1980: Chief Justice of Australia's High Court, Sir Garfield Barwick was, without declaring his interest, sitting in judgment on cases brought to his courtroom by wealthy corporations in which Barwick's own private family company, Mundroola Pty Ltd, owned shares. Most cases were decided in favor of those corporations in which the judge had interest.

June, 1999: Prime Minister John Howard refuses to sack one of his front-bench team whose company, Cape York Concrete Pty Ltd, was awarded a $175,500 defense contract. Howard admitted that Parliamentary Secretary Warren Entsch breached ministerial code by failing to declare, as required by Mr. Howard's code, that he was director and company secretary of Cape York Concrete the company receiving the substantial government contract.

1981: AIDS is first recognized as a distinct disease in the U.S. The earliest American cases were traced back to 1977.

June, 1999: In the United States, the cumulative number of...