1994

Events

January

• January 1
• * The North American Free Trade Agreement is established.
• * Beginning of the Zapatista uprising in Mexico.
• January 8 – Soyuz TM-18: Valeri Polyakov begins his 437.7-day orbit of the Earth, eventually setting the world record for days spent in orbit.
• January 11 – The Irish government announces the end of a 15-year broadcasting ban on the Provisional Irish Republican Army and its political arm Sinn Féin.
• January 14 – U.S. president Bill Clinton and Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin accords, which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles toward each country's targets, and also provide for the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal in Ukraine.
• January 17 – The 6.7 Northridge earthquake strikes the Greater Los Angeles Area of the United States, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX, leaving 57 people dead and more than 8,700 injured.

  February

• February 3 – In the aftermath of the Chadian–Libyan conflict, the International Court of Justice rules that the Aouzou Strip belongs to the Republic of Chad.
• February 6 – Markale massacres: a Bosnian Serb Army mortar shell kills 68 civilians and wounds about 200 in a Sarajevo marketplace.
• February 9 – The Vance–Owen peace plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina is announced.
• February 12
• * Edvard Munch's painting The Scream is stolen in Oslo.
• * The 1994 Winter Olympics begin in Lillehammer.
• February 24 – In Gloucester, England, local police begin excavations at 25 Cromwell Street, the home of Fred West, a suspect in multiple murders. On February 28, he and his wife are arrested.
• February 25 – Israeli Kahanist Baruch Goldstein opens fire inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank; he kills 29 Muslims before worshippers beat him to death.
• February 28 – Four United States F-16s shoot down four Serbian J-21s over Bosnia and Herzegovina for violation of the Operation Deny Flight and its no-fly zone.

  March

• March – China gets its first connection to the Internet.
• March 6 – A referendum in Moldova results in the electorate voting against possible reunification with Romania.
• March 12 – The Church of England ordains its first female priests.
• March 20 – Italian journalist Ilaria Alpi and TV cameraman Miran Hrovatin are assassinated in Somalia.
• March 21 – The 66th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama Schindler's List wins seven Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director.
• March 23
• * Green Ramp disaster: two military aircraft collide over Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, United States, causing 24 fatalities.
• * Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is assassinated at a campaign rally in Tijuana.
• March 27
• * TV tycoon Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing coalition wins the Italian general election.
• * The biggest tornado outbreak in 1994 occurs in the southeastern United States; one tornado kills 22 people at the Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama.
• March 28 – Shell House massacre: Inkatha Freedom Party and ANC supporters battle in central Johannesburg, South Africa.
• March 31 – The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull.

  April

• April 2 – The National Convention of New Sudan of the SPLA/M opens in Chukudum.
• April 5 – Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana. commits suicide at the age of 27 at his home in Seattle. His body was found three days later.
• April 6 – Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira die when a missile shoots down their jet near Kigali, Rwanda. This is taken as a pretext to begin the Rwandan genocide.
• April 7 – The Rwandan genocide begins in Kigali, Rwanda.
• April 16 – Voters in Finland decide to join the European Union in a referendum.
• April 20 – South Africa adopts a new national flag, replacing the "Oranje, Blanje, Blou" flag adopted in 1928 that was used during apartheid.
• April 21 – The Red Cross estimates that hundreds of thousands of Tutsi have been killed in Rwanda.
• April 25 – Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Yusuff Izzudin Shah Ghafarullahu-lahu ends his term as the 9th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
• April 26
• * Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan, becomes the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
• * China Airlines Flight 140, an Airbus A300, crashes while landing at Nagoya, Japan, killing 264 people.
• April 27 – South Africa holds its first fully multiracial elections, marking the final end of the last vestiges of apartheid. Nelson Mandela wins the elections and is sworn in as the first democratically elected president the following month.

  May

• May 1 – Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy.
• May 5 – The Bishkek Protocol between Armenia and Azerbaijan is signed in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, effectively freezing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
• May 6 – The Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers more than seven years to complete, officially opens between England and France; it will enable passengers to travel by rail between the two countries in 35 minutes.
• May 10 - Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.
• May 17 – Malawi holds its first multiparty elections.
• May 18 – The Flavr Savr, a genetically modified tomato, is deemed safe for consumption by the FDA, becoming the first commercially grown genetically engineered food to be granted a license for human consumption.
• May 20 – After a funeral in Cluny Parish Church, Edinburgh attended by 900 people and after which 3,000 people line the streets, UK Labour Party leader John Smith is buried in a private family funeral on the island of Iona, at the sacred burial ground of Reilig Odhráin, which contains the graves of several Scottish kings as well as monarchs of Ireland, Norway and France.
• May 22 – Pope John Paul II issues the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis from the Vatican, expounding the Catholic Church's position requiring "the reservation of priestly ordination to men alone".

  June

• June 1 – The Republic of South Africa rejoins the Commonwealth of Nations after its first democratic election; South Africa had departed the then-British Commonwealth in 1961.
• June 6–8 – Ceasefire negotiations for the Yugoslav War begin in Geneva; they agree to a one-month cessation of hostilities.
• June 15 - Israel and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations.
• June 17
• * NFL star O. J. Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings flee from police in a white Ford Bronco. The low-speed chase ends at Simpson's Los Angeles mansion, where he surrenders.
• * The 1994 FIFA World Cup starts in the United States.
• June 19 – Ernesto Samper is elected President of Colombia.
• June 23 – NASA's Space Station Processing Facility, a new state-of-the-art manufacturing building for the International Space Station, officially opens at Kennedy Space Center.
• June 25 – Cold War: the last Russian troops leave Germany.
• June 28 – Members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult execute the first sarin gas attack at Matsumoto, Japan, killing eight and injuring 200.
• June 30
• * The Liberal Democratic Party in Japan regains power after spending 11 months in opposition, in coalition with the Japan Socialist Party.
• * Tropical Storm Alberto forms, hitting parts of Florida causing $1.03 billion in damage and 32 deaths.

  July

• July 4 – Rwandan Patriotic Front troops capture Kigali, a major breakthrough in the Rwandan Civil War.
• July 5 – Jeff Bezos founds Amazon.
• July 7 – 1994 civil war in Yemen: Aden is occupied by troops from North Yemen.
• July 8 – North Korean President Kim Il Sung dies, but officially continues to hold office.
• July 12 – The Allied occupation of Berlin officially ends with a casing of the colors ceremony attended by U.S. president Bill Clinton.
• July 16–22 – Fragments of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 impact the planet Jupiter.
• July 17 – Brazil wins the 1994 FIFA World Cup, defeating Italy 3–2 in a penalty shootout in the final.
• July 18
• * AMIA bombing: In Buenos Aires, a terrorist attack destroys a building housing several Jewish organizations, killing 85 and injuring many more.
• * Rwandan Patriotic Front troops capture Gisenyi, forcing the interim government into Zaire and ending the Rwandan genocide.
• July 25 – Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration as a preliminary to signature on October 25 of the Israel–Jordan peace treaty, which formally ends the state of war that has existed between the nations since 1948.

  August

• August 5 – Maleconazo: Groups of protesters spread from Havana, Cuba's Castillo de la Punta, creating the first protests against Fidel Castro's government since 1959.
• August 12 – Woodstock '94 begins in Saugerties, New York, United States, marking the 25-year anniversary of Woodstock in 1969.
• August 18
• * 1994 Mascara earthquake: a 5.8 earthquake leaves 171 dead in Algeria.
• * Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants: a 12-person jury reaches its verdict to award Stella Liebeck $2,860,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, later reduced to $640,000, for burns she received from a spilled hot coffee. McDonald's and Liebeck will later settle out of court.
• August 20 – Tyke, a female African bush elephant, injures her groomer and kills her trainer at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. She then escapes the arena, and runs amok in the streets for half an hour, before police officers shoot her 86 times. She eventually collapses from her wounds and dies.
• August 31
• * The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army announces a "complete cessation of military operations" as part of the Northern Ireland peace process. This will temporarily end in 1996 with the Docklands bombing in England before a definite ceasefire in 1997. In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement is signed and the IRA decommissions its weapons in 2005
• * The Russian Army leaves Estonia and Latvia, ending the last traces of Eastern Europe's Soviet occupation.
• c. August – Pizza Hut becomes the first restaurant to offer online food ordering, in California.