January
01 – Greece officially adopts the Euro currency, becoming the 12th member of the Eurozone economic framework.
08 – The British High Court awards anonymity for life for the two boys who murdered toddler James Bulger in 1993. Their identities and whereabouts will be kept secret for the rest of their lives.
08 – A US judge sentences 73-year-old former Louisiana governor Edwin W. Edwards to 10 years in prison and fines him $250,000 for extortion from casinos.
08 – Israeli religious and nationalist groups gather in Jerusalem to “pledge allegiance” to the Holy City and protest an American plan for its division.
09 – Shenzhou 2, an unmanned Chinese spacecraft, is launched.
15 – The free-content open-source online encyclopedia Wikipedia is launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, democratising global information.
16 – Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated in his office by one of his own bodyguards.
17 – British Parliament votes to ban fox hunting as a sport despite opposition.
19 – Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán escapes from Puente Grande maximum-security prison near Guadalajara by bribing prison guards and hiding in a laundry cart.
20 – George W Bush is inaugurated as the 43rd president of the United States. Dick Cheney becomes the 46th Vice President.
20 – Outgoing US President Bill Clinton issues 140 executive pardons on his last day in office. Recipients include Marc Rich, Susan McDougall, Patty Hearst, and his brother Roger.
26 – A massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake strikes Gujarat in India on Republic Day, resulting in more than 20,000 deaths.
28 – Baltimore Ravens beat New York Giants, 34-7, in Super Bowl XXXV at Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, Florida.
31 – In the Netherlands, a Scottish court convicts a Libyan and acquits another for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed into Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
February
06 – The leader of the right-wing Likud party, Ariel Sharon, wins a landslide victory to become the new prime minister of Israel.
09 – American submarine USS Greeneville accidentally strikes and sinks the Ehime-Maru, a Japanese training vessel operated by the Uwajima Fishery High School. Nine Ehime-Maru crew members are killed, including four high school students.
13 – An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale rocks El Salvador, killing at least 400 people.
16 – American and British warplanes target radar stations and air defence command centres in Iraq, including sites near Baghdad.
18 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison, where he dies.
18 – Michael Waltrip wins the 43rd Daytona 500. A last-lap crash claims the life of Dale Earnhardt, prompting the sport to implement new safety procedures.
21 – Britain suspends all exports of live animals, milk and meat as their fight against foot-and-mouth disease continues.
22 – In the first trial dealing solely with sex crimes, the UN War Crimes Tribunal finds three former Bosnian Serb soldiers guilty of raping and torturing Muslim women and girls.
28 – A Land Rover, towing a trailer with a car on board, veers off the M62 onto the railway line at Great Heck, near Selby in North Yorkshire. A passenger train smashes into the vehicle and comes off the rails, but continues moving straight into the path of an oncoming coal train, killing 10 people. The Landrover driver, Gary Hart, is convicted in December 2001 of falling asleep at the wheel and ten charges of causing death by dangerous driving. He is sentenced to five years in jail but released after serving just half his sentence in October 2004.
March
02 – The Taliban regime begins the systematic destruction of the ancient, monumental Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, sparking international cultural outrage.
04 – The IRA detonates a bomb in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, injuring 11 people.
05 – Thirty-five Muslim pilgrims are crushed to death during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca.
12 – Five Americans die in Kuwait when the US Navy, in a training drill, drops a 500lb missile and hits an observation post filled with military personnel. A New Zealander also dies.
20 – In a meeting with President Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon indicates a desire to shun peace talks while violence continues.
20 – Petrobras 36 Oil Platform, the world’s largest oil rig, sinks with 400,000 US gallons of fuel and crude oil aboard, after suffering three explosions on 15 March.
23 – The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.
25 – The Schengen Agreement expands to include Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, removing internal border checks across northern Europe.
27 – The High Court grants a lifetime anonymity order to Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, the killers of toddler James Bulger in 1993, ahead of their release from youth custody.
April
01 – The Netherlands becomes the first country in the world to make same-sex marriage legal.
01 – The former president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milošević, surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on charges of war crimes.
01 – A US spy plane collides with a Chinese fighter jet near Hainan Island, triggering an intense, multi-week international diplomatic standoff between Washington and Beijing.
28 – American millionaire Dennis Tito becomes the world’s very first space tourist, paying $20 million to board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS.
May
03 – The United States loses its seat on the UN Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
08 – Tony Blair officially visits Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament, firing the starting gun for a delayed summer general election.
09 – 129 football fans die in a stampede at the Accra Sports Stadium in Ghana, caused by the firing of tear gas by police following a decision by the referee in a crucial match between arch-rivals Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko.
13 – Italian media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi wins the national election, securing his second term as Prime Minister of Italy and centralising political power.
16 – British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott punches a protester who throws an egg at him during a visit to Rhyl in North Wales.
24 – 23 people are killed, and hundreds are injured at a wedding party in Jerusalem when the dance floor on the third floor of the Versailles wedding hall collapses and crashes through two storeys below.
25 – 32-year-old Erik Weihenmayer, of Boulder, Colorado, becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
26 – Serious racial tensions explode into the Oldham Riots in Greater Manchester, resulting in days of violent clashes, petrol bomb attacks, and deep national soul-searching regarding integration.
June
01 – Eleven members of the royal family of Nepal, including the king and queen, are killed by Crown Prince Dipendra during dinner at the Narayanhiti Palace in Kathmandu. Dipendra wounds himself and dies three days later.
01 – A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21 at a disco in Tel Aviv.
05 – US Senator Jim Jeffords leaves the Republican Party, shifting control of the Senate to the Democrats for the first time since 1994.
07 – Tony Blair‘s Labour Party wins another landslide victory in the UK General Election.
08 – Conservative leader William Hague announces his immediate resignation following his party’s crushing electoral defeat.
20 – Pervez Musharraf officially names himself President of Pakistan while maintaining absolute control over the nation’s military apparatus.
21 – Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is the first Hispanic woman to be honoured on a US postage stamp.
29 – Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci becomes a naturalised US citizen.
July
02 – The world’s first self-contained artificial heart is successfully implanted into a patient in Louisville, Kentucky, marking a massive milestone in medical technology.
02 – Barry George is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of British television presenter Jill Dando on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, west London, on 26 April 1999. The Court of Appeal later finds the conviction unsafe and quashes it on 15 November 2007. George is granted a retrial in June 2008 and found not guilty of murder and set free.
03 – A Vladivostok Avia Tupolev TU-154 jetliner crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk, Russia, killing 145 people.
07 – Severe racial disturbances break out during the Bradford Riots after a planned anti-Nazi protest escalates into dynamic clashes, injuring over 300 police officers.
09 – The Office (created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant) premieres on BBC-2.
16 – The tech world transforms as the recording industry wins an injunction forcing Napster to shut down its original file-sharing music network due to copyright lawsuits.
20 – Anti-globalisation protests turn violent at the 27th G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, resulting in the death of a protester and intense media scrutiny.
20 – The London Stock Exchange goes public.
August
03 – The Real IRA detonate a car bomb in Ealing, London, injuring 7 people.
04 – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother celebrates her 101st birthday at Clarence House in London, generating widespread public affection and media tributes.
10 – A train attack executed by UNITA rebels in Angola kills over 250 people, highlighting the devastating ongoing realities of the nation’s civil war.
24 – Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean due to a fuel leak and makes a successful emergency landing in the Azores, saving all 306 people on board.
25 – Singer Aaliyah and eight others are killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas.
September
11 – Al-Qaeda terrorists hijack four commercial airliners and crash two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The third plane is crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC, while the fourth plane is brought down on the outskirts of Stonycreek Township in Pennsylvania when passengers and crew attempt to retake control of their hijacked plane. 2,996 people die in the attacks, including 2,977 victims and 19 hijackers.
12 – NATO invokes Article 5 of its charter for the first time in history, declaring the 9/11 attacks an attack on all member nations.
12 – Ansett Australia, Australia’s first commercial interstate airline, enters voluntary administration (bankruptcy) due to increased strain on the international airline industry.
13 – Ian Duncan Smith is elected the new leader of the British Conservative Party. He is the third Tory leader in four years after William Hague stepped down in the wake of the Conservatives’ landslide defeat on 7 June.
18 – Letters containing weaponised anthrax spores are mailed to US media outlets and senators, killing five people and launching a secondary biological terror panic.
27 – Disguised in a mock police uniform, 57-year-old gunman Friedrich Leibacher runs amok in a central Switzerland government building, killing 15 people before detonating an explosive and turning his assault rifle on himself.
October
02 – NATO agrees to support US military strikes against Afghanistan in retaliation for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
04 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. 78 people are killed.
05 – Robert Stevens, a photo editor for The National Enquirer, falls ill after opening an anthrax-contaminated letter sent to his office.
06 – British television talent show Pop Idol – created by Simon Fuller with judges Simon Cowell and Pete Waterman – debuts, starting a worldwide franchise.
07 – The United States and the United Kingdom launch Operation Enduring Freedom, initiating the war in Afghanistan with heavy aerial bombing campaigns against Taliban and Al-Qaeda targets.
08 – A twin-engine Cessna and a Scandinavian Airlines System McDonnell Douglas MD-87 collide in heavy fog during takeoff from Linate Airport in Milan, Italy, killing 118 people.
15 – A letter opened at the US Capitol is found to be contaminated with anthrax. Preliminary test results show that over 30 people who work on Capitol Hill have been exposed to anthrax spores. A number of Washington DC postal workers also fall ill from anthrax, and on 22 October, two of them die.
17 – A gunman shoots and kills the Israeli tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, in a Jerusalem hotel. Zeevi had just announced his resignation, having charged that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon‘s stand against Palestinian violence was weakening.
19 – US commandos participate in an assault at Kandahar in Afghanistan, the site of a Taliban base. Their targets include an airfield and a headquarters compound of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. Two US soldiers are killed that day in Pakistan when a helicopter involved in the Kandahar mission crashes.
19 – 20 – Israeli tanks and troops invaded Palestinian-controlled territory in the West Bank and occupied Bethlehem and several other urban areas, in the largest military offensive since 1994. At least 35 Palestinians are killed over the next few days. President George W Bush demands that Israel withdraw immediately, but Israel refuses.
22 – ln some of the worst violence since the end of military government in 1999, the Nigerian army attacks villages throughout the eastern state of Benue and shoots hundreds of people. The state governor says a
“conservative estimate” of the dead is around 500. Officials in the capital claim the soldiers acted in self-defence.
23 – The Apple iPod personal media device – featuring a 5GB hard drive that put “1,000 songs in your pocket” – goes on sale. It changes the way people listen to music and paves the way for the iPhone.
23 – The Irish Republican Army (IRA) announces that, in order to prevent the collapse of the peace agreement in Northern Ireland, it will begin to give up its weapons.
24 – Israeli troops attack the Palestinian town of Beit Rima, killing at least five people and arresting at least 11.
24 – 11 people die when two lorries crash head-on and catch fire inside the Gotthard road tunnel in Switzerland.
24 – The historical dynamic of the UK transport framework shifts as the government forces railway network operator Railtrack into administrative insolvency.
25 – Microsoft officially launches the Windows XP operating system, establishing the definitive user interface architecture for global home computing for the next decade.
26 – American planes bomb a Red Cross warehouse facility in Kabul as a result of incorrect targeting.
26 – Anthrax spores are found in the Washington DC area in mail centres serving the CIA, Supreme Court. and Walter Reed Medical Center.
28 – Acceding to pressure from the US, Israel withdraws its forces from Bethlehem and Beit Jala but intensifies its military presence in other West Bank towns.
28 – Terrorist gunmen open fire at a Sunday morning service by Protestants in a Catholic Church in Bahawalpur, Pakistan. 16 worshippers are killed.
31 – A New York City hospital worker dies of anthrax – the 4th anthrax death from inhaling anthrax spores. By the end of the month, five others have been diagnosed with inhalation anthrax.
31 – Israeli strikes in the West Bank kill six Palestinians.
November
10 – Australian Prime Minister John Howard wins another term to retain power for the Liberal Party.
12 – American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 on its way to the Dominican Republic, crashes in the Belle Harbor neighbourhood of the New York City borough of Queens minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board and five on the ground.
15 – Microsoft releases the first Xbox game console in the US.
21 – The 5th anthrax fatality occurs in the US under seemingly inexplicable circumstances. The 5th victim is Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old widow who lived quietly in Oxford, Connecticut (population 9,800) and seldom went far from home. Investigators find no trace of anthrax at her home or in two nearby postal facilities.
25 – Massachusetts biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology announces it has successfully created the first-ever human embryos by cloning. Its objective is to produce stem cells that can serve as replacement tissue to combat disease. Scientists say the embryos had died quickly. President Bush says he considers the work on human cloning to be immoral.
29 – Legendary Beatles guitarist George Harrison passes away at age 58, triggering a massive wave of global public grief and musical retrospectives.
December
02 – Houston-based energy giant Enron, the 7th-largest corporation in the USA, files for bankruptcy. The energy-trading company – whose stock once traded for $90 a share and is now nearly worthless – specialises in buying and selling natural gas and electricity. It is the largest company ever to seek bankruptcy protection.
04 – Marike de Klerk, the ex-wife of former President F.W. de Klerk, is murdered at her home in Cape Town.
05 – An errant bomb from a USAF B-52 bomber kills three American soldiers near Kandahar. Five Afghan soldiers are also killed, and 20 Americans and 18 Afghans are injured.
11 – China becomes a member of the World Trade Organisation, fundamentally transforming global economic trade infrastructure and manufacturing supply chains.
12 – Actress Winona Ryder is arrested on shoplifting charges in Beverly Hills, California.
13 – The Indian Parliament (Sansad) in New Delhi is attacked by terrorists. 15 people are killed, including all terrorists.
15 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent fortifying it, without fixing its famous lean.
20 – Confronted with mass protest demonstrations, President Fernando de la Rua of Argentina resigns.
22 – 28-year-old unemployed British citizen Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63, bound for Miami from Paris, France. He is overpowered by flight attendants and passengers.
27 – The People’s Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States.
Also this year . . .
- Unemployment in the USA reaches a six-year high.
- Denise M. Quiñones August (Puerto Rico) is crowned Miss Universe.
- ‘Ethereal’ wins the Melbourne Cup.
- The Arizona Diamondbacks prevail over the New York Yankees in a thrilling seven-game baseball World Series.