Trivia questions about the year 1998
What was 1998 designated as internationally?
A:
The International Year of the Ocean.
In January Russia begins to circulate what to stem inflation and promote confidence?
A:
New rubles.
The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit where?
A:
Around the Moon.
Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life in prison for what?
A:
For planning the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
The Drudge Report breaks the story about what?
A:
U.S. President Bill Clinton's alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky.
This would lead to what?
A:
The House of Representatives' impeachment of him.
The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, pleads guilty in the United States, and accepts a sentence of what?
A:
Life without the possibility of parole.
A United States military pilot causes the deaths of 20 people near Trento,
Italy, when his low-flying EA-6B Prowler does what?
A:
Severs the cable of a cable-car.
On February 4 the 5.9 Mw Afghanistan earthquake shakes the Takhar Province killing how many people?
A:
Up to 4,000.
Where are the 1998 Winter Olympics held?
A:
In Nagano, Japan.
On February 16, China Airlines Flight 676 crashes into a residential area near Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, killing how many people?
A:
202 people (all 196 on board and 6 on the ground).
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein negotiates a deal with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, allowing weapons inspectors to return to Baghdad, preventing what?
A:
Military action by the United States and Britain.
A massacre in Likoshane, FR Yugoslavia starts what?
A:
The Kosovo War.
What movie becomes the first film to gross US$1 billion?
A:
The Titanic.
Data sent from the Galileo probe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has what?
A:
A liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found what?
A:
Enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fueling station.
The High-Z Supernova Search Team becomes the first team to publish what evidence?
A:
Evidence that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.
Where is the 70th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted for the 6th time by Billy Crystal, held?
A:
At the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles,
California.
What movie wins 11 Oscars including Best Picture?
A:
The Titanic.
India conducts three underground what in Pokhran?
A:
Nuclear tests, including one thermonuclear device.
The first “what” are minted in Pessac, France?
A:
Euro coins.
Because the final specifications for the coins were not finished in 1998, they will have to be what?
A:
Melted and minted again in 1999.
Riots directed against Chinese Indonesians break out in Indonesia, killing how many?
A:
around 1,000 people.
The Galaxy IV communications satellite fails, leaving 80–90% of the world's “what” without service?
A:
Pagers.
The wreck of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, sunk during the Battle of Midway in 1942, is found near Midway Atoll by a team led by whom?
A:
Former US Navy officer Robert D. Ballard.
In response to a series of Indian nuclear tests,
Pakistan does what?
A:
It explodes five nuclear devices of its own in the Chaghai hills of Baluchistan.
The European Central Bank is established replacing what?
A:
The European Monetary Institute.
An Intercity-Express high-speed
train derails between Hanover and Hamburg,
Germany, causing what?
A:
101 deaths.
James Byrd Jr. is beaten and dragged to death by whom?
A:
3 white men in Jasper, Texas.
France beats who 3–0 in the FIFA World Cup Final?
A:
Brazil.
The Organization of African Unity passes a resolution which states that its members will no longer comply with punitive sanctions applied by the UN Security Council against what country?
A:
Libya.
Kuala Lumpur International Airport officially opened, becoming the new international gateway into where?
A:
Malaysia.
Philippine Vice President Joseph Estrada is sworn in as what?
A:
The 13th President of the Philippines.
Japan launches a probe to where?
A:
Mars, joining the United States and Russia as an outer space-exploring nation.
At a conference in Rome, 120 countries vote to create what?
A:
A permanent International Criminal Court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
In Saint Petersburg, Nicholas II of Russia and his family are what?
A:
Buried in St. Catherine Chapel, 80 years after he and his family were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
The Second Congo War begins; 5.4 million people die before it ends in 2003, making it what?
A:
The bloodiest war, to date, since World War II.
The bombings of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania, and Nairobi,
Kenya, kill how many people?
A:
224 and injure over 4,500.
The bombing is linked to whom?
A:
Terrorist Osama bin Laden, an exile of
Saudi Arabia.
The Omagh bombing is carried out in Northern
Ireland by whom?
A:
The Real Irish Republican Army.
A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 airliner (Swissair Flight 111) crashes near Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, after taking off from where?
A:
New York City en route to Geneva; all 229 people on board are killed.
A United Nations court finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide, marking the first time that what?
A: That the 1948 law banning genocide is enforced.
Google, Inc. is founded
in Menlo Park, California, by whom?
A:
Two Stanford University PhD candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Hurricane Mitch makes landfall in Central America, killing how many?
A:
An estimated 11,000 people.
Voyager 1 overtakes Pioneer 10 as the most distant man-made object from what?
A:
The Solar System, at a distance of 69.419 AU (1.03849×1010 km).
The Space Shuttle Endeavour launches what?
A:
The first American component to the International Space Station, the Unity module on STS-88.
Hugo Chávez, politician and former member of the
Venezuelan military, is elected what?
A:
President of Venezuela.
U.S. President Bill Clinton orders air strikes on what country?
A:
Iraq.
The U.S. House of Representatives forwards what to the Senate?
A:
Articles of impeachment against President Clinton, making him the second president to be impeached in the nation's history.
