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Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar).
The year 1998 was designated: International Year of the Ocean by UNESCO. .
Events of 1998
January
Coated in ice, power and telephone lines sag and often break, resulting in power outages.
New rubles
Lunar Prospector
- January 2 - A gunman shoots Antario Teodoro Filho, Brazilian politician and radio presenter, during a broadcast.
- January 4 - Wilaya of Relizane massacres of 4 January 1998 in Algeria: Over 170 are killed in 3 remote villages.
- January 6 - The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently shadowed craters near the Moon's poles.
- January 8 - Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life in prison for planning the World Trade Center bombing.
- January 8 - Cosmologists announce that the universe's expansion rate is increasing.
- January 11 - Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria: over 100 people are killed.
- January 12 - Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.
- January 14 - Researchers in Dallas, Texas present findings about an enzyme that slows aging and cell death (apoptosis).
- January 16 - NASA announces that John Glenn will return to space when the Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off in October.
- January 17 - Paula Jones accuses U.S. President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.
- January 20 - Nepalese police intercept a shipment of 272 human skulls in Kathmandu.
- January 22 - Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski pleads guilty, and accepts a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
- January 25 - Super Bowl XXXII: The Denver Broncos become the first AFC team in 14 years to win the Super Bowl, as they defeat the Green Bay Packers, 31-24.
- January 25 - The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide attack Sri Lanka's Temple of the Tooth, killing 8 people, injuring 25 others.
- January 26 - Lewinsky scandal: On American television, President Bill Clinton denies he had "sexual relations" with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
- January 26 - Compaq buys Digital Equipment Corporation.
- January 27 - U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton appears on The Today Show, calling the attacks against her husband part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
- January 28 - Ford Motor Company announces the buyout of Volvo Cars for $6.45 billion.
- January 28 - Gunmen hold at least 400 children and teachers hostage for several hours, at an elementary school in Manila, Philippines.
- January 29 - In Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic, killing 1 and severely wounding another. Serial bomber Eric Rudolph is the prime suspect.
February
- February - Iraq disarmament crisis: The United States Senate passes Resolution 71, urging U.S. President Bill Clinton to "take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
- February 2 - The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed above 1,000 for the first time, rising 20.99 points, or 2.14%, closing at 1,001.27.
- February 3 - Cavalese cable-car disaster: a United States Military pilot causes the deaths of 20 people near Trento, Italy, when his low-flying plane severs the cable of a cable-car.
- February 3 - Karla Faye Tucker is executed in Texas, becoming the first woman executed in the United States since 1984 and the first to be executed in Texas since the American Civil War.
- February 4 - An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000 people.
- February 6 - Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
- February 6 - The French prefect Claude Erignac is assassinated in the streets of Ajaccio (Corse).
- February 7 - Roger Nicholas Angleton commits suicide in a prison cell in Houston, Texas by cutting himself with razor blades. He admits to murdering socialite Doris Angleton in her River Oaks home in his suicide note.
- February 7-February 22 - The 1998 Winter Olympics are held in Nagano, Japan.
- February 10 - A college dropout becomes the first person to be convicted of a hate crime committed in cyberspace.
- February 10 - Voters in Maine repeal a gay rights law passed in 1997, becoming the first U.S. state to abandon such a law.
- February 12 - The presidential line-item veto is declared unconstitutional by a United States federal judge.
- February 14 - United States authorities announce that Eric Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing.
- February 15 - Dale Earnhardt wins the Daytona 500 in his 20th try, after many unsuccessful attempts.
- February 16 - China Airlines Flight 676 crashes into a residential area near Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, killing 202 people (all 196 on board and 6 on the ground).
- February 18 - Two white separatists are arrested in Nevada, accused of plotting biological warfare on New York City subways.
- February 19 - 1998 Auckland power crisis: A 66-day blackout begins in Auckland, New Zealand.
- February 19 - Larry Wayne Harris of the Aryan Nations and William Leavitt are arrested in Henderson, New York, for possession of military grade anthrax.
- February 20 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein negotiates a deal with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, allowing weapons inspectors to return to Baghdad, preventing military action by the United States and Britain.
- February 22 - One third of the Tower block "Palace II" collapses in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
- February 23 - Florida El Niño Outbreak: Tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42.
- February 23 - Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa, declaring jihad against all Jews and Crusaders.
- February 24 - Hustler publisher Larry Flynt is acquitted on charges of defaming Jerry Falwell.
- February 24 - A man tries to hijack a Turkish Airlines passenger plane, claiming that he has a bomb in his teddy bear; passengers disapprove and apprehend him.
- February 28 - Serbian police begin to wipe out so-called "terrorist gangs" in Kosovo.
March
April
Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge
- April 1 - Ukrainian serial killer Anatoly Onoprienko is sentenced to death for 52 murders.
- April 1 - The MS Elation sets sail.
- April 5 - In Japan, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge linking Shikoku with Honshū and costing about US$3.8 billion, opens to traffic, becoming the largest suspension bridge in the world.
- April 6 - Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of hitting India.
- April 7 - Citicorp and Travelers Group announce plans to merge, creating the largest financial-services conglomerate in the world, Citigroup.
- April 7 - George Michael is arrested in a restroom at Will Rogers Memorial Park for committing a lewd act in front of a police officer. This incident leads to him coming out as gay.
- April 8 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM reports to the UN Security Council that Iraq's declaration on its biological weapons program is incomplete and inadequate.
- April 8 - Birmingham Tornado of April 1998: An F5 tornado strikes the western portion of the Birmingham, Alabama area, killing 32.
- April 10 - Good Friday: 18 hours after the end of the talks deadline, the Belfast Agreement is signed between the Irish and British governments and most Northern Ireland political parties, with the notable exception of the Democratic Unionist Party.
- April 16 - An F3 tornado passes through downtown Nashville, Tennessee - the first significant tornado in 11 years to directly hit a major city. An F5 tornado travels through rural portions south of Nashville (see Nashville tornado outbreak of 1998).
- April 22 - The Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World opens to the public for the first time.
- April 25 - A waste reservoir at the Los Frailes mine in Andalusia, Spain ruptures, discharging heavy metal waste into the Guadiamar River. The pollution threatens the sensitive ecosystem and endangered species of Doñana National Park, Spain's largest nature reserve, but is diverted into the Guadalquivir River. Up to 100 km² of farmland are ruined by the spill.
May
- May 7 - Apple Computer unveils the iMac.
- May 9 - Dana International, a transexual singer from Israel, wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 in Birmingham, UK.
- May 11 - India conducts 3 underground nuclear tests in Pokhran, including 1 thermonuclear device.
- May 11 - The first euro coins are minted in Pessac, France. Because the final specifications for the coins were not finished in 1998, they will have to be melted and minted again in 1999.
- May 13 - India carries out 2 more nuclear tests at Pokhran. The United States and Japan impose economic sanctions on India.
- May 13 -May 14 Riots directed against Chinese Indonesians break out in Indonesia. Indonesian natives destroy and burn Chinese Indonesian-owned properties and kill and rape more than 1,000 Chinese Indonesians.
- May 15 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM learns that an Iraqi delegation has travelled to Bucharest, to meet with scientists who can provide the country with missile guidance systems.
- May 18 - United States v. Microsoft: The United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states file an antitrust case against Microsoft.
- May 18 - The New Republic publishes Hack Heaven, a fabricated story by Stephen Glass. Glass is later fired from TNR and the events are depicted in the 2003 film Shattered Glass.
- May 19 - The Galaxy IV communications satellite fails, leaving 80-90% of the world's pagers without service.
- May 21 - At
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