On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Metropolitan Museum of Art buys Jasper Johns's White Flag, its first painting by artist; already owns drawing and 52 of his prints; 1995 painting is second in series that Johns based on American flag; photo (M)
Editors of weekly newspaper The Jewish Week contend that New York State Attorney General Dennis C Vacco told them that it is hard to prove effectiveness of death penalty because researchers do not 'stand outside a bodega and ask 'bandito' if capital pubishment deterred him from crime; many Hispanic civic leaders and politicians condemn Vacco's remarks on ground that they betray bias against Hispanic New Yorkers; Vacco defends himself against anti-Hispanic accusations, contending that he did not use word 'bandito'; Vacco also raises new questions concerning campaign financing of his Demmocratic opponent, Eliot L Spitzer; photo (M)
Article on five sniper attacks in Canada and Western New York over period of several years has sent element of fear through community of estimated 1,000 doctors who perform abortions in Canada and has prompted criticism that Canadian Government is not doing enough to investigate shootings; American investigators are trying to determine if slaying of Dr Barnett A Slepian in Amherst, NY, is linked to Canadian sniper attacks; map (M)
Peter H Lewis column holds that Apple Computer's new operating system software for Macintosh computers is an improvement over earlier versions and is easier to use, more elegant, more innovative and more reliable than Windows 98; says the big disappointment is that it was written specifically for Power PC chip, which means it cannot be installed on older Macintoshes based on the Motorola 68000 series microprocessors; drawing (M)
Brazil Plans $80 Billion In Cuts and Tax Increases The Brazilian Government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso detailed a three-year, $80 billion package of spending cuts and tax increases in a bid to restore the nation's flagging credibility in world markets and prepare the way for a rescue program led by the International Monetary Fund. United States officials reacted cautiously, and international investors warned that the measures could easily stall in the Brazilian Congress. The blueprint calls for $23.5 billion in savings for 1999, with about $11 billion of that amount coming from tax increases and $7 billion from Federal spending cuts. [Page A1.]
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of October 28, 1998, covering October 29, 1998.
Jay-Z
Lauryn Hill
Shania Twain
*NSYNC
OutKast
1998Paul Misraki, Turkish-French pianist and composer (born 1908)[†]
Paul Misraki was a French composer of popular music and film scores. Over the course of over 60 years, Misraki wrote the music to 130 films, scoring works by directors like Jean Renoir, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Becker, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean-Luc Godard, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Orson Welles, Luis Buñuel and Roger Vadim.
1998In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities.[†]
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid. Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.
1998Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year-old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space at that time.[†]
Space Shuttle Discovery is a retired American Space Shuttle orbiter. The spaceplane was one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, aggregating more spaceflights than any other spacecraft as of December 2024. The Space Shuttle launch vehicle had three main components: the Space Shuttle orbiter, a single-use central fuel tank, and two reusable solid rocket boosters. Nearly 25,000 heat-resistant tiles cover the orbiter to protect it from high temperatures on re-entry.
1998ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the United States is inaugurated with the launch of the STS-95 space shuttle mission.[†]
Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an international set of standards for broadcast and digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard. Like NTSC, ATSC is used mostly in the United States, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Trinidad and Tobago. Several former NTSC users like Japan, have not used ATSC during their digital television transition, because they adopted other systems like ISDB developed by Japan and DVB developed in Europe, for example.
1998Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, makes landfall in Honduras.[†]
Hurricane Mitch was an extremely deadly and catastrophic Atlantic hurricane, which became the second-deadliest tropical cyclone in the Atlantic basin on record. Mitch caused 11,374 fatalities in Central America in 1998, including approximately 7,000 in Honduras and 3,800 in Nicaragua due to cataclysmic flooding from the slow motion of the storm. It was the deadliest hurricane in Central American history, surpassing Hurricane Fifi–Orlene, which killed slightly fewer people in the same area in 1974. Mitch was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in the satellite era, and the second-deadliest on record in the Atlantic, only behind the Great Hurricane of 1780 which killed at least 22,000 people.
1998The Gothenburg discothèque fire in Sweden kills 63 and injures over 200.[†]
The Gothenburg discothèque fire was caused by an arson attack on 29 October 1998, which occurred on premises located on Hisingen island in Gothenburg, Sweden. The premises had been rented for the night by an organization catering to the Macedonian community in Gothenburg for the purpose of hosting a discothèque. At the time of the fire, 375 people aged 12–25 were present, the vast majority of whom had various ethnic minority backgrounds. The fire department had estimated the building could only hold up to 150. In all, 63 were killed and 213 injured.
In 1998, the world population was approximately 6,007,066,690 people[†]