1990
This article is about the year. For other uses, see 1990 (disambiguation)."MCMXC" redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a.D..1990 (
MCMXC) was a
common year starting on Monday of the
Gregorian calendar.
January
*
January 3 - Former leader of
Panama,
Manuel Noriega, surrenders to
American forces.
*
January 4 - Over 300 people are killed in a train accident in
Ghotki,
Pakistan.
*
January 7 - The
Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public due to safety concerns.
*
January 9 - Lt. Gen.
Bazilio Olara-Okello, the man who led the coup against Dr Apolo
Milton Obote's government, dies in Ormduruman Hospital in
Khartoum,
Sudan.
*
January 10 -
Time Warner is formed from the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc.
*
January 11 - 200,000 demonstrate in favor of
Lithuanian independence.
*
January 13 -
Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected
African American governor as he takes office in
Richmond,
Virginia.
*
January 15 - Thousands storm the
Stasi headquarters in
Berlin in an attempt to view their government records.
*
January 18 -
Washington, DC, Mayor
Marion Barry is arrested for
drug possession in an
FBI sting.
*
January 22 -
Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the
1988 Internet worm.
*
January 25 -
Avianca Flight 52 crashed into Cove Neck, Long Island, after a miscommunication between the flight crew and
JFK airport officials.
*
January 25-
January 26 -
Burns' Day storm rages over northwestern Europe, leaving 97 dead.
*
January 27 - City of
Tiraspol in the
Moldavian SSR declares brief
independence.
*
January 28 - The
San Francisco 49ers trounce the
Denver Broncos, 55-10, in
Super Bowl XXIV.
*
January 29 - The trial of the former skipper of the
Exxon Valdez,
Joseph Hazelwood, begins in
Anchorage, Alaska. He is accused of negligence that resulted in America's worst
oil spill to date.
*
January 31 - The first
McDonald's in
Moscow,
USSR opens.
February
*
February 2 -
Apartheid: In
South Africa,
President F.W. de Klerk allows the
African National Congress to legally function again and promises to free
Nelson Mandela.
*
February 7 -
Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the
Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly of power.
*
February 10 -
South African
President F.W. de Klerk announces that
Nelson Mandela would be released the next day.
*
February 11 -
James "Buster" Douglas knocks out
Mike Tyson to win world heavyweight boxing crown.
*
February 11 -
Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster prison, near
Cape Town,
South Africa*
February 13 -
German reunification: An agreement is reached for a two-stage plan to reunite
Germany.
*
February 15 - The
United Kingdom and
Argentina restore diplomatic relations after eight years. The UK had severed ties in response to
Argentina's invasion of the
Falkland Islands, a
British Dependent Territory, in
1982.
*
February 26 - The
Sandinistas are defeated in
Nicaraguan elections.
*
February 26 - The
USSR agrees to withdraw all 73,500 troops from
Czechoslovakia by July, 1991.
*
February 27 -
Exxon Valdez oil spill:
Exxon and its shipping company are indicted on five criminal counts.
March
*
March 1 - A fire at the Sheraton Hotel in
Cairo, Egypt kills 16.
*
March 1 -
Steve Jackson Games is raided by the
U.S. Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation.
*
March 1 -
Royal New Zealand Navy discontinues the daily
rum ration.
*
March 6 - An
SR-71 sets a US transcontinental speed record of 1 hour 8 minutes 17 seconds, on what is publicized as its last official flight.
*
March 9 - Police seal off
Brixton in South
London after another night of protests against the
poll tax.
*
March 9 -
Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as
Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and
Hispanic to serve in that position.
*
March 9 -
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Clyde Wells confirms he will rescind Newfoundland's approval of the
Meech Lake Accord.
*
March 10 - Eighteen months after seizing power in a coup,
Prosper Avril is ousted in
Haiti.
*
March 11 -
Lithuania declares independence from the
Soviet Union.
*
March 11 -
Patricio Aylwin is sworn-in as the first democratically-elected
Chilean president since
1970.
*
March 15 -
Iraqis hang
British journalist
Farzad Bazoft for spying.
Daphne Parish, a British nurse, is sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment as an accomplice.
*
March 15 -
Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first executive president of the
Soviet Union.
*
March 15 - The
Soviet Union announces that
Lithuania's declaration of independence is invalid.
*
March 18 - Twelve paintings, collectively worth from $100 to $300 million, are stolen from the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in
Boston, Massachusetts by two thieves posing as police officers. This is the largest art theft in
US history and the paintings (as of
2006) have not been recovered.
*
March 18 -
East Germany holds first free elections since
1932.
*
March 20 -
Ferdinand Marcos's widow,
Imelda Marcos, goes on trial for
bribery,
embezzlement, and
racketeering.
*
March 21 - After
75 years of
South African rule,
Namibia becomes independent.
*
March 23 -
Gerald Bull, a Canadian engineer who developed long-range
artillery, is assassinated in
Brussels.
*
March 24 - The government of
Australian prime minister Bob Hawke is
re-elected for a 4th term.
*
March 25 - In
New York City, a fire due to
arson at an illegal
social club called "
Happy Land" kills 87.
*
March 27 -
Propaganda: The
United States begins broadcasting
TV Martà to
Cuba.
*
March 28 -
President George H. W. Bush posthumously awards
Jesse Owens with the
Congressional Gold Medal.
*
March 31 - A massive anti-
poll tax demonstration in
Trafalgar Square,
London, turns into a riot. 471 people are injured, with 341 arrested. The incident is subsequently known as "The Second Battle of Trafalgar."
April
*
April 7 -
Iran Contra Affair:
John Poindexter is found guilty of five charges for his part in the scandal; the convictions were later reversed on appeal.
*
April 7 -
Scandinavian Star, a
Bahamas-registered ferry, catches fire en route from
Norway to
Denmark, leaving 158 dead.
*
April 13 - The
Soviet Union apologizes for the
Katyn Massacre.
*
April 15 - Food poisoning kills 450 guests at an
engagement party in
Uttar Pradesh.
*
April 24 - The
Space Shuttle Discovery places the
Hubble Space Telescope into
orbit.
*
April 24 -
West and
East Germany agree to merge currency and economies on
July 1.
May
*
May 2 - In
London,
England, a man brandishing a knife robs courier Nicholas Lane of
bearer bonds worth £292 million - the largest
mugging to date.
*
May 4 -
Latvia declares independence from the
Soviet Union.
*
May 15 -
Portrait of Doctor Gachet by
Vincent van Gogh is sold for a record $82.5 million.
*
May 20 - The first post-
Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in
Romania.
*
May 22 - The leaders of the
Yemen Arab Republic and the
People's Democratic Republic of Yemen announce the unification of their countries as the
Republic of Yemen.
*
May 29 -
Rhode Island celebrates its
bicentennial statehood.
June
*
June 1 -
U.S. President George H. W. Bush and
Soviet Union leader
Mikhail Gorbachev sign a
treaty to end
chemical weapon production and begin destroying their respective stocks.
*
June 12 - The parliament of the
Russian Federation formally declares its sovereignty.
*
June 20 - British
Chancellor John Major proposes a new
European currency which would circulate alongside existing national currencies.
*
June 22 - Underwater volcano
Mount Didicas erupts in the
Philippines.
*
June 26 U.S. President
George H.W. Bush breaks his
1988 'no new taxes' campaign pledge, accepting tax revenue increases as a necessity to reduce the budget deficit.
July
*
July 2 - A stampede in a pedestrian tunnel leading to
Mecca kills 1426.
*
July 8 - At 12:34:56 p.m., the time and date by US reckoning was 12:34:56 7/8/90.
*
July 8 -
West Germany defeats
Argentina 1-0 to win the
1990 FIFA World Cup.
*
July 12 -
Square Co., Ltd. releases
Final Fantasy in North America.
*
July 15 -
Tamil Tigers kill 168 Muslims in
Colombo,
Sri Lanka.
*
July 16 -
July 16 Earthquake measuring 7.7 on the
Richter Scale kills over 1600 in the
Philippines.
*
July 25 - The
Serbian Democratic Party declares
sovereignty of the
Serbs in
Croatia.
*
July 26 - U.S. President
George H.W. Bush signs the
Americans with Disabilities Act, designed to protect disabled Americans from discrimination. In Phoenix, Arizona, the termperature reaches a all-time record high for the city of 122 degrees.
*
July 27 - The parliament building and a government television house in
Port of Spain,
Trinidad and Tobago are stormed by the
Jamaat al Muslimeen in a
Coup d'état attempt which lasts five days. Approximately 26 to 30 people are killed and several wounded (including then
Prime Minister,
A.N.R. Robinson, who was shot in the leg).
*
July 27 -
Belarus declares its sovereignty, a key step toward independence from the
USSR.
*
July 28 -
Alberto Fujimori becomes president of
Peru.
*
July 30 -
IRA car bomb kills British MP
Ian Gow, a staunch
unionist.
August
*
August 2 -
Gulf War:
Iraq invades
Kuwait, eventually leading to the
Gulf War.
*
August 6 -
Gulf War: The
United Nations Security Council orders a global
trade embargo against
Iraq in response to
Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait.
*
August 7 - At 12:34:56 (both a.m. and p.m.) the time and date by British reckoning was 12:34:56 7/8/90.
*
August 19 -
Leonard Bernstein conducts his final concert, ending with
Ludwig van Beethoven's
Symphony No. 7 performed by the
Boston Symphony Orchestra.
*
August 27 - Blues musician
Stevie Ray Vaughan dies in a helicopter crash along with 4 others following a concert near
East Troy, Wisconsin.
September
*
September 2 -
Transnistria declares its independence from the
Moldavian SSR; however, the declaration is not recognized by any government.
*
September 11 -
Gulf War: President
George H. W. Bush delivers a nationally televised speech in which he threatens the use of force to remove
Iraqi soldiers from
Kuwait.
*
September 12 - The two
German states and the
Four Powers sign the
Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany in
Moscow, paving the way for
German re-unification.
*
September 19 - The
IRA try to assassinate Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Terry at his home near
Stafford,
England. Hit by at least nine bullets, the former
Governor of Gibraltar survives.
October
*
October 3 -
East Germany becomes part of the
Federal Republic of Germany and in consequence part of the
European Community (EC), which later became the
European Union.
*
October 5 - After one hundred and fifty years, ten months and two days (Friday,
January 3,
1840 - Friday,
October 5, 1990),
The Herald broadsheet newspaper in
Melbourne, Australia is published for the last time as a separate newspaper.
*
October 8 -
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: In
Jerusalem,
Israeli police kill 17
Palestinians and wound over 100 near the
Dome of the Rock mosque on the
Temple Mount.
*
October 13 -
Lebanese Civil War:
Syrian military forces invade and occupy
Mount Lebanon, ousting General
Michel Aoun's government. This effectively consolidates Syria's 14 year occupation of Lebanese soil.
*
October 15 -
Soviet Union leader
Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen
Cold War tensions and reform his nation.
*
October 25 -
Evander Holyfield defeats
James 'Buster' Douglas for the Heavyweight
Boxing crown.
*
October 27 -
Supreme Soviet of
Kyrgyzstan chooses
Askar Akayev as the republic's first
president.
*
October 27 -
New Zealand general
election returns
National with record number of 67 seats.
November
*
November 1 -
Mary Robinson defeats odds-on favourite
Brian Lenihan to become the first female
President of Ireland.
*
November 5 - Rabbi
Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right
Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at a
New York City hotel.
*
November 11 -
Gulf War: The
U.N. Security Council passes
UN Security Council Resolution 678, giving Iraq until Tuesday,
January 15,
1991 to withdraw its forces from Kuwait.
*
November 12 -
Akihito is enthroned as the 125th
Japanese monarch.
*
November 12 -
Tim Berners-Lee publishes a more formal proposal for the
World Wide Web. [
1]
*
November 13 - The first known
web page is written.
*
November 14 -
Germany and
Poland sign a treaty confirming the border at the
Oder-Neisse line.
*
November 15 -
Space Shuttle program:
Space Shuttle Atlantis launches with flight
STS-38.
*
November 21 - The
Super Famicom (aka
Super Nintendo) is released in
Japan*
November 22 -
Margaret Thatcher announced she will not contest the second ballot of the
leadership election for the
Conservative Party.
*
November 25 -
Lech Wałęsa and
Stanisław Tymiński win the first round of the
first presidential elections in
Poland.
*
November 27 -
John Major wins the second ballot of the Conservative Party leadership election and his two rivals,
Michael Heseltine and
Douglas Hurd, concede defeat.
*
November 28 - Margaret Thatcher resigns as Prime Minister of the UK.
John Major succeeds her as Party Leader and is appointed
Prime Minister by
Queen Elizabeth II.
*
November 29 -
Gulf War: The
United Nations Security Council passes
UN Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing military intervention in
Iraq if that nation did not withdraw its forces from
Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by Tuesday,
January 15,
1991.
December
*
December 1 -
Channel Tunnel workers from the
United Kingdom and
France meet 40 meters beneath the
English Channel seabed, establishing the first ground connection between the
United Kingdom and the mainland of
Europe since the last
ice age.
*
December 2 - A coalition led by Chancellor
Helmut Kohl wins the first free all-
German elections since
1932.
*
December 3 - At
Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a
McDonnell Douglas DC-9 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 collides with a
Boeing 727 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 299 on the runway, killing 8 passengers and 4 crewmembers on Flight 1482.
*
December 6 -
Saddam Hussein releases the Western hostages.
*
December 9 -
Slobodan Milošević becomes President of
Serbia.
*
December 9 -
Lech Wałęsa wins the 2nd round of
Poland's
first presidential election.
*
December 11 -
John Gotti is arrested.
*
December 16 -
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is elected president of
Haiti, ending three decades of military rule.
*
December 31 -
Russian
Garry Kasparov holds his title by winning the
World Chess Championship match against his countryman
Anatoly Karpov.
January-May
*
January 7 -
Liam Aiken, American actor
*
January 7 -
Camryn Grimes, American actress
*
January 12 -
Sergey Karjakin, Ukrainian chess player
*
January 30 -
Jake Thomas, American actor
*
February 11 -
Q'Orianka Kilcher, German-born actress
*
February 13 -
Erdini Qoigyijabu, eleventh Panchen Lama
*
February 14 -
Emily Mae Young, American child actress
*
February 23 -
Christian Copelin, American actor
*
February 28 -
Anna Muzychuk, Ukrainian chess player
*
March 1 -
James Lomas, British stage actor
*
March 4 -
Andrea Bowen, American actress
*
March 8 -
Abigail and Brittany Hensel, American conjoined twins
*
March 23 -
Princess Eugenie of York*
March 24 -
Keisha Castle-Hughes, Australian-born actress
*
April 15 -
Emma Watson, English actress
*
May 1 -
Caitlin Stasey, Australian actress
*
May 2 -
Kay Panabaker, American actress
*
May 15 -
Gerald Santos, Filipino actor and singer
*
May 16 -
Thomas Sangster, English actor
June-December
*
June 3 -
Young Leek, American rapper
*
June 26 -
Ryan Ward, American actor*
July 24 -
Daveigh Chase, American actress
*
August 6 -
JonBenét Ramsey, American beauty queen and murder victim (d.
1996)
*
October 5 -
Myles Jeffrey, American actor
*
October 18 -
Carly Schroeder, American actress
*
October 22 -
Jonathan Lipnicki, American actor
*
November 7 -
Marisa Siketa, Australian actress
*
November 27 -
Shane Haboucha, American actor
*
November 29 -
Blake and Dylan Tuomy-Wilhoit, twin American actors
*
November 30 -
Magnus Carlsen, Norwegian chess player
*
December 17 -
Ashley Edner, American actress
*
December 20 -
Joanna Noelle Levesque, American singer/actress
*
December 22 -
Jean-Baptiste Maunier, French actor
January
*
January 2 -
Alan Hale Jr., American actor (b.
1921)
*
January 4 -
Doc Edgerton, American electrical engineering (b.
1903)
*
January 6 -
Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Russian physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1904)
*
January 9 -
Spud Chandler, baseball player (b.
1907*
January 23 -
Allen Collins, one of the founding members of
Lynyrd Skynyrd (b. 1952)
*
January 25 -
Ava Gardner, American actress (b.
1922)
February
*
February 8 -
Del Shannon, American musician and singer (b.
1934)
*
February 16 -
Keith Haring, American Pop-artist (b.
1954)
March
*
March 13 -
Karl Münchinger, German conductor (b.
1915)
*
March 17 -
Ric Grech, British rock bassist (
Family,
Blind Faith,
Traffic) (b.
1946)
*
March 20 -
Lev Yashin, Russian footballer (b.
1929)
April
*
April 8 -
Ryan White, AIDS activist (b.
1971)
*
April 15 -
Greta Garbo, Swedish actress (b.
1905)
*
April 17 -
Ralph Abernathy, American civil rights leader (b.
1926)
May
*
May 8 -
Tomás Cardinal Ã" Fiaich, Northern Irish clergyman (b.
1923)
*
May 16 -
Sammy Davis Jr., American actor, dancer, and singer (b.
1925)
*
May 16 -
Jim Henson, American puppeteer (Sesame Street) (b.
1936)
June
*
June 3 -
Stiv Bators, American singer (
The Dead Boys) (b.
1949)
*
June 22 -
Ilya Frank, Russian physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1908)
July
*
July 7 -
Bill Cullen, American game show host (b.
1920)
*
July 18 -
Yun Po Sun,
President of South Korea (b.
1897)
*
July 18 -
Johnny Wayne, of the Canadian comic duo
Wayne and Shuster (b.1918)
*
July 18 -
Yves Chaland, French cartoonist (b.
1957)
*
July 22 -
Manuel Puig, Argentinian writer (b.
1932)
August
*
August 9 -
Joe Mercer, English footballer (b.
1914)
*
August 12 -
Dorothy Mackaill, British-born American actress (b.
1903)
*
August 17 -
Pearl Bailey, American singer and actress (b.
1918)
*
August 27 -
Stevie Ray Vaughan, American guitarist (b.
1954)
September
*
September 16 -
Len Hutton, English cricketer (b.
1916)
*
September 26 -
Alberto Moravia, Italian novelist (b.
1907)
*
September 30 -
Patrick White, Australian writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1912)
October
*
October 5 -
Peter Taylor, English footballer and manager (b.
1928)
*
October 13 -
Le Duc Tho, Vietnamese general and politician, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (b.
1911)
*
October 14 -
Leonard Bernstein, American composer and conductor (b.
1918)
November
*
November 5 - Rabbi
Meir Kahane, founder of
Kach movement*
November 17 -
Robert Hofstadter, American physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1915)
*
November 23 -
Roald Dahl, English writer (b.
1916)
December
*
December 2 -
Aaron Copland, American composer (b.
1900)
*
December 6 -
Pavlos Sidiropoulos, Greek rock singer/songwriter
*
December 14 -
Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Swiss writer (b.
1921)
*
December 16 -
Douglas Campbell, American World War I flying ace (b.
1896)
*
Physics -
Jerome Isaac Friedman,
Henry Way Kendall, and
Richard Edward Taylor*
Chemistry -
Elias James Corey*
Physiology or Medicine -
Joseph E. Murray,
E. Donnall Thomas*
Literature -
Octavio Paz*
Peace -
Mikhail Gorbachev*
Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel -
Harry Markowitz,
Merton Miller,
William Sharpe*
Vladimir Drinfeld,
Vaughan Frederick Randal Jones,
Shigefumi Mori,
Edward Witten*
Baba Amte (Joint Award)
*
L. Charles Birch (Joint Award)
*
Alice Tepper Marlin,
Bernard Lédéa Ouedraogo,
Felicia Langer and
ATCC (Asociación de Trabajadores Campesinos del Carare)
For a brief while in early 1990,
Romania had a civil war in the aftermath of the
Romanian Revolution of 1989, the opposition was for
Nicolae CeauÅŸescu and the
Communist regime, and those for the new
regime.
* New Revised Standard Version of the
Bible is published in the United States.
* Metropolitan Aleksy of
Leningrad elected Russian Orthodox Patriarch of
Moscow and all
Russia.
* First
Anglican female priests in the United Kingdom are ordained at
St. Anne's Cathedral,
Belfast,
Northern Ireland.
*
Robert Runcie announces resignation as
Archbishop of Canterbury.
George Carey succeeded him.
* Channel 7 + 10 networks go into receivership (Australia)
* Homosexual Acts between Consenting adults decriminalized in Queensland
*General continuation of
1980s-style pop culture as large events in
1991 and
1992 such as the
Grunge movement start the Nineties pop cultural era
zh-yue:1990å¹´
