This Year in History:
1992
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
One of the most widely ridiculed and memorable gaffes in the history of the United States Presidency occurred in Japan on the evening of January 8, 1992, when President George H.W. Bush vomits on the Prime Minister of Japan. Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa was hosting a dinner for the president in honor of his state […]
On January 23, 1992, President George H.W. Bush hosts a White House reception for the U.S. women’s soccer team in honor of their recent World Cup win. On this occasion, President Bush displayed the wry, folksy sense of humor that endeared him to his supporters. He began by welcoming the crowd who gathered to support […]
On January 27, 1992, a judge in the murder trial of porn producer Jim Mitchell allows the first-ever use of video re-creation of the crime. Jim Mitchell shot his brother Artie to death in his Corte Madera, California, house a year earlier, on February 27, 1991. When police responding to a 911 call by Artie’s […]
After suffering through centuries of bloody conflict, the nations of Western Europe finally unite in the spirit of economic cooperation with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty of European Union. The treaty, signed by ministers of the European Community, called for greater economic integration, common foreign and security policies and cooperation between police and other […]
After stunning the world three months earlier with the news he had contracted the HIV virus and was immediately retiring from the Los Angeles Lakers, basketball great Magic Johnson returns to play in the 42nd NBA All-Star game in Orlando, Florida, where the crowd greeted him with a standing ovation. On November 7, 1991, Earvin […]
Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, accused of raping 18-year-old beauty-pageant contestant Desiree Washington, is found guilty by an Indiana jury. The following month, Tyson was given a 10-year prison sentence, with four years suspended. Mike Tyson rose to fame in 1986 when he beat Trevor Berbick and became, at age 20, the youngest heavyweight […]
On February 19, 1992, 24-year-old recent film school graduate John Singleton becomes the youngest and first Black film director nominated for an Academy Award for his movie, Boyz n the Hood. The poignant coming-of-age drama set in gang-ridden South Central Los Angeles brought inner-city realities to the screen in a way not seen in Hollywood […]
On March 17, 1992, white South Africans vote overwhelmingly in a referendum to end minority rule, by a margin of 68.7 percent to 31.2 percent. Thus ends the turbulent period called apartheid, a racial segregation policy that separated the minority white population by designating areas and activities prohibited to Black people. “Today we have closed […]
A jury in New York finds mobster John Gotti, nicknamed the Teflon Don for his ability to elude conviction, guilty on 13 counts, including murder and racketeering. In the wake of the conviction, the assistant director of the FBI’s New York office, James Fox, was quoted as saying, “The don is covered in Velcro, and […]
A march and rally in support of reproductive justice for women draws several hundred thousand people to demonstrations in Washington, D.C. One of the largest protest marches on the nation’s capital, the pro-choice rally came as the U.S. Supreme Court was about to consider the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania state law that limited access to […]
Dozens of sewer explosions in Guadalajara, Mexico, kill more than 200 people and damage 1,000 buildings on April 22, 1992. The series of explosions was caused by a gas leak, the warning signs of which were ignored by the Mexican government and the national oil company. Three days prior to the explosions, the residents of […]
In Los Angeles, California, four Los Angeles police officers that had been caught beating an unarmed African American motorist in an amateur video are acquitted of any wrongdoing in the arrest. Hours after the verdicts were announced, outrage and protest turned to violence as the LA riots began. Protestors in south-central Los Angeles blocked freeway […]
The World War II monument opens, the concentration camp, Dachau is liberated, New Orleans falls to the Union army in the Civil War, and the first international space flight is launched in This Day in History video. The date is April 29th. The Americans and Russians each sent an astronaut up in the same space […]
Exxon executive Sidney Reso dies in a storage vault in New Jersey. Four days earlier, he was abducted from the driveway of his Morris Township, New Jersey, home. Reso was shot in the arm, bound and gagged, and then placed in a wooden box that was hidden in a virtually airless storage space. Despite his […]
In an event steeped in symbolism, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev reviews the Cold War in a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri—the site of Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech 46 years before. Gorbachev mixed praise for the end of the Cold War with some pointed criticisms of U.S. policy. In 1946, Winston Churchill, […]
Amy Fisher, the so-called “Long Island Lolita,” is arrested for shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco on the front porch of her Massapequa, New York, home. Fisher, only 17 at the time of the shooting, was having an affair with 38-year-old Joey Buttafuoco, Mary Jo’s husband. The tawdry story soon became a tabloid and talk-show fixture, the […]
On June 23, 1992, Mafia boss John Gotti, who was nicknamed the “Teflon Don” after escaping unscathed from several trials during the 1980s, is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on 14 accounts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering. Moments after his sentence was read in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, […]
Two of the strongest earthquakes ever to hit California strike the desert area east of Los Angeles on June 28, 1992. Although the state sits upon the immense San Andreas fault line, relatively few major earthquakes have hit California in modern times. Two of the strongest, but not the deadliest, hit southern California on a […]
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking breaks British publishing records on July 2, 1992 when his book A Brief History of Time remains on the nonfiction bestseller list for three and a half years, selling more than 3 million copies in 22 languages. A Brief History of Time explained the latest theories on the origins of the […]
The Alaska court of appeals overturns the conviction of Joseph Hazelwood, the former captain of the oil tanker Exxon Valdez. Hazelwood, who was found guilty of negligence for his role in the massive oil spill in Prince William Sound in 1989, successfully argued that he was entitled to immunity from prosecution because he had reported […]
