Henkels
& McCoy's Industrial Division office in Gaylord, Michigan builds a gas
compressor station for Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., part of a transmission
system moving natural gas across the country… A twister barrels through Catoosa, Oklahoma killing seven people, leveling
houses and snatching trees from golf courses and wiping out trailer parks,
crumpled metal transmission towers litter the countryside. The swath of
damage measures half a mile wide and up to four miles in length. H&M
restoration crews arrive within hours of the tornado to help Public Service
Company of Oklahoma repair damaged power lines over a three-week period…
Henkels & McCoy's Engineering Division provides Quality Assurance services
to the New York City Transit Authority during the course of a three-year,
$250 million communications system upgrade, replacing 70-year old technology
with fiber optic communications transmission equipment in 80-plus power
substations throughout the Big Apple… H&M helps MCI link Chicago and Denver
with fiber optic long distance lines. Crews place a 420-mile link reaching
from Grand Island, Nebraska to Denver, Colorado. The H&M segment of the
project is completed a month earlier than scheduled… H&M crews, hand digging
a 350-foot trench in rocky ground unsuitable for plow work (part of a larger
fiber optic installation along a railroad line), dispatch twelve poisonous
copperheads and three timber rattlesnakes, near York, Pennsylvania… Henkels & McCoy completes 12
years of corrosion control and other engineering and design services at the
National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, and are treated to a special
"Henkels & McCoy Appreciation Day" at the facility
February 26
Bomb explodes in basement garage of World Trade Center, killing 6, injuring
1,000, and causing more than $500 million in damage.
March 29
Five suspects are arrested, including blind, Jersey City based islamist
cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman -- and a sixth is sought in the bombing of World Trade
Center in New York. Investigators got a major break when it is discovered
that a van which had carried the explosives into the WTC basement parking
garage and was detonated with a timer was a rental van. The vehicle had been
rented... in the suspect’s real name.
April 17
Two police officers are convicted in Los Angeles on civil rights charges in
the Rodney King beating. A riot was sparked when four officers were found
not guilty the previous year.
April 19
FBI and ATF agents' standoff with cult leader David Koresh and his Branch Davidian followers
in Waco, Texas results in a fiery confrontation (left) when government tanks are
eventually used against
the compound. After being shelled, the main building, a flimsy warren made
of plywood and aluminum siding erupts in flames, and 72
people, including women and children, are killed. Among the hundreds of
sight seers who witnessed the deadly, heavy handed confrontation is a disaffected ex-Gulf
war veteran... Timothy McVeigh.
June 14
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is appointed to the Supreme Court.
October 1
US agents are blamed in the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas.
November 17
The US House of Representatives approves North American Free Trade
Agreement. US Senate follows four days later.
November 30
President Clinton signs the "Brady Bill" into law, regulating firearms
purchases with background checks and waiting periods. The bill is named for
Reagan administration official Jim Brady (right), who was seriously wounded
in an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981.
ALSO IN 1993:
Ronald Reagan announces that he has Alzheimer's Disease...O Brave new World: First humans cloned. Cells taken from defective human
embryos are grown in vitro and develop up to 32-cell stage... The FDA
approves the use of a synthetic hormone BST to increase milk production in
dairy cows... First successful transformation of film to digital format. It
is now possible to edit movies on a computer, opening the way to dazzling
special effects... The unemployment rate stands at 6.9%... It will cost you
29 cents to mail a first class letter... In your local bookstore: E. Annie
Proulx, The Shipping News... A 13-year old boy accuses King of Pop
Michael Jackson of sexual misconduct; the suit is settled out of court.
In Sports
The Philadelphia Phillies make it to the World Series but are defeated by
the Toronto Blue Jays.
What's on TV
Home Improvement, with Tim Allen as the slightly dim,
all-thumbs host of a do-it-yourself show is number one... Jerry, Elaine,
George and Kramer are sneaking, up with Seinfeld at number three, and
60 Minutes slips to second banana... Grace Under Fire, These
Friends of Mine (later known as Ellen, starring standup comic
Ellen Degeneres ), Frasier, Thunder Alley, 20/20, Primetime Live, NYPD
Blue, and Homicide: Life on the Street provide competition.
That's Show Biz
Wolfgang Sawallisch' begins the first of ten highly acclaimed
years at the Philadelphia Orchestra's helm... At the movies: Schindler's
List, The Piano, Philadelphia, Six Degrees of Separation, In the Name of the
Father. Tom Hanks takes Best Actor Academy Award for his role as an AIDS
afflicted attorney in the film, Philadelphia.
Deaths
Don Ameche, actor
Anthony Burgess, author (A Clockwork Orange)
Federico Fellini, film maker (La Strada, Satyricon, Roma)
Frank Zappa, (right) avant garde composer and rock musician
Arthur Ashe, tennis player
Dizzy Gillespie, pioneering jazz trumpeter
William Golding, author (Lord of the Flies)
Audrey Hepburn, actress (Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sabrina, Roman Holiday)
Cesar Chavez, labor activist