1998 Snapshot
""
The Vibe
Pop Culture
Google Founded
Slang
"My Bad"
Price Check
Gas: $1.06
Notable Deaths
Frank Sinatra, Akira Kurosawa, Pol Pot
Music & Style
Teen Pop
World Affairs
Clinton Impeached
Kosovo War
Year's Summary
- Global Events: The Good Friday Agreement is signed in Northern Ireland. Google is officially incorporated. The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal dominates US headlines. The 1998 FIFA World Cup is held in France.
- Culture & Mood: The 'Teen Pop' explosion begins with Britney Spears and NSYNC. The Big Lebowski becomes a cult classic.
- Fashion & Slang: Bucket hats and pashminas. 'Talk to the hand, 'cause the face ain't listening.'
- Fun Fact: The first Furby is released and becomes the must-have Christmas toy, and 1998 was the year the first iMac (the colorful G3) was introduced!
- 10 Apr: Signing of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland – Political leaders in Northern Ireland, along with the British and Irish governments, signed the historic Good Friday Agreement (Belfast Agreement) in Belfast, bringing a peaceful framework to decades of sectarian conflict and establishing devolved governance institutions.
- 7 Aug: United States Embassy Bombings in Kenya and Tanzania Kill 224 – Simultaneous terrorist truck bombs detonated outside the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, resulting in 224 fatalities, thousands of injuries, and propelling Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to the forefront of global counterterrorism concerns.
- 24 Aug: Microsoft Releases Windows 98 Operating System Globally – Microsoft officially launched Windows 98, integrating the Internet Explorer web browser directly into the desktop operating system, expanding USB peripheral support, and advancing consumer personal computing.
- 2 Sep: Swissair Flight 111 Crashes off Nova Scotia Coast – Operating a scheduled flight from New York to Geneva, an MD-11 aircraft suffered an in-flight electrical fire and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, tragically claiming the lives of all 229 people on board.
- 4 Sep: Establishment of Google Inc. by Larry Page and Sergey Brin – Stanford University graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin officially incorporated Google Inc. in Menlo Park, California, launching a revolutionary web search engine that would fundamentally transform global information access and digital technology.
- 29 Oct: John Glenn Returns to Space Aboard Space Shuttle Discovery – Mercury astronaut and United States Senator John Glenn made history by returning to Earth orbit at age seventy-seven aboard Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-95, serving as a payload specialist in biomedical aging studies.
- 14 Dec: Operation Desert Fox Strikes Military Targets in Iraq – United States and British armed forces launched a four-day strategic bombing campaign against Iraqi military infrastructure following Baghdad's continued lack of cooperation with United Nations weapons inspectors.
- 16 Dec: Impeachment Proceedings Against US President Bill Clinton – The United States House of Representatives voted to approve two articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton arising from the Lewinsky scandal, setting up a constitutional trial in the Senate.