1998 - What happened in 1998 ?

January 1998

Sunday 04:

Wilaya of Relizane massacres in Algeria; over 170 are killed in three remote villages.

Wednesday 14:

An Afghan cargo plane crashes into a mountain in southwest Pakistan killing more than 50 people.

Saturday 17:

Paula Jones accuses President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.

Thursday 22:

Suspected Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski pleads guilty and accepts a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

Monday 26:

Compaq buys Digital Equipment Corporation.

February 1998

Tuesday 03:

Cavalese cable-car disaster: a United States Military pilot causes the death of 20 skiers in Italy riding on a lift suspended by a cable snapped by the low-flying plane.

Tuesday 10:

Voters in Maine repeal a gay rights law passed in 1997 becoming the first U.S. state to abandon such a law.

Monday 16:

China Airlines Flight 676 crashed into a residential area near by Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, killing 202 people, included all 196 on board and six on the ground.

Wednesday 18:

Two white separatists are arrested in Nevada and accused of plotting a biological attack on New York City subways.

Saturday 28:

Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive againt the KLA in Kosovo.

March 1998

Wednesday 04:

Gay rights: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.

Tuesday 10:

American troops stationed in the Persian Gulf begin to receive the first vaccinations against anthrax.

Tuesday 24:

Jonesboro massacre: In Jonesboro, Arkansas, two boys (aged 11 and 13 years) fire upon students at Westside Middle School. Four students and one teacher are killed and 10 injured.

Thursday 26:

Oued Bouaicha massacre in Algeria; 52 people killed with axes and knives, 32 of them babies under the age of 2.

Tuesday 31:

Netscape gives the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement, thus creating Mozilla Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation to oversee the development of Mozilla.

April 1998

Monday 06:

1998 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 49.82 to close at 9,033.23 -- its first-ever close above 9,000.

Tuesday 07:

Citicorp and Travelers Group announce plans to merge creating the largest financial-services conglomerate in the world, Citigroup.

Thursday 09:

The National Prisoner of War Museum is dedicated in Andersonville, Georgia, on the site of an American Civil War POW camp.

Thursday 16:

One of the most serious urban tornadoes in history does significant damage to downtown Nashville, Tennessee (see Nashville Tornado of 1998).

Monday 20:

German terrorist group Red Army Faction announces their dissolution after 28 years.

May 1998

Saturday 02:

The European Central Bank is founded in Brussels in order to define and execute the EU's monetary policy.

Wednesday 06:

The body of former CIA director William Colby was found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he’d disappeared.

Monday 11:

ZDTV, "the official technology television network", begins broadcasting. It lasts six years before merging with G4 to become G4techTV, a gaming channel.

Friday 22:

Lewinsky scandal: A federal judge rules that United States Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the scandal, involving President Bill Clinton.

Wednesday 27:

Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.

June 1998

Tuesday 02:

The CIH computer virus is discovered in Taiwan.

Friday 05:

Both Reuters and ABC news erroneously report the death of comedian Bob Hope after Arizona congressman Bob Stump announces the demise of Hope on the floor of the US Congress.

Monday 08:

Charlton Heston assumes the presidency of the U.S. National Rifle Association.

Thursday 11:

Compaq Computer pays $9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in largest high-tech acquisition.

Thursday 25:

In Clinton v. City of New York, the United States Supreme Court decides that the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 is unconstitutional.

July 1998

Friday 10:

Catholic priests' sex abuse scandal: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.

Sunday 12:

KDE 1.0 released.

Friday 17:

Biologists report in the journal Science how they sequenced the genome of the bacterium that causes syphilis, Treponema pallidum.

Saturday 18:

A 23-foot tidal wave kills nearly 3,000 people in Papua New Guinea.

Saturday 25:

The United States Navy commissions the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and puts her into service.

August 1998

Saturday 15:

Omagh bomb in Northern Ireland, becoming the worst terrorist incident of The Troubles

Monday 17:

Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about his relationship.

Thursday 20:

1998 U.S. embassy bombings: The United States military launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum is destroyed in the attack.

Monday 24:

The Netherlands is selected as the site for the trial of the two Libyan suspects of the 1988 PanAm bombing.

Friday 28:

Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.

September 1998

Wednesday 02:

The UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide.

Monday 07:

Google Inc. is founded.

Friday 11:

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr sends a report to the U.S. Congress accusing President Bill Clinton of 11 possible impeachable offenses.

Monday 14:

Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.

Friday 18:

ICANN is formed.

October 1998

Thursday 01:

ICANN assumes responsibility for selling top-level domain names for the Internet.

Sunday 04:

Leafie Mason of Hughes Springs, Texas, is murdered by Ángel Maturino Reséndiz. She is the serial killer's second victim in his second incident.

Monday 12:

U.S. Congress passes Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Friday 23:

1998 - Swatch Internet Time introduced

Thursday 29:

Hurricane Mitch made landfall in Honduras.

November 1998

Sunday 01:

The European Court of Human Rights is instituted.

Tuesday 03:

Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is elected Governor of the U.S. state of Minnesota.

Monday 09:

Brokerage houses are ordered to pay US$1.03 billion to cheated NASDAQ investors to compensate for their price-fixing. This is the largest civil settlement in United States history.

Thursday 12:

Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler.

Monday 30:

Deutsche Bank announces a US$10 billion deal to buy Bankers Trust, thus creating the largest financial institution in the world.

December 1998

Tuesday 08:

81 people killed by armed groups in the Tadjena massacre in Algeria.

Friday 11:

A Thai Airways Airbus A310-200 crashes just short of runway at Surat Thani Airport, killing 101.

Wednesday 16:

Operation Desert Fox: American and British troops begin to bomb Iraqi targets after Iraq obstructs UN weapons inspectors.

Saturday 19:

The U.S. House of Representatives passes articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.

Monday 28:

Claudia Benton of West University Place, Texas is murdered in her home by Angel Maturino Resendiz. This is Angel's third victim in his third incident.