Year retrospective · 1990s

1998

1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1998th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 998th year of the 2nd millennium, the 98th year of the 20th century, and the 9th year of the 1990s decade.

Recorded events

10

top entries

Notable births

30

Notable deaths

30

Decade

1990s

Timeline

Defining events of 1998

  1. 1998 The Good Friday Agreement is signed in Northern Ireland.

    1998 agreements between the United Kingdom and Ireland

    The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethnic and national conflict in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s. It is made up of the Multi-Party Agreement between most of Northern Ireland's political parties, and the British–Irish Agreement between the British and Irish governments.

  2. 1998 Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-90, the final Spacelab mission.

    Space Shuttle orbiter (1981–2003)

    Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, and the female personification of the United States, Columbia was the first of five Space Shuttle orbiters to fly in space, debuting the Space Shuttle launch vehicle on its maiden flight on April 12, 1981 and becoming the first spacecraft to be re-used after its first flight when it launched on STS-2 on November 12, 1981. As only the second full-scale orbiter to be manufactured after the Approach and Landing Test vehicle Enterprise, Columbia retained unique external and internal features compared with later orbiters, such as test instrumentation and distinctive black chines.

  3. 1998 Air France Flight 422 crashes after taking off from El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia, killing all 53 people on board.

    1998 aviation accident

    Air France Flight 422 was a scheduled flight on 20 April 1998 by Air France from Bogotá, Colombia, to Quito, Ecuador, covering the final leg of a flight from Paris to Quito. The Boeing 727 was destroyed, killing all 53 people on board, when it crashed into the Eastern Hills of Bogotá because of foggy weather and low visibility after taking off from Bogotá's El Dorado International Airport. The plane was owned by TAME, the Ecuadorian airline, but was being operated on a wet-lease basis to Air France as the final leg of its flight from Paris.

  4. 1998 In Japan, the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge opens to traffic, becoming the longest bridge span in the world.

    Country in East Asia

    Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered to the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands alongside 14,121 smaller islands.

  5. 1998 Nuclear weapons testing: Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of reaching India.

    Controlled detonation of nuclear weapons for scientific or political purposes

    Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of their explosion. Over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been carried out since 1945. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue.

  6. 1998 Puntland, an autonomous state in northeastern Somalia, was officially established following a constitutional conference in Garowe, Issims and tribal chiefs agreed to create a self-declared government until Somalia recovered.

    Federal State in Somalia

    Puntland, officially the Puntland State of Somalia, is a semi-autonomous state that considers itself to be part of Somalia, despite not accepting the legitimacy of Somalia's current governing administration. It was formed in 1998, and is a federal member state of Somalia. Puntland is located in the northeast of Somalia.

  7. 1998 HRH Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah is proclaimed the crown prince of Brunei with a Royal Proclamation.
  8. 1998 Northern Ireland: Omagh bombing takes place; 29 people (including a woman pregnant with twins) killed and some 220 others injured.
  9. 1998 Apple introduces the iMac computer.
  10. 1998 Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky; later that same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about the relationship.

Arrivals

Born in 1998

King Combs 1998– American rapper (born 1998)
Mitchell Robinson 1998– American basketball player (born 1998)
Sexyy Red 1998– American rapper (born 1998)
Anna Odine Strøm 1998– Norwegian ski jumper (born 1998)
Suppapong Udomkaewkanjana (Saint) 1998– Thai actor, producer and host (born 1998)
Jarrett Allen 1998– American basketball player (born 1998)
Ryan Newman 1998– American actress (born 1998)
Satou Sabally 1998– German-American basketball player (born 1998)
Cristian Romero 1998– Argentine footballer (born 1998)
Song Yu-bin 1998– South Korean singer (born 1998)
Kimberly Birrell 1998– Australian tennis player (born 1998)
Mallory Pugh 1998– American soccer player (born 1998)

Farewells

Died in 1998

Rozz Williams American singer (1963–1998)
Seraphim of Athens Archbishop of Athens from 1974 to 1998
Robert Ford Canadian poet, translator and diplomat (1915–1998)
Patrick de Gayardon French skydiver (1960–1998)
William Congdon American artist
Pol Pot Cambodian communist leader (1925–1998)
Linda McCartney American photographer and musician (1941–1998)
Octavio Paz Mexican writer, poet and diplomat (1914–1998)
Rob Pilatus German singer (1964/1965–1998)
Jean-François Lyotard French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist (1924-1998)
Wright Morris American photographer and novelist
John W. H. Bassett Canadian media proprietor and politician (1915–1998)

On the charts

Culture of 1998

By month

Across the calendar of 1998

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