01|Petr Korda of the Czech Republic wins the men's final of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne. Korda beats Chilean Marcelo Rios in three sets to take his first ever Grand Slam title.|
02|United States President Bill Clinton sends the first balanced federal budget in nearly 30 years--earmarked at $1.73 trillion--to Congress.|
02|The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, announces that death from AIDS in the United States fell by 44 percent in the first half of 1997. The decline is attributed to new combination therapies, popularly called drug "cocktails."|
03|Karla Faye Tucker, who was convicted of murdering two people with an ax, is executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, after being on death row for 15 years. She is the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War and the second woman to be executed in the United States since the resumption of capital punishment in 1976.|
03|A United States Marine jet on a training flight from a base in northern Italy slices through the cable of a ski lift in the Dolomite Mountains, causing a suspended cable car to plunge 240 feet (73 meters) down a mountain, killing all 20 passengers.|
04|A magnitude 6.1 earthquake strikes a hilly, agricultural region in northwest Afghanistan, 200 miles (322 kilometers) north of Kabul, the capital, leaving as many as 5,000 people dead and 30,000 people homeless.|
04|Sri Lanka celebrates the 50th anniversary of its independence with a ceremony in its capital, Colombo, attended by Prince Charles of the United Kingdom. The event is overshadowed by the continuation of violence around the capital between government troops and rebel Tamil Tigers, in which 15 people are injured.|
05|President Bill Clinton announces that U.S. plans for possible military intervention in Iraq do not include overthrowing the government of Saddam Hussein. The president notes that his goal is to force Iraq to comply with UN resolutions to conduct inspections for weapons of mass destruction. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, visiting Clinton in the White House, publicly agrees with the president's goals. In Moscow, Boris Yeltsin repeats his opposition to any U.S. military intervention in Iraq, which the Russian president warns could trigger world conflict.|
05|The German government announces that unemployment has reached its highest level since World War II (1939-1945). The figure is put at 4.82 million people and sparks a spate of protests throughout the country. The new statistics are seen as a threat to Chancellor Helmut Kohl's chances of winning the general elections scheduled for September.|
06|In Ajaccio, Corsica, Claude Erignac is shot dead, becoming the first government official to be killed on the island in 30 years. Erignac was the regional prefect of Corsica, and the highest representative of the French government on the island.|
06|Carl Wilson, one of the founders of the Beach Boys and a guitarist for the group, dies at age 51 in Los Angeles. Wilson helped form the band in 1961. He had been suffering from lung cancer for more than a year.|
07|The 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, open in a public celebration, attended by the emperor and empress of Japan, that reflects traditional Japanese culture as well as cutting-edge technological innovation. With the ringing of a Zenkohi temple bell, a sumo wrestler enters the arena stamping his feet to drive evil spirits from the games. Seiji Ozawa, Japanese-born music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, concludes the ceremony by conducting choruses connected on five continents by satellite in the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.|
07|Imelda Marcos announces her intention to run for the presidency of the Philippines in the May 1998 elections. Marcos, widow of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, currently faces 12 years imprisonment for corruption. She pledges to use the Marcos wealth to bail the Philippines out of its financial crisis and vows to bring "dignity, decency, and leadership" back to the country.|
08|Some 250 people die and 50 are injured when three villages in northwestern Afghanistan are destroyed by tremors or aftershocks that follow in the wake of the February 4 earthquake.|
09|Eduard Shevardnadze, president of Georgia, survives an attempt on his life when his motorcade is attacked on the streets of Tbilisi, the capital, with antitank grenades and heavy machine-gun fire. A bodyguard and one of the attackers are killed in the exchange. Shevardnadze also survived a 1995 assassination attempt.|
10|Data compiled by the Federal Reserve System, an independent government agency that oversees the U.S. banking system, reveals that Americans in 1997 had more assets--28 percent of all household wealth--invested in the stock market than in real estate, a category that includes the family house. For families that owned homes, real estate accounted for 27 percent of family assets, the Federal Reserve said.|
11|U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno formally requests that a judicial panel appoint an independent council to investigate what role, if any, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt may have played in the Interior Department's rejection of an Native American gambling project. Babbitt had been accused of blocking completion of a Chippewa gambling casino in Wisconsin after tribes operating rival casinos made substantial contributions to President Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign.|
11|More than 100 German police officers raid the Munich offices of the Church of Scientology. German state prosecutors announce that the raid is part of an on-going arson investigation and inquiry into the death of a German businessman whom prosecutors believe received medical advise from Scientology members. Germany has refused to recognize Scientology as a religious organization, a status it enjoys in the United States.|
12|Federal District Judge Thomas F. Hogan declares unconstitutional the line item veto, which allows the president of the United States to individually veto tax and spending items in a bill without rejecting an entire piece of legislation. According to the judge, the line item veto--signed into law on April 9, 1996, by President Bill Clinton and used by him to strike 82 items from 11 bills--"violates the procedural requirements ordained in Article I of the United States Constitution and impermissibly upsets the balance of powers so carefully prescribed by its framers."|
12|General Al-Zubeir Mohammed Saleh, vice-president of Sudan, is killed in a plane crash that also claims the lives of at least two other senior government officials. The crash is thought to have been caused by bad weather and is regarded as a major setback in bringing to an end the Sudanese civil war.|
12|Fidel Castro's government in Cuba announces its intention to release more than 200 prisoners, many of them political prisoners. The decision follows Pope John Paul II's January visit to the country, during which he appealed to Castro for clemency for Cuban prisoners.|
13|The military junta that has occupied Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, for nine months is deposed by Nigerian-led peacekeeping forces of the Economic Community of West African States. The Nigerian troops take control of the capital, claiming victory in a battle that has cost hundreds of lives since it began in early February. The fallen military junta took power in May 1997 after ousting the democratically elected president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.|
13|The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announces that images taken from satellites have revealed ancient temple sites in western Cambodia near the site of previously uncovered remains in the region of Angkor. NASA satellites detected the site using radar images, and the new discovery may predate all other finds by as much as 300 years.|
13|The commander of Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Maryland, reveals during an interview that Russian scientists appear to have genetically engineered a new and more virulent form of anthrax, a biological-warfare agent. The commander, Colonial Gerald Parker, states that the newly engineered pathogen, which reportedly contains nonanthrax genes that alter how disease is triggered, may be capable of overpowering the vaccine that U.S. scientists have prepared to inoculate American troops against such biological agents.|
14|More than 100 people are killed when tank cars explode after two trains collide on the outskirts of Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, on the west coast of Africa. The explosion killed many of the people who had rushed into the wreckage to collect oil gushing from the tankers ruptured by the collision. Among the dead were taxi drivers who, mistaking the oil for petroleum, had hoped to refuel their cabs for free.|
14|In India, more than 50 people are killed and 32 injured as a series of bombs explode in Coimbatore city in Tamil Nadu state. The attack coincides with the end of election campaigning for seats in the federal parliament's lower house, the Lok Sabha, with the polling due to begin on February 16.|
15|Voters in Cyprus reelect Glafcos Clerides president. He defeats his nearest opponent, George Iacovou, and will now take responsibility for heading talks on the possibility of reunifying Cyprus and gaining membership in the European Union.|
15|In Gateshead, United Kingdom, a sculpture weighing 200 tons and standing 65 feet high is erected. The "Angel of the North" sculpture was designed by Antony Gormley to last for at least 100 years. It is the United Kingdom's biggest sculpture.|
16|A China Air jet crashes into a row of houses just short of the runway at Chiang Kai Shek Airport outside Taipei, Taiwan, killing 9 people on the ground and all 197 people aboard the Airbus 300.|
16|An infant born in a hospital near Los Angeles becomes the oldest-known frozen embryo to be successfully thawed and implanted into its mother's womb. The baby boy is the result of a fertilized embryo that was frozen seven and a half years earlier and is a fraternal twin to his 7-year-old brother, who was conceived in the same manner. The longest previous time on record that an embryo had been frozen before being used was five years.|
17|The U.S. women's hockey team wins the first women's gold medal in Olympic hockey history, finishing the games 6-0.|
17|In Tehran, Iran, a team of American wrestlers become the first U.S. athletes to compete in that country since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their presence at the Takhti Cup wrestling competition is seen as an attempt to improve Iranian-American relations.|
18|Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and National Security Adviser Samuel Berger, speaking before an audience at Ohio State University in Columbus, face protests, heckling, and skepticism as they attempt to sell the Clinton Administration's policy toward Saddam Hussein and possible military intervention in Iraq. While protesters form a minority of the audience, their tough questions regarding U.S. military goals in Iraq appear to leave the secretaries of state and defense shaken and nervous about how their responses are perceived by a worldwide audience watching the forum via Cable News Network.|
19|A National Research Council panel announces that it has found evidence that nearly 22,000 people die annually of lung cancer caused by inhalation of radon. Radon, a colorless, odorless gas, is emitted when either radium or uranium decay, a process that takes place naturally in rocks and most ordinary soils. The gas seeps through the ground into houses and can accumulate in unhealthy concentrations in areas that are poorly ventilated, such as basements. Chairman of the committee, Jonathan M. Samet of the Johns Hopkins University of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, notes that "radon, particularly in combination with smoking, poses an important public health risk."|
20|The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, arrives in Baghdad, Iraq, for a last-ditch attempt to avert fighting in the Persian Gulf. Annan meets with Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, to discuss a plan to bring a peaceful solution to the current crisis, which has been generated by Saddam Hussein's refusal to allow UN inspectors to investigate his weapons sites.|
20|Eight hours after Great Britain and Ireland suspend Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), from Northern Ireland peace talks, a bomb explodes outside a police station in the village of Moira, southwest of Belfast. Earlier, Britain and Ireland had issued a joint statement declaring their belief that the IRA was involved in two recent civilian murders in Belfast and that the suspension from peace talks would be lifted in 17 days if the IRA refrained from any further violence. Sinn Fein, as a condition for admittance to the peace talks, had pledged that the IRA would suspend use of terrorist tactics.|
20|Archbishop Keith Rayner, head of the Anglican Church in Australia, washes the feet of two Aborigine bishops in a ritual symbolizing the church's apology to the indigenous people of Australia. Archbishop Rayner also formally apologizes to Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders for the loss of their "stolen generation," the children who were taken from their families and forcibly assimilated into white society by the church and other authorities.|
21|Pope John Paul II elevates 20 Roman Catholic prelates to the rank of cardinal in a traditionally formal ceremony staged on the plaza before St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in Rome. The 20 newly consecrated cardinals push the membership of the College of Cardinals to 165, of whom 122 are under the age of 80 and, therefore, eligible to vote for the next pope. John Paul II appointed 106 of the 122 eligible voters. Two of the 20 new cardinals are Americans: Francis Cardinal George, archbishop of Chicago, and James Cardinal Stafford, former archbishop of Denver.|
22|President Saddam Hussein of Iraq agrees, after a three-hour meeting with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, to lift the Iraqi ban on UN arms inspections at all potential weapons production and storage sites. The secretary general announces that he believes the agreement will be acceptable to the United States and to all 15 members of the UN Security Council, defusing the current crisis that had led to a massive buildup of U.S. troops and war material in the Persian Gulf.|
23|President Bill Clinton tentatively accepts a deal brokered by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and agreed to by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that allows UN weapons inspectors immediate and unconditional access to whatever Iraqi sites they chose to examine for weapons of mass destruction. According to President Clinton, the agreement, which would appear to ease the crisis that has placed the United States on the brink of war with Iraq, must be tested before he will withdraw American troops currently on alert in the Persian Gulf region.|
23|Tornadoes with winds as high as 260 miles (418 kilometers) per hour hit central Florida in a path running from Daytona Beach on the Atlantic Ocean to Tampa Bay on the Gulf of Mexico. As many as 10 funnels cut swaths 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide through Seminole, Osceola, Orange, Brevard, and Volusia counties, shredding mobile homes and destroying hundreds of houses. At least 38 people are killed and more than 250 are injured.|
23|In Nagano, Japan, the 18th Winter Olympic Games officially conclude with the handing over of the Olympic flag to the mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, the host of the 2002 Winter Games.|
24|Another round of torrential El Nino rains hits the California coast, triggering more flash floods and mud slides, which wash away or bury houses, highways, and cars. Tornadoes, rare in southern California, touch down in Long Beach and Huntington Beach. Between the central coast and the Mexican border, at least seven people are killed in storm-related accidents. In Los Angeles, a record 13.68 inches (34.75 centimeters) of rain has fallen since February 1.|
24|Kim Dae Jung is inaugurated president of Korea and begins his term in office by calling for cooperation and reconciliation with North Korea. The 73-year-old Kim, who is assuming control of a country in dire economic crisis, announces a series of economic reforms, including the dismantling of existing cozy relationships between the Korean government and the country's big business interests.|
25|Congressional leaders in the U.S. Senate and House muster sufficient votes, for the first time, to overturn a presidential line item veto. Calling President Bill Clinton's defense spending "dangerously low," Congress overrides the veto to restore $287 million for military-construction projects.|
26|The U.S. Senate, led by majority leader Trent Lott (R., Mississippi), votes 51 to 48 against ending debate to bring to a vote legislation designed to reform how federal election campaigns are financed. While the vote to not vote effectively blocks campaign finance reform for at least one more year, the proposed reforms are expected to provide an issue for debate in the midterm elections scheduled for autumn 1998.|
26|In Amarillo, Texas, Oprah Winfrey wins the court case brought against her by Texan cattle ranchers for her allegedly disparaging remarks about the safety of beef. The ranchers sued Winfrey under Texas's food defamation laws, claiming damages of almost $11 million as a result of comments on Winfrey's talk show concerning the possibility of acquiring mad cow disease from beef.|
26|In northern regions of South America and in the Caribbean Sea, the last total solar eclipse of the 1900's is visible as the sun is blocked out at midday. The phenomenon is visible from northern Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and northern areas of the Caribbean, and casts a 90-mile (150-kilometer) wide shadow during the four minutes of total darkness it imposes.|
27|A British Home Office minister, Lord Williams of Mostyn, announces to the House of Lords, that Queen Elizabeth II does not object to changing the law of succession to allow the British throne to pass to the monarch's oldest child, whether male or female. A bill ending <EM>primogeniture</EM> (succession through the male line) is currently before the House of Commons. Under British law, the measure must also be approved by the parliaments of the 15 former British colonies, including Australia and Canada, where the queen remains head of state.|
28|The Volkswagen corporation avoids a lawsuit brought by the Roman Catholic Church of France by agreeing to pay a Catholic charity $50,000 and publicly apologizing for advertisements that bishops of the French church branded sacrilegious. The ads, aired on television in January 1998, promoted a new Volkswagen model with caricatures of religious images, including da Vinci's <EM>Last Supper. </EM> The ad showed a group of men in modern dress striking a "Last Supper" pose on either side of a central figure who asks them to "rejoice" over the birth of a new model.|
