Gordie Howe, 69, becomes only pro hockey player to compete in six decades

On Oct. 3, 1997, 69-year-old Hall of Famer Gordie Howe skates the first shift with the Detroit Vipers in their International Hockey League opener, becoming the only professional in hockey to compete in six decades.

His nickname was “Mr. Hockey,” and as that moniker suggests, Howe was one of the game’s greats. As much as anything else, Howe was known for his longevity. He played in his first NHL game for the Detroit Red Wings in 1946, when Harry Truman was president. He skated in his final shift for Detroit in 1971, during Richard Nixon’s administration.

READ MORE: Wayne Gretzky breaks Gordie Howe’s career points record

Remarkably, Howe’s career didn’t end when he left Detroit. In 1980, with Jimmy Carter in the White House, a 52-year-old Howe played in his last NHL game for the Hartford Whalers, a franchise that played its first game a year after Howe left the Red Wings.

To create a buzz, the Vipers signed Mr. Hockey to a one-day contract. Kansas City won the game in Detroit, but the outcome was secondary for the capacity crowd of 20,182. In a pregame ceremony that featured Howe being presented with a bronze sculpture, the crowd—many of whom had not seen Howe in his Red Wings heyday—chanted “Gordie, Gordie, Gordie.”

Howe only played 40 seconds, but the mission of creating a moment was accomplished.

“Tremendous friendship has been shown the Howe family by the Vipers family and all the players,” Howe said, according to The Canadian Press. “I want to thank them for putting up with me.”

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Kyoto Protocol first adopted in Japan

On December 11, 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, the United Nations adopts a new treaty for the purpose of limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was a revolutionary attempt to forestall climate change, an admirable effort that yielded mixed results.

In the ’80s and ’90s, the international community began to fully internalize the ramifications of climate change and the impact of human activity on the environment. The Kyoto Protocol committed different nations to different actions. Some nations were held to binding targets for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases, while others, including major emitters like China and India, did not having binding targets. Nations that could not meet their objectives had options of ways to contribute to emissions reductions in the “developing” world by doing things like investing in emissions-reducing infrastructure or “trading” emissions by purchasing another nation’s rights to a certain amount of emissions.

READ MORE: Climate Change History

84 nations signed onto the Kyoto Protocol, and nearly every United Nations member became a party to it. The most notable exception was the United States. President Bill Clinton signed the treaty on his country’s behalf but did not send it to Congress for ratification, understanding that it would not pass. His successor, George W. Bush, opposed the agreement, saying that the United States’ economy would be harmed if it committed to reductions while so many other nations were exempt. Many nations exceeded their emissions targets during the first phase of the Protocol—Canada, Australia and New Zealand chief among them. Others, like the United Kingdom and Germany, met their goals. Many Eastern European nations dramatically outstripped theirs, almost certainly because of the drop in production due to the breakup of the Eastern Bloc.

In 2011, Canada announced its intent to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. A second phase of the Protocol, the Doha Agreement, was drafted in 2012, but fell seven signatures short of ratification. Innovative but only somewhat effective, the Kyoto Protocol exemplifies both the strength of the international will to improve the climate and the inherent difficulties of bringing world leaders together for that purpose.

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Big Ben stops at 12:11 pm for 54 minutes

Year
1997
Month Day
April 30

On April 30, 1997, at exactly 12:11 pm, London’s iconic Big Ben clock stops ticking. For 54 minutes, the most famous clock in the world failed to keep time.

Completed in 1859, Big Ben has a long history of technical issues. The first bell cast for the tower cracked before it could be installed, and the second bell also developed a crack shortly after installation, resulting in silence from the tower until 1862. The bells stopped ringing again during World War I, and the tower was not illuminated at night for the duration of World War II, when most of London was kept dark to make German bombing more raids difficult. Despite the heavy damage that the Blitz inflicted on London, however, the clock stayed within a second and a half of GMT for the duration of the war.

Since then, both extreme heat and the buildup of snow have caused Big Ben to stop ticking. In 1962, snow delayed the bells, causing the capital of Britain to ring in the new year ten minutes later than the rest of the country. The April 1997 stoppage occurred the day before that year’s general election, but the malfunction was probably not a factor in the voting, which Tony Blair’s “New Labour” won in a landslide over incumbent Prime Minister John Major. Big Ben stopped again in May of 2005, on one of the hottest May days ever recorded in London.

READ MORE: How Did Big Ben Get Its Name?

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MLB retires Jackie Robinson’s number

Year
1997
Month Day
April 15

On April 15, 1997, the 50 anniversary of his first Major League Baseball game, the league retires Jackie Robinson’s number, 42. Robinson, whose breaking of the “color barrier” in 1947 was a major moment in the history of racial integration in the United States, is the only player in MLB history to have his number retired across all teams, a sign of the reverence with which he is regarded decades after he led the charge to integrate the major leagues.

Before 1947, Major League Baseball was, like much of America, explicitly whites-only, with black players competing in the entirely separate Negro American League. MLB executive Branch Rickey, who was charged with exploring the possibility of integration, scouted and chose Robinson to break the league’s color barrier both because of his talent and because he believed Robinson would be able to endure the racist abuse that would undoubtedly be hurled his way. Robinson did indeed face racist taunts from fans, abuse and rough play from his opponents, and even racist remarks from his own teammates during the 1947 season. Nonetheless, he proved that African-American players could not only compete but could thrive in MLB, leading the league in stolen bases and winning National League Rookie of the Year. By the time of his retirement in 1956, Robinson had won the Most Valuable Player award, been named to six All-Star teams, and won the 1955 World Series, a list of accomplishments that would have made any player a likely candidate for the Hall of Fame. He was elected to the Hall of Fame as soon as he was eligible in 1962, and the Dodgers retired his number shortly before his death in 1972.

In a 1997 ceremony attended by Robinson’s widow and President Bill Clinton, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said, “Number 42 belongs to Jackie Robinson for the ages.” Certain players who wore the number at the time were permitted to do so for the remainder of their career—thus the New York Yankees’ Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera was the last-ever player to wear the number, playing his final game in 2013. Wayne Gretzky, whose domination of the National Hockey League earned him the nickname The Great One, is the only other player to have his number retired across every team in a major American sports league. Today, Robinson and the number he wore remain synonymous with the struggle to end segregation in American sports.

READ MORE: Jackie Robinson’s Battles for Equality On and Off the Baseball Field

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Ireland grants a divorce for the first time in the country’s history


Year
1997
Month Day
January 17

The Republic of Ireland legally grants a divorce for the first time following a 1995 referendum. The first divorce in Ireland, granted to a terminally ill man who wished to marry his new partner, was a harbinger of the decline of the Catholic Church’s power over the Republic.

The Irish Constitution of 1937 specifically forbade divorce. Though the constitution prohibits the state from adopting an official religion, Ireland is an overwhelmingly Catholic country, and the original document contained many elements of Catholic doctrine. The Church played an outsized role in Irish public life, even by the standards of other heavily Catholic countries. Italy, for example, had legalized divorce by 1970. In 1986, the Irish government put the issue up to a nationwide referendum, but 63.5 percent voted against amending the constitution. A law allowing legal separation passed in 1989. After coming to power in 1994, a “Rainbow Coalition” government composed of center-left parties one again propagated a referendum on amending the constitution to allow divorce.

Both Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa publicly endorsed the “No” side, a sign of the seriousness with which the Church opposed this perceived challenge to its authority. Nonetheless, the Church conceded that it would not be a sin for Catholics to vote “Yes.” Ultimately, the “Yes” campaign ran up huge numbers in urban areas, winning by the razor-thin margin of 50.3 percent to 49.7. Numerous attempts were made to challenge the result, but to no avail.

Although the 1995 referendum only legalized divorce in cases where couples had been separated for at least four years, proponents of the separation of church and state hailed it as a victory to build upon.

“We’re bringing Ireland into the 20 Century at the dawn of the 21,” said Mags O’Brien, a pro-divorce campaigner. Similarly “overdue” reforms would follow. 2015 saw the legalization of same-sex marriage with 61 percent of the vote, and 66 percent of voters approved an amendment to legalize abortion in 2018. In 2019, another amendment greatly relaxed the requirements for obtaining a legal divorce, doing away with the period of separation. 

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Princess Diana dies in a car crash

Shortly after midnight on August 31, 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales—affectionately known as “the People’s Princess”—dies in a car crash in Paris. She was 36. Her boyfriend, the Egyptian-born socialite Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the car, Henri Paul, died as well. 

Princess Diana was one of the most popular public figures in the world. Her death was met with a massive outpouring of grief. Mourners began visiting Kensington Palace immediately, leaving bouquets at the home where the princess, also known as Lady Di, would never return. Piles of flowers reached some 30 feet from the palace’s gate.

Diana and Dodi—who had been vacationing in the French Riviera—arrived in Paris earlier the previous day. They left the Ritz Paris just after midnight, intending to go to Dodi’s apartment on the Rue Arsène Houssaye. As soon as they departed the hotel, a swarm of paparazzi on motorcycles began aggressively tailing their car. About three minutes later, the driver lost control and crashed into a pillar at the entrance of the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.

Dodi and the driver were pronounced dead at the scene. Diana was taken to the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital and declared dead at 6:00 am. (A fourth passenger, Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, was seriously injured but survived.) Diana’s former husband Prince Charles, as well as her sisters and other members of the Royal Family, arrived in Paris that morning. Diana’s body was then taken back to London.

Like much of her life, her death was a full-blown media sensation, and the subject of many conspiracy theories. At first, the paparazzi hounding the car were blamed for the crash, but later it was revealed that the driver was under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs. A formal investigation concluded the paparazzi did not cause the collision. 

Diana’s funeral in London, on September 6, was watched by over 2 billion people. She was survived by her two sons, Prince William, who was 15 at the time, and Prince Harry, who was 12. 

READ MORE: Remembering Princess Diana: How the People’s Princess Changed the World

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Peruvian President Fujimori orders assault on Japanese ambassador’s home

Year
1997
Month Day
April 22

In Lima, Peru, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori orders a commando assault on the Japanese ambassador’s home, hoping to free 72 hostages held for more than four months by armed members of the Tupac Amaru leftist rebel movement.

On December 16, 1996, 14 Tupac Amaru terrorists, disguised as waiters and caterers, slipped into the home of Japanese Ambassador Morihisa Aoki, where a reception honoring the birthday of the Japanese emperor was being held. The armed terrorists took 490 people hostage. Police promptly surrounded the compound, and the rebels agreed to release 170 women and elderly guests but declared they would kill the remaining 220 if their demands were not met.

The Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) was founded in 1984 as a militant organization dedicated to communist revolution in Peru. A few days after the hostage crisis at the Japanese ambassador’s home began, the rebels released all but 72 hostages and demanded the release of 400 MRTA members imprisoned in Peru. Among the important officials held hostage in the Japanese ambassador’s home were the brother of President Fujimori, Foreign Minister Francisco Tudela; supreme court judges; members of the ruling party; and a number of foreign ambassadors from Japan and elsewhere. President Fujimori, who was known for taking a hard-line stance against leftist guerrillas in Peru, did not give in to the key points of the rebels’ demands and in April 1997 ordered an assault on the complex by a 140-man special forces team.

After secretly warning the hostages 10 minutes before the attack, the special forces team set off a blast in a tunnel underneath the building, which surprised the rebels and killed eight of the 14 immediately. The rest of the elite soldiers attacked from several other directions, overwhelming the remaining terrorists. All 14 rebels were killed in the assault, including the leader, Nestor Cerpa, who was shot multiple times. Only one hostage, Supreme Court Justice Carlos Giusti, was killed in the attack, and of the several soldiers wounded during the rescue operation, two later died from their injuries.

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Timothy McVeigh convicted for Oklahoma City bombing

Year
1997
Month Day
June 02

Timothy McVeigh, a former U.S. Army soldier, is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

On April 19, 1995, just after 9 a.m., a massive truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The blast collapsed the north face of the nine-story building, instantly killing more than 100 people and trapping dozens more in the rubble. Emergency crews raced to Oklahoma City from across the country, and when the rescue effort finally ended two weeks later, the death toll stood at 168 people, including 19 young children who were in the building’s day-care center at the time of the blast.

READ MORE: How Ruby Ridge and Waco Led to the Oklahoma City Bombing

On April 21, the massive manhunt for suspects in the worst terrorist attack ever committed on U.S. soil resulted in the capture of Timothy McVeigh, a 27-year-old former U.S. Army soldier who matched an eyewitness description of a man seen at the scene of the crime. On the same day, Terry Nichols, an associate of McVeigh’s, surrendered at Herington, Kansas, after learning that the police were looking for him. Both men were found to be members of a radical right-wing survivalist group based in Michigan, and on August 8, John Fortier, who knew of McVeigh’s plan to bomb the federal building, agreed to testify against McVeigh and Nichols in exchange for a reduced sentence. Two days later, a grand jury indicted McVeigh and Nichols on murder and conspiracy charges.

While still in his teens, Timothy McVeigh acquired a penchant for guns and began honing survivalist skills he believed would be necessary in the event of a Cold War showdown with the Soviet Union. Lacking direction after high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and proved a disciplined and meticulous soldier. It was during this time that he befriended Terry Nichols, a fellow soldier who, though 13 years his senior, shared his survivalist interests.

In early 1991, McVeigh served in the Persian Gulf War and was decorated with several medals for a brief combat mission. Despite these honors, he was discharged from the army at the end of the year, one of many casualties of the U.S. military downsizing that came after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Perhaps also because of the end of the Cold War, McVeigh shifted his ideology from a hatred of foreign communist governments to a suspicion of the U.S. federal government, especially as its new elected leader, Democrat Bill Clinton, had successfully campaigned for the presidency on a platform of gun control.

The August 1992 shoot-out between federal agents and survivalist Randy Weaver at his cabin in Idaho, in which Weaver’s wife and son were killed, followed by the April 19, 1993, inferno near Waco, Texas, which killed some 80 Branch Davidians, deeply radicalized McVeigh, Nichols, and their associates. In early 1995, Nichols and McVeigh planned an attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City, which housed, among other federal agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF)–the agency that had launched the initial raid on the Branch Davidian compound in 1993.

On April 19, 1995, the two-year anniversary of the disastrous end to the Waco standoff, McVeigh parked a Ryder rental truck loaded with a diesel-fuel-fertilizer bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and fled. Minutes later, the massive bomb exploded, killing 168 people.

READ MORE: Oklahoma City Bombing: What Happened After the Smoke and Dust Cleared

On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy, and on August 14, under the unanimous recommendation of the jury, he was sentenced to die by lethal injection. In December 2000, McVeigh asked a federal judge to stop all appeals of his convictions and to set a date for his execution by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh’s execution, in June 2001, was the first federal death penalty to be carried out since 1963.

Michael Fortier was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about McVeigh’s bombing plans. In a federal trial, Terry Nichols was found guilty on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to life in prison. In a later Oklahoma state trial, he was charged with 160 counts of first-degree murder, one count of first-degree manslaughter for the death of an unborn child, and one count of aiding in the placement of a bomb near a public building. On May 26, 2004, he was convicted of all charges and sentenced to 160 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

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Pathfinder lands on Mars

Year
1997
Month Day
July 04

After traveling 120 million miles in seven months, NASA’s Mars Pathfinder becomes the first U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars in more than two decades. In an ingenious, cost-saving landing procedure, Pathfinder used parachutes to slow its approach to the Martian surface and then deployed airbags to cushion its impact. Colliding with the Ares Vallis floodplain at 40 miles an hour, the spacecraft bounced high into the Martian atmosphere 16 times before safely coming to rest.

On July 5, the Pathfinder lander was renamed Sagan Memorial Station in honor of the late American astronomer Carl Sagan, and the next day Sojourner, the first remote-control interplanetary rover, rolled off the station. Soujourner, which traveled a total of 171 feet during its 30-day mission, sent back a wealth of information about the chemical components of rock and soil in the area. In addition, nearly 10,000 images of the Martian landscape were taken.

The Mars Pathfinder mission, which cost just $150 million, was hailed as a triumph for NASA.

READ MORE: Space Exploration: Timeline and Technologies 

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Fashion designer Gianni Versace murdered by Andrew Cunanan in killing spree

Year
1997
Month Day
July 15

Spree killer Andrew Cunanan murders world-renowned Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace on the steps outside his Miami mansion. Versace is shot twice in the head, and Cunanan flees the scene.

Cunanan had no criminal record before the spring of 1997, when he began a killing spree in Minneapolis. On April 27, 1997, after traveling from San Diego, Cunanan bludgeoned Jeffrey Trail to death. Trail was an acquaintance of David Madson, an ex-lover of Cunanan’s whom Cunanan in turn murdered on May 3. Cunanan shot Madson in the head, dumped his body near a lake outside Minneapolis, and took his red Jeep Cherokee. Two days later, in Chicago, he gained access to the estate of wealthy developer Lee Miglin, beat him to death, and stole his Lexus. On May 9, Cunanan abandoned Miglin’s automobile in Pennsville, New Jersey, and shot cemetery caretaker William Reese to death for his red pickup truck.

READ MORE: The Assassination of Gianni Versace: The True Story of His Tragic Death

With a massive FBI manhunt for Cunanan already underway, he drove down to Miami Beach and on July 11 was recognized by a fast-food employee who had seen his picture on the television show America’s Most Wanted. However, the police arrived too late, and four days later Cunanan shot Versace to death outside his South Beach mansion. Although Cunanan and Versace were both openly gay and ran in similar circles, the police failed to find evidence that they had ever met.

Versace’s killing set off a nationwide manhunt for Cunanan, who was famous for his chameleon-like ability to appear differently in every picture taken of him. However, on July 23, the search ended just 40 blocks away from Versace’s home on a two-level houseboat that Cunanan had broken into. There, police found him dead from a self-inflicted bullet wound from the same gun that took the lives of two of his victims. He left no suicide note.

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