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.
January 19 - Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli controlled West Bank city.
January 20 - Bill Clinton starts his second term as President of the United States.
January 21 - Newt Gingrich becomes the first leader of the United States House of Representatives to be internally disciplined for ethical misconduct.
January 22 - Madeleine Albright becomes the first female secretary of state after confirmation by the United States Senate.
January 23 - Mir Aimal Kasi receives the death sentence for a 1993 assault rifle attack outside CIA headquarters that killed two and wounded three others.
January 27 - It is revealed that French museums had nearly 2,000 pieces of art that were stolen by Nazis.
January 28 - Clive Davis receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
February 4 - O.J. Simpson is found to be civilly liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Simpson is ordered to pay $35,000,000 in damages to the families of the two victims.
February 4 - On their way to Lebanon two Israeli troop-transport helicopters collide killing 73.
February 4 - After at first contesting the results, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic recognizes opposition victories in the November 1996 elections.
February 5 - The so-called "Big Three" banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.
February 5 - Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter investment banks announce a $10 billion merger.
February 9 - The Simpsons surpasses the The Flintstones as the longest-running prime-time animated series.
February 10 - The United States Army suspends Sgt. Major Gene McKinney, its top-ranking enlisted soldier, after hearing allegations of sexual misconduct.
February 11 - Bill Parcells becomes head coach of New York Jets.
February 13 - Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope is started by astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery .
February 19 - The last of the Republic of China's major revolutionaries, Deng Xiaoping dies at 92.
February 22 - In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned and was born in July 1996.
March 4 - United States President Bill Clinton bars federal funding for any research on human cloning.
March 6 - Picasso's Tete de Femme is stolen from a London gallery (it was recovered a week later).
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 6 - Princess Diana's funeral at Westminster Abbey draws large crowds
September 7 - First test flight of the F/A-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.

NASA's Mars Pathfinder lands on Mars and takes pictures and samples of the planet surface.
Timothy McVeigh is found guilty of Oklahoma City bombing

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 literature
1997 in music
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
- The murder of JonBenet Ramsey dominates the news in the United States.
- 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
January 19 - James Dickey, poet, novelist
January 20 - Curt Flood, baseball star
January 21 - Colonel Tom Parker, celebrity manager
February 1 - Herb Caen, newspaper columnist
February 11 - Don Porter, actor.
February 19 - Deng Xiaoping, Chinese politician and leader
February 20 - Edmond Yu, medical student
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

Nobel Prizes