1999 - What happened in 1999 ?

January 1999

Sunday 03:

The Mars Polar Lander launched.

Wednesday 20:

The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet bars.

Thursday 21:

War on Drugs: In one of the one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 9,500 pounds (4,300 kg) of cocaine on board.

Saturday 23:

1999 - Australian Christian missionary Graham Stewart Stains and his two sons are burned alive by radical Hindus while sleeping in their car in eastern India.

Sunday 31:

Super Bowl XXXIII: The Denver Broncos defeat the Atlanta Falcons, 34-19. After the game, the TV show Family Guy airs its pilot episode.

February 1999

Monday 01:

North Dakota Public Radio is launched.

Friday 19:

Dennis Franz receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Tuesday 23:

An avalanche destroys the Austrian village of Galtür, killing 31.

Wednesday 24:

A China Southern Airlines Tupolev TU-154 airliner crashes on approach to Wenzhou airport in eastern China killing 61.

Saturday 27:

Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Nigeria's first elected president since mid-1983.

March 1999

Wednesday 03:

Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones begin their successful attempt to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon without stopping.

Thursday 04:

In a military court, Captain Richard Ashby of the United States Marines is acquitted of the charge of reckless flying which resulted in the deaths of 20 skiers in the Italian Alps when his low-flying jet hit a gondola cable.

Thursday 11:

Infosys becomes the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Tuesday 23:

Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña.

Wednesday 24:

Kosovo War: NATO commences air bombardment against Yugoslavia. This marks the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.

April 1999

Thursday 01:

Nunavut is established as a Canadian territory carved from the eastern part of the Northwest Territories.

Monday 05:

In Laramie, Wyoming, United States, Russell Henderson pleads guilty to kidnapping and felony murder in order to avoid a possible death penalty conviction for the hate crime killing of Matthew Shepard.

Wednesday 07:

Kosovo War: Kosovo's main border crossings are closed by Serbian forces to prevent ethnic Albanians from leaving.

Friday 09:

Nigerian President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara is assassinated.

Tuesday 20:

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 12 students and a teacher before turning their guns on themselves in the Columbine High School massacre.

May 1999

Sunday 02:

Panamanian election: Mireya Moscoso became the first woman to be elected President of Panama.

Monday 03:

1999 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time in its history at 11,014.70.

Monday 17:

Ehud Barak is elected prime minister of Israel.

Sunday 23:

In Kansas City, Missouri, Owen Hart (playing The Blue Blazer) falls 90 feet to his death while being lowered into a World Wrestling Federation ring.

Saturday 29:

In Jerusalem, Israel, Charlotte Nilsson wins the forty-fourth Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden singing "Take Me To Your Heaven".

June 1999

Tuesday 08:

War on Drugs: The government of Colombia announces it will include the estimated value of the country's illegal drug crops, exceeding half a billion US dollars, in its gross national product.

Thursday 10:

Kosovo War: NATO suspends its air strikes after Slobodan Milo?evi? agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.

Tuesday 15:

George Morber Senior and Carolyn Frederick are murdered by Ángel Maturino Reséndiz in Gorham, Illinois, USA. They are his eighth and ninth victims, in his seventh and final incident.

Wednesday 16:

Thabo Mbeki elected President of South Africa.

Friday 25:

The American soap opera Another World airs its 8891st and final episode.

July 1999

Thursday 01:

The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on the day powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh.

Thursday 08:

Allen Lee Davis is executed by electrocution by the state of Florida. That is the last use of the Electric Chair for capital punishment in Florida.

Thursday 15:

Safeco Field opens in Seattle, Washington.

Sunday 25:

Lance Armstrong wins first Tour de France.

Saturday 31:

NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.

August 1999

Wednesday 11:

A total solar eclipse visible from Europe and Asia.

Sunday 15:

Beni Ounif massacre in Algeria; some 29 people killed at a false roadblock near the Moroccan border, leading to temporary tensions with Morocco.

Tuesday 17:

A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.

Monday 30:

East Timorese vote for independence in a referendum.

Tuesday 31:

The first of a series of Russian Apartment Bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others.

September 1999

Wednesday 01:

A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 74, including 10 on the ground.

Monday 13:

Bomb explodes in Moscow, Russia. At least 119 people are killed.

Tuesday 21:

Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead.

Thursday 23:

NASA announces that it lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter.

Thursday 30:

Japan's worst nuclear accident at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tokai-mura, northeast of Tokyo. Workers overload a container with uranium, exposing workers and local residents to very high radiation levels.

October 1999

Friday 08:

U.S. President George W. Bush announces the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security, which will be headed by Tom Ridge.

Monday 11:

The Lord of the Rings movies begin principal photography.

Tuesday 12:

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tries to dismiss Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf, who is returning to Pakistan from abroad in a commercial airliner. Sharif orders the Karachi airport to not allow the plane to land. Army leaders refuse to accept the dismissal and, in a coup, oust Sharif's administration and take over the airport. The plane lands with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf assumes control of the country.

Wednesday 13:

The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Tuesday 26:

Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.

November 1999

Thursday 18:

In Jasper, Texas, 24-year old Shawn Allen Berry is sentenced to life in prison, becoming the third person convicted in the racially-motivated dragging death of James Byrd, Jr..

Friday 19:

In Istanbul, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ends a two-day summit by calling for a political settlement in Chechnya and adopting a Charter for European Security.

Saturday 20:

The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.

Thursday 25:

The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution designating November 25 as the annual International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women.

Saturday 27:

A new era in government begins in New Zealand as the left-wing Labour Party takes control with leader Helen Clark, the first elected female Prime Minster in New Zealand's history.

December 1999

Friday 03:

NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

Thursday 16:

Mud streams kill thousands in Venezuela.

Monday 20:

Macau is handed over to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.

Tuesday 21:

The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives intended by ETA to blow down Torre Picasso.

Friday 31:

The Panama Canal comes completely under Panama's jurisdiction.