January •
January 1 – Greece becomes the 12th country to join the
Eurozone. •
January 7 – Ghana undergoes its first peaceful transfer of power since 1979 when
John Kufuor is sworn in as
President of Ghana. •
January 13 – A
7.6-magnitude earthquake hits El Salvador, killing at least 944 people and causing massive landslides, which leaves thousands of those affected homeless. •
January 15 •
Creative Commons is founded. •
Wikipedia, which became the world's largest encyclopedia, is launched. •
January 16 •
Assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila: The President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is shot in his office during the
Second Congo War and rushed to
Harare in Zimbabwe for medical treatment; his death will be announced two days later. He is succeeded by his son,
Joseph Kabila. •
January 21 •
Taba Summit: Talks between Israel and the
Palestinian National Authority begin in Egypt. •
Pope John Paul II names 37 cardinals in one day for a total of 128. •
January 25 –
Armenia and
Azerbaijan join the
Council of Europe. •
January 26 – A 7.7
Gujarat earthquake shakes
Western India with a maximum
Mercalli intensity of X (
Extreme), leaving thousands of people dead and more than 166,000 others injured. •
January 29 – Corruption scandals surrounding Indonesian President
Abdurrahman Wahid prompt thousands of protesters to storm the Indonesian
parliament building. •
January 31 –
2001 Japan Airlines mid-air incident: Japan Airlines Flight 907 and Flight 958 almost collided with each other in
Yaizu, Shizuoka,
Japan. Flight 907 safely landed at Narita Airport and Flight 958 continued to Naha Airport. 100 people were injured.
February •
February 6 –
2001 Israeli prime ministerial election:
Ariel Sharon of the
Likud party is elected
Prime Minister of Israel. as seen from the
NEAR spacecraft •
February 12 • The
NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the "saddle" region of
433 Eros, a
near-Earth object, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an
asteroid. •
February 13 – A
6.6-magnitude earthquake hits El Salvador, killing at least 315 people. •
February 18 –
NASCAR Champion
Dale Earnhardt is
killed in a crash during the
Daytona 500. •
February 22 – The
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sentences three Bosnian Serb soldiers to prison for
wartime sexual violence, recognizing it as a
war crime for the first time. •
February 25 –
Sampit conflict: Mass ethnic violence begins in
Sampit, Indonesia, killing hundreds of people.
March •
March 2 – Despite pleas from the international community to spare them, the
Taliban government of Afghanistan begins destroying the
Buddhas of Bamiyan, having declared that they are
idols. •
March 4 – The Hintze Ribeiro Bridge
collapses in northern Portugal, killing 59 people. •
March 14 –
Battle of Tetovo: Violence erupts between Albanian rebels and Macedonian soldiers in
Tetovo. Conflict in Tetovo will continue for months during the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia. •
March 16 –
Shijiazhuang bombings: 108 people are killed in a series of bombings in
Shijiazhuang, China. •
March 22 •
Kenyanthropus is
described as an early
hominid after the discovery of remains in Kenya. •
Incheon International Airport opens in
Incheon, South Korea. •
March 28 – The United States declares its intention to end involvement in the
Kyoto Protocol.
April on April 1, the first day in which the possibility to marry was opened to same-sex couples •
April 1 • The
Act on the Opening up of Marriage goes into effect in the Netherlands, which becomes the first modern country to legalize
same-sex marriage. • Former
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces to be tried on charges of
crimes against humanity. •
April 11 –
Australia's football team wins against
American Samoa in a record
31–0 victory, just two days after setting the record with a
0–22 victory against
Tonga. •
April 17 •
Nông Đức Mạnh is chosen as
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. • Israel occupies an area in the
Gaza Strip, killing two people. Israeli forces withdraw the same day after the United States denounces the attack. •
April 18 –
2001 Burundian coup d'état attempt: A group of junior officers make a failed attempt to overthrow President
Pierre Buyoya of Burundi. • The
Parliament of Ukraine votes to dismiss Prime Minister
Viktor Yushchenko. •
April 28 • The Russian spacecraft
Soyuz TM-32 lifts off from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying the first
space tourist, American entrepreneur
Dennis Tito, and two Russian cosmonauts. •
Vejce ambush: Eight Macedonian soldiers are killed in an ambush by the NLA near
Vejce, a village in the
Šar Mountains, Macedonia. It represents the heaviest death toll for the government forces in a single incident during the insurgency.
May •
May 7 – In
Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, an attempt is made to reconstruct the historic 16th-century
Ferhadija Mosque.
Serbian nationalists respond with riots and mass violence against
Bosnian Muslims. •
May 13 – The
House of Freedoms coalition led by
Silvio Berlusconi wins the
Italian general election. •
May 18 –
2001 HaSharon Mall suicide bombing: A Hamas suicide bomber kills six people in
Netanya, Israel. The Israeli government responds with the first use of airstrikes against Palestine since 1967. •
May 21 – The
Končulj Agreement results in the disarmament of the
Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac, ending the
Insurgency in the Preševo Valley. •
May 22 •
28978 Ixion, a large
trans-Neptunian object and a
possible dwarf planet, is discovered during the
Deep Ecliptic Survey. • The
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is adopted by 127 countries to limit pollution internationally. •
May 24 – Sherpa
Temba Tsheri, 15, becomes the youngest person to reach the summit of
Mount Everest. •
May 26 – The
African Union is formed to replace the
Organisation of African Unity. It will begin operation the following year. •
May 28 –
2001 Central African Republic coup d'état attempt: Central African forces led by
André Kolingba carry out a failed attempt to overthrow the government of the Central African Republic. Dozens are killed in the ensuing violence.
June •
June 1 • Crown Prince
Dipendra of Nepal kills his father, the king, his mother and other members of the royal family with an assault rifle and then shoots himself in the
Nepalese royal massacre. Dipendra is recognized as King of Nepal while in a coma. •
June 4 –
Gyanendra ascends the throne of Nepal on the death of his nephew, Dipendra. and
White Oak Bayou at Main Street after Tropical Storm Allison hit Houston, Texas, U.S. •
June 5 –
Tropical Storm Allison hits the U.S. state of
Texas, severely flooding
Houston and killing 23 people. •
June 7 •
2001 United Kingdom general election:
Tony Blair and the
Labour Party win a second landslide victory. • Former Argentinian president
Carlos Menem is arrested on suspicion of illegal arms sales. •
June 12 –
Aračinovo crisis: Albanian rebels violate a 24-hour cease fire with Macedonian soldiers. •
June 15 – Declaration to establish the
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is signed. •
June 19 • Syria withdraws thousands of forces from a decades-long military presence in
Beirut, Lebanon. • Germany enacts a program to compensate
Holocaust survivors that were subject to slave labor. •
June 21 – The world's
longest train is run by BHP Iron Ore between Newman and Port Hedland in Western Australia (a distance of ); the train consists of 682 loaded iron ore wagons and 8
GE AC6000CW locomotives, giving a gross weight of almost 100,000 tonnes and moves 82,262 tonnes of ore; the train is long. •
June 23 – An 8.4
southern Peru earthquake shakes coastal Peru with a maximum
Mercalli intensity of VIII (
Severe). A destructive tsunami follows, leaving at least 77 people dead, and 2,687 others injured. •
June 25 –
Alkhan-Kala operation: Russian forces carry out a
zachistka operation in Alkhan-Kala,
Grozny, Chechnya, during the
Second Chechen War. Chechen warlord
Arbi Barayev is killed.
July • July – The largest ever recorded outbreak of
Legionnaires' disease occurs in
Murcia, Spain. 449 cases are confirmed, with more than 800 suspected ones. •
July 4 –
Vladivostok Air Flight 352 crashes on approach while landing at
Irkutsk Airport, Russia, killing all 145 people aboard. •
July 7 –
2001 Bradford riots: Ethnic violence is provoked in
Bradford, England, by the far-right
National Front and far-left
Anti-Nazi League. •
July 12 – The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its
Third Assessment Report. •
July 14 –
Agra Summit: India and Pakistan begin talks to improve relations. The summit ends inconclusively on July 16. •
July 16 – China and Russia sign the
2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship. ,
Tony Blair,
George W. Bush,
Jacques Chirac,
Silvio Berlusconi,
Vladimir Putin,
Jean Chretien,
Gerhard Schroeder,
Guy Verhofstadt, and
Romano Prodi •
July 20–
22 – The
27th G8 summit takes place in
Genoa, Italy. Massive demonstrations, drawing an estimated 200,000 people, are held against the meeting by members of the
anti-globalization movement. One demonstrator,
Carlo Giuliani, is killed by a policeman, and several others are injured. •
July 23 –
Megawati Sukarnoputri is
inaugurated as the first female president of Indonesia. •
July 24 •
Bandaranaike Airport attack: The
Tamil Tigers bomb the
Bandaranaike International Airport in Sri Lanka during the
Sri Lankan Civil War. •
Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, deposed as the last
Tsar of Bulgaria when a child, is sworn in as the democratically elected 48th
Prime Minister of Bulgaria. •
July 26 – Moldova joins the World Trade Organization.
August • August – A ceasefire is negotiated to end the
War of the Peters. . The hexagons consist of a variety of ultra-pure, semiconductor-grade wafers, including
silicon,
corundum,
gold on sapphire,
diamond-like carbon films, and other materials. •
August 8 • The
Genesis probe is launched from
Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 17. •
August 9 – A
Sbarro restaurant in
Jerusalem is
bombed by a Palestinian Hamas terrorist, killing 15 civilians and injuring 130 others. •
August 10 •
2001 Angola train attack: 252 people are killed by
UNITA in an attack on a train during the
Angolan Civil War. • The United States and the United Kingdom bomb air force installations in Iraq in response to attacks on American and British planes. •
August 13 – Macedonian and Albanian representatives sign the
Ohrid Agreement to reduce conflicts during the insurgency. •
August 21 –
Operation Essential Harvest:
NATO sends a military forces to the
Republic of Macedonia in response to the ongoing insurgency. •
August 25 –
2001 Marsh Harbour Cessna 402 crash: Eight people including singer and actress
Aaliyah, and several members of her entourage are killed after their overloaded aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff at Marsh Harbour Airport. •
August 28 – A
targeted Israeli strike kills
PFLP leader
Abu Ali Mustafa. Palestinian militants respond by firing on Israeli civilians. Israeli forces occupy
Beit Jala, Palestine to combat the militants. •
August 31 – The
World Conference against Racism 2001 begins in
Durban, South Africa. •
September 9 – A suicide bomber kills
Ahmad Shah Massoud, military commander of the Afghan
Northern Alliance. and the
Statue of Liberty during the
September 11 attacks in New York City •
September 11 – Approximately 2,977 victims are killed or fatally injured in the
September 11 attacks after two
Boeing 767s,
American Airlines Flight 11 and
United Airlines Flight 175, are hijacked and crashed into the Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center. Two
Boeing 757s, •
September 17 –
George W. Bush,
president of the United States, delivers
remarks at the Islamic Center of Washington praising Muslim Americans and condemning
Islamophobia in the
aftermath of the September 11 attacks. •
September 18 – The
2001 anthrax attacks begin in the United States, which cause five fatalities and 17 other infections. •
September 19 – Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat forbids Palestinian soldiers from firing on Israeli forces, even in self-defence. Israel agrees to a ceasefire. •
September 20 – In an
address to a joint session of
Congress, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a
war on terror, officially the global war on terrorism. •
September 22 – American spacecraft
Deep Space 1 flies within of
Comet Borrelly. •
September 24 – A
tornado outbreak tears through the eastern United States, causing two deaths and 57 injuries, and causing damages of $105 million. •
September 27 –
Zug massacre: In
Zug, Switzerland, a gunman shoots 32 people, killing 14
members of parliament and then himself.
October •
October 1 •
Jaish-e-Mohammed militants
attack the state legislature building in
Srinagar, Kashmir, killing 38 people. •
3G wireless technology first becomes available when it is
adopted by Japanese telecommunications company
NTT Docomo. •
October 4 •
Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 is accidentally shot down by the
Ukrainian Air Force over the Black Sea en route from
Tel Aviv, Israel, to
Novosibirsk, Russia; all 78 people on board are killed. •
2001 Kodori crisis: Fighting escalates between Georgia and the breakaway state
Abkhazia. •
October 7 –
United States invasion of Afghanistan: In response to the September 11 attacks, Afghanistan is invaded by a
US-led coalition, beginning the
War in Afghanistan. •
Hurricane Iris hits Belize, causing $250 million (2001
USD) in damage. •
October 13 – American scientists create the first successful
clone of a human
embryo. •
October 15 – NASA's
Galileo spacecraft passes within of
Jupiter's moon
Io. •
October 16 – American planes misidentify and bomb a
Red Cross facility in Afghanistan. A similar error occurs again on October 27. •
October 17 –
Assassination of Rehavam Ze'evi: Israeli tourism minister
Rehavam Ze'evi is assassinated by the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. •
October 23 • Apple Inc. introduces the
iPod, a
portable media player and multi-purpose mobile device. The company will sell an estimated 450 million iPod products by May 2022. • The
Provisional Irish Republican Army begins disarmament, ending a decades-long conflict in
Northern Ireland. •
October 24 – The
2001 Mars Odyssey arrives at Mars. • Microsoft releases the
Windows XP operating system to retail. •
November 1 – An interim government in Burundi begins the peace process for the
Burundian Civil War. •
November 7 –
Sabena, the national airline of Belgium, goes bankrupt. •
November 10 •
2001 Australian federal election: The
Coalition government, led by
John Howard, is re-elected with a slightly increased majority, defeating the
Labor Party led by
Kim Beazley. •
Fall of Mazar-i-Sharif: American and Northern Alliance forces take
Mazar-i-Sharif in the first major offensive of the
War in Afghanistan. •
November 11 – Two French journalists,
Pierre Billaud and
Johanne Sutton, and a German colleague,
Volker Handloik, are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on their convoy. •
November 12 •
American Airlines Flight 587 crashes in
Belle Harbor,
Queens, on the
Rockaway Peninsula shortly after
takeoff, killing all 260 people aboard the plane as well as five people on the ground. •
2001 uprising in Herat:
Northern Alliance forces take the city of
Herat from the Taliban. •
November 14 •
Fall of Kabul: Northern Alliance forces take the Afghan capital
Kabul. •
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes China with an
epicenter near
Kokoxili, but it occurs in a sparsely populated mountainous region and there are no casualties. •
November 18 – The
Leonids meteor shower occurs in its heaviest concentration in decades as Earth passes through a debris cloud. •
November 23 – The
Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, the first international treaty to address
cybercrime, is signed in
Budapest, Hungary. (left) •
November 27 – A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the
extrasolar planet HD 209458 b, nicknamed Osiris, by the
Hubble Space Telescope. It is the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
December • December –
Dasht-i-Leili massacre: Hundreds of Taliban prisoners are killed by the forces of
Abdul Rashid Dostum. •
December 1 • The
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty produces a report on
responsibility to protect. • A series of
bombings in
Zion Square are carried out by Hamas. Ten people are killed and hundreds more are injured. •
December 2 •
Enron files for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection five days after
Dynegy cancels a US$8.4 billion buyout bid (to this point, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history). •
Haifa bus 16 suicide bombing: A Hamas militant carries out a suicide bombing in
Haifa, Israel, killing 15 people. •
December 3 – The
Segway, a self-balancing
personal transporter invented by
Dean Kamen, is unveiled after months of public speculation and media hype •
December 6 –
Fall of Kandahar: The Taliban surrenders in
Kandahar, its final stronghold. • U.S. President George W. Bush announces the American withdrawal from the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. •
Sirajuddin of Perlis becomes the
Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the
constitutional monarch and
head of state of Malaysia. •
December 15 – The
Leaning Tower of Pisa is reopened to the public after 12 years of reconstruction. •
December 19 – A record-high
barometric pressure of 1085.6
hPa (32.06
inHg) is recorded at
Tosontsengel, Zavkhan, Mongolia. •
December 21 – President
Fernando de la Rúa of Argentina resigns in response to the
riots against Argentina's
economic crisis. -2 anti-aircraft gun that was mounted on the North Korean vessel sunk in the Battle of Amami-Ōshima •
December 22 •
Battle of Amami-Ōshima: A
Japan Coast Guard ship and an armed North Korean vessel engage in conflict near the Japanese island of
Amami Ōshima, in the
East China Sea. The encounter ends in the sinking of the North Korean vessel that is later determined to have been a
spy craft by the Japanese authorities. •
Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Northern Alliance, hands over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President
Hamid Karzai. •
December 24 – The
Constitution of the Comoros is
amended, creating a federal government with a rotating presidency and granting increased autonomy to the three island administrations. •
Tropical Storm Vamei forms within 1.5 degrees of the
equator. No other tropical cyclone in recorded history has come as close to the equator. ==Nobel Prizes==