Tragic, frustrating, shocking, addictive ... those are words that describe the year's top stories in the United States. From the Oklahoma City bombing to the verdict heard round the world in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, U.S. headlines have stunned as well as captivated. As 1995 comes to a close, Americans find themselves in the middle of a second government shutdown and at the beginning of a peace mission in Bosnia. Here, you'll find the stories that we believe helped define 1995 in the United States.
October 1 - 10 men found guilty of terrorist plot
A U.S. federal jury found Egyptian Cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine others guilty of conspiracy in a plot to blow up the United Nations, assassinate Egypt's president and bomb vital highway tunnels in New York.
Prosecutors charged that Abdel-Rahman and his co-defendants plotted a war of terrorism against the United States to force a change in Washington's Mideast policy.
The government claimed that an FBI surveillance tape showed the defendants planning their bombing plot in a rented garage. The defense argued that only two men, Emad Salem and Siddig Ibrahim, had concocted a terrorist plan.
The government also claimed that the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people, was part of an ongoing conspiracy, but prosecutors offered no clear evidence that any of the defendants played a part in the bombing.
Abdel-Rahman faces the possibility of life in prison. He will be sentenced in January.
July 19 - Waco hearings full of surprises
A former FBI negotiator said the FBI stepped into a situation "almost beyond repair" during a 51-day standoff with Branch Davidians in 1993 near Waco, Texas. The siege came to a fiery conclusion on April 19, 1993, after the FBI stormed the cult's compound with tanks and tear gas. Eighty-two people were killed as the entire compound went up in flames.
The federal government said that Davidians started the fire. But Davidians who survived, as well as other advocates, believe that the destruction was sparked by an overzealous FBI.
Hearings began on July 19 in Washington to determine what
went wrong during the standoff.
-Full Story-
December 20 - Airline disaster kills Americans, Colombians
Five days before Christmas, American Airlines flight 965 took off from Miami, loaded with passengers on their way to Cali, Colombia, to celebrate the holidays. The weather was crystal clear, and the men at the helm were said to be veterans familiar with the route. Four minutes before it was scheduled to land in Cali, the Boeing 757 crashed into a 12,000-feet mountain in the Andes, having strayed 13 miles from its scheduled flight path.
Only four of the 164 people on board survived.
The crash was the worst airline disaster in 1995, and the deadliest involving a U.S. airliner since a terrorist bomb caused a Pan Am flight to explode over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people.
October 16 - Million Man March takes over Washington
An estimated 840,000 African-American men came to the Washington Mall on October 16 for the Million Man March, some to search for meaning, others to make personal statements. There may have been as many messages as there were participants. Self-help and self-respect were constant themes, but it was the man who conceived the march, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whose words electrified the crowd.
Statements by Farrakhan calling Jews and others financial bloodsuckers attracted much attention in the days before the march. Entertainer Stevie Wonder spoke at the march of the common suffering of Jews and blacks.
One of the purposes of the march was to raise the consciousness of black men. At one point, hundreds of thousands of donated dollars were held overhead, a tangible symbol of change. Other poignant moments included young people calling for the changes they desire to ensure their future.
Authorities had worried about the logistics of handling up to a million marchers, but there were no problems. However, there was controversy over the number of march participants, with organizers claiming more than a million and the U.S. Park Service counting 400,000. A later estimate made by the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing put the number at 837,000, plus or minus 20 percent, meaning it could range from 670,000 to 1,004,000.
August 18 - First woman to attend The Citadel becomes the first to drop out
Shannon Faulkner entered The Citadel with a bang and left with a whimper. The gritty Faulkner, who won a two-year legal battle to become the first woman to attend the all-male military college in Charleston, South Carolina, dropped out five days into her first week, citing exhaustion.
As male students tossed their caps in victory, Faulkner walked out of the college she worked so hard to enter. But her efforts were not all in vain. Other women are lining up to take her place and are preparing for their court battles against The Citadel -- this time, promising to break the all-male code once and for all.
Join the world's news leader for an in-depth multimedia look at the top news stories of 1995.
CNN Time Capsule: The Defining Moments of 1995 is a new multimedia CD-ROM which chronicles the year's top stories through video, photos, text, audio clips and editorial cartoons. Click here to find out more!
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