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1999




International Year of Older Persons

Events

   * Teletubbies Tinky Winky is outed starting controversy for the BBC, PBS
     and Jerry Falwell.
   * Kosovo War
   * Former child star Gary Coleman files for bankruptcy
   * Y2K preparation was a major event in 1999 both in actual events and in
     media over-reporting.
   * January 1 - Euro currency introduced.
   * January 1 - An avalanche destroys a school gymnasium during New Years'
     celebrations in Kangiqsualujjuaq in far northern Quebec, killing 9.
   * January 4 - Gunmen open fire on Shiite Muslims worshipping in an
     Islamabad mosque killing 16 people injuring 25.
   * January 6 - Bob Newhart receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
   * January 20 - The China News Service announces new government
     restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet bars.
   * January 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 of cocaine aboard. The ship was headed to
     Houston, Texas.
   * January 25 - A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia
     killing at least 1,000
   * February 4 - Hugo Ch‡vez Fr’as, Venezuelan military and politician, is
     elected President of Venezuela.
   * February 4 - Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead
     by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated
     stake-out, enflaming race-relations in the city.
   * February 5 - Mike Tyson is sentenced to a year's imprisonment, fined
     $5,000, and ordered to serve 2 years probation and perform 200 hours of
     community service for the August 31, 1998 assault on two people after a
     car accident.
   * February 10 - Avalanches in the French Alps near Geneva kill at least
     10.
   * February 12 - President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States
     Senate in his impeachment trial
   * February 16 - In Uzbekistan a bomb explodes and gunfire is heard at the
     government headquarters in an apparent assassination attempt against
     President Islam Karimov
   * February 16 - Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and
     hold hostages after Turkey arrested one of their rebel leaders,
     Abdullah Ocalan.
   * February 16 - In Jasper, Texas, testimony begins in the trial of John
     William King who is accused of dragging African American James Byrd Jr.
     to death in an apparent hate crime. King was later convicted and
     sentenced to the death penalty.
   * February 19 - Dennis Franz receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of
     Fame.
   * February 22 - Moderate Iraqi Shiite cleric Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr is
     assassinated.
   * February 23 - Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah …calan is charged with
     treason in Ankara, Turkey.
   * February 23 - White supremacist John William King is found guilty of
     kidnapping and killing African American James Byrd Jr by dragging him
     behind a truck for two miles.
   * February 24 - LaGrand Case: The State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand,
     a German national involved in an armed robbery that led to a death.
     Karl's brother Walter is executed a week later, in spite of Germany's
     legal action in the International Court of Justice to attempt to save
     him.
   * February 27 - While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air
     balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after
     being in a hot air balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.
   * February 27 - Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Nigeria's first elected
     president since mid-1983.
   * March 1 - One of four bombs detonated in Lusaka, Zambia, destroys the
     Angolan Embassy.
   * March 1 - Hutu rebels kill eight tourists in Uganda.
   * March 3 - LaGrand case: The State of Arizona executes Walter LaGrand, a
     German national involved in an armed robbery that led to a death.
     Walter's brother Karl had been executed a week earlier; Germany had
     initiated legal action in the International Court of Justice to attempt
     to save Walter.
   * March 3 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones begin their attempt to
     circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon without stopping. Their
     journey ended in success on March 20.
   * March 4 - Monica Lewinsky's book detailing her affair with Bill Clinton
     goes on sale in the United States
   * March 4 - 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.
   * March 8 - Oklahoma City bombing: The Supreme Court of the United States
     upholds the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh.
   * March 21 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to
     circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon
   * March 23 - Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis Maria
     Argana.
   * March 24 - NATO launches air strikes in Yugoslavia which was refusing
     to sign a peace treaty. This marks the first time NATO attacked a
     sovereign country.
   * March 26 - The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.
   * March 26 - A jury in Michigan finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of
     second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a
     terminally ill man (the incident was videotaped and aired on September
     17, 1998 edition of 60 Minutes).
   * March 29 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 10006.78 which is
     the first time the indice closed above the 10,000 mark.
   * April 1 - Nunavut, an Inuit homeland, part of the Northwest Territories
     becomes Canada's third territory.
   * April 5 - Two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am flight 103 in
     1988 are handed over for eventual trial in the Netherlands.
   * April 5 - In Laramie, Wyoming, Russell Henderson pleads guilty to
     kidnapping and felony murder in order to avoid a possible death penalty
     conviction for the apparent hate crime killing of Matthew Shepard.
   * April 7 - Kosovo War: Kosovo's main border crossings are closed by
     Serbian forces to prevent ethnic Albanians from leaving.
   * April 20 - Two Littleton, Colorado teenagers open fire on their
     teachers and fellow students. The teenagers killed 12 students, 1
     teacher and then turned their guns on themselves. See Columbine High
     School massacre.
   * May 6 - In New York, a parole board votes to release Amy Fisher who had
     been in prison for 7 years for shooting her lover's wife.
   * May 6 - Elections are held in Scotland and Wales for the new Scottish
     Parliament and National Assembly for Wales
   * May 7 - A jury finds The Jenny Jones Show and Warner Bros liable in the
     shooting death of Scott Amedure after the show purposely deceived
     Jonathan Schmitz to appear on a secret same-sex crush episode. Shmitz
     later killed Amedure and the jury awarded Amedure's family US$25
     million.
   * May 7 - Kosovo War: In Yugoslavia, three Chinese embassy workers are
     killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft mistakenly bombs the Chinese
     embassy in Belgrade.
   * May 7 - In Guinea-Bissau, President Jo‹o Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a
     military coup.
   * May 8 - Nancy Mace becomes the first female cadet to graduate from The
     Citadel military college.
   * May 12 - David Steel becomes the first Presiding Officer (speaker) of
     the modern Scottish Parliament.
   * May 13 - in Italy Carlo Azeglio Ciampi is elected President of the
     republic
   * May 17 - Ehud Barak is elected prime minister of Israel.
   * May 23 - In Kansas City, Missouri, Owen Hart (Blue Blazer) falls 90
     feet to his death while being lowered into a World Wrestling Federation
     ring.
   * May 27 - The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
     in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milosevic and four others
     for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
   * May 28 - In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo
     de Vinci's newly-restored masterpiece "The Last Supper" is put back on
     display.
   * June 18 - Carnival Against Capitalism
   * July 16 - Off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, a plane piloted by John
     F. Kennedy Jr. crashes with his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her
     sister Lauren Bessette on board. All three are killed in the crash.
   * July 20 - Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic
     Ocean.
   * July 31 - Mark O. Barton kills 9 in Atlanta, Georgia
   * July 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 - An earthquake in Turkey kills 13,000
   * August 9 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Prime Minister,
     Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time fires his entire cabinet.
   * August 10 - Buford O. Furrow, Jr. attempts a mass murder in Los Angeles
   * August 17 - A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes northwestern Turkey,
     killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.
   * August 19 - In Belgrade, tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand
     the resignation of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
   * Thiomargarita namibiensis largest bacteria ever discovered
   * October - NASA loses one of its Mars probes, the Climate Orbiter.
   * November 20 - The People's Republic of China launches the first
     Shenzhou spacecraft
   * December - NASA loses a second Mars probe, the Polar Lander.
   * December - The town council of Halfway, Oregon accepts an offer from
     the dot-com startup half.com to adopt the company name as its own.
   * December 17 - Iraq disarmament crisis: The United Nations Monitoring,
     Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) is created to replace
     UNSCOM. The U.N. Security council once again orders Iraq to allow
     inspections teams immediate and unconditional access to any weapons
     sites and facilities. Iraq rejects the resolution.
   * December 24 - An Indian Airlines jetliner from Kathmandul, Nepal to
     Delhi, India was hijacked and taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
   * December 29 - Former Beatle George Harrison is stabbed several times in
     the chest by an unknown assailant, who had broke into Harrison's home.
     Harrison's wife wrestled the knife out the assailant's hand before the
     police arrived. The man apparently believed that Harrison was the
     devil.
   * December 31 - Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, to be
     replaced by Vladimir Putin
   * December 31 - Five hijackers, who had been holding 155 hostages on an
     Indian Airlines plane, leave the plane with with two Islamic clerics
     that they had demanded be freed.
   * Fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people closing the tunnel for 3
     years.

Art, Culture & Fashion

   * 1999 in film
        o April 7 - Star Wars fans begin lining up at movie theaters in
          Westwood and Hollywood to buy tickets for Star Wars, Episode I -
          The Phantom Menace, a film that will not be opening for another
          six weeks.
        o May 3 - A Durham, North Carolina woman named Jennifer Briggs
          changes her name to Obi-Wan Kenobi Briggs in honor of the Star
          Wars character. Ms. Briggs wins $1000 from a local radio station
          for changing her name.
        o American Beauty
        o The Green Mile
        o Wachowski brothers' The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves
        o M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis and
          Haley Joel Osment
   * 1999 in sports
        o January 13 - Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls basketball team
          announces his retirement (for the second time -- he has since
          rescinded his retirement)
        o January 31 - Super Bowl XXXIII Denver Broncos (34) def. Atlanta
          Falcons (19)
        o The U.S. Women's Soccer Team Wins World Cup
   * 1999 in television
        o The Sopranos premieres on cable television
        o Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? premieres in the U.S., hosted by
          Regis Philbin. The show is based on a British show of the same
          name.

Deaths

   * January 2 - Rolf Liebermann, composer, aged 88
   * January 4 - Iron Eyes Cody, actor
   * January 14 - Aldo van Eyck, architect, aged 80
   * January 21 - Susan Strasberg, actress
   * January 29 - Lili St. Cyr, exotic dancer
   * January 30 - Huntz Hall, actor
   * February 7 - King Hussein of Jordan, aged 63 (cancer)
   * February 8 - Iris Murdoch, writer, aged 79
   * February 14 - John Ehrlichman, presidential advisor
   * February 20 - Gene Siskel, film critic
   * February 20 - Sarah Kane, playwright
   * February 22 - William Bronk, poet, aged 80 (or 81?)
   * February 24 - Andre Dubus, writer
   * March 2 - Dusty Springfield, American singer, aged 59
   * March 3 - Walter LaGrand, German national, executed by the State of
     Arizona
   * March 4 - Karel van het Reve, Dutch writer, aged 77
   * March 4 - Harry Blackmun, associate justice of the United States
     Supreme Court
   * March 5 - Richard Kiley, actor
   * March 7 - Stanley Kubrick, aged 70, American film director and writer
   * March 8 - Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player, one of Marilyn
     Monroe's husbands, aged 84
   * March 12 - Yehudi Menuhin, American violinist and musical director,
     aged 82
   * March 13 - Garson Kanin, writer, director
   * March 29 - Joe Williams, jazz singer
   * April 4 - Early Wynn, Baseball Hall of Famer
   * April 18 - Gian-Carlo Rota, Professor of Applied Mathematics and
     Philosophy at MIT, aged nearly 67
   * April 25 - Lord Killanin, former chairman of the IOC, aged 84
   * May 8 - Dana Plato, actress, aged 34
   * May 8 - Dirk Bogarde, aged 78, English actor (Death in Venice)
   * May 10 - Shel Silverstein, children's poet, aged 68
   * May 18 - Gene Sarazen, golfer, aged 97
   * May 18 - Augustus Pablo, Jamaican reggae singer
   * May 18 - Betty Robinson, winner of the first Olympic 100 m for women
   * May 26 - Waldo Semon, inventor
   * June 5 - Mel Torme, aged 73, American singer
   * June 16 - Screaming Lord Sutch, aged 58, founder of the Official
     Monster Raving Loony Party
   * June 17 - Basil Hume, archbishop of Westminster, aged 76
   * June 27 - Jorgos Papadopoulos, dictator of Greece, aged 80
   * July 1 - Joshua Nkomo, Zimbabwian politician, aged 83
   * July 2 - Mario Puzo, writer (The Godfather), aged 78
   * July 6 - Joaquin Rodrigo, composer
   * July 16 - John F. Kennedy, Jr., publisher, son of John F. Kennedy, aged
     38 (airplane crash)
   * July 24 - Hassan II, king of Morocco, aged 70 (heart attack)
   * August 13 - Ignaz Bubis, German Jewish community leader, aged 72
   * August 28 - Dom Helder Camera, Brazilian bishop and human rights
     activist, aged 90
   * September 10 - Alfredo Kraus, opera singer, aged 72 (or 73?)
   * September 20 - Raisa Gorbachev, wife of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
   * September 22 - George C. Scott, film and stage actor
   * October 3 - Heinz G. Konsalik, writer, aged 78
   * October 6 - Amalia Rodrigues, Portuguese singer, aged 79
   * October 13 - Wilt Chamberlain, American basketball player
   * October 14 - Julius Nyerere, Tanzanian leader
   * October 19 - Harry Bannink, Dutch songwriter, aged 70
   * October 20 - Jack Lynch, former Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland
   * October 26 - Rex Gildo, German singer, aged 63
   * November 18 - Paul Bowles, American novelist (The Sheltering Sky), aged
     88
   * November 18 - Doug Sahm, country and rock musician, aged 58
   * December 10 - Rick Danko, rock singer (The Band), aged 56
   * December 11 - Franjo Tudjman, president of Croatia, aged 77
   * December 12 - Joseph Heller, American novelist (Catch-22), aged 76
   * December 17 - Grover Washington, saxophone player, aged 56
   * December 19 - Desmond Llewelyn, British actor, (Q in the James Bond
     movies), aged 85
   * December 26 - Curtis Mayfield, singer/composer, aged 57
   * December 29 - Gene Rayburn, television host

Nobel Prizes

   * Physics - Gerardus 't Hooft, Martinus J.G. Veltman
   * Chemistry - Ahmed H. Zewail
   * Medicine - GŸnter Blobel
   * Literature - GŸnter Grass
   * Peace - Doctors Without Borders
   * Economics - Robert Mundell

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