What happened in 1997

“Candle In The Wind 1997/Something About The Way You Look Tonight”

Elton John · 12 weeks at #1 in 1997

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1. Jan 4Un-Break My HeartToni Braxton7 wks
2. Feb 22WannabeSpice Girls4 wks
3. Mar 22Can't Nobody Hold Me DownPuff Daddy (Featuring Mase)6 wks
4. May 3HypnotizeThe Notorious B.I.G.3 wks
5. May 24MMMBopHanson3 wks
6. Jun 14I'll Be Missing YouPuff Daddy & Faith Evans Featuring 11211 wks
7. Aug 30Mo Money Mo ProblemsThe Notorious B.I.G. Featuring Puff Daddy & Mase2 wks
8. Sep 13HoneyMariah Carey3 wks
9. Oct 44 Seasons Of LonelinessBoyz II Men1 wk
10. Oct 11Candle In The Wind 1997/Something About The Way You Look TonightElton John12 wks

Dates are the first chart week at #1 in 1997; weeks count only those in 1997.Find the #1 song on your birthday →

1. Jan 23Madeleine Albright was sworn in as the first female United States Secretary of State, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government at that time.
2. Feb 7Steve Jobs returned to Apple Inc. as a consultant after the company's acquisition of his technology startup NeXT.
3. Feb 28Two heavily armed bank robbers exchanged gunfire with officers of the Los Angeles Police Department in North Hollywood, in one of the most intense gun battles in American police history.
4. Apr 27American spree killer Andrew Cunanan murdered Jeffrey Trail, a former friend and a Gulf War veteran, who became the first victim of Cunanan's killing spree.
5. May 16Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaire, flees the country.
6. May 27A destructive F5-rated tornado tracked through a subdivision of homes northwest of Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 people.
7. Jun 2In Denver, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 11 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in which 168 people died. He was executed four years later.
8. Jun 16The English rock band Radiohead released their landmark third album OK Computer in the United Kingdom.
9. Jul 10In London, scientists report the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which supports the "out of Africa theory" of human evolution, placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
10. Jul 20USS Constitution, one of the United States Navy's original six frigates, sailed for the first time in 116 years after a full restoration.
11. Aug 13The animated TV comedy South Park airs its very first episode.
12. Aug 31Diana, Princess of Wales, her partner Dodi Fayed, and their driver were killed in a car crash in Paris.
13. Nov 12Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
14. Dec 19Titanic, the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time with a worldwide total of more than US$2.2 billion, was released in the United States.

Event summaries from Wikipedia’s “On this day”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Each links to its article.

• U.S. President

  Bill Clinton

• UK Prime Minister

  John Major → Tony Blair

• Prime Minister of Canada

  Jean Chrétien

• German Chancellor

  Helmut Kohl

• Prime Minister of Japan

  Ryutaro Hashimoto

• President of Russia

  Boris Yeltsin

Everyone who held the office at some point in 1997, from Wikidata.

A selection of the best-documented titles on Wikidata, by first release year; not a box-office ranking.

• Lamar JacksonAmerican football player · Jan 7
• Jake PaulAmerican boxer, actor, rapper, and social media personality · Jan 17
• Kathryn NewtonAmerican actress · Feb 8
• Saquon BarkleyAmerican football player · Feb 9
• Chloë Grace MoretzAmerican actress · Feb 10
• Becky GAmerican singer and actress · Mar 2
• Camila CabelloCuban-American singer-songwriter and actress · Mar 3
• Simone BilesAmerican gymnast · Mar 14
• Dominik MysterioAmerican wrestler · Apr 5
• Amber MidthunderAmerican actress · Apr 26

From Wikipedia’s “On this day”, CC BY-SA 4.0.