1990 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal government

• President: George H. W. Bush
• Vice President: Dan Quayle
• Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Tom Foley
• Senate Majority Leader: George J. Mitchell
• Congress: 101st

  State governments

Governors

Lieutenant governors

Demographics

Events

January

• January 2 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 2,800 for the first time ever.
• January 3 – United States invasion of Panama: General Manuel Noriega, the deposed "strongman of Panama", surrenders to American forces.
• January 5 – The National Gallery of Art purchases The Fall of Phaeton by Peter Paul Rubens.
• January 9–20 – The Space Shuttle Columbia flies STS-32.
• January 10 – Time Warner is formed from the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc.
• January 13 – Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office in Richmond, Virginia.
• 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.
• January 17 – Smith & Wesson introduce the.40 S&W cartridge.
• January 18
• * In Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting.
• * In California, the McMartin preschool trial, the longest criminal trial in U.S. history, ends with all defendants being acquitted on charges of child molesting.
• January 22 – Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the Morris worm.
• January 24
• * Richard Secord is sentenced to two years probation for lying to the United States Congress about the Iran–Contra affair.
• * 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.
• January 25 – Avianca Flight 52 crashes into Cove Neck, Long Island, New York, killing 73, after a miscommunication between the flight crew and JFK Airport officials.
• January 28 – The San Francisco 49ers defeat the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV.
• January 29
• * The trial of Joseph Hazelwood, former skipper of the Exxon Valdez, begins in Anchorage, Alaska. He is accused of negligence that resulted in America's worst oil spill to date.
• * In Holmdel, New Jersey, scientists at Bell Labs announce they have created a digital optical processor that could lead to the development of superfast computers that use pulses of light rather than electric currents to make calculations.
• January 31
• * President of the United States George H. W. Bush gives his first State of the Union address and proposes that the U.S. and the Soviet Union make deep cuts to their military forces in Europe.
• * Cold War: The first McDonald's in Moscow, Russia opens.

  February

• February 9 – The owners of Major League Baseball announce a lockout because of a salary dispute with players.
• February 10 – Two unidentified men enter a bowling alley in Las Cruces, New Mexico, with the intent of robbing it. They ultimately shoot 7 civilians, killing 5, and set fire to the establishment. The incident remains unsolved.
• February 11 – James "Buster" Douglas knocks out Mike Tyson to win the World Heavyweight Boxing crown.
• February 13 – Drexel Burnham Lambert files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
• February 14 – The Pale Blue Dot picture is sent back from the Voyager 1 probe after completing its primary mission; it was about 6 billion km from Earth.
• February 19 – The United Mine Workers reach a deal with the Pittston Company to end the Pittston Coal strike that had gone on since April 5, 1989; most striking coal miners return to work on February 26.
• February 25 – A smoking ban takes effect on all domestic U.S. flights of less than six hours.
• February 27 – Exxon Valdez oil spill: Exxon and its shipping company are indicted on five criminal counts.
• February 28
• * The Space Shuttle Atlantis begins STS-36.
• * The 5.7 Upland earthquake hits the Greater Los Angeles Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII, causing $12.7 million in losses and 30 injuries.

  March

• March – Greyhound bus drivers strike for higher pay.
• March 1
• *Steve Jackson Games is raided by the U.S. Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
• * The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves a license for the long-delayed Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant.
• March 6 – An SR-71 sets a U.S. transcontinental speed record of 1 hour 8 minutes 17 seconds, on what is publicized as its last official flight.
• March 9 – Antonia Novello is sworn in as Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and Hispanic American to serve in the position.
• March 18
• *Twelve paintings, collectively worth from $100 to $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts by two robbers posing as police officers. It is the largest art theft, and the largest theft of private property, ever; the paintings have not been recovered and the crime remains unsolved.
• * Major League Baseball players and owners agree to a new four-year contract, ending the lockout begun on February 15.
• March 22 – A jury in Anchorage, Alaska finds Joseph Hazelwood guilty of misdemeanor negligence for his role in the Exxon 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 illegal social club called "Happy Land" kills 87.
• March 26 – The 62nd Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, with Bruce Beresford's Driving Miss Daisy winning four awards out of nine nominations, including Best Picture. Jessica Tandy, at 80, becomes the oldest actress to win Best Actress and the oldest person to win for acting until 2012. Oliver Stone wins his second Best Director award for Born on the Fourth of July. The telecast garners over 40 million viewers.
• March 27 – The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí to Cuba.
• March 28 – U.S. President George H. W. Bush posthumously awards Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.

  April

• April 2 – The UNLV Runnin' Rebels basketball team defeats the Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team to win the 1990 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament.
• 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 by Citizens 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 contracting AIDS, dies from the disease at the age of 18.
• April 9 – Sigma Lambda Gamma National Sorority, Inc. is established.
• April 17–18 – President Bush meets with representatives of 17 countries and two international organizations at the White House to discuss global warming and other environmental issues.
• April 20 – STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery.
• April 23 – Lebanon hostage crisis: Lebanese kidnappers release American educator Robert Polhill, who had been held hostage since January 1987.
• April 24 – Investor Michael Milken pleads guilty to six felonies and agrees to pay $600 million in fines and restitution.
• April 25 – The Space Shuttle Discovery places the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.
• April 28 – A Chorus Line, the longest-running musical in Broadway history, closes after 6,137 performances.
• April 30 – Lebanon hostage crisis: Lebanese kidnappers release American educator Frank H. Reed, who had been held hostage since September 1986.

  May

• May 13 – In the Philippines, gunmen kill two United States Air Force airmen near Clark Air Base on the eve of talks between the Philippines and the United States over the future of American military bases in the Philippines.
• May 16 – The Muppets creator Jim Henson dies at the age of 53 from Toxic shock syndrome.
• May 19 – The U.S. and the Soviet Union agree to end production of chemical weapons and to destroy most of their stockpiles of chemical weapons.
• May 22 – Microsoft releases Windows 3.0.
• May 24 – The Edmonton Oilers defeat the Boston Bruins in the 1990 Stanley Cup Finals for their fifth Stanley Cup.
• May 30 – President Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev begin a four-day summit meeting in Washington, D.C.

  June

• June – The last month of the 1980s business cycle expansion, at the time the second-longest expansion in American history, comes to an end; the unemployment rate is 5.2%.
• June 1
• *Cold War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev sign the Chemical Weapons Accord to end chemical weapon production and begin destroying their respective stocks.
• * The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 2,900 for the first time ever.
• June 2 – The Lower 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 the 1974 Super Outbreak.
• June 7
• *Nickelodeon Studios opens.
• *Universal Studios Florida opens to the public.
• June 9 – Mega Borg oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, Texas.
• June 11
• * Nolan Ryan pitches his sixth career no-hitter.
• * In United States v. Eichman, the Supreme Court overturns a 1989 federal law that made it illegal to burn the United States flag.
• June 14 – 1990 NBA Finals: The Detroit Pistons defeat the Portland Trail Blazers.
• June 17–30 – Nelson Mandela tours North America, visiting three Canadian cities and eight U.S. cities.
• June 18 – James Edward Pough kills 10 and injures six before committing suicide at a General Motors car loan office in Jacksonville, Florida.
• June 22 – The United States Fish and Wildlife Service declares the spotted owl a threatened species.
• June 25 – In Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, the Supreme Court allows public officials to intervene in questions of termination of life support in the absence of an advance healthcare directive.
• June 26 – President George 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. This later becomes a factor in the 1992 presidential election.
• June 28 – The Dart Man attacks begin in New York City.