1999
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Europe takes a step closer toward unification January 1 with the fixing of exchange rates among members of the European Union and adoption of a new European Central Bank and a new common currency, the euro (see European Union, 1993).
Turkey's Democratic Left Party (DSP) leader Bulent Ecevit, 73, gains the support of rival parties January 7 to form a minority government (see 1997). Ecevit failed in a previous effort, but President Suleyman Demirel asked him to try again, and this time former premier Tansu Ciller of the center-right True Path Party has agreed to back the new coalition (see 2002).
The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization March 12, bringing its membership to 19 and creating anxiety at Moscow that Russia has little more than her nuclear arsenal to defend against encroachment by her NATO neighbors.
Diplomats try to settle Balkan problems during weeks of negotiation at Rambouillet, France. Albanian Kosovars agree in mid-March to a plan finalized at Rombouillet, but Yugoslavia's president Slobodan Milosevic refuses to accept it, he sends more troops into Kosovo, President Clinton and others warn of a human catastrophe as the Serb soldiers burn, rape, and pillage their way through the country, and NATO launches missile attacks and bomber raids on Serbian positions beginning March 24 in the first war ever undertaken for purely humanitarian reasons (see 1998). NATO commander Gen. Wesley K. Clark, 54, of the United States directs the campaign, but Milosevic steps up efforts to "cleanse" Kosovo of non-Serbians, hundreds of thousands flee to neighboring Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Montenegro, Milosevic holds noonday rock concerts at Belgrade, and critics of the NATO bombing say it is actually making Milosevic more popular at home and further destabilizing the region (but see 2000).
NATO observes its 50th anniversary in late April at Washington, D.C., and agrees to step up the pace of its bombing attacks on the Serbs. B-2 Stealth bombers are used for the first time, many of them flown from Missouri's Whiteman Air Force Base by pilots who return home in time for lunch.
The House of Representatives comes close to ending U.S. support of NATO air strikes against the Serbs April 28. Rep. Dennis Hastert, 57, (R. Ill.) has succeeded Newt Gingrich as speaker January 6 and assured Democrats that they can expect easy passage of a symbolic, bipartisan resolution supporting the NATO effort; he himself votes for it, but Majority Whip Tom DeLay rallies votes against the measure, the final roll call ends in a tied vote of 213 to 213 (187 Republicans and 26 Democrats have voted nay), embarrassing Speaker Hastert and delighting right-wing extremist DeLay, a former Houston pest exterminator who makes no secret of his visceral animosity toward President Clinton.
President Clinton's impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate ends in acquittal February 12 (see 1998). Needing 67 votes to convict, the Republicans find no Democratic Party support and can muster only 45 senators to vote guilty on the charge of perjury, 50 on the charge of obstruction of justice, but although the senators do not vote on a proposed resolution of censure they are virtually unanimous in condemning the president's actions in his private life. Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr tells a Senate committee April 13 that the law under which he has acted should be allowed to expire at the end of June, and it does; efforts to oust Clinton will continue, but Starr's successor will conclude in September of next year that the so-called Whitewater investigation that cost taxpayers close to $60 million yielded insufficient evidence of any wrongdoing to warrant prosecution. The late president Kennedy's onetime mistress Judith Campbell (Exner) dies of lung cancer at a Los Angeles suburb September 25 at age 65.
The New York Times reports March 6 that Chinese agents have obtained nuclear secrets from a U.S. Government laboratory and reports March 7 that a "Chinese-American" computer scientist at Los Alamos, N.M., is the chief suspect. A walk-in source gave the CIA a document 4 years ago claiming that People's Republic weapons designers had obtained specific details of the highly classified W-88 warhead, doubts exist in the scientific community about the authenticity of the document, but Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson dismisses Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, 58, March 8. The Cox Report released by Congress May 25 alleges illegal transmission of nuclear technology from weapons laboratories to the Chinese for more than 20 years, Lee protests his innocence August 1 in a 60 Minutes television interview, but FBI agents arrest him at his home December 10 and he will be held in solitary confinement for 9 months (see 2000).
The U.S. Senate votes against ratifying a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty October 13. Right-wing Republicans repudiate the treaty, the vote is 51 to 48 (67 votes are needed to ratify), critics compare the defeat to the Senate's repudiation of the League of Nations 80 years ago and warn that America has lost its moral leadership and the ability to discourage underground nuclear testing by other nations, but President Clinton assails what he calls neo-isolationists and vows to continue efforts to have the treaty ratified.
Former Nixon White House aide John Ehrlichman dies of diabetes at his Atlanta home February 15 at age 73; U.S. atom spy (and biology researcher) Ted Hall of cancer at Cambridge, England, November 1 at age 74, having suffered from Parkinson's disease; former attorney general Elliot Richardson dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at Boston December 31 at age 79.
A U.S. bomb hits the Chinese embassy at Belgrade by error May 7, three Chinese journalists are killed, more than 20 other people are injured, and anti-American demonstrations erupt at Beijing and other Chinese cities. Former Russian prime minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, Finland's president (and European Union envoy) Martii Ahtisaari, and London investment banker Peter Castenfelt persuade Yugoslavia's President Milosevic to accept peace terms June 3, 200 Russian troops enter Kosovo June 11 and take over the Pristina airport, NATO troops begin entering Kosovo June 12 as Serb forces withdraw, ending a conflict that has not cost a single Allied life but has left at least 20,000 Serbians dead. All but about 90,000 of Kosovo's 900,000-odd emigrés return by the end of July, and demonstrations throughout Serbia demand Milosevic's resignation. Croatia's president Franjo Tudgman dies of cancer in a Zagreb suburb December 10 at age 77, having gained independence for his country while engaging in "ethnic cleansing" that has cost thousands of lives and sent more than 150,000 Serbs across the borders into Serbia and Bosnia (see 2000).
Russia's president Boris Yeltsin dismisses Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov May 12 after 8 months in which the nation's economy has not improved (see 1998); he appoints Interior Minister Sergei V. Stepashin, 47, to succeed Primakov, and some observers note that Stepashin is a Yeltsin loyalist who controls the nation's security forces, who may be required to protect the unpopular Yeltsin from prosecution before or after his term ends next year. Stepashin is replaced in late August by Vladimir V. Putin, 45, another former KGB man, who takes a tough stand against secessionists in Chechnya and wins a majority of the Russian people to support that position (see 1996). Chechen separatists deny responsibility for explosions that destroy Russian apartment houses, causing heavy loss of life (cynics suggest that the government staged the blasts to arouse nationalist support), and Russian troops invade Chechnya September 21, redoubling efforts to bring the region under control in a move that wins popularity for Prime Minister Putin but creates tensions with the United States and other countries. With the economy in deep trouble and charges of high-level corruption swirling about the Kremlin, President Yeltsin resigns December 31, to clear the way for "smart, strong, and energetic people," turning over his duties to Prime Minister Putin, who issues a decree granting Yeltsin immunity from any future prosecution (see 2000).
Gunmen invade the Armenian Parliament at Yerevan October 27, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian plus other top government officials and wounding as many as 50 in an attempted coup d'état.
Former Greek dictator George Papadopoulos dies of a heart attack at Athens June 27 at age 80. He was convicted of treason in 1975 and has been imprisoned ever since.
German chancellor Gerhard Schröder moves from Bonn to Berlin August 23 and the new Reichstag (renovated by British architect Norman Foster) opens soon thereafter as the capital of the unified country relocates from Bonn and the old Prussian capitol resumes its place as the center of government for the first time since World War II.
A Rome jury acquits former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti September 24 of complicity with Mafia figures in the 1979 murder of muckraking journalist Carmine Pecorelli. Five co-defendants are also acquitted (see 1995). Now 80, Andreotti is revered by many right-wing politicians as the man who transformed Italy from a backward agricultural country into a major industrial power, but critics blame him for not having prevented the murder of former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. Five-time prime minister Amintore Fanfani dies at Rome November 20 at age 91.
Britain's Labour government ends hereditary peers in Parliament's House of Lords, 666 of them sit for the last time in early November (92 are allowed to stay after that on a temporary basis), and the upper house is left with some 500 life peers, some of them newly appointed (critics call them "Tony's cronies," a reference to Prime Minister Tony Blair).
Britain ends direct rule of Northern Ireland December 2 as Catholics and Protestants begin sharing power as Parliament votes to give Ulster the right to rule itself (see Good Friday accord, 1998). Queen Elizabeth has given ceremonial royal consent December 1 to the bill transferring powers to Belfast, Ireland's president Mary McAleese has lunch at Buckingham Palace December 2, and authority over local affairs is moved that day from London to Belfast, where Protestant Ulster Union president David Trimble heads the new Northern Ireland Assembly, which unites factions that have battled in a conflict that has persisted for centuries. Hard-line Democratic Unionist Party leaders denounce the new political arrangements (but see 2000).
Canada opens a new 760,000-square-mile territory called Nunavut April 1 to provide a homeland for the Inuit, who represent 80 percent of the territory's 27,200 people. The area has been carved out of what formerly was the Northwest Territories and extends far to the north of the Arctic Circle, embracing Baffin Island, part of Victoria Island, Grise Fjord, and Ellesmere Island. One-third of the population is on welfare, its suicide, substance abuse, and violence rates are among the highest in the country, and Nunavut will depend on the government for 90 percent of its $392.8 million ($600 million Canadian) annual budget.
Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez takes office in February, saying that he needs a new constitution to carry out a peaceful social revolution and end rampant corruption (see 1998). He issues a decree calling for three referenda aimed at deciding the logistics of rewriting and ratifying the constitution. The opposition-controlled Congress pledges in late August to establish a constitutional assembly (see 2002).
Panama elects her first woman president in May as Mireya Moscoso, 53, defeats President Ernesto Pérez Balladares; the widow of former Panamanian president Arnulfo Arias Madrid, she takes office September 1 amidst allegations that high-ranking officials have sold Panamanian visas to Chinese immigrants using the country as a way to sneak into the United States.
Some Cuban refugees drown while en route to Florida in late November but 5-year-old Elián González is rescued after the death of his mother. Premier Castro demands that the boy be returned to his father in Cuba, thousands of people stage demonstrations in the streets of Havana, the boy turns 6, his relatives at Miami insist that he remain in America, and the situation creates new strains in U.S.-Cuban relations (see 2000).
Argentine voters elect Radical Party stalwart Fernando de la Rua, 62, president October 24. The first mayor of Buenos Aires to be elected by the city's own citizens rather than being named by the president, he has drawn up plans for refinancing a collective provincial debt of $17 billion and wins 48 percent of the popular vote.
Jordan's Hussein ibn Talal dies of cancer at Amman February 7 at age 63 after a 45-year reign in which he has worked to keep peace in the Middle East; he is succeeded by his son Abdullah, 36.
Turkish commando forces arrest fugitive Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, 49, at Nairobi, Kenya, February 15 and return him to Turkey, where he is indicted for treason as Ankara tries to end a 14-year conflict between Ocalan's Kurdistant Workers' Party (PKK) and security forces in southeastern Turkey. Ocalan has used terrorist tactics in an effort to gain autonomy or even a separate state for Turkey's 15 million Kurds; more than 30,000 Turks have been killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless in the struggle, which has involved atrocities by both sides and has had a dire impact on the Turkish economy. An estimated 3,000 Turkish troops cross into Iraq to attack Kurdish guerrilla sanctuaries, demonstrations erupt worldwide, Kurds seize Greek missions throughout Europe, taking diplomats and their families hostage, and Israeli guards at Berlin open fire when more than 50 Kurds try to enter their consulate February 17, killing three protesters and wounding 16. Ocalan is sentenced to death June 29 but will be confined instead to an island in the Sea of Marmara and pro-Kurdish protests continue to delay his hanging.
Israeli voters oust Prime Minister Netanyahu May 17 after 3 years in which he has failed to advance the peace process (see 1998); they elect Labor Party leader Ehud Barak, 57, a protégé of the late Yitzhak Rabin and the nation's most highly decorated war hero. But although Barak wins more than 56 percent of the vote in what is clearly a call for reviving peace efforts with Palestinians, and although Netanyahu gives up his leadership of the Likud Party, the Ultra-Orthodox parties gain more seats in the parliament (Knesset). Barak and Yasir Arafat of the PLO sign a new agreement September 4 that implements last year's Wye River accord but with the release of fewer PLO prisoners; Israeli troops forcibly remove Jewish settlers from West Bank locations in November (see 2000).
Iranian students riot at Teheran and other cities in July to protest a new law curbing freedom of the press and the closing of a popular leftist newspaper (see 1998). Others join the demonstrations against strict control by the nation's fundamentalist Islamic government, police use tear gas to dispel the armed mobs, and although President Mohammad Khatami has for the past 2 years been urging tolerance and the rule of law, he meets with religious leaders July 13 and shifts his remarks to condemn the demonstrations. Half the Iranian population is too young to remember the revolution of 1979 (nearly two-thirds are under age 30) and there is growing impatience with the lack of progress by President Khatami to relieve what many people consider oppressive Shiite restrictions, which some Iranians vow not ever to abandon, calling their opponents "traitors," assembling teams of baton-wielding vigilantes to beat the students gathered in Teheran's Engelhab Square, and mounting a huge counter-demonstration (see 2000).
U.S. Customs officers at Port Angeles, Wash., find the trunk of a car loaded with 130 pounds of bomb-making material December 14 and arrest a 32-year-old Algerian-born terrorist arriving from British Columbia at a remote ferry terminal on the Olympic Peninsula. Ahmed Rassam will turn out to be an operative trained last year in an Afghanistan camp operated by the Saudi-born religious fanatic Osama bin Laden, whose al Qaeda network has developed underground cells in many countries; he will help the FBI find other members of the network (but see 2001).
Sierra Leone rebels launch a new offensive January 3 in an effort to regain control (see 1998). The United Nations pulls most of its staff out of Freetown as the rebels approach, the United States evacuates her diplomats, the rebels fight their way into the capital January 6 and take the State House, patrolling the streets with assault rifles; rebel leaders announce January 16 that they will not observe a scheduled truce unless former junta head Foday Sankoh is released from prison. A peace accord signed July 7 at the Togo capital, Lomé, brings a temporary halt to the 8-year-old civil war, and rebel leader Foday Sankoh is made a government minister as part of the deal, but about 10 percent of the country's 4.5 million people have fled the country, and the war has left tens of thousands of amputees whose extremities were hacked off by enemy axes and machetes (see 2000).
Ethiopia and Eritrea resume hostilities in February, confronting each other in trenches along their 600-mile border with Ethiopia having an estimated 250,000 men, Eritrea perhaps 200,000, all well armed (see 1998). Ethiopian forces break through at Badame February 26, concentrating aircraft, armor, and artillery on a rocky, 120-square-mile triangle of disputed territory, but Eritreans take a heavy toll at Tsorona in March.
Nigeria returns to civilian governance, electing its first president in 16 years February 28. Former military ruler Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, now 61, has triumphed over former finance minister Olu Falae, who has said that Obasanjo would merely continue military rule. Obasanjo has presented himself as the only man with enough control of the army to prevent another military takeover; he surprises cynics by cracking down on graft.
South African voters give overwhelming approval to Thabo Mbeki, 56, as successor to President Nelson Mandela, now 80, whose 5-year term has seen the construction of more than 500,000 new houses and provision of water, electricity, and telephone lines to millions of homes. An English-educated economist who has had charge of day-to-day administration in the Mandela administration, Mbeki faces severe problems of crime, joblessness, poor schools, and a rising rate of AIDS infection.
Congo's president Laurent Kabila and leaders of two rebellions in that country agree July 7 to the framework of a cease-fire after a year of hostilities, but tribal conflicts continue to kill thousands, mostly with arrows and machetes.
Morocco's Hassan II dies of a heart attack at Rabat July 23 at age 70 after an autocratic and repressive 38-year reign in which he has acted as intermediary in mid-East disputes and survived half a dozen assassination attempts and uprisings; he is succeeded by his eldest son, Sidi Mohammed, 35, who will reign as Mohammed VI. The new king will address what he calls "the thorny issue" of the past but Islamic terrorists will use violence to challenge his enlightened efforts to make the country more open and democratic.
Zimbabwe's vice president Joshua Nkomo dies of prostate cancer at Harare July 1 at age 82; Tanzania's founding father Julius K. Nyerere of leukemia following a stroke at London October 14 at age 77 (approximate).
East Timorese give overwhelming approval to independence from Indonesia August 30 in a referendum held under UN auspices (see human rights, 1991). Indonesia's president B. J. Habibie urges peaceful compliance with the result, but military-backed militiamen commit acts of violence, threatening to plunge the former Portuguese colony into civil war. Indonesian troops are unable (or unwilling) to control the militia. They burn villages and kill more than 1,000 Timorese, President Clinton announces that he will no longer support the Indonesian occupation force, Habibie yields to international pressure in September, he allows a United Nations peacekeeping force to help restore order, and Australian-led force begins arriving September 19. Criminal charges against former president Suharto are dropped in October, and an electoral assembly at Jakarta votes 373 to 313 October 20 to make Muslim leader Aburrahman Wahid, 59, president in the nation's first democratic transfer of power. Weakened by a stroke, nearly blind, but renowned for his intelligence and inclusiveness, Wahid defeats opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, a daughter of former president Sukarno who is elected vice president October 21 (see 2001).
India's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party vows not to pursue policies that have angered Muslims and gains a resounding victory over the Congress Party in election results announced October 7.
Pakistan's prime minister Nawaz Sharif dismisses army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf, 56, and is ousted in a military coup October 12 (see 1997). Gen. Musharraf and Sharif have clashed over incursions into the Indian part of Kashmir; the general takes power and makes a nationally televised speech in which he announces that he will soon lay out plans that may include martial law, new elections, or the installation of a civilian government controlled by the military. Most Pakistanis welcome the ouster of the corrupt, albeit democratically elected, Sharif government. Grenade-carrying Pakistani hijackers commandeer an Indian Airlines Airbus en route from Katmandu to New Delhi December 24, land at Amritsar, force the pilot to take off for Kandahar, Afghanistan, and refuse to allow the plane's 184 passengers to deplane until their demands are met. The hostages are finally released December 31 after Indian authorities release a few Pakistani political prisoners; New Delhi accuses Karachi of being involved in the incident, further straining relations between the two nuclear powers.
Portugal hands over the island of Macao to China December 19 after 442 years of colonial occupation.
NATO forces in Kosovo find evidence in June of atrocities committed by Serb soldiers and civilians against ethnic Albanians. Mass graves, torture chambers, and other such evidence support the claims of refugees; returning Albanians commit atrocities against remaining Serbs.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 May 24 in Aurelia Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education that any school receiving federal funding can face a sex-discrimination suit for failing to intervene energetically enough when a student complains of sexual harassment by another student. The case involved two Georgia elementary school children, aged 11 and 10.
Former U.S. Court of Appeals judge John Minor Wisdom dies at his native New Orleans May 15 at age 93; Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) cofounder James Farmer at Fredericksburg, Va., July 9 at age 79, having lost his eyesight and legs to diabetes; civil rights leader Daisy Bates dies at Little Rock November 4 at age 84.
Philanthropist Paul Mellon dies of cancer at his Upperville, Va., home February 1 at age 91.
Astronaut Pete Conrad dies of internal injuries after a motorcycle accident at Ojai, Calif., July 8 at age 69.
Eleven countries of the European Union (but not Britain, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Sweden, or Switzerland) adopt the euro for non-cash transactions January 1, although euro notes and coins are not scheduled for circulation until January 1, 2002 (French francs, German marks, and some other currencies are to remain in circulation until July 1, 2002).
Brazil devalues the real January 13 and its value against the dollar soon falls by 43 percent, having fallen only 7 percent in 1998. Critics say the $40 billion credit line extended by the International Monetary Fund last year served only to let Brazil cling to an exchange rate that was overvalued by as much as 30 percent.
The U.S. Treasury Dept. moves August 4 to use part of its budget surplus to reduce the nation's $3.6 trillion debt, buying back government bonds and thereby saving interest.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 10006.84 March 29, having broken through the 10000 mark earlier on an interday basis. It closes at 11014 May 3, breaking through 11000 for the first time.
Japan's economy begins to recover but her banks still have billions of dollars in non-performing loans on their books.
China's Premier Zhu Rongji pledges March 14 to make whatever concessions it can to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) and visits the United States. He and President Clinton sign a statement April 14 committing them to complete a WTO deal by year's end, NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy at Belgrade May 7 ends talks, Clinton and President Jiang Zemin agree at an economic summit in New Zealand September 11 to resume talks, Clinton sends his chief trade negotiator Charlene Zharshefsky, 59, to Beijing November 8, and an agreement signed November 15 pledges China to open her markets to U.S. exports of agricultural products, manufactured goods, and economic services, paving the way for Chinese entry into the WTO. Global trade talks open at Seattle November 29, but WTO opponents stage violent protests in downtown streets, a curfew is imposed, the National Guard is called in to restore order, and the talks break down amidst considerable rancor as environmentalists join with human rights advocates, labor groups who insist that "free trade" is not fair trade, anarchists who oppose government altogether, and nationalists fearful of losing sovereignty to bureaucrats at Geneva; European delegates refuse to scale back agricultural subsidies, and many tariff barriers remain in place, but globalization of commerce proceeds nonetheless (see Washington, D.C., demonstrations, 2000).
China has more than 120,000 labor disputes, up from 8,150 in 1992, as workers are laid off in unprecedented numbers. Many are paid late or not at all and feel cheated when they see corrupt officials selling state property for a song to colleagues, friends, and relatives.
Levi Strauss closes half its North American plants, lays off 5,900 of the 19,900 workers in its U.S. and Canadian plants, and announces plans to shift more of its production to overseas plants where labor costs are lower.
U.S. federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson denounces Microsoft November 5 in a 207-page findings of fact that say the software giant has used its "prodigious market power and immense profits" to stifle innovation and reduce competition to the detriment of consumers (see 1998; 2000).
Nobel economist Wassily Leontief dies at New York February 5 at age 93; former AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland of lung cancer at Washington, D.C., August 14 at age 77.
The Financial Services Modernization Act signed into law by President Clinton November 12 repeals parts of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, allowing mergers of banks, securities firms, and insurance companies.
Wall Street's NASDAQ average closes at 3028.51 November 3, breaking through the 3000 mark as investors continue their demand for technology stocks. The Dow closes at 11497.12 December 31, up 25.22 percent from 9181.43 at the end of 1998, the NASDAQ at 4069.31, up 85.59. The Toronto Stock Exchange gains nearly 37 percent for the year, the Mexican 80 percent, the French Bourse 51 percent, the Frankfurt Exchange 39 percent, the London Exchange nearly 18 percent, Tokyo's Nikkei Average nearly 37 percent.
eBay addresses fraud problems in January with a program that includes free Lloyds of London insurance for purchases of up to $200 (less a $25 deductible) (see 1997). It has 3.8 million registered users by the end of March, with 2.2 million items listed for sale, and acquires the 134-year-old San Francisco auction house Butterfield & Butterfield April 26 for $260 million in eBay stock.
An accident in a Japanese nuclear plant at Tokaimura September 30 critically injures three workers who are handling uranium and exposes 52 others to radiation (see 1997). One worker dies, and officials of the Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. subsidiary JCO Co. come under attack for allegedly having employees omit vital safety steps in order to increase production of uranium fuel for the controversial Joyo experimental fast-breeder nuclear reactor (most other advanced industrial nations have abandoned such reactors for reasons of cost and safety).
A fire March 24 in the seven-mile tunnel under Mont Blanc linking France and Italy traps dozens of cars and trucks, killing at least 40 people as toxic fumes and high temperatures thwart rescue workers. A Belgian-registered truck carrying flour and margarine has caught fire, other trucks have collided with it, the blaze has spread swiftly, temperatures reach 1,800° F. (1,000° C.), the 34-year-old facility has an antiquated ventilation system, there is no service lane for emergency vehicles or for evacuation, and it takes French, Italian, and Swiss firefighters 50 hours to bring the flames under control (see 2001).
A British intercity express barrels through a red light and plows into a three-car commuter train at London October 5 in the nation's worst train crash in more than 40 years. The initial death toll is estimated at 70 but scores of passengers remain missing. Formerly state owned, the system was sold to private companies in May 1996 and union officials charge that the new owners have skimped on safety equipment in their zeal to boost profits.
An EgyptAir Boeing 767 takes off for Cairo from New York's JFK Airport October 31, reaches an altitude of 33,000 feet, suddenly drops 16,000 feet, climbs 8,000, and falls into the cold Atlantic off Nantucket Island. All 199 passengers and 18 crew members aboard Flight 990 are killed as the plane sinks in 270 feet of water.
U.S. sales of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) exceed 3 million, up from 909,925 in 1991.
Budget Rent-a-Car cofounder Jules W. Lederer dies of a heart attack at his home outside London January 21 at age 81; Carnival Cruise Lines founder Ted Arison of a heart attack at his Tel Aviv home October 1 at age 75, having recently purchased the money-losing Cunard Line (with its flagship QE2) and leaving a fortune of more than $5 billion.
Vinyl inventor Waldo Semon dies at Hudson, Ohio, May 26 at age 100; silicone and optical fiber pioneer J. Franklin Hyde at his Marco Island, Fla., home October 11 at age 96.
MIT biophysicist Alexander Rich describes in the June 11 issue of Science how the three-dimensional structure of the Z-DNA that his team discovered in 1979 binds to a protein involved in editing genetic messages important in a number of brain receptors (see 1995). Now 74, Rich received the Medal of Science from President Clinton 4 years ago for his various achievements.
Nuclear physicist Henry Way Kendall dies outside Tallahassee, Fla., February 15 at age 72 while helping a National Geographic magazine team take underwater photographs at Wakulla Springs State Park; nuclear physicist (and plutonium pioneer) Glenn T. Seaborg dies at his Lafayette, Calif., home February 25 at age 86 (he has been virtually paralyzed since August from injuries sustained after a stroke at Boston); biochemist Heinz L. Fraenkel-Conrat dies at Oakland, Calif., April 10 at age 88; Nobel physicist (and laser pioneer) Arthur L. Schawlow of congestive heart failure at Palo Alto, Calif., April 28 at age 77; Nobel microbiologist Daniel Nathans at his Baltimore home November 16 at age 71.
The painkiller and arthritis drug Celebrex introduced in January is unlike nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen; a cox-2 inhibitor, it attacks the enzyme cyclo-oxygenase 2 that promotes inflammation (see 1971). Cox-2 inhibitors are far costlier than older anti-inflammatory anodynes (Celebrex costs about 15 times as much as aspirin) but have far fewer side effects such as internal bleeding and ulcers, which kill thousands of people each year; demand for them is enormous (40 million Americans have arthritis) (but see 2004).
Retired Michigan pathologist Jack Kevorkian, 70, is convicted of murder and sentenced April 13 to a prison term of 10 to 25 years. He has participated in assisted suicides of more than 130 terminally ill people since the 1980s, flouting the law, and allowed himself to be shown in one such suicide on the CBS show 60 Minutes last November.
Silicone breast implants cause no major diseases, concludes an independent panel of 13 scientists convened by the Institute of Medicine at the request of Congress. Issued June 22, the panel's report states in more than 400 pages that when implants rupture or deflate (which they do with "relatively high frequency") they can cause infections, or hardening or scarring of breast tissue which can be painful, disfiguring, and require further surgery, but the report discounts alleged links to lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or other systemic disease of the kind that have cost manufacturers some $7 billion in jury awards.
Federal investigators report in late July that data linking cancer to electric power lines were falsified. Papers by cell biologist Robert P. Liburdy of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory at Berkeley, Calif., were published in 1992 purporting to show a relationship between electromagnetic fields and the calcium signaling fundamental to many important cellular functions. The Office of Research Integrity of the Department of Health and Human Services reports that Liburdy simply eliminated data that did not support his conclusions.
A United Nations report issued November 23 claims that sub-Saharan Africa has 22.3 million adults infected with the AIDS virus and that 12.2 million of them (55 percent) are women. HIV in Africa is spread mostly through heterosexual intercourse and is transmitted more easily from men to women than from women to men, but while its incidence is alarming it causes far fewer deaths and disabilities than malaria. In North and South America, Europe, Central Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, only 20 percent of those infected with HIV are women, in East Asia and the Pacific only 15 percent, and in Australia and New Zealand only 10 percent, but in the Caribbean the figure is 35 percent.
Nobel pharmaceutical researcher Gertrude B. Elion dies at Chapel Hill, N.C., February 21 at age 81, having worked with the late George Hitchings to develop treatments for herpes (acyclovir, or Zovirax), gout (allopurinal, or Zyoloprim), and malaria (pyrimethane, or Daraprim), as well as drugs to help prevent rejection of transplant organs and treat severe rheumatoid arthritis (azathioprine, or Imuran); open-heart surgery pioneer C. Walton Lillehei dies of cancer at his St. Paul, Minn., home July 5 at age 80; cancer researcher Ernst L. Wynder of thyroid cancer at New York July 14 at age 77; cortisone synthesizer Lewis Hastings Sarrett at Viola, Idaho, November 29 at age 81.
Some 10,000 members of the 7-year-old Chinese Buddhist Law (Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa) group stage a vigil at Beijing April 25, alarming Chinese authorities. Founder Li Hongzhi, 46, moved with his wife in May of last year to New York; leased an apartment in Flushing, Queens; paid $293,500 in June for a residence in a quiet Queens neighborhood; and in May of this year acquires a 4,600-square foot house at Princeton, N.J. Li's followers deny that the Falun Gong is a religion or cult, insisting that they merely subscribe to a traditional technique of exercise and meditation, and they claim to have tens of millions of adherents. Communist Party officials note that they make repeated references to obscure Buddhist deities, refer to a "third eye" that can see into the future, discourage orthodox medical care (but also discourage drinking and smoking), and move an imaginary "law wheel" with purported cosmic healing powers around their bodies. Beijing deplores what it calls "superstition," alleges that some of Li's followers have died because they refused medical treatment, and takes quiet measures to suppress the Falun Gong; the government outlaws the cult July 22, it issues a warrant for Li's arrest and asks Interpol to help have him returned to China, the legislature passes a law October 30 banning groups such as Falun Gong, but retirees, middle-aged women, students, and even some officials continue to gather regularly in public parks to practice mystical exercises.
Radcliffe College and Harvard University officials announce April 20 that Radcliffe has agreed to be absorbed into Harvard after more than a century of semi-independence and will be renamed the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Students at Mexico City's National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) strike April 22 to protest a tuition increase from the equivalent of 2¢ per semester to $75. They also demand reinstatement of open admission for all students from a number of public high schools (canceled 4 years ago) and a convening of a general congress of faculty, students, and workers to reorganize the university, whose student body of 275,000 makes it the largest in Latin America. The strike expands and will continue into next year; more than 228,000 students register for classes in the fall, but professors are obliged to hold classes in rented quarters, on athletic fields, even in their cars, and thousands of students transfer to other colleges.
The Kansas state board of education votes 6 to 4 August 11 to delete virtually every mention of evolution from the state's science curriculum but does not prevent teaching evolution (see Scopes trial, 1925). So-called "creationists" have succeeded in requiring at least some teaching of alternatives to Darwinian evolution in Alabama, Nebraska, and New Mexico (see Supreme Court decision, 1987), but New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and other states have rejected pressure from the religious right to impose its arguments that it took an "intelligent designer" to create the Earth and that the Bible shows that life on Earth could not have existed more than 10,000 years ago. Alabama students are advised, "No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact." A Gallup poll taken in August finds that 68 percent of those surveyed favor teaching creationism along with evolution in the public schools, and 40 percent favor dropping evolution completely. No such attitude is found in any other Western nation, and some biologists warn that the decision in Kansas will make its high school graduates unprepared for college admission tests and college science courses. One board of education member says that "the effort to emphasize the rock of ages rather than the age of rocks" could make Kansas students "the laughing stock of the world" (three members of the Kansas board will be replaced next year by people pledged to restore a full set of science standards, including evolution). New Mexico's Board of Education votes 14 to 1 October 8 to bar teaching of creationism from the state's curriculum.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announces September 16 that it will give at least $1 billion in the next 20 years to fund full scholarships for minority students in the fields of education, engineering, mathematics, and science. Administered by Gates's father, William Gates II, the foundation has nearly $17 billion and will become the world's richest foundation early next year when an additional $5 billion donation swells its coffers to $21.8 billion, surpassing the assets of Britain's $21.4 billion Wellcome Trust and putting it far ahead of the $13.1 billion Ford Foundation (a philanthropic fund must give away at least 5 percent of its endowment each year in order to keep its tax-exempt status).
A 20/20 Special on ABC TV March 3 features a 2-hour interview by Barbara Walters of Monica S. Lewinsky, who is on Prozac and is careful to say almost nothing about how she was treated by independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr and his staff. An estimated 70 million viewers watch the show, which receives a 33.4 Nielsen rating (33.2 million homes).
Congress changes federal regulations to give U.S. television viewers relief from high monthly cable charges; earlier regulations have forbidden satellite providers from carrying local broadcast channels to viewers who could receive those channels either over the air or via cable, but consumers have demanded the right to use their dishes for local broadcast reception and Congress has responded. Cable reception in many areas remains superior to satellite reception but costs more and has fewer channels.
Sony Corp. cofounder Akio Morita dies of pneumonia at Tokyo October 3 at age 78 (disabled by a stroke since 1993, he is hailed as having changed the world's perception of "Made in Japan" to mean quality); former American Broadcasting Co. chairman Leonard H. Goldenson dies at his Sarasota, Fla., home December 27 at age 94.
Some 100 million people use the Internet worldwide, up from 5 million in 1995, and thousands of new users log on each week; more than 90 percent of e-mail messages are in English.
Anticommunist editor Jerzy Turowicz dies of a heart attack at Kraków January 27 at age 86; cartoonist John L. Goldwater of "Archie" fame of a heart attack at his New York home February 26 at age 83; Washington Post editorial-page editor Meg Greenfield of lung cancer at her Washington, D.C., home May 13 at age 68; George magazine founder John F. Kennedy Jr. in the crash of his Piper Saratoga plane en route to Martha's Vineyard July 17 at age 38 (also killed are his wife, Carolyn [née Bessette], 33, and her sister Lauren, 34. The story of their deaths receives more press coverage than did the assassination of Kennedy's father in 1963); former La Opinión publisher Jacobo Timmerman dies of a heart attack at his Buenos Aires home November 11 at age 76.
The Blackberry wireless platform introduced by the Waterloo, Ontario, firm Research in Motion, Ltd. (RIM) will become the industry standard for handheld e-mail communication devices. Istanbul-born Canadian computer whiz Mike Lazardis, now 39, dropped out of college to start RIM, developed an electronic sign system to monitor operations for a General Motors plant, and hired James Balsillie, also now 39, in 1992. Their wallet-size Blackberry has a flip-open screen and a full keyboard; although not compatible with other e-mail devices it will be in the hands of 2.4 million users by early 2005, and more than 100 million e-mails per day will be moving through RIM's data center.
The World Encyclopedia (Sekai Dai-Hyakka Jiten) published by Heibonsha since 1931 goes online in May through a joint undertaking of Heibonsha and Hitachi (see 1955). It runs on Japanese Windows 95/98 but the digital version will soon be available only to subscribers who have bought a CD-ROM version of the work.
Nonfiction: The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Tom Friedman; The Ultimate Terrorists by New York-born Boston-raised Harvard lecturer Jessica (Eve) Stern, 41; Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety by Wendy Kaminer; Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome; The War between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government by Seymour M. Hersh; Hitler, 1889-1936: "Hubris" by English historian Ian Kershaw, 56, of the University of Sheffield; Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower; The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy by Nicholas Lemann is about SAT tests; Building Wealth: New Rules for Individuals, Companies, and Nations in a Knowledge-Based Economy by Lester Thurow; The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia by Garrett Hardin, now 84; Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan by Kenya-born New York author Edmund Morris, now 59, who 14 years ago was named official "in-house historian" at the White House but whose book is so laced with fiction that critics pan it mercilessly; Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class by New York lawyer Lawrence Otis Graham, 37, who exposed racial prejudice at a suburban country club 7 years ago by working there as a waiter and writing about it in New York magazine; Galileo's Daughters: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel.
Author William H. Whyte dies at New York January 12 at age 81; linguist James D. McCawley of an apparent heart attack at Chicago April 10 at age 61; essayist-editor-anthologist Clifton Fadiman on Sanibel Island, Fla., June 20 at age 95; biographer W. Jackson Bate of cardiac arrest at Boston July 26 at age 81; Willie Morris of heart failure at Jackson, Miss., August 2 at age 64; Peter Wildeblood at Vancouver, B.C, November 13 at age 76, having been left paralyzed by a stroke 5 years ago; Quentin Crisp dies at Manchester, England, November 21 at age 90, having said, "Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave"; anthropologist-author Ashley Montagu dies at his Princeton, N.J., home November 26 at age 94; historian C. Vann Woodward at his Hamden, Conn., home December 17 at age 91.
Fiction: No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod; Waiting by Chinese-born Emory University poetry professor-novelist Ha Jin, 53, who learned English only at a relatively late age; The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salmon Rushdie; Interpreter of Maladies (stories) by London-born New York writer Jhumpa Lahiri, 32; Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee; Crazy by Munich novelist Benjamin Lebert, 17, whose teenage protagonist, like the author, is partially paralyzed as a result of an accident at birth; Undue Influence by Anita Brookner; Juneteenth by the late Ralph Ellison; Timeline by Michael Crichton; Evensong by Gail Godwin; Another World and Ghosts by Pat Barker; The Basic Eight by San Francisco-born New York novelist Daniel Handler, 29; Walkin' the Dog by Walter Mosley; Personal Injuries by Scott Turow; Digital Fortress by former Philips Academy Exeter English teacher Dan Brown.
Novelist Brian Moore dies of pulmonary fibrosis at Malibu, Calif., January 10 at age 77; Naomi Mitchison at her home on the Mull of Kintyre, Scotland, January 13 at age 101, having written 80 novels plus travel works and a three-volume autobiography; Iris Murdoch of Alzheimer's disease at Oxford February 8 at age 79; Gary Jennings of heart failure at his Pompton Lakes, N.J., home February 13 at age 70; Andre Dubus at Haverhill, Mass., February 24 at age 62; J. F. Powers at Collegeville, Minn., June 12 at age 81; Mario Puzo of heart failure at his Bay Shore, N.Y., home July 2 at age 78; Morris West at Sydney, Australia, October 9 at age 83; Penelope Mortimer at London October 19 at age 81; novelist and historian Richard Marius of pancreatic cancer at Belmont, Mass., November 5 at age 66; George V. Higgins is found dead of natural causes at Milton, Mass., November 6 at age 53; novelist-composer-poet Paul Bowles dies of a heart attack at Tangier November 18 at age 88; Joseph Heller of a heart attack at his East Hampton, N.Y., home December 13 at age 76.
Poetry: On the Bus with Rosa Parks by Rita Dove; The River Sound by W. S. Merwin, now 72; Eating the Honey of Words by Robert Bly, now 72.
Poet-film maker James Broughton dies of a heart attack at Port Townsend, Wa., May 17 at age 85; Bangladeshi poet and political activist Sufia Kamal at Dakka November 20 at age 88 (she is buried with full state honors, becoming the first woman in the country to be so honored); Felicia Lamport dies at Cambridge, Mass., December 23 at age 83.
Juvenile: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling; The Bad Beginning and The Reptile Room by San Francisco-born New York author Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler), 29, illustrations by Bret Helquist; David Goes to School by David Shannon; Me and My Dad by Stuart Hample; The Absolutely Awful Alphabet by Mordichai Gerstein.
Teacher-author William Howard Armstrong dies at Kent, Conn., April 11 at age 84; writer-cartoonist Shel Silverstein is found dead at his Key West, Fla., home May 10 at age 67; illustrator-author Leo Lionni dies at his Italian home near Radda in the Chianti district October 11 at age 89.
The $37 million Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MOCA) opens May 30 on a 13-acre site at North Adams in the Berkshires, using 19th-century factory buildings that were occupied until 1984 by Sprague Electric Co. Its 19 galleries are supplemented by a 10,000-square-foot black-box theater, an outdoor cinema, two courtyards for performance art, 5,000 square feet of rehearsal and production space, and 60,000 square feet of office and retail space.
New York's mayor Rudolph Giuliani threatens September 2 to cut off all city funding of the Brooklyn Museum unless it cancels its Sensation art exhibition scheduled to open October 2 (see 1997). Art critics praise the work (the mayor has only seen the catalogue but calls the works "sick stuff"), and Giuliani comes under fire for trying to censor legitimate expressions of talent.
Artist-cartoonist Saul Steinberg dies at his New York home May 12 at age 84; abstract painter Olivier Debré at his native Paris June 1 at age 79; art dealer Leo Castelli at his New York home August 21 at age 91; painter Bernard Buffet by his own hand at his home in the south of France October 4 at age 71 (he had Parkinson's disease and was unable to work).
Sculpture: Switch (elliptical steel plates in the shape of a huge maze) by Richard Serra.
Photographer Horst B. Horst dies at his Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., home November 18 at age 93.
Theater: Wit by California elementary-school teacher Margaret Edson, 23, 1/9 at New York's off-Broadway Union Square Theater, with Kathleen Chalfant; Not about Nightingales by the late Tennessee Williams 2/25 at New York's Circle in the Square Theater, with Corin Redgrave, Finbar Lynch, James Black, Sherri Parker Lee; Goodnight Children Everywhere by Richard Nelson 5/26 at New York's off-Broadway Wilder Theater with Robin Weighert, Kali Rocha, Heather Goldenhersh, Jon DeVries, Chris Stafford; Fuddy Meers by playwright David Lindsay-Abaire 11/2 at New York's Manhattan Theater Club, with J. Smith-Cameron, Robert Stanton; Waiting in the Wings by the late Noël Coward (as revised by Jeremy Sams) 12/16 at New York's Walter Kerr Theater (to Eugene O'Neill Theater 2/17/2000), with Lauren Bacall, Rosemary Harris, Barnard Hughes, Dana Ivey, Rosemary Murphy, Elizabeth Wilson, 186 perfs.
Actress Susan Strasberg dies of cancer at her New York home January 21 at age 60; playwright Sarah Kane hangs herself at London February 20 at age 28; actor Richard Kiley dies of a blood disorder at Middletown, N.Y., March 5 at age 76; playwright-director Garson Kanin at his New York home March 13 at age 86; actor Donal McCann of cancer at Dublin July 17 at age 56; Kabuki theater expert Faubion Bowers at his New York home November 16 at age 82.
Television: The Sopranos 1/10 on HBO with James Gandolfini as an upwardly mobile Mafia capo from northern New Jersey, Nancy Marchand, Steve VanZandt, Tony Sirico, Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco; Trenton, N.J.-born comedian Jon Stewart (originally Jonathan Stewart Leibowitz), 36, takes over the Daily Show on Comedy Central 1/11, succeeding Craig Kilborn (who has left to replace Tom Snyder on CBS's Late Late Show); It's Like, You Know . . . 3/24 on ABC with A. J. Langer, Chris Eigeman, Evan Handler, Steve Eckholdt, Jennifer Grey (to 1/5/2000); Passions (daytime soap opera) 7/15 on NBC with Taylor Anne Mountz, Josh Ryan Evans, Chea Courtney; Judging Amy 9/19 on CBS with Amy Brenneman, Tyne Daly, Dan Futterman; Once and Again 9/21 on ABC with Sela Ward, Bill Campbell (to 4/15/2002); The West Wing 9/22 on NBC with Martin Sheen as U.S. President Josiah Bartlet, John Spencer as White House chief of staff Leo McGary, Richard Schiff as Toby, Allison Janney as press secretary C. J. Cregg, Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn, Bradford Whitford as Josh Lyman, Janel Moloney as his secretary, Dulé Hill as presidential aide Charlie in a series created and written by playwright Aaron Sorkin; Who Wants to Be a Millionaire 9/23 on ABC with host Regis Philbin in a game show that revives that genre (see Van Doren, 1958; Twenty-One, 2000), ABC has purchased rights to adapt a British TV show, and its high ratings revive the network's fortunes; Third Watch 9/23 on NBC with Michael Beach, Coby Bell, Bobby Cannavale, Eddie Cibrian, Jimmy Doherty, Molly Price, Kim Raver, Anthony Ruivivar, Skip Sudduth, Jason Wiles as paramedics and police officers in and about a fictional New York 55th Precinct station house (to 5/6/2005).
Candid Camera creator-host Allen Funt dies at his 1,100-acre Pebble Beach, Calif., ranch near Big Sur September 5 at age 84, having suffered a stroke in 1993; radio raconteur Jean Shepherd dies at Sanibel Island, Fla., October 16 at age 78.
Films: Pedro Almodóvar's All about My Mother with Cecilia Roth; Sam Mendes's American Beauty with Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening as a dysfunctional suburban couple; Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry with Hilary Swank, 25 (as a sexually confused Nebraska woman who is raped and murdered for posing as a man), Chlöé Sevgigny; Wim Wenders's documentary Buena Vista Social Club with Ry Cooder, Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González, Compahy Segundo; Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia with Julianne Moore, Tom Cruise, Jason Robards Jr. Also: Chris Smith's documentary American Movie with Mark Borchardt and friends; Wayne Wang's Anywhere But Here with Susan Sarandon, Natalie Portman; Mark Pellington's Arlington Road with Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins; Erich Rohmer's Autumn Tale with Béatrice Romand, Marie Rivière; Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich with John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich; Bernardo Bertolucci's Besieged with David Thewlis, Thandie Newton; Lasse Hallstrom's The Cider House Rules with Tobey Maguire, Michael Caine; Tibetan lama Khyntse Norbu's The Cup; Kevin Smith's Dogma with Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Linda Fiorentino; Erick Zonka's The Dream Life of Angels (La Vie Revee des Anges) with Elodie Bouchez, Natacha Régnier, Grégoire Colin; Alexander Payne's Election with Matthew Broderick; Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey with Elaine Cassidy, Bob Hoskins; Neil Jordan's The End of the Affair with Ralph Fiennes, Julianne Moore; Michael Mann's The Insider with Russell Crowe as tobacco industry whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand, Al Pacino as CBS 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman, Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace; Steven Soderbergh's The Limey with Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda; Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park with Embeth Davidtz, Jonny Lee Miller, Alessandro Nivola; Hugh Hudson's My Life So Far with Colin Firth, Rosemary Harris, Irene Jacob, Mary Elizabeth Mastroianni; Kunihiko Yuyama's Pokémon: The First Movie (animated) with the voices of Veronica Taylor, Philip Bartlett; Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke (animated) with the voices of Billy Crudup, Clair Danes, Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver; François Girard's The Red Violin with Samuel L. Jackson, Carlo Cecchi, Jean-Luc Bideau, Jason Flemyng, Greta Scacchi, Sylvia Chang; Ang Lee's Ride with the Devil with Skeet Ulrich, Tobey Maguire; Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run with Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu; M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette; David Lynch's The Straight Story with Richard Farnsworth, Wiley Harker; Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley with Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law; David O. Russell's Three Kings with George Clooney; Julie Taylor's Titus with Anthony Hopkins, Alan Cumming, Jessica Lange; John Lasseter's animated Toy Story 2 with the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen; Gavin O'Connor's Tumbleweeds with Janet McTeer, Kimberly J. Brown.
Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel dies following brain surgery at Chicago February 19 at age 53; director Stanley Kubrick dies of a heart attack in his sleep at his Hertfordshire home outside London March 7 at age 70; actor Charles "Buddy" Rogers at his Rancho Mirage, Calif., home April 21 at age 94; Dirk Bogarde of a heart attack at his London home May 8 at age 78; Francis Lederer at his Palm Springs, Calif. home May 25 at age 100; Sylvia Sidney at New York July 1 at age 88; multiplex cinema pioneer Stanley H. Durwood of esophageal cancer at his native Kansas City July 14 at age 78; actor Victor Mature of cancer in San Diego County, Calif., August 4 at age 83 (or 84); actress Ruth Roman at her Laguna Beach, Calif., home September 9 at age 75; director Charles Crichton at London September 14 at age 89; actor George C. Scott of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm at his Westlake Village, Calif., office September 22 at age 71; Madeline Kahn of ovarian cancer at New York December 3 age 57; director Robert Bresson at his Droué-sur-Droutte home December 18 at age 98.
Film musicals: Kevin Lima and Chris Buck's Tarzan with Walt Disney animation by Glen Keane, music by Mark Mancina, lyrics (and drumming) by Phil Collins, and the voices of Tony Goldwyn as Tarzan, Minnie Driver as Jane, Glenn Close as Kala; Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy with London-born actor Jim Broadbent, 50, as William S. Gilbert, Allan Corduner as Arthur Sullivan.
A performing arts festival to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China opens at Beijing August 1 and continues to October 15, but ideological concerns stifle innovation.
Violinist-conductor Sir Yehudi Menuhin at Berlin March 12 at age 82; soprano Bidu Sayão at Rockport, Me., March 12 at age 94; choreographer Birgit Cullberg at Stockholm September 8 at age 91; lyric tenor Alfredo Kraus of pancreatic cancer at his Madrid home September 10 at age 71.
London's Royal Opera House at Covent Garden reopens December 1 after a 30-month, $360 million renovation and begins its new season December 6.
Broadway musicals: Marie Christine 12/2 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, with Audra McDonald, 29, Anthony Crivello, music, book, and lyrics by John La Chiusa, songs that include "I Don't Hear the Ocean," 42 perfs.
Composer-lyricist Lionel Bart dies at his native London April 3 at age 68; stage and film showman Anthony Newley of cancer at his Jensen Beach, Fla., home April 14 at age 67; Broadway songwriter George Forrest at his Miami home October 10 at age 84, having collaborated with Robert Wright on 16 stage musicals, 18 stage revues, and more than 2,000 musical compositions.
Napster Inc. is founded in May by college dropout Shawn Fanning, 19, and his friend Sean Parker, 20, who have adapted peer-to-peer file sharing in a way that turns the Internet into a huge free music exchange. Users log on to Napster, enter the name of a song they want, and are directed to a digital version in a format known as MP3. One click lets the user copy the requested song at no charge from another user's personal computer onto his or her hard drive. The sound quality is mediocre, and most people who use the service later buy CDs of the songs that they want, but recording companies regard Napster's operation as piracy; without a business model or any immediate prospect of revenues, the new company will have more than 20 million users availing themselves of its service within a year, a figure that American Online (AOL) did not reach for 10 years, and then only after mailing out millions of disks and other promotional material (see 2000).
Popular songs: Christina Aguilera (CD) by Staten Island, N.Y.-born Pennsylvania-raised singer-songwriter Aguilera, 18, achieves phenomenal sales, as do her singles "Genie in a Bottle" and "What a Girl Wants;" Vacancy (CD) by Joseph Arthur, whose seven-song EP gains critical acclaim; Voice of an Angel (CD) by Welsh soprano Charlotte Church, 13, whose medieval-sounding songs include some from the 1937 secular oratorio Carmina Burana by the late German composer-music educator Carl Orff; Last Kiss (CD) by Pearl Jam; Up Up Up Up Up Up (CD) by Ani DiFranco, now 28; The Slim Shady LP (CD) by Eminem.
Songwriter-actor Bobby Troup dies at Los Angeles February 1 at age 80 (he is survived by his wife, singer-actress Julie London); pop singer Dusty Springfield dies of breast cancer at her Henley-on-Thomas home near London March 3 at age 59; jazz singer Joe Williams of a respiratory ailment at Las Vegas March 29 at age 80; vibraphonist-bandleader Red Norvo at a Santa Monica convalescent home April 6 at age 91; communist anthem writer Cao Huoxing at Tianjin (Tientsin) April 16 at age 75; jazz trumpeter Al Hirt of liver ailments at his native New Orleans April 27 at age 76; singer Mel Torme of complications from a stroke at Los Angeles June 5 at age 73; singer Helen Forrest of congestive heart failure at Los Angeles July 11 at age 82; country singer Anita Carter at her Goodlettsville, Tenn., home July 29 at age 66; former belly dancer Tahia Carioca (Abla Mohammed Karim) of a heart attack at Cairo September 20 at age 79; vibraphonist Milt Jackson of liver cancer at New York October 9 at age 76; tenor Josef Locke in County Kildare south of Dublin October 15 at age 82; jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd of cancer at his Annapolis, Md., home December 1 at age 74; jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. of an apparent heart attack at New York December 17 at age 56; country singer Hank Snow at his Madison, Tenn., home December 20 at age 85; soul singer-songwriter Curtis Mayfield at Roswell, Ga., December 26 at age 57.
Chicago Bulls guard Michael Jordan, now 35, announces his retirement January 13 after a dazzling 14 years in which he has led the Bulls to six championships, scoring 29,277 points (third highest in NBA history). Wilt Chamberlain dies of an apparent heart attack at his Los Angeles home October 12 at age 63; a knee injury at Philadelphia December 8 ends the career of Houston Rockets forward Charles Barkley at age 36 ("Just what America needs," he quips, "another unemployed black man").
The Denver Broncos win Super Bowl XXXIII at Miami January 31, beating the Atlanta Falcons 39 to 14.
The Breitling Orbiter 3 completes the first nonstop round-the-world balloon flight March 20 as Swiss psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, 41, and British ballooning instructor Brian Jones, 51, pass the finish line at 9 degrees 27 minutes west longitude over Mauretania in North Africa at an altitude of 36,000 feet. The 20-day flight from Château-d'Oex in the Swiss Alps has taken the pair across Europe, Africa, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, and the North Atlantic.
Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky retires at New York April 18 at age 38 after a 21-year professional career in which he has scored 894 goals and racked up a record 2,857 points. Hockey legend Maurice "Rocket" Richard dies of stomach cancer and Parkinson's disease at Montreal May 27 at age 78.
Golfer Gene Sarazen dies at Naples, Fla., May 13 at age 97; Iditarod dog-sled race cofounder Joe Redington of throat cancer at his Knik homestead outside Anchorage, Alaska, June 24 at age 82; Nascar speedway owner H. Clay Earles at his Martinsville, Va., trailer home November 16 at age 86.
Tennis doubles champion Bill Talbert dies at his New York home February 28 at age 80 (mugged at a La Guardia Airport taxi stand in 1992, he sustained a broken shoulder and pelvis and has been in poor health ever since).
Pete Sampras wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Lindsay Davenport in women's; Andre Agassi, now 29, in U.S. Open men's singles, Serena Williams, 17, in women's.
Moroccan runner Hicham el-Guerrouj, 24, covers a mile in 3 minutes 43.13 seconds at Rome July 7, setting a new world record; runner Michael Johnson, now 31, runs the 400 meter in 43.18 seconds at Seville August 26, breaking the record of 43.29 that has stood since 1988.
The U.S. team wins the Women's World Cup in football (soccer), defeating China July 10 before a crowd of more than 90,000 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. Goalkeeper Briana Scurry blocks a Chinese penalty kick in the crucial play that seals the U.S. victory, which is widely attributed to passage in 1972 of a federal aid to education act whose Title IX has encouraged women's sports and produced a generation of "soccer moms."
Dallas-born cyclist Lance (Edward) Armstrong, 27, wins France's Tour de France July 25. Only the second American to win the race (Greg Le Mond won it three times), he has also won a 33-month battle against testicular cancer which spread to his lungs and brain before being stopped by chemotherapy.
Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio dies of lung cancer and pneumonia at Hollywood, Fla., March 8 at age 84; veteran catcher-manager-scout George "Birdie" Tebbetts at Bradenton, Fla., March 24 at age 86; veteran Baltimore Orioles coach Cal Ripken, Sr., of lung cancer at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center March 25 at age 63; cricket legend Godfrey Evans at Northampton, Northamptonshire, May 3 at age 79; onetime Negro league all-star center fielder Henry Kimbro at his Nashville, Tenn., home July 11 at age 87; pitcher Jim "Catfish" Hunter of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) at his Hertford, N.C., home September 9 at age 53; former Minnesota Twins (and Washington Senators) owner Calvin Griffith at Melbourne, Fla., October 20 at age 87.
Seattle's $517 million Safeco Field ballpark opens July 15 with Kentucky bluegrass and rye grass turf and a retractable steel-rail canopy to replace the nearby Kingdome that cost $67 million.
The New York Yankees win their 25th World Series (no other team has won more than 9), defeating the Atlanta Braves 4 games to 0.
Former Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton dies of sclerosing cholangitis (acute bile-duct inflammation) at Chicago November 1 at age 45.
Veteran horse racing writer Whitney Tower dies at his Saratoga Springs, N.Y., home February 11 at age 75, having suffered a stroke last year; horse trainer Charlie Whittingham dies of leukemia at Pasadena, Calif., April 20 at age 86; horse racing patron Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt at his Mill Neck, N.Y., home November 12 at age 87.
Panamian-born jockey Laffit Pincay, Jr. breaks his rival Bill Shoemaker's record of 8,333 victories December 10. Now nearly 53, he will win 198 more before he retires in 2003.
A California Legoland theme park opens March 20 about 30 miles north of San Diego at Carlsbad with 128 acres of rides and other attractions (see 1996). Included is a "Miniland" made of some 30 million plastic Lego blocks featuring a replica of the U.S. Capitol at Washington, D.C. The park has cost $130 million to build.
Universal Studios opens its Islands of Adventure theme park on a 110-acre site near Orlando, Fla., with rides and attractions that include Seuss Landing (based on Dr. Seuss characters), the Incredible Hulk steel roller coaster, the Lost Continent, Jurassic Park, and Toon Lagoon.
The Mandalay Bay hotel-casino opens at Las Vegas in March with a separate Four Seasons hotel on its 35th through 39th floors. Decorated with a tropical theme, the Mandalay Bay has a 12,000-seat concert, entertainment, and sports complex, and is followed May 3 by the Venetian hotel casino (with the Piazza de San Marco, the Camanile, the Bridge of Sighs, and the Ca' d'Oro reproduced indoors complete with gondoliers). The Venetian has 15 restaurants, but only three of them open in May; it has 2,718 rooms (average rate: $167 per night) and 318 suites, 130-square-foot baths paved with Italian marble, 27-inch TV sets, and although its 700-square-foot rooms are the biggest in town a malfunctioning fire-control system prevents their immediate occupancy. The Paris hotel casino opens in June while construction continues on the Venetian.
Steve Wynn's $650 million Beau Rivage hotel-casino opens at Biloxi, Miss., with 1,780 rooms, 66 suites, 4,500 employees, 24 live oaks lining its entrance drive, 13 magnolia trees inside, a 20,000-square-foot health spa, 50,000 square feet of convention space, and countless blackjack tables, slot machines, roulette wheels, and the like.
The venerable British betting-parlor chain and racetrack operator Ladbroke Group changes its name as of May 14 to Hilton Group, with one division called Hilton International and the other Ladbroke Betting and Gaming.
Sony introduces PlayStation 2 in Japan in March to maintain its leadership in the video-game market. The console will be launched in the United States in the fall of next year, competing with the Nintendo 64 (each retails for about $130), but the ability to turn personal computers into Sony PlayStations soon creates a flood of cheap or even free (albeit illegal) games that are pirated onto CD-ROMs and offered via the Internet; the Dreamcast video console introduced by Sega Enterprises in September lists for $199 and helps Sega increase its share of the U.S. video-game market from 0.5 percent to about 15 percent, but the company lags far behind Nintendo, which trails the market leader Sony (see 2000); Yu-Gi-Oh (Game King) cards challenge Nintendo's Pokémon cards in Japan. Introduced by the 26-year-old Konami Corp. video-game maker of Osaka and based on a 3-year-old comic-book series, the card game is based on a shy boy (Yu-Gi) who fights virtual monsters whose powers are derived from an ancient "millennium puzzle" that his grandfather helps keep alive. Konami will develop the card game into animated computer software and launch a Yu-Gi-Oh craze in America beginning in the spring of 2002.
Nike Inc. cofounder William J. "Bill" Bowerman dies at his Fossil, Ore., home the night of December 24 at age 88.
All remaining U.S. cigarette billboards come down by midnight April 21 as part of the $206 billion agreement reached last year between tobacco companies and 40 states. Anti-smoking billboards take their place in many states, some of them suggesting that smoking saps a man's sexual powers, but since the states collect sales taxes on tobacco products they will use only about 5 percent of the revenues received directly from the companies for anti-smoking efforts. Philip Morris raises wholesale cigarette prices by 18 percent per pack (8 percent) August 27, increasing the retail price to between $2.72 and $3.47 per pack; competitors quickly follow suit, anticipating a tax increase and more expenses from settlements with the states over healthcare costs.
The U.S. Department of Justice ends a criminal investigation of the tobacco industry September 22 and files a civil lawsuit accusing the major companies of having conspired since the 1950s to defraud and mislead the public about the health hazards of smoking. "The tobacco companies should answer to the taxpayers for their actions," says President Clinton, and Attorney General Janet Reno says at a news conference, "For the past 45 years the companies that manufacture and sell tobacco have waged an intentional coordinated campaign of fraud and deceit . . . designed to preserve their enormous profits whatever the cost in human lives, human suffering, and medical resources. The consequences have been staggering." Philip Morris concedes October 12 that there is an "overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking" is addictive "as that term is most commonly used today" and causes diseases that include lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease, but while California and Florida mount effective anti-smoking campaigns most of the states that are receiving billions of dollars from the tobacco companies in accordance with the settlements made last year adopt plans to use the money for almost everything except reducing smoking.
The 4-year trial of Raul Salinas de Gortari ends at Mexico City January 21 with the conviction of Salinas for murder in connection with the September 1994 assassination of political rival José Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Brother of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the prominent politician is sentenced to 50 years. Former anti-drug boss Mario Ruiz Massieu, 48, is found dead in New Jersey September 15, an apparent suicide (a civil jury at Houston confiscated most of his money 2 years ago after U.S. prosecutors presented evidence showing that he had accepted huge bribes from Mexican drug traffickers to protect their operations).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 April 5 in Wyoming v. Houghton that police officers who have probable cause to search an automobile for illegal drugs may search the personal belongings of the passengers even though they are under no suspicion of illegal activity.
Two alienated Columbine High School students at Littleton, Colo., place at least 30 bombs April 20 and shoot 13 fellow students, aged 14 to 18, and a 47-year-old male teacher dead and wounding several others before killing themselves at the suburban Denver school; dressed in black trenchcoats, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, have deliberately chosen Adolf Hitler's 110th birthday for their murder spree. The massacre inspires copy-cat threats in other schools nationwide.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 June 10 in Chicago v. Morales that a city ordinance against loitering adopted in 1992 was unconstitutional. Struck down by a state appellate court in 1995, it was once considered a model for reclaiming streets in gang-infested neighborhoods and was used by police to arrest more than 42,000 people in the 3 years of its existence, but the Court says it gave the police too much discretion to single out what sometimes turned out to be innocent people.
Tulia, Texas, makes headlines following a July 23 drug sting in the town (population: 5,000) by undercover agent Tom Coleman, who has been employed by the Amarillo-based Texas Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force; 39 of the 46 people arrested by Coleman are black, they accuse him of using racial epithets, he finds no drugs, weapons, or large sums of cash in his mass arrest, he makes no tape recording of his alleged drug purchases, and he will claim that he jotted down information on his leg, but 22 of those arrested will be sentenced to long prison terms (see 2003).
Atlanta stock trader Mark O. Barton, 44, loses $500,000 in day trading, bludgeons his estranged wife and two children to death the night of July 28, types a confession on his computer, warns in the note that he plans to kill "the people that greedily sought my destruction," drives his van to an office park the next morning, walks into two offices carrying a .9 mm Glock semiautomatic handgun and a .45 Colt semiautomatic pistol, kills nine day traders and trading house employees aged 30 to 60, wounds 13 other people, nine of them seriously, and then shoots himself as police close in.
Texas drifter Larry Gene Ashbrook, 47, walks into Fort Worth's Wedgwood Baptist Church during a contemporary Christian music concert September 16, lights a cigarette, shoots a janitor who approaches him, kills six other people, including four teenagers, and then kills himself, having fired at least 30 shots from a .9 millimeter Ruger handgun and a 380-caliber AMT. Gun-control advocates have failed for 31 years to obtain the enactment of any but small measures to regulate the manufacture and sale of firearms, but public pressure against the gun lobby has mounted. New York State attorney general Eliot Spitzer has threatened to make New York the first state to join the municipal legal assault on guns; Colt Manufacturing Co. owner Donald Zilkha approaches Spitzer on an Upper East Side New York street, introduces himself, suggests that they talk, and in October cuts production of less-expensive civilian handguns, the very weapons that Spitzer and others want curtailed.
Hyatt Hotel chain founder Jay Pritzker dies of heart disease at Chicago January 23 at age 76.
Copenhagen's First Hotel opens at 23-29 Vesterbrogade May 17 with 400 double rooms.
Shanghai's 88-story Jin Mao Tower opens March 18 with a 34-story, 555-room Grand Hyatt Shanghai beginning on the 54th floor. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the office building (third tallest structure in the world) has been financed by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, which undertook its construction when the country's economy was in sounder condition (vacancy rates in the city now approach 60 percent and rents are two-thirds below 1995 levels). The building's underground garage can accommodate 1,000 automobiles (and 2,000 bicycles).
Malaysia's prime minister Mahathir Mohammad moves with 800 civil servants in June into a colossal new green-domed government building at the new capital city of Putrajaya; adjoining it is a grandiose, green-domed ministerial residence with a man-made lake. Kuala Lumpur remains the official capital, but it is congested and all government offices are to move 25 miles south to Putrajaya by 2012 (the total cost is projected to be $5.2 billion, of which $1.3 billion has already been spent).
The worst tornadoes in the United States since 1985 strike Oklahoma and Kansas May 3 with winds of 300 miles per hour and higher, killing 46, injuring hundreds, and leaving close to $1 billion in property damage in their wake.
An earthquake rocks parts of Colombia January 25 with tremors that register 6.3 on the Richter scale. The death toll is 1,185, more than 700 are missing and presumed dead, upwards of 4,750 injured, about 250,000 left homeless; Turkey has a predawn earthquake August 17 that is the worst in western Turkey's history. Centered at Izmit on the North Anatolian Fault east of Istanbul, it measures 7.4 on the Richter scale, kills 17,118, injures at least 50,000, leaves more than 200,000 homeless, and causes damage estimated at between $3 billion and $6 billion. The centralized government is slow to react, rescue efforts lag as people die in the ruins, and critics charge that builders were allowed to erect low-cost housing without meeting safety codes and that regulation was lax. Another quake in the same area November 13 kills nearly 500 people and injures 3,000; Taiwan has the worst earthquake in her history September 20. Epicentered at Taichung and Nantu, it measures 7.6 on the Richter scale, levels parts of Taipei and other cities, kills 2,297, injures more than 8,700, leaves 600,000 homeless, and causes bridges and highways to