Important Historical Events of the year 2001, Year 2001 in History
List of 2001 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 2001
What happened in the year 2001?
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 12, 2001 | Downtown Disney opens to the public as part of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. |
| January 13, 2001 | An earthquake hits El Salvador, killing more than 800. |
| January 15, 2001 | Wikipedia, a free wiki content encyclopedia, goes online. |
| January 16, 2001 | Second Congo War: Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards in Kinshasa. |
| January 16, 2001 | US President Bill Clinton awards former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish–American War. |
| January 20, 2001 | President of the Philippines Joseph Estrada is ousted in a nonviolent four-day revolution, and is succeeded by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. |
| January 23, 2001 | Five people attempt to set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act that many people later claim is staged by the Chinese Communist Party to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution. |
| January 26, 2001 | The 7.7 Mw Gujarat earthquake shakes Western India, leaving 13,805–20,023 dead and about 166,800 injured.[42] |
| January 26, 2001 | Diane Whipple, a lacrosse coach, is killed in a dog attack in San Francisco, which clarified the meaning of implied malice murder. |
| January 29, 2001 | Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia storm parliament and demand that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals. |
| January 31, 2001 | In the Netherlands, a Scottish court convicts Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and acquits another Libyan citizen for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. |
| January 31, 2001 | Two Japan Airlines planes nearly collide over Suruga Bay in Japan. |
| February 7, 2001 | Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-98, carrying the Destiny laboratory module to the International Space Station. |
| February 9, 2001 | The Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision takes place, killing nine of the thirty-five people on board the Japanese fishery high-school training ship Ehime Maru, leaving the USS Greeneville (SSN-772) with US $2 million in repairs, at Pearl Harbor.[17][18][19][20] |
| February 11, 2001 | A Dutch programmer launched the Anna Kournikova virus infecting millions of emails via a trick photo of the tennis star. |
| February 12, 2001 | NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid. |
| February 13, 2001 | An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter magnitude scale hits El Salvador, killing at least 944. |
| February 15, 2001 | The first draft of the complete human genome is published in Nature. |
| February 18, 2001 | FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| February 18, 2001 | Sampit conflict: Inter-ethnic violence between Dayaks and Madurese breaks out in Sampit, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, ultimately resulting in more than 500 deaths and 100,000 Madurese displaced from their homes. |
| February 27, 2001 | Loganair Flight 670A crashes while attempting to make a water landing in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. |
| February 28, 2001 | The 2001 Nisqually earthquake, having a moment magnitude of 6.8, with epicenter in the southern Puget Sound, damages Seattle metropolitan area. |
| March 4, 2001 | BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring one person; the attack was attributed to the Real IRA. |
| March 16, 2001 | A series of bomb blasts in the city of Shijiazhuang, China kill 108 people and injure 38 others,[24] the biggest mass murder in China in decades. |
| March 19, 2001 | German trade union ver.di is formed. |
| March 23, 2001 | The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji. |
| March 28, 2001 | Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos begins operation. |
| April 1, 2001 | An EP-3E United States Navy surveillance aircraft collides with a Chinese People's Liberation Army Shenyang J-8 fighter jet. The Chinese pilot ejected but is subsequently lost. The Navy crew makes an emergency landing in Hainan, China and is detained. |
| April 1, 2001 | Former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on war crimes charges. |
| April 1, 2001 | Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, the first contemporary country to allow it. |
| April 7, 2001 | NASA launches the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter. |
| April 11, 2001 | The detained crew of a United States EP-3E aircraft that landed in Hainan, China after a collision with a J-8 fighter, is released. |
| April 16, 2001 | India and Bangladesh begin a five-day border conflict, but are unable to resolve the disputes about their border. |
| April 25, 2001 | President George W. Bush pledges U.S. military support in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. |
| May 3, 2001 | The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947. |
| May 6, 2001 | During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque. |
| May 9, 2001 | In Ghana, 129 football fans die in what became known as the Accra Sports Stadium disaster. The deaths are caused by a stampede (caused by the firing of tear gas by police personnel at the stadium) that followed a controversial decision by the referee. |
| May 15, 2001 | A CSX EMD SD40-2 rolls out of a train yard in Walbridge, Ohio, with 47 freight cars, including some tank cars with flammable chemical, after its engineer fails to reboard it after setting a yard switch. It travels south driverless for 66 miles (106 km) until it was brought to a halt near Kenton.[6] The incident became the inspiration for the 2010 film Unstoppable. |
| May 21, 2001 | French Taubira law is enacted, officially recognizing the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity. |
| May 25, 2001 | Erik Weihenmayer becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in the Himalayas, with Dr. Sherman Bull. |
| May 27, 2001 | Members of the Islamist separatist group Abu Sayyaf seize twenty hostages from an affluent island resort on Palawan in the Philippines; the hostage crisis would not be resolved until June 2002. |
| May 29, 2001 | The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the disabled golfer Casey Martin can use a cart to ride in tournaments. |
| June 1, 2001 | Nepalese royal massacre: Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal shoots and kills several members of his family including his father and mother. |
| June 1, 2001 | Dolphinarium discotheque massacre: A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21 at a disco in Tel Aviv. |
| June 5, 2001 | Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm causes $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the second costliest tropical storm in U.S. history. |
| June 8, 2001 | Mamoru Takuma kills eight and injures 15 in a mass stabbing at an elementary school in the Osaka Prefecture of Japan. |
| June 10, 2001 | Pope John Paul II canonizes Lebanon's first female saint, Saint Rafqa. |
| June 11, 2001 | Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. |
| June 15, 2001 | Leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. |
| June 21, 2001 | A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicts 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen. |
| June 23, 2001 | The 8.4 Mw southern Peru earthquake shakes coastal Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami followed, leaving at least 74 people dead, and 2,687 injured. |
| June 28, 2001 | Slobodan Milošević is extradited to the ICTY in The Hague to stand trial. |
| July 2, 2001 | The AbioCor self-contained artificial heart is first implanted. |
| July 4, 2001 | Vladivostock Air Flight 352 crashes on approach to Irkutsk Airport killing all 145 people on board. |
| July 12, 2001 | Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-104, carrying the Quest Joint Airlock to the International Space Station. |
| July 17, 2001 | Concorde is brought back into service nearly a year after the July 2000 crash. |
| July 21, 2001 | At the conclusion of a fireworks display on Okura Beach in Akashi, Hyōgo, Japan, 11 people are killed and more than 120 are injured when a pedestrian footbridge connecting the beach to JR Asagiri Station becomes overcrowded and people leaving the event fall down in a domino effect. |
| July 24, 2001 | The Bandaranaike Airport attack is carried out by 14 Tamil Tiger commandos. Eleven civilian and military aircraft are destroyed and 15 are damaged. All 14 commandos are shot dead, while seven soldiers from the Sri Lanka Air Force are killed. In addition, three civilians and an engineer die. This incident slowed the Sri Lankan economy. |
| July 28, 2001 | Australian Ian Thorpe becomes the first swimmer to win six gold medals at a single World Championship meeting. |
| August 6, 2001 | Erwadi fire incident: Twenty-eight mentally ill persons tied to a chain are burnt to death at a faith based institution at Erwadi, Tamil Nadu. |
| August 8, 2001 | Albanian rebels ambush a convoy of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia near Tetovo, killing 10 soldiers. |
| August 10, 2001 | The 2001 Angola train attack occurred, causing 252 deaths. |
| August 10, 2001 | Space Shuttle program: The Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-105 to the International Space Station, carrying the astronauts of Expedition 3 to replace the crew of Expedition 2. |
| August 24, 2001 | Air Transat Flight 236 loses all engine power over the Atlantic Ocean, forcing the pilots to conduct an emergency landing in the Azores. |
| August 25, 2001 | American singer Aaliyah and several members of her record company are killed as their overloaded aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport, Bahamas. |
| August 29, 2001 | Four people are killed when Binter Mediterráneo Flight 8261 crashes into the N-340 highway near Málaga Airport. |
| September 3, 2001 | In Belfast, Protestant loyalists begin a picket of Holy Cross, a Catholic primary school for girls. |
| September 4, 2001 | Tokyo DisneySea opens to the public as part of the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan. |
| September 9, 2001 | Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, is assassinated in Afghanistan by two al-Qaeda assassins who claimed to be Arab journalists wanting an interview. |
| September 10, 2001 | Antônio da Costa Santos, mayor of Campinas, Brazil is assassinated. |
| September 10, 2001 | During his appearance on the British TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, contestant Charles Ingram reaches the £1 million top prize, but it was later revealed that he had cheated to the top prize by listening to coughs from his wife and another contestant.[3] |
| September 11, 2001 | The September 11 attacks, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks killing 2,996 people using four aircraft hijacked by 19 members of al-Qaeda. Two aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, a third crashes into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. |
| September 12, 2001 | Ansett Australia, Australia's first commercial interstate airline, collapses due to increased strain on the international airline industry, leaving 10,000 people unemployed. |
| September 13, 2001 | Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the United States after the September 11 attacks. |
| September 14, 2001 | Historic National Prayer Service held at Washington National Cathedral for victims of the September 11 attacks. A similar service is held in Canada on Parliament Hill, the largest vigil ever held in the nation's capital. |
| September 15, 2001 | During a CART race at the Lausitzring in Germany, former Formula One driver Alex Zanardi suffers a heavy accident resulting in him losing both his legs. |
| September 17, 2001 | The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression. |
| September 18, 2001 | First mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks. |
| September 20, 2001 | In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a "War on Terror".[27] |
| September 21, 2001 | America: A Tribute to Heroes is broadcast by over 35 network and cable channels, raising over $200 million for the victims of the September 11 attacks. |
| September 21, 2001 | Ross Parker is murdered in Peterborough, England, by a gang of ten British Pakistani youths. |
| September 27, 2001 | In Switzerland, a gunman shoots 18 citizens, killing 14 and then himself. |
| October 1, 2001 | Militants attack the state legislature building in Kashmir, killing 38. |
| October 4, 2001 | Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashes after being struck by an errant Ukrainian missile. Seventy-eight people are killed. |
| October 7, 2001 | The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan begins with an air assault and covert operations on the ground, starting the longest war in American history. |
| October 8, 2001 | A twin engine Cessna and a Scandinavian Airlines System jetliner collide in heavy fog during takeoff from Milan, Italy, killing 118 people. |
| October 8, 2001 | U.S. President George W. Bush announces the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security. |
| October 11, 2001 | The Polaroid Corporation files for federal bankruptcy protection. |
| October 15, 2001 | NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 180 km of Jupiter's moon Io. |
| October 17, 2001 | Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi becomes the first Israeli minister to be assassinated in a terrorist attack. |
| October 19, 2001 | SIEV X, an Indonesian fishing boat en route to Christmas Island, carrying over 400 migrants, sinks in international waters with the loss of 353 people. |
| October 23, 2001 | Apple Computer releases the iPod. |
| October 25, 2001 | Microsoft releases Windows XP, which becomes one of Microsoft's most successful operating systems. |
| October 26, 2001 | The United States passes the USA PATRIOT Act into law. |
| November 1, 2001 | Turkey, Australia, and Canada agree to commit troops to the invasion of Afghanistan. |
| November 11, 2001 | Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in. |
| November 12, 2001 | In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 en route to the Dominican Republic, crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board and five on the ground. |
| November 12, 2001 | War in Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, ahead of advancing Afghan Northern Alliance troops. |
| November 13, 2001 | War on Terror: In the first such act since World War II, US President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against foreigners suspected of connections to terrorist acts or planned acts on the United States. |
| November 14, 2001 | War in Afghanistan: Afghan Northern Alliance fighters take over the capital Kabul. |
| November 14, 2001 | A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes a remote part of the Tibetan plateau. It has the longest known surface rupture recorded on land (~400 km) and is the best documented example of a supershear earthquake. |
| November 15, 2001 | Microsoft launches the Xbox game console. |
| November 23, 2001 | The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary. |
| November 27, 2001 | A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet. |
| December 2, 2001 | Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. |
| December 8, 2001 | A raid conducted by the Internal Security Department (ISD) of Singapore foils a Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) plot to bomb foreign embassies in Singapore. |
| December 11, 2001 | China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO). |
| December 12, 2001 | Prime Minister of Vietnam Phan Văn Khải announces the decision on upgrading the Phong Nha–Kẻ Bàng nature reserve to a national park, providing information on projects for the conservation and development of the park and revised maps. |
| December 13, 2001 | Sansad Bhavan, the building housing the Indian Parliament, is attacked by terrorists. Twelve people are killed, including the terrorists. |
| December 15, 2001 | The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to stabilize it, without fixing its famous lean. |
| December 19, 2001 | A record high barometric pressure of 1,085.6 hectopascals (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Khövsgöl, Mongolia. |
| December 19, 2001 | Argentine economic crisis: December riots: Riots erupt in Buenos Aires, Argentina. |
| December 22, 2001 | Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Northern Alliance, hands over power in Islamic State of Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai. |
| December 22, 2001 | Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63. |