1999

For the album by Prince, see 1999 (album)

1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations.

align="center" colspan=2 | Years:
1996 1997 1998 - 1999 - 2000 2001 2002

align="center" colspan=2 | Decades:
1960s 1970s 1980s - 1990s - 2000s 2010s 2020s

align="center" | Centuries:
19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Events

Kosovo War
Shooting in Littleton, Colorado, United States, leaves several high school students dead.
Y2K preparation was a major event in 1999 both in actual events and in media over-reporting.
The world human population surpassed six billion. The United Nations Population Fund designated October 12 as the approximate date for this event.

January

January 1

Euro currency introduced.
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 (359 mm) of snow at Milwaukee, Wisconsin and 19 inches (487 mm) 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
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.
Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrested one of their rebel leaders, Abdullah calan.
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 calan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.
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.
An avalanche destroys the Austrian village of Galtr, 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.
Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Nigeria's first elected president since mid-1983.

March

March 1

One of four bombs detonated in Lusaka, Zambia, destroys the Angolan Embassy.
Hutu rebels kill eight tourists in Uganda.
The Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines comes into force.

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 21.
March 4

Monica Lewinsky's book detailing her affair with Bill Clinton goes on sale in the United States
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 12 - Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic join NATO.
March 21 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon
March 22 - US pro-euthanasia doctor Jack Kevorkian goes on trial for murder in Pontiac, Michigan. He is later convicted of second-degree murder
March 23 - Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis Mara Argaa
March 24

NATO launches air strikes in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which was refusing to sign a peace treaty. This marks the first time NATO attacked a sovereign country
Fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people, closing the tunnel for nearly 3 years.

March 26

The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.
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 - For the first time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10000 mark at 10006.78.

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 28 - The first comic of Sexy Losers (then called "The Thin H Line") goes online. This web comic would go on to be one of the most popular web comics ever made, with a sustained level of unique IP address hits of approximately 1 million a week. It would also popularize the word fap, a sound effect widely used in anime-themed comics since.
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. This was the strongest tornado ever. (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 Joo 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

June 5 - The AIS, the armed wing of FIS, agrees in principle to disband in Algeria.
June 8 - 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.
June 9 - Kosovo War: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.
June 10 - Kosovo War: NATO suspends its air strikes after Slobodan Milosevic agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.
June 12 - Kosovo War: Operation Joint Guardian begins - NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping force KFor enter the province of Kosovo in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
June 15 - George Morber Senior and Carolyn Frederick are murdered by Angel Maturino Resendiz in Gorham, Illinois. They are his eighth and ninth victims, in his seventh and final incident.
June 19 - Torino is picked as the host city of the 2006 Winter Olympics.

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 23 to July 25 - Woodstock 99 festival held in New York.
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

September 1 - Launch of Amway's new e-commerce company Quixtar in Ada, Michigan
September 8 - US Attorney General Janet Reno names former US Senator John Danforth to head an independent investigation of the 1993 fire at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas
September 9 - Sega Dreamcast console released in the United States.
September 14 - The Oceanian island nations of Kiribati, Tonga and Nauru become members of the UN

Thiomargarita namibiensis largest bacteria ever discovered

October

October - NASA loses one of its Mars probes, the Climate Orbiter
October 5 - Thirty-one people die in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash, west of London, England.
October 12 - A military coup led by Pakistani Army Chief General Pervaiz Musharraf takes control of Pakistan and ousts the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
October 13 - The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
October 15 ? National Geographic Society reveals the fossil of Archaeoraptor in a press conference (the fossil is later found to be a forgery)
October 18 ? Michael Pawluk Michigan attorney sails solo-single-handed over 2,500 nautical miles on a 30-foot boat when his wife demands "some space".
October 27 - Gunmen open fire in the Armenian parliament killing Prime Minister Vazgan Sarkisian, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchian and 6 other members.
October 31 - EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board
October 31 - Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Church leaders sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.

November

November 5 - Microsoft antitrust case: US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issues a preliminary ruling that the software company Microsoft had "monopoly power" (on April 3, 2000 Jackson found that Microsoft violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act).
November 6 - Australians vote to keep the British queen as their head of state
November 18 - In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 28 injured at Texas A&M University when a huge bonfire under construction collapses.
November 19 - In Istanbul, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ends a two-day summit by calling for a political settlement in Chechnya and adopting a Charter for European Security
November 20 - The People's Republic of China launches the first Shenzhou spacecraft
November 28 - A man wielding a samurai sword enters St Andrews Catholic Church in Thornton Heath and injures 11
November 30 - In Seattle, Washington, the first major mobilization of the anti-globalization movement catches police unprepared and forces the cancellation of the opening ceremonies of a World Trade Organization meeting (protests end on December 3).

December

December 2 - The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to 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 20 - Macau is handed over to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.
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.