January 28 - Gunmen hold at least 400 children and teachers hostage for several hours at an elementary school in Manila, Philippines.
January 29 - In Birmingham, Alabama a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic killing one and severely wounding another. Serial bomber Eric Rudolph is suspected as the culprit.
February 3 - A United States Military pilot causes the death of 20 skiers in Italy riding on a lift suspended by a cable snapped by the low-flying plane.
February 3 - Karla Faye Tucker is executed in Texas becoming the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.
March 5 - NASA announced that that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon had found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fueling station.
March 24 - In Jonesboro, Arkansas, two young boys (aged 11 and 13 years) fire upon students at Westside Middle School while hidden in woodlands near the school. Four students and one teacher are killed and 10 injured.
March 27 - The FDA approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, becoming the first pill to be approved to treat this condition in the United States.
April 8 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM reports to the UN Security Council that Iraq's declaration on its biological weapons program is incomplete and inadequate.
April 10 - Good Friday: 18 hours after the end of talks deadline the Belfast Agreement is signed between the Irish and British governments and most Northern Ireland political parties.
April 25 - A waste reservoir at Los Frailes mine in Andalusia, Spain, ruptures, discharging heavy metal waste into the Guadiamar River. The pollution threatens the sensitive ecosystem and endangered species of Doñana National Park, Spain's largest nature reserve, but is diverted into the Guadalquivir River. Up to 10,000 hectares of farmland are ruined by the spill. [1]
May 11 - Nuclear testing: In the Rajasthan Desert, India conducts its second series of underground nuclear tests (the first were in 1974) and inflaming its rival neighbor Pakistan (who already has nuclear weapons).
May 15 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM learns that an Iraqi delegation has travelled to Bucharest to meet with scientists who can provide the country with missile guidance systems.
May 21 - School shooting: At Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, Kipland Kinkel (who was suspended for bringing a gun to school) shoots a semi-automatic rifle into a room filled with students killing 2 wounding 25 others after killing his parents at home.
May 21 - Reproductive rights: In Miami, Florida, five abortion clinics are hit by a butyric acid attacker.
May 21 - Suharto resigned, after 32 years as Indonesian President and 7th consecutive re-election by the Indonesian Parliament (MPR). Suharto's hand-picked Vice President, B. J. Habibie, became Indonesia's third president.
May 21 to September 30 - Expo '98 is held in Lisbon, Portugal, with the title "Oceans, an Heritage for the Future". UNESCO had previously declared 1998 to be the International Year of the Oceans due to the Expo. 12 million people attend the world fair.
May 27 - Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
July 10 - Catholic priests' sex abuse scandal: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.
July 17 - A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 1,500, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.
July 24 - Russel Eugene Weston Jr bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.
July 25 - The United States Navy commissions the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and puts her into service.
August 26 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Scott Ritter resigns from UNSCOM, sharply criticized the Clinton administration and the U.N. Security Council for not being vigorous enough about insisting that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction be destroyed. Ritter told reporters that "Iraq is not disarming," "Iraq retains the capability to launch a chemical strike."
September 2 - A United Nations court finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide, marking the first time that the 1948 law banning genocide is enforced.
October 28 - An Air China jetliner is hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan. After landing the plane safely, Yuan Bin was arrested.
October 29 - Space Shuttle Discovery blasts-off with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space. He became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962.
October 29 - While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of 6 and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacking into thinking that he was landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel.
October 29 - In Freehold, New Jersey, Melissa Drexler pleads guilty to aggravated manslaughter for killing her baby moments after delivering him in the bathroom at her senior prom, and is sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
November 5 - The journal Nature publishes a genetic study showing compelling evidence that Thomas Jefferson fathered his slave Sally Hemings' son Eston Hemings Jefferson.
November 9 - In the largest civil settlement in United States history, a federal judge approves a US$1.03 billion settlement requiring dozens of brokerage houses (including Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Salomon Smith Barney) to pay investors who claim they were cheated in a wide-spread price-fixing scheme on the NASDAQ.
November 13-14 - Iraq disarmament crisis: U.S. President Clinton orders airstrikes on Iraq. Clinton then calls it off at the last minute when Iraq promises once again to "unconditionally" cooperate with UNSCOM
November 23-26 - Iraq disarmament crisis: According to UNSCOM, Iraq once again ends cooperation with the U.N. inspectors, alternately intimidating and withholding information from them.
November 30 - Deutsche Bank announces a US$10 billion deal to buy Bankers Trust, thus creating the largest financial institution in the world.
December 1 - Exxon announces a US$73.7 billion deal to buy Mobil, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the largest company on the planet.
December 11 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq announces that U.N. weapons inspections will no longer take place on Friday, the Muslim day of rest. Iraq also refuses to provide test data from the production of missiles and engines.
December 16-19 - Iraq disarmament crisis: U.S. President Clinton orders American and British airstrikes on Iraq. UNSCOM withdraws all weapons inspectors from Iraq.
December 21 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council members France, Germany and Russia call for sanctions to end against Iraq. The three Security Council members also call for UNSCOM to either be disbanded or for its role to be recast. The U.S. says it will veto any such proposal.
December 26 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq announced its intention to fire upon US and British warplanes that patrol the northern and southern "no-fly zones".
United States Congress passes, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which gives copyright holders 20 more years of copyright privilege on work which they control the copyright. This effectively freezes the public domain to works created before 1923 in the United States.