:This article is about the year. For other uses, see 1990 (disambiguation).
:"MCMXC" redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a.D..

1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January

* January 3 - Former leader of Panama, Manuel Noriega, surrenders to American forces.
* January 4 - Over 300 people are killed in a train accident in Ghotki, Pakistan.
* January 7 - The Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public due to safety concerns.
* January 9 - Lt. Gen. Bazilio Olara-Okello, the man who led the coup against Dr Apolo Milton Obote's government, dies in Ormduruman Hospital in Khartoum, Sudan.
* January 10 - Time Warner is formed from the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc.
* January 11 - 200,000 demonstrate in favor of Lithuanian independence.
* January 13 - Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office in Richmond, Virginia.
* January 15 - Thousands storm the Stasi headquarters in Berlin in an attempt to view their government records.
* January 18 - Washington, DC, Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting.
* January 22 - Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet worm.
* January 25 - Avianca Flight 52 crashed into Cove Neck, Long Island, after a miscommunication between the flight crew and JFK airport officials.
* January 25-January 26 - Burns' Day storm rages over northwestern Europe, leaving 97 dead.
* January 27 - City of Tiraspol in the Moldavian SSR declares brief independence.
* January 28 - The San Francisco 49ers trounce the Denver Broncos, 55-10, in Super Bowl XXIV.
* January 29 - The trial of the former skipper of the Exxon Valdez, Joseph Hazelwood, begins in Anchorage, Alaska. He is accused of negligence that resulted in America's worst oil spill to date.
* January 31 - The first McDonald's in Moscow, USSR opens.

February

* February 2 - Apartheid: In South Africa, President F.W. de Klerk allows the African National Congress to legally function again and promises to free Nelson Mandela.
* February 7 - Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly of power.
* February 10 - South African President F.W. de Klerk announces that Nelson Mandela would be released the next day.
* February 11 - James "Buster" Douglas knocks out Mike Tyson to win world heavyweight boxing crown.
* February 11 - Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster prison, near Cape Town, South Africa
* February 13 - German reunification: An agreement is reached for a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
* February 15 - The United Kingdom and Argentina restore diplomatic relations after eight years. The UK had severed ties in response to Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands, a British Dependent Territory, in 1982.
* February 26 - The Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections.
* February 26 - The USSR agrees to withdraw all 73,500 troops from Czechoslovakia by July, 1991.
* February 27 - Exxon Valdez oil spill: Exxon and its shipping company are indicted on five criminal counts.

March

* March 1 - A fire at the Sheraton Hotel in Cairo, Egypt kills 16.
* March 1 - Steve Jackson Games is raided by the U.S. Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
* March 1 - Royal New Zealand Navy discontinues the daily rum ration.
* March 6 - An SR-71 sets a US transcontinental speed record of 1 hour 8 minutes 17 seconds, on what is publicized as its last official flight.
* March 9 - Police seal off Brixton in South London after another night of protests against the poll tax.
* March 9 - Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and Hispanic to serve in that position.
* March 9 - Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Clyde Wells confirms he will rescind Newfoundland's approval of the Meech Lake Accord.
* March 10 - Eighteen months after seizing power in a coup, Prosper Avril is ousted in Haiti.
* March 11 - Lithuania declares independence from the Soviet Union.
* March 11 - Patricio Aylwin is sworn-in as the first democratically-elected Chilean president since 1970.
* March 15 - Iraqis hang British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spying. Daphne Parish, a British nurse, is sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment as an accomplice.
* March 15 - Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union.
* March 15 - The Soviet Union announces that Lithuania's declaration of independence is invalid.
* March 18 - Twelve paintings, collectively worth from $100 to $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts by two thieves posing as police officers. This is the largest art theft in US history and the paintings (as of 2006) have not been recovered.
* March 18 - East Germany holds first free elections since 1932.
* March 20 - Ferdinand Marcos's widow, Imelda Marcos, goes on trial for bribery, embezzlement, and racketeering.
* March 21 - After 75 years of South African rule, Namibia becomes independent.
* March 23 - Gerald Bull, a Canadian engineer who developed long-range artillery, is assassinated in Brussels.
* March 24 - The government of Australian prime minister Bob Hawke is re-elected for a 4th term.
* March 25 - In New York City, a fire due to arson at an illegal social club called "Happy Land" kills 87.
* March 27 - Propaganda: The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí to Cuba.
* March 28 - President George H. W. Bush posthumously awards Jesse Owens with the Congressional Gold Medal.
* March 31 - A massive anti-poll tax demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London, turns into a riot. 471 people are injured, with 341 arrested. The incident is subsequently known as "The Second Battle of Trafalgar."

April

* April 7 - Iran Contra Affair: John Poindexter is found guilty of five charges for his part in the scandal; the convictions were later reversed on appeal.
* April 7 - Scandinavian Star, a Bahamas-registered ferry, catches fire en route from Norway to Denmark, leaving 158 dead.
* April 13 - The Soviet Union apologizes for the Katyn Massacre.
* April 15 - Food poisoning kills 450 guests at an engagement party in Uttar Pradesh.
* April 24 - The Space Shuttle Discovery places the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.
* April 24 - West and East Germany agree to merge currency and economies on July 1.

May

* May 2 - In London, England, a man brandishing a knife robs courier Nicholas Lane of bearer bonds worth £292 million - the largest mugging to date.
* May 4 - Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union.
* May 15 - Portrait of Doctor Gachet by Vincent van Gogh is sold for a record $82.5 million.
* May 20 - The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.
* May 22 - The leaders of the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen announce the unification of their countries as the Republic of Yemen.
* May 29 - Rhode Island celebrates its bicentennial statehood.

June

* June 1 - U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty to end chemical weapon production and begin destroying their respective stocks.
* June 12 - The parliament of the Russian Federation formally declares its sovereignty.
* June 20 - British Chancellor John Major proposes a new European currency which would circulate alongside existing national currencies.
* June 22 - Underwater volcano Mount Didicas erupts in the Philippines.
* June 26 U.S. President George H.W. Bush breaks his 1988 'no new taxes' campaign pledge, accepting tax revenue increases as a necessity to reduce the budget deficit.

July

* July 2 - A stampede in a pedestrian tunnel leading to Mecca kills 1426.
* July 8 - At 12:34:56 p.m., the time and date by US reckoning was 12:34:56 7/8/90.
* July 8 - West Germany defeats Argentina 1-0 to win the 1990 FIFA World Cup.
* July 12 - Square Co., Ltd. releases Final Fantasy in North America.
* July 15 - Tamil Tigers kill 168 Muslims in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
* July 16 - July 16 Earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter Scale kills over 1600 in the Philippines.
* July 25 - The Serbian Democratic Party declares sovereignty of the Serbs in Croatia.
* July 26 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act, designed to protect disabled Americans from discrimination. In Phoenix, Arizona, the termperature reaches a all-time record high for the city of 122 degrees.
* July 27 - The parliament building and a government television house in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago are stormed by the Jamaat al Muslimeen in a Coup d'état attempt which lasts five days. Approximately 26 to 30 people are killed and several wounded (including then Prime Minister, A.N.R. Robinson, who was shot in the leg).
* July 27 - Belarus declares its sovereignty, a key step toward independence from the USSR.
* July 28 - Alberto Fujimori becomes president of Peru.
* July 30 - IRA car bomb kills British MP Ian Gow, a staunch unionist.

August

* August 2 - Gulf War: Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.
* August 6 - Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
* August 7 - At 12:34:56 (both a.m. and p.m.) the time and date by British reckoning was 12:34:56 7/8/90.
* August 19 - Leonard Bernstein conducts his final concert, ending with Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
* August 27 - Blues musician Stevie Ray Vaughan dies in a helicopter crash along with 4 others following a concert near East Troy, Wisconsin.

September

* September 2 - Transnistria declares its independence from the Moldavian SSR; however, the declaration is not recognized by any government.
* September 11 - Gulf War: President George H. W. Bush delivers a nationally televised speech in which he threatens the use of force to remove Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait.
* September 12 - The two German states and the Four Powers sign the Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany in Moscow, paving the way for German re-unification.
* September 19 - The IRA try to assassinate Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Terry at his home near Stafford, England. Hit by at least nine bullets, the former Governor of Gibraltar survives.

October

* October 3 - East Germany becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany and in consequence part of the European Community (EC), which later became the European Union.
* October 5 - After one hundred and fifty years, ten months and two days (Friday, January 3, 1840 - Friday, October 5, 1990), The Herald broadsheet newspaper in Melbourne, Australia is published for the last time as a separate newspaper.
* October 8 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: In Jerusalem, Israeli police kill 17 Palestinians and wound over 100 near the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount.
* October 13 - Lebanese Civil War: Syrian military forces invade and occupy Mount Lebanon, ousting General Michel Aoun's government. This effectively consolidates Syria's 14 year occupation of Lebanese soil.
* October 15 - Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and reform his nation.
* October 25 - Evander Holyfield defeats James 'Buster' Douglas for the Heavyweight Boxing crown.
* October 27 - Supreme Soviet of Kyrgyzstan chooses Askar Akayev as the republic's first president.
* October 27 - New Zealand general election returns National with record number of 67 seats.

November

* November 1 - Mary Robinson defeats odds-on favourite Brian Lenihan to become the first female President of Ireland.
* November 5 - Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at a New York City hotel.
* November 11 - Gulf War: The U.N. Security Council passes UN Security Council Resolution 678, giving Iraq until Tuesday, January 15, 1991 to withdraw its forces from Kuwait.
* November 12 - Akihito is enthroned as the 125th Japanese monarch.
* November 12 - Tim Berners-Lee publishes a more formal proposal for the World Wide Web. http://www.w3.org/Proposal
* November 13 - The first known web page is written.
* November 14 - Germany and Poland sign a treaty confirming the border at the Oder-Neisse line.
* November 15 - Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis launches with flight STS-38.
* November 21 - The Super Famicom (aka Super Nintendo) is released in Japan
* November 22 - Margaret Thatcher announced she will not contest the second ballot of the leadership election for the Conservative Party.
* November 25 - Lech Wałęsa and Stanisław Tymiński win the first round of the first presidential elections in Poland.
* November 27 - John Major wins the second ballot of the Conservative Party leadership election and his two rivals, Michael Heseltine and Douglas Hurd, concede defeat.
* November 28 - Margaret Thatcher resigns as Prime Minister of the UK. John Major succeeds her as Party Leader and is appointed Prime Minister by Queen Elizabeth II.
* November 29 - Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council passes UN Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing military intervention in Iraq if that nation did not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by Tuesday, January 15, 1991.

December

* December 1 - Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 meters beneath the English Channel seabed, establishing the first ground connection between the United Kingdom and the mainland of Europe since the last ice age.
* December 2 - A coalition led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl wins the first free all-German elections since 1932.
* December 3 - At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 collides with a Boeing 727 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 299 on the runway, killing 8 passengers and 4 crewmembers on Flight 1482.
* December 6 - Saddam Hussein releases the Western hostages.
* December 9 - Slobodan Milošević becomes President of Serbia.
* December 9 - Lech Wałęsa wins the 2nd round of Poland's first presidential election.
* December 11 - John Gotti is arrested.
* December 16 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide is elected president of Haiti, ending three decades of military rule.
* December 31 - Russian Garry Kasparov holds his title by winning the World Chess Championship match against his countryman Anatoly Karpov.

Births

January-May

* January 7 - Liam Aiken, American actor
* January 7 - Camryn Grimes, American actress
* January 12 - Sergey Karjakin, Ukrainian chess player
* January 30 - Jake Thomas, American actor

* February 11 - Q'Orianka Kilcher, German-born actress
* February 13 - Erdini Qoigyijabu, eleventh Panchen Lama
* February 14 - Emily Mae Young, American child actress
* February 23 - Christian Copelin, American actor
* February 28 - Anna Muzychuk, Ukrainian chess player

* March 1 - James Lomas, British stage actor
* March 4 - Andrea Bowen, American actress
* March 8 - Abigail and Brittany Hensel, American conjoined twins
* March 23 - Princess Eugenie of York
* March 24 - Keisha Castle-Hughes, Australian-born actress

*April 15 - Emma Watson, English actress
* May 1 - Caitlin Stasey, Australian actress
* May 2 - Kay Panabaker, American actress
* May 15 - Gerald Santos, Filipino actor and singer
* May 16 - Thomas Sangster, English actor

June-December

*June 3 - Young Leek, American rapper
* June 26 - Ryan Ward, American actor

* August 6 - JonBenét Ramsey, American beauty queen and murder victim (d. 1996)

* October 5 - Myles Jeffrey, American actor
* October 18 - Carly Schroeder, American actress
* October 22 - Jonathan Lipnicki, American actor

* November 7 - Marisa Siketa, Australian actress
* November 27 - Shane Haboucha, American actor
* November 29 - Blake and Dylan Tuomy-Wilhoit, twin American actors
* November 30 - Magnus Carlsen, Norwegian chess player

* December 17 - Ashley Edner, American actress
* December 20 - Joanna Noelle Levesque, American singer/actress
* December 22 - Jean-Baptiste Maunier, French actor

Deaths

January

* January 2 - Alan Hale Jr., American actor (b. 1921)
* January 4 - Doc Edgerton, American electrical engineering (b. 1903)
* January 6 - Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1904)
* January 9 - Spud Chandler, baseball player (b. 1907
* January 23 - Allen Collins, one of the founding members of Lynyrd Skynyrd (b. 1952)
* January 25 - Ava Gardner, American actress (b. 1922)

February

* February 8 - Del Shannon, American musician and singer (b. 1934)
* February 16 - Keith Haring, American Pop-artist (b. 1954)

March

* March 13 - Karl Münchinger, German conductor (b. 1915)
* March 17 - Ric Grech, British rock bassist (Family, Blind Faith, Traffic) (b. 1946)
* March 20 - Lev Yashin, Russian footballer (b. 1929)

April

* April 8 - Ryan White, AIDS activist (b. 1971)
* April 15 - Greta Garbo, Swedish actress (b.1905)
* April 17 - Ralph Abernathy, American civil rights leader (b. 1926)

May

* May 8 - Tomás Cardinal Ó Fiaich, Northern Irish clergyman (b. 1923)
* May 16 - Sammy Davis Jr., American actor, dancer, and singer (b. 1925)
* May 16 - Jim Henson, American puppeteer (Sesame Street) (b. 1936)

June

* June 3 - Stiv Bators, American singer (The Dead Boys) (b. 1949)
* June 22 - Ilya Frank, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908)

July

* July 7 - Bill Cullen, American game show host (b. 1920)
* July 18 - Yun Po Sun, President of South Korea (b. 1897)
* July 18 - Johnny Wayne, of the Canadian comic duo Wayne and Shuster (b.1918)
* July 18 - Yves Chaland, French cartoonist (b. 1957)
* July 22 - Manuel Puig, Argentinian writer (b. 1932)

August

*August 9 - Joe Mercer, English footballer (b.1914)
*August 12 - Dorothy Mackaill, British-born American actress (b. 1903)
*August 17 - Pearl Bailey, American singer and actress (b. 1918)
*August 27 - Stevie Ray Vaughan, American guitarist (b. 1954)

September

* September 16 - Len Hutton, English cricketer (b. 1916)
* September 26 - Alberto Moravia, Italian novelist (b. 1907)
* September 30 - Patrick White, Australian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)

October

*October 5 - Peter Taylor, English footballer and manager (b. 1928)
* October 13 - Le Duc Tho, Vietnamese general and politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1911)
* October 14 - Leonard Bernstein, American composer and conductor (b. 1918)

November

* November 5 - Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of Kach movement
* November 17 - Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1915)
* November 23 - Roald Dahl, English writer (b. 1916)

December

* December 2 - Aaron Copland, American composer (b. 1900)
* December 6 - Pavlos Sidiropoulos, Greek rock singer/songwriter
* December 14 - Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Swiss writer (b. 1921)
*December 16 - Douglas Campbell, American World War I flying ace (b. 1896)

Nobel prize

* Physics - Jerome Isaac Friedman, Henry Way Kendall, and Richard Edward Taylor
* Chemistry - Elias James Corey
* Physiology or Medicine - Joseph E. Murray, E. Donnall Thomas
* Literature - Octavio Paz
* Peace - Mikhail Gorbachev
*Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel - Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller, William Sharpe

Fields Medalists

*Vladimir Drinfeld, Vaughan Frederick Randal Jones, Shigefumi Mori, Edward Witten

Templeton Prize

* Baba Amte (Joint Award)
* L. Charles Birch (Joint Award)

Right Livelihood Award

* Alice Tepper Marlin, Bernard Lédéa Ouedraogo, Felicia Langer and ATCC (Asociación de Trabajadores Campesinos del Carare)

Uncertain dates

For a brief while in early 1990, Romania had a civil war in the aftermath of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the opposition was for Nicolae Ceauşescu and the Communist regime, and those for the new regime.
* New Revised Standard Version of the Bible is published in the United States.
* Metropolitan Aleksy of Leningrad elected Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia.
* First Anglican female priests in the United Kingdom are ordained at St. Anne's Cathedral, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
* Robert Runcie announces resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury. George Carey succeeded him.
* Channel 7 + 10 networks go into receivership (Australia)
* Homosexual Acts between Consenting adults decriminalized in Queensland
*General continuation of 1980s-style pop culture as large events in 1991 and 1992 such as the Grunge movement start the Nineties pop cultural era

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*1990-01
an:1990
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nap:1990
scn:1990
zh-yue:1990年