January 5 – Seventeen-year-old Kelly Dae Wilson disappears in Gilmer, Texas. Her case became one of the biggest unsolved missing-persons cases in Texas.
March 18 – On CNN's Larry King Live, Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot announces that he will run for U.S. president as an independent if volunteers put him on the ballot in all 50 states.
April 8 – Former tennis player Arthur Ashe, 48, announces that he is suffering from the AIDS virus, which he is believed to have contracted from a blood transfusion during heart surgery in 1983. He had been diagnosed with HIV more than three years prior.[5]
April 13 – The Chicago Flood occurs, causing approximately $2 billion in damages to the city (equivalent to $4.12 billion in 2022).
April 25 – The 7.2 MwCape Mendocino earthquake shakes the north coast of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), causing $48.3–75 million in losses and 98–356 injuries. This was the first instrumentally recorded event that showed shallow angle thrust movement on the southern Cascadia Subduction Zone. Two triggered strike-slip events caused additional destruction the following day.
April 29–May 4 – In Simi Valley, California, a jury acquits four LAPD police officers accused of excessive force in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, causing the 1992 Los Angeles riots and leading to 53 deaths and $1 billion in damage.
Governor Bob Casey of Pennsylvania (left) was a major anti-abortion advocate within the Democratic Party and is the Respondent in Casey due to an anti-abortion law enacted during his tenure as Governor. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (right) was one of the three authors of the "undue burden" standard that she first advocated for in earlier abortion rulings.
June – As a result of the early 1990s recession and subsequent sluggish job creation, unemployment peaks at 7.8%, a level not seen since March 1984. This would contribute to President George H. W. Bush's defeat to Bill Clinton in the election later that year.[6]
June 17 – A 'Joint Understanding' agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this is later codified in START II).
The Supreme Court rules 5–4 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the first landmark abortion case since Roe v. Wade. In Casey the Court decided to uphold the "essential holding" of Roe that a woman has the right to an abortion but introduced a new "undue burden" standard which allows states to impose certain regulation so long as those regulations did not create a "substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability."
June 28
The 7.3 MwLanders earthquake shakes the Mojave Desert region of Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), causing $92 million in losses, three deaths and 400 injuries.
The 6.5 MwBig Bear earthquake shakes the San Bernardino Mountains region of Southern California about three hours later. This triggered event had a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), causing moderate damage and some injuries.
August 21–22 – Events at Ruby Ridge, Idaho are sparked by a federal U.S. Marshal surveillance team, resulting in the death of a Marshal, Sam Weaver, and his dog, and the next day the wounding of Randy Weaver, the death of his wife Vicki, and the wounding of Kevin Harris.
August 24–28 – Hurricane Andrew hits south Florida and dissipates over the Tennessee valley, killing 65 and causing US$26.5 billion in damage.
The Kentucky Supreme Court, in Kentucky v. Wasson, holds that laws criminalizing same-sex sodomy are unconstitutional, and accurately predicts that other states and the nation will eventually rule the same way.
October 3 – After performing a song protesting alleged child abuse by the Catholic Church, Sinéad O'Connor rips up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live, causing huge controversy, leading the switchboards at NBC to ring off the hook.
October 17 – Yoshihiro Hattori, a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student, mistakes the address of a party and is shot dead after knocking on the wrong door in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The shooter, Rodney Peairs, is later acquitted, sparking outrage in Japan.
The Bodyguard, starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, debuts in cinemas; it goes on to become the second highest-grossing film of the year with nearly $122 million in revenue in the U.S. and exceeding $410 million worldwide.
Walt Disney Pictures' 31st feature film, Aladdin, is released to critical and commercial success. It goes on to become the highest-grossing film of the year and (at the time) the highest-grossing animated film of all time, earning over $504 million worldwide – the first animated film to cross the half-billion-dollar mark. It is also the last entirely fairytale-based adaptation released by Disney until 2010's Tangled.
December 3 – UN Security Council Resolution 794 is unanimously passed, approving a coalition of United Nations peacekeepers led by the United States to form UNITAF, tasked with ensuring humanitarian aid gets distributed and establishing peace in Somalia.
December 4 – U.S. military forces land in Somalia.
December 5 – Kent Conrad of North Dakota resigns his seat in the United States Senate and is sworn into the other seat from North Dakota, becoming the only U.S. Senator ever to have held two seats on the same day.
^Randel, Don Michael, ed. (1996). "Albert, Stephen (Joel)". The Harvard biographical dictionary of music. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press. pp. 11. ISBN0-674-37299-9.