Calendar of 2001

▪ 2002

January

"America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American."

— George W. Bush, in his inaugural address, January 20

January 1

      In a mass to celebrate the World Day of Peace, Pope John Paul II enjoins people of different cultures to treat one another with respect.

      Fifteen people parachute from the top of the Petronas Towers in Malaysia to celebrate the arrival of the new millennium.

      Tyson Foods, Inc., agrees to acquire IBP, inc., in an agreement that will create the world's largest meat company.

      El Salvador becomes the third Latin American nation (after Panama and Ecuador) to replace its national currency with the U.S. dollar.

January 2

      Two tourist boats, one from Quemoy Island and one from Matsu Island, become the first to travel legally from Taiwanese territory to mainland China.

      Cambodia's legislature agrees to create a special tribunal in concert with the United Nations to try Khmer Rouge leaders who carried out a massacre in the 1970s; critics are dubious that this arrangement can be effective.

      Women enlisting in the German armed forces become the first females eligible for combat duty in Germany; the exclusion of women in units of the military is illegal for all members of the European Union.

January 3

      Hillary Rodham Clinton is sworn in as a senator from New York; it is the first time in U.S. history that a sitting first lady has held a political office.

      International Paper Co. agrees to sell for $10.5 million three tracts of land totaling 10,725 ha (26,500 ac) in the Adirondacks in northern New York to the Nature Conservancy, an organization concerned with environmental preservation.

January 4

      The Chief Rabbinate Council in Israel declares that Jewish law forbids allowing any but Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; earlier the mufti of Jerusalem had said that Islamic law prohibits any but Muslim sovereignty over the same area.

      Sawt al-Shaab appears on newsstands in Syria; it is the first newspaper not published by the government or ruling party to be permitted in Syria since 1963.

      The publisher of George announces that the quasi-political magazine founded in 1995 by John F. Kennedy, Jr., who died in 1999, will close with its March issue.

January 5

      Australia bans the importation of beef and beef products from 30 European countries to prevent “mad cow” disease from entering the country. (See January 13.)

      U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton signs an order banning logging and the building of roads in more than 23.5 million ha (58 million ac) of national forest land.

January 6

      Elections are held in Thailand; the opposition Thai Rak Thai Party appears to win a majority of the 500 parliamentary seats.

      Undeterred by bitterly cold weather, Muslim pilgrims from throughout the world gather in Bangladesh to celebrate the festival of Biswa Ijtema.

      South Africa calls for assistance from the World Health Organization in attempting to contain a cholera outbreak that has struck more than 15,000 people in KwaZulu/Natal state.

January 7

      John Kufuor is inaugurated as president of Ghana in that nation's first peaceful transition from one elected government to another.

      Groups of soldiers attack the office of broadcast media during an attempted coup in Côte d'Ivoire.

      A new constitution is approved by a margin of more than 92% in a referendum in Senegal.

January 8

      The UN's World Food Programme releases a report and map detailing the incidence of undernourishment in the world; one-third of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, including 73% of Somalia's people, is chronically hungry, according to the report.

      The French-based construction concern Lafarge Group announces that it will acquire the British company Blue Circle Industries to create the world's biggest cement company.

      India's biggest film financier, Bharat Shah, is arrested on suspicion of having colluded with organized crime figures to extort money from the Bollywood film industry, the largest in the world.

January 9

      At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Geoffrey W. Marcy announces that his team has found two planetary systems that call into question everything known about such systems; one has anomalous orbits, and the other has planets of seemingly impossible size.

      Australian scientists say that analysis of DNA taken from human remains that are about 60,000 years old shows no links with human ancestors from Africa; this suggests that Africa is not the only site of the genesis of the human species.

      Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina says that he will stop blocking U.S. payment of back dues to the United Nations; the UN estimates that the United States is close to $1.6 billion in arrears. (See September 24.)

      The president of the Philadelphia Orchestra announces that Christoph Eschenbach will become the orchestra's seventh director in 2003 when Wolfgang Sawallisch retires.

January 10

      American Airlines agrees to buy Trans World Airlines and, in a separate transaction, reveals plans to acquire 20% of US Airways. (See April 9 and July 27.)

      Actress Jeanne Moreau is inducted into the French Academy of Fine Arts; she is the first woman to be so honoured.

      A controversial statue depicting Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the U.S., seated in a wheelchair is unveiled in Washington, D.C.

      An Asian gaur (an endangered species), cloned and implanted in the womb of a cow in Iowa, dies of dysentery two days after being born.

January 11

      The U.S. Federal Communications Commission approves the megamerger of America Online and Time Warner, which has been in the works for a full year; the new company, AOL Time Warner, begins trading the next morning.

      Yoichiro Kaizaki resigns as president and CEO of the Bridgestone Corp., the parent of Bridgestone/Firestone; he denies that he is doing so in order to accept responsibility for the massive tire recall in 2000, although that is how it is interpreted in Japan.

January 12

      Anson Chan, the head of civil service and second-ranked official in Hong Kong, unexpectedly resigns; she had been appointed to her post by the British, and it was felt that her departure did not bode well for Hong Kong's continued autonomy under China.

      In a study published in Science, scientists report that they inserted a jellyfish gene into the ovum of a rhesus monkey, and the resultant monkey, born in October 2000, carries the gene; it is the first transgenic primate.

January 13

      A magnitude-7.6 earthquake strikes El Salvador; felt in Honduras and Nicaragua and even as far away as Mexico City, the quake shuts down the capital, San Salvador, and sets off landslides that bury the middle-class Las Colinas neighbourhood in Santa Tecla. (See February 13.)

      A cow that appears to have mad cow disease is found in a slaughterhouse in Italy; it is the first time the disease has been reported in an Italian-born cow. (See January 5 and January 30.)

      In the worst public transportation accident in Swaziland's history, an overloaded bus crashes, killing 30 people.

January 14

      Jorge Sampaio is reelected president of Portugal in a landslide; the voter turnout, the lowest in the nation's history, is attributed to the perception that the popular Sampaio is unbeatable.

January 15

      The East African Community, an economic organization consisting of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, is formally inaugurated; it replaces an organization of the same name and members that had ceased to exist in 1977.

      Motorola, Inc., announces that it is closing the Harvard, Ill., plant, its only cellular phone manufacturing facility in the U.S., and laying off 2,500 workers.

      In the field of children's literature, the Newbery Medal is awarded to Richard Peck for A Year Down Yonder, and David Small wins the Caldecott Medal for his illustration of So You Want to Be President? by Judith St. George.

      A trilateral partnership for cooperation and research is announced by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

      Kim Jong Il, leader of North Korea, makes a sudden and secret visit to Shanghai; it is only the second time in 18 years that he has been known to travel outside his country.

January 16

      Swiss food giant Nestlé SA agrees to acquire Ralston Purina Co., the St. Louis, Mo.-based manufacturer of pet foods, for $10.1 billion and create a company called Nestlé Purina Pet Care.

      Luther and Johnny Htoo, the twin teenage leaders of the rebel Karen group in Myanmar (Burma) known as God's Army, surrender to Thai authorities at the border, together with 12 followers, mostly children or teenagers.

      Dave Winfield, a power hitter who played with several teams and is the only athlete in history to have been drafted in football and basketball as well as baseball, and Kirby Puckett, who led the Minnesota Twins to two World Series championships, are elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. (See March 6.)

January 17

      Two teams of scientists working in Cambridge, Mass., report that they have brought a beam of light to a full stop and then restarted it; the achievement means that it may be possible to store light.

      California's beleaguered electrical power companies institute a series of rolling blackouts, in which blocks of customers are denied power for up to 90 minutes, in order to save power.

      The British House of Commons overwhelmingly passes a bill to outlaw fox hunting with hounds; the ban is rejected by the House of Lords on March 26, however.

      The School of the Americas, run by the U.S. Army and famous for having trained authoritarian Latin American leaders, including Panama's Manuel Noriega and Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza, reopens (it had closed in December 2000) with the new name Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

January 18

      The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo acknowledges that Pres. Laurent Kabila has died, two days after reports that he had been assassinated circulated throughout the world. (See January 26.)

      U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson publicly acknowledges that he fathered and is providing financial support for an out-of-wedlock child born in May 1999.

January 19

      The Ecuadoran oil tanker Jessica, which ran aground on a reef in the Galápagos Islands on January 16, suffers a crack in its cargo hold and begins leaking diesel fuel, threatening the fragile and unique ecosystem with disaster.

      The man believed to be the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, escapes from a maximum security prison near Guadalajara, Mex.

January 20

      George W. Bush is inaugurated as the 43rd president of the United States; thousands of people who believe that he gained the office through illegitimate or unfair means protest. (See January 23.)

      Faced with huge demonstrations against him and with the withdrawal of military support, Joseph Estrada resigns the presidency of the Philippines, and his vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is sworn in to replace him. (See April 25.)

      Michelle Kwan wins her fifth U.S. national figure-skating championship in Boston.

January 21

      Pope John Paul II names a record 37 men to the Sacred College of Cardinals, 10 of them from Latin America; on January 28 he adds 7 more, bringing the number of voting cardinals to 135, a new high.

      The annual Paris–Dakar Rally comes to a successful conclusion as threatened interference in Western Sahara fails to materialize; winners are Jutta Kleinschmidt, in a Mitsubishi Pajero; Fabrizio Meoni, on a KTM 660 LC4 motorcycle; and Karel Loprais, in a Tatra T815 ZER truck.

      At the Golden Globe Awards in Hollywood, Gladiator and Almost Famous take home best picture honours; best director is Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and best screenplay goes to Stephen Gaghan for Traffic.

January 22

      Pakistan closes all of Afghanistan's Islamic Taliban's offices in the country and freezes the assets of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden.

      Akebono, the first non-Japanese yokozuna (grand champion sumo wrestler), announces his retirement at the age of 31, because of chronic knee pain.

January 23

      Matthew Kneale wins the 2000 Whitbread Book of the Year Award for his novel English Passengers; the previous four prizes, awarded for books published in the U.K., had gone to collections of poetry.

      The Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections votes on a single standard for conducting recounts and asks the state legislature for uniform statewide voting technology. (See January 20.)

      On the eve of the Chinese New Year, five Falun Gong followers set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

January 24

      The year 4699, Year of the Snake, begins and is celebrated by Chinese throughout the world.

      On the most auspicious day of the Kumbh Mela festival (which began on January 9, ends on February 21, and occurs every 12 years), tens of millions of pilgrims bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati rivers at Allahabad, India.

      Marine archaeologists announce that they have completed the first archaeological survey of an offshore region in sub-Saharan Africa and have found four sunken ships and submerged Swahili villages off Kenya's coast.

January 25

      The World Economic Forum opens in Davos, Switz.; in response to past criticism, delegates from unions and nongovernmental organizations will be included as well as government officials, and there will be live Internet broadcasts of some sessions.

      In the ongoing “banana war,” Chiquita Brands International sues the European Commission, contending that banana import quotas have nearly bankrupted the company. (See November 28.)

January 26

      An earthquake of magnitude 7.9 strikes Gujarat state in India; the commercial city of Bhuj, with a population of 150,000, is largely destroyed, and several cities experience damage in the quake, which shakes the entire subcontinent.

      Joseph Kabila is inaugurated as the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (See January 18.)

January 27

      At least 17 people die on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar when police clash with opposition demonstrators demanding that new elections be held and the results of previous elections annulled.

      Jennifer Capriati defeats Martina Hingis 6−4, 6–3 to win the Australian Open tennis tournament in the former Olympic champion's first Grand Slam win; on January 28 Andre Agassi beats Arnaud Clement in straight sets in the men's competition to win his seventh Grand Slam title.

January 28

      The Baltimore Ravens, a franchise that has been playing in Baltimore, Md., only since 1996, defeats the New York Giants 34–7 to win Super Bowl XXXV. (See January 31.)

      Kuwait's entire cabinet, including the premier, Crown Prince Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah as-Salim as-Sabah, resigns.

January 29

      The Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler announces plans to eliminate 26,000 jobs worldwide over the next three years; on the same day, the Xerox Corp. says it will eliminate 4,000 jobs to cut costs.

      The New York Philharmonic announces that Lorin Maazel will replace Kurt Masur as music director beginning with the 2002–03 season.

January 30

      Tiznow, which won the Breeders' Cup Classic race in November 2000, is named Horse of the Year for 2000.

      Daron Rahlves becomes the first American male skier since 1982 to win a gold medal at the world Alpine championships when he stuns onlookers by winning the supergiant slalom in Sankt Anton, Austria.

      The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that it has quarantined 1,222 Texas cattle that have eaten feed containing animal by-products, which creates a risk for mad cow disease. (See January 13.)

January 31

      A Scottish court convicts Libyan ʿAbd al-Baset al-Megrahi of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and acquits his countryman Lamin Khalifa Fhimah. (See February 3.)

      Reports surface that law-enforcement officials in Tampa, Fla., photographed the face of every spectator at the Super Bowl in order to find out if any of them were wanted on charges by any agency. (See January 28.)

      The new state flag is flown over the Georgia statehouse; approved by the lower house of the legislature on January 24, it features five historical flags and relegates the formerly prominent Confederate battle flag to a small banner near the bottom.

February

"All the statues in the country should be destroyed because these statues have been used as idols and deities by the nonbelievers before."

— decree of the Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan, February 26

February 1

      The major European steelmaker Corus Group announces that it will cut one-fifth of its workforce, more than 6,000 jobs, mostly in depressed regions of Great Britain.

      Edward Albee attends the opening of his new play, The Play About the Baby, in New York City; the playwright is known for not attending his openings.

February 2

      BellSouth, the telephone company that serves the southeastern United States, announces that it will eliminate all its pay phones by the end of 2002, citing loss of revenue due to competition from cell phones.

      A plan to reintroduce elk to the Great Smoky Mountains, from where they disappeared at least 150 years ago, gets under way with the arrival of 25 elk at a 1.2-ha (3-ac) pen in North Carolina.

February 3

      During government-organized protests against the verdict in the case concerning the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scot., four Libyan students stab themselves in Tripoli. (See January 31.)

      The XFL, a new professional football league founded by Vince McMahon and owned by World Wrestling Federation Entertainment and NBC, opens its season with the Las Vegas (Nev.) Outlaws against the New York/New Jersey Hitmen and the Orlando (Fla.) Rage against the Chicago Enforcers. (See May 10.)

February 4

      An official of the Tibetan government in exile says that India has granted refugee status to the teenage Karmapa Lama, number three in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, who had fled to India in January 2000.

      At a pole-vault meet named for him in Donetsk, Ukraine, Sergey Bubka, who broke 35 world records in his pole-vaulting career, announces his retirement.

February 5

      The Halifax Group, the largest mortgage bank in the U.K., agrees to buy out the Equitable Life Assurance Society for an estimated £1 billion (about $1.5 billion) and rename the joint company Halifax Equitable.

      The Internet toy retailer eToys announces that it will go out of business on April 6.

      The Holy Land Experience, a new theme park that purports to re-create the Jerusalem of biblical times, opens in Orlando; the Jewish Defense League, which believes the park has an evangelical Christian bias, protests. (See February 8.)

February 6

      Ariel Sharon defeats Ehud Barak in elections to become prime minister of Israel; his margin of victory is unprecedentedly large, and the voter turnout is unprecedentedly low.

      Thousands of people march in Kiev, Ukraine, to demand the resignation of Pres. Leonid Kuchma, who has been implicated in the death of a prominent opposition journalist and other scandals.

      Cipla Ltd., an Indian company that makes generic drugs, announces a plan to sell the drugs used to combat AIDS to Doctors Without Borders at a price substantially lower than that charged by the world's major pharmaceutical manufacturers.

      The American household appliances manufacturer Sunbeam Corp. files for bankruptcy protection.

February 7

      Jean-Bertrand Aristide is sworn in as president of Haiti; opposition parties set up what they call a parallel government, arguing that Aristide's election is not legitimate.

      Alfred Sirven, a prominent figure in the complex and far-reaching Elf Aquitaine corruption scandal in France, presents himself for trial in Paris after four years in hiding. (See May 30.)

      The Eagles (Aguilas Cibaeñas), representing the Dominican Republic, win baseball's Caribbean Series with a 4–2 record.

February 8

      Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl reaches a plea agreement with prosecutors investigating a fund-raising scandal in which criminal charges against Kohl will be dropped and he will pay a fine; the investigation into Christian Democratic Union practices continues, however.

      Disney's California Adventure, a new theme park based on the attractions of the Golden State, opens in Anaheim, Calif. (See February 5.)

February 9

      The USS Greeneville, a U.S. submarine conducting exercises for a group of VIP tourists, strikes and sinks the Ehime Maru, a Japanese fishing boat, after surfacing rapidly near Hawaii; nine people, many of them vocational-high-school students, are killed.

      Thaksin Shinawatra takes office as prime minister of Thailand.

      On the eve of the anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution, a demonstration in Tehran demanding freedom of expression is violently dispersed by police.

February 10

      Members of an Islamic rebel group slaughter 27 people, mostly women and children, in a shantytown near Berrouaghia, Alg.

      Astronauts Marsha S. Ivins, Robert L. Curbeam, Jr., and Thomas D. Jones install Destiny, the first of five planned scientific research laboratories, on the International Space Station.

February 11

      Ethiopia begins withdrawing its troops from Eritrea in accordance with the peace treaty signed in 2000.

      Tens of thousands of nationalists demand early elections in Croatia, opposing the policy of Prime Minister Ivica Racan of cooperating with the UN in investigating possible Croatian war crimes against Serbs.

      Ellen MacArthur breaks the women's solo around-the-world sailing record when she completes the Vendee Globe race in 94 days 4 hr 25 min; the previous record, 140 days, was set by Catherine Chabaud in 1997.

February 12

      Omar Hassan al-Bashir is sworn in for a second five-year term as president of The Sudan; he had won reelection in December 2000 in elections that were boycotted by the opposition.

      In Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Pres. Leonid Kuchma sign an agreement to cooperate in aviation and space research and to reconnect their power grids.

      The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker lands on the near-Earth asteroid Eros; the landing, planned at the last minute, is the first time a spacecraft has landed on an asteroid.

      At a joint news conference, scientists from Celera Genomics and the Human Genome Project say it appears that there are only about 30,000 human genes, far fewer than the 100,000 that had long been assumed.

February 13

      El Salvador is hit with its second earthquake in as many months when a magnitude-6.6 temblor strikes towns to the east of San Salvador, killing 402 (see January 13); on February 14 a magnitude-7.3 earthquake with its epicentre in the ocean shakes the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. (See February 28.)

      The Indianapolis (Ind.) Baptist Temple, which denies that the U.S. government has jurisdiction over it, is seized by Internal Revenue Service agents to satisfy a debt of $6 million in unpaid taxes.

February 14

      The European Parliament approves stringent standards governing all aspects of genetically modified foods and seed in hopes of ending an unofficial three-year moratorium on such items.

      In Trinidad and Tobago, after a 55-day standoff, seven people who had lost elections to the House of Representatives and then had been nominated to the Senate by Prime Minister Basdeo Panday are appointed to the House by Pres. Arthur Robinson; Robinson and Panday had accused each other of undermining the constitution.

      The Kansas State Board of Education reverses a 1999 decision and restores the teaching of the theory of evolution to the state science curriculum.

      Violent protests by Hindu nationalist elements against the celebration of Valentine's Day, popular among the younger, more Westernized population, take place in cities throughout India.

      A bichon frise named Special Times Just Right! wins best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show; it is the first time the top prize at the premier American dog show has gone to this breed.

February 15

      Voters in Bahrain approve a measure that changes the form of government to a constitutional monarchy, restores the parliament (which was abolished in 1975), and gives women the right to vote.

      An official Russian state commission investigating the sinking of the submarine Kursk in August 2000 confirms that a torpedo exploded aboard the sub.

      A court in Frankfurt, Ger., sentences former terrorist Hans-Joachim Klein to nine years in prison for his participation in the 1975 attack on an OPEC conference in Vienna in which three persons were killed.

      Nature magazine publishes a report that scientists have found two recently active volcanoes on the Gakkel ridge, under the Arctic Ocean off Greenland; the find is surprising because it was thought that such volcanic activity would not occur in slow-spreading seafloor sites.

February 16

      An agreement is signed between Comoros and the breakaway island of Anjouan, providing for national elections and the adoption of a new constitution.

      The New China News Agency says that an unusually severe winter has led to the deaths of 38 newborn babies and several expectant mothers in northern China near the Mongolian border; temperatures in this region have dipped to –51.7 °C (–61 °F).

      Imelda Marcos opens the Marikina City Footwear Museum near Manila; the exhibits include hundreds of pairs of shoes donated by the former first lady and other local celebrities.

February 17

      A rusting freighter carrying 908 Kurdish men, women, and children runs aground on the French Riviera; the captain and crew have disappeared by the time authorities arrive to rescue the would-be immigrants.

      The Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers becomes the first English-language musical group to play in Havana since 1979; their song “Baby Elián” is particularly warmly received.

February 18

      Violence between indigenous Dayak and Madurese migrants from other parts of Indonesia breaks out in Borneo; by the end of the week, well over 200 people are dead and ships are being sent to evacuate thousands of refugees.

      Riots break out in 18 prisons across the state of São Paulo, Braz., and hundreds of people, most of them visiting family members, are taken hostage.

      Celebrated stock-car racing star Dale Earnhardt, Sr., is killed in a crash near the end of the Daytona 500 race; Michael Waltrip goes on to win the race.

February 19

      In a $3.1 billion deal, the Luxembourg company Arbed, Usinor of France, and Aceralia of Spain announce plans to merge to become the world's largest steel company; annual production of the new company is expected to be 46 million metric tons, while the current leader, Nippon Steel of Japan, produced 28 million metric tons in 2000.

      Lieut. Gen. Tin Oo, a member of Myanmar's (Burma's) ruling junta, is killed in a helicopter crash together with a cabinet minister, seven government officials, and five others.

February 20

      The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation acknowledges that one of its top experts on Russian counterintelligence, Robert Philip Hanssen, has been one of Russia's most valuable spies for 15 years.

      Scientists report that DNA testing of the skeletons of children confirms that there was a major malaria epidemic in the 5th century AD in Rome; the epidemic may have contributed to Rome's decline and may have persuaded Attila to bypass the city.

      An exhibit of erotic art by Pablo Picasso, featuring work he did from age 13 to age 92, opens at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris.

February 21

      Great Britain suspends all exports of animals and animal products and sets up quarantine areas in an attempt to contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease; another outbreak, in Argentina, causes Brazil to issue a ban on Argentine beef.

      In a Grammy Awards ceremony at which most of the attention is given to controversial rap artist Eminem, Song of the Year honours go to U2's “Beautiful Day,” and Album of the Year is won by Steely Dan's Two Against Nature.

      Francisco Xabier García Gaztelu, believed to be the top military leader of the Basque separatist group ETA, is arrested in Anglet, France.

      The foreign ministers of Nigeria and São Tomé and Príncipe sign a treaty allowing the two countries to explore jointly for minerals in the region lying between them in the Gulf of Guinea.

February 22

      For the first time, a nonnationalist government is elected in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

      Finland wins the men's relay at the world Nordic skiing championships; four days later the result is annulled after several Finnish skiers fail their drug tests.

      The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers announces that its nine-year strike against Radio City Music Hall in New York City has been settled.

      British fashion designer Alexander McQueen closes a deal in which he is selling a majority stake of his design label to the Italian luxury goods maker Gucci Group; the influential couturier served three years as head designer of the Givenchy fashion house.

February 23

      A judge in Moscow rules that the Jehovah's Witnesses have not violated a law prohibiting religious sects that incite violence and thus are permitted to practice their religion freely in Russia.

      A U.S. Court of Appeals rules that government agencies must give Native Americans a complete tally of how much money should be in their accounts; the accounts have been so badly mismanaged since they were started in 1887 that the Indians bringing suit believe more than $10 billion has been lost.

      Laurence Olivier Awards are presented in London to, among others, actors Julie Walters, Conleth Hill, Samantha Spiro, and Daniel Evans; the best new play is Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall.

      Concerto for Cello and Orchestra: In Memoriam F.D.R., a new piece by Peter Schickele commissioned by New Heritage Music, is performed by Paul Tobias and the Chamber Symphony of the Manhattan School of Music. (See January 10.)

February 24

      Violent storms hit the eastern half of the United States, with tornadoes in Mississippi and Arkansas, flooding in Kansas and Missouri, and heavy snowfall in Nebraska and Minnesota.

      Zapatista leaders begin a 15-day march from Chiapas to Mexico City to demand greater rights and more autonomy for Indians in Mexico.

February 25

      For the first time since independence, the Communist Party is returned to power in legislative elections in Moldova.

      In runoff presidential elections held in Cape Verde, PAICV candidate Pedro Pires wins with a margin of 1%.

      The British Academy of Film and Television Arts presents four awards each to Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

February 26

      The Taliban rulers in Afghanistan order the destruction of all statues, including exquisite ancient statues of Buddha; the world community reacts with horror, but to no avail.

      A U.S. federal judge orders the income-tax-preparation firm H&R Block to stop advertising its high-interest loans against expected tax refunds as “rapid refunds.”

February 27

      Nineteen foreign ministers representing the members of NATO meet in Brussels to discuss solutions to, among other problems, growing conflict along the Kosovo border in Yugoslavia.

      The Polisario Front celebrates the 25th anniversary of its declaration of an independent republic of the Western Sahara; the territory was annexed by Morocco in 1979.

      The U.S. National Academy of Sciences publishes a report saying scientists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, have found a crystal in a meteorite from Mars that resembles Earth crystals formed by bacteria, a finding that points toward the possibility of life on the red planet; many scientists are skeptical, however.

February 28

      France defies the European Union and offers financial aid to farmers suffering from the collapse of beef prices caused by the outbreak of mad-cow disease, throwing into doubt the future ability of the EU to maintain a common agricultural policy among all its members.

      Rwanda and Uganda begin withdrawing troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in accordance with a UN plan to bring peace to the area.

      The Pacific Northwest is hit by an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 that lasts for 40 seconds, with the most damage occurring in Seattle, Wash.; no deaths are reported and injuries are few, at least in part because the epicentre is some 50 km (30 mi) underground. (See February 13.)

      A panel in Oklahoma City, Okla., recommends the payment of reparations to the survivors and descendants of the victims of the Tulsa race riot of 1921, one of the nation's worst.

March

"Our country made a great contribution in space, and we are not ashamed. But now our place will be a little smaller, and we have lost our independence."

— Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr I. Lazutkin, on the destruction of Mir, March 23

March 1

      Seven foreign oil workers—four Americans, an Argentine, a Chilean, and a New Zealander—who had been kidnapped in October 2000 in Ecuador are freed after a ransom of some $13 million is paid.

      China ceremonially begins construction of what is to be the world's first commercial maglev (magnetic levitation) train, to run from Shanghai's financial district to one of its airports and begin operations in 2003.

      A report in the journal Nature describes findings that a common compound, magnesium boride, is superconductive at temperatures 16 °C (29 °F) higher than any other simple metallic compound.

March 2

      Jean-Marie Chérestal is sworn in as prime minister of Haiti, as is his cabinet, which includes members of opposition parties.

      The U.S. Navy halts bombing exercises on Vieques Island, off Puerto Rico, pending talks with the Puerto Rican government. (See April 26.)

      U.S. Pres. George W. Bush grants “temporary protected status” to 150,000 illegal immigrants from El Salvador; Salvadoran Pres. Francisco Flores has said that remittances from these immigrants are vital to El Salvador's recovery from the earthquakes earlier in the year.

March 3

      A bomb placed in the cargo hold under the seat that Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was to occupy explodes, destroying the jet at Bangkok International Airport 35 minutes before its scheduled takeoff.

      Senegalese Pres. Abdoulaye Wade replaces Prime Minister Moustapha Niasse; the new prime minister, Madior Boyé, is Senegal's first woman prime minister.

      John Ruiz defeats Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas, Nev., to take the World Boxing Association title and become the first Hispanic heavyweight champion.

March 4

      In a referendum, voters in Switzerland resoundingly reject beginning negotiations toward entering the European Union.

      In the village of Castelo de Paiva, Port., a 116-year-old bridge collapses and two cars and a double-decker bus fall into the Douro River, killing about 70 people; it is the worst road accident in the history of Portugal.

March 5

      A fire in a dormitory at a girls' secondary school in Gindiri, Nigeria, kills at least 23 girls; the dormitory had been locked for the night because of the proximity of a boys' school.

      A freshman at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., opens fire at school, killing 2 other students and wounding 13.

March 6

      An explosion kills 41 people, mostly children, at an elementary school in Wanzi county in China, and officials blame a lone terrorist; the children were reportedly being made to assemble fireworks by their teachers.

      Bill Mazeroski, a second baseman famous for hitting the winning home run in the 1960 World Series, and Negro leagues pitcher Hilton Smith are elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. (See January 16.)

      Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin takes part in a 40-minute live Internet conversation moderated and broadcast over the World Wide Web by the BBC.

March 7

      Ariel Sharon takes office as the prime minister of Israel (see February 6); meanwhile, the Knesset (parliament) votes to return to the parliamentary system, whereby the prime minister is elected by legislators.

      The government of Fiji is declared illegal by a court and resigns.

March 8

      Bernard Landry, who has expressed aggressively separatist opinions, is sworn in as the premier of Quebec, succeeding Lucien Bouchard.

      Indictments for massive fraud in eBay art auctions on the Internet are brought against three men, none of whom has been arrested and one of whom has not even been located.

March 9

      Flooding caused by snowmelt in Ukraine raises the Tisza River to its highest point in over a century; it is measured at 7.6 m (25 ft) in the Hungarian village of Zahony.

      In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Lionel Tate, age 14, who was convicted in January of having killed a six-year-old girl when he was 12, is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

March 10

      German Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann breaks her own world record in speed skating in the 5,000-m race at the world championships in Salt Lake City, Utah.

      The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, representing some 6,500 members of 12 First Nations of Canada, agrees to a treaty with the province of British Columbia and with the federal government that grants it a measure of autonomy and financial benefits in return for cessation of exemption from payment of federal taxes.

March 11

      Prime Minister John Howard officially opens the National Museum of Australia in Canberra; the innovative museum, devoted to the history of Australia and its peoples, is immediately and immensely popular.

      American astronauts James S. Voss and Susan J. Helms undertake the longest space walk since the shuttle program began, 8 hours 56 minutes; their task is to help move a docking port on the International Space Station.

      Former secretary of the treasury Lawrence H. Summers is named to replace Neil L. Rudenstine as president of Harvard University.

March 12

      Yoweri Museveni is reelected president of Uganda in a bitterly fought election.

      In a military training exercise in Kuwait, a U.S. Navy jet mistakenly drops three bombs on an observation post, killing five U.S. military personnel and a New Zealand army major.

      The largest transatlantic financial services deal to date takes place when Prudential PLC in Great Britain agrees to buy the American insurance company American General Corp. for some $26.5 billion; the merger creates the world's sixth largest insurance group.

      In the London hotel where he was born, Crown Prince Alexander Karadjordjevic of Yugoslavia is presented with papers officially reinstating his Yugoslavian citizenship.

March 13

      The first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in continental Europe is confirmed by the French Ministry of Agriculture; the disease has been found on a farm at Mayenne.

      The Japanese stock market falls to its lowest level since 1985 amid political uncertainty and opposition to Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.

      The Australian dollar falls to 50.48 U.S. cents, its lowest level in history.

      The Indian Internet news service www.tehelka.com begins showing videotapes of government bribe taking over a defense contract; the exposé throws the government into chaos.

March 14

      The first Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research is awarded to Arnold J. Levine for his discovery of and work on the p53 gene, which, when mutated, is a major cause of cancer; the prize is worth $500,000.

      Bristol-Myers Squibb announces that it no longer opposes other drugmakers' producing low-cost versions of its anti-AIDS drug Zerit for sale in Africa.

      The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is won for the third year in a row, and the fourth time overall, by Doug Swingley, who completes the 1,770-km (1,100-mi) trip in 9 days 19 hours 55 minutes.

      A life-size bronze statue of Mother Teresa is unveiled at the Mother House, the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity order that she founded, in Kolkata (Calcutta).

March 15

      Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo all begin pulling their troops back from the front lines of the battle in the Congo, as required by an agreement made under the auspices of the United Nations.

      A boat carrying some 60 would-be refugees who had left the Dominican Republic bound for Puerto Rico 24 days earlier crashes on a coral reef off Haiti; 57 occupants are feared dead.

      A forensics expert confirms that the skeletons found on a ranch 145 km (90 mi) west of San Antonio, Texas, are those of atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair and her son and granddaughter, who disappeared in 1995.

      Two antiques dealers are charged with having faked appraisals (by arranging for friends to submit Civil War swords the dealers had given them previously) on the television show Antiques Roadshow.

March 16

      In a ruling accepted by both disputants, the World Court divides territories long contested between Bahrain and Qatar; Bahrain gets the Hawar Islands and Qitʿat Jaradah Island, while Qatar gets the islands of Janan and Hadd Janan and Fasht ad-Dibal reef as well as the coastal area of Zubara.

      Explosions rip through four different apartment buildings owned by state cotton mills in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, China; authorities blame a single former worker and say that only 108 people were killed, though many find both these claims implausible.

      In Phoenix, Ariz., Swedish golfer Annika Sörenstam sets a new Ladies Professional Golf Association record when she shoots a 59; 59 is also the men's Professional Golfers' Association of America record.

March 17

      In Cornwall, Eng., the Eden Project, the largest botanical garden in the world, opens; it bills itself as “the living theatre of plants and people” and expects to attract 750,000 visitors a day.

      On the Greek island of Kalymnos, nine marble statues believed to be from the Hellenistic period and more than 2,000 years old are discovered; shepherds unearthed the statues while digging holes for fence posts.

March 18

      Bertrand Delanoë becomes the first elected Socialist mayor of Paris since the 19th century.

      Aventis CropScience reports that the genetically modified StarLink corn (maize) has accidentally found its way into more than 430 million bushels of corn in the U.S.

March 19

      In a racially charged atmosphere and amid rioting, elections held in Guyana return Pres. Bharrat Jagdeo to power with 53% of the vote for his third consecutive term; he is sworn in on March 24.

      The Interpublic Group of Companies, based in New York City, announces plans to buy Chicago's True North Communications for some $2.1 billion; the acquisition will make it the largest advertising company in the world.

      The Australian mining concern BHP Co. Ltd. announces plans to merge with Billiton PLC, based in Great Britain, in what is expected to be the largest corporate merger in Australia's history; the value of the new firm, BHP Billiton Ltd., in late June when the merger is completed is U.S. $38 billion.

      Mary Robinson, possibly the most successful high commissioner for human rights since the UN Commission on Human Rights was established in 1946, unexpectedly says she will leave the office when her term ends in September; she changes her mind on April 2, however.

      The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts, among others, Solomon Burke, Michael Jackson, Paul Simon, and Ritchie Valens and the bands Aerosmith, Queen, Steely Dan, and the Flamingos.

March 20

      The largest offshore oil platform in the world, owned by the Brazilian company Petrobrás, sinks off the coast of Rio de Janeiro five days after explosions on the platform killed 10 workers.

      The editor and owner of Al-Majales magazine, Hedayet Sultan as-Salem, one of the first women journalists in Kuwait, is shot dead in her car in Kuwait City.

      The U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency says that it believes it has located the Mars Polar Lander in images of Mars; the spacecraft disappeared in December 1999.

March 21

      The Boeing Co. announces that it will move its headquarters from Seattle, Wash., to either Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colo.; or Chicago, setting off shock waves in Seattle and a race to attract the company in the other three cities; on May 10 Boeing announces that it has picked Chicago.

      The U.S. Department of Agriculture seizes two flocks of sheep, some 370 animals in all, in Vermont because of fears that the sheep, imported from Belgium and The Netherlands in 1996, may carry “mad cow” disease.

      Ali Ahmeti, the political representative of the National Liberation Army, an Albanian rebel group in Macedonia, announces a unilateral cease-fire, saying his group wants to negotiate with the Macedonian government.

March 22

      South Korean Pres. Kim Dae Jung opens Inch'on International Airport, which will replace Seoul's Gimpo Airport as the gateway to South Korea; the facility has the capacity to become a major hub in northeastern Asia.

      Pres. Mathieu Kérékou easily wins reelection as president of Benin in the second round of voting; there are allegations of election fraud, however.

      The journal Nature publishes a report by Maeve G. Leakey on a 3.5-million-year-old hominid skull she found in Kenya in 1999; Leakey believes it is a new genus and species, which she has named Kenyanthropus platyops, and it suggests that humans are not necessarily descended from Australopithicus.

March 23

      The Russian space station Mir, after 5,511 days in space and 86,330 orbits of Earth, splashes down to its final resting place in the South Pacific Ocean.

      The trust representing the heirs of Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, asks a federal judge to issue an injunction stopping the publication of The Wind Done Gone, a takeoff on Mitchell's work by Alice Randall. (See May 25.)

March 24

      Michelle Kwan wins the world figure skating championship, her fourth, in Vancouver, B.C.; two days earlier Yevgeny Plushchenko had won the men's championship.

      A magnitude-6.4 earthquake strikes Hiroshima, Japan, killing at least two people and destroying more than 500 homes.

March 25

      Comedian Steve Martin hosts the annual Academy Awards extravaganza; top winners include Gladiator, director Steven Soderbergh, and actors Russell Crowe, Julia Roberts, Benicio Del Toro, and Marcia Gay Harden.

      In Mariucci Arena in Minneapolis, Minn., the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs defeat the St. Lawrence Saints to win the first National Collegiate Athletic Association women's hockey title.

      Local officials say that they have found more than 200 bodies in mass graves in Kinama, a suburb of Bujumbura, Burundi, that government forces have recently retaken from rebel guerrilla forces.

March 26

      Kazakh Prime Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev ceremonially opens a 1,580-km (900-mi)-long oil pipeline that will carry hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil daily from the Tengiz oil field in western Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

      An arson fire in a dormitory of a boys' secondary school in Machakos, Kenya, kills 67 of the students who were sleeping there; one of the exits from the building had been locked.

      Great Britain calls out its army to bury the carcasses of animals that have been slaughtered to try to contain the spread of foot-and-mouth disease; the animals are being slaughtered too quickly to allow for the burning of the carcasses.

March 27

      The Wellington Arch in London, built in 1828 to commemorate the British victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, is ceremonially reopened after a two-year restoration.

      California's Public Utilities Commission approves electricity rate hikes of close to 50%, the highest increases in the state's history.

      The Avery Fisher Career Grants are awarded to violinist Timothy Fain, cellists Daniel Lee and Hai-Ye Ni, and flutist Tara Helen O'Connor.

      The United States casts its fifth UN Security Council veto since 1990; the issue is the creation of a UN observer force to be deployed in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

March 28

      The White House announces that U.S. Pres. George W. Bush opposes the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse emissions; while not unexpected, the statement appalls the other signatories of the treaty. (See June 12.)

      The first commercial flight lands at Eleftherios Venizelos Airport, the new facility outside Athens.

      Henri Loyrette, head of the Orsay Museum in Paris, is chosen to succeed Pierre Rosenberg as director of the Louvre; Rosenberg will retire in April after 39 years at the Louvre.

March 29

      The San Francisco Bay Bridge is lifted 1.3 cm (0.5 in) so that engineers can insert ball-bearing suspension devices under the bridge supports; the devices are meant to ensure that the bridge would survive an earthquake.

      NorthPoint Communications becomes the first major digital subscriber line company to go bankrupt as its nationwide network of fast Internet access goes dark.

      The Czech brewery Budejovicky Budvar announces its introduction to the United States of a lager beer that it is calling Czechvar, in order to avoid trademark problems with Anheuser-Busch, makers of Budweiser.

March 30

      U.S. Pres. George W. Bush announces plans to build a small baseball field for the playing of T-ball on the south lawn of the White House.

March 31

      The United Nations announces that 1996 Nobel Peace laureate José Ramos-Horta will become the head of the interim governing council in East Timor.

      Ukrainian authorities rearrest Yuliya Tymoshenko, an opponent of Pres. Leonid Kuchma, who had been accused of corruption but had been released when a court ruled there were no grounds to keep her in custody while she awaited trial; a higher court overruled the decision.

April

"It was not a military victory. It was a tragedy. … Though it could be justified militarily, I could never make my own peace with what happened that night."

— Former U.S. senator Bob Kerrey, in a speech at Virginia Military Institute, acknowledging his role in a massacre of civilians in the Vietnam War, April 18

April 1

      An international incident is created when a U.S. spy plane collides with a Chinese fighter jet that was tailing it in the South China Sea; the Chinese pilot is killed, but the American plane lands safely on Hainan Island, China, where the crew is held. (See April 12.)

      After lengthy negotiations during which he threatens to kill himself and his family, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is arrested without incident shortly after midnight; Milosevic is charged with corruption and abuse of power, including looting large sums from the government.

      The National Collegiate Athletic Association championship in women's basketball is won by the University of Notre Dame, which defeats Purdue University 68–66; on April 2 Duke University defeats the University of Arizona 82–72 in the men's championship.

April 2

      The Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, designers of London's Tate Modern museum, are announced as the winners of the 2001 Pritzker Architecture Prize; the prize will be awarded in a ceremony on May 7.

      NASA scientists announce that a photograph of a supernova explosion 11 billion years ago snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1997 confirms a theory that Einstein formulated, then repudiated, of the existence of dark energy, or negative gravity, as a force permeating the universe. (See April 24.)

April 3

      Gao Zhan, a Chinese-born American scholar who has been detained in China for 51 days, is formally charged with espionage; her husband and five-year-old son, who were taken into custody with her, had been allowed to return to the U.S. on March 8.

      Japan approves the use of a new middle-school textbook that critics from South Korea and China say distorts Japan's role in World War II, downplaying atrocities and justifying invasions.

April 4

      A Communist, Vladimir Voronin, is elected president of Moldova by an overwhelming margin in Parliament.

      The toy manufacturer Mattel Inc. announces that it will close its last American manufacturing plant over the next two years and relocate production to Mexico; the plant, in Murray, Ky., makes Fisher-Price toys.

      Astronomers at the Whipple Observatory in Arizona announce that they have observed the third and fourth known “extreme” galaxies; extreme galaxies, the first of which was discovered in 1996, emit very great amounts of gamma radiation.

April 5

      Pres. Saparmurad Niyazov orders the closing of the opera and ballet house in Ashgabat, the Turkmenistan capital, saying that these art forms are foreign to Turkmen culture.

      The Far Eastern Economic Review reports that restoration work is almost complete on a huge reclining Buddha statue made of stone and dating to about the 5th century; the statue, which was unearthed in 1966 near the Afghanistan border in southern Tajikistan and kept out of public view since, will be featured in the Museum of National Antiquities, due to open in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital, in August 2001.

April 6

      Pakistan's Supreme Court vacates the corruption conviction of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto but orders a new trial; she has been in voluntary exile since 1999.

      Pacific Gas and Electric, California's biggest investor-owned utility, files for bankruptcy protection.

April 7

      NASA successfully launches the 2001Mars Odyssey, which is expected to reach the “red planet” in October, orbit it for two and a half years, and send back data on chemical elements and minerals.

      A helicopter carrying among its 16 passengers and crew 7 Americans searching for those still listed as missing in action from the Vietnam War (1955–75) crashes into a mountain in central Vietnam; all aboard are killed.

April 8

      Victorious in the Masters at Augusta, Ga., Tiger Woods becomes the first person in the history of golf to win four consecutive major professional tournaments.

      In presidential elections in Peru, Alejandro Toledo bests candidates Alan García and Lourdes Flores but wins less than 50% of the vote and must contest a runoff election with second-place finisher García. (See June 3.)

      Sophie, countess of Wessex, wife of Great Britain's Prince Edward, resigns as chairman of her public relations firm after the publication of some indiscreet remarks she made to undercover reporters.

April 9

      American Airlines, having negotiated an agreement with the pilots' union, closes on the acquisition of TWA; American is now the world's largest airline. (See January 10.)

April 10

      The States-General in The Netherlands passes a bill permitting euthanasia; it is the first such national law in the world.

      An agreement is reached on how to divide the gold reserves of former Yugoslavia, totaling some $440 million, which have been held in the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switz., since 1991: 36.5% to the present Yugoslavia, 28.5% to Croatia, 16.4% to Slovenia, 13.2% to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 5.4% to Macedonia.

      Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nadezhda Mihailova symbolically walks across the border to Greece to celebrate the European Union's lifting of visa restrictions on Bulgarians; it is the first time Bulgarians have been allowed to travel freely into Western Europe since World War II.

April 11

      In a stampede at the beginning of an association football (soccer) match at Ellis Park, a stadium in Johannesburg, S.Af., at least 43 people are trampled to death.

      China executes 89 convicted criminals as part of a crackdown on organized crime.

April 12

      The crew of the American spy plane that had made an emergency landing in China after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet is released and flown to Guam after days of diplomatic wrangling. (See April 1 and August 11.)

      After three nights of rioting following the fatal shooting of an unarmed African American man by police, Cincinnati, Ohio, Mayor Charlie Luken declares a state of emergency and a citywide curfew.

      The National Basketball Association approves a series of bold rule changes designed to increase viewer interest: henceforth in professional basketball the zone defense will be allowed; defenders may remain in the lane for only three seconds unless they can reach an opponent; and the 10-second rule will become the 8-second rule.

April 13

      Edward Natapei is elected prime minister of Vanuatu, succeeding Barak Sope, who had lost a no-confidence vote brought in the wake of corruption charges.

      Workers from five trade unions return to work at Guinness plants after only one day of a strike that had raised fears of a shortage of stout in Ireland over Easter weekend.

April 14

      A conference in the Republic of the Congo chaired by Gabonese Pres. Omar Bongo is brought to a close after adopting a draft constitution.

      After a gun battle in Pinheiros jail in São Paulo, Braz., 150 prisoners break out and then hijack cars to make good their escape.

April 15

      Rioting breaks out in the ethnically diverse neighbourhood of Lidget Green in Bradford, Eng.; two pubs are firebombed and a drugstore burned before calm is restored seven hours after the melee began. (See June 24.)

April 16

      Winners of the 2001 Pulitzer Prizes are announced: journalism awards go to The Oregonian, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times; arts and letters winners include Michael Chabon for fiction and Joseph J. Ellis for history.

      The 105th Boston Marathon is won by Lee Bong Ju of South Korea, with a time of 2 hr 9 min 43 sec; Catherine Ndereba of Kenya (2 hr 23 min 53 sec) is the women's winner for the second straight year.

      The Miho Museum in Japan returns ownership of a rare 6th-century boddhisattva to China after acknowledging that the statue had been stolen from China, which in turn agrees to loan the statue to the Japanese museum until 2007.

April 17

      Mississippi votes overwhelmingly to retain its state flag, which features the Confederate battle flag in its canton; opinions had been voiced that the inclusion of the Confederate flag is racially offensive.

      A Web site that permits users to trace their ancestry through U.S. immigration records from Ellis Island debuts; by the following day the new site is logging 97 million hits per hour.

      A frantic international search for the Nigerian-registered ship Etireno ends when the ship docks in Cotonou, Benin; it was believed to be carrying 180 slave children but proves to have only a few apparently unenslaved children.

April 18

      India for the first time successfully launches a rocket capable of placing a satellite into orbit; it is the sixth country to demonstrate that capacity.

      In a speech at the Virginia Military Institute, former U.S. senator and Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey for the first time publicly acknowledges and expresses his pain over his role in a U.S. military raid that he led on Feb. 25, 1969, in the Mekong delta in Vietnam in which a number of unarmed women and children were massacred.

      The United Nations announces that a 26-km (16-m)-wide buffer zone has been established between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where fighting over an ill-defined boundary had broken out in 1998.

      Spain declines to extradite Vladimir A. Gusinsky to Russia, on the basis that he has done nothing that is illegal in Spain; one of the new breed of Russian oligarchs, Gusinsky is an outspoken critic of the government in Moscow.

      The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes a study showing that in the first large-scale trial of St. John's wort, the popular herbal remedy did nothing to alleviate major depression.

April 19

      A lawsuit by 39 major pharmaceutical firms that had sought to block a law allowing South Africa to manufacture or import low-priced versions of anti-AIDS drugs is dropped.

      Prime Minister Sani Lakatani of Niue complains that, since the grounding of Royal Tonga Airlines, the Pacific island has no access to the outside world and is in economic crisis; he appeals for help from New Zealand.

April 20

      The Peruvian air force shoots down a small plane carrying missionaries, killing American Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter, Charity; the tragedy apparently occurred because of language difficulties between the Peruvians and American CIA personnel working together in a drug-interdiction program.

      Thirty-four heads of state and government begin three days of meetings in Quebec for the third Summit of the Americas; thousands of protesters demonstrate energetically in the streets.

      The day after it opens in New York City, the musical The Producers breaks a Broadway box-office record, selling $3 million worth of tickets in a single day; the previous record, set in 1997, was held by The Lion King.

April 21

      China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines, all of which claim the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, believed to be rich in oil, agree not to establish new settlements there.

      Fernando da Costa, who had escaped from a Brazilian prison where he had been serving a term for trafficking in cocaine in 1996 and who is reputed to be a top drug lord, is arrested in Colombia after a concentrated two-month manhunt.

April 22

      The elevation of Nong Duc Manh as the new leader of the Vietnamese Communist Party, replacing Le Kha Phieu, is announced; Manh is widely rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Ho Chi Minh.

      Chris A. Hadfield becomes the first Canadian astronaut to walk in space when he and American astronaut Scott E. Parazynski attach a Canadian-made robot arm to the International Space Station.

      In an astonishing upset, virtual unknown Hasim Rahman of the U.S. knocks out favourite Lennox Lewis of the U.K. in the fifth round in Brakpan, S.Af., winning the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Council heavyweight championships.

      The London Marathon is won by Abdelkader El Mouaziz of Morocco, in 2 hr 7 min 11 sec, and Deratu Tulu of Ethiopia, in 2 hr 23 min 57 sec, both of Ethiopia; it is the best time El Mouaziz, winner of the New York Marathon, has ever posted, and it is the first marathon that Olympic 10,000-m champion Tulu has ever won.

April 23

      The Goldman Environmental Prize, the largest prize for grassroots environmentalism, is awarded to American journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, Rwandan conservationist Eugene Rutagarama, Bolivian activist Oscar Olivera, Yosepha Alomang of Papua New Guinea, Greek biologists Myrsini Malakou and Giorgos Catsadorakis, and reef protector Bruno Van Peteghem of New Caledonia.

      A U.S. Global Hawk spy plane named the Southern Cross II becomes the first unmanned aircraft to fly across the Pacific Ocean when it lands at an air force base near Adelaide, Australia, a day and a half after taking off from Edwards Air Force Base, California.

April 24

      The running of the 94-year-old TT motorcycle road races in the Isle of Man is canceled in an effort to keep the island free of foot-and-mouth disease.

      The flooding Mississippi River crests in Davenport, Iowa, as an army of volunteers works to hold the river back.

      The 11th anniversary of the launching of the Hubble Space Telescope is celebrated by pointing it at a target selected by amateur astronomers voting on the Internet—the Horsehead Nebula. (See April 2.)

April 25

      Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada is arrested on a charge of plunder, the most serious of the charges that have yet been brought against him. (See January 20 and May 1.)

      On a 3-1 pitch Rickey Henderson takes his 2,063rd career walk, breaking the record set by Babe Ruth; his team, the San Diego Padres, loses the game nonetheless.

April 26

      Junichero Koizumi becomes Japan's prime minister two days after the resignation of Yoshiro Mori.

      In San Juan, P.R., 6,000 people turn out to protest the planned resumption of training exercises by the U.S. Navy on the island of Vieques; the exercises begin the following day. (See March 2 and June 14.)

      American poet Yusuf Komunyakaa is announced as the winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize; the honour, given for lifetime achievement, includes a cash award of $100,000.

      American singer and actress Jennifer Lopez introduces her own line of casual clothes, J. Lo by Jennifer Lopez; the brand will be carried by top-tier department and specialty stores.

April 27

      A report in Science magazine details studies on the archaeological site of Caral in Peru that show it flourished for five centuries beginning about 2600 BC, which makes it by far the oldest city yet discovered in the Americas and indicates that a civilization began there much earlier than previously believed.

      The same issue of Science reports that researchers at IBM have created transistors made of carbon nanotubes that are only a few molecules in width; the discovery may enable vastly smaller and more powerful computers.

      John Tobin, an American postgraduate student at Voronezh State University in Russia who had initially been accused of espionage, is sentenced to 37 months in a penal colony for marijuana possession; Tobin contends the drugs were planted.

April 28

      The first antigovernment rally in its 35-year history as an independent state takes place in Singapore as 2,000 people gather in support of Joshua Jeyaretnam, one of only three opposition representatives in the 93-member Parliament.

      A Russian Soyuz booster rocket takes off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying two cosmonauts and the first space tourist, American millionaire Dennis Tito, to visit the International Space Station; NASA had finally dropped its objections to Tito's presence on April 20.

April 29

      John Carlstrom, head of the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer team at the Centre of Astrophysical Research in Antarctica, presents findings that support the theory that tiny distortions in matter from the Big Bang led to the formation of the large structures in the universe; the findings also support the theory of dark matter and the idea that the universe is flat rather than curved.

      The inaugural Firehawk 600 race at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth is canceled when drivers refuse to participate; the speedway's track allows speeds of over 370 km/h (230 mph) and thereby subjects drivers to dangerously high G-forces.

April 30

      Pres. Frederick Chiluba is nominated for a third term as president by his party, although Zambia's constitution forbids presidents to serve more than two terms; on May 4 Chiluba agrees not to run again.

      Germany proposes a plan to remodel the European Union into a centralized federal system similar to that of Germany's government; while there is general agreement that the present government of the EU is too unwieldy, other members fear loss of autonomy and domination by Germany.

      Sweet Basil, a popular jazz club in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, closes.

May

" Looking ahead, I can see more and more instances where I will disagree with the president on very fundamental issues."

— U.S. Sen. James M. Jeffords in a speech on May 24 in Burlington, Vt., announcing he is leaving the Republican Party

May 1

      In a speech at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., U.S. Pres. George W. Bush proposes a new defense plan for the country that would include a network of defensive missiles; the initiative is seen by experts to contravene the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1972.

      Following an attack on Malacañang, the presidential palace, by supporters of ousted former president Joseph Estrada, Philippine Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declares a “state of rebellion” in Manila; she lifts the order on May 6.

      Louis J. Freeh, the director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, announces that he plans to retire in June; the FBI has been under pressure in recent months following the exposure of one of its agents, Robert P. Hanssen, as a longtime spy for the Russians.

      Thomas E. Blanton, Jr., formerly a member of the Ku Klux Klan, is convicted of having murdered four African American girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963.

May 2

      The Swiss drug company Novartis Pharmaceuticals announces that it will make its antimalaria medicine, Riamet, available to the World Health Organization for delivery to Africa for $2 a dose—about one-tenth the price normally charged in the West. (See May 7.)

      The former heads of two leading auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, are indicted in New York City on antitrust charges for having fixed commission fees charged to customers over a six-year period.

      Stanford University is the recipient of the largest gift ever made to an institution of higher learning in the United States (and possibly in the world) when the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation pledges $400 million to the university.

May 3

      In a secret tally among the members of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the United States is voted off the UN Human Rights Commission for the first time since it was created in 1947; the vote is seen as an expression of growing exasperation with U.S. conduct in international organizations.

      Leaders of the Florida House of Representatives and Senate agree on a program of election reforms for the state, including the banning of punch-card ballot machinery and the requiring of hand recounts in particularly close elections; the outcome of the 2000 U.S. presidential election was delayed for weeks because of irregularities in balloting procedures in Florida.

May 4

      Pope John Paul II begins a six-day trip to areas of the Mediterranean region associated with Saint Paul, including Syria and Malta, with a highly controversial visit to Greece; he is the first pope to visit Greece in close to 13 centuries. (See May 6.)

      After learning that an American Hindu is suing McDonald's, alleging that the fast-food chain uses beef fat in making its french fries, hundreds of people riot against McDonald's outlets in India; the company maintains that, though it does flavour its fries with beef extract in the U.S., it uses no beef product in India.

May 5

      In the 127th running of the Kentucky Derby, Monarchos, a horse not considered a contender, wins in the second fastest time in the history of the race.

May 6

      After becoming the first pope ever to visit Syria, John Paul II becomes the first ever to set foot in a mosque when he visits the Great Mosque of Damascus. (See May 4.)

      The first space tourist, American businessman Dennis Tito, returns to Earth in Kazakhstan.

May 7

      The Antonov-225, the largest airplane in the world, successfully completes a short test flight in Ukraine; the airplane, reworked from a plane designed to carry the Buran space shuttle, has a wingspan of 88.4 m (290 ft).

      Novartis Pharmaceuticals announces that it has bought a 20% stake in Roche Holding; market observers are surprised and speculate that it means the two Switzerland-based pharmaceutical corporations plan to merge. (See May 2).

May 8

      The World Trade Organization approves Moldova's application for admission; Moldova becomes the organization's 142nd member on July 26.

May 9

      Police fire tear gas into the crowd at a soccer match in Accra, Ghana, when fans of the losing team, Kumasi Asante Kotoko, begin throwing debris onto the field, triggering a panic in which more than 120 people are trampled to death; it is Africa's worst sports-related disaster ever.

      American Susan Sontag receives the biennial Jerusalem Prize for Literature, awarded to writers whose work deals with the freedom of the individual within society; in her fiery acceptance speech, Sontag expresses strong disagreement with Israeli government policy in the Arab settlements.

      In a concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall, Peter Wiley ceremonially replaces David Soyer as cellist for the Guarneri String Quartet; Wiley is the first new member to join the quartet since it started 37 years ago.

May 10

      The U.S. Congress approves a budget plan that allows the first major tax cut in 20 years; final approval comes on May 26.

      President Bush nominates John P. Walters as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; Walters is viewed as being in favour of punishment rather than treatment for drug users.

      Nature publishes a report by Carnegie Institute of Washington researchers who applied 25 million psi of pressure and transformed a nitrogen sample into a solid with semiconducting properties; moreover, if low temperatures are maintained, the nitrogen retains its new properties after the release of the pressure.

      NBC and World Wrestling Federation Entertainment announce the demise of the XFL football league after one unprofitable and unpopular season. (See February 3.)

May 11

      U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft orders that the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, originally set for May 16, be postponed until June 11 because McVeigh's defense counsel was improperly not given access to large quantities of FBI files before his trial. (See June 11.)

      Cautious reductions in Germany's pension system are approved by the legislature; the very generous benefits have been strained by demographic changes, and gaining approval for the changes represents a great political victory for Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

      The Toronto Globe and Mail publishes a report saying that a Canadian man owns a portrait said to be of William Shakespeare, painted in 1603 and passed down for 12 generations in his family; it has been authenticated as being from the right time, but scholars are divided on whether it is, in fact, Shakespeare.

May 12

      Kinfe Gebremedhin, the head of the Ethiopian Federal Security and Immigration Authority (the intelligence services), is assassinated as he leaves an officer's club in Addis Ababa, the capital.

      With their song “Everybody,” the Estonian duet of Tanel Padar and Dave Benton (a native of the Caribbean island of Aruba) are the surprise winners of the 46th Eurovision Song Contest, held in Copenhagen.

      The 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is presented to Philip Roth for The Human Stain. (See May 16.)

      At New York City's Madison Square Garden, the undefeated Felix Trinidad wins a championship in his third weight class when he defeats World Boxing Association middleweight champion William Joppy (the fight actually ends shortly after midnight). (See September 29.)

      More than 50 people riot in Paris to protest the popular reality TV series Loft Story.

May 13

      Media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi wins election as prime minister of Italy for the second time.

      Elections held in the Basque region of Spain are won by the moderate Basque Nationalist Party.

      In Hannover, Ger., the Czech Republic wins its third consecutive International Ice Hockey Federation world championship, defeating Finland 3–2.

May 14

      The sixth International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is given to Canadian author Alistair MacLeod for his novel No Great Mischief.

      The U.S. Supreme Court rules that under federal law there is no acceptable medical use for marijuana.

May 15

      Japan's Imperial Household Agency confirms that, as long rumoured, Crown Princess Masako is pregnant; Masako, married to Crown Prince Naruhito since 1993, has had no children and suffered a miscarriage in 2000.

      Acting Gov. Jane Swift of Massachusetts gives birth to twin girls; she had been hospitalized since May 8 but had continued to conduct state business by telephone.

      Allen Iverson, a guard for the Philadelphia 76ers, is named the National Basketball Association's Most Valuable Player.

May 16

      Richard Serra is awarded the annual Gold Medal for Sculpture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, while the Gold Medal for Fiction, given every six years, is given to Philip Roth (see May 12); 14 new members, including Amiri Baraka and Garrison Keillor, are inducted into the academy.

      The restored dome of the Choral Synagogue, the most important Jewish temple in Moscow, is officially unveiled amid great celebration; the dome features a large gilded Star of David.

May 17

      Off the coast of Somaliland, a derelict ship is discovered on which more than 86 of 150 persons aboard perished; the ship reportedly developed engine trouble, and the officers forced the Somali passengers, who had been trying to get to Yemen, to jump into the sea at gunpoint before the crew itself fled the vessel.

      The American banking giant Citigroup announces that it will purchase the second largest bank in Mexico, Grupo Financiero Banamex-Accival.

May 18

      France launches its first new aircraft carrier in nearly 40 years, the Charles de Gaulle.

      Hong Kong orders the slaughter of more than one-third of the territory's poultry—1.2 million birds—and the cessation of imports from mainland China in an effort to stop the spread of a fatal avian influenza.

      UNESCO inaugurates a new category for its historical preservation role, Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage, and names 19 cultural spaces and expressions to the list.

May 19

      Point Given, the losing favourite at the Kentucky Derby, returns to form at the 126th running of the Preakness Stakes and is ridden to victory by Gary Stevens. (See June 9.)

May 20

      Natsagiyn Bagabandi is reelected president of Mongolia; his party, the former ruling communist party, won control of the Great Hural in 2000.

      As the Cannes International Film Festival closes, Italian director Nanni Moretti's The Son's Room wins the Palme d'Or; the Grand Prix goes to director Michael Haneke for The Piano Teacher, and its stars, Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel, take home acting honours.

      The media company Vivendi Universal agrees to acquire the on-line music-distribution company MP3.com less than one year after settling a copyright-infringement suit with MP3.

      In Ireland the three-day St. Patrick's Day celebrations, postponed from their proper date because of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, conclude with the traditional parade in Dublin.

May 21

      Procter & Gamble agrees to buy the hair-products company Clairol from Bristol-Myers Squibb in a move that should give it nearly half the U.S. market.

      Saad ad-Din Ibrahim, a sociology professor and prominent Egyptian human rights activist, is found guilty of antigovernment activities and sentenced to seven years in prison.

May 22

      Reports indicate that the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan have set forth a plan to require non-Muslims in the country (primarily Hindus and Sikhs) to wear an identifying badge.

      The Ford Motor Co. says that it plans to replace 13 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires, most of them on Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicles, with tires made by other manufacturers.

      Embattled Ukrainian Pres. Leonid Kuchma nominates an ally, industrialist Anatoly Kinakh, to replace Viktor Yushchenko as prime minister.

      The original manuscript of Jack Kerouac's On the Road is bought at auction for $2,430,000, a world record price.

May 23

      India ends its six-month-long cease-fire in Kashmir but at the same time says it will invite the head of Pakistan's government, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to go to New Delhi to discuss the action; the following day Pakistan grudgingly says it will accept the invitation.

      Canada becomes the first country to ratify the Stockholm Convention, which bans the nonessential use of persistent organic pollutants; this category of chemicals is particularly troublesome in the Arctic, as they tend to accumulate and persist in colder climates.

      U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell begins a one-week tour of Africa with a meeting at the presidential palace in Bamako with Alpha Oumar Konaré, the president of Mali.

May 24

      A three-story reception hall in Jerusalem hosting a wedding reception with more than 600 guests collapses, killing at least 25 and injuring hundreds.

      Vermont Sen. James M. Jeffords announces that he feels the Republican Party is far more conservative than he is and that he is therefore abandoning his party affiliation to become an independent; this throws the balance of power in the evenly split Senate to the Democrats.

      Horse breeders in central Kentucky are informed that the reason more than 500 thoroughbred foals and fetuses have died in the past few months is that the mares are somehow ingesting naturally occurring cyanide from black cherry trees; scientists suspect fecal matter from Eastern tent caterpillars may be the transmission source.

May 25

      Pres. Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan meets in San Salvador, El Salvador, with leaders of eight Latin American nations that support Taiwan; the Latin American leaders sign a declaration recognizing Taiwan's democracy, a move Chen hopes will bolster Taiwan's efforts to join the UN.

      The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit overturns an injunction preventing publication of The Wind Done Gone, Alice Randall's parody of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. (See March 23.)

May 26

      Racial strife breaks out in Oldham, Eng., near Manchester, when a group of white youths attacks a home in a South Indian neighbourhood and residents respond by attacking a pub with a largely white clientele; sporadic fighting continues for the next three days.

      Laurance S. Rockefeller donates his 448-ha (1,106-ac) JY Ranch in Wyoming to Grand Teton National Park; his father, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., had donated most of the land that makes up the park.

May 27

      Brazilian Helio Castroneves, driving for Team Penske in the Indianapolis 500, takes the lead at lap 149 and, in spite of a 16-minute rain delay, holds on to win the auto race.

      Czech athlete Roman Sebrle sets a new world record for the decathlon of 9,026 points, surpassing the record of 8,944 points set by Tomas Dvorak, also of the Czech Republic, in 1999.

May 28

      In a coup attempt, supporters of André Kolingba fire on the home of Pres. Ange-Félix Patassé in Bangui, Central African Republic; the action sparks 10 days of fighting, but by June 7 the government has regained control.

      The Women's College World Series of fast-pitch softball is won by the University of Arizona Wildcats when they defeat the UCLA Bruins 1–0; Arizona pitcher Jennie Finch wins the shutout.

May 29

      In a federal courtroom in New York City, the four men on trial for having conspired with accused terrorist leader Osama bin Laden to bomb the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 are found guilty on all 302 charges.

      Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra removes the head of the Bank of Thailand, Chatumongkol Sonakul, for refusing to raise interest rates.

      The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Professional Golfers' Association of America tour must permit disabled golfer Casey Martin to use a golf cart when he competes, finding that walking is not fundamental to the game.

May 30

      In the Elf Aquitaine corruption case, which has engulfed the government of France, former foreign minister Roland Dumas is found guilty of having received bribes from Elf and is sentenced to six months in prison. (See February 7.)

      The General Motors Corp. formally offers to take over troubled Korean car manufacturer Daewoo Motor Co.

May 31

      The Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, held in Washington, D.C., is won by 13-year-old Sean Conley, an eighth-grader at Minnesota Renaissance School in Anoka, Minn.; he correctly spells succedaneum.

June

"We have to ask for the opinions of experts on what we should do about the collapse of a safe society."

— Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, responding to the Ikeda school killings, June 8

June 1

      In Kathmandu, Nepal, Crown Prince Dipendra opens fire at a family party, killing King Birendra, Queen Aiswarya, and seven other members of the royal family before turning the gun on himself.

      A Palestinian suicide bomber sets off his explosives in a crowd of teenagers outside a discotheque in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 22 and injuring scores more.

      Papua New Guinea's secessionist province of Bougainville ends a decade-long war when final terms for peace with Papua New Guinea are negotiated; the island is to have statelike autonomy and the option of total independence by the years 2011–16.

June 2

      A woman taking part in a medical experiment at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., becomes the first research subject to die in the university's history; the experiment was intended to help reveal how the human body fights asthma and involved a drug that produced an asthmalike reaction in healthy subjects.

June 3

      Alejandro Toledo wins a runoff presidential election in Peru, defeating Alan García Pérez. (See April 8.)

      The 55th annual Tony Awards are presented at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; winners include the plays Proof, The Producers (which wins 12 Tonys, a record number), One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, and 42nd Street and the actors Richard Easton, Mary-Louise Parker, Nathan Lane, and Christine Ebersole.

      Australian Karrie Webb wins the U.S. Women's Open golf tournament in Southern Pines, N.C., for the second year in a row. (See June 24.)

June 4

      Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt declares a state of agricultural emergency resulting from what many call the worst infestation of Mormon crickets in 40 years; the insects, which are also bedeviling Nevada, are causing millions of dollars in crop damage, endangering vehicles on the road, and keeping residents indoors.

      The state legislature of Nevada passes a law that allows regulators to permit casinos to offer Internet gambling.

June 5

      Prosecutors representing the crown in Canada file charges against Inderjit Singh Reyat relating to the bombing of an Air-India flight in 1985; Reyat is serving time for murder in a bombing at Narita International Airport in Japan, and the filing of new charges in such a case is unprecedented.

      James K. Hahn is elected mayor of Los Angeles over Antonio Villaraigosa in a closely watched runoff election, though in the April election that necessitated the runoff, Villaraigosa had come in ahead of Hahn.

      A jury in Los Angeles awards over $3 billion to a man who was diagnosed with lung cancer after 40 years of smoking Marlboro cigarettes; Philip Morris Companies Inc. plans to appeal, though it does not deny that its product caused the cancer.

June 6

      The State Duma of Russia votes to allow nuclear waste to be imported and stored in Russia; the bill is opposed by the general public in Russia and by environmentalists elsewhere because of Russia's poor record of nuclear safety.

      The Democratic Party formally takes control of the U.S. Senate, and Tom Daschle succeeds Trent Lott as majority leader.

June 7

      Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Labour Party coast to an expected victory in elections in the U.K.

      Former Argentine president Carlos Saúl Menem is arrested in an investigation of his suspected involvement in arms smuggling to Croatia and Ecuador in 1991–95 during his tenure in office.

      Ireland rejects the Treaty of Nice, which sets forth procedures for admitting new members to the European Union and requires ratification by all members.

June 8

      A man armed with a knife invades an elementary school in Ikeda, Japan, stabs to death seven second-grade girls and one first-grade boy, and also seriously wounds six other students and a teacher, shocking the entire nation.

      After a week of pounding southeastern Texas, Tropical Storm Allison hits Houston with renewed strength, causing massive flooding that cuts off power and access to most hospitals and forces more than 10,000 residents from their homes.

      In elections in Iran reformist Pres. Mohammad Khatami is reelected with 77% of the vote.

      The 1,700th anniversary of the founding of the Armenian church by St. Gregory the Illuminator is celebrated at the church of St. Gregory in Kayseri, Turkey, by about 300 people, half of whom are Americans of Armenian descent.

June 9

      American Jennifer Capriati defeats Kim Clijsters of Belgium in a hard-fought battle to win the women's French Open tennis title; the following day Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten defeats Alex Corretja of Spain to win the men's competition for the third time.

      In the National Hockey League championship, the Colorado Avalanche defeats the defending champions, the New Jersey Devils, 4 games to 3, to win the Stanley Cup.

      Preakness winner Point Given runs to a commanding victory in the Belmont Stakes, the last of the U.S. Triple Crown horse races. (See May 19.)

June 10

      The 49th Venice Biennale opens to the public; it is in the form of a Plateau of Humankind and has exhibitions of visual arts, film, theatre, poetry, and dance.

      Gilberto Simoni wins the 84th Giro d'Italia bicycle race; one stage of the race had been canceled on June 7 after a dramatic drug raid on the cyclists' hotel rooms during the night.

      In Switzerland a referendum to allow Swiss members of UN and NATO peacekeeping forces to carry arms passes in a very close vote.

June 11

      In the first federal execution in the U.S. since 1963, Timothy McVeigh is put to death in Terre Haute, Ind., for having carried out what was at the time the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. (See May 11.)

      Mud slides caused by heavy rain fall into a road near Quito, Ecuador, killing 38 people.

      The British pound sterling falls to its lowest point against the U.S. dollar in 16 years, apparently because of fears that the recent Labour electoral victory means that Britain is likely to abandon the pound in favour of the euro.

June 12

      In his first overseas trip as president of the United States, George W. Bush arrives in Spain, where he reiterates his opposition to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Kyoto Protocol. (See March 28 and July 23.)

      The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers releases a report saying that at least 300,000 children under the age of 18, some as young as 7 years old, are fighting as soldiers in 41 different countries.

      The International Organization for Migration reports that an increasing number of teenagers from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia are being smuggled into Western Europe, most often to work in the sex industry.

June 13

      Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat reluctantly agree to an American-proposed cease-fire plan.

      The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces that it has found no evidence that consumption of corn products tainted with genetically modified StarLink corn produced allergic reactions or illness of any sort. (See March 18.)

June 14

      In a startling reversal of position, Pres. George W. Bush announces that the U.S. Navy will end its military exercises on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, by May 2003. (See April 26 and July 29.)

      Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Berbers and opposition party supporters march in Algiers, many rioting; Berber unrest has led to many days of rioting and demonstrations since April.

June 15

      The Los Angeles Lakers defeat the Philadelphia 76ers 108–96 to win the National Basketball Association (NBA) championship for the second year in a row; also for the second time, Shaquille O'Neal is named Most Valuable Player of the finals.

      In Göteborg, Swed., where a summit meeting of European Union leaders is taking place, thousands of antiglobalization demonstrators engage in 12 hours of sustained rioting.

      A new international grouping, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization—made up of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—holds its inaugural meeting; delegates criticize the missile defense plan put forth by the U.S. and discuss joint action to counter Muslim separatists.

June 16

      A bomb explodes in Narayanganj, Bangladesh, at a meeting of the Awami League, the country's ruling party, killing 22 people.

      The Leaning Tower of Pisa opens for the first time since 1990 as work to keep it from falling over is completed; it now leans only 4.1 m (13.5 ft) off perpendicular, 44 cm (17 in) less than its previous lean.

June 17

      The party of former king Simeon II wins the parliamentary elections in Bulgaria; the king waits until July 12 to accept the post of prime minister.

      Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former U.S. president Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, graduates summa cum laude from Stanford University.

June 18

      The Taliban agrees to let the UN World Food Programme employ women to conduct interviews in Afghanistan to determine where and how food should be apportioned; because women are forbidden to speak to men outside their family, the survey cannot be carried out effectively without women as interviewers.

      In Tulsa, Okla., Retief Goosen of South Africa defeats American Mark Brooks by two strokes in an 18-hole play-off to win the U.S. Open golf tournament.

June 19

      Authorities in Yemen say they have arrested eight men who they believe were plotting to bomb the U.S. embassy in Sanʿaʾ; the men are said to have fought with Osama bin Laden against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

      Baltimore Orioles third baseman Cal Ripken, Jr., who played in 2,632 successive games between 1982 and 1998, announces that he will retire at the end of the baseball season.

June 20

      Pervez Musharraf appoints himself president of Pakistan while maintaining that the nation will return to democratic rule after elections in October 2002; Musharraf came to power in a coup in October 1999.

      American Lori Berenson is convicted of treason and sentenced to 20 years in prison in open court in Peru; she was convicted and sentenced to life in prison by a closed military court in 1996, but the decision was overturned and a new trial ordered in August 2000.

      Billy Collins is named the next poet laureate of the U.S.; Collins will replace Stanley Kunitz in the post in October.

June 21

      U.S. federal indictments are brought against 14 men, none of them in custody in the U.S., in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, in which 19 American airmen were killed; though the men indicted are Saudi Arabian and Lebanese, U.S. officials believe Iran is behind the act.

      Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan agree in Paris to stop fishing sturgeon for the rest of the year to give dwindling stocks a chance to regenerate; 90% of the world's caviar is produced by sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, which these countries border.

June 22

      A 120-year-old bridge over the Kadalundi River in Kerala, India, collapses as a passenger train is crossing it; three cars fall into the river, killing 59 passengers.

      The Sara Lee Corp. pleads guilty in court to having produced and distributed meat infected with listeria in 1998; it is believed that 15 people died as a result of eating the contaminated meat.

      The Constitutional Court of Turkey votes to ban the Virtue Party, the main opposition party; the pro-Islamic party has 102 deputies in the legislature.

June 23

      A magnitude-7.9 earthquake strikes southern Peru, causing great damage in both Arequipa and Moquegua and killing at least 31 people.

      Vladimiro Montesinos, the former head of the Peruvian spy agency and right-hand man to Peru's ousted president Alberto Fujimori, is captured in Venezuela; he was wanted on charges of gun running and collaborating with drug traffickers.

      The Unitarian Universalist Association elects William Sinkford as its president; he is the first African American to lead the largely white church.

June 24

      Three days of small skirmishes escalate into a race riot in the economically depressed town of Burnley in northern England; about 7% of Burnley's population is of South Asian background.

      Karrie Webb wins the Ladies Professional Golf Association championship and becomes the youngest woman golfer (age 26) ever to complete a career grand slam. (See June 3.)

      Mayon Volcano in the Philippines erupts, forcing over 30,000 people to evacuate their homes.

      A privately funded peace memorial is dedicated near the site of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which took place 125 years earlier on June 25; speakers call for peace between whites and Native Americans.

June 25

      The General Assembly of New York passes a law banning the use of a hand-held telephone while driving a motor vehicle; it is the first state in the U.S. to enact such a ban.

      IBM announces that it has developed the world's fastest silicon-based transistor; the company expects that the chip will find applications in fibre-optic communications and in cellular telephones.

      During the pontiff's visit to Kiev, Pope John Paul II and the chief rabbi of Ukraine, Yaakov Dov Bleich, visit the memorial honouring those who were killed by the Nazis in 1941–43 at Baby Yar.

      A never-before-published novelette by Mark Twain appears in The Atlantic Monthly; “A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage” was written in 1876 as an entry for a contest Twain proposed to the magazine, but no one else agreed to take part in the contest.

June 26

      In a light heavyweight professional boxing bout taking place aboard the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in the Hudson River in New York City, Beethavean Scottland suffers severe head injuries in the fight with the undefeated George Khalid Jones; Scottland dies of his injuries on July 2.

June 27

      The United Nations approves the Declaration of Commitment, which treats AIDS as a political and economic threat and sets a goal of a 25% reduction in HIV infections in the worst-affected nations by 2005.

      The tire manufacturer Bridgestone/Firestone announces plans to close its plant in Decatur, Ill., which produces 10% of the company's output.

      In the NBA draft, for the first time ever, the first pick (by the Washington Wizards) is a high-school student, Kwame Brown, a 19-year-old senior from Brunswick, Ga.

June 28

      Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is extradited to The Hague to face war-crime charges before the United Nations tribunal; the following day Zoran Zizic, the prime minister of Yugoslavia, resigns in protest. (See July 17.)

      A U.S. Court of Appeals, while upholding the finding of District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that Microsoft Corp. is a monopoly, voids the order that the computer company be broken up and bars Jackson from further involvement in the case.

June 29

      Kofi Annan is elected with almost no opposition to a second term as secretary-general of the United Nations and swears himself in to the new five-year term. (See October 12.)

      The National Japanese American Memorial is officially opened a few hundred metres north of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

      The first of four Russian military bases in Georgia, left over from the Soviet era, is turned over to the government of Georgia; a treaty signed in 1999 gives Russia a deadline of July 1 for completing the transfer of all four bases.

June 30

      The BBC's World Service discontinues its venerable shortwave radio service; its digital satellite radio and Internet service are supplanting it.

      A rocket carrying the Microwave Anisotropy Probe, which will photograph so-called fossil light in the universe to show what the universe looked like immediately after the big bang, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

July

"One hundred thousand people don't get upset unless there is a problem in their hearts and spirits."

— French Pres. Jacques Chirac, speaking about antiglobalization protesters, in Genoa, Italy, July 20

July 1

      David Trimble resigns his position as first minister of Northern Ireland, citing as his reason the failure of the Irish Republican Army to disarm; Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, says the failure to disarm is a result of the British inability to produce an acceptable replacement for the Royal Ulster Constabulary. (See November 6.)

      A U.S. law creating a 233-sq-km (90-sq-mi) zone called Tortugas North, for tourists, and a 158-sq-km (61-sq-mi) zone called Tortugas South, for scientists, underwater off the Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida, goes into effect; together called the Tortugas Ecological Reserve, it is the largest area of U.S. coastal waters that is off-limits for fishing.

July 2

      Despite assurances by the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan to the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan that the Taliban would not permit Osama bin Laden to attack U.S. interests, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush signs an executive order to continue economic sanctions against the Taliban for harbouring bin Laden, whom the U.S. blames for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. (See July 30.)

      The first completely implantable artificial heart, the AbioCor, is placed into a patient on the brink of death; the patient, later revealed to be Robert Tools, age 58, suffers a stroke in November and dies later that month.

      In a surprise move, Mexican Pres. Vicente Fox Quesada marries his spokesperson, Martha Sahagún, putting an end to gossip about their relationship.

July 3

      In Russia's worst airline disaster since 1996, a Russian passenger airliner flying between Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok crashes on its approach to an intermediate stop, Irkutsk, killing all 143 aboard.

      Australia and East Timor agree on a plan to share the oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea between the two countries; the plan will give 90% of the revenues to East Timor.

      Two weeks after the collapse of the ruling coalition, the head of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, Algirdas Brazauskas, becomes prime minister; Brazauskas was Lithuania's president from 1992 to 1998.

July 4

      Scientists from the U.S. and Vietnam meeting in Hanoi agree to work cooperatively on a study examining environmental damage caused by the use of the herbicide Agent Orange used by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.

      Farmers in Klamath Falls, Ore., open irrigation gates that had been closed in April by order of the federal government to protect the endangered suckerfish; the disappearance of the irrigation water, together with a severe drought, has enraged local farmers.

July 5

      The government of Macedonia signs a cease-fire agreement with leaders of the ethnic Albanian rebels who have been fighting in the northwestern part of the country.

      In the first of several highly publicized shark attacks in U.S. coastal waters this summer, an eight-year-old boy, Jessie Arbogast, has his right arm bitten off by a 2-m (7-ft) bull shark; the boy's arm is rescued from the shark's mouth and later reattached by surgeons.

      Susan P. Schoelwer, the curator of the Connecticut Historical Society, announces that a flag discovered in the society's storage area in 1998 has been authenticated as one of the five flags that were in the theatre box occupied by U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln on the night he was assassinated.

      Hannelore Kohl, the wife of former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, in despair over the rare painful and untreatable allergy to sunlight that she had developed, commits suicide.

July 6

      Scientists at the Stanford (Calif.) Linear Accelerator Center announce that they have found CP violation in the decay of B mesons, confirming results seen only once before, with another particle, the K meson, in 1964; CP violation is an inequality in certain basic processes of particle physics and may explain why vastly more matter than antimatter resulted from the big bang.

July 7

      Maoist insurgents in Nepal kill 39 police officers at various security posts throughout the country, the highest one-day total since the insurgency began five years ago. (See July 19.)

      Violence breaks out in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, in the wake of a police raid for illegal weapons; when calm is restored three days later, at least 25 people have died.

      Portugal decriminalizes the possession of recreational drugs for personal use, joining Spain and Italy in treating drug use as a medical rather than criminal matter. (See July 30.)

      Six people are gored in the first two days of an unusually dangerous running of the bulls in Pampona, Spain.

July 8

      Great Britain's fourth race riot, the worst so far this year, rages for nine hours in the northern town of Bradford.

      Officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina say they have found a mass grave containing at least 200 bodies in the village of Liplje.

      American tennis star Venus Williams defeats Belgian Justine Henin to win her second consecutive Wimbledon title; the following day Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia becomes the first wild-card entrant to win a major tournament when he defeats Australian Patrick Rafter.

      The Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim creates an uproar in Israel when, at the conclusion of a program for the Israel Festival from which a planned piece by Richard Wagner, whom many consider an anti-Semite, had been excised, Barenboim asks the audience whether they would like a Wagner piece as an encore; after a half-hour debate a number of people leave, and the overture to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is performed.

July 9

      An appeals court in Chile rules that Augusto Pinochet Ugarte is too ill to stand trial; this effectively puts an end to efforts to bring him up on charges of human rights abuses during his 17-year tenure as ruler of Chile.

July 10

      Sri Lankan Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga orders Parliament suspended for two months and calls for a referendum on a proposed new constitution that would give more rights to Tamils.

      Preeti Shakya, age four, is enthroned as Kumari, the virgin goddess who brings peace and prosperity to Nepal; she will lead a sequestered life, dressed in red, until her menarche causes her to lose her divinity and a new Kumari must be found.

      Zlatko Lagumdzija, a Bosnian Muslim and foreign minister, is appointed prime minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, replacing Bozidar Matic, a Bosnian Croat who had resigned on June 22.

July 11

      On the last day of its summit meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, the Organization of African Unity decides to dissolve the organization after 38 years of existence and transform itself into the African Union, modeled on the European Union.

      Police in Washington, D.C., search the apartment of U.S. Rep. Gary Condit of California, looking for clues in the disappearance of Chandra Levy, a Washington intern who was last seen on April 30; Condit's personal life has come under increasingly heavy scrutiny throughout the summer.

      Four firefighters die in the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. since 1994; the blaze, in the Okanogan National Forest in Washington, explodes from 40 to 1,012 ha (100 to 2,500 ac).

July 12

      A report issued by Human Rights Watch charges that the human rights record of the opposition to the Taliban in Afghanistan is as bad as that of the Taliban and that the countries supporting the opposition are doing so for their own self-interest.

      France orders the extradition of former high-profile antiwar activist Ira Einhorn to the U.S., whence he fled in 1981 to avoid being tried for the 1977 murder of his girlfriend, Holly Maddux; on July 20 Einhorn arrives in the U.S., where he is immediately imprisoned.

July 13

      Beijing is selected to host the 2008 Olympic Games, winning out over Toronto, Paris, Istanbul, and Osaka; China responds with jubilation.

July 14

      Pres. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan arrives in India for a summit meeting with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to discuss the Kashmir dispute; two days later the talks abruptly break off, however.

      The last original episode of the Bozo's Circus television show in the U.S. is broadcast in Chicago; at the height of its popularity in the 1960s, there were about 180 Bozos on the air throughout the nation.

July 15

      Using a Canadian-supplied mechanical arm, astronauts aboard the International Space Station install a new entryway onto the space station; the new airlock is compatible with NASA spacesuits as well as the Russian spacesuits that the other airlock is able to accommodate.

July 16

      In Moscow Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin and Chinese Pres. Jiang Zemin sign a mutual friendship treaty, the first between the two countries in more than 50 years.

      Jacques Rogge, a Belgian surgeon and former world champion yachtsman, is elected president of the International Olympic Committee; chosen partly for his personal integrity in the recent IOC scandals, he replaces Juan António Samaranch of Spain.

      Germany asks the Czech Republic to close down the Temelin nuclear power plant near the border between the countries, contending that the plant is not safe.

      The 50th anniversary of the publication of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is noted; in celebration the on-line bookseller Amazon.com sells the book at the 1951 price—$3.

      At least 35 sea lions in Ecuador's Galápagos National Park are discovered butchered on the beach on San Cristóbal Island; the sea lions' sex organs are in demand in Asia, where they are used for folk medicinal purposes.

July 17

      Dragisa Pesic is named by Pres. Vojislav Kostunica to replace Zoran Zizic as prime minister of Yugoslavia. (See June 28.)

July 18

      A 60-car train carrying hazardous materials derails in a tunnel under Baltimore, Md., and catches fire, melting fibre-optic cables and slowing Internet and rail traffic throughout the Middle Atlantic region; five days later the tunnel is finally cleared.

      A special train arrives in Vladivostok, Russia, from Moscow as part of a celebration of the centenary of the 9,267-km (5,758-mi) -long Trans-Siberian Railroad, still the longest railway in the world.

July 19

      Indonesia passes a bill granting increased autonomy to the rebellious province of Aceh.

      Faced with an ultimatum from his party, the Nepali Congress Party, as well as a burgeoning Maoist insurgency, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala of Nepal resigns; on July 22 King Gyanendra appoints Sher Bahadur Deuba to replace him. (See July 7.)

      Nearly two-thirds of Argentina's workers participate in a one-day strike, effectively shutting down the country, to protest recently announced austerity measures.

July 20

      Outside the Group of Eight meeting in Genoa, Italy, Carlo Giuliani, one of tens of thousands of protesters, is killed by police; his is the first death among antiglobalization activists.

      The London Stock Exchange goes public; its shares are traded—on its own exchange—for the first time.

      A public uproar greets a media report about a study commissioned by the Philip Morris tobacco company in the Czech Republic that spells out the savings to public finances brought about by smokers' dying earlier than nonsmokers. (See June 5 and November 15.)

July 21

      The United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects approves an agreement, much weakened by the demands of the U.S., to reduce trafficking in small arms.

      Doctors in Murcia, Spain, report the largest-known outbreak of Legionnaires disease; more than 300 became ill with the disease, which they contracted from cooling towers in six different buildings.

July 22

      David Duval of the U.S. wins his first major golf tournament when he finishes three strokes ahead of Niclas Fasth of Sweden at the 130th British Open.

      The first of the tax-rebate checks authorized in the new U.S. budget are mailed out to American taxpayers; 91.6 million people are scheduled to receive such a check. (See May 10.)

      Phase I of the largest rat-eradication program in the world is completed on the 106-sq-km (41-sq-mi) sub-Antarctic Campbell Island, believed to be infested with as many as 200,000 Norway rats.

July 23

      A day after the military ignored Indonesian Pres. Abdurrahman Wahid's orders to shut down the People's Consultative Assembly (the legislature), the assembly votes unanimously to oust Wahid in favour of his vice president, Megawati Sukarnoputri.

      In Bonn, Ger., 178 nations, not including the U.S., reach an agreement on the Kyoto Protocol after three days of marathon bargaining; under the agreement 38 nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012. (See June 12.)

      Burundi Pres. Pierre Buyoya signs an agreement with Hutu politicians to lead the first transitional government under the Arusha accords, designed to end the civil war in Burundi, as an attempted coup fanned by fears of the power-sharing arrangement is put down.

July 24

      The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam attack Sri Lanka's international airport at Colombo, destroying or disabling 14 commercial and military aircraft and leaving 20 dead.

      A court in Seoul, S.Kor., finds seven former executives of the Daewoo Corp. guilty of accounting fraud and sentences them to terms of as much as seven years in prison.

July 25

      The U.S. rejects an international protocol for compliance with the 1972 treaty banning germ warfare, objecting to provisions that it believes would be detrimental to the business community.

      Louis G. Spisto, the executive director in New York of the American Ballet Theatre, quits abruptly; his two-year tenure has nearly torn the dance company apart.

July 26

      The Chinese government says that it has released U.S. residents Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang to the U.S. two days after having sentenced them both to 10 years' imprisonment for spying; U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to arrive in Beijing on July 28. (See April 3.)

      Congressional Gold Medals are awarded to the 29 Navajo code talkers (only 5 of whom are still living) who were instrumental in the Allied victory over Japan in World War II by relaying military information coded in the Navajo language, which is spoken by only a handful of non-Navajos.

July 27

      Scientists at California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory retract a claim they made in 1999 that they had created an 118th element; with results that could not be reproduced, the researchers reexamined the original data and found they did not support the claim.

      A judge in Bogotá, Colom., orders a halt to spraying intended to destroy the coca crop; local farmers contend that the herbicide used, glycophosate, is causing health problems and damaging legal crops.

      United Airlines and US Airways call off their proposed merger as the U.S. Department of Justice threatens to sue to prevent it from taking place. (See January 10.)

July 28

      The National Academy of Public Administration finds that the Smithsonian Institution needs about $1.5 billion worth of repairs and renovations and blames management problems for much of the deterioration.

July 29

      American Lance Armstrong wins his third consecutive Tour de France bicycle race.

      In a nonbinding referendum on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, 68% of balloters vote for an immediate end to U.S. Navy exercises on the island. (See June 14.)

July 30

      New rules go into effect in Canada that permit anyone who is terminally ill or suffers from certain specified chronic illnesses to grow and smoke marijuana for pain relief, provided they have a medical certificate verifying their condition. (See July 7.)

      The UN Security Council approves a plan to appoint experts to monitor and help enforce an arms embargo against the Taliban in Afghanistan; the embargo is intended to press the Taliban into surrendering Osama bin Laden. (See July 2.)

July 31

      Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, frustrated by work involved in holding his coalition together, shocks the government of India when he offers to resign; he is immediately persuaded to stay on.

      Lava from Mt. Etna in Sicily, Italy, which has been erupting for two weeks, threatens two villages and forces the closing of tourist and scientific facilities.

August

" According to the second paragraph of Article 7, I have the right to speak the Albanian language. "

— Arben Xhaferi, ethnic Albanian leader, surprising delegates at the signing of a peace agreement in Macedonia by addressing them in Albanian, August 13

August 1

      The first book is ceremonially placed in the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, located approximately on the site of the ancient Library at Alexandria; included among the first volumes are a handwritten 7th-century Qurʾan, a Bible, and the Microsoft Excel 2000 handbook.

      Azerbaijan gives up Cyrillic and adopts the Latin alphabet (in a variant similar to Turkish) for its national language, Azerbaijani; the change, made for nationalist reasons, causes substantial confusion, especially because of a lack of computer fonts and keyboards.

      In Germany, for the first time, homosexual couples exchange rings and vows as a new law permitting same-sex partnerships goes into effect; the law permits registered partners to inherit from one another and to share a surname but not to adopt children.

August 2

      Former Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic is found guilty of genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague and is sentenced to 46 years in prison; the following day three Bosnian Muslim officers are transferred to The Hague to face the tribunal.

      Robert S. Mueller III is confirmed as the new FBI director, replacing Louis J. Freeh; on the same day, Mueller successfully undergoes an operation for prostate cancer.

August 3

      Scientists from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey say they believe they have seen the beginning of the formation of stars; it is believed that, as stars began to form, clouds of hydrogen atoms were floating throughout the universe, and the Sloan scientists think they have seen the shadow of one of these clouds on a quasar.

      Thailand's high court for the first time overturns an indictment by the anticorruption commission when it acquits Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of financial irregularities.

August 4

      North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin issue a joint statement in Moscow in which they pledge to combat international terrorism, among other things; this is Kim's first visit to a noncommunist state.

      In a ceremony in Canton, Ohio, players Lynn Swann, Nick Buoniconti, Mike Munchak, Jackie Slater, Ron Yary, and Jack Youngblood, as well as coach Marv Levy, are inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

      Hundreds of First Nations people gather in Montreal in an encampment to reenact the Great Peace of 1701, a treaty signed between the French and the Iroquois, and to celebrate its 300th anniversary.

August 5

      Officers from the Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice close the Kabul offices of Shelter Now, a Christian relief agency, and arrest 24 of its workers, accusing them of attempting to spread Christianity, which is forbidden in the Taliban-run areas of Afghanistan. (See November 14.)

      Pak Se Ri of South Korea wins her third major golf tournament when she outplays Australian Karrie Webb to win the Women's British Open in Sunningdale, Eng.

      In Edmonton, Alta., American runner Maurice Greene wins the world championship 100-m sprint for the third consecutive time with a time of 9.82 sec; on the following day American sprinter Marion Jones loses her first 100-m race since 1997 to Zhanna Pintusevich-Block of Ukraine, and on August 8 Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie, who had won every 10,000-m event that he had entered since 1993, finishes behind Charles Kamathi of Kenya.

August 6

      The Irish Republican Army agrees to a method for putting its weapons beyond use as a deadline approaches for an agreement to prevent the shutdown of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

      The publishing company Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., agrees to pay former U.S. president Bill Clinton an advance of $10 million to write his memoirs; it is the biggest publishing advance ever paid.

August 7

      Pres. Hugo Bánzer Suárez of Bolivia hands the presidency over to his vice president, Jorge Quiroga Ramírez, because of ill health.

      In Nairobi, Kenya, on the former site of the U.S. embassy, the August 7 Memorial Park is opened to commemorate the victims (207 Kenyans and 12 Americans) of the terrorist bombing that destroyed the building on Aug. 7, 1998.

August 8

      Bayer AG withdraws its anticholesterol drug, Baycol, from the world market after 31 deaths are linked to it.

      Kyrgyzstan announces plans to charge Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan for using water in rivers that originate in Kyrgyzstan, saying that it requires money for the upkeep of reservoirs that provide water for its neighbours.

August 9

      After weeks of well-publicized ruminating, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush announces that the U.S. will support stem-cell research, provided the research is done only on the 60 existing stem-cell lines; it is unclear, however, whether these lines are in fact viable and available to American researchers.

      The U.S. and Mexico reach an agreement in principle to expand a temporary worker program that will allow many undocumented Mexicans living and working in the U.S. to gain permits and work toward permanent legal residency.

      Soldiers overthrow the secessionist government of Said Abeid Abderemanein on Anjouan Island; Anjouan had declared independence from Comoros in 1997 but signed a reconciliation agreement in 2000.

August 10

      A passenger train strikes a land mine near Zenza do Itombe, Angola, and more than 250 passengers are killed; UNITA rebels claim responsibility, saying that the train was also carrying military supplies.

      Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk signs a law to create a UN-assisted tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for war crimes.

August 11

      Home rule is restored in Northern Ireland after a one-day suspension; the pause allows British authorities to wait another six weeks before calling new elections in the wake of David Trimble's resignation as first minister. (See July 1 and November 6.)

      China refuses an offer of $34,576 from the U.S. to defray China's costs from the April incident wherein a U.S. spy plane and Chinese fighter jet crashed and the spy plane landed in China; China had sought $1 million. (See April 12.)

August 12

      Two days of heavy rains cause flash flooding and mud slides in northeastern Iran, killing at least 114 people, destroying crops, and leaving thousands homeless; on August 14 New Delhi suffers its heaviest rainfall in 40 years.

      The space shuttle Discovery delivers a new three-member crew to the International Space Station for a four-month stay; this crew is the space station's third.

August 13

      Government and ethnic Albanian leaders sign a political deal in Macedonia that gives more representation to ethnic Albanians and recognizes Albanian as an official language. (See August 17.)

      Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visits the Yasukuni shrine, a Shinto memorial to those who died during World War II; the visit excites a storm of protest in China and South Korea, where 20 young men chop off the tips of their little fingers to demonstrate their distress.

August 14

      Leaders of the 11 African countries with a stake in Air Afrique agree to a restructuring plan whereby the airline will be dissolved and then re-created, with Air France holding a majority stake in return for significant financial support; African heads of state hail the plan, which has saved the airline from going out of business.

      In spite of Pres. Daniel arap Moi's support, a bill that would have created the Kenya Anticorruption Authority is defeated in that country's parliament; continued financial aid to Kenya from the International Monetary Fund is contingent upon the creation of the authority.

      Emmanuel Milingo, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Zambia—who had risked excommunication to marry Maria Sung of South Korea in a mass wedding in May presided over by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church—renounces his wife and reconciles with the Roman Catholic Church.

August 15

      A law to give Indian groups in Mexico greater rights goes into effect; in the five years since the law was drafted to satisfy demands of Zapatista rebels in Chiapas state, however, it has lost support among Indians throughout the country.

      A new civil code granting women equal legal rights with men is passed in Brazil; the code was first proposed 26 years ago.

August 16

      A six-day auction of the assets of the Amedeo Development Corp., Prince Jefri Bolkiah's defunct construction company, in Brunei comes to a close with total sales of $7.8 million, a fraction of the $15 billion the former finance minister had lost.

      Industry Standard, a respected financial magazine that focused on the dot-com economy, suspends publication.

August 17

      The first of the NATO peacekeeping troops arrive in Macedonia; two days earlier NATO had decided to send only 400 British troops initially and to wait to see if the combatants held to their cease-fire before sending in the full contingent of 3,500 from 12 countries. (See August 13.)

      Prime Minister Percival Patterson of Jamaica agrees with opposition leader Edward Seaga to create a strategy to reduce violence in the inner city; the following day 7 people are murdered in Kingston, bringing the death total since May to 71.

      Because of bad weather, American balloonist Steve Fossett halts his fifth attempt to become the first person to circumnavigate the globe solo in a balloon; he lands in a field in Brazil after making it just past the halfway mark.

August 18

      A hotel in Quezon City, Phil., burns down, killing 73; security bars on windows and inaccessible fire escapes contribute to the death toll.

      Danny Almonte, playing for the Bronx, N.Y., Rolando Paulino All-Stars, pitches the first perfect game in the Little League World Series since 1957; it is later proved that Almonte is 14 years old, however, and his team's entire season is struck from the record books because he is two years too old to be eligible to play Little League baseball. (See August 26.)

      The 10-day consecration of the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya is completed at Red Feather Lakes, Colo.; the stupa, built to honour the teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who died in 1987, attracted 2,000 Buddhists from around the world to the dedication ceremonies.

August 19

      Three days of performance, parades, and fireworks celebrating the 800th anniversary of the city of Riga, the capital of Latvia, come to a close.

      American David Toms wins the Professional Golfers' Association of America championship, simultaneously setting a new scoring record for a major tournament championship with a score of 265, breaking the record of 267 set by Greg Norman in 1993.

August 20

      In Gaborone, Botswana, government officials from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, opposition politicians, and rebel leaders begin talks to try to settle the civil war in the country.

      An orderly march of 100,000 persons calling for greater recognition of the Berber language and culture takes place in Kabylie, a region in northeastern Algeria considered to be the centre of Berber culture. See October 3.)

August 21

      Two hundred yachts race in the America's Cup Jubilee regatta over the course of the race in which the schooner America triumphed 150 years ago, an 80-km (50-mi) course circling the Isle of Wight; the winner is Gianni Agnelli's Stealth.

      The 14th-century Orthodox monastery at Lesok, Macedonia, is destroyed by an explosion, apparently the work of ethnic Albanian terrorists; the incident is unusual, however, because cultural and religious monuments have not previously been targeted during the current civil strife in Macedonia.

August 22

      Jesse Helms, the ultraconservative Republican senator from North Carolina, announces that he will retire at the end of his term in 2003; Helms turns 80 in October.

      The Bush administration releases figures showing that the large projected U.S. budget surplus for the next several years has dwindled to a negligible amount; the causes are attributed to the general economic slowdown and the recently enacted tax cut.

      New Scientist magazine publishes a report that Hans Beekman of Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa found banana fossils in Cameroon dating to 500 BC; experts had believed that bananas did not reach Cameroon until the 10th century AD.

August 23

      Speaking at an elementary school in Crawford, Texas, Pres. George W. Bush says definitively that the U.S. will pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, though he says the timing of the withdrawal has not been determined.

      For the first time, an official of the government of China acknowledges that the country is facing an AIDS epidemic and discloses that HIV infections in China rose 67.4% in the first six months of 2001 compared with the first six months of 2000.

      Beleaguered U.S. Rep. Gary Condit of California appears on a prime-time television interview with ABC News investigator Connie Chung; the program is the most-watched show in the summer of 2001, with an estimated audience of 24 million people. (See July 11.)

August 24

      An article in Science magazine by geneticists for the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya and the U.S. National Cancer Institute reports their findings that forest elephants and savanna elephants in Africa are in fact two different species, which brings to three the number of living elephant species.

      Tom Green is sentenced in Provo, Utah, to five years in prison for bigamy and nonsupport, in spite of the pleas of his five wives.

August 25

      Crown Prince Haakon of Norway marries Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby, a commoner with a colourful past.

      The hero of East Timor's independence struggle, José Alexandre Gusmão, bows to public pressure and announces that he will run for president when elections are held in 2002. (See August 30.)

      The Women's United Soccer Association holds its first championship game, in Foxboro, Mass.; the Bay Area CyberRays defeat the Atlanta Beat 4–2 to win the Founders Cup.

August 26

      In Williamsport, Pa., Kitasuna of Tokyo, Japan, becomes the 55th world champion Little League team when it beats the nine from Apopka, Fla., 2–1. (See August 18.)

      Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs becomes the third player in major league baseball history to have four 50-home-run seasons (the other two are Babe Ruth and Mark McGwire); by season's end he has 64.

August 27

      Physical Review Letters publishes a study that suggests that the fine structure constant has increased slightly over the life of the universe; if confirmed, the finding would have astonishing inferences for other constants, such as the speed of light.

      A parade in Chisinau marks the 10th anniversary of Moldova's independence; Ukraine and Belarus also celebrate the 10th anniversaries of their independence in August.

      At the Tonga National Museum in the capital, Nuku'alofa, Prime Minister Prince 'Ulukalala Lavaka Ata officially opens the island country's first major exhibition of prehistoric artifacts, most dating to the Lapita era, about 3,000 years ago.

August 28

      The computer manufacturer and retailer Gateway announces plans to lay off one-quarter of its workforce, eliminate most of its overseas operations, and close one factory and four support centres in the U.S.

      Cuba's central bank says that U.S. coins will not be accepted as currency after October 15; the U.S. dollar has been accepted as currency on a temporary basis in Cuba since 1993.

August 29

      Australian troops seize an overcrowded Norwegian container vessel off Christmas Island to prevent it from landing on Australian territory; four days earlier the ship had rescued 434 Afghan, Sri Lankan, and Pakistani asylum seekers from a sinking Indonesian ferry. (See September 19.)

      Thirty Nigerian families file suit against the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, Inc. in U.S. federal court, contending that the drug company illegally experimented upon their children during a 1996 meningitis outbreak.

      The National Black Sports and Entertainment Hall of Fame inducts its first 24 members in New York City; among the honorees are Muhammad Ali, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Wilma Rudolph.

August 30

      Voters in East Timor go to the polls for their first free election, to select the assembly that will write the constitution for the new nation; the turnout is estimated at better than 90%. (See August 25.)

      For the first time, the general public in India may gaze upon the astonishing wealth of jewelry that was accumulated by the Nizams of Hyderabad as the collection goes on exhibit in the National Museum in New Delhi.

August 31

      Papua New Guinea signs a peace agreement with rebels in Bougainville after a decade-long civil war.

      The International Labour Organization releases a report showing that Americans worked the longest hours in the world between 1990 and 2000 and increased the hours spent on the job per year by nearly 40 over the course of the decade.

September

"As for those that carried out these attacks, there are no adequate words of condemnation. Their barbarism will stand as their shame for all eternity."

— British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in his address to his nation, September 11

September 1

      The Los Angeles Sparks overwhelm the Charlotte Sting to win the Women's National Basketball Association championship, and the team's centre, Lisa Leslie, is named Most Valuable Player.

      A fire breaks out in a mah-jongg parlour in Tokyo's most famous red-light district; the death toll, at 44, makes it Tokyo's deadliest fire since 1982.

September 2

      The Hewlett-Packard Co. announces that it will buy the Compaq Computer Corp.; they are the second and third largest personal computer manufacturers, respectively, in the U.S.

September 3

      Israel and the U.S. abandon the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, S.Af., objecting that the proposed declaration unfairly singles out Israel as an offender. (See September 8.)

      Fradique de Menezes is inaugurated as the new president of São Tomé and Príncipe; on September 25 he appoints Evaristo de Carvalho to replace Guilherme Posser da Costa as prime minister.

September 4

      Disney opens its newest theme park, Tokyo DisneySea, which has an aquatic theme, in Japan; in spite of the straitened economy in Japan, theme parks remain popular.

      An arson fire starting at the Straw Market engulfs the market, the offices of the Ministry of Tourism, an office complex, and a complex of shops and restaurants at the heart of the tourist strip in Nassau, Bahamas.

      The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences publishes a report by researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison describing how they induced human embryonic stem cells to become blood-making cells.

September 5

      Elections are held in Nagorno-Karabakh, which has declared itself independent; Azerbaijan maintains that the elections are illegal.

      At a scientific conference in Washington, D.C., scientists describe an observation by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory of energy flares that provide strong evidence of the theorized black hole at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy.

September 6

      After a summer of media attention devoted to shark attacks on swimmers, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission bans the practice of using bait to attract sharks so tourists can swim with them.

      The ABC television network announces that it will join CBS in broadcasting most of its offerings in the HDTV (high-definition television) format.

September 7

      Surgeons at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City remove a diseased gall bladder from a woman in Strasbourg, France, through the use of robotics and computer imaging; it is the first transoceanic instance of what has come to be called telesurgery.

      Counting of last week's ballots reveals that Laisenia Qarase has been elected prime minister of Fiji; he had been installed as interim prime minister by the military in July 2000 following the coup in May.

September 8

      Tajikistan's minister of culture, Abdurahim Rahimov, is murdered by a gunman outside his home in Dushanbe.

      The UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, S.Af., finally succeeds in hammering out a declaration that the attending nations can agree to, though many are still somewhat dissatisfied; the declaration condemns slavery and discrimination against ethnic minorities, refugees, and women. (See September 3.)

      At the U.S. Open women's tennis finals, telecast in prime time, American Venus Williams defeats her younger sister, Serena, to take her second straight U.S. Open title; the next day Australian Lleyton Hewitt defeats Pete Sampras of the U.S. for the men's title.

      Monsoon Wedding, a film by Indian director Mira Nair, wins the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.

September 9

      Suicide bombers attack Ahmad Shah Masoud, the leader of the anti-Taliban opposition in Afghanistan; it is initially unclear whether the assassination attempt is successful, but a spokesman finally confirms his death on September 15.

      In presidential elections held in Belarus, Pres. Alyaksandr Lukashenka declares victory hours before the first returns are in.

      The Jewish Museum Berlin, designed by Polish-born architect Daniel Libeskind, is opened with a gala attended by 800 dignitaries.

September 10

      Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei Stock Average closes at its lowest point since 1984, while the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 index in London closes below 5,000 for the first time since 1998.

      A general election in Norway results in the Labour Party's worst showing since 1924. (See October 17.)

September 11

      In a coordinated terrorist attack, two hijacked airliners strike the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, which subsequently collapse, another strikes the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., and a fourth crashes in rural Pennsylvania, apparently short of its intended goal; the total death toll is in the vicinity of 3,000.

      For the first time ever, the U.S. government closes the airspace over the United States, as well as all airports, to commercial traffic in an attempt to prevent any possible further planned terrorist strikes from taking place.

      An exceptionally violent typhoon kills five people in Tokyo and causes great damage to roads and rail.

September 12

      The North Atlantic Council, the governing council of NATO, agrees to allow the U.S. to invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter, which declares that an attack against any NATO member is to be regarded as an attack against all members; it is the first time in the alliance's 52-year history that Article 5 has been invoked.

      U.S. authorities say that they have evidence that the hijackers in the September 11 terrorist attacks were followers of Osama bin Laden and also that they have identified accomplices in a number of cities.

      The Federal Aviation Administration announces that henceforward knives and other cutting implements will not be allowed on U.S. airline flights; evidently the weapons used to hijack airliners on September 11 were of this previously permitted category.

September 13

      U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft says that federal investigators have identified 18 men who were hijackers in the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the following day the names of the 19 total number of hijackers are released; all were ticketed passengers aboard the airliners that they hijacked.

      Bond markets in the U.S. resume trading for the first time since September 11; interest rates plummet.

      The Federal Aviation Administration allows all airports in the U.S. except Logan International Airport in Boston, where two of September 11's hijacked flights originated, and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to reopen; few flights take off, however, and most of those are airplanes that had been diverted on September 11 and are returning to hub airports and their original destinations.

      The government of Nigeria promises to step in to stop the violence after three days of fighting between Muslims and Christians in the city of Jos leave hundreds dead; violence first broke out in this historically peaceful city on September 7.

      The New England Journal of Medicine publishes findings that the bacterium that causes stomach ulcers, Heliobacter pylori, is also responsible for the vast majority of stomach cancers.

September 14

      Tropical Storm Gabrielle makes landfall in Florida, causing extensive damage and flooding throughout central Florida.

      Musicians who had gathered (and become stranded) in Los Angeles for the Latin Grammy Awards, scheduled for September 11 and canceled, hold an impromptu benefit concert for the Red Cross and the New York Disaster Relief Fund.

September 15

      Pres. Pervez Musharraf pledges Pakistan's support for U.S. efforts to punish those responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks; Pakistan borders Afghanistan, and its support is seen as crucial.

      A barge collides with a piling of the Queen Isabella Causeway in Texas a few hours after midnight, causing two adjacent 24-m (80-ft) segments of the bridge to fall into the Laguna Madre channel and a number of vehicles to drive off the edge in the dark.

September 16

      The Professional Golfers' Association of America announces that the Ryder Cup golf tournament, scheduled for later this month in Sutton Coldfield, Eng., will be postponed until next year in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

September 17

      The New York Stock Exchange opens for the first time since it closed the morning of September 11.

      After a week in abeyance, major league baseball resumes playing games; it is the first major sport to return to the arena.

      The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund cancel their annual meetings, scheduled for September 29–30 in Washington, D.C.; it is the first time the institutions have ever called off a meeting.

      The government of Macedonia reluctantly agrees to accept a small NATO security force to help keep the peace after the conclusion of the 30-day weapons-collection effort.

      The General Motors Corp. agrees to buy about two-thirds of South Korea's bankrupt Daewoo Motor Co. from its creditors.

September 18

      For the second straight day, Typhoon Nari pounds Taiwan with record rainfalls, causing massive flooding and killing 79 people.

      Two days of talks between cabinet-level negotiators from North and South Korea end with a number of agreements, including plans for a new round of family visits and work to complete a rail link between the countries.

September 19

      The Organization of American States agrees by acclamation to invoke the Rio Treaty, a hemispheric mutual-defense pact.

      United Airlines announces plans to cut 20% of its workforce; since September 11 several airlines and Boeing have announced job cuts as a result of losses caused by the grounding of all flights and subsequent decreased demand layered onto problems caused by a softening economy.

      Indonesian Pres. Megawati Sukarnoputri meets with U.S. Pres. George W. Bush in Washington, D.C.; Megawati does not pledge to crack down on Muslim extremists in her fragmented country.

      The first of the 434 largely Afghan refugees turned away from Australia in late August land in Nauru, where they will be processed by officials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (See August 29.)

September 20

      In his first formal televised address to the nation since his inauguration, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush announces plans to create a new cabinet-level office to be called the Office of Homeland Security and to be headed by Tom Ridge, currently the governor of Pennsylvania.

      Fans at an exhibition ice hockey game between the New York Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers at Philadelphia's First Union Center insist on watching U.S. Pres. George W. Bush's address to the nation rather than the final period of the game.

      Rwanda adopts a new national anthem, “Rwanda Nziza,” replacing “Rwanda Rwacu,” which was felt to have ethnically divisive lyrics.

September 21

      America: A Tribute to Heroes, a two-hour benefit show to raise money for relief work in New York City and Washington, D.C., that was put together in less than a week, is broadcast on more than 30 cable and broadcast TV stations in the U.S. and in 200 other countries as well.

      After the Riigikogu (legislature) fails to decide on a new president, a special assembly chooses Arnold Ruutel to replace Lennart Meri as president of Estonia.

      The Lasker Awards for medical research are presented in a ceremony in New York City to Robert Edwards for clinical research; to Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans, and Oliver Smithies for basic medical research; and to William Foege for public service.

September 22

      Deep Space 1, a NASA probe whose primary mission ended in September 1999, surprises scientists by successfully passing within 2,250 km (1,400 mi) of the nucleus of Comet Borrelly and transmitting pictures and other data that will greatly add to scientific understanding of comets.

September 23

      In general elections in Poland, there is a lower-than-usual turnout, and the winning party is the Democratic Left Alliance, the former communist party; Solidarity not only is ousted from power but also receives too few votes to win seats in the National Assembly.

      The leftist Social Democratic Party, which has governed the German city-state of Hamburg for the past 44 years, is voted out; the gains made by the conservative Christian Democratic Union and the new rightist Law and Order Party are seen as a reaction to the discovery that the terrorist attacks in the U.S. were apparently planned in Hamburg.

      The worst U.S. coal mine disaster since 1984 takes place in Brookwood, Ala., when a pair of methane gas explosions kill 3 miners outright as well as 10 other miners attempting to rescue them.

September 24

      Pres. George W. Bush announces that all assets of suspected terrorists will be frozen, and he threatens foreign banks that fail to follow suit or cooperate with U.S. efforts with measures that would make it impossible for them to do business in the U.S.

      The U.S. House of Representatives votes to release $582 million of the $819 million in back dues that the U.S. owes to the United Nations.

September 25

      Saudi Arabia severs relations with the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, three days after the United Arab Emirates did so; now only Pakistan recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

      Basketball legend Michael Jordan announces his second comeback from retirement, declaring that he will sign a two-year contract with the Washington Wizards, sell his ownership stake in the team, and donate his salary for the season to the relief efforts in New York City and Washington, D.C.

      General Motors announces that the 2002 model year will be the last in which the Chevrolet Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird are produced; four million Camaros have been sold since the model's debut in 1967, but sales of sports cars have fallen 53% since 1990, the company reports.

September 26

      Pres. George W. Bush authorizes two air force generals to order, on their own authority, the shooting down of commercial airplanes that appear to be threatening U.S. cities.

      A pro-Taliban mob burns down the long-abandoned U.S. embassy building in Kabul, Afg.

September 27

      In Zug, Switz., an unhinged man armed with a standard Swiss army-issue assault rifle bursts into a cantonal parliament meeting and opens fire, killing 14 legislators; it is the worst mass murder in Switzerland's history.

      Ali Ahmeti, political representative of the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army in Macedonia, gives the rebel force orders to disband as part of the peace process.

September 28

      The UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution requiring all UN members to take steps to eliminate terrorism, including cooperating in any international campaign against terrorists.

      The Commonwealth cancels its biennial summit, scheduled for October 6–9 in Brisbane, Australia; in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, leaders of the 54 member nations did not want to leave their countries.

      In spite of a 10-day-old truce, a flare-up of violence in Palestinian areas in the Middle East marks the first anniversary of the new intifadah.

September 29

      Members of the Free Papua Movement, a separatist organization, occupy the city of Ilaga, capital of the Central Highlands district in Irian Jaya, in spite of the fact that Indonesia recently granted Irian Jaya autonomy.

      In a stunning upset, American Bernard Hopkins becomes the first unified middleweight champion in 14 years when he knocks out Félix Trinidad of Puerto Rico in the 12th round in front of a capacity crowd of more than 19,000 fans at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

September 30

      Pres. George W. Bush approves the disbursement of funds for the covert support of the opponents of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

      A free concert of remembrance in New York City's Carnegie Hall features, among others, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and soprano Leontyne Price, who comes out of retirement for the event.

      Japanese runner Naoko Takahashi sets a new world record for women in the Berlin Marathon, running 42.2 km (26.2 mi) in 2 hr 19 min 46 sec, nearly a full minute faster than the previous record, set in 1999 in Berlin by Kenyan Tegla Loroupe.

October

"You can not stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great."

— Text of anthrax-laden letter sent to U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle and opened on October 15

October 1

      The Swissair Group files for bankruptcy protection for most of its operations; the following day the group grounds all its flights, but the Swiss government steps in, and Swissair begins flying an abbreviated schedule on October 4.

      A car bomb explodes in the Legislative Assembly building in Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, and a gunfight ensues; 38 people are killed in the incident, for which a militant Pakistani group called Jaish-e-Muhammad claims responsibility. (See July 14.)

      Italy's highest court acquits Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of having falsified documents while acquiring a film company in 1987; he had been convicted and sentenced to prison on that charge in 1997.

      FOMA, the world's first third-generation (3G) high-speed cellular phone service, is launched in Japan.

      Condé Nast announces that the November issue of Mademoiselle, a fashion magazine for young women that had been published for 66 years, will be the last.

October 2

      NATO says that the U.S. has proved to its satisfaction that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. and that it is therefore prepared to support the U.S. in retaliating against them. (See September 12.)

      Russia and Iran sign a military accord under which Russia will sell missiles and other weapons to Iran; Russia had stopped selling arms to Iran six years earlier under pressure from the U.S.

      U.S. Pres. George W. Bush expresses explicit support for the creation of a Palestinian state.

October 3

      A deranged passenger on a Greyhound bus traveling through Tennessee attacks the bus driver; in the ensuing struggle the bus flips over, and six passengers, including the assailant, are killed.

      The pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKlein announces a new national discount program for low-income senior citizens whose health insurance coverage does not include a prescription-drug benefit.

      A meeting takes place between Algerian Prime Minister Ali Benflis and Berber leaders in which Algeria agrees to give Tamazight, the Berber language, national recognition and promises to punish police brutality against Berbers. (See August 20.)

October 4

      A Russian airliner explodes and crashes into the Black Sea, and all 76 aboard die; the cause proves to be an errant Ukrainian surface-to-air missile that went awry during training exercises.

      Health officials report that a man in Florida has been hospitalized with the first case of pulmonary anthrax to have occurred in the U.S. since 1976, but they stress that there is no cause for alarm; the man, Robert Stevens, a photo editor for the supermarket tabloid Sun, dies the following day.

      Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh, believed to be free and fair in spite of a high level of violence throughout the campaign, return a victory to the party of Khaleda Zia, who goes about forming a new government.

      San Diego Padres outfielder Rickey Henderson, batting against the Los Angeles Dodgers, hits a home run and scores his 2,246th career run, breaking the record held by Ty Cobb since 1928.

      The World Health Organization issues a report urging national governments to devote more resources to mental health; the dearth of such resources is particularly acute in the poorest countries, and the response in this area to the events of September 11 in the U.S. is singled out for praise.

October 5

      The day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shocked the U.S. administration by implicitly comparing its attempts to discourage Israeli reprisals against Palestinian attacks to former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany, Pres. George W. Bush calls Sharon's remarks “unacceptable,” an unusually strong rebuke.

      Philippine authorities announce that Mustapha Ting Emmo, a key leader of the militant Muslim group Abu Sayyaf, has surrendered.

      Barry Bonds, batting for the San Francisco Giants against the Los Angeles Dodgers, breaks Mark McGwire's single-season home-run record when he hits his 71st and 72nd home runs; he finishes the season with 73.

October 6

      In an outdoor stadium in East Lansing, Mich., a record 72,554 people watch a tie ice hockey game between Michigan State University and the University of Michigan; the previous hockey attendance record, 55,000, was set in 1957 in Moscow.

October 7

      U.S. and British forces launch air strikes against Taliban positions in Afghanistan; at the same time, U.S. forces begin dropping food packets in remote and poverty-stricken areas of Afghanistan.

      A referendum to turn a number of responsibilities over to regional governments passes in Italy; the decentralizing legislation is the first poll on constitutional change in Italy in close to half a century.

      Railtrack, the company that owns the railroad tracks in the U.K., undergoes bankruptcy reorganization in order to keep the nation's railway system from financial collapse.

      Kenyan runner Catherine Ndereba sets a new world record in the women's marathon of 2 hr 18 min 47 sec at the Chicago Marathon (see September 30); the men's winner is Ben Kimondiu of Kenya.

October 8

      It is discovered that a co-worker of Robert Stevens has been exposed to anthrax, and spores are found on Stevens's computer keyboard. (See October 4.)

      Girma Wolde-Giorgis is elected by the parliament as the second federal president of Ethiopia, succeeding Negasso Gidada.

      The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Leland H. Hartwell, R. Timothy Hunt, and Paul M. Nurse for their work in discovering the mechanisms regulating cell multiplication.

      In Italy's worst civilian air disaster in nearly 30 years, a Cessna takes a wrong turn on a taxiway in Milan and crashes into an SAS airliner about to take off, which explodes; 118 people, including 4 airport workers, are killed.

October 9

      In accordance with the terms of the peace pact worked out earlier this year, Macedonia grants amnesty to all ethnic Albanian rebels who have disarmed.

      The Nobel Prize for Physics is awarded to Carl E. Wieman, Eric A. Cornell, and Wolfgang Ketterle for their production of the Bose-Einstein condensate; the Nobel Prize for Chemistry goes to William S. Knowles, Ryoji Noyori, and K. Barry Sharpless, and the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences is awarded to Americans Joseph E. Stiglitz, George A. Akerlof, and A. Michael Spence.

      The United Service Organization appoints entertainer Wayne Newton its official celebrity front man, replacing Bob Hope, who had served in that capacity since the early 1950s.

October 10

      In order to avoid a no-confidence vote, Sri Lankan Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga dissolves the government and calls for new elections. (See December 5.)

      The five major American television news organizations agree to censor tapes of Osama bin Laden to remove inflammatory propaganda and possibly prevent the airing of clandestine signals to operatives.

October 11

      The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to V.S. Naipaul, a Trinidadian-born British writer.

      The broadcasting system NBC agrees to buy Telemundo Communications Group, the second biggest Spanish-language broadcaster in the U.S.

October 12

      The centennial Nobel Prize for Peace is awarded jointly to the United Nations and its secretary-general, Ghanaian Kofi Annan.

      The day after a warning from the FBI that more terrorist attacks may occur in the U.S. in the next few days, U.S. government officials say they have received more credible threats of a possible attack in the next two days; citizens are instructed to be calm but wary.

      Erin M. O'Connor, an assistant to NBC newsman Tom Brokaw, is diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax in New York City; as was the case in Florida, the anthrax spores apparently came in the mail.

      The Polaroid Corp. files for bankruptcy protection; its core business of instant photographs was decimated by competition from computer imaging.

October 13

      Company officials at American Media, Inc. (owner of the Sun tabloid), say that blood tests have shown that five more employees, in addition to the man who died and two others who were infected with anthrax, have been exposed to anthrax.

      After negotiations between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Microsoft Corp. fail to reach an agreement by a court-imposed deadline, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly appoints Eric D. Green, a specialist in dispute resolution, to mediate between the parties.

October 14

      Ireland holds a state funeral for 10 Irish Republican Army volunteers who were hanged by British authorities in 1920 and 1921.

      A large monument to nationalist leader Stepan Bandera is unveiled in Drohobych, Ukraine; Bandera had cooperated with Nazi Germany, believing that German victories would lead to independence for Ukraine.

October 15

      An anthrax-laden letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is opened by one of his assistants, and the baby son of an ABC news producer in New York City is diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax; the following day it is revealed that the anthrax is of exceptionally high quality and that the anthrax-laden letters addressed to Daschle and to Tom Brokaw appear to have been sent by the same person.

      The venerable Bethlehem Steel Corp. files for bankruptcy protection.

      Brill's Content, a magazine about the media, suspends publication; the previous day Lingua Franca, a journal chronicling academic life, had stopped publication.

      New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is named a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for his support to British families affected by the September 11 terrorist attacks.

      Comedian Whoopi Goldberg receives the Mark Twain Prize of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.; the award is given annually for contributions to American humour.

October 16

      The German pharmaceutical company Bayer AG announces that it will triple its production of Cipro, which is the primary antibiotic used to fight anthrax; on October 24 Bayer agrees to sell Cipro to the U.S. government for half the price it had been charging.

      Peace talks to end the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo begin in Addis Ababa, Eth.

October 17

      Rechavam Ze'evi, the Israeli minister of tourism and a right-wing politician, is assassinated by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. (See October 23.)

      Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg submits the Labour Party government's resignation after a poor showing in elections on September 10; a centre-right coalition led by the Christian People's Party under Kjell Magne Bondevik takes over on October 19.

      In London the Booker Prize for literature is awarded to Australian author Peter Carey for True History of the Kelly Gang.

      Daniel S. Goldin announces that he will resign as head of NASA, an agency he has led since 1992.

October 18

      The men who were convicted in May of having conspired with Osama bin Laden to bomb the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 are sentenced to life in prison without parole.

      Japan's legislature approves a measure that will allow Japanese troops to go overseas to provide logistic and humanitarian support to U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan; the Japanese constitution forbids the use of troops in a combat situation, however.

October 19

      U.S. ground forces for the first time enter the war in Afghanistan.

      Leszek Miller of the Democratic Left Alliance is inaugurated as prime minister of Poland.

      A wooden fishing boat carrying at least 400 refugees from the Middle East sinks in the Java Sea off Indonesia; only 44 survive.

October 20

      Investigators say that a day after an anthrax-laden letter addressed to “the Editor of the New York Post” was found, anthrax spores have been found in the mail room of the U.S. House of Representatives.

      In an address at the annual summit meeting of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Shanghai, Pres. George W. Bush declares that the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. were intended to disrupt the world economy.

October 21

      The San Jose Earthquakes defeat the Los Angeles Galaxy in overtime to win the Major League Soccer championship in Columbus, Ohio; Dwayne DeRosario, who scored the winning goal, is voted Most Valuable Player of the game.

      After a long and fractious search, the U.S. Olympic Committee elects Lloyd Ward its new CEO; Ward is the first African American to head the USOC.

October 22

      Two postal workers in Washington, D.C., die of pulmonary anthrax, and two others are hospitalized with the same disease; a fifth postal worker, who works at a different facility from the previous four, is diagnosed with pulmonary anthrax on October 25.

      East Timor's new constituent assembly requests that the United Nations, which is administering the territory, grant it independence on May 20, 2002.

October 23

      In an effort to save the peace process in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republican Army begins putting its weapons verifiably beyond use.

      Israel turns down a U.S. request that Israeli forces be withdrawn from Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank, maintaining that the forces will remain until the Palestinian Authority has arrested those responsible for the murder of Rechavam Ze'evi. (See October 17.)

      A UN appeals court overturns the conviction of three Bosnian Croats whom the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague had found guilty of persecution, saying there was insufficient evidence to convict; it is the first time a ruling by the war crimes tribunal has been reversed.

October 24

      An accident caused by a truck swerving into the path of another truck in a tunnel 17 km (10.6 mi) long in Bellinzona, Switz., results in a conflagration that kills 11 people and closes the heavily used tunnel to all traffic for several weeks.

      Pope John Paul II apologizes to China for what he calls errors by Roman Catholic missions; relations between China and the Holy See have been particularly tense since the canonization as martyrs on Oct. 1, 2000, of 120 Chinese whom Beijing regards as criminals.

October 25

      The U.S. Congress passes an antiterrorism bill that grants the government expanded rights to use electronic surveillance and expands its ability to detain immigrants without charges.

      The Microsoft Corp. releases the newest version of its personal computer operating system, Windows XP.

October 26

      South Africa and Burundi sign an agreement to allow South African peacekeeping troops to protect the transitional government due to be established in Burundi.

      Bernadine Healy, the high-profile president of the American Red Cross, suddenly resigns; disagreements between Healy and the board of governors had come to a head over her handling of the September 11 disaster fund.

      Abdul Haq, an ethnic Pashtun anti-Taliban leader, is executed by the Taliban days after he sneaked into Afghanistan from exile in Pakistan in hopes of putting together a Pashtun-based opposition to the Taliban.

October 27

      A cofounder of the Intel Corp., Gordon Moore, and his wife, Betty Moore, donate $600 million to the California Institute of Technology in the single largest gift ever given to an American university.

      The Democratic Alliance, a merger of the two majority-white parties, the New National Party and the Democratic Party in South Africa, collapses when former New National Party members pull out.

      In the Breeders' Cup Classic race at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., Tiznow, ridden by Chris McCarron, becomes the first horse in 18 years to win the event two years in a row.

October 28

      Gunmen enter a Christian church in Bahawalpur, Pak., during services and mow down the worshipers, killing 16; it is assumed that the act is a reaction to the U.S. bombing in Afghanistan.

October 29

      Once again, the U.S. government warns the general public that it has credible information that there may be some sort of terrorist attack against the U.S. in the next few days.

      The U.S. Supreme Court hears cases outside the Supreme Court building, for the first time since 1935, while the courthouse is searched for evidence of anthrax; no workers are found to have been exposed.

October 30

      Jacques Nasser resigns as chief executive of the Ford Motor Co.; he is replaced by William Clay Ford, Jr.

      Nelson O. Oduber is sworn in as prime minister of Aruba.

October 31

      A hospital worker in New York City, Kathy T. Nguyen, dies of pulmonary anthrax; investigators are baffled as to where she was exposed to it.

      A bridge designed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1502 to cross the Golden Horn inlet in Istanbul opens near Oslo; while Leonardo's design was for a bridge 352 m (1,155 ft) long, this bridge, over a highway, is 67 m (220 ft) long and proves that the design works.

      Five women who had been hanged as witches in Salem, Mass., more than 300 years earlier are officially exonerated.

November

"In hindsight, we made some very bad investments in noncore businesses that performed worse than we ever could have conceived."

— Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, to investment analysts, two weeks before the company's financial collapse on November 28

November 1

      The U.S. recalls its ambassador from Caracas after Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez Frías criticizes the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

      A transitional power-sharing government, headed by Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, is inaugurated in Bujumbura, Burundi; the majority of the population of Burundi is Hutu.

November 2

      The U.S. government and the Microsoft Corp. announce that they have reached an agreement to settle the long-running antitrust lawsuit; on November 6, 9 of the 18 states that had joined the lawsuit and the District of Columbia indicate they will not sign the agreement.

      The last issue of the daily newspaper the Atlanta (Ga.) Journal is published; it is absorbed by the Atlanta Constitution, which will henceforward be published as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

      King Muhammad VI of Morocco completes a two-day trip to Western Sahara to emphasize his country's claim to the disputed area.

November 3

      The ruling People's Action Party wins its ninth consecutive election in Singapore in elections in which only 29 of the 84 seats were contested.

      For the first time since it was painted in 1931, the original of the Norman Rockwell painting The Barefoot Boy, commissioned by the Coca-Cola Co., is placed on view to the public, in the exhibition “Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

November 4

      The Arizona Diamondbacks unexpectedly come from behind in the bottom of the ninth inning of game seven of the World Series to defeat the New York Yankees 3–2 and win the Major League Baseball championship in Phoenix, Ariz.

      After being delayed twice, first by the September 11 terrorist attacks and then by the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, the television Emmy Awards are finally presented in Los Angeles; winners include the HBO comedy series Sex and the City and the NBC drama The West Wing and actors Eric McCormack, James Gandolfini, Patricia Heaton, Edie Falco, Peter MacNicol, Bradley Whitford, Doris Roberts, and Allison Janney.

      The much-anticipated film version of J.K. Rowling's best-selling novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone premieres in London; the film, released as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the U.S. on November 14, breaks box-office records in both countries.

      The New York City Marathon is won by Tesfaye Jifar of Ethiopia with a time of 2 hr 7 min 43 sec; Margaret Okayo of Kenya, with a time of 2 hr 24 min 21 sec, is the first woman across the finish line.

      Hurricane Michelle makes landfall on Cuba's south coast, killing five people and causing great damage to the sugar-producing area; it is the worst storm to hit Cuba in 50 years.

      In presidential elections held in Nicaragua, Enrique Bolaños Geyer of the Constitutionalist Liberal Party wins a surprisingly large victory over Daniel Ortega Saavedra of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.

November 5

      IBM announces that it is placing a number of its software tools in the public domain as the first step toward creating a new open-source organization to be called Eclipse.

November 6

      After losing in the first ballot on November 2, David Trimble wins reelection as the head of a renewed power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. (See August 11.)

      The Belgian airline Sabena is declared bankrupt, and its final scheduled flight, from Benin, lands at Brussels International Airport.

      Republican Michael R. Bloomberg is elected to succeed Rudolph Giuliani as mayor of New York City; it is the first time in New York's history that two consecutive Republicans have become mayor.

November 7

      A federal appeals court in the U.S. vacates the $5.3 billion award Exxon was ordered to pay in 1994 for the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, and the case is sent back to the Alaska district court for a reassessment of damages.

      For the first time since the crash of the Concorde outside Paris in July 2000, the supersonic passenger craft flies again on a commercial flight, from Paris to New York City.

      Taiwan for the first time in more than 50 years allows direct trade with and investment in China.

      Registration begins for the new Internet domain designation .biz.

      John Ashbery is named winner of the Wallace Stevens Award, a lifetime achievement award, by the Academy of American Poets.

November 8

      First Minister Henry McLeish of Scotland resigns in the face of revelations of undeclared income that he realized by subletting his office; Jack McConnell is appointed to replace him on November 22.

      A U.S. federal judge issues an order to temporarily stop the Department of Justice's plans to revoke the medical license of any Oregon doctor who prescribes lethal medications to terminally ill patients under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, which has been in effect since 1997.

November 9

      Representatives from some 140 countries gather in Doha, Qatar, for the fourth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization.

      With its stock price in free fall, Enron Corp. agrees to be acquired by its rival Dynegy Inc. (See November 28.)

November 10

      After 15 years of negotiations, China becomes a member of the World Trade Organization; the following day Taiwan becomes the organization's 144th member.

      U.S. Pres. George W. Bush makes his first speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations; he emphasizes the responsibility of all UN members to fight terrorism and reminds them that Osama bin Laden has condemned the organization.

      After several days of battle, anti-Taliban forces capture the northern Afghanistan stronghold of Mazar-e Sharif.

      Australian Prime Minister John Howard is elected to a third term of office.

November 11

      Canada 3000, Canada's second largest airline company, goes bankrupt and abruptly ceases operations.

      St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire, who broke Roger Maris's single-season home-run record in 1998 only to see his own record broken in 2001 by Barry Bonds, announces his retirement from major league baseball. (See November 19.)

November 12

      American Airlines Flight 587, en route from New York City to Santo Domingo, Dom.Rep., crashes shortly after takeoff into the Rockaway neighbourhood of the New York City borough of Queens, killing 260 people on the airplane and several people on the ground.

      The huge underground neutrino-detection apparatus known as the Super-Kamiokande at the Kamioka Neutrino Observatory in Japan is nearly destroyed by an accident in which thousands of photomultipliers implode in a chain reaction.

      A list compiled by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal finds for the eighth year in a row that Hong Kong has the freest economy in the world.

November 13

      Pres. George W. Bush signs an executive order permitting foreign nationals suspected of terrorism to be tried by military tribunals, with fewer rights than defendants in U.S. civil courts enjoy. (See November 23.)

      Taliban fighters withdraw from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and, though the U.S. government asks that the anti-Taliban forces not occupy the city until a new government has been agreed upon, the forces move in and take control.

      The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops elects Wilton D. Gregory of the diocese of Belleville, Ill., as its new president; he is the first African American to be elected to this position.

November 14

      Unification talks between North and South Korea break off abruptly; at issue is South Korea's maintenance of a military state of alert that began with the start of the war in Afghanistan.

      The aid workers from Shelter Now who had been arrested on August 5 on charges of proselytizing for Christianity are abandoned by their Taliban captors outside Kabul and are rescued by U.S. military forces.

      The National Book Awards are presented to Jonathan Franzen for his fiction work The Corrections, Andrew Solomon for his nonfiction book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, Alan Dugan for his poetry collection Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry, and Virginia Euwer Wolff for her young-adult book True Believer; playwright Arthur Miller is given a medal for distinguished contribution to American letters.

November 15

      The U.S. Congress agrees on an aviation security bill that will see the federal government take over airport security screening within a year and provide training for the workers; the bill is signed into law on November 20.

      Philip Morris, which owns Kraft Foods and the Miller Brewing Co. as well as the two major tobacco companies Philip Morris U.S.A. and Philip Morris International, announces that it will change its name next year to the Altria Group; it hopes that the new name will not be associated solely with tobacco products in the public's mind.

      Roger Clemens, a pitcher for the New York Yankees, wins his sixth Cy Young Award.

November 16

      Investigators sifting through impounded mail sent to Capitol Hill discover an anthrax-laden envelope addressed to Sen. Patrick Leahy that is similar to those sent to Sen. Tom Daschle and newsman Tom Brokaw; evidently, the letter was initially misdirected to the State Department, spreading anthrax spores wherever it went.

      German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder narrowly wins a vote to allow German troops to be deployed in the war against terrorism; it would be the first use of German troops outside Europe in a combat role since 1945.

      Macedonia adopts 15 constitutional amendments to give civil rights to ethnic Albanians.

      Miss Nigeria, Agbani Darego, is crowned Miss World in Sun City, S.Af.; she is the first black African to win the international beauty pageant.

November 17

      In Yugoslavia the Serbian province of Kosovo holds its first democratic legislative election; the majority of the seats go to the party of ethnic Albanian nationalist Ibrahim Rugova.

      After a week of torrential rains causes flooding that kills nine people, the rains in Austin, Texas, ease up.

      Lennox Lewis defeats Hasim Rahman in Las Vegas, Nev., to retake the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation heavyweight titles.

November 18

      The oil companies Conoco Inc. and Phillips Petroleum Co. announce plans to merge into a company to be known as ConocoPhillips.

      Georgi Parvanov of the Socialist Party is the victor over incumbent Pres. Petar Stoyanov in runoff presidential elections in Bulgaria.

November 19

      The Olympic torch is lit in a ceremony at Mt. Olympus in Greece; it will be flown to the U.S. and carried throughout the country until it reaches Salt Lake City, Utah, to open the Winter Games in February 2002.

      Barry Bonds is named the National League Most Valuable Player for a record fourth time; the next day Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki is named the American League's MVP, a week after being voted Rookie of the Year. (See November 11.)

November 20

      Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen's Social Democratic Party in legislative elections loses to the Liberal Party, which promises to limit immigration to the country; Anders Fogh Rasmussen is appointed prime minister on November 27.

      The insurgent Moro National Liberation Front announces it is abrogating a 1996 peace agreement with the Philippine government after making a surprise attack on an army base; it is unclear how many former MNLF fighters will heed the renewed call to arms.

November 21

      Ottilie Lundgren, an elderly woman living alone in rural Connecticut, becomes the fifth person in the U.S. to die of pulmonary anthrax; as in the earlier case of Kathy Nguyen, experts have no idea how Lundgren might have been exposed to the disease.

      The British cruise line P&O Princess Cruises and the Miami, Fla.-based Royal Caribbean Cruises announce that they will merge; the new company, tentatively named RCP Cruise Lines, will surpass Carnival as the world's largest cruise ship company.

      Four American food companies sign deals with Cuba to sell it food to help make up for the stocks that were destroyed by Hurricane Michelle; they are the first trade deals made by American companies with Cuba since the U.S. trade embargo was established in 1959. (See December 16.)

November 22

      Scientists at the American biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., say they have created 24 completely normal cow clones. (See November 25.)

      A landslide kills approximately 80 people illegally working a closed open-pit gold mine in Filadelfia, Colom.

      The first official papal e-mail is sent by Pope John Paul II from a laptop in his office in the Vatican; the message transmits a document that includes an apology for past injustices to South Pacific islanders committed by Roman Catholic missionaries.

      Pakistan closes the Taliban embassy in Islamabad.

November 23

      Officials in Spain tell U.S. officials that Spain will not extradite the eight men it has charged with complicity in the September 11 terrorist attacks without a guarantee that they will be tried in a civilian court rather than the military tribunal that Pres. George. W. Bush has said he would implement for trying suspected terrorists. (See November 13.)

      Marks & Spencer announces that it is selling the venerable clothing retailer Brooks Brothers to Retail Brand Alliance Inc., which owns, among other brands, Casual Corner.

November 24

      The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ratifies changes to the country's legal code that make women equal to men before the law and no longer subject to their husbands; the new code will become effective on Jan. 1, 2002.

      Taliban soldiers surrender their last stronghold in northern Afghanistan, the city of Kunduz.

      A Crossair jet crashes while coming in to land at the airport in Zürich, Switz., killing 24 of the 32 people aboard; Crossair is the designated successor airline to the defunct Swissair.

November 25

      Taliban prisoners of war being held in a prison outside Mazar-e Sharif, Afg., revolt; by the time the revolt is put down on November 27, 450 persons are dead, including one CIA operative from the U.S.

      Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., announces that it has successfully cloned a human embryo; its purpose is to acquire embryonic stem cells for research into cures for various conditions, among them the neurodegenerative diseases. (See November 22.)

      In presidential elections in Honduras, Ricardo Maduro, of the National Party, defeats the ruling Liberal Party's candidate, Rafael Pineda; Maduro had run on an anticrime platform.

November 26

      The National Bureau of Economic Research declares that the U.S. economy officially entered a recession in March, ending a decade of expansion, the longest in history.

      An AIDS advocacy group goes to court in South Africa to force the government to make a drug widely available that reduces by 50% the chance of transmission of HIV from an infected mother to her newborn baby. (See December 14.)

      A court in Russia orders the closure of TV-6, the last major independent television station in Russia.

November 27

      The Nepalese army launches an air and ground offensive against Maoist insurgents who seek to topple the government; following a weekend of rebel attacks, King Gyanendra declares a state of emergency. (See July 19.)

      The Cayman Islands, known as a haven for tax evaders, signs an agreement with the U.S. to share information that will make it possible for the U.S. to uncover tax violators and money laundering.

November 28

      As the stock prices of the energy giant Enron collapse, Dynegy backs out of the deal it had made to buy the company, saying that Enron failed to disclose the depth of its financial problems. (See November 9.)

      Chiquita Brands International (formerly known as the United Fruit Co.), a major global producer of bananas and other fruit, files a plan for bankruptcy protection. (See January 25.)

      The World Health Organization releases a report saying that 40 million people in the world have either HIV or AIDS; 25 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, but the highest rates of increase occurred in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

November 29

      In Gaborone, Botswana, representatives of 30 countries plus the diamond industry agree on a certification process for the diamond trade intended to prevent diamond profits from supporting armed conflict in Africa.

      Officials in Nigeria disclose that a cholera outbreak has killed at least 700 people in the northern part of the country.

      Owing to a precipitous decline in advertising revenue, the publisher of Asiaweek magazine, based in Hong Kong, announces that it is ceasing publication.

      Former Beatle George Harrison dies of cancer in Los Angeles.

November 30

      Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda ceremoniously reestablish the East African Community in Arusha, Tanz.; the East African Community was originally established in 1967, but it ceased to exist in 1977.

      The Apartheid Museum, which traces the history of the apartheid system and gives visitors a sense of what it was like to live under South Africa's former policy of racial segregation, opens in Johannesburg.

      The Caribbean Journal of Science publishes a report of the discovery off the coast of the Dominican Republic of a dwarf gecko that is 1.9 cm (0.75 in) long; it is the world's smallest reptile.

December

"It's not enough to choose a president. Argentina is insolvent."

— Eduardo Camaño, acting president of Argentina, in a television interview

December 1

      Legislative elections in Taiwan give Pres. Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party a majority of the seats in the parliament as it supplants the Kuomintang as the ruling party.

      Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife, Princess Masako, become the parents of a baby girl in Japan; on December 7 she is ceremonially named Princess Aiko.

      Argentine Pres. Fernando de la Rúa issues an order that no one may withdraw more than $250 a week from a bank account; the previous days had seen bank runs as panicky citizens sought to protect themselves in a collapsing economy.

December 2

      In the largest corporate bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, the Enron Corp. files for bankruptcy protection, at the same time filing a lawsuit against Dynegy Inc. for backing out of a buyout agreement. (See December 5.)

      The annual John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Honors Gala celebrates the artistic achievements of actor and singer Julie Andrews, actor Jack Nicholson, pianist Van Cliburn, tenor Luciano Pavarotti, and composer Quincy Jones.

      France defeats Australia to win its ninth Davis Cup in tennis competition in Melbourne, Australia.

      Voters in Switzerland overwhelmingly reject a proposal to disband its citizen army.

December 3

      It is revealed that one of the last 80 Taliban prisoners who surrendered on December 1 after the November uprising at a prison in Mazar-e Sharif, Afg., is an American citizen, John Walker.

      The long-awaited invention from Dean Kamen that has been variously code-named “It” or “Ginger” and has been touted as being epochal is unveiled; the Segway Human Transporter is a two-wheeled battery-powered gyroscopic scooter with a top speed of about 25 km/h (15 mph).

      A prototype antimissile weapon destroys a dummy warhead in a second consecutive successful test of technology for the proposed U.S. national missile-defense shield.

December 4

      In a breakthrough, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clerides agree to hold face-to-face negotiations in an attempt to bring peace to the divided island. (See December 29.)

      U.S. Pres. George W. Bush freezes the assets of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the largest Muslim charity in the U.S., saying it supports the Palestinian organization Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Jerusalem over the past few days.

      The first bridge over the Mekong River opens to traffic, connecting eastern and western Cambodia by road for the first time.

December 5

      Four Afghan factions, shepherded by a UN envoy and diplomats from the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia, agree to an interim government for Afghanistan. (See December 22.)

      An Enron spokesman confirms that it paid out $55 million in bonuses to top employees shortly before filing for bankruptcy protection; separately, the U.S. Department of Labor announces that it is investigating the management of Enron employees' 401(k) retirement accounts. (See December 2.)

      The opposition United National Party wins legislative elections in Sri Lanka; Ranil Wickremesinghe is sworn in to replace Ratnasiri Wickramanayake as prime minister on December 9. (See December 24.)

      The televangelist Pat Robertson resigns as president of the Christian Coalition, a rightist American political organization.

      The principal owner and former CEO of Sotheby's auction house, A. Alfred Taubman, is convicted in a U.S. federal court of having conspired to fix fees charged to sellers.

December 6

      The name of the Canadian province of Newfoundland is officially changed to Newfoundland and Labrador.

      Chivas Regal, representing Scotland, defeats the Tigresses, representing the U.S., to win the 20th annual World Elephant Polo Association championship in Chitwan, Nepal.

December 7

      The Taliban abandons its last stronghold in Afghanistan, Kandahar, though U.S. forces are unable to locate either the head of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, Mohammad Omar, or Osama bin Laden.

      A dance commissioned for the Olympic Arts Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah, in February 2002, Here . . . Now, a tribute to runner Florence Griffith Joyner choreographed by Judith Jamison, has its premiere by the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater in New York City.

      The Right Livelihood Awards are presented in Stockholm to Uri and Rachel Avnery, Israeli peace activists; Angie Zelter, Ellen Moxley, and Ulla Roder, campaigners against Britain's Trident nuclear submarines; Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian who was an originator of “liberation theology”; and José Antonio Abreu, a Venezuelan founder of children's and youth orchestras.

December 8

      After a week of rioting over rents charged in a slum on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, that has left 15 people dead, leaders and residents of various ethnic groups hold a peace rally; the tenants are mainly Luo and Luya, and the landlords are mostly Nubians.

December 9

      The World Health Organization confirms that there is an outbreak of Ebola fever in Gabon near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the Red Cross warns on December 14 that the disease is spreading quickly.

December 10

      Accusations of corruption and political defections force new elections in Trinidad and Tobago less than one year after the last election; the legislative seats are divided equally between the ruling United National Congress and the opposition People's National Movement. (See December 24.)

      A one-day strike in protest against the economic policies of Pres. Hugo Chávez Frías virtually shuts down Venezuela.

      The 2001 Nobel Prizes are presented in ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo.

December 11

      The U.S. government brings its first indictment resulting from the September 11 terrorist attacks against Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen whom U.S. officials suspect of originally having been part of the group of airline hijackers; he will be tried in federal court.

      U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft says that the U.S. has broken up the largest commercial operation to smuggle illegal immigrants in history; the investigation focused on a bus company called Golden State Transportation.

      The Science and Technology Foundation of Japan announces the winners of the Japan Prize: Timothy Berners-Lee, for inventing the World Wide Web, and Anne McClaren and Andrzej K. Tarkouski, for their work on mammalian embryonic development.

December 12

      Chinese Pres. Jiang Zemin arrives in Myanmar (Burma) for a three-day visit to discuss transportation and trade ties; it is the first visit by a Chinese president since the Myanmar junta came to power in 1988.

      The centennial of the first transatlantic telegraph signal is celebrated in a reenactment when, 100 years to the minute after the original, Guglielmo Marconi Giovanelli, the grandson of Guglielmo Marconi, sends a signal from Poldhu in Cornwall, Eng., which is received on Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

      The last jai alai game is played in Connecticut; the first fronton had opened in 1972 as a way to bring gambling revenues to the state.

December 13

      Five armed men attack the Parliament House in New Delhi, and, in a gun battle outside, they are killed before gaining entrance; five police officers, a driver, and a gardener are also killed, and two more people die later. (See December 21.)

      Israel announces that it is breaking off contact with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, characterizing him as “irrelevant.”

      Pres. George W. Bush formally announces the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

      The U.S. releases an amateur videotape that government officials believe was made on November 9; the tape shows Osama bin Laden gloating about the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

December 14

      An emergency antiterrorism bill passes both houses of Parliament to become law in Great Britain.

      A high court judge in South Africa rules that the government must make available to HIV-positive pregnant women a low-cost drug that will reduce the risk of transferring the infection to their babies. (See November 26.)

      Koloa Talake becomes the new prime minister of Tuvalu after Faimalaga Luka loses a no-confidence vote on December 7.

December 15

      European Union leaders agree to set up a constitutional convention to revisit its institutions; the convention, to be headed by former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, is to begin work in March 2002.

      Throughout the U.S., 7,500 high-school seniors retake the SAT tests; their original exams were quarantined during the anthrax scare and never reached the Educational Testing Service in New Jersey for scoring.

      Ethnic clashes break out in the provincial capital of Mendi in Papua New Guinea and continue for the next five days; some 25 people are killed in the fighting.

December 16

      The beginning of the three-day Eid al-Fitr festival is celebrated with exceptional enthusiasm in Kabul, Afg., as residents enjoy freedoms and pleasures forbidden to them under Taliban rule.

      The Philadelphia Orchestra plays its first program in its new home, Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts; the project to build the new hall, first proposed in 1908, got under way in 1986.

      Champion calf roper Cody Ohl wins the all-around world championship of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association in the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Nev.

      The first commercial shipment of food from the U.S. in almost 40 years arrives in Cuba; the consignment consists of frozen chicken thighs sold to the island by Archer Daniels Midland Co. (See November 21.)

December 17

      Armed men storm the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in an apparent coup attempt against Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide; they are unsuccessful.

      Vivendi Universal of France announces that it will buy the television and film units of USA Networks Inc.

      Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres announces his resignation after candidates from the opposition Social Democrats are victorious in local elections.

      The parliament that was elected on December 5 in the first democratic elections in the Solomon Islands since the June 2000 coup selects Sir Allan Kemakeza as the new prime minister.

      Portuguese association football (soccer) player Luis Figo, of the Real Madrid team, is named FIFA World Player of the Year; American Mia Hamm becomes the first player to win the newly established award for women.

December 18

      A federal judge overturns the death sentence of celebrated black activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1982 of having killed a police officer in 1981; the judge lets the conviction stand, however.

      The Parliament of France approves a bill to give a bit more autonomy to Corsica.

      The World Meteorological Organization says that 2001 will have been the second warmest year on record, with an average surface temperature of 14.42 °C (57.96 °F); the warmest year on record is 1998.

December 19

      The U.S. federal government indicts Tyson Foods, Inc., the largest meat producer in the U.S., for smuggling illegal immigrants from Mexico to work in its meat-processing plants.

      AT&T agrees to sell its cable television business to Comcast Corp.

      Newsmagazine star Katie Couric and the NBC network sign a television news contract for the biggest amount ever—about $60 million over five years.

      A botanist in Australia says that he has rediscovered a shrub, Asterolasia buxifolia, that for 130 years was believed extinct.

December 20

      After several days of rioting and looting throughout Argentina, Pres. Fernando de la Rúa resigns.

      The UN authorizes a security force, to be led by Great Britain, to assist in the transition to a new government in Afghanistan.

      A series of wildfires, many of them set by teenagers, begin burning in New South Wales, Australia; at year's end the fires are continuing to destroy houses and land around Sydney.

      Fire department officials in New York City declare that the fires from the World Trade Center disaster on September 11 have finally been extinguished.

December 21

      In reaction to the raid on its Parliament House (see December 13), India recalls its ambassador to Pakistan and cuts off transportation ties between the countries.

      Hamas announces that it is suspending the use of suicide attacks in Israel.

      Science magazine documents sightings of a previously unknown squid, unlike known species in many ways, that has been seen on several occasions near the seafloor in many of the world's oceans.

      The world's fastest rollercoaster, the Dodonpa, opens at the Fujikyu Highlands amusement park in Japan; it reaches speeds of up to 170 km/h (107 mph).

December 22

      Hamid Karzai is sworn in as head of the interim government in Afghanistan; two rival warlords in the country, Rashid Dostum and Ismail Khan, attend the ceremony, which bodes well for the future of the country. (See December 5.)

      An American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, Fla., makes an emergency landing in Boston after passengers and crew subdue a British man, Richard Reid, who was attempting to ignite the soles of his shoes, which were filled with powerful explosives.

December 23

      Adolfo Rodríguez Saá is sworn in as interim president of Argentina and immediately announces the suspension of payments on the external debt; it is the biggest debt default in history.

December 24

      A truce agreed to by the new government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam goes into effect. (See December 5.)

      Patrick Manning takes office as prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago after having been selected by the president. (See December 10.)

      The Adolph Coors Co. announces that it will acquire the Carling operations of Bass Brewers from Interbrew; Carling is the most popular beer in Britain.

December 25

      In his annual Christmas address, Pope John Paul II enjoins the faithful to save the children of the world, as the hope of humanity rests on the children.

December 26

      The Qatar-based television network Al-Jazeera broadcasts excerpts from a videotaped speech by Osama bin Laden; Bin Laden says that he is speaking three months after the September 11 terrorist attacks and looks rather gaunt and pale.

December 27

      Presidential elections are held in Zambia; the winner, from a field of 11 candidates, is Levy Mwanawasa, but international observers cast doubts on the vote-counting process.

December 28

      The Um-Kalthoum Museum, dedicated to the life and career of the great singing star in Egypt from the 1920s through the 1960s, opens in Cairo.

      Bill Cartwright, who played as the centre on the Chicago Bulls championship teams in 1991, 1992, and 1993, is named head coach of the professional basketball team.

December 29

      Nearly 300 people are killed when a firecracker ignites fireworks stands lining narrow streets in Lima, Peru.

      For the first time since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash enters the Greek area to have dinner at the home of Pres. Glafcos Clerides in Nicosia; on December 5 Clerides had dined in the home of Denktash. (See December 4.)

      The city of Buffalo, N.Y., begins digging out after a snowstorm that began on December 24 dumped 206 cm (82.3 in) of snow on the city in five days and thereby made this by far the snowiest December in the city's history.

December 30

      Adolfo Rodríguez Saá resigns as interim president of Argentina; Ramón Puerta declines to resume the position.

      In an effort to head off an imminent war with India, Pakistan arrests Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of one of the militant Muslim groups believed to be behind the attack on India's Parliament House.

December 31

      Eduardo Camaño takes the post of acting president of Argentina.

      La Scala, Milan's famous opera house, closes for renovation; it is scheduled to reopen in 2004.

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