1998

1998 (MCMXCVIII) was .
Events
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 Chavez 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).