On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Profile of two quarterbacks who will be leading their teams in Sugar Bowl: Chris Weinke, 27-year-old junior at Florida State, and Michael Vick, 19-year-old who redshirted his freshman year at Virginia Tech; photos (L)
Senate campaigns of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Hillary Rodham Clinton break their silence on fund-raising, with both saying that they have taken in more than $6.6 million this year, which would be a record for this point in a Senate contest; exact figures will not be known until sometime next month, when candidates submit disclosure records to Federal Election Commission (M)
Japan's ruling coalition decides to postpone placing a limit on government guarantees of bank deposits for another year, dealing what many observers call major blow to overhauling banking industry; decision overrules previously established timetable for plan, which would have placed $97,700 limit on bank deposit guarantees starting April 1, 2001; currently, bank deposits are fully insured; editorialists, economists and banking industry experts criticize measure as large and potentially disastrous step backward for Japan's efforts to restore health to financial sector (M)
Talks With Hijackers Turn Fragile, India Says Negotiations between Indian officials and hijackers holding more than 150 hostages aboard an Indian Airlines jet in Afghanistan broke down -- and then resumed at a delicate point, the Indian foreign minister said. PAGE A6
Anti-terrorist task force raids Brooklyn apartment and arrests Abdel Ghani, an Algerian, on charges of helping in effort by Ahmed Ressam, another Algerian, to smuggle explosives and four sophisticated timing devices into US from Canada; federal agents question Algerian immigrants in several cities, acknowledging privately that they hope sweep will serve as warning or a deterrent to potential terrorists; federal prosecutors in Vermont say Lucia Garafolo, a Canadian woman arrested while crossing border with another Algerian man, and Ressam are friends of Said Atmani, a member of Armed Islamic Group, an 'armed Algerian terrorist organization'; photo (M)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of December 29, 1999, covering December 31, 1999.
Celine Dion
Backstreet Boys
Britney Spears
Christina Aguilera
Santana
1999Calvin Bassey, Italian-Nigerian footballer[â ]
Calvin Chinedu Bassey is a Nigerian professional footballer who plays as a left-back or a centre-back for Premier League club Fulham. Born in Italy, he plays for the Nigeria national team.
1999Leif Davis, English footballer[â ]
Leif Davis is an English professional footballer who plays as a left-back for EFL Championship club Ipswich Town.
1999Elliot Richardson, American lawyer and politician, 69th United States Attorney General (born 1920)[â ]
Elliot Lee Richardson was an American lawyer and Republican politician. As a member of the cabinets of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford between 1970 and 1977, Richardson is one of two men in United States history to hold four cabinet positions. As United States Attorney General, Richardson played a prominent role in the Watergate scandal when he resigned in protest against President Nixon's order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. His resignation precipitated a crisis of confidence in Nixon which ultimately led to the president's resignation.
1999Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, Indian Muslim scholar and author (born 1914)[â ]
Syed Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi was a leading Indian Islamic scholar, thinker, writer, preacher, reformer and a Muslim public intellectual of 20th century India and the author of numerous books on history, biography, contemporary Islam, and the Muslim community in India, one of the most prominent figure of Deoband School. His teachings covered the entire spectrum of the collective existence of the Muslim Indians as a living community in the national and international context. Due to his command over Arabic, in writings and speeches, he had a wide area of influence extending far beyond the Sub-continent, particularly in the Arab World. During 1950s and 1960s he stringently attacked Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism as a new jahiliyyah and promoted pan-Islamism. He began his academic career in 1934 as a teacher in Nadwatul Ulama, later in 1961; he became Chancellor of Nadwa and in 1985, he was appointed as Chairman of Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.
1999The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.[â ]
The president of Russia, officially the president of the Russian Federation, is the executive head of state of Russia. The president is the chair of the Federal State Council and the supreme commander-in-chief of the Russian Armed Forces. It is the highest office in Russia.
1999The U.S. government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 TorrijosâCarter Treaties.[â ]
The Panama Canal is an artificial 82-kilometer (51-mile) waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a conduit for maritime trade between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Locks at each end lift ships up to Gatun Lake, an artificial fresh water lake 26 meters (85Â ft) above sea level, created by damming the Chagres River and Lake Alajuela to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal. Locks then lower the ships at the other end. An average of 200Â ML (52,000,000Â USÂ gal) of fresh water is used in a single passing of a ship. The canal is threatened by low water levels during droughts.
1999Indian Airlines Flight 814 hijacking ends after seven days with the release of 190 survivors at Kandahar Airport, Afghanistan.[â ]
Indian Airlines Flight 814, commonly known as IC 814, was an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 that was hijacked on 24 December 1999 by five members of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The passenger flight, en route from Kathmandu to Delhi, was taken over shortly after it entered Indian airspace at about 16:53 IST. The aircraft carried 190 occupants â 179 passengers and 11 crew members including Captain Devi Sharan, First Officer Rajinder Kumar, and Flight Engineer Anil Kumar Jaggia.
In 1999, the world population was approximately 6,089,006,339 people[â ]