1999

**1999** was a common year starting on Friday, the 1000th and last year of the 2nd millennium, the 100th and last year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1990s decade.

The year 1999 was designated as:

* International Year of Older Persons

## Events

### January

* January 1 – The euro is established.
* January 4 – Gunmen open fire on Shia Muslims worshiping in a mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 16 and injuring 25.
* January 10
	+ Sanjeev Nanda kills 3 policemen in New Delhi with his car, an act for which he is later acquitted, resulting in a sharp drop in public confidence in the Indian legal system.
	+ *The Sopranos* debuts on HBO.
* January 20 – The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet cafés.
* January 21 – In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 9,500 pounds (4.75 tons) of cocaine aboard headed for Houston.
* January 25 – The 6.2 Mw Armenia, Colombia earthquake hits western Colombia, killing at least 1,000.
* January 31 – *Family Guy* debuts on Fox.

### February

* February 4 – Unarmed Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race relations in the city.
* February 7 – King Hussein of Jordan dies from cancer, and his son Abdullah II inherits the throne.
* February 11 – Pluto moves along its eccentric orbit further from the Sun than Neptune. It had been nearer than Neptune since 1979, and will become again in 2231.
* February 12 – U.S. President Bill Clinton is acquitted in impeachment proceedings in the United States Senate.
* February 16
	+ In Uzbekistan, an apparent assassination attempt against President Islam Karimov takes place at government headquarters.
	+ Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrests one of their rebel leaders.
* February 21 – Sanna Sillanpää shoots 4 men, killing 3 at a shooting range in Finland.
* February 22 – Moderate Iraqi Shiite cleric Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr is assassinated.
* February 23
	+ Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.
	+ White supremacist John William King is found guilty of kidnapping and killing African American James Byrd Jr. by dragging him behind a truck for 2 miles (3 km).
	+ An avalanche destroys the village of Galtür, Austria, killing 31.
* February 24 – LaGrand case: The State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national involved in an armed robbery in 1982 that led to a death. Karl's brother Walter is executed a week later, in spite of Germany's legal action in the International Court of Justice to attempt to save him.
* February 27 – While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being aloft for 233 hours and 55 minutes.

### March

* March 1
	+ One of 4 bombs detonated in Lusaka, Zambia, destroys the Angolan Embassy.
	+ Rwandan Hutu rebels kill and dismember 8 foreign tourists at the Buhoma homestead, Uganda.
	+ The Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines comes into force.
* March 2 – The brand new Mandalay Bay hotel and casino opens in Las Vegas.
* March 3 – Walter LaGrand is executed in the gas chamber in Arizona.
* March 4 – In a military court, United States Marine Corps Captain Richard J. Ashby is acquitted of the charge of reckless flying which resulted in the deaths of 20 skiers in the Italian Alps, when his low-flying jet hit a gondola cable.
* March 12 – Former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic join NATO.
* March 15 – In Brussels, Belgium, the Santer Commission resigns over allegations of corruption.
* March 21
	+ Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.
	+ The 71st Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles with *Shakespeare in Love* winning Best Picture.
* March 23 – Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña.
* March 24
	+ NATO launches air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.
	+ A fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people, closing the tunnel for nearly 3 years.
* March 25 – Enron energy traders allegedly route 2,900 megawatts of electricity destined for California to the town of Silver Peak, Nevada, population 200.
* March 26
	+ The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.
	+ A Michigan jury finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.
* March 27 – Kosovo War: A U.S. F-117 Nighthawk is shot down by Serbian forces.
* March 28 – The animated sci-fi TV sitcom *Futurama* debuts on FOX.
* March 29 – For the first time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark, at 10,006.78.

### April

* April 1 – Nunavut, an Inuit homeland, is created from the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories to become Canada's third territory.
* April 5
	+ Two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 are handed over to Scottish authorities for eventual trial in the Netherlands. The United Nations suspends sanctions against Libya.
	+ In Laramie, Wyoming, Russell Henderson pleads guilty to kidnapping and felony murder, in order to avoid a possible death penalty conviction for the apparent hate crime killing of Matthew Shepard.
* April 7
	+ Kosovo War: Kosovo's main border crossings are closed by Yugoslav forces to prevent Kosovo Albanians from leaving.
	+ A bomb explodes at the Valley of the Fallen Church in Spain; GRAPO claims responsibility.
* April 8 – Bill Gates' personal fortune makes him the wealthiest individual in the world due to the increased value of Microsoft stock.
* April 9 – Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, president of Niger, is assassinated.
* April 13 – Tercentenary celebrations of the creation of the Sikh Khalsa are held.
* April 14
	+ Kosovo War: NATO warplanes repeatedly bomb ethnic Albanian refugee convoys for 2 hours over a 12-mile stretch of road, after mistaking them for Serbian military trucks, between Đakovica and Dečani in western Kosovo, killing at least 73 refugees.
* April 17 – A nail bomb, planted by David Copeland, explodes in the middle of a busy market in Brixton, South London.
* April 18 – Wayne Gretzky retires as a player from the National Hockey League.
* April 20 – Columbine High School massacre: Two Littleton, Colorado, teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, open fire on their teachers and classmates, killing 12 students and 1 teacher, and then themselves.
* April 25 – The term of Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman as the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia ends.
* April 26
	+ Sultan Salahuddin of Selangor, becomes the 11th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
	+ British TV presenter Jill Dando, 37, is shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, London.
* April 30
	+ Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), bringing the total members to 10.
	+ A third nail bomb (see April 17) explodes in The Admiral Duncan pub in Old Compton Street, Soho, London, killing a pregnant woman and two friends and injuring 70 others, including her husband. This is part of a hate campaign against ethnic minorities and gay people by David Copeland.

### May

 File:Mpule Kwelagobe.jpg
* May 1 – *SpongeBob SquarePants* premieres on Nickelodeon.
* May 2 – Norman J. Sirnic and Karen Sirnic are murdered by serial killer Ángel Maturino Reséndiz in Weimar, Texas.
* May 3
	+ 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak: A devastating tornado, rated F5 on the Fujita scale, slams into southern and eastern Oklahoma City metropolitan area, killing 36 people (+5 indirectly). It also produces the highest winds recorded on Earth: Template:Convert.
	+ The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time, at 11,014.70.
* May 6 – Elections are held in Scotland and Wales for the new Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales.
* May 7
	+ A jury finds *The Jenny Jones Show* and Warner Bros. liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure, after the show deceived Jonathan Schmitz into appearing on a secret same-sex crush episode.
	+ Kosovo War: In the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 3 Chinese embassy workers are killed and 20 others wounded when a NATO B-2 aircraft mistakenly bombs the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
	+ In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup.
* May 8 – Nancy Mace becomes the first female cadet to graduate from The Military College of South Carolina.
* May 12 – David Steel becomes the first Presiding Officer (Speaker) of the modern Scottish Parliament.
* May 13 – Carlo Azeglio Ciampi is elected President of Italy.
* May 17 – Ehud Barak is elected prime minister of Israel.
* May 19 - Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is released.
* May 26
	+ The Indian Air Force launches an attack on intruding Pakistan Army troops and mujahideen militants in Kashmir.
	+ In Trinidad and Tobago, Mpule Kwelagobe of Botswana will crown Miss Universe 1999.
	+ The first Welsh Assembly in over 600 years opens in Cardiff.
	+ The 1999 UEFA Champions League Final takes place at the Camp Nou Stadium, Barcelona in which the English side Manchester United defeats the German side Bayern Munich 2-1.
* May 27 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
* May 28
	+ Swedish police officers Robert Karlström (30) and Olov Borén (42) are wounded by 3 bank robbers armed with automatic weapons, and later executed with their own service pistols in Malexander, Sweden.
	+ After 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's *The Last Supper* is placed back on display in Milan, Italy.
* May 29
	+ Cathy O'Dowd, a South African mountaineer, becomes the first woman to summit Mount Everest from both the north and south sides.
	+ Nigeria terminates military rule, and the Fourth Nigerian Republic is established with Olusegun Obasanjo as president.

### June

 File:Clamshell iBook G3.jpg
* June 1
	+ Napster, a revolutionary music downloading service, debuts.
	+ American Airlines Flight 1420 overruns the runway in Little Rock, Arkansas; 11 people are killed.
* June 2 – After decades of fighting off outside technological influences like television, the King of Bhutan allows television transmissions to commence in the Kingdom for the first time, coinciding with the King's Silver Jubilee (see Bhutan Broadcasting Service).
* June 5 – The Islamic Salvation Army, the armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front, agrees in principle to disband in Algeria.
* June 6 – In Brazil, 345 prisoners escape from Putim prison through the front gate.
* June 8 – The government of Colombia announces it will include the estimated value of the country's illegal drug crops, exceeding half a billion US dollars, in its gross national product.
* June 9 – Kosovo War: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.
* June 10
	+ Kosovo War: NATO suspends its air strikes after Slobodan Milošević agrees to withdraw Yugoslav forces from Kosovo
	+ An underground pipeline leaks 237,000 gallons (897,000 liters) of gasoline before exploding at Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham, Washington, killing 1 adult and 2 children.
* June 12
	+ Kosovo War: Operation Joint Guardian/*Operation Agricola* begins: NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping forces KFOR enter the province of Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
	+ Texas Governor George W. Bush announces he will seek the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.
* June 14 – Thabo Mbeki is elected President of South Africa.
* June 18 – The J18 international anti-globalization protests are organized in dozens of cities around the world, some of which led to riots.
* June 19 – Turin, Italy, is awarded the 2006 Winter Olympics.
* June 30 – Twenty-three people die when fire consumes the Sealand Youth Training Center in South Korea.

### July

 File:LPnosunm.jpeg
* July 1
	+ The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Elizabeth II on the day that legislative powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh.
	+ Europol (short for European Police Office) the European Union's criminal intelligence agency becomes fully operational.
* July 2 – Benjamin Nathaniel Smith begins a 3-day killing spree targeting racial and ethnic minorities in Illinois and Indiana.
* July 5 – U.S. Army Pfc. Barry Winchell is bludgeoned in his sleep at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, by fellow soldiers; he dies the next day from his injuries.
* July 7 – In Rome, Hicham El Guerrouj runs the fastest mile ever recorded, at 3:43.13.
* July 8 – A major flash flood in Las Vegas swamps hundreds of cars, smashes mobile homes and kills 2 people.
* July 10 – American soccer player Brandi Chastain scores the game winning penalty kick against China in the FIFA Women's World Cup.
* July 11 – India recaptures Kargil, forcing the Pakistan Army to retreat. India announces victory, ending the 2-month conflict.
* July 16 – Off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, a plane crashes piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr., killing him, his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and her sister Lauren Bessette.
* July 20
	+ Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 - piloted by Gus Grissom in 1961 - is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
	+ Falun Gong is banned in the People's Republic of China under Jiang Zemin.
* July 22 – The first version of MSN Messenger is released by Microsoft.
* July 23
	+ NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is launched.
	+ ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo.
	+ Mohammed VI of Morocco becomes king upon the death of his father Hassan II.
* July 23–July 25 – The Woodstock 99 festival is held in New York.
* July 23 – 14 Kosovo Serb villagers are killed by ethnic Albanian gunmen in the village of Staro Gračko.
* July 26 – The last Checker taxi cab is retired in New York City and auctioned off for approximately $135,000.
* July 27 – Twenty-one people die in a canyoning disaster near Interlaken, Switzerland.
* July 31 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the lunar surface.

### August

 File:Izmit eart2.jpg
* August 7 – Hundreds of Chechen guerrillas invade the Russian republic of Dagestan, triggering a short war.
* August 8 – The first Callatis Festival, the largest music & culture festival in Romania, is held.
* August 9 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time fires his entire cabinet.
* August 10
	+ Buford O. Furrow, Jr. wounds 5 and kills 1 during the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting.
	+ The Atlantique incident occurs as an intruding Pakistan Navy plane is shot down in India. The incident sparks tensions between the 2 nations, coming just a month after the end of the Kargil War.
* August 11
	+ A total solar eclipse is seen in Europe and Asia.
	+ Salt Lake City tornado: A very rare F2 tornado strikes Salt Lake City, killing 1.
* August 17 – The 7.6 Mw İzmit earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (*Violent*), leaving 17,118–17,127 dead and 43,953–50,000 injured.
* August 19 – In Belgrade, tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand the resignation of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević.
* August 22
	+ Mandarin Airlines Flight 642 crashes in Hong Kong.
	+ GPS Week Numbers reset to 0.
* August 26 - The Second Chechen War starts
* August 30 – East Timor votes for independence from Indonesia in a referendum.
* August 31 – Apple Computer releases the Power Macintosh G4.

### September

* September 7
	+ A magnitude 5.9 earthquake hits Athens, killing 143 and injuring more than 2,000.
	+ Viacom and CBS merge.
* September 8 – The first of a series of Russian apartment bombings occurs. Subsequent bombings occur on September 13 and 16, while a bombing on September 22 fails.
* September 9 – The Sega Dreamcast is released in North America as well as Sonic Adventure.
* September 12 – Under international pressure to allow an international peacekeeping force, Indonesian president BJ Habibie announces that he will do so.
* September 14 – Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations.
* September 21 – The 921 earthquake, also known as the Jiji earthquake (magnitude 7.6 on the Richter scale), kills about 2,400 people in Taiwan.

### October

 File:Mars Climate Orbiter during tests.jpg
* October – NASA loses one of its probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter.
* October – Cold War: The last Russian military soldiers withdraw from the Baltic states ending Soviet/Russian military presence that lasted since 1940.
* October 1 – Shanghai Pudong International Airport opens in China, taking over all international flights from Hongqiao.
* October 5 – Thirty-one people die in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash, west of London, England.
* October 12
	+ Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attempts to dismiss Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf and install ISI director Ziauddin Butt in his place. Senior Army generals refuse to accept the dismissal. Musharraf, who is out of the country, attempts to return in a commercial airliner. Sharif orders the Karachi airport to not allow the plane to land. The generals lead a coup d'état, ousting Sharif's administration and taking over the airport. The plane lands with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf takes control of the government.
	+ Date selected by the UN as when the world population reaches 6 billion people.
* October 13 – The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
* October 15 – A National Geographic Society press conference reveals the fossil of *Archaeoraptor* (which is later found to be a forgery).
* October 22 – Grand Theft Auto 2 is released on PlayStation.
* October 27 – Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and 6 other members.
* October 29 – a super cyclonic storm impacts Orissa, India, killing approximately 10,000 people.
* October 31
	+ EgyptAir Flight 990, travelling from New York City to Cairo, crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on board. When the pilot leaves the cockpit, the co-pilot causes the Boeing 767 to enter a steep dive, resulting in impact with the Atlantic Ocean.
	+ Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Church leaders sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.

### November

* November 6 – Australians defeat a referendum proposing the replacement of the Queen and the Governor General with a President to make Australia a republic.
* November 9 – TAESA Flight 725, covering the route Tijuana–Guadalajara–Uruapan–Mexico City, crashes a few minutes after takeoff from Uruapan International Airport, killing 18 people on board. This event causes the bankruptcy of the Mexican airline a few months later.
* November 12 – The 7.2 Template:M Düzce earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (*Violent*). At least 845 people were killed and almost 5,000 were injured.
* November 18 – The Aggie Bonfire collapses in College Station, Texas, killing 12.
* November 19 – Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh of Trinidad and Tobago proposes that the United Nations create an International Men's Day, which is now commemorated every year on this same date.
* November 20 – The People's Republic of China launches the first Shenzhou spacecraft.
* November 21 – The film *The Wizard of Oz* begins its run on cable TV, which continues to this day. On cable it is telecast several times a year, like most other films, rather than being shown only once annually.
* November 23 – The National Assembly of Kuwait revokes a 1985 law that granted women's suffrage.
* November 26 – The 7.5 Mw Ambrym earthquake shakes Vanuatu and a destructive tsunami follows. Ten people were killed and forty were injured.
* November 27 – The left-wing Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government, with leader Helen Clark becoming the second female Prime Minister in New Zealand's history.
* November 30
	+ The ExxonMobil merger is completed, forming the largest corporation in the world.
	+ WTO Protests – Protesters block delegates' entrance to WTO meetings in Seattle, United States.

### December

 File:Canary.wharf.and.dome.london.arp.jpg
* December 3
	+ Six firemen from Worcester, Massachusetts, were killed in the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse fire.
	+ After rowing for 81 days and 2,962 nautical miles (5486 km), Tori Murden became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone, when she reached Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.
	+ NASA lost radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander, moments before the spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere.
* December 5 - Bolivian municipal elections, the first election contested by Evo Morales' Movement for Socialism.
* December 18 – NASA launched the Terra platform into orbit, carrying 5 Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
* December 20 – The sovereignty of Macau is transferred from the Portuguese Republic to the People's Republic of China after 442 years of Portuguese settlement.
* December 22 – Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509, a Boeing 747-200F crashed shortly after take-off from London Stansted Airport due to pilot error. All 4 crew members were killed.
* December 24 – Indian Airlines Flight 814 was hijacked in Indian airspace between Kathmandu, Nepal and Delhi, India; landed at Amritsar, India; Lahore, Pakistan; Dubai; and Kandahar, Afghanistan. The ordeal lasted for 7 days.
* December 26 – Storm Lothar killed 137 people as it crossed France, southern Germany, and Switzerland.
* December 27 – Storm Martin caused damage throughout France, Spain, Switzerland and Italy, including an emergency due to flooding at the Blayais Nuclear Power Plant.
* December 30 – Former Beatle George Harrison was attacked at his home in Friar Park by 36-year-old Michael Abram.
* December 31
	+ The U.S. turned over complete administration of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian Government, as stipulated in the Torrijos–Carter Treaties of 1977.
	+ Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.
	+ Hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 ended with the release of all but one of the crew and passengers at Kandahar Airport, Afghanistan.
* December 31 - The world gathers around the world to welcome the arrival of the new millennium.
	+ In addition, it's the last day of the 2nd millennium, the 20th century, and the 1990s decade.

1. ↑ The Diallo Verdict: The Overview; 4 Officers in Diallo Shooting Are Acquitted of All Charges The New York Times
2. ↑ Template:Cite book
3. ↑ Template:Cite web
4. ↑ Template:Cite web
5. ↑ Template:Cite news