What happened in 1991

World4

• Aug 7Former Iranian prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar is assassinated in the Parisian suburb of Suresnes.
• Aug 25Linus Torvalds posts messages to the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix, regarding the new operating system kernel he has developed, called Linux.
• Oct 11Iraq disarmament crisis: The UN Security Council passes Resolution 715, demanding that Iraq "accept unconditionally the inspectors and all other personnel designated by the Special Commission." Iraq rejects the resolution, calling it "unlawful".
• Nov 27Dissolution of Yugoslavia: The UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution opening the way to the establishment of peacekeeping operations in Yugoslavia.

Japan1

• Jun 23Sonic the Hedgehog is released by Sega for the Sega Genesis to compete with Nintendo's Mario franchise.

North America18

• Jan 9Gulf War: U.S. Secretary of State James Baker meets with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz but fails to produce a plan for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
• Jan 12Gulf War: The 102nd U.S. Congress passes a resolution authorizing the use of military force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
• Jan 15Gulf War: The UN deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.
• Feb 1USAir Flight 1493 collides with a SkyWest Airlines Fairchild Metroliner at Los Angeles International Airport, killing 34 people.
• Feb 27Gulf War: U.S. President Bush declares victory over Iraq and orders a cease-fire. U.S. troops begin to leave the Persian Gulf on March 10.
• Apr 4U.S. Senator John Heinz and six other people are killed when a helicopter collides with their plane over Merion, Pennsylvania.
• Apr 5Space Shuttle Atlantis leaves an observatory in Earth's orbit to study gamma rays before returning on April 11. It is followed by Space Shuttle Discovery, which studies instruments related to the Strategic Defense Initiative from April 29 to May 6. Space Shuttle Columbia carries the Spacelab into orbit on June 5.
• Apr 5Former U.S. Senator John Tower and 22 others are killed in an airplane crash in Brunswick, Georgia.
• Jul 11A solar eclipse of record totality occurs in the Northern hemisphere and is witnessed by hundreds of millions of people in Hawaii, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.
• Jul 31U.S. President Bush and Soviet President Gorbachev sign START I in Moscow, Soviet Union.
• Aug 11Nickelodeon introduces its series of Nicktoons, with Doug, Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show set three air premieres.
• Aug 17Hurricane Bob hits North Carolina and New England, killing 17 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage.
• Sep 17Home Improvement premieres on ABC.
• Oct 16Luby's shooting: 23 people are killed at a Luby's restaurant in Killeen, Texas after George Hennard drives his truck through the establishment and begins firing at diners. It becomes the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history and wouldn't be surpassed until the Virginia Tech shooting.
• Nov 26Michael Jackson releases Dangerous, selling 5 million copies in the first week.

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Europe36

• Jan 5Georgian troops attack Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, starting the 1991–92 South Ossetia War.
• Apr 29A 7.0 earthquake in Racha, Georgia, kills 270 people and leaves 100,000 others homeless.
• Jun 25Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Croatia and Slovenia declare their independence from Yugoslavia.
• Jul 7Dissolution of Yugoslavia: The Brioni Agreement ends the Ten-Day War in Slovenia.
• Jul 31Singing Revolution: Soviet Special Purpose Police Unit forces (OMON) kill seven Lithuanian customs officials in Medininkai, the deadliest of the Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts.
• Aug 24Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Ukraine declares independence, followed by Belarus the next day, from the Soviet Union.
• Aug 25Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Serbian forces begin an attack on the Croatian town of Vukovar.
• Aug 30Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Moldova declares independence from the Soviet Union, followed by Azerbaijan.
• AugThe World Wide Web goes publicBerners-Lee at CERN devised a way to link documents together and made it public in 1991. In 1993 CERN made it free for anyone to use, and it spread around the world.
• Oct 15The leaders of the Baltic States—Arnold Rüütel of Estonia, Anatolijs Gorbunovs of Latvia, and the Vytautas Landsbergis of Lithuania—sign the OSCE Final Act in Helsinki, Finland.
• Nov 18Dissolution of Yugoslavia: The forces of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitaries take the Croatian town of Vukovar after the 87-day Battle of Vukovar. They kill more than 260 Croatian prisoners of war.
• Dec 1Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Ukrainians vote overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union in a referendum.
• Dec 8Dissolution of the Soviet Union: In the Białowieża Forest Nature Reserve in Belarus, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine sign an agreement officially ending the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place.
• Dec 11Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Croatian forces kill 18 Serbs and one Hungarian in the village of Paulin Dvor, Croatia.
• Dec 12Ukraine becomes the first post-Soviet republic to decriminalize homosexuality.

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USSR / Russia11

• Mar 17Dissolution of the Soviet Union: In a national referendum, 77% of voters in the Soviet Union vote in favor of keeping the 15 Soviet republics together; six Union Republics effectively boycott the referendum.
• Mar 31Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Georgia votes for independence from the Soviet Union while on April 9, the Supreme Council declares the independent Republic of Georgia.
• Jun 12Boris Yeltsin is elected President of the Russian SFSR; he officially begins his term on July 10.
• Jul 16Soviet President Gorbachev arrives in London to ask for aid from the leaders of the G7.
• Aug 19Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is put under house arrest while vacationing in Crimea during an attempted coup. Led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev and seven others, the coup collapses in less than 72 hours and is protested by over 100,000 people outside the parliament building. Gorbachev returns to Moscow three days later and arrests the coup leaders.
• Sep 5Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union self-dissolves, being replaced by Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and State Council of the Soviet Union.
• Oct 11In the Russian SFSR, the KGB is replaced by the SVR, with the KGB officially ending operations on November 6.
• Nov 6The CPSU and its republic-level division, the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR, are banned in the Russian SFSR by presidential decree.
• Dec 24Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Russian SFSR President Boris Yeltsin sends a letter to UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, declaring that Russia will be the succeeding country to the collapsing Soviet Union in the United Nations.
• Dec 25Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union, from which most republics have already seceded, anticipating the dissolving of the 69-year-old state.
• DecDissolution of the Soviet UnionIn December, Gorbachev resigned as president and the Soviet Union split into 15 countries. The socialist superpower of about 70 years disappeared, and the Cold War ended.

Asia14

• Jan 16Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begins with air strikes against Iraq.
• Feb 13Gulf War: Two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy an underground bunker in Baghdad, killing hundreds of Iraqis. US military intelligence claims it was a military facility while Iraqi officials identify it as a bomb shelter.
• Mar 6Prime Minister of India Chandra Shekhar resigns following a dispute with former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose support had kept him in power.
• Apr 29A tropical cyclone hits Bangladesh, killing an estimated 138,000 people.
• May 21At Sriperumbudur, India, a suicide bomber from LTTE attacks a political meeting, killing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and at least 14 others.
• May 26Lauda Air Boeing 767 crashes near Bangkok, Thailand, killing all 223 people on board.
• Jun 15In the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupts in the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century; the final death toll exceeds 800. The eruption causes a global cooling of around 0.4 °C.
• Jul 24Finance Minister of India Manmohan Singh announces a new industrial policy, marking the start of economic liberalisation in India.
• Aug 31Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan declare their independence; Tajikistan follows suit on September 9.
• Sep 17North Korea, South Korea, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia join the UN.
• Sep 21Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Armenia declares independence from the Soviet Union. Nearly a month later on October 27, Turkmenistan declares its independence. Kazakhstan follows suit on December 16.
• Oct 20A 6.8 Mw earthquake strikes Uttarkashi, India, killing at least 768 people and destroying thousands of homes.
• Nov 5Tropical Storm Thelma causes flash floods in the Philippine city of Ormoc, killing more than 4,900 people.
• Nov 20An Azerbaijani Mil Mi-8 helicopter carrying a 19-member peacekeeping mission team is shot down by Armenian military forces in Khojavend District, Azerbaijan.

Middle East7

• Jan 29Gulf War: The first major ground engagement of the war, the Battle of Khafji, begins. The battle lasts until February 1.
• Feb 26Gulf 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; the fire lasts until November 7.
• Mar 14Gulf War: Emir of Kuwait Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah returns to Kuwait after seven months of exile in Saudi Arabia.
• Apr 6Start of Operation Provide Comfort: Allied forces bring humanitarian relief to Kurds in Northern Iraq one day after the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 688 condemning political repression against the Iraqi people by Saddam Hussein's government.
• May 24Following authorisation by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Operation Solomon commences to airlift most of the remaining Beta Israel community from Ethiopia to Israel. The same day the Eritrean People's Liberation Front enters Asmara, the capital of Eritrea.
• Jul 11Nigeria Airways Flight 2120, a Douglas DC-8 operated by Canadian airline Nolisair, catches fire and crashes soon after takeoff from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing all 261 people on board.
• Aug 1Israel agrees to participate in the Madrid Conference of 1991, which opens on October 30.

Latin America4

• Jan 71991 Haitian coup d'état: An attempted coup by the Tonton Macoute, a paramilitary force under former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, is thwarted in Haiti. On July 30, Roger Lafontant, the leader of the coup attempt, is convicted by a jury of attempting to overthrow the country's first democratically elected government.
• Feb 71991 Haitian coup d'état: Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is sworn in. He is ousted on September 30 and later reinstated in 1994. In response to the coup and in an effort to encourage the coup leaders to restore democracy, the U.S. expands trade sanctions on Haiti to include all goods except food and medicine on October 29.
• Mar 14Escondida in Chile's Atacama Desert –which is to become the world's most productive copper mine– is officially inaugurated.
• Mar 26Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay sign the Treaty of Asunción, establishing Mercosur.

Africa7

• Jan 15Prime Minister of Cape Verde Pedro Pires resigns following his party's loss in the Cape Verdean parliamentary election. Later on February 17, António Mascarenhas Monteiro wins the country's first multiparty presidential election since 1975.
• Jan 26President Siad Barre is overthrown, and Somalia enters a civil war. Three days later, Ali Mahdi Muhammad is inaugurated as the next president.
• Mar 3The first presidential election in the history of São Tomé and Príncipe is won by Miguel Trovoada.
• Mar 23The Sierra Leone Civil War begins when the Revolutionary United Front attempts a coup against the Sierra Leone government.
• Mar 24The Beninese presidential election, Benin's first presidential election since 1970, is won by Nicéphore Soglo.
• Apr 10A South Atlantic tropical cyclone develops in the Southern Hemisphere off the coast of Angola, the first of its kind to be documented by weather satellites.
• May 18Somaliland secedes from Somalia; its independence is not recognised by the international community.