As of 1999
- For the album by Prince, see 1999 (album)
1999 is a common year starting on
Friday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the
International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations.
Events
January
- 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 2 - A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern USA, causing 14 inches (359mm) of snow at Milwaukee, Wisconsin and 19 inches (487mm) at Chicago, Illinois. In Chicago,
temperatures plunge to -13°F (-25°C), and 68 deaths are reported.
- January 4 - Gunmen open fire on Shiite Muslims worshipping in an Islamabad mosque killing 16 people
injuring 25
- January 20 - The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet cafes.
- 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 (4.3 t) of cocaine aboard. The ship was headed for Houston, Texas.
- January 25 - A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia killing at least 1,000
February
- 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 12 - John
Myatt and John Drewe are sentenced for art forgery for one and six years, respectively
- 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
Öcalan
- 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 22 - Moderate Iraqi
Shiite cleric Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr is assassinated.
- February 23 - Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Öcalan 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 23 - An avalanche destroys the Austrian village of Galtür, killing 31.
- 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
April
- 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 to Scottish authorities for eventual trial in the Netherlands. The United Nations suspends sanctions
against Libya
- 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 17 - A nail bomb explodes in the middle of a busy market in Brixton, South London
- April 20 - Two Littleton, Colorado teenagers named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
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.
- April 25 - End of term for Tuanku Jaafar
ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman as the 10th Yang
di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- April 26 - Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah ibni
Almarhum Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah Al-Haj, Sultan of Selangor becomes the 11th Yang
di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- April 26 - Jill Dando,
British journalist and TV presenter, is killed outside her house in Fulham
- April 30 - Cambodia joins the
Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) bringing the total members to 10.
May
- May 2 - Oliver Reed, British
actor famous for starring in The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers, and The Assassination Bureau, dies of a heart attack in Malta while filming Gladiator.
- May 2 - Norman J. Sirnic and Karen Sirnic are murdered by Angel
Maturino Resendiz in a parsonage in Weimar, Texas. They were his
fourth and fifth victims in his fourth incident.
- May 3 - Photo driver licences and banknotes made out of polymer substrate are introduced to New Zealand.
- May 3 - A F5 tornado slams in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma killing 38 people. (See Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak)
- May 3 - The Dow Jones Industrial
Average closes above 11,000 for the first time. It closes at 11,014.70.
- 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.
- May 7 - Kosovo War: In Federal Republic of 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 João 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 20 - Bluetooth announced.
- May 23 - In Kansas City, Missouri, Owen Hart (Blue Blazer) falls
90 feet (30 m) to his death while being lowered into a World Wrestling Federation ring
- May 26 - Madejczyk Massacre Averted, Bridgman, Michigan school
shooting plot
- May 26 - first Welsh
Assembly for over 600 years opens in Cardiff
- 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
July-August
- 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 23 - Mohammed VI becomes King of
Morocco.
- 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 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 11 - Total eclipse in Europe and Asia
- 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
September
October
November
December
- December 2 - The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to a the Northern Ireland Executive.
- December 3 - After rowing for 81 days and 2,962 miles, Tori Murden becomes the first woman to cross
the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone when she reaches Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands
- December 3 - NASA loses radio contact
with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters
the Martian atmosphere.
- December 12 - President Lt. General Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir of Sudan dismisses the National Assembly during an internal power struggle between him and speaker of the
Parliament Hasan al-Turabi.
- December 14 - Algerian Ahmed Ressam was arrested while crossing the United
States-Canada border at Port Angeles, Washington when United States Customs found explosives in the trunk of his
automobile. The arrest caused fears of a terrorist attack in the United States and was a major factor in the cancellation of a
public New Year's celebration in Seattle. Ressam was later
convicted in a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New
Year's Eve.
- 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 21 and December
22 - The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts near Calatayud (Zaragoza) a Madrid-bound van driven by ETA and loaded with 950 kg of explosives. The next day, another van loaded with 750 kg is found not far from there. The
incident is known as "la caravana de la muerte" (the caravan of death). Shortly after 9/11, ETA confirmed their plan
had been to blow down Torre Picasso.
- December 24 - Indian Airlines Flight
814, which was enroute from Kathmandu, 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 Michael Anram, who
had broken into his home. Harrison's wife wrestles the knife out the assailant's hand before the police arrives. The man
apparently believed that Harrison was the devil. He was later charged with attempted murder
- 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 two Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed.
- December 31 - Start Of Millennium celebrations and countdown.
- December 31- HM Queen Elizabeth II opens the Millennium Dome at Greenwich,
London.
Births
Deaths
January-April
- January 25 - Robert Shaw, American conductor (b. 1916)
- February 7 - King
Hussein of Jordan (cancer) (b. 1935)
- February 8 - Iris
Murdoch, English writer (b. 1919)
- February 20 - Sarah
Kane, playwright (b. 1971)
- February 20 - Gene
Siskel, film critic (b. 1946)
- February 22 - William Bronk, poet
- February 25 - Glenn
Seaborg, atomic scientist (b. 1912)
- March 2 - Dusty
Springfield, British singer, (b. 1939)
- March 4 - Harry
Blackmun, associate justice of the United
States Supreme Court (b. 1908)
- March 5 - Richard Kiley,
actor (b. 1922)
- March 7 - Stanley
Kubrick, American film director and writer (b. 1928)
- March 8 - Joe DiMaggio,
American baseball player, one of Marilyn Monroe's husbands (b. 1914)
- March 12 - Yehudi
Menuhin, American violinist (b. 1916)
- March 20 - David
Strickland, actor (suicide) (b. 1969)
- March 24 - Birdie
Tebbetts, Major League Baseball catcher and manager (b. 1912)
- March 29 - Joe Williams, jazz singer (b. 1918)
- April 25 - Lord
Killanin, former chairman of the IOC (b. 1914)
May-August
- May 2 - Oliver Reed, British
actor
- May 8 - Dirk Bogarde English
actor
- May 10 - Shel
Silverstein, children's poet, aged 68
- May 18 - Betty Robinson,
winner of the first Olympic 100 m for women
- June 6 - Anne Haddy, Australian
actress, aged 68
- June 11 - DeForest
Kelly, actor
- June 16 - Screaming Lord Sutch, founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party
- June 27 - Jorgos Papadopoulos, dictator of Greece
- July 2 - Mario Puzo, writer
- July 6 - Joaquin
Rodrigo, composer
- July 8 - Charles Conrad,
astronaut (motorcycle crash)
- July 12 - Bill Owen, British
actor
- July 16 - John F. Kennedy, Jr., publisher, son of John
F. Kennedy (airplane crash)
- July 23 - Hassan II, King of Morocco (heart attack)
- August 1 - Nirad
C. Chaudhuri, writer
- August 3 - Leroy
Vinnegar, jazz musician
- August 14 - Lane
Kirkland, former head of AFL-CIO, aged 79
- September 6 - Allen
Funt, creator of Candid Camera TV series, aged 84
(complications from a stroke suffered in 1993)
September-December
- September 10 - Alfredo Kraus, Spanish tenor (b. 1927)
- September 20 - Raisa Gorbachev, wife of Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev
- September 22 - George C. Scott, film and stage actor
- September 23 - Ivan Goff, creator of Charlie's
Angels TV series
- October 12 - Wilt
Chamberlain, American basketball player (b. 1936)
- 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 24 - John Chaffee, US
Senator from Rhode Island
- October 25 - Payne
Stewart, golfer (plane crash)
- October 26 - Rex Gildo, German singer
- October 31 - Greg Moore,
CART race car driver (b. 1975)
- November 1 - Walter
Payton, football Hall-of-Famer
- November 15 - Gene Levitt, creator of Fantasy Island
- November 18 - Paul
Bowles, American novelist (The Sheltering Sky)
- November 18 - Doug Sahm, country and rock musician, aged 58
- November 29 - Gene
Rayburn, television host, aged 80
- December 3 - Madeline
Kahn, actress
- December 8 - Kuczka
Péter, Hungarian writer, poet and science fiction editor (b. 1923)
- December 10 - Rick
Danko, rock singer (The Band)
- December 11 - Franjo Tuđman, former
president of Croatia
- December 12 - Joseph
Heller, American novelist
- December 17 - Grover Washington Jr., saxophone player
- December 19 - Desmond Llewelyn, British actor
- December 20 - Hank Snow,
country musician
- December 26 - Curtis Mayfield, singer/composer
- December 27 - Leonard Goldenson, TV network
executive
- December 28 - Clayton
Moore, actor
- December 31 - Elliott Robertson, former US
Attorney General
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