| 1998 Trivia, History and Fun Facts |
Quick Facts from 1998: |
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| Top Ten Baby Names of 1998: Emily, Hannah, Samantha, Sarah, Ashley, Michael, Jacob, Matthew, Joshua, Chris, Topher |
| Fashion Icons and Sex Symbols: Heidi Klum, Rebecca Romijn, Sarah Jessica Parker, Claudia Schiffer, Victoria Silvstedt, Niki Taylor |
| Hollywood Hunks and Leading Men: David Beckham, Johnny Depp, George Clooney |
“The Quotes” “Think different” “Think outside the bun” |
| Time Magazine’s Men of the Year: Bill Clinton Kenneth Starr |
| Miss America: Kate Shindle (Evanston, IL) |
| Miss USA: Shawnae Jebbia (Massachusetts) |
The Scandals: Monica Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment hearing of Bill Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives. |
| Quick Celebrity marriages in 1998: Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman (9 days) Catherine Oxenberg and Robert Evens (12 days) |
Oops: 10 bodies were discovered in Benjamin Franklin’s basement during house renovations. The bodies belonged to his friend and anatomist William Hewson, who had a falling out with his mentor William Hunter and illegally procured them for study. Hunter’s body was not among them. The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug was accidentally introduced to the US. The first documented case was in Allentown, PA in 1998. |
Pop Culture Facts & History: |
MP3s were created for the first time. Larry Page and Sergey Brin misspelled ‘googol’ when they started their little search engine experiment. A googol is a big number – a 1 followed by 100 zeros. A googolplex is 10 raised to the power of one googol. In 1998, David Bowie released an internet provider called BowieNet. Subscribers were offered exclusive content and a BowieNet email. It was shut down in 2006. Jobseeker website Monster.com was founded. JetBlue Airways was founded. Michael Cameron, a Georgia high school student, was suspended from school after wearing a Pepsi t-shirt on Coke Day. Upon hearing the news, a Pepsi spokesperson said, “Without knowing all the details, it sounds like he’s obviously a trendsetter with impeccable taste in clothes.” Porsche tried to replace its flagship car, the 911, with the beggir, more luxurious 928, but people kept buying the iconic 911. The 911 still hadn’t had a major redesign since its birth in 1963, and only received one in 1998, three years after the 928 went out of production. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is by far the biggest-selling playscript since records began, with 847, 886 copies sold in its first week. In second place, the Penguin Classic edition of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet sold 127,726 copies since 1998. Titanic’s highest single-day box office gross didn’t occur until its 58th day in theaters. It earned $13,048,711 on February 14th, 1998; Valentines Day. When Ving Rhames won a Golden Globe in 1998, he called fellow nominee Jack Lemmon to the stage and gave him the award, saying, “I feel like being an artist is about giving, and I’d like to give this to you, Mr. Jack Lemmon.” Marvel offered the cinematic rights of almost all of its characters to Sony for only $25 million. Sony rejected the offer, and only purchased the rights to Spider-Man for $7 million believing that movie audiences would only care about him. Jesse Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota. The Simpsons predicted Fox’s acquisition by Disney in 1998. Smartwater, vapor-distilled water was introduced. The next year, Fruit water was available too. On April Fools Day in 1998, Burger King took out a full-page ad in USA Today introducing a Whopper designed especially for lefties. The new burger contained the same ingredients as the original but rotated 180°. When AOL 4.0 launched, they used all of the world’s CD production capacity for several weeks. The 1998 hit song by the Goo Goo Dolls Iris is named after a 2 time Grammy nominee Iris DeMent. The first W Hotel opened in New York on Lexington Ave and 49th Street. Gillette introduced the Mach3 razor, the first triple-blade shaving tool. One of the first recognized instances of internet democracy was seen when Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, a regular on Howard Stern, was voted #1 as a write-in for People’s “50 Most Beautiful People.” He beat out Leonardo Dicaprio by over 215,000 votes. Some Nickelodeon shows like Fairly OddParents, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and ChalkZone all got their start on a separate tv show full of cartoon shorts called Oh Yeah! Cartoons in 1998 Bob the Builder debuted in 1998. In 1998 Mila Kunis was cast in the FOX sitcom That ’70s Show. All who auditioned were required to be at least 18 years old; Kunis, who was 14 at the time, told the casting directors she would be 18 but did not say when. She played in all 200 episodes of the show. Roy Berger did 3,416 push-ups in Ottawa, Canada on August 30. Serena and Venus Williams said they could beat any man ranked 200 or worse in a game of tennis. Karsten Braasch, ranked 203, accepted the challenge and beat them both, at 6-1 and 6-2. Mark McGwire’s record-setting 70 home runs during the 1998 season traveled a total of 29,598 feet, just enough to fly over Mount Everest. Cost of a Super Bowl ad in 1998: $1,300,000 |
| Science: Australian Astronomers detected fast radio burst signals and named them Perytons. It was soon discovered that it was escaping radiation from the microwave in the lunchroom, which was being stopped by using the door release without pushing the stop button first. |
| Pop Vocalist Death: Frank Sinatra, age 82 |
| Country Legend Vocalist Death: Tammy Wynette, age 55 |
| Country Movie Legend Vocalist Death: Roy Rogers, age 86 |
| Pop Star Turned Congressman Death: Sonny Bono, age 62 |
| Television Star Death: Phil Hartman, age 49 |
| Doomsday Clock: 9 minutes to midnight, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. 1998: “India and Pakistan stage nuclear weapons tests only three weeks apart. “The tests are a symptom of the failure of the international community to fully commit itself to control the spread of nuclear weapons–and to work toward substantial reductions in the numbers of these weapons,” a dismayed Bulletin reports. Russia and the United States continue to serve as poor examples to the rest of the world. Together, they still maintain 7,000 warheads ready to fire at each other within 15 minutes.” |
| The Habit: Reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling |
| 1st Appearances & 1998’s Most Popular Christmas Gifts, Toys and Presents: Furby, Barbie and Ken as the Munsters Giftset, Betty Spaghetti |
| Popular and Best-selling Books From 1998: A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse by Anne Carson Bag of Bones by Stephen King Birds of America by Lorrie Moore Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling Birds of America by Lorrie Moore I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb The Klone and I by Danielle Steel The Little Sisters of Eluria by Stephen King The Long Road Home by Danielle Steel Mirror Image by Danielle Steel “N” is for Noose by Sur Grafton Paradise by Toni Morrison The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan Point of Origin by Patricia Cornwell Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy The Street Lawyer by John Grisham Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson A Widow for One Year by John Irving You Belong To Me by Mary Higgins Clark |
| Best Film Oscar Winner: Titanic (presented in 1998) |
| 1998 Entries to The National Film Registry: 42nd Street (released in 1933) The Bride of Frankenstein (released in 1935) The City (released in 1939) Dead Birds (released in 1964) Don’t Look Back (released in 1967) Easy Rider (released in 1969) From the Manger to the Cross (released in 1912) Gun Crazy aka Deadly Is the Female (released in 1949) The Hitch-Hiker (released in 1953) The Immigrant (released in 1917) The Last Picture Show (released in 1971) Little Miss Marker (released in 1934) The Lost World (released in 1925) Modesta (released in 1956) The Ox-Bow Incident (released in 1943) Pass the Gravy (released in 1928) The Phantom of the Opera (released in 1925) Powers of Ten (released in 1978) The Public Enemy (released in 1931) Sky High (released in 1922) Steamboat Willie (released in 1928) Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse (released in 1940) Tootsie (released in 1982) Twelve O’Clock High (released in 1949) Westinghouse Works (released in 1904) |
| The Big Movies: (according to boxofficemojo) 1. Saving Private Ryan 2. Armageddon 3. There’s Something About Mary 4. A Bug’s Life 5. The Waterboy 6. Doctor Dolittle 7. Rush Hour 8. Deep Impact 9. Godzilla 10. Patch Adams |
| 1998 Most Popular TV Shows: 1. E.R. (NBC) 2. Friends (NBC) 3. Frasier (NBC) 4. Veronica’s Closet (NBC) 5. Jesse (NBC) 6. 60 Minutes (CBS) 7. Touched By An Angel (CBS) 8. Home Improvement (ABC) 9. Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS) 10. NYPD Blue (ABC) |
1998 Billboard Number One Songs: January 17 – January 30: January 31 – February 13: February 14 – February 27: February 28 – March 13: March 14 – April 3: April 4 – April 24: April 25 – May 29: May 30 – June 5: June 6 – September 4: September 5 – October 2: October 3 – November 6: November 7 – November 13: November 14 – November 27: November 28- December 4: December 5 – January 15: |
Sports: Sports Highlights: |
