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1990s - National Events
Event Type:
90s Charlotte 1990-1999
- February 11, 1990 - Human rights activist Nelson Mandela is released from prison by South African president F.W. deKlerk after 27 years.
- October 1990 - President Bush vetoes the Civil Rights Act.
- January 17, 1991 - Operation Desert Storm begins. Saddam Hussein, Iraqi leader, refuses to remove his troops from Kuwait and comes under air attack by the United States and its allies in Operation Desert Storm. After a ground attack, Kuwait is freed.
- March 3, 1991 - Rodney King is beaten by L.A. policemen. Rodney King is beaten by white policemen in Los Angeles. The brutal beating is videotaped by an amateur and later aired nationally. The beating calls attention to police brutality as the nation watches the repeated broadcast of the videotape. A grand jury decides that there is enough evidence to bring the four white police officers to trial.
- April 29, 1992 - A not-guilty verdict in the Rodney King trial incites rioting in Los Angeles: 37 people are killed. Three days of rioting follows the verdict in the Rodney King trial. The trial had been moved to a suburban setting where an all-white jury found the four white police officers not-guilty. This verdict appears to condone police violence against the African American community. Thirty-seven people die in the rioting in South Central Los Angeles.
- April 19, 1995 - The worst act of terrorism up to this point in the nation’s history kills more than 100 in the Oklahoma City bombing.
- October 3, 1995 - The O.J. Simpson criminal trial comes to an end. The jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty of murder. National opinion is divided. Many people think that he is guilty. Others believe that racist policemen used false evidence to charge Simpson.
- October 1996 - Riots break out in St. Petersburg, FL after a white police officer kills a black youth.
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