Return to home1991 Jan 1,
President Bush called top advisers to the White House for a fresh
assessment of the Persian Gulf crisis.
1991 Jan 2, Sharon Pratt Dixon
was sworn in as mayor of Washington, D.C., becoming the first black
woman to head a city of Washington's size and prominence.
1991 Jan 2, European, Soviet
and Arab officials pushed for talks to avert war with Iraq.
1991 Jan 3, The 102nd Congress
convened, plunging immediately into acrimonious debate over the
Persian Gulf crisis. President Bush proposed direct talks between
Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third and Iraqi Foreign
Minister Tariq Aziz.
1991 Jan 4, With a week and
a-half left before a U-N deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait,
Iraq agreed to hold its first high-level talks with the United
States since the start of the Persian Gulf crisis.
1991 Jan 4, Charles Stuart,
who’d claimed to have been wounded and his pregnant wife shot dead
by a robber, leapt to his death off a Boston Harbor bridge after he
himself became a suspect.
1991 Jan 4, Deposed Panamanian
leader Manuel Noriega was arraigned in federal district court in
Miami on drug-trafficking charges.
1991 Jan 5, President Bush met
at Camp David, Maryland, with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de
Cuellar to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis. The same day, a pretaped
radio address by Bush was broadcast in which the president warned
Iraq: "Time is running out."
1991 Jan 6, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein, in a television address, told his country to prepare
for a long war against what he called "tyranny represented by the
1991 Jan 7, Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney canceled plans to purchase the A-12 stealth attack plane
for the Navy.
1991 Jan 7, Pete Rose left an
Illinois federal prison camp and checked into a halfway house in
Cincinnati to complete his sentence for cheating on his taxes.
1991 Jan 7, Loyalist troops in
Haiti crushed a coup attempt that had threatened the transition of
power to the country’s first freely elected president, Jean-Bertrand
1991 Jan 8, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz
arrived in Geneva for the first high-level talks between their
countries since the Persian Gulf crisis began.
1991 Jan 8, Pro Soviet
demonstrators protested price rises and surrounded the parliament in
Vilnius. Fresh Soviet troops began rolling across Baltic borders
from Pskov, Russia, allegedly to deal with Baltic youth who have
been evading the Soviet draft.
1991 Jan 9, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz met
for six hours in Geneva, but failed to resolve the Persian Gulf
crisis. President Bush, in Washington, accused Iraq of "a total
stiff-arm, a total rebuff." Mr. Baker told Mr. Aziz that America
would throw Iraq out by force if it did not leave
(AP, 1/9/01)(Econ, 5/24/08, p.19)
1991 Jan 9, Microsoft announced
(Wired, 12/98, p.197)
1991 Jan 9, Lithuanians
gathered to support the parliament in Vilnius.
1991 Jan 10, Baseball
officially banned Pete Rose from being elected to the Hall of Fame.
1991 Jan 10, Five days before a
UN deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, peace efforts
intensified, with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar
setting off on a mission aimed at averting war.
1991 Jan 11, The United States
and Iraq intensified their rhetoric, with Secretary of State James
A. Baker III telling Air Force pilots in Saudi Arabia, "We pass the
brink at midnight January 15," and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
boasting of his army’s readiness. Congress empowered Bush to order
attack on Iraq.
(AP, 1/11/01)(MC, 1/11/02)
1991 Jan 12, A deeply divided
Congress gave President Bush the authority to wage war in the
Persian Gulf. The Senate voted 52-to-47 to empower Bush to use armed
forces to expel Iraq from Kuwait; the House followed suit on a vote
of 250-to-183. 45 of 55 Democratic senators voted against the
congressional resolution authorizing the use of force.
(HN, 1/12/99)(AP, 1/12/01)(NW, 9/30/02, p.72)
1991 Jan 13, UN
Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met with Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein in a bid to avoid war in the Persian Gulf.
1991 Jan 13, Soviet troops
besieged the Vilnius TV tower and crushed a woman under a tank, but
failed to quash the drive for independence. The assault claimed 14
lives. The Soviets occupied strong points in Vilnius, Lithuania, in
an attempt to stop the independence movement.
(Wired, Dec., '95, p.94)(DrEE, 9/28/96, p.1)(AP,
1991 Jan 13, Forty-two people
were killed in a brawl and stampede during a soccer match in
Johannesburg, South Africa.
1991 Jan 14, With time running
out before a United Nations deadline for Iraq to withdraw from
Kuwait, Iraq’s National Assembly voted to give President Saddam
Hussein full authority over the Persian Gulf crisis.
1991 Jan 15, In San Francisco
thousands of anti-war demonstrators laid siege to the city, shutting
down the Federal Building, closing the Bay Bridge for nearly two
hours and ending the day with a violent, late-night rampage through
the downtown area.
(SSFC, 1/10/16, DB p.50)
1991 Jan 15, In Colombia Jorge
Luis Ochoa turned himself in to police during an intense hunt for
leaders of the Medellin drug cartel. The Colombian Constitution of
this year forbade the extradition of its citizens.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A10)
1991 Jan 15, With hours
remaining before a United Nations deadline for Iraq to withdraw from
Kuwait, UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar made a final
appeal to Saddam Hussein to remove his troops.
1991 Jan 16, The White House
announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces
out of Kuwait. President Bush said in a nationally broadcast address
"the battle has been joined" as fighter bombers pounded Iraqi
targets. Because of the time difference, it was early January 17th
in the Persian Gulf when the attack began. At 4:30 P.M. EST, the
first fighter aircraft are launched from Saudi Arabia and off of
U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf on bombing
missions over Iraq.
(AP, 1/16/01)(MC, 1/16/02)
1991 Jan 17, The Persian Gulf
War began as Coalition planes struck targets in Iraq and Kuwait. The
first Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Israel were launched. There were
reports of death and injury, and possibly even chemical weapons
being used. For a few tense hours, it looked as though Israel would
retaliate against Iraq, causing the allied coalition to break up.
Six months of preparation and diplomacy might be undone by a few
poorly aimed, 1950s-vintage ballistic missiles. Later that evening,
U.S. Patriot surface-to-air missiles were launched against the
incoming Scuds, and for the first time in history, a ballistic
missile was shot down by another missile. The use of Patriot
missiles in Israel’s defense helped to keep that country out of the
Gulf War, thereby safeguarding the integrity of the
American-European-Arab coalition. Jeffrey Zahn became the 1st US
pilot shot down. Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher (33) was shot down
over western Iraq. In 1993 the ruins of his plane were found. In
2009 his remains were found and positively identified.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(SFEC,12/797, p.A1,16)(HN,
1991 Jan 17, On the first day
of Operation Desert Storm, US-led forces hammered Iraqi targets in
an effort to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. A defiant Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein declared that the "mother of all battles" had begun.
Iraq attacked Israel with ten Scud missiles. The US Patriot defense
missile was used in battle for the first time to shoot down a Scud
fired at Saudi Arabia.
1991 Jan 17, Crude oil futures
fell $10.56 following the release of strategic US crude oil
stockpiles coinciding with the start of the Persian Gulf War.
(WSJ, 8/23/08, p.B6)
1991 Jan 17, San Francisco
police arrested 991 people protesting the US war with Iraq.
(SSFC, 1/17/16, DB p.54)
1991 Jan 17-21, In Nov, 1998,
Pentagon officials revealed a map of the Gulf War battlefield that
showed sites where radioactive and toxic debris from 300 tons of
depleted uranium ammunition was used over the 4 day war.
(SFEC, 1/24/99, p.A1)
1991 Jan 18, The US
acknowledged that the CIA and US Army paid Panama’s military leader
Manuel Noriega $322,226 from 1955-1986. Noriega began receiving
money from the CIA in 1976.
1991 Jan 18, Round-the-clock
bombing of Iraqi targets continued in Operation Desert Storm.
1991 Jan 18, Financially
strapped Eastern Airlines shut down after 62 years in business.
1991 Jan 18, Former New York
Congressman Hamilton Fish Senior died in Cold Spring, New York, at
1991 Jan 18, Three young people
were crushed to death at an AC-DC concert in Salt Lake City.
1991 Jan 18, Iraq fired more
Scud missiles at Israeli cities. Israel refrains from responding at
the request of President Bush.
1991 Jan 19, During the Gulf
War, Israel’s anti-missile force was boosted by additional Patriot
missile batteries and US crews. A second Iraqi missile attack caused
29 injuries in Tel Aviv. Allied forces began bombarding Iraq’s elite
1991 Jan 19-23, Czechoslovakian
soldiers in Northern Saudi Arabia detected sarin, a lethal chemical
agent. This was about the same time that Desert Storm air attacks
occurred on Muhammadiyat, west of Baghdad, that blew up an estimated
2.9 metric tons of sarin.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A4)
1991 Jan 20, During the Gulf
War, Iraqi missiles were shot down by US Patriot rockets as they
approached Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Iraqi television showed interviews
with seven downed allied pilots, three of them Americans.
1991 Jan 20, In Latvia, "black
beret" commandos of the Soviet Interior Ministry attacked the
republic’s Interior Ministry headquarters, killing five people.
Communist leader Alfred Rubiks supported a Soviet crackdown against
a move by his countrymen for independence.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.C3)(AP, 1/20/01)
1991 Jan 21, During the Gulf
War, Iraq announced it had scattered prisoners of war at targeted
areas; President Bush denounced Iraq’s treatment of POW’s, and said
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would be held responsible. CBS News
correspondent Bob Simon, CBS News London bureau chief Peter Bluff, a
cameraman and soundman were captured by Iraqi forces; they were
released almost six weeks later.
1991 Jan 22, During the Gulf
War, Iraq fired six Scud missiles into Saudi Arabia; all were either
intercepted, or fell into unpopulated areas. However, in Tel Aviv, a
Scud eluded the Patriot missile defense system and struck the city,
resulting in three deaths.
1991 Jan 23, "Seinfeld" began
at a regular slot on NBC-TV. Seinfeld initially debuted on NBC on
July 5, 1989, in the guise of The Seinfeld Chronicles.
1991 Jan 23, After some 12,000
sorties in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said allied forces had achieved air superiority,
and would focus air fire on Iraqi ground forces around Kuwait.
1991 Jan 23, Iraqi forces in
Kuwait deliberately created a huge oil spill in the Persian Gulf.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)
1991 Jan 24, A brief skirmish
occurred high above the Persian Gulf as a Saudi warplane shot down
two Iraqi jets.
1991 Jan 25, During the Gulf
War Iraq sabotaged Kuwait’s main supertanker loading pier, dumping
an estimated 460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf.
Missiles fired from western Iraq struck in the Tel Aviv and Haifa
areas, killing one Israeli and injuring more than 40 others.
(AP, 1/25/01)(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A14)
1991 Jan 26, An estimated 200k
to 300k people across the country demonstrated in support of, or in
opposition to, Operation Desert Storm.
1991 Jan 26, Four people were
killed in a shooting spree at a Taco Bell restaurant in Irving,
Texas. Jessy Carlos San Miguel was convicted and executed in
Huntsville by lethal injection on Jan 29, 2000.
1991 Jan 26, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev granted the KGB and Soviet Interior Ministry
sweeping search-and-seizure powers to combat economic crime.
1991 Jan 27, The New York
Giants defeated the Buffalo Bills, 20-to-19, in Super Bowl XXV,
which was played amid extra-tight security at Tampa Stadium in
Florida, because of fears of possible Iraqi-sponsored terrorism.
1991 Jan 27, A woman’s badly
beaten and burned body was found in a ravine off Palomares Canyon
Road near the border of Sunol and Castro Valley, Ca. In 2008 she was
identified as Vicenta Sanchez-Orellana (24) of Oakland, Ca. her
husband Oscar Manuel Orellana did not file a missing person report
until he needed paperwork to marry someone else.
(SFC, 5/30/08, p.B9)
1991 Jan 27, Muhammad Siad
Barre, the dictator of the Somali Democratic Republic since 1969,
fled Mogadishu as rebels overran his palace and captured the Somali
capital. Dictator Siad Barre was ousted and power fractured into
some 27 warring sides and Ali Mahdi Mohamed declared himself
1991 Jan 28, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third and Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A.
Bessmertnykh announced in Washington DC that a planned February
superpower summit in Moscow had been postponed.
1991 Jan 28, The US military
reported that more than 60 Iraqi fighter-bombers had taken refuge in
Iran, where they were impounded by the Iranian government.
1991 Jan 28, Harold "Red"
Grange (b.1903), three-time All-American, died. He is credited with
establishing professional football as a popular spectator sport. In
2009 Lars Anderson authored “Red Grange and the Barnstorming Tour
That Launched the NFL."
1/3/10, Books p.F4)
1991 Jan 29, In his State of
the Union address, President Bush assured Americans that the war
against Iraq would be won and that the recession at home would end
in short order. Extraordinary security measures were in effect for
the first wartime State of the Union address since the Vietnam era.
1991 Jan 29, Iraqi forces
attacked into Saudi Arabian town of Kafji, but were turned back by
1991 Jan 30, The first major
ground battle of the Gulf War was fought at the frontier port of
Khafji in Saudi Arabia; eleven US Marines were killed, seven of them
by "friendly fire."
1991 Jan 31, During the Gulf
War, Army Specialist Melissa Rathbun-Nealy and Army Specialist David
Lockett were captured by Iraqi forces near the Kuwaiti-Saudi border;
both were eventually released. Allied forces claimed victory against
Iraqi attackers at Khafji, Saudi Arabia.
1991 Jan, In Albania the first
opposition newspaper, Rilindja Demokratike, began publishing.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1991 Jan, Kiro Gligorov
(1917-2012) became president of Macedonia while it was still a
Yugoslav republic. He served two consecutive presidential terms,
leading the nation to November 1999.
1991 Jan-Feb, US led forces
fired 860,590 rounds of depleted uranium munitions in Iraq.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.D3)
1991 Feb 1, The 1st US bunker
buster (GBU-28) was built using surplus 8-inch artillery tubes as
part of the weapon. The project received the official go-ahead a
fortnight later as part of Operation Desert Storm. The bomb was
designed by engineer Albert Weimorts (1938-2005).
1991 Feb 1, A US-Air jetliner
crashed atop a commuter turboprop plane while landing at Los Angeles
International Airport. 34 people were killed.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A1)(AP, 2/1/97)
1991 Feb 1, Afghanistan and
Pakistan were hit by an earthquake and 1,200 died.
1991 Feb 1, South African
President F.W. de Klerk said he would repeal all remaining apartheid
1991 Feb 2, In Brazil Expedito
Ribeiro de Souza, an environmental activist and head of the
Farmworkers Union, was killed. Jose Serafim Sales was convicted for
the shooting in 1995 and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. He
later escaped. In 2000 rancher Jeronimo Alves Amorim was convicted
for ordering the killing and was sentenced to 19 ½ years in prison.
(SFC, 6/8/00, p.A16)
1991 Feb 3, US military
officials confirmed that seven of eleven Marines who were killed in
combat on January 30th died from "friendly fire."
1991 Feb 3, The rate for a
first-class postage stamp rose to 29 cents.
1991 Feb 3, Nancy Kulp
(b.1921), actress (Jane Hathaway-Beverly Hillbillies), died.
1991 Feb 4, President Bush sent
Congress a $1.45 trillion budget for fiscal 1992 containing a
deficit of $280.9 billion.
1991 Feb 4, Iranian President
Hashemi Rafsanjani offered to hold talks with Iraq and the United
States in an attempt to mediate an end to the Gulf War.
1991 Feb 4, In Cumuto,
Trinidad, Indravani Pamela Ramjattan (28), a victim of repeated
beatings, was again beaten unconscious by her husband, Alexander
Jordan (47). A week later she got 2 men, one of them her lover, to
murder Jordan. Ramjattan was convicted of murder in a 1995 trial and
sentenced to death.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A14)
1991 Feb 5, President Bush
announced he was sending Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and General
Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Gulf
war zone to assess how the US-led offensive was progressing.
1991 Feb 5, A Michigan court
barred Dr. Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides.
1991 Feb 5, Pedro Arrupe (83),
Basque priest and head of the Jesuit order, died.
1991 Feb 6, Jordan’s King
Hussein tilted sharply toward Iraq in the Gulf War, describing the
conflict as an effort by outsiders to destroy Iraq and carve up the
1991 Feb 6, Danny Thomas (79),
comedian and television performer died in Los Angeles.
1991 Feb 7, US Defense
Secretary Dick Cheney and General Colin L. Powell, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, left for a visit to the Gulf War zone.
1991 Feb 7, The Reverend
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was sworn in as Haiti’s first democratically
1991 Feb 8, Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell met with
American pilots in Saudi Arabia. Powell drew cheers as he described
how allied troops would deal with the Iraqi force in Kuwait: "We’ll
cut it off and kill it."
1991 Feb 8, In Ohio Kenneth
Biros (33) raped and killed Tami Engstrom (22) after offering her a
ride home from a bar in Trumbull county. He then scattered her body
parts in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Biros was executed in 2009.
(SFC, 12/9/09, p.A10)
1991 Feb 9, Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell met with
military commanders in Saudi Arabia to evaluate a possible ground
assault against Iraqi forces.
1991 Feb 9, In a national poll
3 quarters of Lithuanian citizens called for independence from the
Soviet Union in a non-binding plebiscite.
(AP, 2/9/01)(LHC, 2/9/03)
1991 Feb 10, In a broadcast on
Baghdad Radio, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein praised his countrymen
for withstanding attacks by allied warplanes and rockets.
1991 Feb 11, President Bush met
with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin
L. Powell, who had just returned from the Gulf region. Afterward,
Bush said he would hold off on a ground war against Iraq for the
time being, saying allied air strikes had been "very, very
1991 Feb 11, The parliament of
Iceland confirmed that the recognition of Lithuania from 1922 was
fully valid and that diplomatic relations would be established as
soon as possible.
(DrEE, 1/4/97, p.4)
1991 Feb 11, Oscar Nitzchke
(90), German architect, died in Paris. His buildings included the UN
headquarters in New York, the Los Angeles Opera House.
1991 Feb 12, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein met with Soviet envoy Yevgeny Primakov, who brought
with him a message from President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
1991 Feb 12, In China, two
longtime democracy activists (Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming) were
sentenced to 13 years in prison. Both were later freed.
1991 Feb 12, Former New York
City Mayor Robert Wagner died at age 80.
1991 Feb 13, Arno Breker (90),
German sculptor (Third Reich), died in Dusseldorf.
1991 Feb 13, Some 334 Iraqi
civilians were killed when a pair of laser-guided US bombs destroyed
an underground facility in Baghdad identified by US officials as a
military installation, but which Iraqi officials said was a bomb
1991 Feb 14, Two San Francisco
men became the first couple to register as "domestic partners" under
a new city ordinance.
1991 Feb 14, Arno Breker (90),
German sculptor (Third Reich), died.
1991 Feb 14, Iraq charged the
bombing of an underground facility the day before, which killed
hundreds of civilians, was a deliberate attack on an air raid
shelter, a charge denied by the US.
1991 Feb 14, The Iraqi weapons
depot at Ukhaydir was bombed. Iraqi authorities revealed to US
authorities in 1996 that the site stored hundreds of rockets filled
with mustard gas and nerve gas.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A3)
1991 Feb 15, In Visegrad,
Hungary, a declaration of co-operation was signed by Poland,
Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The 4 became known as the
1991 Feb 15, Iraq proposed a
conditional withdrawal from Kuwait, an offer dismissed by President
Bush as a "cruel hoax."
1991 Feb 15, Milo Djukanovic
began serving as prime minister of Montenegro. He served until 1998
and held a 2nd term from 2003-2006.
1991 Feb 15, The government of
South Africa and the African National Congress announced an
agreement on terms of the ANC’s decision to suspend its armed
struggle against apartheid.
1991 Feb 16, Tonya Harding won
the US female Figure Skating championship.
1991 Feb 16, Iraqi officials
charged that 130 civilians were killed when British jet fighters
raided the town of Fallouja two days earlier.
1991 Feb 16, A Soviet Foreign
Ministry spokesman downplayed Moscow’s initial enthusiasm for an
Iraqi offer to withdraw from Kuwait, saying it was insufficient to
end the war.
1991 Feb 17, Benin held
elections for the National Assembly, its first multi-party election
since 1964. No party secured an overall majority. The largest
grouping was an alliance of the pro-Soglo parties.
1991 Feb 17, During the Persian
Gulf War, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz traveled to Moscow for a
meeting with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
1991 Feb 18, Iraqi Foreign
Minister Tariq Aziz held talks in Moscow with Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who presented a proposal for ending the
Persian Gulf War.
1991 Feb 18, The Irish
Republican Army claimed responsibility for a bomb that exploded in a
London rail station, killing a commuter.
1991 Feb 14, Denmark issued a
postage stamp series depicting Queen Margrethe II.
1991 Feb 19, President Bush
told reporters a Soviet proposal to end the Persian Gulf War fell
"well short of what would be required." Russian Federation President
Boris Yeltsin delivered an unprecedented public appeal for Soviet
President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to resign.
1991 Feb 20, Quincy Jones’
"Back on the Block" was named album of the year at the 33rd Annual
1991 Feb 20, President Bush and
Queen Margarethe II of Denmark spoke in a ceremony marking the
arrival of the Queen and her husband in the United States. President
Bush spoke on the price of freedom and the sharing of values between
Denmark and the United States since World War II and including the
Persian Gulf war.
1991 Feb 20, In the Persian
Gulf War, Baghdad radio said President Saddam Hussein would be
sending Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz back to Moscow with a reply to a
Soviet peace plan.
1991 Feb 21, Neil Simon's "Lost
in Yonkers," premiered in NYC.
1991 Feb 21, The Soviet Union
announced that Iraq had agreed to a proposal for ending the Persian
Gulf War; however, the Bush administration called the plan
1991 Feb 21, Dame Margot
Fonteyn (b.1919), ballerina (1st lady of British Ballet), died in
Panama City, Fl. In 2004 Meredith Daneman authored “Margot Fonteyn:
(AP, 2/21/01)(Econ, 12/4/04, p.)
1991 Feb 22, President Bush and
America’s Gulf War allies gave Iraq 24 hours to begin withdrawing
from Kuwait, or face a final all-out attack. Iraq denounced the
"shameful" US ultimatum, aligning itself with a Soviet peace plan
the US had rejected.
1991 Feb 22, The US invaded
Kuwait in the Gulf War Desert Storm and quickly chased out the Iraqi
forces. US soldiers may have been exposed to minute amounts of the
nerve gas agent called Substance 33. Russia had developed the
Novichok family of nerve gases that were designed to be undetectable
by American instruments and they may have been in Iraqi hands at
this time. Gen. Anatoly Diamianovich Kuntsevich was in charge of the
secret development of the gases and post-Soviet disarmament and the
information about the battlefield sensors was revealed by former
Soviet scientist Vil Mirzayanov. Their stories agree.
(TMC, 1994, p.1991)(WSJ, 4/30/96, p.A-14)
1991 Feb 22, US soldiers were
issued the drug pyridostigmine bromide (PB) to counter the effects
of the nerve agents tabun and soman. The drug was prescribed at 3
pills per day, but produced a physical a rush and was abused by many
service people. It was later suspected as a cause of the symptoms of
Gulf War syndrome. The drug was not fully approved by the FDA and
military personnel were not informed of its effects. In 1999 a
2-year Rand analysis concluded that the drug pyridostigmine bromide
could not be excluded as a contributor to Gulf War syndrome. The
drug was given to as many as 300,000 US troops during the Persian
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A4)(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A1)
1991 Feb 23, President Bush
announced that the allied ground offensive against Iraqi forces had
begun (because of the time difference, it was already the early
morning of February 24th in the Persian Gulf).
1991 Feb 23, French forces
unofficially started the Persian Gulf ground war by crossing the
Saudi-Iraqi border. Lessons learned in the savage 1972 Eastertide
Offensive paid off at the Battle of Khafji in the Gulf War.
1991 Feb 23, Tanks rolled in
the streets of Bangkok and a coup was held to get rid of the corrupt
government of Chatichai Choonhavan. After months of investigations a
military-appointed committee seized the assets of 10 men from the
ousted administration. Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon toppled a civilian
government in a bloodless takeover. He was ousted in 1992 following
(WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A16)(AP, 9/20/06)
1991 Feb 24, The United States
and its Gulf War allies launched a large-scale ground assault
against Iraqi troops, many of whom surrendered to the advancing
forces. General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the coalition army,
sent in ground forces to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqis.
(HN, 2/24/98)(AP, 2/24/01)
1991 Feb 25, During the Persian
Gulf War, 28 Americans were killed when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a
U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
1991 Feb 25, Iraqi leader Sadam
Hussein ordered his forces to withdraw from Kuwait.
(SSFC, 12/2/18, p.A13)
1991 Feb 26, Allied troops took
control of Kuwait after a 100-hour ground war. It was later reported
that high concentrations of US armor-piercing depleted uranium
shells were detonated in Iraq and Kuwait.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(SFC, 11/24/98, p.A4)
1991 Feb 26, Kuwaiti resistance
leaders declared themselves in control of their capital, following
nearly seven months of Iraqi occupation.
1991 Feb 26, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein announced on Baghdad Radio that he had ordered his
forces to withdraw from Kuwait.
1991 Feb 26, In Iraq an
American armored unit of 9 tanks and 12 Bradley fighting vehicles
destroyed 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 armored vehicles, and 39 trucks without
a single loss in the Battle of 73 Easting.
1991 Feb 27, President Bush
declared that "Kuwait is liberated, Iraq’s army is defeated," and
announced that the allies would suspend combat operations at
midnight. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the US commander in the
Gulf, briefed reporters in detail on the successful allied
offensive. Coalition forces liberated Kuwait after seven months of
occupation by the Iraqi army.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)(HN, 2/27/99)(AP, 2/27/01)
1991 Feb 27, San Francisco porn
businessman Jim Mitchell shot and killed his brother Artie Mitchell
(45) at Artie’s home in Corte Madera. The brothers had produced
pornographic films and operated a number of pornographic theaters
that included the O’Farrell Theater in SF. Mitchell was found guilty
of voluntary manslaughter and on April 24, 1992, was sentenced to 6
years in prison. He was released on parole in 1997.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A1,15)(SSFC, 4/23/17, DB p.50)
1991 Feb 27, In San Francisco
Karen Wong (39) was found raped and killed in her flat in the 400
block of 47th Ave. In 2008 DNA evidence identified Otis Hughes (56),
a paroled burglar, as the murderer. In 2013 Hughes faced a jury
(SFC, 12/11/08, p.B2)(SFC, 12/13/13, p.C2)(SFC,
1991 Feb 27, In San Francisco
wrecking balls began demolishing the Embarcadero Freeway.
(SSFC, 3/6/11, p.A2)
1991 Feb 27, Bangladesh General
H.M. Ershad, leader of the Jatiya Party, was toppled in elections.
He was then jailed for the next 6 years for corruption and abuse of
power. The Nationalist Party of Khaleda Zia, widow of General Ziaur
Rahman won the elections and moved the country away from a socialist
economic system begun by Sheik Mujibur.
1991 Feb 28, NCR Corporation
acquired the Ohio-based Teradata Company specializing in data
warehousing and analytic applications.
1991 Feb 28, Pres. Bush
announced a cease-fire in Kuwait. Allied and Iraqi forces suspended
their attacks as Iraq pledged to accept all United Nations
resolutions concerning Kuwait. In 1998 George Bush co-wrote "A World
Transformed" with Brent Scowcroft, his national security advisor.
The book was a dialogue about the foreign policy problems face by
the US during the Bush administration (1988-1992). In 1995 Michael
Gordon and Bernard Trainor published "The General's War: The Inside
Story of the Conflict in the Gulf."
p.A8)(SFC, 5/4/99, p.D1)(AP, 2/28/01)
1991 Feb, In Philadelphia a
fire hit the 38-story One Meridian Plaza. Three firemen were killed
and more than a dozen were injured as the fire burned to the 30th
floor where a tenant installed sprinkler system doused it.
(WSJ, 1/21/97, p.A1)
1991 Feb, A US Air Force A-10
attack jet was shot down by Iraqi fire and Lt. Col. Dale Storr was
imprisoned. In 2002 17 former US prisoners including Storr won a
suit for $959 million of frozen Iraqi assets for their documented
torture. In 2003 the Bush administration sought to block the award
in order to use the assets for reconstruction. A lower court ruled
that Congress never authorized such suits. In 2005 the US Supreme
Court declined to consider the suit.
(SFC, 11/10/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/26/05, p.A1)
1991 Mar 1, President Bush said
"we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all" following the
allied victory in the Gulf War.
1991 Mar 1, The US Embassy in
Kuwait officially reopened.
1991 Mar 1, Edwin H. Land,
inventor of polarizing filters and Polaroid instant photography,
died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at age 81.
1991 Mar 1-7, US military
specialists surveyed and then detonated a bunker at Kamisiyah, Iraq.
The site had been declared a chemical weapons storage area by Iraq
after the Gulf War. No trace of chemical agents were found before or
after but US & UN inspections teams had earlier found nerve
agent rockets and mustard gas shells in open pits at the site. It
was later acknowledged by the Pentagon that more than 15,000 US
troops may have been exposed to nerve gas due to the detonations.
Defense Department logs of this period were later reported lost. In
April 1997 the CIA acknowledged errors that led to the demolition.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A15)(SFC, 10/19/96, A4)(SFC,
3/1/97, p.A2)(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A1)
1991 Mar 1-7, The US military
used new ammunition made of depleted uranium. It produced a toxic
debris that US soldiers were not informed about at the time.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.A1)
1991 Mar 2, "Aspects of Love"
closed at Broadhurst Theater in NYC after 377 performances.
1991 Mar 2, "La Bete" closed at
Eugene O'Neill Theater in NYC after 24 performances.
1991 Mar 2, Serge Gainsbourg
(b.1928), French singer-songwriter, actor and director, died of a
heart attack. His extremely varied musical style and individuality
make him difficult to categorize. His legacy has been firmly
established, and he is often regarded as one of the world's most
influential popular musicians.
1991 Mar 2, The UN Security
Council adopted a resolution dictating allied demands that Iraq had
to meet before a formal-cease fire was declared in the Persian Gulf
War. Iraq released CBS newsman Bob Simon and his crew, held captive
for nearly six weeks.
1991 Mar 2, Shiite Muslims in
southern Iraq and the Kurds rose up against Iraqi forces but were
crushed by Iraqi armor that killed 50,000 and forced more than a
million Kurds to flee to Turkey and Iran.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A7)(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)
1991 Mar 2, Following the
Kuwait cease-fire a retreating Iraqi unit stumbled into the Gen.
McCaffrey’s 24th infantry division and some 400 Iraqis were reported
killed. Army investigations concluded that the Iraqis started the
(SFC, 5/15/00, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/19/00,
1991 Mar 2, A Tiger car bomb in
Colombo, Sri Lanka, killed deputy defense minister Ranjan Wijeratne.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1991 Mar 3, "Big Love" opened
at Plymouth Theater in NYC for 41 performances.
1991 Mar 3, American General H.
Norman Schwarzkopf and Saudi Lt. Gen. Prince Khalid discussed
cease-fire terms with Iraqi commanders Lt. Gen. Mohammed Abdez
Rahman al-Dagitistani and Lt. Gen. Sabin Abdel-Aziz al Douri. The
Iraqis’ astonishment at the disparity involved in the prisoner
exchange demonstrated how ignorant they still were of the magnitude
of their own defeat.
(HNPD, 3/3/99)(AP, 3/3/01)
1991 Mar 3, In Los Angeles
police arrested ex-convict Rodney King after an 8-mile chase. King
resisted arrest and the police used force to subdue him. A local
resident captured part of the arrest and beating on video tape. The
incident led to a police trial and acquittal that sparked a violent
riot. In 1998 Lou Cannon published "Official Negligence: How Rodney
King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD" documenting the
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 2/8/98, BR p.1)(AP,
1991 Mar 3, 25 people were
killed when a United Airlines Boeing 737 inexplicably crashed while
approaching the airport in Colorado Springs, Colo.
1991 Mar 3, Arthur Murray (95),
dance instructor, died of pneumonia.
1991 Mar 3, Latvia and Estonia
voted to become independent of the USSR.
1991 Mar 3, Miguel Trovoada was
installed as President of Sao Tomé e Principal. The former prime
minister had returned from exile to run for president.
(SC, 3/3/02)(AP, 7/18/03)
1991 Mar 3, Switzerland voted
on lowering voting age from 20 to 18.
1991 Mar 4, 2:05 p.m., The
Army’s 37th Engineer Battalion blew up 33 Iraqi bunkers in the Iraqi
desert. The Pentagon later acknowledged that one of the bunkers
probably contained shells of sarin, a nerve agent, and mustard gas.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A3)
1991 Mar 4, George W. Bush
notified the SEC about his 1990 sale of Harken stock.
(SSFC, 7/28/02, p.A19)
1991 Mar 4, Iraq released ten
allied prisoners-of-war. A second group was freed the following day.
1991 Mar 4, The Bank of Credit
& Commerce International divested itself of 1st American Bank.
BCCI was majority owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
(SC, 3/4/02)(WSJ, 10/21/05, p.A10)
1991 Mar 5, Iraq repealed its
annexation of Kuwait. The Iraqis turned over 35 prisoners of war,
including 15 Americans, to the Red Cross. An anti-Saddam Hussein
uprising was reported sweeping city after city in Iraq.
1991 Mar 6, Following Iraq’s
capitulation in the Persian Gulf conflict, President Bush told a
cheering joint session of Congress that "aggression is defeated. The
war is over."
1991 Mar 7, In the wake of the
allied victory in the Persian Gulf, Secretary of State James A.
Baker the Third left for a tour of the Middle East, seeking to
promote a new Arab-Israeli dialogue.
1991 Mar 7, Iraq continued to
explode oil fields in Kuwait.
1991 Mar 8, Planeload after
planeload of US troops arrived home from the Persian Gulf to an
emotional welcome from relatives. Iraq handed over 40 foreign
journalists and two American soldiers whom it had captured.
1991 Mar 9, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third, on a fact-finding mission to seven
countries, visited Kuwait following its liberation from Iraq.
1991 Mar 9, In Serbia Milosevic
ordered a crackdown on protests and 2 men were killed in the
Belgrade Square of the Republic.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.A15)
1991 Mar 10, Eight Arab
governments endorsed President Bush’s Middle East peace proposal
calling for Israel to relinquish territory, and reiterated their
desire for a peace conference.
1991 Mar 10, In Benin President
Kerekou was beaten by Nicephore Soglo (b.1934) in the first
multi-candidate presidential elections. A runoff on March 24 gave
Soglo 67.7% of the vote. Kerekou was granted immunity from
prosecution over actions taken since October 1972.
1991 Mar 10, Hundreds of
thousands of people demonstrated in Moscow, demanding that President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev resign.
1991 Mar 11, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third visited Israel, where he met with Foreign
Minister David Levy to discuss prospects for Middle East peace.
1991 Mar 12, Secretary of State
James A. Baker met with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and a
Palestinian delegation as he continued a fact-finding mission.
1991 Mar 12, General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, the victorious commander of allied forces in the Gulf
War, visited Kuwait.
1991 Mar 13, President Bush,
during a visit to Ottawa, Canada, warned Iran against seizing Iraqi
territory in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.
1991 Mar 13, Exxon pleaded
guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay $100 million fine in a
$1.1 billion settlement of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The deal fell
apart when the Alaska House rejected it. A new settlement was
1991 Mar 14, Speakers at a Los
Angeles Police Commission hearing demanded the ouster of Chief Daryl
F. Gates in the wake of the videotaped police beating of motorist
1991 Mar 14, Doc Pomus
(b.1925), American blues singer and songwriter, died. He
collaborated with pianist Mort Shuman to write the hit songs:
"Teenager in Love"; "Save The Last Dance For Me"; "Hushabye"; "This
Magic Moment"; "Turn Me Loose"; "Sweets For My Sweet"; "Can't Get
Used To Losing You"; "Little Sister"; "Suspicion"; "Surrender";
"Viva Las Vegas"; and "His Latest Flame (Marie's The Name)." In 2007
Alex Halberstadt authored “Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and
Times of Doc Pomus."
1991 Mar 14, A British court
reversed the convictions of the "Birmingham Six," who had spent 16
years in prison for an Irish Republican Army bombing, and ordered
them released after a court agreed that the police fabricated
(HN, 3/14/99)(AP, 3/14/01)
1991 Mar 14, Denmark issued a
postage stamp depicting its 1882 Class A steam locomotive.
1991 Mar 14, The emir of Kuwait
(Sheik Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah) returned home after seven months in
1991 Mar 15, An indictment was
unsealed in Los Angeles, charging four police officers with beating
black motorist Rodney King.
(HN, 3/15/98)(AP, 3/15/01)
1991 Mar 15, Soviet pole
vaulter Sergei Bubka cleared a record 20 feet during an
international meet in San Sebastian, Spain.
1991 Mar 16, Americans Kristi
Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan swept the World Figure
Skating Championships in Munich, Germany.
1991 Mar 16, A plane crash near
San Diego, Ca., killed 10 people including 7 members of Reba
1991 Mar 17, Allied commanders
from the Gulf War held a second round of cease-fire talks with Iraqi
officers; the Iraqis were told they could not move their warplanes
inside Iraq for any reason.
1991 Mar 17, Millions of people
voted in a landmark referendum on whether to preserve the
splintering Soviet Union.
1991 Mar 18, In Nevada Irish
boxer Pat Lawler (27) defeated Roberto Duran in a 6th round
technical knockout in Las Vegas. Lawler, a resident of San
Francisco, was an 8-1 underdog for the fight.
(SSFC, 3/113/16, DB p.50)
1991 Mar 18, Results from a
non-binding Soviet referendum showed overwhelming support for
preserving the union, a victory for President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
However, in a boost for Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, voters
in his republic also endorsed electing the federation president by
1991 Mar 19, The US Labor
Department reported that consumer prices, benefiting from a big
monthly decline in gasoline prices, had edged upward only two-tenths
of a percentage point the previous month.
1991 Mar 19, Ending several
days of ominous silence, the Yugoslav army declares it will not
permit Yugoslavia to dissolve into civil war.
1991 Mar 20, Pres. Bush
announced the US would reduce Poland’s indebtedness by a full 70%.
The Paris Club, an informal grouping of the world's 17 leading
industrial countries, announced a week earlier that it would halve
Poland's enormous debt and reduce accumulated interest by 80
percent. The US portion of the forgiven debt was approximately $2.4
1991 Mar 20, The US Supreme
Court ruled employers could not adopt "fetal protection" policies
barring women of child-bearing age from certain hazardous jobs.
1991 Mar 20, A US jet fighter
shot down an Iraqi warplane in the first air attack since the Gulf
1991 Mar 20, April Glaspie, the
US ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Saddam Hussein had lied to her by denying he would invade Kuwait.
1991 Mar 21, Test results
released in Los Angeles showed that Rodney King, the motorist whose
beating by police was videotaped by a bystander, had marijuana and
alcohol in his system following his arrest. President Bush denounced
King’s beating as "sickening" and "outrageous."
1991 Mar 21, Two US Navy
anti-submarine planes collided about 60 miles southwest of San Diego
and 27 were lost at sea.
1991 Mar 21, A UN Security
Council panel decided to lift the food embargo on Iraq.
1991 Mar 22, Law enforcement
officers raided fraternities at Univ. of Virginia seizing drugs.
1991 Mar 22, High school
instructor Pamela Smart, accused of manipulating her student-lover
into killing her husband, was convicted in Exeter, New Hampshire, of
murder-conspiracy. She was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 3/22/01)(SSFC, 7/13/14, p.A10)
1991 Mar 22, A US warplane shot
down a second Iraqi jet fighter that had violated the cease-fire
ending the Persian Gulf War.
1991 Mar 23, In Tennessee 20
tornadoes killed 5 people.
1991 Mar 23, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein shuffled his Cabinet, but kept in place his hard-line
ministers of interior and defense to direct a crackdown on rebellion
against his rule. A popular uprising had been prompted by Pres. Bush
and 15 of 18 provinces were liberated, but no American help followed
and Hussein’s forces crushed the intifada.
(AP, 3/23/01)(WSJ, 9/10/02, p.A12)
1991 Mar 24, General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, the American commander of Operation Desert Storm, told
reporters in Saudi Arabia the United States was closer to
establishing a permanent military headquarters on Arab soil.
1991 Mar 24, In liberated
Kuwait, banks reopened for the first time since Iraqi troops had
shut them down the previous December.
1991 Mar 25, “Dances With
Wolves" won seven Oscars, including best picture, at the 63rd annual
Academy Awards. Kathy Bates won best actress for “Misery" and Jeremy
Irons won best actor for his role in “Reversal of Fortune."
1991 Mar 25, Archbishop Marcel
Lefebvre, a rebellious conservative in the Roman Catholic Church,
died in Martigny, Switzerland, at age 85.
1991 Mar 26, The Bush
administration indicated it would not aid rebels seeking to
overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
1991 Mar 26, A divided US
Supreme Court ruled that criminal defendants whose coerced
confessions were improperly used as evidence are not always entitled
to new trials.
1991 Mar 26, Fuel pipe exploded
under 58th street and Lexington Ave, NYC.
1991 Mar 26, Marc Camoletti's
"Don't Dress for Dinner" premiered in London.
1991 Mar 26, The Treaty of
Asuncion established the southern common market: (Mercado Comun del
Sur) Mercosur, between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. They
were later joined by associate members Chile (1996), Bolivia (1997),
Peru (2001) and Venezuela (2004). Mexico was granted observer status
1991 Mar 26, Mali became a
democracy after a Revolution. Gen. Amadou Toumani Toure seized power
in a coup. Prior to the period of French colonialism, each of 12
ethnic groups governed itself.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A12)(Econ, 7/30/05, p.41)(AFP,
1991 Mar 27, In a surprising
flap, President Bush publicly disagreed with General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, who claimed he had urged further fighting in the
Persian Gulf War at the time Bush ordered a cease-fire. Schwarzkopf
later apologized to Bush.
1991 Mar 28, Former President
Reagan declared his support for the so-called "Brady Bill" requiring
a seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases.
1991 Mar 28, Fire seriously
damaged the US Embassy in Moscow.
1991 Mar 28, Tens of thousands
of supporters of Boris N. Yeltsin marched in Moscow in defiance of
President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s ban on rallies.
1991 Mar 29, General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf publicly apologized to President Bush for questioning
his judgment about calling a cease-fire in the Gulf War.
1991 Mar 29, Political
strategist Lee Atwater, who’d helped propel President Bush to his
1988 election victory, died at age 40 of complications resulting
from a brain tumor.
1991 Mar 29, Argentine soccer
star Diego Maradona was suspended by the Italian League for testing
positive on March 17 for cocaine use.
1991 Mar 30, Patricia Bowman, a
resident of Jupiter, Florida, told authorities she’d been raped
hours earlier by William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Senator Edward
Kennedy, at the family’s Palm Beach estate. Smith was later
acquitted at trial.
1991 Mar 30, In Milwaukee,
Wisc., serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed and dismembered Konerak
1991 Mar 31, Albania offered a
multi-party election for the first time in 50 years. The Labor Party
won over 67 percent of votes, while the Democratic Party won around
30 percent. Communists won Albania’s first multiparty elections, but
democratic opponents scored victories in major cities.
(HN, 3/31/98)(www, Albania, 1998)(AP, 3/31/01)
1991 Mar 31, Voters in the
Soviet republic of Georgia overwhelmingly endorsed independence.
1991 Mar 31, The Warsaw Pact
spent the last day of its existence as a military alliance.
1991 Mar, Connie "Chip"
Armstrong Jr., former firefighter, led Hamilton Taft & Co., a SF
payroll tax firm, into bankruptcy after embezzling $85 million. He
was convicted in 1997.
(SFC, 2/27/97, p.A16)
1991 Mar, In 1996 Pentagon
officials said American troops destroyed an Iraqi ammunition depot
in March 1991 that may have contained chemical weapons.
1991 Mar, US Air Force Sgt.
Ronald Stewart was killed in Greece. In 2002 November 17 member
Iraklis Kostaris was charged with participating in the killing.
(SFC, 7/22/02, p.A3)
1991 Mar, Sir Mervyn King
(b.1948) began serving as the chief economist at the Bank of
England. King left his office as the Governor of the Bank of England
on June 30, 2013, and was replaced by Mark Carney.
1991 Mar, Sartrouville, France,
was badly scarred by riots after the killing of Djamel Chettouh (18)
by a Euromarche supermarket security guard.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.50)(http://tinyurl.com/25eqm7)
1991 Apr 1, Duke defeated the
University of Kansas 72-to-65 to win the NCAA college basketball
1991 Apr 1, The US Supreme
Court ruled, 7-to-2, that trial prosecutors violate the Constitution
if they bar prospective jurors for racial reasons—even when the
defendant and the excluded jurors are of different races.
1991 Apr 1, Martha Graham (96),
modern dance pioneer, died. Her 1st solo concert as a dancer and
choreographer was in 1926.
(AP, 4/1/01)(WSJ, 6/4/02, p.D7)
1991 Apr 1, Argentina
maintained a currency board regime this day through January 6, 2002,
under which the Argentine peso was pegged one for one to the U.S.
1991 Apr 1, Chilean Senator
Jaime Guzman was assassinated in Santiago. Sergio Galvarino
Apablaza, head of the left-wing Manuel Rodrizuez Patriotic Front,
was later accused of the murder and an arrest warrant was issued
2004. In 2005 an Argentine judge refuse to extradite Apablaza. In
2017 Mexican authorities arrested suspect Raul Escobar Poblete, an
alleged Chilean militant, wanted in connection with the death of
assassination of Guzman.
p.A11)(http://tinyurl.com/76olz)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.55)(SFC, 6/12/17,
1991 Apr 1, Iran released
British hostage Roger Cooper after 5 years.
1991 Apr 1, The Warsaw Pact was
1991 Apr 2, Iraqi state media
reported that only a few more days were needed to stamp out fighting
with Kurdish rebels, who reported renewed skirmishes around the
strategic oil center of Kirkuk.
1991 Apr 3, "Penn & Teller
Refrigerator Tour" opened at Eugene O'Neill in NYC.
1991 Apr 3, The UN Security
Council adopted a Gulf War truce resolution demanding that Iraq
abolish weapons of mass destruction, renounce terrorism and pay
1991 Apr 3, English novelist
Graham Greene died at age 86. His wife, Vivien Dayrell-Browning,
died in 2003 at age 98. Greene had told his wife that he had had 32
other women. His books included “The Quiet American" (1955). In his
so-called “Catholic" novels he challenged the idea that God is a
cruel, unstinting Rules Keeper. In 2004 Norman Sherry completed “The
Life of Graham Greene, Vol. III, 1955-1991."
(AP, 4/3/01)(SFC, 8/25/03, p.B4)(SFC, 10/2/04,
p.E2)(WSJ, 10/6/04, p.D14)
1991 Apr 4, Pennsylvania
Senator John Heinz III, a leading 3-term Republican voice on health
and trade policy, and six other people, including two children, were
killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz’s plane over a
schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Teresa Heinz took his place
as head of the family philanthropies. In 1995 she married Sen. John
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A21)(AP, 4/4/01)(WSJ, 4/16/04,
1991 Apr 4, Max Frisch
(d.1991), Swiss architect and writer, died. His books included “I’m
Not Stiller" (1958), a look at the nature of identity.
1991 Apr 4, In Benin Nicephore
Soglo (1991-1996) took office as president. He had defeated Mathieu
Kerekou in the country’s first free presidential elections. For the
first time in mainland Africa a leader let himself be ousted
1991 Apr 5, The US government
reported the nation’s jobless rate surged to six-point-eight percent
1991 Apr 5, The space shuttle
"Atlantis" blasted off on a mission that included the deploying of
the second of "NASA’s" Great Observatories. NASA launched the $670
million Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. It was directed to a suicide
plunge in 2000.
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A5)(SFC, 6/3/00, p.A6)(AP,
1991 Apr 5, Former Texas
Senator John Tower, his daughter and 21 other people were killed in
a commuter plane crash near Brunswick, Georgia.
1991 Apr 5, The UN adopted
Resolution 688, which condemned Sadam Hussein’s suppression of the
Kurds and demanded respect and political rights for all citizens. A
safe haven was established above Iraq’s 36th parallel.
1991 Apr 6, Bosnian Serbs began
a war in a quest for their own ethnically pure republic.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A6)
1991 Apr 6, Iraq reluctantly
agreed to accept United Nations conditions for ending the Persian
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)(AP, 4/6/01)
1991 Apr 7, US military planes
began airdropping supplies to Kurdish refugees who were facing
starvation and exposure in the snow-covered mountains of northern
Iraq. The United States warned Iraq not to interfere with the relief
1991 Apr 7, In Puerto Rico 3
prisoners escaped from the Rio Piedras State Penitentiary in a
hijacked helicopter with the help of accomplices. Two were
recaptured, while a third remained at large.
1991 Apr 8, The show Twin Peaks
ended its run on TV.
(SFC, 2/19/96, zz-1 p.3)
1991 Apr 8, US Secretary of
State James A. Baker the Third toured refugee camps near the Iraqi
border, praising relief efforts but saying "hope must be given to
these people for a return to home."
1991 Apr 8, Jockey Willie
Shoemaker was left paralyzed in an automobile accident.
1991 Apr 9, The 1991 Pulitzer
Prize for fiction was awarded to John Updike for "Rabbit at Rest";
the drama prize went to Neil Simon for "Lost in Yonkers." In
journalism, The Des Moines Register received the gold medal for
public service for its series about rape victim Nancy Ziegenmeyer,
who’d allowed her name and pictures to be used.
1991 Apr 9, Georgia SSR
declared independence from the USSR.
1991 Apr 10, The US and Britain
imposed a no-fly zone to protect 3 Kurdish provinces in northern
(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A11)
1991 Apr 10, A day after
Mikhail Gorbachev appealed for a moratorium on all strikes,
demonstrations and rallies, an estimated 200,000 workers in
Byelorussia defied the Soviet president by staging a work stoppage
in the capital, Minsk.
1991 Apr 11, The musical "Miss
Saigon," denounced by detractors as racist and sexist, opened on
1991 Apr 11, The space shuttle
"Atlantis" landed safely after an extended, 93-orbit mission that
included deployment of an observatory.
1991 Apr 11, U.N. Security
Council issued a formal cease fire with Iraq to end the Gulf War.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)(HN, 4/11/98)
1991 Apr 12, Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney announced plans to close 31 major US military bases,
including Ford Ord in California and Fort Dix in New Jersey.
1991 Apr 12, Kurdish rebels
reported the Iraqi army was attacking guerrillas in northern Iraq.
1991 Apr 13, Speaking at
Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, President Bush warned
Iraq the United States would "not tolerate any interference" with
the international relief effort for Kurdish refugees.
1991 Apr 14,
The final withdrawal of American combat troops from southern Iraq
began, 88 days after the United States launched its massive
offensive to drive Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait.
1991 Apr 15, Turkey began
moving thousands of Iraqi Kurds from a border settlement to camps
farther inside Turkey, in a major policy shift for President Turgut
Ozal’s government, which had previously kept the refugees in the
1991 Apr 16, President Bush
announced that US forces would be sent into northern Iraq to assist
1991 Apr 16, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev began a visit to Japan.
1991 Apr 16, Sir David Lean,
director of the movies "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Lawrence of
Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago," died in London at age 83.
1991 Apr 17, Congress voted to
put a quick end to a day-old nationwide strike by 235,000 rail
workers. President Bush signed the legislation early the next day.
1991 Apr 17, The Dow Jones
industrial (DJIA) average closed above three-thousand for the first
time, ending the day at three-thousand-four-point-46.
1991 Apr 17, In Tennessee Lee
Hall set fire to the car of his estranged girlfriend Traci Crozier
(22) as she sat inside. Crozier died the following day with burns
over 90% of her body. Hall was sentenced to death and became
functionally blind in prison. Hall (53) was executed in 2019.
(SFC, 12/6/19, p.A7)
1991 Apr 18, President Bush
unveiled his "America 2000" education strategy, which included a
voluntary nationwide exam system and aid pegged to academic results.
1991 Apr 18, The US Census
Bureau estimated its 1990 census had failed to count up to 6.3
1991 Apr 18, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev ended a summit in Japan without winning the
major aid package he’d been hoping for.
1991 Apr 19, Evander Holyfield
won a unanimous decision over George Foreman to retain boxing’s
heavyweight title in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
1991 Apr 19, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived in South Korea for talks with President
1991 Apr 20, US Marines landed
in northern Iraq to begin building the first center for Kurdish
refugees on Iraqi territory. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the US
commander of Operation Desert Storm, left Saudi Arabia for home.
1991 Apr 21, US Marines in
northern Iraq began building the first safe-haven settlement for
Kurdish refugees. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf arrived at MacDill
Air Force Base in Florida to a hero’s welcome.
1991 Apr 21, Willi Boskovsky
(81), Vienna Philharmonic conductor (New Year's concerts), died.
1991 Apr 22, The US White House
promised a full accounting of chief of staff John Sununu’s travels
as it sought to stem political fallout over reports of his extensive
personal use of military jets.
1991 Apr 22, Johnny Carson
announces he would retire the next year from Tonight Show.
1991 Apr 22, Intel released
1991 Apr 22, Sixty people were
killed when a strong earthquake shook Costa Rica and neighboring
Panama, causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage.
1991 Apr 23, President Bush
welcomed General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the just-returned Gulf War
commander, at the White House.
1991 Apr 23, NASA scrubbed the
launch of the space shuttle "Discovery" after a sensor on one of the
main engines failed during fueling.
1991 Apr 23, In Russia Pres.
Gorbachev signed the so-called '9+1' agreement on a new Union
Treaty. Under this agreement he accepted in principle the transfer
of a major share of his central presidential authority to the
republics, not only in economic management but also in important
areas of political power.
1991 Apr 24, A Kurdish rebel
leader announced the guerrillas had reached an agreement in
principle with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to end the Kurds’
1991 Apr 25, "Secret Garden"
opened at St. James Theater in NYC for 709 performances.
1991 Apr 25, The US White House
threatened to "take whatever steps are necessary" should Iraq fail
to meet a deadline for withdrawing its security forces from the
refugee zone in northern Iraq.
1991 Apr 25, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, facing harsh criticism during a closed-door
meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, offered to
resign as party leader, an offer that was rejected.
1991 Apr 26, The US government
reported the nation had sunk deeper into recession in the first
quarter of 1991 as the gross national product shrank at an annual
rate of two-point-eight percent.
1991 Apr 26, Twenty-three
people were killed as four dozen tornadoes raked Kansas and
1991 Apr 27, A group of 250
Kurds became the first refugees to move into a new US-built camp in
1991 Apr 28, Anti-abortion
demonstrators marched in Washington DC; authorities put the number
of protesters at 200,000, but organizers claimed a turnout of about
1991 Apr 28, The musical "A
Chorus Line" closed after 6,137 performances on Broadway.
1991 Apr 29, US troops
continued airlifting Iraqi refugees from a camp in southern Iraq to
1991 Apr 29, George Sperti
(91), inventor of Preparation H, died.
1991 Apr 29-1991 Apr 31, A
cyclone in Bangladesh killed an estimated 131,000 people. 9 million
were left homeless. Thousands of survivors died from hunger and
water borne disease.
1991 Apr 29, More than 100
people were killed and some 100,000 were left homeless when a strong
earthquake struck Soviet Georgia.
1991 Apr 30, Former
Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas announced his bid for the
Democratic presidential nomination.
1991 Apr, The Federal Hourly
Minimum Wage was set at $4.25 an hour.
1991 Apr, Integrated Health
Services (HIS), founded in Maryland by Dr. Robert Elkins, went
public. The federal Medicare reimbursement program changed in 1998
and in 2000 the large nursing home company was forced into
(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)
1991 Apr, In the Desert Storm
War an Iraqi chemical weapons storage site near al Nasiriyah,
northwest of Basra, was destroyed by Army engineers wearing masks
and protective rubber suits.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A4)
1991 Apr, In Albania Alia was
reelected as President. The Assembly passed a law on Major
Constitutional Provisions which provided for fundamental human
rights and separation of powers and invalidated the 1976
(www, Albania, 1998)
1991 Apr, In Colombia Julio
Daniel Chaparro and Jorge Torres, journalists for the El Espectador
newspaper, were killed. In 2011 prosecutors shelved their
investigation in the murders saying the decision was made because
the statute of limitations expired, and because the killers of
Chaparro and Torres were leftist rebels later killed in combat.
1991 Apr, Two masked armed men
stole 20 paintings, worth at least $10 million each at the time,
from Amsterdam's van Gogh Museum. The paintings are found in the
getaway car less than an hour later.
1991 May 1, "Will Rogers
Follies" opened at Palace Theater in NYC for 983 performances.
1991 May 1, Nolan Ryan of the
Texas Rangers threw his seventh no-hitter at age 44, shutting out
the Toronto Blue Jays 3-to-0.
1991 May 1, Rickey Henderson of
the Oakland A’s set a major league record by stealing his 939th base
during a game against the New York Yankees.
1981 May 1, Senator Harrison A.
Williams Junior (Democrat, New Jersey) was convicted in New York of
charges related to the FBI’s "ABSCAM" probe.
1991 May 1, The government of
Angola and US-backed guerrillas initialed agreements ending their
1991 May 1, In South Korea
former student Park Seung-hee (19) set herself on fire at
Chunnam University to challenge continuing police violence under
Pres. Roh Tae-woo.
(http://tinyurl.com/ycf7d5wr)(Econ 5/6/17, p.37)
1991 May 2, US, British, French
and Dutch forces plunged 50 miles deeper into northern Iraq.
1991 May 2, Denmark issued a
pair of stamps depicting satellite pictures of its land and water
1991 May 2, In his ninth
encyclical, Pope John Paul the Second acknowledged the success of
capitalism, but denounced the system for sometimes achieving results
at the expense of the poor and of morality.
1991 May 3, The US government
reported the nation’s civilian unemployment rate fell in April to
1991 May 3, Exxon Corporation
and the state of Alaska withdrew from a one billion-dollar
settlement of the "Exxon Valdez" oil spill (another settlement was
1991 May 3,
J.P. Morgan and Walt Disney companies were added to the Dow Jones.
Caterpillar was also added to replace Navistar.
(WSJ, 6/3/96, p.C1)
1991 May 3, Jerzy Kosinski
(57), author (Being There), was found dead in his New York City
1991 May 3, Carol Lutz (24) was
locked in the trunk of her car near Cleveland, Ohio, and burned to
death. In 2009 Daniel Wilson (39) was executed for her killing.
1991 May 4, "Strike the Gold"
won the 117th Kentucky Derby.
1991 May 4, President George
H.W. Bush suffered shortness of breath while jogging at Camp David;
he was rushed to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where doctors found he was
experiencing an irregular heartbeat. He was diagnosed with a thyroid
condition called Graves Disease.
(AP, 5/4/01)(SSFC, 12/2/18, p.A13)
1991 May 4, Morris K. Udall
(d.1998), (Rep-D-Ariz), resigned due to Parkinson's disease.
1991 May 5, New York City's
Carnegie Hall celebrated its centennial with an all-day, all-star
1991 May 5, President Bush
continued to experience an irregular heartbeat, one day after he was
taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital because of fatigue and shortness of
1991 May 6, President Bush
returned to work after spending two nights at Bethesda Naval
Hospital because of an irregular heartbeat; he met at the White
House with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.
1991 May 6, US Steel was
removed as a component of the Dow Jones.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R46)
1991 May 6, Wilfrid Hyde-White
(87), British actor (Peyton Place/140+ films), died.
1991 May 7, Doctors said that
President Bush’s recent bout with an irregular heartbeat was caused
by a mildly overactive thyroid gland, a condition they said was
1991 May 8, At the Third Annual
Governor’s Quality Management Conference at the Excelsior Hotel in
Little Rock, Ark., Gov. Bill Clinton invited Paula Jones, a state
employee working at the registration desk, to a private meeting and
exposed his desire for her. Days later Paula Jones filed a complaint
of sexual harassment in US District Court in Little Rock. She has
been seeking $700,000 in damages.
(WSJ, 6/26/96, p.A18)(SFC, 5/29/96, A4)(SFEC,
11/24/96, zone 1 p.9)(WSJ, 4/20/98, p.A20)
1991 May 8, CIA Director
William H. Webster announced his retirement; he was eventually
succeeded by Robert Gates.
1991 May 8, General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf War,
received a hero’s welcome as he addressed Congress.
1991 May 8, Concert pianist
Rudolf Serkin died in Guilford, Vermont, at age 88.
1991 May 9, President Bush met
at the White House with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de
Cuellar, who relayed Iraq’s rejection of a US-backed proposal for a
UN civilian force in northern Iraq.
1991 May 9, William Kennedy
Smith was charged with rape, nearly six weeks after Patricia Bowman
accused him of attacking her at the Kennedy family estate in West
Palm Beach, Florida. He was later acquitted at trial.
1991 May 9, Michael Landon
(d.7/1/1991) appeared on Tonight Show to talk about his cancer.
1981 May 10, Socialist Francois
Mitterrand defeated incumbent Valery Giscard d’Estaing in the second
round of France’s presidential election.
1991 May 10, Alexander
Bessmertnykh became the first Soviet foreign minister to visit
Israel as he met with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign
Minister David Levy.
1991 May 11, President Bush
dispatched an amphibious task force with thousands of Marines and
dozens of helicopters to help cyclone-ravaged Bangladesh with
disaster relief efforts.
1991 May 12, Syrian President
Hafez Assad, meeting with US Secretary of State James A. Baker the
Third, refused to yield on key demands for joining a Middle East
1991 May 13, The album
"Michael Jackson: The Magic & the Madness" went on sale.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1991 May 13, Apple
released Macintosh System 7.0.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1991 May 13, South African
black activist Winnie Mandela and two co-defendants were convicted
of abducting four young black men and keeping them at her Soweto
home. Winnie Mandela and Xoliswa Falati were both convicted of
assaulting and kidnapping Stompie Seipei in 1988. Both received
6-year prison sentences. Mandela paid a $3,200 fine on appeal and
Falati had her sentence reduced to 2 years.
(AP, 5/13/01)(SFC,11/26/97, p.C4)
1991 May 14, President Bush
announced his selection of Robert M. Gates to head the Central
1991 May 14, Britain's Queen
Elizabeth the Second arrived in Washington to begin a two-week visit
to the United States.
1991 May 14, General Motors
ended production of the Buick Reatta, a two-seater sports car that
had been introduced in 1988.
1991 May 14, Jiang Qing (77),
widow of Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung, committed suicide in prison.
(SFC, 12/25/99, p.B4)(AP, 6/4/01)
1991 May 14, Forty-two people
were killed in a train collision in western Japan.
1991 May 14, In South Africa,
Winnie Mandela was sentenced to six years in prison for her part in
the kidnapping and beating of three black youths and the death of a
1991 May 15, Simon and Schuster
published “Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography" by Kitty Kelly.
Review copies came out in April.
1991 May 15, President Bush
took Britain’s Queen Elizabeth the Second to a baseball game between
the Baltimore Orioles and the Oakland Athletics. The queen left
after two innings; the A’s won, 6-to-3.
1991 May 15, Defense lawyers
released docs claiming Noriega is "CIA's man in Panama."
1991 May 15, French President
Francois Mitterrand appointed Edith Cresson to be France’s first
1991 May 16, US Secretary of
State James A. Baker the Third wrapped up his latest Mideast visit
in Israel without an agreement for Arab-Israeli peace talks.
1991 May 16 Queen Elizabeth II
became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.
1991 May 17, The Commerce
Department reported the US trade deficit had narrowed sharply in
March 1991 to $4.05 billion, the lowest level in nearly eight years.
1991 May 18, "Hansel" won the
116th running of the Preakness Stakes.
1991 May 18, Helen Sharman
became the first Briton to rocket into space as she flew aboard a
Soviet Soyuz spacecraft with two cosmonauts on an eight-day mission.
1991 May 18, France performed a
nuclear test at Muruora Island.
1991 May 18, Edwina Booth (86),
actress (Trader Horn), died of heart failure.
1991 May 19, Martial-law courts
in Kuwait began trying people accused of collaborating with Iraqi
occupation forces, sentencing one man to life in prison for wearing
a Saddam Hussein T-shirt. The trials came under international
criticism, and were halted.
1991 May 20, The movie "Barton
Fink" won the top prizes at the 44th annual Cannes Film Festival.
1991 May 20, Lawmakers in the
Soviet Union voted to liberalize foreign travel and emigration.
1991 May 20, The American Red
Cross announced measures aimed at screening blood more carefully for
the AIDS virus.
1991 May 21, Cuban composer
Julian Orbon (b.1915) died in exile in Miami. Mr. Orbon was not
recognized by Cuba's musical establishment after he left the country
permanently in 1960. He contributed to the adaptation of the famous
Guantanamera tune with the verses of the Cuban poet Jose Marti
1991 May 21, Ethiopia’s Marxist
president (Mengistu Haile Mariam) resigned and fled into exile as
rebels continued to advance. Mengistu left behind thousands of pages
of memoranda. (AP, 5/21/01)(Econ, 9/29/07, p.50)
1991 May 21, A Tamil suicide
bomber assassinated PM Rajiv Gandhi (46) at a campaign rally near
Madras. Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ordered the
assassination. Gandhi and 16 others were killed when the female
Tamil bomber, Dhanu, presented him flowers hiding explosives packed
with 10,000 metal pellets. 41 Indian and Sri Lankan suspects were
charged with murder and conspiracy. 12 suspects later committed
suicide when they were trapped by police. In 1999 4 of the 25
convicted had their death sentences confirmed. 3 death sentences
were commuted to life in prison and 19 sentences were set aside. In
1999 3 Tamil men and a woman, convicted in 1991, were scheduled for
(HFA, '96, p.30)(SFE, 9/16/96, p.A9)(SFC, 1/9/96,
p.A10)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15) (SFC, 1/29/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/12/99,
p.A1)(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A16)(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A25)
1991 May 22, Sonia Gandhi, the
Italian-born wife of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was
designated to lead his Congress Party through national elections,
one day after his assassination. However, Mrs. Gandhi turned down
1991 May 23, In a five-to-four
vote, the US Supreme Court upheld regulations barring federally
subsidized family planning clinics from discussing abortion with
pregnant women, or from telling women where they could get
1991 May 23, Holly Washa (22)
of Burien, Washington, was kidnapped, raped and soon murdered. Cal
Coburn Brown was convicted of murder in 1993 and sentenced to death
in 1994. In 2009 the Washington supreme Court granted a last minute
reprieve and postponed his execution, which would have been the
state’s first since 2001.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/alz33r)
1991 May 23, Last Cubans troops
1991 May 23, Peter T. Thwaites,
British brig-gen, playwright (Love or money), died.
1991 May 24, Eritrean rebels
liberated Asmara from Ethiopian rule. Days later Ethiopian rebels
from Tigray took Addis Ababa with the help of Eritrean counterparts
and ended the 17-year rule of Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile
(SFC, 6/24/99, p.A10)
1991 May 24, Israel began
airlifting 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to safety as Ethiopian rebels
continued to advance on Addis Ababa.
1991 May 24, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to deplore Israel’s deportation of four
Palestinians from the occupied territories.
1991 May 24, The remains of
former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated by a suicide
bomber, were cremated.
1991 May 25, "People Are Still
Having Sex" by LaTour hit #35.
1991 May 25, Foreigners fled
the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa as rebels closed in on the
1991 May 25, Israel completed
"Operation Solomon," which had evacuated 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to
their promised land.
1991 May 26, Rick Mears became
the third driver to win the Indianapolis 500 four times.
1991 May 26, An Austrian Lauda
Air Boeing 767 crashed in Thailand, killing all 223 people aboard.
Crash investigators blamed an engine thrust reverser that had
inexplicably deployed shortly after takeoff. The plane was enroute
to Vienna and crashed shortly after takeoff from the Bangkok
(AP, 5/26/01)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1991 May 26, In Nepal Girija
Prasad Koirala (1925-2010) became prime minister of the first
democratically elected government after a popular revolt ended
absolute rule by the king.
1991 May 27, In a commencement
speech at Yale University, President Bush announced he would ask
Congress to extend most-favored-nation trade benefits to China for
1991 May 27, Ethiopia ordered
its troops to lay down their arms in the face of a rebel advance. An
estimated 60,000 Eritreans died in the rebel war with Ethiopia.
(AP, 5/27/01)(Econ, 2/19/05, p.80)
1991 May 28, US Defense
Secretary Dick Cheney and other NATO defense chiefs agreed to create
a rapid reaction corps as part of a broad plan to reshape the
Western alliance in the post-Cold War era.
1991 May 28, Ethiopian rebels
seized control of the capital of Addis Ababa, a week after the
country’s longtime Marxist ruler, Mengistu Haile Mariam, resigned
his post and fled.
1991 May 29, "Les Miserables"
opened at ACTEA Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand.
1991 May 29, President Bush,
addressing the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado,
unveiled a plan to curb "unnecessary and destabilizing weapons" in
the Middle East.
1991 May 29, Coral Browne (77)
Australian actress, (Dreamchild, Ruling Class), died of cancer.
1991 May 30, The US Supreme
Court ruled that prosecutors can be sued for the legal advice they
give police and can be forced to pay damages when that advice leads
to someone’s rights being violated.
1991 May 31, US Federal health
officials announced a new Medicare fee schedule.
1991 May 31, Pres. Jose Eduardo
dos Santos signed a peace treaty with Jonas Savimbi of UNITA, ending
a 16-year-old Angola civil war. It called for a unified military and
(AP, 5/31/01)(SFC, 4/5/02, p.A11)
1991 May, The last episode of
the TV show "Dallas" (b.1978) was shown. It was revived in 1996 as
"Dallas: J.R. Returns."
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A26)
1991 May, Salomon Brothers
broke US government bond auction rules.
1991 May, Lawyer Daniel Foley
filed suit in Hawaii on behalf of gay couples in pursuit of same-sex
marriage. A lower court rejected the suit but in 1993 the Hawaii
Supreme Court reinstated it.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A5)
1991 May, In Egypt Gen. Hussein
Tantawi was appointed chief commander of the armed forces.
1991 May, In Ethiopia an armed
revolution led by the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front took over
the government from the Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam
known as the Dergue (Derg). Meles Zenawi (36), a former
Marxist-Leninist and the guerrilla leader of the TPLF took control
of the government. The Tigrean minority made up only 5% of the
country’s population. Some 4 million Tigrayans lorded over 18
million Amharans and 20 million Oromos. Some experts say 150,000
university students, intellectuals and politicians were killed in a
nationwide purge by Mengistu's regime. No one knew for sure how many
suspected opponents were killed.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A12)(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A14)(SFC,
6/24/99, p.A14)(AP, 6/1/11)
1991 May, In Russia the Victory
Day parade, celebrating the WW II Soviet victory over Germany, was
suspended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was revived in
1996 without the display of military hardware.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.A22)
1991 Jun 1, "Silent Lucidity"
by Queensryche peaked at #5 on the pop singles chart.
1991 Jun 1, The United States
and the Soviet Union resolved differences over the Conventional
Forces in Europe treaty, clearing the way for a superpower summit.
1991 Jun 1, NASA scrubbed the
launch of the space shuttle "Columbia" after a navigational unit
1991 Jun 1, Mount Pinatubo
(Philippines) erupted for the first time in 400-600 years. [see Jun
(DTnet, 6/1/97)(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.F4)
1991 Jun 2, "The Will Rogers
Follies" won best musical at Broadway’s Tony Awards; "Lost in
Yonkers" was named best play.
1991 Jun 2, Pope John Paul the
Second, on a pilgrimage to his native Poland, visited the town of
Przemysl, less than ten miles from the Soviet border; an estimated
10,000 Ukrainians crossed into Poland to see the pontiff.
1991 Jun 3, Pope John Paul the
Second, visiting the Polish city of Kielce, indirectly criticized
abortion, appealing to his listeners to "prevent further destruction
of the Polish family."
1991 Jun 3, Mount Unzendake in
southern Japan erupted and left 43 people dead and nearly 2,300
homeless. The dead included volcano experts Maurice and Katia
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A17)(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)(AP,
6/3/01)(WSJ, 4/18/02, p.D7)
1991 Jun 4, President Bush
tapped former Democratic national chairman Robert S. Strauss to be
the new US ambassador to the Soviet Union.
1991 Jun 4, The government of
China announced the death of Jiang Qing (77), the widow of Mao
Tse-tung, saying she had committed suicide on May 14th.
1991 Jun 5, Lesbian priest
Elizabeth Carl was ordained in Episcopal Church.
1991 Jun 5, The space shuttle
"Columbia" blasted off with seven astronauts on a nine-day mission.
1991 Jun 5, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev delivered his delayed Nobel Peace lecture in
Oslo, Norway, warning that Western failure to heed his call for
economic aid could dash hopes for a peaceful new world order.
1991 Jun 6, Stan Getz (b.
1928), jazz saxophonist, died in California, at age 64. His
biography, "Stan Getz" by Donald Maggin, was published in 1996.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.E5)(AP, 6/6/01)
1991 Jun 6, Sylvia Porter (77),
economist, author (Money Book), died.
1991 Jun 6, NATO issued a
statement saying it would not accept any "coercion or intimidation"
against the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe.
1991 Jun 7, The US government
reported the nation’s unemployment rate had worsened to a four-year
high of six-point-nine percent in May, up three-tenths of a
percentage point from April.
1991 Jun 7, A US District Court
judge rejected a request by San Francisco TV station KQED for
permission to televise the execution of convicted murderer Robert
1991 Jun 8, Preakness winner
"Hansel" won the Belmont Stakes.
1991 Jun 8, A victory parade
was held in Washington D-C to honor the veterans of the Persian Gulf
1991 Jun 9, Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir insisted his country have a say in the
selection of Palestinians who would attend a US-sponsored Middle
East peace conference.
1991 Jun 9, Jim Courier gained
his first Grand Slam of tennis as he won the French Open.
1991 Jun 9, Pianist Claudio
Arrau died in Austria at age 88.
1991 Jun 10, "Twin Peaks" ended
its run on ABC-TV.
1991 Jun 10, New York City
staged a massive celebration for US veterans of the Persian Gulf
War, code-named Desert Storm.
1991 Jun 10, In South Lake
Tahoe, Ca., Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy, snatched Jaycee Lee
Dugard (11) from a bus stop outside her home. In 2009 police freed
Dugard and arrested the Garrido’s. During the interim Phillip
Garrido fathered 2 children with Dugard keeping them in tents in a
fenced backyard compound in Antioch, Ca. In 2010 California
lawmakers approved a $20 million payment to Dugard and 2 her
children, ages 12 and 15. On June 2, 2011, Phillip Garrido (59) was
sentenced to 431 years to life in prison. Nancy (55) was sentenced
36 years to life. In 2011 Dugard authored “A Stolen Life: A Memoir."
On Sep 22, 2011, Dugard sued the federal government for the lax
supervision of her abductor.
(AP, 8/28/09)(SFC, 7/2/10, p.C3)(SFC, 6/3/11,
p.A1)(SSFC, 7/31/11, p.F1)(SFC, 9/23/11, p.C3)
1991 Jun 10, Vercors (b.1902)
[Jean Bruller], French writer (Silence of Mer), died.
1991 Jun 11, President Bush
authorized $1.5 billion in agricultural credit guarantees for the
1991 Jun 11, Actress Julia
Roberts and actor Kiefer Sutherland called off their wedding three
days before it was to have taken place.
1991 Jun 11, Microsoft released
MS DOS 5.0.
1991 Jun 11, The half-nude body
of Jessica McHenry (14) of Livermore, Ca., was found strangled and
burning on Tesla Rd. In 2007 Derick Moncada (35) hanged himself at
Kern Valley State Prison after being confronted with DNA evidence
that linked him to her murder. Moncada was serving time for other
(SFC, 4/28/04, p.B1)(SFC, 3/20/07, p.B1)
1991 Jun 12, The Chicago Bulls
won their first N-B-A championship, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers
four games to one.
1991 Jun 12, The Mount Pinatubo
volcano in the Philippines began erupting for the 1st time in 600
years. [see Jun 15]
(AP, 6/12/01)(HN, 6/12/02)
1991 Jun 12, Russians went to
the polls and elected Boris Yeltsin as president.
1991 Jun 12, Mintimer Shaimiev
(b.1937) became president of the Muslim republic of Tatarstan,
located within Russia. He continued as president until the
expiration of his 4th term in 2010.
1991 Jun 13, Revising a policy
with roots to the McCarthy era, the Bush administration agreed to
remove almost all 250,000 names on a secret list of unacceptable
1991 Jun 13, The US Supreme
Court ruled a jailed suspect represented by a lawyer in one criminal
case sometimes may be questioned by police about another crime
without the lawyer present.
1991 Jun 13, Tragedy struck the
first round of the US Open golf tournament when lightning struck and
killed a spectator.
1991 Jun 14, The US government
reported consumer prices had risen a modest three-tenths of one
percent in May.
1991 Jun 14, The space shuttle
"Columbia" returned from a medical research mission.
1991 Jun 14, Dame Peggy
Ashcroft (83), film and stage, Actress died in London.
1991 Jun 14, Swiss women
blocked trams during a sit-in in the heart of Zurich's financial
district and gathered outside schools, hospitals and across cities
with purple balloons and banners to demand equal pay for equal work.
1991 Jun 15, The song "Love Is
A Wonderful Thing" by Michael Bolton (b.1953) reached #3 on the pop
1991 Jun 15, India concluded
its violence-racked elections, with the Congress Party of recently
assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi gaining a plurality
1991 Jun 15, Mount Pinatubo
(4,750 feet high) exploded in a cataclysmic eruption. Due to early
warning 56,000 people were evacuated and only 450 people died. The
eruption forced the closure of Clark Air Force Base in Angeles City
and displaced hundreds of families of the Aeta tribe. [see June 12]
1991 Jun 15, Arthur Lewis
(b.1915), Saint Lucian economist, died in Barbados. According to
Lewis, developing countries' industrial wages begin to rise quickly
at the point when the supply of surplus labor from the countryside
tapers off. The “Lewis turning point," named after him, gained wide
circulation in the context of economic development in China. His
work included “The Theory of Economic Growth" (1955) in which he
sought to “provide an appropriate framework for studying economic
(Econ, 6/25/11, SR
1991 Jun 16, The seventh
International Conference on AIDS opened in Florence, Italy. The
conference was marked by pleas from African and Asian countries for
more help and criticism directed at the United States for its
refusal to allow visits by foreigners infected with the AIDS virus.
1991 Jun 17, The remains of
President Zachary Taylor were briefly exhumed in Louisville,
Kentucky, to test a theory that Taylor had died of arsenic
poisoning. Results showed death was from natural causes.
1991 Jun 17, Payne Stewart won
the US Open golf tournament.
1991 Jun 17, The South African
Parliament abolished the Population Registration Act, the last major
apartheid law still in effect.
1991 Jun 18, The Louisiana
Legislature enacted a strict anti-abortion law, overriding a veto by
Governor Buddy Roemer.
1991 Jun 18, Russia’s newly
elected president, Boris Yeltsin, arrived in the United States for
visits with American officials, including President Bush.
1991 Jun 19, Newly elected
Russian President Boris Yeltsin lobbied Congress during a Washington
visit as he sought closer ties.
1991 Jun 19, Two of Mia
Farrow's daughters were arrested in Danbury, Conn., for shoplifting
1991 Jun 19, Actress Jean
Arthur died at age 90.
1991 Jun 19, Pablo Escobar,
head of Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel, surrendered to authorities.
1991 Jun 19, Five Cubans stole
and flew a Russian-made Antonov AN-2 biplane to Miami.
1991 Jun 20, Boris Yeltsin, the
newly elected president of the Russian republic, was welcomed to the
White House by President Bush.
1991 Jun 20, German lawmakers
voted to move the seat of the national government from Bonn back to
(SFEC, 6/27/99, p.A24)(AP, 6/20/01)
1991 Jun 21, US Secretary of
State James Baker visited Yugoslavia, where he pleaded for a
peaceful solution to multi-ethnic conflicts that were threatening to
erupt into civil war.
1991 Jun 21, In North Carolina
Erik Tornblom (17) was robbed of $27 and killed. In 1994 Marcus
Reymond Robinson (21) was convicted of Tornblom’s murder and
sentenced to death. In 2012 a judge vacated his death penalty under
North Carolina’s 2009 Racial Justice Act. Robinson was resentenced
to life in prison.
1991 Jun 22, An estimated
200,000 Albanians turned out in the capital Tirana to cheer visiting
US Secretary of State James Baker.
1991 Jun 23, The Group of Seven
finance ministers and central bankers, meeting in London, agreed
that the Soviet Union should become the first associate member of
the International Monetary Fund.
1991 Jun 24, The US Supreme
Court ruled the First Amendment did not shield news organizations
from being sued when they publish the names of sources who had been
1991 Jun 24, Croatia and
Slovenia voted to declare independence unless some new agreement was
reached among the Yugoslav republics.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1991 Jun 24, Rufino Tamayo
(b.1899), a Zapotecan Indian artist born in the Mexican state of
Oaxaca, died in Mexico City. His painting “Tres Personajes," sold in
1977 to a Houston couple for $55,000, was stolen in 1987. In 2003 it
was found amongst street trash on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
1991 Jun 25, Slovenia
proclaimed independence from Yugoslavia.
1991 Jun 25, The civil war in
Yugoslavia began when Croatia and Slovenia proclaimed independence
from Yugoslavia. Croatia voted to declare independence with Franjo
Tudjman as president. Following months of unsuccessful talks among
Yugoslavia’s six republics about the future of the federation, the
western republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared their
independence. Entities of Yugoslavia began to split off leaving
Serbia and Montenegro.
1991 Jun 26, A Kentucky medical
examiner announced that test results showed President Zachary Taylor
had died in 1850 of natural causes—and not arsenic poisoning, as
speculated by a writer. Taylor’s remains were exhumed so that tissue
samples could be taken.
1991 Jun 26, Slovenian crowds
gathered to declare their independence. They blockaded the barracks
of the Yugoslav army and their Territorial Defense Force attacked
border crossings and armored columns.
(SFC, 5/26/96, T-5)
1991 Jun 27, US Supreme Court
Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black to sit on the nation’s
highest court, announced his retirement.
1991 Jun 27, The US Supreme
Court ruled that juries considering life or death for convicted
murderers may take into account the victim’s character and the
suffering of relatives.
1991 Jun 27, Cor Therapeutics
went public and raised $15 million. In 1998 it received partial FDA
clearance for Integrillin, an anti-clotting drug.
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R8)
1991 Jun 27, Yugoslav army
tanks and helicopters attacked Slovenia. Fighting broke out between
Serbian and Croatian militias. The Slovene militia trapped an
armored column and captured 2,000 soldiers. The prisoners were
released and an agreement was reached for Slovenia to control its
own borders after a 90 day period of int’l. observation.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)
1991 Jun 28, In Detroit, a
white woman was attacked by a group of black women at a downtown
fireworks display in an incident captured on amateur video. Five
women later pleaded no contest to charges stemming from the assault.
1991 Jun 28, Two people were
killed when the Sierra Madre earthquake, magnitude 5.8, shook
1991 Jun 29, President Bush,
speaking to reporters in Kennebunkport, Maine, refused to rule out
the possibility of renewed military action against Iraq, calling its
interference with UN inspectors "very disturbing."
1991 Jun 29, In the Philippines
Estrellita Vizconde and her 2 daughters, Carmela (18), and Jennifer
(7), were stabbed to death in Paranaque City. Carmela was raped
repeatedly and stabbed 17 times. In 2000 eight defendants, all
members of rich families, were found guilty and sentenced to life in
prison. Two of the defendants were still at large.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.D3)
1991 Jun 30, The federal
base-closing commission voted to shut down 17 military bases,
including the massive Philadelphia Navy Shipyard, in addition to
seven facilities ordered closed two days earlier.
1991 Jun, Alaska Airlines began
the 1st regularly scheduled service from the US to the Soviet Far
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)
1991 Jun, In Albania Prime
Minister Fatos Nano and the rest of the cabinet resigned after trade
unions called for a general strike to protest worsening economic
conditions and the killing of opposition demonstrators in Shkodra.
The Party of Labor was renamed to Socialist Party of Albania.
Albania was accepted as a full member of the CSCE.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1991 Jun, Georgian leader Zviad
Gamsakhurdia, a noted author and scholar of the iconic Georgian poet
Shota Rustaveli, was elected president of Georgia.
1991 Jun, In India P.V.
Narasimha Rao (1921-2004) assumed the post of prime minister. He
launched a fast track program to attract private investment in the
energy sector to reduce chronic power shortages. Rao led until 1996.
1991 Jun, Mount Unzendake in
southern Japan erupted and left 43 people dead and nearly 2,300
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A17)(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)