1998

**1998** (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday in the Gregorian calendar.

### January

- 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 2 - A gunman shoots Antario Teodoro Filho, Brazilian politician and radio presenter, in the middle of his broadcast.
- January 4-10 - A massive ice storm, caused by El Nino, strikes New England, southern Ontario and Quebec, resulting in widespread power failures, severe damage to forests, and a number of deaths.
- January 4 – Wilaya of Relizane massacres of 4 January 1998 in Algeria; over 170 killed in three remote villages.
- 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 - Cosmologists announce that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing.
- January 11 – Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria; over 100 people killed.
- January 12 – 19 European nations agree to forbid 1998 like a 1999 one human cloning.
- January 14 – Researchers in Dallas, Texas present findings about an enzyme that slows aging and cell death (apoptosis).
- January 15 – The stalker of Howard Stern, Lance Carvin, is sentenced to  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 part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
- January 28 - Ford Motor Company announces the buyout of Volvo Cars 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

- February 3 - A low-flying US military airplane cuts the cable of a cable car near Trento, Italy, killing 20 people.
- February 3 - President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosian resigns.
- February 4 - A magnitude 6.1 earthquake kills more than 5,000 people in Northeastern Afghanistan.
- February 7-22 - The 1998 Winter Olympics are held in 1998 like a 2000 one for Nagano, Japan.
- February 16 - China Airlines Flight 676 crashes into a residential area near Chiang Kai-shek Airport in Taipei, killing 202 people, including 6 on the ground.
- February 20 - Saddam Hussein negotiates a deal with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, allowing weapons inspectors to return to Baghdad, preventing military action by the US and the UK.
- February 20-March 27 - The 1998 Auckland power crisis lasts five weeks.
- February 22-23 - The 1998 Kissimmee tornado outbreak strikes central Florida, including Orlando. Forty-two people are killed.
- February 26 - A solar eclipse is seen over the Caribbean Sea.

### March

- March 2 - Data sent from the Galileo probe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
- March 2 - In Austria, Natascha Kampusch is kidnapped by Wolfgang Priklopil, being held in captivity until August 2006.
- March 11 - Prime Minister of Denmark Poul Nyrup Rasmussen is re-elected.
- March 24 - A cyclone hits Bangladesh.
- March 26 - In Algeria, 52 people are killed in the Oued Bouaicha massacre.

### April

- April 5 - The Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge is opened to traffic in Japan, connecting Honshu and Shikoku.
- April 6 - Pakistan tests a medium-range missile.
- April 10 - In Northern Ireland the Good Friday Agreement is signed by the British and Irish governments and most political parties in Northern Ireland.
- April 29 - The Kyoto Protocol is signed.

### May

- May 11 - India conducts 3 underground nuclear tests.
- May 21 - Suharto resigns as President of Indonesia, with Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie succeeding him.
- May 26 - Bear Grylls becomes the youngest British person to climb Mount Everest.
- May 28 – Pakistan explodes 5 nuclear devices.
- May 30 - A magnitude 6.6 earthquake kills up to 5,000 people in Afghanistan.

### June

- June 3 - An ICE high speed train derails at Eschede between Hanover and Hamburg, killing 101 people.
- June 7 - The Guinea-Bissau Civil War begins.
- June 30 - Joseph Estrada becomes the 13th President of the Philippines.

### July

- July 5 - Japan launches a probe to Mars.
- July 6 - Hong Kong International Airport opens.
- July 12 - The France national football team wins the FIFA World Cup on home soil against the Brazil national football team, 3-0.

- July 17 - At a conference in Rome 120 countries vote to create an International Criminal Court.
- July 17 - A tsunami is triggered by an undersea earthquake off Papua New Guinea, destroying  10 villages and killing thousands of people.
- July 17 - 80 years after being executed Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family are buried at the St. Catherine chapel in Saint Petersburg.

### August

- August 2 - The Second Congo War begins.
- August 7 - Andres Pastrana Arango becomes President of Colombia.
- August 7 - During major flooding the Yangtze River breaks through the main bank, with the death toll exceeding 12,000 people.
- August 7 - The US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania are bombed, killing 224 people. Al-Qaeda is believed to be responsible.
- August 10 - Jamil Mahuad becomes President of Ecuador.
- August 15 - The Omagh bombing is carried out by the IRA in Northern Ireland.
- August 17 - Bill Clinton admits having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
- August 24 - The first RFID human implantation  is tested in the United Kingdom.
- August 28 - Said Musa becomes Prime Minister of Belize.

### September

- September 2 - Swissair Flight 111, travelling from New York City to Geneva, crashes off the coast of Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, killing all 229 people on board.
- September 4 - Google Inc. is founded in California by Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
- September 27 - After 16 years as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Helmut Kohl of the CDU is voted out, with the SPD's Gerhard Schroeder being elected to succeed him.

### October

- October 3 - John Howard is elected to a second term as Prime Minister of Australia.
- October 8 - Oslo Gardermoen Airport opens.
- October 14 - Eric Robert Rudolph is charged with four bombings in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996.
- October 16 - While receiving medical treatment in the UK, Augusto Pinochet is put under house arrest under an arrest warrant from Spain.
- October 17 - 1,082 people are killed when an oil pipeline in Nigeria explodes.
- October 27 - Gerhard Schroeder becomes Chancellor of Germany, officially succeeding Helmut Kohl.
- October 29 - Hurricane Mitch makes landfall in Central America, causing a large amount of destruction and killing over 18,000 people across Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

### November

- November 3 - Hurricane Mitch weakens after leaving a trail of destruction across Central America.
- November 20 - A Russian Proton rocket is launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
- November 26 - Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to speak at the Irish Parliament.

### December

- December 6 - Hugo Chávez is elected President of Venezuela, taking office in February 1999.
- December 16 - Bill Clinton orders air strikes on Iraq.
- December 29 - Khmer Rouge leaders apologise for the genocide committed in Cambodia under Pol Pot's rule.
- December 31 - An extra leap second is added onto the end of the year.

## Births

- January 28 – Ariel Winter, American actress
- February 24 – Erica Parsons, American murder victim (d. December 17, 2011).
- February 25 – Brendon Baerg, American actor
- April 9 – Elle Fanning, American actress
- April 12 – Diana Quer, Spanish murder victim (d. 2016)
- April 24 – Ryan Whitney, American actress
- April 28 – Byron Ward, American Basketball Player
- June 15 – Rachel Covey, American actress
- July 1 – Hollie Steel, English singer
- July 8 – Jaden Smith, American actor
- July 24 – Bindi Irwin, Australian-American conservationist, singer & actress
- August 1 – Nahid Kiani, Iranian taekwondo practitioner
- August 8 – Ronan Parke, English singer
- September 21 – Lorenzo Brino, American actor
- September 21 – Myrinda Brino, American actress
- September 21 – Nikolas Brino, American actor
- September 21 – Zachary Brino, American actor
- October 6 – Mia-Sophie Wellenbrink, German actress and singer
- November 23 – Bradley Steven Perry, American actor and singer
- December 2 – Gabbi Garcia, Filipina actress
- December 9 – Mika Dela Cruz, Filipina actress

### January

- January 1 - Helen Wills Moody, American tennis player (born 1905)
- January 5 - Sonny Bono, American singer, actor and politician (born 1935)
- January 7 - Vladimir Prelog, Croatian chemist (born 1906)
- January 8 - Michael Tippett, English composer (born 1905)
- January 9 - Kenichi Fukui, Japanese chemist (born 1918)
- January 11 - Klaus Tennstedt, German conductor (born 1926)
- January 19 - Carl Perkins, American guitarist (born 1932)
- January 21 - Jack Lord, American actor (born 1920)
- January 23 - Alfredo Ormando, Italian writer (born 1958)
- January 28 - Shotari Ishinomari, Japanese manga artist (born 1938)

### February

- February 6 - Falco, Austrian singer and musician (born 1957)
- February 6 - Carl Wilson, American musician (born 1946)
- February 8 - Halldor Laxness, Icelandic writer (born 1902)
- February 8 - Julian Lincoln Simon, American economist and writer (born 1932)
- February 8 - Enoch Powell, British politician (born 1912)
- February 17 - Ernst Juenger, German writer (born 1895)
- February 26 - Theodore Schultz, American economist (born 1902)
- February 27 - George H. Hitchings, American scientist (born 1905)
- February 28 - Dermot Morgan, Irish actor and comedian (born 1952)

### March

- March 3 - Fred W. Friendly, American television journalist and executive (born 1915)
- March 10 - Lloyd Bridges, American actor (born 1913)
- March 12 - Judge Dread, English musician (born 1945)
- March 12 - Beatrice Wood, American artist and ceramicist (born 1893)
- March 12 - Jozef Kroner, Slovakian actor (born 1924)
- March 15 - Benjamin Spock, American athlete, pediatrician and writer (born 1903)
- March 16 - Derek Harold Richard Barton, British chemist (born 1918)
- March 21 - Galina Ulanova, Russian ballerina (born 1910)
- March 25 - Daniel Massey, British actor (born 1933)
- March 27 - Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche, Austrian automobile designer and businessman (born 1909)
- March 31 - Bella Abzug, American politician (born 1920)

### April

- April 1 - Gene Evans, American actor (born 1920)
- April 2 - Rob Pilatus, member of the pop group Milli Vanilli (born 1965)
- April 6 - Tammy Wynette, American singer (born 1942)
- April 15 - Pol Pot, Cambodian dictator (born 1925)
- April 16 - Marie-Louise Meilleur, Canadian supercentenarian (born 1880)
- April 17 - Linda McCartney, American photographer and musician (born 1941)
- April 19 - Octavio Paz, Mexican writer (born 1914)
- April 23 - Konstantinos Karamanlis, Greek politician (born 1907)
- April 23 - James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. (born 1928)
- April 25 - Christian Mortensen, Danish-born American supercentenarian (born 1882)
- April 27 - Carlos Castaneda, Peruvian-American anthropologist and writer (born 1925)

### May

- May 1 - Eldridge Cleaver, American activist (born 1935)
- May 2 - Hide, Japanese musician (born 1964)
- May 2 - Justin Fashanu, English footballer (born 1961)
- May 2 - Kevin Lloyd, British actor (born 1949)
- May 7 - Allan McLeod Cormack, South African-born physicist (born 1924)
- May 14 - Frank Sinatra, American singer and entertainer (born 1915)
- May 19 - Sōsuke Uno, Prime Minister of Japan (born 1922)
- May 22 - John Derek, American actor and movie director (born 1926)
- May 28 - Phil Hartman, Canadian-born American artist, writer, actor and comedian (born 1948)
- May 29 - Barry Goldwater, American politician (born 1909)

### June

- June 2 - Junkyard Dog, American professional wrestler (born 1952)
- June 8 - Sani Abacha, President of Nigeria (born 1943)
- June 11 - Catherine Cookson, British writer (born 1906)
- June 13 - Birger Ruud, Norwegian athlete (born 1911)
- June 23 - Maureen O'Sullivan, Irish actress (born 1911)

### July

- July 3 - Danielle Bunten Berry, American software developer (born 1949)
- July 19 - Elmer Valo, Slovakian baseball player (born 1921)
- July 21 - Alan Shepard, American astronaut (born 1923)
- July 30 - Buffalo Bob Smith, American children's TV host (born 1917)

### August

- August 1 - Eva Bartok, Hungarian actress (born 1927)
- August 3 - Alfred Schnittke, Russian-born composer (born 1934)
- August 4 - Yuri Artyukhin, Soviet cosmonaut (born 1930)
- August 5 - Todor Zivkov, Bulgarian Communist leader (born 1911)
- August 6 - André Weil, French mathematician (born 1906)
- August 9 - Frankie Ruiz, Puerto-Rican singer (born 1958)
- August 26 - Frederick Reines, American physicist (born 1918)

### September

- September 2 - Allen Drury, American writer (born 1918)
- September 5 - Leo Penn, American actor and director (born 1921)
- September 6 - Akira Kurosawa, Japanese screenwriter, producer and director (born 1910)
- September 13 - George Wallace, American politician (born 1919)
- September 14 - Yang Shangkun, Chinese politician (born 1907)
- September 21 - Florence Griffith-Joyner, American athlete (born 1959)
- September 26 - Betty Carter, American singer (born 1929)
- September 29 - Tom Bradley, American politician, Mayor of Los Angeles, California (born 1917)

### October

- October 3 - Roddy McDowall, British actor (born 1928)
- October 14 - Frankie Yankovic, American polka musician (born 1915)
- October 17 - Joan Hickson, British actress (born 1906)
- October 28 - Ted Hughes, British poet (born 1930)

### November

- November 3 - Bob Kane, American cartoonist (born 1915)
- November 8 - Jean Marais, French actor (born 1913)
- November 10 - Mary Millar, British actress (born 1917)
- November 25 - Nelson Goodman, American philosopher (born 1906)

### December

- December 2 - Brian Stonehouse, British painter and World War II secret agent (born 1918)
- December 7 - Martin Rodbell, American scientist (born 1925)
- December 8 - Aaron Hopa, New Zealand rugby player (b. 1971)
- December 16 - William Gaddis, American writer (born 1922)
- December 17 - Claudia Benton, Peruvian-born child psychologist (born 1959)
- December 20 - Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, British scientist (born 1914)
- December 28 - Robert Rosen, American biologist (born 1934)
- December 30 - Keisuke Kinoshita, Japanese movie director (born 1912)
- December 30 - George Webb, British actor (born 1911)

## Nobel Prizes

- Physics - Robert B. Laughlin, Horst L. Stroemer, Daniel Chee Tsui
- Chemistry - Walter Kohn, John Pople
- Physiology or Medicine - Robert F. Furchgott, Louis J. Ignarro, Ferid Murad
- Literature - Jose Saramago
- Nobel Peace Prize - John Hume, David Trimble
- Economics - Amartya Sen

## Movies released

- _Saving Private Ryan_
- _Armageddon_
- _There's Something About Mary_
- _A Bug's Life_
- _Doctor Dolittle_
- _Rush Hour_
- _Deep Impact_
- _Godzilla_
- _Patch Adams_
- _Antz_
- _The Big Lebowski_
- _Blade_
- _Chairman of the Board_
- _Dark City_
- _Elizabeth_
- _Enemy of the State_
- _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- _Human Remains_
- _Hurlyburly_
- _Lethal Weapon 4_
- _Lost in Space_
- _The Mask of Zorro_
- _Mulan_
- _The Negotiator_
- _Pi_
- _Pleasantville_
- _Rushmore_
- _Shakespeare in Love_
- _Six Days Seven Nights_
- _Small Soldiers_
- _The Thin Red Line_
- _Very Bad Things_
- _The Waterboy_
- _The Wedding Singer_
- _The Parent Trap''

## Hit songs

- "Never Ever" - All Saints
- "Ray of Light" – Madonna
- "Cruel Summer" – Ace of Base
- "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It"- Will Smith
- "The Boy Is Mine" - Brandy Norwood and Monica (entertainer)
- "My Heart Will Go On" – Céline Dion
- "Goodbye (song)" - Spice Girls
- "Crush" – Jennifer Paige
- "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)" – The Offspring
- "The Dope Show"-Marilyn Manson
- "Dragula" - Rob Zombie
- "Time of Your Life (Good Riddance)" – Green Day
- "Iris" – Goo Goo Dolls
- "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" – Aerosmith
- "One Week"-Barenaked Ladies
- "The Way" – Fastball
- "Uninvited" – Alanis Morissette
- "You're Still the One" – Shania Twain
- "This Kiss" - Faith Hill
- "Nothin' But The Tailights" - Clint Black

## New books

- QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter