1998 - What happened in 1998 ?

January 1998

Friday 02:

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

Thursday 08:

Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life in prison for planning the World Trade Center bombing and for planning Project Bojinka.

Saturday 17:

Paula Jones accuses President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.

Sunday 18:

Monica Lewinsky affair story on his website The Drudge Report.

Thursday 22:

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

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.

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

Monday 02:

Data sent from the Galileo spaceprobe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.

Thursday 05:

NASA announces the choice of United States Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins as the first woman commander of a space shuttle mission.

Tuesday 10:

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

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

Sunday 05:

In Japan, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge linking Shikoku with Honshu and costing about US$3.8 billion, opens to traffic, becoming the largest suspension bridge in the world.

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.

Monday 20:

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

May 1998

Sunday 10:

National elections are held in Hungary.

Monday 11:

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

Saturday 23:

The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum, with a high margin of three-fourth 'yes' votes to Northern Ireland.

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.

Saturday 30:

A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits northern Afghanistan, killing up to 5,000.

June 1998

Tuesday 02:

The CIH computer virus is discovered in Taiwan.

Wednesday 03:

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

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 05:

Japan launches a probe to Mars, and thus joins the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation.

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.

Saturday 18:

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

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

Saturday 15:

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

Friday 21:

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

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.

Monday 31:

North Korea reportedly launchs Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite.

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.

Tuesday 08:

At Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, Mark McGwire breaks Roger Maris' 1961 record of 61 home runs hit in a single season.

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.

Sunday 20:

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

October 1998

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).

Wednesday 07:

Gay student Matthew Shepard, beaten the night before, is left tied to a fence and dies in Laramie, Wyoming, United States.

Saturday 24:

Tropical Storm Mitch reaches hurricane strength.

Wednesday 28:

An Air China jetliner is hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan. After landing the plane safely, Yuan Bin was arrested.

Saturday 31:

Iraq disarmament crisis begins: Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.

November 1998

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.

Saturday 14:

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

Tuesday 24:

America Online announces it will acquire Netscape Communications in a stock-for-stock transaction worth US$4.2 billion.

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.

Tuesday 08:

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

Saturday 19:

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

Saturday 26:

1998 - Severe gales over Ireland, northern England, and southern Scotland. Widespread disruption, widespread power outages in Northern Ireland and southern Scotland

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.