1994 in the United States

Federal Government

• President: Bill Clinton (D-Arkansas)
• Vice President: Al Gore (D–Tennessee)
• Chief Justice: William Rehnquist (Wisconsin)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Tom Foley (D–Washington)
• Senate Majority Leader: George J. Mitchell (D–Maine)
• Congress: 103rd

January

January 17: Northridge earthquake

• January – National Archives at College Park opens.^[1]
• January 6 – In Detroit, Michigan, Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an assailant, under orders from figure skating rival Tonya Harding's ex-husband.
• January 11 – The Superhighway Summit is held at UCLA's Royce Hall. It is the first conference to discuss the growing information superhighway and is presided over by U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
• January 14 – U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin accords, which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles toward each country's targets, and also provide for the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal in Ukraine.
• January 17 – The 6.5–6.7 M_w Northridge earthquake shakes the Greater Los Angeles Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving 57 people dead and more than 8,700 injured.
• January 19 – Record cold temperatures hit the eastern United States. The coldest temperature ever measured in Indiana state history, −36 °F (−38 °C), is recorded in New Whiteland, Indiana.
• January 20 – In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet to attend The Citadel, but soon drops out.
• January 25 – U.S. President Bill Clinton delivers his first State of the Union address, calling for health care reform, a ban on assault weapons, and welfare reform.
• January 30 – Super Bowl XXVIII: The Dallas Cowboys hand the Buffalo Bills their fourth consecutive Super Bowl loss, 30–13.

February

• February 1 – In Portland, Oregon, Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly pleads guilty for his role in attacking figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. He accepts a plea bargain, admitting to racketeering charges in exchange for testimony against Harding.
• February 3 – William Perry is sworn in as the new Secretary of Defense, succeeding Les Aspin.
• February 22 – Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged with spying for the Soviet Union by the United States Department of Justice. Ames is later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment; his wife receives 5 years in prison.
• February 28 – United States F-16 pilots shoot down 4 Serbian fighter aircraft over Bosnia and Herzegovina for violation of the Operation Deny Flight and its no-fly zone.

March

• March 1
  • A lone terrorist kills Ari Halberstam during an attack on 14 Jewish students on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.^[2]
  • Mary Ellen Withrow begins her term of office as Treasurer of the United States, serving under President Bill Clinton.
• March 7 – Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
• March 15 – U.S. troops are withdrawn from Somalia.
• March 16 – In Portland, Oregon, Tonya Harding pleads guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for trying to cover-up an attack on figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. She is fined $100,000 and banned from the sport.
• March 21 – The 66th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama, Schindler's List, wins 7 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director (Spielberg).
• March 23 – Green Ramp disaster: Two military aircraft collide over Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina causing dozens of fatalities.
• March 27 – The biggest tornado outbreak in 1994 occurs in the southeastern United States; 1 tornado hits a Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama, killing 22 people.

April

April 22: Former President Richard Nixon dies at 81.

• April 8 – Kurt Cobain, songwriter and frontman for the band Nirvana, is found dead at his Lake Washington home. He is believed to have committed suicide three days before he was found.^[3]
• April 22 – Former President Richard Nixon dies at 81. He is buried at his presidential library on April 26, following a state funeral.
• April 25 – The largest high school arson ever in the United States is started at Burnsville High School, in Burnsville, Minnesota, resulting in over 15 million dollars in damages. The same arsonist also goes on to set arsons at Edina High School and Minnetonka High School.^[4]

May

• May 10 – Illinois executes serial killer John Wayne Gacy by lethal injection for the murder of 33 young men and boys.
• May 19 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, former First Lady of the United States, dies of cancer at the age of 64.^[5]

June

• June 12 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside the Simpson home in Los Angeles. O.J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in a civil suit.
• June 15 – The classic film, The Lion King is released in theatres, making $422,783,777 in the United States ($951,583,777 worldwide). It is the highest-grossing film of the year.
• June 17
  • NFL star O.J. Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings flee from police in his white Ford Bronco. The low-speed chase ends at Simpson's Brentwood, Los Angeles, California mansion, where he surrenders.
  • The 1994 FIFA World Cup begins in the United States.
• June 20 – Dean Mellberg kills 4 and injures 23 at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington.
• June 22 – The Houston Rockets defeat the New York Knicks at The Summit in Texas in Game 7 of the 1993–94 NBA season, to win their first NBA Championship.
• June 24 – 1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash: U.S. Air Force pilot Bud Holland crashes a B-52 in Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington as a result of pilot error.
• June 30–July 10 – Tropical Storm Alberto and causes very damaging floods, intense winds and extensive problems directly over the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean Islands. Thirty two individuals are directly killed by the storm, and property damage is assessed at $1 billion (1994 USD).

July

• July 6 – Fourteen firefighters die in the South Canyon wildfire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado. The event inspires the 1999 book Fire on the Mountain.
• July 19 – Four 26-pound ceiling tiles fall from the roof of the Kingdome in Seattle, Washington, just hours before a scheduled Seattle Mariners game.

August

• August 12 – Woodstock '94 begins in Saugerties, New York. It is the 25-year anniversary of Woodstock in 1969.
• August 20 – In Honolulu, Hawaii, during a circus international performance, an elephant named Tyke crushes her trainer Allen Campbell to death before hundreds of horrified spectators, at the Neal Blaisdell Arena.
• August 23 – Eugene Bullard is posthumously commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, 33 years after his death, and 77 years to the day after his rejection for U.S. military service in 1917.

September

• September 8 – USAir Flight 427, a Boeing 737 with 132 people on board, crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport; there are no survivors.
• September 12 – Frank Eugene Corder crashes a Cessna 150 into the South Lawn of the White House; he is killed, and is the sole casualty.
• September 13 – President Bill Clinton signs the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which bans the manufacture of new firearms with certain features for a period of 10 years.
• September 13 – The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is a United States federal law (Title IV, sec. 40001-40703 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, H.R. 3355) signed as Pub.L. 103–322 by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994 (codified in part at 42 U.S.C. sections 13701 through 14040). The Act provided $1.6 billion toward investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave un-prosecuted. The Act also established the Office on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice.
• September–October – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to stop cooperating with UNSCOM inspectors and begins to once again deploy troops near its border with Kuwait. In response, the U.S. begins to deploy troops to Kuwait.
• September 14 -The World Series is cancelled for the first time in 90 years.
• September 15 – September 21 – Hurricane Gert crosses from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through Central America and Mexico.
• September 17 – Heather Whitestone becomes the first hearing impaired contestant to win the Miss America entitlement. Whitestone becomes Miss America 1995.
• September 17 – Russian troops withdraw from Poland.
• September 19 – American troops stage a bloodless invasion of Haiti in order to restore the legitimate elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power.
• September 19 – Polish parliamentary election, 1993: A coalition of the Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish People's Party led by Waldemar Pawlak comes into power.

October

• October 12 – NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere either October 13 or October 14).
• October 15
  • Iraq disarmament crisis: Following threats by the U.N. Security Council and the U.S., Iraq withdraws troops from its border with Kuwait.
  • After 3 years of U.S. exile, Haiti's president Aristide returns to his country.
• October 29 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over 2 dozen shots at the White House; he is later convicted of trying to kill President Bill Clinton.
• October 31 – An American Eagle ATR 72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 64 passengers.

November

November 8: Republicans gain control of Congress (Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pictured)

• November 4 – The first conference devoted entirely to the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web opens in San Francisco. Featured speakers include Marc Andreessen of Netscape, Mark Graham of Pandora Systems, and Ken McCarthy of E-Media.
• November 5 – Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces that he has Alzheimer's disease.
• November 7 – WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides the world's first internet radio broadcast.
• November 8–21 – Hurricane Gordon strikes the Caribbean Islands and the Southeastern United States, causing 1147 deaths (of which 1122 are in Haiti) and US$514M in damage (estimated, 1994 dollars).
• November 8 – Republican Revolution: Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich leads the Republican Party in taking control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections, the first time in 40 years the Republicans secure control of both houses of Congress. George W. Bush is elected Governor of Texas.
• November 16 – A Federal judge issues a temporary restraining order, prohibiting California from implementing Proposition 187, which would have denied most public services to illegal aliens.
• November 28 – At the Columbia Correctional Institution, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and murderer Jesse Anderson are attacked by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver. Dahmer dies on the way to the hospital and Anderson dies two days later.^[6][7][8]
• November 30
  • The National Football League announces that the Jacksonville Jaguars will become the league's 30th franchise.
  • Rapper Tupac Shakur is shot five times and robbed after entering the lobby of Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan.

December

• December – The Unemployment Rate drops to 5.5%, the lowest since the start of the early 1990s recession in July 1990.
• December 14
  • A Learjet piloted by Richard Anderson and Brad Sexton misses an elementary school and crashes into an apartment complex in Fresno, California, killing both pilots and injuring several apartment residents.
  • A runaway Santa Fe freight train rear ends a Union Pacific train at the bottom of Cajon Pass, California.
• December 19
  • A planned exchange rate correction of the Mexican Peso to the US Dollar, becomes a massive financial meltdown in Mexico, unleashing the 'Tequila Effect' on global financial markets. This prompts a US$50 billion 'bailout' by the Clinton Administration.
  • The Whitewater scandal investigation begins in Washington, D.C..
• December 21 – A homemade bomb explodes on the #4 train on Fulton Street in New York City.^[9]
• December 27 – After experiencing a hacker attack by Kevin Mitnick, computer security expert Tsutomu Shimomura started to receive prank calls that popularized the trope "My kung fu is stronger than yours".^[10]

Ongoing

• Iraqi no-fly zones (1991–2003)
• Operation Uphold Democracy (1994–1995)

January

• January 21 – Booboo Stewart, actor

February

• February 21 – Hayley Orrantia, actress
• February 23 – Dakota Fanning, actress

March

• March 12 – Christina Grimmie, singer/songwriter/musician/actress/YouTuber (d. 2016)
• March 14 – Ansel Elgort, actor/singer/DJ

April

• April 14 – Skyler Samuels, actress
• April 15 – Jacquees (Rodriquez Jacquees Broadnax), singer/songwriter
• April 24 – Jordan Fisher, singer/dancer/actor

May

• May 7 – Dylan Gelula, actress

• May 16 - Chocolate Bubba, legend

June

• June 3 – Anne Winters, actress
• June 29 – Camila Mendes, actress

July

• July 6 – Andrew Benintendi, American baseball player
• July 31 – Lil Uzi Vert (Symere Woods), hip hop recording artist

August

• August 2 – Laremy Tunsil, American football player
• August 4 – Bobby Shmurda (Ackquille Jean Pollard), rapper/songwriter
• August 12 – Bex Taylor-Klaus, actress
• August 16 – Tippy Dos Santos, actress and singer
• August 17 – Taissa Farmiga, actress

September

• September 8 – Cameron Dallas, internet personality
• September 13 – Mitch Holleman, actor
• September 29 – Halsey (Ashley Nicolette Frangipane), singer/songwriter

October

• October 14 – Jared Goff, American football player
• October 23 – Margaret Qualley, actress

November

• November 10 – Zoey Deutch, actress

December

• December 3 – Jake T. Austin, actor
• December 17 – Nat Wolff, actor
• December 24 – LaShawn Tináh Jefferies, actress

January

• January 1 – Cesar Romero, actor (b. 1907)

February

• February 6 – Jack Kirby, comic book artist (born 1917)

March

• March 2 – Anita Morris, actress/singer/dancer (b. 1943)

April

• April 5 – Kurt Cobain, singer/songwriter/musician/husband of Courtney Love (b. 1967)
• April 22 – Richard M. Nixon, 37th President of the U.S. from 1969 to 1974 and 36th Vice President of the U.S. from 1953 to 1961 (b. 1913)

May

• May 19 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, wife of John F. Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis (b. 1929)

June

• June 1 – Frances Heflin, actress (b. 1923)
• June 12 – Nicole Brown Simpson, wife of O.J. Simpson/murder victim (b. 1959)

July

• July 8 – Dick Sargent (Richard Stanford Cox), actor (b. 1930)

August

• August 21 – Danitra Vance, comedian/actress (b. 1954)

September

• September 17 – John Delafose, accordion player (b. 1939)

October

• October 19 – Martha Raye, comic actress/singer (b. 1916)

November

• November 13 – John Bailey (Jack Baker), actor/screenwriter (b. 1947)

December

• December 3 – Elizabeth Glaser (Elizabeth Meyer), AIDS activist/child advocate/wife of actor and director Paul Michael Glaser (b. 1947)