On this day
The US Postal Service issued its first Lunar New Year stamp-a Year of the Rooster design by Hawaii artist Clarence Lee-launching a long-running series and marking federal recognition of a holiday central to many Asian American communities.
David Ho, the Taiwanese American AIDS researcher who pioneered combination antiretroviral therapy, was named TIME magazine's Person of the Year for 1996 - the first individual scientist so honored - featured on the cover of the December 30, 1996 issue. (Public announcement came about a week earlier, on December 22, 1996.)