What happened in 1999

World6

• Jul 23NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is launched.
• Jul 23Fourteen Kosovar Serb villagers are killed by ethnic Albanian gunmen in the village of Staro Gračko.
• Aug 11A total solar eclipse is seen in Europe and Asia.
• Oct 291999 Odisha cyclone: A super cyclonic storm impacts Orissa, India, killing approximately 10,000 people.
• Dec 20Handover of Macau: the Portuguese Republic transfers administration of Macau to the People's Republic of China after 442 years of Portuguese rule in the settlement.
• Dec 26Cyclone Lothar kills 140 people as it crosses France, southern Germany, and Switzerland.

Japan1

• Sep 9Sega releases the Dreamcast in North America, marking the launch of its final home video game console.

North America20

• Jan 3The Mars Polar Lander is launched by NASA.
• Jan 10American crime drama series The Sopranos premieres on HBO, beginning what many commentators describe as the second “Golden Age of Television”.
• Mar 21The 71st Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles with Shakespeare in Love winning Best Picture.
• Mar 27Kosovo War: A U.S. Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is shot down by Yugoslav forces.
• Mar 28The adult animated sitcom Futurama premiered on Fox.
• Apr 1Nunavut, an Inuit homeland, is created from the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories to become Canada's third territory.
• Apr 20Columbine High School massacre: 14 people, including 13 students and one teacher, are killed in a mass shooting and attempted bombing at a high school in Columbine, Colorado; 23 others are injured by the two student perpetrators, who then kill themselves.
• May 1Children's animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants premieres on Nickelodeon.
• May 27Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-96, the first shuttle mission to dock with the International Space Station.
• Jun 1Napster, a music downloading service, is created; it would later inspire other file-sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay, LimeWire, Gnutella, Kazaa, Morpheus, BearShare, and ΜTorrent 1999–2010 period which some called the "Second Golden Age of Piracy".
• Jun 1American Airlines Flight 1420 crash lands after overrunning the runway at Little Rock National Airport, killing 11 of the 145 people on board.
• Jul 31NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the lunar surface.
• Sep 23NASA permanently loses contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter during orbital insertion around Mars, resulting in the spacecraft's loss and the failure of the mission.
• Oct 31EgyptAir Flight 990, travelling from New York City to Cairo, crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts killing all 217 on board.
• Dec 3NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander, moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

5 more in the app

Europe15

• JanThe euro is introducedOn January 1, eleven European countries began using the common currency, the euro. Notes and coins went into circulation in 2002.
• Mar 24NATO launches air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign state.
• Mar 24A fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people, closing the tunnel for nearly three years.
• Apr 7Kosovo War: Kosovo's main border crossings are closed by Yugoslav forces to prevent Kosovo Albanians from leaving.
• Apr 14Kosovo War: NATO warplanes repeatedly bomb ethnic Albanian refugee convoys for 2 hours over a 12-mile stretch of road, after mistaking them for Yugoslav military trucks, between Đakovica and Dečani in western Kosovo, killing at least 73 refugees.
• Apr 26British TV presenter Jill Dando, 37, is shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, London.
• May 7Kosovo War: in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, three Chinese embassy workers are killed and 20 others wounded when a NATO B-2 aircraft bombs the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
• May 12David Steel becomes the first Presiding Officer (Speaker) of the modern Scottish Parliament.
• May 28Two Swedish police officers are wounded by bank robbers armed with automatic firearms, and later executed with their own service pistols in Malexander, Sweden.
• Jun 9Kosovo War: Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty to end their hostilities.
• Jun 12Kosovo War: Operation Joint Guardian/Operation Agricola begins: NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping forces KFOR enter Kosovo, Yugoslavia.
• Jul 1Europol (short for European Police Office) the European Union's criminal intelligence agency becomes fully operational.
• Sep 7The 6.0 Athens earthquake hits with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing 143, injuring 800–1,600, and leaving 50,000 homeless.
• Oct 5Thirty-one people die in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash, west of London, England.
• Oct 31The Catholic Church and several Lutheran Church leaders sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, attempting to resolve a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.

USSR / Russia3

• Aug 7Dagestan incursions: Hundreds of Chechen guerrillas invade the Russian republic of Dagestan, triggering the short war.
• Sep 8The first of a series of Russian apartment bombings occurs. Subsequent bombings occur on September 13 and 16, while a bombing on September 22 fails.
• Dec 31Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting president until a new election can be held.

Asia8

• Feb 16In Uzbekistan, an apparent assassination attempt against President Islam Karimov takes place at government headquarters.
• May 26Kargil War: The Indian Air Force launches an attack on intruding Pakistan Army troops and mujahideen militants in Kashmir.
• Jun 30Twenty-three people die in a fire at the Sealand Youth Training Center in South Korea.
• Aug 10The Atlantique incident occurs as an intruding Pakistan Navy plane is shot down in India, sparking tensions between the two nations, a month after the end of the Kargil War.
• Aug 30East Timor votes for independence from Indonesia (which had invaded and occupied it since 1975) in a referendum.
• Sep 21The 7.7 921 earthquake (also known as the Jiji earthquake) affects central Taiwan with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme) leaving 2,400 people dead and more than 11,000 injured.
• Oct 27Armenian parliament shooting: Gunmen open fire in Armenia's National Assembly building, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and six other members.
• Dec 24Indian Airlines Flight 814 was hijacked on 24 December 1999 by five members of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in what was considered to be India's worst and last plane hijacking

Middle East3

• Feb 7Abdullah II inherits the throne of Jordan, following the death of his father, King Hussein.
• Aug 17The 7.6 İzmit earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving more than 17,000 dead and around 50,000 injured.
• Nov 12The 7.2 Düzce earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). At least 845 people are killed and almost 5,000 are injured.

Latin America3

• Jan 25The 6.2 Colombia earthquake strikes western Colombia, killing at least 1,900 people.
• Oct 25Telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea debuts on RCN Televisión in Colombia. It will give rise to Ugly Betty and at least a dozen other versions worldwide.
• Dec 5Bolivian municipal elections, the first election contested by Evo Morales' Movimiento al Socialismo.

Africa2

• Apr 9Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, president of Niger, is assassinated.
• Jul 23Mohammed VI of Morocco becomes king upon the death of his father Hassan II.

Oceania1

• Nov 6Australians defeat a referendum proposing the replacement of the Queen and the Governor General with a President to make Australia a republic.