February 8 – Motorcycle stunt rider Corey Scott is killed in front of a crowd of around 30,000 spectators at the Orange Bowl stadium in Miami, Florida, after a stunt goes terribly wrong.
March 13 – The Phoenix Lights are seen over Phoenix, Arizona.
March 14 – A famous study of gender reassignment of a twin boy who lost his penis to a botched circumcision is refuted. The supposedly successful outcome for "Joan" had been widely cited as proof that gender was determined by nurture, yet the patient, David Reimer, was deeply unhappy and had returned to his original gender by the age of 15, thus indicating the exact opposite thesis.[2][relevant?]
March 21 – Liar Liar is released in theaters nationwide, later going on to rank as the 7th highest grossing film of the year
April 16 – Houston socialite Doris Angleton is murdered, drawing suspicion to her estranged husband, Robert. His brother Roger confesses to the crime and the investigation reveals that Robert had amassed a fortune through illegal betting.
May – For the first time since December 1973, unemployment falls below 5%. It would remain below 5% until September 2001, during the early 2000s recession.
May 15 – The United States government acknowledges existence of the "Secret War" in Laos, and dedicates the Laos Memorial in honor of Hmong and other "Secret War" veterans.
A computer user known as "_eci" publishes his C source code on a Windows 95 and Windows NT exploit, which later becomes WinNuke. The source code gets wide distribution across the internet, and Microsoft is forced to release a security patch.
June 13 – A jury sentences Timothy McVeightodeath for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
June 19 – The fast food chain McDonald's wins a partial victory in its libel trial, known as the "McLibel case", against two environmental campaigners. The judge agrees that McDonald's targeted its advertising at children, who pestered their parents into visiting the company's restaurants.
June 25 – The NHL announces the addition of four new franchises to be added to the league by the 2000-01 NHL season.
June 27 – Walt Disney Pictures' 35th feature film, Hercules, loosely based on the legendary mythological hero of the same name, is released to positive reviews but underperforms at the box office in comparison to its most recent predecessors.
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.
July 18 – The first Speedway gas station opens in Ohio.
July 21 – The fully restored USS Constitution (aka "Old Ironsides") celebrates her 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
October 1 – Luke Woodham walks into Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi and opens fire, killing two girls, after killing his mother earlier that morning.
Andy Green sets the first supersonic land speed record for the ThrustSSC team, led by Richard Noble of the UK. 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).
October 28 – In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average gains a record 337.17 points, closing at 7,498.32. One billion shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time ever.
November 14 – Mary Kay Letourneau is sentenced to six months imprisonment in Washington after pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape. Letourneau gave birth to her victims' child and the leniency of her sentence was widely criticized.[3]
November 19 – In Des Moines, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies are born alive, and the first in which all survive infancy.
November 27
The 71st Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade takes place in New York City. High winds cause a balloon to knock loose a piece of a lamppost, injuring four, one nearly fatally. Police deflate other balloons by force.
December 3 – In Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign a treaty prohibiting the manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel land mines. However, the United States, the People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty.
December 18 – Comedian and Saturday Night Live actor Chris Farley is found dead from a drug overdose in his apartment on the 60th floor at John Hancock Center in Chicago, Illinois.
December 19 – James Cameron's Titanic, the highest-grossing film of all time until Avatar (2009), premieres in the U.S.
Media related to 1997 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons
