Portal:Current events/January 1996

Fahd of Saudi Arabia temporarily gives power to Crown Prince Abdullah, his legal successor, due to ill health.^{[clarification needed]}

January 3, 1996 (Wednesday)

Motorola introduces the Motorola StarTAC Wearable Cellular Telephone, the world's smallest and lightest mobile phone to date.

January 4, 1996 (Thursday)

Hosni Mubarak, the President of Egypt, appoints a new government in response to accusations of corruption in the parliamentary elections; which were held the previous year, in late-1995.^{[clarification needed]}

January 5, 1996 (Friday)

Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash is assassinated by an Israeli Shabak-planted, bomb-laden cell phone.

January 7, 1996 (Sunday)

One of the worst blizzards in American history hits the eastern states, killing more than 150 people. Philadelphia receives a record 30.7 inches (78 cm) of snow, New York City's public schools close for the first time in eighteen years and the federal government in Washington, D.C. is closed for days.

January 8, 1996 (Monday)

A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city, Kinshasa, killing 300 people.

January 9, 1996 (Tuesday)

Serious fighting breaks out between Russian soldiers and rebel fighters in Chechnya.

January 11, 1996 (Thursday)

Ryutaro Hashimoto, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, becomes Prime Minister of Japan.

January 13, 1996 (Saturday)

Italy's Prime Minister, Lamberto Dini, resigns after the failure of all-party talks to confirm him. New talks are initiated by President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro to form a new government.

January 14, 1996 (Sunday)

Jorge Sampaio is elected President of Portugal.

January 16, 1996 (Tuesday)

President of Sierra Leone, Valentine Strasser, is deposed by the chief of defense, Julius Maada Bio. Bio promises to restore power following elections scheduled for February.

January 17, 1996 (Wednesday)

Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old American child victim and namesake for the AMBER Alert system, is murdered in Arlington, Texas.

January 19, 1996 (Friday)

The North Cape oil spill occurs as an engine fire forces the tugboat Scandia ashore on Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. The North Cape Barge is pulled along with it and leaks 820,000 gallons of home heating oil.
An Indonesian ferry sinks off the northern tip of Sumatra, drowning more than 100 people.

January 20, 1996 (Saturday)

Yasser Arafat is re-elected as president of the Palestinian Authority.

January 21, 1996 (Sunday)

France undertakes its last nuclear weapons test.

January 22, 1996 (Monday)

Andreas Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece, resigns due to health problems; a new government forms under Costas Simitis.

January 24, 1996 (Wednesday)

Polish Premier Józef Oleksy resigns amid charges that he spied for Moscow. He is replaced by Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz.

January 26, 1996 (Friday)

Whitewater scandal: U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton testifies before a grand jury.

January 27, 1996 (Saturday)

Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected President of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane, in a military coup.

January 29, 1996 (Monday)

President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear testing.
Fire destroys La Fenice, Venice's opera house.

January 30, 1996 (Tuesday)

Irish National Liberation Army leader Gino Gallagher is killed in an internal feud.
Sarah Balabagan is caned in the United Arab Emirates.

January 31, 1996 (Wednesday)