1997
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s - 1990s - 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s 2040s
Years: 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 - 1997 - 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
International Year of the Reef
Events
- January 3 - NBC's Today show Bryant Gumbel signs off for the last time.
- January 8 - Mister Rogers receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- January 16 - Ennis Cosby, the only son of actor Bill Cosby, is killed by a gunman while changing a flat tire in Los Angeles, California
- January 18 - In north west Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 3 Spanish aid workers, 3 soldiers and seriously wound one other.
- February 11 - Bill Parcells becomes head coach of New York Jets.
- March 26 - Thirty-nine bodies found in Heaven's Gate cult suicide.
- May 1 - The UK's Labour Party end 18 years of Conservative rule in the 1997 UK general election
- May 11 - IBM's Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov, the first time a computer beat a chess grand master
- July 1 - British returns the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China
- August 2 - Australian ski instructor Stuart Diver is rescued as the sole survivor from the Thredbo landslide in New South Wales, Australia, in which 18 lives were lost.
- September 7 - First test flight of the F-22 Raptor
- September 11 - Scotland votes to create its own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.
- South Korea suffers a severe economic crisis
- December 27 - Protestant paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland.
- December 29 - Hong Kong begins to kill all the chickens within its territory (1.25 million) to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.
- December 30 - In the worst incident in Algeria's insurgency, 400 people are killed from four villages.
Art, Culture & Fashion
- 1997 in film
- Summer - Production begins on Star Wars, Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
- Titanic
- As Good As It Gets
- Good Will Hunting
- L.A. Confidential
- 1997 in sports
- January 18 - Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided
- January 26 - Super Bowl XXXI Green Bay Packers (35) def. New England Patriots (21)
- 1997 in television
- June 6 - Actress Farrah Fawcett makes a bizzare appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. Fawcett tells long, rambling stories without a point, fails to understand simple questions, and gets easily distracted by things like blinking lights on the set.
Births
Deaths
- January 10 - Sheldon Leonard, producer, actor, director
- January 17 - Clyde Tombaugh, astronomer
- February 11 - Don Porter, actor.
- February 19 - Deng Xiaoping, chinese politician and leader
- February 20 - Edmond Yu
- July 2 - James Stewart
- July 20 - John Akii-Bua Ugandan hurdler
- August 2 - William S. Burroughs, US author
- August 10 - Conlon Nancarrow, composer
- August 31 - Diana, English princess
- September 5 - Georg Solti
- September 5 - Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa)
- September 9 - Burgess Meredith
- September 17 - Red Skelton
- September 19 - Rich Mullins, singer
- December 3 - Kathy Acker, post-punk post-feminist and post-industrial author
- Allen Ginsberg, US poet
- December 27 - Billy Wright, Irish paramilitary leader