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Top Song(s)
• Britney Spears - Baby One More Time
• Ricky Martin - Livin' La Vida Loca
• Eiffel 65 - Blue (Da Ba Dee)
• The Backstreet Boys - I Want it That Way
• Christina Aguilera - Genie in a Bottle
Top Film(s)
• Fight Club
• The Matrix
• Office Space
• American Beauty
• The Sixth Sense
Best Selling Book(s)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
• The Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket
• Speak - Laurie Halse Anderson
• Girl with a Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier
Famous Deaths
• January 23 - Jay Pritzker, American entrepreneur (co-founder of Hyatt hotels), philanthropist
• February 5 - Neville Bonner, the first Indigenous Australian to become a member of the Parliament of Australia
• February 7 - Hussein ibn Talal, King of Jordan (1952-99)
• March 6 - Isa ibn Salman Al Khalifah, 1st emir of Bahrain (1961-1999)
• May 4 - Brinsley Ford, British art historian and CEO (National Art Collections Fund)
• May 26 - Waldo Semon, American chemist and inventor (polyvinyl chloride/PVC)
• June 1 i Christopher Cockerell, English engineer and inventor (Hovercraft)
• July 1 - Forrest Mars Sr., American candy magnate (Mars, Inc.)
• August 12 - Jean Drapeau, Canadian politician (Mayor of Montreal 1954-57, 1960-86)
• October 3 - Akio Morita, Japanese businessman and co-founder of Sony
Medical/Science/Technology
• Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Beethoven Burst (GRB 991216) is one of the most powerful detected Gamma-ray bursts.
• NASA loses two Mars probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander.
• The Cetus Dwarf galaxy is discovered.
• Elements 118 and 116 are claimed to be made for the first time.
• The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.
• RFC 2616 defines HTTP/1.1, the version of Hypertext Transfer Protocol in common use.
• The term 'Web 2.0' is coined by Darcy DiNucci.
• Huda Zoghbi demonstrates that Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in the gene MECP2.
• Thomas Callister Hales proves the honeycomb conjecture.
Political
• January 7 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton begins.
• February 12 – Impeachment of Bill Clinton: President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the Senate.
• February 19 – President Bill Clinton issues a posthumous pardon for U.S. Army Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper.
• March 8 – The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing.
• March 17 – The Roth IRA is introduced by U.S. Senator William V. Roth Jr.
• April 12 – U.S. President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements".
• May 25 – The United States House of Representatives releases the Cox Report.
• June 12 – Texas Governor George W. Bush announces he will seek the Republican Party nomination for President.
• July 16 – John F. Kennedy Jr. dies in a plane crash off of Martha's Vineyard.
• October 13 – The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
National
• January 2 – A snowstorm leaves 14 inches of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and 21 inches in Chicago, Illinois, killing 68.
• February 1 – The Disney Channel Preschool Block is rebranded as Playhouse Disney.
• March 20 – Legoland California, the first Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California.
• April 8 – Bill Gates' personal fortune exceeds US$100 billion, thanks to the increased value of Microsoft stock.
• May 3–6 – 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak spawns 140 tornadoes, including an F5 in Moore, Oklahoma that kills 38 people.
• June 1 – American Airlines Flight 1420 overruns the runway in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing 11 people.
• June 23 – The Phillips explosion of 1999 kills two and injures three in Pasadena, Texas.
• July 26 – The last Checker taxi cab is retired in New York City and auctioned off for approximately $135,000.
• October 9 – The last flight of the SR-71.
• November 18 – The Aggie Bonfire collapses in College Station, Texas, killing 12.
Worldwide
• January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers.
• February 23 - Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.
• March 12 – Former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic join NATO.
• May 26 - The Indian Air Force launches an attack on intruding Pakistan Army troops and mujahideen militants in Kashmir.
• June 19 – Turin, Italy, is awarded the 2006 Winter Olympics.
• July 27 – Twenty-one people die in a canyoning disaster at the Saxetenbach Gorge near Interlaken, Switzerland.
• September 7 – The 6.0 Athens earthquake hits, killing 143, injuring 800–1,600, and leaving 50,000 homeless.
• October 5 – Thirty-one people die in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash, west of London, England.
• November 20 – China launches the first Shenzhou spacecraft.
• December 31 – The U.S. turns over complete administration of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government.