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Top Song(s)
• Elton John - Candle in the Wind '97
• Hanson - Mmmbop
• No Doubt - Don't Speak
• Aqua - Barbie Girl
• R Kelly - I Believe I Can Fly
Top Film(s)
• Good Will Hunting
• L.A. Confidential
• The Fifth Element
• Princess Mononoke
• Men in Black
Best Selling Book(s)
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling
• The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
• Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine
• Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
• Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Famous Deaths
• January 8 - Melvin Calvin, American biochemist (Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1961
• February 10 - Milton Cato, 1st Prime Minister of San Vincent and the Grenadines (1979-84)
• April 3 Robert Wentorf Jr. American physicist and inventor, 1st to synthesize diamonds
• May 4 - Vijayananda Dahanayake, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (1959-60)
• May 25 - Muhammad Fadhel, Iraqi politician, Prime Minister of Iraq (1953-54)
• June 25 - Jacques Cousteau, French oceanic explorer (Calypso)
• July 28 - Seni Pramoj, Prime Minister of Thailand
• August 1 - Ngiratkel Etpison, president of Palau (1989-92)
• September 5 - Mother Teresa, Albanian-born Indian nun and founder of Missionaries of Charity (Nobel Peace Prize, 1979)
• October 1 - Jerome H. Lemelson, American inventor, (held more than 600 patents)
Medical/Science/Technology
• Explosion of a Delta II rocket carrying a military GPS payload shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.
• Mars Pathfinder lands on the surface of Mars.
• First successful test flight of the ESA's Ariane 5 expendable launch system.
• Scientists announce that human artificial chromosomes have been created.
• Suzanne Simard and colleagues publish their discovery of carbon transfer between trees.
• The discovery of klotho, a gene involved in human aging, is reported.
• IBM's Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov, the first time a computer defeats a chess grand master in a match.
• The domain name for the web search engine Google is registered.
• Charles M. Rice demonstrates the effect of the hepatitis C virus.
• Food and Drug Administration approval of daclizumab, the first humanized antibody therapeutic.
Political
• January 20 – President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore begin their second term.
• February 4 – State of the Union Address.
• March 4 – U.S. President Bill Clinton bars federal funding for any research on human cloning.
• May 16 – President Bill Clinton issues a formal apology to the surviving victims of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis.
• May 25 – Strom Thurmond becomes the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Senate.
• June 1 - Hugo Banzer wins the Presidential elections in Bolivia.
• June 12 – The United States Department of the Treasury unveils a new $50 bill, meant to be more difficult to counterfeit.
• June 26 - U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Communications Decency Act, inconsistent with the 1st Amendment
• July 3 - Mississippi becomes 1st state to settle tobacco suit.
• August 21 - US government forces closure of Hudson Foods due to E Coli break out.
National
• January 17 – A Delta II rocket carrying a military GPS payload explodes shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.
• February 28 - FBI agent Earl Edwin Pitts pleads guilty to selling secrets to Soviet Union.
• March 26 – In San Diego, California, 39 Heaven's Gate cultists commit mass suicide at their compound.
• April 15 – Jackie Robinson's number 42 is retired across all Major League Baseball teams.
• May 2 – The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
• May 27 – The second-deadliest tornado of the 1990s hits in Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 people.
• July 21 – The fully restored USS Constitution celebrates her 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
• August 6 – Microsoft buys a $150 million share of financially troubled Apple Computer.
• September 4 – In Lorain, Ohio, the last Ford Thunderbird for three years rolls off the assembly line.
• October 16 – The first color photograph appears on the front page of The New York Times.
Worldwide
• January 1 - The Republic of Zaïre officially joins the World Trade Organization, as Zaire.
• March 13 - The Congress of China creates a new Chongqing Municipality, out of part of Sichuan.
• April 3 – The Thalit massacre in Algeria: all but 1 of the 53 inhabitants of Thalit are killed by guerrillas.
• May 12 - Russia & Chechnya sign peace deal after 400 years of conflict.
• June 10 - Feng Yun-2B Long March 3 Launch (China) is successful.
• July 1 - United Kingdom returns Hong Kong and the New Territories to the People's Republic of China.
• August 21 - Typhoon Winnie kills 140, injures 3,000 in East China.
• September 6 - Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales held at Westminster Abbey in London.
• October 3 - Japan's maglev train breaks world speed record for a manned train at 280.3 mph/451.1 kph.
• November 13 - UN pulls out arms inspection teams from Iraq.