April 1999

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This article covers breaking news and events in April 1999.

Daily events

Thursday April 1, 1999

• Athens / Greece : A rocket attack is carried out on the headquarters of the Greek ruling party PASOK , to which the terrorist organization committed itself on November 17th .
• Belgrade / Yugoslavia : Kosovar President Ibrahim Rugova and Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milošević meet in Belgrade for negotiations. Meanwhile, during the Kosovo war, NATO flies the first air strikes north of the 44th parallel.
• Berlin / Germany : In Germany, the introduction of the eco tax comes into force.
• Bernau near Berlin / Germany : The city of Bernau officially expands its name to include the addition near Berlin .
• Düsseldorf / Germany : The energy companies VEBA and RWE sell the Otelo telephone division to Mannesmann .

Scene in Nunavut's capital, Iqaluit

• Iqaluit / Canada : The Nunavut area ( German  our country ) is separated from the Northwest Territories and joins the Canadian Confederation as an independent unit . The third and youngest Canadian territory comprises 20.4% of the state's land and is home to fewer than 30,000 residents.
• London / United Kingdom : The oil company BP will, at Amoco and Arco .
• Port Harcourt / Nigeria : Between 100 and 300 people die in a ship accident off the Nigerian coast.
• San Marino : Antonello Bacciocchi and Rosa Zafferani take up their six-month post as Capitani Reggenti .
• For the first time a high pressure area is given a female name: Anneli . Two days later, Alex, the first low pressure area, is given a man's name.

Friday April 2, 1999

• Belgrade / Yugoslavia : The independent radio station B-92 is closed at the behest of the Serbian government.
• Moscow / Russia : Azerbaijan , Georgia and Uzbekistan leave the CIS security pact.

Saturday 3rd April 1999

• Belgrade / Yugoslavia : For the first time, NATO flies air raids on downtown Belgrade. The Yugoslav and Serbian interior ministries are attacked. The government of Macedonia orders partial mobilization .

Sunday April 4, 1999

• Bishkek / Kyrgyzstan : The Kyrgyz Prime Minister Jumabek Ibraimow dies.
• Valletta / Malta : Guido de Marco is sworn in as President of Malta.

Monday April 5, 1999

• Bremen / Germany : The elected director of Radio Bremen Michael Schmid-Ospach resigns for health reasons.
• Netherlands : The two suspected attackers in the Lockerbie attack will be handed over to the Scottish police at a neutral location in the Netherlands .
• Spangdahlem / Germany : The first NATO combat aircraft take off from the Spangdahlem base on German soil in the direction of Serbia.

Tuesday April 6, 1999

• Belgrade / Yugoslavia : Yugoslavia announces a unilateral ceasefire.
• Berlin / Germany : After the reports revealed a signature as an unofficial employee of the GDR Ministry for State Security from 1976 to 1980, Gisela Oechelhaeuser resigns as director of the Berliner Distel .
• Bonn / Germany : Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping reports on the Serbs' horseshoe plan .
• Liquiçá / Indonesia : In the run-up to East Timor's possible independence, pro-Indonesian militias are committing the church massacre in Liquiçá in which they murder regular Indonesian soldiers and police officers.
• Portland / United States : A court orders the cigarette company Philip Morris to pay $ 26 million in compensation to the family of a smoker.
• Sweden , United Kingdom : The pharmaceutical group Astra AB from Sweden, in which the Wallenberg dynasty holds a good 20%, and Zeneca Group PLC from Great Britain are merging under the new name AstraZeneca to become one of the largest pharmaceutical groups in the world.

Wednesday April 7, 1999

Valle de los Caídos

• El Escorial / Spain : Between the graves of the former dictator Francisco Franco and the fascist José Antonio Primo de Rivera on the Valle de los Caídos , a bomb from the groups of the anti-fascist resistance of October 1st explodes .
• Wiesbaden / Germany : The Hessian Landtag elects Roland Koch ( CDU ) as the state's new Prime Minister . He leads a coalition of the CDU and FDP .
• Salzburg / Austria : Peter Handke leaves the Roman Catholic Church out of sympathy for the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević and transfers to the Serbian Orthodox Church . He is also giving back the Georg Büchner Prize he received in 1973 .
• The first refugees from Kosovo arrive in Germany. Yugoslavia meanwhile closes the borders with Albania and Macedonia .

Thursday April 8, 1999

• Hamburg / Germany : The Hamburg citizenship decides that homosexual couples can be officially registered, the so-called Hamburg marriage . The first entries are made on May 6, 1999.
• Klagenfurt / Austria : Jörg Haider ( FPÖ ) is elected Governor of Carinthia .

Friday April 9, 1999

• Niamey / Niger : Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara , President of Niger, is killed during a coup led by Daouda Malam Wanké .

Saturday April 10, 1999

• Grozny / Russia : Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov survived an attack.
• Tehran / Iran : The Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Ali Schirasi falls victim to an assassination attempt.
• Turkey : 114 Turkish intellectuals are each sentenced to one year in prison for calling for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict in 1993.
• Yugoslavia is launching some rocket attacks against Albania .

Sunday April 11, 1999

• Bonn / Germany : The 2009 Federal Horticultural Show will be awarded to Schwerin .
• Niamey / Niger : Two days after the murder of Nigerien President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara , parliament is dissolved.

Monday April 12, 1999

Suspension railway accident

• Belgrade / Yugoslavia : The Yugoslav Parliament votes in favor of joining the Russian-Belarusian Union .
• Bogotá / Colombia : Rebels from the ELN organization hijack an airplane with 46 inmates who have been held prisoner for months.
• Bonn / Germany : The delegates of the SPD party congress elect Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as the new chairman of their party. Schröder has held the office since March, at the request of the SPD presidium, without legitimation from the party base.
• Cape Canaveral / USA : The communications satellite Eutelsat W6 starts aboard a Atlas - launch vehicle into space.
• Grdelica / Yugoslavia : A double military attack by NATO on the Morava Bridge during the Kosovo war hits the express train D 393. 14 dead and 16 injured are the result.
• Little Rock , United States : A Little Rock court convicts US President Bill Clinton of disregarding a civil court to pay legal fees for his former employee Paula Jones .
• Munich / Bavaria : The former Bavarian CSU member of the state parliament Hans Wallner beats up a journalist from tz during his trial for using his state telephone for phone sex .
• New York / United States : The magician David Blaine leaves the glass coffin in which he was sunk on April 5th in a pit that was dug in front of an office building of the entrepreneur Donald Trump . In this "grave" Blaine spent seven days with no apparent intake of air or food.
• Wuppertal / Germany : The worst accident of the Wuppertal suspension railway occurs near Robert-Daum-Platz in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal . He claims five dead and 47 injured.

Tuesday April 13, 1999

• Assam / India : The Orang Park is being upgraded from a protection zone to a national park.
• Moscow / Russia : The University of Moscow lends Rudolf Augstein , the honorary doctorate .
• Munich / Germany : According to the Supreme Court, the trial against Konstantin Wecker for drug use must be reopened.

Wednesday April 14, 1999

• Brussels / Belgium : The EU meets for a special summit on the Kosovo war .
• Jakarta , Indonesia : Former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is sentenced to six years in prison.

Hail in Sydney

• Sydney / Australia : The city is hit by the most expensive hailstorm in its history. Hailstones up to 600 cm³ cause damage of at least 1.5 billion Australian dollars .
• Tsuru / Japan : The Japanese magnetic levitation train JR-Maglev reaches a speed record for rail vehicles with 552 km / h.

Thursday April 15, 1999

• Algiers / Algeria : Abd al-Aziz Bouteflika from the National Liberation Front is elected as the new president with 73.8% of the vote . Several opposition candidates gave up in protest against electoral fraud, and both official and private sources speak of a very low turnout.
• Helsinki / Finland : The red-green government under Paavo Lipponen takes office.
• Lahore / Pakistan : Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, who later became President Asif Zardari , are each sentenced to five years in prison.
• Israel : According to the first instance, the head of the Shas party Arje Deri has to go to prison for four years. The verdict against the former and future Minister of the Interior is confirmed on September 3, 2000.

Friday April 16, 1999

• Berlin / Germany : As a follow-up to the “Report from Bonn”, ARD broadcasts the “ Report from Berlin ” for the first time from the new government seat in Berlin.
• Paris / France : Philippe Séguin resigns as chairman of the Gaullist party Rassemblement pour la République .
• Podgorica / Montenegro : NATO flies its first air raids on the region of Montenegro in the Kosovo war .
• Niamey / Niger : Aïchatou Mindaoudou is appointed Niger's first female foreign minister.

Saturday 17th April 1999

• London / United Kingdom : The first of three nail bombs set by David Copeland explodes in a busy market in front of a supermarket in Brixton, injuring at least 48 people.
• Pima County / United States : The National Observatory on Kitt Peak is part of the Deep Ecliptic Survey project of the asteroid (38083) Rhadamanthus discovered.

Sunday April 18, 1999

Wayne Gretzky

• Ankara / Turkey : For the first time in history, parliamentary and local elections will take place on the same day. The two biggest winners are the Democracy Sol Parti and the Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi , who benefit not least from the arrest of the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan .
• Bern / Switzerland : The revision of the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation is confirmed by the electorate in a vote and will come into force in a few months according to constitutional law.
• Bern / Switzerland : The new federal constitution elevates the half-cantons of Appenzell Ausserrhoden , Appenzell Innerrhoden , Basel-Landschaft , Basel-Stadt , Nidwalden and Obwalden to independent cantons . In order to show the difference to the classic full cantons, they are referred to as "cantons with a divided professional vote (in the Council of States )". The total number of cantons increases from 23 to 26.
• New York / United States : Wayne Gretzky , regarded by the majority of ice hockey fans and experts as the best player of all time, is playing his last game in the National Hockey League for the New York Rangers .

Monday April 19, 1999

South Chesapeake Bay with bridge

• Hampton Roads / United States : The extension of the 37 km long Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in Virginia has been completed. It is the longest bridge-tunnel structure in North America.
• Vieques / Puerto Rico : In an exercise of the air forces of the United States two 500 miss pound bombs their goals. This caused the death of civilian David Sanes Rodriguez. In the whole of 1998, the US armed forces dropped 23,000 bombs over the 135  km² island.

Tuesday April 20, 1999

• Littleton / United States : The two students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murder twelve students between the ages of 14 and 18 and a teacher in the rampage at Columbine High School .

Wednesday April 21, 1999

• Munich / Bavaria : The former Bavarian CSU member of the state parliament Hans Wallner beats up a journalist from tz during his trial for using his state telephone for phone sex .

Friday April 23, 1999

A destroyed building by Radio-Televizija Srbije

• Belgrade / Yugoslavia : In the course of the Kosovo war, NATO bombed the headquarters of the Serbian state television Radio-Televizija Srbije . At least 16 people are killed.
• Magdeburg / Germany : The 1999 Federal Horticultural Show opens in the newly created Elbauenpark .

Saturday April 24, 1999

• London / United Kingdom : The second of three bombs dropped by David Copeland injures 13 people in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets .
• Munich / Germany : "arvato online services GmbH", the operator of the web-based customer loyalty program Webmiles , is founded.
• Vienna / Austria : The Austrian Christiane Hörbiger was honored for the third time as the best actress at the 10th Romy TV Prize. Her compatriot Roland Düringer wins the election for the best actor .

Sunday April 25, 1999

• Kuala Lumpur / Malaysia : Tuanku Jaafar ends his activity as the tenth Yang di-Pertuan Agong ( German  electoral king ) of Malaysia.

Monday April 26, 1999

• Rome / Italy : Rai News starts broadcasting at six in the morning.

Tuesday April 27, 1999

• Mannheim / Germany : Adler Mannheim become German ice hockey champions for the fourth time in the 98/99 season and after 96/97 and 97/98 they manage the title hat trick.
• Strasbourg / France : Georgia becomes the 41st member state to join the Council of Europe .

Thursday April 29, 1999

Belgrade TV tower

• Belgrade / Yugoslavia : The Avala television tower on Mount Avala in the capital of Yugoslavia is destroyed in a NATO bomb attack intended to force an end to the Kosovo war .

Friday April 30, 1999

• Bonn / Germany : The Prime Minister of Hesse Roland Koch ( CDU ) takes up his post as President of the Federal Council . He replaces Hans Eichel , whose Hessian SPD was unable to form a government majority after the state elections on February 7th .
• London / United Kingdom : The third of the nail bombs planted by David Copeland kills three people and injures 79 in Soho. The attacker deliberately targeted people with homosexual orientation .
• Phnom Penh / Cambodia : The country joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations , which was originally founded to act as a free trade zone as a counterweight to socially ruled states like Cambodia or Vietnam .

See also

• Nekrolog April 1999 for deaths that month
• List of annually recurring days of remembrance and action in April
• Category for commemorative days, public holidays or days of action in April

Web links

Canada in April 1999

Commons : April 1999  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nunavut. In: thecanadianencyclopedia.ca . Retrieved October 14, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Up to 300 dead in a shipwreck off Nigeria. In: mopo.de. April 3, 1999, accessed May 16, 2020 . 
3. ↑ anticyclones 1999. In: met.fu-berlin.de. Retrieved May 16, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Your IM work has been discussed controversially in the media. Comment from Marion Müller: How the Oechelhaeuser hides their immorality. In: welt.de. June 6, 2000, accessed January 25, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Active Smoke Free - Philip Morris has to pay US $ 145 million in damages to American smoking widow. Retrieved November 6, 2019 . 
6. ^ Attack on Franco's grave. In: Abendblatt.de . April 8, 1999, accessed December 31, 2017 . 
7. ^ New state government of CDU and FDP under Roland Koch, February 7, 1999. Contemporary history in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
8. ↑ Hubert Spiegel : Scandal at the Ibsen Prize in Oslo. In: FAZ , September 22, 2014.
9. ^ André Müller : Interview with Peter Handke , July 2, 2007, on Elfriede Jelinek's website , accessed on November 8, 2017.
10. ↑ Sasa Gavric Sarajevo: Topics of the day: Where Europe reaches its borders: Ten years ago Kosovo declared its independence. February 18, 2018, accessed November 7, 2019 . 
11. ↑ New Germany editorial team :? General murdered in Iran (New Germany). In: neue-deutschland.de. April 12, 1999, accessed May 16, 2020 . 
12. ↑ https://chroniknet.de/extra/was-war-am/?ereignisdaten=10.4.1999
13. ↑ https://www.buga-2009.de/media/Downloads/Abschlussbericht%204.pdf
14. ↑ Aircraft hijacking : More hostages free. In: Spiegel Online . April 15, 1999, accessed May 16, 2020 . 
15. ↑ Hero Buss: Colombian rebels release airplane passengers. In: welt.de . August 10, 1999, accessed May 16, 2020 . 
16. ↑ Schröder apparently hands over party leadership to Müntefering. In: schwaebische.de . February 6, 2004, accessed on October 10, 2017 : "Schröder was elected party leader on April 12, 1999 [...]." 
17. ^ Press Conference by Jamie Shea and General Wesley Clark. In: nato.int . April 13, 1999, accessed May 9, 2017 . 
18. ↑ http://archiv.rhein-zeitung.de/on/99/04/13
19. ↑ Telephone sex: Wallner snaps again from Münchner Merkur on November 4, 2003
20. ↑ Freedom Day for Blaine. In: nypost.com . April 12, 1999, accessed April 21, 2019 . 
21. ↑ The bitter memories of the suspension railway driver. In: wz.de . July 5, 2009. Retrieved May 9, 2017 . 
22. ↑ The drug verdict against Konstantin Wecker is repealed. In: mopo.de. April 13, 1999, accessed May 16, 2020 . 
23. ↑ The Sydney Hailstorm. In: bom.gov.au, Australian Government, Bureau of Meteorology. Retrieved April 16, 2012 . 
24. ↑ Algerian fury over poll result. In: bbc.co.uk . April 16, 1999, accessed April 16, 2012 . 
25. ^ Election for President, April 15, 1999. In: electionguide.org, The International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Retrieved April 21, 2019 . 
26. ↑ Dozens hurt in London bomb blast. In: bbc.co.uk . April 17, 1999, accessed April 17, 2012 . 
27. ^ SR 101: Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation. In: admin.ch . April 18, 1999, accessed September 25, 2016 . 
28. ^ Federal decision on a new federal constitution. In: admin.ch . 1999, accessed May 19, 2017 . 
29. ^ Wayne Gretzky plays final game. In: nhl.com . Retrieved May 19, 2017 (English). 
30. ↑ Melissa Jones: Superlatives USA: The Largest, Smallest, Longest, Shortest, and Wackiest Sites in America . Capital Publishing, Sterling 2005, ISBN 978-1-931868-85-3 , pp. 137 .
31. ↑ Puerto Ricans force United States Navy out of Vieques Island, 1999-2003. In: swarthmore.edu . July 7, 2011, accessed June 14, 2017 . 
32. ↑ How Columbine changed everything and yet nothing. In: tt.com . April 20, 2019. Retrieved April 20, 2019 . 
33. ↑ NATO challenged over Belgrade bombing. In: bbc.co.uk . October 1, 2001, accessed May 9, 2017 . 
34. ^ BUGA Magdeburg 1999. In: bundesgartenschau.de, Deutsche Bundesgartenschau-Gesellschaft mbH. Retrieved April 17, 2017 . 
35. ^ Romy Gala, Austria. In: imdb.com . Retrieved September 22, 2017 (English). 
36. ^ Georgia - Member State. In: coe.int . Retrieved January 14, 2018 . 
37. ^ The Presidents of the Federal Council. In: bundesrat.de . Retrieved November 14, 2016 . 
38. ↑ 20 years of attack on the queer community in London. In: queer.de . April 30, 2019, accessed August 6, 2019 . 
39. ^ Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In: mfa.gov.bn, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brunei Darussalam. Accessed August 6, 2019 . 
40. ↑ The communists razed the fortress. In: The world . January 17, 2007, accessed August 6, 2019 .