1999-02-23
Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.
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1999-02-24
The State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national convicted of murder during a botched bank robbery, in spite of Germany's legal action to attempt to save him.
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1999-03-21
Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.
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1999-03-29
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark (10,006.78) for the first time, during the height of the internet boom.
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1999-12-03
Six Firefighters killed in the Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire in Worcester Mass.
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1999-07-16
John F. Kennedy, Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies when his plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. His wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are also killed.
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1999-11-19
In Istanbul, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ends a two-day summit by calling for a political settlement in Chechnya and adopting a Charter for European Security.
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1999-03-26
A jury in Michigan finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.
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1999-01-03
Israel detains, and later expels, 14 members of Concerned Christians.
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1999-06-12
Kosovo War: Operation Joint Guardian begins when a NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping force (KFor) enters the province of Kosovo in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
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1999-08-15
Beni Ounif massacre in Algeria; some 29 people are killed at a false roadblock near the Moroccan border, leading to temporary tensions with Morocco.
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1999-09-08
United States Attorney General Janet Reno names former Senator John Danforth to head an independent investigation of the 1993 fire at the Branch Davidian church near Waco, Texas in response to revelations in the film Waco: The Rules of Engagement that contradicted the official government stories.
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1999-02-16
In Uzbekistan, a bomb explodes and gunfire is heard at the government headquarters in an apparent assassination attempt against President Islom Karimov.
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1999-05-29
Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.
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1999-08-09
The Diet of Japan enacts a law establishing the Hinomaru and Kimi Ga Yo as the official national flag and national anthem.
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1999-11-18
In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University when the 59 foot tall Aggie Bonfire, under construction for the annual football game against the University of Texas, collapses at 2:42am.
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1999-10-13
The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
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1999-01-22
Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons are burned alive by radical Hindus while sleeping in their car in Eastern India.
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1999-11-06
Australians vote to keep the Head of the Commonwealth as their head of state in the Australian republic referendum.
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1999-05-27
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
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1999-12-03
NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.
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1999-10-22
Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity.
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1999-05-28
In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper is put back on display.
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1999-06-09
Kosovo War: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.
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1999-11-30
In Seattle, Washington, United States, protests against the WTO meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies.
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1999-10-12
The Day of Six Billion: The proclaimed 6 billionth living human in the world is born.
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1999-05-03
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is slammed by an F5 tornado killing forty-two people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. This is the strongest tornado ever recorded with wind speeds of up to 318 mph.
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1999-04-01
Nunavut is established as a Canadian territory carved out of the eastern part of the Northwest Territories.
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1999-05-25
The United States House of Representatives releases the Cox Report which details the People's Republic of China's nuclear espionage against the U.S. over the prior two decades.
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1999-02-27
Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Nigeria's first elected president since mid-1983.
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1999-03-24
Kosovo War: NATO commences air bombardment against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.
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1999-12-31
The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
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1999-03-27
An F-117 Nighthawk is shot down during the Kosovo War.
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1999-03-12
Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO.
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1999-12-31
Five hijackers, who had been holding 155 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane, leave the plane with two Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed.
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1999-12-18
NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
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1999-03-23
Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña.
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1999-12-22
Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509, a Boeing 747-200F crashes shortly after take-off from London Stansted Airport due to pilot error. All 4 crew members are killed.
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1999-10-05
The Ladbroke Grove rail crash in west London kills 31 people.
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1999-11-12
The Düzce earthquake strikes Turkey with a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale.
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1999-01-19
British Aerospace agrees to acquire the defence subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc, forming BAE Systems in November 1999.
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1999-09-03
87-automobile pile-up on Highway 401 freeway just east of Windsor, Ontario, Canada after an unusually thick fog from Lake St. Clair.
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1999-09-23
NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter.
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1999-07-09
Days of student protests begin after Iranian police and hardliners attack a student dormitory at the University of Tehran.
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1999-01-04
Gunmen open fire on Shiite Muslims worshipping in an Islamabad mosque, killing 16 people and injuring 25.
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1999-11-27
The left-wing Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government with leader Helen Clark becoming the first elected female Prime Minister in New Zealand's history.
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1999-04-14
NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees – Yugoslav officials say 75 people are killed.
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1999-03-26
The "Melissa worm" infects Microsoft word processing and e-mail systems around the world.
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1999-04-14
A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.
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1999-07-05
U.S. President Bill Clinton imposes trade and economic sanctions against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
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1999-04-30
Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bringing the number of members to 10.
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1999-04-29
The Avala TV Tower near Belgrade is destroyed in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
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1999-04-07
The World Trade Organisation rules in favor of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with the European Union over bananas.
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1999-12-21
The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives that ETA intended to use to blow up Torre Picasso in Madrid.
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1999-02-12
President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
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1999-05-28
Two Swedish police officers are murdered with their own fire arms by the bank robbers Jackie Arklöv and Tony Olsson after a car chase.
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1999-10-26
Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.
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1999-02-23
An avalanche destroys the Austrian village of Galtür, killing 31.
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1999-03-05
Paul Okalik is elected first Premier of Nunavut.
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1999-12-07
The Recording Industry Association of America files a lawsuit against the Napster file-sharing client alleging copyright infringement.
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1999-07-23
Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Al-Hassan is crowned King Mohammed VI of Morocco on the death of his father.
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1999-05-07
A jury finds The Jenny Jones Show and Warner Bros. liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure, after the show purposely deceived Jonathan Schmitz to appear on a secret same-sex crush episode. Schmitz later killed Amedure and the jury awarded Amedure's family $25 million USD.
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1999-10-29
A large cyclone devastates Orissa, India.
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1999-05-07
Pope John Paul II travels to Romania becoming the first pope to visit a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054.
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1999-05-29
Olusegun Obasanjo takes office as President of Nigeria, the first elected and civilian head of state in Nigeria after 16 years of military rule.
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1999-08-07
Second Chechen War began.
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1999-01-01
The Euro currency is introduced in 11 countries - members of NATO (with the exception of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Sweden).
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1999-11-25
The United Nations establishes the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to commemorate the murder of three Mirabal Sisters for resistance against the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship in Dominican Republic.
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1999-12-02
Glenbrook rail accident near Sydney, New South Wales.
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1999-01-03
The Mars Polar Lander is launched.
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1999-02-04
Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race-relations in the city.
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1999-04-20
Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.
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1999-07-20
Falun Gong is banned in the People's Republic of China, and a large scale crackdown of the practice is launched.
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1999-08-20
Tony Martin confronts two burglars in his farmhouse in Emneth Hungate, Norfolk. Martin shoots both Brendon Fearon and Fred Barras with a pump-action shotgun, with Barras later dying of his injuries.
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1999-10-09
The last flight of the SR-71.
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1999-10-27
Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and 6 other members.
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1999-02-19
President Bill Clinton issues a posthumous pardon for U.S. Army Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper.
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1999-01-02
A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern United States, causing 14 inches (359 mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 19 inches (487 mm) in Chicago, where temperatures plunge to -13 °F (-25 °C); 68 deaths are reported
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1999-07-01
The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on the day that legislative powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh.
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1999-08-19
In Belgrade, tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand the resignation of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević.
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1999-02-16
Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrests one of their rebel leaders, Abdullah Öcalan.
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1999-09-30
Japan's worst nuclear accident at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tōkai-mura, northeast of Tokyo.
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1999-10-31
EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board.
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1999-10-31
Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of circumnavigating the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted.
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1999-05-06
First elections to the devolved Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly held.
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1999-07-23
ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo, Japan.
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1999-05-02
Panamanian election, 1999: Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman to be elected President of Panama.
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1999-09-14
Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations.
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1999-09-21
Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead.
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1999-02-15
Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), is arrested in Kenya.
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1999-09-23
Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm. While some passengers only receive minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history since 1960.
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1999-07-05
Wolverhampton, England is hit by storms which include a tornado. The area is hit again with severe storms on August 1.
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1999-12-02
The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive.
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1999-12-31
Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.
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1999-04-05
Two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 are handed over for eventual trial in the Netherlands.
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1999-04-19
The German Bundestag returns to Berlin, the first German parliamentary body to meet there since the Reichstag was dissolved in 1945.
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1999-06-06
In Australian Rules Football, Tony Lockett breaks the record for career goals, previously 1299 by Gordon Coventry and which had stood since 1937.
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1999-05-07
In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup.
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1999-03-11
Infosys becomes the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
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1999-07-26
Cessation of combat activities after the Kargil War; Celebrated as Kargil Vijay Diwas in India.
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1999-06-01
American Airlines Flight 1420 slides and crashes while landing at Little Rock National Airport, killing 11 people on a flight from Dallas to Little Rock.
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1999-08-17
A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes İzmit, Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.
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1999-01-25
A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia killing at least 1,000.
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1999-04-12
US President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements" in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit.
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1999-06-02
The Bhutan Broadcasting Service brings television transmissions to the Kingdom for the first time.
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1999-05-07
Kosovo War: In Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, three Chinese citizens are killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
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1999-07-06
U.S. Army private Barry Winchell dies from baseball-bat injuries inflicted in his sleep the previous day by a fellow soldier, Calvin Glover, for his relationship with transgender showgirl and former Navy Corpsman Calpernia Addams.
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1999-04-08
Haryana Gana Parishad, a political party in the Indian state of Haryana, merges with the Indian National Congress.
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1999-02-07
Crown Prince Abdullah becomes the King of Jordan on the death of his father, King Hussein.
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1999-08-31
A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including 2 on the ground.
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1999-09-12
Indonesia announces it will allow international peace-keepers into East Timor.
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1999-02-24
A China Southern Airlines Tupolev TU-154 airliner crashes on approach to Wenzhou airport in eastern the People's Republic of China, killing 61.
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1999-02-04
The New Carissa runs aground near Coos Bay, Oregon.
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1999-08-31
The first of a series of bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others.
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1999-12-20
Macau is handed over to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.
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1999-06-10
Kosovo War: NATO suspends its air strikes after Slobodan Milošević agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.
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1999-11-19
Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.
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1999-08-11
The Salt Lake City Tornado tears through the downtown district of the city, killing one.
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1999-01-07
The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins. He had been impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19.
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1999-08-09
Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time fires his entire cabinet.
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1999-01-04
Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is sworn in as governor of Minnesota.
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1999-10-12
Pervez Musharraf takes power in Pakistan from Nawaz Sharif through a bloodless coup.
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1999-01-20
The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet cafés.
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1999-12-14
Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations.
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1999-01-15
The Racak incident: 45 Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak are killed by Yugoslav security forces.
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1999-11-30
British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.
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1999-07-08
Allen Lee Davis is executed by electric chair by the state of Florida, the last use of the electric chair for capital punishment in Florida.
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1999-03-20
Legoland California, the only Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California.
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1999-09-07
A 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocks Athens, rupturing a previously unknown fault, killing 143, injuring more than 500, and leaving 50,000 people homeless.
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1999-03-08
The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing.
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1999-01-21
War on Drugs: In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 4,300 kilograms (9,500 lb) of cocaine on board.
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1999-07-31
Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector – NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
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