January
January 1
The 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 16 – The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and freezes the assets of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.
January 17 – The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo displaces an estimated 400,000 people.
January 18 – The Sierra Leone government - with British assistance, Guinean air support and US logistical support - defeats the Revolutionary United Front, bringing the Sierra Leone Civil War to a conclusion.
January 23 – Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Pakistan, accused of being a CIA agent by his captors.
January 27 – Lagos armoury explosion: Several explosions at a military dump in Lagos, Nigeria kill more than 1,000.
January 31 – A large section of the Antarctic Larsen Ice Shelf begins disintegrating, consuming about 3,250 km (2,020 mi) over 35 days.
February
February 1 – Kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is murdered in Karachi, Pakistan.
February 6 – Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom upon the 50th anniversary of King George VI's death in 1952.
February 8–February 24 – The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City, Utah.
February 9 – Queen Elizabeth II's sister, Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, dies in her sleep aged 71 after suffering a major stroke.
February 12 – The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of Yugoslavia, begins at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
February 15 – The funeral of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, takes place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on the 50th anniversary of her father's funeral; coincidentally, this is also the final public appearance of her mother.
Artists concept of the 2001 Mars Odyssey Spacecraft
February 19 – NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.
February 20 – Al Ayyat train disaster at Reqa Al-Gharbiya in Egypt: a fire on a train running from Cairo to Luxor kills at least 383 and injures over 65.
February 22
Robert William Pickton, the most prolific serial killer in Canadian history, is arrested and charged with the first 2 (of 27) counts of first-degree murder.
A Spanish-facilitated ceasefire begins in Sri Lanka.
Angolan Civil War: Anti-communist UNITA guerilla leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a clash against government troops led by socialist Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos in Moxico Province, Angola. The incident gradually ends the fighting that had lasted since 1975. The civil war ends on April 4.
February 27 – Godhra train burning: 59 Hindu pilgrims die aboard the Sabarmati Express train burned by Muslim extremists at Godhra in the Indian state of Gujarat, starting the 2002 Gujarat violence.
February 28
The ex-currencies of all euro-using nations cease to be legal tender in the European Union.
2002 Gujarat violence: 97 people are burnt alive or killed in the Naroda Patiya massacre, and 69 in the Gulbarg Society massacre in Ahmedabad.
March
Hubble Space Telescope after servicing by the crew of STS-109
March 1
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 km above the Earth using an Ariane 5 on its 11th launch, carrying the heaviest payload to date at 8,500 kg.
STS-109: Space Shuttle Columbia flies the Hubble Space Telescope service mission, the penultimate flight before its ill-fated STS-107 mission.
March 12 – 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 – The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament is established.
March 17 – In Islamabad, Pakistan, the International Protestant Church attack occurs.
March 19 – US war in Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda ends after killing 500 Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, with 11 allied troop fatalities.
March 21 – In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and 3 others are charged with the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
March 27 – A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 30 Israeli civilians and injures 140 others at the Park Hotel in Netanya, triggering Operation Defensive Shield, a large-scale counter-terrorist Israeli military incursion into the West Bank, 2 days later.
March 30 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother dies aged 101 at Royal Lodge, Windsor.
April
April 2 – Israeli forces besiege the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, when militants take shelter there.
April 9 – The Funeral of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother takes place in Westminster Abbey, London.
April 11 – April 14 – A military coup d'état against the leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez fails.
April 15 – An Air China Boeing 767-200 crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128.
April 17 – Four Canadian infantrymen are killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire from 2 US F-16s.
April 18 – The discovery of a new insect order, Mantophasmatodea, is announced.
April 23–April 24 – Pope John Paul II holds an extraordinary meeting of American cardinals at the Vatican to discuss the sexual abuse of children, calling it "an appalling sin" and declaring that "there is no place in the priesthood for those who would harm the young".
April 25 – Soyuz TM-34: South African Mark Shuttleworth blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; he had paid £15 million for the trip.
May
May 20: Flag of East Timor
May 6 – In the Netherlands, politician and Prime Ministerial candidate Pim Fortuyn is assassinated in Hilversum.
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 10 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to the Soviet Union for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
May 20 – East Timor regains its independence after 26 years of occupation by Indonesia since 1975.
May 21 – The US State Department releases a report naming 7 state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.
May 24 – In Moscow, United States President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin sign the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty to replace the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 and the START II Treaty of 1993.
May 25 – 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 – June 30 – The 2002 FIFA World Cup begins in South Korea and Japan.
June
June 4 – The planetoid Quaoar is discovered orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper belt.
June 6 – 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 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 – Antonio Meucci is recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.
June 13 – The United States Senate withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. The Russian State Duma withdraws from START II Treaty of 1993 in response.
June 14 – In Karachi, Pakistan, a car bomb in front of the U.S. Consulate kills 12 Pakistanis and injures 50.
June 15 – Near Earth Asteroid 2002 MN misses the planet by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about 1/3 the distance to the moon.
June 18 – British Telephone Company O2 is created after a BT Cellnet rebrand.
June 24 – The Igandu train disaster in Dodoma Region, Tanzania, kills 281 people in the worst rail accident in African history.
June 30 – Brazil wins their 5th FIFA World Cup by defeating Germany 2-0 in the 2002 FIFA World Cup Final.
July
July 1
The International Criminal Court is established.
Überlingen mid-air collision: A Russian passenger jet and a cargo plane collide over the town of Überlingen, Germany; 71 are killed.
July 9 – The Organization of African Unity is disbanded and replaced by the African Union.
July 15 – 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 – Hail kills 25 and injures hundreds in the Chinese province of Henan.
July 21 – Telecommunications 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).
August
August – The 2002 European floods ravage Central Europe.
September
Gerhard Schröder
September 2 – The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, successor of the Conference on the Human Environment, World Commission on Environment and Development, and the Conference on Environment and Development, opens.
September 5 – 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 10 – Switzerland joins the United Nations as the 191st member state.
September 11 – The World Summit on Sustainable Development comes to a close.
September 19 – Civil war starts in Côte d'Ivoire.
September 20 – The Kolka-Karmadon rock ice slide occurs.
September 25 – The Vitim event, a possible bolide impact, occurs in Siberia, Russia.
September 26 – The Senegalese passenger ferry Joola capsizes in a storm off the coast of Gambia; 1,863 are killed.
September 27 – The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste is admitted to the United Nations as the 192nd member state.
October
October 2 – The Beltway sniper attacks begin with 5 shootings in Montgomery County, Maryland.
October 11 – 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 – Terrorists detonate bombs in 2 nightclubs in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and injuring over 300.
October 22 – 25 – Chechen rebels take control of the theatre Nord-Ost in Moscow and hold the audience hostage.
November
The Department of Homeland Security is formed in response to terrorist concerns in the United States.
November 7
Iran bans the advertising of United States products.
A sovereignty referendum in Gibraltar is held since the Gibraltar sovereignty referendum in 1967. The people again reject Spanish sovereignty.
November 8 – Iraq disarmament crisis: The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves UN Security Council Resolution 1441, forcing Saddam Hussein to 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 sinks off the Galician coast, causing an oil spill.
November 14 – Argentina defaults on a US $805 million World Bank loan payment.
November 18 – Iraq disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.
November 21 – At the NATO Summit in Prague, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia are invited to join the organization in 2004.
November 22 – In Nigeria, more than 100 are killed at an attack aimed at the Miss World contestants.
November 25 – U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Act into law, establishing the Department of Homeland Security, in the largest U.S. government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.
December
December 7 – As required by the recently passed U.N. resolution, Iraq files a 12,000 page weapons declaration with the U.N. Security Council.
December 10 – The High Court of Australia hands down its judgement in the Internet defamation dispute in the case of Gutnick v Dow Jones.
December 27 – A suicide truck-bomb attack destroys the headquarters of Chechnya's Moscow-backed government, killing 72.
December 30 – An eruption on the volcanic island Stromboli off the coast of Sicily causes a flank failure and tsunami. The island is later evacuated.
January 1
The 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 16 – The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and freezes the assets of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.
January 17 – The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo displaces an estimated 400,000 people.
January 18 – The Sierra Leone government - with British assistance, Guinean air support and US logistical support - defeats the Revolutionary United Front, bringing the Sierra Leone Civil War to a conclusion.
January 23 – Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Pakistan, accused of being a CIA agent by his captors.
January 27 – Lagos armoury explosion: Several explosions at a military dump in Lagos, Nigeria kill more than 1,000.
January 31 – A large section of the Antarctic Larsen Ice Shelf begins disintegrating, consuming about 3,250 km (2,020 mi) over 35 days.
February
February 1 – Kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is murdered in Karachi, Pakistan.
February 6 – Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom upon the 50th anniversary of King George VI's death in 1952.
February 8–February 24 – The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City, Utah.
February 9 – Queen Elizabeth II's sister, Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, dies in her sleep aged 71 after suffering a major stroke.
February 12 – The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of Yugoslavia, begins at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
February 15 – The funeral of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, takes place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on the 50th anniversary of her father's funeral; coincidentally, this is also the final public appearance of her mother.
Artists concept of the 2001 Mars Odyssey Spacecraft
February 19 – NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.
February 20 – Al Ayyat train disaster at Reqa Al-Gharbiya in Egypt: a fire on a train running from Cairo to Luxor kills at least 383 and injures over 65.
February 22
Robert William Pickton, the most prolific serial killer in Canadian history, is arrested and charged with the first 2 (of 27) counts of first-degree murder.
A Spanish-facilitated ceasefire begins in Sri Lanka.
Angolan Civil War: Anti-communist UNITA guerilla leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a clash against government troops led by socialist Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos in Moxico Province, Angola. The incident gradually ends the fighting that had lasted since 1975. The civil war ends on April 4.
February 27 – Godhra train burning: 59 Hindu pilgrims die aboard the Sabarmati Express train burned by Muslim extremists at Godhra in the Indian state of Gujarat, starting the 2002 Gujarat violence.
February 28
The ex-currencies of all euro-using nations cease to be legal tender in the European Union.
2002 Gujarat violence: 97 people are burnt alive or killed in the Naroda Patiya massacre, and 69 in the Gulbarg Society massacre in Ahmedabad.
March
Hubble Space Telescope after servicing by the crew of STS-109
March 1
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 km above the Earth using an Ariane 5 on its 11th launch, carrying the heaviest payload to date at 8,500 kg.
STS-109: Space Shuttle Columbia flies the Hubble Space Telescope service mission, the penultimate flight before its ill-fated STS-107 mission.
March 12 – 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 – The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament is established.
March 17 – In Islamabad, Pakistan, the International Protestant Church attack occurs.
March 19 – US war in Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda ends after killing 500 Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, with 11 allied troop fatalities.
March 21 – In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and 3 others are charged with the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
March 27 – A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 30 Israeli civilians and injures 140 others at the Park Hotel in Netanya, triggering Operation Defensive Shield, a large-scale counter-terrorist Israeli military incursion into the West Bank, 2 days later.
March 30 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother dies aged 101 at Royal Lodge, Windsor.
April
April 2 – Israeli forces besiege the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, when militants take shelter there.
April 9 – The Funeral of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother takes place in Westminster Abbey, London.
April 11 – April 14 – A military coup d'état against the leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez fails.
April 15 – An Air China Boeing 767-200 crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128.
April 17 – Four Canadian infantrymen are killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire from 2 US F-16s.
April 18 – The discovery of a new insect order, Mantophasmatodea, is announced.
April 23–April 24 – Pope John Paul II holds an extraordinary meeting of American cardinals at the Vatican to discuss the sexual abuse of children, calling it "an appalling sin" and declaring that "there is no place in the priesthood for those who would harm the young".
April 25 – Soyuz TM-34: South African Mark Shuttleworth blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; he had paid £15 million for the trip.
May
May 20: Flag of East Timor
May 6 – In the Netherlands, politician and Prime Ministerial candidate Pim Fortuyn is assassinated in Hilversum.
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 10 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to the Soviet Union for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
May 20 – East Timor regains its independence after 26 years of occupation by Indonesia since 1975.
May 21 – The US State Department releases a report naming 7 state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.
May 24 – In Moscow, United States President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin sign the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty to replace the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 and the START II Treaty of 1993.
May 25 – 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 – June 30 – The 2002 FIFA World Cup begins in South Korea and Japan.
June
June 4 – The planetoid Quaoar is discovered orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper belt.
June 6 – 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 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 – Antonio Meucci is recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.
June 13 – The United States Senate withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. The Russian State Duma withdraws from START II Treaty of 1993 in response.
June 14 – In Karachi, Pakistan, a car bomb in front of the U.S. Consulate kills 12 Pakistanis and injures 50.
June 15 – Near Earth Asteroid 2002 MN misses the planet by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about 1/3 the distance to the moon.
June 18 – British Telephone Company O2 is created after a BT Cellnet rebrand.
June 24 – The Igandu train disaster in Dodoma Region, Tanzania, kills 281 people in the worst rail accident in African history.
June 30 – Brazil wins their 5th FIFA World Cup by defeating Germany 2-0 in the 2002 FIFA World Cup Final.
July
July 1
The International Criminal Court is established.
Überlingen mid-air collision: A Russian passenger jet and a cargo plane collide over the town of Überlingen, Germany; 71 are killed.
July 9 – The Organization of African Unity is disbanded and replaced by the African Union.
July 15 – 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 – Hail kills 25 and injures hundreds in the Chinese province of Henan.
July 21 – Telecommunications 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).
August
August – The 2002 European floods ravage Central Europe.
September
Gerhard Schröder
September 2 – The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, successor of the Conference on the Human Environment, World Commission on Environment and Development, and the Conference on Environment and Development, opens.
September 5 – 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 10 – Switzerland joins the United Nations as the 191st member state.
September 11 – The World Summit on Sustainable Development comes to a close.
September 19 – Civil war starts in Côte d'Ivoire.
September 20 – The Kolka-Karmadon rock ice slide occurs.
September 25 – The Vitim event, a possible bolide impact, occurs in Siberia, Russia.
September 26 – The Senegalese passenger ferry Joola capsizes in a storm off the coast of Gambia; 1,863 are killed.
September 27 – The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste is admitted to the United Nations as the 192nd member state.
October
October 2 – The Beltway sniper attacks begin with 5 shootings in Montgomery County, Maryland.
October 11 – 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 – Terrorists detonate bombs in 2 nightclubs in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and injuring over 300.
October 22 – 25 – Chechen rebels take control of the theatre Nord-Ost in Moscow and hold the audience hostage.
November
The Department of Homeland Security is formed in response to terrorist concerns in the United States.
November 7
Iran bans the advertising of United States products.
A sovereignty referendum in Gibraltar is held since the Gibraltar sovereignty referendum in 1967. The people again reject Spanish sovereignty.
November 8 – Iraq disarmament crisis: The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves UN Security Council Resolution 1441, forcing Saddam Hussein to 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 sinks off the Galician coast, causing an oil spill.
November 14 – Argentina defaults on a US $805 million World Bank loan payment.
November 18 – Iraq disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.
November 21 – At the NATO Summit in Prague, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia are invited to join the organization in 2004.
November 22 – In Nigeria, more than 100 are killed at an attack aimed at the Miss World contestants.
November 25 – U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Act into law, establishing the Department of Homeland Security, in the largest U.S. government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.
December
December 7 – As required by the recently passed U.N. resolution, Iraq files a 12,000 page weapons declaration with the U.N. Security Council.
December 10 – The High Court of Australia hands down its judgement in the Internet defamation dispute in the case of Gutnick v Dow Jones.
December 27 – A suicide truck-bomb attack destroys the headquarters of Chechnya's Moscow-backed government, killing 72.
December 30 – An eruption on the volcanic island Stromboli off the coast of Sicily causes a flank failure and tsunami. The island is later evacuated.