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pp-move-indefUse mdy dates|date=March 2011Year dab|2002Events by month (2002)Year nav|2002C21 year in topic NOTOC 2002 ( Roman numerals|MMII ) was a Common year starting on Tuesday|common year that started on a Tuesday . In the Gregorian calendar , it was the 2002nd year of Anno Domini , the 2nd year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century , and the 3rd of the 2000s (decade)|2000s decade . 2002 was a palindrome year. By coincidence, the last palindrome year (1991) was also a common year starting on Tuesday. The next time this will happen is between 5995 and 6006.
The year 2002 is designated the:
International Year of Ecotourism and Mountains
Year of the Outback in Australia
National Science Year in the United Kingdom
Autism Awareness Year in the United Kingdom
Events
January
January 1
* The Treaty on Open Skies|Open Skies mutual surveillance treaty, initially signed in 1992 , officially enters into force.
* Euro notes and coins are introduced in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Finland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and the Netherlands.
January 8 & ndash; The No Child Left Behind Act is signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush .
January 9 The United States Department of Justice announces it will pursue a criminal investigation of Enron .
January 10 & ndash; Enrique Bolaños begins his 5-year term as President of the Republic of Nicaragua .
January 14 & ndash; The asylum case of Adelaide Abankwah is heard in New York.
January 16 & ndash; The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and freezes the assets of Osama bin Laden , Al-Qaeda , and the Taliban .
January 17 & ndash; The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo displaces an estimated 400,000 people.
January 23 & ndash; Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Pakistan , accused of being a CIA agent by his captors.
January 27 & ndash; Several explosions at a military dump in Lagos , Nigeria kill more than 1,000.noMention
January 31 & ndash; A large section of the Antarctic Larsen Ice Shelf begins disintegrating, consuming about convert|3,250|km|mi|abbr=on over 35 days.
February
February 1 & ndash; Kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is murdered in Karachi , Pakistan .
February 3 & ndash; Costa Rica holds presidential and congressional elections.
February 6 - King George VI 's 50th Anniversary of his Death in 1952
February 8 & ndash; February 24 & ndash; The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City, Utah .
February 9 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Queen Elizabeth 's Sister Princess Margaret dies in her sleep aged 71 after suffering a major stroke .
February 12
* The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloševic begins at the United Nations war crime s tribunal in The Hague .
* The U.S. Secretary of Energy makes the decision that Yucca Mountain is suitable to be the United States' nuclear repository.
February 13 & ndash; Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Queen Elizabeth gives former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani an honorary knighthood .
February 15 - the Funeral of Princess Margaret takes Place on the 50th Anniversary of her Father's Funeral.
February 19 & ndash; NASA 's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.
February 20 & ndash; In Reqa Al-Gharbiya, Egypt , a fire on a train injures over 65 and kills at least 370.
February 22
* Robert William Pickton ; the most prolific serial killer in Canadian history is arrested and charged with the first two (of twenty-seven) counts of first-degree murder.
* Angola n political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush.
* A Spanish-facilitated ceasefire begins in Sri Lanka .
February 23 & ndash; Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia|FARC kidnaps Íngrid Betancourt in Colombia while she campaigns for the presidency.
February 27 & ndash; A series of riots leaves hundreds dead, after 59 Hindu pilgrims die aboard a train burned by a Muslim mob in Godhra , India.
February 28
* The ex-currencies of all euro -using nations cease to be legal tender in the European Union .
* 2002 Gujarat riots|Gujarat communal riots begin, wherein the Gulbarg Society massacre takes place in Ahmedabad , in which 69 people were burnt alive or killed.
March
March 1
* War in Afghanistan (2001–present)|U.S. invasion of Afghanistan : In eastern Afghanistan , Operation Anaconda begins.
* Continuing violence in Ahmedabad , India kills 28; police shoot and kill 5 rioters.
* The Envisat environmental satellite successfully reaches an orbit 800& nbsp;km above the Earth using an Ariane 5 on its 11th launch, carrying the heaviest Maximum Take-Off Weight|payload to date at 8,500& nbsp;kg.
* STS-109 : Space Shuttle Columbia|Space Shuttle Columbia flies the Hubble Space Telescope service mission, its last before STS-107 .
March 3 & ndash; São Tomé and Príncipe hold legislative elections.
March 4 & ndash; Ansett Australia , one of the oldest airlines in the world and the second largest in Australia, ceases operation after collapsing financially. This event also marks the largest job loss in Australian history.
March 6 & ndash; France agrees to return the remains of Saartjie Baartman to South Africa.
March 12 & ndash; In Houston, Texas , Andrea Yates is found guilty of drowning her 5 children on June 20 , 2001 . She is later sentenced to life in prison.
March 14
* 125 vehicles are involved in a massive pile up on Interstate 75 in Ringgold, Georgia .
* Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament established.
March 17
* Portugal holds parliamentary elections.
* In Islamabad , Pakistan, the March 2002 Islamabad church bombing|International Protestant Church attack occurs.
March 19 & ndash; War in Afghanistan (2001–present)|US war in Afghanistan : Operation Anaconda ends (started on March 1 ) after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, with 11 allied troop fatalities.
March 21 & ndash; In Pakistan , Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and 3 others are charged with the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl .
March 24 & ndash; The 74th Academy Awards , hosted by Whoopi Goldberg , are held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California with the film A Beautiful Mind (film)|A Beautiful Mind winning Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Picture .
March 27 & ndash; A Palestinian Suicide attack|suicide bomber Passover massacre|kills 30 Israel i civilians and injures 140 others at the Park Hotel in Netanya , triggering Operation Defensive Shield , a large-scale Counter-terrorism|counter-terrorist Israel Defense Forces|Israeli military incursion into the West Bank , two days later.
April
April 2 & ndash; Israel i forces besiege the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem , when militants take shelter there.
April 9 & ndash; The funeral of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon|Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother takes place in Westminster Abbey , London.
April 11 & ndash; April 14 & ndash; A 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt|military coup d'état against the leftist Venezuela n President of Venezuela|President Hugo Chávez fails.
April 15 & ndash; An Air China Boeing 767 -200 crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan , South Korea, killing 128.
April 17 & ndash; Four Canadian infantrymen are killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire from 2 US F-16 s.
April 18 & ndash; The discovery of a new insect order, Mantophasmatodea , is announced.
April 21 & ndash; French presidential election, 2002 : The first round results in a runoff between Jacques Chirac and the leader of the main French far-right party, Jean-Marie Le Pen .
April 22 & ndash; At a special session of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , Director-General Jose Bustani is fired.
April 25 & ndash; Soyuz TM-34 : South African Mark Shuttleworth blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome ; he had paid £15 million for the trip.
April 27 & ndash; The Laughlin, Nevada River Run Riot kills 3.
May
May 5 & ndash; In the second round of the French presidential election, 2002|French presidential election Jacques Chirac is reelected.
May 6 & ndash; In the Netherlands, politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated .
May 9 – A 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem ends, when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected militants among them deported to several different countries.
* In Kaspiysk, Russia, a remote-control bomb explodes during a holiday parade, killing 43 and injuring at least 130.
May 8 – Feyenoord Rotterdam wins the UEFA Final Cup with 3-2 from Borussia Dortmund .
May 10 & ndash; FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
May 12
* Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a 5-day visit with Fidel Castro , becoming the first U.S. President, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.
* The Russian Shuttle Buran|Shuttle Buran is destroyed in the Buran hangar collapse , killing 8 workers.
May 17 – In Republic of Ireland|Ireland , The Fianna Fáil - Progressive Democrats coalition is Irish general election, 2002|re-elected . It is the first government to be re-elected since 1969.
May 20 & ndash; East Timor regains its independence.
May 21 & ndash; The US State Department releases a report naming 7 state sponsors of terrorism: Iran , Iraq , Cuba , Libya , North Korea , Sudan , and Syria .
May 22 & ndash; 16th Street Baptist Church bombing : A jury in Birmingham, Alabama , convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of 4 girls.
* China Airlines Flight 611 disintegrates near the Penghu Islands at Taiwan Strait , killing all 225 people on board.
May 26
* The Mars Odyssey finds signs of large water ice deposits on the planet Mars .
* A barge collides with the Interstate 40 bridge across the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma, killing 14.
May 31 & ndash; June 30 & ndash; the 2002 FIFA World Cup is held in South Korea and Japan
June
June 3 & ndash; The "Party in the Palace" takes place at Buckingham Palace , London, for Elizabeth II|Queen Elizabeth II 's Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II|Golden Jubilee celebrations.
June 4 & ndash; The planetoid 50000 Quaoar|Quaoar is discovered orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper belt .
June 5 & ndash; Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart is kidnapped from her bedroom at knifepoint.
June 6 & ndash; Eastern Mediterranean Event : An object with an estimated diameter of 10 meters collides with Earth , over the Mediterranean Sea , and detonates in mid-air.
June 8 & ndash; Serena Williams defeats her sister Venus Williams in straight sets to win the 2002 French Open .
June 10
* An annular solar eclipse occurs.
* The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of 2 humans, is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom.
June 11 & ndash; Antonio Meucci is recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress .
June 14 & ndash; In Karachi , Pakistan , a car bomb in front of the U.S. Consulate kills 12 Pakistanis and injures 50.
June 15 & ndash; Near Earth Asteroid 2002 MN misses the planet by convert|75,000|mi|km, about 1/3 the distance to the moon.
June 24 & ndash; The Igandu train disaster in Dodoma Region , Tanzania , kills 281 people in the worst rail accident in African history.
June 30 & ndash; Brazil national football team|Brazil wins its fifth FIFA World Cup, defeating Germany national football team|Germany in the 2002 FIFA World Cup Final|final .
July
July 1
* The International Criminal Court is established to prosecute individuals for genocide , crimes against humanity , war crimes , and the crime of aggression . Crimes committed on or after this date may be prosecuted by the court.
* A Russian passenger jet and a cargo plane collide over the town of Überlingen , Germany; 72 are killed (see Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 ).
July 9 & ndash; The Organization of African Unity is disbanded and replaced by the African Union .
July 10
* At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens ' painting " The Massacre of the Innocents " ( Massacre of the Innocents (Rubens)|first version ) is sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet .
* A helicopter crash in Cyprus kills the head of the Cyprus National Guard , Lt. General Evangelos Florakis .
July 14 & ndash; During Bastille Day celebrations, Jacques Chirac escapes an assassination attempt.
July 15 & ndash; In Washington, D.C., "American Taliban " John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to aiding the enemy and possession of explosives during the commission of a felony ; Lindh agrees to serve 10 years in prison for each charge.
July 19 & ndash; Hail kills 25 and injures hundreds in the Chinese province of Henan Province|Henan .
July 21 & ndash; Telecommunication s giant WorldCom files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (the largest such filing in United States history).
July 27
* A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes at an air show in Ukraine , killing 77 and injuring more than 100, making it the worst air show disaster in history (see Sknyliv airshow disaster ).
* Helen Clark , leader of the New Zealand Labour Party , is re-elected in a landslide victory.
August
August & ndash; The 2002 European floods ravage Central Europe .
September
September 2 & ndash; The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development , successor of the 1972 Conference on the Human Environment , 1983 World Commission on Environment and Development , and the 1992 Earth Summit 2002|Conference on Environment and Development , opens.
September 5 & ndash; A car bomb kills at least 30 people in Afghanistan , and an apparent assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai fails the same day.
September 9 & ndash; Judit Polgar beats Garry Kasparov at a game of speed chess.
September 10 & ndash; Switzerland joins the United Nations .
September 11 & ndash; The World Summit on Sustainable Development comes to a close.
September 15 & ndash; The Swedish parliamentary election, 2002 leaves Prime Minister Göran Persson and the Socialdemokratiska arbetarpartiet|Social Democrats in power.
September 19 & ndash; Civil war starts in Côte d'Ivoire .
September 20 & ndash; The Kolka-Karmadon rock ice slide occurs.
September 22 & ndash; The German federal election, 2002|German federal election leaves Chancellor Gerhard Schröder , his Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democrats and Alliance '90/The Greens|the Greens in power.
September 25 & ndash; The Vitim event , a possible bolide impact, occurs in Siberia , Russia.
September 26 & ndash; The Senegalese passenger ferry Joola capsizes in a storm off the coast of Gambia ; 1,863 are killed.
October
October 2
* The Congress of the United States passes a joint resolution, which authorizes the President to use the United States Armed Forces as he deems necessary and appropriate, against Iraq .
* The Beltway sniper attacks begin with 5 shootings in Montgomery County, Maryland .
October 7 & ndash; The discovery of 50000 Quaoar|Quaoar is announced.
October 9 & ndash; The Dot-com bubble bear market reaches bottom, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average slips below 7,200.
October 11 & ndash; Myyrmanni bombing : A lone bomber explodes a home-made bomb in the Myyrmanni shopping mall north of Helsinki , Finland; the casualties include himself.
October 12 & ndash; Terrorists 2002 Bali terrorist bombing|detonate bombs in 2 nightclubs in Kuta, Bali , killing 202 and injuring over 300.
October 16 & ndash; Iraq War Resolution is authorized by a majority of the U.S. Congress .
October 21 & ndash; 9 of 13 DNS root server s are DNS Backbone DDoS Attacks|disabled in a DDoS attack .
October 22 & ndash; October 25|25 & ndash; Chechen people|Chechen rebels take control of the theatre Nord-Ost in Moscow and Moscow theatre hostage crisis|hold the audience hostage .
October 24 & ndash; The Beltway sniper attacks|Beltway snipers , John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo , are arrested.
October 25 & ndash; U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone , his family, and his staff are killed in a plane accident at Eveleth, Minnesota .
October 27 & ndash; Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is Brazilian presidential election, 2002|elected Presidents of Brazil|President of Brazil .
November
November 5 & ndash; The U.S. Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party United States midterm elections, 2002|maintains control of the United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives and gains control of the United States Senate .
November 6 & ndash; The U.S. Federal Reserve System drops its primary discount rate by 50 basis point s to 0.75%, putting the real interest rate solidly below the inflation rate .
November 7 & ndash; Iran bans the advertising of United States products.
November 8 & ndash; Iraq disarmament crisis : The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves UN Security Council Resolution 1441 , forcing Saddam Hussein to disarmament|disarm or face "serious consequences".
November 13
* Iraq disarmament crisis : Iraq agrees to the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 .
* The oil tanker Prestige (ship)| Prestige sinks off the Galicia (Spain)|Galicia n coast, causing a huge oil spill .
November 14 & ndash; Argentina defaults on a US $805 million World Bank loan payment.
November 15 & ndash; Hu Jintao becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of China .
November 16 & ndash; A Campaign against Climate Change march takes place in London from Lincoln's Inn Fields , past Exxon Mobil|Esso offices to the United States Embassy.
November 18 & ndash; Iraq disarmament crisis : United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq .
November 21 & ndash; At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization|NATO Summit in Prague , Bulgaria , Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania , Romania , Slovakia , and Slovenia are invited to join the organization.
November 22 & ndash; In Nigeria , more than 100 are killed at an attack aimed at the Miss World contestants.
November 25 & ndash; U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Act into law, establishing the United States Department of Homeland Security|Department of Homeland Security , in the largest U.S. government reorganization since the creation of the United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense in 1947 .
November 26 & ndash; Legislation by the European Court of Human Rights and Law Lords , ruling in favour of convicted murderer Anthony Anderson (murderer)|Anthony Anderson , ends the right of the Home Secretary to set minimum terms for convicted murderers.
December
December 7 & ndash; As required by the recently passed U.N. resolution, Iraq files a 12,000 page weapons declaration with the U.N. Security Council.
December 9 & ndash; United Airlines , the second largest airline in the world, files for bankruptcy.
December 10 & ndash; The High Court of Australia hands down its judgement in the Internet defamation dispute in the case of Gutnick v Dow Jones .
December 12 & ndash; Hans Enoksen is elected Prime Minister of Greenland .
December 27 & ndash; A suicide truck-bomb attack destroys the headquarters of Chechnya 's Moscow-backed government, killing 72.
December 29 & ndash; The Communist New People's Army blows up a bust of Ferdinand Marcos in Benguet , Philippines .
December 30 & ndash; An eruption on the volcanic island Stromboli off the coast of Sicily causes a flank failure and tsunami . The island is later evacuated.
Date unknown
Population Division of the United Nations calculate that 40 million people around the world are infected with HIV .
Births
February 5 & ndash; Davis Cleveland , American child actor
July 22 & ndash; Prince Felix of Denmark , Prince of Denmark
October 6 & ndash; Cleopatra Stratan , Moldovan child singer
July 14 & ndash; Joaquín Balaguer , Dominican politician, 41st, 45th and 49th List of Presidents of the Dominican Republic|President of the Dominican Republic (b. 1906 )
July 16 & ndash; John Cocke , American computer scientist (b. 1925 )
July 17 & ndash; Joseph Luns , Dutch politician and diplomat, List of NATO Secretaries General|5th Secretary General of NATO (b. 1911 )
July 19 & ndash; Alan Lomax , American folklorist and musicologist (b. 1915 )
July 23 & ndash; Chaim Potok , American author and rabbi (b. 1929 )
* Aileen Wuornos , American serial killer (b. 1956 )
October 12 & ndash; Ray Conniff , American musician and bandleader (b. 1916 )
October 13 & ndash; Stephen Ambrose , American historian and biographer (b. 1936 )
October 18 & ndash; Nikolai Rukavishnikov , Russian cosmonaut (b. 1932 )
October 25 & ndash; Richard Harris (actor)|Richard Harris , Irish actor (b. 1930 )
October 30 & ndash; Jam-Master Jay , American Hip-Hop DJ (b. 1965 )
November
November 2 & ndash; Charles Sheffield , English author and physicist (b. 1935 )
November 9 & ndash; Merlin Santana , American actor (b. 1976 )
November 12 & ndash; Károly Doncsecz , Slovenian potter (b. 1918 )
November 15 & ndash; Myra Hindley , English murderer (b. 1942 )
November 17 & ndash; Abba Eban , Israeli politician and diplomat, Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel|3rd Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Israel)|Minister of Foreign Affairs (b. 1915 )
November 18 & ndash; James Coburn , American actor (b. 1928 )
November 19 & ndash; Max Reinhardt , British publisher (b. 1915 )
November 22 & ndash; Parley Baer , American actor (b. 1914 )
November 24 & ndash; John Rawls , American political theorist (b. 1921 )
December
December 3 & ndash; Glenn Quinn , Irish actor (b. 1970 )
December 5 & ndash; Ne Win , Burmese military commander (b. 1911 )
December 18 & ndash; Ray Hnatyshyn , Governor General of Canada (b. 1934 )
December 22
* Desmond Hoyte , Guyanese politician, 3rd List of Prime Ministers of Guyana|Prime Minister of Guyana and 4th List of Presidents of Guyana|President of Guyana (b. 1929 )
Nobel Prize in Literature|Literature & ndash; Imre Kertész
Nobel Prize in Chemistry|Chemistry & ndash; John B. Fenn and Koichi Tanaka , Kurt Wüthrich
Nobel Prize in Physics|Physics & ndash; Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba , Riccardo Giacconi
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine|Physiology or Medicine & ndash; Sydney Brenner , H. Robert Horvitz , and John E. Sulston
Nobel Prize in Economics|Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel & ndash; Daniel Kahneman and Vernon L. Smith
Fields Medalists
Laurent Lafforgue , Vladimir Voevodsky
In fiction
Main|Works of fiction set in 2002
The events of First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde take place in an alternate-reality 2002
In the comic book series Y: The Last Man , on July 12, 2002 a mysterious plague kills all living creatures with a Y chromosome on the planet.
The West Wing : On November 5 , Democratic President Josiah Bartlet of New Hampshire defeats Republican Party (United States)|Republican Governor Robert Ritchie (The West Wing)|Robert Ritchie of Florida in his reelection bid following the 2002 US presidential election.
The events of Resident Evil: Dead Aim take place on September 23 .
External links
Portal|2000s
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist2002.html 2002 Year-End Google Zeitgeist & ndash; Google's Yearly List of Major Events and Top Searches for 2002
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/yir/ Top Stories of 2002 - CNN
http://web.archive.org/web/20021221090431/ http://channels.netscape.com/ns/event/yir2002/default.jsp Year in Review - Netscape
DEFAULTSORT:2002 Category:2002| Category:2002 in fiction
