January
01 – The Euro enters circulation as the currency of the European Union, replacing historical currencies such as the franc, mark, drachma, and lira. Participating countries are Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. Three EU members – Great Britain, Denmark, and Sweden – decline to participate.
04 – Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Chapman of San Antonio, Texas, becomes the first US soldier to die from enemy fire in Afghanistan. He is shot by unidentified assailants near the towns of Khost and Gardez, while seeking information about terrorist leaders.
05 – 15-year-old student pilot Charles Bishop crashes a single-engine Cessna into the 28th floor of the Bank of America building in Tampa, Florida. He is killed in the crash, but no one else is hurt.
08 – Bushfires continue to burn across New South Wales (Australia) after consuming over 500,000 hectares, drawing thousands of volunteer firefighters into a historic emergency response.
08 – President George W. Bush signs the “No Child Left Behind Act” into law, fundamentally restructuring the American public education landscape for the decade.
09 – A US military transport plane crashes in Pakistan, killing all seven Marines aboard.
11 – 20 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters captured in Afghanistan are flown to the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and placed in individual 8×8-foot cages. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls them “unlawful combatants” rather than prisoners of war, but international human rights organisations raise questions about their treatment, and the Red Cross says the US might have violated the Geneva Convention by releasing photos showing prisoners kneeling and shackled.
14 – The UK is declared free of foot-and-mouth after 11 months of crisis during which time six-and-a-half million animals were slaughtered, costing the UK up to £8 billion – the farming industry’s financial loss was put at more than £900 million.
17 – Mount Nyiragongo, a volcano near the town of Goma in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, erupts, leaving an estimated 55,000 people homeless and causing at least 45 deaths. Lava from the volcano covers nearly one-half of the town.
20 – Two US Marines are killed, and five are wounded when their helicopter crashes in northern Afghanistan.
21 – At least 50 people are killed when hot lava from Mount Nyiragongo in Congo causes an explosion at a gas station where local residents are looting fuel.
22 – Kmart, the 3rd-largest discount retailer in America, files for bankruptcy. Since August 2000, Kmart stock has declined in value from $13.16 to about 70 cents per share.
27 – More than 1,000 people are killed when a fire at an army weapons depot in a crowded residential area of Lagos, Nigeria, spawns huge explosions and a mass evacuation with many fleeing across two nearby canals.
28 – North Korea announces its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
29 – Detainees at the Woomera Immigration Detention Centre in Australia stage a mass hunger strike and protests, catapulting the Howard Government’s “Pacific Solution” border policy into fierce national and international debate.
February
03 – The New England Patriots defeat the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, fueled by a historic last-second field goal and a patriotic U2 Halftime Show tribute.
08 – The Winter Olympic Games are declared open by President George W Bush in Salt Lake City, Utah.
09 – Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, the youngest daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Elizabeth II’s only sibling, dies after suffering a stroke that leads to cardiac failure. She is 71.
09 – The UK reality television landscape reaches a historic milestone as Will Young defeats Gareth Gates to win the inaugural season of ITV’s Pop Idol, drawing a record-breaking 13 million live viewers and generating a massive national phone-voting frenzy.
12 – The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Yugoslavia, begins at The Hague in the Netherlands. Milosevic faces a single trial on charges including ethnic cleansing, executions, deportations and other human-rights abuses related to the wars in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia.
20 – Andrew Aston, a 29-year-old cocaine addict from Birmingham (England), is sentenced to 26 concurrent terms of Life imprisonment – the longest prison sentence imposed on any criminal in England and Wales – for murdering two elderly people in robberies and attacking 24 others.
21 – Actor John Thaw, star of The Sweeney and Inspector Morse, dies suddenly from cancer at his home in Luckington, Wiltshire, aged 60.
28 – Van driver John Fletcher, 47, crashes his vehicle through a wall and ends up on the railway line at Nocton, Lincolnshire. He contacts the emergency services when a passenger train hits the wrecked van. Fletcher is killed, and 14 people on the train are injured.
March
12 – Israeli attacks kill 31 Palestinians after United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan declares that Israel must end its illegal occupation of Palestinian land. President George W Bush calls the Israeli assaults “not helpful”.
12 – The Fox network begins filming early auditions for a new summer reality show called American Idol, completely unaware it will become a multi-decade television juggernaut.
14 – The Israelis leave all West Bank towns except Bethlehem after US Secretary of State Colin Powell demands that the Israelis pull out of the Palestinian territories.
14 – SpaceX is founded by Elon Musk.
18 – The Israeli army pulls out of Bethlehem.
21 – A US Navy HH-1 Huey helicopter crashes into a crevice near the peak of Split Mountain in the Sequoia National Forest, killing two crew members and injuring four.
22 – Three American soldiers are killed when a 120-millimetre mortar round explodes while being fired from an armoured vehicle in a nighttime exercise at the Army National Training Center at Fort Irwin, in the Mohave Desert east of Los Angeles.
24 – History is made at the 73rd Academy Awards as Halle Berry becomes the first African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress (for her role in Monster’s Ball). Berry is the third black actress ever to receive an Oscar. The others won in the Best Supporting Actress category – Hattie McDaniel for Gone With
the Wind (1939) and Whoopi Goldberg for Ghost (1990).
30 – Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother dies peacefully in her sleep, aged 101. Queen Elizabeth II is at her mother’s bedside when she passes away at 1515 GMT at the Royal Lodge, Windsor.
April
02– Israeli troops surround the Church of the Nativity, at the reputed site of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine, now occupied by some 250 Palestinian fighters. Meanwhile, Israeli planes attack Lebanese villages.
03 – Egypt suspends ties with Israel as thousands in Cairo and elsewhere in the Arab world demonstrate for the Palestinians.
04 – President Bush demands that Israel end its attacks on Hebron and pull back, and also end construction of settlements in Palestinian territory.
05 – The International Committee of the Red Cross calls Israel’s attacks on its vehicles and facilities “totally unacceptable”.
09 – Much of Britain comes to a standstill for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother at Westminster Abbey.
16 – Premier Wim Kok of the Netherlands and all the members of his governing 3-party coalition resign after a report faults the government (as well as the United Nations) for a massacre of Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1995. The Dutch government had sent 200 troops to protect Muslims in Srebrenica, a UN-designated “safe area.” The town was overrun by Serbian forces who assembled Muslim civilians and executed them. Drastically outnumbered, the Dutch offered little resistance to the atrocity. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation found the failure of the Dutch troops was “tantamount to collaborating with ethnic cleansing.
18 – Police in Los Angeles arrest actor Robert Blake (star of Baretta) in connection with the murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in May 2001. Blake’s former bodyguard and chauffeur, Earle Caldwell, is also arrested. Blake is eventually found not guilty and acquitted in March 2005.
18 – A small plane crashes into the 25th and 26th floors of the 30-floor Pirelli Tower (the tallest building in Milan, Italy), killing three people and injuring about 60. The pilot – the only person in the plane – is among the dead. He had reported having trouble lowering his wheels. The government declares the crash an accident.
26 – After being expelled from the Gutenberg school in Erfurt, Germany, 19-year-old Robert Steinhaeuser returns to the school and shoots 16 people to death with a rifle and a handgun. He then shoots and kills himself. Most of the dead are teachers.
May
05 – President Jacques Chirac of France is reelected with 82% of the vote, defeating right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen.
06 – Pim Fortuyn, a candidate for prime minister in the Netherlands, is shot dead after giving an interview in Hilversum. Fortuyn had labelled Islam a “backward culture” and opposed immigration by Muslims. He had also criticised environmentalists. Generally seen as a populist, he was openly gay and had hoped to become the country’s first gay prime minister. Police arrest Volkert van der Graaf, an animal rights advocate, for the shooting.
10 – The tragic Potters Bar Rail Crash kills seven people and injures over 70 in Hertfordshire after a high-speed train derails over a faulty set of points, reigniting furious national debates over rail privatisation and track maintenance.
12 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba, becoming the first US president in or out of office to visit the island since the Communists seized power there in 1959.
12 – The Likud Party, the main component of Israel’s ruling coalition government, approved a resolution never to allow the creation of a Palestinian state.
17 – Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland is assured of retaining office after his Fianna Fáil party runs far ahead of Fine Gael in the general elections. Sinn Féin, the political arm of the IRA, wins five seats.
20 – East Timor gains independence.
June
01 – The UK celebrates the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, marked by a historic four-day bank holiday weekend filled with millions of street parties, carnivals, and national pageants.
03 – The “Party at the Palace” concert, featuring performances by Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, and others, celebrates the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, who succeeded her father, George VI, to the throne in 1952.
07 – Over 15 million British viewers tune in at 7:30 AM to watch England defeat Argentina 1-0 in the World Cup, thanks to a redemptive David Beckham penalty.
11 – The British television landscape updates as the BBC, Crown Castle, and BSkyB launch a consortium to create Freeview, a free-to-air digital television service designed to replace the collapsed ITV Digital.
27 – John Entwistle, bass guitarist of The Who, dies of a heart attack in Paradise, Nevada, aged 57.
30 – Led by the play of Ronaldo, Brazil defeats Germany to win its fifth World Cup.
July
01 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) is established.
01 – Cannon fire from a US Air Force AC-130 gunship strikes a town in southern Afghanistan, killing 50 to 80 people. Many victims are members of a wedding party. US officials in Afghanistan say the plane had reported being fired upon, but this was disputed. Some reports suggest the Americans misinterpreted the celebratory gunshots that traditionally accompany Afghan weddings.
04 – A gunman shoots two people dead at the international airport in Los Angeles.
09 – The African Union is officially established in Durban, South Africa, structurally reorganising continental political and economic cooperation frameworks.
25 – Her Majesty the Queen officially opens the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, triggering a massive wave of regional pride and showcasing a highly successful multi-million-pound urban regeneration framework.
27 – 83 people are killed near Lviv, Ukraine, when a Ukrainian jet fighter crashes to the ground amid spectators in one of the worst-ever air show tragedies. The two crew members eject safely, but are injured.
August
04 – Ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman disappear from their village of Soham, Cambridgeshire, launching one of the largest missing persons investigations and intense media manhunts in British history.
17 – School site caretaker Ian Huntley and his partner Maxine Carr are arrested in connection with the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, shocking the British public and sparking deep discussions over child safety infrastructure.
19 – A Russian military helicopter crash-lands in a minefield near the main Russian military base in rebellious Chechnya moments after the pilot of the Mi-26 heavy transport helicopter reports an engine fire. In all, 117 of the 147 aboard are killed in the crash or by mine explosions as they try to flee.
September
13 – Two US F-16 fighter pilots whose bombs killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan in April are charged with involuntary manslaughter and assault. The pilots – Majors Harry Schmidt and William Umbach – had thought they were under fire from the ground, where the Canadians were conducting a training exercise.
20 – Israeli forces demolish all but one building in the office complex of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
22 – German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder clings to power after a close parliamentary election.
24 – Assailants armed with automatic weapons attack a Hindu temple in Gandhinagar, India, killing 29 and wounding 74. Infantry commandos kill two attackers.
24 – Prime Minister Tony Blair publishes the highly controversial “September Dossier” regarding Iraq’s weapons capabilities, containing the infamous claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, setting off fierce political and media debates.
October
12 – Bombings in Bali kill 202 people, mainly Australians, and injure 209 more.
November
03 – Singer Lonnie Donegan, known as the “King of Skiffle“, dies of heart failure aged 71 at Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, during a tour.
13 – The Firefighters’ Strike begins in the UK as members of the Fire Brigades Union launch their first national strike in 25 years over a pay dispute, forcing the military to deploy vintage emergency “Green Goddess” fire engines across British streets.
15 – Moors murderer Myra Hindley dies in West Suffolk Hospital at the age of 60 after being hospitalised with a heart attack. She was in the 37th year of her life sentence.
16 – The global SARS outbreak begins in Guangdong, China.
19 – Singer Michael Jackson sparks global controversy when he dangles his nine-month-old son, Prince Michael II (nicknamed “Blanket”), over a fourth-floor hotel balcony railing in Berlin, Germany. Jackson issues a statement the following day, calling his actions a “terrible mistake” and stating, “I got caught up in the excitement of the moment. I would never intentionally endanger the lives of my children”.
20 – German anatomist Gunther von Hagens conducts a public autopsy in a London theatre, the first in Britain in more than 170 years.
December
07 – A catastrophic fire breaks out in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, destroying over 30 historic buildings in the UNESCO World Heritage city centre and causing millions of pounds worth of structural damage.
30 – Motown singer Diana Ross is arrested by police in Tucson, Arizona, on suspicion of drinking and driving after her car is seen swerving across a road.
Also this year . . .
- The XIX Winter Olympic Games are held in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, in the United States. Germany wins 12 gold medals, Norway 11 and the US 10.
- Israel starts ‘Operation Defensive Shield’ in the West Bank and begins construction of the West Bank barrier.
- Oksana Fedorova (Russia) is crowned Miss Universe but dismissed for breach of contract in September. The crown is passed to Justine Pasek (Panama).
- The national unemployment rate in the USA hits an eight-year high.
- Brazil defeats Germany 2-0 in the World Cup soccer final in Yokohama, Japan.
- Lance Armstrong wins the Tour de France for the fourth straight year. His time is 82 hours, 5 minutes and 12 seconds.
- ‘Media Puzzle’ wins the Melbourne Cup.
- Helio Castroneves wins the Indy 500 for the second year in a row.