January 23 - Mir Aimal Kasi receives the death sentence for a 1993 assault rifle attack outside CIA headquarters that killed two and wounded three others.
January 27 - It is revealed that French museums had nearly 2,000 pieces of art that were stolen by Nazis.
February 4 - O. J. Simpson is found to be civilly liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Simpson is ordered to pay $35,000,000 in damages to the families of the two victims.
February 4 - On their way to Lebanon two Israeli troop-transport helicopters collide killing 73.
February 4 - After at first contesting the results, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic recognizes opposition victories in the November 1996 elections.
February 5 - The so-called "Big Three" banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.
February 5 - Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter investment banks announce a $10 billion merger.
February 10 - The United States Army suspends Sgt. Major Gene McKinney, its top-ranking enlisted soldier, after hearing allegations of sexual misconduct.
March 6 - Picasso's Tete de Femme is stolen from a London gallery (it was recovered a week later).
March 11 - An explosion at a nuclear waste reprocessing plant in Japan exposes 35 workers to low-level radioactive contamination in the worst nuclear accident in Japan's history.
March 13 - India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader.
March 18 - The tail of a Russian An-24 charter plane breaks off while en-route to Turkey causing the plane to crash killing all 50 on board and later the grounding of all An-24s.
April 22 - A 126-day hostage crisis at the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, Peru ends after government commandos storm and capture the building rescuing 71 hostages. One hostage dies of a heart attack, two soldiers are killed from rebel fire and all 14 rebels were slain.
May 22 - Women in the military: Kelly Flinn, US Air Force's first female bomber pilot certified for combat, accepts a general discharge in order to avoid a court martial.
June - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi military escorts on board an UNSCOM helicopter try to physically prevent the UNSCOM pilot from flying the helicopter in the direction of its planned destination, threatening the safety of the aircraft and their crews.
June 7 - A computer user known as "_eci" published his Microsoft C source code on a Windows 95 and Windows NT exploit, which would later become WinNuke. The source code gets wide distribution across the internet, and Microsoft is forced to release a security patch.
July 25 - K.R. Narayanan is sworn-in as India's 10th president and the first member of the Dalits caste to hold this office.
August 2 - Australian ski instructor Stuart Diver is rescued as the sole survivor from the Thredbo landslide in New South Wales, Australia, in which 18 lives were lost.
August 29 - Christopher Maier of Lexington, Kentucky is bludgeoned to death by serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz. Angel also rapes and beats Christopher's girlfriend, whom survives. This is the first of a string of murders that Angel commits.
September 13 - Iraq disarmament crisis: An Iraqi military officer attacks an UNSCOM weapons inspector on board an UNSCOM helicopter while the inspector was attempting to take photographs of unauthorized movement of Iraqi vehicles inside a site designated for inspection.
September 17 - Iraq disarmament crisis: While waiting for access to a site, UNSCOM inspectors witness and videotape Iraqi guards moving files, burning documents, and dumping waste cans into a nearby river.
September 25 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM inspector Dr. Diane Seaman catches several Iraqi men sneaking out the back door of an inspection site with log books for the creation of prohibited bacteria and chemicals.
November 24 - Following a 554.26 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), officials at the New York Stock Exchange for the first time invoke the "circuit breaker" rule to stop trading (this was a very controversial move and prompted a quick change in the rule; trading stops will only occur when the DJIA drops at least 10 or 20 percent).
December 2 - Actress/model Anat Elimelech is murdered by her boyfriend, the hairstyler David Afuta.
December 27 - Protestant paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland.
December 29 - Hong Kong begins to kill all the chickens within its territory (1.25 million) to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.
December 30 - In the worst incident in Algeria's insurgency, 400 people are killed from four villages.
The murder of JonBenet Ramsey dominates the news in the United States.
June 6 - Actress Farrah Fawcett makes a bizarre appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. Fawcett tells long, rambling stories without a point, fails to understand simple questions, and gets easily distracted by things like blinking lights on the set.