This Year in History:
1995
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
The 104th Congress becomes the first held entirely under Republican control since the Eisenhower era. Thanks to Newt Gingrich and his “Contract with America,” the Republican Party won majority control…
Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, is arrested for conspiring to kill Louis Farrakhan. Shabazz believed that Farrakhan was responsible for the assassination of her father in 1965, and…
On January 13, 1995, America3, an all‑female sailing team, wins the first race of the America’s Cup defender trials, easily beating Team Dennis Conner by a little more than a…
On January 17, 1995, the Los Angeles Rams announce they are leaving Southern California after 49 years and moving to St. Louis. The team, which reportedly lost $6 million in…
Russia’s early‑warning defense radar detects an unexpected missile launch near Norway, and Russian military command estimates the missile to be only minutes from impact on Moscow. Moments later, Russian President…
Several packages of deadly sarin gas are set off in the Tokyo subway system killing twelve people and injuring over 5,000 on March 20, 1995. Sarin gas was invented by…
Just after 9 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a massive truck bomb explodes outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The blast collapsed the north face…
On June 29, 1995, the American space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man‑made satellite ever to orbit the Earth. This historic moment…
Two decades after the Fall of Saigon, President Bill Clinton establishes full diplomatic relations with Vietnam, citing Vietnamese cooperation in accounting for the 2,238 Americans still listed as missing in…
On July 16, 1995, Amazon officially opens for business as an online bookseller. Within a month, the fledgling retailer had shipped books to all 50 U.S. states and to 45…
On July 18, 1995, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, a memoir by a little‑known law professor named Barack Obama, is published. Obama wrote the book…
Like his band the Grateful Dead, which was still going strong three decades after its formation, Jerry Garcia defied his life‑expectancy not merely by surviving, but by thriving creatively and…
Former New York Yankees star Mickey Mantle dies of liver cancer at the age of 63. While “The Mick” patrolled center field and batted clean‑up between 1951 and 1968, the…
On September 6, 1995, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking “Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games played. “The Iron Man”…
On September 12, 1995, in Vienna, Austria, the Harlem Globetrotters tip off the third game of an 11‑game exhibition series in Europe against a team of retired basketball stars led…
On September 19, 1995, a manifesto by the Unabomber, an anti‑technology terrorist, is published by The New York Times and Washington Post in the hope that someone will recognize the person…
On September 29, 1995, voting rights advocate Willie Velasquez is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Velasquez and the organizations he founded are credited with dramatically increasing political awareness…
At the end of a sensational trial, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the brutal 1994 double murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend,…
An enormous crowd consisting mostly of African American men demonstrates on the National Mall on October 16, 1995, an event known as the Million Man March. Driven by their desire…
By a bare majority of 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, citizens of the province of Quebec vote to remain within the federation of Canada. The referendum asked Quebec’s citizens, the…
