1999

See also:

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 Chávez Frías, 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 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 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 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 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 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.
July 31 - Mark O. Barton kills 9 in Atlanta, Georgia
August - An earthquake in Turkey kills 13,000
August 10 - Buford O. Furrow, Jr. attempts a mass murder in Los Angeles
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
- 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.
- 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.
- American Beauty
- The Green Mile
- Wachowski brothers' The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves
- M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment[?]
1999 in literature
1999 in music
1999 in sports
- January 13 - Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls basketball team announces his retirement (for the second time -- he has since rescinded his retirement)
- January 31 - Super Bowl XXXIII Denver Broncos (34) def. Atlanta Falcons (19)
- The U.S. Women's Soccer Team Wins World Cup
1999 in television
- The Sopranos premieres on cable television
- 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.

Births

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 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

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