1995

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

Events

January

* January 1 - Austria, Finland and Sweden enter the European Union.
* January 1 - Fred West, accused of mass murder, hangs himself in Winson Green Prison, Birmingham.
* January 1 - World Trade Organization is established to replace GATT.
* January 1 - Swedish band Rednex's techno version of Cotton Eyed Joe goes #1 in the UK, and becomes a standard DJ song worldwide, much like YMCA and Macarena.
* January 4 : 104th Congress convenes, the first controlled by Republicans in both houses since 1953.
* January 6-January 7 - A chemical fire occurs in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines. Policemen led by watch commander Aida Fariscal and investigators find a bomb factory and a laptop computer and disks that contain plans for Project Bojinka, a mass-terrorist attack. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, is arrested one month later.
* January 9 - Valeri Polyakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station, breaking a duration record.
* January 11 - The WB Television Network begins operations.
* January 16 - UPN begins broadcasting.
* January 17 - A magnitude 7.3 earthquake called "the Great Hanshin earthquake" occurs near Kōbe, Japan, causing great property damage and killing 6,433 people.
* January 24 - The prosecution delivers its opening statement in the O. J. Simpson murder trial.
* January 25 - The Norwegian rocket incident - A rocket is launched from the space exploration centre at Andøya, Norway to study the Northern Lights.
* January 25 - The San Francisco 49ers become the first team to win five Super Bowls, as they defeat the San Diego Chargers, 49-26, in Super Bowl XXIX.
*January 29 - Tatachilla Lutheran College at McLaren Vale, South Australia, was officially opened.
* January 31 - United States President Bill Clinton invokes emergency powers to extend a $20 billion loan to help Mexico avert financial collapse.
* Javed Ahmad Ghamidi launches the first Islamic e-periodical, "Renaissance: A Monthly Islamic Journal". [1]

February

* February 9 - Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr. makes history as the first African American astronaut to walk in space.
* February 13 - A United Nations tribunal on human rights violations in the Balkans charges 21 Bosnian Serb commanders with genocide and crimes against humanity.
* February 15 - Hacking: Kevin Mitnick is arrested by the FBI and charged with breaking into some of the United States' most "secure" computers systems.
* February 17 - Colin Ferguson is convicted of six counts of murder for the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings and later receives a 200+ year sentence.
* February 21 - Serkadji prison mutiny in Algeria; 4 guards and 96 prisoners killed in a day and a half.
* February 21 - Ibrahim Ali, a 17 years-old Comorian living in France, is murdered by three far right National Front activists.
* February 21 - Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.
* February 23 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 30.28 to close at 4,003.33 -- The Dow's first ever close above 4,000.
* February 26 - The United Kingdom's oldest investment banking firm, Barings Bank collapses after a securities broker Nick Leeson has lost $1.4 billion by speculating on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
* February 27 - In Denver, Colorado, the old Stapleton Airport closes: it is replaced by a new Denver International Airport, the largest airport in the United States.
* February 28 - Members of the Group Patriot's Council are convicted in Minnesota for manufacturing ricin.

March

* March 1 - Polish Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak resigns from Parliament and is replaced by ex-communist Jozef Oleksy.
* March 1 - Muntinlupa City, Philippines officially becomes a city.
* March 1 - In Moscow, Russian anti-corruption journalist Vladislav Listyev is killed by a gunman.
* March 2 - Nick Leeson is arrested for his role in the collapse of Barings Bank.
* March 3 - In Somalia, the United Nations peacekeeping mission ends.
* March 6 - Adrianus Jacobs, chairman of Internationale Nederlanden Groep NV announces that his company would buy bankrupt Barings PLC Bank for a nominal prize.
* March 6 - On an episode of The Jenny Jones Show ("Same-Sex Crushes"), Scott Amedure reveals a crush on his friend Jonathan Schmitz, who is heterosexual. The embarrassment leads the mentally unstable Schmitz to kill Amedure several days after the show.
* March 14 - Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American to ride into space aboard a Russian launch vehicle (the Soyuz TM-21),lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
* March 18 - Basketball superstar Michael Jordan announces he's returning to basketball with his former team, the Chicago Bulls, and the next day returns to the basketball court facing the Indiana Pacers.
* March 20 - Terrorist incident: Members of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult release sarin gas on five separate railway trains in Tokyo, killing 12 and injuring hundreds.
* March 22 - Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns after setting a record for 438 days in space. Also, the Schengen treaty comes into force.
* March 24 - For the first time in twenty six years, no British soldiers patrol the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
* March 26 - Eazy-E dies of AIDS.
* March 30 - Police officer tries to assassinate Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency of Japan.
* March 31 - The president of the Selena Fan Club, Yolanda Saldivar, kills the star in Corpus Christi, Texas.

April

The remains of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

* April 2 : Gaza explosion kills 8, including a Hamas leader.
* April 5 : The U.S. House of Representatives votes 246-188 to cut taxes for individuals and corporations.
* April 7 : House Republicans celebrate passage of most of the Contract with America.
* April 19 - Bombing of Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. 168 people, including 8 Federal Marshals and 19 children, were killed. Timothy McVeigh and one of his accomplices, Terry Nichols, set off the bomb.
* April 24 - Unabomber bomb kills lobbyist Gilbert Murray in Sacramento, California.

May

* May 1 - CBC Radio Overnight debuts.
* May 7 - Jacques Chirac is elected president of France.
* May 11 - In New York City, more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
* May 14 - The Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the eleventh reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.
* May 16 - Japanese police besiege the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo near Mount Fuji and arrest cult leader Shoko Asahara.
* May 16 - Jacques Chirac assumes the presidency of France.
* May 17 - 35 year-old Shawn Nelson goes on a tank rampage in San Diego
* May 20 - Everton FC beat Manchester United 1-0 to win the FA Cup.
* May 23 - Oklahoma City bombing: In Oklahoma City, the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building are imploded.
* May 24 - AFC Ajax beat AC Milan 1-0 to win the Champions League.
* May 25 - Egan v. Canada - Supreme Court of Canada rules that sexual orientation is a prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
* May 27 - In Charlottesville, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition, ending his career as Superman.
* May 28 - Neftegorsk, Russia is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake killing at least 2000 people (2/3rd of the towns population).

June

* June 1 - The busiest hurricane season in 62 years begins. (see 1995 Atlantic hurricane season).
* June 2 - United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone. O'Grady survives on bugs and grass until he is rescued.
* June 2 - SS Captain Erich Priebke is extradited from Argentina to Italy.
* June 5 - Bose-Einstein condensate created.
* June 6 - U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard broke NASA's space endurance record of 14 days, one hour and 16 minutes, aboard the Russian space station Mir.
* June 8 - Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.
* June 13 - French president Jacques Chirac announces the resumption of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.
* June 15 - While on trial for murder, O.J. Simpson put on a pair of gloves that were found soaked with blood at the murder scene. The gloves appear not to fit, prompting defense attorney Johnny Cochran's famous remark: "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit".
* June 20 - Oil multinational Shell caves in to international pressure and abandons plans to dump the Brent Spar oil rig at sea.
* June 22 - Japanese police rescues 365 hostages from a hijacked Nippon Airlines. 747 at Hakodate airport. The hijacker was armed by a knife and demanded release of Shoko Asahara.
* June 24 - The New Jersey Devils sweep the Detroit Red Wings in 4 games in the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals. It was their first Stanley Cup in team history.
* June 24 - Juan Manuel Fangio, Formula One champion, dies.
* June 29 - Lisa Clayton completes her 10-month solo circumnavigation from the northern hemisphere.
* June 29 - STS-71: The Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian Mir space station for the first time.
* June 29 - The Sampoong Department Store collapses in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea, killing 501 and injuring 937.
* Summer - Iraq disarmament crisis: According to UNSCOM, the unity of the UN Security Council begins to fray, as a few countries, particularly France and Russia, are starting to become increasingly more interested in making financial deals with Iraq than disarming the country.

July

The Taiwan Strait

* Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to end all cooperation with UNSCOM and IAEA, if sanctions against the country are not lifted by Thursday, August 31, 1995
* Midwestern United States heat wave: An unprecedented heat wave strikes the Midwestern United States for most of the month. Temperatures exceed 104°F (40°C) in the afternoon in numerous cities for 5 straight days. At least 3000 people die, 750 in Chicago, Illinois alone.
* July 1 - Iraq disarmament crisis: In response to UNSCOM's evidence, Iraq admits for first time the existence of an offensive biological weapons program, but denies weaponization.
* July 4 - The UK Prime Minister, John Major, has won his battle to remain leader of the Conservative Party.
* July 5 - The U.S. Congress passes the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, requiring that producers of pornographic material keep records of all models who are filmed or photographed. This act also requires that all models be at minimum 18 years of age.
* July 8 - Volcanic eruption begins in the island of Montserrat.
* July 10 : Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi is freed from house arrest.
* July 11 - Bosnian Serbs march into Srebrenica while UN Dutch peacekeepers leave. Large numbers of Bosniak men and boys are killed in the Srebrenica massacre.
* July 13 - Dozens of cities, most notably Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, set all-time record high temperatures. Hundreds in these and other cities die as the July 1995 heat wave reaches its peak.
* July 17 - The Nasdaq Composite index closes above the 1,000 mark for the first time.
* July 18 - Fabio Casartelli, an Italian cyclist, dies in a crash during the Tour de France.
* July 21 - to July 26 - Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army fires missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
* July 27 - In Washington, DC, the Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated.
* July 28 - Network Solutions announces a new policy to help companies protect their trademarks on the Internet.
* Iraq disarmament crisis: Following the defection of his son-in-law, Hussein Kamel al Majid, minister of industry and military industrialisation, Saddam Hussein makes new revelations about the full extent of Iraq's biological and nuclear weapons programs. Iraq also withdraws its last UN declaration of prohibited biological weapons and turns over a large amount of new documents on its WMD programs.

August

* August 4 - Croatians launch Operation Storm against Serbian forces in and force them to withdraw to central Bosnia.
* August 5 - Croatian forces take Knin and continue to advance.
* August 6 - Hundreds in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Washington, and Tokyo mark the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb.
* August 7 - Operation Storm is over, UN-brokered ceasefire, remaining Serbian forces start a surrender.
* August 9 - Netscape launches IPO. http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,1081456,00.html
* August 11- Chrono Trigger is released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
* August 14 - Avalanche buries Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen - she is reported dead.
* August 15 - 50th anniversary of Indonesia's Independence.
* August 24 - Microsoft releases Windows 95.
* August 28 - Serbian Mortar bomb near a Sarajevo market square kills 37 civilians.
* August 30 - NATO bombing campaign against Serb artillery positions begins in Bosnia - continues into October.

September

* September - DVD, optical disc storage media format, is announced.
* September 4 - The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing with over 4,750 delegates from 181 countries in attendance.
* September 6 - With the jury absent, Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman invokes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson.
* September 6 - NATO air strikes continue, after repeated attempts at a solution with the Serbs fail.
* September 13 -Mohawk Productions in association with Warner Bros Television aires The Drew Carey Show.
* September 17 - The Weekly Standard, an influential American conservative magazine makes its debut.
* September 22 : Steve Forbes announces his candidacy for the 1996 election.
* September 23 - Argentine national Guillermo "Bill" Gaede is arrested in Phoenix, Arizona on charges of industrial espionage. His sales to Cuba, China, North Korea and Iran are believed to have involved Intel and AMD trade secrets worth USD$10-20 million.
* September 26 - Trial against former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, accused of Mafia connections, begins.
* September 27-September 28 - night - Bob Denard's mercenaries capture president Said Mohammed Djohor of the Comoros. Local army does not resist.

October

* October 1 - 10 people are found guilty for bombing the World Trade Center in 1993.
* October 2 - British rock band Oasis releases their landmark album (What's The Story) Morning Glory?. It becomes the 2nd biggest selling record in British chart history.
* October 3 - O. J. Simpson is found not guilty of double murder for the deaths of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. (He would be found liable in a second civil trial in 1997).
* October 4 - France launches a counter-coup in the Comoros with 600 soldiers. They arrest Bob Denard and his mercenaries and take Denard to France. Caabi el-Yachroutu becomes new interim president.
*October 6 - Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz announce the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first confirmed Extrasolar planet.
* October 9 - An Amtrak Sunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde, Arizona.
* October 12 - Black motorist Johnny Gammage dies of asphxyation after being stopped by police in the nearly all-white Pittsburgh suburb of Brentwood.
* October 15 - The Carolina Panthers win their first-ever regular season game by defeating the New York Jets at Clemson Memorial Stadium in South Carolina.
* October 16 - The Million Man March is held in Washington D.C.. The event was conceived by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
* October 21 - Shannon Hoon, lead singer of Blind Melon, dies of a cocaine overdose while on tour.
* October 24 - A total solar eclipse is visible from Iran, India, Thailand, and SE Asia. [2]
* October 25 - A Metra commuter train slammed into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students.
* October 28 - The Atlanta Braves win the World Series
* October 30 - Quebec separatists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada

November

* November 1 - Participants of the Yugoslav War begin negotiations in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
* November 1 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to ban "partial birth" abortions by a vote of 288-139.
* November 2 - The Supreme Court of Argentina orders extradition of Erich Priebke, ex-SS captain.
* November 3 - At Arlington National Cemetery, US President Bill Clinton dedicates a memorial to the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.
* November 4 - After attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings of Israel Square, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is mortally wounded by Yigal Amir, a right-wing Israeli gunman. He later dies on the operating table at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv.
* November 5 - The British rock band Oasis plays the biggest indoor concert in Europe ever at Earl's Court, London.
* November 9 - Bill Watterson, author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, announces his retirement in a brief letter to newspaper editors.
* November 10 - Iraq disarmament crisis: With help from Israel and Jordan, UN inspector Ritter intercepts 240 Russian gyroscopes and accelerometers on their way to Iraq from Russia.
* November 10 - In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, along with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop), are hanged by government forces.
* November 14 - A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress, forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums, and run most government offices with skeleton staff.
* November 16 - A United Nations tribunal charges Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić with genocide during the Bosnian War.
* November 17 - Public Radio International's radio program This American Life broadcasts its first episode, "New Beginnings".
* November 21 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 40.46 to close at 5,023.55, its first close above 5,000. This makes the 1995 the first year where the Dow surpasses two millennium marks in a single year. It would do it again in 1997 and 1999.
* November 21 - A peace agreement about Bosnia is reached.
* November 22 - Rosemary West is sentenced to life for killing 10 women and girls, including her daughter and stepdaughter, after the jury returned a guilty verdict at Winchester Crown Court.
* November 22- Six year old Elisa Izquierdo's child abuse related death at the hands of her mother makes headlines, and instigates major reform in New York City's child welfare system, so as to prevent similar tragedies.
* November 22 - Eilat, Israel, Egypt, and much of the North African Mediterranean is struck by the strongest earthquake in Israel's history - 7.2 mw. Curiously, within a week there is attempted historical revisionism downwards to 6.2 with Gulf of Aqaba architects and engineers holding the bag for alleged 'shoddy construction'. A 6.2 mw earthquake is only 1/32nd the magnitude of a 7.2 quake.
* November 28 - Barcelona Treaty signed by 27 attending nations.
* November 28 - US President Bill Clinton signs a highway bill that ends the federal 55 mph speed limit.
* November 30 - Javier Solana is made new NATO general secretary.

December

* December 14 - The Dayton Peace Agreement is signed in Paris.
* December 15 - The European Court of Justice rules that all EU football players have the right to a free transfer between European Union member states at the end of their contracts (see Bosman ruling).
* December 15 - Because of "quadruple-witching" option expiration, volume on the New York Stock Exchange hits 638 million shares, the highest single-day volume since October 20, 1987 when the Dow staged a stunning recovery a day after Black Monday.
* December 16 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi scuba divers, under the direction of UNSCOM, dredge the Tigris River near Baghdad. The divers find over 200 prohibited Russian made missile instruments and components.
* December 30 - The lowest ever UK temperature of -27.2°C was recorded at Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands. This equalled the record set at Braemar, Aberdeenshire in 1895 and 1982.
* December 31 - The last new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip is published.
* The Republic of Texas (group) claims to have formed a provisional government in Texas.