1997

1997 was a year marked by political transitions, scientific milestones, and cultural events with a lasting impact on late 20th-century history. It featured the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China on July 1, a Labour Party landslide in the United Kingdom that brought Tony Blair to power, and the onset of regional economic instability beginning with the Asian financial crisis in July.

In science and technology, NASA's Mars Pathfinder successfully landed on Mars and deployed the Sojourner rover on July 4, 1997. Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, was announced in February. In computing, IBM's Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in May, a milestone in artificial intelligence.

Culturally, the blockbuster film Titanic opened in December and became the highest-grossing film of its time. The year also saw the publication of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in the United Kingdom, launching a global literary phenomenon.

On the international climate front, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in December in Kyoto, Japan, establishing binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions among participating nations. The year also saw notable deaths, including Princess Diana on August 31 in Paris and Mother Teresa on September 5.

Sports highlights included the Florida Marlins winning the World Series in 1997, a notable marker in American baseball history, as global events continued to shape economics, politics, and culture in the closing years of the decade.