1999 in the United Kingdom


Events from the year 1999 in the United Kingdom. This year is noted for the first meetings of the new Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales.

Incumbents

Events

January

  • January – Vauxhall launches a facelifted Vectra to improve its disappointing ride and build quality.
  • 1 January – The Euro currency is launched, but Britain's Labour government reportedly has no plans to introduce the currency here, preferring to stick to pound sterling instead.
  • 13 January – Unemployment has fallen to just over 1,300,000 – the lowest for 20 years.
  • 30 January – England national football team manager Glenn Hoddle gives an interview to The Times newspaper in which he suggests that people born with disabilities are paying for sins in a previous life.

February

March

  • 2 March – Singer Dusty Springfield, who received an OBE last month, dies aged 59 at Henley-on-Thames after five years of treatment for breast cancer.
  • 7 March – American-born film director Stanley Kubrick dies at his home in St Albans, Hertfordshire, of a heart attack aged 70, five days after completing his final film Eyes Wide Shut, which is released in July.
  • 16 March – The NSPCC launches its new "full stop" advertising campaign, which depicts different objects of childhood heroes shielding their eyes as voices were heard being abused. Broadcast after the 9.00pm watershed, this advertisement is part of the largest campaign ever undertaken by a charity and the beginning of a long-term strategy to end violence against children.
  • 17 March – Comedian and entertainer Rod Hull is accidentally killed in a fall aged 63 outside his home in Winchelsea, Sussex, after trying to adjust his television aerial.
  • 21 March – Comedian Ernie Wise, who formed one-half of the Morecambe and Wise comedy double from 1941 to 1984, dies of a heart attack aged 73 at Wexham, Buckinghamshire.
  • 24 March – Ross Kemp, who has achieved TV stardom with his role as Grant Mitchell in EastEnders, signs a £1million deal with ITV, meaning that he will leave EastEnders this autumn after nearly 10 years.
  • 26 March – A total £2 billion in compensation is paid to 100,000 former miners who are suffering from lung disease after years of working in British coalfields.
  • 29 March – The family of James Hanratty, one of the last men to be executed in Britain, are given the right to appeal against his conviction by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

April

  • April – Vauxhall launches its Zafira, a compact MPV which makes use of the Astra hatchback's chassis.
  • 1 April
  • * A minimum wage is introduced throughout the UK – set at £3.60 an hour for workers over 21, and £3 for workers under 21.
  • * Anthony Sawoniuk, 78, becomes the first person convicted of Second World War crimes in a British court when he is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 18 Jews in his native Belarus. He has lived in Britain since 1947.
  • 14 April – Edgar Pearce, the so-called "Mardi Gra bomber", convicted for a series of bombings and sentenced to 21 years in jail.
  • 17 April – A bomb explodes in Brixton, South West London, and injures 45 people.
  • 24 April – A second bomb explosion in Brick Lane, east London injures 13 people.
  • 26 April – TV presenter Jill Dando, 37, dies after being shot on the doorstep of her Fulham home.
  • 30 April – A third bomb in London explodes in the Admiral Duncan pub, in Old Compton Street, Soho, London – the centre of the London gay scene – killing two people and injuring over thirty. David Copeland, a 23-year-old Farnborough man, is arrested hours later in connection with the three explosions.

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Undated

  • Main construction work on Cardiff Bay Barrage completed.
  • More than 20% of the UK population now have internet access.

Publications

Births

Deaths

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December