1998

January 1998	North Korea [famines]	The German Red Cross estimates that 10,000 children a month are dying from malnutrition in North Korea and that 2 million died in 1997. The famine has been caused by poor agricultural practices that have brought environmental catastrophe.
1 January 1998	UK [poetry]	The Times newspaper, of London, England, begins serializing a group of previously unpublished poems by British poet Ted Hughes about his late wife, US poet Sylvia Plath.
2 January - 9 January 1998	Russia [chess]	The FIDE World Chess Championships are decided on a knockout basis for the first time, with reigning champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia winning the tournament.
5 January 1998	USA [births and deaths]	Sonny Bono, US singer, songwriter, and politician, is killed in a skiing accident in Lake Tahoe, California (62).
6 January 1998	USA [space exploration]	The US spacecraft Lunar Prospector is launched to gather information on the Moon's resources, structure, and origin.
7 January 1998	World, Germany [biology]	Doctors meeting at the World Medical Association's conference in Hamburg, Germany, call for a worldwide ban on human cloning. US president Clinton calls for legislation banning cloning.
20 January 1998	United Arab Emirates [animal husbandry]	Veterinarians in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, announce the birth of Rama the ‘cama’, the first cross between a camel and a llama. It has the long fleece of llama but the strength of a camel; it has no hump.
21 January 1998	Cuba [Catholicism]	Pope John Paul II visits Cuba for the first time, where he criticizes the repression of personal and religious freedoms under the communist government of President Fidel Castro.
26 January 1998	Japan [births and deaths]	Shinichi Suzuki, Japanese violinist and teacher of the Suzuki method, dies in Matsumoto, Japan (99).
26 January 1998	world [space exploration]	Analysis of high-resolution images from the Galileo spacecraft suggests that the icy crust of Europa, Jupiter's fourth-largest moon, may hide a vast ocean that might be warm enough to support life.
26 January 1998	Iraq [United Nations]	US and British naval forces begin to assemble in the Gulf and to draw up plans for a bombing campaign against Iraq because Iraqi president Saddam Hussein continues to hinder the work of United Nations (UN) weapons inspectors.
27 January 1998	USA [astronomy]	Al Schultz of the Space Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, using the Hubble Space Telescope, announces the discovery of a giant planet, larger than the Sun, orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth. It is the first planet outside the Solar System to be directly observed.
4 February 1998	Afghanistan [natural disasters]	Nearly 4,000 people are killed and 30,000 lose their homes when an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale hits the mountainous province of Takhar in northern Afghanistan.
7 February - 22 February 1998	Japan [Olympic Games]	The 18th Winter Olympic Games are held at Nagano, Japan. They are the largest to date, with over 2,400 athletes from 72 countries taking part. Snowboarding, curling, and women's ice hockey are included as medal sports for the first time. Tara Lipinski of the USA aged 15 years 255 days won the women's figure skating title to become the youngest-ever individual Winter Olympic gold medallist.
8 February 1998	England [births and deaths]	(John) Enoch Powell, charismatic British Conservative politician known for his controversial views on immigration, dies in London, England (85).
9 February 1998	USA [medicine]	US scientist David Ho reports the discovery of the HIV virus in a 1959 blood sample and suggests that the transfer from ape to human occurred in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
9 February - 23 April 1998	Nigeria., Sierra Leone [wars]	Nigeria launches an artillery attack against Sierra Leone's military junta in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Fighting continues for several weeks until ousted president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah returns.
13 February 1998	Australia [elections]	The Australian Constitutional Convention votes to replace the queen as head of state with a president chosen by a bipartisan parliamentary majority. A public referendum in 1999 will decide whether the country should become a republic.
15 February 1998	Cyprus [elections]	Glafkos John Clerides is re-elected president of Cyprus and in March and begins talks with the European Union (EU) on the country's possible accession.
23 February 1998	Iraq [political events]	Iraqi prime minister Tariq Aziz and Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, sign a breakthrough peacekeeping deal to avert war and permit UN weapons inspectors to continue their work.
March 1998	USA [computing]	The US armed Forces begin trials to replace metal dog tags with smartcards. The plastic cards have computer chips embedded in them which contain information on the enlisted person's blood group, allergies, and so on, which medical personnel can read with a hand-held computer.
1 March 1998	Serbia [political events]	Serbia sends troops into the southern province of Kosovo to flush out ethnic Albanian secessionist paramilitaries. Hundreds of men, women, and children are killed over the next few weeks. It is the worst bloodshed to date in Kosovo's nine-year campaign by its Albanian majority to regain their autonomy.
5 March 1998	USA [space exploration]	US scientists announce that the Lunar Prospector satellite has detected hydrogen in the polar regions of the Moon, probably in the form of water, frozen in craters which never see the Sun. Scientists estimate that as much as 11 million tonnes of water may be present.
10 March 1998	USA [births and deaths]	Lloyd Bridges, US actor, dies in Los Angeles, USA (85).
11 March 1998	Indonesia [anthropology]	Australian palaeontologists announce the discovery of 800,000–900,000 year-old stone tools made by Homo erectus on the Indonesian island of Flores. They suggest that H. erectus were seafarers and had the language abilities and social structure to organize the movements of large groups to colonize new islands.
18 March 1998	Europe [agriculture]	The European Commission embarks on a path of historic reform by announcing the phasing out of price supports for agricultural products, the bedrock of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) since its creation in 1962.
19 March 1998	India [elections]	Atal Behari Vajpayee, Nationalist BJP party leader, is elected prime minister of India. He calls for national ‘reconciliation and accord’, but also threatens that India might install and deploy nuclear weapons.
27 March 1998	USA [medicine]	The US manufacturing company Pfizer gets approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its pill Viagra, which can cure male impotence. It becomes the fastest-selling prescription drug in US history.
April 1998	UK [historical study]	HarperCollins publishers break a contract to publish the memoirs of Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, due to News Corp Ltd Chairman Rupert Murdoch's criticism of Patten's condemnation of Chinese government human-rights abuses.
April 1998	USA [fiction]	US writer John Irving publishes his novel A Widow for One Year.
7 April 1998	USA [births and deaths]	Tammy Wynette, US country singer, dies in Nashville, Tennessee (55).
10 April 1998	Northern Ireland [diplomacy]	Ireland, Britain, and the political parties in Northern Ireland reach a peace agreement over Northern Ireland involving the devolution of a wide range of executive and legislative powers to a Northern Ireland Assembly.
12 April 1998	USA [statistics and demography]	The US Census Bureau reports that 26 million Americans, nearly one in ten, is an immigrant. Most come from Central or South America.
15 April 1998	Cambodia [political events]	Pol Pot, Cambodian dictator and leader of the Khmer Rouge communist Movement, who was responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians, dies, reportedly of heart failure, in a Khmer Rouge camp near the border of Cambodia and Thailand, while attempting to escape international efforts to capture him and try him for genocide (73).
16 April 1998	USA [energy]	US scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory develop a solar cell that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen. It is seen as a breakthrough in the generation of alternative fuels.
19 April 1998	USA, UK [births and deaths]	Linda McCartney, US-born British businesswoman and photographer, dies of cancer, near Tucson, Arizona (56).
22 April 1998	England [health and medicine]	Scientists at the Public Health Laboratory Service in London, England, report the discovery of a bacterium Pseudonas aeruginosa that is resistant to all known antibiotics. It causes a wide range of infections in people with impaired immune systems.
22 April 1998	UK [women's rights]	The UK army introduces ‘gender-free’ physical recruitment tests to give women a better chance of entering the armed forces.
23 April 1998	England [information technology]	The first cash machines to use ‘iris recognition technology’ to identify the user and dispense money, enter service in Swindon, England.
23 April 1998	UK [literature and language]	The British publishing and bookseller industries launch World Book Day with events and celebrations; all schoolchildren in the country receive a £1 book token.
23 April 1998	USA [births and deaths]	James Earl Ray, US gunman who pleaded guilty to the 1968 assassination of black civil rights leader Martin Luther King JR, dies in prison in Nashville, Tennessee (70).
24 April 1998	Rwanda [crime and punishment]	The largest public execution in recent history takes place in a football field in Kigali, Rwanda, when 22 people are shot for their part in the massacre of 500,000 Hutus in 1994.
28 April 1998	England [medicine]	UK researchers at Guy's Hospital in London, England, announce the development of a vaccine against Streptococcus mutans the bacterium that causes tooth decay. They hope it will be incorporated into toothpaste to eradicate decay.
7 May 1998	Qatar [athletics]	The International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) launches its Year of the Woman Athlete by staging the first-ever mixed athletics meeting in the Gulf State of Qatar where strict adherence to Muslim doctrine has hitherto prevented women from taking part in sport except in segregated, closed arenas.
13 May 1998	Europe [advertising]	The European Parliament approves a ban on all tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
13 May 1998	India [weapons]	India conducts three nuclear tests escalating the nuclear arms race in south Asia.
15 May 1998	USA [music]	US singer and Academy Award-winning actor Frank (Francis Albert) Sinatra, considered by many critics to be the preeminent singer of this century, dies in Beverly Hills, California (82). He made some 1,800 recordings, gathered nine Grammy Awards, and appeared in at least 60 films.
28 May 1998	Pakistan [weapons]	Pakistan explodes five nuclear devices. Afterwards, president Rafiq Tarar suspends the country's constitution and declares a state of emergency. US president Clinton announces wide-ranging economic sanctions.
7 June 1998	UK [popular music]	British pop musicians Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, the three surviving ex-Beatles, make their first public appearance together for 30 years at the memorial service for McCartney's wife, Linda, who died of cancer in April.
25 June 1998	China, USA [political events]	US president Bill Clinton arrives in China for a nine-day visit, the first by a US president since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
25 June 1998	USA [computing]	The US software company Microsoft releases its operating system Windows 98.
4 July 1998	USA [astronomy]	Astronomers from the University of Hawaii discover the first asteroid entirely within the Earth's orbit; it is 40 m/130 ft in diameter.
7 July 1998	Japan [space exploration]	Two Japanese satellites, using sensors and lasers, perform the first automatic docking of a space vehicle.
17 July 1998	Russia [political events]	The last tsar of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, and his family are buried in St Petersburg, Russia, 80 years after their murder at Yekaterinburg, Russia. Russian president Boris Yeltsin makes a public apology after initially refusing to attend the ceremony.
17 July 1998	Papua New Guinea [natural disasters]	A 10-m/30-ft tidal wave hits the north coast of Papua New Guinea, inundating several villages and killing an estimated 6,000 people. Of the survivors 70% are adults; a generation of children is wiped out.
29 July 1998	Serbia [wars]	After four days of fighting, Serb forces overrun the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, routing the Kosovo Liberation Army, who are fighting for Kosovo autonomy. Over 100,000 Albanians are displaced.
23 August 1998	Russia [administration]	Russian president Boris Yeltsin sacks his entire government for the second time in five months and returns Viktor Chernomyrdin, whom he previously fired and who is considered responsible for the country's economic downfall, as interim prime minister.
27 August 1998	Russia [economic conditions]	The Russian government's decision to stop propping up the ailing rouble leads to uncertainty about the future of President Boris Yeltsin and the entire reform process, causing global stock markets to plummet.
30 August 1998	UK [orchestral music]	Simon Rattle conducts his final symphony as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, in England. His successor is Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo.
31 August 1998	UK [cricket]	On the final day of a one-off Test between England and Sri Lanka at the Oval, London, Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan takes 9-65 in England's second innings to help Sri Lanka achieve its first Test victory in England.
8 September 1998	UK [diplomacy]	Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and Ulster first minister David Trimble hold talks in Northern Ireland, the first meeting between a Sinn Fein leader and an Ulster Unionist leader since 1922.
11 September 1998	Russia [administration]	Russian president Boris Yeltsin names foreign minister Yevgeny M Primakov as his compromise candidate for the position of prime minister, after the Duma (parliament) repeatedly rejects his first choice, Viktor Chernomyrdin.
13 September 1998	Bosnia-Herzegovina [elections]	Nikola Poplasen, leader of the Serb Radical Party, is elected president of the Serb republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
October 1998	USA [biology]	US biologist French Anderson announces a technique that could cure inherited diseases by inserting a healthy gene to replace a damaged one. He calls for a full debate on the issue of gene therapy, which brings with it the dilemma of whether it is ethical to enable the choice of physical attributes such as eye colour and height.
15 October 1998	France [railways]	Line 14 of the Paris Métro opens with fully automated, driverless trains, linking the right and left banks of the Seine river.
29 October 1998	England [births and deaths]	Ted Hughes, English poet laureate, dies in Devon, England (68).
2 November 1998	Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua [natural disasters]	Tropical storm Mitch rages through Honduras with a death toll of as many as 5,000 people there and more than 7,000 people in total, including victims in neighbouring El Salvador and Nicaragua. In the worst storm to hit Central America this century, floods and landslides cause mass destruction.
16 November 1998	Israel [political events]	Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu announces that he is suspending the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank until PLO leader Yasser Arafat publicly retracts a pledge to declare a Palestinian state next May.
23 November 1998	Europe [legislation]	The European Commission ends the ban on the export of British beef imposed in March 1996 after the discovery of the link between BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a fatal illness affecting humans. The ban formally comes to an end on 1 August 1999.
24 November 1998	USA [television]	US chat show host Oprah Winfrey and two partners launch the first cable television station targeted exclusively at a female audience.
10 December 1998	World [biology]	The first genetic blueprint for a whole multicellular animal – a nematode worm – is completed. The 97 million-letter code, which is published on the Internet, is for a tiny worm called Caenorhabditis elegans. The study began 15 years previously and cost £30 million.
14 December 1998	USA [diplomacy]	US president Bill Clinton, on a peace mission to the Middle East, is the first US president to visit a Palestinian territory when he meets Palestinian Liberation Organization head Yasser Arafat on the Gaza Strip. In a show of hands the Palestinian National Council affirms its renunciation of violence against Israel.
16 December 1998	USA, UK, Iraq [wars]	In Operation Desert Fox, the USA and the UK launch air strikes against Iraq for failing to cooperate with UN weapons inspections.