January 15 – 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.
In Washington, D.C., MayorMarion Barry is arrested fordrug possession in anFBI sting.
In California, theMcMartin preschool trial, the longest criminal trial in U.S. history, ends with all defendants being acquitted on charges ofchild molesting.
In Miami, William Lozano, a Hispanic police officer, is sentenced to seven years in prison for shooting a black motorcyclist in 1989, an event that had set off three days of rioting.
February 10 – Two unidentified men enter a bowling alley inLas Cruces, New Mexico, with the intent of robbing it. They ultimately shoot 7 civilians, killing 5, and set fire to the establishment. Theincident remains unsolved.[1]
February 14 – ThePale Blue Dot picture is sent back from theVoyager 1 probe after completing its primary mission; it was about 6 billion km (3.7 billion miles) from Earth.
Major League Baseball players and owners agree to a new four-year contract, ending the lockout begun on February 15.
March 22 – A jury inAnchorage, Alaska findsJoseph Hazelwood guilty of misdemeanor negligence for his role in theExxon Valdez oil spill. He is sentenced to pay $50,000 in restitution and to spend 1,000 hours cleaning oily beaches.
March 25 – In New York City, a fire due to arson at an illegalsocial club called "Happy Land" kills 87.
April 6 –Robert Mapplethorpe's "The Perfect Moment" show of nude and homosexual photographs opens at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, in spite of accusations of indecency byCitizens for Community Values.
April 7 –Iran-Contra Affair:John Poindexter is found guilty of five charges for his part in the scandal; the convictions are later reversed on appeal.
April 8 –Ryan White, who made headlines after being expelled for contractingAIDS, dies from the disease at the age of 18.
April 17–18 – President Bush meets with representatives of 17 countries and two international organizations at theWhite House to discussglobal warming and otherenvironmental issues.
May 13 – 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.
June – The last month of the 1980s business cycle expansion, at the time the second-longest expansion in American history (the 1960s expansion was a year longer), comes to an end; the unemployment rate is 5.2%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 2,900 for the first time ever.
June 2 – TheLower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 88 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12; Thirty-seven tornadoes occur in Indiana, eclipsing the previous record of 21 during the1974 Super Outbreak.
June 26 – PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush reneges on his 1988 "no new taxes" campaign pledge in a statement accepting tax revenue increases as a necessity to reduce the budget deficit.[2] This later becomes a factor in the1992 presidential election.
June 28 – TheDart Man attacks begin in New York City.[3]
August 18 – In New York City, a jury finds three teenagers guilty of raping and assaulting a woman inCentral Park in April 1989. On September 11, they are sentenced to 5–10 years in prison.
September 11 –Gulf War: PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush delivers a nationally televised speech in which he threatens the use of force to remove Iraqi soldiers fromKuwait.
In what will come to be regarded as a landmark event in regards to women in journalism, reporterLisa Olson issexually harassed by multipleNew England Patriots players while trying to conduct a locker room interview.
October 2 – The Senate confirmsDavid Souter to the Supreme Court; he takes his seat on October 9.
October 3 – InFort Lauderdale, Florida, a jury convicts a record store owner of obscenity for selling an album by2 Live Crew. On October 20, a second jury finds 2 Live Crew not guilty of obscenity on charges stemming from a June 1990 performance.
October 5 – InCincinnati, a jury finds an art museum and its art director innocent of breaking obscenity laws for displaying sexually explicit photographs byRobert Mapplethorpe.
October 6–8 – The federal government temporarily halts all non-essential services after Congress fails to enact a new budget and President Bush vetoes a stop-gap spending measure.
October 9 –Leonard Bernstein announces his retirement from conducting after 47 years. He dies five days later.[4]
President Bush vetoes a civil rights bill that would have strengthened federal protection against job discrimination, arguing that it would lead to race and gender-based quotas.
November 11 –Stormie Jones, the Texas girl who had been the world's first recipient of a simultaneous heart and liver transplant in 1984, dies at aPittsburgh hospital at age 13.
December 2 –STS-35:Space ShuttleColumbia begins a mission that ends on December 10, a day earlier than planned, ending a mission plagued with computer and plumbing problems.