1993

• International Year for the World's Indigenous People

Events

January

• January 1
• * Czechoslovakia ceases to exist, as the Czech Republic and Slovakia separate in the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
• * The European Economic Community eliminates trade barriers and creates a European single market.
• January 3 – In Moscow, Presidents George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
• January 5
• * US$7.4 million is stolen from the Brink's Armored Car Depot in Rochester, New York, in the fifth largest robbery in U.S. history.
• *, a Liberian-registered oil tanker, runs aground off the Scottish island of Mainland, Shetland, causing a massive oil spill.
• January 6
• * Douglas Hurd is the first high-ranking British official to visit Argentina since the Falklands War.
• * January 6–20 – The Bombay riots take place in Mumbai.
• January 7 – The Fourth Republic of Ghana is inaugurated, with Jerry Rawlings as president.
• January 8–17 – The Braer Storm of January 1993, the most intense extratropical cyclone on record for the northern Atlantic Ocean, occurs.
• January 13
• * The Chemical Weapons Convention is signed by President George H. W. Bush.
• * Iraq disarmament crisis: US, British and French aircraft attack Iraqi Surface to Air Missile sites in Southern Iraq.
• January 14 – The Polish ferry sinks off the coast of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, killing 54 people.
• January 19 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq refuses to allow UNSCOM inspectors to use its own aircraft to fly into Iraq and begins military operations in the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait, and the northern Iraqi no-fly zones. U.S. forces fire approximately 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Baghdad factories linked to Iraq's illegal nuclear weapons program. Iraq then informs UNSCOM that it will be able to resume its flights.
• January 20 – Bill Clinton is inaugurated US President
• January 24 – In Turkey, thousands protest against the murder of journalist Uğur Mumcu.
• January 25 – Social Democrat Poul Nyrup Rasmussen succeeds Conservative Poul Schlüter as Prime Minister of Denmark.
• January 26 – Václav Havel is elected President of the Czech Republic.
• January 30 – The Red Line officially begins service in Los Angeles, becoming the first underground rapid transit line to open in almost 70 years.

  February

• February 4 – Members of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party of Austria split to form the Liberal Forum in protest against the increasing nationalistic bent of the party.
• February 10
• * Lien Chan is named by Lee Teng-hui to succeed Hau Pei-tsun as Premier of the Republic of China.
• * Mani pulite scandal: Italian legislator Claudio Martelli resigns, followed by various politicians over the next two weeks.
• February 12 – Murder of James Bulger: Two-year-old James Bulger is abducted from New Strand Shopping Centre by two ten-year-old boys Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who later torture and murder him.
• February 14
• * Glafcos Clerides defeats incumbent George Vasiliou in the Cypriot presidential election.
• * Albert Zafy defeats Didier Ratsiraka in the Madagascar presidential election.
• February 22 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 808 is voted on, deciding that "an international tribunal shall be established" to prosecute violations of international law in Yugoslavia. The tribunal is established on May 25 by Resolution 827.
• February 26 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a van bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing six people and injuring over one thousand.

  March

• March 5 – Macedonian Palair Flight 301, an F-100 on a flight to Zürich, crashes shortly after take-off from Skopje, killing 83 of the 97 on board.
• March 8 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. The Moon appears to be 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the year's other full moons. The next time these two events coincided was in 2008.
• March 11 – Janet Reno is confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in the next day, becoming the first female Attorney General of the United States.
• March 12
• * 1993 Bombay bombings: Several bombs explode in Bombay, India, killing 257 and injuring hundreds more.
• * North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea announces that it plans to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and refuses to allow inspectors access to nuclear sites, beginning the 1993–94 North Korean Nuclear Crisis.
• March 13–15 – The 1993 Storm of the Century strikes the eastern U.S., bringing record snowfall and other severe weather all the way from Cuba to Quebec; it reportedly kills 184 people.
• March 13 – 1993 Australian federal election: Paul Keating's Labor government is re-elected with an increased majority, defeating the Liberal/National Coalition led by John Hewson.
• March 17 – The Kurdistan Workers' Party announces a unilateral ceasefire in Iraq.
• March 24
• * The Israeli Knesset elects Ezer Weizman as President of Israel.
• * South Africa officially abandons its nuclear weapons programme. President de Klerk announces that the country's six warheads had already been dismantled in 1989.
• March 27
• * Jiang Zemin becomes President of the People's Republic of China.
• * Following a rash of integrist murders, Algeria breaks diplomatic relations with Iran, accusing the country of interfering in its interior affairs.
• * Mahamane Ousmane is elected president of Niger.
• March 28 – 1993 French legislative election: Rally for the Republic wins a majority and Édouard Balladur becomes Prime Minister.
• March 29 – The 65th Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, with Unforgiven winning Best Picture.

  April

• April–May – 1993 Four Corners hantavirus outbreak: Thirteen people are killed by Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, mainly in the Southwestern United States.
• April–October – Great Flood of 1993: The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers flood large portions of the American Midwest.
• April 8 – The Republic of Macedonia is admitted to the United Nations under a provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
• April 11 – Four hundred fifty prisoners rioted at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, and continued to do so for ten days, citing grievances related to prison conditions, as well as the forced vaccination of Nation of Islam prisoners against their religious beliefs.
• April 16 – Bosnian War: the enclave of Srebrenica is declared a UN-protected "safe area". Also members of the Jokeri unit of the HVO entered the village of Ahmići and killed 120 Muslim residents.
• April 19 – Waco siege: A 51-day stand-off at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ends with a fire that kills 76 people, including David Koresh.
• April 20 – The Council for National Academic Awards, the national degree-awarding authority in the United Kingdom, is officially dissolved.
• * Backstreet Boys were formed in Orlando, Florida.
• April 21 – The Supreme Court in La Paz, Bolivia, sentences former dictator Luis Garcia Meza to 30 years in jail without parole for murder, theft, fraud and violating the constitution.
• April 23
• * The World Health Organization declares tuberculosis a global emergency.
• * Eritreans vote overwhelmingly for independence from Ethiopia in a United Nations-monitored referendum, the 1993 Eritrean independence referendum.
• April 25 – In the 1993 Russian government referendum during the power struggle between President and Parliament a majority expresses confidence in President Yeltsin and his reform politics while rejecting early elections.
• April 26 – Oscar Luigi Scalfaro appoints Carlo Azeglio Ciampi Prime Minister of Italy.
• April 27
• * Eritrea: Eritrean independence is declared verified by the United Nations.
• * 1993 Yemeni parliamentary election: The General People's Congress of Yemen wins a plurality of 121 seats.
• * 1993 Zambia national football team plane crash: All members of the Zambia national football team die in a plane crash off Libreville, Gabon en route to Dakar, Senegal.
• April 30 – Tennis player Monica Seles – at this time the top-ranked player in women's tennis – is stabbed during a match at the 1993 Citizen Cup in Hamburg, Germany.

  May

• May 1 – Assassination of Ranasinghe Premadasa: During a May Day rally, President of Sri Lanka Ranasinghe Premadasa is assassinated by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam suicide bomber. Prime Minister Dingiri Banda Wijetunga succeeds Premadasa as the 3rd executive president of Sri Lanka.
• May 4 – UNOSOM II assumes the Somalian duties of the dissolved UNITAF.
• May 9 – Juan Carlos Wasmosy becomes the first democratically elected President of Paraguay in nearly 40 years, after defeating Domingo Laíno in the 1993 Paraguayan general election.
• May 15 – Niamh Kavanagh wins the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland with In Your Eyes.
• May 16 – The Grand National Assembly of Turkey elects Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel as President of Turkey. After Demirel becomes president, the acting Prime Minister of Turkey is Erdal İnönü of Social Democratic Populist Party for 40 days.
• May 19 – SAM Colombia Flight 501, a Boeing 727-46, crashed during its approach to José María Córdova International Airport, Colombia, killing all 132 occupants on board.
• May 24 – Eritrea gains independence from Ethiopia.
• May 25 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is created in The Hague.
• May 28 – Eritrea and Monaco gain entry to the United Nations.