Not to be outdone by 1991, 1992 continues in much the same vein as its predecessor: riots, ethnic cleansing, civil war, the continued break-up of Yugoslavia, and the Macarena. Never-the-less, despite all these horrific atrocities, some things are starting to look up. Apartheid is ending in South Africa, going much more smoothly than anyone expected. Many former soviet states (unless you're Georgia or Tajikistan) are surprisingly peaceful, and the Soviet Union is finally and most certainly out of the picture. It's a tough year, but the ethnic hatred suppressed during all those cold war years was almost certain to come to a head some time, and today in 2009, these ethnic rivals seem to have gotten most of it out of their system. As always, please /msg me with comments or criticism (especially if you spot inaccuracies or omissions). With that said, here is:

The Year 1992


In Pop Culture:

January 8: President George H. W. Bush vomits on Prime Minister of Japan Kiichi Miyazawa, then faints (all while on camera).

January 11: Paul Simon goes on tour in South Africa, marking the end of a decades-long cultural boycott in protest of Apartheid

February 17: Serial killer Jeffery Dahmer is sentenced to life in prison.

April 2: John Gotti is convicted of racketeering and the murder of Paul Castellano. He is sentenced to life in prison.

April 12: EuroDisney opens in Paris.

July 22: Pablo Escobar escapes from prison in Colombia

August 21 - 22: U.S. federal agents lay siege to a house in Ruby Ridge, resulting in the deaths of 3 occupants and a U.S. Marshal.

October 3: Singer Sinead O'Connor tears a picture of Pope John Paul II in half on Saturday Night Live after performing a song in protest of child abuse by the Roman Catholic Church

October 15: In Russia, serial killer Andrei Chikatilo is found guilty of 52 murders.

October 31: Pope John Paul II apologizes to Galileo Galilei on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church

November 11: The Church of England votes in favor of female priests.

December 15: Dr. Dre releases his solo debut The Chronic

undated: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

Highest-grossing films of 1992 (U.S.):

1. Aladdin

2. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

3. Batman Returns

4. Lethal Weapon 3

5. A Few Good Men


Top of the Charts:

1. Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You

2. Boyz II Men - End of the Road

3. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

4. Kriss Kross - Jump

5. Snap - Rhythm is a Dancer


Grammy Awards:
(note: These awards were actually held in 1993, but the awards were given for the previous year, 1992)

Record of the Year: Russ Titelman and Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven

Album of the Year: Russ Titelman and Eric Clapton - Unplugged

Song of the Year: Eric Clapton and Will Jennings - Tears in Heaven

Best New Artist: Arrested Development


Academy Awards:
(note: These awards were actually held in 1993, but the awards were given for the previous year, 1992)

Best Picture: Unforgiven

Best Director: Clint Eastwood - Unforgiven

Best Actor: Al Pacino - Scent of a Woman

Best Actress: Emma Thompson - Howards End

Best Supporting Actor: Gene Hackman - Unforgiven

Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei - My Cousin Vinny


Pulitzer Prize:

Fiction: Jane Smiley - A Thousand Acres

Drama: Robert Schenkkan - The Kentucky Cycle

Poetry: James Tate - Selected Poems


Nobel Prize for Literature:

Derek Walcott (of St. Lucia)


The Booker Prize:

Barry Unsworth (of the United Kingdom) - Sacred Hunger

Michael Ondaatje (of Canada, formerly of Sri Lanka) - The English Patient

Sports:

January 26: The Washington Redskins defeat the Buffalo Bills to win Super Bowl XXVI

February 8 - 23: Winter Olympics held in Albertville, France

March: Duke University defeats the University of Michigan to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship

June 1: The Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the Chicago Blackhawks to win the NHL Stanley Cup.

June 10 - 26: Denmark defeats Germany to win the UEFA European Football Championship

June 14: The Chicago Bulls defeat the Portland Trail Blazers to win the NBA Championship

July 4 - 26: Miguel Indurain (of Spain) wins the Tour de France

July 26 - 31: Summer Olympics held in Barcelona, Spain

October 17 - 24: The Toronto Blue Jays defeat the Atlanta Braves to win the World Series



Notable deaths:

(This list is far from complete. See the site in the bibliography below for more)

February 10: Alex Haley (born 1921) - novelist and journalist, author of Roots (of heart failure)

March 2: Sandy Dennis (born 1937) - actress, played Honey in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (of Ovarian Cancer)

March 23: Friedrich von Hayek (born 1899) - Nobel Prize-winning economist

April 5: Sam Walton (born 1918) - Founder of Wal-Mart (of bone cancer)

April 6: Isaac Asimov (born 1920) - Science Fiction author (of complications from AIDS)

May 6: Malene Dietrich (born 1901) - German actress and anti-nazi, worked with the USO to entertain allied troops (of kidney failure)

June 29: Mohammed Boudiaf (born 1919) - President of Algeria (assassinated)

August 18: Christopher McCandless (born 1968) - wandered into the Alaskan wilderness to live off the land, subject of the book and subsequent film Into the Wild (of starvation)

September 2: Barbara McClintock (born 1902) - Nobel Prize-winning scientist; discovered telomeres

October 27: David Bohm (born 1917) - Quantum physicist, involved in the Manhattan Project (of Heart Failure)

November 7: Richard Yates (born 1926) - novelist, wrote Revolutionary Road, among others (of Emphysema)

Notable Births:
(This list is far from complete. See the site in the bibliography below for more)

June 30: Lamb Gaede and Lynx Gaede - twins; formed the neo-nazi pop duo Prussian Blue

August 4: Cole Sprouse and Dylan Sprouse - identical twin actors, play Zack (Cole Sprouse) and Cody (Dylan Sprouse) on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody

September 16: Nick Jonas - musician (of the Jonas Brothers)

November 21: Nevada-tan (real name unknown) - murdered her classmate in 2004 over cyber-bullying

November 23: Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) - actress, singer


In Science, Technology, and Nature:

September 12: Dr. Mae Jemison (of the United States) becomes the first black woman in space, aboard the Endeavor.

October 29: Depo-provera is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use as a contraceptive.

undated: CERN releases to the public their hypertext for physicists, calling it the World Wide Web

Nobel Prizes in Science:

Chemistry: Rudolph A. Marcus (of the United States, formerly of Canada)

Medicine: Edmond H. Fischer (of Switzerland and the United States) and Edwin G. Krebs (of the United States)

Physics: Georges Charpak (of Poland and France)

Disasters:

March 3: A coal mine explosion kills 270 in Kozlu, Turkey.

March 8: A ferry carrying Buddhist pilgrims collides with an oil-tanker in the Gulf of Thailand, killing 90.

March 12: A trolley crashes in Gothenburg, Sweden killing 13.

March 13: An earthquake in Turkey kills 570.

April 22: A ruptured fuel line causes an explosion in Guadalajara, Mexico, killing 215.

May 5: A terrace collapses at Armand Césari Stadium in Bastia, Corsica, France, killing 18.

August: Hurricane Andrew tears through the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana, killing 65 and causing $26.6 billion dollars (or $40.7 billion in 2009, adjusted for inflation) in damage.

August 31: A mine explosion in the Philippines kills 500.

October 4: An Israeli plane crashes in a densely populated area of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, killing a total of 43 (including 39 on the ground and all 4 on board).

November 24: A China Southern Airlines flight crashes in China, killing all 141 on board.

December 12: An earthquake kills 2,500 in Flores, Indonesia.

December 21: A Dutch plane crashes in Portugal, killing 56.

In Politics:

January 1: Boutros Boutros-Ghali becomes U.N. Secretary-general

January 12: Algeria's general elections are canceled after the first round indicates a win by the Islamic Salvation Front.

January 16: Civil war ends in El Salvador as rebels and government forces sign a pact in Mexico City.

February: A coup d'etat fails in Chad. Civil war continues.

February: The left-wing Bolivarist Revolutionary Movement briefly overtakes the government of President Carlos Andres Perez in Venezuela. The coup is soon suppressed.

February: Rioting breaks out between predominately Mulism ethnic Hausas and the Christian Katafs in Nigeria, killing 60.

February 7: Maastricht Treaty signed in the Netherlands, creating the European Union.

February 21: The United Nations Security Council approves a peacekeeping operation in Yugoslavia.

February 25 - 26: 613 ethnic Azeri civilians are killed in Khojaly, Azerbaijan due to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Known as the Khojaly Massacre.

March: Anti-government demonstrations begin in Dushnabe, Tajikistan

March: Fighting erupts between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnian Civil War begins.

March 12: Mauritius becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations.

March 17: a car-bomb attack at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires kills 29.

April 29: A successful coup in Sierra Leone overthrows the government of Joseph Saidu Momoh. Valentine Strasser becomes the president, and civil war continues in the nation.

April 29 - May 4: A jury acquits 4 LAPD police officers for the beating of Rodney King. News of the acquittal sparks 6 days of heavy rioting in the Los Angeles area, resulting in 53 deaths and $1 billion in property damage.

May: Another coup d'etat fails in Chad, furthering the Civil war in the nation.

May: Civil war begins in Tajikistan.

May: Riots flare up again between Hausas and Katafs in Nigeria, killing 300.

May 13: Falun Gong is founded in China

May 17: Thai troops fire upon protesters in Bangkok, killing hundreds.

August 10: The government of the United Kingdom bans the Ulster Defence Association

October 2: A prison riot breaks out at Carandiru Penitentiary in São Paulo, Brazil, resulting in 111 deaths. Handling of the riot is criticized by Human rights groups, and commanding officer of the operation Ubiratan Guimarães is sentenced to 620 years in prison for his part in suppressing the riot.

November: Fighting erupts again in Angola after UNITA loses U.N.-monitored parliamentary elections. The Angolan Civil War continues.

November 3: Bill Clinton is elected president of the United States, defeating opponents George H. W. Bush and Ross Perot.

November 25: Czechoslovakia votes to split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, effective on January 1, 1993.

November 27: Another coup fails against the government of President Carlos Andres Perez in Venezuela.

December 4: United States military forces arrive in Somalia.

December 6: Hindu extremists destroy the Babri Masjid mosque in India, sparking riots between Hindus and Muslims, killing 1,700 by the end of the year.

undated: The Khmer Rouge, now a resistance movement, begin fighting again in Cambodia.

Countries who declared independence in 1992:
From Yugoslavia:

Bosnia and Herzegovina (February 29th)

From Georgia:

Abkhazia (July 23rd) - As yet unrecognized by the international community

Admitted to the U.N. in 1992:
On February 3rd:

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Georgia

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan

Moldova

San Marino

Tajikstan

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

On May 22nd:

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Croatia

Slovenia

On July 31st:

Georgia


Countries who ceased to exist in 1992:

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (replaced by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia)


1991 < - 1992 - > 1993


20th century



Bibliography

War timeline: http://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/index1990.htm

Another war timeline: http://www.warscholar.com/Year/1975.html

Dates of independence: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2088.html

About.com's "Newest Countries:" http://geography.about.com/cs/countries/a/newcountries.htm

U.N. membership list and dates: http://www.un.org/members/list.shtml

1992 on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992

List of hit singles: http://tsort.info/music/yr1992.htm

Science timeline: http://www.sciencetimeline.net/1961.htm

Natural disasters timeline: http://www.intute.ac.uk/sciences/hazards/timeline.html

another disasters timeline: http://timelines.ws/subjects/Disasters.HTML

Highest-grossing films list: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1992&p=.htm

List of people who died in 1992: http://www.nndb.com/lists/502/000106184/

List of people born in 1992: http://www.nndb.com/lists/991/000105676/

Booker Prize archive: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/archive/26

Pulitzer Prize archive: http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat

Nobel Prize archive: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/all/

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