1998 - What happened in 1998 ?

January 1998

Friday 02:

Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence.

Wednesday 14:

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

Thursday 22:

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

Tuesday 27:

American First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton appears on the Today Show calling the attacks against her husband part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

Thursday 29:

In Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic, killing one and severely wounding another. Serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph is suspected as the culprit.

February 1998

Monday 02:

A Cebu Pacific airlines DC-9-32 crashes into a mountain near Cagayan de Oro, Philippines, killing 104

Friday 06:

Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Saturday 07:

The 1998 Winter Olympic Games open in Nagano, Japan.

Monday 23:

Netscape Communications Corporation announces the foundation of mozilla.org, to co-ordinate the development of the open source Mozilla web browser.

Saturday 28:

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

March 1998

Tuesday 10:

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

Saturday 14:

An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hits southeastern Iran.

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.

Sunday 12:

Catastrophical earthquake in Slovenia in Poso?je 5,6 on the Richter scale.

Thursday 16:

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

May 1998

Thursday 07:

Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for US$40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.

Monday 11:

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

Thursday 14:

After nine years on the air, the series finale of the television sitcom Seinfeld airs on NBC.

Monday 18:

United States v. Microsoft: The United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states file an antitrust case against Microsoft.

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.

June 1998

Wednesday 03:

Eschede train disaster: an ICE high speed train derails in Lower Saxony, Germany, causing 101 deaths.

Thursday 04:

Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

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.

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

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.

Friday 24:

Russel Eugene Weston Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.

Saturday 25:

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

Tuesday 28:

Monica Lewinsky scandal: Ex-White House intern, Monica Lewinsky receives transactional immunity in exchange for her grand jury testimony concerning her relationship with US President Bill Clinton.

August 1998

Friday 07:

1998 U.S. embassy bombings: Bombing of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya kills 224 people and injures over 4,500.

Saturday 15:

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

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.

Friday 21:

The United States destroys a pharmaceutical plant (erroneously believed to be a chemical weapons plant) in Sudan.

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

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.

Friday 18:

ICANN is formed.

Sunday 20:

Baseball: After playing 2,632 consecutive games for the Baltimore Orioles, Cal Ripken, Jr takes a day off.

Friday 25:

A Pauknair BAE146 crashes into hillside in Morocco killing 38.

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.

Tuesday 06:

Gay-bashing: Near Laramie, Wyoming, University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard is viciously attacked by two assailants for being gay (he died on October 12).

Sunday 11:

A Congo Air Lines Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo killing 40

Tuesday 27:

Gerhard Schröder becomes Chancellor of Germany for the first time.

November 1998

Sunday 01:

The European Court of Human Rights is instituted.

Friday 06:

Hugo Chávez is elected president of Venezuela

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.

Saturday 14:

Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra are married in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Thursday 26:

Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland's parliament.

December 1998

Tuesday 01:

Exxon announces a US$73.7 billion deal to buy Mobil, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the largest company on the planet.

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.

Thursday 17:

Claudia Benton is murdered in her West University, Texas home by Angel Maturino Resendiz. She is his fifth murder victim in his fourth incident.

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.