Japanese-English novelist Kazuo Ishiguro writes The Remains of the Day.

Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali dies.

Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso is released.

Kenneth Branagh directs and stars in a film version of William Shakespeare's Henry V.

The World Health Organization estimates that the number of AIDS cases worldwide will increase from 450,000 in 1989 to five million in the year 2000.

7 Jan.

Emperor Hirohito of Japan dies at age eighty-seven after sixty-two years of rule. He is succeeded by his fifty-five-year-old son, Akihito.

2-3 Feb.

Alfredo Stroessner, for thirty-five years the dictator of Paraguay, is overthrown in a military coup.

26 Mar.

Multicandidate parliamentary elections in the Soviet Union result in an embarrassing defeat for the Communist Party and the ascension of former Communist and Moscow city head Boris N. Yeltsin, who is now leader of the non-Communist opposition.

30 Mar.

Following renovations the Louvre Museum in Paris reopens, featuring a striking...