FEBRUARY
Feb. 3 - Retired female sergeant major accuses Army's top enlisted man, Gene C. McKinney, of sexual assault and harassment. Baker & Taylor Inc., nation's largest book distributor, faces government accusations of overcharging schools and libraries by up to $200 million. Nawaz Sharif claims election victory in Pakistan over Premier Benazir Bhutto, who had been labeled incompetent and fired.
Feb. 4 - President Clinton delivers State of the Union address, outlining his budget, his plan to commit additional billions to improve schools and fight illegal drugs and crime.
Feb. 5 - Texas attorney general directs state colleges and universities to use only race-neutral policies for admissions, financial aid and scholarships. Investment bank Morgan Stanley is merging with Dean Witter in a $10 billion deal. Switzerland's ``Big Three'' banks announce a $71 million fund for Holocaust victims and their families.
Feb. 9 - Richmond-based Best Stores closes its 180 stores in 23 states, the largest U.S. retailer to date to go under.
Feb. 10 - Jurors in O.J. Simpson civil suit vote $33.5 million in fines, finding him liable in the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend. Los Angeles school board rejects use of ebonics in the nation's second-largest school district after blacks and Hispanics label it racist. Croat gunmen fire on about 200 Muslims in a Mostar cemetery, one of the most violent acts in Bosnia since the 1995 Dayton agreement.
Feb. 12 - Hwang Jang Yop asks for asylum in Bejing, the highest-ranking official to flee communist North Korea. Clinton administration allows 10 U.S. news organizations to open bureaus in Cuba.
Feb. 13 - Senate panel investigating 1996 campaign funds issues 52 subpoenas, mostly to Clinton administration and Democratic donors, including an Indonesian conglomerate.
Feb. 18 - Astronauts complete tuneup of the Hubble Space Telescope after 33 hours of spacewalking. Bill Richardson begins work as U.S. ambassador to United Nations. Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, Mexico's drug czar, is arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes from drug lord.
Feb. 19 - Deng Xiaoping, last of China's major Communist revolutionaries, dies. Detroit's daily newspapers accept back-to-work offer from striking employees, ending 19-month walkout.
Feb. 21 - First session of Belgrade's city assembly marks a major political defeat for Milosevic and gives the city its first non-communist government in 52 years.
Feb. 22 - Cutbacks start under new welfare law limiting childless adults, under age 50 and able to work, to three months of food stamps in any three-year period.
Feb. 23 - Iraq agrees to turn over missile parts to United Nations, ending dispute with U.N. weapons inspectors. Palestinian gunman fires on tourists atop Empire State Building, killing one and wounding six before killing himself. British scientists announce first successful cloning of an adult mammal, a lamb named Dolly.
Feb. 24 - Food and Drug Administration names six brands of birth control as safe and effective ``morning-after'' pills. Nairobi University closes Kenya's largest campus after rioting students protest fire death of student leader.
Feb. 25 - South Korea's President Kim Young-Sam apologizes for a major bribery scandal and banishes a son, allegedly involved, from social activities. Jurors convict multimillionaire John E. du Pont of third-degree murder, deciding he was mentally ill when he killed world-class wrestler David Schultz.
Feb. 26 - In a first for a major city, Pittsburgh announces a plan to repair a police department accused of a pattern of abuse and misconduct.
Feb. 27 - Divorce in Ireland becomes legal for the first time since independence from Britain in 1921. Legislation banning most handguns becomes law in Britain.
Feb. 28 - Earthquake damages 83 villages in Iran; rescue workers estimate at least 3,000 dead.
MARCH
March 1 - More than 5,000 neo-Nazis march in Munich, facing thousands protesting fascist display in the city where Hitler began his rise to power.
March 2 - Parts of Arkansas are declared federal disaster area after severe storms and tornadoes. First cargo ship to sail directly from China to Taiwan in nearly 50 years arrives in Kaohsiung. Matadors strike at start of bullfighting season, an act unprecedented for Spain's ``national fiesta.''
March 3 - Vice President Gore, under fire for campaign fund-raising activities, acknowledges soliciting from his White House office.
March 4 - A $115 million settlement from Texaco for race discrimination is accepted by all 1,342 black employees who are eligible.
March 5 - Ohio River is at its highest level in a generation, flooding the Louisville area. Tommy Lasorda, Nellie Fox and Willie Wells Sr. are elected to baseball's Hall of Fame. North and South Korea meet for first time in 25 years to talk peace.
March 6 - Gunman swipes million-dollar Picasso from London gallery. China introduces laws against dissent, ethnic separatism and subversive Western ideals. Queen Elizabeth II launches official royal Web site.
March 9 - Rap musician The Notorious B.I.G. dies in drive-by shooting.
March 10 - Archaeologists announce discovery of what may be the largest ancient tomb found on Arabian Peninsula. First trial to consider rape as a war crime begins in a United Nations court, with three Muslims and a Croat charged with the rape, torture and murder of prisoners of war. Former Beatle Paul McCartney is knighted.
March 12 - Rwandan Hutus mass by the tens of thousands on Zaire River, pleading for passage, fearing massacre by Tutsi-allied rebels. Nigeria charges exiled writer Wole Soyinka, 1986 Nobel literature laureate, with treason.
March 14 - A Maori man attacks America's Cup in its trophy case in New Zealand. President Clinton is hospitalized with knee injury.
March 16 - Jordan's King Hussein visits Israel, intent on reestablishing credibility as a peacemaker.
March 17 - After 12 years of civil war, leftists in El Salvador win control of capital in a mayoral election.
March 18 - Israel starts construction on Jewish neighborhood in disputed east Jerusalem.
March 19 - President Clinton and Boris Yeltsin open talks in Helsinki, struggling to calm tensions over Eastern NATO expansion. Maker of Chesterfield cigarettes settles 22 state lawsuits, admitting that teen-agers are marketing targets and agreeing to warn on every pack that smoking is addictive.
March 23 - American Cancer Society recommends annual mammograms after age 40.
March 24 - The 69th Annual Academy Awards ``The English Patient,'' best picture; Anthony Minghella, best director; Geoffrey Rush in ``Shine,'' best actor; Frances McDormand in ``Fargo,'' best actress.
March 25 - Georgia's governor signs a law banning controversial form of late-term abortion.
March 26 - Bodies of 39 members of Heaven's Gate techno-religious cult are found after mass suicide. John G. Bennett Jr. pleads no contest to charges a $100 million charity fraud, biggest in U.S. history.
March 27 - About 17 million Russian workers nationwide strike in demand for wages months overdue.
March 28 - Italian warship rams seacraft carrying Albanian refugees; 34 rescued, more than 80 missing in the Adriatic.
March 29 - World Bank board approves $400 million reorganization plan meant to make bank's bureaucracy more effective in fighting world poverty.
APRIL
April 1 - About 500 marchers in Miami protest law making it harder for immigrants to get into the United States and easier for officials to deport those here illegally.
April 2 - Word that more than a million pounds of frozen strawberries shipped to school lunch programs might contain hepatitis A starts a scramble to inoculate children. Russia and Belarus sign a treaty in a first step toward reuniting the two former Soviet republics.
April 6 - On fifth anniversary of the Bosnian war, descendants of former Hapsburg rulers visit the site where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot, triggering World War I.
April 7 - China announces it will sign U.N. treaty on human rights. Hanoi says it will uphold pact signed by U.S. and Vietnamese officials and will repay $146 million in wartime debt left by South Vietnam.
April 8 - Space shuttle Columbia returns to Earth, ending mission cut short by defective generator. Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is reelected, defeating Tom Hayden, '60s radical turned legislator.
April 11 - Fire damages 500-year-old San Giovanni Cathedral, home of the Shroud of Turin, which some consider Christ's burial cloth.
April 15 - In Saudi Arabia, fire destroys tent city outside Mecca, killing hundreds of Muslim pilgrims and displacing thousands. Jackie Robinson's No. 42 is retired 50 years after he became first black player in major league baseball.
April 17 - City officials order remaining section of Berlin wall to be preserved.
April 19 - More than 50,000 residents abandon Grand Forks, N.D., as the Red River overruns sandbags. India's coalition government ends weeks of political turmoil by naming Inder K. Gujral as prime minister.
April 22 - In Lima, Peru, government commandos surprise Tupac Amaru rebels ending a 126-day hostage crisis, longest in Latin American history. All 14 rebels die; 71 hostages are rescued.
April 23 - Doctors at University of Southern California say a child was born in late 1996 to a 62-year-old woman on hormone therapy; mother is the oldest known to deliver a healthy infant. Police sieze 6.6 tons of cocaine near the U.S. border, the largest such seizure in Mexico since 1993. After debating whether deserters from Hitler's army are heroes, cowards or criminals, Germany's leading politicians exonerate them.
April 25 - Truck driver Ronald D. Coy is arrested in Texas, hours after a $1 million missile shipment is recovered.
April 27 - Armed separatists who believe Texas should be its own country take two hostages in West Texas, sparking standoff with 300 police until group agreed to leave mountain ``embassy.'' Zaire's rebel leader Laurent Kabila orders 100,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees out of Zaire, giving the United Nations two months to send them home. Yemenis vote in parliamentary elections, a test of Arabian Peninsula's only full-fledged democracy. Tsing Ma bridge, world's longest rail-and-road suspension bridge at 1.36 miles, opens link between Hong Kong and Lantau Island.
April 28 - Worldwide treaty to ban chemical weapons takes effect, although Russia and key countries such as Iraq and North Korea have yet to sign on.
April 29 - Boeing agrees to invest $100 million in plan by Bill Gates and Craig McCaw to make satellite communications accessible the world over.
April 30 - President Clinton reopens Library of Congress, renovated for its 100th anniversary. Coming out episode of TV sitcom ``Ellen'' airs.
MAY
May 1 - Swiss government appoints Elie Wiesel honorary chairman of a multimillion dollar fund for Holocaust victims.
May 2 - Tony Blair, whose new Labor Party crushed John Major's long-reigning Conservatives, becomes at age 44Britain's youngest prime minister in 185 years. Federal appeals court orders White House to surrender notes of talks between Hillary Rodham Clinton and counsel, rejecting first lady's claim of attorney-client privilege. Heart disease and strokes are world's leading causes of death, according to worldwide mortality statistics.
May 5 - American Airlines' pilots ratify contract, ending nearly three years of negotiations.
May 6 - Army drill Staff Sgt. Delmar G. Simpson is sentenced to 25 years for raping six trainees. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts the Bee Gees; Buffalo Springfield; Crosby, Stills and Nash; The Jackson 5; Joni Mitchell; The Young Rascals and Parliament-Funkadelic. Hemophiliacs who contracted AIDS between 1978 and 1985 from tainted blood products, accept a $600 million settlement from four health-care companies.
May 7 - Chrysler Corp. and United Auto Workers agree to new contract, ending a damaging 28-day engine-plant strike. United Nations war crimes tribunal hails conviction of prison camp torturer Dusan Tadic, its first since World War II.
May 8 - After months of railing against Democrats for taking foreign money, Republicans announce contributions from a Hong Kong company are returned.
May 10 - Earthquake in northeastern Iran kills at least 2,400 people.
May 11 - IBM computer ``Deep Blue'' defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov in six-game chess match.
May 12 - Australia's Susie Maroney, the first woman to cross the straits, swims 118 miles from Cuba to Florida. Russia and Chechnya formally end two-year war but avoid key issue of Chechen independence. South Africa's ruling party admits to bombings, murders and torture in fight against apartheid.
May 15 - Space shuttle Atlantis blasts off with repair equipment and an American astronaut bound for Mir space station.
May 16 - South Korea pledges $10 million in corn and powdered milk in response to United Nations appeal for emergency aid to North Korea. President Mobutu Sese Seko ends 32 years of autocratic rule, giving control of Zaire to rebel forces.
May 17 - Rebel leader Kabila declares himself president of Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire.
May 18 - Tajikistan president and his main opposition rival sign accord for political reforms.
May 22 - Kelly Flinn, the Air Force's first female bomber pilot certified for combat, accepts a general discharge, avoiding court-martial on charges of adultery, lying and disobeying an order.
May 23 - Iranians elect a moderate president over hard-liners in ruling Muslim clergy.
May 25 - Bloody military coup topples Sierra Leone's elected president. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., sets Senate record of 40 years in office. Eight years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Polish voters adopt a constitution that removes the last traces of communism.
May 27 - Supreme Court rules Paula Jones may pursue her sex-harassment lawsuit against President Clinton while he is in office.
May 28 - Miami's former city manager pleads guilty to corruption in case that led to discovery of $68 million city budget deficit.
May 30 - Jesse K. Timmendequas is found guilty of 1994 rape and murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka, a crime that led to Megan's Law.
JUNE
June 2 - Timothy McVeigh is convicted of deadliest act of terror on U.S. soil, a verdict watched by relatives of 168 people killed in Oklahoma City bombing. Conservative President Jacques Chirac of France, forced to share power with Socialists who routed his party in national elections, hands premiership to former opposition leader Lionel Jospin. Three months and 1,200 miles later, two British explorers complete first unsupported trip to the North Pole.
June 3 - After a bloody coup, 1,200 foreigners flee Sierra Leone on American warship. Government bans most slaughtered-animal parts from U.S. livestock feed because of links to ``mad cow disease.''
June 5 - Frank Smith, former Attica inmate tortured in deadliest U.S. prison riot, is awarded $4 million in damages, the first in the incident.
June 7 - To help stalled peace talks, Israel agrees to temporarily halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
June 8 - Iranian parliament ratifies a U.N. pact aimed at eliminating chemical weapons.
June 9 - Microsoft Corp. announces a $1 billion investment in cable TV giant Comcast Corp.
June 11 - NATO planners approve Gen. Wesley Clark as commander of allied forces in Europe.
June 12 - Interleague play gets under way in baseball, ending 126-year tradition of separating major leagues until the World Series. Treasury Department introduces a new $50 bill meant to be counterfeit-proof. Irish President Mary Robinson is chosen U.N. high commissioner for human rights.
June 14 - A 1939 comic book, Batman's first, nets $68,500 at auction. In Amsterdam, 30,000 demonstrators march against unemployment and poverty two days before a European Union summit on expansion and a single currency.
June 15 - Leaders of eight developing Muslim nations inaugurate an economic cooperation group to fight poverty.
June 16 - Taliban religious police crack down in Afghanistan's capital, punishing 48 people for defying strict Islamic codes.
June 18 - Convention of 121,000 Southern Baptists votes to boycott all things Disney, including ABC, condemning same-sex employee benefits and the TV sitcom ``Ellen.'' Sirhan Sirhan fails in 10th bid for parole in assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
June 20 - Turkey's President Suleyman Demirel asks secular opposition leader to form new government, rejecting Islamic party bid to stay in power. Industry surrenders to new rules that would limit how tobacco is marketed and advertised in America, costing cigarette makers $360 billion over 25 years.
June 21 - G-8 (G-7 plus Russia) summit in Denver focuses on problems in 21st century - from health and pension needs of aging populations to infectious diseases. Dr. Nancy W. Dickey is named first woman president of 150-year-old American Medical Association.
June 26 - In worst space collision ever, unmanned cargo ship crashes into Russia's Mir station. Supreme Court strikes down Religious Freedom Restoration Act, written to inhibit government's ability to regulate religious practices.
June 27 - Supreme Court says terminally ill Americans have no constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide but did not bar states from legalizing the process; rules a congressional attempt to keep pornography off the Internet violates First Amendment; gives President Clinton line-item veto power.
June 28 - Mike Tyson is disqualified after three rounds of heavyweight title fight for biting Evander Holyfield's ear.
June 30 - British Broadcasting Corp. launches news program for American public radio, targeting the U.S. market for the first time.
JULY
July 1 - Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule after 156 years under British colonial government.
July 6 - Mars Sojourner is first mobile vehicle on another planet.
July 9 - Leaders of 16 NATO nations, after inviting Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to join, meet with 25 other countries in unprecedented security summit.
July 10 - NATO forces capture one Serb war crimes suspect and kill another, in warning to Bosnia's most wanted. DNA from Neanderthal skeleton backs theory that all humanity descended from an ``African Eve'' 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
July 11 - Doctors announce first embryonic cell tissue transplant in U.S. to slow spinal cord damage in paralyzed man.
July 12 - Kidnapped Basque politician Miguel Angel Blanco found murdered shortly after deadline set by captors.
July 15 - Fashion designer Gianni Versace is shot to death in Miami; police suspect serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan, found dead days later.
July 16 - Green Beret commander Henry Shelton is named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
July 17 - After 117 years, Woolworth Corp. closes its last 400 five-and-dime stores, laying off 9,200 employees.
July 19 - Armored carriers from NATO peace force gather in show of force near home of ousted Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, Bosnia's No. 1 war crimes suspect.
July 21 - USS Constitution, which defended U.S. in War of 1812, sets sail for first time in 116 years.
July 25 - K.R. Narayanan becomes India's president, first member of an ``untouchable'' Dalits caste to do so. Former comrades denounce Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, responsible for deaths of up to 2 million Cambodians.
July 26 - General Motors and the United Auto Workers reach a tentative agreement on a contract to end strike that had idled four parts plants in Michigan and Canada.
July 29 - Minamata Bay, Japan, once a worldwide symbol of industrial pollution, is declared free of mercury 40 years after contaminated food fish were blamed for deaths and birth defects.
July 30 - Mideast peace talks set back when two men bomb Jerusalem's most crowded outdoor market, killing themselves and 15 others.
July 31 - In a Brooklyn raid, police seize five bombs believed bound for terrorist attacks on New York City subways.
AUGUST
August 3 - Teamsters strike United Parcel Service after talks break down with nation's largest package delivery service.
Aug. 4 - Zoologists say they have discovered about 30 giant pandas in Gansu, China.
Aug. 5 - Montserrat's deadly volcano erupts for a second day, forcing hundreds to flee the Caribbean island.
Aug. 6 - Rescuers pull charred bodies from wreckage of Korean Air jet in Guam; of 254 on board, 29 survive. Ending years of rivalry, Apple Computer and Microsoft agree to share technology. British Prime Minister Tony Blair shakes hands with Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams in first meeting in 76 years between a British leader and the IRA's allies.
Aug. 9 - Amtrak train with nearly 350 people aboard derails on bridge near Kingman, Ariz.; more than 150 injured.
Aug. 11 - International donors offer world's second-largest economic rescue plan to Thailand, a $16 billion loan to shore up Thai currency and financial system.
Aug. 12 - Steel workers approve contract ending 10-month strike against Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp., in the longest walkout in modern history against major steel company.
Aug. 18 - Nation's largest Lutheran church votes for closer ties with three other major Protestant denominations to exchange clergy and communion. Beth Ann Hogan becomes first coed in Virginia Military Institute's 158-year history.
Aug. 21 - Hudson Foods Co. plant in Nebraska closes and agrees to destroy some 25 million pounds of hamburger after largest meat recall in U.S. history. Chairman and CEO Geoffrey Bible of Philip Morris Co. says cigarettes ``might have'' killed 100,000 Americans, company's first such acknowledgement of possible link between smoking and death.
Aug. 25 - Egon Krenz, East German communist leader who opened Berlin Wall eight years ago, convicted in deaths of citizens trying to flee to the West during Cold War. Dow Corning Corp. offers $2.4 billion to settle claims from more than 200,000 women with ills related to silicone breast implants. Chang Sung Gil, North Korea's ambassador to Egypt, defects to United States, the first top diplomat to abandon the communist state.
Aug. 26 - Former South African President F.W. de Klerk, who shared Nobel Peace Prize for helping to end apartheid, resigns as leader of party that created the practice.
Aug. 28 - After nearly a year of legal challenges, California's affirmative action ban becomes law.
Aug. 29 - Hooded men kill more than 300 people in an Algerian farm village in the worst carnage since Islamic insurgency.
Aug. 30 - Britain's Princess Diana dies in a crash in Paris after her car is pursued by photographers. Philip Noel Johnson, an armored car driver believed to have taken $22 million in the biggest heist in U.S. history, is arrested at Texas border.
SEPTEMBER
Sept. 1 - Federal minimum wage increases to $5.15 an hour in second phase of increase approved by Congress. Physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory announce evidence of new subatomic particle, an ``exotic meson,'' that may help explain how universe is constructed. Armed robbers posing as postal workers steal more than $37 million from Zurich post office.
Sept. 2 - Workers begin removing up to 300 bodies, mostly Muslim war victims, from one of largest mass graves ever found in Bosnia or Croatia.
Sept. 3 - Senate votes to ban most federal financing for abortions provided by managed-care industry. U.S. sanctions against Japan's three largest shipping companies go into effect after Japan fails to eliminate harbor restrictions for U.S. shippers.
Sept. 5 - Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa dies of heart attack at 87.
Sept. 7 - Mobutu Sese Seko, former Zairian dictator, dies at 66.
Sept. 8 - Strike against Bay Area's commuter rail system causes monumental traffic jams in and around San Francisco. Crowded ferry capsizes, killing as many as 400 Haitians. America Online acquires 2.6 million CompuServe users, becoming Internet provider for 60 percent of Americans logging on from home.
Sept. 11 - According to Army's largest-ever study of the problem, ``sexual harassment exists throughout the Army, crossing gender, rank and racial lines.'' Scots create their own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.
Sept. 14 - Overcoming fears of violence, Bosnians flood polling stations to vote in local elections.
Sept. 17 - Northern Ireland's main Protestant party joins peace talks, bringing major players together for first time. Negotiators from more than 100 countries agree on measures to protect ozone layer but fall short of what environmental groups advocated. President Clinton rejects ban on land mines endorsed by 89 countries.
Sept. 18 - Coopers & Lybrand merges with Price Waterhouse creating world's biggest accounting firm. Media mogul Ted Turner pledges $1 billion for United Nations causes.
Sept. 23 - Armed men raid Algerian village, looting homes, killing at least 200 people and wounding 100 in one of the worst massacres since Algeria's Islamic insurgency began.
Sept. 24 - Garth Brooks is named best entertainer by Country Music Association.
Sept. 25 - Hammas leader Khalid Mashaal survives attempted poisoning in Jordan; two Israeli agents captured. President Clinton opens the door of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., and welcomes nine blacks who faced mobs 40 years ago in school desegration. Sportscaster Marv Albert pleads guilty to assault and battery after earlier denying he bit a lover's back. Within hours, NBC fires him.
Sept. 26 - Garuda Airlines Airbus crashes in Indonesia, killing 234 people.
Sept. 28 - Swiss voters endorse their country's liberal drug policies, which include state distribution of heroin to hardened addicts. Sept. 29 - Israel and the Palestinian Authority agree to resume negotiations, ending a six-month stalemate.
Sept. 30 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu frees Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in a goodwill gesture to the Palestinians.
OCTOBER
Oct. 1 - WorldCom Inc. moves to block the merger of MCI and British Telecom, offering its own $29.4 billion bid in the biggest proposed merger in U.S. history.
Oct. 3 - Attorney General Janet Reno says there was no evidence President Clinton broke the law with White House coffees and overnight stays for big contributors as she extends a probe of Vice President Al Gore's telephone fund raising.
Oct. 4 - Hundreds of thousands of men attending a Promise Keepers rally pack the Mall in Washington, D.C., in one of the largest religious gatherings in U.S. history.
Oct. 6 - American Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner wins Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering new type of germ.
Oct. 8 - Pathfinder yields evidence that Mars may have supported life. South and North Korea agree to open their skies to each other's commercial flights for the first time in 50 years.
Oct. 9 - Hurricane Pauline strikes Acapulco, Mexico killing at least 118 people.
Oct. 10 - Cuban President Fidel Castro endorses his brother, Raul, as successor at close of Fifth Communist Party Congress.
Oct. 12 - Three earthquakes in central Italy damage famed St. Francis Basilica and 15th-century bell tower above Foligno city hall.
Oct. 13 - President Kim Young-sam's son is sentenced to three years in prison for bribery and tax evasion in South Korea's first criminal case involving a close relative of an incumbent leader.
Oct. 15 - Richard Noble drives a British jet-powered car twice the speed of sound, shattering the world land speed record. Six scientists, three of them American, win Nobel Prizes for cellular and atomic research.
Oct. 16 - In what may be the first such U.S. case, a Georgia woman gives birth after being implanted with previously frozen eggs.
Oct. 17 - The remains of Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara, who roamed the world as revolutionary, were laid to rest in his adopted Cuba.
Oct. 22 - For the first time, U.S. inspectors discover E. coli bacteria in imported Canadian beef, halting shipments of 34,000 pounds.
Oct. 23 - America's Makah Indians win the right to resume their traditional whale hunts for the first time in 70 years.
Oct. 24 - Former NBC sportscaster Marv Albert apologizes to the woman he bit during a sexual romp and avoids jail time.
Oct. 25 - Hundreds of thousands of women join the Million Woman March in Philadelphia.
Oct. 26 - The Iraqi Parliament recommends freezing relations with U.N. arms inspectors after the Security Council threatens further sanctions against Iraq.
Oct. 27 - The stock market experiences a record 554-point drop, the worst since the 1987 crash.
Oct. 28 - The stock market roars back, posting its biggest single day point gain ever and smashing the volume record with more than 1.1 billion shares traded.
Oct. 29 - Chinese President Jiang Zemin meets in his first summit with Clinton in Washington, clashing over human rights but agreeing to end the diplomatic chill.
NOVEMBER
Nov. 3 - The Supreme Court lets stand California's groundbreaking Proposition 209, a ban on race and gender preference in hiring and school admission.
Nov. 9 - Researchers in Boston say they have, for the first time ever, used gene therapy to reverse a human illness.
Nov. 10 - WorldCom Inc. and MCI Communications Corp. agree to $37 billion merger, biggest in U.S. history.
Nov. 11 - Gunmen in downtown Karachi, Pakistan, kill four American oil company workers and their Pakistani driver.
Nov. 12 - Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In a unanimous vote, the U.N. Security Council condemns Iraq, imposes a travel ban and warns of ``further measures'' unless Iraq cooperates with American arms inspectors.
Nov. 16 - Wei Jingsheng, China's most prominent pro-democracy campaigner, is freed on medical parole after nearly 18 years in prison and flown to the United States for treatment. Most Arab nations boycott the Middle East Economic summit in Qatar in protest of Israel's hard-line policies.
Nov. 17 - Islamic militants dressed as police spray gunfire on foreign tourists outside one of Egypt's most renowned temples, killing 65 people. The FBI officially pulls out of the probe into TWA Flight 800, saying the explosion was not caused by a criminal act.
Nov. 18 - An Iowa seamstress gives birth to septuplets, only the second set known to be born alive. In the biggest banking deal in U.S. history, First Union Corp. announced its purchase of CoreStates Financial Corp. for $16.1 billion.
DECEMBER
Dec. 1 - A 14-year-old self-professed atheist shoots at a morning prayer group at a high school in West Paducah, Ky. Three students are killed and five hurt.
Dec. 2 - President Clinton signs a $2.3-billion package, giving financially crippled Amtrak new leeway to manage itself competitively. South Korea and the International Monetary Fund agree on a multibillion-dollar bailout for South Korea's beleaguered economy.
Dec. 3 - The Clinton administration, seeking to stabilize a spreading financial crisis in Asia, commits $5 billion as part of a $55 billion international bailout of South Korea, the largest such rescue effort in history.
Dec. 4 - The U.N. Security Council agrees to a six-month extension of Iraq's oil-for-food program.
Dec. 5 - The European Union bans all tobacco advertising, except at stores that sell cigarettes, after October 2001.
Dec. 8 - In $25 billion deal, Swiss Bank and the Union Bank of Switzerland plan to combine, forming Europe's largest and world's second largest bank.
Dec. 11 - Suspected Hutu rebels attack Tutsi refugee camp in northwestern Rwanda, killing as many as 200 people. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams is first political ally of the IRA in 76 years to meet a British prime minister. Microsoft Corp. is ordered to stop bundling its Internet browser with more desirable Windows software. Henry Cisneros, Clinton's first housing secretary, is indicted for conspiracy, obstructing justice and making false statements about payments to his former mistress. More than 150 countries agree at a global warming conference in Kyoto to control the Earth's greenhouse gases.
Dec. 13 - International terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos the Jackal, faces prosecution in France for murder. A fire at a Burger King in London's Heathrow airport snarls air traffic throughout Europe.
Dec. 14 - ASEAN nations meet in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to commemorate its 30-year anniversary and focus on currency crisis and stock market turmoil.
Dec. 15 - Clinton appoints Bill Lann Lee as acting assistant attorney general for civil rights over Republican objections.
Compiled by Associated Press staff members, J.W. Lim, with assistance from Mike Maybury, C.L. Smith, Joel Quintana, Richard Somma, Lenny Tarulli, Mike Grishaber and Zac Morris
