1995

Events from the year 1995 in the United States.
==Incumbents==
===Federal Government===
* President: Bill Clinton (D-AR)
* Vice President: Al Gore (D-TN)
* Chief Justice: William Rehnquist (WI)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Tom Foley (D-WA) (until January 3), Newt Gingrich (R-GA) (starting January 4)
* Senate Majority Leader: George J. Mitchell (D-ME) (until January 3), Bob Dole (R-KS) (starting January 3)
* Congress: 103rd (until January 3), 104th (starting January 3)
==Events==
===January===
* January 1 – The History Channel is launched.
* January 4 – The 104th United States Congress, the first controlled by Republicans in both houses since 1953 to 1955, convenes.
* January 11 – Robert Rubin is sworn in as the new Secretary of Treasury, succeeding Lloyd Bentsen.
* January 29 – Super Bowl XXIX: The San Francisco 49ers defeat the San Diego Chargers 49–26 at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, Florida.
* January 31 – U.S. President Bill Clinton invokes emergency powers to extend a $20 billion loan to help Mexico avert financial collapse.
===February===
* February 9 – STS-63: Dr. Bernard A. Harris Jr. and Michael Foale become the first African American and Briton, respectively, to walk in space.
* February 15 – Hacker Kevin Mitnick is arrested by the FBI and charged with breaking into some of the United States' most secure computer systems.
* February 17 – Colin Ferguson is convicted of six counts of murder for the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting and later receives a 200+ year sentence.
* February 18 – Private Tracie McBride is kidnapped, raped and murdered in Texas by former soldier Louis Jones Jr.
* February 23 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 30.28 to close at 4,003.33 – the Dow's first ever close above 4,000.
* February 27 – In Denver, Colorado, Stapleton Airport closes and is replaced by the new Denver International Airport, the largest in the United States.
* February 28 – Members of the group Patriot's Council are convicted in Minnesota under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 for manufacturing ricin.
===March===
* March 2
** Yahoo! is incorporated.
** An amendment to the Constitution on a Balanced Budget is voted down by one vote in the U.S. Senate. The deciding vote was cast by Oregon Republican senator Mark Hatfield.
* March 13 – David Daliberti and William Barloon, two Americans working for a military contractor in Kuwait, are arrested after straying into Iraq.
* March 14 – Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American to ride into space aboard a Russian launch vehicle (the Soyuz TM-21), lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
* March 16 – Mississippi ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The amendment was nationally ratified in 1865, but did not make it official until 2013.
* March 26 – Rapper Eazy-E died of AIDS. Eazy-E real name was Eric Wright. He fouded the Gansta" rap group N.W.A. Wright was 31.
* March 27 – The 67th Academy Awards, hosted by David Letterman, are held at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, with Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump winning six awards out of 13 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. The telecast garners nearly 48.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched Oscars broadcast since 1983.
* March 31 – Singer-songwriter Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (known simply as Selena) is murdered in Corpus Christi, Texas by the president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldívar.
===April===
* April 5 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes 246–188 to cut taxes for individuals and corporations.
* April 7 – House Republicans celebrate passage of most of the Contract with America.
* April 19 – Oklahoma City bombing: 168 people, including eight Federal Marshals and 19 children, are killed at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Timothy McVeigh and one of his accomplices, Terry Nichols, set off the bomb.
* April 23 – President Clinton visits Oklahoma City and gives an address, stating "Today our nation is joined with you in grief."
* April 24 – A Unabomber bomb kills lobbyist Gilbert Murray in Sacramento, California.
===May===
* May 14 – Team New Zealand wins the America's Cup in San Diego, beating Stars and Stripes 5–0.
* May 17 – Shawn Nelson, 35, goes on a tank rampage in San Diego.
* May 20 – U.S. President Bill Clinton indefinitely closes part of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to vehicular traffic in response to the Oklahoma City bombing.
* May 23 – Oklahoma City bombing: In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building are imploded.
* May 27 – In Culpeper, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
===June===
* June 2 – Mrkonjić Grad incident: A United States Air Force F-16 piloted by Captain Scott O'Grady is shot down over Bosnia and Herzegovina while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone. O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines six days later.
* June 6 – U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard breaks NASA's space endurance record of 14 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes, aboard the Russian space station Mir.
* June 15 – During his murder trial, O. J. Simpson puts on a pair of gloves that were presumably worn by the person who murdered his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman. Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran quips, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." The gloves appear too tight on Simpson's hands.
* June 16 – The International Olympic Committee awards the 2002 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City, Utah.
* June 23 – Walt Disney Pictures' 33rd feature film, Pocahontas, is released, garnering a predominately mixed reception (the first Disney animated film to do so since 1988's Oliver & Company) but strong financial success.
* June 24 – The New Jersey Devils sweep the heavily favored Detroit Red Wings to win their first Stanley Cup in the lock-out shortened season.
* June 29 – STS-71: Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian Mir space station for the first time.
===July===
* July 1 – Midwestern United States heat wave: An unprecedented heat wave strikes the Midwestern United States for most of the month. Temperatures peak at 106 °F (41 °C), and remain above 94 °F (34 °C) in the afternoon for five straight days. At least 739 people die in Chicago alone.
* July 5 – The U.S. Congress passes the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, requiring that producers of pornography keep records of all models who are filmed or photographed, and that all models be at least 18 years of age.
* July 13 – Dozens of cities, most notably Chicago and Milwaukee, set all-time record high temperatures. Hundreds in these and other cities die as the Chicago Heat Wave of 1995 reaches its peak.
* July 23 – David Daliberti and William Barloon, two Americans held as spies by Iraq, are released by Saddam Hussein after negotiations with U.S. Congressman Bill Richardson.
* July 27 – In Washington, D.C., the Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated.
* July 28 – Two followers of Rajneesh are convicted for their part in the 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot in Oregon.
===August===
* August 6 – Hundreds in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo mark the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb.
* August 24 – Microsoft releases Windows 95.
===September===
* September 6 – Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles breaks the all time consecutive games played record in Major League Baseball.
* September 9 – Kids' WB debuts on The WB, anchored by Animaniacs, which transfers over from Fox's children's programming block, Fox Kids. It debuted on Fox Kids 2 years before.
* September 19 – The Washington Post and The New York Times publish the Unabomber manifesto several months after it is written.
* September 22 – American millionaire Steve Forbes announces his candidacy for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination.
* September 23
** Argentine national Guillermo "Bill" Gaede is arrested in Phoenix, Arizona on charges of industrial espionage. His sales to Cuba, China, North Korea and Iran are believed to have involved Intel and AMD trade secrets worth US$10–20 million.
** Gordon B. Hinckley, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reads "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" in the church's semiannual all-women's meeting. The proclamation is a definitive document about the church's doctrine on the nature and importance of the family as "the basic unit of society" and continues to shape current LDS policy as well as interfaith cooperative efforts.
===October===
* October 1 – Ten people are convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
* October 3 – O. J. Simpson is found not guilty of double murder for the deaths of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
* October 4 – Hurricane Opal makes landfall at Pensacola Beach, Florida as a Category 3 hurricane with 115 miles per hour (185 km/h) winds.
* October 9 – 1995 Palo Verde derailment: An Amtrak Sunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde, Arizona.
* October 15 – The Carolina Panthers win their first-ever regular season game by defeating the New York Jets at Clemson Memorial Stadium in South Carolina.
* October 16 – The Million Man March is held in Washington, D.C. The event was conceived by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
* October 23 – Louis Jones Jr. is convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Tracie McBride, having abducted her at gunpoint from Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas. The federal government sentences him to death for his crimes.
* October 25 – 1995 Fox River Grove bus–train collision: A Metra commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students.
* October 28 – The Atlanta Braves defeat the Cleveland Indians, 4 games to 2, to win their first World Series Title in Atlanta.
===November===
* November 1
** NASA loses contact with the Pioneer 11 probe.
** Participants in the Yugoslav War begin negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
** The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995, outlawing intact dilation and extraction abortions. President Bill Clinton vetoes the bill in 1996.
* November 3 – At Arlington National Cemetery, U.S. President Bill Clinton dedicates a memorial to the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.
* November 7 – The Landmark Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is imploded to make room for a parking lot for the Las Vegas Convention Center.
* November 14 – Federal government shutdown: A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums, and run most government offices with skeleton staff.
* November 21 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 40.46 to close at 5,023.55, its first close above 5,000. This makes 1995 the first year where the Dow surpasses two millennium marks in a single year.
* November 21 – The Dayton Agreement to end the Bosnian War is reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio (signed December 14).
* November 22
** Six-year-old Elisa Izquierdo's child abuse-related death at the hands of her mother makes headlines, and instigates major reform in New York City's child welfare system.
** The first ever full-length computer animated feature film, Toy Story, is released by Pixar and Walt Disney Pictures.
* November 28 – U.S. President Bill Clinton signs the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995, which ends the federal 55 mph speed limit.
===December===
* December 7 – NASA's Galileo probe reenters over Jupiter.
* December 13 – The Republic of Texas group claims to have formed a provisional government in Texas.
* December 15 – Because of the "quadruple-witching" option expiration, volume on the New York Stock Exchange hits 638 million shares, the highest single-day volume since October 20, 1987, when the Dow staged a stunning recovery a day after Black Monday.
* December 16 – The federal government has another shutdown as the budget disagreement continues. It re-opens on January 6, 1996.
* December 31 – The final original Calvin and Hobbes comic strip is published.
==Sport==
* July 1 – The Quebec Nordiques relocate from Quebec City, Quebec to Denver, Colorado to become the Colorado Avalanche.
* November 19 – The Baltimore Stallions become the first (and only) American team to win a Grey Cup by defeating the Calgary Stampeders 37 to 20. Gainesville, Florida's Tracy Ham is awarded the game's Most Valuable Player.
==Memoriam==
===January===
* January 2 – Nancy Kelly, actress (aged 73; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* January 4 – Sol Tax, anthropologist (aged 87; Chicago, IL, USA)
* January 7 – Murray Rothbard, economist (aged 68; New York City, NY, USA)
* January 11 – Josef Gingold, Russian-American violinist (aged 85; Bloomington, IN, USA)
* January 22 – Rose Kennedy, philanthropist (aged 104; Hyannis Port, MA, USA)
* January 25
** John Smith, actor (aged 63; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
** William Sylvester, actor (aged 72; Sacramento, CA, USA)
* January 31
** George Abbott, writer, director, and producer (aged 107; Miami Beach, FL, USA)
** George Stibitz, computational engineer (aged 90; Hanover, NH, USA)
===February===
* February 4 – Patricia Highsmith, author (aged 74; Locarno, Switzerland)
* February 5 – Doug McClure, actor (aged 59; Sherman Oaks, CA, USA)
* February 6
** James Merrill, poet (aged 68; Tucson, AZ, USA)
** Art Taylor, jazz drummer (aged 65; New York City, NY, USA)
* February 9
** J. William Fulbright, senator and congressman (aged 89; Washington, DC, USA)
** David Wayne, actor (aged 81; Santa Monica, CA, USA)
* February 18 – Bob Stinson, rock guitarist (The Replacements and Static Taxi) (aged 35; Minneapolis, MN, USA)
* February 14 – Michael V. Gazzo, actor (aged 71; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* February 19 – John Howard, actor (aged 81; Santa Rosa, CA, USA)
* February 22 – Ed Flanders, actor (aged 60; Denny, CA, USA)
* February 23 – Melvin Franklin, singer (aged 52; Los Angeles County, CA, USA)
===March===
* March 26 – Eazy E, rapper and record producer (aged 32; Pacific Palisades, CA, USA)
* March 28 – Hugh O'Connor, actor son of Carroll O'Connor (aged 30; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* March 31 – Selena (Quintanilla Perez), singer-songwriter (aged 23; Corpus Christi, TX, USA)
===April===
* April 2 – Harvey Penick, golfer and coach (aged 90; Austin, TX, USA)
* April 4 – Priscilla Lane, actress (aged 79; Andover, MA, USA)
* April 14 – Burl Ives, singer and actor (aged 85; Anacortes, WA, USA)
* April 16 – Cy Endfield, screenwriter (aged 80; Shipston-on-Stour, England, UK)
* April 23 – Howard Cosell, sportscaster (aged 77; New York City, NY, USA)
* April 25 – Ginger Rogers, dancer and entertainer (aged 83; Rancho Mirage, CA, USA)
===May===
* May 4
** Louis Krasner, Ukrainian-American violinist (aged 91; Brookline, MA, USA)
** Connie Wisniewski, baseball player (aged 73; Seminole, FL, USA)
* May 12 – Arthur Lubin, film director (aged 96; Glendale, CA, USA)
* May 18
** Elisha Cook Jr., actor (aged 91; Big Pine, CA, USA)
** Alexander Godunov, Russian ballet dancer and actor (aged 45; West Hollywood, CA, USA)
** Elizabeth Montgomery, actress (aged 62; Beverly Hills, CA, USA)
* May 21 – Les Aspin, politician (aged 56; Washington, DC, USA)
* May 26 – Friz Freleng, animator (aged 89; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* May 29 – Margaret Chase Smith, politician (aged 97; Skowhegan, ME, USA)
===June===
* June 14 – Roger Zelazny, fantasy and science fiction writer (aged 58; Santa Fe, NM, USA)
* June 23 – Jonas Salk, medical researcher (aged 80; La Jolla, CA, USA)
* June 25 – Warren E. Burger, 15th Chief Justice of the U.S. (aged 87; Washington, DC, USA)
* June 29 – Lana Turner, actress (aged 74; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
===July===
* July 1 – Wolfman Jack, disc jockey (aged 57; Belvidere, NC, USA)
* July 4 – Bob Ross, painter, art instructor, and television host (aged 52; Orlando, FL, USA)
* July 16 – May Sarton, poet, novelist and memoirist (aged 83; York, ME, USA)
===August===
* August 3 – Ida Lupino, actress and director (aged 77; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* August 9 – Jerry Garcia, rock guitarist (Grateful Dead) (aged 53; Forest Knolls, CA, USA)
* August 11 – Alonzo Church, mathematician (aged 92; Hudson, OH, USA)
* August 13 – Mickey Mantle, baseball player (aged 63; Dallas, TX, USA)
===September===
* September 19 – Orville Redenbacher, businessman (aged 88; Coronado, CA, USA)
* September 29 – Madalyn Murray O'Hair, atheist activist (aged 76; San Antonio, TX, USA)
===October===
* October 21 – Shannon Hoon, singer songwriter and musician; lead singer of the band Blind Melon from 1990 until his death at the age of 28 in 1995 (aged 28; New Orleans, LA, USA)
===November===
* November 17 – Marguerite Young, novelist, poet and biographer (aged 87; Indianapolis, IN, USA)
* November 22 – Margaret St. Clair, science fiction writer (aged 84; Santa Rosa, CA, USA)
===December===
* December 2 – Roxie Roker, actress (aged 66; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* December 9 – Vivian Blaine, actress and singer (aged 74; New York City, NY, USA)
* December 16 – Johnny Moss, poker player (aged 88; Odessa, TX, USA)
* December 22 – Butterfly McQueen, actress (aged 84; Augusta, GA, USA)
* December 25 – Dean Martin, singer and entertainer (aged 78; Beverly Hills, CA, USA)
* December 29 – Lita Grey, actress (aged 87; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* December 30 – Charles Smith, real estate developer (aged 94; Palm Beach, FL, USA)
==External links==
* 1995 in the United States
Category:United States History: Volume 22