1996

Jan 23, 1996 - The US Army disclosed that it had 30,000 tons of chemical weapons stored in Utah, Alabama, Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Colorado and Oregon.

Feb

March 24, 1996 - Stargazers across the country scanned the skies in hopes of seeing Hyakutake, the brightest comet to pass by the Earth in two decades.

April 6, 1996 - A sorrowful President Clinton was on hand at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to greet the arrival of 33 flag-draped caskets carrying the remains of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and other victims of a plane crash in Croatia.

April 19, 1996 - President Clinton, visiting Russia, paid tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Russians who died in the Nazi siege of Leningrad -- and to the victims of the Oklahoma bombing as well.

May 1996 - Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan.

May 1, 1996 - PLO leader Yasser Arafat received a statesman's welcome at the White House, where he met with President Clinton for 45 minutes, then lashed out at Israel for keeping its borders closed to Palestinian workers.

May 3, 1996 - A weak compromise treaty was passed in Geneva that aimed to phase out non-detectable plastic mines, and introduced rules to limit the lifespan of anti-personnel mines planted outside marked fields to 3 months. The new treaty will go into effect once it is signed by 20 countries and revised an outdated 1980 weapons protocol signed by 57 nations. It has few enforcement provisions. An international conference in Geneva ended 30 months of arduous negotiations over whether to ban land mines with a weak compromise treaty giving countries nine years to switch to detectable, self-destructive devices.

May 14, 1996 - The Voice of America turned on its newest radio transmitter in Kuwait. It was 12 times more powerful than any broadcast station in the US and was directed at Iraq and Iran  The US Energy Dept. announced that it would import 20 tons of nuclear waste from research reactors in 41 nations to prevent the weapons grade material from being used for bombs.

May 15, 1996 - Iraqi officials and UN experts began dismantling a major biological weapons factory near Baghdad.

May 16, 1996 - It was reported that UN and Iraqi officials reached a tentative agreement to resume oil sales of $4 billion a year to buy food and medicine.

May 20, 1996 - The US paid North Korea $2 million to help recover the remains of US soldiers killed during the Korean War.

May 22, 1996 - Amnesty International reported that Iraqi doctors were forced to cut off the ears of alleged deserters and that Kenyan doctors were pressured to ignore evidence of torture.

May 24, 1996 - Alexandras Lileikis (89) was stripped of his US citizenship for his role in turning over Jews to the Germans in Lithuania from 1941-1944. In his 1949 application for citizenship he said that he only performed administrative duties. 15 more cases are pending in federal courts and 300 other cases are under investigation.
 

June 2, 1996 - A list of the countries that are considered the most corrupt by international business people had the following top ten: Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya, Bangladesh, China, Cameroon, Venezuela, Russia, India and Indonesia. The top ten least corrupt were New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Canada, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Australia. The US was judged 15th least corrupt, worse than Israel but better than Austria.

June 3, 1996 - A recent announcement was made that Hughes Electronics will take over the Indianapolis Naval Air Warfare Center. The NAWC made the bombsights that helped win WW II.

June 11, 1996 - S. Korea pledged $3 mil in aid to N. Korea.

June 15, 1996 - UN weapons inspectors gave up after a 5-day standoff with Iraqi authorities over inspection of 4 sites for documents and other material relating to weapons of mass destruction.

June 25, 1996 - At least 23 Americans were killed at a US base near Dhahran. another 105 suffered serious injuries from a truck bomb estimated at 5,000 pounds at the Khobar Towers apartment complex adjacent to King Abdul Aziz Air Base. About 5,000 US troops served in Saudi Arabia. US, French and British aircraft resumed flying 100 missions per day over southern Iraz from Saudi Arabia. In 1997 intelligence information tied a senior Iranian intelligence officer to Hani Abd Rahim Sayegh, a man who fled Saudi Arabia shortly after the bombing. In 1999 the US threatened was set to deport Hani al-Sayegh to Saudi Arabia. Sayegh feared torture and asked for US asylum. Sayegh was deported Oct 10.  Later reports said that Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi billionaire, bankrolled the bombing of the US base that killed 19 US servicemen. He was an advocate of strict Islamic rule and had said that he would campaign to overthrow the Saudi royal family. He had lived in the Sudan for 2 years and recently moved to Afghanistan and was accepted by the Taliban. In 1998 a senior Saudi official absolved Iran of any involvement in the bombing.

June 30, 1996 - President Clinton paid tribute to the 19 killed and hundreds wounded in the truck bomb attack in Saudi Arabia as he attended memorial services at Eglin Air Force Base and Patrick Air Force Base in Florida.

July 14, 1996 - In Afghanistan the new prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, closed movie theaters and banned music on TV and radio, claiming that they were repugnant to Islam.

July 18, 1996 - TWA flight 800 crashed off of Long Island, N.Y., shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport and 230 people died. It was a 25-year-old Paris-bound Boeing 747 whose previous flight had been from Greece. Later reports of a missile attack were tracked to a Navy P-3 Orion flying at 20,000 feet as opposed to the altitude of the Boeing at 13,600 feet. In 1997 the FBI issued a report that the disaster was caused by an explosion in the central fuel tank and was not the result of sabotage.

Aug 22, 1996 - The US Army began operating an incinerator in Utah to destroy a 14,000 ton stockpile of chemical weapons over 7 years.

Aug 30, 1996 - The US State Dept. sent a diplomatic note to China protesting the sale of equipment for use in nuclear facilities in Pakistan.

Aug 31, 1996 - More than 100 members of the Iraqi National Congress in Irbil were captured by Iraqi secret police and apparently executed. The Congress was set up by the US in 1992 as an alternative to Saddam Hussein. Thousands of opposition members made it to Turkey and were flown to Guam by the US and promised asylum in the US.

Sept 1, 1996 - A day after Iraqi forces moved into a Kurdish safe haven, U.S. officials were warning the Baghdad government that the incursion would not go unpunished. That same day, Iraq ordered its troops to withdraw from Irbil.

Sept 2, 1996 -Anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies of Baghdad, hours after the United States fired a new round of cruise missiles into southern Iraq and destroyed an Iraqi radar site. The US again launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraqi air defense sites. The 2nd launch was deemed a success after the first launch failed to destroy intended targets. The Tomahawks were made by Hughes Aircraft Co. and cost about $1 mil apiece. Kurdish leader Barzani wrote a latter to Sec. of State Christopher Warren and asked that the US mediate. 44 cruise missiles were launched over 2 days plus a rocket from an F-16 fighter.

Sept 15, 1996 - Defense Secretary William Perry was making the rounds among American allies in the Persian Gulf region, seeking additional support for the U.S. stance against Iraq. Bahrain agreed to play host to 26 American F-16 jet fighters.

Sept 16, 1996 - Kuwait agreed to allow the US to send 3,300 troops to its soil over the confrontation with Iraq.

Sept 18, 1996 - The O.J. Simpson civil trial opened in Santa Monica, Calif.

Sept 22. 1996 - In Afghanistan the Taleban guerrillas swept through 3 south-eastern provinces over the last 2 weeks and now control about 2/3 of the country.  In South Korea the captain of the North Korean submarine, recently grounded, was tracked down and killed. Another infiltrator and 2 South Korean soldiers were also killed in 2 clashes.

Sept 23, 1996 - Iran expected delivery of its 3rd Russian-made submarine within 6 months, as part of its navy buildup in the Persian Gulf.

Sept 24, 1996 - The United States, represented by President Clinton, and the world's other major nuclear powers signed a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.

Sept 25, 1996 - NATO generals were ordered to prepare plans for an extension of allied military force in Bosnia beyond the Dec. 20 deadline.

Sept 26, 1996 - In Afghanistan former Pres. Najibullah and his brother, former security chief Shahpur Ahmedzi, were executed and hung when the Taleban fighters moved into Kabul. They had been in hiding since being overthrown 4 years ago. Officials hoped that the former king, Zahir Shah, would return to lead the country.

Oct 1, 1996 - A federal grand jury indicted Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski in 1994 mail bomb slaying of an ad executive.

Oct 2, 1996 - The US Army prepared to shift 5,000 troops to Bosnia from Germany for 6-months to protect troops slated to leave.  Mark Fuhrman was given three years' probation and fined $200 after pleading no contest to perjury for denying at O.J. Simpson's criminal trial that he had used a certain racial slur in the past decade.

Oct 25, 1996 - The US held back $100 million in arms until Bosnia cuts its ties to Iran. M-60 tanks, M-111 armored personnel carriers and 50,000 small arms, ammunition and supplies were part of the deal.

Nov 22, 1996 - O.J. Simpson took the stand as a hostile witness in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against him, saying it was "absolutely not true" that he killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Dec 26, 1996 - In Boulder, Colorado, 6-year-old Jon Benet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family home 8 hours after the mother discovered a ransom note demanding $118,000.