What Happened in January 1996

Historical Events

Don Shula Retires

Jan 5 Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula announces his retirement

Jan 5 Muralitharan no-balled for throwing in ODI v WI at the Gabba

Croatia Win 1st Title

Jan 6 Hopman Cup Tennis, Perth: Goran Ivanišević & Iva Majoli win Croatia's first title; at 1 rubber apiece Switzerland's Marc Rosset & Martina Hingis forced to retire at 3-6, 7-6, 4-5 in the deciding doubles rubber

Tennis Player and French Open Champion Iva Majoli

Jan 6 Record £42 million ($65.2 million) British lottery won by 3 people (2-3-4-13-42-44)
Jan 7 "Fool Moon", starring Bill Irwin, closes at Ambassador Theater, NYC, after 81 performances
Jan 7 16th United Negro College Fund raises $12,600,000

"Crazy For You"

Jan 7 Musical featuring works of George and Ira Gershwin "Crazy For You" closes at Shubert Theater, NYC, after 1622 performances, winning 3 Tony Awards

Jan 8 Blizzard buries eastern US causing at least 50 deaths
Jan 8 For 1st time in 25 years no one is elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

"3rd Rock from the Sun"

Jan 9 1st episode of TV sitcom "3rd Rock from the Sun" by Bonnie and Terry Turner and starring John Lithgow and Kristen Johnston screens on NBC

Jan 10 Boston guard Dana Barros sinks a 3-point field goal in his 89th straight game, during the Celtics' 113-104 win over Sacramento Kings; NBA record streak ends in next game when he goes 0 from 9
Jan 10 Israel frees hundreds of Palestinian prisoners

Coach Johnson

Jan 10 Jimmy Johnson announced as new coach of Miami Dolphins

Jan 10 King Hussein of Jordan visits Israel
Jan 11 Haiti becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty
Jan 11 Space Shuttle STS 72 (Endeavour 10), launches into space
Jan 12 Russian troops arrive in Bosnia as part of a joint operation with the US
Jan 14 "Holiday" closes at Circle in Sq Theater NYC after 49 performances
Jan 14 "Swinging On a Star" closes at Music Box Theater NYC after 97 performances
Jan 14 AFC Championship, Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Steelers beat Indianapolis Colts, 20-16
Jan 14 NFC Championship, Texas Stadium: Dallas Cowboys beat Green Bay Packers, 38-27

11th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Jan 17 11th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: David Bowie; Jefferson Airplane; Little Willie John; Gladys Knight and the Pips; Pink Floyd; The Shirelles; The Velvet Underground; Pete Seeger; and Tom Donahue

Singer-Songwriter and Producer David Gilmour

Yzerman Scores 500

Jan 17 Detroit center Steve Yzerman scores his 500th career NHL goal as the Red Wings beat Colorado, 3-2 at Joe Louis Arena and joins Gordie Howe as the only players to score 500 goals for Detroit

Jan 17 Iraq agrees to talks concerning a UN plan to allow for the Iraqi sale of $1 billion of oil; proceeds from the sale would be used for humanitarian purposes
Jan 17 The Czech Republic applies for membership of the European Union.
Jan 18 Baseball owners unanimously approve interleague play in 1997
Jan 19 NHL Board of Governors approves sale of Winnipeg Jets, officially clearing the way for the team to move to Phoenix, Arizona in time for 1996-97 season

46th NHL All-Star Game

Jan 20 46th NHL All-Star Game, FleetCenter, Boston, MA: East beats West, 5-4; MVP: Ray Bourque, Boston Bruins, D

Jan 20 Australia defeat Sri Lanka 2-0 to win cricket's World Series Cup
Jan 20 US Ladies Figure Skating championship won by Michelle Kwan
Jan 20 WPAT FM NYC radio station switches to English-Spanish format

53rd Golden Globes

Jan 21 53rd Golden Globes: "Sense and Sensibility", Nicolas Cage, & Sharon Stone win

Jan 21 US male Figure Skating championship won by Rudy Galindo
Jan 23 Chris Cairns scores 120, 96 balls, 10x4, 9x6 in Test NZ v Zimbabwe
Jan 23 The first version of the Java programming language released
Jan 25 Ottawa Senators set an NHL record with 16th consecutive home game without a win (0-15-1) in a 4-2 loss to Detroit at the Palladium; old record (15) shared by 1928 Black Hawks & 1939 Canadiens
Jan 27 15 day old conjoined twins separated: Sarah Morales survives, Sarahi dies

Seles Defeats Huber

Jan 27 Australian Open Women's Tennis: Monica Seles beats Anke Huber of Germany 6-4, 6-1 for her first and only Grand Slam victory after her stabbing

Tennis Player and Nine-Time Major Champion Monica Seles

Jan 27 Catherine Roskam becomes the 1st NY female Episcopal bishop
Jan 27 Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected President of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane, in a military coup
Jan 27 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
Jan 27 Germany celebrates its 1st Holocaust Remembrance Day
Jan 27 Shiv Chanderpaul scores 303* for Guyana v Jamaica at Kingston
Jan 28 12th Sundance Film Festival: "Welcome to the Dollhouse" wins Grand Jury Prize Dramatic

Becker's Last Grand Slam Title

Jan 28 Australian Open Men's Tennis: Boris Becker of Germany wins his 6th and last career Grand Slam title; beats American Michael Chang 6-2, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2

Tennis Player and French Open Champion Michael Chang

Jan 28 Revival of Jerry Herman's musical "Hello Dolly!", starring Carol Channing, closes at Lunt-Fontanne Theater, NYC, after 118 performances
Jan 28 Super Bowl XXX, Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe, AZ: Dallas Cowboys beat Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-17; MVP: Larry Brown, Dallas, CB

23rd American Music Awards

Jan 29 23rd American Music Awards: Garth Brooks wins

Jan 29 6,138th performance of "Cats" is held in London, surpassing record of Broadway's longest-running musical, "A Chorus Line"

End of Nuclear Testing

Jan 29 France will no longer test nuclear weapons, its president Jacques Chirac says, following international outcry over tests in the Pacific

Jan 29 La Fenice, Venice's opera house, is destroyed by fire

Boon's Last Day

Jan 29 Last day of Test cricket for Australian cricketer David Boon

Jan 30 Commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet Scott Redd states that Iran test-fired a new anti-ship missile near the Strait of Hormuz
Jan 30 Future Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson comes out of a 5 year retirement; helps LA Lakers to 128-118 win over Golden State at the Great Western Forum with 19 points, 8 rebounds & 10 assists
Jan 30 Gino Gallagher, the suspected leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, is killed while waiting in line for his unemployment benefit.
Jan 31 50 people die and many more injured in a suicide bombing in Sri Lanka by separatist Tamil Tigers

Events in 1996

Famous Birthdays

Florence Pugh (28 years old)

Jan 3 English actress (Outlaw Kingdom, Little Women), born in Oxford, England

Jan 4 Emma Mackey, French-British actress (Maeve Wiley-Sex Education; Death on the Nile; Emily), born in Le Mans, France
Jan 5 Max Baldry, English actor, born in Redhill, United Kingdom
Jan 6 Courtney Eaton, Australian actress (Yellowjackets), born in Banbury, Western Australia
Jan 7 Abbey Speakman, English twin born 19 days after her twin sister
Jan 12 Sarah Morales, Mexican, Siamese twin (survived), born in Tijuana, Mexico
Jan 12 Sarahi Morales, Mexican Siamese twin (died on Jan 27, 1996), born in Tijuana, Mexico

Dove Cameron (28 years old)

Jan 15 American actress and singer ("Liv and Maddie"), born in Seattle, Washington

Jan 16 Jennie Kim, South Korean singer and actress (Blackpink), born in Seoul, South Korea
Jan 17 Klaus Mäkelä, Finnish cellist and conductor (Oslo Philharmonic, 2020-present; Orchestre de Paris, 2021-present), born in Helsinki, Finland
Jan 23 Ruben Loftus-Cheek, English footballer (Chelsea), born in London, England
Jan 25 Tati Gabrielle, American actress (The 100, Uncharted), born in San Francisco, California
Jan 26 [Lindzi James] Tyger Drew-Honey, English actor (Outnumbered), born in Epsom, Surrey
Jan 29 Megan Jossa, English actress, born in Eltham, London
Jan 31 Joel Courtney, American actor (The Kissing Booth series), born in Monterey, California
Jan 31 Master KG [Kgaogelo Moagi] South African Afro-pop songwriter and producer ("Jerusalema"), born in Tzaneen, South Africa
Jan 31 Nikita Dragun, American internet personality and make-up artist, born in Belgium
Jan 31 Sophia Schubert, American golfer (Evian C'ship 2022 runner-up), born in Knoxville, Tennessee

Born in 1996

Famous Weddings

Jan 27 "ER" TV actress Yvette Freeman (39) weds musical director Lawny Hartley (49) in Dunleith, Delaware

Famous Divorces

Lisa Marie Presley & Michael Jackson

Jan 18 Princess of Rock Lisa Marie Presley files for divorce from King of Pop Michael Jackson in NYC

Famous Deaths

Deaths 1 - 100 of 112

Jan 1 Arleigh Burke, American admiral (WW II, Solomon Islands, Navy Cross), dies at 94
Jan 1 Arthur Rudolph, German rocket engineer, dies at 89
Jan 1 Hamish Imlach, Scottish folk-comic singer-songwriter ("Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice"), dies at 55
Jan 1 Orapin Chaiyakan, first Thai woman elected to the Parliament of Thailand, dies at 91
Jan 2 Karl Targownik, Hungarian psychiatrist & Holocaust survivor, dies at 80
Jan 2 Thornton Page, American astrophysicist, dies at 82
Jan 3 Geoffrey Pardoe, British engineer (Project Manager for the Blue Streak ballistic missile programme), dies at 67
Jan 3 Terence Cuneo, English artist (official artist for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953), dies at 88
Jan 4 Ramon Vinay, Chilean operatic tenor, dies at 83
Jan 5 Danny White, American singer and bandleader, dies at 84
Jan 5 Jay Arena, American pediatrician (Duke Poison Center Director, inventor of the child-proof safety cap), dies at 86
Jan 5 Lincoln Kirstein, American writer and impresario, dies at 88
Jan 5 Richard Versaille, tenor, dies at 63
Jan 5 Yahya Ayyash, Palestinian militant and chief bombmaker for Hamas, assassinated by booby trapped cell phone at 29
Jan 6 (Robert) "Chubby" Wise, American bluegrass fiddler, dies at 80
Jan 6 Duane Hanson, American artist, made life-sized realistic sculptures of people, dies at 70

Jan 6 Henry Lennox d'Aubigny Hopkinson, British diplomat and Conservative politician, dies at 94
Jan 6 John Phillipps Kenyon, historian/teacher, dies at 68
Jan 6 Johnny Johnston, American singer and actor (Make that Spare), dies at 80
Jan 7 James Holland, English artist and exhibition organiser, dies at 90
Jan 7 Károly Grósz, Hungarian communist politician, dies at 65
Jan 7 Robley D. Evans, American nuclear physicist (one of the founders nuclear Medicine), dies at 88
Jan 7 Seton Lloyd, English Archaeologist (Arzawa civilization, Turkey), dies at 93
Jan 7 Tarō Okamoto, Japanese avant-garde artist (b. 1911)
Jan 8 (William) Mac Lance "Tiny" McCloud, musician/songwriter, dies at 52

François Mitterrand (1916-1996)

Jan 8 21st President of France (1981-95), dies of prostate cancer at 79

Jan 8 Howard Taubman, American music and theater critic, dies at 88
Jan 8 Ian Dawson-Shepherd, British disabilities campaigner (cerebrally palsied people), dies at 80
Jan 8 Kurt Schmucker, member (Union of Christian Democrats), dies
Jan 9 "Fearless" Nadia [Mary Ann Evans], Australian stuntwoman and actress (Hunterwali), dies at 88
Jan 9 Kurt Schmucker, German RFA minister of Economy (1963-66), dies
Jan 9 Michael Lynn Synar, American politician (Rep-D-Oklahoma, 1979-95), dies at 45
Jan 9 Walter M. Miller Jr., American sci-fi author (Hugo; View from Stars), dies at 72
Jan 10 Alexander Robertus, organic chemist, dies at 88
Jan 10 Arthur Sydney Martin, British M15 spycatcher, dies at 81
Jan 11 Eric Hebborn, British artist and art forger, dies of massive head trauma at 61 [1]
Jan 11 Harold Walter Bailey, British philologist (Khotanese, Sanskrit, scholar who spoke 50 languages), dies at 96
Jan 11 Hubert Nicholson, poet/novelist, dies at 87
Jan 11 Ike Isaacs, Burmese-English jazz guitarist, dies at 76
Jan 12 Edmund Happold, British structural engineer (founder of Buro Happold), dies at 65
Jan 12 Joachim Nitsche, German mathematician (b. 1926)
Jan 12 John Howard Purnell, Welsh chemist (Royal Society of Chemistry), dies at 70
Jan 12 Peggy Braithwaite, lighthouse-keeper, dies at 76
Jan 13 Denise Grey [Edouardine Verthuy], actress (Julietta), dies at 99
Jan 13 Willian Myuon Bany Guerrilla leader, dies
Jan 14 Eric Briault, British educationalist, dies at 84
Jan 14 Jacques LeBrun, French yachtsman (Olympic gold Snowbird class 1932), dies at 85
Jan 14 Pamelo Mounk'a, Congolese musician, dies at 50
Jan 15 Les Baxter, American exotica musician, orchestra leader and composer (Ritual Of The Savage, Born Again), dies at 73
Jan 15 Minnesota Fats [Rudolf Wanderone Jr], American billiard player and entertainer, dies at 82
Jan 15 Moshoeshoe II, King of Lesotho (1966-90), dies at 51
Jan 15 Richard Cobb, British historian, dies at 78
Jan 16 Harry Potts, English soccer forward (Burnley, Everton) and manager (Burnley, Shrewsbury Town, Blackpool), dies at 75
Jan 16 Kaye Webb, English writer and publisher (Puffin Club), dies at 81
Jan 16 Marcia Davenport, American author and music critic (b. 1903)
Jan 16 Richard Kermode, American rocker (Kozmic Blues Band), dies at 49
Jan 17 Amber Hagerman, American namesake of the Amber Alert system (b. 1986)
Jan 17 Barbara Charline Jordan, politician, dies at 59
Jan 17 Charles Henry Madge, English poet and founder of Mass-Observation, dies at 83
Jan 17 F. Don Miller, American sports executive (executive director USOC 1973-85; President US Olympic Foundation 1985-96), dies at 75
Jan 17 Giles Playfair, English writer, dies at 85
Jan 17 Mostafa Sid Ahmed, Sudanese singer (b. 1953)
Jan 17 Robert Covington, American drummer and singer, dies at 54
Jan 18 Jos Kunst, Dutch composer, dies at 60
Jan 18 Leonor Fini, Argentine artist, dies at 87
Jan 18 Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, also known as NTR, Indian film star (Patala Bhairavi; Mayabazar), and politician (Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh (1983-89 & 1994-95), dies at of a heart attack at 72
Jan 19 Bernard Baily, American comic artist (co-creator of DC Comics), dies at 79
Jan 19 Donald Simpson, American film producer (Flashdance), dies at 52
Jan 19 Harold Wolpe, South African sociologist, lawyer, and activist, dies at 70
Jan 20 Arley "Buster" Benton, American blues singer and guitarist, dies at 63
Jan 20 David Robin Francis Guy Greville, 8th Duke of Warwick, dies at 61
Jan 20 Ellis Hillman, British Labour party politician, lecturer, and writer (London Under London), dies during heart surgery at 68
Jan 20 Gerry Mulligan, American jazz baritone saxophonist, composer, and bandleader (Jazz on a Summer Day), dies of complications from a knee infection at 68
Jan 20 Liesbeth Askonas, Austrian concert agent, dies at 82
Jan 20 Peter Stadlen, Austrian pianist and critic, dies at 85
Jan 20 Sidney Korshak, lawyer, dies at 87
Jan 21 René Marc Jalbert, sergeant-at-Arms at the National Assembly of Quebec (b. 1921)
Jan 21 Roman Cieślewicz, Polish French artist and graphic designer, dies at 66
Jan 21 Sam Green, industrialist/inventor, dies at 88
Jan 22 Edward Thomas, British historian and intelligence expert (Bletchley park), dies at 77
Jan 22 Efua Sutherland, Ghanaian writer (Nyamekye), dies at 71
Jan 22 Israel Eldad, Israeli Revisionist Zionist philosopher and member of the pre-state underground group Lehi, dies at 85
Jan 22 Mabel Leigh, potter, dies at 80
Jan 23 Norman MacCaig, Scottish poet, dies at 85
Jan 24 Sandor Iharos, Hungarian runner, dies at 65
Jan 25 Jonathan Larson, American composer (Rent), dies of an aortic aneurysm at 35
Jan 25 Ruth Berghaus, German choreographer and opera director, dies at 68
Jan 26 Charles Jewtraw, American 500m speed skater (Olympic gold 1924), dies at 95
Jan 26 David Schultz, American wrestler (Olympic gold 1984), killed by John Du Pont at 36
Jan 26 Georg Alexander, Duke of Mecklenburg, head of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, dies at 74
Jan 26 Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer, Dutch theologist (Dogmatic Studies), dies at 92
Jan 26 Harold Brodkey, American writer (My Venice), dies at 65
Jan 26 Henry Jay Lewis, American double-bassist and conductor (Los Angeles Philharmonic 1948-65), dies of a heart attack at 63
Jan 26 Neil Lawson, British high court judge, dies at 88
Jan 26 Stevie Plunder, Australian musician (b. 1963)
Jan 27 Barbara Skelton, English writer, memoirist and socialite (mistress to King Farouk), dies at 79
Jan 27 Julian W. Hill, American research chemist (developed nylon), dies at 91
Jan 27 Olga Havlová (née Šplíchalová), Czech political activist, and First Lady (1989-96), dies of cancer at 63
Jan 27 Patrick Ludlow, British actor (Naughty Husbands, Evergreen and Modesty Blaise), dies at 93
Jan 27 Ralph Webster Yarborough, American politician, U.S. Senator from Texas (1957-71), dies at 92

On This Day