The News of 1992.

January:

• President of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia flees the country as a result of a military coup
• A Yugoslav Air Force jet fighter attacks two Italian Army helicopters, one crashes killing five people on board while the other crash-lands but its occupants survive
• First confirmed detection of exoplanets by radio astronomers
• Paul Simon is the first major artist to tour South Africa after the end of the cultural boycott
• Japan apologises for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II
• Slovenia and Croatia gain independence and international recognition in some western countries, initiating the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
• El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign the Chapultepec Peace Accords, ending the 12-year Salvadorian Civil War
• In Nairobi more than 100,000 attend protests demanding an end to one-party rule
• Boris Yeltsin announces Russia will stop targeting US cities with nuclear weapons, likewise George H W Bush announces the US will stop targeting Russia and the remaining communist states
• North Korea signs an accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency allowing for international inspections of North Korea’s nuclear power plants
• A Provisional IRA roadside bomb in County Tyrone destroys a van carrying fourteen construction workers, who had been repairing a British Army base in Omagh, eight of whom are killed

February:

• US President George H W Bush meets Russian President Boris Yeltsin at Camp David, where they formally declare that the Cold War is over
• The Maastricht Treaty is signed, founding the European Union
• The 1992 Winter Olympics are held in Albertville, France. Germany, at their first Olympics following reunification, top the medal table with 10 gold and 26 overall medals
• Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced to 15 terms of life in prison
• 613 Azerbaijani civilians are massacred by Armenian armed forces in Khojaly
• The Irish Supreme Court rules that a 14-year-old rape victim may travel to England to have an abortion

March:

• The first victims of the Bosnian War are a Serb groom’s father and an Orthodox priest in a Sarajevo shooting
• A 6.7 magnitude earthquake hits eastern Turkey killing between 498 and 652 people
• Boris Yeltsin announces the creation of a separate Russian army, leading to questions about the viability of the Commonwealth of Independent States
• White South Africans vote in favour of political reforms which will end apartheid and create a power-sharing multi-racial government
• The International Atomic Energy Agency orders Iraq to destroy an industrial complex at Al Atheer that is being used to manufacture nuclear weapons
• The Saatchi Gallery in London stages the Young British Artists exhibition, featuring Damien Hirst’s tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde piece, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
• Parliament passes the Further and Higher Education Act, allowing polytechnics to become new universities
• Buckingham Palace announces that Prince Andrew and Sarah, Duchess of York are to separate after six years of marriage
• Editors of Punch, the UK’s oldest satirical magazine, announce it will be discontinued due to massive losses; the last issue will be published in April having been in circulation since 1841
• Aldershot FC are declared bankrupt and become the first Football League club in 30 years to resign from the league

April:

• The Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaims independence from SFR Yugoslavia, while Serb troops in response besiege the city of Sarajevo
• Approximately 500,000 people March on Washington DC in support of abortion rights in advance of the case of Planned Parenthood v Casey
• Prime Minister John Major’s Conservative Party are narrowly re-elected for a fourth successive term, leading to Labour leader Neil Kinnock’s resignation; he remains the longest serving opposition leader in British political history. Notable retirements include former prime minister Margaret Thatcher and former Labour leader Michael Foot.
• A Provisional IRA bomb explodes in the Baltic Exchange in the City of London, killing three and injuring 91 others
• The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, held at Wembley Stadium, is televised to over one billion people and raises millions for AIDS research
• Betty Boothroyd, Labour MP for West Bromwich West, becomes the first woman elected Speaker of the House of Commons
• The two remaining constituent republics of the former SFR Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, form a new state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, bringing an end to the official state union that existed from 1918
• The acquittal of four police officers in the Rodney King beating trial triggers massive rioting in Los Angeles. The riots will last for six days resulting in 63 deaths and over $1 billion in damages
• The Women’s Royal Army Corps is disbanded with its members fully absorbed into the regular British Army
• Manchester United win the Football League Cup for the first time with a 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest
• Princess Anne announces her divorce from Captain Mark Phillips after 18 years of marriage, having separated in 1989
• In the final season before the Premier League era, Howard Wilkinson’s Leeds United claim the First Division title after beating Sheffield United 3-2 at Bramall Lane

May:

• 18 people are killed and 2,300 are injured when one of the terraces of the Armand Césari Stadium collapses before a football match
• The Space Shuttle Endeavour makes its maiden flight, replacing the Space Shuttle Challenger
• Three McDonalds employees are killed and another is left permanently disabled after a botched robbery in Sydney River, Nova Scotia
• A crackdown on protests against the Thai government in Bangkok result in 52 confirmed deaths, hundreds of injuries, over 3500 arrests, hundreds of disappearances and allegations of torture in what is labelled “Black May”
• The Twenty-seventh, and most recent, amendment to the US Constitution is enacted, it prohibits any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of Congress from taking effect until the start of representatives’ next set of terms in office
• A Mafia bomb kills anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone
• UEFA award the 1996 European Football Championships to England, the first major tournament held there since the 1966 World Cup
• Liverpool beat Sunderland 2-0 at Wembley to win the FA Cup for the fifth time
• A week-long rave in Castlemorton Common is held, causing media outrage due to drug-use and noise complaints

June:

• In a national referendum Denmark narrowly rejects the Maastricht Treaty
• Sweden hosts UEFA Euro 1992. At their first major tournament following reunification, Germany reach the final but lose to Denmark 2-0, who themselves only qualified due to the disqualification of FR Yugoslavia
• Ireland votes to accept the Maastricht Treaty with a popular vote of over 69%
• Estonia adopts the kroon, thereby becoming the first former Soviet Republic nation to replace the ruble
• Nelson Mandela announces that the National African Congress will halt negotiations with the government of South Africa following the Boipatong massacre that left 46 dead
• Margaret Thatcher enters the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher

July:

• The 18th G7 summit is held in Munich
• Iraq refuses a UN inspection team access to the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture. UNSCOM claims it has reliable information that the site contains archives related to illegal weapons activities. Iraq later agree to allow UN inspectors to search, however when the inspectors arrive they find nothing and voice suspicions that Iraqi records have been removed
• In Miami, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations
• At the 1992 Democratic National Convention, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton accepts his party’s presidential nomination with Al Gore as his running mate
• Slovakia is declared an independent country signalling the breakup of Czechoslovakia
• A car bomb placed by the Mafia kills judge Paolo Borsellino and five members of his escort
• The Transnistria War ends with a ceasefire
• Pablo Escobar escapes from his luxury prison near Medellin, fearing extradition to the US
• The 1992 Summer Olympics are held in Barcelona. The Unified Team, consisting of twelve of the fifteen former Soviet republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania competed separately), top the medal table with 45 gold and 112 overall medals
• Georgia becomes the 179th member of the UN after seceding from the Soviet Union the previous year
• Riots break out in Ordsall (Greater Manchester), Hartcliffe (Bristol), Blackburn, Burnley, Huddersfield, Peckham and Southwark (South London)
• John Smith is elected leader of the Labour Party
• The Manchester Metrolink, the first new-generation light rail system in the British Isles, is officially opened
• 21 year-old Alan Shearer becomes England’s most expensive footballer in a £3.6 million deal from Southampton to Blackburn Rovers

August:

• Millions of black South Africans participate in a strike called by the African National Congress to protest the lack of progress in negotiations with the government of F W de Klerk
• Canada, Mexico and the US announce a deal has been reached on the North American Free Trade Agreement
• Associate professor of mechanical engineering Valery Fabrikant murders four colleagues and seriously wounds another in a shooting at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec
• The new FA Premier League commences
• Nigel Mansell becomes the first Briton to win the Formula One title since James Hunt in 1976
• Hugh McKiben (19) becomes the 3000th victim of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland since it began in 1969

September:

• Shen Tong is arrested in Beijing for his role in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
• A 7.7 magnitude earthquake triggers a tsunami that hits the west coast of Nicaragua, killing at least 116
• Members of the Ciskei Defence Force loyal to dictator Oupa Gqozo open fire on a crowd of protestors organised by the African National Congress, killing at least 28 and wounding nearly 200
• The pound sterling and the Italian lira are forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, dubbed “Black Wednesday”
• French voters narrowly approve the Maastricht Treaty in a referendum
• Operation Julin is the last nuclear test conducted by the US at the Nevada Test Site
• Law enforcement officials in the United States, Colombia and Italy announce more than 165 arrests for money laundering charges related to cocaine trafficking
• Brazil’s first democratically elected leader in 29 years, President Fernando Collor de Mello, is impeached
• Nigel Mansell announces his retirement from Formula One racing
• The Royal Mint introduces a new 10-pence coin, lighter and smaller than the previous coin

October:

• The first all-animation television channel, Cartoon Network, is launched
• A riot breaks out in the Carandiru Penitentiary in São Paulo, resulting in a massacre of 111 prisoners by military police
• After performing a song protesting child abuse by the Catholic Church, Sinéad O’Connor rips up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live causing huge controversy
• The government of Mozambique signs a truce with leaders of RENAMO, ending the 16-year Mozambican Civil War
• 150,000 coal miners march in London to protest government plans to close coal mines
• Emperor of Japan Akihito begins the first imperial visit to China
• Pope John Paul II issues an apology and lifts the edict of the Inquisition against Galileo Galilei
• IRA terrorists force a taxi driver to drive to Downing Street at gunpoint and once there they detonate a bomb, but no one is injured

November:

• Democratic nominee Bill Clinton defeats Republican President George H W Bush and Independent Ross Perot in the 1992 US Presidential Election
• More than 350,000 people rally in Berlin to protest right-wing violence against immigrants
• The Church of England votes to allow women to become priests
• A report by the World Meteorological Organisation reports an unprecedented level of ozone depletion in both the Arctic and Antarctic
• A fire breaks out in Windsor Castle causing extensive damage that would require £36.5 million to repair over the coming years, leading to the Queen being taxed from next year marking 60 tax-free years for the British monarchy
• In a national referendum related to abortion, voters in Ireland reject the proposed Twelfth Amendment (to exclude the risk of suicide as a sufficient reason) but approve the Thirteenth (does not limit freedom of travel in and out of state) and Fourteenth (does not limit distribution of information about services in foreign countries)
• The Hoxne Hoard, the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold, is discovered by a metal detectorist in Suffolk
• Ethnic minorities now account for more than 5% of the British population

December:

• A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world’s first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague
• Hindu extremists demolish Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque, leading to widespread communal violence, including the Bombay riots, in all killing over 1500 people
• The Prince and Princess of Wales publicly announce their separation but there are no plans for a divorce
• A 7.8 magnitude earthquake leaves at least 2500 dead on Indonesia’s Lesser Sunda Islands
• The Archives of Terror are discovered by Dr Martin Almada, detailing the fates of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured and killed by security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay as part of a US-backed campaign of political repression
• President George H W Bush pardons six national security officials implicated in the Iran-Contra affair
• Two Provisional IRA bombs explode in Manchester wounding 65 people and cause £10 million worth of damage
• Four people are injured by IRA bombs in Oxford Street, London
• Princess Anne marries Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence

Other:

• UK unemployment reaches 2.9 million, the highest level since 1987
• Most leading retailers withdraw vinyl records from stock due to a sharp decline in sales brought on by the rising popularity of CDs and cassettes
• Making $504 million worldwide, Aladdin is the highest grossing film of the year
• In a bleak time for the UK singles chart in terms of sales, the best-selling single of the year is Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”