January 4 – The 104th United States Congress, the first controlled by Republicans in both houses since 1953 to 1955, convenes.
January 11 – Robert Rubin is sworn in as the new Secretary of Treasury, succeeding Lloyd Bentsen.[citation needed]
January 29 – Super Bowl XXIX: The San Francisco 49ers become the first National Football League franchise to win five Super Bowls, as they defeat the San Diego Chargers at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, Florida.
January 31 – U.S. President Bill Clinton invokes emergency powers to extend a $20 billion loan to help Mexico avert financial collapse.
February[]
February 9 – STS-63: Dr. Bernard A. Harris Jr. and Michael Foale become the first African American and Briton, respectively, to walk in space.
February 15 – HackerKevin Mitnick is arrested by the FBI and charged with breaking into some of the United States' most secure computer systems.
February 17 – Colin Ferguson is convicted of six counts of murder for the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting and later receives a 200+ year sentence.
February 18 – Private Tracie McBride is kidnapped, raped and murdered in Texas by former soldier Louis Jones Jr.[2]
February 23 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 30.28 to close at 4,003.33 – the Dow's first ever close above 4,000.
February 27 – In Denver, Colorado, Stapleton Airport closes and is replaced by the new Denver International Airport, the largest in the United States.
February 28 – Members of the group Patriot's Council are convicted in Minnesota under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 for manufacturing ricin.
March[]
March 2 – Yahoo! is incorporated. An amendment to the Constitution on a Balanced Budget is voted down by one vote in the US Senate. The deciding vote was cast by Oregon Republican senator Mark Hatfield.
March 13 – David Daliberti and William Barloon, two Americans working for a military contractor in Kuwait, are arrested after straying into Iraq.
March 14 – Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American to ride into space aboard a Russian launch vehicle (the Soyuz TM-21), lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
March 16 – Mississippi ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The amendment was nationally ratified in 1865, but did not make it official until 2013.
March 27 – The 67th Academy Awards, hosted by David Letterman, are held at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, with Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump winning six awards out of 13 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. The telecast garners nearly 48.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched Oscars broadcast since 1983.
March 31 – Singer-songwriter Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (known simply as Selena) is murdered in Corpus Christi, Texas by the president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldívar.
April[]
April 19: Oklahoma City bombing
April 5 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes 246–188 to cut taxes for individuals and corporations.
April 7 – House Republicans celebrate passage of most of the Contract with America.
April 19 – Oklahoma City bombing: 168 people, including eight Federal Marshals and 19 children, are killed at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Timothy McVeigh and one of his accomplices, Terry Nichols, set off the bomb.
April 23 – President Clinton visits Oklahoma City and gives an address, stating "Today our nation is joined with you in grief."
April 24 – A Unabomber bomb kills lobbyist Gilbert Murray in Sacramento, California.
May 17 – Shawn Nelson, 35, goes on a tank rampage in San Diego.
May 20 – U.S. President Bill Clinton indefinitely closes part of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to vehicular traffic in response to the Oklahoma City bombing.
May 23 – Oklahoma City bombing: In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building are imploded.
May 27 – In Culpeper, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
June[]
June 2 – Mrkonjić Grad incident: A United States Air ForceF-16 piloted by Captain Scott O'Grady is shot down over Bosnia and Herzegovina while patrolling the NATOno-fly zone. O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines six days later.
June 6 – U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard breaks NASA's space endurance record of 14 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes, aboard the Russian space station Mir.
June 15 – During his murder trial, O. J. Simpson puts on a pair of gloves that were presumably worn by the person who murdered his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman. Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran quips, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." The gloves appear too tight on Simpson's hands.
June 16 – The International Olympic Committee awards the 2002 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City, Utah.
June 23 – Walt Disney Pictures' 33rd feature film, Pocahontas, is released, garnering a predominately mixed reception (the first Disney animated film to do so since 1988's Oliver & Company) but strong financial success.
June 24 – The New Jersey Devils sweep the heavily favored Detroit Red Wings to win their first Stanley Cup in the lock-out shortened season.
June 29 – STS-71: Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian Mir space station for the first time.
July[]
July 27: The Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated
July – Midwestern United States heat wave: An unprecedented heat wave strikes the Midwestern United States for most of the month. Temperatures peak at 106 °F (41 °C), and remain above 94 °F (34 °C) in the afternoon for five straight days. At least 739 people die in Chicago alone.
July 5 – The U.S. Congress passes the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, requiring that producers of pornography keep records of all models who are filmed or photographed, and that all models be at least 18 years of age.
July 13 – Dozens of cities, most notably Chicago and Milwaukee, set all-time record high temperatures. Hundreds in these and other cities die as the Chicago Heat Wave of 1995 reaches its peak.
July 23 – David Daliberti and William Barloon, two Americans held as spies by Iraq, are released by Saddam Hussein after negotiations with U.S. Congressman Bill Richardson.
July 27 – In Washington, D.C., the Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated.
July 28 – Two followers of Rajneesh are convicted for their part in the 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot in Oregon.
August[]
August 6 – Hundreds in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo mark the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb.
September 19: The Unabomber manifesto is published
September 6 – Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles breaks the all time consecutive games played record in Major League Baseball.
September 9 – Kids' WB debuts on The WB, anchored by Animaniacs, which transfers over from Fox's children's programming block, Fox Kids. It debuted on Fox Kids 2 years before.
September 19 – The Washington Post and The New York Times publish the Unabomber manifesto several months after it is written.
September 22 – American millionaire Steve Forbes announces his candidacy for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination.
September 23
Argentine national Guillermo "Bill" Gaede is arrested in Phoenix, Arizona on charges of industrial espionage. His sales to Cuba, China, North Korea and Iran are believed to have involved Intel and AMDtrade secrets worth US$10–20 million.
Gordon B. Hinckley, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reads "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" in the church's semiannual all-women's meeting. The proclamation is a definitive document about the church's doctrine on the nature and importance of the family as "the basic unit of society"[4] and continues to shape current LDS policy as well as interfaith cooperative efforts.[5]
October[]
October 16: Million Man March
October 1 – Ten people are convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[6]
October 3 – O. J. Simpson is found not guilty of double murder for the deaths of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
October 4 – Hurricane Opal makes landfall at Pensacola Beach, Florida as a Category 3 hurricane with 115 miles per hour (185 km/h) winds.
October 9 – 1995 Palo Verde derailment: An AmtrakSunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde, Arizona.
October 15 – The Carolina Panthers win their first-ever regular season game by defeating the New York Jets at Clemson Memorial Stadium in South Carolina.
October 16 – The Million Man March is held in Washington, D.C. The event was conceived by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
October 23 – Louis Jones Jr. is convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Tracie McBride, having abducted her at gunpoint from Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas. The Federal government sentences him to death for his crimes.[7]
October 25 – A Metra commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students.
October 28 – The Atlanta Braves defeat the Cleveland Indians, 4 games to 2, to win their first World Series Title in Atlanta.
November[]
November 1
NASA loses contact with the Pioneer 11 probe.
Participants in the Yugoslav War begin negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995, outlawing intact dilation and extraction abortions. President Bill Clinton vetoes the bill in 1996.
November 3 – At Arlington National Cemetery, U.S. President Bill Clinton dedicates a memorial to the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.
November 7 – The Landmark Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is imploded to make room for a parking lot for the Las Vegas Convention Center.
November 14–19 – Federal government shutdown: A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums, and run most government offices with skeleton staff.
November 21 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 40.46 to close at 5,023.55, its first close above 5,000. This makes 1995 the first year where the Dow surpasses two millennium marks in a single year.
November 21 – The Dayton Agreement to end the Bosnian War is reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio (signed December 14).
November 22 – Six-year-old Elisa Izquierdo's child abuse-related death at the hands of her mother makes headlines, and instigates major reform in New York City's child welfare system.
November 22 – The first ever full-length computer animated feature film, Toy Story, is released by Pixar and Walt Disney Pictures.
November 28 – U.S. President Bill Clinton signs the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995, which ends the federal 55 mph speed limit.
December[]
December 7 – NASA's Galileo probe reenters over Jupiter.
December 13 – The Republic of Texas group claims to have formed a provisional government in Texas.
December 15 – Because of the "quadruple-witching" option expiration, volume on the New York Stock Exchange hits 638 million shares, the highest single-day volume since October 20, 1987, when the Dow staged a stunning recovery a day after Black Monday.
December 16 – January 6 (1996) – The federal government has another shutdown as the budget disagreement continues.
December 31 – The final original Calvin and Hobbes comic strip is published.
Ongoing[]
Iraqi no-fly zones (1991–2003)
Operation Uphold Democracy (1994–1995)
Dot-com bubble (c. 1995–c. 2000)
Sport[]
July 1 – The Quebec Nordiques relocate from Quebec City, Quebec to Denver, Colorado to become the Colorado Avalanche.
November 19 – The Baltimore Stallions become the first (and only) American team to win a Grey Cup by defeating the Calgary Stampeders 37 to 20. Gainesville, Florida's Tracy Ham is awarded the game's Most Valuable Player.