1991 in the United Kingdom

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Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg 1991 in the United Kingdom: Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg
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Sport and Music
British and Irish current events
1991 English cricket season
Football Image:Flag of England.svg England \| Image:Flag of Scotland.svg Scotland
1991 in British music

Events from the year 1991 in the United Kingdom.

1 Incumbents
2 Events
- 2.1 Undated
3 Births
4 Deaths
5 References

[edit] Incumbents

Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
Prime Minister - John Major, Conservative

[edit] Events

January 3- The UK expels all Iraqi diplomats from the country due to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait five months ago.
January 8- A train crash at Cannon Street station in London kills one person and injuring over 500
January 17- The Gulf War begins, as the Royal Air Force joins Allied aircraft in bombing raids on Iraq.
February 7- The IRA launch a mortar attack against 10 Downing Street, blowing in all the windows of the cabinet room, whilst during a session of the War Cabinet.
February 18 - The IRA explodes bombs in the early morning at both Paddington station and Victoria station in London.
February 25 - Alan Green, Director of Public Prosecution, announces that the Birmingham Six could soon be free from prison after 17 years as their convictions for terrorism and mass murder are no longer considered safe and satisfactory.
March 14- The Birmingham Six are freed after the Court of Appeal quashes their convictions over the 1974 pub bombings in Birmingham which killed 21 people and injured more than 160 others.
March 23- The Government launches its Citizen's Charter campaign.
March 28- An inquest in Sheffield into the Hillsborough disaster records a verdict of accidental death on the 95 people who died as a result of the tragedy almost two years ago. Many of the victims' families criticise the verdict, as many of them had been hoping for a verdict of unlawful killing against the police officers who patrolled the game.
May 18- Helen Sharman becomes the first Briton in space.
May 18- Paul Gascoigne suffers cruciate knee ligament damage in Tottenham Hotspur's 2-1 FA Cup final victory over Nottingham Forest, which puts his proposed transfer to Italian side Lazio on hold, and is expected to rule him out for up to a year.
April 4- Social services in the Orkney Islands are criticised for their handling of more than 100 children who have returned to their families after being taken away over allegations of child abuse.
May 29- The Poll Tax saga which has plagued Britain for last 14 months results in the latest of several objectors being jailed. Martin Blatchford, a disabled 31-year-old father-of-three from Dudley in the West Midlands, is sentenced to 14 days in prison.
June 3- The British Army kill 3 IRA terrorists in Northern Ireland
July 5- The Bank of England closes down the Bank of Credit and Commerce International amid fraud allegations. Several local authorities in the UK lose millions of pounds in investments held with the bank.
July 11- Labour Party MP, Terry Fields, joins the list of people jailed for refusal to pay Poll Tax after he receives a 60-day prison sentence. He is the first MP to be jailed for refusing to pay the controversial tax which was introduced early last year.
July 14- British forces protecting the Kurdish population of Iraq pull out of the region that they had been occupying for two months.
July 30- Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti sings to a 100,000-strong crowd in London's Hyde Park to commemorate 30 years in opera.
August 8- John McCarthy, a British hostage held in Lebanon for over 5 years is freed.
August 13- Prince Charles resigns as patron of Scotland's National Museum over a competition to design a new building.
October - Vauxhall launches the third generation of its popular Astra family hatchback and estate, with saloon and cabriolet variants due next year.
October 3- The 1991 Rugby World Cup begins in England.
November 5- Robert Maxwell, owner of the Daily Mirror, is found dead off the coast of Tenerife.
9 November - first ever controlled and substantial production of fusion energy achieved at the Joint European Torus in Oxford. ^[1]
November 18- Terry Waite, a British hostage held in Lebanon, is freed after four-and-a-half years in captivity.
November 23- Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of rock band Queen, announces that he is suffering from AIDS. The British media had been speculating about 45-year-old Mercury's health since last year.
November 24- Freddie Mercury dies at his home in London, just 24 hours after going public with the news that he was suffering from AIDS.
November 25- Winston Silcott has his conviction for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock] quashed. Silcott had been jailed for life in 1987 for the murder of PC Blakelock in the Tottenham riots of 1985, but he will remain imprisoned as he is serving a second life sentence for another unconnected crime.
December 5 - The Robert Maxwell Business Empire goes into receivership with £1billion+ debts, exactly one month after Robert Maxwell's death. The Daily Mirror today reported that Maxwell had wrongly removed £350million from its pension fund shortly before he died.
December 23 - Bohemian Rhapsody returns to the top of the British singles charts after 16 years, with the re-release's proceeds being donated to the Terence Higgins Trust.

[edit] Undated

The economy is in severe recession.^[2]
Ronald Coase wins the Nobel Prize in Economics "for his discovery and clarification of the significance of transaction costs and property rights for the institutional structure and functioning of the economy".^[3]