- May 15
- Édith Cresson becomes France's first female premier. [1] [41]
- Nepal premier Bhattarai resigns. [1]
- May 16
- Queen Elizabeth II becomes first British monarch to address US congress. [1]
- May 17
- Lupita Jones, 23, of México, crowned 40th Miss Universe. [1]
- May 18
- France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. [1]
- May 20
- Soviet parliament approves law allowing citizens to travel abroad. [1]
- May 21
- Ethiopia's Marxist president Mengistu Haile Mariam resigns. [1] [41]
- Rajiv Gandhi, Indian Prime Minster (1984-91), assassinated by a bomb at age 46 in Madras, India (born 1944). [1] [41]
- May 22
- Roh Jai Bong resigns as premier of South Korea. [1]
- May 23
- Last Cuban troops leave Angola. [1]
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- May 24
- Authorised by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Operation Solomon commences. [41]
- May 25
- Israel evacuates 14,000 Ethiopian Jews. [1]
- May 26
- In Thailand, an Austrian Lauda Air Boeing 767 crashes near Bangkok, killing all 223 people on-board. [41] (May 27[1])
- May 28
- Ethiopian rebels seize Addis Ababa. [1]
- Liberian-registered supertanker ABT Summer explodes off Angola, leaking oil causing an oil slick 31km by 5.6km. [522]
- May 31
- Sides in Angola sign a treaty ending 16-year civil war. [1]
- June 1
- At the Consumer Electronics Show, Nintendo announces the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES). The 16-bit system will use new game cartridges, and compact discs using a CD-ROM drive developed with Philips N.V. [9]
- June 3
- In Japan, Mount Unzen erupts, killing 43 people as a result of pyroclastic flow. [41]
- June 9
- A major collapse of ground at the Emaswati Colliery in Swaziland traps 26 miners 65m below the surface. The men have access to a safe refuge chamber and are all rescued by a drill hole 30 hours after the rescue unit was first alerted. [41]
- June 11
- On the cruise yacht New Yorker, dubbed the "DOS Boat", in New York City harbor, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer unveil MS-DOS 5.0. It adds a full-screen editor, undelete and unformat utilities, and task swapping. GW-BASIC is replaced with Qbasic, based on Microsoft's QuickBASIC. (One million copies are sold in six weeks.) [4]
- June 12
- Boris Yeltsin is elected President of Russia, the largest and most populous of the fifteen Soviet republics. [41]
- June 15
- Philippines volcano Mount Pinatubo errupts for the first time in 600 years. In Luzon, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake is felt. This is the largest of a series of earthquakes associated with the eruption. At least 137 people are killed and extensive damage is caused in Zambales Province by the eruptions. [1] [41] [53]
- June 17
- The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act, which had required racial classification of all South Africans at birth. [41]
- June 20
- Decision of the Bundestag (in Bonn) that Berlin should become the German capital. [37]
- June 22
- Underwater volcano, Mount Didicas, erupts in Phillipines. [1]
- June 23
- (to June 28) U.N. inspection teams attempt to intercept Iraqi vehicles carrying nuclear related equipment. Iraqi soldiers fire warning shots in the air to prevent inspectors from approaching the vehicles. [41]
- Moldova issues its first postage stamps. [1131.96] [1367.986]
- June 25
- Slovenia and Croatia declare independence from Yugoslavia. [41] [129] [278.1178] [971.332]
- June 28
- In Sierra Madre, California, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake occurs. [53]
- July 1
- The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague. [41]
- July 3
- TriStar releases the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day to theaters. (Total world gross ticket sales: $520 million (1st for 1991).) [944]
- July 4
- In Timor, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurs. Two events about 2.5 seconds apart. Twenty-three people killed, 181 injured, at least 5,400 left homeless and about 1,150 buildings destroyed. [53]
- July 7
- The Brioni Agreement ends the 10-day war in Slovenia. [41]
- July 10
- Boris Yeltsin begins his five-year term as the first elected president of Russia. [41]
- July 11
- A total solar eclipse is seen in Hawaii and Mexico. [1] [5]
- July 15
- US troops leave northern Iraq. [1]
- July 18
- In Romania, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake occurs. Felt strongly in western Romania and in northwestern Bulgaria. Also felt in southeastern Hungary and in parts of Yugoslavia. [53]
- July 22
- Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is arrested after the remains of 11 men and boys are found in his Milwaukee, Wisconsin apartment. Dahmer confesses to killing 17 males in 1978. [1] [41]
- July 24
- The government of India announces its New Industrial Policy, marking the start of India's economic reforms. [41]
- July 27
- TV Guide publishes its 2000th edition. [1]
- July 29
- The Russian Federation and Lithuania sign a friendship treaty recognizing Lithuania as a sovereign state. [10]
- August 3
- Death of Ali Sabri, Prime Minister of Egypt. [41]
- August 7
- The World Wide Web debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet. [5] [41]
- Court rules Manuel Noriega may access some secret US documents. [1]
- Shapour Bakhtiar, former prime minister of Iran, is assassinated. [41]
- August 8
- Shite Muslims release British hostage John McCarthy. [1]
- The Warsaw radio mast, the tallest construction ever built, collapses. [41]
- August 11
- Shite Muslims release US hostage Edward Tracy. [1]
- August 17
- In Sydney, Australia, taxi driver Wade Frankum shoots seven people and injures six others before turning the gun on himself. [41]
- West of Crescent City, California, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurs. [53]
- August 19
- Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is put under house arrest while vacationing in the Crimea during a coup. The attempted coup, led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev and seven hard-liners, collapses in less than 72 hours. [1] [41] [46.265]
- August 20
- The Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia declares restoration of independence. [10] [41] [810.123]
- More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup that deposed President Mikhail Gorbachev. [41]
- Estonia declares its independence (from the USSR). [1132.288] [1843.1041]
- August 21
- Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union. [41] (August 20 [10])
- Communist coup is crushed in USSR in two days. [1]
- Lieutenant-colonel Vladimir Putin resigns from the Soviet Union's KGB. [68.25]
- August 22
- Iceland is the first country to recognize the independence of Estonia. [810.123]
- August 23
- Belarus declares independence. [1149.1080]
- August 24
- Gorbachev resigns as head of USSR Communist Party. [1]
- Ukraine declares independence from the USSR. [1] [41] [990.17]
- August 25
- Student Linus Torvalds posts messages to a Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix about the new operating system kernel he has been developing (Linux). [41]
- Belarus declares independence from Soviet Union. [41]
- August 27
- Moldova declares independence from the Soviet Union. [5] [41] [1131.96]
- Transdniestria declares independence from the Soviet Union. [548.90]
- August 28
- The first email message is sent from space to Earth, sent by the crew of space shuttle STS-43 Atlantis, using an Apple Macintosh Portable computer and AppleLink software. [637.147]
- August 29
- Maronite general Michel Aoun leaves Lebanon via a French ship into exile. [41]
- August 30
- Azerbaijan declares independence from Soviet Union. [41]
- August 31
- In Noblesville, Indiana, USA a meteorite falls harmlessly to the ground. [521]
- Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan declare independence from the Soviet Union. [41]
- September 2
- The United States recognizes the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. [41]
- September 5
- US trial of former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega begins. [1]
- September 6
- The Soviet Union's new ruling council recognizes independence of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. [1] [10] [41]
- The name Saint Petersburg is restored to Russia's second-largest city, which had been renamed Leningrad in 1924. [41]
- September 8
- The Republic of Macedonia becomes independent. [41]
- September 13
- A 55-ton concrete beam falls in Montreal's Olympic Stadium. [1]
- September 15
- General elections are held for Swedish Parliament. Carl Bildt is elected new Prime Minister, the country's first Conservative leader in 63 years. [7]
- September 17
- North and South Korea join the United Nations. [1]
- Estonia, North Korea, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia join the United Nations. [5]
- The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released onto the Internet. [5]
- September 19
- Ötzi the Iceman is discovered in the Alps by a couple of German tourists. [5] [41]
- September 21
- Armenia declares independence from the Soviet Union. [1] [41]
- IAEA inspectors discover files on Iraq's hidden nuclear weapons program. Iraqi officials confiscate documents from UN weapons inspectors, refusing to allow them to leave the site without turning over other documents. [41]
- September 22
- The Huntington Library at California University makes the Dead Sea Scrolls available to the public for the first time. [1] [41]
- September 26
- Two-year experimental Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona begins. [1]
- September 30
- Haitian President Jean-Bertand Aristide is ousted. [1] [41]
- A twister destroys parts of Itu, a city in southeastern Brazil, killing 16 and leaving 176 injured. [41]
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