1993 in the United States

Decades:	1970s ; 1980s ; 1990s ; 2000s ; 2010s ;
See also:	History of the United States (1991–2008) ; Timeline of United States history (1990–2009) ; List of years in the United States ;

Last updated March 16, 2025

Incumbents

Federal government

President:

George H.W. Bush (R-Texas) (until January 20)

Bill Clinton (D-Arkansas) (starting January 20)

Vice President:

Dan Quayle (R-Indiana) (until January 20)

Al Gore (D-Tennessee) (starting January 20)

Chief Justice: William Rehnquist (Virginia)
Speaker of the House of Representatives: Tom Foley (D-Washington)
Senate Majority Leader: George J. Mitchell
Congress: 102nd (until January 3), 103rd (starting January 3)

Governors and lieutenant governors
Governors Governor of Alabama: H. Guy Hunt (Republican) (until April 22), Jim Folsom Jr. (Democratic) (starting April 22) Governor of Alaska: Wally Hickel (Alaskan Independence)/(Republican) Governor of Arizona: Fife Symington III (Republican) Governor of Arkansas: Jim Guy Tucker (Democratic) Governor of California: Pete Wilson (Republican) Governor of Colorado: Roy Romer (Democratic) Governor of Connecticut: Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (A Connecticut) Governor of Delaware: Dale E. Wolf (Republican) (until January 19), Thomas R. Carper (Democratic) (starting January 19) Governor of Florida: Lawton Chiles (Democratic) Governor of Georgia: Zell Miller (Democratic) Governor of Hawaii: John D. Waihee III (Democratic) Governor of Idaho: Cecil D. Andrus (Democratic) Governor of Illinois: Jim Edgar (Republican) Governor of Indiana: Evan Bayh (Democratic) Governor of Iowa: Terry E. Branstad (Republican) Governor of Kansas: Joan Finney (Democratic) Governor of Kentucky: Brereton Jones (Democratic) Governor of Louisiana: Edwin W. Edwards (Democratic) Governor of Maine: John R. McKernan Jr. (Republican) Governor of Maryland: William Donald Schaefer (Democratic) Governor of Massachusetts: William F. Weld (Republican) Governor of Michigan: John Engler (Republican) Governor of Minnesota: Arne H. Carlson (Republican) Governor of Mississippi: Kirk Fordice (Republican) Governor of Missouri: John Ashcroft (Republican) (until January 11), Mel Carnahan (Democratic) (starting January 11) Governor of Montana: Stan Stephens (Republican) (until January 4), Marc Racicot (Republican) (starting January 4) Governor of Nebraska: Ben Nelson (Democratic) Governor of Nevada: Bob Miller (Democratic) Governor of New Hampshire: until January 2: Judd Gregg (Republican) January 2–7: Ralph D. Hough (Democratic) starting January 7: Steve Merrill (Republican) Governor of New Jersey: James Florio (Democratic) Governor of New Mexico: Bruce King (Democratic) Governor of New York: Mario Cuomo (Democratic) Governor of North Carolina: James G. Martin (Republican) (until January 9), Jim Hunt (Democratic) (starting January 9) Governor of North Dakota: Ed Schafer (Republican) Governor of Ohio: George Voinovich (Republican) Governor of Oklahoma: David Walters (Democratic) Governor of Oregon: Barbara Roberts (Democratic) Governor of Pennsylvania: Robert P. Casey (Democratic) Governor of Rhode Island: Bruce Sundlun (Democratic) Governor of South Carolina: Carroll A. Campbell Jr. (Republican) Governor of South Dakota: George S. Mickelson (Republican) (until April 19), Walter Dale Miller (Republican) (starting April 19) Governor of Tennessee: Ned McWherter (Democratic) Governor of Texas: Ann Richards (Democratic) Governor of Utah: Norman H. Bangerter (Republican) (until January 4), Mike Leavitt (Republican) (starting January 4) Governor of Vermont: Howard Dean (Democratic) Governor of Virginia: Douglas Wilder (Democratic) Governor of Washington: Booth Gardner (Democratic) (until January 13), Mike Lowry (Democratic) (starting January 13) Governor of West Virginia: Gaston Caperton (Democratic) Governor of Wisconsin: Tommy Thompson (Republican) Governor of Wyoming: Mike Sullivan (Democratic) Lieutenant governors Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Jim Folsom Jr. (Democratic) (until April 22), vacant (starting April 22) Lieutenant Governor of Alaska: Jack Coghill (Alaskan Independence) Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas: vacant (until November 20), Mike Huckabee (Republican) (starting November 20) Lieutenant Governor of California: Leo T. McCarthy (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: Mike Callihan (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Eunice Groark (A Connecticut) Lieutenant Governor of Delaware: vacant (until January 19), Ruth Ann Minner (Democratic) (starting January 19) Lieutenant Governor of Florida: Buddy MacKay (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Georgia: Pierre Howard (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii: Ben Cayetano (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: Butch Otter (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Bob Kustra (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Frank O'Bannon (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Joy Corning (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Jim Francisco (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Paul E. Patton (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Melinda Schwegmann (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Maryland: Melvin A. Steinberg (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Paul Cellucci (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Connie Binsfeld (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: Joanell Dyrstad (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Eddie Briggs (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Mel Carnahan (Democratic) (until January 11), Roger B. Wilson (Democratic) (starting January 11) Lieutenant Governor of Montana: Denny Rehberg (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: Maxine Moul (Democratic) (until October), Kim M. Robak (Democratic) (starting October) Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: Sue Wagner (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico: Casey Luna (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of New York: Stan Lundine (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: James Carson Gardner (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Dennis A. Wicker (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: Rosemarie Myrdal (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: Mike DeWine (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma: Jack Mildren (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: Mark Singel (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Roger N. Begin (Democratic) (until January 2), Robert Weygand (Democratic) (starting January 2) Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Nick Theodore (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: Walter Dale Miller (Republican) (until April 19), Steve T. Kirby (Republican) (starting April 19) Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: John S. Wilder (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Bob Bullock (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Utah: W. Val Oveson (Republican) (until January 4), Olene S. Walker (Republican) (starting January 4) Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: vacant (until month and day unknown), Barbara W. Snelling (Republican) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Don Beyer (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Washington: Joel Pritchard (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Scott McCallum (Republican)

Events

January

January 3 – In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
January 5
- The state of Washington executes Westley Allan Dodd by hanging (the first legal hanging in America since 1965).
- $7,400,000 USD is stolen from Brinks Armored Car Depot in Rochester, New York in the fifth-largest robbery in U.S. history. Four men, Samuel Millar, Father Patrick Moloney, former Rochester Police officer Thomas O'Connor, and Charles McCormick, all of whom have ties to the Provisional Irish Republican Army, are accused.
January 19
- IBM announces a $4,970,000,000 loss for 1992, the largest single-year corporate loss in United States history to date.
- Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq refuses to allow UNSCOM inspectors to use its own aircraft to fly into Iraq, and begins military operations in the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait, and the northern Iraqi no-fly zones. U.S. forces fire approximately forty Tomahawk cruise missiles at Baghdad factories linked to Iraq's illegal nuclear weapons program. Iraq then informs UNSCOM that it will be able to resume its flights.
January 20 – Bill Clinton is sworn in as the 42nd president of the United States, and Al Gore is sworn in as the 45th vice president.
January 25 – Mir Aimal Kasi fires a rifle and kills two employees outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
January 31 – Super Bowl XXVII: The Buffalo Bills become the first team to lose three consecutive Super Bowls as they are defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, 52–17.

February

February 6 – Former tennis player Arthur Ashe, 49, dies of complications due to HIV in New York. Ashe was believed to have contracted the virus from a blood transfusion during a heart surgery ten years earlier.^[1]
February 8 – General Motors Corporation sues NBC, after Dateline NBC allegedly rigged two crashes showing that some GM pickups can easily catch fire if hit in certain places. NBC settles the lawsuit the following day.
February 11 – Janet Reno is selected by President Clinton as Attorney General of the United States.
February 17 – President Clinton delivers his first address to the 103rd Congress.
February 26 – 1993 World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a van bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing six and injuring over 1,000.
February 28 – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, with a warrant to arrest leader David Koresh on federal firearms violations. Four agents and five Davidian followers die in the raid and a 51-day standoff begins.

March

March 1–April 28 – An outbreak of Cryptosporidium protozoan affects Milwaukee, Wisconsin, infecting over 400,000 people, hospitalizing over 4,000, and killing at least 100, making it the largest waterborne disease outbreak in United States history.
March 1 – The NFL introduces its current free agent system.
March 4 – Authorities announce the capture of suspected World Trade Center bombing conspirator Mohammad Salameh.
March 9 – Rodney King testifies at the federal trial of four Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating his civil rights when they beat him during an arrest.
March 11 – Janet Reno is confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in the next day, becoming the first female Attorney General of the United States.
March 13–14 – The Great Blizzard of 1993 strikes the eastern United States, bringing record snowfall and other severe weather all the way from Cuba to Quebec; the storm kills 318 people.
March 22 – The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips.
March 29 – The 65th Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, with Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven winning four awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Both the film and James Ivory's Howards End lead the nominations with nine each. The telecast garners 45.7 million viewers.

April

April–May – A virus strikes the Four Corners, killing at least 13 people.
April–October – The Great Flood of 1993: The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers flood large portions of the American Midwest.
April 2 – The Adventures of Huck Finn, directed by Stephen Sommers and based on Mark Twain's 1884 novel of the same name, is released in theaters.
April 9 – The rock band Nirvana plays a benefit concert for rape victims in war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina at San Francisco's Cow Palace.
April 13 – The Kuwaiti government claims to uncover an Iraqi assassination plot against former U.S. President George H. W. Bush shortly after his visit to Kuwait. Two Iraqi nationals confess to driving a car bomb into Kuwait on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.^[2]
April 19 – A 51-day stand-off at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ends with a fire that kills 76 people, including David Koresh.
April 28 – An executive order is issued requiring the United States Air Force to allow women to fly war planes.

May

May 1 – An outbreak of a respiratory illness later identified as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome begins in the southwestern United States; 32 patients die by the end of the year.^[3]^[4]
May 5 – The West Memphis Three are three men who – while teenagers – were tried and convicted, in 1994, of the May 5, 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley Jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin was sentenced to life imprisonment. During the trial, the prosecution asserted that the children were killed as part of a Satanic ritual.
May 20 – President Bill Clinton signs the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 into federal law.

June

June 5 – Minnesota v. Dickerson : The United States Supreme Court rules that the seizure of evidence during a pat-down search is constitutional.
June 9 – The Montreal Canadiens win their 24th Stanley Cup, defeating the Los Angeles Kings in the Finals.
June 11 – Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg, is released in theaters as the first film in the Jurassic Park saga.
June 20 – John Paxson's 3-point shot in Game 6 of the NBA Finals helps the Chicago Bulls secure a 99–98 win over the Phoenix Suns, and their third consecutive championship.
June 24 – A Unabomber bomb injures computer scientist David Gelernter at Yale University.
June 27 – U.S. President Bill Clinton orders a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in the Al-Mansur District of Baghdad, in response to the attempted assassination of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush during his visit to Kuwait in mid-April.

July

July 1 – Gian Ferri kills eight and injures six before committing suicide at a law firm in San Francisco, sparking new legislative actions for gun control.
July 15 – 1993 child sexual abuse accusations against Michael Jackson: Evan Chandler institutes legal accusations against singer Michael Jackson of sexually molesting Jordan Chandler, Evan's 13-year-old son.
July 19 – U.S. President Bill Clinton announces his 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy regarding homosexuals serving in the American military.
July 20 – White House deputy counsel Vince Foster dies by suicide in Virginia.
July 25 – Greg Nicholson, his girlfriend and her two young daughters are murdered in Iowa by Dustin Honken and Angela Johnson. Nicholson was due to testify against Honken in court in relation to his drug activities.^[5]^[6]
July 27 – Windows NT 3.1, the first version of Microsoft's line of Windows NT operating systems, is released to manufacturing.

August

August 1 – The Great Flood of 1993 comes to a peak.
August 4 – A federal judge sentences LAPD officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights.
August 10
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
- World Youth Day 1993 in Denver, Colorado.
August 21 – NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.
August 28 – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers , the first Power Rangers entry, debuts on Fox Kids.

September

September 4 – The second World Parliament of Religions is held in Chicago.
September 6 – Canadian software specialist Peter de Jager publishes an article titled "Doomsday 2000" in the U.S. weekly magazine Computerworld , which is the first known reference to Y2K – the Year 2000 problem.
September 10 – Bill Nye the Science Guy first airs in syndication.
September 13
- PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands in Washington D.C., after signing a peace accord.
- Animaniacs makes its debut on Fox Kids.
- The Brazilian TV host Xuxa Meneghel debuts her English program on American TV, becoming the first Brazilian person to host a TV show in US.
September 15–21 – Hurricane Gert crosses from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through Central America and Mexico.
September 18 – Rocko's Modern Life makes its debut on Nickelodeon, becoming the network's fourth "Nicktoon" in the line-up.
September 22 – Big Bayou Canot rail accident: An Amtrak Sunset Limited derails on a bridge which had been damaged by a barge near Mobile, Alabama. It is the deadliest train wreck in Amtrak's history.

October

October 3 – A large-scale battle erupts between U.S. forces and local militia in Mogadishu, Somalia; eighteen Americans and over 1,000 Somalis are killed.
October 8 – David Miscavige announces the IRS has granted full tax exemption to the Church of Scientology International and affiliated churches and organizations, ending the Church's 40-year battle with the IRS and resulting in religious recognition in the United States.
October 16 – U.S. President Bill Clinton sends six American warships to Haiti to enforce United Nations trade sanctions against their military-led regime.^[7]
October 25 – Actor Vincent Price dies of lung cancer.
October 27 – Wildfires begin in California, which eventually destroy over 16,000 acres (65 km²) and 700 homes.^[8]
October 31 – Actor River Phoenix dies of drug-induced heart failure on the sidewalk outside the West Hollywood nightclub The Viper Room.

November

November 11 – Microsoft releases Windows 3.11 for Workgroups to manufacturing.
November 16 – President Bill Clinton signs the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 into federal law.
November 18 – In a status referendum, Puerto Rico residents vote with a slim margin to maintain Commonwealth status.
November 17–22 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passes the legislative houses in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
November 18 – The first meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation opens in Seattle.
November 20 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his dealings with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
November 22 – TV Food Network makes its debut.
November 30 – President Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act into law, requiring purchasers of handguns to pass a background check.

December

December
- The unemployment rate falls to 6.5%, the lowest since January 1991.
- ProCharger, an automotive aftermarket manufacturer is founded in Kansas.^[9]
December 2 – STS-61: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair an optical flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.
December 7
- Colin Ferguson opens fire with his Ruger 9 mm pistol on a Long Island Rail Road train, killing six and injuring 29.
- Avi Arad founds Marvel Studios.
December 11 – A variety of Soviet space program paraphernalia are put to auction in Sotheby's New York, and sell for a total of US$6,800,000. One of the items is Lunokhod1 and its spacecraft Luna 17 ; they sell for $68,500.

Ongoing

Iraqi no-fly zones (1991–2003)^[10]

Sport

February 23 - Sacramento Gold Miners are established as the First American franchise in the Canadian Football League
The Colorado Rockies and the Miami Marlins become baseball teams.