Rwanda disintegrates into civil war as escalating ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis ravages the country.

The Hebron Accord, designed to promote peace between Israel and Palestine, is undermined by both sides as terrorism breaks out and the building of new settlements defies non-expansionist agreements.

Despite his acquittal in the criminal case, O.J. Simpson loses a civil case to the families of the deceased Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

James Cameron's movie Titanic, based on the infamous 1912 tragedy, costs more than $250 million to make, but becomes a blockbuster hit. Its theme song, My Heart Will Go On, recorded by Celine Dion, will win the Oscar as Best Song of 1997 and the film takes home Best Picture of 1997 honors.

The Democratic Party is accused of receiving illegal donations, including some generated by inappropriate use of the White House.

Thirty-nine members of the Heaven's Gate cult commit suicide in a mansion outside of San Diego, California, preparing to board a spaceship they claimed was following the Hale-Bopp comet.

After experiencing a plunge related to the crisis of Asian markets, Wall Street rebounds and continues to climb. For the third consecutive year, the Dow Jones rose 20 percent.

Zaire's corrupt leader, Mobutu Sese Seko, is overthrown in May, and Laurent Kabila's guerrilla movement assumes power and changes Zaire's name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Timothy McVeigh is found guilty of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He is sentenced to death for the crime.

Leaders of the tobacco industry offer to pay $368 billion if numerous states agree to drop lawsuits filed against them.

Albania's attempt at democracy and a free market goes disastrously awry when citizens lose an estimated $1.2 billion in a nationwide swindle. Resulting riots kill more than 1,500 people and end only when international intervention ousts President Sali Berisha and restores order and President Sali Berisha steps down.

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge tries the former brutal dictator Pol Pot and sentences him to lifetime arrest.

Hong Kong is returned to the Chinese after years of British sovereignty but maintains its status as a free market port.

Space exploration leaps forward as the NASA probe Pathfinder lands on Mars to research the fourth planet from the Sun. Traffic gluts the Pathfinder's Internet site, which airs live shots from the sturdy rover Sojourner.

Dolly the sheep becomes a celebrity when Scottish researchers announce that she is a clone of another living mammal.

In a tragedy that stuns the world, Princess Diana is killed in an automobile accident with her close friend Dodi Fayed. Tests reveal that the driver of the car, Henri Paul, was legally drunk.

The collapse of the Thailand economy sparks a chain reaction that leads to an Asian economic crisis and the eventual collapse of the Russian market.

Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who spent much of her life comforting Calcutta's destitute and dying, dies of a heart attack. Her efforts earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

The triumph of Tony Blair and the Labour party ends eighteen years of Conservative rule in Britain. Blair's controversial meeting with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams supports peace in Northern Ireland.

In defiance of the agreement reached at the end of the Persian Gulf War, Iraq expels members of the United Nations Inspection Team who were attempting to ascertain the presence of nuclear and biological weapons.

The world's only surviving septuplets are born to Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey.

America Online announces that its membership has reached 10 million people.