1991
1991, like 2002, is a palindromic year. It also has the same calendar as 2002, including Easter on March 31. It is a common year starting on Tuesday.
Events
January
February
- February 4 - The Baseball Hall of Fame votes to ban Pete Rose
- February 5 - A Michigan court bars Dr. Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides
- February 7 - Haiti's first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is sworn in.
- February 7 - IRA launches a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street during a cabinet meeting
- February 9 - Voters in Lithuania vote for independence
- February 11 - UNPO, the Unrepresented Nations & People Organization forms in the Hague, Netherlands
- February 13 - Gulf War: Two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy an underground bunker in Baghdad killing hundreds of Iraqis. Iraqi officials claim that the bunker was a bomb shelter but United States military intelligence identified it as a military facility
- February 15 - The Visegard Agreement, establishing cooperation to move toward free-market systems, is signed by the leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland.
- February 16 - Gulf War: U.S. and U.K. war planes bomb the suburbs of Baghdad, injuring at least 11 civilians and killing three others.
- February 22 - Gulf War: Iraq accepts a Russian proposed cease fire agreement. The US rejected the agreement, but said that retreating Iraqi forces would not be attacked if they left Kuwait within 24 hours
- February 23 - Gulf War: Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabia border and enter Kuwait, thus starting the ground-phase of the war.
- February 25 - Gulf War: An Iraqi Scud missile hits an American military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia killing 28 US Marines
- February 26 - Gulf War: On Baghdad Radio Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein announces the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Iraqi soldiers set fire to Kuwaiti oil fields as they retreat
- February 26 - Tim Berners-Lee introduces the web browser
- February 27 - Gulf War: Kuwait is liberated, and a ceasefire is declared, after 100 hours of ground fighting. Iraq accepts the terms of the ceasefire, which call for the country to disarm
March
April
- April 1 - The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times report that had verified her claim that then SAG President Ronald Reagan raped her in her home in 1952
- April 3 - Iraq disarmament crisis: The U.N. Security Council passes the Cease Fire Agreement, Resolution 687. The resolution called for the destruction, or removal of all of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons, all stocks of agents and components, all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities for ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150km and production facilities, and end its support for international terrorism. Iraq accepts the terms of the resolution on April 6
- April 4 - Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others are killed when a helicopter collided with their plane over Merion, Pennsylvania
- April 14 - 20 paintings stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam but found 35 minutes later in an abandoned car
- April 18 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq declares some of its chemical weapons and materials to the UN, as required by Resolution 687, and claims that it does not have biological weapons program.
- April 26 - Tornadoes break out in the central United States. The most notable tornado of the day was the one that hit in Andover, Kansas. The outbreak of nearly seventy tornadoes killed 17 people in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The tornado that hit Andover was the only F5 of the year. (see The Andover, Kansas Tornado)
May
June
July-August
September
October
November-December
Unknown date
Year in Topic
Births
Deaths
January-March
- January 17 - King Olav V of Norway
- January 18 - Leo Hurwitz, documentary film producer
- January 29 - Yasushi Inoue, historian
- January 30 - John Bardeen, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics twice
- January 30 - John McIntire, actor
- February 5 - Dean Jagger, actor
- February 6 - Danny Thomas, singer, comedian, actor
- February 11 - Oscar Nitzchke, German architect
- February 21 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, ballet dancer
- February 24 - George Gobel, comedian
- February 24 - John Daly, journalist, game show host
- March 2 - Serge Gainsbourg, singer
- March 3 - Arthur Murray, dancer, dance instructor
- March 14 - Doc Pomus, composer
- March 14 - Howard Ashman, lyricist
- March 29 - Lee Atwater, Republican advisor
April-December
- April 1 - Martha Graham, dancer, choreographer
- April 3 - Graham Greene, writer
- April 4 - H. John Heinz III, member U.S. Senate in a plane crash
- April 4 - Forrest Towns, American hurdler
- April 26 - Carmine Coppola, composer, conductor
- April 26 - William Andrew Paton, accountant and economist
- May 21 - Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, and President of Congress Party
- May 22 - Derrick Henry Lehmer, mathematician
- May 27 - Leopold Nowak, musicologist
- July 1 - Michael Landon, actor (b. 1936)
- July 16 - Robert Motherwell, American abstract expressionist painter
- July 18 - André Cools, Belgian politician
- August 13 - James Roosevelt, American businessman, politician
- August 24 - Bernard Castro, inventor of the convertible couch
- August 30 - Jean Tinguely, kinetic artist
- September 3 - Frank Capra, American movie director
- September 24 - Dr. Seuss, children's author (b. 1904)
- September 26 - Miles Davis, musician (b. 1926)
- November 15 - Alger Hiss, former U.S. State Department official
- November 24 - Freddie Mercury, singer, Queen frontman
- December 16 - Horatio Luro, Hall of Fame racehorse trainer
