What happened 1996 AD

The first Cyber-shot was introduced in 1996. At the time, digital cameras were a relative novelty.

Sony produced computers during the 1980s. The company withdrew from the computer business around 1990. Sony entered again into the global computer market under the new VAIO brand, began in 1996. Short for "Video Audio Integrated Operation", the line was the first computer brand to highlight visual-audio features.

Another major turning point for the company came in 1996, when the government in Beijing adopted an explicit policy of supporting domestic telecommunications manufacturers and restricting access to foreign competitors.

In 1996, he founded the Peres Center for Peace, which has the aim of "promoting lasting peace and advancement in the Middle East by fostering tolerance, economic and technological development, cooperation and well-being".

Ibrahimović signed his first contract with Malmö in 1996.

PageRank was influenced by a similar page-ranking and site-scoring algorithm earlier used for RankDex, developed by Robin Li in 1996, with Larry Page's PageRank patent including a citation to Li's earlier RankDex patent; Li later went on to create the Chinese search engine Baidu.

Kasparov played in a pair of six-game chess matches with an IBM supercomputer called "Deep Blue". The first match was played in Philadelphia in 1996 and won by Kasparov. The second was played in New York City in 1997 and won by "Deep Blue".

Visa settled a 1996 antitrust lawsuit brought by a class of U.S. merchants, including Walmart, for billions of dollars in 2003. Over 4 million class members were represented by the plaintiffs. According to a website associated with the suit, Visa and MasterCard settled the plaintiffs' claims for a total of $3.05 billion. Visa's share of this settlement is reported to have been the larger.

In mid-1996, a civic protest movement made up of an estimated 200,000 coca growers from Putumayo and part of Cauca began marching against the Colombian government to reject its drug war policies, including fumigations and the declaration of special security zones in some departments.

Much larger and more deadly acts of hostility took place in the republic of Dagestan. In particular, the border village of Pervomayskoye was completely destroyed by Russian forces in January 1996 in reaction to the large-scale Chechen hostage taking in Kizlyar in Dagestan (in which more than 2,000 hostages were taken), bringing strong criticism from this hitherto loyal republic and escalating domestic dissatisfaction.

This occurred in the village of Mayibout 2 and neighboring areas. A chimpanzee found dead in the forest was eaten by villagers hunting for food. Nineteen people involved in the butchery of the animal became ill, and other cases occurred in their family members. These events resulted in the infection of 31 and the death of 21.

In 1996, Arnault bought out Loewe.

Hawk was married to Erin Lee from 1996 to 2004. They have two sons, Spencer (b. 1999) and Keegan (b. 2001). Spencer is an electronic music producer who releases music such as Gupi.

Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses.

In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom.

Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player.

In 1996, real-time ticker was introduced.

Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California. While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships among websites. They called this algorithm PageRank; it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages that linked back to the original site.

Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.

Throughout the early 1990s, Apple had tried to create a "next-generation" OS to succeed its classic Mac OS through the Taligent, Copland and Gershwin projects, but all of them were eventually abandoned. This led Apple to purchase NeXT in 1996, allowing NeXTSTEP, then called OPENSTEP, to serve as the basis for Apple's next-generation operating system. This purchase also led to Steve Jobs returning to Apple as an interim, and then the permanent CEO, shepherding the transformation of the programmer-friendly OPENSTEP into a system that would be adopted by Apple's primary market of home users and creative professionals. The project was first code-named "Rhapsody" and then officially named Mac OS X.

Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games.

Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".

The first camera to use CompactFlash was the Kodak DC-25 in 1996.

The new UN mission was established as the United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1037 of 15 January 1996.

As the UNTAES replaced the UNCRO mission, Prevlaka peninsula, previously under UNCRO control, was put under control of United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP). The UNMOP was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1038 of 15 January 1996, and terminated on 15 December 2002.

On 16 January 1996, a Turkish passenger ship carrying 200 Russian passengers was taken over by what were mostly Turkish gunmen who were seeking to publicize the Chechen cause.

Oman has no system of checks and balances, and thus no separation of powers. All power is concentrated in the sultan, who is also chief of staff of the armed forces, Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Affairs and chairman of the Central Bank. All legislation since 1970 has been promulgated through royal decrees, including the 1996 Basic Law. The sultan appoints judges, and can grant pardons and commute sentences. The sultan's authority is inviolable and the sultan expects total subordination to his will.

On 23 January 1996, Sun Microsystems released the first public implementation as Java 1.0, which promised Write Once, Run Anywhere (WORA) functionality, providing no-cost run-times on popular platforms.

In 1996, a USAID funded project, the Leland Initiative, started work on developing full Internet connectivity for the continent. Guinea, Mozambique, Madagascar and Rwanda gained satellite earth stations in 1997, followed by Ivory Coast and Benin in 1998.

In February 27, 1996, Shakira went on to her first international tour, named simply the Tour Pies Descalzos. The tour consisted of 20 shows and ended in 1997.

On 6 March, a Cypriot passenger jet was hijacked by Chechen sympathisers while flying toward Germany. Both of these incidents were resolved through negotiations, and the hijackers surrendered without any fatalities being inflicted.

On 6 March, between 1,500 and 2,000 Chechen fighters infiltrated Grozny and launched a three-day surprise raid on the city, overrunning much of it and capturing caches of weapons and ammunition. Also in March, Chechen fighters attacked Samashki, where hundreds of villagers were killed.

Under his real name, Johnson defeated The Brooklyn Brawler at a house show on March 10, 1996. and lost matches to Chris Candido and Owen Hart.

The first St Patrick's Festival was held on 17 March 1996. In 1997, it became a three-day event, and by 2000 it was a four-day event. By 2006, the festival was five days long; more than 675,000 people attended the 2009 parade. Overall 2009's five-day festival saw almost 1 million visitors, who took part in festivities that included concerts, outdoor theatre performances, and fireworks. The Skyfest which ran from 2006 to 2012 formed the centerpiece of the St Patrick's festival.

Dion was asked to perform "The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller were not in touch for many months after production ended, but eventually reconnected and married soon after in March 1996. She attended her wedding in black rubber pants and a white T-shirt, upon which she had written the groom's name in her blood.

On 26 March 1996, Ballack debuted for the Germany national under-21 team against Denmark, shortly after signing for Chemnitzer FC. In all, he played 19 matches for this side, scoring four goals.

Nokia claimed in April 1996 its 447Xav and 447K monitors to be the first with stereo speakers and a sub-woofer.

O'Neal was injured for a great deal of the 1995–96 season, missing 28 games. He averaged 26.6 points and 11 rebounds per game, made the All-NBA 3rd Team, and played in his 4th All-Star Game.

On April 3, 1996, Kaczynski was arrested and combed cabin by investigators. Investigators found a wealth of bomb components; 40,000 handwritten journal pages that included bomb-making experiments and descriptions of Unabomber crimes; and one live bomb, ready for mailing.

FBI agents arrested an unkempt Kaczynski at his cabin on April 3, 1996.

On 11 April 1996, Prime Minister Peres initiated Operation Grapes of Wrath.

On 16 April, forces of Arab commander Ibn al-Khattab destroyed a large Russian armored column in an ambush near Shatoy, killing at least 76 soldiers; in another one, near Vedeno, at least 28 Russian troops were killed.

Although a Russian guided missile attack assassinated the ChRI President Dzhokhar Dudayev on 21 April 1996.

In April 1996, Maradona had a three-round exhibition boxing match with Santos Laciar for charity.

Ninth Conference "UNCTAD IX" was held in Midrand, South Africa, from 27 April to 11 May 1996.

O'Neal became a free agent after the 1995–96 NBA season.

Cold, first published in 1996, was the sixteenth and final novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond.

Jolie took a starring role in the modern-day Romeo and Juliet adaptation Love Is All There Is, released on 10 May 1996.

Yeltsin even officially declared "victory" in Grozny on 28 May 1996, after a new temporary ceasefire was signed with the ChRI Acting President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.

In June 1996 the group claimed responsibility for acts of sabotage targeting Kosovo police stations.

Cameron is married to Samantha Gwendoline Cameron (née Sheffield), the daughter of Sir Reginald Sheffield, 8th Baronet, and Annabel Lucy Veronica Jones (now Viscountess Astor). A Marlborough College school friend of Cameron's sister Clare, Samantha accepted Clare's invitation to accompany the Cameron family on holiday in Tuscany, Italy, after graduating from Bristol School of Creative Arts. It was then David and Samantha's romance started. They were married on 1 June 1996 at the Church of St Augustine of Canterbury, East Hendred, Oxfordshire, five years before Cameron was elected to parliament.

On 12 June 1996, Nokia announced the sale of its television business to Canada/Hong Kong-based Semi-Tech Corporation. The sale included a factory in Turku, and the rights to use the Nokia, Finlux, Luxor, Salora, Schaub-Lorenz and Oceanic brands until the end of 1999.

The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary-cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their draft selection at #13 to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made.

Bryant was the first guard ever drafted directly out of high school.

During Billington's tenure as the 13th librarian of Congress, the library acquired Lafayette's previously inaccessible papers in 1996 from a castle at La Grange, France.

A Democratic Union Coalition co-led by Democratic Party chairman Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj for the first time succeeded in winning the majority in the 1996 parliamentary elections.

on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended.

Zidane had offers to join Europe's top clubs in the spring of 1996, deciding on a move to UEFA Champions League winners Juventus during the close season.

The third outbreak in Gabon occurred in the Booué area with the transport of patients to Libreville. The index case-patient was a hunter who lived in a forest timber camp. The disease was spread by close contact with infected persons. A dead chimpanzee found in the forest at the time was determined to be infected. With 60 infections and 45 deaths, this was the highest case fatality rate of 75%

In 1996, the first legislation to recognize "Juneteenth Independence Day" was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.J. Res. 195, sponsored by Barbara-Rose Collins (D-MI).

O'Neal was one of two players (the other being Reggie Miller) from the 1994 roster to be also named to the Dream Team III. Due to more star-power, he rotated with Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson and started 3 games. He averaged 9.3 points and 5.3 rebounds with 8 total blocks. Again, a perfect 8–0 record landed him another gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. O'Neal was upset that coach Lenny Wilkens played Robinson more minutes in the final game; Wilkens previously explained to O'Neal that it would probably be Robinson's last Olympics.

In July 1996, Atari merged with JTS Inc., a short-lived maker of hard disk drives, to form JTS Corp. Atari's role in the new company largely became that of holder for the Atari properties and minor support, and consequently the name largely disappeared from the market.

ِِA Boeing 747-131, TWA Flight 800, carrying 212 passengers and 18 crew, exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, shortly after departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport on a flight to Paris and Rome. A lengthy investigation concluded that the probable cause of the accident was a short circuit in a fuel tank that contained an explosive mixture of fuel vapor and air. As a result, new requirements were developed to prevent future fuel tank explosions in aircraft.

In the summer of 1996, O'Neal was named to the United States Olympic basketball team, and was later part of the gold medal-winning team at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

On the team's first full day at the Olympics in Atlanta, the media announced that O'Neal would join the Los Angeles Lakers on a seven-year, $121 million contract.

In July 1996, Vodafone acquired two-thirds of Talkland, which it did not already own, for £30.6 million.

Centennial Olympic Park was designed as the "town square" of the Olympics, and thousands of spectators had gathered for a late concert and merrymaking. Sometime after midnight, July 27, 1996, Eric Robert Rudolph, a terrorist who would later bomb a lesbian nightclub and two abortion clinics, planted a green backpack containing a fragmentation-laden pipe bomb underneath a bench. Jewell was working as a security guard for the event.

On July 27, 1996, He discovered the bag and alerted Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers. This discovery was nine minutes before Rudolph called 9-1-1 to deliver a warning.

On July 27, 1996, Jewell and other security guards began clearing the immediate area so that a bomb squad could investigate the suspicious package.

On July 27, 1996, The bomb exploded 13 minutes later, killing Alice Hawthorne and injuring over one hundred others. A cameraman also died of a heart attack while running to cover the incident.

New World Animation and Marvel Films Animation were sold along with the rest of New World by Andrews Group to News Corporation/Fox as announced in August 1996.

In August 1996, Marvel created Marvel Studios.

On 6 August 1996, three days before Yeltsin was to be inaugurated for his second term as Russian president and when most of the Russian Army troops were moved south due to what was planned as their final offensive against remaining mountainous separatist strongholds, the Chechens launched another surprise attack on Grozny.

On 19 August, despite the presence of 50,000 to 200,000 Chechen civilians and thousands of federal servicemen in Grozny, the Russian commander Konstantin Pulikovsky gave an ultimatum for Chechen fighters to leave the city within 48 hours, or else it would be leveled in a massive aerial and artillery bombardment. He stated that federal forces would use strategic bombers (not used in Chechnya up to this point) and ballistic missiles. This announcement was followed by chaotic scenes of panic as civilians tried to flee before the army carried out its threat, with parts of the city ablaze and falling shells scattering refugee columns.

The series was published in The Mercury News in three parts, from August 18–20, 1996, with one long article and one or two shorter articles appearing each day. It was also posted on The Mercury News website with additional information, including documents cited in the series and audio recordings of people quoted in the articles.

The bombardment was however soon halted by the ceasefire brokered by General Alexander Lebed, Yeltsin's national security adviser, on 22 August. Gen. Lebed called the ultimatum, issued by General Pulikovsky, a "bad joke".

In Foxfire, released on 23 August 1996, Jolie played a drifter who unites four teenage girls against a teacher who has sexually harassed them.

Within five years, the marriage was in trouble due to the couple's incompatibility and near 13-year age difference. Charles resumed his relationship with his former girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles, and Diana began one with Major James Hewitt, the family's former riding instructor. In December 1992, British Prime Minister John Major announced the couple's formal separation in Parliament. Charles and Diana divorced on 28 August 1996.

The divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996.

Charles and Diana divorced on 28 August 1996.

In Las Delicias, Caquetá, five FARC fronts (about 400 guerrillas) recognized intelligence pitfalls in a Colombian Army base and exploited them to overrun it on August 30, 1996, killing 34 soldiers, wounding 17 and taking some 60 as prisoners.

During eight hours of subsequent talks, Lebed and Maskhadov drafted and signed the Khasav-Yurt Accord on 31 August 1996.

In the wake of the Albanian boycott, supporters of Slobodan Milošević were elected to positions of authority by the remaining Serbian voters in Kosovo. The boycott soon included education on Albanian language in Kosovo which Milošević attempted to resolve by signing the Milošević-Rugova education agreement in 1996.

On September 23, 1996, Carrey married his Dumb and Dumber co-star Lauren Holly.

Prior to her marriage to Miller, Jolie began a relationship with model-actress Jenny Shimizu on the set of Foxfire (1996). She later said, "I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband. I fell in love with her the first second I saw her." According to Shimizu, their relationship lasted several years and continued even while Jolie was romantically involved with other people.

By 1996, a series of successful lawsuits had left Atari with millions of dollars in the bank, but the failure of the Lynx and Jaguar left Atari without a product to sell. Tramiel and his family also wanted out of the business. The result was a rapid succession of changes in ownership.

In 1996, Dollar Tree acquired Dollar Bill$, Inc., a Chicago-based chain of 136 stores.

Gita further completed an M.A. degree at the University of Washington in 1996.

In 1996 the American author Raymond Benson became the author of the Bond novels.

On October 26, 1996, the investigating US Attorney, Kent Alexander, in an extremely unusual act, sent Jewell a letter formally clearing him, stating "based on the evidence developed to date ... Richard Jewell is not considered a target of the federal criminal investigation into the bombing on July 27, 1996, at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta".

Maradona Retired. In 1996, he played in a friendly match alongside his brother Raul for Toronto Italia against the Canadian National Soccer League All-Stars. Maradona was himself given a testimonial match in November 2001, played between an all-star World XI and the Argentina national team.

As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time he became the youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days; a record since broken by Jermaine O'Neal and former teammate Andrew Bynum), and also became the youngest NBA starter ever (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.

The 1996 Andhra Pradesh cyclone (also known as Cyclone 07B) was a small but powerful storm that left heavy damage in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It formed on 4 November in the eastern Bay of Bengal. Ahead of the storm, about 225,000 families evacuated, although many towns lacked proper storm shelters. When the cyclone made landfall, it produced strong winds up to 100 km (60 mi) inland, dropped 210 mm (8.3 in) of rainfall across a 40 km (25 mi) region, and flooded over 250 villages along a 60 km (37 mi) portion of the coast. There were 1,077 confirmed deaths with many others missing, although many of the dead were washed into the sea and were unlikely to be found.

Johnson debuted on Monday Night Raw as a member of Marc Mero's entourage on November 4, 1996.

Eminem was soon signed to Jeff and Mark Bass's FBT Productions, and recorded his debut album Infinite for their independent Web Entertainment label. The album was a commercial failure upon its release in 1996.

On 16 November 1996, in Kaspiysk (Dagestan), a bomb destroyed an apartment building housing Russian border guards, killing 68 people.

Reactor No. 1 was decommissioned in November 1996 as part of a deal between the Ukrainian government and international organizations such as the IAEA to end operations at the plant.

His first match came at Survivor Series, on November 17,1996, in an eight-man elimination tag match; he was the sole survivor and eliminated the final two members of the opposing team, Crush and Goldust.

On 19 November 1996, in a defensive move, Vodafone purchased Peoples Phone for £77 million, a 181 store chain whose customers were overwhelmingly using Vodafone's network. In a similar move, the company acquired 80% of Astec Communications that it did not own, a service provider with 21 stores.

The first Cyber-shot was introduced in 1996. At the time, digital cameras were a relative novelty.

Sony produced computers during the 1980s. The company withdrew from the computer business around 1990. Sony entered again into the global computer market under the new VAIO brand, began in 1996. Short for "Video Audio Integrated Operation", the line was the first computer brand to highlight visual-audio features.

Another major turning point for the company came in 1996, when the government in Beijing adopted an explicit policy of supporting domestic telecommunications manufacturers and restricting access to foreign competitors.

In 1996, he founded the Peres Center for Peace, which has the aim of "promoting lasting peace and advancement in the Middle East by fostering tolerance, economic and technological development, cooperation and well-being".

Ibrahimović signed his first contract with Malmö in 1996.

PageRank was influenced by a similar page-ranking and site-scoring algorithm earlier used for RankDex, developed by Robin Li in 1996, with Larry Page's PageRank patent including a citation to Li's earlier RankDex patent; Li later went on to create the Chinese search engine Baidu.

Kasparov played in a pair of six-game chess matches with an IBM supercomputer called "Deep Blue". The first match was played in Philadelphia in 1996 and won by Kasparov. The second was played in New York City in 1997 and won by "Deep Blue".

Visa settled a 1996 antitrust lawsuit brought by a class of U.S. merchants, including Walmart, for billions of dollars in 2003. Over 4 million class members were represented by the plaintiffs. According to a website associated with the suit, Visa and MasterCard settled the plaintiffs' claims for a total of $3.05 billion. Visa's share of this settlement is reported to have been the larger.

In mid-1996, a civic protest movement made up of an estimated 200,000 coca growers from Putumayo and part of Cauca began marching against the Colombian government to reject its drug war policies, including fumigations and the declaration of special security zones in some departments.

Much larger and more deadly acts of hostility took place in the republic of Dagestan. In particular, the border village of Pervomayskoye was completely destroyed by Russian forces in January 1996 in reaction to the large-scale Chechen hostage taking in Kizlyar in Dagestan (in which more than 2,000 hostages were taken), bringing strong criticism from this hitherto loyal republic and escalating domestic dissatisfaction.

This occurred in the village of Mayibout 2 and neighboring areas. A chimpanzee found dead in the forest was eaten by villagers hunting for food. Nineteen people involved in the butchery of the animal became ill, and other cases occurred in their family members. These events resulted in the infection of 31 and the death of 21.

In 1996, Arnault bought out Loewe.

Hawk was married to Erin Lee from 1996 to 2004. They have two sons, Spencer (b. 1999) and Keegan (b. 2001). Spencer is an electronic music producer who releases music such as Gupi.

Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses.

In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom.

Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player.

In 1996, real-time ticker was introduced.

Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California. While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships among websites. They called this algorithm PageRank; it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages that linked back to the original site.

Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.

Throughout the early 1990s, Apple had tried to create a "next-generation" OS to succeed its classic Mac OS through the Taligent, Copland and Gershwin projects, but all of them were eventually abandoned. This led Apple to purchase NeXT in 1996, allowing NeXTSTEP, then called OPENSTEP, to serve as the basis for Apple's next-generation operating system. This purchase also led to Steve Jobs returning to Apple as an interim, and then the permanent CEO, shepherding the transformation of the programmer-friendly OPENSTEP into a system that would be adopted by Apple's primary market of home users and creative professionals. The project was first code-named "Rhapsody" and then officially named Mac OS X.

Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games.

Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".

The first camera to use CompactFlash was the Kodak DC-25 in 1996.

The new UN mission was established as the United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1037 of 15 January 1996.

As the UNTAES replaced the UNCRO mission, Prevlaka peninsula, previously under UNCRO control, was put under control of United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP). The UNMOP was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1038 of 15 January 1996, and terminated on 15 December 2002.

On 16 January 1996, a Turkish passenger ship carrying 200 Russian passengers was taken over by what were mostly Turkish gunmen who were seeking to publicize the Chechen cause.

Oman has no system of checks and balances, and thus no separation of powers. All power is concentrated in the sultan, who is also chief of staff of the armed forces, Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Affairs and chairman of the Central Bank. All legislation since 1970 has been promulgated through royal decrees, including the 1996 Basic Law. The sultan appoints judges, and can grant pardons and commute sentences. The sultan's authority is inviolable and the sultan expects total subordination to his will.

On 23 January 1996, Sun Microsystems released the first public implementation as Java 1.0, which promised Write Once, Run Anywhere (WORA) functionality, providing no-cost run-times on popular platforms.

In 1996, a USAID funded project, the Leland Initiative, started work on developing full Internet connectivity for the continent. Guinea, Mozambique, Madagascar and Rwanda gained satellite earth stations in 1997, followed by Ivory Coast and Benin in 1998.

In February 27, 1996, Shakira went on to her first international tour, named simply the Tour Pies Descalzos. The tour consisted of 20 shows and ended in 1997.

On 6 March, a Cypriot passenger jet was hijacked by Chechen sympathisers while flying toward Germany. Both of these incidents were resolved through negotiations, and the hijackers surrendered without any fatalities being inflicted.

On 6 March, between 1,500 and 2,000 Chechen fighters infiltrated Grozny and launched a three-day surprise raid on the city, overrunning much of it and capturing caches of weapons and ammunition. Also in March, Chechen fighters attacked Samashki, where hundreds of villagers were killed.

Under his real name, Johnson defeated The Brooklyn Brawler at a house show on March 10, 1996. and lost matches to Chris Candido and Owen Hart.

The first St Patrick's Festival was held on 17 March 1996. In 1997, it became a three-day event, and by 2000 it was a four-day event. By 2006, the festival was five days long; more than 675,000 people attended the 2009 parade. Overall 2009's five-day festival saw almost 1 million visitors, who took part in festivities that included concerts, outdoor theatre performances, and fireworks. The Skyfest which ran from 2006 to 2012 formed the centerpiece of the St Patrick's festival.

Dion was asked to perform "The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller were not in touch for many months after production ended, but eventually reconnected and married soon after in March 1996. She attended her wedding in black rubber pants and a white T-shirt, upon which she had written the groom's name in her blood.

On 26 March 1996, Ballack debuted for the Germany national under-21 team against Denmark, shortly after signing for Chemnitzer FC. In all, he played 19 matches for this side, scoring four goals.

Nokia claimed in April 1996 its 447Xav and 447K monitors to be the first with stereo speakers and a sub-woofer.

O'Neal was injured for a great deal of the 1995–96 season, missing 28 games. He averaged 26.6 points and 11 rebounds per game, made the All-NBA 3rd Team, and played in his 4th All-Star Game.

On April 3, 1996, Kaczynski was arrested and combed cabin by investigators. Investigators found a wealth of bomb components; 40,000 handwritten journal pages that included bomb-making experiments and descriptions of Unabomber crimes; and one live bomb, ready for mailing.

FBI agents arrested an unkempt Kaczynski at his cabin on April 3, 1996.

On 11 April 1996, Prime Minister Peres initiated Operation Grapes of Wrath.

On 16 April, forces of Arab commander Ibn al-Khattab destroyed a large Russian armored column in an ambush near Shatoy, killing at least 76 soldiers; in another one, near Vedeno, at least 28 Russian troops were killed.

Although a Russian guided missile attack assassinated the ChRI President Dzhokhar Dudayev on 21 April 1996.

In April 1996, Maradona had a three-round exhibition boxing match with Santos Laciar for charity.

Ninth Conference "UNCTAD IX" was held in Midrand, South Africa, from 27 April to 11 May 1996.

O'Neal became a free agent after the 1995–96 NBA season.

Cold, first published in 1996, was the sixteenth and final novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond.

Jolie took a starring role in the modern-day Romeo and Juliet adaptation Love Is All There Is, released on 10 May 1996.

Yeltsin even officially declared "victory" in Grozny on 28 May 1996, after a new temporary ceasefire was signed with the ChRI Acting President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.

In June 1996 the group claimed responsibility for acts of sabotage targeting Kosovo police stations.

Cameron is married to Samantha Gwendoline Cameron (née Sheffield), the daughter of Sir Reginald Sheffield, 8th Baronet, and Annabel Lucy Veronica Jones (now Viscountess Astor). A Marlborough College school friend of Cameron's sister Clare, Samantha accepted Clare's invitation to accompany the Cameron family on holiday in Tuscany, Italy, after graduating from Bristol School of Creative Arts. It was then David and Samantha's romance started. They were married on 1 June 1996 at the Church of St Augustine of Canterbury, East Hendred, Oxfordshire, five years before Cameron was elected to parliament.

On 12 June 1996, Nokia announced the sale of its television business to Canada/Hong Kong-based Semi-Tech Corporation. The sale included a factory in Turku, and the rights to use the Nokia, Finlux, Luxor, Salora, Schaub-Lorenz and Oceanic brands until the end of 1999.

The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary-cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their draft selection at #13 to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made.

Bryant was the first guard ever drafted directly out of high school.

During Billington's tenure as the 13th librarian of Congress, the library acquired Lafayette's previously inaccessible papers in 1996 from a castle at La Grange, France.

A Democratic Union Coalition co-led by Democratic Party chairman Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj for the first time succeeded in winning the majority in the 1996 parliamentary elections.

on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended.

Zidane had offers to join Europe's top clubs in the spring of 1996, deciding on a move to UEFA Champions League winners Juventus during the close season.

The third outbreak in Gabon occurred in the Booué area with the transport of patients to Libreville. The index case-patient was a hunter who lived in a forest timber camp. The disease was spread by close contact with infected persons. A dead chimpanzee found in the forest at the time was determined to be infected. With 60 infections and 45 deaths, this was the highest case fatality rate of 75%

In 1996, the first legislation to recognize "Juneteenth Independence Day" was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.J. Res. 195, sponsored by Barbara-Rose Collins (D-MI).

O'Neal was one of two players (the other being Reggie Miller) from the 1994 roster to be also named to the Dream Team III. Due to more star-power, he rotated with Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson and started 3 games. He averaged 9.3 points and 5.3 rebounds with 8 total blocks. Again, a perfect 8–0 record landed him another gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. O'Neal was upset that coach Lenny Wilkens played Robinson more minutes in the final game; Wilkens previously explained to O'Neal that it would probably be Robinson's last Olympics.

In July 1996, Atari merged with JTS Inc., a short-lived maker of hard disk drives, to form JTS Corp. Atari's role in the new company largely became that of holder for the Atari properties and minor support, and consequently the name largely disappeared from the market.