Entertainment: Start of new Star Wars movies nude calendar of Rylstone Women’s Institute
Fashion: Gucci purchases Yves St. Laurent
Military: Both Jeane Dixon and Nostradamus predict great war this year
Politics: Humanist Manifesto 2000 published
Religion: Jeane Dixon and Nostradamus predict great war coming this year
Science: Human Genome Project near completion
First comet sample return mission launched
start of International Space Station assembly
Technology: Y2K scare Internet users reach 150 million
Melissa and Chernobyl computer viruses hit large corporations
Deaths: Stanley Kubrick, Gene Siskel, Joe DiMaggio, Raisa Gorbachev, King Hassan II of Morocco, King Hussein I of Jordan, George C Scott
Africa
South Africa: Nelson Mandela steps down and Thabo Mbeki takes over
Americas
Colombia: Earthquake Luis Garavito of Colombia confesses to having killed and raped 140 boys – later 172 shown
Nicaragua: Mudslide in El Tololar
Venezuela: Vargas mudslide kills over 20,000
Asia
Indonesia: East Timor votes for independence - massacre of East Timorese begins
Macao: Last European (Portuguese) colony in Asia reverts to Chinese rule
Taiwan: Quake
Europe
Austria: Major Alps avalanche
France: Avalanche at Montroc kills 12
Great Britain: Scottish Parliament set up at Edinburgh Welsh Assembly set up at Cardiff
Italy: Woodstock '99 results in near disaster
Russia: Yeltsin survives impeachment Yeltsin takes military action against Dagestan and Chechnya Yeltsin retires and is succeeded by Communist Vladimir Putin
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria returned to Russian control in Second Chechen War - see 1996
Yugoslavia: NATO airstrikes in Kosovo after Milosevic massacres and deports Albanians, strikes in Belgrade
Middle East
Pakistan: Kargil War when Pakistan invades India's Kashmir region and intruders massacred
Turkey: Earthquake kills 17,000 and leaves 600,000 homeless
Pacific
Australia: Rejection of proposal to become a republic Hurricane-force winds ruin boat race