2001

This article is about the year 2001. For information on the movie, see 2001: A Space Odyssey. For the Dr. Dre album, see 2001 (album).

2001 (MMI) is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. By strict interpretation of the Gregorian Calendar, 2001 is also the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium. Popular culture, however, often views the year 2000 as holding this distinction.

2001 is also the year which marks:

• Australia's Centenary of Federation
• The International Year of the Volunteer
• The United Nations Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations

See also Wikipedia's almanac of events for this year.

Events

January

George W. Bush, inaugurated as 43rd President of the United States

• January 1 - A black monolith measuring approximately nine feet tall appears in Seattle's Magnuson Park, placed by an anonymous artist in reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• January 6 - The U.S. Congress, presided over by Vice President Al Gore as President of the Senate, certifies George W. Bush's Electoral College victory and thus as the winner of 2000 presidential election.
• January 11 - The Federal Trade Commission approved the merger of AOL and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner.
• January 13 - Major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 hits all El Salvador.
• January 15 - Wikipedia, a Wiki free content encyclopedia, goes online (Wikipedia Day).
• January 20 - George W. Bush succeeds Bill Clinton as President of the United States after prevailing over Al Gore in the disputed U.S. presidential election, 2000.
• January 22 - Four of the "Texas 7" are caught at a convenience store in Woodland Park, Colorado and a fifth killed himself inside a motor home.^{Confirmation needed}
• January 23-25 - UN war crimes prosecutor Del Ponte demands that Serbia hand over Slobodan Milošević.^{Confirmation needed}
• January 24 - The last two of the "Texas 7" are taken into custody in Colorado Springs, Colorado.^{Confirmation needed}
• January 24 - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Mandelson resigns from the British cabinet for the second time.
• January 26 - A 50-year-old DC-3 crashes near Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela killing 24.^{Confirmation needed}
• January 26 - An earthquake hits Gujarat, India. More than 20,000 deaths and most of the historical city is destroyed.
• January 29 - Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia storm parliament and demand that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals.^{Confirmation needed}
• January 31 - The Scottish Court in the Netherlands convicts a Libyan and acquits another for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

February

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother walks over a disinfectant mat at Sandown racecourse, as foot and mouth hits the UK.

• February - Iraq disarmament crisis: British and U.S. forces carry out bombing raids attempting to disable Iraq's air defense network.
• February 5 - Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman announce that they have separated
• February 6 - Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon wins election as Prime Minister of Israel
• February 9 - American submarine USS Greeneville accidentally strikes and sinks Japanese fishing vessel Ehime-Maru.
• February 12 - NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touchdown in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
• February 13 - An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 hits El Salvador, killing at least 400
• February 16 - Baghdad suburb bombed by US and UK war planes, 3 people killed.
• February 18 - NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt is killed on the last lap of the Daytona 500 while blocking for his DEI cars driven by his son, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Michael Waltrip, who won the race.
• February 19 - A Oklahoma City bombing museum is dedicated at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.
• February 20 - FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 15 years.
• February 20 - 2001 UK foot and mouth crisis begins.
• February 24-27 - Patient Tony Collins spends 77 hours and 30 minutes on a hospital trolley outside the toilets in the Princess Margaret Hospital, Swindon, United Kingdom
• February 28 - An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 hits the Nisqually Valley area of Washington. There was one reported death, an elderly woman who suffered a heart attack.
• February 28 - The Selby rail crash kills ten people.

March

• March 23 - Russian space stations Mir re-enters the atmosphere near Nadi, Fiji, and falls into the Pacific Ocean
• March 24 - Apple Computer's Mac OS X v10.0 is released.
• March 26 - WCW is bought out by WWE.
• March 28 - Tornado Dallas Skys rips through downtown Fort Worth killing five and causing more than 500 million dollars in property damage.
• March 31 - Invader Zim premieres on Nickelodeon.

April

• April 1 - An EP-3E American spyplane collides with a Chinese fighter jet and is forced to make an emergency landing in Hainan, China. The U.S. crew was detained for 10 days and the F-8 Chinese pilot, Wang Wei, went missing and presumed dead.
• April 1 - Former president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on charges of war crimes.
• April 1 - In the Netherlands, the Act on the Opening up of Marriage goes into effect. The Act allows same-sex couples to legally marry for the first time in the world.
• April 27 - Impostor Christopher Rocancourt arrested in Oak Bay, British Columbia
• April 29 - Census of population in the United Kingdom.

May

• May 1 - The Japanese cities of Urawa, Omiya, and Yono merge to form the city of Saitama.
• May 1 - Police declare the disappearance of Chandra Levy. Her remains were discovered a year later.
• May 7 - In Banja Luka, the second largest city in Bosnia, an attempt is made to reconstruct the Ferhadija mosque. However, the ceremony resulted in mass riots by Serb nationalists that beat and stone three hundred elderly Bosnian Muslims.
• May 10 - In Ghana, a stampede at a soccer game kills over 120.
• May 11 - Comedy sci-fi author Douglas Adams of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame, dies from a heart attack, aged 49.
• May 16 - John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister of United Kingdom, assaults Craig Evans at an election rally in Rhyll, North Wales.
• May 22 - Large trans-Neptunian object 28978 Ixion found during the Deep Ecliptic Survey.
• May 22 and May 23 - Official Opening of the Bahá'í Terraces on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel; site of the Shrine of the Báb and the Bahá'í World Centre.
• May 24 - Sherpa Temba Tsheri becomes the youngest person to conquer Mount Everest.

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. He dies June 4. King Gyanendra acceeds to the throne
• June 5-June 9 - Houston, Texas is devastated by flooding when Tropical Storm Allison produces 36 inches (900 mm) of rain. Particularly hard hit are the downtown area and the Texas Medical Center, which lost years of research and data and thousands of lab animals. Twenty-two people die; damage exceeds five billion American dollars.
• June 5 - Senator Jim Jeffords leaves the Republican party, an act which changes control of the United States Senate from the Republican party to the Democratic party
• June 7 - Tony Blair's Labour Party elected for second term in UK General Election
• June 8 - Popular editorial site suck.com, one of the first original content sites on the internet, publishes its final article, "Gone Fishin'."
• June 9 - The Colorado Avalanche win their second Stanley Cup Championship 3-1 in Game 7 over the New Jersey Devils at the Pepsi Center in Denver. This series was highly anticipated as longtime Boston Bruins star traded to become a [Colorado Avalanche|Colorado]] defenseman Ray Bourque wins the Stanley Cup for the first time in his illustrious 22 year NHL career, a few days after the team's victory, Bourque announces his retirement.
• June 11 - The United States executes Timothy James McVeigh for the Oklahoma City Bombing.
• June 19 - 23 people killed and 11 wounded by an American missile hitting a soccer field in northern Iraq, Tel Afr County.
• June 20 - Pervez Musharraf becomes President of Pakistan after the resignation of Rafiq Tarar.
• June 20 - Andrea Yates drowns her children in a bathtub and confesses to her crime. She would get life in prison for it.
• June 21 - Total solar eclipse

July

Protestors at the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy.

• July 2 - World's first self-contained artificial heart implanted in Robert Tools.
• July 3 - A Vladivostokavia Tupolev Tu-154 jetliner crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk, Russia killing 145
• July 16 - The FBI arrests Dmitry Sklyarov at a convention in Las Vegas for violating a provision of the DMCA.
• July 18 - In Baltimore, Maryland, a 60-car train derailment occurs in a tunnel sparking a fire that will last days and virtually shut down downtown Baltimore
• July 19 - UK politician and novelist Jeffrey Archer, sentenced to four years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
• July 20 - Vanessa Legget is found in contempt by a Federal Court for refusing to release notes made for her book on the Doris Angleton murder.
• July 20-22 - The 27th G8 summit takes place in Genoa, Italy. Massive demonstrations against the meeting by anti-globalisation groups. One demonstrator, Carlo Giuliani, is shot dead by a carabiniere and several others are badly injured during an attack by the police on a school which the protesters were using as their headquarters.
• July 24 - Tamil Tigers attack Bandaranaika International Airport in Sri Lanka, causing estimated $500 million of dam