- July 7
- Death of Michael Senior, journalist from Canada, shot dead by soldiers in Cambodia while photographing them looting following the coup. [824.18]
- July 8
- Mayo Clinic researchers warn that the dieting drug "fen-phen" can cause severe heart and lung damage. [18]
- NATO invites the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to join the alliance in 1999. [18]
- July 9
- Near the coast of Venezuela, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurs. At least 81 people killed, 522 injured, extensive damage and landslides, at least 3,000 people were left homeless. [53]
- July 10
- In London, scientists report DNA analysis findings from a Neandertal skeleton supporting the out-of-Africa theory of human evolution, placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. [5] [18]
- Miguel Ángel Blanco is kidnapped in Ermua, Spain and murdered by the ETA. [18]
- July 11
- 90 die in Thailand's worst hotel fire at Pattaya. [18]
- July 13
- The remains of Che Guevara are returned to Cuba for burial, alongside some of his other comrades. [18]
- July 15
- Serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan shoots fashion designer Gianni Versace to death outside Versace's Miami, Florida residence. [18]
- July 16
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 63.17 to close at 8,038.88. It is the Dow's first close above 8,000. The Dow has doubled its value in 30 months. [18]
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- July 17
- The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business. [18]
- July 18
- In Eastern Caucasus, a magnitude 4.2 earthquake occurs. About 5,000 houses damaged. [53]
- July 23
- Digital Equipment Corporation files antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel. [18]
- July 25
- K.R. Narayanan is sworn in as India's 10th president and the first member of the Dalit caste to hold this office. [18]
- First light at the Swiss Light Source. [18]
- July 26
- Apple Computer releases Mac OS 8.0 for US$99. Code-name during development was Tempo. (1.2 million copies ship in the first two weeks, making it the most successful Apple software product ever.) [4]
- July 27
- Si Zerrouk massacre in Algeria; about 50 people killed. [18]
- In Canada, the Toronto Transit Commission opens its Spadina light rail transit line. [5]
- August 1
- Boeing and McDonnell Douglas complete their merger. [18]
- 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. [18]
- August 3
- Oued El-Had and Mezouara massacre in Algeria; 40-76 villagers killed. [18]
- August 6
- At the Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates announce a five-year alliance of Apple Computer with Microsoft. Terms include: cross-licensing of existing patents plus new patents over the next five years, Microsoft will release Office for Macintosh over next five years, Apple will make Internet Explorer the default browser on all shipping Macintosh systems, Apple and Microsoft will collaborate on Java compatibility, Microsoft will invest US$150 million in Apple stock and hold it for at least three years. [4]
- 228 die as Korean Air Flight 801 crash lands at Guam International Airport. [18]
- August 20
- Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people killed, 15 kidnapped. [18]
- August 25
- Egon Krenz, the former East German leader, is convicted of a shoot-to-kill Berlin Wall policy. [18]
- August 26
- Beni-Ali massacre in Algeria; 60-100 people killed. [18]
- The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning is set up in Northern Ireland, as part of the peace process. [18]
- August 29
- Rais massacre in Algeria; over 98 (and possibly up to 400) people killed. [18]
- August 31
- Diana, Princess of Wales, is taken to hospital after a car crash shortly after midnight in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris. She is pronounced dead at 4:00 a.m. that morning. Also, death of Dodi Al-Fayed, Egyptian businessman (the same automobile accident), and driver Henri Paul. [5] [18] [145.64]
- September 5
- Beni-Messous massacre in Algeria; over 87 killed. [18]
- September 6
- The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place at Westminster Abbey, watched by over one billion people worldwide. [18]
- A Jean Michel Jarre Oxygene in Moscow concert, celebrating the city's 850th anniversary, draws 3.5 million people. [18]
- September 11
- Scotland votes to create its own Parliament after 290 years of union with England. [18]
- NASA's Mars Global Surveyor reaches Mars. [5]
- September 18
- Wales votes in favour of devolution and the formation of a National Assembly. [18]
- September 19
- Guelb El-Kebir massacre in Algeria; 53 killed. [18]
- September 21
- The AIS, the FIS' armed wing, declares a unilateral ceasefire in Algeria. [18]
- September 22
- Bentalha massacre in Algeria; over 200 villagers killed. [18]
- September 25
- UNSCOM inspector Dr. Diane Seaman catches several Iraqi men sneaking out the back door of an inspection site, with log books for the creation of prohibited bacteria and chemicals. [18]
- September 26
- An air crash in Indonesia kills 234 people (likely caused by smoke rising from numerous forest fires in the area). [18]
- In Central Italy, magnitude 5.7 and 6.4 earthquakes occurs. As a result of these two earthquakes, a total of eleven people killed, more than 100 injured and about 80,000 homes destroyed. Part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi collapses. [18] [53]
- September 27
- The Požega Diocese (Catholic) is founded. [18]
- October 2
- United Kingdom scientists Moira Bruce and John Collinge, with their colleagues, independently show that the new variant form of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is the same disease as Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or "mad-cow disease". [18]
- October 4
- The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history ($17.3 million, mostly in small bills) occurs at the Charlotte, North Carolina office of Loomis, Fargo and Company. An FBI investigation eventually results in 24 convictions and the recovery of approximately 95 percent of the stolen cash. [18]
- October 12
- Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria: 43 are killed at a fake roadblock. [18]
- October 15
- Andy Green sets the first supersonic land speed record for the ThrustSSC team, led by Richard Noble of the United Kingdom. ThrustSSC goes through the flying mile course at Black Rock Desert, Nevada at an average speed of 1,227.985 km/h (763.035 mph). [18]
- NASA launches the Cassini-Huygens probe to Saturn. [18]
- Near the coast of central Chile, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurs. 8 people killed, more than 300 people injured, 20,000 houses destroyed or damaged, numerous power and telephone outages, landslides and rockslides. [53]
- A tanker collides with an empty Very Large Crude Carrier ship off Singapore, leaking 29 million litres of oil, covering beaches of several islands. [522]
- October 17
- The remains of Che Guevara are laid to rest with full military honours in a specially built mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, Cuba, where he had won the decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution 39 years before. [18]
- October 20
- The U.S. Justice Department asks a federal court to hold Microsoft in contempt of court because it may be forcing PC makers to distribute Internet Explorer as a condition of selling Windows 95. Microsoft is formally charged with violating the terms of the 1995 Final Judgement. The federal court is asked to impose on Microsoft a US$1 million per day fine until the company stops tying the browser with Windows. [4]
- October 27
- Stock markets around the world crash because of a global economic crisis scare. The Dow Jones Industrial Average follows suit and plummets 554.26, or 7.18 percent, to 7,161.15. The points loss exceeds the loss from Black Monday. Officials at the New York Stock Exchange for the first time invoke the "circuit breaker" rule to stop trading. [18]
- October 28
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains a record 337.17 to 7,498.32. One billion shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time ever. [18]
- October 29
- Iraq says it will begin shooting down U-2 surveillance planes being used by UNSCOM inspectors. [18]
- November 3
- In France, striking truck drivers blockade ports during a pay dispute. [18]
- November 6
- In Southern Quebec, Canada, a magnitude 4.8 earthquake occurs. Felt as far south as Ottawa, Ontario and as far east as Edmundston, New Brunswick. Felt in western Maine, northern New Hampshire, northern Vermont and parts of northeastern New York in the United States. [53]
- November 10
- Telecom companies WorldCom and MCI Communications announce a US$37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom (the largest merger in US history). [18]
- November 11
- Mary McAleese is elected the 8th President of Ireland. [18]
- November 12
- Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America and Mitsubishi Electric America sign an agreement with the Rainforest Action Network, committing the companies to ecological sustainability and social responsibility. [240.280]
- Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. [18]
- November 13
- Disney's The Lion King musical play opens at the New Amsterdam theater in New York. [6]
- November 17
- In Luxor, Egypt, 62 people are killed by six Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut (police kill the assailants). [18]
- November 19
- In Des Moines, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey, a resident of the nearby town of Carlisle, gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies are born alive. (They go on to be the first set of septuplets to all survive infancy.) [18]
- Bell Laboratories in New Jersey announces that it has developed a 60-nanometre MOS transistor that is five times faster and one quarter the size of current transistors. It also uses 60 to 160 times less power. [4]
- November 20
- David Feldman Company of Switzerland sells at auction a Mauritius 1847 1-penny "Post Office" stamp on cover for US$1,469,700. [792.1] [798.3]
- November 21
- In the India-Bangladesh border region, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake occurs. Twenty-three people killed, 200 injured, and a five-story building collapsed at Chittagong, Bangladesh. [53]
- November 27
- Second Souhane massacre in Algeria: 25 killed. [18]
- NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency jointly launch Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, a satellite program to study tropical and subtropical rainfall and its effects on global climate. [32.43]
- December 2
- Pope John Paul II creates the archbishopric of Vaduz in Liechtenstein. The first archbishop is Wolfgang Haas. [37]
- December 3
- In Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign a treaty prohibiting the manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel land mines. The United States, the People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty. [18]
- December 5
- Texas Instruments announces that it has created a manufacturing technique to create integrated circuits using copper wiring. This approach could lead to processors that are ten times faster than today's chips, while using less power. [4]
- Near the East Coast of Kamchatka, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurs. [53]
- December 12
- Carlos the Jackal, "professional revolutionary" goes on trial in Paris, France. [1]
- Demonstrations in state capitals of Australia against World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund. [18]
- Japanese train builders (Maglev) claim world speed record at 332 MPH. [1]
- December 17
- The term "weblog" is coined by Jorn Barger. [18]
- December 18
- HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium. [5]
- December 19
- Paramount releases the film Titanic to theaters. (Total world gross ticket sales: $2.2 billion (1st for 1997).) [938]
- December 24
- First time a Channukah candle is officially lit in Vatican City. [1]
- Sid El-Antri massacre in Algeria: 50-100 villagers are killed. [18]
- December 27
- 54-car pileup on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Bay, Florida, USA, due to dense fog. One death, 30 injuries. [290.17]
- Loyalist paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland, inside Long Kesh prison. [18]
- 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. [1] [18]
- Russia signs agreement to build a US$3 billion nuclear power plant in China. [1]
- December 30
- In the worst incident in Algeria's insurgency, 400 people are killed from four villages in the wilaya of Relizane: Khrouba (176 deaths), Sahnoun (113 deaths), El-Abadel (73 deaths), and Ouled-Tayeb (50 deaths). [18]
- December 31
- Microsoft buys Hotmail e-mail service. [1]
- South African and American surgeons separate Zambian Siamese twins joined at the head. [1]
- Year
- More Swedes died than were born in 1997, first time since 1809. [1]
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