On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Robert L Crandall will retire as chairman and chief executive of American Airlines in mid-May; will be succeeded by Donald J Carty, who is airline's president (M)
Economists and tax preparers say tax cheating is on the rise, especially among wealthier people who have significant capital gains on investments; affluent taxpayers have had powerful incentives to cheat on capital gains taxes since 1994, but Congress has begun no research or enforcement initiatives to make sure those taxes are properly paid; other widely ignored, underreported or evaded taxes are in areas of self-employment work, state sales taxes mail-order purchases, taxes due on gambling winnings and tips, gift taxes, estate taxes, state and local taxes on investment property and so-called 'nanny tax'; diagram (L)
Gillette Co unveils its long awaited new razor system, the Mach 3, a shaver that has three blades rather than two, a sharper edge and higher price tag; $300 million marketing campaign will seek to persuade consumers that product will remove facial hair better than anything currently on the market and is worth higher cost; Gillette is competing with its own success; company's best-selling Sensor line is priced 35 cents below Mach 3 and has generated more than $6 billion in eight years it has been on the market; Gillette's shares fall 3 percent, to close at $120.25; graph; drawing (L)
Molly O'Neill reports on cuisine of Vietnam; describes scene in Hue, once Vietnam's imperial city and long the epicenter of country's classic cuisine; photos; recipes (M)
New York City officials say Yankee Stadium is rarely inspected for structural problems by either city or Yankees; comment day after heavy piece of steel falls onto empty seats; photo; diagram; Yankees are responsible for maintaining 75-year-old stadium under terms of lease with Parks Department, but Comr Henry J Stern says there is no requirement for anyone to assess safety of concrete decks or steel beams periodically; last detailed examination was in 1979, when city intended to sue builders over troubled renovation in mid-1970's; inspectors now find no serious structural problems but decline to say when stadium will be reopened; Yankees will play at Shea Stadium for now; incident is likely to spur team's bid for new home in Manhattan (M)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of April 15, 1998, covering April 15, 1998.
Soundtrack
Celine Dion
Savage Garden
Madonna
Backstreet Boys
1998Sexyy Red, American rapper[†]
Janae Nierah Wherry, known professionally as Sexyy Red, is an American rapper. She rose to prominence with the release of her 2023 single "Pound Town" ; its popularity spawned the remixed sequel "Pound Town 2", her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100. Released that same year, her follow-up single, "SkeeYee", was met with similar success; both songs were included on her second mixtape, Hood Hottest Princess (2023). Her 2024 single, "Get It Sexyy", peaked within the top 20 of the chart and led her third mixtape, In Sexyy We Trust (2024).
1998William Congdon, American-Italian painter and sculptor (born 1912)[†]
William Grosvenor Congdon was an American painter who became notable as an artist in New York City in the 1940s, but lived most of his life in Europe.
1998Pol Pot, Cambodian general and politician, 29th Prime Minister of Cambodia (born 1925)[†]
Pol Pot was a Cambodian politician, revolutionary, and dictator who ruled the communist state of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 until his overthrow in 1979. During his reign, his administration oversaw mass atrocities and he is widely believed to be one of the most brutal despots in modern world history. Ideologically a Maoist and Khmer ethnonationalist, Pot was a leader of Cambodia's Communist movement, known as the Khmer Rouge, from 1963 to 1997. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from 1963 to 1981, during which Cambodia was converted into a one-party state. Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge perpetrated the Cambodian genocide, in which an estimated 1.5–2 million people died—approximately one-quarter of the country's pre-genocide population. In December 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to remove the Khmer Rouge from power. Within two weeks Vietnamese forces occupied most of the country, ending the genocide and establishing a new Cambodian government, with the Khmer Rouge restricted to the rural hinterlands in the western part of the country.
In 1998, the world population was approximately 6,007,066,690 people[†]