Hittokiri's Hara-Kiri Forum

I am starting a series of post that will cover the events spanning 1997.
any *'s will denote a note of mine any ~ will denote a note in the annual handbook.

January 1997

1; An off- duty Israeli soldier empties clip of his M-16 automatic rifle into the open- air market in Herbron on the Wast Bank and wounds seven Arabs before being overpowered by other Isrealie soldiers. The incident, according to the gunman, in to keep Herbron from being handed over to Palestinian control.

3; The Serbian government, dominated by Slobodan Milosevic, rejects a call endorsed by 54 nations to install in office those candidates who were victorious in the Nov. 17, 1996, local elections, but who were disqualified by their opposition to Milosevic.

4; Winter storms, which have battered at the West Coast for two weeks, result in massive flooding in Washington, Oregon, and northern California and cause the death of more than 30 people, the evacuation of 125,000 people, and damage to property in excess of $1 billion.

7 Newt Gingrich, a Republican from Georgia, is reelected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Nine Republican, disturbed by Gingrich's admission that he had violated various ethical standards of the House, defected from the party by voting on other candidates or by abstaining.

9 All 26 passengers and 3 crew members aboard a twin-engine, turboprop plane are killed when the commuter plane crashes on approach to the Detriot Metropolitan Airport during a heavy snowstorm.

11; Bulgarians by the tens of thousands take to the streets of Sofia, the capital, demanding early elections in order to oust the highly unstable, Socialist- controlled government. Police swinging clubs and firing guns, work their way through the crowds to free lawmakers trapped in the parliament building.

15; Isralei Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat agree on the details and timing of an Israeli pullout of Hebron, the largely Palestinians cuty on the West Band of the Jordan River. Hebron is sacred to both Jews and Muslims as the traditional burial place of the Biblical prophet Abraham. By January 17, Israel removes its troops from 80 percent of the city of Hebron.

17; Ireland's High Court grants a divorce, the first in the county's modern history. Irish voters in 1995 narrowly approved a constitutional amendment allowing divorce.

18; Paul E. Tsongas, the 1992 Democratic presidential candidate credited with forcing fellow candidates to deal with the nation's economic problems (* if only he knew), dies at the age of 55.

19; Two bombs explode in a Tulsa, Oklahoma abortion clinic, which was hit by firebombs on Jan. 1. Similar bombings took place at an Atlanta, Georgia, abortion clinic during the week of Jan. 12.

20; William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, is inaugurated for a second term in Washington, D.C.

21; Members of the U.S. House of Representatives vote to reprimand Speaker Newt Gingrich for using tax-exempt money to promote a Republican party agenda and for giving false information to the ethics committee investigating his behavior. It is the most severe rebuke ever delivered to a presiding officer of the house .

22; A federal jury in Greensboro, North Carolina, awards Food Lion, a supermarket chain, more than $5.5 million in punitive damages for a 1992 segment of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television show "Prime Time Live" that accused the chain of selling spoiled meat.

23 Madeleine K. Albright, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is sworn in as the first female secretary of state of the United States. She was unanimously confirmed in her position by the senate on January 22.

26; The Green Bay Packers win Super Bowl XXXI (* 31 for the Roman impaired), 35 to 21, over the New England Patriots. The Green Bay Packers had not won a National Football League title for 29 Years.

28; South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a committee investigating abuses under apartheid, announces that former policemen had confessed to a number of notorious murders, including the 1977 killing of Black Consciousness Movement Leader Steve Biko.

29; American Online Inc. (AOL), The internet subscription service, agree to offer credits and millions of dollars in refunds to compensate customers for network traffic jams.

30; The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), after admitting to a congressional panel that it had spent  $4 billion on computer systems that do not work, proposes hiring independent contractors to process paper tax returns.

- from the Handbook Annual, 1998 edition.