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1994 in the United States
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1970s  1980s  – 1990s –  2000s  2010s
Years:	1991 1992 1993 – 1994 – 1995 1996 1997
Flag:	50 stars (1960 – present)

Events from the year 1994 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President - Bill Clinton
• Vice President - Al Gore

January

January 17: Northridge earthquake

• January 6 – In Detroit, Michigan, Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an assailant, under orders from figure skating rival Tonya Harding's ex-husband.
• January 11 – The Superhighway Summit is held at UCLA's Royce Hall. It is the first conference to discuss the growing information superhighway and is presided over by U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
• January 14 – U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin Accords, which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles toward each country's targets, and also provide for the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal in Ukraine.
• January 17 – The 1994 Northridge earthquake, magnitude 6.7, hits the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles at 4:31 a.m., killing 72 and leaving 26,029 homeless.
• January 19 – Record cold temperatures hit the eastern United States. The coldest temperature ever measured in Indiana state history, −36 °F (−38 °C), is recorded in New Whiteland, Indiana.
• January 20 – In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet to attend The Citadel, but soon drops out.
• January 25 – U.S. President Bill Clinton delivers his first State of the Union address, calling for health care reform, a ban on assault weapons, and welfare reform.
• January 30 – Super Bowl XXVIII: The Dallas Cowboys hand the Buffalo Bills their fourth consecutive Super Bowl loss, 30–13.

February

• February 1 – In Portland, Oregon, Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly pleads guilty for his role in attacking figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. He accepts a plea bargain, admitting to racketeering charges in exchange for testimony against Harding.
• February 3 – William J. Perry is sworn in as the United States Secretary of Defense.
• February 22 – Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged with spying for the Soviet Union by the United States Department of Justice. Ames is later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment; his wife receives 5 years in prison.
• February 28 – United States F-16 pilots shoot down 4 Serbian fighter aircraft over Bosnia and Herzegovina for violation of the Operation Deny Flight and its no-fly zone.

March

• March 1 – A lone terrorist kills Ari Halberstam during an attack on 14 Jewish students on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.^[1]
• March 1 – Mary Ellen Withrow begins her term of office as Treasurer of the United States, serving under President Bill Clinton.
• March 7 – Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
• March 15 – U.S. troops are withdrawn from Somalia.
• March 16 – In Portland, Oregon, Tonya Harding pleads guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for trying to cover-up an attack on figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. She is fined $100,000 and banned from the sport.
• March 21 – The 66th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama, Schindler's List, wins 7 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director (Spielberg).
• March 23 – Green Ramp disaster: Two military aircraft collide over Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina causing dozens of fatalities.
• March 27 – The biggest tornado outbreak in 1994 occurs in the southeastern United States; 1 tornado hits a Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama, killing 22 people.

April

O. J. Simpson, accused of a double murder, begins a highly-publicized and lengthy trial

• April 5 – Kurt Cobain, of the band Nirvana, died in his home in Seattle, the victim of what is officially ruled a suicide by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.
• April 8 – Kurt Cobain, songwriter and frontman for the band Nirvana, is found dead at his Lake Washington home.
• April 25 – The largest high school arson ever in the United States is started at Burnsville High School, in Burnsville, Minnesota, resulting in over 15 million dollars in damages. The same arsonist also goes on to set arsons at Edina High School and Minnetonka High School.^[2]

May

• May 10 – Illinois executes serial killer John Wayne Gacy by lethal injection for the murder of 33 young men and boys.

June

• June 12 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside the Simpson home in Los Angeles, California. O.J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in a civil suit.
• June 14 – The New York Rangers defeat the Vancouver Canucks at Madison Square Garden, New York in Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals, winning their first Stanley Cup Championship in 54 years and ending the Curse of 1940.
• June 17 – NFL star O.J. Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings flee from police in his white Ford Bronco. The low-speed chase ends at Simpson's Brentwood, Los Angeles, California mansion, where he surrenders.
• June 17 – The 1994 FIFA World Cup begins in the United States.
• June 22 – The Houston Rockets defeat the New York Knicks at The Summit in Texas in Game 7 of the 1993–94 NBA season, to win their first NBA Championship.
• June 24 – U.S. Air Force pilot Bud Holland crashes a B-52 in Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington as a result of pilot error.
• June 30 – July 10 Tropical Storm Alberto and causes very damaging floods, intense winds and extensive problems directly over the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean Islands. Thirty two individuals are directly killed by the storm, and property damage is assessed at $1 billion (1994 USD).

July

• July 6 – Fourteen firefighters die in the South Canyon wildfire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado. The event inspires the 1999 book Fire on the Mountain.
• July 19 – Four 26-pound ceiling tiles fall from the roof of the Kingdome in Seattle, Washington, just hours before a scheduled Seattle Mariners game.

August

• August 12 – Woodstock '94 begins in Saugerties, New York. It is the 25-year anniversary of Woodstock in 1969.
• August 20 – In Honolulu, Hawaii, during a circus international performance, an elephant named Tyke crushes her trainer Allen Campbell to death before hundreds of horrified spectators, at the Neal Blaisdell Arena.
• August 23 – Eugene Bullard is posthumously commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, 33 years after his death, and 77 years to the day after his rejection for U.S. military service in 1917.

September

• September 8 – USAir Flight 427, a Boeing 737 with 132 people on board, crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport; there are no survivors.
• September 13 – President Bill Clinton signs the Assault Weapons Ban, which bans the manufacture of new weapons with certain features for a period of 10 years.
• September–October – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to stop cooperating with UNSCOM inspectors and begins to once again deploy troops near its border with Kuwait. In response, the U.S. begins to deploy troops to Kuwait.
• September 17 – Heather Whitestone becomes the first hearing impaired contestant to win the Miss America entitlement. Whitestone becomes Miss America 1995.
• September 19 – American troops stage a bloodless invasion of Haiti in order to restore the legitimate elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power.

October

• October 12 – NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere either October 13 or October 14).
• October 15 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Following threats by the U.N. Security Council and the U.S., Iraq withdraws troops from its border with Kuwait.
• October 15 – After 3 years of U.S. exile, Haiti's president Aristide returns to his country.
• October 29 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over 2 dozen shots at the White House; he is later convicted of trying to kill President Bill Clinton.
• October 31 – An American Eagle ATR 72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 64 passengers.

November

Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House.
November 8: Republicans gain control of both houses of Congress

• November 4 – San Francisco: The first conference devoted entirely to the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web opens. Featured speakers include Marc Andreessen of Netscape, Mark Graham of Pandora Systems, and Ken McCarthy of E-Media.
• November 5 – A letter by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, announcing that he has Alzheimer's disease, is released.
• November 7 – WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides the world's first internet radio broadcast.
• November 8 – November 21, 1994 Gordon causes very damaging floods, intense winds and extensive problems directly over the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean Islands. The death tolls for the storm of nearly 1200 is usually high, and damages are extreme.
• November 8 – Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich leads the United States Republican Party in taking control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections, the first time in 40 years the Republicans secure control of both houses of Congress. George W. Bush is elected Governor of Texas.
• November 16 – A Federal judge issues a temporary restraining order, prohibiting the State of California from implementing Proposition 187, that would have denied most public services to illegal aliens.
• November 30 – The National Football League announced that the Jacksonville Jaguars would become the league's the 30th franchise.

December

• December 14 – A Learjet piloted by Richard Anderson and Brad Sexton misses an elementary school and crashes into an apartment complex in Fresno, California, killing both pilots and injuring several apartment residents.
• December 14 – A runaway Santa Fe freight train rear ends a Union Pacific train at the bottom of Cajon Pass, California.
• December 19 – A planned exchange rate correction of the Mexican Peso to the US Dollar, becomes a massive financial meltdown in Mexico, unleashing the 'Tequila Effect' on global financial markets. This prompts a US$ 50 billion 'bailout' by the Clinton Administration.
• December 19 – The Whitewater scandal investigation begins in Washington, DC.
• December 21 – A homemade bomb explodes on the # 4 train on Fulton Street in New York City.

See also

1994

References

External links

• Media related to 1994 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons