Chronopin: upcoming release dates, events and other important dates

One of the longest-running anime in the medium’s history, Nintama Rantarou has aired on NHK continuously since April 10, 1993, adapting Sōbē Amako's manga about Rantarou, Shinbei, and Kirimaru — first-year students at a Sengoku-era ninja academy who are more interested in food, money, and mischief than in mastering ninjutsu. Produced by Ajia-do, it packages short comic vignettes into each half-hour episode and has grown into a multi-generational institution in Japan, with an episode count now well past 2,000.

Slam Dunk begins its TV run, a basketball comedy-drama following delinquent freshman Hanamichi Sakuragi as he falls for a classmate and, through her, discovers the sport.

Tezuka Productions begins releasing the Black Jack OVA, adapting Osamu Tezuka's manga about an unlicensed surgeon of legendary skill who charges enormous fees to save lives others have given up on.

Cafe Batavia opened in 1993 in the second-oldest building on Jakarta's old town square, a Dutch colonial house restored as a restaurant, with teak floors, ceiling fans and walls papered in old portraits. It faces the former city hall across the cobbles of Fatahillah Square.

The $15BN Channel Tunnel opened, linking Britain to mainland Europe by rail for the first time since the last Ice Age, after six years of construction under the English Channel.

Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) moved into its purpose-built Vauxhall Cross headquarters, ending decades of hiding in increasingly compromised office buildings.

The 1995 relaunch of Chibi Maruko-chan, Momoko Sakura's slice-of-life comedy about a scatterbrained third-grader navigating school, family and small everyday embarrassments in a quiet Japanese town. Produced by Nippon Animation, this version replaced the original 1990-1992 series and has stayed in weekly production ever since, making it one of the longest continuously running anime on air.

Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart releases in Japanese theaters, a coming-of-age story following bookish schoolgirl Shizuku as she chases a mysterious cat and discovers her own ambitions as a writer.

Amazon.com went live from a rented house in Bellevue, Washington, selling books out of a garage-scale operation with a catalogue it did not stock. Within a month it had shipped to all fifty states and forty-five countries.

Gainax's Neon Genesis Evangelion begins airing, a mecha series following teenage pilot Shinji Ikari as NERV's Evangelion units battle mysterious beings called Angels threatening Tokyo-3.

APPP's Golden Boy premieres on home video, a comedic OVA following Kintarou Oe, a law-school graduate who bikes from town to town taking odd jobs and chasing life lessons (and misadventures with women) instead of a career.

Production I.G's Ghost in the Shell opens in Japanese theaters, Mamoru Oshii's cyberpunk thriller adapting Masamune Shirow's manga, following cybernetic Section 9 agent Major Motoko Kusanagi as she hunts a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master.

TMS Entertainment's Detective Conan begins its television broadcast, adapting Gosho Aoyama's manga about a teenage detective shrunk into a child's body who solves cases under a false identity while investigating the organization responsible.

Sunrise begins releasing Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, a One Year War-era OVA following Ensign Shiro Amada as he leads a Ground Type Gundam unit while falling for an enemy Zeon pilot.

Oshkosh Truck Corporation bought fire apparatus builder Pierce Manufacturing outright, a deal that kicked off Oshkosh's diversification and set up Pierce to become the world's largest fire truck maker.

The Roslin Institute reveals that a Finn-Dorset lamb born the previous July was cloned from an adult mammary-gland cell by somatic cell nuclear transfer - the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell.

Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke opens in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki's epic about a cursed prince caught between the spirits of an ancient forest and the humans of Iron Town.

Gainax's The End of Evangelion opens in Japan, a theatrical film providing an alternate, more conclusive ending to the TV series as NERV comes under full assault from SEELE while Shinji, Asuka, and the rest confront the Human Instrumentality Project.

The 1997 TV adaptation of Kentaro Miura's dark fantasy manga Berserk begins airing, following mercenary swordsman Guts on a revenge-driven hunt for the corrupt king of Midland and the demonic Band of the Falcon that betrayed him.

Frank Gehry's titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened in October 1997, reviving a struggling industrial city and popularizing the aircraft-design software that made its curved form buildable.

MV Solitaire, converted from a 1972 bulk carrier into a 300-metre pipelaying ship, entered service for Allseas in 1998 and became the world's largest and most powerful pipelay vessel.

Water begins flowing from the newly completed Katse Dam through the Lesotho Highlands Water Project to Johannesburg, the first payment on a 1986 treaty that turns Lesotho’s rainfall into its biggest export.

Artland releases the first episode of the Legend of the Galactic Heroes Gaiden OVA, a collection of side stories set before the main series that trace Reinhard von Lohengramm's rise through the Galactic Empire's command.

Perfect Blue releases in Japanese theaters, Satoshi Kon's directorial debut for Madhouse, a psychological thriller about a retiring pop idol whose grip on reality frays as a stalker and an impersonator blur the line between her old and new selves.

Andoni Luis Aduriz opened his Basque restaurant in Gipuzkoa in March 1998. Restaurant Magazine has counted it among the world's best since 2006, ranking it as high as fourth.