World Events
Population: 5.359 billion
Nobel Peace Prize: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma)
Cease-fire ends Persian Gulf War (April 3); UN forces are victorious. Background: The Persian Gulf War.
Europeans end sanctions on South Africa (April 15). South African Parliament repeals apartheid laws (June 5).
France agrees to sign 1968 treaty banning spread of atomic weapons (June 3). China accepts nuclear nonproliferation treaty (Aug. 10). Bush-Gorbachev summit negotiates strategic arms reduction treaty (July 31).
Communist Government of Albania resigns (June 4).
Warsaw Pact dissolved (July 1).
Boris Yeltsin becomes first freely elected president of Russian Republic (July 10). Yeltsin's stock increases when he takes a prominent role in suppressing an anti-Gorbachev coup by communist hardliners (Aug. 18-22). Background: Rulers of Russia since 1533.
Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia win independence from USSR (Aug. 25); US recognizes them (Sept. 2).
Haitian troops seize president in uprising (Sept. 30). US suspends assistance to Haiti (Oct. 1).
US indicts two Libyans in 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland (Nov. 15).
Soviet Union breaks up after President Gorbachev's resignation; constituent republics form Commonwealth of Independent States (Dec. 25). Background: Dissolution of the USSR
U.S. Events
President: George Bush
Vice President: J. Danforth Quayle
Population: 252,127,402
Life expectancy: 75.5 years
Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000): 59.0
Property Crime Rate (per 1,000): 51.4
Economics
US GDP (1998 dollars): $5,916.70 billion
Federal spending: $1323.63 billion
Federal debt: $3598.5 billion
Median Household Income
(current dollars): $30,126
Consumer Price Index: 136.2
Unemployment: 6.8%
Cost of a first-class stamp : $0.25 ($0.29 as of 2/3/91)
US Supreme Court limits death row appeals (April 16).
William H. Webster retires as Director of CIA; Robert H. Gates succeeds him (May 14).
Professor Anita Hill accuses Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment (Oct. 6); Senate, 52-48, confirms Thomas for US Supreme Court after stormy hearings (Oct. 15).
Sports
Super Bowl
NY Giants d. Buffalo (20-19)
Halftime Show: produced by Disney, featuring New Kids on the Block
1991 is one of the first years that the Super Bowl Halftime Show featured a current pop group, instead of a more traditional marching band show.
World Series
Minnesota d. Atlanta Braves (4-3)
NBA Championship
Chicago d. LA Lakers (4-1)
Stanley Cup
Pittsburgh d. Minnesota (4-2)
Wimbledon
Women: Steffi Graf d. G. Sabatini (6-4 3-6 8-6)
Men: Michael Stich d. B. Becker (6-4 7-6 6-4)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Strike the Gold
CAA Basketball Championship
Duke d. Kansas (72-65)
NCAA Football Champions
Miami-FL (AP) (12-0-0) & Washington (USA, FW, NFF) (12-0-0)
Entertainment
Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: Rabbit at Rest, John Updike
Music: Symphony, Shulamit Ran
Drama: Lost in Yonkers, Neil Simon
Oscars awarded in 1991
Academy Award, Best Picture: Dances With Wolves, Jim Wilson and Kevin Costner, producers (Orion)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)
Grammy Awards
Record of the Year: Another Day in Paradise - Phil Collins
Album of the Year: Back on the Block - Quincy Jones (Qwest/Warner Bros.)
Song of the Year: From a Distance - Julie Gold
Miss America: Marjorie Judith Vincent (IL)
Events
Fox Broadcasting is the first network to permit condom advertising on television.
Seattle band Nirvana releases the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on the LP Nevermind and enjoys national success. With Nirvana's hit comes the grunge movement, which is characterized by distorted guitars, dispirited vocals and lots of flannel.
Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) is arrested in a Florida movie theater for indecent exposure.
Movies
The Silence of the Lambs, Beauty and the Beast, JFK, Thelma & Louise
Music
Nirvana, Nevermind
Books
Ben Okri, The Famished Road
Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Richard R. Ernst (Switzerland), for refinements he developed in nuclear magnetic-resonance spectroscopy
Physics: Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (France), for his discoveries about the ordering of molecules in substances ranging from "super" glue to an exotic form of liquid helium
Physiology or Medicine: Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann (both Germany), for their research, particularly for the development of a technique called patch clamp
The FDA approves the use of Bristol-Meyers' ddI (didanosine) in the treatment of AIDS.
Gopher, the first user-friendly internet interface, is created at the University of Minnesota and named after the school mascot. Gopher becomes the most popular interface for several years. Background: Computers and Internet.
In Japan's worst nuclear accident to date, a leak of radioactive water causes a nuclear plant 220 miles west of Tokyo to release about 8% of the plant's annual radioactive emissions in a single day (Feb. 9).
First transpacific hot-air balloon flight. Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand flew about 6,700 mi. from Miyakonyo, Japan, to 150 mi. west of Yellowknife, Canada (Jan. 15–17). Background: Computers and Internet.
The first cholera epidemic in a century sickens 100,000 and kills more than 700 in South America.
Deaths
Frank Capra
Miles Davis
Leo Durocher
Graham Greene
Theodore Seuss Geisel