2001

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2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (dominical letter G) of the Gregorian calendar, the 2001st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 1st year of the 3rd millennium, the 1st year of the 21st century, and the 2nd year of the 2000s decade.

2001 was designated as:

• International Year of Volunteers

Events

January

• January 11 – The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approves the merger of America Online and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner.
• January 13 – A 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits all of El Salvador, killing at least 800 people and leaving thousands homeless.
• January 15 – Wikipedia is founded.
• January 17 – Impeachment proceedings against Philippine President Joseph Estrada, accused of playing Jueteng, end preeminently and trigger the second EDSA People Power Revolution or People Power II. His Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo succeeds him as the 14th President of the Republic.
• January 20 – George W. Bush is sworn into office, succeeding Bill Clinton as President of the United States, over candidate contender Al Gore in the disputed U.S. presidential election, 2000.
• January 23 – The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident occurs.
• January 26 – An earthquake hits Gujarat, India, killing almost 20,000.
• January 31 – The Congressional Budget Office of the United States forecasts a $5,600,000,000,000 budget surplus for the next 10 years.^[1]

February

• February 9 – The submarine USS Greeneville accidentally strikes and sinks the Japanese fishing vessel Ehime-Maru near Hawaii.
• February 12 – The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
• February 13 – A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits El Salvador, killing at least 400.
• February 16 – Iraq disarmament crisis: British and U.S. forces carry out bombing raids, attempting to disable Iraq's air defense network.
• February 18 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 25 years.
• February 20 – The 2001 UK foot-and-mouth crisis begins.
• February 28 – The Great Heck rail crash occurs.

March

• March 2 – The Taliban begins destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas.
• March 4 – A bomb explodes at BBC Television Centre in London, UK.
• March 23
  • The deorbit of Russian space station Mir is carried out near Nadi, Fiji, with Mir falling into the Pacific Ocean.
  • The World Wrestling Federation (WWF/now WWE) purchases rival organization World Championship Wrestling (WCW) for an estimated US$7 million.
• March 24 - The first release of Mac OS X is released as the successor to Mac OS 9 and the Mac OS X Public Beta, which would not cease to function until May 14.

April

• April 1
  • Hainan Island incident: A Chinese fighter jet bumps into a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft, which is forced to make an emergency landing in Hainan, China. The U.S. crew is detained for 10 days and the F-8 Chinese pilot, Wang Wei, goes missing and is presumed dead.
  • Former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on charges of war crimes.
  • In the Netherlands, the Act on the Opening up of Marriage goes into effect. The Act allows same-sex couples to marry legally for the first time in the world since the reign of Nero.
• April 28 – Soyuz TM-32 lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying the first space tourist, American Dennis Tito.

May

• May 6 – Space tourist Dennis Tito returns to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-31. (Soyuz TM-32 is left docked at the International Space Station as a new lifeboat.)
• May 7 – In Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, an attempt is made to reconstruct the Ferhadija mosque. However, the ceremony results in mass riots by Serb nationalists, who beat and stone 300 elderly Bosnian Muslims.
• May 13 – Silvio Berlusconi wins the general election and becomes Prime Minister of Italy for the second time.
• May 14 – The Mac OS X Public Beta expires and its Aqua user interface ceases to function.^[2]
• May 22 – A large trans-Neptunian object (28978 Ixion) is found during the Deep Ecliptic Survey.
• May 22–23 – The Bahá'í Terraces officially open on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel (site of the Shrine of the Báb and the Bahá'í World Centre).
• May 24
  • Sherpa Temba Tsheri, 16, becomes the youngest person to summit Mount Everest.
  • The Versailles wedding hall disaster kills 23 in Jerusalem, Israel.

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 dies June 4, as King of Nepal. His uncle Gyanendra accedes to the throne.
  • A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21, mostly teenagers, in the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv, Israel.
• June 5–9 – Tropical Storm Allison produces 36 inches (900 mm) of rain in Houston, killing 22, damaging the Texas Medical Center, and causing more than 5 billion American dollars of damage overall.
• June 7 – George W. Bush signs the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the first tax cut of a series now known as the Bush tax cuts.
• June 11 – In Terre Haute, Indiana, Timothy McVeigh is executed for the Oklahoma City bombing.
• June 19 – A missile hits a soccer field in northern Iraq (Tel Afr County), killing 23 and wounding 11. According to U.S. officials, it was an Iraqi missile that malfunctioned.^[3]
• June 20 – Andrea Yates drowns all 5 of her young children in Houston, as a way to save them from Satan.
• June 21 – The world's longest train is set up by BHP Iron Ore and is recorded going between Newman and Port Hedland in Western Australia (a distance of 275 km, or 170 miles) and 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 7.353 km (4.569 mi) long.
• June 23 – The 8.4 Mw southern Peru earthquake kills 75 and injures more than 2,600.

July

• July 2 – The world's first self-contained artificial heart is implanted in Robert Tools.
• July 3 – Vladivostok Air Flight 352 crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk Airport, Russia, killing 145.
• July 7 – Race riots erupt in Bradford after National Front members reportedly stabbed an Asian man outside a pub.
• July 16
  • The People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation sign the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.
  • The FBI arrests Dmitry Sklyarov at a convention in Las Vegas, for violating a provision of the DMCA.
• July 18 – In Baltimore, a 60-car train derailment occurs in a tunnel, sparking a fire that lasts days and virtually shuts down downtown Baltimore.
• July 19 – UK politician and novelist Jeffrey Archer is sentenced to 4 years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
• July 20–22 – The 27th G8 summit takes place in Genoa, Italy. Massive demonstrations are held against the meeting by anti-globalisation groups. One demonstrator, Carlo Giuliani, is shot dead by a carabiniere. Several others are badly injured during a police attack on a school used by the protesters as their headquarters.
• July 24 – Tamil Tigers attack Bandaranaika International Airport in Sri Lanka, causing an estimated $500 million of damages.

August

• August 9 – Sbarro Restaurant in Jerusalem is attacked by a Palestinian militant, who kills 15 civilians and wounds 130.
• August 24 – Windows XP is launched by Microsoft.
• August 31 – September 1 – The 2001 Vancouver TV realignment occurs in British Columbia, Canada.
• August 31 – September 8 – The World Conference against Racism 2001 is held in Durban, South Africa.

September

September 11 attacks

• September – The piece As Slow as Possible, composed by John Cage, begins. It will last 639 years, finishing in the year 2640.^[4]
• September 3 – The United States, Canada and Israel withdraw from the U.N. Conference on Racism because they feel that the issue of Zionism is overemphasized.
• September 6 – United States v. Microsoft Corp.: The United States Justice Department announces that it no longer seeks to break up software maker Microsoft, and will instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty.
• September 9
  • A suicide bomber kills Ahmad Shah Massoud, military commander of the Afghan Northern Alliance.
  • 68 people die of methanol poisoning in Pärnu County, Estonia.
• September 10 – Donald Rumsfeld gives a speech regarding $2.3 trillion in Pentagon spending that cannot be accounted for. He identifies the Pentagon bureaucracy as the biggest threat to America.^[5]
• September 11 – 2,977 victims are killed in the September 11 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and in rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania after American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 are hijacked and crash into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, American Airlines Flight 77 is hijacked and crashes into the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 is hijacked and crashes into grassland in Shanksville, due to the passengers fighting to regain control of the airplane. The World Trade Center towers collapse as a result of the crashes.
• September 12 – Ansett Australia Airlines is placed into administration, the company's fleet is grounded 2 days later on September 14.
• September 18 – The 2001 anthrax attacks commence as letters containing anthrax spores are mailed from Princeton, New Jersey to ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Post, and the National Enquirer. 22 in total are exposed; 5 of them die.
• September 21 – In Toulouse, France, the AZote Fertilisant chemical factory explodes, killing 29 and seriously wounding over 2,500.

October

• October – U.S. President George W. Bush announces the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security.
• October 2 – Swissair seeks for bankruptcy protection and grounds its entire fleet.
• October 4 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashes over the Black Sea en route from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk, Russia; 78 are killed.
• October 7 – War in Afghanistan (2001–present): The United States invades Afghanistan, with participation from other nations.
• October 8 – Scandinavian Airlines Flight SK686 collides first with a private plane and then a building in Milan Linate Airport; 118 are killed.
• October 15 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles (180 km) of Jupiter's moon Io.
• October 19 – SIEV X sinks en route to Christmas Island, killing 353 people.
• October 23
  • The Provisional Irish Republican Army of Northern Ireland commences disarmament after peace talks.
  • The iPod is first introduced by Apple.
• October 26 – U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act into law.

November

Soldiers board a Chinook helicopter

• November – The Doha Declaration relaxes the grip of international intellectual property law.
• November 2 – The Glocal Forum, leading international organization in the field of city-to-city cooperation, is established by Ambassador Uri Savir.
• November 4
  • Hurricane Michelle hits Cuba, destroying crops and thousands of homes.
  • The Police Service of Northern Ireland is established, replacing the controversial Royal Ulster Constabulary.
• November 10
  • The People's Republic of China is admitted to the World Trade Organization after 15 years of negotiations.
  • Heavy rains and mudslides in Algeria kill more than 900.
  • John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia, is elected to a third term.
• November 12 – In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, headed to the Dominican Republic, crashes in Queens minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board.
• November 13 – In the first such act since World War II, U.S. President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against any foreigners suspected of having connections to terrorist acts or planned acts against the United States.
• November 30 – Gary Ridgway, a.k.a. The Green River Killer, is arrested outside of the truck factory where he had worked in Renton, Washington. His arrest marked the end of one of the longest running homicide investigations in US history.

December

• December 2
  • Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection 5 days after Dynegy cancels a US$8.4 billion buyout bid (to that point, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history).
  • During economic crisis in Argentina government effectively froze all bank accounts for twelve months which led to riots.
• December 3 – Officials announce that one of the Taliban prisoners captured after the prison uprising at Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan is John Walker Lindh, an American citizen.
• December 11
  • The United States government indicts Zacarias Moussaoui for involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
  • Law enforcement raid members of DrinkOrDie in Operation Buccaneer.
• December 13
  • The Parliament of India is attacked; 12 are killed. This brings India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
  • U.S. President George W. Bush announces the US withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
• December 22 – A Paris–Miami flight is diverted to Boston after passenger Richard Reid attempts to set his shoe, filled with explosives, on fire.
• December 27
  • The People's Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade status with the United States.
  • Typhoon Vamei forms within 1.5 degrees of the equator. No other tropical cyclone in recorded history has come as close to the equator.

Births

• January 21 – Jackson Brundage, American actor
• February 2 – Connor Gibbs, American actor
• February 5 – Juan Karlos Labajo, Filipino singer and performer
• February 19 – David Mazouz, American actor
• February 20 – Ren Qian, Chinese diver
• February 24 – Ramona Marquez, British actress
• May 24 – Darren Espanto, Filipino singer and performer
• June 21 – Eleanor Worthington Cox, British actress
• August 23 - Zaijian Jaranilla Filipino Child Star
• October 12 – Raymond Ochoa, American actor
• October 14 – Rowan Blanchard, American actress
• October 25 – Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant, daughter and Heiress Apparent of Philippe, King of the Belgians
• November 21 – Samantha Bailey, American actress
• November 27 – Morgana Davies, Australian actress
• December 1 – Aiko, Princess Toshi of Japan
• December 28 – Madison De La Garza, American actress

Deaths

January

Marie José of Belgium

• January 1 – Ray Walston, American actor (b. 1914)
• January 12
  • William Redington Hewlett, American businessman (b. 1913)
  • Adhemar da Silva, Brazilian athlete (b. 1927)
• January 16
  • Virginia O'Brien, American actress (b. 1919)
  • Laurent-Désiré Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1939)
• January 27 – Marie José of Belgium, last Queen of Italy (b. 1906)
• January 30 – Michel Marcel Navratil, last French citizen and male survivor of the Titanic disaster (b. 1908)
• January 31 – Gordon R. Dickson, Canadian writer (b. 1923)

February

Dale Earnhardt

Stanley Kramer

• February 4 – Iannis Xenakis, Greek composer (b. 1922)
• February 7 – King Moody, American actor (b. 1929)
• February 9 – Herbert A. Simon, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1916)
• February 18
  • Balthus, French painter (b. 1908)
  • Dale Earnhardt, American auto racing driver (b. 1951)
• February 19
  • Stanley Kramer, American film director (b. 1913)
  • Charles Trenet, French singer (b. 1913)
• February 20 – Rosemary DeCamp, American actress (b. 1910)
• February 24 – Claude Shannon, American mathematician (b. 1916)
• February 25 – Sir Donald Bradman, Australian cricketer (b. 1908)

March

Ann Sothern

• March 12
  • Morton Downey, Jr., American television personality (b. 1932)
  • Robert Ludlum, American author (b. 1927)
• March 15
  • Gaetano Cozzi, Italian historian (b. 1922)
  • Ann Sothern, American actress (b. 1909)
• March 18 – John Phillips, American singer/songwriter (b. 1935)
• March 22 – William Hanna, American animator and businessman (b. 1910)
• March 31 – Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1915)

April

Joey Ramone

• April 7 – David Graf, American actor (b. 1950)
• April 15 – Joey Ramone, American musician and singer (b. 1951)
• April 20 – Giuseppe Sinopoli, Italian conductor and composer (b. 1946)
• April 21 – Jack Haley, Jr., American film director and producer (b. 1933)
• April 26 – Michele Alboreto, Italian racing driver (b. 1956)
• April 29 – Barend Biesheuvel, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1971 until 1973 (b. 1920)

May

Douglas Adams

• May 11 – Douglas Adams, English author (b. 1952)
• May 12 – Perry Como, American singer (b. 1912)
• May 13 – R. K. Narayan, Indian novelist (b. 1906)
• May 17 – Jacques-Louis Lions, French mathematician (b. 1928)
• May 24 – Javier Urruticoechea, Spanish footballer (b. 1952)

June

Anthony Quinn

Jack Lemmon

• June 1 – King Birendra of Nepal (b. 1945)
• June 3 – Anthony Quinn, Mexican-American actor (b. 1915)
• June 4 – King Dipendra of Nepal (b. 1971)
• June 7 – Víctor Paz Estenssoro, President of Bolivia (b. 1907)
• June 10 – Leila Pahlavi, Iranian princess (b. 1970)
• June 11 – Timothy McVeigh, Perpetrator of the Oklahoma City bombing (b. 1968)
• June 17 – Donald J. Cram, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1919)
• June 21
  • John Lee Hooker, American musician (b. 1917)
  • Carroll O'Connor, American actor (b. 1924)
• June 27
  • Tove Jansson, Finnish author (b. 1914)
  • Jack Lemmon, American actor and director (b. 1925)
• June 28
  • Joan Sims, English actress (b. 1930)
  • Mortimer J. Adler, American philosopher (b. 1902)
• June 30 – Chet Atkins, American guitarist and record producer (b. 1924)

July

Edward Gierek

• July 1 – Nikolay Basov, Soviet physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1922)
• July 11 – Gaspare di Mercurio, Italian doctor and author (b. 1926)
• July 24 – Hiroshi Tsuburaya, Japanese actor (b. 1964)
• July 28 – Ahmed Sofa, Bangladeshi writer (b. 1943)
• July 29 – Edward Gierek, Polish politician (b. 1913)

August

Jane Greer

• August 1 – Poul Anderson, American author (b. 1926)
• August 6
  • Larry Adler, American musician (b. 1914)
  • Jorge Amado, Brazilian writer (b. 1912)
• August 20 – Fred Hoyle, British astronomer and writer (b. 1915)
• August 22 – Bernard Heuvelmans, Belgian-French cryptozoologist (b. 1916)
• August 23 – Kathleen Freeman, American actress (b. 1919)
• August 24 – Jane Greer, American actress (b. 1924)
• August 25
  • Ken Tyrrell, British auto racing driver (b. 1924)
  • Aaliyah, R&B singer and actress (b. 1979)

September

Troy Donahue

Dorothy McGuire

• September 2
  • Christiaan Barnard, South African surgeon (b. 1922)
  • Troy Donahue, American actor (b. 1936)
• September 3 – Thuy Trang, Vietnamese American actress (b. 1973)
• September 9 – Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghan military commander (b. 1953)
• September 11 – 2,977 victims who died in the September 11 attacks
  • David Angell, American television producer (b. 1946)
  • Berry Berenson, American photographer (and widow of Anthony Perkins) (b. 1948)
  • Barbara Olson, American television commentator (b. 1955)
• September 12 – Victor Wong, Chinese-American character actor (b. 1927)
• September 13 – Frédéric-Antonin Breysse, French cartoonist (b. 1907)
• September 14 – Dorothy McGuire, American actress (b. 1916)
• September 20
  • Marcos Pérez Jiménez, former President of Venezuela (b. 1914)
  • Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, East German journalist and host of the television show Der schwarze Kanal (b. 1918)
• September 22 – Isaac Stern, Ukrainian violinist (b. 1920)

October

Zhang Xueliang

• October 4 – Blaise Alexander, American automobile racing driver (b. 1976)
• October 15 – Zhang Xueliang, Chinese military figure (b. 1901)
• October 22 – Bertie Mee, English football player and coach (b. 1918)
• October 24 – Jaromil Jireš, Czechoslovak filmmaker (b. 1935)

November

George Harrison

• November 3 – Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, OM, CBE, Austrian-born art historian (b. 1909)
• November 9 – Giovanni Leone, former Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1908)
• November 10 – Ken Kesey, American author (b. 1935)
• November 24
  • Melanie Thornton, American singer (La Bouche) (b. 1967)
  • Rachel Gurney, British actress (b. 1920)
• November 25 – Gohar Shahi, Pakistani spiritual leader (b. 1941)
• November 29 – George Harrison, English musician (member of the Beatles)(b. 1943)

December

Léopold Sédar Senghor

• December 12 – Josef Bican, Czech-Austrian footballer (b. 1913)
• December 13 – Chuck Schuldiner, American singer and guitarist (b. 1967)
• December 16 – Stuart Adamson, Scottish singer and guitarist (Big Country) (b. 1958)
• December 18 – Marcel Mule, French saxophonist (b. 1901)
• December 20 – Léopold Sédar Senghor, First president of Senegal (b. 1906)
• December 22 – Grzegorz Ciechowski, Polish musician (b. 1957)
• December 23 – Jelle Zijlstra, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1966 until 1967 (b. 1918)
• December 26 – Nigel Hawthorne, British actor (b. 1929)

Specific date of death unknown

• Etan Patz was declared legally dead. He was an American child that disappeared on May 25, 1979. His disappearance sparked the missing children's movement.

Nobel Prizes

• Physics – Eric Allin Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle, and Carl Wieman
• Chemistry – William Standish Knowles, Ryōji Noyori, and Karl Barry Sharpless
• Medicine – Leland H. Hartwell, Tim Hunt, and Paul Nurse
• Literature – V. S. Naipaul
• Peace – United Nations, Kofi Annan
• Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel – George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz

In fiction

• The movie and novel 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke.
• The 1983 Japanese manga Riki-Oh takes place in 2001.
• The video game Grand Theft Auto III is set in 2001

See also

References

External links

• 2001 - The Year in Review - The Financial Times