1993

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

Years: 1990 1991 1992 - 1993 - 1994 1995 1996
Decades: 1960s 1970s 1980s - 1990s - 2000s 2010s 2020s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century 1993 in aviation 1993 in film 1993 in literature 1993 in music 1993 in sports 1993 in television 1993 in Canada

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
January 19 - 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)
January 25 - 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 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]
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 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 fourth 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 15 - Betty Boothroyd is the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons
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.