01|Canada divides the eastern half of the Northwest Territories to create a new territory, Nunavut. The new territory is to be governed by native Inuit, or Eskimos, who make up 85 percent of Nunavut's 25,000 people.|
01|Yugoslav army officials announce the capture of three U.S. soldiers inside Serbia. The men were pictured on Yugoslav television in what appeared to be a bruised condition. Serbian officers claim the men were injured while resisting capture. Officials with NATO insist that the servicemen were captured in Macedonia, where they were serving with a peacekeeping mission.|
02|An experiment hailed by experts as "a major step" toward the growth of bone or cartilage in injured patients is announced in the journal Science. Mark F. Pittenger reports that he and his colleagues at Osiris Therapeutics in Baltimore, Maryland, successfully grew millions of new cells from a stem cell isolated from adult bone marrow.|
03|Six people die and at least 100 others are injured when a tornado strikes trailer parks and other residential areas in Benton, Louisiana, a town of about 2,500 people.|
04|NATO officials announce that several member nations, including Germany, Turkey, and the United States, will provide temporary shelter for up to 100,000 refugees from Kosovo. NATO officials describe the plan as part of an effort to provide emergency relief to Macedonia and Albania, into which tens of thousands of Kosovars seeking asylum have crossed.|
05|Libya turns over to the United Nations (UN) two men, described as international terrorists, who are suspected of planting a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. The destruction of the jet, which took place over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed all 270 passengers and crew members. The suspects are to be tried before a Scottish court, but in the Netherlands, an unusual situation stipulated by Muammar al-Qadhafi, Libya's long-time head of state.|
06|Archaeologists announce the discovery of three extremely well-preserved mummies of Inca children at the summit of Argentina's Mount Llullaillaco in the Andes. The scientists expect that the burial site of the boy and two girls, who are believed to have been buried alive in a ritual sacrifice approximately 500 years ago, would provide important insights into the religious beliefs and practices of the Inca.|
07|International observers report that tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees seeking a way out of Kosovo disappeared when Serbian troops closed the borders along Albania and Macedonia. In Macedonia, officials move 50,000 Kosovar refugees from a border camp at Blace into other parts of Macedonia as well as into Albania, Greece, and Turkey. The forced move splits up hundreds of families and leaves thousands of individuals unaccounted for.|
08|The European Central Bank, which manages the euro, the common currency of 11 European Union nations, cuts interest rates from 3 to 2.5 percent. The move is the bank's first major policy decision since the launch of the euro on January 1. Bank officials expect lower interest rates to boost Europe's stagnant economy.|
09|The president of the West African country of Niger, Ibrahim Bare Mainassara, is assassinated, allegedly by members of his personal security guard. At the airport at Niamey, the capital, an undisclosed number of people are killed or injured in an attack during an apparent military coup (takeover). Tanks reportedly block access to key government buildings, and communication links to the capital are shut down. Mainassara's military government, which took power in a coup in 1996, is locked in a political battle with civilian leaders over February 1999 election results. Niger's prime minister, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, refers to the Mainassara assassination as an "unfortunate incident."|
10|President Bill Clinton announces that the number of people in the United States receiving welfare benefits dropped from 12.2 million in 1996, before the federal welfare system was overhauled, to 7.6 million in 1999.|
11|India test fires a missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads as far as 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers). International observers fear that the test will lead to a renewed arms race with India's neighbor and rival, Pakistan.|
11|Jose Maria Olazabal wins his second Professional Golf Association Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, finishing one under par.|
12|A Colombian airplane is hijacked, allegedly by leftist rebels, and forced to land at a remote area of northern Colombia. The plane carried 5 crew members and 41 passengers, including Colombian government officials and at least one American. A pilot flying low on a search mission reports that armed rebels forced the captives into canoes on the Magdalena River.|
12|Judge Susan Webber Wright of U.S. District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, finds President Bill Clinton in civil contempt of court for giving false testimony about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. The suit had been dismissed by Judge Wright on April 1, 1998, for lack of evidence. Jones had claimed that in 1991, when she was an Arkansas state employee, she had been sexually harassed during an alleged encounter with Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, in a Little Rock hotel room.|
12|NATO missiles strike a bridge and destroy a passenger train en route to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, killing at least 10 civilians and injuring 16 other passengers.|
13|A Michigan judge sentences Jack Kevorkian, a physician who claims to have assisted in the suicides of more than 130 people, to 10 to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder and 3 to 7 years for delivery of a controlled substance. On March 26, Kevorkian was found guilty of murdering a 52-year-old man suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).|
14|All candidates running for president of Algeria except Abedlaziz Bouteflika withdraw from the race one day before balloting. The six former candidates claim that the military-backed government has padded voting rolls, printed irregular ballots, and conducted early balloting to ensure Bouteflika's election.|
14|The Pakistan military tests a medium-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The test is conducted three days after India carries out a similar test.|
15|NATO officials acknowledge that a U.S. pilot mistakenly dropped a bomb on a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees in Kosovo on April 14. Serbian leaders claim that at least 70 refugees died during NATO attacks on two different civilian convoys.|
15|The discovery of three large planets orbiting Upsilon Andromedae, a star 44 light-years from Earth is announced by Geoffrey Marcy of San Francisco State University, speaking for a collaborating group of astronomers associated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. (A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, about 5.9 trillion miles [9.5 trillion kilometers].) The astronomer describes the discovery as the first clear evidence of the existence of another star with multiple planets in a stable solar system similar to the sun's.|
15|A federal judge fines the Allied Pilots Association, a labor union, $45.5 million for its failure to force members to comply with a court order. In February, more than 2,400 American Airlines pilots refused to return to work during a "sick-out" that was the result of a dispute over the use of nonunion pilots at a small, regional airline recently acquired by American.|
16|Researchers announce in the journal Science that they successfully generated arteries from swine (hog) cells. The researchers, led by Laura E. Niklason, an anesthesiologist and biomedical engineer at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, describe the study as an important step in the effort to generate replacement blood vessels and organs for humans.|
17|Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his coalition government resign after narrowly losing a parliamentary vote of confidence. Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and unofficial head member of the opposition Congress Party, announces her intention to form a new government.|
17|More than 40 people are injured when a bomb packed with nails explodes in a busy street market in a racially mixed neighborhood in south London. Authorities announce that they do not think the incident is related to political tension between the British government and Northern Ireland.|
18|Wayne Gretzky, center for the New York Rangers, ends his National Hockey League (NHL) career after 20 seasons. Gretzky, whose career included stints with the Edmonton Oilers, the Los Angeles Kings, and the St. Louis Blues, holds or shares 61 NHL records.|
18|Swiss citizens vote to revise the national constitution, abolishing a requirement that the Swiss franc be backed by gold. Switzerland is the world's last country to maintain a gold-backed currency.|
19|The German parliament meets in Berlin's Reichstag for the first time in more than 65 years. The structure, built in the late 1800's to house the national legislature, was severely damaged in a 1933 fire that many historians believe Adolf Hitler, the German chancellor, ordered set. The current Reichstag restoration features a glass dome, designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster. The dome has been heralded as a symbol of the openness of post-war German government, which is relocating to Berlin, the historic capital, from Bonn, the capital since the end of World War II (1939-1945).|
19|A bomb explodes in Isiqlal Mosque, in Jakarta, Indonesia, injuring three people and causing extensive damage. The attack on the city's main mosque is one of several recent conflicts between Christian and Muslim groups in the primarily Islamic country.|
20|Two teen-agers enter their Littleton, Colorado, high school armed with automatic weapons and begin shooting classmates. The suspects also plant homemade pipe bombs throughout the building. Fifteen people, including the gunmen, die, and more than 20 others are wounded in what is described as the worst incident of school violence in U.S. history.|
21|Deutsche Telekom A.G. of Germany and Telecom Italia of Italy announce plans for an $82.5-billion merger.|
22|U.S. District Court Judge Ennet Sullivan determines that Russell Weston is incompetent to stand trial for the 1998 shooting deaths of two U.S. Capitol police officers. The judge notes in his decision that Weston is unable to understand the charges against him.|
23|Leaders of all 19 member nations of NATO meet in Washington, D.C., for a three-day summit regarding the current military strikes on Yugoslavia. The summit, which also commemorates the 50th anniversary of the treaty organization, is the largest gathering of world leaders in Washington since the 1963 funeral of President John F. Kennedy.|
23|The discovery of 2.5-million-year-old fossils of a skull and bones believed to have belonged to a direct human ancestor is announced in the journal Science by Tim White, a paleontologist at the University of California. The fossils, which White and an international team of collaborators have declared a new species and named Australopithecus garhi, were found in the Afar Rift area of Ethiopia. Features on the A. garhi skull appear to link it to both the more primitive Australopithecus afarensis and to Homo habilis. Most scientists believe Homo habilis represents the beginning of the genus Homo to which modern humans belong. White and his team also found evidence that A. garhi used tools to butcher large animals.|
24|A bomb explodes in a busy market in London, injuring at least seven people in a neighborhood that is the center of the city's Bangladeshi community. Police officials report that a neo-Nazi organization known as Combat 18 claimed responsibility for the attack and for a similar attack in a racially mixed neighborhood on April 17.|
25|Voters in Venezuela approve a referendum calling for the creation of a 131-member national assembly to write a constitution to replace the existing government structure, which was adopted in 1961. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed the new constitution as a way to democratize the nation's political system.|
26|The president of India, Kircheril Raman Narayanan, dissolves the lower house of Parliament and calls for a general election, India's third in three years. After Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost a parliamentary vote of confidence on April 17, Sonia Gandhi, widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and unofficial head of the opposition Congress Party, failed to build a political coalition upon which to form a government.|
26|Ankylosaur dinosaurs at least 25 million years older than any similar dinosaur type previously found in North America have been discovered near Price, Utah, according to Utah's state paleontologist James Kirkland. Kirkland and colleagues at several U.S. institutions date the fossils at 98.4 million years old. The ankylosaur grew to approximately the size of an army tank and was sheathed with bony plates studded with horns. The species migrated to North America from Asia via a land bridge. Kirkland believes the recent discovery will spark a reassessment of when dinosaur migrations occurred.|
27|U.S. government officials report that in 1994 and 1995 a Taiwanese-born scientist, Wen Ho Lee, transferred millions of lines of top-secret computer code to a highly accessible computer network. The scientist, who was employed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, is suspected of transferring the files to give Chinese officials access to information about U.S. nuclear warheads. Espionage experts consider the transfer a major breach of U.S. security.|
27|NATO officials report that a bomb intended to strike an army barracks in the Serbian village of Surdulica hit a residential area and destroyed six houses. According to Serbian officials, at least 20 civilians, including 11 children, died in the explosion.|
28|Members of the sharply divided Bulgarian parliament debate whether NATO planes conducting bombing raids on Yugoslavia should be allowed to fly through Bulgarian airspace. The debate began minutes after a NATO missile overshot its target and struck a house in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of the Yugoslav border.|
29|The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft has detected magnetic patterns on Mars, according to officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Mario H. Acuna, speaking at a NASA news conference in Washington, D.C., describes the patterns as magnetized bands and suggests that the cold, arid, and geologically quiet planet was once highly active with internal heat and other powerful forces similar to those on Earth.|
30|A bomb explodes in a crowded gay bar in the London neighborhood of Soho, killing three and injuring more than 70. The bomb attack is the third in London in less than two weeks. On April 17, a bomb injured more than 40 people in a South London district with a large Afro-Caribbean population. Another nail bomb injured seven people in Brickland, a Bangladeshi community in East London, on April 24. All three explosive devices were similar-crude, homemade bombs loaded with nails and left in sports bags in crowded areas.|
