January 22 - Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet worm.
January 25 - The Burns' Day storm hits northwestern Europe.
January 25 - Honduras becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
January 25 - Avianca Flight 52 crashes, killing 73 passengers.
January 31 - The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opens in Moscow, USSR.
February 2 - Apartheid: F.W. de Klerk allows the African National Congress to legally function and promises to release Nelson Mandela.
February 7 - Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly on power.
February 11 - Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, is freed from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa.
February 11 - Buster Douglas KO's "Iron" Mike Tyson in Tokyo, Japan.
February 12 - Carmen Lawrence becomes the first female Premier in Australian History when she becomes premier of Western Australia.
February 13 - German reunification: An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
February 14 - 92 people are killed aboard Indian Airlines Flight 605 at Bangalore, India.
February 26 - The Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections.
March 1 - Steve Jackson Games is raided by the United States Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
March 2 - Nelson Mandela elected deputy President of the African National Congress.
March 9 - Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and Hispanic American to serve in that position.
March 9 - Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, Clyde Wells confirms he will rescind Newfoundland and Labrador's approval of the Meech Lake Accord to amend Canada's constitution, effectively killing the Accord.
March 10 - In Haiti, Prosper Avril is ousted 18 months after seizing power in a coup.
March 11 - Lithuania declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.
March 11 - Patricio Aylwin is sworn-in as the first democratically elected Chilean president since 1970.
March 15 - Gulf War: Iraq hangs British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spying.
March 15 - Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union.
March 15 - The ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureş begin on the anniversary of the Revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas.
March 18 - In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.
March 20 - Ferdinand Marcos's widow, Imelda Marcos, goes on trial for bribery, embezzlement, and racketeering.
March 21 - Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule.
March 25 - In The Bronx, a fire at an illegal social club called "Happy Land" kills 87 people.
March 27 - The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí to Cuba in an effort to bridge the information blackout imposed by the Castro regime.
March 28 - President George H. W. Bush posthumously awards Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.
March 31 - 200,000 protestors took to the streets of London to protest against the newly introduced Poll Tax.
April 7 - Iran Contra Affair: John Poindexter is found guilty of five charges for his part in the scandal (the conviction was reversed on appeal).
April 8 - New Democracy wins the national election in Greece.
April 11 - Customs officers in Middlesbrough, United Kingdom, say they have seized what they believe to be the barrel of a massive gun on a ship bound for Iraq.
April 12 - Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs exhibition opens at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
April 16 - The "Doctor of Death", Jack Kevorkian, goes through with his first assisted suicide.
April 23 - Namibia becomes the 160th member of the United Nations and the 50th member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
April 24 - STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery. Shuttle mission STS-31 lifts off, carrying Hubble into orbit.1990
April 25 - The Hubble Telescope is deployed into orbit from the Space Shuttle Discovery.
May 4 - Latvia proclaims the renewal of its independence after the Soviet occupation.
May 15 - Portrait of Doctor Gachet by Vincent van Gogh is sold for a record $82.5 million, the most expensive painting at the time.
May 17 - the WHO takes Homosexuality out of its list of mental illnesses.
May 18 - In France, a modified TGV train achieves a new rail world speed record of 515.3km/h.
May 20 - The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.
May 22 - North and South Yemen are unified to create the Republic of Yemen.
May 22 - The Windows 3.0 operating system is released by Microsoft.
May 24 - A car carrying American Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney explodes in Oakland, California, critically injuring both.
May 29 - Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian SFSR by the Russian parliament.
June 1 - George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty to end chemical weapon production.
June 2 - The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 66 confirmed tornados in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12. Petersburg, Indiana is the hardest-hit town in the outbreak, with 6 deaths.
June 6 - U.S. District court judge Jose Gonzales rules that the rap album As Nasty As They Wanna Be by 2 Live Crew violates Florida's obscenity law; he declares that the predominant subject matter of the record is "directed to the 'dirty' thoughts and the loins, not to the intellect and the mind."
June 12 - Russia Day – the parliament of the Russian Federation formally declares its sovereignty.
June 28 - Paperback Software International Ltd. found guilty by a U.S. court of copyright violation for copying the appearance and menu system of Lotus 1-2-3 in its competing spreadsheet program.
June 30 - East Germany and West Germany merge their economies.
July 1 - German re-unification: East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany.
July 2 - A stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel leads to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims in Mecca during hajj.
July 11 - Oka Crisis: First Nations land dispute in Quebec, Canada begins.
July 24 - Iraqi forces start massing on the Kuwait-Iraq border.
July 26 - The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush.
July 27 - The Supreme Soviet of the Belarusian Soviet Republic declares independence of Belarus from the Soviet Union. Until 1996 the day was celebrated as the Independence Day of Belarus; after a referendum held that year the celebration of independence was transferred to June 3.
July 27 - The Jamaat al Muslimeen stage a coup d'état attempt in Trinidad and Tobago, occupying Parliament and the studios of Trinidad and Tobago Television, holding Prime Minister A. N. R. Robinson and most of his Cabinet, as well as the staff at the television station hostage for 6 days.
July 30 - The first Saturn automobile rolls off the assembly line.
August 2 - Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to conflict with coalition forces in the Gulf War.
August 4 - The Invasion of Kuwait stops and becomes 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 8 - Iraq occupies Kuwait and the state is annexed to Iraq. This would lead to the Gulf War shortly afterward.
August 10 - The Magellan space probe reaches Venus.
August 10 - The Massacre of more than 127 Muslims in North East Sri Lanka by paramilitaries.
August 12 - Sue, the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, is discovered near Faith, South Dakota.
August 19 - Leonard Bernstein conducts his final concert, ending with Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.
August 23 - Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western "guests" (actually hostages) to try to prevent the Gulf War.
August 23 - Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
August 23 - West Germany and East Germany announce that they will unite on October 3.
August 24 - A judge rules that Judas Priest are not responsible for the deaths of two youths who committed suicide after listening to the band's music.
August 28 - Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province.
August 28 - The Plainfield Tornado: an F5 tornado hits in Plainfield, Illinois, and Joliet, Illinois, killing 28 people.
August 30 - Tatarstan declares independence from the RSFSR.
September 1 - The Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist is founded, following a split from the Communist Labour Party of Turkey.
September 2 - Transnistria unilaterally proclaimed as Soviet republic; the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev declares the decision null and void.
September 10 - The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire – the largest church in Africa is consecrated by Pope John Paul II.
September 11 - U.S. President George H. W. Bush delivers a nationally televised speech in which he threatens the use of force to remove Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait, which Iraq had recently invaded. He mentions the term "New World Order" in this speech for the first time, which is also named "Towards a New World Order".(full text of the speech)
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 14 - Ken Griffey and his son Ken Jr. become the first father-son duo to hit back-to-back home runs.
September 15 - France announces it will send 4,000 troops to the Persian Gulf
September 18 - Liechtenstein becomes a member of the United Nations.
September 20 - South Ossetia declares its independence from Georgia.
September 24 - Periodic Great White Spot observed on Saturn
September 29 - The YF-22, which would later become the F-22 Raptor, flies for the first time.
September 30 - The Dalai Lama unveils the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights in Canada's capital city of Ottawa.
October 2 - A Chinese airline Boeing 737-247 is hijacked; after landing at Guangzhou, it crashes into two airliners on the ground, killing 132 people.
October 3 - Re-unification of Germany. The German Democratic Republic ceases to exist and its territory becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany. East German citizens became part of the European Community, which later became the European Union. Now celebrated as German Unity Day.
October 5 - After one hundred and fifty years 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 - End of the Lebanese war. Syrian forces launch an attack on the free areas of Lebanon removing General Michel Aoun from the presidential palace.
October 15 - Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.
October 21 - The first Apple Day, is held in Covent Garden, London.
October 24 - Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti reveals to the Italian parliament the existence of Gladio, the Italian "stay-behind" clandestine paramilitary NATO army.
October 27 - Supreme Soviet of Kirghiz SSR chooses Askar Akayev as republic's first president.
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 7 - Mary Robinson becomes the first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland.
November 9 - New democratic constitution is issued in Nepal.
November 9 - Mary Robinson is elected Ireland's first female President and the first from the Labour Party.
November 12 - Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.
November 13 - In Aramoana, New Zealand, Resident David Gray shot dead 13 people, in what became known as the Aramoana Massacre.
November 14 - After German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland sign a treaty confirming the Oder-Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland.
November 15 - Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis launches with flight STS-38.
November 17 - Fugendake, part of the Mount Unzen volcanic complex, Nagasaki prefecture, Japan becomes active again and erupts.
November 19 - Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It’s True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.
November 21 - Charter of Paris for a New Europe refocusses the efforts of the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europeon post-Cold War issues.
November 23 - The first all woman expedition to the south pole (3 Americans, 1 Japanese and 12 Russians), sets off from Antarctica on the 1st leg of a 70 day, 1287 kilometre ski trek.
November 26 - The Delta II rocket makes its maiden flight.
November 27 - The British Conservative Party chooses John Major to succeed Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
November 29 - Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council passes United Nations Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing "use all necessary means to uphold and implement" United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 "to restore international peace and security" if Iraq did not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by January 15, 1991.
December 1 - Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 meters beneath the seabed.
December 2 - A coalition led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl wins the first free all-German elections since 1932.
December 3 - At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 collides with Northwest Airlines Flight 299 on the runway, killing 8 passengers and 4 crew members aboard flight 1482.
December 9 - Lech Wałęsa becomes the first directly elected president of Poland.
December 22 - Final independence of Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia after termination of trusteeship.
December 23 - History of Slovenia: In a referendum, 88% of Slovenia's population vote for independence from Yugoslavia.
December 25 - The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web.
