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1995

Events of 1995

January

January 1 – The World Trade Organization (WTO) is established to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

January 1 – Austria, Finland & Sweden act to join the European Union.

January 1 – The Draupner wave in the North Sea in Norway is detected, confirming the existence of freak waves.

January 2 – The Most distant Galaxy yet discovered found by scientists using the Keck telescope in Hawaii (est. 15 billion light years away).

January 2 – Bus crashes in Luzon, Philippines, killing 29 people.

January 4 – The 104th United States Congress, the first controlled by Republicans in both houses since 1953 to 1955, convenes.

January 6–7 – 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 1 month later.

January 9 – Valeri Polyakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station, breaking a duration record.

January 16 – An avalanche hits the village Súðavík in Iceland, killing 14 people.

January 17 – A magnitude 7.3 earthquake called the "Great Hanshin earthquake" occurs near Kobe, Japan, causing great property damage and killing 6,434 people.

January 25 – Norwegian rocket incident: A rocket launched from the space exploration centre at Andøya, Norway is briefly interpreted by the Russians as an incoming attack.

January 29 – Super Bowl XXIX: The San Francisco 49ers become the first National Football League franchise to win 5 Super Bowls, as they defeat the San Diego Chargers at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, Florida.

January 30 – John Howard becomes leader of the Liberal Party of Australia to challenge Paul Keating for the 1996 Federal Election and the position of Prime Minister of Australia.

January 31 – U.S. President Bill Clinton invokes emergency powers, to extend a $20 billion loan to help Mexico avert financial collapse.

February

February 1 – Lyricist/guitarist Richey Edwards of the Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers goes missing from a hotel in Bayswater, London on the eve of a planned tour of the United States. His car is found 2 weeks later at Severn View services in Aust.

February 9 – STS-63: Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr. and Michael Foale become the first African American and Briton, respectively, to walk in space.

February 13 – A United Nations tribunal on human rights violations in the Balkans charges 21 Bosnian Serb commanders with genocide and crimes against humanity.

February 15 – Hacker Kevin Mitnick is arrested by the FBI and charged with breaking into some of the United States' most "secure" computer systems.

February 15 – Taiwan's deadliest fire, at a karaoke restaurant in Taichung, kills 64.

February 15 – In Dublin, a Republic of Ireland vs. England football match in Lansdowne Road is abandoned, due to violence and rioting.

February 17 – Colin Ferguson is convicted of 6 counts of murder for the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings and later receives a 200+ year sentence.

February 21 – Serkadji prison mutiny in Algeria: Four guards and 96 prisoners are killed in a day and a half.

February 21 – Ibrahim Ali, a 17-year-old Comorian living in France, is murdered by 3 far-right National Front activists.

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 23 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 30.28 to close at 4,003.33 – the Dow's first ever close above 4,000.

February 26 – The United Kingdom's oldest investment banking firm, Barings Bank, collapses after securities broker Nick Leeson loses $1.4 billion by speculating on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

February 27 – In Denver, Colorado, Stapleton Airport closes and is replaced by the new Denver International Airport, the largest in the United States.

February 28 – Members of the group Patriot's Council are convicted in Minnesota of manufacturing ricin.

March

March 1 – Polish Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak resigns from Parliament and is replaced by ex-communist Jozef Oleksy.

March 1 – In Moscow, Russian anti-corruption journalist Vladislav Listyev is killed by a gunman.

March 1 – Yahoo! is founded in Santa Clara, California.

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 6 – On an episode of The Jenny Jones Show ("Same-Sex Crushes"), Scott Amedure reveals a crush on his heterosexual friend Jonathan Schmitz. Schmitz kills Amedure several days after the show.

March 13 – David Daliberti and William Barloon, two Americans working for a military contractor in Kuwait, are arrested after straying into Iraq.

March 14 – Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American to ride into space aboard a Russian launch vehicle (the Soyuz TM-21), lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

March 16 – Mississippi ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The amendment was nationally ratified in 1865.

March 20 – Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Members of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult release sarin gas on 5 subway trains in Tokyo, killing 12 and injuring 5,510.

March 22 – Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns after setting a record for 438 days in outer space.

March 24 – For the first time in 26 years, no British soldiers patrol the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

March 26 – The Schengen Agreement, easing cross-border travel, goes into effect in several European countries.

March 27 – The 67th Academy Awards, hosted by David Letterman, are held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, with Forrest Gump winning Best Picture.

March 30 – A police officer tries to assassinate Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency of Japan.

March 31 – Tejano superstar Selena is killed by the president of her own fanclub, Yolanda Saldívar.

April

April 2 – An explosion in Gaza kills 8, including a Hamas leader.

April 5 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes 246–188 to cut taxes for individuals and corporations.

April 7 – House Republicans celebrate passage of most of the Contract with America.

April 19 – Oklahoma City bombing: 168 people, including 8 Federal Marshals and 19 children, are killed at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Timothy McVeigh and one of his accomplices, Terry Nichols, set off the bomb.

April 24 – A Unabomber bomb kills lobbyist Gilbert Murray in Sacramento, California.

April 28 – In Daegu, South Korea, a gas explosion at a subway construction site kills 101 persons, mostly teenage schoolboys.

May

May 1 – Jacques Chirac is elected president of France

May 7 – Finland wins the ice hockey world championship.

May 11 – More than 170 countries agree to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.

May 13 – An earthquake hits the regions of Kozani and Grevena in Greece, with an intensity of 6.6 on the Richter scale.

May 14 – The Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.

May 14 – Team New Zealand wins the America's Cup in San Diego, beating Stars and Stripes 5–0.

May 16 – Japanese police besiege the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo near Mount Fuji and arrest cult leader Shoko Asahara.

May 17 – Shawn Nelson, 35, goes on a tank rampage in San Diego.

May 20 – U.S. President Bill Clinton indefinitely closes part of the street in front of the White House, Pennsylvania Avenue, to vehicular traffic in response to the Oklahoma City bombing.

May 21 – Pope John Paul II canonizes John Sarkander during his visit to Olomouc, the Czech Republic.

May 23 – Oklahoma City bombing: In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building are imploded.

May 24 – AFC Ajax wins the UEFA Champions League in the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna by defeating AC Milan 0–1 by a goal of Patrick Kluivert. This was the third consecutive win of AFC Ajax over AC Milan that season, ranking AFC Ajax on the 4th place on the list of European Cup and UEFA Champions League winners.

May 25 – Egan v. Canada: The Supreme Court of Canada rules that discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

May 27 – In Culpeper, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.

May 28 – A 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Neftegorsk, Russia kills at least 2,000.

June

June 1 – The busiest hurricane season in 62 years begins.

June 2 &ndash Mrkonjić Grad incident: A United States Air Force F-16 piloted by Captain Scott O'Grady is shot down over Bosnia and Herzegovina while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone. O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines six days later.

June 2 – Waffen-SS Hauptsturmführer Erich Priebke is extradited from Argentina to Italy.

June 6 – U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard breaks NASA's space endurance record of 14 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes, aboard the Russian space station Mir.

June 13 – French President Jacques Chirac announces the resumption of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.

June 15 – During his murder trial, O.J. Simpson puts on a pair of gloves that were presumably worn by the person who murdered his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman.

June 15 – A powerful earthquake, registering a moment magnitude of 6.2, hits the city of Aigio, Greece, resulting in several deaths and significant damage to many buildings.

June 20 – Oil multinational Royal Dutch Shell caves in to international pressure and abandons plans to dump the Brent Spar oil rig at sea.

June 22 – Japanese police rescue 365 hostages from a hijacked All Nippon Airways Flight 857 (Boeing 747-200) at Hakodate airport. The hijacker was armed with a knife and demanded the release of Shoko Asahara.

Atlantis docked to Mir for the first time on June 29, 1995.

June 24 – The New Jersey Devils sweep the heavily favored Detroit Red Wings to win their first Stanley Cup in the lock-out shortened season.

June 24 – South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup.

June 29 – Lisa Clayton completes her 10-month solo circumnavigation from the Northern Hemisphere.

June 29 – STS-71: Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian Mir space station for the first time.

June 29 – The Sampoong Department Store collapses in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea, killing 501 and injuring 937.

June 29 – Iraq disarmament crisis: According to UNSCOM, the unity of the UN Security Council begins to fray, as a few countries, particularly France and Russia, become more interested in making financial deals with Iraq than in disarming the country.

July

The Taiwan Strait

Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to end all cooperation with UNSCOM and IAEA, if sanctions against the country are not lifted by August 31.

Midwestern United States heat wave: An unprecedented heat wave strikes the Midwestern United States for most of the month. Temperatures peak at , and remain above in the afternoon for 5 straight days. At least 739 people die in Chicago 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 4 – UK Prime Minister John Major wins his battle to remain leader of the Conservative Party.

July 5 – The U.S. Congress passes the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, requiring that producers of pornography keep records of all models who are filmed or photographed, and that all models be at least 18 years of age.

July 10 – Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi is freed from house arrest.

July 11 – Bosnian Serbs march into Srebrenica while UN Dutch peacekeepers leave. Large numbers of Bosniak men and boys are killed in the Srebrenica massacre.

July 13 – Dozens of cities, most notably Chicago and Milwaukee, set all-time record high temperatures. Hundreds in these and other cities die as the Chicago Heat Wave of 1995 reaches its peak.

July 17 – The Nasdaq Composite index closes above the 1,000 mark for the first time.
July 21–26 – Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army fires missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
July 23 – David Daliberti and William Barloon, 2 Americans held as spies by Iraq, are released by Saddam Hussein after negotiations with U.S. Congressman Bill Richardson.
July 27 – In Washington, DC, the Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated.
Iraq disarmament crisis: Following the defection of his son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, 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
August 4 – Croatian forces launch Operation Storm against Serbian forces in Krajina, with the cooperation of the ARBiH, and force them to withdraw to central Bosnia and Herzegovina.
August 5 – Croatian forces take Knin and continue to advance.
August 6 – Hundreds in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo mark the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb.
August 7 – Operation Storm ends with a UN-brokered ceasefire; remaining Serbian forces start surrendering.
August 11 – The Russell Hill subway accident results in 3 deaths and 30 injuries in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
August 14 – An avalanche buries Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen; she is reported dead.
August 24 – Microsoft releases Windows 95.
August 28 – A Serbian mortar bomb near a Sarajevo market square kills 37 civilians.
August 29 – Eduard Shevardnadze, the Georgian head of state, survives an assassination attempt in Tbilisi.
August 30 – The NATO bombing campaign against Serb artillery positions begins in Bosnia and Herzegovina, continuing into October. At the same time, ARBiH forces begin an offensive against the Bosnian Serb Army around Sarajevo, central Bosnia, and Bosnian Krajina.
September
September – The DVD, an optical disc computer storage media format, is announced.
September – The European Parliament elects the first European Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, who takes up office in September 1995.
September 4 – eBay is founded.
September 4 – The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing with over 4,750 delegates from 181 countries in attendance.
September 6 – NATO air strikes continue, after repeated attempts at a solution with the Serbs fail.
September 6 – Cal Ripken Jr of the Baltimore Orioles breaks the all time consecutive games played record in MLB.

September 19 – The Washington Post and The New York Times publish the Unabomber's manifesto.

September 22 – American millionaire Steve Forbes announces his candidacy for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination.

September 23 – Argentine national Guillermo "Bill" Gaede is arrested in Phoenix, Arizona on charges of industrial espionage. His sales to Cuba, China, North Korea and Iran are believed to have involved Intel and AMD trade secrets worth USD$10–20 million.

September 26 – The trial against former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, who is accused of Mafia connections, begins.

September 27–28 – Bob Denard's mercenaries capture President Said Mohammed Djohor of the Comoros; the local army does not resist.

October

October 1 – Ten people are convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993.

October 3 – O.J. Simpson is found not guilty of double murder for the deaths of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

October 4 – France launches a counter-coup in the Comoros with 600 soldiers. They arrest Bob Denard and his mercenaries and take Denard to France; Caabi el-Yachroutu becomes the interim president.

October 4 – Hurricane Opal makes landfall at Pensacola Beach, FL as a Category 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds.

October 6 – Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz announce the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first confirmed Extrasolar planet.

October 9 – 1995 Palo Verde derailment: An Amtrak Sunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde, Arizona.

October 15 – The Carolina Panthers win their first-ever regular season game by defeating the New York Jets at Clemson Memorial Stadium in South Carolina.

October 16 – The Million Man March is held in Washington, D.C.. The event was conceived by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

October 17- French woman Jeanne Calment reaches the confirmed age of 120 years and 238 days, making her the oldest person ever recorded.

October 23 – In Houston, Texas, Yolanda Saldivar is convicted of first degree murder in the shooting death of Selena Quintanilla Perez and 3 days later is sentenced to life in prison.

October 24 – A total solar eclipse is visible from Iran, India, Thailand, and Southeast Asia.

October 25 – A Metra commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing 7 students.

October 26 – An avalanche hits the village Flateyri in Iceland, killing 20 people.

October 28 – Fire breaks out on a crowded metro train in Baku, Azerbaijan, killing more than 300 passengers (the world's worst metro disaster).

October 30 – Quebec independantists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada.

November

November 1 – NASA loses contact with the Pioneer 11 probe.

November 1 – Participants in the Yugoslav War begin negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

November 1 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes to ban partial birth abortions by a vote of 288–139.

November 2 – The Supreme Court of Argentina orders the extradition of Erich Priebke, ex-S.S. captain.

November 3 – At Arlington National Cemetery, U.S. President Bill Clinton dedicates a memorial to the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.

November 4 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

November 10 – Iraq disarmament crisis: With help from Israel and Jordan, UNSCOM inspector Scott 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 8 others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, are hanged by government forces.

November 12 – The Millbrook Commonwealth Action Programme, a programme to implement the Harare Declaration, is announced by the Commonwealth Heads of Government.

November 14 – A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the Congress of the United States, forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums, and run most government offices with skeleton staff.

November 16 – A United Nations tribunal charges Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladic with genocide during the Bosnian War.

November 21 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 40.46 to close at 5,023.55, its first close above 5,000. This makes 1995 the first year where the Dow surpasses 2 millennium marks in a single year.

November 21 – The Dayton Agreement to end the Bosnian War is reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio (signed December 14).

November 22 – Rosemary West is sentenced to life for killing 10 women and girls, including her daughter and stepdaughter, after the jury returns a guilty verdict at Winchester Crown Court. The trial judge recommends that she should never be released from prison, making her only the second woman in British legal history to be subjected to a whole life tariff (the other is Myra Hindley).

November 22 – Six-year-old Elisa Izquierdo's child abuse-related death at the hands of her mother makes headlines, and instigates major reform in New York City's child welfare system.

November 22 – Egypt, Eilat, Israel, and much of the North African Mediterranean is struck by the strongest earthquake (7.2 $M_\mathrm{w}$ ) along the Dead Sea Transform in a century; 8 are killed.

November 22 – The first ever full length computer animated feature film "Toy Story" was released by Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures.

November 28 – The Barcelona Treaty is signed by 27 attending nations.

November 28 – U.S. President Bill Clinton signs the National Highway Designation Act, which ends the federal 55 mph speed limit.

November 30 – Javier Solana becomes the new NATO General Secretary; Operation Desert Storm officially ends.

December

Strikes paralyze France's public sector.

December 7 – NASA's Galileo probe reenters over Jupiter.

December 8 – Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffers a massive stroke and lapses into a coma.

December 14 – The Dayton Agreement is signed in Paris.

December 15 – The European Court of Justice rules that all EU football players have the right to a free transfer among member states at the end of their contracts.

December 15 – Because of the "quadruple-witching" option expiration, volume on the New York Stock Exchange hits 638 million shares, the highest single-day volume since October 20, 1987, when the Dow staged a stunning recovery a day after Black Monday.

December 16 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi scuba divers, under the direction of the United Nations Special Commission, dredge the Tigris near Baghdad. The divers find over 200 prohibited Russian-made missile instruments and components.

December 20 – American Airlines Flight 965 (Boeing 757) crashes into a mountain near Buga, Valle del Cauca, Colombia after veering off its course en route to Cali, Colombia. Of the 164 people on board, four passengers and a dog are the only survivors.

December 30 – The lowest ever United Kingdom temperature of -27.2°C is recorded at Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands. This equals the record set at Braemar, Aberdeenshire in 1895 and 1982.