1999 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal government

• President: Bill Clinton
• Vice President: Al Gore
• Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
• Speaker of the House of Representatives:
• Senate Majority Leader: Trent Lott
• Congress: 105th, 106th

  State governments

Governors

Lieutenant governors

Events

January

• January 1 - DIY Network, a spinoff of Home and Garden Television, is launched.
• January 2 - A snowstorm leaves of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and in Chicago, Illinois, killing 68.
• January 6 - Dennis Hastert becomes Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
• January 7 - The Senate trial in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton begins. He had been impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19.
• January 14–17 - The Winter X Games take place in Crested Butte.
• January 21 - In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over of cocaine aboard, headed for Houston, Texas.
• January 22 - An F3 tornado strikes downtown Clarksville, Tennessee, destroying and heavily damaging more than 500 buildings, including the historic Montgomery County Courthouse, and nationally registered Trinity Episcopal Church and Madison Street United Methodist Church.
• January 31
• * The Denver Broncos defeat the Atlanta Falcons 34–19 in Super Bowl XXXIII at Pro Player Stadium in Miami.
• * The adult animated sitcom Family Guy debuts on the Fox network after Super Bowl XXXIII.

  February

• February 1 - The Disney Channel Preschool Block is rebranded as Playhouse Disney.
• February 2 - Noggin is launched.
• February 4
• *Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race-relations in the city.
• *The New Carissa runs aground near Coos Bay, Oregon.
• February 12 - Impeachment of Bill Clinton: President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the Senate. On the charge of perjury, 45 senators, all Republicans, voted to convict, while 55 senators, including ten Republicans and all 45 Democrats, voted for acquittal. On the charge of obstruction of justice, the vote split 50-50, with five Republicans joining all 45 Democrats voting for acquittal. Both votes fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for conviction.
• February 15
• * Rapper Big L is shot to death.
• * Windows Refund Day: People protest Microsoft for refusing to refund open source Linux users for the unused Windows licenses that came with their computers.
• February 19 - President Bill Clinton issues a posthumous pardon for U.S. Army Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper.
• February 23 - White supremacist John William King is found guilty of kidnapping and murdering African American James Byrd Jr. by dragging him behind a truck for 2 miles.
• February 24 - LaGrand case: The state of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national involved in an armed robbery that led to a death. Karl's brother Walter is executed a week later, in spite of Germany's legal action in the International Court of Justice to attempt to save him.

  March

• March 2 - The new Mandalay Bay hotel and casino opens on the Las Vegas Strip.
• March 3 - Walter LaGrand is executed in the gas chamber in Arizona.
• March 4 - In a military court, United States Marine Corps Captain Richard J. Ashby is acquitted of the charge of reckless flying which resulted in the deaths of 20 skiers in the Italian Alps, when his low-flying jet hit a gondola cable.
• March 8 - The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing.
• March 11 - Infosys becomes the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
• March 17 - The Roth IRA is introduced by U.S. Senator William V. Roth Jr.
• March 20 - Legoland California, the first Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California.
• March 21 - The 71st Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, are held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, with John Madden's Shakespeare in Love winning seven awards out of 13 nominations, including Best Picture. Steven Spielberg wins his second Best Director award for Saving Private Ryan. The telecast garners over 45.5 million viewers.
• March 25 - Enron energy traders allegedly route 2,900 megawatts of electricity destined for California to the town of Silver Peak, Nevada, population 200.
• March 26 - A Michigan jury finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.
• March 27 - Kosovo War: A U.S. F-117 Nighthawk is shot down by Serbian forces.
• March 28
• * The World Wrestling Federation holds WrestleMania XV at the First Union Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• * The science-fiction adult animated sitcom Futurama debuts on Fox.
• March 29 - For the first time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark, at 10,006.78.
• March 31 - The Matrix is released in theaters.

  April

• April 1 - Air China Flight 9018, a Boeing 747, taxis onto an active runway at O'Hare International Airport during the takeoff of Korean Air Flight 36, another Boeing 747, nearly resulting in a crash. Flight 36 averted a collision by taking off early and missing the Air China aircraft by 75 feet. There were 8 people on the Air China cargo plane and 379 on the Korean Air flight.
• April 5 - In Laramie, Wyoming, Russell Henderson pleads guilty to kidnapping and felony murder, in order to avoid a possible death penalty conviction for the killing of Matthew Shepard.
• April 7 - The World Trade Organization rules in favor of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with the European Union over bananas.
• April 8 - Bill Gates' personal fortune exceeds US$100 billion, thanks to the increased value of Microsoft stock.
• April 12 - U.S. President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements" in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit.
• April 15 - Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz are exonerated of the rape and murder of Debbie Carter and released from prison. Both had spent 11 years in prison, with Williamson on death row, and having come within five days of execution.
• April 20 - Columbine High School massacre: Two Littleton, Colorado teenagers open fire on their teachers and classmates, killing 12 students and one teacher, and then themselves. It would be the deadliest shooting at a high school in U.S. history at the time. The shooting sparks debate on school bullying, gun control and violence in the media.
• April 23 - 1999 Major League Baseball season: Fernando Tatís of the St. Louis Cardinals hits two grand slams in one inning, becoming the first and only player in MLB history to do so.
• April 28 - Bausch & Lomb announces its intent to sell Ray-Ban to the Italian eyewear conglomerate Luxottica.

  May

• May 1- The animated children's television series SpongeBob SquarePants debuts on the cable network Nickelodeon.
• May 3
• *Norman J. Sirnic and Karen Sirnic are murdered by serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz in Weimar, Texas.
• *The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time, at 11,014.70.
• May 3–6 - 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak spawns 140 tornadoes, including an F5 in Moore, Oklahoma that kills 38 people with the highest wind speeds ever recorded.
• May 5 - Microsoft releases Windows 98.
• May 8 - Nancy Mace becomes the first female cadet to graduate from The Military College of South Carolina.
• May 20 - American daredevil Robbie Knievel jumps over the Grand Canyon on a 500cc motorcycle.
• May 23 - The World Wrestling Federation holds its Over the Edge pay-per-view event at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. Wrestler Owen Hart falls 90 feet to his death in a stunt gone wrong.
• May 25 - The United States House of Representatives releases the Cox Report which details the People's Republic of China's nuclear espionage against the U.S. over the prior two decades.
• May 29 - Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.
• May 31 - Sean Elliott of the San Antonio Spurs hits the Memorial Day Miracle against the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1999 NBA Playoffs.

  June

• June 1 - American Airlines Flight 1420 overruns the runway in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing 11 people.
• June 8 - The government of Colombia announces it will include the estimated value of the country's illegal drug crops, exceeding half a billion US dollars, in its gross national product.
• June 12 - Texas Governor George W. Bush announces he will seek the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.
• June 18 - Walt Disney Pictures' 37th feature film, Tarzan, is released to critical praise and box office success. It is the final film to be released during the Disney Renaissance era, which began ten years prior with 1989's The Little Mermaid.
• June 23 - The Phillips explosion of 1999 kills two and injures three in Pasadena, Texas.

  July

• July 2
• * Benjamin Nathaniel Smith begins a three-day killing spree targeting racial and ethnic minorities in Illinois and Indiana, which ends in Smith's suicide.
• * Lawrence Summers is sworn in as the new Secretary of Treasury, succeeding Robert Rubin.
• July 5-6 - U.S. Army Pfc. Barry Winchell is bludgeoned in his sleep at Fort Campbell, Kentucky by fellow soldiers; he dies the next day from his injuries.
• July 8 - A major flash flood in Las Vegas swamps hundreds of cars, smashes mobile homes and kills two people.
• July 10 - U.S. soccer player Brandi Chastain scores the game winning penalty kick against China in the FIFA Women's World Cup.
• July 14 - Big Blue Crane collapses while constructing Miller Park killing three workers.
• July 16 - Off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, a plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. crashes, killing him and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette.
• July 20 - Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
• July 22 - The first version of MSN Messenger is released by Microsoft.
• July 23–25 - The Woodstock '99 festival is held in New York.
• July 25 - Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France.
• July 26 - The last Checker taxi cab is retired in New York City and auctioned off for approximately $135,000.
• July 29
• *1999 Atlanta day trading firm shootings: Mark Orrin Barton kills his family. He then goes on a murder spree at the trading firm he worked at, killing a total of 12 people in Atlanta, Georgia. He later committed suicide at a gas station when cornered by police.
• *NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the lunar surface.