what was that first landing on a comet a few years ago? controlled crash?

I think you're talking about the 'Deep Impact' probe, visiting the 'Tempel' comet in 2005. The very *first* comet fly-by occurred in 1985 - a probe called "ISEE" was basically hijacked by NASA, re-labeled "ICE", and sent to comet Giacobini Zinner - it upstaged a flyby of Halley's comet by a few months by Russia, Europe, and Japan's probes.

This wasn't a comet, but after the NEAR-Shoemaker probe had completed it's mission, it was 'landed' on Eros in.... 1999? 2000?, although it wasn't designed to land.

If you're referring to the Deep Impact spacecraft, then yes. The spacecraft deployed an impactor whose purpose was to make a suicide dive toward the comet nucleus, hopefully excavating material from the comet's interior for study. It doesn't count as a landing because the impactor was destroyed (as was intended) during the impact.

I hope that helps. Good luck!

Deep impact wasn't a landing. The spacecraft never touched down anywhere on the comet. It did however shoot a large 800 lb copper-core "Impactor" at the surface, which took images on the way in and dislodged debris after impact so it could be analyzed.

You might be thinking of the spacecraft that pulled off a soft landing on an ASTEROID (not the same thing as a comet)

No an impactor.