- Jan 1 All California bars, clubs & card rooms must be smoke-free
- Jan 1 Mongolia switches from a 46 hour to 40 hour work week
- Jan 1 US Census Bureau estimates population at 268,921,733
- Jan 1 Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence.
- Jan 2 Autopsy of Chris Farley shows he overdosed of opiates & cocaine
- Jan 3 Grandpa Jones suffers a stroke
- Jan 4 Wilaya of Relizane massacres in Algeria: over 170 are killed in three remote villages.
- Jan 4 A massive ice storm hits eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, continuing through January 10 and causing widespread destruction.
- Jan 5 Ice storm knocks out electricity in Quebec & Ontario
- Jan 5 Vandals decapitate Copenhagen's Little Mermaid
- Jan 6 Barry Switzer resigns as Dallas Cowboy coach
Event of Interest
Jan 7 Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky signs affidavit denying she had an affair with President Bill Clinton
Monica Lewinsky
Bill Clinton
Event of Interest
Jan 8 Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski asks to act as his own lawyer
Ted Kaczynski
- Jan 8 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef sentenced to life
- Jan 9 Anatoly Solovyov & Pavel Vinogradov spacewalk record 3 hrs 8 mins
- Jan 9 Decapitated head of Danish Little Mermaid is returned
- Jan 11 US Ladies Figure Skating championship won by Michelle Kwan
- Jan 11 Sidi-Hamed massacre takes place in Algeria, over 100 people are killed.
- Jan 12 Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.
- Jan 14 100th episode of "Ellen" airs
- Jan 14 Researchers in Dallas, Texas present findings about an enzyme that slows aging and cell death (apoptosis)
Event of Interest
Jan 17 US President Bill Clinton faces sexual harassment charges from Paula Jones
Bill Clinton
Event of Interest
Jan 23 Pope John Paul II condemns US embargo against Cuba
John Paul II
Event of Interest
Jan 25 Britain's Queen Mother, 97, gets an emergency hip replacement
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
- Jan 25 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide attack on Sri Lanka's Temple of the Tooth, killing 8 people injuring 25 others.
- Jan 25 Pope John Paul II visits Cuba and demands the release of political prisoners; he also condemns US moves to isolate the country
Andrew Grove
'I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman'
Jan 26 President Bill Clinton says "I want to say one thing to the American people; I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky"
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Event of Interest
Jan 28 Michelangelo's "Christ & the Woman of Samaria" sold for $7.4 million
Michelangelo
- Jan 29 Soyuz TM-27 launches to MIR
- Jan 29 Thick Fog causes highway carnage in Belgium and Netherlands, 6 die
- Jan 29 Woman's Clinic in Birmingham Alabama bombed, 1 killed
- Jan 30 Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Indianapolis IN on WNAP 93.1 FM
- Jan 31 STS 89 (Endeavour 12) lands
- Feb 1 Lillian E. Fishburne became the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral.
- Feb 2 Daniel Baldwin hospitalized in NYC for cocaine overdose
- Feb 2 Philippine DC-9 crashes apparently killing all 104 on board
Event of Interest
Feb 3 Stamps commemorating Diana, Princess of Wales, go on sale in Britain
Diana Spencer
Event of Interest
Feb 4 Bill Gates gets a pie thrown in his face in Brussels, Belgium
Bill Gates
- Feb 4 An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000
- Feb 5 Alberto Acciarito convicted of harassing his ex-wife Ingrid Rossellini
- Feb 6 Mary Kay LeTourneau, 36, former teacher, who violated probation by seeing 14 year old father of her baby, sentenced to 7 years
- Feb 6 In Corsica, the prefect Claude Erignac is assassinated in Ajaccio, presumably by Yvan Colonna.
Event of Interest
Feb 6 Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport
Ronald Reagan
Assassination Attempt
Feb 9 Failed assassination attempt on Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze
Eduard Shevardnadze
- Feb 10 AOL raises monthly flat rate internet access from $19.95 to $21.95
- Feb 10 Voters in Maine repeal a gay rights law passed in 1997 becoming the first U.S. state to abandon the law
- Feb 11 KVBC-FM (Las Vegas) offers Monica Lewinsky $5M for interview
- Feb 11 Lyrics to "Candle in the Wind 1997" auctioned for $442,500
- Feb 12 250-car Italy pile-up due to fog, 4 die & 50 hurt
- Feb 12 Intel unveils its 1st graphics chip i740
- Feb 12 US district judge T Hogan declares line-item veto law unconstitutional
- Feb 14 Authorities in the United States announce that Eric Robert Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing.
Angel of the North
Feb 15 The Angel of the North, a large-scale steel sculpture 20 m (66 ft) tall by Antony Gormley is installed at Gateshead, northern England
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- Feb 16 Tellabs Inc acquires Coherent Communications Systems for $670 million
- Feb 17 US Naval Academy cadet Diane Zamora, 20, convicted of capital murder
- Feb 17 Larry Wayne Harris & Bill Levitt arrested for possession of anthrax
- Feb 17 NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft overtakes Pioneer 10 to become the farthest object from earth in space
- Feb 18 Two white separatists are arrested in Nevada and accused of plotting a biological attack on New York City subways.
- Feb 19 Soyuz TM-26 lands
Event of Interest
Feb 20 UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan lands in Baghdad, for peace negotiations
Kofi Annan
Historic Publication
Feb 23 Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa declaring jihad against all Jews and Crusaders
Osama bin Laden
- Feb 25 Switzerland's 1st legal brothel opens in Zurich
Event of Interest
Feb 26 Oprah Winfrey found not guilty in beef defamation trial brought by Texas cattlemen
Oprah Winfrey
- Feb 26 Total solar eclipse in Venezuela-Pacific Ocean (4m09)
- Feb 27 Apple discontinues development of the Newton computer
- Feb 27 FBI arrests 10 most wanted suspected serial killer Tony Ray Amati
- Feb 27 NE Patriot David Meggett arrested in Toronto on sex assault charges
- Feb 27 Britain's House of Lords agrees to end 1,000 years of male precedence by giving a monarch's first-born daughter the same claim to the throne as any first born son
- Feb 28 First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.
- Feb 28 Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.
- Mar 2 Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice
- Mar 3 Bill Gates testifies at Senate Judiciary Committee about Microsoft's dominant position in the software industry
- Mar 4 Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.
- Mar 6 British Union Flag begins to be flown full-mast over Buckingham Palace whenever British monarch not in residence, following change of protocol after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales
- Mar 6 Matt Beck, an angry lottery accountant kills 4 at Connecticut state lottery
- Mar 15 An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale hits southeastern Iran
- Mar 16 Pope John Paul II asks God for forgiveness for the inactivity and silence of some Roman Catholics during the Holocaust
- Mar 24 Jonesboro massacre: Two students, ages 11 and 13, fire upon teachers and students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas; five people are dead and ten are wounded.
- Mar 24 A tornado sweeps through Dantan in India killing 250 people and injuring 3000 others.
- Mar 26 Oued Bouaicha massacre in Algeria; 52 people killed with axes and knives, 32 of them babies under the age of 2.
- Mar 29 Vasco da Gama Road bridge opens in Lisbon, Portugal as the longest bridge in Europe
- Apr 6 Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of hitting India.
- Apr 10 The Good Friday Agreement [Belfast Agreement] for Northern Ireland is signed by the British and Irish governments
- Apr 12 An earthquake in Slovenia, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale occurs near the town of Bovec.
- Apr 20 TAME Boeing 727-200 chartered by Air France crashes into Cerro El Cable mountain after takeoff from Bogotá, Colombia, killing 53.
- Apr 20 German terrorist group Red Army Faction announces their dissolution after 28 years.
- May 2 Battle of Hogwarts: fictional battle that ended the Second Wizarding War with the death of Lord Voldemort at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
- May 4 A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.
- May 7 Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for $US40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the then largest industrial merger in history
- May 11 India conducts three underground nuclear tests in Pokhran, including a thermonuclear device
- May 13 Race riots break out in Jakarta, Indonesia, where shops owned by Indonesians of Chinese descent are looted and women raped
- May 13 India carries out two nuclear tests at Pokhran, in addition to the three conducted on May 11. The United States and Japan impose economic sanctions on India.
- May 18 United States v. Microsoft: The United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states file an antitrust case against Microsoft.
- May 21 In Miami, Florida, five abortion clinics are hit by a butyric acid attacker.
- May 22 Lewinsky scandal: a federal judge rules that United States Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the scandal, involving President Bill Clinton
- May 23 The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with 75% voting yes.
- May 26 Date for Paula Jones sex harassment trial vs President Clinton
- May 26 The United States Supreme Court rules that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York
- May 27 Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
- May 28 Nuclear testing: Pakistan responds to a series of Indian nuclear tests with five of its own, prompting the United States, Japan, and other nations to impose economic sanctions.
- May 30 A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits northern Afghanistan, killing up to 5,000.
- Jun 1 European Central Bank is founded in Brussels to define and execute the European Union's monetary policy
- Jun 1 Australian Susie Maroney becomes first person to swim from Mexico to Cuba across shark and jellyfish-infested waters of the Yucatan Straits; swims 123-miles in 38 hours 33 minutes in a cage
- Jun 2 The CIH computer virus is discovered in Taiwan
- Jun 3 Eschede train disaster: an ICE high speed train derails in Lower Saxony, Germany, causing 101 deaths
- Jun 4 Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing
- Jun 5 A strike begins at the General Motors parts factory in Flint, Michigan, that quickly spreads to five other assembly plants (the strike lasted seven weeks)
- Jun 7 James Byrd, Jr. is dragged to death by Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russel Brewer, and John William King in Jasper, Texas in a racially-motivated hate crime
- Jun 7 52nd Tony Awards: "The Lion King" and '"Art" win
Event of Interest
Jun 9 Abdulsalami Abubakar succeeds Sani Abacha as military President of Nigeria
Sani Abacha
- Jun 11 Compaq Computer pays $9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in the largest high-tech acquisition.
- Jun 25 In Clinton v. City of New York, the US Supreme Court decides that the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 is unconstitutional
- Jun 27 Opening of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia.
- Jun 30 Sega Channel, cable's 1st on-demand video game service, closes down
- Jul 2 "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" the second book in the series is published by Bloomsbury in the UK
- Jul 6 Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport is closed and the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok becomes operational
- Jul 10 Roman Catholic sexual abuse cases: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos
Event of Interest
Jul 12 South African President Nelson Mandela accompanies Queen Elizabeth II on a coach drive through the streets of London
Nelson Mandela
Elizabeth II
Event of Interest
Jul 17 Russia buries Tsar Nicholas II and family, 80 years after they died
Nicholas II
- Jul 20 Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and other aid groups leave Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban
- Jul 24 Russell Eugene Weston Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.
- Aug 1 -8] Gay & Lesbian Games #5 open in Amsterdam
- Aug 10 The Royal Proclamation of HRH Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah as the Crown Prince of Brunei.
Event of Interest
Aug 11 Palestine Liberation Organisation and Palestinian National Authority president, Yasser Arafat, arrives in Cape Town on his first state visit to South Africa at the invitation of President Nelson Mandela
Yasser Arafat
Nelson Mandela
Event of Interest
Aug 14 Winnie Mandela sued by the South African government
Winnie Mandela
Omagh Bombing
Aug 15 Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland, the worst terrorist incident of The Troubles, kills 29 people and injures about 220
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- Aug 17 Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony he had an "improper physical relationship" with the intern and on the same day admits before the nation he "misled people" about the relationship
Assassination
Aug 19 South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission chairperson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, releases documents revealing an alleged plot by Western countries to assassinate UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden
Desmond Tutu
Dag Hammarskjöld
- Aug 20 The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.
- Aug 20 U.S. embassy bombings: US military launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
Event of Interest
Aug 21 P. W. Botha found guilty of contempt for repeatedly ignoring subpoenas to testify before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
P. W. Botha
- Aug 24 The Netherlands is selected as the site for the trial of the two Libyan suspects of the 1988 Pan Am bombing.
- Aug 24 First RFID human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.
- Aug 28 Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.
- Aug 31 North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite.
- Sep 2 Swissair Flight 111 crashes near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia. All 229 people on board are killed.
- Sep 2 The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide
Event of Interest
Sep 4 Google is formally incorporated by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University
Larry Page
Sergey Brin
Event of Interest
Sep 11 Independent counsel Ken Starr sends a report to the U.S. Congress accusing President Bill Clinton of 11 possible impeachable offenses.
Ken Starr
Bill Clinton
- Sep 11 16th Commonwealth Games open in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia making Malaysia the first Asian country to host the games
- Sep 14 Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.
- Sep 15 With the landmark merger of WorldCom and MCI Communications completed the day prior, the new MCI WorldCom opens its doors for business.
- Sep 18 Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is formed.
Election of Interest
Sep 27 German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's CDU/CSU party suffers a heavy defeat in federal elections to Gerard Schroder's SPD party
Helmut Kohl
- Sep 29 Mercury Records releases Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach's collaborative album "Painted from Memory"
Event of Interest
Oct 1 Vladimir Putin became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.
Vladimir Putin
- Oct 1 LA's Mauricio Cienfuegos and Martin Machon equal the MLS playoff record of 3 assists each as the Galaxy roll to a 6-1 win over the Dallas Burn at the Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California
- Oct 7 Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young adults in Laramie, Wyoming.
- Oct 8 Oslo Gardermoen airport opening after the close down of Fornebu.
Impeachment Trial of Bill Clinton
Oct 8 US House of Representatives votes to begin impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton on charges of lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky
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Nobel Prize
Oct 8 José Saramago is the first person from Portugal to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
José Saramago
- Oct 11 A Congo Airlines Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 40 people.
Murder of Interest
Oct 16 Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a Spanish warrant requesting his extradition on murder charges
Augusto Pinochet
- Oct 17 At Jesse, in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, a petroleum pipeline explodes killing about 1200 villagers, some of whom are scavenging gasoline.
- Oct 19 The Earth Liberation Front sets fire to Vail Mountain ski resort in Colorado, causing $12 million in damage
- Oct 23 Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat reach a "land for peace" agreement.
- Oct 24 Launch of Deep Space 1 on comet and asteroid mission
- Oct 27 Helmut Kohl resigns as Chancellor of Germany after 16 years, following a landslide defeat in elections
- Oct 28 An Air China (Mainland China) jetliner is hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan.
- Oct 29 Apartheid: In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities.
- Oct 29 En route Adana to Ankara, Turkish Airlines flight with crew of 6 and 33 passengers hijacked by Kurdish militant, orders pilot fly to Switzerland. Pilot lands in Ankara tricking hijacker he was landing in Sofia to refuel.
- Oct 29 Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, made landfall in Honduras.
Scientific Discovery
Oct 29 Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space.
John Glenn
- Oct 31 Iraq disarmament crisis begins: Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.
- Nov 1 The European Court of Human Rights is instituted.
- Nov 9 Brokerage houses are ordered to pay 1.03 billion USD to NASDAQ investors to compensate for price-fixing - largest civil settlement in US history
- Nov 9 Capital punishment in the United Kingdom, already abolished for murder, is completely abolished for all remaining capital offences.
- Nov 16 Monica Lewinsky signs a deal for the North American rights to a book about her affair with US President Clinton
Event of Interest
Nov 19 Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of the Artist Without Beard" sells at auction for $71.5 million
Vincent van Gogh
- Nov 20 Court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania
- Nov 20 First module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched
- Nov 23 Agreement between Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his rival, prince Norodom Ranariddh.
Event of Interest
Nov 26 Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland's parliament.
Tony Blair
- Nov 28 The people of Albania vote for their new Constitution in a referendum.
- Nov 30 Deutsche Bank announces a US$10 billion deal to buy Bankers Trust, thus creating the largest financial institution in the world
- Dec 1 Exxon announces a $73.7 billion USD deal to buy Mobil, creating Exxon-Mobil, the world's largest company.
- Dec 4 The Unity Module, the second module of the International Space Station, is launched
Election of Interest
Dec 6 Hugo Chávez is elected President of Venezuela
Hugo Chávez
- Dec 8 Tadjena massacre: 81 people are killed by armed groups in Algeria.
Nobel Prize
Dec 10 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine presented to Gertrude B. Elion, George H. Hitchings and James W. Black for development of new drugs
Gertrude B. Elion
Nobel Prize
Dec 10 Indian Professor Amartya Sen is awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions to welfare economics
Amartya Sen