• Clinton agrees to compromise on military's ban on homosexuals (Jan. 29).
• Federal agents besiege Texas Branch Davidian religious cult after six are killed in raid (March 1 et seq.). Fire kills 72 as cult standoff in Texas ends with federal assault (April 19).
• Five arrested, sixth sought in bombing of World Trade Center in New York (March 29).
• Two police officers convicted in Los Angeles on civil rights charges in Rodney King beating (April 17); sentenced Aug. 4.
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg appointed to Supreme Court (June 14).
• US agents blamed in Waco, Tex., siege (Oct. 1).
• House of Representatives approves North American Free Trade Agreement (Nov. 17); Senate follows (Nov. 21).
• Clinton signs Brady bill regulating firearms purchases (Nov. 30).

 

NCAA Football Champions

• A 13-year-old Los Angeles boy accuses Michael Jackson of fondling him. Jackson vehemently denies the charge. The two parties reach an out-of-court settlement.
• River Phoenix dies of a drug overdose on Halloween. He was 23.
• Lost in Yonkers is edited on an Avid Media Composer system, the first non-linear editing system to allow viewing at film's required "real-time"-viewing rate of 24 frames per second. By converting film into digital bits, film can now be cut on a computer.

• Schindler's List, The Piano, Philadelphia, Six Degrees of Separation, In the Name of the Father

• Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha
• E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

• Mosaic is developed by Marc Andreeson at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It becomes the dominant navigating system for the World Wide Web, which at this time accounts for only 1% of all Internet traffic. Background: Computers and Internet
• According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tuberculosis threatens to kill more than 30 million in the next decade. Background: Global Health Trends
• The FDA approves the use of the synthetic hormone BST (bovine somatotropin) to increase milk production in dairy cows.
• First humans cloned. Cells taken from defective human embryos that were to be discarded in infertility clinic are grown in vitro and develop up to 32-cell stage and then are destroyed. Background: Human Cloning

• Don Ameche
• Anthony Burgess
• Federico Fellini
• Frank Zappa
• Arthur Ashe
• Dizzy Gillespie
• William Golding
• Audrey Hepburn
• Cesar Chavez