Much of the federal government is shut down for six days as Congress and the President wrangle over the budget. In 1996, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley divorce. And then, Jackson announces that another woman will give birth to his son. Prince Charles and Princess Diana are divorced. Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies before a grand jury.
Cuban jets shoot down two unarmed planes owned by Cuban exiles.
Theodore Kaczynski is arrested in Montana on charges that he's the Unabomber, who killed three people in a series of mail bombings. TWA Flight 800 from New York to Paris crashes into the Atlantic, killing 230. A bomb in an Atlanta park during the Olympics kills just one person after security guard Richard Jewell notices a strange backpack and clears people out of the area. The FBI leaks to the press that Jewell is suspected of having planted the bomb to get attention and he is villified. Later, it turns out he was a hero after all.