1998
1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year that started on a Thursday. In the Gregorian calendar, it was the 1998th year of the Common Era, or of Anno Domini; the 998th year of the 2nd millennium; the 98th year of the 20th century; and the 9th of the 1990s. The year 1998 was designated: International Year of the Ocean by UNESCO.[1]
Events
January
February
March
April
May
- May 11
- India conducts 3 underground nuclear tests in Pokhran, including 1 thermonuclear device.
- The first euro coins are minted in Pessac, France. Because the final specifications for the coins were not finished in 1998, they will have to be melted and minted again in 1999.
- May 13–May 14 – Riots directed against Chinese Indonesians break out in Indonesia. Indonesian natives destroy and burn Chinese Indonesian-owned properties and kill and rape more than 1,000 Chinese Indonesians.
- May 19 – The Galaxy IV communications satellite fails, leaving 80–90% of the world's pagers without service.
- May 21 – Suharto resigns, after 32 years as President of Indonesia and his 7th consecutive re-election by the Indonesian Parliament (MPR). Suharto's hand-picked Vice President, B. J. Habibie, becomes Indonesia's third president.
- May 26 – Bear Grylls, 23, becomes the youngest British climber to scale Mount Everest.[2]
- May 28 – Nuclear testing: In response to a series of Indian nuclear tests codenamed Chagai-I, Pakistan explodes 5 nuclear devices of its own in the Chaghai hills of Baluchistan, prompting the United States, Japan and other nations to impose economic sanctions. Pakistan celebrates Youm-e-Takbir.
- May 30
June
July
- July 5 – Japan launches a probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as an outer space-exploring nation.
- July 6 – The new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok opens, while the historic Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport closes.
- July 12 – France beats Brazil 3–0 in the World Cup final.
- July 17
- At a conference in Rome, 120 countries vote to create a permanent International Criminal Court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
- In Saint Petersburg, Nicholas II of Russia and his family are buried in St. Catherine Chapel, 80 years after he and his family were killed by Bolsheviks.
- A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea, killing an estimated 1,500, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.
- Biologists report in the journal Science how they sequenced the genome of the bacterium that causes syphilis, Treponema pallidum.
August
- August 2 – Second Congo War begins. 3,900,000 people are killed before it ends in 2003, making it the bloodiest war, to date, since World War II.
- August 7
- Yangtze River Floods: In China the Yangtze River breaks through the main bank; before this, from August 1–5, peripheral levees collapsed consecutively in Jiayu County Baizhou Bay. The death toll exceeds 12,000, with many thousands more injured.
- August 7 – 1998 U.S. embassy bombings: The bombings of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya kill 224 people and injure over 4,500; they are linked to terrorist Osama Bin Laden, an exile of Saudi Arabia.
- August 15 – Omagh bombing, A terrorist bombing carried out in Northern Ireland by the Real IRA.
- August 24 – The first RFID human implantation is tested in the United Kingdom.
September
October
November
December
Date unknown
Births
- February 15 – Zachary Gordon, American Actor
- April 6 – Peyton Roi List, American actress
- April 9 – Elle Fanning, American actress
- April 24 – Ryan Newman, American actress
- July 8 – Jaden Smith, American actor
- July 22 – Madison Pettis, American actress
- July 31 – Rico Rodriguez, American actor
- August 25 – China Anne McClain, American actress and singer
- November 23 – Bradley Steven Perry, American actor and singer
- December 22 – G. Hannelius, American actress
Deaths
January
- January 1 – Helen Wills Moody, American tennis player (b. 1905)
- January 4 – Mae Questel, American actress (b. 1908)
- January 5 – Sonny Bono, American singer, actor, and politician (b. 1935)
- January 7 – Vladimir Prelog, Croatian chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1906)
- January 8 – Michael Tippett, English composer (b. 1905)
- January 9 – Kenichi Fukui, Japanese chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918)
- January 11
- January 15 – Junior Wells, American harmonica player (b. 1934)
- January 16
- January 18 – Monica Edwards, British writer (b. 1912)
- January 19 – Carl Perkins, American guitarist (b. 1932)
- January 21 – Jack Lord, American actor (b. 1920)
- January 23 – Alfredo Ormando, Italian writer (b. 1958)
- January 28 – Shotaro Ishinomori, Japanese Manga artist, "Father of Henshin heroes" (b. 1938)
February
March
- March 2 – Darcy O'Brien, American author (b. 1939)
- March 3 – Fred W. Friendly, American television journalist and executive (b. 1915)
- March 7 – Bernarr Rainbow, historian of music education, organist, and choir master, (b. 1914)
- March 8 – Ray Nitschke, American football player (b. 1936)
- March 10 – Lloyd Bridges, American actor (b. 1913)
- March 12
- March 13
- March 15 – Benjamin Spock, American athlete, pediatrician, and author (b. 1903)
- March 16 – Derek Harold Richard Barton, British chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918)
- March 20 – George Howard, American jazz saxophone musician (b. 1956)
- March 25 – Daniel Massey, English actor (b. 1933)
- March 27 – Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche, Austrian auto designer and businessman (b. 1909)
- March 31 – Bella Abzug, American politician (b. 1920)
April
- April 1
- April 2 – Rob Pilatus, member of the pop group Milli Vanilli (b. 1965)
- April 3 – Charles Lang, American cinematographer (b. 1901)
- April 5 – Cozy Powell, English rock drummer (b. 1947)
- April 6
- April 11 – Rodney Harvey, American actor and model (b. 1967)
- April 13 – Patrick de Gayardon, French skydiver and skysurfing pioneer (b. 1960)
- April 15
- April 16
- April 17
- April 19 – Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1914)
- April 21
- April 22 – Kitch Christie, South African rugby coach (b. 1940)
- April 23
- April 25
- April 26 – Joan Mary Wayne Brown, British author who the pseudonyms Mary Gervaise, Hilary Wayne and Bellamy Brown (b. 1906)
- April 27
May
June
- June 1 – Darwin Joston, American actor (b. 1937)
- June 2
- June 3 – Poul Bundgaard, Danish actor and singer (b. 1922)
- June 5 – Jeanette Nolan, American actress (b. 1911)
- June 8
- June 10 – Hammond Innes, English author (b. 1914)
- June 11 – Catherine Cookson, English author (b. 1906)
- June 12 – Theresa Merritt, American actress (b. 1924)
- June 13 – Birger Ruud, Norwegian athlete (b. 1911)
- June 20 – Conrad Schumann, East German border guard (b. 1942)
- June 22 – Benny Green, British writer, radio broadcaster and saxophonist (b. 1927)
- June 23 – Maureen O'Sullivan, Irish actress (b. 1911)
- June 25 – Lounès Matoub, Berber Kabyle singer (b. 1956)
July
August
- August 1 – Eva Bartok, Hungarian actress (b. 1927)
- August 2 – Shari Lewis, American ventriloquist (b. 1933)
- August 3 – Alfred Schnittke, Russian-born composer (b. 1934)
- August 4 – Yuri Artyukhin, cosmonaut (b. 1930)
- August 5 – Todor Zivkov, former president of Bulgaria (b. 1911)
- August 6 – André Weil, French mathematician (b. 1906)
- August 9 – Frankie Ruiz, Puerto Rican singer (b. 1958)
- August 13 – Julien Green, French-born American writer (b. 1900)
- August 24 – E. G. Marshall, American actor (b. 1910)
- August 25 – Lewis F. Powell, Jr., American Justice of the Supreme Court (b. 1907)
- August 26 – Frederick Reines, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918)
September
- September 1 – Cary Middlecoff, American golfer (b. 1921)
- September 2
- September 5
- September 6 – Akira Kurosawa, Japanese screenwriter, producer, and director (b. 1910)
- September 8 – Leonid Kinskey, Russian-born actor (b. 1903)
- September 9 – Lucio Battisti, Italian singer (b. 1943)
- September 10 – Carl Forgione, British actor (b. 1944)
- September 11 – Dane Clark, American actor (b. 1912)
- September 13 – George Wallace, American politician (b. 1919)
- September 14
- September 17 – Gustav Nezval, Czech actor (b. 1907)
- September 20 – Muriel Humphrey, Wife of Vice President Hubert Humphrey (b. 1912)
- September 21 – Florence "Flo-Jo" Griffith-Joyner, American runner (b. 1959)
- September 23 – Mary Frann, American actress (b. 1943)
- September 26 – Betty Carter, American jazz singer (b. 1929)
- September 27 – Narita Bryan, Japanese racehorse (b. 1991)
- September 30
October
- October 2
- October 3 – Roddy McDowall, British actor (b. 1928)
- October 6 – Mark Belanger, American baseball player (b. 1944)
- October 8 – Zhang Chongren, Chinese artist (b. 1907)
- October 9 – Ian Johnson, Australian cricketer (b. 1917)
- October 10 – Tommy Quaid, Irish hurler (b. 1957)
- October 11 – Richard Denning, American actor (b. 1914)
- October 12 – Matthew Shepard, American murder victim (b. 1976)
- October 13 – General Gérard Charles Édouard Thériault, Canadian Chief of the Defence Staff (b. 1932)
- October 14 – Frankie Yankovic, American musician (b. 1916)
- October 16 – Jon Postel, American Internet pioneer (b. 1943)
- October 17
- October 22 – Eric Ambler, British writer (b. 1909)
- October 28
- October 29 – Ted Hughes, English poet (b. 1930)
November
December
- December 1 – Freddie Young, American cinematographer (b. 1902)
- December 2
- December 5 – Hazel Bishop, American Chemist and inventor of Lipstick (b. 1906)
- December 6 – César Baldaccini, French sculptor (b. 1921)
- December 7
- December 11 – Lynn Strait, vocalist for band Snot (b. 1968)
- December 12 – Lawton Chiles, U.S. Senator from Florida and Governor of Florida (b. 1930)
- December 13 – Lew Grade, British impresario (b. 1906)
- December 14
- December 16 – William Gaddis, American writer (b. 1922)
- December 17 – Claudia Benton, Peruvian-born child psychologist (b. 1959)
- December 18 – Lev Demin, cosmonaut (b. 1926)
- December 20
- December 21 – Roger Avon, British actor (b. 1914)
- December 22 – Michelle Thomas, American actress (b. 1969)
- December 23 – David Manners, Canadian-American actor (b. 1900)
- December 25 – John Pulman, English snooker player (b. 1923)
- December 26 – Hurd Hatfield, American actor (b. 1917)
- December 28 – Robert Rosen, American biologist (b. 1934)
- December 30
Nobel Prizes
Templeton Prize
Fields Medal
External links
References