1993 in the United States

1993 in the United States
Years:	1990 1991 1992 – 1993 – 1994 1995 1996
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Events from the year 1993 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: George H. W. Bush (R-Texas) (until January 20), Bill Clinton (D-Arkansas) (starting January 20)
• Vice President: Dan Quayle (R-Indiana) (until January 20), Al Gore (D-Tennessee) (starting January 20)
• Chief Justice: William Rehnquist (Wisconsin)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Tom Foley (D-Washington)
• Senate Majority Leader: George J. Mitchell (D-Maine)
• Congress: 102nd (until January 3), 103rd (starting January 3)

Events

January

January 20: Bill Clinton begins his first of two terms as President

• January 3 – In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
• January 5
  • The state of Washington executes Westley Allan Dodd by hanging (the first legal hanging in America since 1965).
  • $7.4 million USD is stolen from Brinks Armored Car Depot in Rochester, New York in the 5th largest robbery in U.S. history. Four men, Samuel Millar, Father Patrick Moloney, former Rochester Police officer Thomas O'Connor, and Charles McCormick, all of whom have ties to the Provisional Irish Republican Army, are accused.
• January 19
  • IBM announces a $4.97 billion loss for 1992, the largest single-year corporate loss in United States history to date.
  • 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 Iraqi no-fly zones. U.S. 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 the 42nd President of the United States.
• January 25 – Mir Aimal Kasi fires a rifle and kills 2 employees outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
• January 31 – Super Bowl XXVII: The Buffalo Bills become the first team to lose 3 consecutive Super Bowls as they are defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, 52–17.

February

February 26: World Trade Center bombing

• February 6 – Former tennis player Arthur Ashe, 49, dies of the AIDS virus in New York. Ashe was believed to have contracted the virus from a blood transfusion during heart surgery 10 years ago.^[1]
• February 8 – General Motors Corporation sues NBC, after Dateline NBC allegedly rigged 2 crashes showing that some GM pickups can easily catch fire if hit in certain places. NBC settles the lawsuit the following day.
• February 11 – Janet Reno is selected by President Clinton as Attorney General of the United States.
• February 26 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a van bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing 6 and injuring over 1,000.
• February 28 – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, with a warrant to arrest leader David Koresh on federal firearms violations. Four agents and 5 Davidians die in the raid and a 51-day standoff begins.

March

• 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 4 Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating his 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 13–14 – The Great Blizzard of 1993 strikes the eastern U.S., bringing record snowfall and other severe weather all the way from Cuba to Quebec; it reportedly kills 184.
• March 22 – The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips.
• March 29 – The 65th Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California, with Unforgiven winning Best Picture.

April

April 19: The Waco Siege ends with a deadly fire

April – October: The Great Flood of 1993

• April–October: The Great Flood of 1993: The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers flood large portions of the American Midwest.
• April – The Kuwaiti government claims to uncover an Iraqi assassination plot against former U.S. President George H. W. Bush shortly after his visit to Kuwait. Two Iraqi nationals confess to driving a car-bomb into Kuwait on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.^[2]
• April 9 – The rock band Nirvana plays a benefit concert for the Bosnian rape victims at San Francisco's Cow Palace
• April 19 – A 51-day stand-off at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ends with a fire that kills 76 people, including David Koresh.
• April 28 – An executive order requires the United States Air Force to allow women to fly war planes.

May

• May 1 – An outbreak of a respiratory illness later identified as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome begins in the southwestern United States; 32 patients die by the end of the year.^[3][4]

June

• June 5 – Minnesota v. Dickerson: The United States Supreme Court rules that the seizure of evidence during a pat-down search is unconstitutional.
• June 9 – The Montreal Canadiens win their 24th Stanley Cup, defeating the Los Angeles Kings in the Finals.
• June 20 – John Paxson's 3-point shot in Game 6 of the NBA Finals helps the Chicago Bulls secure a 99–98 win over the Phoenix Suns, and their third consecutive championship.
• June 23 – In Manassas, Virginia, Lorena Bobbitt cuts off the penis of her husband John Wayne Bobbitt.
• June 24 – A Unabomber bomb injures computer scientist David Gelernter at Yale University.
• June 27 – U.S. President Bill Clinton orders a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in the Al-Mansur District of Baghdad, in response to the attempted assassination of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush during his visit to Kuwait in mid-April.

July

• July 1 – Gian Ferri kills 8 and injures 6 before committing suicide at a law firm in San Francisco, sparking new legislative actions for gun control.
• July 19 – U.S. President Bill Clinton announces his 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy regarding gays in the American military.
• July 20 – White House deputy counsel Vince Foster commits suicide in Virginia.
• July 27 – Windows NT 3.1, the first version of Microsoft's line of Windows NT operating systems, is released to manufacturing.

August

• August 1 – The Great Flood of 1993 comes to a peak.
• 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 10 – World Youth Day 1993 in Denver, Colorado.
• August 21 – NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

September

• September 4 – The second World Parliament of Religions is held in Chicago.
• September 6 – Canadian software specialist Peter de Jager publishes in Computerworld U.S. weekly magazine an article Doomsday 2000, which is the first known reference to Y2K – the 2000 Year problem.
• September 13 – PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands in Washington D.C., after signing a peace accord.

October

• October 3 – A large scale battle erupts between U.S. forces and local militia in Mogadishu, Somalia; 18 Americans and over 1,000 Somalis are killed.
• October 8 – David Miscavige announces the IRS has granted full tax exemption to the Church of Scientology International and affiliated churches and organizations, ending the Church's 40-year battle with the IRS and resulting in religious recognition in the United States.
• October 16 – U.S. President Bill Clinton sends 6 American warships to Haiti, to enforce United Nations trade sanctions against the military-led regime in that country.^[5]
• October 25 – Actor Vincent Price dies of lung cancer.
• October 27 – Wildfires begin^[6] in California which eventually destroy over 16,000 acres (65 km²) and 700 homes.
• October 31 – Actor River Phoenix dies of drug-induced heart failure on the sidewalk outside the West Hollywood nightclub The Viper Room.

November

• November 11 – Microsoft releases Windows 3.11 for Workgroups to manufacturing.
• November 18 – In a status referendum, Puerto Rico residents vote with a slim margin to maintain Commonwealth status.
• November 17–22 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passes the legislative houses in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
• November 18 – The first meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation opens in Seattle.
• November 20 – Savings and loan crisis: 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 30 – President Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act into law, requiring purchasers of handguns to pass a background check.

December

• December – The Unemployment Rate falls to 6.5%, the lowest since January 1991.
• December 2 – STS-61: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair an optical flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.
• December 7 – Colin Ferguson opens fire with his Ruger 9 mm pistol on a Long Island Rail Road train, killing six and injuring 29.
• December 11 – A variety of Soviet space program paraphernalia are put to auction in Sotheby's New York, and sell for a total of US$6.8M. One of the items is Lunokhod 1 and its spacecraft Luna 17; they sell for $68,500.

Ongoing

• Iraqi no-fly zones (1991–2003)

Births

• January 5 – De'Anthony Thomas, American football player
• January 8 – Brooke Greenberg, woman with rare slow-aging condition (d. 2013)
• January 27 – Joe Landolina, inventor and entrepreneur
• February 12 – Jennifer Stone, actress
• February 18 – Unbridled's Song, thoroughbred horse, winner of Breeders' Cup Juvenile (1995) (d. 2013)
• March 10 – Peniel Shin, rapper and dancer in (BTOB)
• March 19 – Garrett Clayton, actor, dancer and singer
• April 14 – Ellington Ratliff, singer and actor
• May 13 – Debby Ryan, actress and singer
• May 14 – Miranda Cosgrove, actress and singer
• June 22 – Garrett Seay, GIS Analyst
• July 1 – Raini Rodriguez, actress and singer
• July 21 – Aaron Durley, American baseball player
• July 26 – Taylor Momsen, actress, musician, and model
• August 9 – Rydel Lynch, singer and actress
• August 11 – Alyson Stoner, actress, dancer, and singer
• September 3 – Joon Lee, real one
• December 7 – Jasmine Villegas, singer
• December 8 – AnnaSophia Robb, actress
• December 11 – William Corkery, American actor

Deaths

• January 6 – Dizzy Gillespie, musician, bandleader, singer, and composer (b. 1917)
• January 21 – Charlie Gehringer, American baseball player (b. 1903)
• February 6 – Arthur Ashe, American tennis player (b. 1943)
• February 11 – Joy Garrett, actor and vocalist (b. 1945)
• February 27 – Lillian Gish, actress (b. 1893)
• March 9 – Max August Zorn, German-born American mathematician (b. 1906)
• March 17 – Helen Hayes, actress (b. 1900)
• March 31 – Brandon Lee, actor, martial artist, and son of Bruce Lee (b. 1965)
• June 22 – Pat Nixon, wife of Richard Nixon, First Lady of the United States, Second Lady of the United States (b. 1912)
• June 28 – GG Allin, musician (b. 1956)
• July 2 – Elizabeth M. Ramsey research physician (b. 1906)
• October 25 – Vincent Price, actor (b. 1911)
• October 31 – River Phoenix, actor, musician and activist (b. 1970)
• November 13 – Rufus R. Jones, wrestler (b. 1933)

See also

• 1993 in American television
• List of American films of 1993

References

External links

• Media related to 1993 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons