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 6 - The French prefect Claude Erignac is assassinated in the streets of Ajaccio (Corse) by a commando of Corsican insurgents, among them Yvan Colonna (trial june 2).
March 5 - NASA announced 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 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 Dońana National Park, Spain's largest nature reserve, but is diverted into the Guadalquivir River. Up to 100 km² of farmland are ruined by the spill. [1]
May
May 2 - hide (Hideto Matsumoto) is dead from asphyxiation
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 - Suharto resigns, 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
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 25 - Wakayama Arsenic poison case - 63 poisoned and 4 dead by arsenic in a festival in the town in Wakayama Prefecture in Japan - Masumi Hayashi is arrested for murder
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."
August 31 - North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyongsong, their first satellite. Although North Korea reports that it reached stable orbit, NORAD was never able to confirm this assertion
October 7 - 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.
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 - 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 Göteborg, Sweden two arsonists burn down a disco of a local Macedonian Society - 63 dead, over 200 injured, most of them children of refugees
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
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 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
Ibrahim Hanna, the last native speaker of Mlahsö, dies in Qamishli, Syria, making the language effectively extinct. In that same year, the last native speaker of related Bijil Neo-Aramaic dies in Jerusalem.
