On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Thomas J. Watson Jr., who led I.B.M. and America into the computer age, prompting Fortune magazine to call him "the greatest capitalist who ever lived," died yesterday morning at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Conn. He was 79. The cause was complications from a stroke he suffered earlier in December, Daniel Mosley, Mr. Watson's lawyer, said.
Citing progress on Vietnam's efforts to determine the fate of missing Americans, the Clinton Administration is moving toward easing the economic embargo against Hanoi and plans to consult Congress about it early in the new year, Administration officials said today. A senior Administration official said that President Clinton's top foreign policy advisers would meet "very soon" to decide whether to recommend the lifting of the embargo, which was imposed after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the advisers were "clearly moving toward an easing of the embargo."
U.S. Aide Is Upbeat on China The U.S. Ambassador to China said that improvements it has made in the lives of its citizens should be considered when making policy. Page 5. Israeli Settlers Want to Go Many Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip want compensation from the Government so that they can relocate to Israel. Page 3. Lasting Lure of a Fortune Hoping to inherit a fortune, people who say they descended from an 18th-century pirate are claiming ownership of 77 acres of Manhattan. Page 6. 2 Arts
As far as the authorities could tell, some of the younger members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads of Orange County had been hating Jews, blacks and other ethnic minorities for only less than a year. So maybe there was still time to reach them, offer alternatives and save them from the fate of their leaders, who faced years in Federal prison after trying to start a race war with homemade bombs. At least, they thought, it was at least worth a try.
Rudolph W. Giuliani became the 107th Mayor of New York today, capping a five-year quest to be the first Republican to lead the nation's largest city in a generation. To mark the occasion he took an oath of office, for the second time, last night in the East Side apartment of Judge Michael B. Mukasey, the Federal District Court judge who is presiding over one of the cases that grew out of the World Trade Center bombing.
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of December 29, 1993, covering January 1, 1994.
Mariah Carey
Pearl Jam
Snoop Doggy Dogg
Frank Sinatra
Meat Loaf
Brendan Elliot, Australian rugby league player[†]
Brendan Elliot is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played as a winger.
LaMonte Wade Jr., American baseball player[†]
LaMonte Aaron Wade Jr., nicknamed "Late Night LaMonte," is an American professional baseball first baseman for the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball (MLB) He has previously played in MLB for the Minnesota Twins and San Francisco Giants. He played college baseball for the University of Maryland, College Park. The Twins selected Wade in the ninth round of the 2015 MLB draft, and made his MLB debut with them in 2019.
1994Arthur Porritt, Baron Porritt, New Zealand physician and politician, 11th Governor-General of New Zealand (born 1900)[†]
Colonel Arthur Espie Porritt, Baron Porritt, was a New Zealand physician, military surgeon, statesman and athlete. He won a bronze medal at the 1924 Summer Olympics in the 100 m sprint. He served as the 11th governor-general of New Zealand from 1967 to 1972, becoming the first New Zealand-born person to hold the office.
1994Cesar Romero, American actor (born 1907)[†]
César Julio Romero Jr. was an American actor. He was active in film, radio, and television for almost 60 years. His wide range of screen roles included Latin lovers, historical figures in costume dramas, characters in light domestic comedies, and the Joker on the live action Batman television series of the mid-1960s, which was included in TV Guide's 2013 list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time. He was the first actor to play the character.
1994Edward Arthur Thompson, Irish historian and academic (born 1914)[†]
Edward Arthur Thompson was an Irish-born British Marxist historian of classics and medieval studies. He was professor and director of the classics department at the University of Nottingham from 1948 to 1979, and a fellow of the British Academy. Thompson was a pioneer in the study of late antiquity, and was for decades the most prominent British scholar in this field. He was particularly interested in the relations between Ancient Rome and "barbarian" peoples such as the Huns and Visigoths, and has been credited with revitalizing English-language scholarship on the history of early Germanic peoples. Thompson's works on these subjects have been highly influential.
1994The Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiates twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican state of Chiapas.[†]
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, often referred to as the Zapatistas, is a far-left political and militant group that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.
1994The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect.[†]
The North American Free Trade Agreement, referred to colloquially in the Anglosphere as NAFTA, was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that created a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994, and superseded the 1988 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Canada. The NAFTA trade bloc formed one of the largest trade blocs in the world by gross domestic product.
In 1994, the world population was approximately 5,675,551,255 people[†]