Notable Historical Events - 1999
1999 Historical Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
Jan 1 |
International Year of Elderly |
Jan 1 |
The Euro currency is introduced. |
Jan 2 |
A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern United States, causing 14 inches (359 mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 19 inches (487 mm) in Chicago, where temperatures plunge to -13°F (-25°C); 68 deaths are reported. |
Jan 3 |
Israel detains, and later expels, 14 members of Concerned Christians. |
Jan 3 |
The Mars Polar Lander was launched. |
Jan 4 |
Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is sworn in as governor of Minnesota. |
Jan 4 |
Gunmen open fire on Shiite Muslims worshipping in an Islamabad mosque, killing 16 people and injuring 25. |
Jan 7 |
Impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton begins in the US Senate. |
Jan 10 |
25th People's Choice Awards: Tom Hanks & Sandra Bullock win (Dramatic Motion Picture) and Tim Allen & Helen Hunt win (TV) |
Jan 10 |
Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook) achieves his third UK No.1 single with 'Praise You' |
Jan 10 |
"The Sopranos", starring James Gandolfini as mobster Tony Soprano, debuts on HBO |
Jan 11 |
26th American Music Award: Celine Dion & Eric Clapton win |
Jan 11 |
Marty Schottenheimer resigns as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs |
Jan 13 |
Basketball player Michael Jordan announces his retirement only to return in 2001 |
Jan 15 |
The Racak incident: 45 Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak are killed by Yugoslav security forces. |
Jan 17 |
"The Miss", Minnesota Viking placekicker Gary Anderson had become the first kicker in history to finish the regular season without missing a field goal or extra point attempt, but misses a field goal late in the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship Game, allowing the Atlanta Falcons to tie the game and eventually win it in overtime |
Jan 20 |
The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet cafés. |
Jan 21 |
In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the US Coast Guard intercepts a ship carrying 4,300 kg of cocaine. |
Jan 22 |
Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons are burned alive by radical Hindus while sleeping in their car in Eastern India. |
Jan 25 |
A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia killing at least 1,000. |
Jan 31 |
Seth MacFarlane's "Family Guy" first airs on Fox |
Feb 3 |
In Jammu and Kashmir the political party Democratic Janata Dal (Jammu and Kashmir) is revived. |
Feb 4 |
MV New Carissa runs aground near Coos Bay, Oregon. |
Feb 4 |
Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race-relations in the city. |
Feb 6 |
NFL Pro Bowl: AFC beats NFC 23-10 |
Feb 7 |
Crown Prince Abdullah becomes the King of Jordan on the death of his father, King Hussein. |
Feb 12 |
President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial. |
Feb 15 |
Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party, widely recognized as terrorist organization), was arrested in Kenya. |
Feb 15 |
7th ESPY Awards: Mark McGwire, Chamique Holdsclaw win |
Feb 16 |
O.J. Simpson's 1968 Heisman Trophy is sold for $230,000 to help settle a $33.5 million civil judgement against Simpson for the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend |
Feb 16 |
Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrested one of their rebel leaders, Abdullah Öcalan. |
Feb 23 |
Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey. |
Feb 23 |
An avalanche destroys the Austrian village of Galtür, killing 31. |
Feb 23 |
Hip Hop artist Eminem releases his first major record album 'The Slim Shady LP' (Grammy 2000 - Rap album) |
Feb 24 |
The State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national involved in an armed robbery, in spite of Germany's legal action to attempt to save him. |
Feb 24 |
A China Southern Airlines Tupolev TU-154 airliner crashes on approach to Wenzhou airport in eastern the People's Republic of China, killing 61. |
Feb 24 |
41st Grammy Awards: My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme From Titanic), Lauryn Hill wins |
Feb 26 |
15th Soap Opera Digest Awards - General Hospital wins |
Feb 27 |
Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Nigeria's first elected president since mid-1983. |
Feb 27 |
Korea International School is founded by Soon-Il Chung. It is currently directed by Ann Clapper. |
Mar 5 |
Paul Okalik is elected first Premier of Nunavut. |
Mar 8 |
The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing. |
Mar 11 |
Infosys becomes the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. |
Mar 12 |
Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO. |
Mar 15 |
Pluto again becomes outermost planet |
Mar 20 |
Legoland California, the first and only Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California. |
Mar 20 |
19th Golden Raspberry Awards: An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn wins |
Mar 21 |
Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon. |
Mar 21 |
71st Academy Awards - "Shakespeare in Love", Roberto Benigni & Gwyneth Paltrow win |
Mar 23 |
Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña. |
Mar 24 |
Kosovo War: NATO commences air bombardment against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country. |
Mar 24 |
Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire: 39 people die when a Belgian transport truck carrying flour and margarine caught fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel. |
Mar 25 |
13th Soul Train Music Awards: Luther Vandross, R. Kelly & Lauryn Hill win |
Mar 26 |
The "Melissa worm" infects Microsoft word processing and e-mail systems around the world. |
Mar 26 |
A jury in Michigan finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man. |
Mar 28 |
18th NCAA Women's Basketball Championship: at San Jose |
Mar 29 |
61st NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: at ThunderDome St Petersburg |
Mar 29 |
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 10006.78 - above the 10,000 mark for the first time ever. |
Mar 31 |
"10 Things I Hate About You", a modernization of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, starring Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger, is released |
Apr 1 |
Nunavut is established as a Canadian territory carved out of the eastern part of the Northwest Territories. |
Apr 5 |
Two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 are handed over for eventual trial in the Netherlands. |
Apr 7 |
The World Trade Organisation rules in favor of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with the European Union over bananas. |
Apr 8 |
Haryana Gana Parishad, a political party in the Indian state of Haryana, merges with the Indian National Congress. |
Apr 9 |
Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, President of Niger, is assassinated. |
Apr 11 |
63rd Golf Masters Championship: José María Olazábal wins, shooting a 280 |
Apr 12 |
US President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements" in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit. |
Apr 14 |
NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees - Yugoslav officials say 75 people are killed. |
Apr 14 |
A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$1.7 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history. |
Apr 18 |
Wayne Gretzky plays his last game in the NHL, as his New York Rangers lose 2-1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins |
Apr 19 |
The German Bundestag returns to Berlin. |
Apr 20 |
Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School located in Jefferson County, Colorado. |
Apr 29 |
Avala TV Tower near Belgrade is destroyed in NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. |
Apr 30 |
Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bringing the total members to 10. |
May 1 |
125th Kentucky Derby: Chris Antley aboard Charismatic wins in 2:03.29 |
May 2 |
Panamanian election, 1999: Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman to be elected President of Panama. |
May 2 |
John Elway announces his retirement from the NFL |
May 3 |
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is slammed by an F5 tornado killing forty-two people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado was one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. |
May 3 |
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time in its history at 11,014.70. |
May 3 |
Stephen Hendry defeats Mark Williams 18-11 to win the World Snooker Championship for a record seventh time. |
May 5 |
34th Academy of Country Music Awards: Garth Brooks, Faith Hill & Tim McGraw wins |
May 7 |
Kosovo War: In Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, three Chinese citizens are killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. |
May 7 |
In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup. |
May 7 |
Pope John Paul II travels to Romania becoming the first pope to visit a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054. |
May 7 |
A jury finds The Jenny Jones Show and Warner Bros. liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure, after the show purposely deceived Jonathan Schmitz to appear on a secret same-sex crush episode. Schmitz later killed Amedure and the jury awarded Amedure's family $25 million USD. |
May 8 |
Nancy Mace becomes the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel military college. |
May 12 |
Sir David Steel becomes the first Presiding Officer (speaker) of the modern Scottish Parliament. |
May 21 |
All My Children star Susan Lucci finally wins a Daytime Emmy after being nominated 19 times, the longest period of unsuccessful nominations in television history |
May 24 |
Venezuela enters the Antarctic Treaty System. |
May 25 |
The United States House of Representatives releases the Cox Report which details the People's Republic of China's nuclear espionage against the U.S. over the prior two decades. |
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 |
In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece "The Last Supper" is put back on display. |
May 28 |
Two Swedish police officers are murdered with their own fire arms by the bank robbers Jackie Arklöv and Tony Olsson after a dramatic car chase. |
May 29 |
Olusegun Obasanjo takes office as President of Nigeria, the first elected and civilian head of state in Nigeria after 16 years of military rule. |
May 29 |
Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station. |
May 30 |
Indianapolis 500: Kenny Bräck wins in 3:15:51.182 (246.513 km/h) |
Jun 2 |
The Bhutan Broadcasting Service brings television transmissions to the Kingdom for the first time. |
Jun 5 |
131st Belmont: Jose Santos aboard Lemon Drop Kid wins in 2:27.88 |
Jun 6 |
53rd Tony Awards: Fosse & Side Man win |
Jun 6 |
In Australian Rules Football, Tony Lockett breaks the record for career goals, previously 1299 by Gordon Coventry and which had stood since 1937. |
Jun 6 |
At the Putim maximum security prison in Brazil, 345 prisoners run from the main gate in the largest jailbreak in Brazilian history, marking the 10th escape for the three-year-old facility. In the ensuing manhunt, two fugitives are killed and five innocent bystanders are accidentally jailed. |
Jun 9 |
Kosovo War: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and North Atlantic Treaty Organization sign a peace treaty. |
Jun 10 |
Kosovo War: NATO suspends its air strikes after Slobodan Milošević agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo. |
Jun 12 |
Kosovo War: Operation Joint Guardian begins - a NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping force KFor enters the province of Kosovo in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. |
Jun 16 |
Thabo Mbeki is elected 2nd President of a democratic South Africa |
Jun 19 |
At about 4:30 pm, Stephen King is hit by a car on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine. He would suffer numerous injuries, including a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, scalp laceration and a broken hip |
Jun 20 |
99th US Golf Open: Payne Stewart shoots a 279 at Pinehurst CC |
Jun 22 |
Former Mpumalanga premier, Ndaweni Mahlangu causes a storm within political circles with his now infamous statement, "It is acceptable for politicians to lie", South Africa |
Jun 25 |
53rd NBA Championship: San Antonio Spurs beat New York Knicks, 4 games to 1 |
Jun 25 |
In his first state of the nation address, South African President Thabo Mbeki promises to tackle rampaging crime; the nation's murder rate is the third highest in the world and more than 49,000 cases of rape were reported in 1998 |
Jun 27 |
ATB go to No.1 on the UK singles chart with '9pm, Till I Come' |
Jun 27 |
The Chemical Brothers go to No.1 on the UK album chart with 'Surrender', their second No.1 album |
Jun 27 |
45th LPGA Championship won by Juli Inkster |
Jul 1 |
The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on the day powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh. |
Jul 4 |
106th Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Lindsay Davenport beats Steffi Graf (6-4 7-5) |
Jul 4 |
113th Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Pete Sampras beats Andre Agassi (6-3 6-4 7-5) |
Jul 6 |
U.S. Army private Barry Winchell dies from baseball-bat injuries inflicted in his sleep the previous day by fellow soldiers for his relationship with transgendered showgirl and former Navy combat medic, Calpernia Addams. |
Jul 8 |
Allen Lee Davis is executed by electrocution by the state of Florida, the last use of the electric chair for capital punishment in Florida. |
Jul 9 |
Days of student protests begin after Iranian police and hardliners attack a student dormitory at the University of Tehran. |
Jul 11 |
20th US Seniors Golf Open: at Des Moines GC, W Des Moines, Iowa |
Jul 13 |
70th All Star Baseball Game: AL wins 4-1 at Fenway Park, Boston |
Jul 15 |
The inaugural game at the Seattle Mariners' Safeco Field was held in Seattle, Washington. |
Jul 15 |
Scientists uncover possible reason for SS Waratah's disappearance 100 years later; The SS Waratah was a luxury steamer which did not reach its destination in 1909, and no trace of the wreckage was ever found |
Jul 16 |
John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. The Piper Saratoga aircraft was piloted by Kennedy. |
Jul 18 |
128th British Golf Open: at Carnoustie Scot Paul Lawrie wins after play off |
Jul 20 |
Falun Gong is banned in the People's Republic of China, and a large scale crackdown of the practice is launched. |
Jul 23 |
Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Al-Hassan is crowned King Mohammed VI of Morocco on the death of his father. |
Jul 23 |
ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo, Japan. |
Jul 25 |
54th US Women's Open Golf Championship |
Jul 27 |
Tony Hawk is the first skateboarder to land a "900" |
Jul 31 |
Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector - NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface. |
Aug 2 |
"The Sixth Sense", starring Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, and Haley Joel Osment, premieres |
Aug 9 |
Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time fires his entire cabinet. |
Aug 9 |
The Diet of Japan enacts a law establishing the Hinomaru and Kimi Ga Yo as the official national flag and national anthem. |
Aug 9 |
Charles Kennedy wins the race to succeed Paddy Ashdown as the leader of the Liberal Democrats, UK |
Aug 11 |
Total solar eclipse in India-North -France (2m23s) |
Aug 11 |
The Salt Lake City Tornado tears through the downtown district of the city, killing one. |
Aug 12 |
Shakira records her first live album in New York City, titled "MTV Unplugged" |
Aug 15 |
Beni Ounif massacre in Algeria; some 29 people are killed at a false roadblock near the Moroccan border, leading to temporary tensions with Morocco. |
Aug 15 |
81st PGA Championship: Tiger Woods shoots a 277 at Medinah Country Club |
Aug 17 |
A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes İzmit, Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000. |
Aug 19 |
In Belgrade tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand the resignation of Slobodan Milošević as president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia |
Aug 26 |
Michael Johnson breaks the 400 metres world record with a time of 43.18 seconds. |
Aug 30 |
East Timorese vote for independence in a referendum. |
Aug 31 |
The first of a series of apartment bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others. |
Aug 31 |
A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including 2 on the ground. |
Aug 31 |
Dino Ciccarelli retires from the NHL |
Sep 7 |
A 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocks Athens, rupturing a previously unknown fault, killing 143, injuring more than 500, and leaving 50,000 people homeless. |
Sep 8 |
United States Attorney General Janet Reno names former Senator John Danforth to head an independent investigation of the 1993 fire at the Branch Davidian church near Waco, Texas in response to revelations in the film Waco: The Rules of Engagement contradicting the official government stories. |
Sep 8 |
"American Beauty", starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, and Thora Birch, premieres in Los Angeles |
Sep 9 |
16th MTV Awards: Lauryn Hill & Will Smith wins |
Sep 12 |
Indonesia announces it will allow international peace-keepers into East Timor. |
Sep 12 |
51st Emmy Awards: The Practice, Ally McBeal, Dennis Franz & Edie Falco win |
Sep 13 |
Bomb explodes in Moscow, Russia. At least 119 people are killed. |
Sep 13 |
John Elway's #7 jersey is retired by the Denver Broncos |
Sep 14 |
Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations. |
Sep 21 |
Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead. |
Sep 22 |
33rd Country Music Association Award: Shania Twain, Martina McBride & Tim McGraw wins |
Sep 23 |
NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter. |
Sep 23 |
Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm. While some passengers only received minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history to date. |
Sep 30 |
Japan's worst nuclear accident at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tōkai-mura, northeast of Tokyo. |
Oct 5 |
The Ladbroke Grove rail crash in west London kills 31 people. |
Oct 8 |
New Coligny Calendar, NCC, The beginning of a new era of the Coligny calendar, the oldest material Celtic calendar. |
Oct 9 |
The last flight of the SR-71. |
Oct 12 |
Pervez Musharraf takes power in Pakistan from Nawaz Sharif through a bloodless coup. |
Oct 12 |
The Day of Six Billion: the proclaimed 6 billionth living human in the world is born. |
Oct 12 |
Pat LaFontaine formally retires from the NHL due to lingering concussion problems |
Oct 13 |
The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). |
Oct 22 |
Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity. |
Oct 22 |
NHL goaltender Grant Fuhr wins his 400th career game (vs Florida Panthers) |
Oct 26 |
Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament. |
Oct 27 |
Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and 6 other members. |
Oct 29 |
Deadliest Indian Ocean tropical cyclone hits Orissa, India. This event was known as 1999 Orissa cyclone ever since. |
Oct 31 |
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. |
Oct 31 |
Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of circumnavigating the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted. |
Oct 31 |
EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board. |
Nov 6 |
Australians vote to keep the British monarch as their head of state in the Australian republic referendum. |
Nov 9 |
TAESA Flight 725, crashes a few minutes after leaving the Uruapan airport en-route to Mexico City. 18 people were killed in the accident. |
Nov 11 |
Last upside down date until January 1, 6000 |
Nov 12 |
The Düzce earthquake strikes Turkey with a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale. |
Nov 15 |
Next transit of Mercury visible in North America |
Nov 18 |
In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University when a massive bonfire under construction collapses. |
Nov 19 |
Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft. |
Nov 19 |
In Istanbul, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ends a two-day summit by calling for a political settlement in Chechnya and adopting a Charter for European Security. |
Nov 26 |
Steve Yzerman scores his 600th career goal |
Nov 27 |
The left-wing Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government with leader Helen Clark becoming the first elected female Prime Minister in New Zealand's history. |
Nov 28 |
87th CFL Grey Cup: Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeats Calgary Stampeders, 32-21 |
Nov 30 |
In Seattle, Washington, United States, protests against the WTO meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies. |
Nov 30 |
British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defence contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world. |
Dec 2 |
The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive. |
Dec 3 |
NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere. |
Dec 5 |
88th Davis Cup: Australia beats France in Nice (3-2) |
Dec 7 |
The RIAA files a lawsuit against the Napster file-sharing client, on charges of copyright infringement. |
Dec 17 |
The United Nations General Assembly passes resolution 54/134 designating November 25 as the annual International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women. |
Dec 18 |
NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT. |
Dec 20 |
Portugal returns Macau to China |
Dec 21 |
The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives that ETA intended to use to blow up Torre Picasso in Madrid. |
Dec 22 |
The Spanish Civil Guard finds near Calatayud (Zaragoza) another van loaded by ETA with 750 kg of explosives (see related event on December 21, 1999). |
Dec 26 |
Severe weather in France kills over 100 people and causes extensive damage to property, trees and the French national power grid (see Lothar). |
Dec 27 |
Joe Sakic records his 1,000th career point, an assist against the St. Louis Blues |
Dec 28 |
Saparmurat Niyazov is proclaimed President for Life in Turkmenistan. |
Dec 31 |
Control of Panama Canal reverts to Panama |
Dec 31 |
Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President. |
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