1999

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This article is about the year. For other uses, see 1999 (disambiguation).

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades:	1960s 1970s 1980s - 1990s - 2000s 2010s 2020s
Years:	1996 1997 1998 - 1999 - 2000 2001 2002

1999 by topic:
Subject: Archaeology - Architecture - Art
Aviation - Film - Home video - Literature (Poetry) Meteorology - Music (Country, Metal) Rail transport - Radio - Science - Spaceflight
Sports - Television - Video gaming
Countries: Australia - Canada - Ecuador - India Ireland - Malaysia - New Zealand - Norway - Pakistan - Singapore - South Africa UK - United States - Zimbabwe
Leaders: Sovereign states - State leaders
Religious leaders - Law
Categories: Births - Deaths - Works - Introductions
Establishments - Disestablishments - Awards v • d • e

1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). It was the last year of the 1990s decade.

Based on popular culture, the year 1999 was the last year of the 20th Century and the 2nd millennium. However, mathematically, the year 2000 was the last year of the 20th Century and the 2nd millennium.

Contents:
Events of 1999 - Jan. ^. Feb. ^. March ^. April - May ^. June ^. July ^. Aug. - Sept. ^. Oct. ^. Nov. ^. Dec. - Undated ^. Ongoing ^. Births Deaths - Templeton Prize Nobel Prizes - Fictional See also - Notes - External links

The year 1999 was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations.

Events of 1999

January

Eurozone (1999/2002)

January 1 – Euro is established.
January 2 – A snowstorm leaves 14 inches (359 mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and 19 inches (487 mm) in Chicago, Illinois, killing 68.
January 4 – Gunmen open fire on Shia Muslims worshiping in a mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 16 and injuring 25.
January 6 – Dennis Hastert becomes Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
January 10 – A large piece of the chalk cliff at Beachy Head collapses into the sea.
January 20 – The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet cafes.
January 21 – In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 9,500 pounds (4.3 tons) of cocaine aboard, headed for Houston, Texas.
January 25 – A 6.1 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia, killing at least 1,000.
January 31 – Super Bowl XXXIII: The Denver Broncos win their second Super Bowl in a row, defeating the Atlanta Falcons 34-19 at Pro Player Stadium in Miami, Florida.

February

Orbit of Pluto – polar view.

February 2 – Hugo Chávez becomes President of Venezuela.
February 4 – Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by NYC police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race relations in the city.
February 7 – King Hussein of Jordan dies from cancer, and his son Abdullah II inherits the throne.
February 10 – Avalanches in the French Alps near Geneva kill at least 10.
February 11 – Pluto moves along its eccentric orbit further from the Sun than Neptune. It had been nearer than Neptune since 1979, and will become again in 2231.
February 16 – In Uzbekistan, an apparent assassination attempt against President Islom Karimov takes place at government headquarters.
February 16 – Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrests one of their rebel leaders.
February 21 – The Albertinkatu shootings in Helsinki, Finland: Three men are killed and 1 wounded at a shooting range.
February 22 – Moderate Iraqi Shiite cleric Mohammad 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 2 miles (3 km).
February 23 – An avalanche destroys the village of Galtür, Austria, 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 aloft for 233 hours and 55 minutes.

March

March 1 – One of 4 bombs detonated in Lusaka, Zambia, destroys the Angolan Embassy.
March 1 – Rwandan Hutu rebels kill and dismember 8 foreign tourists at the Buhoma homestead, Uganda.
March 1 – The Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines comes into force.
March 2 – The brand new Mandalay Bay hotel and casino opens in Las Vegas.
March 3 – Walter LaGrand is executed in the gas chamber in Arizona.
March 4 – In a military court, United States Marine Corps Captain Richard J. Ashby 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 12 – Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic join NATO.
March 15 – In Brussels, Belgium, the Santer Commission resigns over allegations of corruption.
March 17 – The Roth IRA is introduced by U.S. Senator William V. Roth, Jr.
March 21 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.
March 21 – The 71st Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California with Shakespeare in Love winning Best Picture.
March 23 – Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña.
March 24 – NATO launches air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which refused to sign a peace treaty. This marks the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.
March 24 – Fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people, closing the tunnel for nearly 3 years.
March 25 – Enron energy traders allegedly route 2,900 megawatts of electricity destined for California to the town of Silver Peak, Nevada, population 200.
March 26 – The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.
March 26 – A Michigan jury finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.
March 27 – Kosovo War: A U.S. F-117 Nighthawk is shot down by Serbian forces.
March 29 – For the first time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark, at 10,006.78.

April

Map of Nunavut

April 1 – Nunavut, an Inuit homeland, is created from the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories to become 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 7 – A bomb explodes at the Valley of the Fallen Church in Spain; GRAPO claims responsibility.
April 9 – Ibrahim Baré Maînassara, president of Niger, is assassinated.
April 13 – Tercentenary celebrations of the creation of the Sikh Khalsa are held.
April 17 – A nail bomb explodes in the middle of a busy market in Brixton, South London.
April 20 – Columbine High School massacre: Two Littleton, Colorado teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, open fire on their teachers and classmates, killing 12 students and 1 teacher, and then themselves.

Columbine High School massacre

April 25 – The term of Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman as the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia ends.
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 – British T.V presenter Jill Dando, 37, is shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, London.
April 30 – Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), bringing the total members to 10.
April 30 – A third nail bomb (see April 17) explodes in the Admiral Duncan pub in Old Compton Street, Soho, London, killing a pregnant woman and two friends and injuring 70 others, including her husband. This is part of a hate campaign against ethnic minorities and gay people by David Copeland.^{[citation needed]}

May

Logo for the SpongeBob SquarePants television show

May 1 – The TV series SpongeBob SquarePants airs, its first episode is Help Wanted/Reef Blower/Tea at the Treedome.
May 2 – Norman J. Sirnic and Karen Sirnic are murdered by serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz in Weimar, Texas.
May 3 – 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado slams into Moore, Oklahoma, killing 38 people (the strongest tornado ever recorded in world history).
May 3 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time, at 11,014.70.
May 5 – Microsoft releases Windows 98 (Second Edition) (from 1998).
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 deceived Jonathan Schmitz into appearing on a secret same-sex crush episode.
May 7 – Kosovo War: In the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 3 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 Military College of South Carolina.
May 12 – David Steel becomes the first Presiding Officer (Speaker) of the modern Scottish Parliament.
May 13 – Carlo Azeglio Ciampi is elected President of Italy.
May 17 – Ehud Barak is elected prime minister of Israel.
May 26 – The Indian Air Force launches an attack on intruding Pakistan Army troops and mujahadeen militants in Kashmir.
May 26 – The first Welsh Assembly in over 600 years opens in Cardiff.
May 26 – Manchester United wins the UEFA Champions League at the Nou Camp stadium, Barcelona, beating Bayern Munich.
May 27 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
May 28 – Swedish police officers Robert Karlström and Olov Borén are wounded by three bank robbers armed with automatic weapons, and later executed with their own service pistols in Malexander.
May 28 – After 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo de Vinci’s The Last Supper is placed back on display in Milan, Italy.
May 29 – Cathy O'Dowd, a South African mountaineer, becomes the first woman to summit Mount Everest from both the north and south sides.
May 29 – Nigeria terminates military rule, and the Nigerian Fourth Republic is established with Olusegun Obasanjo as president.
May 30 – Travel Midland Metro enters public service.
May 31 – Sean Elliott of the San Antonio Spurs hits the Memorial Day Miracle against the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1999 NBA Playoffs.

June

the iBook G3

June 1 – Napster, a music downloading service, debuts.
June 1 American Airlines Flight 1420 overruns the runway in Little Rock, Arkansas killing 11 people.
June 2 – After decades of fighting off outside technological influences like television, the King of Bhutan allows television transmissions to commence in the Kingdom for the first time, coinciding with the King's Silver Jubilee (see Bhutan Broadcasting Service).
June 5 – The Islamic Salvation Army, the armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front, agrees in principle to disband in Algeria.
June 6 – In Brazil, 345 prisoners escape from Putim prison through the front gate.
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: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.
June 10 – Kosovo War: NATO suspends its air strikes after Slobodan Milošević agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.
June 12 – Kosovo War – Operation Joint Guardian/Operation Agricola begins: NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping forces KFOR enter the province of Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
June 12 – Texas Governor George W. Bush announces he will seek the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.
June 14 – Thabo Mbeki is elected President of South Africa.
June 18 – The J18 international anti-globalization protests are organized in dozens of cities around the world, some of which lead to riots.
June 19 – Turin, Italy is awarded the 2006 Winter Olympics.
June 19 – Horror author Stephen King is hit in a car accident on Route 5 in North Lovell, Maine by Bryan Smith.
June 21 – Apple Computer releases the first iBook.
June 23 – The Phillips explosion of 1999 kills 2 and injures 3 in Pasadena, Texas.

July

NASA's Lunar Prospector

July 2 – Benjamin Nathaniel Smith begins a 3-day killing spree targeting racial and ethnic minorities in Illinois and Indiana.
July 5 – U.S. Army Pfc. Barry Winchell is bludgeoned in his sleep at Fort Campbell, Kentucky by fellow soldiers; he dies the next day from his injuries.
July 7 – In Rome, Hicham El Guerrouj runs the fastest mile ever recorded, at 3:43.13.
July 8 – A major flash flood in Las Vegas swamps hundreds of cars, smashes mobile homes and kills 2 people.
July 10- USA soccer player Brandi Chastain scores the game winning penalty kick against China in the FIFA Women's World Cup.
July 11 – India recaptures Kargil, forcing the Pakistan Army to retreat. India announces victory, ending the 2-month conflict.
July 16 – Off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, a plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. crashes, killing him and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette.
July 18 – David Cone pitches a perfect game, the 16th in history, as the Yankees defeat the Montreal Expos, 6-0, to celebrate Yogi Berra Day.
July 20 – Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
July 20 – Persecution of Falun Gong: Falun Gong is banned in the People's Republic of China under Jiang Zemin.
July 22 – The first version of MSN Messenger is released by Microsoft.
July 23 – ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo.
July 23 – Mohammed VI of Morocco becomes king upon the death of his father Hassan II.
July 23–25 – The Woodstock 99 festival is held in New York.
July 25 – Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France.
July 26 – The last Checker taxi cab is retired in New York City and auctioned off for approximately $135,000.
July 27 – Twenty-one people die in a canyoning disaster near Interlaken, Switzerland.
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 lunar surface.

August

August 7 – Hundreds of Chechen guerrillas invade the Russian republic of Dagestan, triggering a short war.
August 8 – The first Callatis Festival, the largest music & culture festival in Romania, is held.
August 9 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time fires his entire cabinet.
August 22 – Buford O. Furrow, Jr. wounds 5 and kills 1 during the August 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting.
August 10 – The Atlantique Incident occurs as an intruding Pakistan Navy plane is shot down in India. The incident sparks tensions between the 2 nations, coming just a month after the end of the Kargil War.
August 11 – A total solar eclipse is seen in Europe and Asia.
August 11 – Salt Lake City Tornado: A very rare F2 tornado strikes Salt Lake City, killing 1.
August 17 – 1999 İzmit earthquake: A 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes İzmit and levels much of northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000. This is the first of a long series of unrelated but frequent earthquakes throughout the world during the years 1999 and 2000.
August 19 – In Belgrade, tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand the resignation of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević.
August 22 – Mandarin Airlines Flight 642 crashes in Hong Kong.
August 22 &ndash GPS Week Numbers Reset to 0
August 31 – Apple Computer releases the Power Macintosh G4.

September

September 7 – A magnitude 5.9 earthquake hits Athens, killing 143 and injuring more than 2,000.
September 7 – Viacom and CBS merge.
September 8 – The first of a series of Russian apartment bombings occurs. Subsequent bombings occur on September 13 and 16, while a bombing on September 22 fails.
September 12 – Under international pressure to allow an international peacekeeping force, Indonesian president BJ Habibie announced on 12 September that he would do so.
September 14 – Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations.
September 21 – The 921 earthquake, also known as the Jiji earthquake,(magnitude 7.6 on the Richter scale) kills about 2,400 people in Taiwan.

October

October – NASA loses one of its probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter.
October 1 – Pudong International Airport opens in Shanghai, China, taking over all international flights to Hongqiao.

Mars Climate Orbiter during tests

October 5 – Thirty-one people die in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash, west of London, England.
October 10 – Elections are held in Portugal.
October 12 – Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attempts to dismiss Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf and install ISI director Ziauddin Butt in his place. Senior Army generals refuse to accept the dismissal. Musharraf, who is out of the country, attempts to return in a commercial airliner. Sharif orders the Karachi airport to not allow the plane to land. The generals lead a coup d'état, ousting Sharif's administration and taking over the airport. The plane lands with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf takes control of the government.
October 12 – World population reaches 6 billion people, as the 6 billionth person (according to the UN) is born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
October 13 – The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
October 15 – A National Geographic Society press conference reveals the fossil of Archaeoraptor (which is later found to be a forgery).
October 27 – Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and 6 other members.
October 31 – EgyptAir Flight 990, travelling from New York City to Cairo, crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on board. When the pilot leaves the cockpit, the co-pilot causes the Boeing 767 to enter a steep dive, resulting in impact with the Atlantic Ocean.
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

Helen Clark

November 9 – TAESA Flight 725, covering the route Tijuana-Guadalajara-Uruapan-Mexico City, crashes a few minutes after takeoff from Uruapan International Airport, killing 18 people on board. This event causes the bankruptcy of the Mexican airline a few months later.
November 12 – A 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes Duzce and northwestern Turkey, killing 845 and injuring 4,948.
November 18 – The Aggie Bonfire collapses in College Station, TX, killing 12.
November 19 – Mikhail Gorbachev proposes that the UN create an International Men's Day, which is now commemorated every year on this same date.
November 20 – The People's Republic of China launches the first Shenzhou spacecraft.
November 26 – An earthquake and tsunami strike Vanuatu.
November 27 – The left-wing Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government, with leader Helen Clark becoming the first elected female Prime Minister in New Zealand's history.
November 30 – The Exxonmobil Corporation merger is completed, forming the largest company in the world.

December

The Millennium Dome opens in London.

December 3 – After rowing for 81 days and 2,962 nautical miles (5486 km), 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 18 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform, carrying 5 Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
December 20 – The sovereignty of Macau is transferred from the Portuguese Republic to the People's Republic of China after 422 years of Portuguese rule.
December 22 – Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509, a Boeing 747-200F crashes shortly after take-off from London Stansted Airport due to pilot error. All 4 crew members were killed.
December 31 – The U.S. turns over complete administration of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian Government, as stipulated in the Torrijos-Carter Treaty of 1977.
December 31 – Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.

Births

**1999 in other calendars**
Gregorian calendar	1999 MCMXCIX
Ab urbe condita	2752
Armenian calendar	1448 ԹՎ ՌՆԽԸ
Bahá'í calendar	155 – 156
Berber calendar	2949
Buddhist calendar	2543
Burmese calendar	1361
Byzantine calendar	7507 – 7508
Chinese calendar	戊寅年十一月十四日 (4635/4695-11-14) — to — 己卯年十一月廿四日 (4636/4696-11-24)
Coptic calendar	1715 – 1716
Ethiopian calendar	1991 – 1992
Hebrew calendar	5759 – 5760
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2054 – 2055
- Shaka Samvat	1921 – 1922
- Kali Yuga	5100 – 5101
Holocene calendar	11999
Iranian calendar	1377 – 1378
Islamic calendar	1419 – 1420
Japanese calendar	Heisei 11 (平成11年)
Korean calendar	4332
Thai solar calendar	2542
Unix time	915148800 – 946684799
v • d • e

March 13 – Wiktoria Gąsiewska, Polish actress
March 19 – Tatum McCann, American actress
July 1 – Charles Armstrong-Jones, son of Viscount Linley and Viscountess Linley
August 28 – Prince Nikolai of Denmark
September 29 – Juan Urdangarín y de Borbón, grandson of King Juan Carlos I of Spain.
October 15 – Bailee Madison, American actress
November 30 – William Melling, British actor