The winds of war died down in 1995, as cease-fires ended the bloodshed in Bosnia and slowed the fighting in the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. There were also signs of progress toward peace in the Middle East and Northern Ireland.
It would be the first Christmas of its kind in Bethlehem and the first time in a long time that peace reigned on Christmas Day in Sarajevo.
It was a year in which divorce was sanctioned in Ireland, and within the halls of Buckingham Palace. It was also a year that Israel's prime minister would die with a song of peace on his lips.
Treaty halts fighting in Bosnia
December 14, 1995 -- After so much blood had been spilled in the Balkans, a tiny bit of ink was all it took to stop the fighting and mobilize a massive peacekeeping effort. On December 14, 1995, the presidents of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia signed a treaty to end three and a half years of war.
After signing the agreement, negotiated in November in Dayton, Ohio, the presidents expressed their hopes for a lasting peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has lost 200,000 citizens to the war.
In what some are calling a "honeymoon" period, international peacekeeping troops have only had to battle bad weather so far. The coming year will be the real test of the peace accord's strength.
Assassination ends Rabin's quest for peace
November 4, 1995 -- Israeli Prime Yitzhak Rabin began his public career as a soldier. He was the hard-line hero and leader of his country's victory in the Six Day War of 1967. He ended his career as a peacemaker and because, of those peace efforts, he became -- to some of his own people -- a villain.
After singing a song of hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians at a rally on November 4 in Tel Aviv's Kings Square, the 73-year-old prime minister was shot as he got into his car. He died a short time later in a hospital.
A Jewish student, Yigal Amir, 25, confessed to assassinating Rabin. Amir said that he killed Rabin because Rabin wanted "to give our country to the Arabs."
At his funeral, Rabin's 17-year-old granddaughter moved soldiers and heads of state to tears as she remembered him not as a world leader but as her grandfather. She called him a "pillar of fire before the camp, and now the camp is in darkness."
A Paradise Lost: Nuclear testing triggers violence in French Polynesia
The verdant islands of French Polynesia threatened to become a "paradise lost" as France waved aside angry outbursts and went on to explode five underground nuclear devices in four months on two remote South Pacific atolls.
The environmental group Greenpeace tried to cordon off one of the atolls before the first test, but its attempt was foiled. The underground explosions sparked violent protests hundreds of miles away in Tahiti's capital, Papeete, shattering the quiet in the scenic city. Much of the world criticized France, but it remained unmoved.
The last explosion came two days before Christmas, and equaled almost 30 kilotons of explosives, some 10 kilotons more than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945
French President Jacques Chirac insisted the tests were safe and necessary. France has said it will set off a total of six nuclear explosions before ending its testing program permanently. The final test is now expected in February.
Christmas in Bethlehem under Palestinian rule
It was Christmas in Bethlehem, with one major difference from recent years. The city was now under Palestinian control. When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat put their signatures on a 450-page document in September, they were committed to fulfilling one of the most ambitious aspects of a peace process that began two years earlier: the turning over of more of the West Bank to Palestinian rule.
On November 13, Israeli troops pulled out of Jenin. Since then, several towns have followed suit.
That accord cost Rabin his life. But the Middle East peace process, which seeks to end decades of Arab-Israeli enmity, continues amid some violent opposition on both sides. At the year's end, Israel was seeking to extend the spirit of reconciliation with Syria. Peace talks between the once bitter enemies are under way.
Chechen war reaches one-year mark
December 25, 1995 -- It has been about a year since Russia began its military suppression of secessionists in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Some 25,000 deaths later, the 40,000 Russian troops that poured into the region now control two-thirds of Chechnya. A half-hearted truce has been in effect since July.
On December 25, Russian troops succeeded in retaking the Chechen city of Gudermes from rebel forces. The battle for Gudermes, 20 miles east of the capital, Grozny, began two weeks earlier, as rebels attempted to sabotage Russian- orchestrated elections. It marked a harsh return to high death tolls in a war that was supposed to be winding down.
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