February 4 - Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, enflaming race-relations in the city.
February 5 - Mike Tyson is sentenced to a year's imprisonment, fined $5,000, and ordered to serve 2 years probation and perform 200 hours of community service for the August 31, 1998 assault on two people after a car accident.
In Uzbekistan a bomb explodes and gunfire is heard at the government headquarters in an apparent assassination attempt against President Islam Karimov.
While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in a hot air balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.
In a military court, Captain Richard Ashby of the United States Marines is acquitted of the charge of reckless flying which resulted in the deaths of 20 skiers in the Italian Alps when his low-flying jet hit a gondola cable.
NATO launches air strikes in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which was refusing to sign a peace treaty. This marks the first time NATO attacked a sovereign country
Fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people, closing the tunnel for nearly 3 years.
A jury in Michigan finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man (the incident was videotaped and aired on September 17, 1998 edition of 60 Minutes)
April 26 - Jill Dando, British journalist and TV presenter, is killed outside her house in Fulham
April 28 - The first comic of Sexy Losers (then called "The Thin H Line") goes online. This web comic would go on to be one of the most popular web comics ever made, with a sustained level of unique IP address hits of approximately 1 million a week. It would also popularize the word fap , a sound effect widely used in anime-themed comics since.
May 2 - Norman J. Sirnic and Karen Sirnic are murdered by Angel Maturino Resendiz in a parsonage in Weimar, Texas. They were his fourth and fifth victims in his fourth incident.
May 7 - 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.
June 2 - After decades of fighting off outside technological influences like television, the King of Bhutan allows television transmissions to commence in the Kingdom for the first time, coinciding with the King's silver jubilee (see Bhutan Broadcasting Service).
June 5 - The AIS, the armed wing of FIS, agrees in principle to disband in Algeria.
June 8 - The government of Colombia announces it will include the estimated value of the country's illegal drug crops, exceeding half a billion US dollars, in its gross national product.
June 15 - George Morber Senior and Carolyn Frederick are murdered by Angel Maturino Resendiz in Gorham, Illinois. They are his eighth and ninth victims, in his seventh and final incident.
July 31 - NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
October 12 - Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attempts to dismiss Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf and install ISI director Khwaja Ziauddin in his place. Senior Army generals refuse to accept the dismissal. Musharraf, who was out of the country, attempts to return in a commercial airliner. Sharif orders the Karachi airport to not allow the plane to land. The generals lead a coup, ousting Sharif's administration and taking over the airport. The plane lands with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf takes control of the government.
October 18 ? Michael Pawluk Michigan attorney sails solo-single-handed over 2,500 nautical miles on a 30-foot boat when his wife demands "some space".
October 27 - Gunmen open fire in the Armenian parliament killing Prime Minister Vazgan Sarkisian , Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchian and 6 other members.
December 14 - Algerian Ahmed Ressam was arrested while crossing the United States-Canada border at Port Angeles, Washington when United States Customs found explosives in the trunk of his automobile. The arrest caused fears of a terrorist attack in the United States and was a major factor in the cancellation of a public New Year's celebration in Seattle. Ressam was later convicted in a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve.
December 21 and December 22 - The SpanishCivil Guard intercepts near Calatayud (Zaragoza) a Madrid-bound van driven by ETA and loaded with 950 kg of explosives. The next day, another van loaded with 750 kg is found not far from there. The incident is known as "la caravana de la muerte" (the caravan of death). Shortly after 9/11, ETA confirmed their plan had been to blow down Torre Picasso.
December 29 - Former BeatleGeorge Harrison is stabbed several times in the chest by Michael Anram , who had broken into his home. Harrison's wife wrestles the knife out the assailant's hand before the police arrives. The man apparently believed that Harrison was the devil. He was later charged with attempted murder
December 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.
