Events
January
- January 1 – The comedy television series Mr. Bean airs on ITV in the United Kingdom.
- January 2 – All My Children airs its 20th anniversary special. The characters Joe and Ruth Martin sit down with Erica Kane, her mother Mona, and Phoebe Wallingford as they go through scrapbook pictures which segue into memorable clips from the show's past twenty years.
- January 7 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed due to safety concerns.
- January 15 – Thousands of people storm the Stasi headquarters in Berlin, to view government records.
- January 20 – Soviet forces kill civilians in Baku, Azerbaijan.
- January 21 – MTV's Unplugged premieres on cable television with musical guest, Squeeze.
- January 22 – The end of communism in Yugoslavia.
- January 25 – The Burns' Night storm kills 97 people in Northwestern Europe.
- January 31 – Moscow's first McDonald's restaurant opens.
February
- February 8 – Songwriter Del Shannon dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
- February 11 – James "Buster" Douglas KOs Mike Tyson to win heavyweight boxing crown.
- February 11 – Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, is freed from Victor Verster prison outside Cape Town, South Africa.
- February 14 – 50,000 fans watch The Rolling Stones play the first of 10 concerts at Tokyo's Korakuen Dome, the beginning of the Stones' first ever tour of Japan.
- February 16 – Ike Turner is sentenced to 4 years in prison for possession of cocaine.
- February 17 – Aerosmith appears in the Saturday Night Live sketch Wayne's World, where they perform the Wayne's World theme song.
- February 26 – The Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections.
- February 27 – In Time Magazine, Milli Vanilli "singer" Rob Pilatus states that their group is, "more talented than any Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney. Mick Jagger can't produce a sound. I'm the new Elvis."
March
- March 11 – Lithuania declares independence from the Soviet Union.
- March 11 – Patricio Aylwin takes office as President of Chile, ending the rule of Augusto Pinochet.
- March 15 – Mikhail Gorbachev is elected executive President of the Soviet Union.
- March 15 – The Soviet Union declares Lithuania's independence declaration as invalid.
- March 18 – East Germany holds its first free elections.
- March 18 – 12 paintings worth $100 million are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the biggest art theft in US history.
- March 21 – Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule.
- March 25 – Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee is arrested for allegedly exposing his backside during a performance in Augusta, Georgia
April
- April 6 – Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee suffers a mild concussion after falling off of scaffolding above his elevated drum kit during a performance in New Haven, CT.
- April 7 – Neil Young, Elton John, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Guns N' Roses and Jackson Browne perform at Farm Aid IV in Indiana. John dedicates "Candle in the Wind" to AIDS patient Ryan White during his performance. White died later that evening.
- April 25 – Jimi Hendrix's Fender Stratocaster that he used to perform his famous version of the "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, is auctioned off in London for $295,000.
- April 25 – Violeta Chamorro is elected President of Nicaragua.
- April 30 – The long-lost pilot movie to I Love Lucy airs on CBS as a special.
May
- May 4 – Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union.
- May 8 – In Los Angeles, California, Tom Waits wins a $2.5 million lawsuit against Frito-Lay for unlawfully using a sound alike of Waits in its Doritos television commercials.
- May 22 – The Yemeni Arab Republic and People's Democratic Republic of Yemen unite to form the Republic of Yemen.
- May 26 – Gin Blossoms sign a contract with A&M Records.
June
- June 12 – The parliament of the Russian Federation formally declares its sovereignty.
- June 21 – A 7.3 magnitude earthquake strikes Manjil, Iran, killing thousands of people.
- June 26 – US President George H. W. Bush goes back on his 'no new taxes' campaign promise.
July
- July 2 – A stampede in Mecca kills 1,426 people.
- July 8 – West Germany wins the FIFA World Cup, beating Argentina 1-0 in the final.
- July 16 – A magnitude 7.7 earthquake kills more than 1,600 people in the Philippines.
- July 27 – Belarus declares its sovereignty.
- July 28 – Alberto Fujimori becomes President of Peru.
August
- August 2 – Iraq invades Kuwait, leading to the 1991 Gulf War.
- August 23 – East Germany and West Germany announce their intention to reunite on October 3.
September
- September 9 – The Sri Lankan Army kills 184 Tamil civilians in the Batticaloa massacre.
- September 9 – Liberian leader Samuel K. Doe is overthrown and killed in a coup.
- September 11 – After a decade of performing in the Francophone world, Céline Dion makes her formal English-language debut when she releases her album Unison.
- September 18 – The 1996 Summer Olympics are awarded to Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
- September 29 – Washington National Cathedral is completed.
October
- October 3 – Germany is officially reunited.
- October 14 – Leonard Bernstein dies aged 72.
November
- November 1 – Mary Robinson is elected President of Ireland, taking office on December 3.
- November 12 – Akihito is officially enthroned as Emperor of Japan.
- November 14 – Germany and Poland sign a treaty confirming their border on the Oder-Neisse Line.
- November 22 – Margaret Thatcher announces her intention to resign as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- November 23 – Bad Religion releases Against the Grain, their first album released in the 90s. To date, the album remains the last to feature the "classic" line-up. It also features one of their signature songs, "21st Century (Digital Boy)", which would be re-recorded on their 1994 album Stranger Than Fiction.
- November 27 – "Vocal" group Milli Vanilli admits lip-synching hits such as "Girl You Know It's True." They later have their Grammy award revoked.
- November 28 – John Major becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
December
- December 1 – The Smashing Pumpkins begin recording Gish, which will be a blockbuster album in 1991.
- December 1 – Channel Tunnel workers from the UK and France meet 40 metres beneath the English Channel seabed.
- December 13 – Genesis'88 stage weekly Acid House night in legally acquired warehouse in Stratford London under the banner imagine.
- December 16 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide is elected President of Haiti.
- December 22 – The Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia become independent, after their trusteeship terminates.
- December 22 – Lech Wałęsa sworn in as President of Poland.
- December 25 – The first successful trial run of the system that would become the World Wide Web, is carried out.
- December 31 – Garry Kasparov wins the World Chess Championship against Anatoly Karpov.
Other Events
- Chris Farley and Adam Sandler join Saturday Night Live.
- The poorly received Cop Rock preimieres on television, TV's first (and last) musical police drama.
- Legislation is signed into United States law requiring close captioning decoders in all large color TVs manufactured after July 1, 1993.
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