01|Researchers at New York City's Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center announce that levels of a protein, p27, may determine whether a man's prostate cancer is aggressive or relatively harmless. Oncologists Carlos Cordan-Cardo and Howard Scher announced that p27 appears to act as a brake on cell growth and that low levels of the protein in the body allow the rapid proliferation of cells indicative of highly aggressive cancers. Earlier research at other institutions had linked low levels of p27 to highly aggressive breast, lung, and colon cancers. The Sloan-Kettering findings also supported the theory that prostate enlargement is unrelated to prostate cancer.|
02|All 229 people aboard Swissair Flight 111, bound for Geneva, Switzerland, from New York City, die when the plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the southeast shore of Nova Scotia. The MD-11 jet was minutes away from an emergency landing at Halifax.|
02|Indonesian troops put down rioting and looting of Chinese-owned shops in the industrial city of Lhokseumauwe. The riots, which began on August 31 and have resulted in the deaths of two people, were the first outbreaks of civil unrest in Indonesia since the widespread violence in Jakarta, the capital, in May, which left 1,200 dead and triggered the fall of President Suharto.|
03|Toa Steel Company of Tokyo announces that it will liquidate in order to pay off debts that exceed assets by some 46 billion yen. The announcement marked the largest failure of a Japanese manufacturer since World War II (1939-1945). Hitachi, the giant Japanese electrical machinery and semiconductor manufacturer, announced that it expects to lose $1.81 billion in 1998 and plans to restructure, beginning with the elimination of 4,000 jobs.|
03|The value of the Russian ruble falls to a new low of 13.4 to the dollar, and the Russian government places a two-month freeze on the withdrawal of personal funds from six major banks in Moscow. The combined deposits at the six banks totalled $980 billion at the current rate. The same deposits equaled nearly $2 trillion on August 20 when the value of the ruble stood at 6.25 to the dollar.|
03|Alan Binder, chief scientist with the Lunar Prospector project, announces that the lunar spacecraft currently orbiting the moon has confirmed an abundant supply of hydrogen at both lunar poles. Binder said that the hydrogen suggests the presence of water in amounts sufficient to supply a lunar village or the needs of spacecraft refueling before exploring deeper into space.|
04|U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, speaking at the University of California at Berkeley, notes that policymakers at the central bank might lower interest rates in an attempt to forestall negative effects of the Asian and Russian economic crisis. When Greenspan testified before a congressional committee in July, he had ruled out the possibility of lowering interest rates, citing the threat of inflation.|
05|North Korea names Kim Jong Il head of state. Although Kim had served as the country's top leader since the death of his father, President Kim Il Sung, in 1994, he was not officially called head of state.|
06|Leaders of the Taliban, a militant fundamentalist Muslim group in control of much of Afghanistan, announce that they and their followers are prepared to go to war to prevent an Iranian invasion. Iran sent troops in a major build-up on its Afghan border in response to the disappearance and probable death in August of scores of Iranians, including several diplomats, in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The Taliban had seized the city on August 8.|
07|Russian central bank chairman Sergei K. Dubinin resigns in the wake of the current financial crisis in which the value of the ruble has fallen from 6 to the dollar to 20 in less than one month. In a parallel crisis, the lower house of the Russian parliament, the Duma, rejected Russian President Boris Yeltsin's nominee for prime minister, Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, for the second time.|
07|St. Louis Cardinals' first baseman Mark McGwire hits his 61st home run of the 1998 baseball season, tying Roger Maris's 37-year-old record for the most home runs in a single season.|
08|Mark McGwire, first baseman with the St. Louis Cardinals, breaks Roger Maris's season home-run record by hitting his 62nd homer in his 145th game of the season. On September 7, the 34-year-old McGwire tied Maris's 37-year-old record of 61 homers in a single season.|
08|Governor Roberto Albores Guillen declares the state of Chiapas, Mexico, a disaster zone after six days of heavy rain caused massive flooding that left at least 120 people dead and 25,000 homeless.|
09|Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr sends to the U.S. Congress 18 cartons of grand-jury testimony, videotapes, and a 500-page report that summarizes his investigation into President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern. The report claimed that during the investigation Clinton committed crimes that could be grounds for impeachment, including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and abuse of power.|
10|Russian President Boris Yeltsin withdraws Viktor S. Chernomyrdin from parliamentary consideration for prime minister and submits the name of Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who enjoys wide support in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. Yeltsin's submission of a new candidate averted further political crises in a country that is deeply mired in an economic crisis.|
10|Iran announces that it holds the militant Taliban movement, currently in control of much of Afghanistan, responsible for the deaths of nine Iranian diplomats killed on August 8 in a consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, a city in northern Afghanistan. The Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic group, overran the city as part of its takeover of the country.|
11|The lower house of the Russian parliament, the Duma, confirms Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister. Political experts saw Primakov's swift confirmation as a signal that Russia was returning to the socialist principles of its Communist past. Before being confirmed, Primakov promised to end unbridled capitalism in Russia while continuing President Boris Yeltsin's program of free-market reforms.|
12|Flood waters in Bangladesh, which have covered much of the country for more than two months, begin to recede. The massive flooding of the Brahmaputra, Ganges, and Jamuna rivers has left 900 people dead and displaced one-quarter of the country's 124 million people since July 10. Government officials in the flooded capital, Dhaka, estimated that as much as 4 million tons of food have been destroyed, a situation that was likely to drive thousands of hungry farmers and villagers into Bangladesh's already overcrowded cities.|
13|Chicago Cubs' outfielder Sammy Sosa hits two home runs, his 61st and 62nd of the 1998 baseball season. Sosa, a native of the Dominican Republic, passes Roger Maris's 1961 record of 61 homers in a single season and matches Mark McGwire's new record of 62 home runs, set on September 8.|
14|Thousands of protesters, firing weapons into the air, take to the streets of Tirana, Albania, after government forces fire into a crowd, killing three supporters of the former president, Sali Berisha. Berisha blamed Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano for the recent assassination of Berisha's political colleague, Azem Hajdari, and demanded that Nano resign. Nano became prime minister in 1997 after Berisha was driven from office in the wake of widespread civil disorder.|
15|A 300-foot (100-meter) plume of black ash, gas, and lava erupt from the 10,500-foot- (3,200-meter-) Mount Etna on the Italian island of Sicily. The eruption was accompanied by strong earth tremors, part of a series of earthquakes that have shaken the volcano since August. Scientists said a major eruption of Mount Etna could occur within the next two years.|
16|Terry Wallace, a University of Arizona professor who uses seismology to analyze nuclear explosions, publishes a study in which he concludes that both India and Pakistan exaggerated the number and size of nuclear weapons that the countries tested in May 1998. Wallace believed that two of the five tests announced by the Indian government never took place, and only two of the seven nuclear weapons Pakistan claimed to have detonated actually involved nuclear devices. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Princeton University, and the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology concurred with Wallace's conclusions.|
17|The deputy head of the Russian central bank reveals to reporters that the bank has been authorized to pay off government debts and bail out faltering financial institutions by printing whatever money is needed. Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Lawrence Summers and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott warned that Russia was headed for the same four-digit inflation that plagued its economy and people in 1993.|
17|The Basque separatist group ETA announces an indefinite cease-fire in its 30-year battle for independence from Spain. More than 800 deaths have been attributed to terrorist attacks by ETA and other militant Basque nationalist parties. The Basque people live in the Pyrenees Mountains on both sides of the border between France and Spain.|
18|Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi announces that Japan's two largest political parties have agreed on a series of radical economic reforms to prop up the nation's economy, which is in its worst recession since World War II (1939-1945). The agreement called for nationalizing insolvent banks, a measure that could result in the closure of several major banks. American economists have estimated that Japanese banks may hold as much as $1 trillion in bad loans made during the 1980's.|
19|At least 125 people drown when a ferry with 430 people aboard sinks in Manila Bay, 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Manila, capital of the Philippines.|
20|Cal Ripkin, third baseman for the Baltimore Orioles, removes himself from the line-up of an Orioles' game for the first time since 1982, ending his record of consecutive-game starts at 2,632.|
20|Malaysian police, wearing black ski masks and brandishing machine guns, arrest former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim hours after Anwar led an antigovernment demonstration. Demanding reform of Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad's government, Anwar attracted growing crowds in the weeks since Mahathir fired Anwar on charges of corruption, treason, sedition, and sexual indecency. Anwar responded with demands that Mahathir resign, claiming he orchestrated a smear campaign against him.|
21|President Bill Clinton's August 17 grand jury testimony regarding the nature of his relationship with a former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, is broadcast in its entirety on national television. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee released the video to television networks. The committee was considering the video as part of independent counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation into Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky and was nearing a vote on whether to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president.|
21|The United Nations General Assembly, meeting in New York City, gives President Bill Clinton a standing ovation as he steps up to the rostrum to address the body. Diplomats attending the session interpreted the unusual display as a show of sympathy and support for Clinton during the political crisis that threatened his presidency.|
22|Hurricane Georges, the strongest storm to hit Puerto Rico in 70 years, batters the island with 115-mile (185-kilometer) per hour winds, knocking out electricity and leaving most of Puerto Rico's 4 million people without drinking water. Governor Pedro Rossello estimated damages at more than $1 billion.|
23|Hurricane Georges rampages across the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, leaving at least 200 people dead and thousands homeless in the Dominican Republic. The storm severely damaged sugar, banana, rice, and coffee crops in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.|
23|Chicago Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa hits his 64th and 65th home runs of the baseball season to tie St. Louis Cardinal first baseman Mark McGwire. The 34-year-old McGwire broke Roger Maris's 37-year-old record of 61 homers in a single season on September 8. Sosa surpassed the Maris record on September 13.|
24|Saudi Arabia expels Afghanistan's chief ambassador to the Saudi capital of Riyadh, and recalls its own envoy from the Afghan capital, Kabul. Saudi Arabia charged Afghanistan with sheltering Osama bin Laden, whom Saudi Arabia banished for attempting to overthrow the monarchy. The United States accused bin Laden of organizing the August bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which resulted in the deaths of more than 260 people.|
25|Hurricane Georges crashes across the Florida Keys with winds over 100 miles (161 kilometers) per hour, causing widespread flooding, but no reported deaths. In its rampage across the Caribbean before hitting the Keys, Georges left more than 400 people dead and billions of dollars in damage in its wake.|
25|The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the number of U.S. citizens without health insurance rose sharply in 1997 to 16.1 percent of the population.|
26|The U.S. House of Representatives passes an $80-billion tax cut, a bill that President Bill Clinton vows to veto if it is passed by the Senate. Clinton opposed spending the current budget surplus, insisting that all excess revenue should go into a fund to shore up the ailing social security system.|
27|German voters elect liberal Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder chancellor, turning out Helmut Kohl. Kohl, a conservative, supervised the unification of East and West Germany and held power for 16 years, longer than any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck (1871-1890). The election was the first since World War II (1939-1945) in which voters have failed to return a sitting chancellor to office.|
27|In the final game of the season, St. Louis Cardinals' first baseman Mark McGwire hits two home runs, bringing his 1998 total to 70. McGwire broke the previous single-season home-run record of 61, held by Roger Maris since 1961, on September 8.|
28|Enrique Iglesias, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, announces a $30-billion line of credit for Brazil. The money is to come from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, several Western governments, and a group of private banks and financial institutions. The IMF placed no restrictions on the credit other than it be used to sustain the Brazilian economy and markets, which were battered as a result of the current economic crisis in Asia and Russia.|
28|President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia announces in Belgrade, the capital, that his government has ended its offensive against guerrillas in the Serbian province of Kosovo, where 90 percent of the 2.2-million population is ethnic Albanian. The Milosevic government, which was dominated by Serbians, has attempted to retain control of the province by crushing the Kosovo Liberation Army, which sought independence. Shortly before Milosevic's announcement, U.S. and European Union monitors in Kosovo discovered three villages where 34 civilians were massacred, apparently by Serbian forces, as recently as September 26.|
28|The Socialist prime minister of Albania, Fatos Nano, resigns two weeks after the assassination of opposition politician Azem Hajdari. Hajdari, a Democrat, was a colleague of the former president, Sali Berisha, who responded to the murder by demanding Nano's resignation. The assassination sparked days of rioting, which left several people dead in Tirana, the capital, and Albania at the edge of anarchy.|
29|The Federal Reserve System, an independent government agency that oversees the U.S. banking system, cuts the short-term interest rates, the amount banks charge each other for over-night loans, by a quarter of a percentage point. The move was an attempt to push interest rates down across the board in order to keep the economic crisis currently afflicting Asia, Russia, and South America from dragging down the U.S. economy.|
30|President Bill Clinton announces that the U.S. government ended fiscal year 1998 (Oct. 1, 1997, to Sept. 30, 1998) with a budget surplus of approximately $70 billion. The surplus, the first since 1969, is the largest in history. The House of Representatives passed legislation on Sept. 26, 1998, that would use the surplus to finance a tax cut. President Clinton opposes spending the surplus, insisting that all excess revenue should go into a fund to shore up the ailing social security system.|
