WHAT ALL HAPPENED JULY TO DECEMBER 1998
Find out what all happened July to December 1998

Thai Airways Flight 261 crashes near Surat Thani Airport, killing 101. The pilot flying the Thai Airways Airbus A310-300 is thought to have suffered spatial disorientation. (11. December 1998)

Papua New Guinea earthquake: A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless. (17. July 1998)

Russell 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. (24. July 1998)

The Google internet search engine retrospectively claims this as its birthday. (27. September 1998)

Second Congo War: Loyalist troops backed by Angolan and Zimbabwean forces repulse the RCD and Rwandan offensive on Kinshasa. (28. August 1998)

With the landmark merger of WorldCom and MCI Communications completed the day prior, the new MCI WorldCom opens its doors for business. (15. September 1998)

Iraq announces its intention to fire upon U.S. and British warplanes that patrol the northern and southern no-fly zones. (26. December 1998)

Launch of Deep Space 1 comet/asteroid mission (24. October 1998)

A US federal judge orders 37 US brokerage houses to pay 1.03 billion USD to cheated NASDAQ investors to compensate for price-fixing. This is the largest civil settlement in United States history. (9. November 1998)

First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human implantation tested in the United Kingdom. (24. August 1998)

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval. (20. August 1998)

The Gothenburg nightclub fire in Sweden kills 63 and injures 200. (29. October 1998)

Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom. (14. September 1998)

Second Congo War: Government troops and their Angolan and Zimbabwean allies recapture Matadi and the Inga dams in the western Democratic Republic of the Congo from RCD and Rwandan troops. (30. August 1998)

The Second Congo War begins. (2. August 1998)

North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1, its first satellite. (31. August 1998)

U.S. embassy bombings: the United States launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. (20. August 1998)

Iraq disarmament crisis begins: Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors. (31. October 1998)

Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a warrant from Spain requesting his extradition on murder charges. (16. October 1998)

Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young adults in Laramie, Wyoming. (7. October 1998)