1998

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

## Events 
### January 
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* 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.
 Embassy in Kenya after the bombing]]
* 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 
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 caused by Hurricane Mitch]]
* 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

## Deaths 
### January 
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* 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 
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* 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 
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* 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 
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* 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 
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* 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 
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* 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 
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* 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 
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* 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 
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* 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

## References