1998 

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s - 1990s - 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s 2040s

Years: 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 - 1998 - 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

• 1998 in film
• 1998 in literature
• 1998 in music
• 1998 in sports
• 1998 in television

• January: A massive ice storm, caused by El Niño, strikes New England, southern Ontario and Quebec, resulting in widespread power failures, severe damage to forests, and a number of deaths.
• January 1 - Smoking is banned in all California bars and restaurants
• January 2 - Russia begins to circulate new rubles[?] to stem inflation and promote confidence.
• January 6 - The Lunar Prospector[?] spacecraft is launched into orbit around the moon and later found evidence for frozen water on the moon's surface.
• January 8 - Ramzi Yousef[?] is sentenced to life in prison for planning the World Trade Center bombing.
• January 8 - Cosomolgists announce that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing.
• January 12 - 19 European nations agree to forbid human cloning.
• January 14 - Researchers in Dallas, Texas present findings about an enzyme the slows aging and cell death (apoptosis).
• January 15 - The stalker of Howard Stern, Lance Carvin, is sentenced to 2 1/2 years for threatening to kill Stern and his family.
• January 16 - NASA announces that John Glenn will return to space when Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off in October 1998.
• January 17 - Paula Jones[?] accuses President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment
• January 22 - Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski pleads guilty and accepts a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
• January 26 - Lewinsky scandal: On American television, Bill Clinton denies he had "sexual relations" with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
• January 26 - Compaq buys Digital Equipment Corporation
• January 27 - American First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton appears on the Today show calling the attacks against her husband were part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
• January 28 - Ford Motor Company announces the buyout of Volvo for $6.45 billion.
• January 28 - Gunmen hold at least 400 children and teachers hostage for several hours at an elementary school in Manila, Philippines.
• January 29 - In Birmingham, Alabama a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic[?] killing one and severely wounding another. Serial bomber Eric Rudolph is suspected as the culprit.
• February - Iraq disarmament crisis: The United States Senate passes resolution 71, which urged President Bill Clinton to "take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end it's weapons of mass destruction programs."
• February 3 - A United States Military[?] pilot causes the death of 20 skiers in Italy riding on a lift suspended by a cable snapped by the low-flying plane.
• February 3 - Karla Faye Tucker[?] is executed in Texas becoming the the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.
• February 4 - An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000.
• February 6 - Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
• February 6 - Crown Prince Abdullah becomes the ruler of Jordan by decree of his father, King Hussein.
• February 10 - A college dropout becomes the first person to be convicted of a hate crime committed in cyberspace.
• February 10 - Voters in Maine repeal a gay rights law passed in 1997 becoming the first U.S. state to abandon such a law.
• February 12 - The presidential line-item veto is declared unconstitutional by a United States federal judge.
• February 14 - Authorities in the United States announce that Eric Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing.
• February 18 - Two white separatists[?] were arrested in Nevada and accused of plotting a biological attack[?] on New York City subways.
• February 20 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein negotiates a deal with U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, allowing weapons inspectors to return to Baghdad, preventing military action by the U.S. and Britain.
• February 23 - Tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42.
• February 28 - Serbian police begin to wipe out so-called "terrorist gangs" in Kosovo.
• March 2 - Data sent from the Galileo spaceprobe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a think crust of ice.
• March 4 - Gay rights: 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.
• March 5 - NASA announced that that the Clementine spaceprobe orbiting the moon had found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fueling station.
• March 5 - NASA announces the choice of United States Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins[?] as commander of a future Space Shuttle Columbia mission to launch an X-ray telescope making Collins the first woman commander of a space shuttle mission.
• March 10 - American troops stationed in the Persian Gulf begin to receive the first vaccinations against anthrax.
• March 14 - An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hits southeastern Iran.
• March 23 - At the Academy Awards ceremony Titanic wins 11 Oscars.
• March 24 - In Jonesboro, Arkansas, two young boys (aged 11 and 13 years) fire upon students at Westside Middle School while hidden in woodlands near the school. Four students and one teacher are killed and 10 injured.
• March 27 - The FDA approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, becoming the first pill to be approved to treat this condition in the United States.
• April 5 - In Japan, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge linking Shikoku with Honshu and costing cost about US$3.8 billion, opens to traffic, becoming the largest suspension bridge in the world.
• April 6 - Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of hitting India.
• April 7 - Citicorp[?] and Travelers Group[?] announce plans to merge creating the largest financial-services conglomerate in the world, Citigroup.
• April 8 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM reports to the UN Security Council that Iraq's declaration on its biological weapons program is incomplete and inadequate.
• May 7 - Apple Computer unveils the iMac.
• May 7 - Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for US$40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.
• May 11 - Nuclear testing: In the Rajasthan Desert[?], India conducts its first underground nuclear tests violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and inflaming its rival neighbor Pakistan (who already has nuclear weapons).
• May 13 - Following India's second round of nuclear tests the United States and Japan impose economic sanctions[?] on the nation.
• May 15 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM learns that an Iraqi delegation has travelled to Bucharest to meet with scientists who can provide the country with missile guidance systems.
• May 18 - Microsoft antitrust case: The United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states file an antitrust case against Microsoft.
• May 21 - School shooting[?]: At Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, Kipland Kinkel (who was suspended for bringing a gun to school) shoots a semi-automatic rifle into a room filled with students killing 2 wounding 25 others after killing his parents at home.
• May 21 - Reproductive rights[?]: 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.
• May 23 - Explorer I ceases transmission.
• 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 promting the United States, Japan and other nations to impose economic sanctions[?].
• May 30 - A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits northern Afghanistan killing up to 5,000.
• June 3 - Eschede train disaster: an ICE high speed train derails, causing 101 deaths.
• July 5 - Japan launches a probe to Mars, and thus joins the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation.
• August 5 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq officially suspends all cooperation with UNSCOM teams.
• August 26 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Scott Ritter resigns from UNSCOM, sharply criticized the Clinton administration and the U.N. Security Council for not being vigorous enough about insisting that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction be destroyed. Ritter told reporters that "Iraq isn't disarming," "Iraq retains the capability to launch a chemical strike."
• September 29 - Iraq disarmament crisis: The United States Congress passes the "Iraq Liberation Act", which states that the U.S. wants to remove Saddam Hussein from power and replace the government with a democratic institution.
• October 6 - Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming college student, is found tied to a fence, the victim of a gay-bashing. He dies on October 12, becoming a symbol of victims of gay-bashing and sparking public reflection on homophobia.
• October 7 - Oslo Fornebu Airport closes.
• October 8 - Oslo Gardermoen Airport opens.
• October 31 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq expels U.N. inspectors from the country.
• November 13-14 - Iraq disarmament crisis: U.S. President Clinton orders airstrikes on Iraq. Clinton then calls it off at the last minute when Iraq promises once again to "unconditionally" cooperate with UNSCOM
• November 18 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM inspectors return to Iraq.
• November 23-26 - Iraq disarmament crisis: According to UNSCOM, Iraq once again ends cooperation with the U.N. inspectors, alternately intimidating and withholding information from them.
• December 11 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq announces that U.N. weapons inspections will no longer take place on Friday, the Muslim day of rest. Iraq also refuses to provide test data from the production of missiles and engines.
• December 16-19 - Iraq disarmament crisis: U.S. President Clinton orders American and British airstrikes on Iraq. UNSCOM withdraws all weapons inspectors from Iraq.
• December 19 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan announces that Iraq will no longer cooperate and declares that UNSCOM's "mission is over."
• December 21 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council members France, Germany and Russia call for sanctions to end against Iraq. The three Security Council members also call for UNSCOM to either be disbanded or for its role to be recast. The U.S. says it will veto any such proposal.
• December 26 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq announced its intention to fire upon US and British warplanes that patrol the northern and southern "no-fly zones".
• December 29 - Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the genocide in Cambodia that claimed over 1 million in the 1970s.

• The third World Parliament of Religions is held in Cape Town
• United States Congress passes, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which gives copyright holders 20 more years of copyright privilege on work which they control the copyright. This effectively freezes the public domain to works created before 1923 in the United States.

Art, Culture & Fashion

• 1998 in film
  • Shakespeare in Love
  • Saving Private Ryan starring Tom Hanks
• 1998 in literature
  • Building Western Civilization: From the Advent of Writing to the Age of Steam - Alan I. Marcus
• 1998 in music
• 1998 in sports
• 1998 in television
  • Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? premieres in the U.K.. A year later, Regis Philbin would host an American version.
  • The Price is Right, airs his 5,000th episode on CBS

Births

Deaths

• January 4 - Mae Questel[?], actress
• January 5 - Sonny Bono, singer, actor, United States Representative
• January 8 - Michael Tippett, composer
• January 15 - Junior Wells[?], musician
• January 19 - Carl Perkins, guitarist
• January 21 - Jack Lord[?], actor
• February 6 - Carl Wilson[?], musician ("The Beach Boys")
• February 6 - Falco, singer
• February 7 - Lawrence Sanders[?], author
• February 24 - Henny Youngman, comedian
• February 27 - J.T. Walsh[?], actor
• March 8 - Ray Nitschke[?], American football star
• March 10 - Lloyd Bridges[?], actor
• March 12 - Beatrice Wood, artist/ceramist
• March 13 - Bill Reid, Canadian artist
• March 15 - Benjamin Spock, pediatrician, writer, Olympics gold medalist
• March 31 - Bella Abzug[?], American politician
• April 6 - Tammy Wynette, country musician
• April 15 - Pol Pot, Cambodian dictator
• May 9 - Alice Faye[?], actress
• May 14 - Frank Sinatra, singer, actor
• May 15 - Earl Manigault[?], basketball player
• May 19 - Uno Sosuke, Japanese prime minister
• May 28 - Phil Hartman, Canadian graphic artist, writer, actor and comedian (*1948).
• May 29 - Barry M. Goldwater, Arizona Senator
• June 11 - Catherine Cookson[?], author
• August 26 - Frederick Reines, physicist (1995 Nobel Prize
• September 6 - Akira Kurosawa, Japanese film director

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Robert B. Laughlin[?], Horst L. Störmer[?], Daniel C. Tsui[?]
• Chemistry - Walter Kohn[?], John A Pople[?]
• Medicine - Robert F Furchgott[?], Louis J Ignarro[?], Ferid Murad[?]
• Literature - José Saramago
• Peace - John Hume and David Trimble
• Economics - Amartya Sen