May 1998

May 1998 was the fifth month of that common year. The month, which began on a Friday, ended on a Sunday after 31 days.

Portal:Current events

This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from May 1998.

• May 8 – CBS telecasts The Wizard of Oz for the last time. Beginning in 1999, The Wizard of Oz will be shown on cable, and in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 it will be telecast by the WB Television Network in addition to its cable showings.
• 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 13–14 – Riots directed against Chinese Indonesians break out in Indonesia. Indonesian natives destroy and burn Chinese Indonesian-owned properties, however, most of the 1,000 people who died in the riots were the Javanese Indonesian looters who targeted the Chinese shops, not the Chinese themselves, since the looters were burnt to death in a massive fire.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}
• May 19
  • The Galaxy IV communications satellite fails, leaving 80–90% of the world's pagers without service.
  • The wreck of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, sunk during the Battle of Midway in 1942, is found near Midway Atoll by a team led by former US Navy officer Robert D. Ballard.
• May 21 – Suharto (elected 1967) 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.^[6]
• May 28 – Nuclear testing: In response to a series of Indian nuclear tests, Pakistan explodes 5 nuclear devices of its own in the Chaghai hills of Baluchistan, codenamed Chagai-I, prompting the United States, Japan and other nations to impose economic sanctions. Pakistan celebrates Youm-e-Takbir annually.

References