitude 7.3 earthquake called "the Great Hanshin earthquake" occurs near Kōbe, Japan, causing great property damage and killing 6,433 people
• January 24 - The prosecution delivers its opening statement in the O. J. Simpson murder trial
• January 31 - United States President Bill Clinton invokes emergency powers to extend a $20 billion loan to help Mexico avert financial collapse.

February

• February 9 - Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr. makes history as the first African American astronaut to walk in space.
• February 13 - United Nations tribunal on human rights violation in the Balkans charges 21 Bosnian Serb commanders with genocide and crimes against humanity
• February 15 - Hacking: Kevin Mitnick is arrested by the FBI and charged him with breaking into some of the United States' most "secure" computers systems.
• February 17 - Colin Ferguson is convicted of six counts of murder for the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings and later receives a 200+ year sentence
• February 21 - Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon
• February 26 - The United Kingdom's oldest investment banking firm, Barings Bank collapses after a securities broker Nick Leeson has lost $1.4 billion by speculating on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
• February 27 - In Denver, Colorado, the old Stapleton Airport closes: it is replaced by a new Denver International Airport, the largest airport in the United States.

March

• March 1 - Attack Submarine USS-Seahorse (now ex-Seahorse SSN-669) starts to be deactivated
• March 1 - Polish Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak resigns from parliament and is replaced by ex-communist Jozef Oleksy
• March 1 - Daniel Sleator announces his intentions to commercialize the Internet Chess Server (ICS) himself, renames it the Internet Chess Club, or ICC, and charges a yearly membership fee of $49 to howls of protest
• March 1 - R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry leaves the stage during a Switzerland concert after suffering a brain aneurysm, which requires immediate surgery
• March 1 - Muntinlupa City, Philippines officially becomes a city.
• March 1 - In Moscow, Russian anti-corruption journalist Vladislav Listyev is killed by a gunman.
• March 2 - Nick Leeson is arrested for his role in the collapse of Barings Bank.
• March 3 - In Somalia, the United Nations peacekeeping mission ends.
• March 14 - Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American to ride to space on-board a Russian launch vehicle.
• March 20 - Terrorist incident: Members of the Aum Supreme Truth release sarin gas in the Tokyo on five separate subway trains killing 12 and injuring around 5,500; see: Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.
• March 22 - Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns after setting a record for 438 days in space. Also, the Schengen treaty comes into force.
• March 24 - For the first time in twenty years, no British soldiers patrol the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

April-May

• April 19 - Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma city was bombed. 168 people, including 8 Federal Marshals, were killed.
• May 5 - AFC Ajax beat AC Milan 1-0 and win the Champions League.
• May 7 - Jacques Chirac elected president of France.
• May 11 - In New York City, more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
• May 14 - The Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the eleventh reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.
• May 16 - Japanese police besieges the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo near Mount Fuji and arrest cult leader Shoko Asahara.
• May 17 - Jacques Chirac assumes the presidency of France .
• May 23 - The Java programming language was announced to the world.
• May 23 - Oklahoma City bombing: In Oklahoma City the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building are imploded.
• May 25 - Egan v. Canada - Supreme Court of Canada rules that sexual orientation is a prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
• May 27 - In Charlottesville, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
• May 28 - Neftegorsk, Russia is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake killing at least 2000 people (2/3rd of the towns population).

June

• June 1 - The busiest hurricane season in 62 years begins. (see 1995 Atlantic hurricane season).
• June 2 - United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone. O'Grady survives on bugs and grass until he is rescued.
• June 5 - Bose-Einstein condensate created.
• June 8 - Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.
• June 13 - French president Jacques Chirac announces the resumption of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.
• June 15 - While on trial for murder, O.J. Simpson put on a pair of gloves that were found soaked with blood at the murder scene. The gloves appear to not fit.
• June 24 - The New Jersey Devils sweep the Detroit Red Wings in 4 games in the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals.
• June 29 - Lisa Clayton completes her 10-month solo circumnavigation from the northern hemisphere
• Summer - Iraq disarmament crisis: According to UNSCOM, the unity of the UN Security Council begins to fray, as a few countries, particularly France and Russia, are starting to become increasingly more interested in making financial deals with Iraq than disarming the country.

July

• Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to end all cooperation with UNSCOM and IAEA, if sanctions against the country are not lifted by Thursday, August 31, 1995
• Midwestern United States heat wave: An unprecedented heat wave strikes the Midwestern United States for most of the month. Temperatures exceed 104°F (40°C) in the afternoon in numerous cities for 5 straight days. At least 3000 people die, 750 in Chicago, Illinois alone.
• July 1 - Iraq disarmament crisis: In response to UNSCOM's evidence, Iraq admits for first time the existence of an offensive biological weapons program, but denies weaponization.
• July 8 - Volcanic eruption begins in the island of Montserrat
• July 11 - Bosnian Serbs march into Srebrenica and force UN Dutch peacekeepers to leave. A massacre follows
• July 17 - The Nasdaq stock index closes above the 1,000 mark for the first time.
• July 17 - Dozens of citites, most notably Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, set all-time record high temperatures. Hundreds in these and other cities die as the July 1995 heat wave reaches its peak.
• July 21 to July 26 - Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army fires missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
• July 27 - In Washington, DC, the Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated
• July 28 - Network Solutions announces a new policy to help companies protect their trademarks on the Internet.
• Iraq disarmament crisis: Following the defection of his son-in-law, Hussein Kamel al Majid, minister of industry and military industrialisation, Saddam Hussein makes new revelations about the full extent of Iraq's biological and nuclear weapons programs. Iraq also withdraws its last UN declaration of prohibited biological weapons and turns over a large amount of new documents on its WMD programs.

August-September

• August 4 - Croatians launch Operation Storm against Serbian forces in Krajina and force them to withdraw to Bosnia
• August 5 - Croatian forces take Knin and continue to advance
• August 7 - Operation Storm over, UN-brokered ceasefire, remaining Serbian forces start a surrender
• August 14 - Avalanche buries Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen - reported dead August 18
• August 14 - Microsoft releases the Windows 95 operating system.
• August 30 - NATO bombing campaign against Serb artillery positions begins in Bosnia - continues into October
• September 2 - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opens in Cleveland, Ohio
• September 4 - The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing with over 4,750 delegates from 181 countries in attendance.
• September 6 - With the jury absent, Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman invokes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson
• September 6 - NATO air strikes continue after repeated attempts at a solution with the Serbs fail
• September 8 - Timon And Pumbaa Launches On the major television networks
• September 26 - Trial against former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, accused of Mafia connections, begins.

October

• October 1 - 10 people are found guilty for bombing the World Trade Center in 1994
• October 4 - O. J. Simpson is found not guilty of double murder for the deaths of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. (He would be found liable in a second civil trial in 1996)
• October 9 - Sabotage causes the derailing of Amtrak Sunset Limited.
• October 16 - The Million Man March is held in Washington D.C.. The event was conceived by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
• October 21 - Shannon Hoon,lead singer of Blind Melon dies of a cocaine overdose while on tour.
• October 25 - A Metra commuter train slammed into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students.
• October 28 - The Atlanta Braves win the World Series, defeating the Cleveland Indians four games to two.
• October 30 - Quebec separatists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada
• October 31 - Oingo Boingo performs their farewell show at the Universal Amphitheater in Universal City, California.

November

• November 1 - Participants of the Yugoslavian war begin negotiations in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, USA
• November 2 - Supreme Court of Argentina orders extradition of Erich Priebke, ex-SS captain
• November 3 - At Arlington National Cemetery, US President Bill Clinton dedicates a memorial to the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing
• November 4 - After attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings Square, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is mortally wounded by a right-wing Israeli gunman. (He later died on the operating table at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv)
• November 10 - Iraq disarmament crisis: With help from Israel and Jordan, UN inspector Ritter intercepts 240 Russian gyroscopes and accelerometers on their way to Iraq from Russia
• November 10 - In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa along with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) are hanged by government forces
• November 14 - A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and run most government offices with skeleton staff
• November 16 - UN tribunal charges Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic with genocide
• November 17 - Public Radio International's radio program This American Life broadcasts its first episode, "New Beginnings"
• November 20 - The European Union and Israel enter into a comprehensive "Treaty of Association" negotiated and signed by Javier Solana and Shimon Peres. The signing occurs in Brussels, November 20, 1995.
• November 21 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 5,000 (5,023.55) for the first time
• November 22 - Rosemary West is sentenced for life of killing 10 women and girls, including her daughter and stepdaughter
• November 22 - Eilat, Israel, Egypt, and much of the North African Mediterranean is struck by the strongest earthquake in Israel's history - 7.2 mw. Curiously, within a week there is attempted historical revisionism downwards to 6.2 with Gulf of Aqaba architects and engineers holding the bag for alleged 'shoddy construction'. A 6.2 mw earthquake is only 1/100th the magnitude of a 7.2 quake.
• November 27 - Javier Solana opens Barcelona Conference. Its reported advance aims are battling religious fundamentalism, worldwide; creating a free trade zone in the Mediterranean by the year 2010; and reducing the USA's presence in the Mediterranean. USA is granted 'observer status only.'
• November 28 - Barcelona Treaty signed by 27 attending nations
• November 28 - US President Bill Clinton signs a highway bill that ends the federal 55 mph speed limit.
• November 30 - Javier Solana is unanimously picked as surprise dark horse candidate to be new head of NATO. Fifty two USA congress members send telegram to White House objecting because of Solana's previous alleged pro-Castro policies in his position as Spanish foreign minister.

December

• December 14 - The Dayton Peace Agreement signed in Paris.
• December 16 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi scuba divers, under the direction of UNSCOM, dredge the Tigris River near Baghdad. The divers find over 200 prohibited Russian made missile instruments and components.
• December 28 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors..
• December 31 - The publication of the last new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip.
• Republic of Texas (group) claim to form a provisional government in Texas.

Unknown dates

• The Ebola virus kills 244 Africans in Kikwit, Zaire in Central Africa.
• Creed (band) formed.
• Audi A4 automobile goes on sale as a 1996 model.

Births

• May 12 - Jean Carlos Chera, Brazilian football prodigy
• May 12 - Sawyer Sweeten, actor
• May 12 - Sullivan Sweeten, actor
• December 25 - Hailie Jade Mathers, daughter of rapper Eminem

Deaths

January-February

• January 1 - Fred West, serial killer
• January 7 - Murray Rothbard, American economist
• January 9 - Peter Cook, comedian, satirist and writer
• January 22 - Rose Kennedy, matriarch of the Kennedy family
• January 30 - Gerald Durrell naturalist, zookeeper, author and television presenter
• January 31 - George Abbott, writer, director, producer
• February 2 - Donald Pleasence, actor
• February 2 - Fred Perry, 85, tennis player, 3 time Wimbledon champion
• February 4 - Patricia Highsmith, author
• February 12 - Robert Bolt, writer (born 1924)
• February 21 - Calder Willingham, writer

March-June

• March 3 - Howard W. Hunter, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1907)
• March 5 - Vivian Stanshall, comedian, writer, artist, broadcaster, musician, performer, frontman for Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
• March 12 - Juanin Clay, actress
• March 13 - Leon Day, baseballer
• March 13 - Odette Sansom, SOE agent, WW II heroine
• March 26 - Eazy-E, rapper
• March 27 - Maurizio Gucci
• March 31 - Selena Quintanilla Perez, singer
• April 14 - Burl Ives singer (b. 1909)
• April 23 - Howard Cosell, sportscaster
• April 25 - Ginger Rogers, actress, dancer
• May 5 - Mikhail Botvinnik, chess player
• May 15 - Eric Porter, actor
• May 18 - Elisha Cook Jr., actor
• May 18 - Alexander Godunov, ballet dancer, actor
• May 18 - Elizabeth Montgomery, actress
• May 26 - Friz Freleng, animator
• June 12 - Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Italian pianist (b. 1920)
• June 20 - Emil Cioran, Romanian-born French philosopher and essayist
• June 30 - Georgi Beregovoi, cosmonaut

July-December

• July 4 - Eva Gabor, actress
• July 17 - Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentinian race car driver (b. 1911)
• August 3 - Edward Whittemore, American writer and CIA agent
• August 7 - Brigid Brophy, British writer
• August 9 - Jerry Garcia, musician and lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead
• August 13 - Mickey Mantle, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1931)
• August 19 - Pierre Schaeffer, composer and pioneer of musique concrète
• August 30 - Sterling Morrison, guitarist of The Velvet Underground
• September 15 - Gunnar Nordahl, 73, Swedish footballer, 2nd highest Serie A goalscorer of all-time (b. 1921)
• October 26 - Gorni Kramer, Italian bandleader and songwriter
• November 4 - Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister
• November 21 - Noel Jones, British diplomat
• December 2 - Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist
• December 30 - Doris Grau, actress, script supivisor and voice actress

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Martin L. Perl, Frederick Reines
• Chemistry - Paul J. Crutzen, Mario J. Molina, F. Sherwood Rowland
• Medicine - Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Eric Wieschaus
• Literature - Seamus Heaney

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

• Robert Lucas Jr

Right Livelihood Award

• András Biró / Hungarian Foundation for Self-Reliance, The Serb Civic Council (SCC), Carmel Budiardjo / TAPOL and Sulak Sivaraksa