Republican George Bush ('read my lips, no new taxes') wins the US presidential election

M. Butterfly, by US author and composer David Henry Hwang, uses Puccini's opera as its inspiration

The supertanker Exxon Valdez spills vast quantities of oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska

US sculptor Richard Serra's Tilted Arc is removed from Federal Plaza, New York, after legal action by local protesters

The US unmanned spacecraft Galileo is launched from a space shuttle on a six-year voyage to Jupiter

The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from a space shuttle and goes into orbit 370 miles (600 km) above the earth

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Mark Morris establish the White Oak Dance Project as a touring company

The Piano Lesson is the second of August Wilson's plays to win a Pulitzer Prize

The US rock group Nirvana become the leading performers of grunge

Carl Lewis beats his own previous 100-metre world record, winning gold at the World Championships in Tokyo

Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins star in the film The Silence of the Lambs

The US spacecraft Galileo provides scientists with close-up photographs of two asteroids, Gaspra and Ida

US author Jane Smiley retells the Lear story in A Thousand Acres

Riots follow the acquittal of four Los Angeles policemen charged with assaulting the African American Rodney King

David Mamet's play Oleanna dramatizes the ambiguities of sexual politics

US screenwriter Quentin Tarantino makes his debut as a director with Reservoir Dogs

All the Pretty Horses is the first volume of US author Cormac McCarthy's trilogy set in Mexico

Democrat Bill Clinton beats incumbent George Bush and independent candidate Ross Perot in a three-cornered US presidential election

Steven Spielberg directs Jurassic Park, in which dinosaurs are cloned (and animated) to terrifying effect

The Branch Dravidians, members of a religious cult, burn to death in their Waco headquarters under siege by the FBI

US author A.R. Ammons publishes a book-length poem, Garbage, typed on narrow strips of adding-machine paper

US author Annie Proulx wins major awards with her second novel, The Shipping News

Millennium Approaches, the first part of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, is premiered in London

US tennis player Pete Sampras wins the first of his record-breaking seven Wimbledon singles titles

Steven Spielberg directs a film of Thomas Keneally's novel Schindler's Ark, giving it the title Schindler's List