January 6-7 - A chemical fire occurs in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines. Policemen led by watch commander Aida Fariscal and investigators find a bomb factory and a laptop computer and disks that contain plans for Project Bojinka, a mass-terrorist attack. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, was arrested one month later. His friend Khalid Sheik Mohammed would not be arrested until 2003.
January 9 - Valeri Poliakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station breaking a duration record.
January 17 - A magnitude 7.2 earthquake occurred near Kobe, Japan, causing great property damage and killing over 5,000.
January 18 - In southern France near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc a network of caves are discovered that contain paintings and engravings that are 17,000 to 20,000 years old.
January 25 - World War III: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after a Norwegian missile launch for scientific research is detected and thought to be an attack on Russia. Norway had notified the world that it would be making the launch, but the Russian Defense Ministry had neglected to notify those monitoring Russia's nuclear defense systems.
May 28 - Neftegorsk, Russia is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake killing at least 2000 people (2/3rd of the towns population).
June 2 - Captain Scott O'Grady of the U.S. Air Force is shotdown while flying a routine sortie over war-torn Bosnia. O'Grady survives on bugs and grass until he is rescued.
June 8 - Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued in Bosnia.
July 17 - The Nasdaq stock index closes above the 1,000 mark for the first time.
Summer - Iraq disarmament crisis: According to UNSCOM, the unity of the UN Security Council begins to fray, as a few countries, particularly France and Russia, are starting to become increasingly more interested in making financial deals with Iraq than disarming the country.
July 1 - Iraq disarmament crisis: In response to UNSCOM's evidence, Iraq admits for first time the existence of an offensive biological weapons program, but denies weaponization.
July 28 - Network Solutions announces a new policy to help companies protect their trademarks on the Internet.
August - Iraq disarmament crisis: Following the defection of his son-in-law, Hussein Kamil al Majid, minister of industry and military industrialisation, Saddam Hussein makes new revelations about the full extent of Iraq's biological and nuclear weapons programs. Iraq also withdraws its last UN declaration of prohibited biological weapons and turns over a large amount of new documents on its WMD programs.
November 4 - After attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings Square, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is mortally wounded by a right-wing Israelis gunman (he later died on the operating table at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv).
November 10 - In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa along with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) are hanged by government forces.