Important Historical Events of the year 2003, Year 2003 in History
List of 2003 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 2003
What happened in the year 2003?
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 8, 2003 | Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashes near Diyarbakır Airport, Turkey, killing the entire crew and 70 of the 75 passengers. |
| January 8, 2003 | Air Midwest Flight 5481 crashes at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, in Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 people on board. |
| January 11, 2003 | Illinois Governor George Ryan commutes the death sentences of 167 prisoners on Illinois's death row based on the Jon Burge scandal. |
| January 16, 2003 | The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry. |
| January 18, 2003 | A bushfire kills four people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia. |
| January 21, 2003 | A 7.6 magnitude earthquake strikes the Mexican state of Colima, killing 29 and leaving approximately 10,000 people homeless. |
| January 23, 2003 | A very weak signal from Pioneer 10 is detected for the last time, but no usable data can be extracted. |
| January 24, 2003 | The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation. |
| January 25, 2003 | Invasion of Iraq: A group of people leave London, England, for Baghdad, Iraq, to serve as human shields, intending to prevent the U.S.-led coalition troops from bombing certain locations. |
| January 27, 2003 | The first selections for the National Recording Registry are announced by the Library of Congress. |
| February 1, 2003 | Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during the reentry of mission STS-107 into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard. |
| February 4, 2003 | The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia adopts a new constitution, becoming a loose confederacy between Montenegro and Serbia. |
| February 10, 2003 | France and Belgium break the NATO procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for Turkey in case of a possible war with Iraq. |
| February 14, 2003 | Iraq disarmament crisis: UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans Blix reports to the United Nations Security Council that disarmament inspectors have found no weapons of mass destruction in Ba'athist Iraq. |
| February 15, 2003 | Protests against the Iraq war take place in over 600 cities worldwide. It is estimated that between eight million and 30 million people participate, making this the largest peace demonstration in history. |
| February 18, 2003 | 192 people die when an arsonist sets fire to a subway train in Daegu, South Korea. |
| February 19, 2003 | An Ilyushin Il-76 military aircraft crashes near Kerman, Iran, killing 275. |
| February 20, 2003 | During a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island, a pyrotechnics display sets the Station nightclub ablaze, killing 100 and injuring over 200 others.[10] |
| March 1, 2003 | Management of the United States Customs Service and the United States Secret Service move to the United States Department of Homeland Security. |
| March 1, 2003 | The International Criminal Court holds its inaugural session in The Hague. |
| March 5, 2003 | In Haifa, 17 Israeli civilians are killed in the Haifa bus 37 suicide bombing. |
| March 6, 2003 | Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashes at the Aguenar – Hadj Bey Akhamok Airport in Tamanrasset, Algeria, killing 102 out of the 103 people on board. |
| March 12, 2003 | Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade. |
| March 12, 2003 | The World Health Organization officially release a global warning of outbreaks of Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). |
| March 13, 2003 | An article in Nature identifies the Ciampate del Diavolo as 350,000-year-old hominid footprints. |
| March 16, 2003 | American activist Rachel Corrie is killed in Rafah by being run over by an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer while trying to obstruct the demolition of a home. |
| March 17, 2003 | Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. |
| March 20, 2003 | Iraq War: The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland begin an invasion of Iraq. |
| March 23, 2003 | Battle of Nasiriyah, first major conflict during the invasion of Iraq. |
| March 24, 2003 | The Arab League votes 21 |
| March 28, 2003 | In a friendly fire incident, two American A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft attack British tanks participating in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, killing one soldier. |
| April 7, 2003 | Iraq War: U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime falls two days later. |
| April 9, 2003 | Iraq War: Baghdad falls to American forces. |
| April 16, 2003 | The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting ten new member states to the European Union. |
| April 16, 2003 | Michael Jordan plays his final game with the National Basketball Association. |
| May 1, 2003 | Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended". |
| May 12, 2003 | The Riyadh compound bombings in Saudi Arabia, carried out by al-Qaeda, kill 39 people. |
| May 16, 2003 | In Morocco, 33 civilians are killed and more than 100 people are injured in the Casablanca terrorist attacks. |
| May 21, 2003 | The 6.8 Mw Boumerdès earthquake shakes northern Algeria with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). More than 2,200 people were killed and a moderate tsunami sank boats at the Balearic Islands. |
| May 28, 2003 | Peter Hollingworth resigns as Governor-General of Australia following criticism of his handling of child sexual abuse allegations during his tenure as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane. |
| May 30, 2003 | Depayin massacre: At least 70 people associated with the National League for Democracy are killed by government-sponsored mob in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi flees the scene, but is arrested soon afterwards. |
| May 31, 2003 | Air France retires its fleet of Concorde aircraft. |
| June 2, 2003 | Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. |
| June 5, 2003 | A severe heat wave across Pakistan and India reaches its peak, as temperatures exceed 50 °C (122 °F) in the region. |
| June 10, 2003 | The Spirit rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission. |
| June 20, 2003 | The Wikimedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida. |
| June 26, 2003 | The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional. |
| July 1, 2003 | Over 500,000 people protest against efforts to pass anti-sedition legislation in Hong Kong. |
| July 5, 2003 | The World Health Organization announces that the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak has been contained. |
| July 6, 2003 | The 70-metre Yevpatoria Planetary Radar sends a METI message (Cosmic Call 2) to five stars: Hip 4872, HD 245409, 55 Cancri (HD 75732), HD 10307 and 47 Ursae Majoris (HD 95128). The messages will arrive to these stars in 2036, 2040, 2044, and 2049, respectively. |
| July 7, 2003 | NASA Opportunity rover, MER-B or Mars Exploration Rover–B, was launched into space aboard a Delta II rocket. |
| July 8, 2003 | Sudan Airways Flight 139 crashes near Port Sudan Airport during an emergency landing attempt, killing 116 of the 117 people on board. |
| July 13, 2003 | French DGSE personnel abort an operation to rescue Íngrid Betancourt from FARC rebels in Colombia, causing a political scandal when details are leaked to the press. |
| July 15, 2003 | AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape. The Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day. |
| July 22, 2003 | Members of 101st Airborne of the United States, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay's 14-year-old son, and a bodyguard. |
| July 30, 2003 | In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line. |
| August 5, 2003 | A car bomb explodes in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta outside the Marriott Hotel killing 12 and injuring 150. |
| August 10, 2003 | The Okinawa Urban Monorail is opened in Naha, Okinawa. |
| August 11, 2003 | NATO takes over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe in its 54-year-history. |
| August 11, 2003 | Jemaah Islamiyah leader Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand. |
| August 14, 2003 | A widescale power blackout affects the northeast United States and Canada. |
| August 18, 2003 | One-year-old Zachary Turner is murdered in Newfoundland by his mother, who was awarded custody despite facing trial for the murder of Zachary's father. The case was documented in the film Dear Zachary and led to reform of Canada's bail laws. |
| August 19, 2003 | A truck-bomb attack on United Nations headquarters in Iraq kills the agency's top envoy Sérgio Vieira de Mello and 21 other employees. |
| August 19, 2003 | Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing: A suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem, planned by Hamas, kills 23 Israelis, seven of them children. |
| August 22, 2003 | Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a rock inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court building. |
| August 25, 2003 | NASA successfully launches the Spitzer Space Telescope into space. |
| August 26, 2003 | A Beechcraft 1900 operating as Colgan Air Flight 9446 crashes after taking off from Barnstable Municipal Airport in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, killing both pilots on board. |
| August 27, 2003 | Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant. |
| August 27, 2003 | The first six-party talks, involving South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, convene to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns of the North Korean nuclear weapons program. |
| August 28, 2003 | In "one of the most complicated and bizarre crimes in the annals of the FBI", Brian Wells dies after becoming involved in a complex plot involving a bank robbery, a scavenger hunt, and a homemade explosive device. |
| August 29, 2003 | Sayed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100 worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf. |
| September 6, 2003 | Mahmoud Abbas resigns from his position of Palestinian Prime Minister. |
| September 12, 2003 | The United Nations lifts sanctions against Libya after that country agreed to accept responsibility and recompense the families of victims in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. |
| September 12, 2003 | Iraq War: In Fallujah, U.S. forces mistakenly shoot and kill eight Iraqi police officers. |
| September 12, 2003 | Typhoon Maemi, the strongest recorded typhoon to strike South Korea, made landfall near Busan. |
| September 14, 2003 | In a referendum, Estonia approves joining the European Union. |
| September 14, 2003 | Bissau-Guinean President Kumba Ialá is ousted from power in a bloodless military coup led by General Veríssimo Correia Seabra. |
| September 20, 2003 | Civil unrest in the Maldives breaks out after a prisoner is killed by guards. |
| September 21, 2003 | The Galileo spacecraft is terminated by sending it into Jupiter's atmosphere. |
| September 25, 2003 | The 8.3 Mw Hokkaidō earthquake strikes just offshore Hokkaidō, Japan. |
| September 27, 2003 | The SMART-1 satellite is launched. |
| October 4, 2003 | The Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Israel kills twenty-one Israelis, both Jews and Arabs. |
| October 14, 2003 | The Steve Bartman Incident takes place at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois. |
| October 15, 2003 | China launches Shenzhou 5, its first manned space mission. |
| October 17, 2003 | Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei, becomes the world's tallest high-rise. |
| October 18, 2003 | Bolivian gas conflict: Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada is forced to resign and leave Bolivia. |
| October 19, 2003 | Mother Teresa is beatified by Pope John Paul II. |
| October 20, 2003 | The Sloan Great Wall, once the largest cosmic structure known to humanity, is discovered by students at Princeton University. |
| October 24, 2003 | Concorde makes its last commercial flight. |
| October 26, 2003 | The Cedar Fire, the third-largest wildfire in California history, kills 15 people, consumes 250,000 acres (1,000 km2), and destroys 2,200 homes around San Diego. |
| October 31, 2003 | Mahathir bin Mohamad resigns as Prime Minister of Malaysia and is replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, marking an end to Mahathir's 22 years in power. |
| November 12, 2003 | Iraq War: In Nasiriyah, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base. |
| November 12, 2003 | Shanghai Transrapid sets a new world speed record of 501 kilometres per hour (311 mph) for commercial railway systems, which remains the fastest for unmodified commercial rail vehicles. |
| November 14, 2003 | Astronomers discover 90377 Sedna, the most distant trans-Neptunian object. |
| November 15, 2003 | The first day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings, in which two car bombs, targeting two synagogues, explode, kill 25 people and wound 300 more. |
| November 17, 2003 | Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure as the governor of California began. |
| November 18, 2003 | The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules 4–3 in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and gives the state legislature 180 days to change the law making Massachusetts the first state in the United States to grant marriage rights to same-sex couples. |
| November 20, 2003 | After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate. |
| November 22, 2003 | Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident: Shortly after takeoff, a DHL Express cargo plane is struck on the left wing by a surface-to-air missile and forced to land. |
| November 22, 2003 | England defeats Australia in the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final, becoming the first side from the Northern Hemisphere to win the tournament. |
| November 23, 2003 | Rose Revolution: Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze resigns following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections. |
| November 26, 2003 | The Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England. |
| December 7, 2003 | The Conservative Party of Canada is officially registered, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. |
| December 9, 2003 | A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more. |
| December 13, 2003 | Iraq War: Operation Red Dawn: Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit. |
| December 14, 2003 | Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf narrowly escapes an assassination attempt. |
| December 17, 2003 | The Soham murder trial ends at the Old Bailey in London, with Ian Huntley found guilty of two counts of murder. His girlfriend, Maxine Carr, is found guilty of perverting the course of justice. |
| December 17, 2003 | SpaceShipOne, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first powered and first supersonic flight. |
| December 17, 2003 | Sex work rights activists establish December 17 (or "D17") as International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers to memorialize victims of a serial killer who targeted prostitutes, and highlight State violence against sex workers by police and others. |
| December 23, 2003 | An explosion at the PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field in Kai County, Chongqing, China, kills at least 234. |
| December 24, 2003 | The Spanish police thwart an attempt by ETA to detonate 50 kg of explosives at 3:55 p.m. inside Madrid's busy Chamartín Station. |
| December 25, 2003 | UTA Flight 141, a Boeing 727-223, crashes at the Cotonou Airport in Benin, killing 141 people. |
| December 25, 2003 | The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe, released from the Mars Express spacecraft on December 19, stops transmitting shortly before its scheduled landing. |
| December 26, 2003 | The 6.6 Mw Bam earthquake shakes southeastern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving more than 26,000 dead and 30,000 injured. |
| December 29, 2003 | The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct. |