the tunnel of the1990 Mecca tunnel tragedy. 1,426 people were suffocated and trampled to death in a crowd crush or stampede event in a tunnel nearMecca during theHajj;
1990 was an important year in theInternet's early history. In late 1990,Tim Berners-Lee created the firstweb server and the foundation for theWorld Wide Web. Test operations began around December 20 and it was released outsideCERN the following year.[2] 1990 also saw the official decommissioning of theARPANET, a forerunner of the Internet system and the introduction of the first contentweb search engine,Archie, on September 10.[3]
September 14, 1990, saw the first case of successful somaticgene therapy on a patient.[4]
Due to theearly 1990s recession that began that year and uncertainty due to the collapse of thesocialist governments inEastern Europe, birth rates in many countries stopped rising or fell steeply in 1990. In most western countries theEcho Boom peaked in 1990;fertility rates declined thereafter.[5]
The first Internet companies catering to commercial users,PSINet andEUnet begin selling Internet access to commercial customers in the United States and Netherlands respectively.[6][7]
January 2 –Ramiz Ali declares that the rejection of Communism will not be repeated inAlbania, but that the changing European political climate will nevertheless require adjustments.[8]
Thousands storm theStasi headquarters inEast Berlin in an attempt to view their government records.
Martin Luther King Day Crash – Telephone service in Atlanta, St. Louis, and Detroit, including 9-1-1 service, goes down for nine hours, due to an AT&T software bug.
Clashes break out between Indian troops andMuslim separatists inKashmir.
The government ofHaiti declares astate of emergency, under which it suspends civil liberties, imposes censorship, and arrests political opponents. The state of siege is lifted on January 29.
January 23 – The 14th and final Extraordinary Congress of theYugoslav Communist Party concludes after 3 days. Although Serb hardliners block substantial reforms, the Party signals its openness to multiparty elections.Slovene delegates, protesting the slow pace of reforms, walk out of the assembly.[12]
As the German chancellorHelmut Kohl is on a state visit in Moscow,Mikhail Gorbachev assures him that the Germans have the right to choose reunification. While the question of the membership of a reunited Germany in the existing military alliances is still unresolved, this is seen as a major breakthrough.
ThePale Blue Dot photograph ofEarth is sent back from theVoyager 1 probe after completing its primary mission, from around 5.6 billion kilometers (3.5 billion miles) away.
April 14 –Junk bond financierMichael Milken pleaded guilty to fraud-related charges. He agreed to pay US$500 million in restitution and was sentenced onNovember 21 to 10 years in jail.
April 21 – JapaneseYoshio Tani, M.Sc. murders gold merchant Turkka Elovirta and businessman Juhani Komulainen inSiuntio,Finland, having convinced them to buy a nonexistent 500 kilogram stash ofNazi gold.[33][34]
In thePhilippines, gunmen kill twoUnited States Air Force airmen nearClark Air Base on the eve of talks between the Philippines and the United States over the future of American military bases in the Philippines.[36]
May 28 –1990 Arab League summit: Saddam Hussein receives the emir of Kuwait for a diplomatic visit, at a time when his country and its decent oil revenues were being pushed into bankruptcy by Kuwait's lowering of the price of oil. A dictator with ambitions, Saddam wanted to continue increasing his military strength, and so confronted Kuwait instead. After the public events, Hussein invited Arab leaders to a private meeting. Here, he threatened war on Kuwait unless Kuwait stopped lowering the price of oil, recalls then-Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz.[citation needed]
Members of theProvisional Irish Republican Army shoot and kill Major Michael Dillon-Lee and Private William Robert Davies of theBritish Army. Dillon-Lee is killed outside his home inDortmund, Germany and Davies is killed at a railway station inLichfield, England.
The1990 FIFA World Cup begins in Italy. This was the first broadcast of digitalHDTV in history; Europe would not begin HDTV broadcasting en masse until2004.[41]
Somali PresidentSiad Barre's bodyguards massacre anti-government demonstrators during a soccer match; 65 people are killed, more than 300 seriously injured.
At 12:34:56 (a.m. and p.m.), the date and time using American formats was 12:34:56, 7/8/90 (1234567890). The next such event will occur on July 8, 2090.[50]
By the end of June, Saddam and his lieutenants suspect a conspiracy against Iraq, devised by Kuwait and orchestrated by the US. Earlier in July they threaten invasion on Kuwait unless $10 billion is sent to Iraq from Kuwait. When Kuwait refuses, on July 16, Iraqi forces begin to gather in southern Iraq near the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border.
RELCOM is created in theSoviet Union by combining several computer networks. Later in August, the Soviet Union got its first connection to theInternet.[54]
Thegovernment of Peru announces an austerity plan that results in huge increases in the price of food and gasoline. The plan sets off days of rioting and a national strike on August 21.
Egypt,Syria, and 10 otherArab states vote to send military forces to Saudi Arabia to discourage an invasion from Iraq.
A passenger bus, traveling along the route "Tbilisi-Agdam", is blown up; 20 people are killed and 30 are injured. The organizers of the crime wereArmenians A. Avanesian and M. Tatevosian who were brought to criminal trial.[51]
Indonesian commercial television networkSCTV was established as the nation's third television station afterRCTI, and also debuted as local television channel inSurabaya. During its earlier days, SCTV was the rival forRCTI, the first commercial television network. SCTV began broadcasting nationwide from Jakarta byJanuary 29,1991.
Gulf War: U.S. PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush delivers a nationally televised speech in which he threatens the use of force to removeIraqi soldiers fromKuwait.
FirstPizza Hut opens in the People's Republic of China, nearly 3 years after the firstKFC opened there in1987.[59]
A judge in Australia orders the arrest of media tycoonChristopher Skase, former owner of theSeven Network, after he fails to give evidence in a liquidator's examination of failed shipbuilding company Lloyds Ships Holdings, an associate of Skase'sQintex Australia Ltd.[60]
TheSoviet Union enacts a law permittingreligious freedom, ending government interference in religious activity and permitting Soviet citizens to engage in private religious study in their homes.[65]
German interior ministerWolfgang Schäuble is shot at during an election campaign event. He survives but will require a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
October 14 – Regional elections are held in the five East German states that replace the 14 districts of the GDR. The Christian Democrats become the strongest party in four of the five states while the Social Democrats lead in the state of Brandenburg.
South Africa ends segregation of libraries, trains, buses, toilets, swimming pools, and other public facilities.
United Airlines announces a purchase order of 128 wide-body aircraft fromBoeing, including severalBoeing 777s, in an order totaling $22 billion, the largest order in aviation history to that point.[40]
A new constitution comes into effect in theKingdom of Nepal, establishing multiparty democracy and constitutional monarchy; this is the culmination of the1990 People's Movement.
President Bush signed newClean Air Act, focused on urban pollution and cancer-causing emissions from industrial sources.
People's Republic of Bulgaria is dissolved after the seventhGrand National Assembly voted to change the country's name to the Republic of Bulgaria and removed the Communist state emblem from the national flag.
November 17 – Soviet President Gorbachev proposes a radical restructuring of the Soviet government, including the creation of a Federal Council to be made up of the heads of the 15Soviet republics.
November 19–21 – The leaders of Canada, the United States, and 32 European states meet in Paris to formally mark theend of the Cold War.
Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath theEnglish Channel seabed, establishing the first land connection between Great Britain and the mainland of Europe for around 8,000 years.
December 13 – Murder charges against Dr.Jack Kevorkian are dismissed in Michigan, related to the Aprilassisted-suicide death of anAlzheimer's patient, Janet Adkins. A state judge determined that Kevorkian only provided themeans for Ms. Adkins to die. This is the first of numerous cases to be brought against Kevorkian over the next decade.[78]
^Kleiner, Carolyn (July 24, 2000)."Van Gogh's vanishing act".Mysteries of History. U.S. News & World Report.Archived from the original on December 8, 2013. RetrievedMay 7, 2011.
^abcdefZeleny, Robert O., ed. (1991).The 1991 World Book Year Book: A Review of the Events of 1990. Chicago: World Book, Inc. p. 429.ISBN0-7166-0491-4.
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