50 Fun Facts About 1997

Which software giant's $150 million stake in a struggling Apple did Steve Jobs announce at a Macworld Expo keynote?

Microsoft put $150 million into Apple and pledged five more years of Office for the Mac; Jobs told the crowd Apple had to let go of the idea that for it to win, Microsoft had to lose.

Which DVD-by-post start-up did Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph found in Scotts Valley, California, that August?

Netflix was founded on 29 August 1997 as a DVD-rental-by-mail service and did not rent its first disc until April 1998; the subscription model only arrived in September 1999.

Jeanne Calment of Arles, who claimed to have met Van Gogh as a girl, died in August at what record age?

Jeanne Calment was 122 years and 164 days old when she died on 4 August 1997, still the longest verified human life; she said her future husband introduced her to Van Gogh in her uncle's fabric shop.

Which comedy about six jobless Sheffield men forming a striptease act became Britain's highest-grossing film ever?

The Full Monty took $257 million worldwide on a budget of about $3.5 million and stayed Britain's biggest box-office hit until Titanic overtook it.

Who replaced Val Kilmer as Batman opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze in the summer's Batman & Robin?

George Clooney later said of Batman & Robin "I think we might have killed the franchise", and Warner Bros. made no Batman film until Batman Begins in 2005.

Which number did Major League Baseball retire for every team on the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut?

Number 42 was retired for all of baseball in 1997, the first time any sport had honoured a player that way; Mariano Rivera, grandfathered in, was the last to wear it regularly until he retired in 2013.

Which band's songwriters took the royalties from The Verve's 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' after a lawsuit over its sample?

The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards took the songwriting credit because the hook was lifted from an orchestral cover of their 'The Last Time'; they handed the credits and royalties back to Richard Ashcroft in 2019.

Which future Nobel Peace laureate, shot by the Taliban at 15, was born in Pakistan's Swat valley that July?

Malala Yousafzai, born on 12 July 1997, became the youngest Nobel laureate in history when she received the Peace Prize at 17.

In which African country did Princess Diana walk through a half-cleared minefield at Huambo that January?

Angola's minefields, being cleared by the HALO Trust, brought the charity global coverage and tied Diana's final year to the campaign that produced the Ottawa mine-ban treaty that December.

Which online bookseller floated on the Nasdaq that May at $18 a share, then waited until late 2001 for a profit?

Amazon's IPO on 15 May 1997 valued a two-year-old bookshop that did not make a profit until the fourth quarter of 2001, when it earned one cent a share on revenue above $1 billion.

Which Ghanaian diplomat, the first UN Secretary-General promoted from its own staff, took office on 1 January?

Kofi Annan spent two terms at the top of the United Nations and shared the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize with the organisation itself.

Which Spielberg sequel, the widest cinema release ever at the time, took Ian Malcolm to a second dinosaur island?

The Lost World: Jurassic Park opened in a record 3,281 North American cinemas and went on to gross $618.6 million worldwide.

Which David E. Kelley legal comedy, new on Fox in September, made Calista Flockhart and a dancing baby famous?

Ally McBeal used the dancing baby in its fantasy sequences, turning one of the internet's first viral animations into a prime-time fixture for a show that ran until 2002.

Which former Neighbours actress debuted with 'Torn', a cover that spent three November weeks at UK number two?

Natalie Imbruglia's 'Torn' had already been recorded in Danish and by the Los Angeles band Ednaswap, yet her version topped the US radio airplay chart for 11 straight weeks.

Which 'Annie's Song' singer died in October when his home-built Long-EZ plane crashed into Monterey Bay?

John Denver had run out of fuel in one tank and could not reach the selector valve behind his shoulder to switch to the other; the FAA had revoked his medical certificate the year before.

Michael Hutchence, found dead in a Sydney hotel room in November aged 37, fronted which Australian band?

INXS lost Hutchence at the Ritz-Carlton in Double Bay, and the state coroner ruled the death a suicide while he was depressed and under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

Which 16-year-old Swiss became tennis's youngest world number one in March and won three of the year's Grand Slams?

Martina Hingis won the Australian Open at 16 years and 3 months, became Wimbledon's youngest champion since 1887, and beat Venus Williams in the US Open final.

Which gymnast, the most decorated in the sport's history, was born in Columbus, Ohio, that March?

Simone Biles was born on 14 March 1997, the third of four siblings, and is now formally Simone Arianne Biles Owens following her marriage.

Which tennis player, born that October to a Haitian father, became the first Asian singles world number one in 2019?

Naomi Osaka was born on 16 October 1997 and held the top ranking for 25 weeks from January 2019, the first Asian player of either sex to get there in singles.

Which French explorer, co-developer of the Aqua-Lung and captain of the Calypso, died in Paris in June aged 87?

Jacques Cousteau tested the first Aqua-Lung prototype in 1943 with engineer Émile Gagnan, and the device made extended underwater exploration possible for the first time.

Which architect of 'one country, two systems' died in Beijing in February, months before Hong Kong's return to China?

Deng Xiaoping died on 19 February 1997 at 92 from late-stage Parkinson's disease complicated by a lung infection, and never saw the handover he had negotiated with Britain in the 1980s.

Which Tommy Boy star died in his Chicago apartment in December aged 33, the age at which his idol John Belushi died?

Chris Farley died of a cocaine-and-morphine 'speedball' overdose on 18 December 1997, the same drug combination and the same age that killed Belushi fifteen years earlier.

Which Canadian became Formula One champion after Michael Schumacher drove into him at Jerez and was disqualified?

Jacques Villeneuve limped home third to win the crown by three points, and the FIA's unprecedented decision to strip Schumacher of his second place let him keep his race wins.

Which Manchester United forward stunned football by retiring at 30 in May, days after winning the Premier League?

Eric Cantona swapped the pitch for the screen, playing a French ambassador in Elizabeth the following year and later starring in Ken Loach's Looking for Eric.

Which horse race was run on a Monday after IRA bomb threats forced 60,000 people out of Aintree on the Saturday?

The Grand National went ahead 49 hours late in front of 20,000 spectators, with Lord Gyllene winning by 25 lengths at 14/1; the evacuation had left 20,000 racegoers stranded with their cars locked inside the course.

Which Oasis songwriter posed with Tony Blair at a Downing Street party for celebrities who had backed New Labour?

Noel Gallagher was criticised for going, and answered that his parents had raised him to see Labour as the party of working people and that he had gone to meet the Labour prime minister, not the man.

Which royal yacht was decommissioned in December at a ceremony where the Queen was reported to have cried?

HMY Britannia was paid off on 11 December 1997 and is now permanently berthed at Leith in Edinburgh, where she draws over 300,000 visitors a year.

Two Firearms Acts passed after the Dunblane school shooting banned private ownership of which weapons in Great Britain?

Handguns above .22 calibre were outlawed by the first Act, passed under the Conservatives, and Tony Blair's new Labour government banned the remaining .22 pistols later in the year.

Which dance act's 'Things Can Only Get Better' did Labour adopt as its anthem for the May general election?

D:Ream's keyboard player was Brian Cox, who went on to become a physics professor and the BBC science presenter who co-hosts The Infinite Monkey Cage.

Which country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May after Laurent Kabila's rebels ousted Mobutu?

Zaire's name went with Mobutu: he fled Kinshasa on 16 May 1997, the rebels walked into the capital without serious resistance, and Kabila proclaimed himself president the next day.

Where were Che Guevara's remains found and exhumed, 30 years after his execution there, before reburial in Cuba?

Bolivia gave up the bones in 1997, and Guevara was reburied with full military honours on 17 October beneath the mausoleum built for him in Santa Clara, Cuba.

Which space station was holed in June when a Progress supply craft struck its Spektr module during a docking test?

Mir's crew had just enough time to fit a hatch cover and seal off the leaking Spektr module, saving the station; Spektr stayed sealed and depressurised for the rest of Mir's life, re-entered only by cosmonauts in spacesuits.

Which James Ellroy adaptation starring Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce lost seven of its nine Oscar races to Titanic?

L.A. Confidential won only Best Supporting Actress for Kim Basinger and Best Adapted Screenplay; Titanic took every other category in which the two films met.

Which cartoon's 166-episode record did The Simpsons pass in February with the episode that introduced Poochie?

The Flintstones had been the longest-running prime-time animated series since the 1960s, and The Simpsons overtook it with its 167th episode on 9 February 1997.

Which ITV series, adapted from Caroline Graham's Barnaby novels with John Nettles as the detective, began in March?

Midsomer Murders has been sold to more than 200 countries and territories, and its trademark is a body count of several murders per episode in one improbably lethal county.

Which album did Ry Cooder record in Havana in six days with veterans such as Compay Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer?

Buena Vista Social Club was taped in March 1996 and released in June 1997; it went on to sell more than eight million copies and win a Grammy, and Guinness World Records lists it as the best-selling world music album ever.

Which Indian writer won the Booker Prize with her debut The God of Small Things, set among Kerala's backwaters?

Arundhati Roy's semi-autobiographical novel, drawing on her childhood in the village of Aymanam, became the biggest-selling book by an Indian author living in India.

Which Defence Secretary's shock defeat in Enfield Southgate became the defining image of Labour's landslide night?

Michael Portillo lost to Labour's Stephen Twigg, and the sight of a presumed future party leader being unseated became the shorthand for the scale of the Tory collapse.

Which Hayao Miyazaki film about a wolf-raised girl and a cursed prince became Japan's highest-grossing film ever?

Princess Mononoke drew 14.2 million Japanese cinemagoers in a year, beating the record held by E.T., and its English dub script was written by the fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman.

Which nation's September devolution referendum passed by just 6,721 votes, after Carmarthenshire's late declaration?

Wales voted 50.3 per cent in favour of its own Assembly, a result that led to the Government of Wales Act 1998 and the National Assembly's creation in 1999.

Who became Ireland's eighth president in November, the first woman anywhere to succeed another woman in the office?

Mary McAleese was inaugurated on 11 November 1997 and, born in Ardoyne in north Belfast, was the first holder of the office to come from Ulster.

Which Chelsea midfielder's 43-second goal against Middlesbrough was the fastest yet in a Wembley FA Cup final?

Roberto Di Matteo's 25-yard strike went in off the crossbar, and Eddie Newton's late second gave Chelsea a 2–0 win and their first major trophy for 26 years.

Which RAF pilot drove ThrustSSC to the first supersonic land speed record, 763 mph across Nevada's Black Rock Desert?

Andy Green's run came 50 years and one day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the air, and ThrustSSC remains the only land vehicle officially to have done it.

Jeff Buckley drowned in May swimming fully clothed in a Mississippi River harbour in which Tennessee city?

Memphis's Wolf River Harbor claimed the 30-year-old while he waited for his band to arrive from New York, and Grace, released in 1994, stayed his only finished studio album.

Which Steve Coogan character, sacked by the BBC and left by his wife, lived in a roadside hotel in his November sitcom?

Alan Partridge spent the first series of I'm Alan Partridge in the Linton Travel Tavern presenting a graveyard slot on Norwich local radio; by the 2002 second series he had downgraded to a static caravan.

Which film-noir star of The Night of the Hunter died in Santa Barbara on 1 July, one day before James Stewart?

Robert Mitchum, 79, died of complications from lung cancer and emphysema, and Stewart, 89, followed on 2 July, so Hollywood lost two of its biggest mid-century stars within 24 hours.

Who won an unshared Nobel Prize in Medicine for proposing that misfolded proteins called prions cause mad cow disease?

Stanley Prusiner's prions explain a family of diseases that leave their victims' brains full of holes, from scrapie in sheep to BSE in cattle, and he received the 1997 prize alone.

Which one-man act's 'Your Woman', recorded at home on an Atari ST and a cassette deck, topped the UK chart in January?

White Town was Jyoti Mishra alone, and the song's muted-trumpet hook is a sample of Nat Gonella playing on Lew Stone's 1932 recording 'My Woman'.

Which Italian playwright and actor, author of Accidental Death of an Anarchist, won the Nobel Prize in Literature?

Dario Fo was praised by the Swedish Academy for emulating the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority, and he called his most famous play a grotesque farce about a tragic farce.

The Asian financial crisis began on 2 July when which country was forced to let its currency, the baht, float?

Thailand's collapse was known locally as the Tom Yum Kung crisis, and within months it had spread to South Korea and Indonesia, the two economies hit hardest alongside Thailand itself.