United States admitted as CERN observer state

At the December session of the CERN council, representatives of the United States sign an agreement to contribute $531 million to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project. Martha Krebs, Director of the Office of Energy Research (DOE) and Bob Eisenstein, Assistant Director of Physical and Mathematical Science at the National Science Foundation sign on behalf of the US, and CERN Director-General Christopher Llewellyn Smith signs on behalf of the laboratory.

At the same meeting, the US is granted observer status at CERN.