July 2002

July 2002: January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December

Events

July 1, 2002

• A Russian Tupolev Tu-154 airliner and a Boeing 757 operated by DHL collide at 35,000 ft over Überlingen, due to failure of correct communication from ground-to-air. The 69 people aboard the Tupolev (mainly Russian schoolchildren) and the two pilots of the Boeing are all killed.

July 2, 2002

• Nicotine water is ruled illegal by the Food and Drug Administration.
• Entertainment – Yahoo! Internet Life magazine folds.
• Medicine – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States will be headed by an infectious disease expert.
• Technology – A US federal judge decided that Microsoft is not required to reveal its lobbying contacts.

July 3, 2002

• Columbia Pictures publicly distributed Men in Black II into movie theaters.

July 5, 2002

• Recent celebrity deaths: Ted Williams, baseball player, aged 83.

July 8, 2002

• Organization of African Unity disbanded, African Union created.

July 9, 2002

• George W. Bush gives a stern speech addressing American accountancy scandals.
• Recent celebrity deaths: Rod Steiger, American actor, aged 77.

July 10, 2002

• Michel Brunet, a paleontologist at the University of Poitiers, France, announced in the journal Nature that a 7-million-year-old skull found in the desert of Chad is the earliest hominid fossil ever found. But he was immediately met by a firestorm of criticism from other scientists who claim that it is merely the skull of an ape, possibly a proto-gorilla.
• The Free Software Initiative of Japan was founded.

July 11, 2002

• A group of Moroccan soldiers set up base on the Perejil Island.

July 14, 2002

• French president Jacques Chirac misses a would-be assassin's bullet during Bastille Day celebrations.

July 15, 2002

• John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban", pled guilty to two charges, and prosecutors dropped the rest. He will be sentenced in October.

July 18, 2002

• Patents: Forgent Networks asserts that it owns and will enforce patent rights on the widely used JPEG image compression standard which is used widely on the World Wide Web. The announcement creates a furore remisicent of Unisys' attempts to assert its rights over the GIF image compression standard.
• Muslim missile engineer Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam is elected president of India, to be sworn into office July 25.
• This morning, Spain launches Operation Romeo-Sierra, a military attempt to take over the Perejil Island. The operation is successful.

July 22, 2002

• A few hours after the spiritual leader of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, offered to halt all suicide attacks in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, an Israeli F-16 jet dropped a bomb into a densely populated residential area of Gaza City. Fifteen people were killed, including Salah Shehade (the leader of Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din el-Qasam Brigades), and more than 100 others were wounded. Nine of the dead were children, including Mohammed al-Huwaiti (aged 4), his brother Subhi (aged 3), Ayman Mattar (aged 1) and Dunya Rami Mattar (aged three months). The United Nations swiftly condemned the action as a flagrant violation of international law. Ariel Sharon, Israel's Prime Minister, said it was "one of our biggest successes", though the Prime Minister's office later added, "it is well known he regrets the killing of civilians."
• An earthquake (magnitude 4.7) hits parts of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
• Accounting scandals: WorldCom has filed for bankruptcy protection, in the largest corporate insolvency ever.
• Harry Potter. The director for the third Harry Potter film has been announced as Mexican-born Alfonso Cuarón. Cuarón will start directing "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" next year.
• Politics of the Netherlands. A new cabinet is sworn in, with Jan Peter Balkenende replacing Wim Kok as Prime Minister. He heads a coalition of three parties: Christen Democratisch Appèl, Lijst Pim Fortuyn and Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie. One of the state secretaries of the new cabinet resigned a few hours later.
• Steve Fossett circles the Globe in a balloon.

July 23, 2002

• Recent celebrity deaths: Chaim Potok, novelist dies of cancer at age 73.

July 24, 2002

• First near-earth object to be given a positive rating on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale for potential Earth collision is (89959) 2002 NT₇ with a potential impact on February 1, 2019.
• U.S. Congressman James Traficant was expelled from the House of Representatives on a vote of 420 to 1. Traficant had been convicted of ten federal counts of corruption.
• The major Millennium Challenge 2002 war game run by the United States armed forces begins.

July 25, 2002

• A proposal by the United States to delay adoption of a new United Nations anti-torture pact was defeated 15–29, after which the pact was adopted by the Economic and Social Council. The United States cited concerns that, if adopted by the General Assembly, American state prisons and other facilities may become subject to inspection.
• Open source: Streaming media company RealNetworks has announced that it will support the free software Ogg Vorbis audio compression technology as part of its new open-source initiative. This will provide a mass market for the Vorbis technology, allowing it access to network effects which may make it a serious competitor to Microsoft's closed technologies.

July 27, 2002

• Ukraine airshow disaster: A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter plane crashes into a crowd at an airshow in Lviv in Ukraine, killing at least 78 people and injuring many more.
• A series of bomb blasts have rocked the Christian districts of the city of Ambon in Indonesia in what appears to be a continuation of violence between Christian and Muslim inhabitants. Over the past five years more than 5000 people have been killed in this conflict.
• Nine American miners have been rescued from a mine in Pennsylvania, after frantic drilling by rescuers.
• The Homeland Security Bill passes the United States House of Representatives, in a form that appears to kill Operation TIPS.

July 28, 2002

• Cyclist Lance Armstrong wins his fourth consecutive Tour de France.

July 29, 2002

• England beats India in the first cricket Test match of the series.

July 30, 2002

• Pope John Paul II canonizes Pedro de San José Betancurt.
• Greek electronic game ban: The bill 3037/2002, a controversial attempt to fight illegal gambling, is declared a law in Greece.
• 2002 Glasgow floods

July 31, 2002

• The Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate begins hearings on the proposed invasion of Iraq
• The stock market continues its recovery from the Stock market downturn of 2002
• In Mexico Pope John Paul II canonizes St. Juan Diego, a Mexican Indian who had a vision of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe.